[b-dog]

How to make a Buddhist monk for use in Dungeon Fantasy? I would think that enlightenment would be different than the Divine. Enlightenment would give understanding of the true nature of reality while the Divine would grant holy powers to the cleric. The Buddhist would try to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth by attaining moksha or liberation from desires while the cleric would appeal directly to the deity he or she worships to join Him in heaven. The Buddhist desires to go to Nirvana which is outside of Heaven and does not need to even have a deity. The Buddhist achieves this by himself while the cleric needs the Divine to achieve this

The Buddhist would have a different take on the Infernal than would the cleric. He would see the demons as being trapped into a spiritual samsara where they are held by their hatred, envy, sadism and lust. He would attempt to sooth their negative energy with the peaceful Buddhist energy which would cause the demon to become weakened but not through violent holy energy like the cleric but instead through peaceful energy that nullifies the demon. The Buddhist may even be able to get the demon to escape samsara.

Magic and wizardry would also be thought of as being part of samsara. Magic requires understanding spells and the channeling of magical energy to because of this it is not truly real. Thus the laws of gravity are an illusion and so the Buddhist understanding this is able to ignore them and thus can fly. The Buddhist is also able to understand the true nature of reality and would thus be able to see through deceptions and magical illusions. He could see a persons past lives and understand their weaknesses because he will know how the laws of Karma shaped him in this life from the past life. The Buddhist could understand the everything is changing and thus be able to control this and allow healing at a much faster rate than naturally occurs. Theses are some ideas, anyone have any others? Thanks,