Cleric of X (Patreon)

Below is the short backstory of a wandering cleric PC that I will probably never get to play. I wanted to come up with a reason why a cleric who is ostensibly a good person might have been kicked from their home and never be able to return. This story isn't related to anything in Arcadia, it's just an exercise in understanding motivations, temptations, and personal justifications. There are no names in this story, and sometimes the pronouns can be a little ambiguous, but they serve the purpose of keeping the story focused on the cleric's experiences and points of view. It's a one sided story of a man who lacked the courage to do the right thing. It is a slow escalation akin to, "well one more cookie would be ok" until the whole box is gone.

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Cleric of X

It was only after she made her vows with another man that she and I fell in love. She was busy with the farm, I was busy with the Temple. I saw them, saw her, on Sundays. Once a month or so she would find an excuse to stay late and hitch a ride out to the farm with someone else. These were our secret hours of bliss, of joy.

When she was with child, the thought never crossed my mind. She spent her nights with her husband, how could it be mine? But when I delivered the child, it was born with light hair, a round nose, and a clef chin. Her husband was dark of hair. Both were thin of nose. Neither had a clef chin. I said nothing.

The husband became enraged, accused her of infidelity. She denied it, proclaimed her fidelity. I stood by and said nothing.

The husband named a man, an innocent man, as the true sire. She denied it, proclaimed it was he. Still, I said nothing.

The husband took to the street to exhaust his rage upon the innocent man, and all I cautioned to him was peace. At the innocent man’s house, first words flew, then tempers. Violence was exchanged, and the innocent man lay bruised, battered, but intact. The husband returned to the wife, begged her forgiveness, and swore to be a better man. In their embrace, her gaze ended the love between us. The child would be his, an innocent man lay beaten, but this moment had passed. What good would come of speaking now? So I said nothing.

Soon came the family of the innocent man. They beat the husband, abducted the wife, and galloped away. They questioned her and she told them the truth, the same truth she would speak the next day before the village. But the husband and his family wouldn’t have it. Called it a lie, an attempt to frame an innocent priest. They never gave me a chance to speak up, and I never sought one. 

By the time I brought them to peace, blood had been spilled on both sides. Only with wisdom and guidance would this moment pass. I spoke over the bodies, the families were humbled and shamed. But with all my words, I still said nothing. The innocent man and his family stayed in town to remember the dead over drinks. The husband and his family went home. 

When the fire lit the sky, we all came running. The doors of the inn had been nailed shut, and the husband’s family stood before it, watching and listening to the cries of the inferno. The innocent man, his family. The innkeeper, the innkeeper’s family. The traveling merchant, making his bi-yearly stop. Members of the town, making their nightly rounds. A woman and her baby. She must have slipped away to warn the innocent man. Had she arrived at the inn moments before her husband? Had her confrontation taken too long? Her disappearance was noticed before her remains were found, and the husband grieved her loss as did I.

My people needed me, now more than ever. A great injustice had been done, the village had suffered a terrible loss. I was the only healer in town, so still, I said nothing. What would be the point, after all that had happened? 

Before I was the high cleric, the village had a midwife. She was a milk maid now, yet still kept close with all the families. She asked in about everyone. All the time. Over the ashes of the inn she came to stand between me and the husband, she spoke about the rainstorm last year. About how it had washed out the road to town for weeks, and about how the innocent man had been stuck in town waiting for the roads to dry. How he had to sell his cart and ox to cover his costs, and how the traveling merchant had given him a lift back to the village.

The husband turned to me, looked, and saw. He saw past the robes of my order, looked at my light hair, my round nose, my clef chin. His eyes were open, deep, slowly accepting the picture that formed before him. Other villagers stared at him, trying to understand what he was seeing, and succeeding. I withered before their gaze, standing center stage, my silence deafening.

I could have said something. When the child was born. When an innocent man was accused, when he was beaten. When the woman I loved was abducted. When she confessed our affair before the village. Before blood was spilled. I could have taken responsibility before fires were set. At each turn I thought, “Surely this is as bad as it will get. No good will come of me speaking up. I’m the only cleric this side of the river and they need me.”. I may not have had a hand in the violence, but I failed to stop it when it would have been so easy.

I left before too many eyes opened my way. I hurried to the temple, packed only my things, and was gone before dawn.

So you see, it’s not that I am barred from my home, it is that I have no home to return to. Through all this, [Diety] has stayed with me. At first I thought this was a sign of my innocence, but now I see it is a sign of my guilt. S/he stays with me so that I may atone for my misdeeds. I do great works in his/her name, hoping that through these deeds I may find a way to forgive myself.