Faith Items - Restrictions on who should use them?

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Tue May 15, 2007 12:00 pm

Two related questions here:
1) There have been IC postings in the past asking PCs not wear items indicative of a church affiliation (having a church's colors) unless they are actually part of that faith. Does this still hold, and is it general? I think in many cases new players don't realize the significance of the colors; they see them in the temple shops, and they buy them. Also, it's unclear if hopefuls of a given faith should thus restrict themselves.

2) As a member of a faith blessed with a fine smithy and tack shop, I've been approached on several occasions by members of similar, allied faiths that I presume to be lacking such (Tormtars, in particular) and asked if I could obtain barding or platemail for them from the Tyrran shop. Is there a proper IC response in a case such as this? Does it make any difference if they hope to have the item renamed?

Kelemvor · Post by **Kelemvor** » Tue May 15, 2007 12:34 pm

If a shop or NPC is restricted to a certain faith by code. (That is, non-faith can not enter or are told that the NPC will not sell to them) then items there should be considered to be for that faith only. However, some areas may be restricted by class rather than faith and can be considered to be more open to buying on another's behalf.

As to what someone wears, if it is faith restricted then they should not be knowingly wearing it without a good IC reason (And '...but it looks good on me' isn't a good IC reason btw

). However, if the sale of the item is not restricted, then it can be worn by all.

If you are unsure, Ask. Oh, and Tormtars who want barding could ask any number of other smiths, including PC ones

Leohand · Post by **Leohand** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:30 pm

My bardess has nearly full sunite leathers, but she bought them fom various merchants in Waterdeep, noone bought them for her, and none of the peices I have bear Sune's symbol. Even though technically those don't sell to non-sunites, knowing their source now (though not at the time I bought them) should I be able to wear those peices?

Kelemvor · Post by **Kelemvor** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:41 pm

There is no Sunite leather armour available for sale on the merchants of Waterdeep. They do, however, sell parts of a suit of red studded leather armour. This is a generic armour that all may buy, exactly the same as the white studded and blue studded types.

Leohand · Post by **Leohand** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:47 pm

Maybe not sold now. I got the white and silver studded, I believe that's it, from various wandering merchants around the city. I guess a sunite sold them or something. I got them many months ago though.

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:42 pm

I think at that point, you have a real RP on your hands. If other Sunites get curious or offended over your wearing of their items, then the question of the Sunite responsible for selling faith items to an everyday vedor comes into play; in general, I'd say there'd be nothing wrong with simply deciding as your character what to do about them-- since they came to you in an IC way.

...of course, I'm not an IMM so I could be wrong

Leohand · Post by **Leohand** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:47 pm

My bardess is a bit like a sunite, she thinks that the leathers are stylish and that they look good, lol. It may be that she eventually joins that faith, though at present she is indecisive. But I do like your point, it makes for a good thing to rp, lol.

Tavik · Post by **Tavik** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:03 am

Alright, this gets me curious. Are the restrictions on what a character can wear really that limiting? If you want to go by church colors, then really you'd have to run around naked unless you were a member of a church because all the colors are taken by the various faiths. I know that is an extreme example, but it seems like that is sort of where this discussion is headed.

My other question is simply: Why can't non members wear clothing from a faith they aren't a member of? If the character identifies with a certain faith and wishes to promote it, but not be a member, why shouldn't we let them wear an article of clothing from that faith? You don't have to be a Christian to wear a shirt with a cross on it, or Jewish to wear a shirt with the star of David on it. Why is it not acceptable here? Now, armor and weapons are a different story and I can understand why you would want to limit that. But why clothing? If you wish to venerate a god and show your support, why can't you?

I'm done. Hopefully, that wasn't too off the topic.

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:36 am

White and silver studded leathers are not sold by Sunite only mobiles.

IMO: The only problems when a person wears another faiths items are when the mobiles of said faith's temple are set to only sell to faith members, or when people are entering evil temples as goods to purchase items to wear. (IE: People buying the Lovite jewelry from that evil lovite wearing a whip and being blatently evil. Not gonna lie, big pet peeve. :P)

Dugald · Post by **Dugald** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:50 am

If it's within your pantheon (even if it's not, it just makes a whole lot less sense), i see no reason to restrict what a character wears.

