Thanks again for all your help!
I think I’ll say that my character’s Congregation resource represents his defense of pilgrims and other travellers heading through Astolat and nearby regions, either to sites in Dawn or to Highguard. If I ever buy some white granite, I suppose I could say that I’m paying for the roads to be paved 
Think about it in what it gives you, congregation gets you votes in the synod which fits. But you also get liao which is something that takes lots of time and effort to prepare. How do you get this during your travels? If you’re a guide I’d assume you either lead a band of other guards (military company) or a business (people pay you to guide them).
Not saying don’t take congregation just saying try to think about why you get hold of liao. Perhaps you donate all you get to the synod or something if you don’t plan on using it.
Would the liao being payment from travelling religious people be feasible? I hadn’t thought too much about where it was coming from. Where would a more traditional priest whose Congregation is something like a church get theirs from? Presumably they don’t process it themselves.
I was planning on donating my liao to characters who could make better use of it, or if I was low on cash selling it (not making a big business deal out of it, given that I’m not supposed to be too concerned about money, but maybe if I was low on ale money I could quickly flog a vial ). On the topic of money, do characters get any source of regular in come? Like, a few crowns at the beginning of an event or something? Or do you need to have a resource that produces money to ensure you’ll never go broke?
Guess it would make sense if you got them from priests rather than just people who are devout.
As I understand it, the standard thing is that a Congregation represents the Civil Service recognising you as enough like a priest to tick the box on their paperwork, and giving you Synod votes and liao in official recognition of your role; it’s just as suitable for this character to get it when a bureaucrat gives it to you when you drop into their office as a priest who leads a church getting it delivered.
Selling liao on-field for ale money is an available option, and one I’ve been using a lot recently.
Everyone gets 18 rings per event on top of their personal resource - the sort of loose change that buys a few drinks but doesn’t get you much of game-mechanical significance.
According to the page on liao, citizens with congregations are provided with doses of liao by the civil service. The amount they give you is also proportionate to the size of your congregation: the priest of a typical (basic/unupgraded) congregation is allocated 5 doses per quarter.
As for where it comes from, it’s described as ‘sap’, and also that the maturation process sometimes yields an unusually potent dose (true liao). I imagine that the Civil Service owns and runs liao plantations somewhere in the Empire. Probably in Highguard somewhere, but I can’t find any reference on the wiki. And they’re the ones who gather and distribute it to the synod priests. So I imagine there’s an NPC Civil Servant whose job it is to do the rounds of liao delivery in your home territory, checking the size of your congregation and doling out your allowance.
You have the option to sell your liao in downtime, at a price of 12 rings per dose. Presumably it goes back to the civil service who will distribute it elsewhere. So if you sell all your liao you will receive 60 rings, or 3 crowns (20 rings = 1 crown). This is in addition to the 18 rings everyone gets. I’ve never tried to buy or sell liao in the field, but it’s perfectly permissable. Selling it in the field will be at whatever rate you can get though, not necessarily the guaranteed 12 rings from the civil service in downtime.
I suggest selling in uptime instead; it gives you the option of giving it to people to get ceremonies done and I’ve been able to get more than the base 12r a vial fairly consistently.
Liao plantation (presumably selling it to the Civil Service), incidentally, is an excellent flavour to put on one’s Farm resource! 
yeah congregations don’t create liao they basically get given a Liao stipend by the civil service.
The other reason to hold onto it is that frequently plot comes to the synod as ‘needs a priest a judgement and X amount of liao’ Having liao to contribute to your chosen causes is useful even if you can’t use it yourself.
Hi Ginj. I don’t play in Dawn myself, but they are on the whole a very friendly nation.
Some slightly disaparate advice:
Do not feel that once you have made a character you have to stick to them. People’s first larp characters are (IMO) rarely their best ones. There are all sorts of common pitfalls that people drop into with them, which can leave them trapped playing a character who is not ideal. Treat character one as a learning curve, play as if you have nothing to lose. Then you’ll either have a good time or get a better idea of what would work. If you are not having fun there is nothing to stop you retiring the character and starting a new one.
