All sects of Caspianism, whether have a definite organization, with more experienced priests leading less experienced ones. In some faiths, bribery and corruption can allow a less experienced priest to gain power and influence over more experienced ones, but this is uncommon. Most faiths are organized based on the experience levels of their priests. The higher in level a priest is, the higher he may be in the faith's organization.
But the GM needs to note a couple of important facts. First, most NPC priests start at first level and never rise any higher than second. The player-character priest, who gains levels throughout a career that is mostly characterized by adventure is an exception to the usual rule.
Second, the PC priest, with his (comparatively) meteoric rise through levels, may not wish to or may not be able to enjoy the benefits and responsibilities of most priests. Many priest PCs will wish to forgo the duties of running a temple and stay on the road, acting as a mobile agent for their faith. This is a viable option for a priest in a campaign.
You must advance through each rank, skipping none of them. You may advance through as many ranks as you like at each character level, as long as you meet the requirements. Ranks and requirements differ by faith. Since each clergy has different rank titles, and the faiths have different numbers of ranks, the clerical titles compare to the ranks in different ways.
Depending on the clerical order and circumstances at the time, higher ranks may only be available in restricted numbers. Your GM may restrict movement beyond rank 6. Becoming such a powerful, influential member of the world merits special attention. This significant event requires role-playing beyond simply attaining the stated numbers. In other words, your character may only gain these ranks with the GM’s approval.
Description: A "level-zero" priest is someone who has just been accepted into a priestly order and is receiving his initial training. Player-characters do not have to start out at zero-level; the only zero-level priests that the PCs will ever encounter will be NPCs undergoing training.
Description: This beginning rank within the faith is open to all ordained clergy. It carries the lightest duties and restrictions, and all adventuring clerics have this rank without cost. The role of this rank is that of a wandering missionary in nearly all faiths.
Duties: You must accept donations. This privilege differs from that of collecting tithes. You must turn collected monies over to the nearest or most appropriate temple within a reasonable amount of time. You may not borrow from or intermingle the funds with your own (although many clerics do). You must strive to maintain roadside shrines that you find in your travels. Typically, these duties include simple cleaning, chopping a few pieces of wood to replace what you use and removing graffiti or other unsightly leftovers from faithless (or blasphemous) trespassers. From time to time, this duty includes the removal of some dangerous beast that has made the shrine its home. You may freely call upon companions for help. You might be required to perform ceremonies appropriate to your faith, which principally include marriages and funerals.
Many faiths also prefer the presence of a cleric at births so they can bless the child. Primarily, you must display your faith openly and attempt to recruit others to pay greater attention to your faith. Converting
someone to exclusive worship is a rare accomplishment and an outstanding coup. Recruiting a person to become a cleric of your faith gives you great prestige among your peers.
Privileges: Most clerics consider the ability to perform ceremonies a great privilege. They are a central part of the lives of the people around them, and they enjoy being able to guide their friends and neighbors through life with their counsel. Few material benefits exist at this level, but they do include the right to three days’ room and board at any temple or monastery of your faith. Allied faiths extend room and board for at least one day, perhaps more if the cleric is performing useful favors in return for his stay (such as guarding the temple’s poor box, copying documents or casting spells).
Description: Clerics of this rank are most often permanent guardians of a shrine, whether on a traveled road or a shrine in their own homes. Alternatively, they might have extremely minor positions in a city temple. In order to achieve this rank, you must obtain (through purchase, gift or otherwise) a copy of the faith’s canon.
Duties: The increase in duties varies with the priesthood, but you must be more dedicated to your particular shrine or shrines. Should a senior member of the faith visit and find the shrine unattended, you might be punished according to the faith (fines for good or neutral faiths, physical punishment for evil faiths).
If you serve in a city temple, you might be responsible or partially responsible for an element of the temple, such as the school or the graveyard. You must also perform services for worshipers at the shrine, but these occasions are rare and take place when you have visitors, rather than on regular occasions. Your faith might also require you to perform services on holy days, regardless of the presence (or absence) of other worshipers.
