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I am wondering if anyone can help me find some fantasy novels that feature prominently clerics/healers (divine casters in general). I would love any suggestions people might have. I am particularly interested in novels or short stories that are D&D affiliated, but am open to looking at just about anything.
Im terribly under read in Forgotten Realms and much better read in DragonLance so either of those settings would be okay with me. The only thing that I can get to consistently show up is The Cleric Quintet which apparently gets the worst reviews ever.
I also like Mercedes Lackey's Herald books and wonder if anyone knows if any of her books set in that realm prominently feature healers. Their presence in the herald focused novels are really interesting.
Any help you can provide would be awesome.
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Matt Colville from RPG.net wrote his own book, available for download,here.
Other ones I've heard of are Three Hearts and Three Lions. Good read from what I hear, but never read it personally.
Deed of Paksennarion is one I have read and I liked it. Those are the only three I can think of as most authors, fantasy or otherwise, tend to shy away from anything dealing with religion.
Also, though not dealing specifically with clerics and the like, the book Downshadow (set in the 4E Forgotten Realms) is a pretty good read too about a Paladin afflicted by the Spellplague. Pretty good read if I do say so myself. And I'm not even a fan of 4E.
Adon in the old Avatar trilogy from WOTC was a a cleric of Sune.
Not exactly prominent in the story, but the Stors from Sword of Shannara are a healer type. I don't know if they reappear in any of the other Shannara books. Been a while. They play a small but important role.
Leesha in Peter V Brett's The Painted Man (or The Warded Man) is a healer type too. Again, not exactly the D&D fit but she's one of the main characters. I haven't read The Desert Spear, the sequel, but she probably fits the mold again.
It's hard to find the typical D&D sterotypical cleric outside of WOTC novels.
I think WOTC did a D&D book line titled "The Clerics" a while back.
I never read them, but I would guess the World of Warcraft series of novels probably feature a few clerics.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN series by Steven Erikson, starting with GARDENS OF THE MOON.
There's a Forgotten Realms series of standalone novels called The Clerics - sounds like a good place to start if they're still in print. (Though personally I'd skip Lady of Poison, which, in my opinion, is horrible; and I know a lot of people aren't too keen on Mistress of Pain, but I liked it well enough.
If you don't mind some rather explicit sex scenes, I'd say that the main character/narrator in Jacqueline Carey's Naamah's Kiss, Naamah's Curse, and Naamah's Blessing could count as a druid if you translated her world's magic-rules to D&D/PFRPG ones.
And The Wheel of Time has one fairly prominent Point of View-character who's definately a healer with a big H.
I personally liked the "Cleric Quintet" books
I personally liked the "Cleric Quintet" books
I only read two of them myself, however I did enjoy them.
I also would reccomend The Deed of Paksenarion, the main character is a paladin but marshals ( clerics ) figure prominently as does a version of a druid. (can't remember her name for them ). I consider it a "must read" for anyone that is uncertain about paladins. I must obtain this series again, I keep loaning it away and never getting it back.
It seems there should be a Lawerence Watt-Evans book or a Dave Duncan book that would have a strong healer protagonist, yet I cannot think of one off hand.
Good luck!
Greg
The Taltos series by steven brust features healing magic pretty prominently but it isn't divine in nature. It is just a different flavor of sorcery.
I am wondering if anyone can help me find some fantasy novels that feature prominently clerics/healers (divine casters in general). I would love any suggestions people might have. I am particularly interested in novels or short stories that are D&D affiliated, but am open to looking at just about anything.
Im terribly under read in Forgotten Realms and much better read in DragonLance so either of those settings would be okay with me. The only thing that I can get to consistently show up is The Cleric Quintet which apparently gets the worst reviews ever.
I also like Mercedes Lackey's Herald books and wonder if anyone knows if any of her books set in that realm prominently feature healers. Their presence in the herald focused novels are really interesting.
Any help you can provide would be awesome.
Okay, this suggestion is NOT fantasy. It is science fiction, but the protagonist is a healer with psychic powers. And the only book I can think of with an actual HEALER as a protagonist as opposed to books featuring heroes that can heal or books with lots of healer sidekicks. But it isn't fantasy. :( If it helps, it is not Hard SF either.
Flesh and Silver by Stephen L. Burns
There are lots of other scifi doctor novels, but this one uses a more "magical" method of healing than most.
Greg
I am wondering if anyone can help me find some fantasy novels that feature prominently clerics/healers (divine casters in general). I would love any suggestions people might have. I am particularly interested in novels or short stories that are D&D affiliated, but am open to looking at just about anything.
Im terribly under read in Forgotten Realms and much better read in DragonLance so either of those settings would be okay with me. The only thing that I can get to consistently show up is The Cleric Quintet which apparently gets the worst reviews ever.
I also like Mercedes Lackey's Herald books and wonder if anyone knows if any of her books set in that realm prominently feature healers. Their presence in the herald focused novels are really interesting.
Any help you can provide would be awesome.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion series features several prominent clerics. If I remember correctly, the second book of the series is, in part, the story of a woman's resistance to and eventual acceptance of her calling to serve one of the gods.
the David makes a good point.
I agree with Lindisty; Bujold's Chalion series has great takes on people's interactions with gods.
Greek mythology, also good in places.
