So you want to play a divine magic caster?

In universe, "divine spell casters" are called "theurgists"  

Who is your source of power?

  It is "who" and not "what". All divine magic in Scarterra comes from the Nine. Most theurgists have one of the Nine as their sole source of power while a rare few derive their magic from the Nine collectively.   You must choose one of the Nine as your character’s patron or play a pantheon caster.     Many fantasy RPG settings treat divine magic as just a simple mechanic or an afterthought, but the lore of Scarterra is built on the foundation of the lore of the Nine. Divine Lore is the first category in the table of contents for a reason. If you as a player don't want to get entangled in that aspect of the lore, you probably shouldn't play a divine caster.   You don't have to read everything, but you should at least read the full article on your character's patron god or goddess and their related follower articles.   The quickest way to browse the basics of the Nine without reading everything is the brief stats articles.   Maylar stats in brief   Mera Stats in brief   Korus Stats in Brief   Nami stats in brief   Greymoria stats in brief   Khemra stats in brief   Zarthus stats in brief   Hallisan Stats in Brief   Phidas stats in brief    

How did your divine power manifest?

  Favored souls are born with theurgy foisted upon them while annointed gain their theurgy as a result of their piety and focused will. Most annointed are trained in a religious order from a young age, but a large minority of them are self-taught theurgists from a secular background.     Favored souls are sometimes treated differently from annointed by their own respective priesthoods and general society, sometimes they are not. Most favored souls have periodic visits from a spirit that acts as a mentor of sort. At the very least, a spirit shows up at least once to explain to a young favored soul who and what they are.        

Social Connections and background

  Players should give thought to their character background and social connections with any character and consider using Merits and Flaws to flesh this out.   For a divine spell caster, social Merits could involve favorable relations with your divine patron’s priesthood while social Flaws could involve unfavorable relations, or perhaps you attracted the attention of your divine patron’s rivals.     You should figure out if your character is an ordained priest or priestess or if he or she is associated with a holy order of some sort. This is not required, many divine casters have no formal ties to a priesthood, knightly order, or monastic order. It is also possible to play as a priest, holy warrior, or monk to be a part of a holy order and not have any divine magic at all.     That doesn’t mean your character has to be defined solely by their divine connections. Annointed and favored souls are still people and often have families, friends, rivals, hobbies, and professions not enmeshed in temple politics, though some theurgists have very little to their lives outside of their holy calling, especially if they began their religious training as children.     Is your character a loner or he part of an existing holy order? If so, is he part of a large and mainstream holy order or a small fringe group? Does he get along well with his temple hierarchy or does he butt heads with his ecclesiastical superiors?   All Scarterrans worship the same nine deities (or at least acknowledge the same nine deities but they don't agree on the right way to do it. It is worth keeping in mind during character creation and coming up with your background how well your character's religious organization fits into society at large, or at least the society your character was raised in. Some religious organizations are powerful and respected or at least one of these two things while other religious organizations are obscure and largely unknown or even outright shunned and feared. Certain religious organizations are often associated with the upper classes and others are associated with the lowly riffraff. This will impact your character connections and abilities.    

Power Optimization of your points buys

            If you decide to really lean into your divine magic, your not going to have as many nonmagical abilities to fall back on. This is no problem if you like playing a support character to help your allies shine. It is certainly a viable strategy to load up on as many dots of divine magic as you can afford and hide behind your adventuring party’s strongest warriors while casting spells to make them stronger.     If you want to play a more frontline action oriented character, it’s better to go lighter on a divine magic. It’s a viable play style to cast a couple spells early in the combat (or in the immediate preface to combat) to tilt things in your favor, then start swinging weapons.   Both play styles are viable, but you should build your character towards which ever style you think would be more fun to play.     There are 13 spheres of divine magic, you cannot realistically have them all or at least you cannot have them all at a five dot rating. Do you pick the favored spheres of your divine patron or do you pick what seems most useful and fun? If you need help deciding what divine spheres work best for you, the article Divine spheres, quick reference guide should help you out a lot with quick links to easily find the full descriptions if needed.       A lot of divine magic uses Theology or Enigmas, 6 of the 13 spheres in fact. In terms of spell effects, it makes zero difference to the potency of the spell whether a character casts magic with Theology or Enigmas, but it makes a difference to the character's personality and background. Characters that rely on theology are likely to be ritual and tradition focused, focused on what is known as orthopraxy, doing the religious observances exactly right.   Characters that rely on Enigmas are more inwardly focused and focus on meditation and reflection, and building a personal relationship with their divine patron, in other words, orthodoxy.   To put it simply, do you picture your character burying his nose in holy texts or quietly meditating in the wilderness to become one with the universe?   You can of course play a character that has a high rating in Enigmas and Theology. Such a character would be a very spiritually balanced teacher and sage which can be fun to roleplay, but from a metagame perspective if you goal is to maximize your spell casting prowess, it is better to load up on dots in one of these traits, not both.   Each deity has three favored spheres which give their affiliated casters a difficulty break when using them. Pantheon casters can choose three spheres form a short list. This is handy, but you are not required to take all three of your favored spheres. In fact, you are not required to take any of your deity's favored spheres at all.       In early playtesting, casters that focus on a small number of divine spheres at a high level tend to outperform casters that that focus on a wide array of divine spheres at a low level, at least in combat.     Most of the one dot divine powers are sensory based. Most of the utilitarian magic that adventurers need routinely are clustered around the three dot level. Four and especially five dots divine magic powers are not normally magic for everyday situations. They are miracles to be called on in times of great need. Most Scarterran theurgy wielders rarely reach these lofty heights and those that do are expected by their priesthoods and societies to use this great power judiciously. Characters with four and especially five dot magic powers are likely to be regionally famous and widely sought after for good or ill.     Willpower is useful to all characters, but when playing a divine caster, it also impacts your mana pool making it even more valuable. You should raise your Willpower score as high as you can justify or afford. In fact, annointed are required to have at least five dots of Willpower.               For instance, having a high rating in alchemy helps you make potions and at a decreased difficulty. Having a high rating in archery lets you make magic arrows at a decreased difficulty. It’s worth keeping this in mind when assigning your initial traits. Some players find this sort of math tedious and others find it fun and engaging. If you are in the former category, you probably shouldn’t take divine Crafts and just buy your potions and other magic items.     If you take Wrath, you should have the fighting skills to back this up, especially archery once you get to three dots and above because all these powers use archery to aim the attacks.