What Do I Know About Reviews? Glory to the High One (Shadow of the Weird Wizard)

Unless a fantasy setting is doing a very specific thing, I prefer the setting to be clever with its real-world analogies. What I mean by that is, if you’re going to have a fantasy nation that looks like 1300 CE France, I don’t want it to be the same size as 1300s France. I don’t want all of the cities of 1300s France with different names, and I don’t like the nation to be the same age as 1300s France, with the same events happening in the nation’s history, with the proper nouns changed around. 

A Song of Ice and Fire has, as one of its inspirations, the War of the Roses. You can see where that inspiration affects the narrative, from politics to technology level. But you don’t have perfect analogies for various nations or historical figures. Historical flashpoints don’t line up. The span of time in the setting doesn’t match the real world at all. One of my least favorite parts of AD&D 2e was the “real world, but make it Forgotten Realms” trend that we got with Central America, Mongolia, and Egypt. 

On the other hand, when someone doesn’t make everything into a direct analogy when the setting includes allusions to real-world history, especially when events get mixed and matched, I appreciate how those analogies are used. Can I tell you exactly how far is too far regarding historical analogs? Not really, although it helps when elements get remixed and logically tied to other non-analogous things in the setting. With all that said, we’re going to be looking at Glory to the High One, a sourcebook about the Church of the High One for Shadow of the Weird Wizard.

Disclaimer

I received my copy of Glory to the High One by supporting the crowdfunding campaign for Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Although I have not had the opportunity to use any of the game material in this product, I am familiar with the similar but not identical system of Shadow of the Demon Lord from multiple campaigns as a player and GM.

Glory to the High One: A Rulebook for Shadow of the Weird Wizard

Writing, Design, and Art Direction: Robert J. Schwalb
Editing: Sue Weinlein
Proofreading: Jay Spight
Cover Design, Graphic Design, and Layout: Kara Hamilton
Cover Illustration: Çagdas Demiralp
Interior Illustrations: Çagdas Demiralp, Louie Maryon, Adam Narozanski, Julio Rocha

The Holy Text

This review is based on the PDF of Glory of the High One, which is 39 pages long. This includes a front and back cover, a title page, a table of contents, and a two-page index.  The rest of the page count is devoted to the history, hierarchy, orders, and heresies of the Chuch of the High One, as well as stat blocks, magic items, and spells.

I mentioned this when I reviewed other Shadow of the Weird Wizard products, but I like this line’s trade dress. I like the borders, the off-white background, and the purple headers. It hits the perfect balance between artistic and professional without being too cluttered. There are about 15 art pieces, with half-page artwork for each chapter. Schwalb Entertainment is excellent at finding talented artists who can produce thematic images for sourcebooks, and this is no exception.

Chapter and Verse

It doesn’t take too long to pick up on the idea that the monotheistic church portrayed in this sourcebook takes a lot of cues from the medieval Catholic Church. Despite this analogy, there are several places where the church is tied to events happening elsewhere in the setting, and the history deviates, then runs parallel, in various places. 

 The Church of the High One is a church that diverged from another monotheistic religion on the continent of Atemos. Atemos isn’t presented as one of the major locations of the setting, at least at this time. It serves as a place “over there,” where the founder of the Church of the High One, Jonsuel, was exiled after he committed patricide and attempted a coup to take over his home nation. Jounsuel returned a new, peaceful man, preaching his own divergent version of the religion he encountered. 

A Pontiff normally governs the church, but the current state of the church, after the assassination of the sitting Pontiff, finds it split between multiple Pontiffs at a time when the Old Country is coming apart. The assumed setting of the Shadow of the Weird Wizard is the Borderlands, the region of the setting once ruled by the Weird Wizard before his disappearance, as humans move into the region to flee the chaos of the Old Country and encounter the strange, magical, supernatural creatures that live in the Wizard’s old domain. 

