Post by ancientempathy on May 6, 2011 15:18:28 GMT -5
For a while now, the information below was burried in a thread called "Miscellaneous FR," but given the fact that tithing for healing services has come up time and again, I figured this would make the realm of clerics and supplicants, more interesting, should the information be singled out. I may add other flavor to this thread in the distant future. 
Religion
Across all of Toril, people respect and fear the divine powers. The deities of Faerun take an active role in the world, promoting the causes they favor, watching over the domains for which they ware responsible, and constantly seeking to increase (or at least defend) their temporal power by protecting their worshipers and encouraging the active expansion of their faiths.
Mortals who deny the deities who made the world and govern its basic forces rare indeed, although a few powerful beings such as the enigmatic sharns and phaerimms acknowledge no entity as their superior. Human (and humanoid) souls who refuse the gods come to a bad end after death, lacking a deity to speak for them upon the Fugue Plane. What befalls primal creatures such as the sharns, no one can say.
Some Faerunians zealously follow one deity. Others make sacrifices to many deities, while upholding one as their personal patron. Still others sacrifice to as many deities as possible, shifting allegiances as their circumstances and needs warrant. It’s a rare Faerunian who hasn’t occasionally hoped o avert the baleful influence of an evil deity with a propitious gift, or thanked a good power for an unexpected blessing. The belief system of most Faerunians generally centers on a particular deity whose interests and influences are most likely to affect them, but acknowledges other gods as significant and important, too.
Divine Influences
Divine magic can play a significant role in society, but not always through the direct intercession of a cleric or druid wielding divine spells. Deities of prosperity and plenty such as Chauntea answer their worshipers’ prayers with abundant harvests and fair weather. Gods of plague and famine--Talona, primarily--demand placation and send all manner of blights and epidemics against those foolish enough to deny their power. These supernatural influences tend to balance each other, with the extremes of bounty and famine generally unlikely to occur. Chauntea finds a way to bring forth some sustenance in even the worst blights, and Talona manages to mar even the most plentiful harvest in some small way.
Temples and Clerics
All of the clerics, soldiers, shrines, churches, abbeys, temples, and holy sites dedicated to a particular deity are collectively referred to as the Temple, of Faith, of that power. Neither term is exactly accurate, since the Temple of Tyr includes many temples to Tyr, and the Faith of Tyr refers both to that deity’s followers and the system of beliefs they hold.
The Temples of the great powers--Bane, Chauntea, Tyr, and a handful of others--are as powerful as a small kingdom. A dozen major temples in great cities across Faerun house hundreds of clerics and soldiers dedicated to the deity. Hundreds of small temples and shrines in the towns and villages of countless lands serve thousands upon thousands of worshipers. A militant faith can gather an army of crusaders, while a mercantile faith holds lands and properties of staggering expanse. Almost all faiths sponsor high-level clerics, champions, devotees, and secular agents who look after the faith’s interest and defend it against those who resent its power.
Most of a Temple’s clergy are not clerics. They’re experts, aristocrats, even commoners who serve as advisors and counselors to the faithful and officiate at routine observances. A cleric usually leads any particular temple, shrine, or order, judiciously using her spells to aid sick or injured followers and assist the local authorities in maintaining law and order in the community as it suit’s the deity in question.
Healing
Temples and shrines to some number of deities stand in virtually every thorp and hamlet of Faerun. Most of these are under the supervision of a low-to mid-level cleric of the appropriate deity. Frequently, these parish priests and shrine-keepers possess healing abilities unavailable to low-level adventurers.
The degree to which a local cleric may make her healing spells available to adventurers in the town varies greatly with the tenets of her faith, the demands of the town, and her own best judgment. Clerics obviously prefer to aid fellow followers of their patron deity, and if healing resources are limited, the faithful will be aided before people devoted to other gods. Naturally, the followers of deities antithetical to the cleric’s own deity are extremely unlikely to be helped in any circumstances.
Same Patron Deity:
If the character or characters requiring healing follow the same patron deity as the local cleric, they stand the best chance of receiving help.
Characters of the same faith brought before the cleric in a dying state (hit points between 0 and -10) will be stabilized, often without any expectation of compensation. Any person who is not dying is not likely to find free healing. After all, people heal with time, and most clerics prefer to retain their spell power rather than give it away.
