30 More Priests, Monks and Abbots

1-The Thomas A Becket 

The Thomas A Becket was once one of the closest personal friends of the King and it was because of this that the King made sure that he was appointed to a high religious position. The Thomas warned the King that it was a mistake to give him this position, as it would mean that his first loyalty would shift from serving the King to serving the Church, but the King did not listen to him. Soon afterwards the two ended up at loggerheads with each other as the Thomas refused to bend the Church to carrying out the will of the King. Unable to arrest him as a traitor, the King blurted out some very nasty things about him in public at Court, and four knights overheard him. Now it is likely that the Thomas A Becket will end up earning himself a martyr’s death and the King will be in disgrace in the eyes of his people.

2-The John Ball

A relatively poor parish priest, the John Ball started to identify himself more with the poor peasants whose souls he tried to save and whose weddings and baptisms and funerals he performed then with the wealthy pampered priests at the top of the Church hierarchy. He started preaching that the nobility would be nothing without the peasants whose weddings served and fed them and fought in their wars, and was thrown into prison on a heresy charge that could have seen him burned alive at the stake. This was the last straw for his parishioners who took up arms, busted him out of jail and started a huge revolt. If it succeeds the John Ball will take over the Church in his country and be able to make whatever reforms he sees fit, but if it fails he will certainly be burned alive for all the trouble that he and his revolutionary religious ideas have stirred up. He believes that all men are equal.

3-The Torquemada

For the Torquemada, Orthodoxy of religion is the most important thing in his life, and he firmly believes that heresy endangers people’s immortal souls. As such, he has set up a Holy Inquisition that hunts down those who worship other religions or have unorthodox views of his own religion, and he either forces them to repent or has them burned alive at the stake along with their heretical religious books and scrolls, bringing terror to the people of the country that he lives in.

4-The Secret Cultist 

A respected bishop by day who has been in the priesthood for over thirty years, by night he is the leader of a secret and forbidden cult cell of The Children of Ma-O and secretly serves that dark God instead, seeking to bring Him back to the world through all manner of evil deeds including human sacrifice. When he dies, it will be to Ma-O’s dark undersea afterlife where his soul will end up- where it will be rewarded for its loyalty during his lifetime. He was recruited into the cult by his beloved wife.

5-The Good

This priest is the sort of priest that all religious people should strive to be like. He or she comforts people who are near death without judging them, helps the sick and the poor, provides baptism or the equivalent, weddings and funerals for reasonable prices , and stays well clear of scandals. Whilst a firm believer in his or her religion, he or she is tolerant of other faiths.

6-The Bad

This priest is the sort of priest that gives religion in general a bad name. Be it committing unspeakable sins with young choirboys, or embezzling from charities , or secretly consorting with demonic powers or raising the Undead, or fuelling the unholy fires of bigotry and intolerance, or all of the above, he or she is Bad News.

7-The Ugly 

When an outbreak of leprosy broke out, this priest stayed with the lepers to comfort them when everyone else fled, and now he has caught the disease too and been quarantined on an island with the rest of the lepers until he and they are either cured or die there. Although ugly on the outside, he is anything but ugly inside and if there is a Heaven after death he is likely to go there.

8-The Strict 

This monk turned abbot in charge of a major monastery is very strict about the monks under his command obeying their monastic vows down to the last prayer. He also gets as much money from the tenants on his monastic estates as he can, and many monks privately wonder where the money is going, as it is not benefiting them-and it does not seem to be personally benefiting their strict abbot either who is as strict with himself as he is with his monks.

9-The Hearty

The Hearty is also an abbot in charge of a community of monks, but unlike the Strict, he is a jolly soul who turns a blind eye to minor breaches of monastic discipline, and loves the great religious ceremonies of the year when there are feasts at the monastery. He is forgiving of the monastery tenants if they occasionally get into debt, as long as they pay their rents as soon as they can. The Strict thinks he is encouraging his monks to become fat and lazy, whilst the Hearty thinks that the Strict is a miserable man whose actions turn people away from a religious lifestyle.

10-The Mourner

This morbidly miserable man only seems to be “ happy “ when he is giving a funeral oration at a grave or a cremation pyre. Baptisms or the equivalent? Weddings? Enjoyable celebrations? His heart is not in it. Watching a funeral pyre light up or a corpse in its coffin be lowered into the ground? For some strange reason, he really thinks there is fun in funerals and is never happier than when comforting the mourners.

11-The Ex Emperor 

Once he ruled a mighty empire, but he messed it up and became wildly unpopular and one of his generals seized the throne. He was given the choices of a quick beheading, or being blinded and castrated, or becoming a monk for the rest of his life, and not surprisingly opted for the last choice. He misses his power that he used to enjoy and hates his strict abbot.

12-The Calligrapher 

A monk in the monastery run by the Hearty, he delights in creating beautiful religious books and scripture and pictures and has a special talent for it. People who are both religious and wealthy donate large sums of money to the monastery in exchange for one of his beautiful religious books.

13-The Crusader 

When the ArchPriest of his religion declared that all who went on a Holy Crusade against the unbelievers and rescued the Holy City would automatically earn Heavenly pleasure when they died he was one of the first people to sign up, and he has spent over a year on the road so far, yet never seems downhearted. He has fought in two battles so far, fighting not with a sword ( as priests are not supposed to shed blood) but with a sturdy oak staff tipped with bronze. He is as intolerant of other religions as his fellow Crusaders. When people die on the road or the battlefield he preforms their funeral rites, when people marry he preforms their weddings, and his preaching is good for Crusader morale.