Privileges: You may ask for one potion from your faith. A follower, a senior cleric or a traveling paladin gives you the item within 1D6 days. The potion must be of less than 300 gp value, and you must make a payment of equivalent value in gold or services. At this rank and each higher rank, you may appoint clerics (and others) up to one rank below you. The character must meet the requirements and pay the experience point cost, but you can always find a role within the church for a close ally. You may also reduce the rank of clerics one rank (or more) below you (initially) as punishment for transgressions. At low level, this power is subject to extreme scrutiny, and your judgment is subject to reversal by senior clerics.
Description: Your character is a rural cleric of a village or other settlement of 900 or fewer people. If in a city, you might lead services one day a week or have a moderate responsibility, such as running a hospital. To reach this rank, you must pay 250 XP and must have at least 4 ranks in Knowledge (religion).
Duties: You accept tithes from the faithful and surrender them to the temple. You must surrender these tithes to an appropriate location or individual within 30 days.
Privileges: At this rank, you gain your first follower, a 1st level adept. This character does not have the lifelong devotion to the faith that a full cleric has, nor is she willing to go on adventures with you. Her job is to assist you in your temple duties and learn from your experience. This rank is the lowest at which you can ordain new clerics. Training a new initiate takes 5-8 weeks of game time or more depending on circumstances (and the GM’s discretion), after which the character may (if she has enough experience points) gain one level of cleric. You receive room and board, plain clothing and enough food for yourself only, but the benefits are indefinite.
Your position in the faith allows you to demand the use of one minor magical item. The item must be one that could be created by a cleric of your level, and you must make a token payment of 1 gp per XP spent in the item’s creation. The item becomes available within one week and is delivered by an unquestionably loyal (either by devotion or fear) member of the faith.
Description: You are a cleric of a town or other settlement of fewer than 5,000 people. If you are a city cleric, you minister in a smaller or older temple. To reach this rank, you must pay 500 XP and you must have made a copy of the faith’s canon (an exact duplicate of the text and, depending on religion, components, as possible).
Duties: Your position in the public eye requires you to act within the dictates of the faith. As an example for the followers and worshipers, you must adhere to a strict code of conduct. The code varies from faith to faith, but deviation from the code results in a loss of benefits (including stipend, followers and/or permanent loss of rank, depending on the frequency and severity of these abuses). You must also oversee the other clerics of the temple (if any). Besides preparing and delivering sermons, you plan holiday events, maintain your building (or buildings) and perform other works to further your faith’s tenets.
Privileges: Your character’s followers now number 1D4 1st level clerics. Only one of these characters might be exceptional in Wisdom or have feats worthy of an adventurer. The others wish to pursue more cloistered lives. Otherwise, these followers make excellent servants, assume some of the temple’s duties and solve routine problems on their own. They honestly (out of devotion, fear of retribution or both) turn over the monies they receive from donations or for performing services, and expect little in return other than your guidance and teaching (and perhaps protection). You receive food, clothing and lodging for yourself and your family. If you have no family, you instead receive a one-time stipend of trade goods equal to 25 gp.
Description: Your character is a cleric of a city of 5,000 or more people. To reach this rank, you must pay 1,000 XP, be able to cast divine spells and have at least 4 ranks of Diplomacy. If you live in a town, your faith has gained you a reputation in the area and a few families begin to move into the area just to follow your leadership and counsel.
Duties: As a community leader, people now bring you secular problems as well as problems of faith. You resolve as many of these issues as you can with counsel and words of wisdom. On others, you must assign your followers to investigate, arrest or punish wrongdoers. You must use your resources wisely and know when to delegate this responsibility and know when you must address the situation personally.
Privileges: Your temple includes an even greater number of loyal followers at this rank. The senior cleric below you is now a cleric of level 1D4+2, and you also oversee 1D4 1st-level clerics. The temple employs 1D4 commoners or experts as well. Typical commoners include cooks, grooms, messengers, personal servants and laborers; experts include scribes, librarians, herbalists and others. These followers are all in addition to the ones gained at ranks 3 and 4. In addition to room and board, you now have a personal servant to assist with daily chores such as cleaning and laundry. This servant is a 1st-level commoner with no exceptional abilities or skills. The servant does not perform extraordinary acts of courage such as adventuring, defending the temple with his life or undergoing quests in the temple’s name. You are entitled to a stipend of 50 gp per month as well.
