PSALM 119:18 (GLoG class: Cleric)

The Presbyter taught that there was no mercy in this world save but that which we gave one another, and for this, he was killed mercilessly. No wound or cruelty on this earth could dim his brilliance; even in death, his words kindled the world, and he shone like a midnight sun before he ascended into the heavens.

The Presbyter said: "Recognize what is before your face and that which is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For there is nothing hidden which shall not be made manifest, nor buried which shall not be raised."

The Presbyter said, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same."

The Presbyter said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the elect of the First and Last.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of your maker in you?', say to them, 'It is movement and repose.'"

The Presbyter said, "Whoever believes that the All itself is deficient is himself completely deficient."

Lovis Corinth

The Presbyter said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes."

From here, the path splits. On the left hand, the black veil and the sickle, the way of Saint DEATH. On the right, the purple fillet and the hammer, the way of Petra the Stonecutter, Saint STRENGTH.

Hers was the art of addition. Close your eyes and feel the muscle cord once, twice in your arms and legs. Consider the flow of breath and blood. With no body, the soul dissolves; with no soul, the body decays. Flesh and spirit are a book and its writing. The strength of God is yours, if you only have the knowledge to take up the pen.

Priest

Skill: 1. History. 2. Surgery. 3. Stonemasonry.

Starting items: A medium cube-headed mace, beautifully embroidered robes with a thick leather belt (unarmored), a purple fillet, a golden rotafix, a copy of the Trilogia, and two Missionary Goods.

+1 SAVE per template.

A Anointed, Bolster, 2 miracles, +1 MD

B Rebuke, +2 miracles, +1 MD

C Evangel, +2 miracles, +1 MD

D Light Made Manifest, +3 miracles, +1 MD

As a Priest, you are proficient with hammers, picks, shovels, staves, maces, and flails, and can wear light armor and use shields.

Anointed

You are not only a representative of God and the Three Saints of the Church, but of the monumental--if currently scattered--power if the Church itself. Most church-going common folk love you. Earthly authorities would like your favor. Pagan worshipers of the star-gods will resent you and only respect you on a personal basis. Regardless, this gives you a +1 to reaction rolls from most people, +2 if they're particularly devout.

Bolster

When you wake in the morning, you may choose to expend any number of your MD to add [sum] to your HP or [dice] to your strength bonus for the rest of the day. MD used to Bolster are automatically lost no matter the die result. Those that do this frequently are marked with striae, as their muscle and bones swell and shrink too quickly for their skin to keep up.

Rebuke

The unquiet dead, the jealous elf, the errant demon; all of these things represent errors in creation. Fix them. By raising your voice to a shout and invoking PROVIDENCE, you may use your MD to force unholy things with [sum]+[dice] HP or less to SAVE or flee as if they had failed a morale check. If the [sum]+[dice] is twice the targets' max HP or more, they are instead destroyed on a failed SAVE.

Evangel

By now, you are known and revered by many, your name spoken among the faithful and faithless alike. You are the good news. Unless you initiate violence first, most people must make a SAVE the first time they try to attack you; on a failure, they will stay their hand that round and do something less violent. Only truly vile people are immune to this.

Light Made Manifest

You have become like life itself, the generative principle of what is. Whenever you are reduced below 0 HP, roll on the Death and Dismemberment table twice and take the lower result. If you are the first to treat someone who has just rolled Death and Dismemberment, they can roll a second rime and take the lower result as well.

Miracles

At A template, start with Heal and another miracle rolled on this table with a 1d6. At B template, roll 2d8. At C, 2d10. Finally, at D, pick two off the standard list and one of the Signature Miracles. In the case of any repeats, just pick a miracle adjacent to the one you rolled. This is not an exhaustive list- miracles can be learned much the way spells can, but I haven't written those rules yet. Go steal someone else's if it's such a concern. 

1. Heal

R: touch T: an injured creature D: instant

The laying-on of hands needs little introduction. The target regains [sum] HP, wounds mending over with scabs and scar tissue. Casting with more MD can forgo healing for another benefit. With 2 MD or more, the target can recover [dice]×2 points of stat damage or be cured of [dice]-1 disease or poisons. With 3 MD or more, the target can have a permanent injury healed. With 4 MD, the target either recovers all stat damage and is cured of all diseases and poisons, or has all permanent injuries healed.

