[DL] The Blessed

["Jeff Shoffner" <shoffner@usit.net>]

>Heya... I was wondering if anyone would give me an opinion:
>
>One of my players was discussing Deadlands characters w/ me - and he
>believes that ALL preachers/holy people, of  any faith, are .....

As several folks have said, Blessed are few & far between.  Couple of items
I'd like to chime in with is you are marshal, you can do anything you want.
Heck, in one adventure (with three newbies) we had three Blessed PCs.
Needless to say, we got reamed when it came to combat, but hey, that's what
the folks wanted to be.

One item that's been batted around a bit is Last Rites.  I'd say if you
really want to massage the rules a bit, just have a normal preacher do a
high TN roll against their Faith, & if he passes, then hey, someone decided
to give him a "freebie."  Who knows, there may be a LOT more Blessed out
there than we know--might be folks with true Faith that don't realize it &
the only miracles they have is subtle stuff like Last Rites, Sanctify, Holy
Water, etc.  When playing my Blessed, I tend to have him act that way.  I
have a list of miracles he knows, but I don't use them like, "I cast
Consecrate Item before I go into battle...."  Typically, I have him do the
"motions" of the miracle, & if the marshal gets the clue, I cast it.  Case
in point, our guys are going up against some group of 'raiders' that don't
seem to stay down when they are shot, so to bolster the group, I start
singing "Onward Christain Soldiers" while swinging away with grandpappy's
oak staff.  Game play, I just cast Battle Hymn; role play, I don't know why
it helps, but hey, it helps.

Jeff S