Favoured Soul
Original Tabletop source: Miniatures Handbook
Note: This page represents a class abstract which needs rewritten for the setting's specifics.
Please note: The following class write-up is for a class that is in a beta-testing state and is incomplete on Time of Unparalleled Darkness; expect that it will be changed before it is finalized.
The favored soul follows the path of the cleric but is able to channel divine power with surprising ease. She is able to perform the same tasks as her fellow divine spellcasters but with virtually no study; to her, it comes naturally. Scholars wonder if favored souls have traces of outsider blood from unions, holy or unholy, centuries ago and generations removed. Others suggest that divine training of the proper type awakens the ability, or that favored souls are simply imbued with their gifts by their gods when they begin the cleric's path. In any case, favored souls cast their spells naturally, as much through force of personality as through study. Though this gives them extraordinary divine abilities no normal person could ever match, they see their gift as a call to action, and so in some ways may lag behind their more studious colleagues.
Favored souls cast divine spells by means of an innate connection rather than through laborious training and prayer, so their divine connection is natural rather than learned. These divine spellcasters know fewer spells and acquire powerful spells more slowly than clerics, but favored souls can cast spells more often, and they have no need to select and prepare them ahead of time.
Divine magic is intuitive to a favored soul, not a matter of careful prayer. This intuitive nature leads to a freer interpretation of faith and doctrine, and so favored souls tend slightly toward chaos over law. A favored soul is often of the same alignment as her deity, though some are one step away. For example, a favored soul could serve a lawful good deity and be neutral good herself. A favored soul may not be neutral unless her deity is neutral.
Favored souls learn of their connection with the divine at a young age. Eventually, a young favored soul understands the power that she has been wielding unintentionally. Favored souls, as naturally inclined divine channelers, are also born loners. Unlike clerics in a temple, they gain little by sharing their knowledge and have no strong incentive to work together.
Class Niche
The favored soul serves as a group's backup healer and defensive magic specialist. She can hold her own in a fight, especially if she chooses to focus on powers that aid her in combat.
Alignment and Religion
A favored soul can be of any religion. The most common deity worshiped by human favored souls in civilized lands is Pelor, god of the sun. Among nonhuman races, favored souls most commonly worship the chief deity of their racial pantheon. Unlike clerics, favored souls are not able to devote themselves to a cause or a source of divine power instead of a deity.
Favoured Souls as Adventurers
The innate talent of spontaneously channeling divine power is unpredictable, and it can show up in any of the common races. Divine spellcasters from savage lands or from among brutal humanoid tribes (such as orcs or half-orcs) are more often favored souls than clerics.
Favored souls are often loners, wandering the land serving their deities. They are welcomed by their churches but treated as unusual and are sometimes misunderstood. They are emissaries of their deities and outside the church's command structure - respected mystics not requiring the support normally crucial to a priest's success. This makes them sometimes revered and sometimes envied by their cleric cousins. While favored souls are occasionally disrespected for their perceived lack of discipline, devout worshipers know that they are a powerful message from, and indeed a living manifestation of, their deities.
Favored souls have the most in common with members of other self-taught classes, especially sorcerers, but also druids and rogues. They sometimes find themselves at odds with members of the more disciplined classes, specifically clerics, whom they sometimes view as too wrapped up in doctrine and rigidly defined attitudes.
