03-04-2016, 08:05 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Religious Rank Structure
Hi y'all, I'm putting together a pseudo Catholic church organization for my fantasy setting that utilizes Divine Favor that's tied to the rank-status combo they posses. I'm trying to attach names to the rank levels the church's clergy and holy warrior have.
Divine Favor 4 [15] + Clerical Investment [5] + Blessed [10] + Rank 0 + Status 0 Divine Favor 5 [20] + Rank 1 [5] + Status 1 [5] Divine Favor 6 [25] + Rank 2 [5] + Status 2 [5] Divine Favor 7 [35] + Rank 3 [5] + Status 3 [5] Divine Favor 8 [45] + Rank 4 [5] + Status 4 [5] + Very Blessed [+10] + 10 points of religious disadvantages Divine Favor 9 [55] + Rank 5 [5] + Status 5 [5] Divine Favor 10 [70] + Rank 6 [5] + Status 6 [5] Divine Favor 11 [90] + Rank 7 [5] + Status 7 [5] + 10 points of religious disadvantages |
03-04-2016, 08:51 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ringgold, GA
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
Do you want them to have accurate pseudo-Catholic rank titles, like Deacon, Priest, Monsignor, Archpriest, Bishop, etc? Or do you want to go for zany pseudo-Masonic titles, like Knight of the Sun or Prince of the Tabernacle? I feel like an actual divinely empowered clergy could go either way.
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03-04-2016, 08:54 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
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Last edited by Minuteman37; 03-04-2016 at 08:58 PM. |
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03-04-2016, 09:19 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ringgold, GA
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
Here's one with sort of accurate titles per rank that I cobbled together in a few minutes.
Rank 0 + Status 0 = Deacon, addressed as Reverend Deacon (this is debatable as not all Christian hierarchies would count deacons as having Clerical Investment, per Basic's definition of it. If deacon isn't appropriate, then this would likely be the same as Rank 1 and would probably be either newly ordained priests or assistant, junior priests.) Rank 1 [5] + Status 1 [5] = Priest, addressed as Reverend Father Rank 2 [5] + Status 2 [5] = Vicar, addressed as Reverend Father (likely the head priests at a larger parish that had Rank 0 assistant priests, if going that route) Rank 3 [5] + Status 3 [5] = Archpriest (or Abbot, if a monk), addressed as Very Reverend Father Rank 4 [5] + Status 4 [5] = Bishop, addressed as His Grace Rank 5 [5] + Status 5 [5] = Archbishop, addressed as His Eminence Rank 6 [5] + Status 6 [5] = Catholicos, addressed as His Holiness Rank 7 [5] + Status 7 [5] = Patriarch (or Pope), addressed as His Most (or All) Holiness This varies a bit from the Catholic-ish hierarchy in Banestorm in that I made Bishop Rank 4 instead of 5. I thought it fit nicely with the increase of religious disadvantages you listed, as surely the Divine would require more out of someone entering into the higher echelons of the hierarchy. You could easily remove Catholicos if you wanted to raise Bishop up to Rank 5 and add in something like Vicar General at Rank 4 to fill in the gap. Last edited by Seraphim; 03-04-2016 at 09:25 PM. |
03-04-2016, 09:27 PM | #5 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
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03-04-2016, 09:29 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
Looks pretty good Seraphim, and I would of pegged Bishops as rank 4 too.
Now all I need are corresponding military ranks for the crusaderisk holy warriors. Landless knights are status 2 and landed are 3 according to basic set. |
03-04-2016, 09:47 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ringgold, GA
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
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I don't have time tonight to attempt writing out a hierarchy, but here are a few hastily researched on Wikipedia titles that you might want to scratch the serial numbers off of: Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Master Knight of the Pelican and Eagle Knight of Valor Knight of the Sun Knight of the White and Black Eagle Master of the Ninth Arch (I love titles like this one) Knight Commander of the Temple Master of the Royal Secret |
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03-04-2016, 10:44 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
Do you have to have Divine Favor to be a priest? That sounds like a variation on the Donatist heresy, which taught on one hand that a sinner could not be a priest or validly perform the sacraments, and on the other that anyone who had faced martyrdom and survived was immediately consecrated as a priest. Standard Catholicism rejects both claims: priesthood comes from the administrative operations of the church.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
03-04-2016, 11:02 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
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03-05-2016, 10:25 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Religious Rank Structure
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Conversely the number of scoundrels who have held clerical positions is well known. Some of whom were experts at pretending to be holy and others had no pretensions of even going to the effort to be a proper hypocrite. Plus there are plenty of pious people whom anyone to look at would assume would qualify for Divine Favor and maybe do-but cannot become clerics because of quirks in canon law, or have no aspirations there in the first place because they pursue a different vocation.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 03-05-2016 at 10:30 PM. |
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