Evil Cleric Hooks

[Stormcrow]

As a disclaimer, please no time wasters. I'm asking for advice for hooks for a serious campaign, with little humour.

I'm currently running a solo spin off campaign after the end of my last one following the life of an Evil Cleric of the Goddess of Ill-Fortune. She's the second in command of her church and the mistress of their chapel in the country's capital. She's asked me for some religious intrigue related missions and i am at a loss to provide them. Help?

Other Notable Facts:
Their church isn't evil, its more of a balance of good luck bad luck thing, but they are regarded as evil.
The country and more so the capital are largely worshipers of the goddess of good luck.
The Cleric is trying to expand her deities influence in the capital and the country.

[kamikasei]

Gambling.

Spreading the influence of the church of ill fortune just screams gambling to me. Say the plan is to set up casinos and dice-halls through fronts, then have clerics of the church in position to recruit from those having bad luck.

What exactly does the clergy do? Would protecting people from bad luck (as opposed to actually bringing people good luck) fall under their remit?

[daggaz]

A curse of bad luck has beset the other church, and her character has been captured and is being interrogated, as the church of good luck is certain that her headpriest is to blame. She is somehow coerced/convinced to assist in an investigation, which, after all the plot twists and moments of tension, reveals that the allegations are laid upon the wrong person (introduce BBEG). Ultimately, the good church ends up needing their help to end the curse, as they do have a certain insight into such matters, and this situations ends with the strengthening of both churches should the BBEG be defeated.

[BrokenButterfly]

How about having the clergy deal with an appearance of some "bad-luck" outsiders? Such as the yugoloth from the MM4 that forces opponents to reroll their attack rolls and saves? Or the undead thing from MM3 that can restart rounds or its' own activations? These creatures are undoubtedly evil, but they seem to represent the Goddess of Ill-Fortune's methods. Perhaps the party need to protect the creatures from retribution or recruit them into the fold, something other than simply "Kill the monster, gain the XP."

[Indon]

I don't think you can go wrong with conflict with the clerics of another evil deity.

[Telonius]

Gambling.

Spreading the influence of the church of ill fortune just screams gambling to me. Say the plan is to set up casinos and dice-halls through fronts, then have clerics of the church in position to recruit from those having bad luck.

What exactly does the clergy do? Would protecting people from bad luck (as opposed to actually bringing people good luck) fall under their remit?

Remember, Thursday night is Bingo night! This sounds like a great hook.

[PnP Fan]

You might start with asking yourself the question:

Why do people worship a goddess of bad luck?
Is it Protection from Bad Luck?
Is it to give their enemies Bad Luck?
And I'm sure there are other reasons why someone might worship a goddess of Ill Fortune.

Once you've figured out why someone worships this goddess, create people who need the goddess, but don't realize that they need her. Show them to your player. More importantly, show them to your player, while they are talking to priests of the goddess of good fortune. Now you have your political struggle. Mix in someone on the other team (or even a third party!) creating situations for these formerly goddessless people, so that they need a goddess of good/ill fortune, and you've got a touch of intrigue. If you go down the third party route, remember, third party's typically wind up being conspiratorial elements in these things, so make sure they only operate through at least 2 or 3 stages of henchmen, who don't know their true boss is. The true boss should be something that should normally have no interest in human affairs, just to make things interesting. A dragon, or rakshasa for example. Their goal might be inscrutable, but it adds more depth if the goal/motive is something that the pc's can wrap their brains around. Who knows, if the goddesses of good and ill fortune are the dominant one's in the area, maybe the Third Party is looking to create a holy war between the two factions, so that they can make way for their god of XYZ to move in and take control.
Bottom line is that intrigue is based heavily in the motivations of people, and why they do things, more so than a typical adventure. Also, you may find that to do intrigue you have to play fast and loose with the alignment system. Lots of faithful people do the wrong things for the right reason. In a typical D&D campaign, this causes alignment shift, and loss of clerical/paladin powers, a clear sign that you've done something wrong and must atone (which is why intrigue is more difficult in standard D&D).

good luck!