Priests

The power of priests comes from the alignment of their own essence with the Essence of the deity they serve. Through meditation and apropriate behaviour, priests try to become more like their deity. For the major religions, those aligned with one of the six elemental powers, the earthly measure of this closeness is how far along the hierarchy of basic priest powers they have progressed. Each religion has a series of 'spells' associated with it's appropriate element (eg. Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Life, Death). Priests learn these powers in order as they progress through the church - the ability to wield them is a sign of closeness to the deity. Losing a power is a sign of transgression. This hierarchy has different names in different religions, but is basically the same:

1. Sense X
2. Shape X
3. Talk to X
4. Shapeshift to X
5. Awaken X - creates a sentient elemental from the appropriate element. Can also be applied to animals and plants for Life and, of course, to corpses for Death.
6. Travel to Plane of X - allows the Priest to enter the mind of their respective Dragon, or to travel to the home of the Essence of the deity in the Dream.

Secondly, priests have a secondary spheres of power which they can use essence pool points to affect. The priest will be able to spend pool points to gain knowledge or insight into these areas for a specific need. This might include temporarily granting or increasing a Skill (eg, for sailing for the Water deity) or granting of a piece of knowledge. The more points spent, the greater the chance of success. The GM may require a roll to determine success or may grant or withold the aid based on the appropriateness of the request. These spheres are partly defined by the Essence of the deity and partly by the effect of the needs of the worshippers on the Essence deities:

• Fire: Magic
• Earth: Crafts/mining/engineering/combat against the Dark
• Water: Travel/music/sea creatures
• Air: Divination/dreams/songs, tales, poems
• Life: Light/Farming/nature/justice
• Death: Darkness/pain/chaos/disease/suffering/famine/war and conquest

Finally, there are a few powers shared by priests of most religions. These cover many of the traditional duties of priests such as the blessing of field and the empowering of rituals of birth, death, marriage and other social rites:
'Bless' another - spend pool points to give bonuses.
Purify areas, items or people (gives penalty or bonus for a period of time).

This system has a place for lesser religions (or cults) which serve a focused need. These cults drawn their power from the Name Essence of a lesser concept than the Elemental Truths. Egs are animal totem cults, cults of the Oak or Corn, cults of concepts such as War, the Empire or Marriage. Because of the lesser power of their Essence, they are less powerful than the 'big six'. Note, the Eternal Empire will be one of these lesser religions. Number of believers strengthens the Essence's power.

Priests who draw their powers from an Essence which is not one of the major powers do not neccassarily have a hierarchy as described above.

Mechanics

In order to use the power of their deity, the cleric must channel the Essence through themselves. The more attuned their own Essence is, the easier this is and the more power can be channeled without injury. Only a certain amount can be channelled before the priest must rest and meditate to restore their Essence. The GM may require a roll for any use of powers, but in general, a priest should be allowed to do most routine rituals and services of her religion automatically (this should still require points to be spent).

In game terms, the strength of their Essence is represented as a pool of points. These points must be spent in order to perform priestly magic. Once the pool is used up for the day, the priest must rest, and meditate or perform whatever acts are prescribed by their religion in order to regain their pool. A Priest character possesses a pool of points equal to four times their Quality rating (e.g. a Priest with Quality of Fair has 16 points). Sometimes, a priest may be required to sacrifice a point permenantly to achieve some great feat. In these circumstances, the GM may allow the priest to buy back the point with experience. Otherwise, the pool can only be increased by improving the Quality rating.

When the priest uses a power, the points required are equal to the level of the power. If insufficient points remain in the pool, and the priest desperately needs to use divine power, he may attempt to channel the Essence anyway. Such an attempt always requires a dice roll. If he succeeds, he will lose any remaining essence pool points and also Endurance points, as determined by the GM (at least half, usually). If he fails, he will also lose a number of Endurance points _permenantly_, again as determine by the GM; a range of one to four is suggested and fewer points should be lost if the attempted action was appropriate to the deity concerned. Points permenantly lost like this can only be regained by spending experience. Priests may also use this method to attempt a 'miracle', ie. any effect beyond their normal capabilities.

