Priest or religious functionary

I like reformed evil cults, a likely outcome of a group of heroes barging into the evil temple in the middle of some ceremony and killing all the priests, leaving just several acolytes and laymen who really are OK guys who don't even practice human sacrifice.

They form YMCA, Young Mens Cultist Association and preach acceptance regardless of past and appearance, good physical health and other positive messages. Sometimes the evil deity whose name they're misappropriating finds out about them and sends a demon or some monsters to wreck the place. This is when they reach out to any heroes, offering free gym membership and reduced prices on potions.

Aren't mormons secretly sketchy though?

I had a game where I had an npc who would hang out with the party and give them quest hooks and intel. Except he was a sneaky plotter who wanted the bad guys dead for his own reasons. I was like, yea they'll start to notice he contradicts himself! They'll notice he's never around when one-of-the-bad-guys is out of town! They'll look into who he really is and piece together

nope

Looks like post-modernism has reared its ugly head

Better than some outsider or angry wizard cliche bullshit, make it someone everyone trusts.

Like if you play the evil priest as Pastor Ken who teaches Bible study on the weekends and helps kids deal with drug use I'd say you've written a pretty compelling character

>government official or noble
>turns out he's extremely ambitious and doesn't care about the common man

>make it someone everyone trusts.
You're like two decades late for that kind of shock twist to work. Now it's rarer for Pastor Ken to be everything he seems to be.

remember, if anything is at all derivative it's pleb shit, you gotta subvert everything, my dwarves are tall and the vampires are robots

>I almost consider it to be a form of railroading at this point.
Why the fuck would you consider it railroading?

I mean, there's like a billion "good" clerics in any given fantasy rpg, what if it turned out the kindly dwarven matron who revived your buddy is also harvesting orphans organs, and then regenerating them so she never runs out

>Religious, vaguely-Catholic organization, even has a Pope
>Has lots of influence among the populace, most follow their teachings
>Came about after an ancient disaster wiped out the most powerful Empire on the continent over 1000 years ago
>Is in a JRPG setting
>Is not evil in the slightest, is genuinely concerned with the welfare of the populace on both a physical and spiritual level, and only really makes overt displays of force to keep people from poking dangerous, ancient artifacts they don't understand

>the prince is a faggoty asshole
>the guard commander is corrupt
>the king is a retard
>the queen is whipped and useless even as an advisor
>the only person who ever does something is the moustache-twirlingly-evil royal advisor who practically runs the kingdom
STOP

>exsanguinating robots preying on people with hypodermic fangs
>actually leads to a REAL vampire who decided to get in on the drone business

That's actually a fun idea.

Cool shadowrun plot.

>>Is in a JRPG setting
>>Is not evil
but
then how do you kill god with power of friendship

In my setting I have a church that exists much as the early (like, right after the gift of Constantine era) church and my players keep trying to investigate it for being evil. They are convinced that the Pope is trying to summon some sort of primal evil buried under the earth by the old gods of the Empire.

They spend all their time caring for the poor, arguing about theology, and trying to translate old Imperial tomes. They aren't even central to the plot, and there is no primal evil buried under the earth, and the pagan gods don't even exist and I never hinted that they do.

>rude, abrasive, obviously evil dickbag
>doesn't do anything evil enough to warrant the characters deposing him
>has douchey henchman the characters hate
>as the characters learn more about him it's revealed he has an endearing side to him
>secretly does good things, charitable, etc
>keeps his good deeds discreet
>the characters slowly start to respect him if begrudgingly
>bad stuff starts happening
>not-so-shocking reveal that he's the ringleader behind it all
>the BBEG, if you will
>something doesn't add up
>characters learn that he is being possessed by demon, cursed by dark magic, is being blackmailed, or etc.
>basically cliche he wasn't the bad guy after all
>characters free him of whatever coercive influence is upon him
>backstabs them
>revealing finally that he was sick of his weak and endearing side and willfully accepted the coercive influence to "better" himself

>Getting organs for transplants and then magicking the donor organs back

this is... a bad thing?

shit you're right, next time i'll post dumber stuff

Nope

Nah, situation is more like Final Fantasy Legend 3, where god has been absorbed/is being used as incubation for the eldritch abomination, and you have to mercy kill him.

I mean, why would she need to harvest organs if she can literally heal them back into place. Why does that middle step of transplanting them exist?

Rows of victims being taken apart without anesthesia and then magically put back together so that the process can be repeated, i'd say yeah

Railroading, in its broadest sense, is invalidating player choice. Something really overt would be the party wanting to go left, and the GM deciding they go right, but it's more expansive of a concept than that. If you methodically shut down all other options having even the remotest possibility of success than the one you want the players to do, that's also railroading, isn't it?

