Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The core issue with systems like this is probably how much alignment of belief is required, and how do you judge it. With an actual god, it's easy, the god decides, but anything else and the issue of what happens to heretics (or lunatics) is more open.

Suppose a sincere believer in the Good God follows all his commandments without flaw in all cases whatsoever. But is also delusionally certain girl children with red hair are demonic witches and faithfully follow his command not to suffer them to live. Can he draw on this pool to cast "divine" spells in general? What about when specifically slaughtering a demonic witch? Why or why not?

That would of course depend on the capabilities of the power source in question. Polytheistic RPG gods are not likely to be omniscient although they are likely to be aware of their empowered priests and prayers directed to them. So if one of his victims prays to the god, or a sane priest sees what he's doing so it isn't filtered through the madman's delusions, the god pulls his rogue priest's ticket.