The Church of Rome…

Ok WH GMs, writers, and designers, I need some help here. How are the rest of you using the church of Rome in your game? Are they capable adversaries able to threaten the cadre? Foils who step in at just the wrong moment to screw up the best laid plans? Willing dupes of the adversary (the Dominicans seem to fit this bill)? Or are they just more of a social issue for the witch hunters?

I’m asking because I’m looking at introducing the mother church as an antagonist in the next leg of my campaign. One of my players did some great background work and I want to reward that in the worst way possible. But on the surface, aside from the Dominicans recruiting “reformed” cultists to sniff out the enemies of the church, the Catholic Church and the various Inquisitions seem woefully underprepared to go toe to toe with any seasoned group of witch hunters.

But maybe they aren’t supposed to. They make great foils and social adversaries as is.

But you would think, in a world where magic is certified, monitored and controlled by the mother church (the Ordeal), that they would have a few arrows in their quiver that could be a real threat to a group of witch hunters (or the adversary, for that matter). Just off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of options:

* A secret order of assassins that work (in)directly for the Pope (a cliche of gigantic proportions, but I’m brainstorming here so cut me some slack)
* An arsenal of holy relics
* A secret tradition of sorcery that combines prayer and hermeticism, including (maybe?) a couple of damnation cost rites.
* An secret order of magi that deal with significant threats to the church (slightly less cliche than the first option, but only by a few inches)

But really all of these options feel like low hanging fruit. So I’m fishing for ideas here. Surely a few of the Dark Providence adventures involved the church.

Help!
Tom