D20x5 Impractical Priesthoods

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D20	These priests worship:
1	The four faces of the sun (dawn, noon, dusk, and night), passing between their rites in time with the day. Eclipses bring much consternation and heretical squabbling to them.
2	A god who takes the form of a snail, and teaches the ways of comfort and stress-free living. While meditating, the priests let colourful snails with soporific slime crawl over them.
3	A sacred fire ensconced in a forge at the center of their temple. Through it, metal and flesh alike might be reforged into finer forms.
4	A god that lives within a giant discarded snakeskin. It has power over wisdom, the past, parenthood, and all other things that are lost with the old.
5	The concept of motion itself. Their temple is festooned with waterwheels and whirligigs.
6	A heavy executioner’s blade that took 999 lives at a king’s behest before taking that king’s head as well, considering it an avatar of death-as-the-great-equalizer. Aging priests consider it a great honour to die by its stroke.
7	A coin-god who embodies not wealth or greed but simply the coin itself, a far-ranging medium of exchange laden with symbols of nation and authority. They collect all sorts of coins, and punish clippers and counterfeiters cruelly.
8	The collective will of all living things. In this will humanity’s complex and contradictory desires are believed to be outweighed by simple ones for food, safety, and perpetuation.
9	A living saint who was able to save thousands in a recent famine by regurgitating an endless supply of rice gruel.
10	A god of gaps, which exists in ignorance and absence. At the heart of their temple is a cave where no light has ever shone, where their god is said to rest.
11	The perfection of mathematics. Their temple is built according to sacred geometrical principles.
12	A hot spring, the fumes of which grant ecstatic visions. Many priests proudly bear the burns of overindulgence in these scalding revelations. Much of their temple is dedicated to housing and feeding the holy monkeys who bathe in the spring.
13	A miraculously immortal dog who eternally guards its master’s grave (which their temple was built around).
14	The muse of dance. All the priests are expert dancers and host balls to preach their doctrine.
15	The piled bones of a race of horned demigods who ushered in a golden age long ago.
16	Riddling trickster spirits that conceal potent lessons in oblique pranks.
17	A divine serpent who both lives in and is all storms. The mystery of this serpent is that it contains both violent and nurturing ideals.
18	The original language, supposed to exist before war and strife and the division of humanity. The priests gather tomes and tongues to reverse-engineer it from myriad scraps.
19	A vast, impenetrable pantheon of impossible forces and deities: the Blind Omniscience, the Obscurant Lantern, the Suffocating Breath, and the Edgeless Sharp, to name a few.
20	A gnarled tree covered in eyes that weep analgesic sap. The priests administer the sap in their rites, and consume so much of it themselves their tears become red and constant.

D20	These priests wear:
1	Very tall hats that trail emblazoned banners from their tops.
2	Nearly-identical masks. The happier the expression on the mask, the higher the standing of the priest wearing it.
3	Sashes embroidered with mandalas.
4	Tattoos that depict their central myths on their skin.
5	Bells according to the vows they’ve sworn. The more their vows isolate them from common humanity, the deeper their bells toll.
6	Pages of scripture dangling from their earrings.
7	”Swords of the spirit” at their side. These swords are bladeless (or have an invisible, spiritual blade as the priests claim) and are used for gestural rituals and exorcisms.
8	Blessed cilices which they must not remove at any time.
9	Antique outfits that were in style when their faith was founded.
10	Delicate manacles around their wrists to symbolize their dedication to their faith.
11	Rainbow turbans.
12	Crystal brooches carved in the shape of a key object of their religion.
13	Live, hallowed herbs grown in soil tucked into pockets in their robes.
14	A silver hoop they’re gifted for every year of service.
15	Tabards stitched with hymns.
16	A vial containing the ashes of prior generations of priests.
17	Nothing but body paint most of the time, as going skyclad is an important part of their rites.
18	Alternating black and white lacquer on their teeth and nails.
19	Eye medallions on their forehead and the back of their head.
20	Outfits which must be made of animal fibres above the waist, and plant fibres below.

