Fantasy Clerics
and
Clerical Fallacies
Addressing the myth of clerical healing
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There has been a lot of loose talk lately
about how peasants in a fantasy world
would be much better off than their reallife
counterparts, due to the availability of
magic; chiefly clerical healing magic.
Except in the most magic-rich worlds, this
will not be true for the common people,
especially those in rural districts.
Given the great potential for receiving
fatal injuries in the AD&D® game, it is
surprising that little emphasis has been
placed on the ability to heal. This healing
ability is one of the hallmarks of being a
cleric, and druids partake in it to a lesser
extent. Even paladins and rangers get into
the act at very high levels. But healing
spells are generally treated as just another
kind of magic.
This lack of emphasis is illustrated in
The Best of DRAGON® Magazine Anthology,
Volume II. In the first section is a
description of a new character class: the
healer. From the name, one would think
that this class concentrates on healing
spells, perhaps to the exclusion of all else.
This is wrong! Not only does the healer
use some nonhealing spells such as haste
and slow, but the class has no healing
spells at all at first level! All it has is a host
of detect spells (detect magic, detect poison,
etc.). The so-called healer cannot heal
anyone until he reaches third level, when
he can use second-level spells of his class.
A generalized cleric can do better than
that at first level with cure light wounds,
plus some specialized spells such as
remove fear and bless. The idea of a healing
class is good, but this particular one is
less than satisfactory.
Oriental Adventures offers the only
bright spot when it comes to an emphasis
on healing: the shukenja. Although
he gets
healing spells in the same slow manner as
regular clerics, he has more reason to use
them in nonadventure situations. Every
time a shukenja uses a curative spell on
someone not associated with the party, he
gets 100 experience points per level of the
spell he used. Although he does not get
more low-level curative spells, at least the
shift in emphasis is refreshing.
Every cleric-type character in the game
system, no matter what emphasis is placed
on healing, is limited by his ability to gain
curative spells. Here is where the healing
power of clerics is most nullified in all but
the most magic-rich worlds. Many of the
small villages out in the country are
unlikely to have a cleric; in areas without
a temple, of course, no one could train to
become one. Not only that, but the overwhelming
majority of clerics in any campaign
world will be low-level. In many
worlds this means that keeping a cleric
around would not be worth the bother to
peasant farmers; there?s just too little good
he can do. This is due to a combination of
magical limitations and the needs of peasant
farmers.
Level limitations
The needs of a farming village are often
quite different from those of a party of
adventurers. Leaving out the specialized
curative spells bless and remove fear, an
Acolyte has only 1 true healing
spell: cure light wounds. This spell is fine
for adventurers who engage in combat all
the time, but unless a peasant accidentally
belts a fellow reaper with his scythe at
harvest time, it won?t be needed much in
the everyday life of a farming community.
Peasants don?t get involved in battle much,
and with their poor weaponry, lack of
training, and low hit points (all peasants
discussed here are NPCs by definition),
they would generally be killed if they did.
The real killers of peasants in peacetime
are starvation, disease, and poison (due to
both tainted victuals and poisonous plants
and animals). This requires higher-level
spells, and hence higher-level clerics, to
remedy. The situation is aggravated by the
fact that there are no true curative spells
of the second level of power. With no
antidotes or neutralize poison spells available,
slow poison is rather ineffective as it
only delays the inevitable.
Thus, to peasant farmers, the first really
useful curative spell, cure disease, is a
third-level spell, requiring at least a 5thlevel
cleric to cast it. So we can see that
any village of people living the same general
life-style as that of ancient or medieval
Earth will not find it worth their
while to maintain a cleric of less than 5th
level. Actually, this is cutting things finer
than they should be, for there are times
when the ability to cast one cure disease
spell will not be enough.
As in the real world, plague can be a
devastating evil in a fantasy world. If
villages are spread rather far apart, their
isolation could prove to be an asset, as this
could limit the spread of a contagious
disease. Let one disease get a foothold,
however, and a major disaster is at hand.