Description: Your character is the chief cleric of the faith in a city of 10,000 people, a smaller city with an extremely large rural population, or a busy trading city with many visitors. In order to attain this rank, you must pay 2,000 XP and have at least 8 ranks of Knowledge (religion).
Duties: At this rank and higher, your character’s sphere of influence increases dramatically with each rank. Your character now ministers to a large number of followers; you might oversee 1,000 worshipers for large holy days if your faith is popular in your region.
Privileges: You accumulate an additional 1D4 clerics of level 1D4+3 each, plus 2D4 1st-level cleric acolytes as new followers. You also gain special benefits of your faith. You may create a special unique spell in concert with the GM. This spell is a rare or restricted spell available only to those clerics who show the wisdom and dedication to earn it. It can be of any level you can cast and you pay nothing for the spell.
Description: You lead a temple in a large city and minister to at least a thousand faithful worshipers. By this time, you influence not only your immediate city, but thousands of farmers, merchants and travelers in the area near the city as well. You may also set policies for the clerics underneath you, including punishments for offenses, rewards and promotions, fees for services and other details of clerical life. You must pay 3,000 XP, have at least 8 ranks in Sense Motive and you must have written one treatise or commentary on the interpretation of a portion of the faith’s canon to earn this rank.
Duties: Your temple and its priests are influential not just within your community of followers, but within your overall community as well. Your faith introduces powerful merchants to each other, serves as a meeting point for nobility and attracts the attention of thieves and other criminals. A monarch, royal noble or powerful unrelated noble may ask for your service. The noble expects you to respond to this summons, but you gain great prestige by doing so. You are a powerful individual. You might have to oversee several ministering clerics and handle any troubles that are too much for them to handle alone. At any given point, you might have to administer the building of a new temple or school, appoint a new cleric, hear the solicitation of nobles or guild masters and entertain visiting clerical dignitaries. Somehow, you are also expected to write theses, correspond with your peers, cast spells beyond the capacity of your junior clerics and maintain the connections that might allow you to gain greater rank within the faith. The demands on your time are extensive.
Privileges: Due to your prestige and position in the community, you are immune to prosecution for violations of secular law. If you break the law, you might still go to prison or pay fines, but your sentence is handed down by the faith instead of by a magistrate (of course, if you are a cleric of the Courts of Justice, have no doubt that punishment will be severe!). In addition to the followers gained at ranks 3-6, you gain 2D6 1st-level warriors who defend the temple and its interests. These followers usually stay with the temple and guard its treasures from theft, but you may choose to assign them to protect pilgrims, guests or clerics on a dangerous journey. At this level, the faith considers you a major boon, and a senior cleric gives you a gift of a medium magical item. Most often, this gift takes the form of a book that contains several spells on scrolls (2D6 spells of any level you can cast). Occasionally, the item is a large and immobile statue, shrine or bell intended for use in your temple.
Description: Your character no longer administers regular services. Instead, your duties deal directly with the priesthood and the clerics who oversee over a large region. You must pay 5,000 XP, have at least 10 ranks in Diplomacy and you must have written a treatise or commentary on the interpretation of the entirety of the faith’s canon to earn this rank.
Duties: Your duties are entirely supervisory, and you are judged more on your ability to appoint and organize than your ability to deliver a fiery sermon or demolish enemies of your faith. A monarch might call upon you for your service, but you are certainly within your right to refuse (and might even be
required to do so, according to the dictates of your faith). A typical cleric of this rank is a senior administrator in one of the largest countries or the highest ranking cleric of such.
Privileges: Another follower joins you. This follower is a cleric four levels below your level and serves principally as an advisor. You also gain one other advisor of similar level from another character class appropriate to the faith. The follower might be a paladin, Assassin or Mage.
You also gain an additional unique spell, as at rank 6. Your stipend increases to 100 gp per character level each month.
Description: You are one of the faith’s principal living theologians. Except for your single superior cleric, you are ultimately responsible for interpretation of the faith. You choose how the faith follows the dictates of its canon, declare heresies and apostasies and interact with clerics of similar rank among your allies. This rank requires the expenditure of 10,000 experience points. You must also have 16 ranks in Knowledge (Religion).