D20	These priests’ faith:
1	Is a cynical front they use to gain temporal power and worldly rewards.
2	Is sanitized for the general public. The truth behind it is darker than it seems.
3	Is casual, not taken overly seriously.
4	Has been challenged lately, the priests themselves split between doubters and those who’ve doubled down.
5	Is rife with shibboleths, circles of initiation, and similar tactics to exclude the untruly devoted.
6	Is innocent and unquestioning.
7	Is zealous, keen to challenge rival faiths and earthly authorities.
8	Is fuelled by fear of the consequences of disobedience.
9	Started as a splinter sect of a larger religion.
10	Is focused more on performing the right practices rather than holding the right beliefs.
11	Is informal and unhierarchical. The priests are outnumbered by lay practitioners.
12	Requires them and their congregation to observe strict guest rights.
13	Is under continuous revision and renewal due to the weight it places on charismatic prophets and spontaneous inspiration.
14	Is ordered by a set of commandments which each priest must memorize and carry on their person in some form.
15	Is a revival and reconstruction of a once-extinct religion.
16	Is built upon an older and more widespread tradition of taboos and superstition.
17	Is dogmatic, permitting no deviation from ancient interpretations.
18	Is syncretic, incorporating pieces of many other faiths as they’re encountered.
19	Is intellectualized, with a rich scholastic tradition.
20	Is fanatical. They’re very insistent missionaries, and avenge any slight against their faith threefold.

D20	These priests’ congregation:
1	Has a contingent of trend-setting nobles using them as the flavour of the week.
2	Is composed of beggars, pickpockets, prostitutes, and similar sorts disregarded by other priesthoods.
3	Is made of a single rich patron and that patron’s household.
4	Is a single extensive clan, from which the priests themselves are recruited. It’s an ethnic religion.
5	Is made of urban tradesmen and professionals.
6	Is segregated by the astrological sign they were born under.
7	Come more to jeer at the priests than share in their worship.
8	Is made up of bohemians, outsider artists, and other mild rebels.
9	Is made up entirely of slaves and serfs, as due to an obscure but unbreakable tenet they believe humans are unworthy of worshipping the divine. Only a human who’s become chattel is suitably humbled to approach it.
10	Smoke entheogens in a huge shared hookah to come closer to the divine together.
11	Is made of impoverished or disgraced nobles who cling to its tradition.
12	Are mummified and interred in the temple crypt in praying poses after death.
13	Are drawn to the priests by otherworldly dreams.
14	Are forbidden from eating unmilled seeds.
15	Place great stock in the babbling of the very young and the very old.
16	Are taught an arcane language known only to the faithful.
17	Is composed of sailors and traveling merchants who find stability in their faith.
18	Is mostly bureaucrats looking to make connections and further their careers.
19	Is mostly made up of a warrior society who attribute their success in battle to the priests’ blessing.
20	Buy entrance to their temple with blood drawn by cats’ claws.

D20	These priests want:
1	To see a prominent critic of theirs silenced.
2	To commission the construction of a grand new idol.
3	A neutral arbitrator to decide between interpretations of an omen they’ve received.
4	To hire rough sorts to reclaim a lost bastion of their faith.
5	To stop whoever or whatever has been picking them off one by one.
6	To find out why their usual methods of working magic haven’t been working lately.
7	To have a stolen artifact of their founder retrieved.
8	To be freed from the persecution they’re suffering under.
9	An outsider to contrive the events of a prophecy that will lead to the birth of their messiah.
10	A cell of schismatics to be rooted out and brought back into the fold.
11	One of their number who’s been imprisoned for disturbing the common peace with aggressive preaching to be broken out of jail.
12	To put together an impressive festival to drum up donations.
13	The skull of their recently deceased leader to be left in the hidden sanction of a rival priesthood as a sign of their own superiority.
14	A monster that’s been plaguing the countryside to be captured and sacrificed as a display of their faith’s power.
15	A good home to be found for the bastard child of one of their members.
16	To have a contest of mysteries that is to be held before the king be rigged in their favour.
17	A demon particularly opposed to their faith to be banished back from whence it came for the embarrassments it’s visited upon them.
18	A spy in their congregation who’s been stealing their mystic secrets to sell to other temples to be brought to justice.
19	Someone expendable to undergo a dangerous dream-quest to ascertain the wishes of that which they hold to be divine.
20	A wraith haunting a building near their temple to be caught and bound as their guardian spirit.