Enter the worldbuilding part of the game: Ultimately, in most games, every bit of information comes from the GM, from what's going on to what social mores are to what the exchange rate is between goats to finished tools. If you control the information presented to the players, you can manipulate their choices to a high degree. The Vizier might not be an evil sort plotting against the Sultan, but if you dangle information that certainly seems legit in front of the players indicating that, you can probably get them to act as if he is.

If you know that the players are going to react to a certain stimulus in a certain way, isn't presenting that stimulus controlling their decisions?

Because she's evil and likes cutting up orphans, duh. Imagine, with spells like regenerate, the truly sick people could literally dismember someone alive and then heal them back in one simple spell. Horrifyingly evil.

Magic-resistant disease, rotting the kid away, requiring a constant flow of organs to keep the brain intact. The constant healing's stunted it's growth, resulting in a childlike walking corpse waiting in a dark room for mommy to come back with new parts.

That's a good twist, I'm stealing it thanks

Why wouldn't you use anesthesia? A struggling, screaming person is hard to operate on.

>priest
>no one asks him what kind of god he worships because he primarily uses fire magic
>mfw party has been travelling with a cleric who wishes only for the whole world to light aflame and his god shares his views

>If you know that the players are going to react to a certain stimulus in a certain way, isn't presenting that stimulus controlling their decisions?

No. You're not shocking them with a cattle prod.

Well, not for NO reason. Their founder took a LOT of people's money.

Wild Arms sort of does this too - every town has a church, heals you for free and lets you save game there, is just a safe zone that never becomes anything more or less to the plot

>he's also the only capable leader who could be installed without a serious restructuring or insurrection

>he was a sneaky plotter who wanted the bad guys dead for his own reasons
I still don't see the problem here. His motives are irrelevant to the party so long as he keeps pointing them to the bad guy.

You're not getting it, are you.

The priest ALWAYS turns out to be evil, every fucking time. It may have been an amazing plot twist way back when it was first done, but after the thousandth time IN A ROW it's just a tired cliche.

It's why i am getting sick of every villain on Star Trek being a starfleet admiral. It was ok when it happened that one time and there was a point to it, but now the bad guy is always a Starfleet admiral.

I mean even being imprisoned for that long is kinda shitty, especially knowing you're losing a load of organs, and they can't let you out because you'll tell someone

...

This proud kardassian just wanted to fight back foreign hegemony.

Hey, art reflects life. Maybe if churches stopped being so creepy and secretive, and stopped protecting kiddy-diddlers, the trope would die out.

By praying with friendship, of course!

So? They're orphans. Their options are

A: stay with the lady who feeds them well because she needs healthy livers on a weekly basis.
B: starve to death on the street.

The Goddess is on your side. She is not evil, nor does she need to be slain, but some have been trying to abuse the gifts she gave humanity for their own end. The Church does its best to prevent that, and is not evil nor in league with such people. The Goddess is also not a force the party ever meets face to face unless the rumors about the ditzy NPC photographer girl that helps your party out of some hairy situations through her sheer clumsiness are true.

Well, you can either slowly deconstruct their reasoning through NPCs getting suspicious of them and questioning them, or humor them slightly in manners that result in actually helping the Church's PR, rather than harming it.

>Wild Arms
Good taste, m8.

>the vizier was plotting against the sultan
>because the sultan was evil
>now he's dead, and there's nobody left to stop the reign of terror
And that's where you come in.

Armed with a few scraps of paper you salvaged from the body of one of the vizier's spies, can you piece together his conspiracy and find the agents you'll need to succeed before they're killed off by the sultan's army of assassins?

that's ambiguous enough to let the players figure out for themselves

Anesthesia's hard to find, and it'd be pretty conspicuous for her to buy, so she just magically holds them still.

fuck quoted the wrong thing, meant to respond to

Pretty sure sleep spells are lower level than paralysis or binding spells.

Just give them a few good whacks of non-lethal damage and save the spell slot.

The thing is, a peasant who is extremely ambitious and doesn't care about the common man isn't as dangerous as a noble with those traits, so it's a big deal when a noble is like that, but not when anyone else is.

I guess, but if you're high enough level to cast regeneration on orphans then you have spell slots to spare.

I think you got into the cutting up orphans business for entirely wrong reasons, friendo.

Hey, the premise was that a an elderly mother figure was keeping orphans, harvesting, and regenerating them afterwards.

If you're going to cast a regeneration spell on your source of meaty bits, why wouldn't you also cast a much easier spell to make the surgery easier and keep the kids liking you? It's a lot easier to control the minds of small children through adoration than through fear.

yknow i kinda like this better. She's a manipulator who could be harming the kids irreparably, if the magic doesn't take or whatever, so it's up to the PCs to decide what to do with her

Oh yeah, it's still really fucked up, and someone needs to get those kids out of there.
But all the orphans know is that their new mom is really nice, and that once a week it's their turn to go into the "Clean Room" to take a nap. Yeah, after the nap they feel super sore, but they get a cookie afterwards, so it's okay!

