Church, The: Interaction

Church of the All-Father: Interaction

I was reading over the lore about the Church of the All-Father and a few things struck me. The chuch was designed after the Christian Church during medieval times, and from a RP stand point that seems a great way to have a guild.

Instead of various Chruch guilds trying to start nations, what if instead, they create multiple sub-guilds to join other nations, each sub-guild being part of a larger church first, and a member of the nation secondly.

Each new nation that is a supporter of the Church (not necissarily a church nation) could be granted a Dioceses. (anyone want to be the Bishop of city X?). In return for having a Dioceses in their nation, the nation could be given the aid of all Church sub-guilds, no matter their nation, if attacked by a guild that does not support the Church.

Ex:

Nation A is supportive of the Church and has a Dioceses
Nation B is supportive of the Church and has a Dioceses
Nation C is supportive of the Church and has a Dioceses
Nation D does not support the Church

If Nation A is attacked by Nation D, all Dioceses (from A,B and C) come to their aid maybe also bringing troops from their nation if they can convince them.

Think of it as a crusade to protect the faithful.

If Nation A attacks Nation B, no Dioceses will aid (not even those of A or B) but neither will they hinder as long as the Dioceses arent attacked directly or Church intrests hindered.

Why would a nation want a Dioceses? Well, you'd get the support of multiple sub-guilds from other nations and possibly form at least a loose alliance with all other Church supporters. You'd get a nice means of mediating disputes between "faithful" nations. You wouldn't have to worry about getting ganged up on because you were a heretic nation.

What would it cost you? Well, you'd have to find room for a Dioceses. You'd have to put up with priests, prelates and crusaders healing your troops and helping to protect your nation from heretic nations. In short it woulnt cost you much.

Essentially it would be a way of forming an "alliance" of faithful nations, rather than trying to carve one out for the church. Each nation would still retain their rule, but support and be supported by a network of sub-guilds, the Church.

While nations may already be thinking of having a Church Sub-guild, It would make sense to me if the Church guilds were unified in a greater "guild" of the Holy Church comprised of a Council of Bishops, no matter their nation. The Council would "rule" over all Dioceses, not just those of any 1 nation.

Does this make sense to anyone? Thoughts, flames, comments?

-Edgar

I LOVE THIS IDEA.

Honestly, this is the sort of thing I'd hoped might happen... If I were you guys, I'd swap character names and agfree to hold a Council someplace, either in a player city or on "neutral ground".

We did something like this on a limited scale with the Temple back in beta, and the results were pretty cool.

Setting up a netwrok of /tells to spread church news might serve to get all of you reacting.

Now, as for the potential political maneuvering... that's the icing on the cake!