Greetings!
In my World of Thandor, I have gone on to establish fairly extensive details for different Temples, Religions and Cults. I have various religious authorities and ranks detailed, with established duties and so on for the various members within the religious hierarchy. I have also done something similar with several different Monasteries, providing different monastic schools of philosophy and organization. It is a considerable amount of work, though the payoff is in having a very detailed religion, as well as various ranks and other institutions. Player characters, as well as NPC's, whether they are clerics, monks, paladins, or something else, have a clear idea of where their place is in at the particular religious hierarchy, who is above them, who is below them, and what duties and responsibilities the various individuals have.
This kind of well-established, extensive detail provides a time-saving snapshot into what temples of A, B, and C are doing, and what they are likely involved in in towns C, B, and D, as well as city X, Y and Z with just a brief review of the relevant notes for that particular religion, it's hierarchy, goals, motives, and styles of government and religious bureaucracy. These kinds of details also make it much easier and more organic for religious Player characters to become involved in various adventures, religious bureaucracy, and problems.
Have you all detailed your campaign religions? Worked on hierarchies and religious bureaucracy? It's surprising and amusing to me how much drama, competition, and so on can develop from such activities. Even competitions between temples, orders, and monasteries on how much *good* they are doing as opposed to each other. *Laughing*
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Big topic shark.
Oracle sites are a good one that have a lot of interesting activity around them. Mystics, strange primeval founts, vaults of wealth from supplicants, political maneuvering, important persons, interesting and otherwise unusual near-by services. Good focused adventure sites.
I'm wrestling with this question in my own campaign. It's especially relevant because I have a paladin PC who is strongly church affiliated. Good points for me to ponder.
I rarely go into that kind of detail unless the players are showing interest in pursuing something that will uncover it. I do typically have a broad outline of the kind of hierarchies in place, general attitudes, that sort of thing. For example, here are two temples in my current campaign:
1. Fort Valor - Run by three gods (all related to warfare), under the supreme command of the high priest of the god of war, as a military border outpost and way station on a key but perilous trade route through a large stretch of wilderness.
2. Beacon - Unlike other temples, contains the high priest of five gods as well as their supporting staffs, run as a monastery across the river from a small village that supplies their connections with the nation.
I have a little more detail than that of course--the exact gods involved, their general trends, etc. I've got a few named NPCs because the players did visit Beacon briefly, and almost visited Fort Valor before going another direction. But that gives me enough information to work on how these temples interact with current events and what their own long-term plans would be.
I've been slowly developing the clerical orders in my FR Damara campaign. I like how Ilmater is presented as a Jesus stand-in with Saints, notably St Sollars, and various Orders such as the Monks of the Yellow Rose and Paladins of the Golden Cup. So I've been adding in more along a similar quasi-Catholic line, such as the wandering Moravin Friars, and the Sisters of St Cecilia who specialise in redeeming Wayward Women. :D
I tend to always take an NPC-first line; I create the characters, then the intrigues and conflicts build up from there. I've been mostly focused on the noble houses, but the religious orders are definitely getting some attention.
I run FR so I just use previously published books to flesh out these sorts of details - and it's something I do spend some time doing.
During the 2E era, three books were published for FR - Faiths & Avatars (probably my favourite D&D book of all time), Demihuman Deities, and Powers & Pantheons - that covered most of the deities for the Realms and included often included church ranks, types of sacred vestments, and temple decorations/accoutrements. I've been using these details for 20+ years. For me, it adds a lot to the verisimilitude of the world.