Campaign Development: The cruel rod of Theocracy

Religion at its finest hour

You are definatly playing your Dungeons & Dragons wrong. Just ask your players of lawful good characters if its okay to slaughter the forces of darkness. The fact is by the rules of the Players, the NPCs of that lawful good church of holy awesomeness should be rounding up its second class citizens and slaughtering them en mass for undermining the church. So religious deviancy is a crime mandating death.

If you think this isnt Dungeons & Dragons, I suggest another look at the Basic Red book where Aleena the Lawful Cleric conspires with you to rush-kill the Wizard Bargle before he can get a spell off rather than arrest him and bring him in for trial. She ultimately becomes the martyr of her righteous faith validating the extermination of bearded wizards everywhere.

So if you want to play D&D have the sense to include some genocide going on in the background where your lawful good religions are eliminating an undesirable or disobedient underclass for being unrepentant sinners.

Part 1: Invasive Theocracy
Most players think civilization equals safety. Have the lawful good church:

• Shave beards off dwarves and deny them entry into town.
• Clip the devilish ear points off elves.
• Treat halflings like children by excluding them from adult life.
• The church can use a furnace helm to dispose of magic items. 
• Red robed priests patrolling the streets, interrogating and searching PCs.

Religion is about stamping out chaos and freedom is as chaos as at gets.

Part 2: The Rise of the Holy Thyatian Empire

Mystara is headed toward Theocracy. With the failure of magic thanks to the asteroid that formed the great crater, innevitably causing the destruction of the known world, and the explosion of the Nucleus of the Spheres, a Thyatian Empire would throw in with a cleric oriented defense force. The prospect of the magic enchanted flying ships of Alphatia being replaced by the levitating monastary capital ships of the Holy Thyatian Empire are inevitable.

A flying Monastary powered by levitate enchantments from very high level clerics could move at a velocity of 20 feet per round. At 42,240 feet per 8 mile hex thats 2,112 rounds or 5.866 hours per 8 mile hex (about four 8-mile hexes per day).

A hundred mace wielding clerics in plate descend on your home town to convert you or kill you.