Priest / Ritualist

New Players
#1

The magical and religious games of Empire seem generally separate. Sometimes they negate each other, such as when a priestly location aura ‘overwrites’ a magical one. I haven’t found any ways that they ‘positively’ interact.

However, the existence of the Sevenfold Path implies that there are those in the Empire who play both games.

Are there any interesting synergies between the priest skills and the magician skills? What might a priest / ritualist do better than anyone else?

What interesting character concepts and builds can you come up with for a priest / magician character?

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#2

OH BOY HERE WE GO
Hello I’m Jim and I play a necromancer. That means he’s great at religion. Well, some bits of it. :). Largely, what magic is great for is as a force multiplier on what you are doing. And the Way is about Doing Stuff. As a Vigilance Priest, my character really likes Wisdom of the Balanced Blade because it tells him exactly what a threat is. And Words of Ending because it lets him trash evil magic. Whereas my previous Prosperity priest focused almost exclusively on mastering farm buff rituals, and had Spring, Summer and Autumn Lore 1. Because farm prosperity.

Winter
“Hey Brother Martin, who’s that dead guy? Are we sure this is the bones of an Exemplar”
“Give me 2 minutes”

“So this mausoleum is probably haunted”
“Shut up, and give everyone one stick with a poppet on it to carry. And then cover me”

“I have additional religious questions for a dead person/would like them to attend their own funeral”
“No problem, buddy!”

“I’m a rampaging exclusionist who hates heralds messing with human destiny”
“I’ll need 7 mana and permission to graffiti your tent”

Summer
Chasuble of Majesty Congratulations you are now 3 Priests’ worth of Exorcism/Hallowing/etc. Take that you Wraith!

Sutannir’s Promise: A sermon in a Courage consecration will give hero points back.

Night
Secrets of the Soul’s Desire Very niche, probably won’t get you much game as existing covens have the market of 4-5 people an event sewn up.

Secrets of Skilful Artifice Worth a look because of all the wierd little religion-aiding magic items.

Clear Counsel of the Everflowing River - Ask an eternal for a hint, often useful for religion plot.

Day
Skein of Years: Tell me the history of that thing we just dug up that might be related to a liao vision/religious history.

Eyes of the Soul’s Past More niche vision stuff.

Combing the Beach/Swim Leviathan’s Depths Ask an Eternal for a hint, often useful for religion plot.

Autumn
Ties that Bind: We caught an Anarchy cult with this one by scanning them and linking their coven name to an incident. Also works for sects. On the reverse end, if you’re playing a dodgy cult, Night shroud rituals might buy you time to remove your affiliations.

Mantle of the Golden Orator This can have a serious impact in smaller assemblies.

Timeless Hammer Rythm for when you need a Silent Bell tomorrow

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#3

There is a whole archetype in Highguard built around religious wizards: Magister.

Magisters are priests who practice magic (or mages who follow the Way, I guess) and everything they do is supposed to be guided by Virtue. This is much more about RP than anything mechanical, and is a lot of fun. As a lot of magic centers around the influence of the Realms and Eternals on the mortal world, Magisters often find themselves advising and even protecting other mages from danger to their souls. Or that’s how they see it, anyway.

I’ve played a magister for the past 4 years and it’s lead to some great moments, such as the debate within Highguard when Llofir took some of our territory, when Skathe decided to involve herself in the business of a chapter, and other such occasions.

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#4

Another thing is that priests don’t necessarily need any priest skills to do priesting :slight_smile: . Some of the best game I had as a priest character was just giving counsel to the faithful. Like @thresher says Magisters are basically assumed to be priests because of their attitude and knowledge. Also I can see religious wizards picking up the odd Icon here and there to give them skills like Insight, Exorcism or the others in pinch :slight_smile: .

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#5

This! Still not got any priest skills, still get asked every time someone wants something done with Liao, or needs votes on their judgement! Apparently I have the attitude!

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#6

The only downside to being a magister is the meetings. You don’t have to go to all of them but I found I had to pick a favourite and dabble in the other to preserve my sanity.

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#7

Jim has covered the mechanics fairly well (although this ritual has adverse roleplaying effects but we want the mechanical effects so cast it and stick a hallowing on the person might be regarded as synergy (if generally less interesting.)

But the Empire Religion isn’t really about skills, what it provides is a set of values, which generally help steer you towards actions. The Religious skills have a lot of roleplaying effects that are geared up towards “Yes, do this thing, do it now!” or “Turn it up to 11.” However they rarely help you do it. Whereas Magic tends to have give you more tools to help you do something.

So say pairing an anointing of Loyalty, with a ritual like the sound of Drums to help a character overcome their nerves around battle and be there for their banner. Or an economic ritual to help someone get a leg up on some ambition they are working towards.
(On the flipside Insight is a really useful skill for the archaeologist ritualist build.)

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#8

There’s also a bunch of knowledge that crosses over when it comes to dealing with people commiting religious crimes.

for example, knowing your eternals and knowing the differences between janon and wendigo, why someone might deal with Ephsis and why Irra Harrah isn’t going to support a totalitarian.

Beyond that just knowing what magic is and isn’t capable of, and particularly what each realm can do, is often useful when it comes to Inquisitions dealing with magic, magicians and magically adjacent topics.

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#9

Would you please elaborate on the archaeologist ritualist build? I had a quick search on the forum but didn’t find anything.

#10

I suspect it’s a Day/Autumn Ritualist with some or all of these rituals mastered:

Clear Lens of the Eternal River (Day Rank 8) - Divines the historical significance of the immediate area. Useful on any trips through the Sentinel Gate potentially if they’re to places with a bunch of history.
Skein of Years (Day Rank 8) - Gives you a vision about the history of an object.

Hand of the Maker ( Autumn Rank 8) - Divines information about the crafter of an item.

And if you’ve got a coven then:

Swim Leviathan’s Depth (Day Rank 18) - As that might help get you context for any discoveries.

I’ve seen all of them used in game to get useful info and talking to a Giant Space Whale is always entertaining :slight_smile: .

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#11

Yeah that was me trying to avoid potentially going on a long talk about a niche area of the game, it’s basically building a character which is designed to poke the historical side of plot. (Which is defiantly a bit of a gamble in terms of finding game, but worth it if you pull it off.)

If you have a group focused on this I would recommend trying to get a Day/Winter coven together, but since how useful mastery the way into it would probably be start with Day 3 or Winter 3 and then slowly diversify. If you were starting with a group of 3 however you might want to grab Insight to start on one of the characters.

As to why Winter the obvious ritual is Whispers through the Black Gate, Necromancy is really useful in poking the past, and sometimes you will get a chance to speak to older figures through this ritual.
It’s also the game you might get use out of Echo of Life Remains although I am generally of the view you can improvise this if needed

Wisdom of the Balanced Blade might not seem like such an obvious pick, but I have ran into interesting curses when poking the past (and the whole cursed tomb idea.)

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#12

Yeah, as I put it IC “If saving one mana per headless corpse identified becomes cost-effective, you really have bigger problems than mana efficiency to deal with”

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