I was thinking an interesting villain could be an assassin that noticed an easier way to get rich or gain power is to assassinate the head cleric then take the clerics place (maybe disguise or just outright take over) and tax ALL of the people within their jurisdiction heavily. The assassin could duel class into a cleric maybe since they would be "acting the part" and might actually gain favor by the god for beating or intimidation non-worshipers into submission? Maybe even send out thief/cleric disciples to raid and burn other churches not aligned with his? Your thoughts?
I think that this could work by the original cleric being a long-standing, merely-tolerated annoyance with a likewise deity and the new "cleric" being a bigger problem but not enough of a change to incite revolt. If the deity was already properly aligned, the new "cleric" might be a welcomed change.
If the former cleric was beloved, the replacement wouldn't be tolerated long by the people or the deity. ...unless the new "cleric" supplanted a lot of things like theocratic laws for a usurper, doppelganger deity and the cleric's own faithful for enforcing the new deity's will, forcing any who refuse to accept the new "cleric" to go into hiding. A rebellion would likely be brewing in the shadows in that case.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It seems to me that the murderer can't be aligned with the existing deity unless in the deity's view the cleric was a disgrace to his order. And then, because the deity shouldn't be fooled, the assassin's choice of assuming the duties of the cleric would have to be sincere. A more logical story to me would be that this new cleric introduces a new deity and undertakes to show the populace that they were led astray following the earlier deity. Once he has secured his power base, then he could flex his muscle and begin his mischief taxing the populace. But the real money is tucked away in a government vault somewhere. It would be easier for the assassin to just rob the accumulated assets of the temple and move on to a new enterprise.
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I was thinking an interesting villain could be an assassin that noticed an easier way to get rich or gain power is to assassinate the head cleric then take the clerics place (maybe disguise or just outright take over) and tax ALL of the people within their jurisdiction heavily. The assassin could duel class into a cleric maybe since they would be "acting the part" and might actually gain favor by the god for beating or intimidation non-worshipers into submission? Maybe even send out thief/cleric disciples to raid and burn other churches not aligned with his? Your thoughts?
I think that this could work by the original cleric being a long-standing, merely-tolerated annoyance with a likewise deity and the new "cleric" being a bigger problem but not enough of a change to incite revolt. If the deity was already properly aligned, the new "cleric" might be a welcomed change.
If the former cleric was beloved, the replacement wouldn't be tolerated long by the people or the deity. ...unless the new "cleric" supplanted a lot of things like theocratic laws for a usurper, doppelganger deity and the cleric's own faithful for enforcing the new deity's will, forcing any who refuse to accept the new "cleric" to go into hiding. A rebellion would likely be brewing in the shadows in that case.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It seems to me that the murderer can't be aligned with the existing deity unless in the deity's view the cleric was a disgrace to his order. And then, because the deity shouldn't be fooled, the assassin's choice of assuming the duties of the cleric would have to be sincere. A more logical story to me would be that this new cleric introduces a new deity and undertakes to show the populace that they were led astray following the earlier deity. Once he has secured his power base, then he could flex his muscle and begin his mischief taxing the populace. But the real money is tucked away in a government vault somewhere. It would be easier for the assassin to just rob the accumulated assets of the temple and move on to a new enterprise.