Sunday, October 09, 2005

Tower Critique: The Priesthood

10/09/2005

The Priests.

Traditionally, the priesthood breeds its own members. Very few, if any, children from outside the priesthood are accepted within its ranks.

So, the Dhe’nar prefer stagnation within their castes, ensuring a complete lack of new and inspirational ideas. And should someone born to another caste show more promise for a Temple profession, their talents are wasted rather than utilized. Wonderful.

Of those born to the ranks, few are deemed acceptable to study for the priesthood.

So they don’t accept children from other castes, and very few from their own. So how do they survive? If this is true, they would have much fewer members every generation. Anyone have an answer? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The remaining children, if blessed with magi potential, are fostered out to families in the Dhe’nar society. The only difference between the young magi and young acolytes is that the children raised in the Temple have an almost eerie sensitivity to the forces of divine power, which is totally lacking in their magi counterparts.

Wow, so Dhe’nar clerics are different from Dhe’nar wizards? How strange. Other races/cultures sure aren’t like that.

When the child is old enough, and if that spark of magic potential has grown to a flame, the child is then reclaimed by the mages’ guild.

Thereby wasting all their studies up to that point.

The children that do meet the standards of the priesthood are raised in a community nursery for the first eight years of their lives.

This from a culture that reveres the family? Not likely. I don’t picture Dhe’nar as raising kids on post-modern hippie communes, but maybe that’s just me.

They are taught the rudiments of Dhe’nar society: speech, dress, proper respect towards elders. At the age of eight, the children are shown the art of survival. They are taught to do whatever it takes to live.

So - eat, sleep, stay out of the rain.

The training process is difficult, ensuring that no Dhe’nar priest or priestess is weak. Of twenty children placed in this training, perhaps one will be suitable for the priesthood. After seven years of this, those that remain are put to work. To be a priest or priestess demands a great sacrifice.

And this sacrifice would be…what exactly?

At this stage, the would-be priests and priestesses are divided by their weaknesses into two different training programs. Those with a low threshold for pain are sent to become empaths. They will learn to live with pain each and every day of their lives. By mastering their weaknesses, it is believed that they will pass on that strength to the next generation. Dhe’nar empaths perform their rites of healing in much the same fashion as other cultures, except a Dhe’nar healer will always go for the most bloody wounds first.

So other cultures’ empaths take the least dangerous wounds first, and let their patients die? “Well, his heart was ruptured, but I decided to take his skinned knee.”

The only other true branch of the Dhe’nar priesthood are the priests and priestess’ themselves.

What are the fake branches?

Very little is known of this, as a Dhe’nar priestess will not divulge any secrets regarding the temple. No written manuscripts are kept as all lessons, histories, and stories are verbal only. This has severely limited the ability of outsiders to get a close glimpse into the life of a Dhe’nar priestess. It is known that a priestess has almost complete power over the common Dhe’nar.

How? Why? Nice cop out. “I don’t know why they have this power, so I’ll just say it’s secret”. Real good society construction there.

In recent times it has been noted that several Dhe’nar mages and powerful warriors, known to have fallen in battle, have been seen alive again. Perhaps the Dhe’nar are breaking with their custom of allowing no intervention between this life and the next. As compared to other races, who seek out the favor of the gods regularly to intervene in death, the Dhe’nar have always believed that anyone weak enough to die deserves to stay dead.

Which makes no sense at all in a culture that is desperately low in population. This would never have become a custom unless all Dhe’nar want to become extinct.

However, a subtle branching of the priesthood seems to be evolving. It would seem as though some priests have begun to experiment with raising the newly dead and restoring life, whether through dark rituals or through the intervention of the gods it is not known.

Yes, it is known, actually. It’s accomplished through the intervention of the arkati. The Dhe’nar are supposed to know more about the arkati than any other culture, remember? Try reading their official history.

Nothing is known of these things, except for the obvious fact that Dhe’nar once dead, have been seen alive again.

So, it has taken the oldest civilization on the continent 80,000 years to come up with an ability that other cultures’ clerics have had for ages? Are you actively trying to make the Dhe’nar look like a bunch of idiots?

Also, it is rumored that the priesthood has always had a fascination with death. That the Dhe’nar priesthood are masters of pain and pleasure, and that all priestess and priests are masters of seduction is no myth.

Ooohh…. Eeeevil and SEXY. God, talk about repressed. This is just lame. I don’t feel like playing a bunch of Goth Vampire Drow, thanks.

Anyone entangled in the web of a Dhe’nar priestess can attest to their almost binding control over a man through dance, graceful speech, and other more erotic arts.

Please. This is childish, not to mention degrading. From comments I’ve received from female players, this is possibly the worst element of the Priest caste, and for many the biggest factor in their decision not to play Dhe’nar priestesses. Can we seperate the culture from adolescent power-sex fantasy?

I could accept this from Ivasians and Oleanians (and to make sense it would involve both male and female devotees), but all of them?

The Dhe’nar priesthood rites of entry are some of the most violent known to all civilized races.

Why?

The acolyte is stripped of all worldly possessions and sent to bring back the skin of a sh’arom. For those not familiar with this most deadly creature of the caves I will describe one.

Oh good. Another “Great Hunt”. Doesn’t this get a little old?

A sh’arom is an entirely magical creature. Rumor has them being bred by the Dhe’nar before the great cataclysm as a hunting beast. That experiment may be one that either worked too well or was a complete disaster, depending on the teller. It is known that the sh’arom feed on pain. A new born sh’arom is mauled by its mother shortly after birth. The mauling, instead of harming the kit, makes it grow stronger.

Then it’s not “mauling”, it’s “weight training.”

This lesson is repeated time and again, with each near death experience almost doubling the stamina, constitution, and violent capacity of the sh’arom. A sh’arom is considered full-grown when it can kill its parents and very few sh’arom get to this stage. Most kill each other as a female sh’arom will give birth to litters as large as 10 at one time. Most sh’arom only whelp one litter.

The full grown sh’arom is about the size of a large timber wolf with scaled skin, a spiked tail, and two sets of extremely sharp teeth. The head resembles a reptile and when standing on its hind legs it can stand as tall as a fair elf. Sh’arom can see in the dark and have a very keen sense of smell. They also seem to be sensitive to magic and extremely resistant to it as well. Magical spells tend to be absorbed and the energy put towards faster healing on the part of the sh’arom.

So, they’re entirely magical, but are large physical creatures. They’re also entirely white, yet black, and entirely ugly, yet beautiful.

For the acolyte to be accepted as a full-fledged priest or priestess, they must succeed in bringing back the skin of an adult sh’arom.

What does this have to do with priest skills? In order to become a mathematician, do they have to bake blueberry pies?

They begin this task unarmed and unarmored.

Yeah, yeah, exactly like the Great Hunt… we know. Would it have killed you to come up with, I don’t know, a different ritual? Maybe one that has something to do with priest-ness? And maybe a single ritual that doesn’t involve being naked?

It does not matter to the priesthood if they kill the sh’arom though magic, might, or even cunning. All that matters is that a skin is returned. It has been rumored that when more than one acolyte is sent on this mission, the high casualty rate may not all be attributable to the sh’arom themselves. Perhaps the final cut for the Dhe’nar priesthood is made among the acolytes themselves as they betray and destroy each other in an attempt to accomplish what would well seem impossible.

Why would they do that? Not only would a culture so low in population not be able to afford constant murderous backstabbing amongst its people, but the Dhe’nar are supposed to be a devout people seeking the power of the Arkati. Why would their priests be murderous, backstabbing buffoons?