philosophy of clerics

[marycatelli]

One big problem with clerics in D&D is their name.   A cleric is a position in a church.

Now, it's possible that all adventuring clerics have a sinecure in the original sense -- "without cure."  That is, a priest serving in a capacity that does not involve ministering to the faithful, with the sacraments.  Obviously, this could be a very hard job, not the current sense.

Paganism laid more emphasis on the proper performance on the rituals, especially the sacrifices, than D&D generally prescribes, but the principle was the same.  Counseling a poor woman how to invoke the goddess's wrath on the thief who stole from her, using a lead tablet, is not in the normal job description of a D&D cleric.  (In Greek paganism, a priest would not only be a priest of a specific god but of a specific sanctuary.  Being a priest of Apollo on Delos did not transfer to any position at Delphi.  That would be even more ill-fitting in D&D.)

BUT -- even granting the sinecure -- a cleric doesn't  have to adventure with reference to the church.  At the very least, some of the gold should make it back to the church.  More likely a cleric would be sent on a specified if perhaps open-ended task:  a cleric of the domain of travel sent clear out the dungeon that's menacing travelers, escort a caravan through dangerous territory, guard a waystation, hunt down the necromancer who is preying on travelers because they are strangers to the land. . . or level-grinding.  Level-grinding would cover a multiple of sins by way of excuses.

Still, in the end, the religious structure would expect the cleric to put it to use for their sake.

The role would be much more plausibly described as a devotee.  To be sure, one would expect to see some DEVOTION required. But it would explain a certain free-wheeling aspect to the role.  And nothing would prevent a devotee from being connected to a church.

Comments

[jbellinger]

This inconsistency bothered me too--the cleric doesn't tell the gods what to do, it's the other way round. D&D draws from the notion of limited pagan gods, of course, which have their own philosophical inconsistencies.

You point out some possible generic missions for clerics of gods of travel, or gods of a place that want to dispute some other god's domain but not do it Mano-a-mano (as it were).

For gods not of a place, ethical gods, or a monotheism, the cleric has less wiggle-room in his mission. He doesn't necessarily get to travel with the others all the way; he's on call.

I tried playing with the question of "Why would you team up with an unreliable partner?" and came up with the notion of a "geas-ite". He's on his mission, and as long as your missions align you get extra graces along the way, and when he's done you can follow him out of whatever the tight spot is with divine protection--just don't make side-trips. (I'm trying that out with my own attempt at a "dungeon-crawl" story--the rest just want to escape and he offers a way out if they follow him into the worst of it. only 1/3 through--life intervenes...)

I didn't try hard to to make this D&D playable, but it seems straightforward [In a jam and want to bail? Check the cleric's "unread-email"].

[marycatelli]

In a game, "he was sent to level-grind" would work. Provided you make levels that you actually have to grind -- 5e has absurdly easy leveling when you look at realism considerations -- and you work in how many clerics there would be adventuring because of it -- even if only one in a hundred clerics makes it to second level, the benefits would be enormous.

In a story, less so unless you play up the dynamics of it.