One of the odd situations in the BR materials is the existence of cults to

various awnsheghlien. Most notably the Serpent has extensive temple

holdings dedicated to his worship, but a few others have their own temples

(the Sphinx for one, and it`s not entirely clear to whom/what the Hand of

Azrai in the Gorgon`s Crown is dedicated to) and one or two would appear to

have a following that would seem to merit a kind of clergy. Arguably

almost any of the major awnsheghlien could inspire such a cult. However,

when it comes to actual worship in BR we have only a few deities with their

own clergy.



In order to reflect the worship of various Cerilian cults might the

prestige class system be useful? Let`s say, for instance, I wanted to

portray the clergy for the Sons of the Serpent. The prestige class for

such characters might have prereqs that coincide with the

espionage/intrigue aspect of that temple (that is, things most appropriate

to rogue levels) and then a character class description that basically had

all the features of the cleric with a few tweaks here and there to coincide

with the worship of that particular awnshegh.



Such characters would not have the same kind of ability with their magics

as the worshippers of the standard gods because they would have to hold off

on taking the class until 5th+ level, so they would never be as effective

in terms of spellcasting ability with a character who started off as a

cleric of a particular deity.



The same kind of thing could be used to address the other perennial BR

issue when it comes to the use of magic; elven access to druidic "nature"

spells. If such a thing were portrayed as a prestige class then they could

gain access to a spell list specifically written up to address their use of

nature magic in a way that A) functions in "the 3e way" which seems to be

of such concern to many people and B) would maintain parity with the BR

materials in that such a character class would not be "a druid" in the same

sense that Erik`s priesthood is, but does allow them to cast the kinds of

magics that the BR texts indicate they should have access to. Such a

prestige class could have its charisma-based spellcasting and various

things to make it an "elven equivalent" of a druid, but different enough

not to make it comparable to the worshipper of Erik.



Comments?



Gary