The Chromatic Chord

Vow-Scarring

The lasting strain that years of channelling a god's power leave in priests and holy casters: a narrowed self, crashes after miracles, intruding dreams, and in the worst cases collapse.

Overview

An old priest of thirty years' service cannot pray to any god but his own, cannot bend on any question his god cares about, and after every great rite lies two days in the dark. That is vow-scarring, the long wear of carrying a god's power through a mortal body. Divine magic is safer than many workings, but it is not free, and the faiths know the cost by sight.

Cause

In divine magic the energy comes from a patron, but the body still channels it and the mind still interprets it (see Divine and Traditional Magic). Repeated channelling leaves lasting marks: channels that carry more but tolerate less, rigidity around the sworn domains, a drift of reflex towards the patron's, and dependence on the patron for every working. These marks are not always harmful, and in trained clergy many are adaptations; they turn into harm when the channelling outruns recovery, when doctrine is coercive, or when the caster channels through a contradiction they cannot resolve. A single miracle beyond tolerance can do in a moment what years do slowly.

Who It Strikes

Those who channel for a god often and heavily: war-priests, temple healers in plague years, oathwardens, pilgrims who lead mass rites, and the zealous who will not rest. Clergy who serve under coercive doctrine, or who doubt what they are made to channel, scar fastest.

Signs and Course

Temples track three stages, Integrated, Strained, and Fracturing.

At first the signs are small, and many priests consider them blessings: greater power for the patron's work, a sureness of judgement, vivid dreams with the god's symbols in them. Then come crashes after channelling, a day or more of grey exhaustion and low spirits, and dreams that intrude on waking. Unsponsored magic grows hard. The priest finds it painful to act against the patron's domain, even in small, reasonable ways, and friends find them harder to reason with.

In the Fracturing stage judgement fails: the priest acts on the patron's reflex rather than their own, or swings between rigid zeal and collapse. Overreach brings oath-scorch along the lines of the vow and a crash of spirit (see Backlash). The turning point is rotation: a priest relieved at the Strained stage usually settles, and one kept working through it does not.

Contagion

Vow-scarring does not pass between people, though a fracturing leader can shake a whole congregation's morale.

Treatment and Its Limits

Temples manage it rather than cure it: rotation of duties, rest, re-attunement, and supervised reset after a failed invocation. Lighter service, quiet orders, and pilgrimage give a strained priest time. Herbs for sleep and the ordinary comforts of care help with the crashes. A strained priest can be healed bodily like anyone, best by someone of their own people, but no healing takes away the scar on their channels or the tilt of their judgement. A miracle beyond tolerance can burn, break, or kill, and the only prevention is refusing to attempt it.

Mortality

Vow-scarring itself seldom kills. Overreach kills priests every generation, mostly in war and plague, and a Fracturing priest may die by misjudgement. Those who survive keep the scar for life: a narrowed self, broken sleep, and dependence on their god's support.

Lore and Belief

The faithful see vow-scarring as holiness, and an old priest's rigidity and crashes as the god's mark; few believe the gods would harm a servant. Sceptics say the god is wearing the priest. Tales tell even of gods paying for their healing: the healing Resonants of Aqua take on part of the pain and memory they heal and grow melancholic (see the Aqua Resonants).

In the Medieval Era

Temple and order systems monitor their own channellers, and where a temple holds firm it can stand a priest down for overchannel as a school stops a caster. Every temple has its old priests who lie in the dark after a feast-day rite, and congregations accept it as the price of the god's presence. In war and plague, the monitoring fails first.

Where It Appears