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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Jan 2015 : 02:34:45
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Hi everyone,
I've always had an issue with divine magic and curious what other thoughts are. So for example, Algath the priest gains the ability to cast a new level of spells, the player flips through the PHB and picks out the ones they want or the ones they can cast based upon sphere or domain. Boring.
Now there are references here and there that provide hints to make things a bit more exciting.
The 3E FRCS, on page 61 states: "The temples of fallen deities and the ruins of ancient cities hold scrolls of powerful and dangerous spells, forgotten by the lesser clerics and wizards who populate Faerun today."
Powerful and dangerous spells forgotten by current priests. I find this interesting, because really for the most part we only see wizard spells as the forgotten old lore/spell laying around.
In the 2E Menzoberranzan boxed set under House Faen Tlabbar we have: "The high priestesses of House Faen Tlabbar do great and continuous honor to Lloth, and the Queen of Spiders, in return, has granted the clan some specific favors. Most notably, she has granted the priestesses of the house the skill to create new spells of dark magic. These spells are only rewarded after a rigorous period of
prayer and ritual performed by all the clan's priestesses."
In the same book, under House Symryvvin we see: "The family Symryvvin is known for its studious pursuit of creating new prayers to the Spider Queen (and in receiving new priest spells in return)."
In both the above cases we have new prayers created that Lolth rewards with new spells.
In Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, under the creation of magical items and the section about the Talos priest we see this: "Darthin sets to work modifying a flame blade prayer to produce a firebolt spell, ending up with a 4th-level spell that could probably have been more quickly derived from a produce fire prayer..."
And also: "While Darthin is repeatedly revising and testing his firebolt prayer to Talos in seclusion in the cellar..."
And here we have another two examples of a priest creating a new prayer. In this case, he's modifying it. This is rather interesting and really, how is it done? What do priests modify, just the wording?
This makes me think of that Star Trek TNG: Darmok episode where they have a metaphorical language. So maybe, the modifying of the spell involves changing the story of the prayer. The Flameblade prayer may well involve speaking about how Athaern the Baneservant beheaded 12 Mystran priests of the Star Circle and praising Bane and his cleansing fires. Wherein the modified Firebolt version would reference a different act of devotion to Bane involving blasting of fire etc. Or in Darthin's case above, Talos.
In Prayers from the Faithful, the Introduction section has this: "To fully anointed priests, those who employ magic in holy services, the most desired entreaties are those that awaken new magical effects to holy service."
What I seem to get from alot of this, is that faith of all clergy probably have access to a certain amount of spells. Something like the 1st level spell Bless is universal. I'd probably think healing should be included in this too, with the exception of something like Reincarnation, Resurrection and other super powerful types etc. And this is just examples I'm trying to think of, nothing set in stone.
Now I'd also think every priest should probably be carrying a prayer book with him? Or some other device that he records the prayers he knows and can reference them when praying for spells. What I'm also thinking is that maybe priests should have to quest after spells or new prayers like wizards must?
Also, we have this interesting bit under Books of the Vaults: "Typically, a temple tome holds 2d6+10 spells."
The above example would seem to limit the amount of spells a priest has access to, unless he goes out to find more for the faith, or visits other temples etc. Of course this gets messy when you think that there has to be traveling priests delivering the mail, so on trade routes and other heavily traveled areas they should have more or less the same spell rosters in their books? But then, I could see this being used as leverage in political battles for "best" temple in the Realms between high priests.
If a priest discovers a lost divine spell prayer scroll, is he the only one who will have access to it unless he shares it with his church? And will that temple share it with the faith at large?
I think divine magic gets glossed over because it's assumed in core books you just "dial" in to your deity, tell him you'd like X spell and blam you get it. Having a deity instruct you via dream visions or even waking up to a new truth is one thing, but having access to all spells seems a bit much.
This post is kinda all over the place, sorry, I'm a bit scatter brained today but hope I did get the point across. What does everyone think and how do you handle divine magic? I like the idea of having to collect prayers in order to access more spells. Granted, priests may well have an easier time with temple access.
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Edited by - Eilserus on 18 Jan 2015 02:58:20
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36910 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2015 : 04:01:00
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In my opinion, and given some of the references you cite, I think that divine spells are the same as arcane spells -- they just come through a different interface.
With arcane magic, a caster learns how to summon and control the energy themselves.
With divine magic, someone else already figured the summoning and control part, and rather than each priest having to learn how to do the same thing, the priest just asks their deity, who gives them the spell energy, pre-formatted and ready to use.
A priest praying for spells isn't doing the mage routine of forcing "hocus pocus, alacka-bibbity bobbity boop" into his head, he's just saying to his deity "hey, I'd like to be able to heal folks this many times, and smite your enemies in this particular fashion..." But they've got to know what to ask for, which means certain divine spells can be forgotten.
This is also why priests have different ability requirements than wizards -- they don't have to have the brainpower/willpower to manipulate the magic themselves; their magic is a package deal. |
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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2015 : 04:18:52
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| I agree with what you're saying, but if certain prayers to a god grant certain spells, then priests should have to know the prayer in order to receive the spell right? So let's say Banites maybe know in the murky past a temple and its clergy had access to a now forgotten spell called Dooming Darkness. Would Bane grant that spell if prayed for and just asked by name or would he require the actual prayer that was developed in order to receive that spell? |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6680 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2015 : 04:29:49
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The answer surely has to be: if the DM wants the player to get the spell, they get it. There's no "rule" regarding this.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36910 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2015 : 05:49:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Eilserus
I agree with what you're saying, but if certain prayers to a god grant certain spells, then priests should have to know the prayer in order to receive the spell right? So let's say Banites maybe know in the murky past a temple and its clergy had access to a now forgotten spell called Dooming Darkness. Would Bane grant that spell if prayed for and just asked by name or would he require the actual prayer that was developed in order to receive that spell?
As I see it, someone in the past first figured out the spell and how it worked. At that time, Bane granted the spell to some of his favored priests -- not all, just the ones he really liked, because it's a pretty nifty spell. Of course, use of this spell pissed off a lot of folks, so those particular Banites soon found themselves serving Bane more directly.
Centuries later, a Banite discovers this spell once existed... Now, and this is again just how I'd play it, it's not enough to just say "hey, there was once a spell named this, so how about it, Bane ol' buddy?" Instead, the would-be caster has to find out the details of the spell -- what it did, the area of effect, a reasonable guess at necessary components, etc. Once he knows all that, he knows exactly what to ask for. Doing all that research proves his worthiness to cast this spell. He's got to work for it, before Bane hands it over.
So he doesn't have to develop the recipe from scratch -- he just needs to know the right ingredients.
Again, that's all my spin on things. I long ago pondered the whole issue of how priestly magic developed, coming as it did directly from the gods. |
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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2015 : 17:15:30
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| Thanks guys. How to place this into rules above is good. In the organic sense, I've always been curious how such magic would naturally travel across Faerun as priests discover or invent new spells etc. |
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Priest Spells and Prayers
