Cleric heretic

[Stormtrooper666]

Hey

I'm going to be apart of a campaign soon. (5e, homebrew).

We're in the process of creating our characters. I like the cleric from what I've read but want to put a spin on it.

I'm looking for a cleric but not a normal God fearing cleric. I'm looking for more of a heretic type of character. In my head, the character was raised by clerics and the church but decided to leave after the hypocrisy and lies he witnesses. He's trying to bring the church down. I'm looking for ways for him to get his power not from a god

I like the aesthetic of a cleric with a mace,shield and being able to cast magic.

I'm looking for any help on making this a cleric that becomes an heretic and how to make that.

[LudicSavant]

Hey

I'm going to be apart of a campaign soon. (5e, homebrew).

We're in the process of creating our characters. I like the cleric from what I've read but want to put a spin on it.

I'm looking for a cleric but not a normal God fearing cleric. I'm looking for more of a heretic type of character. In my head, the character was raised by clerics and the church but decided to leave after the hypocrisy and lies he witnesses. He's trying to bring the church down. I'm looking for ways for him to get his power not from a god

I like the aesthetic of a cleric with a mace,shield and being able to cast magic.

I'm looking for any help on making this a cleric that becomes an heretic and how to make that.

Clerics already don't need to get their power from a god. There's a line in the core books about it.

[Sigreid]

I have an idea for a cleric that I'll do eventually with no skill in religion who nearly everything he says when talking about his God is wrong. Not because he's a con man or intentionally deceiving people. He's 100% in his convictions. He's just a nutcase. And some other God us providing him divine support because that God thinks its hilarious.

[Mastikator]

Hey

I'm going to be apart of a campaign soon. (5e, homebrew).

We're in the process of creating our characters. I like the cleric from what I've read but want to put a spin on it.

I'm looking for a cleric but not a normal God fearing cleric. I'm looking for more of a heretic type of character. In my head, the character was raised by clerics and the church but decided to leave after the hypocrisy and lies he witnesses. He's trying to bring the church down. I'm looking for ways for him to get his power not from a god

I like the aesthetic of a cleric with a mace,shield and being able to cast magic.

I'm looking for any help on making this a cleric that becomes an heretic and how to make that.

Are the hypocritical clerics true servants of their god, do they honestly and correctly represent that gods principles in actions and in words? Because if the answer is no, if they are abusing their status as clerics to perverse the teachings for their own benefits then maybe your character is the real true believer and they are the heretics.

[Battlebooze]

Are the hypocritical clerics true servants of their god, do they honestly and correctly represent that gods principles in actions and in words? Because if the answer is no, if they are abusing their status as clerics to perverse the teachings for their own benefits then maybe your character is the real true believer and they are the heretics.

Or, perhaps even more strange and disturbing, maybe the god doesn't care if his followers are hypocrites or not... as long as the religion itself is spread? Any attention is good attention?

[Mastikator]

Or, perhaps even more strange and disturbing, maybe the god doesn't care if his followers are hypocrites or not... as long as the religion itself is spread? Any attention is good attention?

[Eberron religion intensifies]

[Anymage]

In your average D&D world, you have multiple gods who have various ways that they can be directly or indirectly interacted with. The upshot is that you aren't going to have one monolithic Church, and that while you can certainly have individual churches that are corrupt it's unlikely that the whole thing would go bad without being corrected. If a god isn't pulling its weight, look for another that you do like. Your DM can change this, but doing so would change the metaphysics so our answers might not be relevant.

Planescape did have the Athar (who think that gods are just big extraplanar creatures who toy with the rest of us for prayer, and would be happy to knock them all down a peg or two), while 3e introduced the ur-priest (who powered their spellcasting by stealing bits of magic being sent to normal clerics). One or both could certainly apply to your character. Although in your average D&D world you're likely to run into good clerics/religions/gods, and being inherently antagonistic when a good temple is used as a questgiver could be a hassle for you and the DM.

Your character could have been raised in either an individual church that had gone toxic, or been raised in a particularly rigid religion while not being so rigid himself. In the first case you might well have been contacted by the god himself to clean out the accumulated rot, and in the second you might be contacted by a god of freedom to help undermine the overwhelming pressures to conform.

Divine magic might well be granted in a ceremony that fuses your soul with a lesser angel or similar being, but once that happens the power is innate to you. So you might have been granted clerical powers but then realized that the church was a cesspool and went off to do your own thing.

Clerics might be more akin to final fantasy white mages, a particular order of magic training that can be learned by anybody. The main order might or might not be affiliated with some church or another, but that's just tradition with no deeper backing behind it.

