Theurgy skill

The Theurgy skill is a Cleric-only skill by which that the Cleric taps into the knowledge and power of the Immortals.

Training methods

Very broadly speaking, Theurgy is trained by using Cleric Communes. However, at lower levels it can be trained through various rituals. Training Theurgy via rituals is considered a stopgap for younger clerics, so learning through them will begin to taper off around 50 ranks. The more involved the ritual, the more it teaches. Planting sirese seeds still teaches well past 100 ranks, as do the blood offering and dark incense consecration rituals. Once rituals stop teaching, it's time to delve a bit deeper into the relationship between rituals and communes to train Theurgy effectively. At this point it helps to imagine your Devotion as a bucket. Cleric rituals fill this bucket - then communes empty it, training Theurgy in the process. The higher 'level' the Commune, the more Theurgy experience it will grant. Example: Meraud's (20) grants more experience than Hodierna's (12), which grants more than Eluned's (3). Once you can use Meraud's commune, a very effective method is to use it to consecrate a hunting room, then perform the rituals Last Rites, Prayer, Dance and Poetry (Recite, Dance), regularly to keep up devotion.

Creating Holy Water

Holy water can be acquired easily in many places. Depending on your location, you may find holy water available naturally from some sources such as the Huntress’ shrine in Lang, or the Fountain of One in the Temple of Light in Shard. You can also create holy water by acquiring the Bless spell and casting it on a normal water.

There are a great variety of containers available for storing water. Some are going to work better for your needs than others. They come in many sizes and shapes, so get whatever you like best. (Note: Containers purchased from the Cleric shops tend to be “blessed” in that they will not revert your holy water to normal water when you put it inside the container. However, “normal” water containers will still work, you just may have to Bless the contents after putting them inside by casting Bless on water in <container>).

Sirese Seed Ritual

Sirese seeds can be found in many places around Elanthia. The key is looking specifically in the room descriptions for the keyword 'sirese.' There is a list of rooms on the Sirese seeds page.

Once you've found a place that is likely to have sirese flowers, simply GATHER SEED to try and collect a seed for planting. It may take a few tries before you succeed in getting a seed.

Don't give up, you'll gather one eventually. After you've obtained your seed, you'll need to carry it to a suitable location for planting. Suitable locations are widely varied, you only need to consider finding a place that appears good for growing things (examples: gardens, woodlands, grassy areas, etc). Once you find a likely spot, simply PLANT SEED and then encourage it to grow by SPRINKLING HOLY WATER ON ROOM (or you can sprinkle directly from the container that's holding your water). Congratulations, you've likely managed to plant your first sirese seed!

General Tips

Training Theurgy can feel a bit tedious, but you’ll learn to make the most of it with some time and practice. Just starting out, the only method outside of a class will be in the form of doing rituals. Rituals are going to be a pretty standard thing you’re going to want to learn to do. They come in a great variety and many of them will result in varying levels of devotion gain. Your current level of devotion can be checked by typing just COMMUNE. The closer you feel to your deity in that message will indicate how high your devotion has grown. Devotion is the fuel from which the communes you’ll learn through your career are drawn, which is why you’ll want to familiarize yourself with rituals.

• Just starting out, the easiest ritual will be simply praying to a deity via PRAY <GOD>. Additionally, you’ll be able to dance in front of altars, kiss them, and clean them once you acquire some holy water. All of these are fairly simple and easy to do.
• Eventually you’ll want to acquire a pilgrim’s badge and visit the many holy sites to link them with your badge.
• You can also acquire incense from the various Cleric shops and a bit of flint from the general store. You can WAVE your lit incense at an altar as another simple ritual too. Simply LIGHT INCENSE WITH FLINT while holding your incense in one hand and some bladed instrument in your other, like a knife or sword, though you’ll want your flint in an open container.
• Another easy ritual is acquiring a bit of sacramental wine wine from a Cleric shop and pouring that on an altar as an offering to the Gods.
• If you’re a lover of music, you can play music on your chosen instrument for a deity at a holy site for a bit of devotion as well. Your performance skill will somewhat affect how pleased the Gods will be with your offering.
• The Gods will also reward you for destroying the Undead, which you should be able to start doing fairly early in your career. Additionally, if you are able to acquire a skin or pelt from the slain Undead, you can take it to an altar, sprinkle it with holy water, and then offer it upon an altar. The commands to do so are PUT PELT/SKIN ON ALTAR, and OFFER PELT/SKIN ON ALTAR.

There are a great many more rituals you will learn about as you grow in your knowledge of the Guild. Don’t be afraid to ask your brothers and sisters about their favorite rituals to expand upon what you know.

Now that you have a reasonable grasp on how to use rituals to gain devotion (and a bit of Theurgy while you’re still a novice), let’s talk about how you can use that devotion to train your Theurgy skill. As you increase in stature in the Guild, you will be sent on various quests to acquire deeper understanding of certain Immortals in the form of learning communes. Communes allow you to invoke the powers granted to you by certain Immortals to produce effects as simple as increasing your proficiency at fighting Undead to as complex as creating a temporary holy site that increases the flow of mana for most everyone. Your first quest will be granted at your 2nd circle so you’ll be able to start using a commune to bolster your Theurgy training very quickly. Your first commune will be Tamsine’s which will give you an offense buff to fighting Undead. You’ll be taught how to activate the commune when you complete the quest. As you learn communes, training theurgy will become mostly a simple matter of finding a balance of using your communes to give you some theurgy experience while doing your rituals to refill your devotion to continue using your communes. The more advanced the commune, the more devotion it will consume but the more theurgy it will yield. You’ll also want to learn how to use COMMUNE SENSE. This sense will indicate if you are currently affected by any communes. It can also indicate whether you can activate another commune or if you’ll be able to gain experience from repeating a commune. Examples:

• The power of Tamsine is channeling through you. This indicates Tamsine’s commune is active.
• You will not be able to open another divine conduit yet. This indicates you’ve communed recently and can’t use another quite yet.
• The waters of Eluned are still in your thoughts. This indicates Eluned’s was recently used, and won't grant experience again yet.
• You are eager to better understand your relationship with the Immortals. This indicates I’m ready to use a commune and will gain experience from it.

As your skill in Theurgy grows, the downtime in your ability to use communes will decrease. Find a reasonable balance between what yields a decent amount of theurgy and spending time doing rituals and you’ll do well. Welcome to being a Cleric!

List of communes

Ability	Type	Skill	Prereqs	Effect
Tamsine's commune	commune	theurgy	​2nd Circle, Quest	+Targeted Magic skill, vs. undead only
Eluned's commune (water)	commune	theurgy	​3rd Circle, Quest	create holy water
Kertigen's commune	commune	theurgy	​8th Circle, Quest	bless weapon
Hodierna's commune	commune	theurgy	12th Circle, Quest	staunch bleeding
Eluned's commune (athletics)	commune	theurgy	15th Circle, Quest	+Athletics skill
Meraud's commune	commune	theurgy	20th Circle, Quest	+Mana level, -Mana level, boost mana for all types but arcane, penalizes arcane mana
Glythtide's commune	commune	theurgy	35th Circle, Quest	create marriage and divorce roses
Truffenyi's commune	commune	theurgy	60th Circle, Quest.	Convert offering into a favor orb (self or others) or return favor orb (self only).

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