Heaven’s Hands

Heaven’s Hands is a religious group that venerates angels instead of deities.Preferring the more personable nature ofangels to the remote and often incomprehensible nature oftrue divinity,the followers of Heaven’s Hands believe that while angels are not true deities,they are still the servants ofgood and have a more direct influence on the mortal world than deities.

Brief History

Born into an austere and rigid faith, the woman the Hands call Prophet Alynna grew dissatisfied with the formalized structure ofher religion.Yet she was fascinated by the obscure lore buried in apocryphal sources,particularly that relating to angels. In the course ofher research she found that many angels mentioned in her faith were also prominent in other,more liberal religions.Breaking from her church’s teachings,she asserted that an incommunicative and distant god was contrary to the idea of a living and needy world,while the intervention ofangels in mortal affairs is what led to the knowledge ofreligion and society.She left her temple with a number offollowers and established an open church that praised angels for their good works and thanked them for their service to all good deities.This splinter faith gained popularity among dissatisfied members ofother churches and grew into what Heaven’s Hands is today.

The Organization

Heaven’s Hands has its own temples,large structures open to all four cardinal points (a design that represents an openness to all faiths and angels).The group has its own clerics and other divine spellcasters but it welcomes clergy and layfolk from other religions to speak in its temples about experiences with or legends about angels.Members of Heaven’s Hands are much like those ofany other good church,performing good works and seeking out those in need. Members: 5,000 or more.Heaven’s Hands is a small faith,but a large number ofpeople from other pro-angel religions participate in its services.

Hierarchy: Loose.A particular temple may be organized like another nearby good religion,but each one has its own style.The temples have no interchurch hierarchy. Leader: Varies Religion: Any nonevil,as long as it includes angels as a positive force in its doctrinal teachings Alignment: NG (most common), LG,CG Secrecy: None.(The Hands are completely open about their identity and goals.) Symbol: A shield divided into four quarters,each with a symbol representing a kind of angel (winged lion,eagle, winged human,ring offire)

Adventure Seed:Hands in Prayer

A group of pilgrims from Heaven’s Hands is trying to found a small church in a new city. They are opposed by a large and wealthy established church that teaches that worshipping angels instead of deities is blasphemy and an abomination. The pilgrims are being harassed in the street when they talk of their faith, and the house they rent has been vandalized and attacked. One of the pilgrims is suspected to be a planetouched being or even an angel in disguise. Player characters may become involved in either side (and may actually be members of either faith), supporting the quirky underdog against its rival or aiding the established church against the upstart cult. Does the presence of an angel or angel-blooded pilgrim affect the established church’s stance? Is religious freedom more important than a player character’s religious affiliation?

Hierarchy

Each temple has a senior priest or priestess,with larger temples also having one or more assistant clergy.Visitors ofnote from other faiths have the status ofassistant clergy unless they are leaders ofanother temple,in which case they are subordinate only to the senior clergy.Below is a sample temple hierarchy.

Jascoria (NG human female Clr9),a direct descendent of Prophet Alynna,is the senior cleric in the first temple her ancestor founded.She doesn’t let her ancestry go to her head and works hard to show she is worthy to lead her chapter ofthe Hands.Recently she has become infatuated with Halmar,an aasimar paladin who came to the temple to speak ofhis grandfather angel.

Kihan (LG half-elfmale Mnk3/Clr1) is the leader ofthe temple guardians.Formerly an ascetic living in a monastery to perfect himself,he came to the city and joined the Hands after seeing a vision ofArchangel Michael smiting demons from atop the Hands’ temple.As the temple’s protector,he is suspicious ofall visitors despite the welcoming nature ofhis faith.

Dorvian (NG human male Clr3) was once a member ofa cult that worshipped fallen angels,but he eventually realized the foolishness ofserving a flawed being (which by definition is what a fallen angel is).He abandoned his old faith and gravitated to Heaven’s Hands,a faith similar in principle to his old one but much more positive in its general outlook on the world.

Motivation and Goals

Heaven’s Hands has no goals other than to promote good in the world and spread its teachings.It doesn’t wish to be the only