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Old 03-04-2016, 08:05 PM   #1
Minuteman37
 
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Default 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
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Old 03-04-2016, 08:51 PM   #2
Seraphim
 
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Default 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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Old 03-04-2016, 08:54 PM   #3
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Default Re: Religious Rank Structure

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Originally Posted by Seraphim View Post
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.
I was thinking the former, but now that you mention it, the latter doesn't sound half bad.

Last edited by Minuteman37; 03-04-2016 at 08:58 PM.
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Old 03-04-2016, 09:19 PM   #4
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Default 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.
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Old 03-04-2016, 09:27 PM   #5
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Default Re: Religious Rank Structure

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Originally Posted by Seraphim View Post
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.
Quest FRP suggests Monsignor as the rank just below Bishop... No, wait, the rank that it presents right above Priest is either Pastor or Monsignor. A Pastor has been assigned supervision of a particular church and the income from it, whereas a Monsignor hasn't but "is on the fast track to becoming a Bishop". The step above Pastor/Monsignor is then Auxiliary Bishop, and above that Bishop.
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Old 03-04-2016, 09:29 PM   #6
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Default 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.
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Old 03-04-2016, 09:47 PM   #7
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Default Re: Religious Rank Structure

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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.
These are the ones I'd personally go for the zany titles with. A lot of Scottish Rite Masonic degrees involve knights and masters, so that feels like a perfect match for holy warriors.

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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Old 03-04-2016, 10:44 PM   #8
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Default 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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Old 03-04-2016, 11:02 PM   #9
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Default Re: Religious Rank Structure

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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.
It's not a requirement, but those with Divine Favor are either already pious members of the clergy or those who the church wouldn't mind anointing.
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Old 03-05-2016, 10:25 PM   #10
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Default Re: Religious Rank Structure

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It's not a requirement, but those with Divine Favor are either already pious members of the clergy or those who the church wouldn't mind anointing.
Uh, you do realize that a barbaric ancient Hebrew warlord managed to get called, "A man after God's own heart" and a prostitute is the ancestor of Jesus? The Church organization would certainly be squeemish about both David and Rahab if they could see them.

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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