Want a good harvest don't forget to make a good offering to the fertility goddess.
For fortune in battle make the proper appeals to the god of war.
Keep your final breath a bit further away by appease death itself.
The notions I've listed above are just a meager sampling of how humans have behaved throughout history, fiction, and myth and gaming should be no different. Sure from some modern view points such transactional faith can be seen as callous or empty but that doesn't reflect the bulk of human behavior. It was common practice in ancient times to address specific gods and spirits for specific tasks and not assume one god could or would manage every affair. In the pantheon rich worlds of traditional fantasy roleplaying the opportunities to transactional faith (and the magic that goes with it) offer a host go gaming opportunities.
In such polytheistic settings you want a specific results you make an offering, a sacrifice, or perform a rite involving the proper spirits or gods to hopefully get the results you want. The role of the cleric is to serve as an intermediary between the masses and their patron diety and this gives them great social and political power. If you grand actions from a god you are likely going to want to be on the good side of the clerics at the local temple. The opportunity for complications and depth of play between PCs and NPC clerics is a deep and shallow as the players and GM wish it to be.
Now since the interactions between temples and their priests can be cumbersome to some players but sensible in context of history and setting some players will always be on the look for a way around such "limitations" to the acquisition of loot and power within the campaign. This reality is one reason that made me consider an "almost a cleric" clerical class for fantasy roleplaying campaigns.
Looking at the difference in religions both real and imagined and how they relate to magic along with social complications of priesthoods made realize working up the Idolater as a character class. In the real world clerics are people that serve a social and professional role they do indeed tend to be scholarly but not all traditions produce a priesthood of magicians. A more realistic setting where not every cleric is the same exact style of priest or a priest at all is one I favor.
The original cleric of D&D drew more from arcane monster fighters in hammer films than from any specific historical or mythic tradition. There was certainly an oddly implied veneer of quasi-biblical faux-christianity but it was very low key and no more medieval authentic than point hatted gentleman throwing lightning bolts at firebreathing lizards. So I'm looking to different model in my take on the Idolater as a playable alternative that adds to a fantasy campaign.
Transactional magic ties magic to a place, that place is of course found at temples and their associated altars. The idol serves as a physical reminder and manifestation of a God or spirit. One can either go to the local temples and be on good or tolerable transactional relationship or go find other idols. The finding of other idols cooks the adventure into the class. Those other idols can either be in hidden catacombs under a city, deep in a dungeon, or hidden is some forgotten ruin. Another reason to travel and adventure in hideously dangerous places that makes sense to the campaign is good for the campaign. Even with fairly cooperative and mercantile-minded priesthoods one would likely still find the need to visit remote shrines for specific appeals or magical workings.
I've likely explained the basics of the concept enough. Next post will be a generic Old-school compatible idolater and how to work them into a campaign.
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