A different take on priests

[zot]

Added this to the document:

The Great Theological Debate

Where does Theurgy come from?

Where does magic come from?

Are either, both, or neither of them devine?

Many people take Theurgy at face value and accept that each form comes from the divine source it is associated with. No one yet, however, has been able to prove or disprove this. In a world where magic can be seen every day, who can say whether Theurgy has a divine source or a magical one. Some say it is both. Here are some prevalent theories on Cidri (and there are more, not listed here):

• Theurgy is normal magic, it is just another way to access magical forces*
• Both Theurgy and Magic are divine, wizards just don’t know it**
• Theurgy is divine, even though some practitioners themselves deny it**
• Theurgy is both divine and magical: divine sources allow access to theurgical magic**

* The Wizard’s guild officially holds this position. Wizard culture favors atheism; many wizards are actually not atheists but keep their views private.
** Publicly espousing any theory that credits Theurgy with divine power will gain you disfavor with the Wizard’s guild

Theurges themselves differ greatly on these points, many of them within the same religions.

Those who say that Theurgy is divine hold different theories on divinity itself:

• There is only one God but many created spiritual beings who masquerade as gods
• Gods are real, there are many gods
• Gods are not “real” divinity is a byproduct of consciousness
• There is one God and also many gods; God manifests as many gods
• There is no “Reality”, everything is an illusion, as are gods, as is magic
• Reality is a game played by beings in yet another reality

Certain religions require priests to espouse certain of these beliefs and many priests sincerely do hold those beliefs. There are also many who hold beliefs that are different or even contrary to the official positions of their own faiths. Some theurges in theistic faiths are actually atheists.

If theurgy is truly divine in nature, how can theurges without faith continue to use theurgy to produce wonders? There are also theories on that (again, more than listed here):

• The Powers use these theurges as tools to accomplish their aims
• The Powers permit this out of mercy or patience, to allow the theurge a chance to return
• The Powers don’t really care about people, we are all just their pawns

[zot]

I've done a bunch of play testing and improvements with Mngineering. Here's some info about Mngineering devices...

Mngineer ceremonies almost always involve creating a techno-magical device. There are different types of devices, some exist only during the ceremony, some simple devices are usable for a long time. Some devices are mobile and act like summoned creatures. Mngineers have a growing catalog of devices: currently there are 35. To access this large group of devices, Mngineers can use their consecration ceremony to pick different available ceremonies and / or talisman powers.

A theurge must “activate” most devices in order to use them, as with most ceremonial benefits. Devices remain active for about 5 minutes. Mobile devices are special in that they can move around and the mngineer can see through their eyes even while they are inactive (i.e. before and after activation), provided they are within the creator’s mega-megahex. While inactive, they cannot perform any action that would require a roll. A mngineer can activate a mobile device at any time, though, and it doesn’t require an action, only a DX roll (non-mobile devices do require an action to activate). So if someone attacks an inactive mobile device that is in the theurge’s mega-megahex, the theurge can immediately activate it with a successful DX roll so that it can try to defend itself.

A Mngineer can also set a trigger rule for a mobile device that is within their mega-megahex (see Expunge spell for trigger rules). This severs the link between the mngineer and the device and reestablishes it when the device is activated.

Here is an example mobile device:

Spider Grapnel
Device Type: mobile
Appointed Times: standard but the number of mobile devices cannot exceed your Theurgy level
Activation: creation

A strong, eight-legged grapnel (ST varies DX 15 IQ 6 MA 2 armor 5) that can crawl on walls and ceilings like a spider and can haul up a whole group at once at 2m / turn, using a separate attached winch for each person. Its adhesion is only strong enough to haul up around 200kg at a time, anything more than that requires anchoring to a strong outcropping. It will only lift a safe number of people for its anchor location. The Mngineer can optionally launch the grapnel from a light or heavy crossbow. An attached tow loop can be used to haul up individual ropes that the grapnel will attach to its winches when they arrive.
Theurgy 1: ST 20
Theurgy 2: ST 22
Theurgy 3: ST 25
Theurgy 4: ST 27
Theurgy 5: ST 30

[zot]

I reorganized all the rules into a "Theurgy Toolkit" with instructions on how to create your own religions.

Some people asked for all of the talisman powers and ceremonies to be in one place, followed by the religions afterwards and that's what this does.

Village Wise Ones and Mngineers are now included at the end as example religions.

Here's the Theurgy Toolkit link.

EDIT: just formatted the whole doc so it has a decent table of contents at the bottom. Although the system feels totally different from wizard magic, it relies heavily on it for precedent (activating a ceremonial benefit or a talisman power uses a DX roll based on thrown, missile, creation, or special, creatures function like magic creations, etc.), so a lot of the rules should be quite familiar to people who know TFT.

The first 20 pages or so are the toolkit, with suggestions on how to define your religions and how theurgy functions (with detailed explanations) and the next 10 are the two example religions: Village Wise One and Mngineering.

[zot]

I made some tweaks to Theurgy which actually shrunk the rules by several paragraphs :)

• Removed the spell casting prohibition for theurges, based on Nils' observation
  

  Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

  And I am not quite sure why theurgy needs to be excluded from wizardly magics and vice versa? If you want them to exclude each other, just make the Priest talents cost triple for wizards.

  Probably the normal double-cost for talents is enough since getting Theurgy 1 costs 5 talent points (which would be 10 for wizards).
• Made accounting a no-brainer by simply allowing theurges to have one pending ceremonial benefit per theurgy level, so players don't have to worry about when benefits expire, etc., which also removed a specific restriction on creatures
• Simplified ceremonies and activation by getting rid of the extra "activation type" concept (just merging it in with benefit type)
• Reduced the base number of ceremonies per Theurgy level so that Theurgy 5 now accounts for 18 ceremonies instead of 25 to better justify the ST value of ceremonies.