Depending on the disease (fantasy worlds,
needless to say, are not limited to our
known diseases), several people might be
infected before anyone actually shows any
symptoms. The more people have the
disease, the more cure disease spells are
required. Remember, too, that the spell is
not called immunity from disease. The
germs infecting the victim are destroyed
by this spell, but there is nothing to keep
one from catching it again. Quarantine
helps, but if symptoms are slow to appear,
it might not be instituted until it is too late.
There is really no way the cleric can tell
people are ill until the symptoms appear.
Not even the highest-level clerics can cast
enough detect disease spells to cover the
population of an entire village at one go,
and previously covered people might catch
the disease from someone else while the
cleric is praying for "refills." Needless to
say, the highest-level clerics all live in
major cities or towns; they don?t hang
around dinky little villages out in the
boondocks on the off chance that a plague
might start. Even if they did, the highest level
cleric allowed in the AD&D game
could only cast nine cure disease spells per <check H4>
day. Unless quarantine is used (and even if
it is, in some cases), the possibility of reinfection
by uncured victims is everpresent.
Neutralize poison is a fourth-level spell,
requiring at least a 7th-level cleric to cast
it. Fortunately, mass poisonings are far less
frequent than plagues in peasant villages,
but unpleasant incidents could still crop
up if food is spoiled and if this fact is overlooked
until it?s too late. In addition, there
is a family of fungi which infests grains.
The most famous is ergot, but there are
others as well. These fungi do not harm
people of themselves, but they secrete
poisons (specifically, mycotoxins) which
do. Since these fungi reproduce at a rapid
rate, not noticing them in the village?s
stock of grain creates the potential for
poisons spreading with the speed of a
regular epidemic. With the victims being
poisoned instead of infected by disease
germs, cure disease is useless. These fungi
wreaked havoc on farmers from ancient
times to the 1940s, and they will do the
same in most fantasy worlds, especially in
areas where there are no clerics of 7th
level or higher.
As far as ordinary curative spells are
concerned, there are no others that would
really be useful. Heal requires a cleric of
at least 11th level (assuming he has a wisdom
of 17 or 18), and would generally be a
waste when a lower-level spell could do
just as well. Cure serious wounds and cure
critical wounds would be healing overkill
for zero-level characters. If a person with
from 1-6 hit points reached the point of
needing those spells, he would be dead.
Restoration is generally useless for the
same reason; if the typical peasant mixed,
it up with a wight or other energy-drainer,
he would be killed outright and probably
turned into a monster himself. Zero-level
characters simply can?t reach the point
where they require the fancier healing
spells, and there would be no one nearby,
who could cast them anyway. Students of
the ?healing magic advantage? school state
that clerics could cast expensive healing
spells on faithful followers even if they
can?t afford to pay. But they can?t cast the
spells if they don?t know the spells, and
that?s all there is to it! If a character needs
restoration of a drained energy level and
no cleric in the party can do it, the local
clerics probably can?t either. That character
will just have to wait until the party
gets back to the big city.
Raising the dead
With all the possibilities of death by
violence, poison, disease, etc., someone is
inevitably going to die. Now we get to the
biggies: raise dead and resurrection.
These
require clerics of 9th and 16th levels,
respectively, and only clerics with a wisdom
of 18 can learn seventh-level spells.
This is a good time to discuss another
problem for villages that rely on their
cleric for curative spells. A cleric who
stays at home, as opposed to adventuring,
is not going to rise in levels, and thus is
not going to be able to improve his ability
to help his parish (the shukenja could be
an exception to this rule). As we have
seen, a cleric has to rise to at least 5th
level to be of any practical use to a community
in the healing department. This
means going on adventures. In the case of
high-level clerics, anyone who dies while
the cleric is gone will have to wait until his
return to be brought back to life. And
here we have an interesting dilemma.