Nah.

As a person who lives in Mormon-land USA they're really nice and law abiding people.

It's in the religion to follow the law.

And the temples always have 90+ people going in and out, so unless they are having the worst orgies ever, they aren't having orgies.

Having been inside the temples on a visiting thing, they aren't cultly at all. They feel more like schools or hospitals than places for having blood sacrifices.

TLDR mormons are about as nice as their reputation.

90+ year old* not 90+ people

This is what you get for staying up I suppose.

I loved these guys, they weren't totally "DUDE RELIGION LMAO" but they did have problems of corruption and fanaticism but there were good people. Also they legitimately loved their dogs

My players began the campaign being hired by a baron to investigate some disappearances. Right off the bat, we've covered that the baron is concerned enough about his people that he's willing to pay good money to figure out what's happening in the swamps, but otherwise they know little about him. One of them offhandedly makes a snide remark about the "fat toad of a baron" on this complete absence of information.

The assumptions players have about characters without any information is somewhat ridiculous.

It's because "baron" is a title associated with evil people. I blame Baron Harkonnen.

Good old Dragon Quest.

Their beliefs are incredibly sketchy (from a Christian point of view), but theological squabbles do not a good RPG campaign make.

Close friend of mine is ex-mormon, and he's said that they have some SERIOUS compartmentalization of knowledge going on. The religion at the higher levels is very different from the religion at the lower levels (i.e. "normal" mormons) and that they are explicitly forbidden from sharing such knowledge with outsiders.

Some things that exist:

>Black people were literally considered to be the children of Satan until the 1970's. They were only recently allowed in the church in early 2000's, and tacitly are pretty much forbidden from holding any real power in the organization

>Mormons are to use their power and influence to spread Mormonism into all facets of American life, up to and including the US government. While many religions encourage religious laws in some form, Mormons take it a step further in that they actively seek to use secular channels to quash all other religions that exist period - including all other forms of Christianity. They do not do this currently simply because they'd be fucked if public opinion turned on them - which is why they put public image so high in their priorities. Note that this means their views on black people would also be put into law should domination of the US occur.

>The United States is the new Holy Land. America #1. Everybody else is not worthy of their time - even Mormons in other parts of the world. Everything works to further build US power and, by extension, American power, as the church views America as its birthright inheritance.

>Anybody who doesn't ally with the church is an enemy, no exceptions. There are no "third parties" in Mormon thought. As such, allegiances to other Religions and identities is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

>If a church official asks something of you, you do it. No questions asked.

>Polygamy isn't considered wrong, it's just on the DL now. There are men who DEFINITELY have multiple wives in reaqlity, but keep it out of the public eye.

Plenty more too.

Public schools have this problem on a much larger scale, and yet somehow teachers don't invariably turn out to be evil in media. As it happens, public schools also generally promote a secular, postmodern view.

It's not art reflecting life, it's art reflecting the biases of the artists.

>gender segregated barracks
>weird
What the fuck has current year become

No, because that doesn't invalidate player choice.

That's like saying "Oh, if I put a villian in my campaign the players will want to defeat him. I best avoid that, it's ralroading."

You're basically just trying to avoid basic plot hooks, here. I'm curious what your games even look like.

There's also the whole esoteric apotheosis stuff that most Mormons don't really emphasize.

Living in gender-segregated barracks 24/7 outside of a military organization? Even if you're married? That's kinda weird dude.

Personally, I'd say it depends on just how segregated we're talking here.

There's literally, and I mean LITERALLY, not a single thing wrong with polygamy. Even if you're like a hardcore Christian cause they did that stuff in the bible too.

Can proof be found anywhere?

You wouldn't understand because you're a creatively bankrupt hack, congrats

Technically speaking, polygamy is permitted even in Christianity - there's no outright command against it. However, it's strongly suggested that it's highly inadvisable, since polygamous marriages in the Bible tend to go really badly, and any time God talks about marriage He refers to man and wife in the singular.

Thanks for telling Christians what we should believe in. I guess the Church was just wrong about that for 1800 years before Mormons came around to correct us.

I wouldn't say literally. In a small enough population, it can stifle genetic diversity.

>barracks
>outside of military

You mean a dormatory?

Well yeah, that's part of the knowledge that doesn't get shared until you move up the ranks.

Oh, here's some more fun stuff:

>The church encourages large families specifically to "outbreed" non-believers. People who do not have large families typically have lower status in the church that others.

