Its difficult to be an atheist in a world
where the Gods come and throw rocks through your windows.

In the world of Mystara, the Gods take an active interest in the life and times of humanity. They do not usually take any direct action, but try to influence the world through devotees, both lay people and clerics.

Priests of a God are usually invested with a certain amount of power during an initiation period. They learn about the theology of their faith, the rites and rituals and how to direct the God's power on earth through magic.

Priests may worship a pantheon (if such a thing exists for their faith) or concentrate their devotion to a single God. Clerics who worship an entire pantheon may call upon any of the Gods in that pantheon to answer their prayers as seems appropriate to achieve the task they are trying to accomplish. Clerics who stick with one God have a much more limited access to spells - their God will only answer and grant certain prayers as fulfils their particular wishes, but they also invest their priests with specific powers such as Justice Gods allowing their priests to determine truth, or a warrior God's priests mystically inspiring their fellows in battle.

The priest who desires to effect a clerical spell must pray to their God or Goddess to give them the ability to cast it. The Immortals have their own preferences for which spells their followers use, and it varies from situation to situation. For instance, a follower of a God of fire who prays for Resist Fire is almost certain to cast the spell, but a follower of Sorwe the Healer is unlikely to be granted Finger of Death.

Casting

Faith is used to cast spells as follows. To cast a spell, the priest in question rolls their faith rating, against a difficulty of the spell level + 5. In addition, the priest may only call for spells of a level equal or less than their Faith - other requests will be ignored.

If the priest suceeds in their roll, they lose a temporary faith point, which can be regained through meditation or a minor service.

If the Faith roll is failed, the cleric loses one temporary point of Faith. No temporary faith can be regained until a minor religious service or rite is performed, such as fasting or cleansing rituals.

If the roll is botched, the cleric loses one temporary faith, plus one temporary faith for each 1 that was rolled on the dice. If they posess less temporary faith points than the level of spell, takes any excess as aggravated wounds. In addition, their God may be angered at this misuse of their power and take steps against the character. Punishments such as they do not recover any faith points for a time, spells are not granted at all, or until they undergo purification rituals, or perhaps a quest or pilgrimage that must be fulfilled. The punishment should be appropriate to the spell that was botched.

For example, Jane is a cleric of Petra with 3 faith. She wants to cast Cure Light Wounds upon a wounded comrade. The player rolls her Faith dice and the character prays to Petra for aid.

Jane rolls 5 6 7, which is two sucesses. She loses a point of temporaray faith and her companion is healed of two levels of damage.

If she had rolled 1 1 4, then the roll would be a botch - Jane would have lost 3 temporary faith, and taken aggravated wounds if she had less than that left. Jane would be unable to regain her faith points until she had meditated in a church and performed a day of fasting and good works (for instance).

Other factors can help reduce the difficulty of spells. Performing an elaborate ceremony of some sort can help the cleric focus their mind and belief upon the job at hand, and make sure they have their God's full attention. The minimum difficulty for a faith roll is 3.

Length of ceremony	Reduction in Difficulty
10 minutes	1
1 hour	2
1 day	3
1 week	4

Holy ground also has an effect upon spell difficulty. Different areas have a rating between 1 and 5, which is also the reduction (or increase for opposing faiths) in difficulty of spells.

Group casting

Clerics of the same faith can combine their spellcasting abilities and produce some truly amazing effects. All the priests casting the spell combined their dice and contribute their faith point, and the dice are rolled against the difficulty of the spell leader. For every 5 priests involved in casting a spell, the difficulty of the spell drops by 1. Lay members of a congregation may also be able to add their force of faith to a given ritual, even if none of them posess a faith attribute. This sort of additional effect would only be possible in consecrated place (Holy Ground, in effect).

Regaining Faith

Faith points may be regained by meditating or performing certain rites or rituals. To meditate, the player rolls Wits + Meditation against a difficulty of 7. Sucess returns that number of temporary faith points to the priest. Failure indicates that the character was unable to achieve the mental state needed to ponder their god. A botch leaves them unable to achieve the proper mental state until (for instance) they have been able to perform ceremonies of purification in a consecrated area. Meditation for Faith may be attempted only once per day, and circumstances or environment may prevent or enhance the character from doing so (a cleric of Nyx, Night's Dark Terror, is unlikely to be sucessful in bright sunlight in a garden of living things, but a priest of Solarios would have no problems).

1st Level

Cure Light Wounds
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Resist: Stamina
Effect: Casting this spell heals [Succ] Wound Levels of the recipient or one aggravated wound. This spell can be reversed to become Cause Light Wounds, which causes [Succ] Wound Levels on the next person the caster touches.

Detect Evil
Range: [Succ]*10 feet.
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Allows the caster to sense any and all hostiles within the spell range. No physical manifestations occur - the caster is merely aware of creatures and other beings that wish him harm.

Detect Magic
Range: [Succ]*10 feet
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once cast, this spell allows the caster to sense any and all magic within the spell range. The more successes rolled, the more accurately the caster can determine the exact strength of the magic. ie: With one success, the caster would not be able to determine between a potion of cure light wounds and an artifact - both would simply register as 'magic'. This spell does not give any indication of the type of magic that might be sensed.

Light
Range: Touch
Duration: Scene / [Succ] hours.
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell creates a sphere [Succ] * 10 feet in radius of reading light which lasts a full day, or it can be cast directly on a creature, who, if they fail their Willpower roll, is blinded for the duration. Some Gods will also grant a reversed form of the spell (Dark) which has the opposite effect.

