Would I be correct in assuming that the Christian church is currently unmanned, and probably hasn't had a vicar since Las Navas?
Also: still waiting on Captain Abdul and Terrence/Maria and who Celestria runs into.
If the actual local church is vacant , The Church can be used to create it .
That'd be great! 
Crap. My response got lost in the work shuffle. Sorry, working on it.
Correct. Church service is currently being handled (poorly) by a grape-stomper who took up the job when the resident priest went to with the "army."
I have not read The Church, and will be unlikely to do so anytime soon, given my upcoming workload. What does this entail?
insert sad trombone
Well...apparently the reason we can't find anything but hotel stuff is that there's not a whole lot out there. All I could find was photos of the outside.
So...I punted. I kicked the question over to a writers'/roleplayers' LiveJournal community I'm in that just helps with research and answering niggling little questions like this.
So, to sum up what I found out from them:
- The building we've seen was actually built in 1873; however,there was a castle there in 1246, but it was in ruins by 1573. (which my own research had already indicated).
- Spanish castles were pretty similar in style and layout to other European castles, so if you have some "generic" European castle plans to play with, that would probably work.
- There were a couple of websites (actually, a website and a book on gutenberg.org) that looked pretty awesome. Lots of pictures and stuff to play with. For some reason, I'm really fond of this plate, which shows a central patio surrounded by a two-story building,with a balcony and arcade, and several apartments or rooms for people to live or work in.
Sorry I couldn't find more useful info. I hope this stuff helps.
Similar to Covenants.
Choose size to get build points , a parish church gets 250 build points.
Select Boons and Hooks.
Resources to buy with build points are: Books , Enchanted Items , Relics , Specialists and Vis.
Enchanted Items and Vis are not mandatory. Magic items are donated , found or purchased , not created.
A church cannot be run by some "grape-stomper" , even if extemely pious.
He would need to be a cleric of some kind at least.
Minor Orders: Doorkeeper , Lector , Exorcist , Acolyte
Major Orders: Sub-deacon , Deacon , Priest.
Round one: Fight!
californian crime-bustingOn a totally unrelated note, may I advise you to check out the future of ? (Advice: A sanity check might be required)
Yes, I'm sure the Church would be horrified to discover this. However, there is no one else more qualified in the covenant grounds, and it seems no one has contacted anyone for a replacement. Perhaps, if one of the magi discover this, they might bring it up in Council?
At this point, I feel like the saga is heavy on number crunching and light on roleplay. Let's see how important the church becomes to our story before rendering it in this kind of detail.
On the other hand, since I understand the appeal of a brand new book, if you want to figure out the points for the Castilblanco church, or one of the other nearby towns, go crazy, and post it on the wiki.
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate, even in period. I know that today, there are entirely too many churches that don't have a parish priest (usually having a circuit priest, for lack of a better word, one who performs the liturgy at several parishes). It's easy for me to believe that it was not unheard of for a priest to pass away (or be otherwise incapable of performing his duties), and for some time to pass before the bishop became aware of the situation and assign a priest to take over the church.
Plus, of the seven Holy Sacraments, a priest is only required for two that would impact the community on a regular basis. Off the top of my head:
- Baptism can technically be performed by any Christian in an emergency. Usually, this is for a stillborn or an infant who dies soon after birth, or someone who undergoes a “deathbed conversion.”[/]
[]Confirmation must be performed by a priest (or higher), but (at least today) is usually done either immediately after baptism (for converts) or after Confirmation Class. Thus, there's not really any immediate need for a priest. The laity can ensure the confirmed knows what he needs to know for confirmation, and just have the ceremony done by the priest when he passes through.[/]
[]Eucharist is the one that absolutely requires a priest. However, most masses are actually Liturgy of the Word and not Liturgy of the Eucharist (only difference being whether or not Communion is served). If I remember right, in period God was seen as a horribly wrathful God, and people were terrified to take the Christ into their body because of this. It got to the point where the Church made a law that you had to take the Eucharist at least once a year because otherwise, nobody would. (I can't remember if that was the Second Vatican Council or some time earlier). So, since in period most people would be fine not taking the Eucharist (unlike today), not having a priest for this might not be seen as a Bad Thing. - Reconciliation also requires a priest. Technically, anyone can hear confession, but only a priest can grant absolution. In period, I think, this was normally done once per lifetime, usually when a person was about to die (or was believed to be about to die). Again, not having a priest for this would usually be No Big Deal, I think.[/]
[]Anointing of the Sick requires a priest, but is usually done only when someone is extremely ill or is in grave danger due to old age.[/]
[]Holy Orders, when someone becomes a priest, nun, monk, etcetera, would actually be performed by bishop, abbot or abbess (I think, on the last two – I'm not sure if those have to be done by the bishop as well).[/]
[]Matrimony is technically performed by the couple; the priest's only official role is as a witness.
