Have any of you had a player transition his character from a magic using career into a priestly career?

If so, how did that work out?

I'm having trouble imagining any of the Cults taking a wizard in as an initiate.

Thanks,

Thrak

I think wizards could be great priests of Verena.

A jade or amber mage could easily worship the gods of nature.

I think that u could make transitions between a god and Winds if they correspond. Here is what i think whats corresponding:

Morr - Amethist Order

Verana - Celestial / Light Order

Taal - Amber / Jade Order

Renald - Grey Order

Shallya - Jade Order

Sigmar - Bright Order

Ulric - Bright Order

i'd support that list.

why is the character chaning? because maybe there is a storyline to support it and make it clear to which order he would go. maybe a god he generally felt affection to more than the others?

if he has completed the initiate career he would still be able to use blessings and as an apprentice wizard he would then additionally be able to cast spells, but he will have to aquire the channel power and spellcraft advanced skills, so he will need some advances to actually start being a spellcaster (***and vice versa in your case***).
that would make for a cool character.

although he has to give a very good reason why an apprentice wizard would suddenly, after years of studying in the academy of his order, "betray" them and run over to the priests! i think that would make them pretty angry to the point they will maybe pursue him if he continues casting his order's spells…

I would have thought that there would be quite big setting/background barriers to doing this.

Wizards train for years, and draw their power from the winds of magic, learning all sorts of theories about the process - that I would think completely contradict what priests are told as they train. I imagine that the piety and concentration that a priest requires to summon aid from a deity works in the opposite way to a wizard who reaches out and grabs that magical power for himself. Even if 'scientifically' there's nothing to stop you alternating from one technique to the other, philosophically, they're polar opposites. The rules of the game might allow you to roll dice from a different stat, but in terms of background, the casting of a spell comes out of a process of years of studying how magic works, and what techniques and mental conditioning are necessary to do it properly.

(A real life example would be a committed pacifist joining the special forces. Peaceful protest can bring down governments, as can commando assassins, but one person can't really do both at the same time.)

Politically too, I see problems. The college probably wouldn't be happy about losing a wizard to a priestly order - they expect loyalty even in retirement, and the priestly orders know this. The churches wouldn't want to take on someone who wasn't committed to them (and couldn't commit due to their oaths to one of the colleges of magic). At the least, I would imagine that a priestly initiate would have to either vow not to use magic again, or - regardless of whether or not he was ordered to abstain - would have to stop using magic to be able to devote the time and mental training to become an effective priest. No priest instructing his pupils in the most basic of prayers would be happy to see one of his/her pupils 'cheating' by using powerful magic spells that they've learned in previous years to achieve similar - or much more potent equivalent - results.

Also there is the whole "You use the winds of chaos and hellfire against itself you evil heritic." That the sigmarite dogma preaches.

It'd be a lot simpler and in keeping with the intent of the setting to just say "nope sorry dude/ma'am." But if it ends up being more of personal GM question of "well…gosh…why the heck not?" You can lean on the self governance of the Collegiate Orders, the Articles of Magic, general folk superstition, and the separation between how divine spells are accessed versus winds of magic spells.

The collegiate orders are all very much "in for a penny, in for a pound." A wizard might be able to take a side non-magical career and still be a full fledged member of their order ( A Rank 2 Amethyst Order Aprentice/Envoy is totally legit ), but once you're in…bailing on the order is frowned upon to say the least. Becoming an annointed priest counts as bailing. And while there is some written support for various cults and wizard orders working together, they would never merge ( for historical, political and personal reasons ) and allow members to pass between them.

The Articles of Magic (if you are paying attention to that sort of thing in your version of the setting) make it pretty clear that casting an arcane spell outside of an order is punishable by death. So an ex wizard (one who bails for greener holy pastures let's say) that managed to somehow convince his order that he wasn't going to need to be put down for turning his back on them…wouldn't ever be able to cast another arcane spell again. Well they could, but if anyone ever caught them…it'd be curtains and burning alive.

People don't like witches. Every magister needs to tread carefully when they are ambling about the countryside. A dagger in the ear while you sleep still sucks even if you can call down lightning bolts. If people found out that a supposed priest was wandering around that could manipulate the forces of chaos, mutation and damnation…it wouldn't be long before someone decided to put that individual down. What's more, the cult in question would do nothing about it because they couldn't risk the political fallout of supporting a chaos sorcerer in their midst…even if said sorcerer used to be a well trained one.

Faith as a source of miracles is a very different thing from manipulating one of the winds of magic. A wizard would have been trained in such a manner that they simply wouldn't be able to muster up the kind of faith required to bring down a god's wrath. Why? They'd simply see it as manipulating magic and default to that…dangerous proscribed territory. And in the reverse situation…a priest would begin manipulating the winds of magic and cease to be able to muster up the faith required to call down miracles. It's a one-way road. Once you start to touch the Aethyr…being able to blindly and fantatically believe in higher powers as the source of your gifts goes right out the window. This isn't to say that a priest-turned wizard or a wizard-turned priest would stop believing in the gods…far from it. They would just cease to be able to muster up the TYPE of faith required to cast divine spells in the game. There are a great many members of the religious cults that have zero divine spell power at all. Player Character priests that can call down miracles are supposed to be a rare treat in an otherwise s---y world. That doesn't mean that Brother Maynard is any less pious…he just doesn't have the ear of Ulric…and neither would an ex-wizard or an ex-priest.

So if a wizard could survive splitting from his order to become a priest ( by not being murdered by the hunter-killers within his order, or have his magical ability burned away ) he would never be able to cast a spell without risking a death sentence, the common folk might just call him a chaos sorcerer and he'd no longer have anyone's backing to say otherwise, and he wouldn't be able to cast priestly spells anyway…which might make the game a bit less fun, and definitely a less optimal character development route.

TLDR; Separate but congenial is about as good as you can get without twisting the nipples off the setting.

How convenient that I have stumbled upon this thread as I have had a player ask the same thing. Do you guys reckon he should have to buy all the priest cards with exp advances or get them for free (I want him to buy it and I think the player is ok with that to but I'm after more than one opinion here)

Do you mean in general - if a player wants to transition into the priest career? Or if they want to switch from being a wizard to a priest? Not that I think the answer makes any difference:

I think rules-wise you're supposed to buy everything you don't begin the game with. If you don't start off with some of the basic actions because you're not strong enough, etc. you're supposed to pay for them even if you increase your strength later. That said, I think I'd give them away for free - or even just let PCs start with all the basic actions regardless. But I think the game states that you are supposed to buy all of the cards that new characters beginning in any particular career start with.

I wouldn't allow a player to switch from wizard to priest (or vice versa) - for the reasons given above, but if for some reason I had to or was convinvced to do so, then i would certainly make the player pay for all of the cards.