Cleric

[Mr. Cheez-It]

The handiwork of the gods is everywhere, in places of natural beauty and in mighty crusades, in soaring temples, and in the hearts of worshipers.  Like people, gods run the gamut from benevolent to malicious, reserved to intrusive, simple to inscrutable.  The gods, however, work mostly through intermediaries â€" their clerics.  Good clerics heal, protect, and avenge.  Evil clerics pillage, destroy, and sabotage.  A cleric uses the power of his god to make his god's will manifest.  And if a cleric uses his god's power to improve his own lot, that's to be expected too.

Faerunian clerics do not serve just a cause, philosophy, or abstract source of divine power.  The Torilian deities are very real, and events in recent history have forced these divine beings to pay a great deal of attention to their mortal followers.  All clerics in Faerun serve a patron deity.  (In fact, most people in Faerun choose a deity as their patron.)  It is simply impossible for a person to gain divine powers (such as divine spells) without one.

Adventurers

Ideally, a cleric's adventures support his god's causes, at least in a general way.  A good cleric, for example, helps those in need.  If, through noble acts, he can bring a good reputation to his god or temple, that's even better.  An evil cleric seeks to increase the power of himself and his deity, so that others will respect and fear him.

Clerics sometimes receive orders, or at least suggestions, from their ecclesiastical superiors, directing them to undertake missions for the church.  They and their companions are compensated fairly for these missions, and the church may be especially generous with casting of spells or divine magic items as payment.

Of course, clerics are people, too, and they may have all the more common motivations for adventuring.

Characteristics

Clerics are masters of divine magic.  Divine magic is especially good at healing.  Even an inexperienced cleric can bring people back from the brink of death, and an experienced cleric can even bring back people who have crossed over that brink.

As channelers of divine energy, clerics can turn away or even destroy undead creatures.  An evil cleric, on the other hand, can bring undead under his command.

Clerics have some combat training.  They can use simple weapons, and they are trained in the use of armor, since armor does not interfere with divine spells as it does with arcane spells.

Alignment

Like the gods they serve, clerics can be of a variety of alignments.  Because people more readily worship good deities than neutral or evil deities, good clerics are more numerous than evil ones.  Clerics also tend toward law instead of chaos, since lawful religions tend to be more structured and better able to recruit and train clerics.

Typically, a cleric is the same alignment as his deity, though some clerics are “one step” away from their respective deities.

Other Classes

In an adventuring party, the cleric is everybody's friend and often the glue that holds the party together.  As the one who can channel divine energy, a cleric is a capapable healer, and adventurers of every class appreciate being put back together after they have taken some hard knocks.  Clerics sometimes clash with druids, since druids represent an older, more primal relationship between the mortal and the divine.  Mostly, though, the religion of a cleric determines how he gets along with others.

[Mr. Cheez-It]

Rules

• Must serve a patron deity. Upon character creation, players must enter a name of a deity in the “Deity” field, choose an alignment associated with their character's god, and select two domains available to clerics of said deity. Clerics that do not have a deity, are of an incompatible alignment, or choose improper domains for their deity will be unable to cast divine spells or receive domain abilities.