Quote from: Doughdee222;789468I wouldn't mind running a game with non-Christian cleric types. But how many people want to run with a priest who insists on cutting out the hearts of dozens of foes and eating a bit of each?

Would you want to play a rabbi who's main job is memorizing holy books and giving out obscure pieces of advice?

Or do you want a flighty Earth-Mother priest in your party: "I believe we're all one with the rocks and trees and bugs." "Yeah, that's doesn't help us defeat orcs and ghouls."

Answers, in order:
- ≥1 (me)
- Yes (this is my favorite of the three you mention)
- Yes (there is more than one way to defeat ghouls!)

Put me down in favor for any of those three as well.

Quote from: Doughdee222;789468I wouldn't mind running a game with non-Christian cleric types. But how many people want to run with a priest who insists on cutting out the hearts of dozens of foes and eating a bit of each?

Would you want to play a rabbi who's main job is memorizing holy books and giving out obscure pieces of advice?

Or do you want a flighty Earth-Mother priest in your party: "I believe we're all one with the rocks and trees and bugs." "Yeah, that's doesn't help us defeat orcs and ghouls."

Yup I have played all three of those guys and the guy that stands at the front and beseeches everyone to throw down their weapons and talk through their problems

Quote from: Larsdangly;789442Even subtler and more realistic:

roll 1d6:

1-6: Your god, like all the others, is only a sort of comforting extended metaphor.

That's okay, God loves you anyway.

Quote from: The Butcher;789078Christianity started off as an insular, sectarian, politically charged Jewish heresy; got reworked into a fashionably Neoplatonic religion for the Ancient Mediterranean rich and famous (think Scientology) by a wily former tax collector called Saul (or Paul) of Tarsus;

It didn't, really. The Elitism of Christianity didn't happen until a few centuries later.  What Paul and the others of the early church did was certainly to add neoplatonic ideas, but it was NOT a sect for the rich and famous.  If you were fashionable in Rome, a person of high class and power, you joined the cult of Isis or became a Mithraist.  

Early Christianity's nearest parallel isn't Scientology; its ironically probably closer to wicca and neo-paganism, actually.

What I mean is: it was not exclusive. It allowed in women (which Mithraism, the freemasonry of Rome, did not). It allowed in slaves (which any mystery cult worth a dime did not).  In fact, it allowed absolutely everyone in.
It wasn't just a cultural appropriation (like Mithraism or the Isis cult), it was a cultural appropriation of a despised culture.  Mithraism and Isis were cultural appropriations from cultures the romans found exotic, decadent, and tempting.  It was like how modern westerners get attracted to Tibetan Buddhism or yoga today, it's hip because its from another country and the clothes and toys they use are cool, and it must be spiritual because it comes from a place that's 'ancient' and has a 'really spiritual reputation'.

But Christianity was a cultural appropriation from the Jews.  
The Jews to Rome were like what the Muslims are to the modern western world.  They were always having uprisings against Rome, they were always starting terrorist groups and making very frightening terrorist attacks that killed often indiscriminately, they had a deeply intolerant religion and backward ignorant customs; from the point of view of the average Roman.  And worst of all, they said that the gods weren't real; the Roman gods that were responsible for all of Rome's success. They rejected one of Rome's core values of religious syncretism; Romans were totally into the idea that Local Germanic Tribe #384's tribal god was really just another version of Jupiter in disguise, they were totally cool with that.  But then the Jews were going around saying not only was their god not just a version of Jupiter, but that Jupiter, and Toutatis, and Isis, and Mithras were all false and only their god of their pathetic little kingdom that couldn't even keep itself free of roman rule was the only god, it seemed insane. And dangerous, because their faith was what pushed them to all their terrorist activities. They thought that Allah (that is, YHVH) Was the Only Superpower, not the U.S. (that is, Rome).

So to belong to a mystery sect that, while not being Jewish, used a lot of Jewish stuff, was to be a total fucking rebel that rejected all of contemporary society in a very serious way.
BUT, but, Christianity was also not Judaism. It didn't actually do any of the really crazy stuff; you didn't have to cut half your dick off, you didn't have to stop eating a bunch of stuff, and you were actually supposed to be non-violent and respect authority.

So joining Christianity was an act of petit-rebellion, and serious at the same time.  It was like a teenage girl deciding to become Wiccan not in spite of but because of it seeming "satanic", knowing it would outrage her parents, but at the same time realizing that Wicca is actually pretty fucking harmless and she won't actually have to do anything that real pagans or magicians do like actual real sex, drugs, or blood-rites.

