Priests.pdf

Appendix: Good Works

Rising in the Hierarchy

of Light

While the main goal of a priest is to perfect faith in him-

self and others, his position in the Church greatly colors the

means by which he does this. In other words, priests seek

advancement in rank just like members of more secular so-

cieties or guilds, whether as a sign of triumph over hurdles

of belief or as a more political means to spread the word of

the Pancreator (and perhaps collect some healthy tithes along

the way…).

Rising in rank involves impressing one’s superiors with

one’s loyalty, dependability, faith or popularity among the

faithful. Unless the priest is a mendicant, she is tied to a

particular cathedral or Holy See, and falls somewhere in its

hierarchy of ranks (even priests who are part of a noble’s

entourage belong to some See, probably that on the noble

family’s homeworld).

A priest of canon rank or above may ordain an appli-

cant up to any rank below his own, as long as the applicant

skips no ranks in between (i.e., all priests must begin as

novitiates and work up from there). A priest must heed the

orders given by the higher-ranking priests within his See,

although he does not have to comply with orders given by

priests from other Sees (he must give them respect, how-

ever). All priests of all sects must follow the orders of the

Patriarch, who is the supreme head of the Universal Church

and the center of all Sees, and many must also reckon with

the metropilae who oversee conglomerations of planets.

While each world usually has one major Holy See, there

may be monasteries or groups of smaller Churches that are

not affiliated with it, and thus subject to their own hierar-

chies.

For players, gaining rank for their characters means

becoming aware of the movers and shakers in their cathe-

dral and the entire See. These may not necessarily be the

highest ranking priests — the old and wizened bishop whom

everybody adores may simply be too senile to aid the char-

acter in his quest for greater ordination, while the lower-

ranked deacon may know every plot whispered in the pews

and catacombs.

For gamemasters, this means knowing the NPCs of note,

those who can grant greater ordination to a player character

and under what conditions they are likely to do so. Some

priests are terribly conservative and rarely grant greater or-

dination, preferring to keep the same group of priests under

them for their entire careers. Others are more liberal, and

grant new ordinations on the condition that the recipient go

forth to forge a new cathedral, spread the word with greater

missionary work, or as a means to get a favored priest a

position within a noble entourage (some nobles won’t ac-

cept low-ranking priests).

Certainly, a cathedral’s needs are the best determinate

of a priest’s chances: a growing region with new serfs com-

ing in may need more priests to hold masses, or an Eskatonic

novitiate may prove eerily central to important occult proph-

ecies and thus come to the notice of his superiors.

Priests who are hampered in their quest for greater rec-

ognition (and thus greater responsibility) can petition to be

placed elsewhere, within another cathedral or another See

altogether. Such requests must be presented to a priest of

equal or higher rank than the petitioner’s own cathedral

leader (the bishop of the desired cathedral or the archbishop

of the desired See); these transfers are only granted if the

individual shows some true merit and can add demonstrable

value to his new home — or else gaining the priest will win

the new post some political points against a rival.

Conversely, a cathedral or See can request a priest of

special expertise from another See (or from the metropilae

or Patriarch). Parishes that lack healers or scholars, or that

suffer occult strangeness, might request an expert in such

lore to come investigate or to be stationed at the new church.

In addition, the offices of the Patriarch, the metropilae, and

even many Sees, station certain priests in “troubleshoot-

ing” roles, whereby they are available to travel to places

within the See or the Known Worlds on investigatory or

missionary work, as representatives (or spies) for their of-

fices.

While the Church is more unified than the royal houses,

fractious politics can always get in the way of promotion. A

priest who foils another See’s plans to build a new cathedral

near her own can raise the rival bishop’s ire, and cause him

to turn higher level priests’ ears against her in Church con-

vocations.

Missionary Zeal

Each sect of the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun

has different duties it feels are the most important for its

holy mission. While some of these are rather universal per

sect, regional parishes can have different views, depending

on the local circumstances (an Antinomist-infected region

will have even the Sanctuary Aeon priests concerned chiefly

with sin and heresy). In general, each sect’s main missions

are:

(except on Rampart, whose populace has not been properly

schooled in the Li Halan ways).