2. Sunlight

R: touch T: a creature D: [dice]×2 hours

The sun is the eye of PROVIDENCE. For the miracle's duration, the target's eyes shed bright sunlight in a [dice]×10' cone, granting perfect vision in darkness and warding off things that fear the light of the sun. The only way this light can be hidden is by the target shutting both of their eyes.

3. Bless

R: touch T: [dice] creatures D: [sum] minutes

Strength waits in everyone. Anoint the targets with a circle on the forehead in either 1 HP of blood or one dose of chrisma, and they will get a +[dice] bonus to all d20 rolls for the miracle's duration.

4. Wall of Force

R: 50' T: [dice] points in space within range D: [sum]+[dice] hours

Untold numbers of unseen forces hold the world together. Understand them well, and you may make the air your walls, floor, and roof. [Dice] 10' square panels of shimmering force appear in the target area, arranged and oriented however the caster wishes. These panels are solid, immovable, and impermeable, but can clip through inanimate objects. Each one has [dice]×20 HP and can support [dice]×500 lbs before shattering.

5. Create Food and Water

R: self T: your outstretched hands D: permanent 

Nobody likes to starve. Nobody likes to thirst. Relieve them of these things, and they will love you. Your hands pour forth either [sum] rations of fortified bread, or [sum] gallons of water. Living on bread and water alone for longer than a week will make you queasy.

6. Bless Harvest

R: n/a T: [dice] square miles of cultivated land D: [dice] years

This is the true basis of power for the Church: a cure for famine. After a [dice] hour ritual, the targeted land gains a SAVE stat with a +[dice] bonus that it can roll to resist drought, flooding, pests, disease, and any other causes of crop failure for the miracle's duration.

7. Animate Object

R: touch T: an inanimate object D: a [day/week/month/year]

As PROVIDENCE breathed life into you, so too do you breathe life into the target. 

With 1 MD, you can animate a held item.

With 2 MD, you can animate something as large as a child. 

With 3 MD, you can animate something as large as a grown man.

With 4 MD, you can animate something as large as a cart.

Animated objects have [sum] HP and +[dice] to hit, and will obey you with the loyalty and intelligence of a well-trained monkey. Animated tools move around as if held by invisible people, and armor moves around as if worn. Other objects move however their forms allow them. When in doubt, follow cartoon logic. Weapons do damage as standard. Most objects can attack for 1d6 damage just by slamming into things, but larger objects might do 2d6 by virtue of sheer weight and mass. AC varies by material.

Light: Rope, cloth, leather.

Medium: Wood, thin metal, resin.

Heavy: Stone, metal.

Figure it out. You're probably smarter than me. This spell can also be made permanent by sacrificing [dice]×5 of your own HP during the casting. Animated Objects that live past their default lifespan will start to become independent and intelligent, so you had best earn their trust of your army of flying knives so they don't kill you in your sleep.

8. Remove Curse 

R: touch T: a creature D: instant

Mending souls is less certain work than telling flesh to live. The target immediately gets a SAVE with a +[dice] bonus to remove an ongoing magical effect, like a curse, possession, or brain-melting infohazard.

9. Flesh Confession

R: touch T: a body, living, freshly dead, or well-preserved D: [sum] minutes.

The body, medium that it is, records the intelligence that is the soul. It knows many things. The target body is compelled to answer [dice] questions for the miracle's duration to the best of its ability, considering the state it may be in. Living people get no SAVE to resist this, but can stall it out by covering their mouth, biting their tongue, sitting on their hands, etc while the body works out ways to answer. Bodies sense the same things that the person does but have a better sense of instinct than they do memory, concerned mostly with hormonal responses. A body may not know its wife's name, but it knows it has sex with another woman once a month and is both stressed and excited by the experience.

10. Inflict Peace

R: 200' T: a creature D: [dice] rounds.

