Quote:
Originally Posted by (E)
Question 8) open question.
What are some names for the religious groups? How do they choose their leaders? who are important people? Anything else noteworthy?
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The Green Axes are one of the religious sects that have Clerics and Holy Warriors who use the straight DF templates. Their holy symbol is a double-bitted woodcutter's or executioner's axe, and many of them who don't take the Vow against using edged weapons wield either an Axe or Great Axe as their weapon of choice. They have a small shrine on Narrow Street between those of some of the more popular faiths.
The pastoral staff of the local shrine include a male elf, female dwarf, male halfling, and female human. Two of them are present in the building at all times in case an emergency Resurrection or Remove Curse is needed. They were assigned this parish by the bishop, chosen partially for their racial diversity. Green Axe Clerics only take off their armor to clean it and/or themselves, or to change into
different armor, as a general rule - whether presiding over a wedding or a funeral, they still generally dress for battle just as they would going to a dungeon.
They are a branch of the Church of the Crystal Dragon, which has no other representatives on the continent as the pro-active monster-slaying attitude of the Green Axes helps them spread their mission faster. Faithful artistic depictions of the Dragon himself are likely to cause a Fright Check when first viewed, even by the faithful, hence the use of the weapon that slew their god as their primary icon.
They get along well with any other religion that promotes the destruction of undead and slaying of demons. They insist as a point of theology that their god is different from the others in a quantitative way, but don't argue against others' definitions of the terms "god" and "deity" encompassing the spirit they worship as well as those of other clerics. They tend to get along amiably with anyone who isn't openly serving an Evil power.
The major defining traits of the faith are that it has the aesthetics of a typical faux-Catholicism, but completely integrated into the DF attitude of slaying and looting from the ground up, including having both male and female clerics with celibacy as an optional vow (a priest and priestess perform different functions together in the same rituals, neither can fully do the other's job but their templates are interchangeable game-mechanically). A priest can only marry a priestess and vice-versa, but the two could also be mutually celibate so long as they remain chaste as well - chastity is expected of all the faithful and the clergy are expected to lead by example with stricter consequences for disobedience.
"The Dragon commandest ye, gather thine own Hoard but steal not from thy brother's."