"The Church" and Low Fantasy Settings

Fantasy is rooted in archetype. And there is arguably no greater historical archetype than The Church. Priests, monks, and friars fill the pages of folktales and fairytales. They are heroes, villains, and comic foils. They embody the Seven Virtues and the Seven Sins. And in any milieu vaguely approaching a medieval setting, The Church as a political entity can hardly be ignored without sensing the vacuum of its absence.

The Cleric class of D&D has never been one that felt to me like it fit within this archetypal structure. The D&D Cleric is more like an Old Testament character than a medieval one, with the ability to part water, turn sticks to snakes, and summon plagues of locusts. Supernatural abilities within The Church archetype are more appropriately assigned to "Saints", who's rare works are seen as miracles.

Artifacts of The Church, such as holy water, holy symbols, incense, and church bells are in themselves imbued with power outside the scope of "magic". With apologies to Gandalf, the priest is no mere conjurer but someone who participates in the transformation of the mundane into the holy through direct intervention of the gods. The priest is both somethings less yet something more than a "magic user".

The hallmarks of The Church as a political entity are power and orthodoxy. Bishops can rival kings, and internal conflict and corruption can make for meaty material for for a campaign background. The Church can have its own formalized rituals on the "proper" way to honor the gods, treating an entire pantheon with a single theological approach.

From a fairytale perspective, The Church as an instigator of war (against individuals or groups) is seldom seen. Neither crusades nor witch hunts figure significantly in such tales. In fact, if judgement is cast in these tales it is most likely to be on a clergyman:

"They have whetted their teeth against the stones,

And now they pick the bishop's bones;

They gnawed the flesh from every limb,

For they were sent to do judgment on him!"

-Robert Southey

Using creative adaptations of the archetype of The Church in your TTRPG can allow you to expand your use of classic folktale motifs, bringing a sense of groundedness to your world and make it feel a bit closer to The Fields We Know.

Friar detail from The Cantebury Tales