AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

1. I was wandering how exactly the atonement spell works? I did read on it but I did not quite understand what a person who is being atoned needs to do in order to complete the spell.

2. Could a druid/cleric of one deity, atone a person of another deity? For instance druid atoning a ranger.

1.) Other than "be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds," the creature receiving the atonement doesn't technically need to do anything at all. The various quests and crusades and such that you think of as being attached to an atonement aren't mandated by the spell itself, like some sort of mechanical prerequisite or spell component. Rather, they're invented and imposed by the caster. "Yeah, sure, I'll cast atonement for you, but first you need to prove to me that you're really really sorry by doing this awesomely heroic thing for the church."

2.) "A cleric or druid who has lost the ability to cast spells by incurring the anger of his or her deity may regain that ability by seeking atonement from another cleric of the same deity or another druid."

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/atonement.htm

The requirement of doing something is integral to the process. Though it's not part of the spell, I cannot see any religious institution handing out atonements without penance. I think you should look it like medieval confession: guilt and confessing to a priest are the first steps, and the last step is an act of penance to show not (only) your true intentions, but your gratitude, and to publically and ritualistically restore harmony to the community after your transgression. It need not be a heroic act, but it is something out of the ordinary. A pilgrimage to the nearest large church, an act of charity, something like that. Or maybe just public flagellation. We must remember the importance of outward acts rather than just inner attitudes.

Also, the Atonement would almost always be a public matter. Perhaps not festival on the streets, but certainly something the clergy attend. It is after all an important ritual of welcoming someone back into the fold, witnessing the god's mercy and the miserable consequences of turning one's back on the god.

It's a bit hard for modern players to grasp, but we should think of Faerûnian religion as deeply ritualistic. The concept of "private religion" is also generally alien to the setting. Modern secular religion is often reduced to inner spirituality and "faith", but in a society where religion and the gods play a central role the whole phenomenon is a lot richer.

As for the second question, the bit Lizzie quoted seems to say that any druid can atone any druid. The "same deity" part refers to clerics. I imagine rangers can be atoned by any druid, as long as the druid is part of his circle/area.

I completely agree with Iron. To clarify, I didn't mean to assert that the 'requirement of doing something' isn't necessary, only that it's not mechanical. It's completely free-form, defined only by the conscience of the priest casting the spell, or maybe by the individual traditions or culture of the caster's particular church.

Or, I guess I should say I "almost" completely agree with Iron.

Whether an atonement would be a public matter is probably extremely dependent on the specific deity to whom the penitent is being atoned. Mask or Shar, for example... probably not a lot of public ceremonies of any kind, there. Fenmarel Mestarine or Shaundakul are big on individualism and self-sufficiency; I can imagine an atonement in those faiths might easily be a private matter between priest and penitent. But I suspect Iron is probably in a very paladin-ish headspace at the moment, and yeah, your honorable knightly sorts of deities are probably also the sort to be really enthused about elaborate rituals and grand public pronouncements.

Remember that when a priest is casting the spell of atonement, they're taking a very big risk themselves. This is why they have the person in question do something to prove themselves. I'm sure most probably speak with the person to figure them out as best they can. You don't want to be the priest that atones a traitor or atones someone who was undeserving of atonement because they haven't learned from their experience of falling from grace. As a holy vassal of your God, you want to be totally certain you're doing right by your God at all times. So mechanically, yes, it's not required, but you'll be hard pressed to find a cleric dumb enough to not have you prove yourself and that you've learned something before being atoned.

As for who does the atoning, it tells you right there in the spell description how it works. Unless a DM says otherwise, that's how it works. A Cleric of the same God or a Druid.

Gunz wrote:

As for who does the atoning, it tells you right there in the spell description how it works. Unless a DM says otherwise, that's how it works. A Cleric of the same God or a Druid.

Actually the quoted bit doesn't answer the question, and I don't think there was anything more about it in the description.

A cleric or druid who has lost the ability to cast spells by incurring the anger of his or her deity may regain that ability by seeking atonement from another cleric of the same deity or another druid.

This is ambigious as is: a cleric of Bane can seek atonement from a cleric of Bane, but possibly from any druid as well. That's obviously not the intention, but you can read it like that. It probably means clerics have to seek atonement from other clerics of the same faith, and druids get atonement from any other druid regardless of patron deity. Whether it also allows for druids and clerics of the same faith granting eachother atonement is open, but seems probable.

The question, however, concerned rangers. The description says nothing about rangers. It seems likely that a ranger can get atonement from a cleric of his faith, or if he's a nature ranger affiliated with a druidic circle, from any druid of that circle. But this is just creative interpretation; the spell description simply doen't even consider rangers or other secondary divine casters.

You're not going to find clarification on that in the spell description only because it's from generic D&D, which, unlike the Forgotten Realms, doesn't maintain the assumption that rangers and druids necessarily have any patron deity at all.

In adapting the spell to the FR, you kind of just have to apply some basic common sense and a bit of contextual knowledge, I think. In the FR, it's probably the case that any druid really can't get atoned by just any other druid: I rather doubt Mielikki would be a big fan of her clerics atoning a Malarite druid, for example.

Lizzie wrote:

In the FR, it's probably the case that any druid really can't get atoned by just any other druid: I rather doubt Mielikki would be a big fan of her clerics atoning a Malarite druid, for example.

Yes. It's also worth remembering that druidic society is very hierarchal. You don't just go around lifting punishments from random druids you happen to come across on your travels. The issue should generally taken to one's superiors in the local circle, and its leader/your immediate superior decides whether to grant atonement or not. That sort of answers your example, too: druids of the same circle may grant atonement for eachother, and patron deities aren't that big of a deal since there's no ill will between the druids by virtue of already being part of the same circle.

That, I imagine, is the typical course of events anyway. Some adventuring druids may be out of luck and have to improvise in foreign lands, of course.

IronAngel wrote:

The question, however, concerned rangers. The description says nothing about rangers. It seems likely that a ranger can get atonement from a cleric of his faith, or if he's a nature ranger affiliated with a druidic circle, from any druid of that circle. But this is just creative interpretation; the spell description simply doen't even consider rangers or other secondary divine casters.

That was what I was thinking. Cleric - paladin/cleric, sure sounds right to be of the same deity, but in druid - ranger combination I'd say that it is not about the specific deity as much as it is about the creed that both druids and rangers strive to uphold.

The thing is that a ranger does not need to follow a nature deity in order to receive divine spells. Now if the said ranger of non-nature deity fell out of that deity's grace and lost his ability to cast spells, it seems inconvenient that the cleric who does not really care about the nature or Balance, atones the ranger who even though his deity is not of nature, still strives to uphold the Balance and cares about nature. That would be more like a job for a druid, wouldn't it?

But I guess that eventually it comes down to

Gunz wrote:

As for who does the atoning, it tells you right there in the spell description how it works. Unless a DM says otherwise, that's how it works. A Cleric of the same God or a Druid.

But Rangers aren't required to uphold natures balance, unless they serve a nature god. You can be a Ranger of Garagos and go around destroying and killing, not caring in the least about nature.

It's safe to assume that with a Ranger, you either go to a Cleric of your faith or to a Druid of your circle or a Druid of a circle your close to. Or hell, maybe you're a lone Ranger, in which case you would need to make nice with a Druid if you were going the Druid route.

Rangers, druids and atonement?

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