The Church of the Sun (longish)

i was originally going to do this after the original posts about the
priesthoods of ptah and celestian, but my computer crashed twice (never
buy a cheap motherboard..), both times when i was halfway through, and i
never finished it; partially out of frustration, but mostly out of pique
:)

however, the recent "religion in space" thread, combined with me playing
one of the priesthood on short notice (my old character was nailed to
the ground by a manticore's spines, and the only obvious opening for a
new character was a cleric) recently, has rekindled the urge (and to be
safe i'm writing it on notepad first!). 

anyway, enough blathering (there are too many parenthetical comments in
this intro..), on with the show. all feedback appreciated (craved, even
<grin>). it's a bit wordy, but i wanted to get my point across clearly.


======================


The Church of the Sun.


	At some time or another most humanoid cultures develop some form of sun
worship, but these have rarely if ever persisted into space. 
	There are so many suns, moons, and general celestial bodies that jaded
spelljammer see little special about some provincial deity, and besides,
who wants to join a faith that is nearly powerless outside its home
sphere?
	The (generally groundling) solar faiths usually try to extend their
deity's purview to other suns, but this is seldom convincing due to a)
the loss of power around these other suns, and b) the veritable
rugby-scrum of gods inhabiting each sun that this implies. Attempts to
reconcile this ecumenically by saying that all these gods are aspects of
the same entity inevitably degenerate into vicious internecine warfare
over *which* entity. Thus solar faiths have generally have had to settle
for groundling empires, albeit often very powerful ones.
	There is one exception to this trend, and it is exceptional for several
reasons. This is the Church of the Sun.
	Nobody knows quite where this religion started, but it's making
surprising gains. The central tenet is deceptively simple, all suns are
one sun; bringer of heat, light and life. What they emphatically do not
worship is a sun *god*; they worship the sun itself, indeed they
privately consider the whole idea of worshipping gods a bit demeaning,
but are too tactful to say anything about it in case any of the gods in
question decide to make a point!
	They do not give the object of their faith a name, merely using
whatever the equivalent of "sun" is in the language they happen to be
speaking, nor do they give it any anthropomorhic characteristics.
	This would go down without comment, except for the annoying fact that
they seem to be right. The faith poses theologians significant problems.
Their priests receive spells in any sphere that has a fire or radiant
body that someone considers as "the sun", and yet planewalkers have
reported no Power that matches the description on any of the outer
planes. Similarly no link with Demon Lords or Archomentals has been
found. Most theologians and planewalkers are convinced that it has to do
with a previously unknown fire or radiance Archomental, but this is more
to do with intellectual bias than any basis in fact; they tend to be
unwilling to credit anything which is outside their experience. The
Church itself is largely unmoved by these concerns, simply pointing to
the sun if questioned upon where they get their powers.
	This is somewhat typical of the faith. Their faith seems almost
childlike in its simplicity at times, but as anyone who's argued with a
child will know this can be incredibly frustrating when they come out
with some simplistic comment that makes you go "yes, but.. erm..". The
priests take a perverse joy in this, especially the martial ones.
	Despite this apparently easygoing attitude the faith is aggressively
expansionist in wildspace. The faith is divided into two arms, the
ecclesiasty and the martial. The martial arm will be described in full
later, but for the moment we'll concentrate on the ecclesiasty.
	The Ecclesiasty run the temples and minister to the faithful, they also
evangelise and expand the faith. This is often done by simple
conversion, but their favourite tack is to absorb pre-existing "sun god"
religions. They concentrate on cultures that have just achieved or are
about to achieve a spelljamming civilisation. Often the discovery of
other spheres and suns can precipitate quite a crisis of faith. At other
times the Church will insert priests into sun god religions too steer
the faith toward more compatible forms. In either event the Church
greets she newly spelljamming faith like long lost brothers. Sometimes
this doesn't work, sometime it does, sometimes the faith splinters and a
part of it joins the Church, but this has been a frighteningly (to some
observers) succesful tactic. They accept any race (and treat them
equally, which is more unusual), except obviously those that shun
sunlight and anyone who has truck with undead, and have garnered quite a
lizard man following. Indeed they seem to have had a commendable
civilising influence on them.
	They treat the followers of Ptah with open contempt; if gods are to be
viewed with suspicion, someone who claims to have created them all as
well as the entire universe is even more suspicious. Perhaps a more
honest reason is that Ptah is their closest competition, and the
priesthood of Ptah dislikes them in return. They take a generally dim
view of any faith that requires obedience in return for reward or
punishment in the afterlife. They get on well with followers of
Celestian, and martial priests have even been found travelling in their
company.
	For their inclusive stance, for their assimilationsist tendencies, for
their obvious pragmatic benefits, for whatever reason, the Church of the
Sun is rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with in wildspace.


The Rays of the Sun

[ i've detailed these as they are the type most likely to be PCs. as to
the Ecclesiasty: make them up if you need stats for one! note, there are
no solar paladins; the Rays serve that purpose adequately.]

	The member's of the martial arm are often unofficially referred to as
the Rays of the Sun. Their stated goal is to "bring the light of the sun
into the darkness". Some take this too literally and vanish into an
underdark never to be seen again, but not without raising considerable
havoc for as long as they survive. In a way, the Rays are wandering
do-gooders, fighting evil (and especially undead) where they find it,
although the Church will sometimes send them on missions. This has made
them popular with certain groups, adventuring companies and other random
do-gooders. Rays may be of any race and gender.

Stats: [note, the priesthood is constructed using Players Option: Spells
and Magic. As such they might be a bit powerful compared to standard
characters. If you don't use Players Option, take with a pinch of salt,
or use a cleric or crusader with altered spheres.]

AL: ???
WAL: any non-evil, most Rays are any good.
Spheres: (major unless noted) Sun, Healing, All, Necromancy ("nice"
versions only), Protection (minor), Elemental Fire, Combat.
Turn Undead: yes
Holy symbol: gold or yellow sunburst on a white background. Some
followers have a sun on a black starred background, but this is
relatively uncommon. Symbols of absorbed religions also occur.
Dress: They typically wear chain mail, a white tabard edged with gold
with a gold sunburst. They usually carry broadsword, and round shields
with the familiar white and gold theme.
Granted powers: 
	May use a broadsword, and specialise in it (although at a cost of two
extra slots rather than one). 
	+1 to saves versus energy draining effects, if the effect normally
allows no save then a save may be made at -4.
	At 3rd level, may create a globe of sunlight 30' radius, one turn
duration, a number of times equal to their level minus two. This has no
blinding or damaging effects except that it is real sunlight and effects
creatures as noted in their descriptions.



-- 
rad.

I'd like the world to be saved, once and for all, 
so that I don't have to do it again.