Notes on the Heresiarch

I just published a long and complicated GLOG class called the Heresiarch. These are my notes, explanations, and thoughts on it.

--

To start with, my basic thoughts & feelings:

The Heresiarch is, first and foremost, a social class; its power is all in talking, and ideas, and people. It's got some useful "magic" or whatever in the Miracles, but it's not particularly good at fighting things or delving into dungeons or whatever else ordinary adventurers do. If you're running a game that's mostly about climbing into holes in the ground and killing whatever lives there, the Heresiarch is going to blow.

But, if you're running a domain-ish game, a game where you travel around and pick up a lot of minions and interact with kings and the like, the Heresiarch will be real interesting indeed.

--

In terms of influence, there are two primary sources: the Hocus from Apocalypse World, and a mishmash of Biblical figures, mostly Jesus and Moses (and a dash of your apocalypse doomsday cult figures, a la David Khoresh). It also draws off of CK2's heresy/secret cult mechanics, some of Deus & Vayra's NLNW/Unfinished World content, and Sword of Mass Destruction's revised Clerics.

Like Gun Priest and OG Wizard, this is a class that has a fair amount of, like, "magic shit" going on, but very little in terms of actual magic. It's in that weird kind of liminal space, where it's clear to both player and character that something a little bit extraordinary has occurred, but neither can quite pin down the degree of influence brought by the supernatural.

--

Some rapid-fire commentary about mechanics-y things:

Heretic isn't mechanical; it's literally just the "you are a heretic" feature. Following has a lot of words, but it basically boils down to: you have a mob of followers that you have to care about, you can bully them by rolling 2d6, and if someone listens to you, they will probably join you. 

Secret Heretics and Shelter for the Faithful are both really about just saying "you have more followers and they can help you out sometimes." That's about it, really.

Intercessor is the "healers heal good" perk; don't let it heal HP, just more RP-ish afflictions. Divinity is another not-really-mechanical one, it basically just says "hey you reached level 4, you get a real religion now, hooray!"

Signs & Miracles are the power meat of this class, other than followers. It's important to note that the Signs just happen. The Heresiarch is here to shake things up, for better or worse, and the Signs are how that happens. 

The Miracles are the meatier spell-ish powers; most are not super combat-useful, so be generous in how your Heresiarch can use them. For the Divination, as GM, the best revelations are super specific but kind of lacking context: "Duke Belair will betray you," say, or "it will not rain for one month." Things that are workable and easily-proven, but not immediately useful in the moment.

--

Δ templates, pronounced as "delta templates," are templates that you get the benefits of not as you level up, but instead when you fulfill their specific narrative beats. (They're basically just Pasts/Traumas from Zombie World, if you're familiar.) 

Δ templates count as templates for the purposes of [templates], in my mind, so if you have C templates and Open+Published+Excommunicated, [templates] = 6. If you think that's super OP or whatever, you can skip it.

Generally, the Δ templates escalate and ramp up the drama as your Heresiarch gets more powerful. You get more powers and more perks, but it means the Church hates you all the more.

Note that in order to get all of the first 6 Signs & Miracles, you need both Excommunicated and Persecuted and to have hit D templates.

--

Martyred is this class's endgame, sort of like the Gothic Villain; it can be continuation (if the first 6 aren't fulfilled), a giant blowup ending (if they are), or something that's never triggered (which means you win, basically).

Really, Heresiarch is a campaign-plot-structure that's dressed up as a class.