My girlfriend decided to give the game a try and I'm quite happy about that. So I showed her the career cards and she choose the Initiate. No Problem at all, but I'm playing a dwarven only group and so I told her that dwarfs have no rules for clerics, but I will build some for her.

So my approach is quite KISS, "Keep It Slayer Simple"

I simply take the career card "Initiate" and put Race "Dwarfs" mentaly on it. For the Action Cards I will simply use the existing Human Gods.

So her Priest of Shalya will be a dwarf priestess of Valaya. All with purple robes, chainmail, shield and the traditional axe "Kradskonti". "Stone and Steel" of 1st Edition had rules for them, also some adventure starting points, like a quest to find a rare herb or take care of a remote mining outpost.

So the setup for the other Gods is also simple:

Grungni , God of Mining: Action Cards from: Sigmar or Myrmidia

Grimnir , Warrior God: Ulric

Valaya , Protector of Home and Heart, Healing and Brewing: Rhya or Shalaya

Gazul , Protector of the Underearth: Mórr

So to avoid cherry picking, let the player choose one aspect of his cleric and then let him stay that way. So she will be a protector of dwarfkind, smashing skulls with her axe, brew beer and protect the children. A dwarfs beer-wet dream come true.

Sounds a nice first approach.

If you ever spend the time on creating the career cards with strnage eons I will like to see them, just for the flavor.

If im correct, dwarfs doesnt have priests in the human sense.Because of that, they do not it the same way worship gods, in fact grungi and the others arent really considered gods, just ancestors that the dwarfs pay respect to.

On the other hand who havent heard about the Warhammer dwarven rune-priests? So how do you have priests with no gods. You introduce temporary runes. My idea is that dwarven "priests" learn dwarven runes (use the different human priests invocations) that they can inscribe into their weapon (staff probably) and unleash in a similar way as human priests invocate their spells. Im thinking about a system that reminds of the same differences that you find between dungeons & dragons wizards & sorceror. Meaning the dwarven "priest", compared to ordinary priests, are locked to the runes he inscribed onto his weapon. He cannot adapt to different situation as a human cleric could cause it takes time to inscribe a suitable rune onto his weapon. Further he cannot invoke runemagic if his weapon (runic item) is lost.

But if you want to make it simple, just use the idea that you came up with

The Runepriest in Warhammer Online was an Invention from EA Mythic. There is NO Rune priest in the official Games Workshop Fluff.

And Valaya, Grungni and Grimnir are the Ancestor-Gods. They are as Godlike as Sigmar. Or else they couldn't act like in the Black fire Pass Adventure.

In 1st Edition of Warhammer there where rules for inscribing temporary Runes on Items. Also there where Dwarf Priests. (Stone & Steel) But it was also pointed that they aren’t a complete powerblock with a hierarchy like the church of Sigmar. The Priests of Valaya are Healers, and also perform Child Birth and Marriages. The Priests of Grungni and Grimnir comes also previously from Fighting careers. They honour their ancestors by actually doing their work. So they aren’t these super ascetic types like human priests.
I will test this setup as I don’t want to make my version to über to spoil the others who have taken usual dwarven careers.

I had thoughts on adding dwarf priests as well, but I was thinking of them mainly as advanced careers. So the way it would work is warriors (possibly even slayers, but it would not void the slayer oath) could become initiates of Grimnir or Gazul, miners could be initiates of Grungni, healers and female warriors Valaya, metal-smiths Smedrir, engineers Morgrim, and runesmiths Thungri say around third rank. At 4th rank they could be priests and then high priest by 5th. I'm not convinced blessings are the way to go either. I was thinking of using special talent cards that gave them magical abilities. I'm still working out the details obviously.

Alfred Nunez Jr. has put most of the Dawrf Cleric Rules from Stone & Steel on his page:

www.madalfred.darcore.net/articles/Dwarf_Religion.doc

In his rules for the 1st or 2nd Version the Clerics where capable of performing blessings and cast some kind of temporary runes.

The blessings of Valaya lloks a lot like Shallya blessings in the 3rd Edition. Healing hand, Cure Mental Illness. etc.

so the approach might be a mix of the classical Cleric Rules and the Runes from "Black Fire Pass".

The Dwarf Cleric has the Blessings from his coresponding imperial counterpart, but the GM reduce the available Cards.

Also, Something like the 12 runes from Black fire Pass can be temporary blessings put onto items. Casting a temporary Rune onto an item costs 6 Favor. Learning a temporary rune costs one Talent advance. Only a number of equal Rank temporary Runes can be uphold at the same time. When used a temporary Rune will hold for Rank number of rounds before fading away.

So they give the Cleric something to do, but gives the Runesmith a better position as he can put the runes on permanent.

Say Hello to Luzi!

Priestmaid of Valaya.