Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger
D&D's inspiration for clerics was make spells out of the miracles performed in the bible. That's too Christian-centric for TFT.
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The range of clerical-type magics doesn't change all that much when you add Judaic (specifically Talmudic, for christian era, and some of the esoteric Jewish Apochrypha - EG: Book of Lilith, the Kabbalah, etc), Christian Apochrypha, Gnostic Christian Texts, Muslim (Quran and Hadith both include some miracles, some sects have additional texts - Sufi, Ahmadiyya), or Zoroastrian. Adding the Vedic gets the high power levels, and some of the spells appear to be Vedic in origin, and Vedic/Hindu titles are included in AD&D. Druidic magic is drawn from Celtic myth and Norse Sagas.
Right there we have a wide base to draw from, and cover 90% of religion-adherent people in the world.
Note that, due to probable commonality of origin (sufficient that it's generally accepted), the Judaic, Christian, Muslim, and Zoroastrian have a lot of common miracle stories. Anything in Genesis is common. Christianity, both Gnostic and Conciliar/Orthodox includes all but the Jewish Apochrypha, but Christian Tradition integrates parts of the book of Lilith. Gnostic Christian has a bunch of additional miracles. Muslims have most of the Christian texts paraphrased, and almost all of the non-apochrypha Jewish miracles, too. Zoroastrian includes most of the Jewish, and some additional.
The Vedic miracles are a slightly wider range, but largely of similar type to those of the Zoroastrian-Mosaic base.
The Buddhist and Taoist are again largely similar.
It's only when we get to the Celtic/Druidic and the Wotanic/Odinic that we get really novel stuff. Shapeshifting, Miraculous Travel, Faeries, and the like...