Ask your DM what the setting is, since different settings have a different understanding of gods and similar beings. The Forgotten Realms are different from Eberron, and both are different from Planescape. I've thrown out a few ideas that may be workable, but without a sense of what the world is and how divine abilities are powered there's a limited amount I can say. And if your DM hasn't picked a world and is still forming things in his head, asking up can help your character fit into the world more organically because you helped build that corner of the world.

[Gignere]

The best way in D&D to be a heretic is to select a god but pick a domain that’s normally outside of that god’s purview. Your powers demonstrate that their traditional followers don’t fully understand their god and potentially you have the correct doctrine. Maybe cool if you can work with your DM to create a new sect focused on your new domain for the old god.

[JonBeowulf]

One of my players did something kind of similar with a Celestial Warlock. He trained as a cleric but they kicked him out after he failed to demonstrate any 1st level cleric abilities after years of training ('cause, you know, warlock). He always insisted he was a cleric. Just work with your DM to find a deity that opposes whichever church you wanna destroy.

Or play any other warlock but introduce yourself as a Cleritic**.

** Yeah, I'm keeping that word.

[KorvinStarmast]

For the OP:
The simplest way to play that kind of Cleric is a Cleric of the Trickery Domain. Read up on it in the PHB and come back with further questions.

Or, dig into Xanathar's Guide to Everything and see if Celestial Warlock suits your needs. I am on my third one (one dead, one in curse of strahd, one in a home brew campaign. It's a very flexible sub-class / Patron choice).

I'm looking for a cleric but not a normal God fearing cleric. I'm looking for more of a heretic type of character. In my head, the character was raised by clerics and the church but decided to leave after the hypocrisy and lies he witnesses. He's trying to bring the church down. I'm looking for ways for him to get his power not from a god

I like the aesthetic of a cleric with a mace,shield and being able to cast magic.

I'm looking for any help on making this a cleric that becomes an heretic and how to make that. First off (me being nitpicky), God, capital G, is not in D&D ... unless your DM has so chosen to model/insert that RL religious system in their world. (I have met a few, not many, DMs over the years who have done that. The vast majority do not).
There are a variety of gods, little g, in the polytheistic/pantheon model that D&D generally uses, and has since the late 1970's. Pick one, or don't ....

Clerics already don't need to get their power from a god. There's a line in the core books about it. Forces and Philosophies, DMG pages 10-13.

For the OP: Please read that bit and discuss with your DM. Your DM may or may not find that appealing, and the DM Is The World Builder. (I mostly run Forces and Philosophies, but that's a matter of taste since I find the FR pantheon to be hot garbage and World of Greyhawk gods too numerous and inconsistent for my purposes).

In your average D&D world, you have multiple gods who have various ways that they can be directly or indirectly interacted with. The upshot is that you aren't going to have one monolithic Church I suggest that the OP read that over a few times so that it sinks in. This is a very important point to make. (And the rest of this post is well done, I applaud the detail you put into it). :smallsmile:

One of my players did something kind of similar with a Celestial Warlock. He trained as a cleric but they kicked him out after he failed to demonstrate any 1st level cleric abilities after years of training ('cause, you know, warlock). He always insisted he was a cleric. Just work with your DM to find a deity that opposes whichever church you wanna destroy.

Or play any other warlock but introduce yourself as a Cleritic**.

** Yeah, I'm keeping that word.
1. Celestial Warlock was my second suggestion, and I love your post.
Cleritic. + eleventy! :smallbiggrin:

[LibraryOgre]

Hey
I'm looking for a cleric but not a normal God fearing cleric. I'm looking for more of a heretic type of character. In my head, the character was raised by clerics and the church but decided to leave after the hypocrisy and lies he witnesses. He's trying to bring the church down. I'm looking for ways for him to get his power not from a god


Is he the heretic... or are they?

I'm reminded of Cadderly, from the Cleric Quintet. The priests of the Edificant Library weren't out-and-out heretics against their faiths, but they were slipping, losing some of the strictures of the faith; his ascension in the ranks solidified a return to orthodoxy.

If you don't have a particular religion in mind, I would pick something where it is reasonable that a number of priests in the hierarchy would not be clerics as a class... a god of war with Fighter-class clerics, or a god of thieves with rogue-class clerics. This would make the drifting away from the teachings a little less evident, since the god would not be as able to remove their powers.

[RogueJK]

Warlock sounds like a good option.