>Women have a religious duty to pump out babies and be housewives. Women who have a career (not side-work, a career) are shunned in the church.

>Women are considered mens property, and can treat them how they wish. While a man is suppose to treat his women (plural) well, a woman has a religious obligation to serve her husband until, and only until, the church says she can leave him. Note that things like domestic violence, unless frequently life-threatening, are not considered grounds for divorce - typically the only thing grounds for divorce is the man speaking out against the church itself or the murder of his children.

>To tack on to the earlier point, church officials can tell you to do pretty much anything, and questioning their judgement is heresy and can possibly be grounds for excommunication. The reason my friend and his family is no longer mormon is because their youth leader wanted to take his 12yo sister camping alone for a weekend in the woods on her 13th birthday, and his dad fought it hard because he knew what was gonna happen. His mom simply said that this was "normal," and it happened to her a few times growing up.

>Sooooooooooo much sexual abuse of young girls it's not even funny.

>YOU GET A PLANET! YOU GET A PLANET! EVERYBODY GETS A PLANET!

I've got a magic stone from an angel, and it's telling me that you're dumb.

Their literature says otherwise

1) Jospeh smith the founding prophet gave black people the priesthood, some of the seedier members had issues with that and Joseph had to stop in order to prevent the church from exploding

2) this is also false, as the articles of faith(a brief discussion of their church) has this to say
>We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
Meaning a Mormon in china would follow Chinese law and etc.

3) America is the promised land which will have the new Jerusalem built on it. The continent is where Jesus will land, and is extremely important to them. That isn't to say that mormons outside Mormonism are useless. Quite the contrary, more missionaries go outside the continent than inside it.

4) I'm just going to leave this here
mormonnewsroom.org/article/interfaith

5) no because the positions are voluntary you can easily turn down any orders. The higher ups don't even get paid more than to live on.

6) this is a matter of debate, but Abraham had multiple wives and they believe in restoring the old church.

No polygamous relationships are currently allowed in the church.

>Even if you're like a hardcore Christian cause they did that stuff in the bible too.

The bible never says the practice was godly, though. Only that it was done.

They also used to have "temple whores," but that practice has become frowned upon in recent centuries.

W-What? I'm not Mormon but all of humanity's closest relatives like chimps and gorillas have multiple females to a single male

>YOU GET A PLANET! YOU GET A PLANET! EVERYBODY GETS A PLANET!
Please expand on this.

Here's this for you.
lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&old=true

Their are two church's that people typically call "mormons"

There's the LDS faith which are the mainstream ones. These problems are a matter of personal choice, and have nothing to do with the church

And then their are the FLDS who have all of those problems and more, and still believe in polygamy.

And they make all of their women wear prairie dresses, because that's totally what you want your harem to be wearing am I right?

Honestly, I think you're full of shit, because the Mormons I know are nothing like that.

It's a little more than that

The LDS believe that all people on this earth are spirit children of god. This is why they refer to each other as brother and sister.

They believe that god has us here to gain a body and be tested.

Those that path the test will be taught by god and gain his powers becoming gods.

Those gods can go and have children and the cycle continues.

It's probably just fucky theology that not everyone follows, there have been studies done that show being a Mormon, or any other form of conservative Christian, fucks with your social mobility though

Don't bother mate. Clever marketing, and training them as deceptive apologists since birth, essentially makes it a pointless endeavor.

Their prophet married a child, hated negros so much the church had to fake a vision in 1978 to stop treating them like shit, ordered the deaths of innocent men women and children, and has a story as believable as L. Ron Hubbard. They're Scientologists, but earlier.

what's your guys thoughts on the nation of Islam, they're basically the Mormons of Islam

Joseph Smith literally gave black people the priesthood which is the highest thing that you can give to a person.

The issue was that the early "saints" had many weirdos including racists and such.

These people protested blacks having the priesthood and Jospeh chose to not give any more the priesthood to stop the church from falling apart.

You've just read the memes, user.

can't tell if underage or just stupid.

>Both Joseph Smith[2]:126 and Brigham Young referred to the curse to justify slavery.[35] In addition, Brigham Young used the curse to bar blacks from the priesthood, ban interracial marriages, and oppose black suffrage.[11]:70[36][37][38] Young once taught that the devil was black,[39] and his successor as church president John Taylor, taught on multiple occasions that the reason that black people (those with the curse of Cain) were allowed to survive the flood was so that the devil could be properly represented on the earth through the children of Ham and his wife Egyptus.[2]:158[40][41] The next president, Wilford Woodruff also affirmed that millions of people have Cain's mark of blackness drawing a parallel to modern Native American's "curse of redness".[42]

That Joseph Smith had a couple of house niggers he thought worthy of being uplifted from their lowly cursed station, doesn't invalidate that the church's theology is literally racist.