Divine Powers

Miracles are what divine actors do. Not spells with a different name — miracles, in the full sense of the word. Healing, protection, the turning of the undead, intervention in the course of events that would otherwise run their natural course. The range of what a divine actor can call upon maps closely enough onto the vanilla cleric list that an AD&D player will orient quickly. The framing is not a cosmetic change. It reflects what is actually happening: a divine actor petitions their god, and their god answers.

Minor adjustments reflect the removal of alignment from the setting. Miracles that in vanilla AD&D are framed in terms of good and evil are reframed in terms that fit the Oath-Bound cosmological model. The mechanical effect is broadly preserved.

There are no slots. A divine actor does not begin the day with a fixed allocation of miracles to expend. What they have access to, and how readily it is granted, is a function of two relationships: their standing with their god, and their standing with their Foundation.

Concord is the relationship between a divine actor and their god — the degree to which the actor’s conduct, commitments, and service are in alignment with what their visage asks of them. A divine actor in good concord is heard. One whose concord has degraded — through neglect, through breach of covenant, through conduct their god finds incoherent with the relationship — finds their petitions less readily answered.

Fidelity is the relationship between a divine actor and their Foundation — the institution they serve, the community of practice that trained them, the structure through which their divine relationship is administered and supported. A divine actor in good fidelity has institutional backing, resources, and the support of a community of practitioners. One whose fidelity has lapsed operates without that scaffold.

Both relationships matter. A divine actor who maintains strong concord with their god but has severed their Foundation relationships is working without institutional support, without the community that sustains their practice, and without the formal structure through which miracles are administered. A divine actor in good institutional standing but whose personal conduct has degraded their concord finds the petitions they make on behalf of that institution increasingly unanswered.

Success as a divine actor is directly correlated with maintaining both relationships well. Advancement in the divine domain — access to greater miracles, greater reliability in their granting — follows from demonstrated dedication to the Foundation and sustained concord with the god, not from accumulating experience points toward a level threshold.

A player coming from vanilla AD&D should shift from thinking about spell slots to thinking about relationships. The question is not "do I have this spell prepared" but "is this the kind of petition my god would answer, given who I am and how I have conducted myself."

A divine actor who has been careless about their obligations, who has treated their Foundation membership as incidental, or whose conduct has been at odds with their visage’s character, will find the divine less responsive — not because they have run out of miracles, but because they have degraded the relationship that makes miracles possible.

The miracles themselves are recognizable. The management of the actor’s relationships is what changes.