Either Celestial if you want them to have cleric-like abilities, or Great Old One if you want the "eldritch cultist" type.

Perhaps a Knowledge Cleric 1/GoOlock X, representing a former Knowledge Cleric who stumbled across forbidden tomes that warped his mind, and who know wants to spread the word of the "truth" that the other Knowledge Clerics are trying to keep locked away (for good reasons).

[da newt]

If the good suggestions above don't quite scratch your particular itch, you can also look into:
- bard (your magic has a different source, but it's also very buff, debuff, support and you can grab some iconic cleric spells along the way too)
- any of the warlock patronages
- druids
- divine soul sorcerer
- paladin - your magic comes from your conviction not (necessarily) a single god.

Any of these could be fashioned to suit your desirements for a cleritic type.

[Slipjig]

Have your character believe that they received a vision from their deity. It might be a warning, it might be a quest, it might even be a crusade. But the church hierarchy doesn't believe in this vision, and they are rapidly running out of patience with their errant priest.

This story also works with the Acolyte background, and then you can take whatever class you want. It's also fun to not know as a player whether the vision was actually true (or to be unsure about it's exact meaning).

[LibraryOgre]

Have your character believe that they received a vision from their deity. It might be a warning, it might be a quest, it might even be a crusade. But the church hierarchy doesn't believe in this vision, and they are rapidly running out of patience with their errant priest.


Works very good with a bard with a spy background. (https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Leliana)

[Trask]

I have an idea for a cleric that I'll do eventually with no skill in religion who nearly everything he says when talking about his God is wrong. Not because he's a con man or intentionally deceiving people. He's 100% in his convictions. He's just a nutcase. And some other God us providing him divine support because that God thinks its hilarious.

There's an old 3.5 adventure I ran, the Crucible of Freya, that has a fun NPC like that. In the town there's a cleric of Kord (a muscular, heroic, Thor-like god) and the cleric is a total loveable, honest meathead, but he knows almost nothing about of the details of his own religion and literally nothing of the details of other gods. It was a funny take on the "town cleric" trope.

[LudicSavant]

Forces and Philosophies, DMG pages 10-13.

For the OP: Please read that bit and discuss with your DM. Your DM may or may not find that appealing, and the DM Is The World Builder. (I mostly run Forces and Philosophies, but that's a matter of taste since I find the FR pantheon to be hot garbage and World of Greyhawk gods too numerous and inconsistent for my purposes).
I suggest that the OP read that over a few times so that it sinks in. This is a very important point to make. (And the rest of this post is well done, I applaud the detail you put into it). :smallsmile:

Yup that's the one.

[LibraryOgre]

There's an old 3.5 adventure I ran, the Crucible of Freya, that has a fun NPC like that. In the town there's a cleric of Kord (a muscular, heroic, Thor-like god) and the cleric is a total loveable, honest meathead, but he knows almost nothing about of the details of his own religion and literally nothing of the details of other gods. It was a funny take on the "town cleric" trope.

I rolled a cleric in Hackmaster who knew more about another religion than his own; I decided that he'd been raised to that religion, but was learning about his god on his own.

[Derges]

Atheist Cleric. Deny the existence of all Gods even in the face of many of them trying desperately to prove their power to you.

Be dismissive of all spiritual effects:
"abnormal weather patterns"
"Gas explosion"
"Placebo effect"
"Refracted light"

[Theodoxus]

I have a player who is playing a Twilight Cleric in the service of the Sun God as a new denomination she's trying to get started. Unbeknownst to the character (but fully under the player's direction) the cleric's power is actually coming from the Goddess of Death and Darkness. Unbeknownst to the player, but fully under my control, the cleric's power is actually coming from the Sun God, who is a giant jokester. If we ever get back to the campaign, the party is very close to the ultimate revelation - and I can't wait to see the player's face when they realize what has happened.

The funny thing is, the player has actually been kinda bummed out that the character (as far as they know) is beholden to the Goddess of Death. As the campaign has transpired, the cleric has actually been well received by the populace and the Twilight Faith has taken off, making the cleric a bit of a folk hero.

[Trask]

Missed opportunity for a funny thread title: Cleritic! New Subclass!

[Anymage]

Atheist Cleric. Deny the existence of all Gods even in the face of many of them trying desperately to prove their power to you.

Be dismissive of all spiritual effects:
"abnormal weather patterns"
"Gas explosion"
"Placebo effect"
"Refracted light"

I'm reminded of Discworld here. If someone gets to be too much of a pest asking if the gods exist, they tend to become a smoking pair of boots next to a message saying "we do".