Gentle chanting hangs in the air, curling like the tendrils of incense-laden smoke that wafts from the many shrines that are spread throughout the large courtyard. Each of the small buildings bear the mark of their deity, and the sounds of prayers fill the courtyard with a comforting murmur. 

Right come on now, and speak quietly. The guild has our own little temple district, neat huh? Over a dozen faiths are represented. Lathandar, Balinor, Kord, on and on. This is where the most devout adventurers come to prepare themselves. Anyone can be religious of course, it’s probably smart to have a deity watching over you in our line of work, but few are empowered by their faith. Among those there are chiefly the clerics and paladins.

Clerics are the hands of the deities, their mortal agents charged with spreading the faith and acting out the will of their gods. Not every preacher is a cleric, of course, clerics are imbued with divine magics, a direct conduit for the deities to affect the world around us. Each deity’s clerics are different; elven deities often have elven clerics, warrior deities have warrior clerics and nature deities’ clerics can almost be mistaken for druids. 

We’re going to be meeting with an old friend of mine, Viet Durakagrul. He’s over there, the dwarf wearing scale mail, hefting a battleaxe. Viet is a devotee of Clangeddin Silverbeard, the dwarven god of battle. Each deity has a different aspect of the cosmos they are involved in, called a “domain.” These domains include Knowledge, Healing, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery and War. That’s right, Clageddin’s domain is war, making Viet a war-priest. While each deity is different, two clerics who serve different deities can often find some common ground if their domains are the same. That, or it serves as a point of contention if their deities are in conflict.

Speaking of divine conflict, you may notice several heavily armored figures about. A few of those are war-priests like Viet, but most are paladins. If clerics are the voice of their deities, paladins are their right hands. Heavily armed and armored, paladins are the crusading knight, the stalwart temple guardian, the avenging agent of divine wrath. All paladins swear a sacred oath, commonly one of three; the oath of devotion, the oath of the ancients or the oath of vengeance. 

See that one there, with the Emblem of the Silver Flame, clad head to toe in plate mail? They’re known as Argent, who swore an Oath of Devotion to their deity. It’s said they won’t take off their armor until the world is cleansed of evil. So no one knows what they look like under the armor. Devotion paladins are sometimes called holy warriors, and they are the most devoted to the deities. Oath of ancients paladins are sometimes known as green knights, and they defend the wilderness from the forces of evil, often with the blessings of nature deities. Finally you have the vengeance-paladins, sometimes called avengers. Those are some grim folk, devoted to bringing the guilty to justice.

Right then, ah Viet a moment of your time! Yes good to see you too my friend. Meet my young protege here. Oh of course we’ll accompany you to the training field, it’ll do my friend good to see some of the martial combatants training…