There are 40 plus deities, not including demigods, in the faerunian (human) pantheon. Any human, spare the most devout of diametrically opposed faiths, are entirely in character to pray or worship any of those deities. I see no downside for a faith to get upset about people wearing "their" items.

I can't think of a god who shuns the spreading of their name. While taking one god as a patron deity above all others puts you in an exclusive group, praying to a certain god is something that darn near every human in faerun (and plenty of humanoids) do every single day.

If they're being used to taunt or anger, or the items in question were specifically made for an order within that faith...justified completely in being angry. But if it's something with a holy symbol on it, or an item of certain colors...how can there be IC justification in going crazy over something like that when there are 50 million humans in faerun who could easily have any holy symbol on them at any time.

The holy symbol one gets should (imo) represent an uniqueness in placing a patron deity far above the other gods in the pantheon...it shouldn't represent (imo) a uniqueness in praying to or worshiping that god - because that is something tens of millions across Faerun partake in.

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Thu May 17, 2007 6:42 pm

There's a reason alignments are in game. It's not so that someone can follow a good god but RP praying to an evil as well like "Yo. I'm good and stuff, but I totally pray to Beshaba coz she's awesome, so they like let me in her temple and let me shop at her store check out my new digs."

Even if a good DID pray to Beshaba for WHATEVER reason - Beshaba's main symbol wearers are still evil. Her temple workers are evil. They're not going to be kind to a goodie with a goodie symbol busting in to buy some pants.

Just because you -can- doesn't mean you -should-. It's like walking in and killing a mobile. That WHOLE TEMPLE is not going to not react.

Nedylene · Post by **Nedylene** » Thu May 17, 2007 7:57 pm

It is a touchy subject. Some hypothetical situations..

Character A is sent by the Harpers to pose as a Lovite fanatic and to infiltrate the church to find out the secrets. They go through means to aquire the armor, jewelry, accessories and tools of the church so to speak. Dress him up, teach him basic acting, send him on his way. Should he NOT be wearing the get up? This is a legitimate RP reason for them to have the equipment, be wearing it and walk around in it. When doing a know alignment yes it will show that they are something good.

Character B sees good armor with a god's holy symbol on it. Had someone buy it for him and then goes off hunting with it. Alignment is good, no reason for him to have it other then good protection.

Now... two characters both wearing the offending armor but one has a legitimate reason to. How can you tell without asking? And how can you ask without offending the one who really DOES have a reason to be wearing it? Should we as players be the one monitoring this? Can you automatically assume that a good player wearing the armor is in poor form and obviously a charlaten? How would your faith member know that this is not a convert?

The rule on wearing faith items should be monitored by imms. If someone is wearing the offending item that you think shouldn't be. Keep your mouth closed and use the ask channel or send an e-mail to the imms to look into it. Either they will handle it or they will tell you there is an IC reason for it. You the player does not need to know the hidden rp of another player. That is for you to discover in character. You as the player is not the one who is meant to moderate this. If an imm comes back and says No IC reason THEN you as the player has a reason to step in and be the big bad scary (And trust me, most evil HP *ARE* scary) HP/Faith Manager and punish them accordingly for offending the powers that be.

~Nedy

Oghma · Post by **Oghma** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:33 pm

I see dealing with faith items as an ic issue really, in the past it was an ooc issue to the point faith items were set with zaps to harm players that tried to wear them if they were not in the faith. This has been removed and replaced by code that allows logs to be created when someone gives a faith item away.

I personally hate to see non faithful wearing faith items, but there are ic reasons that should be approached icly.

The rule on wearing faith items should be monitored by imms. If someone is wearing the offending item that you think shouldn't be. Keep your mouth closed and use the ask channel or send an e-mail to the imms to look into it. Either they will handle it or they will tell you there is an IC reason for it.

