The Campaign: You Cannot Act On Thoughts You Don't Have

Still one of the best movies out of Old Hollywood.

(As promised, following this post.)

The Cleric and the Druid (and other classes like them) are, by their nature, wielders of authority over their communities as well as agents of a cosmic power. As politics is downstream of culture, culture is downstream of power- and that power is personified mythologically as gods and spirits, all of which are objective reality in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and similar RPGs.

The Power of Paradigm

As Intelligence Networks and their spymasters focus upon the control of information to shape a campaign through limiting what others can know, and thus can act upon, religions go further by establishing and reinforcing an entire mindset and worldview of belief- a paradigm.

The Cleric and the Druid (etc.) represent their cosmic masters, and these Classes wield divine power on their behalf for the purpose of ensuring that their paradigm attains and remains dominant; to this end they accrue followers, who come to believe in the paradigm presented by the mythology--backed up by their magics--as much because they exemplify the virtues of their religion in their deeds as they proclaim it with their words.

People act on what they know AND BELIEVE.

If someone believes that a thing cannot be done, he will not do it. If someone cannot conceive of a thing, because their religion doesn't allow for it, then they will not act on it; the greatest genius in the world cannot invent what he cannot conceive as possible.

This is the way that religious authorities in particular can and do shift the level of battle. They go from the physical, pass through the political and the economic, breeze through the intellectual and go straight to belief itself- and they ground that belief through displays of supernatural power that Magic-Users and Illusionists cannot deny.

The origin of the Cleric.

It is one thing to whisper into the ears of nobles and officials and manipulate them into acting in your favor. It is another to storm into their bedchambers and demand compliance or forfeit their soul. That is the power of religious authority. You, as Cleric or Druid, are able to wage war from the Moral Level of War- the highest level of war, as it is the level of religion. When your demand for compliance comes with your man flanked by obvious divine minions of said god, this is not political theater.

Yes, having power over the undead, the ability to heal the injured and cure the afflicted by touch, summon supernatural beings to aide you, etc. is good but that is the practical side of being the agent of a divine power. This is the purpose we're talking about: to spread the belief in, and therefore adherance to, the power your man serves by means of showing that his mythology is real and others are false.

Lest you think this comes down to just your man's prowess as a spell-caster and combatant, I again remind you that Charsima is the real power stat and those that make the most of it have changed the world for good or ill.

The human sacrifices shall stop.

And you have the spells at your disposal to compel compliance, to perform miracles, to win hearts and minds, and to demonstrate that your mythology is reality and theirs is a lie- and thus your god is stronger, for he is a real and true god.

And once the people you bring over believe as your man does, it takes about two or three generations of wholesale immersion for thoughts to the contrary to go away. Thoughts that are not had are not said, and soon the words go away so even those who somehow do have those thoughts can't share them because they lack the means. Even your enemies accept your mythological framework, and thus your morality implicitly, showing that you know you've won.

You fight on the realm of belief, on what myths are told and how they receive them, and your Win Condition as a Cleric or Druid (etc.) always involves making it impossible to think other than in the framework your mythology provides. Don't let your patron down.