Common Church

  The Common Church of Moray are the priesthoods and holy orders devoted to the Seven Gods of Moray. Each of the seven cults has its temple, cloistered, mendicant and militant orders, each with a mix of ordained and subordinal members. Each Cult is led by a High Clerist, and governed by a council of Clerists Cardinal.   All ordained clerists have a place in the precedence of the Queendom. The High Clerists of the Great Ones rank among dukes and those of the lesser deities among the earls. The Clerists Cardinal rank below the barons, and even regular clerists above the gentry. With the exception of the high clerists, precedence within each rank depends on cult and seniority.   In its earliest years as a formal institution - in the reign of Almaria II, the Pious - the Church also had a Supreme Clerist, who not only led the council and outranked the High Clerists, but who had precedence second only to the Rightful Queen. Verlaine I, Almaria II's daughter and successor, tried to curb Church power, resulting in a schism of the country and a 54 year 'Church Regency' over the southern duchies, after which Alina III, the Old abolished the position of Supreme Clerist and laid strict limits on the rest of the Church, especially the militant orders. After another 28 years, in which the Church festered as a potential focus of unrest, Alina IV restored much of the status of the Church and its High Regents, and removed many of her mother's restrictions, but made the Rightful Queen supreme head of the Church and direct liege of the militant clerists.  

The Orders

The clerists of each cult are divided into four specialisations, known as orders. For the most part, an individual enters the service of a given order as a novice and stays with it through their career, but it is also possible to move between them, and ambitious clerists will usually migrate to the temple order before assuming a cardinal office. Each order is governed by a council of clerists cardinal, who also sit in the cult's council, and headed by the senior cardinal. Most cults have a single order of each type, but the larger ones have multiple cloistered and militant orders. Clerists are governed by their order's specific rules of conduct, which includes some general principles covering all of the cult and guidelines stipulated for all orders of the same type.   In addition to clerists, all orders include a number of subordinal and lay members who provide support for the clergy.  

Temple Orders

Clerists of the temple orders are also known as priests. They attend to the work of the Church and the cult as an institution, including religious teaching, regular services, observances and celebrations, general administration, and the maintenance and management of church property, holdings and finances. They also take responsibility for the interests of the cult and Church in the wider political theatre. They range from the simplest of village priests to the mightiest princes of the church and are by far the most visible representatives of each cult.  

Cloistered Orders

Cloistered clerists, or monks, live among their fellows in partially or entirely closed communities, where they take responsibility for the management of church estates and archives, and deep, theological introspection. They live under some of the strictest rules in the Church, and as a result are widely trusted by the subjects of the Queendom, although many also find them somewhat intimidating. Some of the most famed theologians and Church lawyers hail from the cloistered communities. There are also rumoured to be cloistered communities who serve a more perilous purpose, providing the labour to maintain long term workings of divine magic.  

Mendicant Orders

Mendicant clerists, also known as hounds, serve many of the functions of the temple orders, but eschew positions of remuneration and the accumulation of possessions as deliterious to a truly spiritual life. Many such orders include members charged - by their superiors or by their own conscience - with maintaining the spiritual and moral integrity of the Church, others who turn the same inquisitorial zeal on the populace, and others who are motivated only by charity and a sense of service to communities who lack their own temple clergy.  

Martial Orders

Clerists of the martial orders, often called paladins or templars, dedicate themselves to the protection of the Church, either as an institution or as a philosophy. They train for combat and are bound by powerful oaths of service. Some serve in organised formations at the behest of their cult, while others are wandering protectors of the righteous and oppressed. All, however, owe their first - but not necessarily their deepest - loyalty to the Queen.   Martial orders are broadly divided into several categories:

• Militant orders are large, with the lay members providing fighting formations of various kinds. Their members train for battle in a particular theatre where the cult's interests are involved.
• Custodial orders are charged with protecting a particular place.
• Errant orders are loosely organised and usually train to seek out and confront a particular foe.
• Hospitaller orders are battlefield healers.
• Penitent orders recruit convicted criminals to conduct work too dangerous for the righteous, offering redemption for a short, violent life of service.