Bukkit

With the upcoming quest features listed (Crusades/holy wars and pilgrimages) and the Miracles mentioned in the same list, would it be possible to expand the available career paths away from it's current limitation of "Believer" to "Priest"?

If I may, I'd like to propose the following:

Categorising the quests into Violent and Peaceful. So slaying and holy war quests would be classed as "Violent" actions of faith whereas pilgrimages and item sacrifices would be classed as "Peaceful" actions of faith.

From here, the players could be organised accordingly:

High enough Faith and a character opening available:

• 
  
• If the player has no clear bias in their actions, make them a priest: "Priest [PlayerName] of [DeityName]"
  
• If the player has a strong bias towards performing the Violent quests (>70% of actions performed), make them a Hero: "[PlayerName], Hero of [DeityName]"
  
• If the player has a strong bias towards performing the Peaceful quests (>70% of actions performed), make them a Saint: "Saint [PlayerName] of [DeityName]"
  

The relative positions would not be a purely cosmetic feature, Priests would retain their ability to be the only character type capable of praying for blessing and curses upon others. They would also be the gatekeepers of the faith, distributing scriptures and having a more direct influence on the mood of their deity.

Heros on the other hand, have a high chance of receiving blessings of healing, strength etc. while in combat. (hurt or attacking) these blessings would have to be independent from the main blessings that deities already give followers in order to avoid heroes becoming an "attention drain" for their god's blesssings.

Saints on the other hand, could have a more direct role than priests in that they could heal other players (type /heal and punch, negate damage on target and start a heal/regen buff) and perform miracles (not sure what you had intended for these, but if saints could perform minor ones, that would be pretty fitting). This is offset however, by a longer cool down period than priest's praying (also since they wouldn't need a dedicated alter to heal a player etc) during which time it would give the message "You are still exhausted from your last miracle, rest a while longer."

Finally, this could be tied in with your desire to have holy books logging the world events as seen by the religion itself by having the actions of saints and heroes recorded as an entry: "On [GodAge (date)], year of our Lord/Lady [DeityName], [PlayerName] the Great (for Hero)/ Holy (for Saint), [ActionPerformed]"
so for example, you go on a holy war against followers of Epona:
"On 5,14, Year of our Lord Bawz, Doggy the Great fearlessly slew 14 heathen, followers of the Goddess Epona."
Would be added to the bible for all player current and future to read.