The priest's pool is reassessed at the end of each day, when the priest has the opportunity for rest and reflection. At the GM's option, the pool may be reassessed at other times, if the priest devotes time to the action. The following suggestions should be taken into account when deciding how many points to restore. Appropriate and proscribed behaviours are suggested under the individual religion descriptions:

Positive modifiers:
Did the priest perform any actions in the service of his religion? Did the priest behave in a manner appropriate to his religion? If he used priestly powers, were they bestowed in a manner which would reflect the Essence he follows? Has the priest properly carried out any duties or ceremonies required of him?

Remember to take into account the circumstances of the priest's actions. A priest might well regain more of his pool for standing his ground against his friends and using up the last of his healing powers on a sick child instead of a lightly wounded party member than he would for carrying out a routine ceremony at a temple.

Negative modifiers:
Did the priest use his powers in a way which did not reflect the Essence of his deity? Did he use them in a way actually contrary to the Essence? Has he neglected meditation and ceremony when it was possible to carry them out? Has he behaved in ways opposed to the Essence of his deity, including acts of omission?

Negative modifiers should be subtracted from the positive modifiers to produce the number of points added to the points pool for the next day. As a guideline, if the priest has behaved appropriately for his religion, used his powers wisely and performed more than the bare minimum of required devotions, he should regain all her pool.

A cleric may not receive more than his maximum pool rating, except in very exceptional circumstances. If the cleric has behaved exceptionally heroically and faced great dangers (physical or spiritual) for his religion, then the GM may wish to give him a temporary number of 'bonus' points, above his usual pool maximum, which are used up before the regular pool. However, these do not permenantly increase the pool - that can be done only be spending experience.

If, after all the modifiers have been applied, the cleric has a negative number of points in his pool, he must make a roll, as determined by the GM. If the GM does not want to roll, she may judge the consequences based on the amount of regret shown for the negative actions.

If the deficit is small.
If the priest succeeds on his roll (or shows remorse, if no dice are used), he does not lose access to his priestly powers, but obviously must mend his behaviour until his pool total is positive again. If he fails her roll (or shows no remorse), he cannot use any of his priestly powers until he has made a proper penance for his transgressions. This will probably involve visiting a senior priest of his religion.

If the deficit is large, or there have been several recent deficits
If the priest succeeds on his roll, he cannot use his priestly powers until he has made a proper penance for his transgressions. If he fails, then he loses one level of his progression in the hierarchy of the religion and cannot use his priestly powers until he has made a proper penance for his transgressions. At the GMs discretion, more than one level may be lost. If this means that he loses the lowest level, then the character is no longer a priest and cannot use priestly magic of that religion ever again, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Hopefully, if the priestly character is being role-played appropriately, a negative pool should be a very rare situation. For this reason, the penalties associated with it are rather harsh.

Notes

In terms of the FUDGE system, they have a Gift called 'Blessed'. A note should be made of the deity who's Essence they are close to. This pool is replenished more slowly and irregularly than a priest's. In addition, unlike priests, such people do not deliberately aim for union with their Essence - the closeness is simply an effect of their life-style and beliefs. Consequently, if these change, they may well lose their powers. If a player character takes such a Gift at character creation, the GM should ensure that they only keep it as long as their role-playing reflects the required closeness to the Essence.

The trait gives them one or two limited effect on which they may spend pool points. There are a few suggestions below:

Essence	Person	Possible powers
Life	Doctor devoted to healing the poor. Country wise-woman Solitary woodsman	Diagnosing disease, healing, purification. Healing people and animals, predicting weather, blessing crops. Communicating with animals, predicting animal behaviour, locating plants and animals.
Water	Experienced fisherman	Predicting weather, finding shoals of fish.
Earth	Loving craftsman Experienced miner	Detecting flaws in materials, creating unusually durable or beautiful things, learning new skills easily. Finding new ore seams, premonitions of danger.