Priests

Also described as monks, clerics, cultists, brothers, sisters or nuns.

Divine magic exists, but it seems that priests either do not have it by default or exercise it mostly through rituals and sacrifices. The term “cleric” might describe a priest with divine power.

Religious terminology seems loose. The faiths of Alberon and the King in Splendour are also described as cults. The Temple Indivisible has a Great Temple and a Cathedral, as well as a bible. There are high priests for many faiths, representing a number of different positions.

Ranks

• The Church of Alberon has a Matriarch.
• The Temple Indivisible has high priests.
• The Temple Invisible is led by the Unseen Hierophant.
• The Creche has a high priest.
• The Keepers of the Sainted Foot have an abbot and were once led by the Archpoet.
• The Temple of the Labyrinth has a High Priestess. She is the highest representative of Chimalia.
• The King in Splendour has a High Priest, Loris Stannev.
• The Voice of the Claw is both priest and chief of the People of the Claw.
• Magister is a position in the Thringish clergy - there is one for Castle Steadfast who made a ruling regarding the Laws of Thring.

Priesthoods

• The Keepers of the Sacred Foot, heterodox monks of Alberon, have an abbot. They were once led by the Archpoet when they were driven from the City in the Time of Schisms. They are brewers and goliards (part cleric, part jester).
• The monastery of St Dulaine had an abbot (21.16). The theological texts from the monastery remain among the few scholarly works devoted to the Green Lady, although it is not clear if the monks worshipped her, or worshipped her exclusively.
• The Last Prophet of Asrigh was a disgruntled bishop of Alberon who took up the worship of the imprisoned god Asrigh.
• The priests of the Speaker of Bronze (39.00).
• Lion priests are in the service of the King in Splendour. There was a schism between the lion priests of the two different lighthouses. The Lost Lighthouse had a single Keeper at a time, who served a two-year term.
• Thringish sorcerers are priests of Baron Autumn.
• The Farthest Hermitage is the most distant outpost of Alberon’s priesthood. The hermits meditate before a glowing ball. Exiled or retired priests come here to live out the rest of their days.
• The fisher-priests keep order on the docks of Shuttered and inspect the catch of each day for taint.
• Shuttered has Priests-Militant, the greatest arm of which is the Canes Sanguis. Priests-Militant can bar people from entering the City, though they can appeal to the Doge. They have exclusive control over the South Gate.
• The Priests in Red of the Undying Cycle would tattoo a child’s star sign on its forehead.
• The priests of Alberon are allowed to tell three lies - one of which is that the Temple of the Labyrinth is allowed within the City because it is so pitiful.
• The Temple Invisible are secret assassin-priests, originally comprised of twelve sorcerer-assassins.
• Priest of the Temple Indivisible are responsible for all official religious services, including the election of the Doge, the protection of the city and the geasing of foreigners.
• The priests of the Creche of a Million Young surround a pit and drone.
• The priests of the Azru are marked by weeping saws, missing body parts and worse. They pray that children might be spared the ravages of illness, perform amputations with a bare minimum of agony, and preach about the imperfection of the body and the true pure love of the Azru.
• Some priests of Iano were also blind, like some lion priests.
• Brother Humphries is a priest of the First God and a capable divine caster. He says that only humans have the spark of the divine.
• Aggoth’s local priest joins the whole town in performing a fortnightly ritual that is apparently very important.
• A megalomaniac ex-biship of Alberon runs the sanitorium Erleforst, where those who suffer the Courting Death are kept.
• Holy assassins of the Priests-Militant work alongside the Dead Men
• There is a preacher of the Tiamatan Revival in the City
• The abbot of the Keepers of the Sainted Foot used to ride a lion, before a run-in with a hermit and his cow.
• The priests of several cults, including Alberon’s, use night cattle in their sacrifices.
• The Priest of the Lake (37.01) stalks around the lake with a bloodied iron in hand.
• The priests of the City interpret the laws of the Temple Indivisible, which bind even the Doge.
• A sun priest, a cleric of Iano and a shield maiden of Alberon have united to slay vampires.
• Orc priests carry out ritual torture on willing participants.
• Armand of the Axe was a warrior-priest of the King in Splendour.
• Henry Yaboon is a priest without a god, as the legal inheritor of the lands and treasures of the Pacharia’s clergy.
• The nuns of St. Birgit are nuns or sisters who live in an abbey, but are infected with lycanthropy.

Powers

• Priests of the Stern Way can learn the husbandry and nurture of hills and mountains. One rogue student can grow a hill in a day or open a gorge in an hour - but this strain the earth, increasing the chances of volcanoes and earthquakes.
• Priest-kings of Othonoi exploited elemental leylines to create favorable winds and currents and fertile soil.
• The priests of the Azru sometimes take an illness or injry of a worthy sufferer onto themselves. They bless children with the yellow flux.
• The priests of the Creche seem to be able to direct swarms of insects, including mosquitos.
• Fisher-priests bless the water, fish and turtles that enter the city.
• A priest who claims to worship the God-Tarrasque is permanently wreathed in magical light so bright he cannot be looked upon.
• The priests of the Speaker of Bronze (39.00) have recently begun speaking in tongues.
• Blind lion priests have tamed saklas. The lion priests have woven a potent spell on the Lost Lighthouse - those there need only sun and a sip of water for sustenance. The lion priests have prophesied about the End Times.
• Priests of Baron Autumn can create sack children.
• The High Priestess of the Temple of the Labyrinth answers the questions of supplicants unerringly.
• Priests offer benedictions, mystics initiate visitors into mystery cults and soothsayers read the entrails of night cattle along the Street of Small Gods
• The priests of Jahur participated in a ritual alongside wizards to recall the Janissaries
• The wife of the Voice of the Claw, the village wise woman, is haunted by nightly watery dreams.
• The monks of the Stern Way trained Tenderfoot the quickling to outrun lightning.
• In the days before Shuttered was shuttered, the faithful could see Alberon’s true form in moments of enlightenment
• An acolyte of the Temple Indivisible struck a deal with the Devil to scribe a bible in just 30 days. It cost him his life.
• Orc Quartermasters consult the sounds of the earth and the movements of the stars so that they can maximize the blessings given from above and minimize the misfortunes given from below. One of the ways that the Quartermasters do this is order various sections of the population to work on different tasks and to move about the city to different temples.
• A thousand thousand orcish charms that have been scrawled across the outer walls of Hoth Achaar capture the magic of the Eye of Gruumsch.
• The Disciples of Othonoi, apparently servants of the last priest-king, moved about the city with invisibility cloaks and began whispering spells into the ears of the sleeping masons and architects. Soon engravers feverishly covered the walls in runes by moonlight. They viciously assaulted any who attempted to restrain them. Paranoia, then chaos spread in the streets as citizens sought a source for the madness. It didn’t last long. After the final rune was carved into the walls, a mighty earthquake rocked the city. Its gates were torn open.

Other

• Gharsang are sometimes carved in the likeness of orcish priests.