14-The Priest Mage

In his country, magic is not entirely banned because it is too useful, but only the priests and priestesses of the state religion and the highest ranking nobility can legally learn and cast magic.As the local priest of a village, he does the work of what in other countries would be done by village witches- healing minor injuries, fixing pots, summoning runaway goats, finding missing people and things, as well priestly work like baptisms, naming, weddings and funerals. He is a popular man.

15-The Historian

He has set out to write a history of his country from the earliest times to the present day. A lot of what he has written is rumours and superstition, especially when he writes about prehistoric times, and most of the early kings that he wrote about either didn’t do what he said they did, or didn’t really exist at all. At least he has tried to record the past, however, and he is doing his best.

16-The Necromancer 

In his country, priests can legally learn the spells of necromancy. The Undead may only be raised in a true emergency, such as an invasion that threatens the entire country, but for a price, people may speak to ghosts of the deceased. Murder victims can inform on their murderers, people can tell their relatives where things like missing wills are, and those who ended up in the horrors of Hell can warn their families not to end up like them after death and have a short term escape from their torment.

17-The Pardoner

Deeply corrupt even by the standards of his fellow senior clergy, he sells pardons for sins, takes bribes, steals from charities meant for the sick and poor, and the Protestant hates him and those like him and believes that he is spoiling the good name of the Church in the eyes of the people.

18-The Deacon Brodie

The Deacon Brodie has a double life as a church deacon by day and an armed burglar by night, who breaks into the houses of the wealthy and powerful to help himself to their luxury belongings and what money he can find. One of these burglaries went wrong and he stabbed and killed the house owner whilst escaping, so if he is caught he will face the death penalty. The days of the benefit of clergy are long over.

19-The Healer

This priest volunteered to work at a hospital and has healed the sick, bound broken bones, and even done his best, without much success, to help those deemed insane. In a land where there is a lot of resentment of the often wealthy and out of touch clergy, he and his religious order is genuinely popular because they provide free medical care to both the rich and the poor alike, as well as decent funerals to those who are beyond saving.

20-The Holier Then Thou

The Holier Than Thou runs a homeless shelter and is deeply unpopular with the majority of the luckless inmates, both because he forces them to go to religious services of his religion regardless of their own faith or lack of it, and because of his general attitude that he is so much better than they are.

21-The Vicar of Bray

The Vicar of Bray has changed his religion and his religious vestments four times, because when his King died his heir changed the state religion. Then when the heir died the new heir changed the religion back to the old one again. Then the country got into an ill advised war and was conquered by another country and the victors changed the state religion to their own one. Whilst others were sent to burn at the stake for not renouncing their faith, he remained untouched by the religious persecution because he was willing and able to bend like a reed blown by the wind.

22-The Unsure

He is not sure if he wants to take up the religious life or not, and has not taken any binding vows yet, but is living at a monastery as one of the monks, dressing, living and praying like they do.

23-The Unwilling 

He really does not want to become a priest, as he is privately an unbeliever for a start, but his father has threatened to either have him murdered during a hunting trip or have his gender magically changed otherwise, as he does not want his son to succeed him to the barony.

24-The Holy Fool

Many say that the half naked Holy Fool is insane. He has religious visions, sometimes rambles on about things, and lives through begging and from food given to him by his supporters. He once criticised Queen Yocasta to her face, but she didn’t have him executed, thrown into a dungeon or sent to The Songpit because like a jester, genuinely Holy Fools enjoy the jester’s privilege of speaking truth to power, plus she didn’t want to get very unpopular.

25-The Protestant 

This priest believes that the higher ups in his religion are all corrupt, and thinks that a priest is not needed to talk to the Gods and that anyone can talk to them and even take holy confession. He has illegally translated his holy book into the common language so everyone can read it and understand how it is different than what the priests insist is written down in it. If he is not careful, he has a stake and a firey future awaiting him. If he manages to avoid being burned alive, he might ignite a religious war that will split his religion into two sects who both hate each other with a passion.

26-The Phineas Priest

A “ Phineas Priest “ is a lone wolf racist terrorist who has a hatred of interracial relationships. This one hates the fact that a human and a hobgoblin are in love, and is waiting for a chance to murder one or both of them and escape into the wilderness. As they have no organisation, they are very hard to infiltrate with undercover agents. Someone “ self-appoints” themselves to the Phineas Priesthood by adopting their beliefs and desires for racial violence.

27-The St Bernard

The closest religious equivalent to a rock star, he is one of the most influential religious figures in his country and is able to even persuade the King of his country to bend to his will at times.

28-The Hong Xiuquan

He wanted to join the civil service, but when he failed his exams he had a religious vision telling him to take over his country and saying that he was the reincarnation of a famous religious leader of the distant past. An amazing orator, he was able to bend enough people to his cause to create an army, start a full scale rebellion and has defeated the imperial army on more than one occasion. If he succeeds, it is uncertain whether his rule will bring great success to his country or turn it into Hell on earth. If he loses, his torture and execution is certain.

29-The Ascetic 

He lives by himself, sleeping on top of a stone pillar, and his repeated fasting and self mortification is damaging his health. The Hearty is worried about him.

30-The Prison Chaplain

He works at the {Paul and Peter Fortress] trying to bring some comfort to those on Death Row who are sitting in their bleak cells awaiting their executions, and although he believes in law and order, he also feels sorry for many of them, and even privately thinks that at least one of them is innocent, but does not want to risk his own career by saying so in public.