This I do not agree with. It is up to your character and their ethos to ask questions or take action that is ic for them. If you have a hidden faith chances are you will act convertly or ignore the slight. The only time you really should question or email about it is if someone is doing something blatantly ooc like raising an area to sell items, requesting items ooc or wearing them for ooc reasons those would be grounds for that kind of question or email.

Generally I believe the only acceptable grounds for someone wearing a faith item outside of a faith are if the Faith manager or High priest allows it. Anything else would involve faithful getting icly angry and looking for ways to reclaim said items either through negotiation, threats, bribery or violence. Or from mobiles that will sell to all. Loosley remember that people work hard icly to earn the right to have faith items and it is a bit disheartening for some icly to seeo thers flaunting what they have earned in the case of restricted faith items.

Dugald · Post by **Dugald** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:26 am

Generally I believe the only acceptable grounds for someone wearing a faith item outside of a faith are if the Faith manager or High priest allows it. Anything else would involve faithful getting icly angry and looking for ways to reclaim said items either through negotiation, threats, bribery or violence.

If by "faith item" you specifically mean a holy relic (supp item, item created with the intention for exclusive faith organizations) - that makes sense to me. But just because something has a symbol of a god on it, or is sold from a temple, doesn't make it something of unusual importance to the church.

Good/Evil/Otherwise gods...every single one would love the idea of as many people as possible wearing their holy symbol or things associated with them. If the goal is to curb good aligned PC's wearing symbols or equipment of evil faiths, then the pressure to remove those items should be from the the good pc's peers...not the from the evil side, whose faith is benefiting.

It sounds like this issue is half IC and half OOC - which makes in character decision making difficult, because you start with your conclusion and you work backwards to figure out how to get there...often leading to erratic or forced behavior.

I wish I had a good answer as to having a PC's peer group caring what others are wearing - but I don't. Maybe having an evil get all chummy with a good PC over their recent "donations" to the temple, and explaining in detail how their purchase of that /had to have/ prada bag allowed the church to purchase 10 more slaves this month (insert appropriate evil act) than normal. Then if they do the song and dance about how they'd never fund something like that, point out that they gave coin to an evil stinkin church...and those don't use their profits for hosting soup kitchens. Of course, if you can do this in public, all the better.

Oghma · Post by **Oghma** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:43 am

If by "faith item" you specifically mean a holy relic (supp item, item created with the intention for exclusive faith organizations) - that makes sense to me.

No, by faith item I mean a weapon, object or article of clothing reserved with code by mobile shopkeepers for faith members. Supplicated faith objects have special coding to make them wearable by only faith members already. I mean any item you can buy from faith based shop keepers that have been reserved for faith members only those are the items I classified.

Good/Evil/Otherwise gods...every single one would love the idea of as many people as possible wearing their holy symbol or things associated with them. If the goal is to curb good aligned PC's wearing symbols or equipment of evil faiths, then the pressure to remove those items should be from the the good pc's peers...not the from the evil side, whose faith is benefiting.

You may be correct, but consider that every deity holds to a key view of life. That if you wear something of his marked with his symbol and commit horrific acts like burning books or flirting with faith enemies The deity may take offense as he sees one with his symbol on their person doing things in Their name. This goes hand in hand with an evil deity seeing a paragon of good or even evil doing something counter to the portfolio or relationship that deity fosters. Icly anyone can wear anything unless it explodes when they do it or it is made specificly for someone else, they just have to be prepared to face the consequences or results that may come with such or finally they should look for icly acceptable ways to wear things.

I am reminded of the time when the Cyborg disguised himself as Superman and laid waste to Coast city. The true Superman confronted him and struck him down, for not only did he kill millions of innocents but he did it wearing Superman's symbol. I tend to apply this to the above.

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:46 am

I can certainly see the point about misrepresenting a faith... but I have to view faiths as being more like corporations in a sense than like Superman. Superman's powers have nothing to do with whether or not people believe in him-- unlike Faerunian deities. As the homepage says:

For without followers their powers were lessened.

