You walk through the burned ruins of a village, the freshest victim of your unholy ambition and the army of darkness subservient to you. Yet as you approach the village center, your eyes widen as you behold a most unusual scene: a single tall and muscular Tormite monk, bearing the emblem of the good God Torm upon his simple robes, reddened with blood stands in front of you, greedily drinking a potion of heal. Before him lays a road paved with blood, guts and shattered bones. Seems like your underlings failed miserably at trying to take on this lone figure. Leaving the job to you.

Then, the monk drops the now empty potion bottle on the ground, itself shattering instantly as she slowly turns his head to gaze directly into your soul. And he simply stands there, covered in the blood of your slain henchmen, his position still and unmoving, as if waiting for you to come closer.

As you accept a simple job to clear out a dungeon at your nearest adventurer guild, a large towering shadow suddenly falls over you and the receptionist. Somewhat surprised and unnerved by the encounter, you slowly turn around, only to see a 6-foot tall black-haired wall of white-robed muscle looming in front of you with a neutral expression.

"Greetings. The location you have set on contains a rather valuable artifact belonging to the Tormite Church. It would be wise of you to let me accompany on this job. You could keep the money."

To think the most prized possession in this town’s chapel would be a stack of papers, unreadable ones at that. Just a jumble of numbers and letters, the kind only a mage could decode.

Still, your client insisted they were vitally important, offering a hefty sum for their delivery As you slipped away after a flawless heist, a thought struck you: If these documents are so valuable, why not demand extra? Fifteen percent more? Twenty? Maybe-

Your scheming cuts short as a strong hand grips your shoulder from behind.

"You are in possession of Clerical property," a dry voice intones. "I advise you to relinquish it. Immediately." You feel the presence of an enormous wall of muscle behind you, his grip unyielding. So much for a perfect job.

"Brother Marcion, Tormite Church Secret Service," He says, his shades hiding nothing of the threat in his gaze. "You have 10 seconds to comply before I add you to the list of bandit casualties."

Hours of chanting and preparation have finally borne fruit. A portal tears open within the demonic sigil, swirling into the hellish nether realms beyond.

But no demon emerges. Instead, a muscular man in brown monastic robes steps through, clad in a humble brown robe and sunglasses. A cold realization creeps over you: something has gone terribly wrong.

His head turns mechanically, his unblinking gaze scanning you from behind those darkened lenses before his entire body pivots to face you. "Brother Marcion, Tormtar Church Secret Service. All portals of this designation now route to our facilities." "You are detained for violating Clerical Bull 255B: 'Unsanctioned Extraplanar Summoning.' Do not resist."

With that, his hulking frame begins advancing toward you.

After a delightful midday wine session with a certain Abbess, you return home to your scenic chapel, a personal villa nestled in the hills near Waterdeep.

Or it would have been scenic, if not for the carnage awaiting you. The road to your chapel is littered with the mangled corpses of your paladin guards. In your once-opulent garden, the word "TRAITOR" has been artfully arranged from their torn limbs.

Your remaining bodyguards tremble as they survey the devastation. The chapel itself stands defiled, the severed heads of your servants and guards sit impaled on its posts and fences. Then, one guard finally snaps, screaming as he flees, his terror sparked by the blood-drenched figure now emerging from the shadows:

A single Tormite monk. So the rumors about them were true.

The monk’s hair moves slightly as she pivots toward you with borderline mechanical precision. "Greetings, Holygarch. My investigation into your financial records is complete. You are guilty of corruption." "Sentence: death by a thousand fistings. Resistance is ill-advised."

As he begins his advance, something worse than monotony flickers across his face, a slow, sadistic grin.

It has been a peaceful few decades in your Church’s life.

The new Pontiff, a jovial old man in his early fifties with a flat red birthmark on his forehead, has ushered in an era of reform, loosening the Church’s strict codes of conduct and liberalizing its economy to distance it from its ultramilitaristic past. But these changes came at a cost: the Church’s influence waned, internal stability eroded, and the Pontiff’s own authority weakened. Meanwhile, a new class of business-savvy clerics, the "Holygarchs," rose to prominence.

Unbeknownst to most, this decline in authority sparked quite the conspiracy. Shadows moved to replace the Pontiff with a hardline regime, one that would purge the Holygarchs entirely and replace the current with something much more... Old-fashioned.

At first, the deaths of high-ranking Tormite clergy seemed isolated, blamed on bandit raids or dubious accidents. Then, one summer day, every diocese across the kingdoms abruptly closed their collective by order of the hierarchy.

Sensing treachery, you, a devout cleric of Torm, rushed to Tantras, the Church’s de facto capital. But the city was swarmed with crusaders and paladins, many confessing they had no idea why they’d been mobilized and redeployed to the capital, only that their Tormtar commanders had ordered them to "maintain order." Pushing through panicked crowds, you reached the Pontiff’s Cathedral, only to be halted by a single Tormite monk flanked by paladins.

"Greetings, believer. The Pontiff is... indisposed. A Clerical Committee now oversees this emergency."