The main limiter of noble violence, however, is the power

of the Church — the higher up the sanction for the strike

goes or the greater the moral outrage caused by noble re-

taliation, the more the house will suffer from Church indict-

ment should it respond too harshly or with too little conces-

sion. Besides increased visits by the Inquisition, the recalci-

trant noble may be threatened with excommunication — a

death sentence on his rule, for even the most cowardly serfs

fear to serve one whose soul is no longer protected by the

Church (many houses will strip such a noble of rank and

place another to rule the fief).

In such a way does the Church prove its vital role in the

Known Worlds, as the shepherd of all souls, for in the end it

is the Pancreator who rules over the universe, not a mortal

noble.

The case against Merchant League and guild excess is

different. The Church usually responds if too many of its

flock have been badly ripped off by guild traders, impover-

ishing the community, or else the guild openly traffics in

proscribed technology. Illegal factories or those which cause

too much pollution to a region are often targeted by priests

in sermons. If they are truly dangerous, or the priest is well-

connected, those factories will be targeted by the Inquisi-

tion, or their guilds will suffer Church embargoes, where

priests demand that their parishioners refuse to purchase

goods from members of the guilty guild. In extreme cases,

guild representatives are threatened with excommunication.

While this is not as damaging to them as to a noble, it means

their days of selling to the masses are over, and they must

retire to administrative duties or take up exploration mis-

sions to distant places.

Daily Rituals

Ministering to the people’s spiritual needs is the core of

a priest’s duty. Listening to confessions, blessing crops or

important affairs, performing marriages, presiding over

births, deaths, rites of passage, etc. A priest is the linchpin

of a community’s connection to the wheel of the seasons

and the cosmos. Without these everyday ceremonies, the

chaos of the universe would engulf everyone’s lives.

Personal Prayers

There are important prayer times throughout the day,

each associated with types of prayer (the Eskatonics com-

pile voluminous tables of correspondence for these prayer

hours). The main ones are as follows:

Preces Matutinae (morning): Morning prayer, or the

Daybreak prayer, is a thanks to the Pancreator for the dawn

light.

Preces Vespertinae (evening): Evening prayer is a

thanks for the good works done that day and the fulfillment

of labor.

Preces Noctes (night): Night prayer (or Before Bed

Prayer) is a thanks for oneself and one’s loved ones, and a

Orthodoxy: Sermonize to the flock, tend to their spiri-

tual needs, care for them, protect them from the worst ex-

cesses of the nobility. Seek new converts and be ever wary

of schism.

Brother Battle: Gain and execute military contracts for

the order. Defend the faithful (usually pilgrims), defend one’s

post, or seek out evil and destroy it.

Eskatonic Order: Study scriptures and lore, sermonize

to all about the coming eskaton, root out occult phenomena

and study it.

Temple Avesti: Beware sin in yourself and others. Ser-

monize against heresy. Root out sin and purge it.

Sanctuary Aeon: Heal the hurts of body and soul, make

whole the wounds of Creation, offer compassion to all —

even the sinful.

Workers of the Fiefs Unite

Priests in charge of a flock or See have a moral and holy

duty to defend the faithful from harm — including noble

and guild excesses. Sometimes, this involves working the

populace up into an impassioned strike — a refusal to work

— or even to create a riot against the harsh masters in the

castle.

Most priests are on their own when this happens, al-

though some may be lucky enough to recruit a band of mer-

cenaries to aid in defense in return for food. Well-connected

priests can sometimes gain official permission from higher

ups in the sect to invoke such civil disobedience. How well

this succeeds usually depends on the power the sect wields

with the local lords or with off-planet contacts. While the

Orthodoxy rarely engages in such grass-roots rioting, it of-

ten wins such disputes and gains a surcease to the central

problem (if not all the problems). The Amaltheans have gar-

nered some successes through pure charisma, but other sects

are rarely successful. At best, they attract the interests of

the Orthodoxy, who lend a hand in return for more power in

the region.

