Hello All!
My group is in a game right now that is heavy on religion And for the most part, the church (Iomedae) is what I would call old school orthodox - to question it or its leaders is blasphemy, not a TON of respect for other religions but some (at least the non-evil ones)
We have a Paladin of Iomedae, an Inquisitor of Iomedae, a Cleric of Iomedae and... an atheist monk :)
I'm playing the Cleric - and while I am lawful good, my background is from an un-orthodox church of Iomedae - one that is more about tolerance (all the other Iomedae pillars are there - valor, justice, etc)
PS - Arcane magic is a BIG no-no
The question / problem here is this: our monk recently had a dream that he would find a relic, and then he did. Said relic is OBVIOUSLY EVIL and arcane - but it was found in a statue of Iomedae. The pally and Inquisitor immediately wanted to turn it / him in to the church and are, IMO, following the church blindly.
I however, am not. I'm interpreting the monk's dream as a sign from Iomedae herself and have given my word to the monk: I will not volunteer information about this, but at the same time I won't lie for you. I want to find answers just like everybody else, but given the delicate situation of it being evil and arcane, I don't think it's wise to just go walking into a cathedral of Iomedae saying "hey look what we found!"
What do you folks think? Am I playing this wrong? Should I be more "in tune" with the fact that I'm a lawful good Cleric and have more "faith" in my church?
Well, the church set-up that you folks are playing seems pretty different than my read on the Church of Iomedae. (Your unorthodox church is what I consider orthodoxy in the Iomedean faith.) Also, the church of Iomedae in canonical Golarion doesn't have any particular problem with arcane magic.
From what you wrote, it sounds like the "Orthodox Church of Iomedae" in your campaign is itself leaning towrd LN rather than LG. I'm also guessing that's part of the GM's plotline for this campaign: there's something going on that's causing the leadership of the church to lose its way.
It also sounds like your GM has given you an adventure hook with an evil artifact hidden in an Iomedean cathedral: I'd interpret the symbolism of that dream to mean that there's some bad juju that's affecting the Church heirarchy. An inquisitior, especially, should be equipped to investigate internal workings of the church independently: that's part of the job!
If I were playing one of the PCs in this game, I'd probably approach a lower-eschalon official in the church that I completely trusted and ask for some discrete guidance, without running it up the flagpole. Being discrete is not the same as being deceitful.
Good luck!
Thanks Haladir
Yah - the persecution of arcane magic is a something the DM is doing for plot reasons that haven't been revealed
Me saying the church is "orthodox" is based solely on the interaction we have had with in in the small towns we've been going through... so think East Texas Bible belt (if you've ever been there)
We just now got to a major city (Arodan) - so we will see how it goes.
Bu specifically on how to RP a cleric - should all clerics follow the leader(s) of their church blindly?
Yeah I think there are a lot of ways to interpret what is going on here. Perhaps Iomedae chose the monk for the vision because it seemed clear that an orthodox member of the church would run away from such a horrible message, i.e. "It's not my fault Father! I can't control what I see, but I wanted nothing to do with the artifact!"
I would also say that there is a big difference between turning the artifact in and turning the monk in. Just because the monk was shown where the artifact is, doesn't mean he's evil, a magic user, a heretic (though as an atheist he is, but that's beside the point ;P), etc. I think that Haladir has a good approach. There should; hopefully, be a cleric the party trusts if the campaign is this heavily influenced by religion. I would think that the party could even broach it with the NPC in a way that doesn't exactly reveal everything you know.
Frex: "Father, I was approached by someone who had a troubling vision. The vision revealed that he would find something potentially terrible and/or evil. Some sort of magic device. The most disconcerting thing though is he believes this item to have been concealed within a statue of Iomedae! I've known this individual for some time and he is an honorable sort if a bit misguided at times. I cannot imagine that this person is himself, evil, but I know not how to advise him. What would you suggest?"
Doing this, you've told nothing but the truth, while still being discrete. Now, its entirely possible that the "trusted cleric" really isn't trustworthy, but hopefully the GM isn't that mean. :p
As for what to do about the Pally and the Inquisitor though, that's a bit more difficult. Telling another player how to play their character is generally a bad idea. However, I would think that you can make a similar argument to them that perhaps this vision is really a sign of good and not evil. Iomedae must have sent the vision to one She knew could be trusted to seek out this evil and keep it safe from those who would use it for ill. Perhaps Iomedae knew that the Faithful would suspect the vision to be evil and thus feared that the Faithful would think they themselves are evil for receiving the vision. Etc., etc.
Certainly its tricky, but I think the party has outs to maintain their RP aspects without simply making life miserable for the monk (and hence the player). As Haladir suggests, it seems to me that there's something fishy going on within the Church if they are taking such an extreme view of things.
Bu specifically on how to RP a cleric - should all clerics follow the leader(s) of their church blindly?
I think that is something for the individual cleric to decide. However, my take would on it would be that a true cleric would be a follower of his or her God/Goddess. That their authority, power, and most important, code, come from said God. The individual clerics are just children of the God and are unfortunately, just as susceptible to error as any man/elf/dwarf/etc.
To paraphrase a line from Angels & Demons (movie version): "Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed." In other words, merely being religious and having advance high in the church won't keep you free from error.