And ironically, the worse that Christianity's 'rep' became (with rumours of incest and cannibalism) the more popular it became, and the less actually radical and more conformist it became.

It was an extreme counterculture that was nevertheless viable, because you were told to obey the secular authorities and just be a total rebel in secret.  So slaves, women, anyone who was marginalized, could join up and feel like they were expressing their rejection of mainstream Roman civilization, but also weren't going to have to actively fight against that civilization (at least, until the persecutions started to happen).

RPGPundit

Now, as to the OP of this excellent thread:

1) There is a major point being ignored here, as far as "medieval authenticity" is concerned. If the goal is to make all of this 'more accurate' in terms of how clerical vs. wizardly magic is concerned in the middle ages, then you're missing a HUGE detail:
"Wizard" magic in the middle ages was explicitly derived from religious sources.

Take a look at ALL the grimoires of magic in the middle ages: starting from the Picatrix, the Goetia and Lemegeton, the Almadel, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-melin the Mage, etc. etc., right up to the Angelic workings of John Dee (Liber mysteriorum, etc).

All of these books, in a gross simplification, say the following: the Judeo-Christian God is the supreme source of power in the universe.  A magician can control spirits of the elements and nature, as well as demons and creatures of darkness, by placing himself in the position of an intermediary acting under the Authority of God.  He can likewise, in this position of authority, call on the help of Angels, and use the same to restrain elementals and demons and oblige them to do his bidding, in the name and for the sake of God and to the benefit of humanity.

So the really is no split in 'sources'.  
There was of course the idea of heathen witches, cavorting with demons, etc. But this was largely myth; it wasn't something that actually ever happened in an organized and real way.  
Even the folk/lower-class tradition of 'wise men' and 'wise women' of the village who might lay curses or make cures, even when they were sometimes unknowingly using techniques that were 'survivals' of very old local pagan traditions, were doing all that they did in a thoroughly Christianized context and their stuff routinely included elements of prayer and christian symbols.  The local village wise-woman would, almost always, insist that she was doing what she did as a Good Christian.

There were very rare exceptions, but that was the rule.


2) Priests didn't make miracles.  It was not the expectation that a Priest would perform miracles. That did not routinely happen.
What a medieval priest (or indeed, a modern priest) would do is perform rituals of the church.  These were mainly the sacraments, which were of a miraculous nature. But that was ALL a priest could do: so a "priest class" character would likely be able to: make holy water, save the soul of an infant from original sin, relieve you of your sins, confirm you as a member of the church, marry you in the eyes of god, give you the last rites to help you ascend to heaven, and help make other people priests able to do those same specific rites; and of course, most importantly, perform the ritual that created the transmutation of ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
That's about it. Maybe exorcism, technically.

But real motherfucking MIRACLES? those weren't done by priests, they were done by SAINTS.  Those could be a priest, occasionally, but they could also be a french farmgirl or a polish prince or, in the case of one local french saint, a dog.



The difference, then, between a medieval miracle-worker and a magician wasn't that one was doing magic empowered by god and the other magic empowered by something else.  It was that both were doing wonders empowered by god, but a saint did it almost accidentally, chosen by god due to their purity or their faith or sometimes apparently at random; while a magician was doing divine wonders because of a set of spiritual disciplines they had studied and were able to consciously participate in creating.

RPGPundit


ps. point number 2 is, by the way, why in my Dark Albion campaign Priests have no magical ability and are not usually a character class (though a specialist or expert or whatever could be a priest); while the Clerics are an (utterly anachronistic) order of miracle workers chosen from childhood after showing certain signs, and are distinct from priests in that clerics can perform divine miracles.

Quote from: RPGPundit;789816Now, as to the OP of this excellent thread:

1) There is a major point being ignored here, as far as "medieval authenticity" is concerned. If the goal is to make all of this 'more accurate' in terms of how clerical vs. wizardly magic is concerned in the middle ages, then you're missing a HUGE detail:
"Wizard" magic in the middle ages was explicitly derived from religious sources.

Take a look at ALL the grimoires of magic in the middle ages: starting from the Picatrix, the Goetia and Lemegeton, the Almadel, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-melin the Mage, etc. etc., right up to the Angelic workings of John Dee (Liber mysteriorum, etc).

