Monday, October 24, 2011

Divine rituals

So since I've pretty much decided I'm going to put divine rituals into my setting, I figured what the hell I'll put them into the Beacon rules as well*.  These rituals are basically spells that a divine caster (read cleric) gets that are not castable in a single round but which add a lot to the class or which replace some spells from the SRD that were removed from Beacon but which would still be useful game abilities.  As mentioned Rituals require more time than a 'spell' and may also require some sort of components or conditions that general spells would not (like requiring a circle of clerics to cast).  Again, I expect people running Beacon games would change these to suit.

There is one divine ritual per spell level (excepting the orisons which are really 'training' spells).  No reason for this except it's nice and neat.  Here's the first three rituals:

Level 1 - Liturgy
Range: Sight and hearing.
Duration: 1 day.
Description: The Liturgy is a religious service performed by an initiated cleric in which blessing and instructions are conferred upon the faithful.  For every 30 minutes spent preaching (max 3 hours) people present at a liturgy will respond favourably to the caster as if he had +1 charisma.  It may also confer the effects of a Bless spell for it's duration and an equal length of time afterwards.
Level 2 - Anoint
Range: Touch.
Duration: Permanent
Description:  Anoint is a 30 minute ritual that allows a divine caster to mark a person as a follower of the faith.  This ritual is used to invest new clerics to the religion as well as protect (or maybe harvest) the souls  of the dying.  Anointing will grant an additional save at +2 against the death effects caused by certain undead or the effects of lycanthropy (or an additional chance for the subject to be effected).  Requires holy/unholy water or oil.
Level 3 - Consecration
Range: Touch and/or area 100 ft. + 10 ft. /level.
Duration: Permanent.
Description:  The Consecration ritual allows a caster to dedicate a building or altar fit to be used in rituals of the faith.   Consecrated areas act as Cause Fear to beings of opposing faiths and also make it difficult (DC +5) for them to cast spells, or resist spells of the consecrated faith.  Consecrated areas are also immune to some arcane effects such as scrying and area effect spells such as Restful Glade or Hallucinatory Terrain.
A consecration ceremony takes at least a full week of uninterrupted prayer and fasting.  An area already consecrated by a rival faith must first be cleansed both physically (by removing offending materials) and spiritually before it can be consecrated in the casters faith - a process that can be time consuming and expensive.



*ok I still reserve the right to change my mind on this.



2 comments:

  1. I think for Liturgy you should have a 1 hour limit. After that, you start to lose charisma bonus at the rate of -1 per 10 min. No one likes a windbag.

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  2. I was thinking of it in terms of working up a battle frenzy but I'll take that under advisement.

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