Pyramid Pick
Bastion of Faith (for AD&D)
Published by Wizards of the Coast
Written by Bruce R. Cordell
96 pages, $16.95
Bastion of Faith is the third product in a series that details one of the four core character classes, the other two being College of Wizardry for mages and Den of Thieves for rogues. This time around, the priest is given a home, patrons, friends and allies that can aid his cause. The Bastion is the name for the Church of Heironeous and gives the DM enough details to choke a horse.
Detailing not only the upper levels of power in the priesthood, BoF gives a summary of the different members of the church. Some of these levels have places, it notes, that player characters might fit right in. One of the nice things about the roster is that there are several 1st level characters with names that a GM can just scoop up and use as player characters. Not a priest? That's fine. Thieves who worship Heironeous are called inquisitors, fighters are templars, and mages are catechists. There are solid benefits to joining the church because the faithful gain spell-like abilities as they rise in level. For example, a 7th level inquisitor may use the wizard spell Friends, and the priest spell Detect Lie. In addition to the roster, there are fourteen full write ups that include history, personality, statistics, possessions, and illustrations.
One of the interesting twists is the introduction of favors. A favor is paper money . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: June 16, 2000
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