With the support of general FR literature, I take this to mean that not only do dedicated followers give power to deities, but that every thought, feeling, every simple remembrance of a deity is a source of power for it, however small. Yes, if someone is going against a deity's ideas while wearing their symbol, they will merit some unfriendly attention-- but it would need to be pretty severe. Nike would prefer good publicity to bad publicity, but any publicity will still brand the name of Nike into the mind of consumers, so they only really try to supress things that are like to cause a boycott. Likewise, most deities would have to balance the ill effect of having a poor influence wearing their symbol and being noticed versus the power they're gaining because people are, in fact, noticing the symbol. I'd imagine good deities would be a bit more strict about the context in which their symbol is worn, but plenty of evil deities could spin a do-gooder wearing their symbol as "Look, I got my crafty little paws on even this so-called pure-hearted person!"

Dugald · Post by **Dugald** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:20 am

I agree.

I don't see a reason why those two concepts are mutually exclusive.

Obviously an evil parading his evil in a murderous spree while decked out as a paladin, is a faith knightmare (hahhah) - the payoff of a good wearing an evil's symbol is much more dynamic...most evil deities don't revel in all of their actions obviously being evil (toss out the deities of fury here + Cyric), they just aren't that transparent - and either are plenty of their followers.

A good aligned PC wants to legitimately wear your evil faith's stuff because it's cool looking/protects better for price/ etc...that's an opportunity, not a threat. Gods do have portfolios, and it's their responsibility to keep them, but that shouldn't mean they refuse to lose a nickel to get a dime tomorrow.

edited: Amalia cut me! I was replying to Oghma

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:13 pm

I actually initiated this thread with the helpfiles in mind, and also in hopes of easing the confusion of some new players.

I don't think that at present there is a guide to the "colors of the Gods," in the helpfiles, and indeed, there's some confusion, even amongst veteran players, around the colors of some of the deities (Tyr being one of them). For new players, they are even more at a loss. I thought that a colo(u)r guide might help, but then got stuck on what to say in it about what wearing the colors might mean.

Based on the conversation above, my inclination at present is to say, effectively, that
1) Code will prevent you from wearing some things
2) If a merchant won't sell something to you, trying to get it through any other means invites trouble from that church [and may well get anyone in that church, who helps you get the item, in hot deity-water!]
3) If a temple shop will sell to you, the caution in (4) will still apply.
4) If you happen upon something available from a random merchant, and it has one of the color schemes above, understand that (1) and (2) may apply, and even if they don't, people may understand your wearing those colors to indicate some affiliation with that faith. The members of that faith may not take kindly to your doing so, if they see you as an impostor. On the other hand, some faiths will appreciate you as a fan or ally. The bottom line is, the colors mean something, and most PCs will be ICly attuned to that reality!

Suggestions or thoughts on this?

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:20 pm

I think it's an excellent point, Raona, though I'd be more inclined to think of actualy symbols than color schemes alone-- as you said, most people don't know the colors of deities (I sure don't!), and as Dugald mentioned, there are so many Gods that practically every color combination would mean something.

Wearing a God's symbol, on the other hand, especially one of the more intricate ones (I could see some poor careless sot accidentally wearing Shar's symbol somewhere on his person without realizing it, for example), cannot be mistaken as mere coincidence and one would naturally assume the PC doing it was making a statement of one kind or another.

Oghma · Post by **Oghma** » Sat May 19, 2007 1:01 am

Very well explained Raona. To sumarize my point a final time and I emphasize this: If a mobile shopkeeper is restricted from selling items to you, you should not have those item unless you have undertaken an in character rp to gain them. If you have not, you may face difficulties from followers of that guild or faith depending on who sees you and how they interpret your wearing of faith garments. As for colours well, I see nothing wrong with wearing the colours of a deity, many different garments come in many different colours throughout the world and most of them are available to all regardless of faith. I stand by my point if you wear something marked by a deity with symbol or reserved for followers and act against their creed or way you may be subect to ic punishment depending on deity and the situation. Superman though, I dress up like him all the time yet I rarely leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but neither do I rob banks, probably why he has yet to come after me