The retaliation a noble lord often brings against such

disobedience is the chief reason strikes are so rare. Most

nobles are merciless in their condemnation of what they

consider criminal resistance, no matter the original cause

for it, and bring military force to bear against the leaders of

the opposition. House Hawkwood has the best record for

good behavior in such instances, but it suffers the least such

rebellions in the first place. While most believe the Decados

are the worst offenders in their brutal retaliations, it is actu-

ally the Li Halan who are the most feared — when the man-

date of heaven is broken, even if by the words of priests, the

house responds poorly and often with massacres. For this

reason, the Li Halan fiefs rarely witness peasant rebellions

Appendix: Good Works 145

plea to keep the soul safe in the absence of light.

Hora Lupinum (Hour of the Wolf): The predawn

hours, most often viewed as 3:00 am to 4:00 am or 4:00 am

to 5:00 am, are considered the worst for the safety of the

soul. It is this time that thoughts of morbidity and despair

can gain the most sway over the soul. Most people are asleep,

and are thus protected, but monks often use this hour to

pray for greater resolve in the face of night.

There are also numerous Preces Per Diem Persolvendae,

or During the Day prayers, for a variety of reasons and pur-

poses, varying from place to place and sect to sect.

Seasonal Rites/Festivals/

Events

There are a number of rites, festivals or religious events

that are practiced each season, although their exact date

varies from planet to planet, tied to a world’s unique astro-

logical or lunar rhythms.

Oration for the New Dawn (New Years)

This rite is performed at the moment the old year be-

comes the new — usually at or soon after the winter sol-

stice. It is also called the “Return of Light,” the “Lessening

of the Dark,” or the “Waning of Winter.” This rite is espe-

cially popular on ice worlds like Malignatius, where the physi-

cal changes associated with its winter solstice and spring

are barely noticeable, making its symbolic entry into a new

dawn even more important to the faithful of that world.

Ode to Fecundity (Spring)

This rite to welcome spring emphasizes the Pancreator’s

gift of life and growth each year. It has roots to ancient Urth

and Diaspora-era fertility festivals (including some Gjarti

rites), and in some places still retains its old associations

with bodily (rather than spiritual) rebirth and resurrection

or reincarnation.

Canticle for Summer

At this time of maximum light, rites are made to em-

phasize joy and happiness — not the riotous partying often

associated with spring, but a warm and content happiness

earned through good works and hard labor. In many re-

gions, it is a time when the cathedrals and parishes bring in

large blocks of ice, to provide relief from oppressive heat,

causing throngs to pack into the churches.

Autumn Hymn

The rite of the harvest, a time for community and a shar-

ing of both labor and yield. As the light begins to withdraw,

it is time for all souls to contemplate the spiritual light that

still shines, unseen by mortal eyes but illuminating the re-

flective soul.

Universal Rites/Festivals/

Events

Cosmos Carnival (late February-early

March week)

A sort of Feast of Fools, descended from pagan rites

such as Mardi Gras or Carnival. Serfs, freemen and even

nobles throw caution to the wind and party hard for a week,

often adopting elaborate masques and costumes to hide their

identities and protect themselves from shame (or notoriety).

This is the League’s favorite holiday, for its merchants sell

more booze, magic lantern holovids, and all sorts of toys

during this week than any single other time of the year (even

more than Lux Splendor, where handmade crafts are the

most popular).

The Church long ago failed to stamp out this ever-popular

festival. Instead, it adopted it and allows — for this week

only — a more lax view of sin and even heresy. On some

worlds, the Inquisition is forbidden from operating for this

week (except against the most heinous crimes, like anti-

nomy); its members are expected to join in the celebrations

or retreat to a monastery. This rarely stops the more fanatic

from acting against what they believe to be rampant immo-

rality.

In the Kurga Caliphate, the first day of this festival is

recognized as the birthday of Sata Natura.

