priests changing gods, again

Another (wrong?) answer would be to say the fundamental teachings/secrets are unique to each temple and you have to start over from scratch and relearn everything. At least for the PoM the tradition of Cants comes out of a Pantheonist background. It breaks versimilitude for me to believe under that background that there are 12 or 13 unique version of Diminish Fatigue each reinvented by each Temple in the PoM.

I believe Henry has said this exact thing. There are unique versions of each cant for each god. That is a major reason priests can’t switch faiths. They would have to start over at the very beginning, as none of the spells they were taught in the service of a previous god are applicable in any way to their new one. It was not discussed how the spells to different aspects of the same god might relate, since to date there is only one (two?) known cases of this, and no one can play one side of that worship.

But because of this, and the supposedly unchanging nature of cants, reportedly the cants each faith uses, no matter the church, are identical. So changing between mother church and Khitani is theoretically possible, but not very likely, since supposedly priests of a god in both those churches cast the same spells identically – though each church may have unique spells the other lost in the time since the emperium. (And of course, impossible without campaign documentation for players)

Though I’ve always wondered about the “unchanging” no experimentation idea to the cants when we see the priests do so many crazy unique things. Giants get cursed and turned into dwarves and souls trapped on this plane? After much research the Beltinian’s develop soul shards. Where did those come from? Same with what they did to the Pride of Chendo. You’re saying these rituals were just hanging out in books somewhere passed down from the emperium with no one wondering why? My first assumption was always that the priest figures out how to supplicate the gods for these new things, but that isn’t supposed to be possible. Very odd.

It is my understanding that the casting of divine spells is a combination of the faith of the believer powering the specific ritualistic casting be it in word or gesture. As the worship of the gods has fallen from its heights as pantheonistic into fractured base components (individual gods) it’s likely fair to say that the understanding of divine spellcasting has as well.

It’s quite possible that there are spell “forms” for lack of better description that have certain elements that are fixed and immutable or if changed must be done in proscribed ways and that there’s space for filler or fluff that has it’s own rules. Say you must complete Part A then Part B, but there’s a pause between A & B that you can insert filler text with a maximum length and if you want it to be longer then you move from Part A to Part D, linking Part B to Part C later in the process.

Under this supposition the various priests were able to tailor their cants within the strict rules provided by the forms given to them from on high without impact. As knowledge was lost the “filler” information got locked in place as it was unclear what the underlying rules of composition were. This could explain the 1 Diminish fatigue spell and 12 variations (1 for each god) including adding one for a god that doesn’t existing within the Khitani pantheon.

This understanding of the underlying forms could also explain the flexibility that the Sarishans continue to enjoy with regard to employing adaptations to divine spells.

For further consideration also remember that through the fall of the 1st Imperium the Emperor had a cadres of mages working for him and the entry for the 4 Towers of the Magi in the Uncleansed Area paints a very collegeal picture of the relationship between the two sides. There is certainly understanding and appreciation that’s been lost over time, the question is what was the foundation for both sets of magic?

Hopefully at some point we’ll find out more about that relationship.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Whenever I answer questions, I run it by the internal logic I have developed for the setting. Many of those “secrets” others are not privy to yet.

I will admit that there have been times when authors have written things that go contary to that internal logic and I’ve been trying to either fix them so that they are consistent or ret-con them altogether. I may have missed some, so that possibly leads to the confusion, but though I try to keep an eye on things, some do slip through.

Hi Henry,

Without a doubt the internal consistency of the campaign setting is fabulous, and a great reward for people who try to dig between lines an tease out “real truth” from various “political truths.” I have faith that there is an internally consistent explanation of how Cants work and how the Temples relate to each other and the First Imperium priesthood. But I don’t currently see it with the pieces that are available to me.

I think all of us here agree you can’t readily change from a Priest of one Temple/Framework to another. But there are a number of corner cases that are (to me anyway) confusing.

Any chance of you squaring the circle or illuminating any of the following points?

(1) Does each Temple within the PoM have essentially the same version of Diminish Fatigue or does each Temple have a totally unique version? (Repeat for each of the commonly shared Cants from the Corpus, Wards & Anathema/Benediction traditions). And How is that answer reconciled with a common origin from a Pantheonist past & the Shadowed Age/Time of Terror.
(2) If the Cants of the Temples are mutually exclusive and depend on the faith to each Temples Diety then how is it that the Order of the Phoenix can steal a Cant from the Nerothians of Canceri (the exotic spell Veil of the Phoenix) and still cast it as Milandesian priests of any Diety (almost certainly not Neroth).
(3)How did the priestess of the Ashen Hide egg clutch keep casting spells of the Fire Dragon despite the crisis of faith brought on by discovering that the High Mother Matriarch and elite of the Temple were venerating Kassegore? How could the same teachings, Cants and rites work with the switch in belief that the Fire Dragon was in fact Nier? If (somehow) a priestess of the Black Talons could meet and sit down with a Priestess of the Emerald Scale Egg clutch (who venerated Kassegore directly) could they potentially share teachings or Cants?
(4) if one were a val’Inates priest of Ansharmand discovered and assimilated the truth about Yig could you theoretically begin learning additional material (Cants, Rites etc) from the Yiggites? Does the answer change for Ansharans who have gone through their metamorphosis?

Thanks for answering so quickly Henry…

…but also, Alas! No information is immediately forthcoming. Still hardly an unexpected response. I’ll keep an eye out in case any modules touch on this in the future.

And we’ll keep debating here trying to get to the real truth of the underlying the accepted truths.