Hunh. Well, looking over the list, it kinda looks like we actually don't have to have a resident priest. As long as the “grape-stomper” is pious enough, maybe with True Faith(?) and is theologically sound, we should be fine.
Oh, and the one thing I had to look up was the name for the Anointing of the Sick. And while looking that up, I happened across a note that the canon law decreeing that every Christian receive Reconciliation at least once a year was passed by the Fourth Lateran Council...in 1215. So, in our timeframe, there's no rule saying how often (or rarely) you took the sacrament.
That being said, I'm sure we have enough “pious” magi that it would behoove us to fetch ourselves a priest.
Sacraments are listed on pages 74 & 75 in The Divine.
You do need to be ordained.
It does mention that a theologically sound baptism may be performed in an emergency.
The Church , page 40: Baptism , Confirmation , Mass , Marriage , Penance , Ordination and Exteme Unction
The Curate , page 41:
For Celestria:
page 37 in The Church.
If there is no parish priest , the priest of the adjoining parish is expected to take over the duties of the absent priest.
Wait...The Church says that the Mass is a sacrament?
checks the Errata page Hunh...guess the book is too new to have an Errata page up yet.
checks the forums And nothing in any of the threads that have posts since The Church came out last month.
Mass is the whole service, from the entrance to the benediction. The Eucharist is the blessing and distribution of the Sacrament, the bread and wine that become the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ. And I am rather disappointed that they got this wrong...which makes me wonder what else they got wrong, and wonder if The Church would be worth getting, even if I didn't already have so many unread books laying around.
That being said, the rest of it sounds reasonable.
wow...hope that didn't sound too bitchy.
But I'm actually of the opinion that, especially in on-line games, the fewer books that are required, the better, and I'd just rather we either not stat out any of the churches in the covenant, or just use the basic book to do so. That may just be my gaming history speaking up, though. I had a roommate once try to teach me to play Star Fleet Battles (which, while not a rpg, still serves to illustrate my point). He had been playing for several years, and had all the expansions and stuff that were out. When teaching me to play, though, he decided that I would just use the core fleet, while I got a feel for how the rules went and everything. Meanwhile, he would use everything, because he didn't feel he should handicap himself, as he was used to using all the optional stuff and felt that not to do so would place him at an unfair disadvantage. Yeah.
This wouldn't be as big a deal (back to the original thought) in an in-person gaming group, as (presumably) whoever had a copy of The Church (or whichever book) would have it available for perusal and reference. In an online group, though, everyone has to have copies (or access to copies) of the books being used. And I can't really justify buying any more Ars books until at least the end of the month, when we know how much money we have left after paying our taxes.
Semi-non-sequitur: When I was gm'ing, I had a rule: you can only use the powers/skills/spells/advantages/disadvantages in books that I owned. But if you wanted to use something in a book I didn't have, you were always welcome to buy me the book and make your case. Oddly enough, nobody ever took me up on it. All my GURPS books, I had to pay for myself 
Yeah...it's late, I'm rambling. But at least I statted out the first couple of magic items I think Cygna might be making. One of them, she could even do as a Lesser Enchantment, if she were willing to try to experiment.
Nope , not in the least. 
I wasn't worried about doing up churchs , atm.
There are less Boons and Hooks than Covenants.
Pretty neat website that was shared on my old barony's mailing list.
Who's fighting who in your time period. Just slide the bar on the bottom of the map and select any conflict for more info.
It's a mashup of Google Maps and Wikipedia.
Given his extended absence, I'm taking JM's character off the roster. He can arrive when he returns. Is that cool with everybody?
Works for me. And when he gets back, he can apply to be a member and whatnot, I guess.
Yup, this is better, although I hope he'll come back soon.
Hopefully this won't be a disruption for me, but we're in the process of moving. As in, packing everything else while we wait for a closing date on the new house.
Which means all my books are packed up downstairs. I think I can find them if I absolutely have to, but I've got...um...four plus stacks of boxes about six feet high full of books, but at least I packed the Ars books last.
I still should be able to get by with the info on my fully-loaded MetaCreator, and hope that any spells I look for are on there (e.g. Gather the Essence of the Beast, which is what I think I'll need to scoop the Mentem Vis from a Vintner into a leaf or a cutting or something but doesn't look like something I'll be able to do spontaneously, as it's a Level 15 ReVi, and my ReVi is only 8+Aura 5=13, which means I'll need a hellishly good roll to pull it off).
Anyhoo, hopefully we'll be moved by the first, but they're dragging their feet on the paperwork on the sale of the house we're in now.
So, if I ask more noob-ish questions than normal, you'll know why 