Cleric assitance

[ReluctantReaper]

I have a cleric right now and know how i am going to build him i just need some help with his personality. His domains are healing and Death and right now his goal is to establish a religion yet he doesnt really have a foundation to build it on. He feels that a senseless death is the worst thing and that might doesnt make you right. He recently a horrible tragic event in which a dam broke down and killed thousands of people and he feels responsible for this so i had made him go into shock for the rest of the campaign. How would this big of an event change him exactly? If you need more answers ill be more then happy to reply.

[Ent]

What was he like before?

[ReluctantReaper]

Before the incident he was good cleric who did not really like to fight but did if he had to. He leans towards law and respects the government if its not corrupted. He has two traveling partners and the elf he is with is currently wanted by a lot of people because only he can access the artifact that was left by his father. He has a good friendship with the half-orc barbarian who is very honor bound though recently he left my cleric to die so i dont really know if he is.

[Blackjackg]

Hey, a psychology question!

Basically, you're talking about a guy who recently experienced a trauma that shook his beliefs to the very core, and that he feels responsible for. If we think psychodynamically (which, in a fantasy RPG, I think is justifiable), we could expect the emergence of psychological defense mechanisms. Ways that his mind can adjust to block out the pain and outrage he feels about the event. A few spring to mind that might work in particular for this character:

Projection: The character projects his feelings of guilt and self-anger out onto other PCs or NPCs that were also responsible for the dam breaking. He may act passive-aggressive toward fellow party members, and when they finally call him out, blame and berate them for their role in killing those thousands of peasants.

Reaction Formation: When his deep-rooted need to preserve life is challenged on such a basic level, he may change his personality to convince himself he has no such need. He no longer talks about preserving life, only about the inevitability of death. He may grumble when he has to cast a healing spell, and act gleeful when he smashes a foe's head in with his mace. He's still hurting inside, but he can't or won't acknowledge the pain.

Repression: He just refuses to think about the event. This is mostly unconscious, but others may see it as intentional. He basically forgets large parts of the event... he may remember that it happened, but no details (who did what, where or when). This has side effects... one can't just close off one part of the brain. He'll forget other things, most likely things that might remind him of the flood, like he might momentarily forget the name of the BBEG or even another party member. He might become very uncomfortable around bodies of water, or corpses, or whatever, and have to leave suddenly.

These are just three of the options that seem coolest to me. You can read more about defense mechanisms by doing a google search on them. In almost all cases, the path to returning back to "normal" is to come to the slow, painful acceptance of those deaths and his role in them.

[ReluctantReaper]

I really like the passive aggressive to the PC. I might do that to the Barbarian who left us AGAIN in the center of the damn just to chase the military leader when there were like 8 other guys and a dam crashing around us. I feel he has constatly thrown my friendship and trust towards him down a pit of i can do what i want because you'll save me routine.