Urth Day (May 1st)

An ancient holiday commemorating humanity’s cradle,

this was popular among Diasporan colonists far from their

ancestor’s birthplace, although its origins are said to have

begun in Urth’s preinterstellar era as some sort of

terraforming reform holiday. The Church has sanctified the

day as a time to remember Holy Terra and humanity’s long

history on that orb. Some worlds extend this celebration to

Urth’s stellar neighbors, such as Mars (the alleged birth-

place of the Prophet) and the jumpgate.

First Jump (July 4th)

Originally a secular celebration, celebrating the day of

the first manned trip through Urth’s jumpgate in 2306 (the

year following its discovery), this day was ordained as a

Church holiday by Saint Palamedes in his effort to stamp

out its Sathraist connotations. It is now mainly observed by

the Charioteers and those who make their living among the

stars.

Saint Ramos Day/Colony Day

(August 10th)

A holiday consecrating the trials and triumphs of Saint

Ramos, a colonist of the early Diaspora who was adopted as

a saint by the Second Republic Church even though he lived

in prereflective times (before the Prophet). Ramos, a popu-

lar colonist rights activist, was martyred before the guns of

zaibatsu police. Colony Day was later declared by the Sec-

ond Republic in memory of Ramos and all colonists.

League iconoclasts snicker at this holiday, claiming its

origins begin as a zaibatsu loyalty ceremony forced onto

corporate employees and transient workers, involving chant-

ing company songs and clapping to a single beat. It was

during one of these ceremonies that Ramos led his ill-fated

revolt.

Santa Flamma Dies (September 17th)

Rites celebrating the day the Prophet saw the Holy Flame

and changed the course of human history. The second-most

important holiday celebrated by the Church (the first being

Lux Splendor, below), this is a time for prayer and thanks to

the Pancreator for His grace, and a thanks to the Prophet

and all his saints for carrying the Pancreator’s message. Plays

recreating this legendary moment and the gathering of the

disciples take place across the Known Worlds on this day,

and popular holovid movies about the Prophet are shown in

magic lantern theaters in the larger cities.

Mortos Diablos (October 31st)

The old Urth Day of the Dead and Halloween holidays

were carried by Diaspora colonists and workers to new

worlds, recreated on many different days throughout the

universe, but most often in mid to late autumn, as winter

creeps in.

During the Second Republic, Patriarch Orrin, recogniz-

ing that the pagan associations of this holiday had grown

greater as humanity spread throughout the stars, tried to

co-opt it as a Church holiday, a time wherein priests would

perform rites to hold back the Dark and protect the souls of

the faithful from the demons which rode freely that night.

Called Mortos Diablos and enshrined on October 31st (the

traditional old Urth Halloween), its rites became a tradition

across the universe. Mortos Diablos was eventually co-opted

in turn by a megacorp marketing firm as an excuse to party.

Nonetheless, the pagan associations remained and still

do at the beginning of the 50th century. Even devout pa-

rishioners often sneak to the edge of town at night, seeking

protection charms and amulets from wandering Zuranist

bishops. Indeed, Zuranity, the religion of the itinerant Chil-

dren of Zuran, is given a degree of respect at this time, for

its followers seem to have real luck at holding bizarre Mortos

Diablos misfortunes at bay.

Dies Lamentum (December 23rd)

The Prophet’s Wake, mourning his death in the jumpgate

accident (2849) while on embassy to the Vau. Some parish-

ioners take this day too seriously, performing mortifications

on themselves in attempts to recreate the Prophet’s stigmata

(usually conceived as an immolation in flame). More rea-

sonable worshippers reflect on Zebulon’s life and works,

holding Omega Gospel readings.

Lux Splendor (December 25th)

The Radiance of Light, following the death of the

Prophet, as his spirit cleansed the jumpgates and consecrated

Appendix: Good Works 147

them against the Dark, making the stars safe for humanity.

The most important holiday in the Orthodox canon, Lux

Splendor represents the bounty of grace available to all be-

ings, not just the special grace gifted to saints alone. During

this time, the faithful are expected to give presents to their

loved ones and friends, representing the reflection of light

from each soul to every other soul throughout the universe,

a reminder of the Prophet’s parting gift.

