Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

This is a potentially very basic question, but I'm having difficulty deciding where I stand with the faith list in terms of in-character information.

As a faith manager, do you consider the entire faith list to be in character? Should all hopefuls, enquirers and the like be known to you, regardless of whether or not you've actually heard of them? On the flipside, and perhaps more importantly, would you know if someone were an imposter and not a member of the faith at all?

I reason that the Pope doesn't know all of his canons, but then Toril is an inherently magical realm - does this change matters do you think?

I as well am torn on the matter. Probabily from my aligance to a small church. I see a name as a hopeful and I am torn between looking for the pc and not. I have constantly wanted to say something like 'I have heard a name whispered on the wind' and actively search for a hopeful, but I have always decided against it. Might be nice though.

As for falsely saying you are part of a faith and dectecting these pc's.... Its an interesting idea, no idea about what to do here.

ICly since a hopeful must declare their desire to follow to a coded follower, the argument could be made that that follower told his superior, and that follower told his superior... And up and up until it reaches you.

Here's my suggestion:

For hopefuls, I think it's okay to use the list. Why? Because they're new people looking to join the faith.

For people who aren't on the list, I don't think it's okay to say 'Oh, you're not a member of my church!' Why? Even if you had a list.. of every single faith member for that entire realm (Prime Material) it would take you forever to even search through that list and find one specific name matching the given name. Also, the given name may not be the character's real name, too. Keep in mind the names listed in 'Faith List' would be a character's birth name. Not their given name (for those of you who use "given names," instead of your real one).

If you could use the faith list to say 'Well, you're not a registered member of my church. Burn!' then you may be quickly extinguishing an RP that a character has worked up a long time to RP as a spy. Also, most of the time a character claiming to be a member of a faith is already risking their soul if said God/dess comes'a'knockin'.

I often seek out hopefuls from my faith lists, telling them the Chuch informed me.

They have to enquire/apply to a mob, and the direct echo is announcing to the Church. :)

I would just add that I do exactly the same as Mele. Although the Pope doesn't know everyone, I'm sure the Pope would know every Catholic who, like Indiana Jones, goes delving into caverns to rescue maidens from goblins, killing demons and the like (not saying Indiana Jones is a Catholic, btw). Basically, our adventurer characters are all out of the ordinary. For some reason or another, they have been noticed by the Pope, and that is why we can IC use the faith list.

OOC... how else are we to do it?