Protection from Evil
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once this spell is cast, any rolls made to attempt to hurt the caster directly become [Succ] more difficult. eg: Tom casts this spell and gets 2 sucesses. Uglur the goblin tries to hit him with a short sword. Normally the difficulty to hit would be 5, but because of the Protection spell, it is now a 7. Uglur gets one sucess nonetheless, and rolls for damage - normally diff 6, but again, because of the spell, it is a diff 8 roll.

In addition, Enchanted creatures (charmed, undead, constructs) cannot directly attack the caster - they are simply incapable of using any form of melee against the caster. They can, however, use missile weapons and spells.

Purify Food and Water
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: This useful spell changes enough stale or foul food for [Succ]*2 people into edible food. Not only human food may be affected, but larger animals require more successes - for example, a horse-worth of food requires as many successes as would be necessary for 4 humans.

Remove Fear
Range: Touch
Duration: instantaneous / [Succ] rounds
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell calms and removes fear from one creature. If cast upon a composed creature it adds 2 dice to their Willpower against all attempts to terrify the creature. A reversed form of the spell exists, Scare, which causes the victim to run in fear if they fail the normal Willpower roll.

Resist Cold
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None.
Effect: This spell gives the caster [Succ] extra dice to soak against cold damage only.

2nd Level

Bless
Range: 60'
Duration: Scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell affects all within 20' not yet in melee that are of your faith or similar. The caster has the option of affecting all those upon whom the spell is cast by adding dice to particular tasks, or lowering the difficulty of certain rolls. All those who are effected by the spell have the same benefits. [Succ] dice can be added or the difficulty for a roll can be lower by [Succ]. The tasks that can be blessed in this fashion differ between each God. Blight, the reversed spell, has the opposite effect on enemies of the priest.

Find Traps
Range: [Succ]*10 feet
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once cast, this spell causes all traps within the range to glow with an eerie blue light.

Hold Person
Range: 180
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: Willpower
Effect: The caster may choose up to 4 creatures to be paralysed. They resist with a Willpower roll. If the spell is cast at 4 creatures, the difficulty is 5 - if cast at one creature, the difficulty of its Willpower roll is 8. This spell can be reversed to become Free Person, which removes any form of paralysis from a creature.

Sense True Nature
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 round
Resist: None
Effect: This spell determines the Nature of 1 creature. If reversed, it hides the true nature of the creature for 1 scene.

Resist Fire
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of extra dice to the caster's stamina, but only for soaks against fire and heat damage.

Silence 15' radius
Range: 180'
Duration: [Succ] hours
Resist: None/Willpower
Effect: Creates an area of absolute silence in which no sound can be created. The effect is centred wherever the caster decides within 180 feet, although if it is centred on a creature, they may make a Willpower roll to avoid having the spell 'stick' as such. The creature that the spell is cast upon may, if the caster decides, hear noise created from outside of the 15'.

Snake Charm
Range: 60'
Duration: Scene
Resist: Willpower
Effect: Charms [Succ] snakes within 60' as the cleric chooses. If the snakes are already attacking or hostile, they may make a Willpower roll to resist the effect.

Speak with Animals
Range: Caster only
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to speak to animals of one specific type for as many rounds as they rolled successes (effectively, it allows as many questions or orders as the caster rolled successes). It does not guarantee a benevolent response - a hungry tiger is still hungry.

3rd Level

Continual Light
Range: 120'
Duration: Permanent
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell creates a sphere of light [Succ] * 10 feet across. The light is clear but not as strong as sunlight. If the caster casts it upon a specific creature, it may make a Willpower roll to resist being blinded until the spell is removed. This spell may be reversed to cast Continual Dark.

Cure Blindness
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: Upon casting this spell upon a recipient, it cures that creature of blindness, or cancels [Succ] worth of light or dark spells. This spell may be reversed to Cause Blindness, which causes a physical blindness, reducing the victim's Perception by [Succ]. If the victim's perception is reduced to 0, they are blind.

Cure Disease
Range: 30'
Duration: Permanent
Resist: Stamina
Effect: This spell has the potential to cure almost any disease. With one success, a cold may be dispersed. With two successes, more serious diseases may be reduced or dispersed, such as influenza or measles. Three successes are necessary to remove deadly diseases such as malaria and plague. With five successes, magical diseases such as lycanthropy may be cured. The reversed spell, Cause Disease, may cause the equivalent diseases, but is resisted with Stamina.

Growth of Animal
Range: 120
Duration: 1 Day
Resist: None
Effect: This spell doubles the size of up to [Succ] number of normal animals. Their physical Traits are also doubled - eg: a rat of Str 1, Dex 3 and Sta 1 becomes a large rat with Str 2, Dex 6 and Sta 2.

Locate Object
Range: Caster only
Duration: 6 hours.
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to find one normal object within [Succ]*60 feet. The caster must know what the object looks like (possibly a Perception roll to visualise it precisely).

Remove Curse
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: This spell cancels the successes of another curse. The reversed spell allows the caster to cast a Curse. The exact effects of the curse are up to the caster, but the power of the spell is dependant on the number of sucesses the caster rolled.

Speak with the Dead
Range: 10'
Duration: 1 round per point of faith.
Resist: None or Willpower
Effect: The caster may, upon sucessful casting of this spell, ask a number of questions of a recently passed-on spirit as she has faith points. An spirit who is of the same faith as the priest will not usually resist, but an opposed spirit may.

Striking
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of automatic sucesses to damage rolls to physical attacks used with one weapon that the caster touches.