Adventurers can purchase routine healing spells at the normal prices for purchasing spellcasting. Some clerics may be moved to heal a follower of the same faith at no cost, but only if it is clearly an immediate need of the faith to get the injured person back into top form as soon as possible.
Disease, level loss, blindness, or other conditions besides hit point loss are more complicated. The adventurer may be healed at no cost if he has served his faith well. Otherwise, he might be healed in exchange for a special donation (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost) or a special service for the temple.
Raising or resurrecting the dead is never undertaken lightly. In general, the friends of a dead character should expect to pay the normal spell casting cost. In some very rare instances, a dead character might be raised by clerics of his own faith regardless of whether he or his comrades can meet the spell casting cost. This only happens when the deceased has been an exemplary servant of the faith, and the cleric in question has cause to believe that it is absolutely imperative to the faith to restore the dead character to life. Even then, the raised character might be charged with a geas/quest to serve the faith in a specific task to justify the effort and expense of his resurrection.
Allied Patron Deity:
A local cleric devoted to a deity allied to the adventurer’s patron deity, or a local cleric who simply wishes to support like minded adventurers who advanced his own cause by advancing theirs, is the next best thing to a cleric of a hero’s own faith. Again, characters of allied faith who arrive in a dying state will be stabilized, often without any expectation of compensation. Adventurers can purchase routine healing spells at the normal prices for purchasing spellcasting. Some allied clerics may heal an adventurer at a reduced cost (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost), but only if it is clearly advantageous to get the adventurer back on his feet fast.
The adventurer may be healed of disease or other conditions for the normal spellcasting cost. Again, if it is clearly a good idea for the local cleric to aid the adventurer, he might be healed in exchange for a special donation (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost) or a special service for the temple.
Neutral Patron Deity:
If the local cleric’s patron deity is not particularly friendly or hostile to the patron deities of the adventurers, the decision to aid them or not is much more mercenary and situational. Any good-aligned cleric is likely to stabilize a dying character brought before her unless that character is clearly an agent of evil. Other than that, any healing spells are available at the normal spellcasting costs, but only if the neutral cleric has reason to believe that aiding the adventurer in question won’t cause any harm or risk to followers of the cleric’s faith.
//From the FRCS
Religion
Across all of Toril, people respect and fear the divine powers. The deities of Faerun take an active role in the world, promoting the causes they favor, watching over the domains for which they ware responsible, and constantly seeking to increase (or at least defend) their temporal power by protecting their worshipers and encouraging the active expansion of their faiths.
Mortals who deny the deities who made the world and govern its basic forces rare indeed, although a few powerful beings such as the enigmatic sharns and phaerimms acknowledge no entity as their superior. Human (and humanoid) souls who refuse the gods come to a bad end after death, lacking a deity to speak for them upon the Fugue Plane. What befalls primal creatures such as the sharns, no one can say.
Some Faerunians zealously follow one deity. Others make sacrifices to many deities, while upholding one as their personal patron. Still others sacrifice to as many deities as possible, shifting allegiances as their circumstances and needs warrant. It’s a rare Faerunian who hasn’t occasionally hoped o avert the baleful influence of an evil deity with a propitious gift, or thanked a good power for an unexpected blessing. The belief system of most Faerunians generally centers on a particular deity whose interests and influences are most likely to affect them, but acknowledges other gods as significant and important, too.
Divine Influences
Divine magic can play a significant role in society, but not always through the direct intercession of a cleric or druid wielding divine spells. Deities of prosperity and plenty such as Chauntea answer their worshipers’ prayers with abundant harvests and fair weather. Gods of plague and famine--Talona, primarily--demand placation and send all manner of blights and epidemics against those foolish enough to deny their power. These supernatural influences tend to balance each other, with the extremes of bounty and famine generally unlikely to occur. Chauntea finds a way to bring forth some sustenance in even the worst blights, and Talona manages to mar even the most plentiful harvest in some small way.
Temples and Clerics
All of the clerics, soldiers, shrines, churches, abbeys, temples, and holy sites dedicated to a particular deity are collectively referred to as the Temple, of Faith, of that power. Neither term is exactly accurate, since the Temple of Tyr includes many temples to Tyr, and the Faith of Tyr refers both to that deity’s followers and the system of beliefs they hold.