Duties: You share the duties of making policies for the entire faith, and you might also have temporal control over large amounts of land that your temple owns (farmland, a monastery and surrounding grounds, a mine, or some other source of wealth). You are the highest authority of your faith in a huge nation or an entire area with no large nations. You are almost entirely removed from daily contact with the public at this point. Your communications are with your peers, your immediate juniors and the faith’s leader. You must make sure that your image remains unblemished and you must respond to scandals or threats to the faith immediately.
Privileges: You have the right to decide policy and interpret theology in your area, subject only to the faith’s leader’s disapproval. You have the right to declare a dead character a saint of your faith as long as that character met the basic qualifications. Depending on the faith and the number of clerics at this rank, you might have exclusive say over one element of the faith’s doctrine. You also gain a special additional follower; this character is likely to be an aristocrat or expert with several levels of cleric or monk. Specializing in politics and diplomacy, she likely has a high Charisma score and high ranks in Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Bluff. She might also have feats or magic items to enhance these skills. Her role is that of liaison, initial contact and otherwise barrier between you and people with whom you do not want to (and do not have to) meet directly.
Description: You lead the faith in all respects. You may choose to add or delete chapters of the canon, call for new writings, and drastically change how people worship your god. Depending on the faith and its popularity, you might rival the mightiest of rulers in power. You can appoint clergy (cardinals and archbishops and bishops) as you see fit. You have the power to remove your support from an entire country, removing your clerics from its land and your services from its people. Clerics of militant or evil faiths have other threats at their disposal through their spells: war, pestilence or destruction. This final rank costs 15,000 experience points. You must also have at least 18 ranks in Knowledge (religion) and 12 ranks in Diplomacy.
Duties: You are ultimately responsible for the actions of your junior clerics, your followers and your worshipers. The prosperity of the faith depends on you.
Privileges: You speak for the entire religion and settle disputes on a worldwide level. Your word is almost law within your own sect and highly regarded among all others. You gain a second advisor similar to the previous one (at rank 9), but with a different background or motivation. Your character benefits from opposing points of view and complementary skills. As a primary target of opposed faiths, you also retain 3D6 fighters, paladins, rangers or barbarians (as appropriate to the faith) as bodyguards. As long as they are treated properly, these characters certainly fight to the death to protect you or the faith. The total of their levels does not exceed 80, and no individual is higher than 12th level. You can discipline and silence members of the church who perform heresy, as you define it. You can write and release periodic encyclicals to bring attention to particular philosophies you espouse. Your main goal as leader of the church is to bring coherence and unity to believers. You have the authority to teach and discipline all the other members of the clergy. Your political power is immense. You have the power to lay an interdiction on a nation or region. An interdiction is the complete removal of your faith from that nation. Your clerics there must leave or lose their status (no loss of clerical level, but complete removal of all ranks within this faith). You cease to perform spells or services for that nation until they comply with your demands. If your faith’s seat is in that nation, you must move it to another location. An interdiction is extremely dangerous. The common folk and nobility alike stand to rebel against the ruler who led them into such dire straits. The monarch who rules the country may attempt to counter the move by inviting senior clerics of other faiths to fill the power vacuum you create. The possibility of inadvertently helping enemy faiths gain great power is very real and something your character must consider before ever using this power. Its main utility is in its unstated threat, not its actual application. More than once a faith’s misuse of this power has rendered it impotent in the subject region. Such impotency may require generations for the faith to recover its strength, if at all. Depending on the nature of your god, you might also receive visions or omens upon which you are expected to reflect, interpret and then act on. Your income increases to 250 gold pieces per character level each month, although in reality there are few items that you could not receive from the faith on demand. In theory, you may order the surrender of any item owned by any cleric of your faith!
Not possible for PCs and most NPCs. Only Madcap, Arka and another Great One are this level. These beings have the last word on all matters of faith, ethics, and discipline within the realm of faith. The members of the church consider their words in matters of faith and morality infallible. Eight millennia of holy law encloaks you; your person is sacrosanct; your merest word can open ways shut for thousands of years. At your whim, a hundred thousand holy warriors would ride into the gaping jaws of Hell.
Only the God-King himself is at this level. His whim is holy law from pole to pole.