>>43867666
Well Satan, while a lot of people use it as an excuse to tip their fedoras, I've always found that religion not being mandatory for Cleric powers was a decent concept.

Considering Clerics have all their magical powers supplied by deity of said religion I'd say they're mostly followers of weirdo religions,

That being said they don't necessarily need a religion but "something" is answering those prayers

>>43867666
"Cleric" is such a dumb and essentially meaningless fantasy cliché that you can really do what ever you want with them. In reality, cleric literally means "member of the clergy", in other words a priest or priestess. So if you want them to remain true to their name, they should be not only followers of some form or religion, they should be flat out priests of that religion.

Now whenever that can included being roaming healers or not, that is up to your choice. As for the source of their magical powers, that again is mostly up to how you handle the lore, concepts of magic and religion in the world in particular. You need to figure that shit out to make it consistent.

>>43867666
>Should a cleric follow a religion?

Son, you just went full retard. Cleric is not just another word for wizard you know.

Both, ideally. The concept of what a cleric is and does is closely tied the presence deities in the setting.

Really, I'm not all that much a fan of magic powers not having at least some sort of pact/covenant involved. Doesn't have to be gods, of course; could be devils, fey creatures, spirits of the dead, primordial beasts, but condition free magic all ways seemed like a cop out.

>>43867720

I already had a lot of this stuff planned out, but I didn't want to be obnoxious and start the thread off with a text wall.

Basically, the Gods in this setting are planets and spirit entities of no little mass. The idea is that humans follow these entities and maybe even worship them, but for the most part these things don't respond. They are too large and massive and magical for humans to really interact with.

However I wasn't sure if I was going to allow these things to grant humans magical powers like a priest, because then I thought it might be a little interesting if the typical 'cleric' class was taken by a wandering mystic healer type of character which can heal the sick, make the blind see, turn the dead and stand tall against evil from some kind of unseen or spiritual power within. They are called 'Heretics' because the big religions don't like them, though these guys are the only ones who really have miracles.

I might split them into two classes. Clerics of the weird Gods with non-healing powers and then the healers with their incredible ability.

>>43867747
This is maybe turning into a bit of a purely semiotical debate, but what you describe as wandering healers would probably be better described as "miracle men", "shamans", or indeed "wandering healers". There has always been a plethora of people like that, and they rarely were priests, as priesthood kinda implies being tied to a particular place (a temple or a shrine) and more of a didactic/spiritual learder/service-provider) than healer constantly on a path.
But again, these things are as flexible as you want to make them. It's not inconcievable that some religion would have it's priests wandering and healing. And it's also not inconcievable that a wandering healer or a miracle-maker would consider himself a "priest" of some diety.

Class-based though, it makes sense to me to divide them into two, especially if magic in your world does not come from gods granting powers. "Wild" magic of these weird wandering shamans and miracle makers vs. "tamed" magic of the priests it's already a fairly fun concept, playing it off as the "wild" magic being healing is I think actually pretty great, because it gets rid of the cliché "temple is a magical private clinic" trope that gets really tiresome, and explains why magical healing is not all that common in your world.
You could even, if you want, make some kind of lore-reason why the "big" gods are against the notion of magical healing, how for a example they released disseases and wounds on humans intentionally, and how these wandering healers are kinda fucking up their plan. There is quite a lot of potential for interesting themes and conflicts there.

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>>43867791

Thinking on this and my own ideas, I have since come up with a more complete picture in my mind.

Essentially; Priests of the various crazy religions are all Paladins in a sense, holy warriors with magical and supportive powers, but not necessarily healing. They are a separate case from the other kind of healer which I'll get to in a moment.

They are the 'Called', priestly servants of the various Godly entites, they care little for humanity as a whole unless seen through the lens of their Gods. Most religions believe that punishments by luck or chance or birth is the result of sin or punishment in the next or current life, and while healing is available at temples it isn't the foolproof magical healing it is cracked up to be.

Then, there are the Heretics. Heretics are so called because the defy the natural order; they cure the cold, mend the meek, weld the weary and suffer no sickness. They go against the divine nature and hierarchy the Gods have set up for humans, and for that they are heretics, but they have a core of pureness to them that is not matched elsewhere.

Might be a little edgy but I like it.

>>43868033
>Might be a little edgy but I like it.
I would say it is bit on the edgy side, I generally prefer less clear-cut and more nuanced world-building, but suit yourself. My own approach to worldbuilding does not sit well with all that many people to begin with.

>>43868072

How does it lack a little naunce? I have a meme currently about using edgy class names (Fighters are Bastards, etc) But other then that I don't try to be edgy.

>>43868102
>How does it lack a little naunce?
It creates a rather glarring dichotomies: the "Called" vs. the "Heretics" oppositions are very sharp, and there is the whole
>They go against the divine nature and hierarchy the Gods have set up for humans
Comes across as one big "rebellion agaist the evil order" deal. I'd personally like to have more nebulous motivations and more complex roles for the individual units - the "heretics" not being a single identity, but rather just a huge bunch of people doing different things for different reasons: some of them opposing the major religions, others just... not caring about them, or not even knowing about them, or agreeing with them but believing their way of doing things is better anyway - while simulataneously I'd have the major religions be more complex, with each having a slightly different spin on things, and perhaps each of them actually consisting of multiple different currents and interpretations of the same religious cannons - and all of those coexisting rather than being pitched against each other.

But again, my approach to world-building hardly sits well with most people. I'm an athropologist by training, and most of my interest in world building stems from the desire to emulate complexities of real-world culture-forming powers and currents. Most people don't really give two fucks about such things, and I can't really even blame them.

>>43868222

You do realize there is a character limit and patience limit of the poster, right?

Of course I wasn't going to have it be so clear cut; it's not a battle of good vs evil. I just wasn't about to exposé on the whole thing right here in the thread. I thought that was implied.

>>43868235
You yourself stated that it's a "little edgy", so I interpreted the sharp oppositions and the rebellion themes as deliberate and important.

>+bump_