Religion Ex Apotheosis

There are no more clerics or druids in the traditional sense on Malaan anymore. There are priests and practioners, but no dedicated class of clerics. The Apotheosis has resulted in theurgist magics being transformed. Now religious fervor and divine power is converted into pure mana. This is a big change, since now any worshipper, or even a charismatic pretender can invoke religious fervor, or make use of the ancient relics. This energy is also generated by certain natural phenomena, such as portals, ethereal rifts, fey wards and other such things. In the latter case the energies are not generally attached religious significant. In general such energies are dedicated mana meaning they can only be used for certain spell-lists and skills (for example a temple to Velrey might have a reserve of Fire Elemental Mana that could be used with any spell-list attached to the fire element.) However some ambient or extant mana is free floating and undedicated, and can be used for any spell.

Holy Mana is usually found or created in one of three ways.

1. In magical or holy places (shrines, temples, fey glades, portals)
2. By gods.. either directly through invested agents, or objects.
3. By pious prayer, typically from worshipper.

This energy can be manipulated by people, with or without formal training. Typically it will be dedicated to a particular domain, aspect, element, or the like (fire, life, nature) Those aware of the Mana (Intuit Direction DC20) can access it to:

1. reduce the MP cost of related spells (Cleric Domains). Requires a spellcraft roll (or knowledge religion is holy mana) to identify which spell-lists are reduced in cost (unless already familiar with it). Once identified the mana can be used to reduce the cost to one spell level lower than normal. (2nd to 1st, 9th to 8th, etc..)
2. spontaneously cast spells from certain lists with a successful CHA check. (DC of check equal to Dispel attempt of same spell) (so a character with a 14-CHA tries to generate a 1st level evoke fire spell as a 5th level caster. That has a DC of 16, so she must roll a 14 (+2) to do it.) This is a Full Round Action. Failure causes 1d6 of subdual damage per Mana the spell would normally cost. (Impiety penalty of ­5 applies)
3. invoke the magical effects of Divination, Dispel, Spellcraft, Healing, Herbalism, etc.. Using extant mana in this way adds +5 to the DC.
4. generate mana from a crowd with successful diplomacy, bluff or perform roll. (see rules below)

Generating Mana from the Crowd.

When a priest, or unscrupulous pretender (Elmer Gantry) speaks to her parishioners she has a chance of generating and controlling mana. The chance is based on one of three skills: diplomacy, bluff, or perform (oratory/chant). Those plus knowledge (religion) act as synergy bonuses to each other (with 5 ranks), the first grants +2, the rest +1, up to +5 maximum. The priest (or pretender) then makes a roll trying to gain access to mana from the crowd. The DC is 20+1/point of mana desired. The maximum amount of mana a crowd can generate a day equals 1/10 people in the crowd. Hence a small church of 20 people could generate 2 mana, a larger church of 200 could generate 20. The following chart indicates the modifiers. It takes one hour to generate the mana. This mana can be used to regenerate spent mana (for mages, or paladins), store mana in the temple or shrine, or to spontaneously generate new spells from the clerical domain by the priest who conducted the sermon. If used for the latter purpose, the energy must be used soon as it dwindles at a rate equal to the rate mana is normally generated from rest (-1 mana the first hour, -2 the second hour, -4 the third etc, until it is all gone.) Failing a bluff attempt in this manner may generate hostility in a zealous crowd. Mana stored in the temple or shrine can be accessed by anyone as extant mana (see above). (If the priest tries to get more mana from a crowd than is available or failed the roll, no mana is generated).

This ability grants a certain amount of power to the temple priest in excess of her normal abilities. The DM is free to rule that such mana is simply not available.