Raise dead is the lower-level spell, and
hence the most common. Its effectiveness,
however, is negated if the number of days
the person has been dead exceeds the
cleric?s level. Therefore, even the highestlevel
cleric (who probably wouldn?t hang
around a village) will only be able to use
raise dead if the person has been dead
roughly a month or less. If he?s been dead
for longer than that before the cleric
returns from his quest, said cleric will
have to go on more and longer quests in
order to reach 16th level and gain the
ability to cast resurrection. Another problem
with raise dead is that the body must
be intact. If it?s not the dead of winter, and
the village doesn?t have enough salt to
preserve the body (they probably won?t),
the dear departed will have to be buried ?
not only as an act of reverence, but also as
an act of sanitation.
A village in a remote wooded area might
be able to get healing help from a druid,
but this class is less useful than clerics for
the purpose of healing. The druid doesn?t
even get cure light wounds until 2nd level,
when he can use clerical spells of the same
level. This puts the druid neatly between
the regular cleric and the healer class. The
druid also cannot bring back the dead.
Reincarnation doesn?t help if the return of
a specific person is desired. A human
widower who had a beautiful blonde wife
might not appreciate getting a half-orc in
her place. If a high-level cleric isn?t handy,
players won?t be able to bring back dead
friends unless they can get their hands on
a wish. A rod of resurrection might work,
but the players will still need a cleric, as
only a cleric can use the thing.
In summary, the advantages of clerical
healing, though vital for adventuring
parties, are mostly impractical for small
villages for two reasons. First, there won?t
be enough clerics of high enough level (at
least 5th) to go around. Second, the cleric
will often be off adventuring in order to
raise his level and thus increase the power
and number of spells he can cast. As a
result, he will often be absent when his
presence is most needed. Some campaign
worlds may have powerful clerics behind
every bush, but in most worlds, specialists
are relatively scarce ? especially specialists
in magic. This may seem cruel, but it is
nevertheless a fact of life. Besides, the
rarity of magic in a village has one advantage
for the purpose of the game: peasants
wishing to escape the inevitability of disease
are a major source of NPC recruits
for a party of adventurers who are willing
to share their healing resources with their
hirelings. After all, why else would zero-level
nobodies go on adventures that are
often lethal for even high-level, professional
adventurers?
DECEMBER 1988
THE FORUM
Mr. Gregory Detwiler?s fine article ?Fantasy
Clerics and Clerical Fallacies?
(issue #140) identifies
how limited the usefulness
of a village priest
(typically a 3rd-level
cleric) would be to a group
of village peasants in need
of healing. Even the
cure light wounds spells
would be too strong for
most needs and too limited
in number; magic
devices such as wands and
staves would also be
too strong and too valuable
to use on a peasant
population. However, Mr.
Detwiler overlooks
what was and still is regularly
available to
myself and other High Church
(Catholic, Orthodox,
and some Episcopal) priests
as a normal
supernatural healing agent:
holy oils.
There are three types of these
oils, conseorated
each year during Holy Week
by the
bishop in his cathedral and
distributed to all
parishes and monasteries.
The Oil of Catechumen
is used on newly born or
newly converted
individuals to allow the
sacraments to be received.
In game terms, this would
be considered
a necessary prerequisite
for receiving any good
magic: heal, bless, strength,
or shield spells. The
other important oil is Sacred
Chrism, which is
used by the bishop to consecrate
people and
things. In game terms, neither
a cleric nor a
paladin would be able to
cast any spells or turn
undead without having been
so anointed. But
the oil most germane to this
discussion is the Oil
of the Sick. The priest anoints
all those in danger
of death as rapidly as he
can, but only once
per occasion. In game terms,
if anyone was
down to only 1 hp, the cleric
could anoint him,
restoring 1-4 hp and curing
the disease(s)?if the
Good Lord so chooses. In
the game there would
be a 50% chance for such
healing for each
person (possibly modified
by the holiness of his
behavior)?but the priest
could anoint hundreds
each day. (I have done so.)
