This one is a basic, fundamental, and essential spell, one that's absolutely necessary and yet remarkably easy to do wrong or to overlook. It's the most vital of the level three spells, and so here I offer it to you: Prayer.
And you say, what? Seriously? Again with the lame spells? I mean, of course you know how to pray. It's the simplest possible thing. Just ask for something, badda boom, badda bing, in the name of the Master, Amen.
That's what we like to think, anyway.
But Prayer is one of the most significant and important spells you can learn how to cast, and it's the first level three spell any Christian Cleric should attempt to master. In fact, this one should be a part of your repertoire even before you're particularly good at casting it. It's something you've been trying since you were first an Acolyte. If you haven't been practicing it, honestly, you'd never have gotten this far. And that practice starts paying off here.
It's not that you've not been praying. But you've not really noticed what Prayer does until this point.
Oh, there are many folks who doubt that it adds value. Why not a third level spell that really impresses? Sure, Prayer doesn't have the same impact on the Material Plane as Animate Dead. Where are the shambling moaning half-living minions there to do your every bidding? I want my zombie army! I've known plenty of pastors who went with Animate Dead instead of Prayer, and while their churches got huge, they weren't the kind of places you'd want to spend time. Every member seemed more interested in eating your brains than in sharing the Good News. Stay away from those churches, my friends.
There are other folks who question whether it does anything at all, typically the fighters and rogues who sniff and make some comment about hokey religions and good blasters.
Prayer is different, and Prayer is effective...so long as you know what it actually does.
A day begun with a cast of Prayer feels different. You notice different things. You experience the world differently. You make different choices. You are aware of our Maker in ways you might not be.
That makes it a remarkably potent agent in the transformation of your life. Subtle, yes. But it is absolutely effective.
The great thing about a cast of Prayer is that it can be done in a wide variety and range of ways. Prayer can be conversational or a repeated string of invocations. It can be physically expressed through dance, or sung. It does not have to be particularly complicated, and it does not have to be long.
In fact, it helps if it is not long. Too many folks who aspire to be part of the Clerichood of All Believers approach prayer as if it is a long laundry list of everything they happen to want. O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz, as St. Janis used to sing. But Prayer is not that. It's not a spell about us getting what we want. So long as we cast it that way, our casts will fail.
It's a spell that connects us with our Creator. It's not the simple, selfish magic that brings us what we desire. It changes our desire.
The point when we recognize this is the point when the spell starts to really have power.
The best and most productive Prayer of all, as I've found it, is the one that the Master taught all of us. Simple, elegant, all-encompassing, it's both easy to recall and easy to cast. I begin pretty much every day with it, before I get out of bed. I cast it during the day as well, particularly as things grow challenging or stressful.
For example, almost every day as I walk my familiar (Dog, AC 7, 5 HP), I'll encounter a gnome. He rests under a sustained curse that I've not yet been able to lift, one that might be the result of some pretty brutal psionics. His mind is a ruin, and he's angry and desperately lonely. Honestly? He's hard to be around. But what I've found is that on the mornings when I both begin with a cast of Prayer and cast another, reinforcing Prayer before I speak with him, I'm...better. I'm more at ease. I'm more willing to be present for him in his brokenness. Prayer works to change you.
Prayer also works to lay a serious plus-one on groups and parties, but there, you have to be aware of the character of the group as you cast it. Just blorting out any old thing, or casting it only for yourself, or mumbling something from rote? None of those will support a group. You have to broaden your view, using the same technique of self-emptying that Detect Evil and Know Alignment require.
When you have a sense of the group, of how it works as a system, then your cast of Prayer will be far, far more powerful. Plus two, even.
Prayer. Cast it every single day.