The Temples of the great powers--Bane, Chauntea, Tyr, and a handful of others--are as powerful as a small kingdom. A dozen major temples in great cities across Faerun house hundreds of clerics and soldiers dedicated to the deity. Hundreds of small temples and shrines in the towns and villages of countless lands serve thousands upon thousands of worshipers. A militant faith can gather an army of crusaders, while a mercantile faith holds lands and properties of staggering expanse. Almost all faiths sponsor high-level clerics, champions, devotees, and secular agents who look after the faith’s interest and defend it against those who resent its power.
Most of a Temple’s clergy are not clerics. They’re experts, aristocrats, even commoners who serve as advisors and counselors to the faithful and officiate at routine observances. A cleric usually leads any particular temple, shrine, or order, judiciously using her spells to aid sick or injured followers and assist the local authorities in maintaining law and order in the community as it suit’s the deity in question.
Healing
Temples and shrines to some number of deities stand in virtually every thorp and hamlet of Faerun. Most of these are under the supervision of a low-to mid-level cleric of the appropriate deity. Frequently, these parish priests and shrine-keepers possess healing abilities unavailable to low-level adventurers.
The degree to which a local cleric may make her healing spells available to adventurers in the town varies greatly with the tenets of her faith, the demands of the town, and her own best judgment. Clerics obviously prefer to aid fellow followers of their patron deity, and if healing resources are limited, the faithful will be aided before people devoted to other gods. Naturally, the followers of deities antithetical to the cleric’s own deity are extremely unlikely to be helped in any circumstances.
Same Patron Deity:
If the character or characters requiring healing follow the same patron deity as the local cleric, they stand the best chance of receiving help.
Characters of the same faith brought before the cleric in a dying state (hit points between 0 and -10) will be stabilized, often without any expectation of compensation. Any person who is not dying is not likely to find free healing. After all, people heal with time, and most clerics prefer to retain their spell power rather than give it away.
Adventurers can purchase routine healing spells at the normal prices for purchasing spellcasting. Some clerics may be moved to heal a follower of the same faith at no cost, but only if it is clearly an immediate need of the faith to get the injured person back into top form as soon as possible.
Disease, level loss, blindness, or other conditions besides hit point loss are more complicated. The adventurer may be healed at no cost if he has served his faith well. Otherwise, he might be healed in exchange for a special donation (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost) or a special service for the temple.
Raising or resurrecting the dead is never undertaken lightly. In general, the friends of a dead character should expect to pay the normal spell casting cost. In some very rare instances, a dead character might be raised by clerics of his own faith regardless of whether he or his comrades can meet the spell casting cost. This only happens when the deceased has been an exemplary servant of the faith, and the cleric in question has cause to believe that it is absolutely imperative to the faith to restore the dead character to life. Even then, the raised character might be charged with a geas/quest to serve the faith in a specific task to justify the effort and expense of his resurrection.
Allied Patron Deity:
A local cleric devoted to a deity allied to the adventurer’s patron deity, or a local cleric who simply wishes to support like minded adventurers who advanced his own cause by advancing theirs, is the next best thing to a cleric of a hero’s own faith. Again, characters of allied faith who arrive in a dying state will be stabilized, often without any expectation of compensation. Adventurers can purchase routine healing spells at the normal prices for purchasing spellcasting. Some allied clerics may heal an adventurer at a reduced cost (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost), but only if it is clearly advantageous to get the adventurer back on his feet fast.
The adventurer may be healed of disease or other conditions for the normal spellcasting cost. Again, if it is clearly a good idea for the local cleric to aid the adventurer, he might be healed in exchange for a special donation (20% to 50% of the normal spellcasting cost) or a special service for the temple.
Neutral Patron Deity:
If the local cleric’s patron deity is not particularly friendly or hostile to the patron deities of the adventurers, the decision to aid them or not is much more mercenary and situational. Any good-aligned cleric is likely to stabilize a dying character brought before her unless that character is clearly an agent of evil. Other than that, any healing spells are available at the normal spellcasting costs, but only if the neutral cleric has reason to believe that aiding the adventurer in question won’t cause any harm or risk to followers of the cleric’s faith.
Table 1-1: Deity Conversion
//From the FRCS
