Shattered Kingdoms

Given my "dead faiths" topic and Jennbo's response of letting RP guide the character, I got curious.

When you make a character who will be required to follow a god, when do you select who you will follow?

I generally build my priests/paladins/hellions around symbol stats and what sacred armor is more readily available at the time.

I pick my priest with a church and basic idea.

Having said that, when I first rolled my current priest I was undecided between two churches and ended up being recruited into a third church by someone I ran into. So the RP greatly changed my priest and has killed my original concept and he is no longer the priest I had in mind when I rolled him.

What the heck is the temporal difference between concept and creation?

Personally, I avoid faiths that I know are being supervised by [REDACTED] bags.

I've learned not to pick dead faiths unless I have the immortal patron on YIM.

For a hellion, I'll always go Sargas.

For a Paladin, I'll nearly always go Alshain.

I'll know what aura right away, and unless it's a thubanite, I generally roleplay checking out different churches, speaking with different priests, and choose whatever one gave off the best vibe.

Sometimes my character will have a history with one god or another, perhaps her family worshipped Dulrik, so I may lean towards them, but if she ends up joining another church, then I get the option of her going through arguments with her family outside the realms, which may make her grow as a person, or it may have the opposite effect.

But with Thubanites, I'll know at character concept if it'll be one.

Of the various priests I have played most of them were created with the religion in mind and then the personality stemming from or in conjunction with that.

Thyki was a whole bundle together though. She came from a dream I had.

After players learn about religious spells, I'm fairly sure there's at least a shortlist at creation.

If for no other reason than aura.

Same.

I tried letting experience guide my priest - once. The way religious induction works, that was just a train-wreck. IMO, most players just aren't interested in this kind of roleplay, and that includes high priests.

Besides, my preference is for characters with a strong point of view. And while a seeker can come to be a zealot, it's easier to start the zealotry from the beginning. You don't want your character's IC choices to lead to a character you don't OOCly enjoy.