"Why not Spiritual Hammer," you say. "That's an awesome level two. I want to knock people down with the Holy Ghost! Bam! Boom! Whomp!"
But remember, I'm a Presbyterian Cleric. I can only teach you the spells I know, and we Presbyterians are hard core into the support class focus.
You want to knock people over with the Holy Ghost? Let me suggest that you consider paying a visit to the Pentecostals. Televangelist Benny Hinn does it all the time. Spiritual Hammer seems to be his favorite spell. Lord knows what it has to do with the message of our Master and the purpose of our Order, but it is amusing in a slapstick sort of way.
Chant, on the other hand, is a very, very different sort of spell. It's not showy, but it's immensely powerful. It's the spell Presbyterian Clerics should find themselves casting every single Sunday in worship. When you get up there into the pulpit, or you pace the floor proclaiming, or you crank your way through your message, what you're doing is casting Chant.
Or rather, that's what you should be doing when you're up there preaching.
For far too many of my clerical brothers and sisters, this spell gets badly muddled with two other second level spells. Instead of focusing on the rhythm and pattern and flow of the mystic syllables that strengthen and empower, the time of Chanting becomes instead an aimless, humorless, arrhythmic drone That Just. Will not. Stop.
Quotes from obscure authors, abstract theological terms, and derivative jokes pulled from pastor-helper books are peppered throughout, but even those only reinforce the relentnessness of it. What does this look like? If you're presenting a theological explication of proto-preterism as it's manifested in the writings of your favorite Westminster Divine, you're making that mistake. If you're exploring the semiotics of Womanist ecclesiology, you're also making that mistake.
The minds of those exposed to that drone are driven from the material plane and into distant and ethereal realms. The room becomes quiet, except for the sound of the drone.
What's being simultaneously cast is not Chant, but a level two mystic mashup of Hold Person and Silence, 15' Radius.
I mean, seriously. Look at the quiet room, at the glazed eyes and the frozen bodies and the drooling. Spiritual Hammer couldn't stun 'em as effectively. Presbyterians in particular seem to make this mistake with some frequency, although at least we usually keep ourselves to under 20 minutes.
Chant is different. It uses the sustained expression of the sacred to stir the movement of the Spirit in those who have gathered to worship. It uses rhythm and rhyme, tone and cadence, story and song, and is akin to sacred poetry.
Isn't that music, you ask?
In point of fact, yes. The music that your bard guild works so very hard on every week is certainly a Chant casting. It stirs, empowers, strengthens, and encourages. Remember, church bards are often dual-class, particularly the elves and half-elves who inhabit monastic communities. They share some of your clerical spellbook. That's why attending to and respecting the music in your church is so very, very important. That music becomes the Chant that folks in your community will sing to themselves as they encounter times when a plus one is what they need to get through.
But you need to be sure that the cadences and patterns of chant sustain throughout your own vocalizations during worship. You are, through this spell, summoning the Spirit to dwell in and encourage those around you. Sure, it can be thoughtful and thought provoking. You can write it down if you want, or free-range, or use a presentation.
All of those things work. Attend to cadence and the mystical terms that evokes the best spirit of your community. Work on the rhythms and musicality of your proclamation. Learn how to spin a narrative that delights and carries your listeners along. It will both soothe and be stirring. Your preaching will cast a sweet spell over those around you, and that will be a strength to your community.
There are limits to this one, though. Three stand out.
First, Chant loses power almost the moment you stop doing it. Oh, the echoes of it might sustain long enough for folks to compliment you on the sermon on their way out. But Chant works with the sympathetic nervous system...and those effects fade away pretty quickly. Chant can augment substantive preaching, but it can't replace it, because it's just too ephemeral. Music gets around this by being recastable by the listener, and the cadences or phrasing of a particularly fine Chant cast may be repeatable by those who have heard it. But still. It's limited.
Second, Chant may stir and embolden and give a fleeting sense of passion, but it's ethically neutral. It can be badly misused, particularly if it is cast from a heart of egotism or desire for power. The charm that comes from a Chant-underlaid sermon can just as easily mislead as lift up, so be careful in it's use. Watch the state of your soul as you cast it.
Three, Chant may become a surrogate for the real transformation that defines our Way. People come to get that "hit" of your carefully crafted conjuration, and will meander from week to week, waiting for that plus one they get on Sunday. They won't change. They won't improve. And if that happens, you're not doing your job as a cleric.
Finally, there's a specific use of Chant that I've found powerful and efficacious outside of either public worship or when questing through a dark backcountry infested with orcs. That comes at the bedside of those who are suffering or dying. Let me give an example.
A few years back, I was in the hospital visiting an older man whose body was in the cascading final stages of death. Everything was shutting down. He could barely move. He was intubated, and could not speak. He'd lost the physical control over his hands, and couldn't focus enough to write. He was in pain, and he was alone, with no family or friends.
All he could do was mouth the words, "I'm in Hell." Over and over again, as he tensed and writhed. It was not an easy moment, one of the many times I've wished that the power of healing was not limited to magic users in this branch of the material plane.
While I could not heal him (nor could the Magic Users who'd filled his body with tubes and tinctures), I could for a moment take him away. And so I Chanted.
I told a story, softly, of the Fall day that was outside, invoking the blue sky crispness of the air and the yellow brightness of the windblown leaves. I told it with a lilting cadence in a soft voice, conjuring up for him the beauty of the world beyond.
For a minute, for two, for three, for five, I drew him out of himself. His body relaxed. He calmed.
But then a nurse came in, and the spell was broken.
Still, it was worth the casting, in those moments.
Chant. Know its value. Know its limitations. Know how to cast it.
