Cleric

Description

Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods. As varied as the gods they serve, clerics strive to embody the handiwork of their deities. As they are no ordinary priests, clerics are imbued with divine magics diverse in healing.
As a cleric, you will bring succor to the wounded or smite your enemies with the divine magic bestowed upon you by the god that you worship.

Indrid's Information

When Reaching Level 100 you can only pick 1 of the rewards mentioned.

Traits
Bow Mastery
Aura Mastery
Spellcaster
Acrobatic Dodge

Aura Mastery
Cleanse
Magic Missle
Burning Hands

Level 100 Quest Reward
Cleric/Bard
Lute access
Bullstrength

Light Cleric
Mitras Grace

Dark Cleric
Hex Siphon Life

A Closer Look at Clerics

Arms and eyes upraised toward the sun and a prayer on his lips, an elf begins to glow with an inner light that spills out to heal his battle-worn companions.

Chanting a song of glory, a dwarf swings his axe in wide swaths to cut through the ranks of orcs arrayed against him, shouting praise to the gods with every foe’s fall.

Calling down a curse upon the forces of undeath, a human lifts her holy symbol as light pours from it to drive back the zombies crowding in on her companions.

Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods. As varied as the gods they serve, clerics strive to embody the handiwork of their deities. No ordinary priest, a cleric is imbued with divine magic.

Healers and Warriors

Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.

Harnessing divine magic doesn’t rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes.

Clerics combine the helpful magic of healing and inspiring their allies with spells that harm and hinder foes. They can provoke awe and dread, lay curses of plague or poison, and even call down flames from heaven to consume their enemies. For those evildoers who will benefit most from a mace to the head, clerics depend on their combat training to let them wade into melee with the power of the gods on their side.

Divine Agents

Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods’ will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, priesthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

When a cleric takes up an adventuring life, it is usually because his or her god demands it. Pursuing the goals of the gods often involves braving dangers beyond the walls of civilization, smiting evil, or seeking holy relics in ancient tombs. Many clerics are also expected to protect their deities’ worshipers, which can mean fighting rampaging orcs, negotiating peace between warring nations, or sealing a portal that would allow a demon prince to enter the world.

Most adventuring clerics maintain some connection to established temples and orders of their faiths. A temple might ask for a cleric’s aid, or a high priest might be in a position to demand it.

Culture

Religion was deeply important to the majority of people on Toril, who felt that the gods were a very real and active presence in their lives, something that was not very far from the truth. For this reason, serving the gods was something that most people did as just a regular part of their lives. Clerics were elite agents of gods, empowered beyond the capabilities of regular priests and sworn to follow and obey the tenets of their religion in ways that the average mortal couldn't. Some clerics served primordials or even fiends, offering foul sacrifices in exchange for a portion of the fiend's might, but the majority remained servants of the truly divine. Clerics had to be close to the alignment of their patron, usually within one step of the deity's alignment or less.

Gods were as varying as people and, as a result, so were their divine agents, such as clerics, who might be good or evil, lawful or chaotic, dependent on who they worshiped and why. Good clerics healed and protected, helping those in need while evil clerics terrorized and destroyed, increasing the power of their deity and themselves. Generally, non-evil clerics were more common, since good or neutral deities tended to attract more worshipers than evil ones did. However, some evil gods were popular in their own right, with a large legion of followers and clerics willing to do their bidding. Similarly, though many clerics belonged to orderly and structured churches, chaotic gods had clerical servants as well.

Relatively few priests became wandering clerics, leaving for adventure only if they felt compelled to do so for their god, perhaps out of a desire to spread their deity's works or by order of their superiors and the church hierarchy. A few clerics took on the adventuring lifestyle for more mundane reasons. Regardless of the motivation, clerics have highly valued companions, serving as healers and occasional leaders to their compatriots. Additionally, clerics may have specialized in ways, based on the deity they worship, that put them on agreeable terms with other adventurers. The most active clerics were typically humans or dwarves, though half-elven, elven, and Dragonborn clerics were also relatively common.

Nearly all clerics were ordained members of a religious organization of some kind, though a few operated more independently and even those who were bound to a hierarchy did not necessarily answer to a direct superior. Most clerics made their career choice relatively early in life, though some were compelled to service unwillingly by their god. Churches were often, but not always, tied to a specific god, though few gods presided over more than one church at once, some of which warred with one another over differing interpretations of their god's dogma.

Abilities

Clerics commonly used light or medium armor, shields, simple weapons, and divine magic as their chief tools while adventuring. Many clerics were also skilled in the use of heavy armor. Clerics augmented these spells, also known as "prayers," through holy symbols of their deity that they wore or carried with them. Clerics were also experts in casting rituals, enhanced spells that require an incredible amount of time and preparation to use but which often had dramatic effects. Others might instead have chosen to be trained in preparing alchemical recipes.
Clerics could also learn to directly access the channel the divinity of their deity through their body. This power manifested itself in several ways, the most common of which was the ability to turn undead, repel, or even destroy the undead. A few clerics learned instead to control the undead, particularly those of an evil nature. Some clerics may have learned to channel divinity based on their domain or the nature of the deity they worshiped.

Sufficiently experienced clerics could even invoke their deity's intervention directly, without using Channel Divinity. If successfully petitioned, the deity's aid could come in one of several forms, from a spell to something more unusual. Such calls for aid, however, were difficult to make and the gods were disinclined to respond much more often than once a ten-day.

Some clerics were powerful healers thanks to special training and the blessings of their gods, both of which increased the potency of the curative prayers available to them. Many clerics were capable of casting the healing word prayer, while more experienced clerics were often capable of much more. Some clerics were also trained in transforming other prayers into powers of healing or, if the cleric worshiped a non-good god, into spells of necrotic power.

Some clerics had additional abilities less common among their compatriots. Several clerics learned, in addition to the gentle repose ritual known to many of them, the ritual of Simbul's conversion, which allowed a cleric to convert their prayers into healing energy. A fewer number of clerics, generally evil in alignment, learned instead to convert this stored energy into negative energy for the purpose of harming enemies.

Cleric