The church itself isn’t presented as the most, well, redeeming organization. While it positions itself as the moral standard for humans in the world, as you might expect, it’s a rigid organization that has oppressed various populations in its history. Everything supernatural that doesn’t fit in the narrative of the Church of the High One is of the Adversary, which includes other religions and supernatural beings. Dwarves and halflings can join the church, which is human-dominated, but anyone not considered mortal and anyone deemed “corrupted” is an enemy of the faith. That means Dhampir, Cambions, Daevas, and Revenants are considered corrupted mortals, and creatures like elves or clockworks are unnatural abominations. 

The sourcebook details the following orders within the church:

• Defenders of Temples and Relics
• Hammers of the High One
• Holy Order of Paladins
• Keepers of the Sacred Coin
• Order of the Open Book
• The Poor Fellows
• Shields of the High One
• Society of the Sacred Heart
• Torches of the High One

These run the gamut from scholarly monks to trained, militant knights. The Holy Order of Paladins is disgraced because one of its members assassinated the previous Pontiff and is working to restore its reputation. I also appreciate that the Keepers of the Sacred Coin take the reality of Church wealth and resources and make it just a bit more of an acknowledged part of the Church.

Whenever you explain a fantasy religion for a roleplaying game, I will be a fan of detailing specific orders within that religion. But if you really want me to pay attention, you’ll also discuss what heretical aspects of the faith look like. This sourcebook includes several heresies that have been spawned from the Church of the High One, including these traditions:

• Incarnates
• Originalists
• Purifiers
• Questioners
• Rabidashans
• Scions of the One True God

What does a heresy look like for this religion? The Incarnates believe that the High One will soon become embodied as a human in the world, and they are trying to make the world ready for that arrival. The Originalists incorporate more traditional Atemosian elements of monotheism. The Purifiers are an order trying to weed out corruption in the church that upset a few too many people within the church and were branded enemies of the faith. The Questioners are, well, basically, they’re Gnostics. The Scions of the One True God are zealous about destroying other faiths, but they also pushed back on church authority and gave them a bad reputation, so their zealotry is not antithetical to the official hierarchy. Oh, and the Rabidishans think that the High One has already been incarnated and murdered, and they carry his decapitated head with them, and it tells them things.

The Adversary is in the Details

In addition to the history and structure of the church, this product also provides more texture to various aspects of the religion. This includes a table of famous saints of the church and the purview of that saint. We get some details on monasteries and shrines, including a random shrine table. There is also a section about how common signs and portents of the divine should occur in the game and what they look like.

There is also a discussion of the holy book of the faith, The Codex of the Illumination. We also get the eight virtues of the faith, which are left somewhat ambiguous, partly because the church is said to have interpreted them differently over the years, and they may be enforced differently in different locations. That means that just like in real life, the same virtue that can motivate someone to serve others can be interpreted by others as permission to oppress the marginalized. The broad, open way this is phrased doesn’t call out any specific real-world marginalization associated with any of these virtues or their transgression. “Engage in No Unnatural Acts” is a hell of a loaded gun, however.

Manifestations in Rule Form

Each of the orders of the faith has one or two stat blocks that represent characters from that tradition. Given the intolerance of some of these branches, this makes sense, as it’s not too difficult to use them as antagonists. There is also a stat block for a Seraph Guardian, an angel that spreads the word of the High One. In total, that’s eight stat blocks.

There are seven new magical trinkets and three relics of the faith. These range from weaponized religious implements like the Holy Aspergillum and the Holy Censor of the Eight-Pointed Star to religiously significant body parts like the Blood of Jonsuel to the magically empowered Croziers held by Pontiffs in office. I’ve seen important magic items tied to a position of authority before and have wondered how I would work it into the game, but the Crozier entry introduced the idea that there have been a number of these created, meaning it’s fairly easy to have the PCs find one of the lost croziers of office, and with the current schism, finding another staff of office can be very important, without trying to explain how the current Pontiff(s) lost theirs.

The book introduces a new wrinkle to the magic system in the game in the form of Magical Rites. Rites are magical processes that take a varying amount of time and require the person performing the rite to expend some of their castings of a spell. These rites can create effects that range from 24 hours to a Year and a Day. These allow characters to bestow boon dice that can be used later on, consecrate a location, or protect a dead body from becoming undead. One also will enable you to convert those spell castings you sacrificed to magical healing. 