If the spirit does not yield, the flesh will. Target must SAVE or suffer muscle-tearing, bone-breaking convulsions for the miracle's duration, taking [highest] damage if they take any action that isn't flailing around painfully on the ground.

Signature Miracles

11. Resurrection 

R: touch T: a mostly (at least half) intact corpse up to [sum] days old D: [dice] weeks

Life and death are a balance. Everyone wishes they could put their thumb on the scale; you can. The target is brought back to life at full HP, cured of all maladies and healed of all injuries. At the end of the miracle's duration, the target will disintegrate into ash. Any given target can only be resurrected once, ever, and this miracle has no effect on old age. The duration may be extended to permanent if the caster permanently sacrifices all MD invested in casting. 

12. Force Without Motion

R: 200' T: a [dice]×10' cube D: instant

The same forces which hold all things together may also destroy them. Everything in the target area is alternately crushed, torqued, and pulled apart for [sum] damage and must SAVE or have [dice] pieces of nonmagical equipment destroyed. Most structures caught in this miracle's area of effect will be destroyed.

Missionary Goods

1. Rotafix. A small golden image of Yohannes the Presbyter being broken on the wheel, hung from a thin brass chain. His tiny face is utterly serene, even though all of his limbs have been broken to coil around the spokes. +1 SAVE while held in your hand.
2. The Trilogia, the gospels accounting the lives and deaths of Yohannes the Presbyter, Petra the Stonecutter, and the Sickle, as well as their ascensions as the Saints WHEEL OF FORTUNE, STRENGTH, and DEATH. One of the most widely-printed books in the world, containing a variety of the Presbyter's sayings in an appendix in the back for easy reference. Reading aloud from this at an opportune time grants you and your allies a +1 to morale and SAVES against fear. 1/3rd of a slot.
3. Chrisma. A mix of olive oil and a variety of fragrant herbs and spices. Any Priest can mix up their own with some oil and perfume. 3 doses in a little glass vial. 1/3rd of a slot.
4. Scented Candles. Low on light and heavy on the sinus-clearing, bittersweet smoke. When lit, these will ward off any sort of stinging or biting pest and overpower any foul odor. Shed 10' of dim light and burn half an hour each. 10 candles in a 1 slot bundle.
5. Shovel. You know what this is for. A medium weapon, in a pinch. 1 slot.
6. A bottle of ink, a quill, and an empty vellum codex. May be a holy book, one day. 1 slot.
7. Thurible. A metal censer on a chain, meant to be filled with burning charcoal and incense then swung around to release purifying smoke. Using it as a flail is inadvisable. Comes with enough charcoal and incense to emit pleasant-smelling smoke for an hour, granting nearby allies +1 morale. 1 slot for the thurible, 2/3rds of a slot for the rest. 
8. A jar of wet clay, sealed with wax. Includes a bone stylus. 1 slot.
9. A shield with a brass boss in the shape of a sun. 1 slot.
10. Notes from the Book of Threnodies, choice observations taken from the massive tome which chronicles the soaring epics and catastrophic tragedies of prehuman history. The real thing would kill you, as its pages bleed quicksilver; the only way this tome could kill someone is if you dropped it on their head. If actively referenced from to make a check, this book grants a skill of Prehuman Secret History. 1 slot.
11. A hand grenade. A gift from your Negationist counterparts, as much of a gift as they can give. Explodes for 2d6 damage in a 20' radius, with a SAVE for half damage. 1/3rd of a slot.
12. A medium shamshir. A quality blade, but unimpressive compared to its scabbard, a fine piece of leatherwork embroidered with gold-wire suns. This was a diplomatic gift from the sunmen of the north. As long as the sword is kept with its scabbard, it's treated as a masterwork (+1 to hit, can take an extra fumble before breaking.) 1 slot. 

The Making Of

Special thanks to Eos of Dawn for coining the term Rotafix. I based Flesh Confession on a White Hand Wizard spell by Skerples, who needs no introduction.

I dedicate this post to a late friend not just of mine, but of many others: someone who truly added to the world. Farewell.

Konstantin Bogaevsky