Newbie Warhammer GM here.

I understand why Elves do not become Wizards - why would they, when they have access to a much more amazing magic than what the humans do!

But why not Priests? I can't seem to find the fluff that points this out. They have their own Gods - and while admittedly, they have a different relationship with their Gods, I don't see why they can't still receive spells.

Craftzero said:

Well for starters, they don't believe that gods grant spells. They basically view human Priests as deluded sorcerers that just happen to have hit upon a safe form of spellcasting by being utterly ignorent of the truth.

Secondly, High Elf Magi are as much priests as wizards anyway, as there is a distinctly divine element to anything an Elf does.

In warhammer generally no one has priests except humans. Everybody has gods, only humans get 'blessings' or 'miracles'. (There are some exceptions in the monster/villain races) I've never been entirely comfortable with this. If only human gods give out magic spells why would anyone bother worshiping anyone else?

2nd edition books (especially Realms of Sorcery) will give you lots of meta-mystical reasons why everything works the way it does- they're amazingly high quality, crammed with intense fluff. They hint actually that human 'miracles' may actually be simply regular old magic wielded in a different way and that the gods are constructs of chaos magic. Teclis carefully avoids discussing magic with the priests to avoid offense. This would explain why the other races don't have priests- dwarves and halflings can't ever weild magic, and elves would never wield magic in an ignorant instinctive way, when they were taught to use it by the old ones or the slann or what-have-you.

I expect the 'real' reason is to keep humans interesting. Personally, I've always come up with house rules to give the non-human gods some more presence in the game. And elves don't get wizards in 3rd edition because no one will get off their butt and make a proper elf supplement. They're supposed to be the most magical race of all.

You could make Elvish priests for your campaign though, I don't think it would break anything. Gods are a bit different, so it'd take some work, and keep your eyes on game balance.

BJake said:

Ogres butchers have magic from their gods, Tomb Kings have magic from their gods, Chaos Dwarfs have magic from their god, Skaven have magic form their god, Orcs (and Goblins) have magic from their gods. And all of this is much, much better than anything human priests have (unless you are talking Chaos Sorcerers).

Dwarfs do not have magic full stop, apart from Runes - some of which were taught to them by their gods.

Elves think that everything is granted to them by their gods, so Swordmasters of Hoeth fight with such skill because of Hoeth - that dosen't materialise as spells, but intrinsic material prowess (which in many ways is better). Loec gives Wardances, Isha immortality to her everqueen, etc.

I look at this differently:

Magic is magic.

Priests manipulate magic in more ritualized ways. It's still magic and in my campaign, there isn't a god in the sky accounting for cure minor blessing disease rot spels all day long. Really?

In fact , in my campaign, the gods do not exist and the priests are little more than ritualized wizards who "think" that magic is "granted" and that omens are "granted by beneveloent." They're not. They're just the winds of magic manifesting through ritual.

So, in my campaign, I don't care if a player wants to play an elven priest of Solkan (a 1e joke for you all). There's nothing that changes.

jh

Keep in mind a few things.

A) WFRP is an Empire-centric (i.e. human) game. 3rd Edition more-so than the previous ones, but even the first two editions were the same same when they came out. As such, careers for non-humans are relatively restricted.

B) Elves worship different gods than the human do. They have different blessings, etc. The core set, being Empire-centric, has no room nor place to delve into the Elven Pantheon, nor to provide a deck of blessings for elvish gods/goddesses.

So, while I don't believe that an Elven priest career is impossible, it should not be expected to be handled in the current state of the game. When there is an Elven expansion, I expect there will be at least some form of elven priests. Until that time, you'll need to make a homebrew version, including a deck of blessings, or else disallow elves from becoming priests.

As folks say, if you read entries about elves' view of deities - whether Asur (high elf) or Asrai (wood elf) they have a different view of divinity than humans. They do believe in deities but not in the same way and in a way more aligned with "what little of the truth we [GM/metagame-wise] know". Humans make a big deal of blessings and spells being different etc., whereas elves do not make such a fundamental distinction.

The fact that what religion is differs fundamentally between races is a core part of warhammer and part of its richness to me. There is a sophistication to it that the beer and pretzels humour and puns can hide at times.