Channeling · Magical defence

Priests of Water

Stand firm in the arcane tide

What this guild is about

Be still enough to channel a storm.

Stand behind a shield while the world's mana moves through your free hand. Waterpriests combine an armoured defensive role with sustained channeling, frost and anti-magic wards. Albila's servants preserve ancient knowledge of Okka's power, shaping it into protection, forceful attacks and recovery for the companions who fight around them.

A Waterpriest makes a convincing frontline figure because control is central to the calling. You control the energy passing through you, the effects bound into spells and the protection that lets you remain where the fighting is hardest. Plate and a shield fit that role; keeping a hand free for channeling is part of the silhouette and the practical discipline. The same attention extends to the group, whose magical reserves can recover around a sanctified source of elemental mana. This is a guild for players who want defensive responsibility while actively shaping a flow of magic, with setup and resource choices inside the battle.

You might feel at home here if…

Hold a shield and leave a hand free for channeling.
Choose wards for the attacks you actually face.
Connect frost strikes, spellbinding and sustained magic.

An Antaeun Waterpriest wears plate and azure-and-white vestments with a shield and channeling hand. — A member of Priests of Water. Your own race and appearance are part of your character’s story.

Lore & origins

The knowledge that survived a god

The Priests of Water worship Albila, Lady of the Depths. In the early age of elemental conflict, Albila allied with Okka, god of Magic, against Zrammas. Their followers shared knowledge, and Water's priesthood learned ways of working magic that its own traditions say were later forgotten by other practitioners. This relationship matters because the order's power did not begin with the world as it now exists. Its priestly learning reaches back to a different arrangement of divine power, before Okka's death scattered his essence through the plane.

The death of Magic changed that world profoundly. In the Waterpriest account, Albila's followers retained methods learned through the old alliance while others struggled with the loss. They could still channel the magical essence around them. Albila's success in elemental warfare strengthened their position, but left a bitter inheritance: some ancient beings regard their use of the dead god's power as theft and associate the priesthood with devastation in Aegic. That resentment is part of the guild's history, rather than a simple claim that every other tradition shares its interpretation.

In Cenedoiss, acolytes study on a balcony above the great pool of the Temple of Water, surrounded by books, fresh water and its steady rushing sound. The Channelers train more austerely beneath ocean-blue tapestries bearing the city's insignia. Their stated purpose is to steady the mana flows made erratic by Okka's death. Azure garments beneath a snow-white alb give the order its recognisable appearance. The calm teaching spaces express a demanding ambition: to impose knowledge and continuity on a world whose magical foundations have been broken.

A pale temple chamber above a pool, framed by azure light and water. — Water and reflective stone surround the teaching halls of Albila.

A place in the world

Temple of Water, Cenedoiss

A broad study balcony overlooks the temple’s immense pool. Elsewhere, the Channelers work in an austere hall marked by mana practice and ocean-blue tapestries, learning to stabilise the energy running through Aegic.

Explore the world around them

Their role in a fight

Hold the front. Direct the flow.

The calling supports a magical tank: a priest who holds a dangerous position with armour, a shield and active magical defences while channeling attacks. Keep a hand free and learn how your defences affect the channel. Spell Warding is powerful against directly targeted offensive magic, but knowing its exceptions matters as much as raising it.

A Waterpriest draws blue streams from holy-water-blessed ground toward meditating companions. — Harness Elemental Mana helps companions recover their magical reserves.

With a party

Take responsibility for the part of the encounter your build is prepared to endure, while allies exploit the time you create. Your role also reaches into recovery: Harness Elemental Mana can help nearby companions restore magical reserves. A party benefits when you explain your setup and watch both incoming attacks and the resources needed to continue channeling.

On your own

The same combination of defence and spell pressure makes a self-directed fight possible. Spell Surge strikes with an icicle and leaves an energy trail that connects into channeling, so an apparently small attack can support a larger sequence. Prepare for the opponent's actual attacks and leave enough magical capacity to sustain your protective and offensive work together.

The choices you make

Protection is conditional. Spell Warding makes channeling harder and does not stop spells affecting multiple people in the same way it counters direct attacks. Equipment also shapes your options: ordinary weapon use conflicts with channeling, while elemental warfare permits supported shield use with a free hand. The strongest-looking defensive setup still needs to leave the priest able to act.

Power, explained

Signature abilities

Spell Warding
Defence against direct spells
The priest alters their aura into an anti-magic barrier that can make directly targeted offensive spells fizzle. Spells affecting several people can pass this defence because their effects develop differently. Warding also makes channeling harder. It offers a deliberate defensive choice against suitable enemies, with a real cost to the priest's other work.
Spell Surge
Frost strike and channel conduit
A divinely infused icicle hits the opponent and leaves a visible thread of elemental energy behind. That trail allows the priest's channeled magic to strike the injured target immediately. More advanced interactions involve spellbinding. Its identity is the connection between a quick frost attack and the continuing flow of the priest's magic.
Harness Elemental Mana
Shared magical recovery
The priest blesses a vial of holy water and breaks it to sanctify the ground, then draws on the surrounding elemental energy to aid mana recovery. The benefit extends to allies, and knowledge of meditation improves help for meditating companions. It makes a recovery stop part of the guild's contribution to an expedition.
Glacial Hailstorm
Spellbound weather attack
A bound spell turns control of weather into a violent storm of cold, snow and rime. Water's elemental mana can support the effect even indoors, but indoor storms are much weaker than those outdoors. Location therefore matters: the same spell expresses considerably more force when the priest has the open weather to work with.

These are examples from the guild’s wider training. Availability and strength depend on your guild path, skills and current game rules; an initiate starts with a smaller repertoire.

Learning the tradition

Learn to stabilise the current.

The priesthood begins with channeling, water lore and the fundamentals of elemental warfare. Its wider training develops spellbinding, magical defences and more specialised relationships with mana. Channelers focus on flows, auras and bound effects; the Blood Magi study life energy and its combat applications. Those branches deepen a shared discipline rather than changing the guild into a generic healer. Learn the guild commands through your priestly garment and practise a manageable set of channels before expanding. As your options grow, evaluate equipment, protective effects and magical reserves together, because all three determine whether your chosen frontline role works.

Read the guild reference Plan a reincarnation

For a first character, the guided builder offers a selection of starting professions. The complete guild reference and in-game teachers explain entry requirements and further training.