Fr. Patrick J. Dolan
Killeen TX
(Dragon #147)
In issue #140, Gregory Detwiler
goes to great
lengths to say that the average
peasant in the
AD&D® game
world is no better off than his
counterpart in this world.
This is because peasants
have little use for the spells
used by clerics,
and those spells that can be used are too few to
help a large number of people. While it is true
that even powerful clerics do not have enough
spells to treat everyone in an epidemic or a
disaster, they do have more than enough power
at lower levels to lessen the effects of such
horrors as plague, famine, spoiled food, and
disasters.
All of this assumes that each village would
have at least 1 cleric of 3rd level: a priest.
This does not seem as outrageous as Mr. Detwiler
holds, since the churches of the world can
only benefit from having followers in villages. In
fact, such parishes may be more loyal than city
dwellers who have several different temples
available to them. In return for one or two sons
being sent into church service as clerics, artisans,
or soldiers, the church sends a priest to
look out for the town and to ensure a steady
influx of worshipers, income, and followers. At
3rd level, the village priest would have access to
all spells through 2nd level, which -- while not
earth shaking--can go a long way toward making
life better for the peasant.
The major element in reducing the peasant
population in any primitive culture is disease,
usually brought on by malnutrition. Although a
priest could not create food to feed a village in
times of trouble, regular use of purify food &
drink spells could do a lot to cut down on the
growth of parasites in the water supply and
food reserves. Should trouble strike, a create
water spell could be used to generate a limited
supply of purfe water for the children in the
village, who have less resistance to such parasites.
This would cut down on the infant mortality
rate, meaning a greater number of children
would live to become adult peasants who would
then have children of their own.
The adventurers' favorite spell, cure light
wounds, also has far more use than allowed for
by Mr. Detwiler. Accidents among peasants
were, and in some places still are, far more
common than the one incident where the peasant
"accidentally belts a fellow reaper with his
scythe." Accidents in construction or in the
handling of temperamental horses can cause
terrible amounts of damage
to a person; just
look at the damage capability
of a horse in the
Monster Manual for example.
Even if not fatal,
such injuries could cripple
a man, reducing his
ability to work and cutting
down the food
supply for his family. Similarly,
the use of such a
spell on farm animals can
save valuable livestock
from a plethora of injuries.
Cure light
wounds cast on a woman who
has just completed
childbirth would, in almost
all cases, save
the woman from death, internal
injuries, infection
from dirty surroundings,
or ham-handed
doctors. This is certainly
important since, until
the second half of this century,
more women
died in childbirth than in
any other way.
Although spells like aid and
slow poison are
also rejected by Mr. Detwiler
because they are
only short-term solutions,
they can be of great
help to the peasant who needs
emergency
treatment. It only takes
seconds to cast a spell
(less time than it takes
to apply a tourniquet),
and this may give the cleric
the time needed to
get proper medical aid or
concoct an antidote.
Admittedly, at low levels
the time is very limited,
but in an emergency, every
second counts.
Spells such as speak with
animals and augury
can be used for watching
for trouble before it
hits the congregation, giving
villagers a chance
to prepare for the unpleasantness
of a marauding
band of orcs or an early
winter. A ceremony
spell such as burial can
ensure that undead
creatures do not generate
from the village?s
recent dead.
While these are only examples of what can be
done with low-level spells, they can give players
an idea on how to run local clerics in rural
villages. While such men and women may not
be able to prevent epidemics, drought, and
famine, they can certainly reduce the damage of
such events and reduce the wear and tear on
the villagers caused by everyday events, making
the villagers more able to resist the real disasters
when they occur. Such clerical aid also
makes the average man better disposed toward
the clergy, ensuring the church's support in a
region and strengthening the church that the
cleric serves, making it stronger and therefore
better able to serve its followers.
Paul Astle
Larchmont NY
(Dragon #147)