The Cleric Quintet provides a very rules-compatible cleric story, but the writing is abysmal. (And I liked Salvatore's Drizzt books.)
Im terribly under read in Forgotten Realms and much better read in DragonLance so either of those settings would be okay with me.
Since no one seems to mention Dragonlance, for some reason, how about the Kingpriest Trilogy by Chris Pierson? (Chosen of the Gods, Divine Hammer, and Sacred Fire) I only read the first of those three books myself.
I mean, if you're well read in Dragonlance, then I assume that you read Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends, in which the presence of clerics is a key point.
(This may be pushing it, but in the book Weasel's Luck by Michael Williams, the main character's brother seems to be a closet cleric, even though the novel takes place during a time when there were supposed to be no clerics.)
If we are going to suggest resources outside the genre of novels, then there's an Orthodox priest who blogs about old D&D at Blook of Prokopius with some interesting reflections on religion and role-playing. His labels don't make it easy for sorting through, though. "Saintly Saturday" is one possible label to search, if one tires of just clicking through old posts.
And now I see my typo, and it is too late.
*Blood
The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman is one of my favorites. The main character, priest Damien Vryce, is well written, as are the rest of the characters.
The first book is called Black Sun Rising.
Surprised nobody brought this up, but Erevis Cale is a well written Forgotten Realms cleric character, and there are seven books about him: Shadow's Witness, Twilight Falling, Dawn of Night, Midnight's Mask, Shadowbred, Shadowstorm and Shadowrealm. These books also feature other characters that deal well with religion, both clerics and otherwise. Further, the book Shadow's Witness is part of the Sembia books, seven lightly interconnected books, featuring one (not too well written) with a cleric protagonist, namely Heirs of Prophecy. A related novel is the Clerics novel Mistress of the Night.
Another Realms trilogy featuring a cleric protagonist is the Scions of Arrabar, however, it deals far more with politics than religion and especially spellcasting.
Finder's Bane is another good one, followed by Tymora's Luck. These are well written and focus heavily on the relationship between a priest and his god.
Interestingly, David Webber's Oath of Swords(first in his Bloody Hand series) and Elizabeth Moon's Sheepfarmer's Daughter (first in her Deed of Paksenarion series) are both available free for download.
Both books are free, and both are good reads that were recommended in the thread.
Greg
My first intro to Forgotten Realms fantasy lit was The Moonshea Series.
It's all about druids and how the realms themselves are changeing "converting from 1st to 2nd ed"
It goes into good detail about how they learn to shapechange and use healing magics and the inflicts.
The authors name is Douglas Niles and it's a 6 book series starting with Darkwalker on the Moonsheas.
Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series is pretty religious-based, but extremely low magic. But one of the main characters is a priest/bodyguard, but in Pathfinder terms more like a paladin/monk, that dual wields daggers.
Bujold's Chalion series, Finder's Bane by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak, and Steven Brust's Taltos series have priest characters too. Kraken by China Mieville and the Newford Series by Charles DeLint deal with faith and cults and such, but are more urban fantasy.
River King's Road and Heaven's Needle by Liane Merciel both feature a character who can be described as a cleric or paladin - the magic is even Vancian.
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The "Lady Penitent" trilogy by Lisa Smedman was pretty good.
Set in 3.5 FR land, and is a sort of spin off of the War of the Spider Queen books that Salvatore produced? while other people wrote it.
It doesnt deal entirely with clerics, but several of the main characters are or have been divine casters.
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The iron druid chronicles by Kevin Hearne features a druid, and while he is not a cleric, he is a holy man (communes quite literelly with gods) and he is certainly a healer.
Adon in the old Avatar trilogy from WOTC was a a cleric of Sune.
Not exactly prominent in the story, but the Stors from Sword of Shannara are a healer type. I don't know if they reappear in any of the other Shannara books. Been a while. They play a small but important role.
Leesha in Peter V Brett's The Painted Man (or The Warded Man) is a healer type too. Again, not exactly the D&D fit but she's one of the main characters. I haven't read The Desert Spear, the sequel, but she probably fits the mold again.
It's hard to find the typical D&D sterotypical cleric outside of WOTC novels.
I think WOTC did a D&D book line titled "The Clerics" a while back.
I never read them, but I would guess the World of Warcraft series of novels probably feature a few clerics.
Will Shannara was probably a Cleric than, though he had a considerable power up with the Elf Stones.
If you count Druids as a subclass of Clerics (they used to be in D&D and AD&D), then Druids play a HUGE part of the Shannara series.
Of course they aren't quite like the Pathfinder Druids.
One of the main characters in The Cornerstones trilogy by Chris A Jackson is a cleric (actually a Mystic Thergue) and features some villainous clerics.
Check out the "Cleric Quintet" books from WOTC written By R.A. Salvatore. Great Books.
Except, IIRC, he's a tech, not a cleric, since Divine magic doesnt work?
No, he starts out as more of an expert, as he's not very pious, but magic worked fine. Honestly, if I made him for pathfinder I'd have him an Oracle.
I remember a Forgotten Realms novel centered around a cleric of Umberlee... she came from one of the aquatic races, forget which one though, but I remember it has a good read. Wouldn't call her a healer though, she did have the capability.
Death's Heretic is a good inquisitor novel. Unique feature is about a divine character that absolutely HATES his patron.