Theurgy
title: Theurgy: The Work of the Gods
Theurgy is the art of restoring and honoring the divine order: purification, prayer, sacrifice, and the slow ascent toward the presence of the gods. You do not command — you become worthy of being answered. Its great works are beautiful: a plague turned at a city's gate, a harvest blessed, a soul guided through the underworld, a statue that opens its eyes.
The rhythm: purify, petition, offer
A theurgist's life runs in a loop:
- Purify. Miasma poisons your work — each point is −1 to your theurgic checks and to how the gods hear you. Wash, fast, fumigate with laurel; pay the temple priest for a proper cleansing when the stain is deep. At miasma 0 you work at full strength; above that, the gods tolerate you poorly.
- Petition. When you ask a god for something beyond your standing — a boon, an audience, an intervention, a miracle — you petition. It is not a working; it uses standing, offerings, and oaths instead of preparation.
- Offer. Offerings are how favor grows. The right offering matters more than the expensive one: an olive branch to Athena, a first-cut of craft to the goddess of the forge. Wrong offerings earn nothing; insulting ones earn offense.
The favor ladder
Your standing with each god is a ladder, kept per god — pleasing Athena does nothing for Ares, and may offend him:
| Rung | How they hear you | What opens |
|---|---|---|
| Indifferent | Guarded; +2 to your petition DC | Small boons only; high works closed |
| Friendly | Normal | Boons and interventions; temple archives; grace |
| Patron | Immediate; −2 to your petition DC | Anything, including miracles; the god's boons; patron mysteries |
Grace is theurgy's signature: at friendly or better, your patron may raise your Adequate preparation to Complete — the god closes the gap you left. Grace is also permanence: a consecrated work does not decay with time. It lasts until you defile it.
One patron
You may be friendly with several gods; you may patron only one at a time. Taking a second patron offends the first — favor drops, miasma rises, and the first god chooses the consequence. Taking a patron is the first and greatest oath: the god's taboos become your law, the god's enemies become your enemies, and the god's name is yours to call — and yours to bear. Why the wise stay indifferent: a patron is a lord, and lords send their servants into the fire. Why the ambitious don't: the fire is where the power is.
Petitions
d20 + Wisdom + Grade − Miasma vs. DC 10 + request size:
| Adjustment | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Request size: small boon / intervention / miracle | +0 / +5 / +10 |
| Standing: indifferent / friendly / patron | +2 / 0 / −2 to DC |
| Miasma | +1 per point |
| Right offering at a shrine | up to +4 |
| Calling an oath the god owes you | +5 (and the debt is paid) |
A god may simply decline — no roll changes a god's mind about a petition against their nature.
Oaths
An oath is magick's oldest contract. Swear with a promise and an offering, and the god records it. An oath kept is itself an offering. If the god owes you, you may call the debt — the god must answer — but the debt then flips: the god holds one of equal weight from you, and they will call it. They always call it. Breaking an oath costs 2 miasma, a rung of favor, and a god's memory — and gods remember longer than you do. A god who has been sworn and betrayed is an enemy with a perfect memory.
What you carry
Periapta and phylakteria blessed at shrines, talismans charged in temple hours — and, at the end of the road, ensouled works: vessels made alive by divine presence, which have wills of their own and opinions about being ordered around. Your libraries are temple archives; your politics are priestly; your power is grace, and grace is dependable — right up until the day it is not, and the god asks why you wasted their attention.