All of these books, in a gross simplification, say the following: the Judeo-Christian God is the supreme source of power in the universe.  A magician can control spirits of the elements and nature, as well as demons and creatures of darkness, by placing himself in the position of an intermediary acting under the Authority of God.  He can likewise, in this position of authority, call on the help of Angels, and use the same to restrain elementals and demons and oblige them to do his bidding, in the name and for the sake of God and to the benefit of humanity.

So the really is no split in 'sources'.  
There was of course the idea of heathen witches, cavorting with demons, etc. But this was largely myth; it wasn't something that actually ever happened in an organized and real way.  
Even the folk/lower-class tradition of 'wise men' and 'wise women' of the village who might lay curses or make cures, even when they were sometimes unknowingly using techniques that were 'survivals' of very old local pagan traditions, were doing all that they did in a thoroughly Christianized context and their stuff routinely included elements of prayer and christian symbols.  The local village wise-woman would, almost always, insist that she was doing what she did as a Good Christian.

There were very rare exceptions, but that was the rule.


2) Priests didn't make miracles.  It was not the expectation that a Priest would perform miracles. That did not routinely happen.
What a medieval priest (or indeed, a modern priest) would do is perform rituals of the church.  These were mainly the sacraments, which were of a miraculous nature. But that was ALL a priest could do: so a "priest class" character would likely be able to: make holy water, save the soul of an infant from original sin, relieve you of your sins, confirm you as a member of the church, marry you in the eyes of god, give you the last rites to help you ascend to heaven, and help make other people priests able to do those same specific rites; and of course, most importantly, perform the ritual that created the transmutation of ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
That's about it. Maybe exorcism, technically.

But real motherfucking MIRACLES? those weren't done by priests, they were done by SAINTS.  Those could be a priest, occasionally, but they could also be a french farmgirl or a polish prince or, in the case of one local french saint, a dog.



The difference, then, between a medieval miracle-worker and a magician wasn't that one was doing magic empowered by god and the other magic empowered by something else.  It was that both were doing wonders empowered by god, but a saint did it almost accidentally, chosen by god due to their purity or their faith or sometimes apparently at random; while a magician was doing divine wonders because of a set of spiritual disciplines they had studied and were able to consciously participate in creating.

RPGPundit


ps. point number 2 is, by the way, why in my Dark Albion campaign Priests have no magical ability and are not usually a character class (though a specialist or expert or whatever could be a priest); while the Clerics are an (utterly anachronistic) order of miracle workers chosen from childhood after showing certain signs, and are distinct from priests in that clerics can perform divine miracles.

I think "clerics" are basically Saints.

The one critique of this view I would say is that you are viewing the whole of magic from the Christian perspective.
If we are just trying to create a medieval European setting that mirrors Europe entirely then that might work, however, if we are saying that the "clerics" are going to be Christian Saints but they battle "the Other" then the other can be any magical tradition from Shamanism to Yogis

Quote from: jibbajibba;789837I think "clerics" are basically Saints.

The one critique of this view I would say is that you are viewing the whole of magic from the Christian perspective.
If we are just trying to create a medieval European setting that mirrors Europe entirely then that might work, however, if we are saying that the "clerics" are going to be Christian Saints but they battle "the Other" then the other can be any magical tradition from Shamanism to Yogis

Yes, except that the OP was suggesting, it seemed to me, to mirror closely the medieval european setting, and was explicitly misdiagnosing "wizardly" magic as not coming from a religious source (or at least, coming from some source other than the christian deity).
And sure, you could have christian clerics battling shamans or yogis, but again, not in a medieval european setting.

Oh I`m quite well aware that dividing clerical and arcane magic doesn`t make much sense from a historical perspective. It was just that Three Hearts and Three Lions made the best fictional case for dividing arcane and divine magic that I`ve ever read.

I think  Chivalry & Sorcery did a pretty good job.

Quote from: Daztur;790086Oh I`m quite well aware that dividing clerical amd arcane magic doesn`t make much sense from a historical perspective. It was just that Three Hearts and Three Lions made the best fictional case for dividing arcane amd divine magic that I`ve ever read.

Fair enough.

Perhaps what we are really discussing is the separation of miracles and acts of faith from deliberate and controlled magic?

One of the definitive properties is that magic is from a supernatural source; if not gods, where from?

deliberate spell casting perhaps?  There is a distinct difference between the adept who through self mastery and study conjures angels and demons to do his bidding and the simple honest virgin who sees a vision  or is miraculously healed.

Both are a sort of miracle, one just more direct.