In times past, the Gods have lent their power directly to mortals. These mortals could then transfer this power into the world. The effects were usually less powerful than that of a mage, but the power was easy to wield, and there were little to no draw backs. For various reasons, the Gods slowly stopped granting power this way, until it all but stopped. There is currently no known mortals that wield this type of power.

This does not mean the Gods abandoned mankind. The gifts of the Gods still exist, just in a different form. Now, when a priest surrounds him or herself with enough loyal followers, the combined faith of all present allow the priest to commune with his or her God. Miracles can then be performed. Followers can be inspired. Fields can suddenly grow plentiful. It is a subtler art, but powerful none-the-less. And since this is a more direct link to the Gods, anyone with enough faith can perform these rites. They are not limited to the witchborn.

The following is from the update notes of GM K:

New System: Priests

A new system has been implemented in DA. The Priest system has its structure on Austin’s and Valman’s Cleric System from TSSE, and was greatly modified, adapted for DA, and integrated with our very own magic system.

Concepts:

• A Cleric is the Head of a Religion. He can create a new religion, extinguish it, indoctrinate and excommunicate followers, and cast other rites, through the Cleric gump, accessed through .skill faith or the Skills Gump.
• Each Religion has only one Cleric.
• A Cleric may only indoctrinate new members after a staff member has approved his religion. Staff members should set the cleric with the CProp “CanBeCleric” to 1.
• FOCI is the basic unit, aside from mana, required to cast rites. The maximum FOCI a cleric can have is defined by his level, i.e., his number of followers.
• FOCI regenerates every few days, with a considerable randomness factor on frequency. The amount it regenerates is based on how active the Cleric’s followers are, and how high their Faith skills are.
• Faith is gained passively by a Cleric when his followers are active.
• Faith is gained passively by anyone else by simply being in a religion.
• You can’t .learn Faith, but you can XP it.
• The power of a Cleric’s rites is increased by the dimension of his following.
• If the Cleric casts a harmful rite upon a follower, the effect of this rite is inversely proportional to the Faith skill of the follower.
• If the Cleric casts a helpful rite upon a follower, the effect of this rite is directly proportional to the Faith skill of the follower.
• In order to be able to cast a certain rite, the Cleric must first Add that rite to his list of available rites. Every time the Cleric advances a level (by indoctrinating new followers), he can pick new rites from different levels (I’ll get into rite levels later after more rites are implemented). This can be done through the gump. After a new rite is added, it can not be removed, and it can be cast.

The two basic text commands for clerics to remember are:

• .skill faith: opens the Cleric Gump.
• .castrite <ritename>: casts a rite.

Only the very basic rites are implemented. More will come soon.

We will continue to update this page as the actual rites are implemented and documented.