Groups are definitely where a lot of the fun is. Everyone varies and all, but I personally enjoy a strong sense of tribe - that there is a core group around my character of people he would literally die for and vice versa. If it were me, I would be looking to join a group asap. One option is to chat on the Dawnish Facebook group and see if you like the look of anyone. Or if you design your character to be a bit of a free agent, you could look to join one in play.
There are lots of people who could sanity-check a new character for you once you have a detailed idea of a background. They could tell you if you look like you are gonna fall into a common trap (the really, really common one is that loads of people create characters who are a special and unique snowflake. Then they get to the field and discover that many of us think alike and there are 200 people who had the same idea. eg ‘I will be the one person on the field who is not prejudiced against briars’).
Thank you everyone for the information about the liao!
@TimB
I did quite strongly consider being a Marcher yeoman for my first character, as it’d be a pretty flexible character and the outfit would be a bit cheaper - but in the end I couldn’t resist the call of knighthood . If my character dies I’m hoping I’ll be able to re-use the equipment, or maybe resell or trade it. Like I said I’ve been RPing for a while, even if this is my first LARP, so I’m familiar with the disappointment a first character can sometimes hold - and I also like to think I’ve got over special snowflake syndrome by now.
I’d definitely like to join a group in play, rather than starting off in one. Feels nicer doing all the RP and character interaction rather than just being set up from the start.
On which note, my first-character mistake (which I repeated a couple of times later) was making a standoffish type who didn’t really do friendliness. Turns out that’s OK to play for an evening, but over a whole weekend it feels kind of isolated. I recommend friendliness and a sense of humour (of some sort! ) as an element of any character.
Who can I find to do sanity checking? I’m a new player as well, I’ve got a kinda crazy character concept in mind, I think it’s an actually snowflakey idea?
I’m willing to offer opinions - I’m big on setting consistency and so on, but I’d rather go “not sure that works, but if you do it like this then you can…” than “no, that’s a bad idea.” Post it up or drop me a PM if you’d like!
I am also willing to look anything over, if you like. I absolutely love the Empire setting, and know quite a lot about how the religion game functions both in abstract theory, and in practice at events.
@Ginj
You might think about whether it’s worth creating your character in a PC House, It could end up being purely a background link, since you are looking more towards the knightly order side of thing, but it would create connections you wouldn’t get if you were in your own house. As well as it reduces the number of questions you will get on your house, which if you are playing a questing knight might be desirable.
It might not be the group you end up in, there are a few knightly orders on the field and there is nothing stopping you creating your own.
On the Liao front the new Hallowed items require a skill to create, but other than that pretty much usable by holding them. I’d suggest looking at the ones that suit your virtues and seeing if there are any that you think are interesting/cool (Then finding a Priest who can do that and asking them nicely to create one or two). Since it’s essentially a bit of religious RP you can get into without spending exp on skills, and it lets you name your items.
@Noodle
If it isn’t secret you could just start a topic asking for advice particularly if it’s really out there and you want the advice of a few people. Although I’d also be happy to offer my 2 cents.
Noodle: so it depends on what level of expertise you want. I am happy to offer an ear to listen to a pitch and can point to several other folks here whose views I would strongly respect (Mark Wilkin is a very good choice if he has time). If I/they think you would be advised to talk to someone who is specialist in an area then it would be easy to point you in the right direction.
What would help narrow it down to the right kind of person would be getting an idea of what sort of broad field the character is in (eg if they are a mage, priest, trader or what have you).
Oh there’s an interesting idea. Especially for a Marcher Monastery, sprawling plantations somewhere in the territory where the (NPC) lay monks work the fields and form the majority of the congregation. The (PC) ordained monks are designated as either farm-owner/managers (therefore Yeomen, able to vote in Marches politics) or congregation-owner/managers (therefore synod members, able to vote in religious affairs).
I pity the poor civil servant tax collector assigned to assess the monastery and work out what counts as a farm, and what counts as a congregation. Until the civil servant ends up falling in love with one of the monks, and stays behind to join the community. (Yes, I am thinking of The Darling Buds of May).