Some claim that the date of the Prophet’s death, and

thus the successive Lux Splendor, is factually incorrect, and

that it instead represents a time of worship in the Prophet’s

own prereflective religion.

Theurgy

Theurgy is not a common discipline. In fact, for many

of its practitioners, it is a solitary study, with effects only

becoming apparent after years of meditation and prayer. Still,

most are a direct outgrowth of worship, and especially from

communal worship. A priest’s first duty is to the Pancreator

(via the Church), but his second one is to his flock. These

rites reflect the different duties of the sects, and stem from

true belief and worship.

Blessed Confession (Orthodox)

(Level 2, Extrovert + Empathy, L, sensory, prolonged,

Dreams of Eternity (Eskatonic)

(Level 5, Faith + Empathy, G, touch, special, 1W)

By gently tapping someone’s crown point chakra (the

top of the head), the Eskatonic can put her in a meditative

trance from which only the most jarring disturbance will

release her. The subject of this rite must roll Passion + Ob-

serve to take any action for the duration of the trance. It

lasts for a number of turns equal to the Eskatonic’s victory

points + 1. This is best performed on willing supplicants or

unwary targets, upon whose heads the theurge can place

his palm without arousing suspicion. The theurge must make

a Dexterity + Fight roll to touch the head of an unwilling

and resisting target, who can dodge the attempt. (The theurge

does not suffer a multiple action penalty for performing this

rite and making an attack roll in the same turn.)

Blissful Ignorance (Temple Avesti)

(Level 4, Faith + Impress, PGL, sight, temporary, 1W)

Avestites have long sought ways to show people that

learning is not only unnecessary but counter to the Good

Life. This rite helps them demonstrate it. The Avestite can

reduce any learned skill the target has by one per victory

point. If this reduces the learned skill to 0, the target often

cannot attempt to use that skill at all.

Health of the Congregation

(Sanctuary Aeon)

(Level 5, Calm + Focus, PGL, sight, prolonged, 1W)

A congregation draws its strength from the faith of its

members. Health of the Congregation allows a priest to bol-

ster all links in the chain of the community by bonding its

members together to share in one another’s suffering. A

number of willing volunteers may divert the wounds of one

another Congregation member to themselves in any combi-

nation. During the duration of the rite, each may take a num-

ber of Vitality damage points initially delivered to another

member of the Congregation equal to his Faith score. Thus,

if Scotan the Vorox and Father Haverson the Amalthean were

linked to Sgt. Roc of the Muster, when Sgt. Roc gets hit by

an assault rifle for five points of damage, Scotan and

Haverson can elect to take some of this damage themselves;

each can take up to their Faith in damage (1 for Scotan and

5 for Haverson).

This rite allows one congregationer plus one for every

victory point to absorb damage for another. This damage is

treated as normal damage of whatever type effected the tar-

get, be it fire, bullets, lasers, falling or whatever. (Mark this

damage with an “F,” to keep track of the total number a

member’s Faith allows.) Those linked by this rite elect to

take damage, and do not have to take any damage that they

do not choose to.

1W)

Confession is a sacrament, and it does more than just

give the priesthood blackmail information on people. It is a

cleansing process, designed to clear people from the sins of

misdeeds and leave them open to the Pancreator’s grace. A

confessor may use this ritual on someone who has volun-

tarily confessed a sin. The sinner now gets a +2 to all goal

numbers involved in preventing that same sin, +1 per vic-

tory point from the theurgy roll.

Heaven’s Axe (Brother Battle)

(Level 7, Faith + Fight or Melee, PG, touch, instant,

2W)

A Brother who invokes this asks the Pancreator to lend

His hand to an attack. If the Brother Battle connects on his

next attack, roll damage normally. A number of people up to

the victory points on the roll +1 are effected, as well as the

original target of the Brother’s own attack. Thus, if three

thugs attacked Sister Diana and she rolled a “7” for Heaven’s

Axe, she could strike one thug herself and the mystical force

of her faith would strike two others. The one remaining hit

from Heaven’s Axe would be wasted.

Credits

Writing: Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg

Art: John Bridges

Development and layout: Bill Bridges

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