There are 14 new spells, which are tied to the faith of the High One rather than one of the standard magical traditions. If you pick one of these spells as the spell you learn when you level up, you lose access to it if you ever leave the faith of the High One, but don’t worry. You can retrain that spell with another spell once you have the option to do so.

I don’t think this is a bad thing, but since this is the first supplement we’ve received that provides additional details to one of the setting’s religions, it does mean that characters that follow the High One will have more mechanical options than other characters. That’s less of a problem if the players are only interested in the Church of the High One for religiously affiliated characters, and it may not be a problem for a group with characters of multiple faiths in the same party if the players know that this sourcebook is being used up front. If Shadow of the Demon Lord is any indication, we will see additional supplements that provide options similar to those of the Old Faith. 

Religion at the Table

While the text clarifies where the religion has some major issues, most of the product presents the faith as a neutral observer might. There isn’t much direct discussion of what aspects of the faith are problematic. 

There are sidebars about the degree of religious conflict you may want in your game and the degree to which the PCs can interpret the faith in the Borderlands without the same structured hierarchy that existed in the Old Country. The book acknowledges that religious intolerance can be difficult to introduce into the game.

It also mentions that players in the Borderlands who are church members may seek to implement the faith less oppressively than the traditional church or fight for reforms. If you have players who want to have a character who is a member of the Church of the High One, you may want to highlight that discussion to make sure that everyone understands that it may be a really bad idea to follow this religion, which can be as oppressive and regressive as the traditional aspects of the faith.

Lift Your Voices

To tie this back to what I mentioned at the beginning, I appreciate how Glory to the High One uses inspiration from real-world history. Some elements reminded me of a much less complimentary version of Siddhartha Gautama with Jonsuel’s origin. There are allusions to the split between the Eastern and Western Church, various antipopes, and some of the historical elements of the Knights Templar. The heresies have aspects of Gnosticism, Henrisians, and Fraticelli. But what’s great is that there are pieces of these things aligned in a different configuration than they appear in the real world and tied to aspects of the setting, simultaneously making the religion recognizable and unique to the setting. Any supplement that provides details on how the faiths are practices, with information about orders and heresies, will be a net positive for me, especially when it uses real-world elements cleverly and entertainingly.

Penance

This isn’t a negative for me, but anything using this much inspiration from real-world religion may rub some people wrong. It’s not quite as overt in its treatment of its primary monotheistic religion as Shadow of the Demon Lord. Still, it also clearly shines a light on some issues with Christianity over the centuries. I appreciate the sidebars we got, but it is two paragraphs of information. I would have liked more about navigating potentially problematic religious themes, not just in the callbacks to real-world religions but also by introducing religious conflict and the pitfalls of players playing into some of the worst aspects of the faith.

Recommended—If the product fits your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

I love playing clerics. Exploring themes of religion in fantasy gaming can be very rewarding. Anything that provides additional details on fantasy religions in a meaningful way, with substantial roleplaying hooks, is something I’m going to recommend. I think narratives that don’t address the gods as anything but a source of power are missing a lot of potential depth. I also think narratives that drive too hard to reduce the importance or impact of religion can be reductive and self-congratulatory without exploring why people have faith and what that looks like

While this product doesn’t go quite as hard as Shadow of the Demon Lord when it comes to shocking religious truths and betrayals of assumptions about reality, it also doesn’t advocate for religion. Religions being correct isn’t the point. The point is to provide players and GMs with tools to explore what place religion has for humans and how it can be a tool for oppression, a means of reinforcing comfortable supremacist structures, but also how it can elevate and motivate some human beings, how it can speak to them. This kind of product is still an excellent template for what a fantasy religion can look like in a game setting, even if you aren’t using Shadow of the Weird Wizard or its setting. 

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• Shadow of the Weird Wizard
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• Glory to the High One
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