Chaplain

CIVILIAN DEPARTMENT
Chaplain
Chaplain	Difficulty: Easy Requirements: None Access Level: Chapel, Morgue Additional Roleplay Access Level: None Supervisors: Captain, Head of Personnel Subordinates: None Responsibilities: Assist in corpse recovery and handling, provide supernatural aid Guides: This article

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Your Chapel, an outpost of faith in the north.

Your Chapel, just a few steps left of a Bar.

Your Chapel, located in the north east of the station. When crew members find themselves at their nadir, you can raise them up here.

Your Chapel/Community Center, a place to exercise your soul after you exercise your body in the nearby Fitness Center.

Your Chapel in the northwest, where you can demonstrate the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

Your Chapel in the top left, where prophets are born.

The Chaplain's mission is to preach faith to the crew. They get an assortment of helpful holy items and are immune to many of the powers and abilities possessed by various supernatural antagonists. In addition, the role also gets a few tools for transporting, preserving, and, if necessary, disposing of corpses.

While you're sometimes called upon to confront the supernatural when they manifest, a lot of the time you can just wear one of the many outfits in your locker and pontificate about your silly space religion. Aside from roleplaying expertise, you don't need to know too much to be "good" at this job, so it's generally to hard to mess up; on the Classic servers, you don't technically need to roleplay if you don't want to. You get to interact with people a lot too, and so long as you're courteous and keep the Rules in mind, they'll often let you be; they might even join you. In short, this is a good job to take if you want to do a gimmick or would just wish to sit back and relax, and it's decent for newbies, if you're into roleplaying.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

In most basic terms, aid your crew members. In more specific ones, preach your faith to the crew. Goonstation awards you Faith for having people in the Chapel, and Faith boosts the Bible's ability to heal people and smite unholy creatures. The game otherwise does not care how exactly you get them there, so it's pretty non-denominational. You are free to pursue whatever silly, non-violent method you can think of, with no limits besides your imagination and the Rules. For example:

• Dress up like a druid, and get a HoP to give you access to Hydroponics and the Kitchen. Make/grow a ton of food, and hold a feast in celebration of nature's bounty in the Chapel.
• Get Quartermaster access, make 20k extra, and convince the AI to transfer it to your account. Deliver sermons in the Chapel about the literal Almighty Dollar. Throw piles of money at people as a show of the Almighty Dollar's power.
• Grow a bunch of weed, make big piles in the Chapel, and invite people to join the United Church of Cannabis.
• Convince Robotics to churn out as many drones as they possibly can so you can properly worship to the Omnissiah.
• Steal all the liquor on the station and then smash it against the table/altar in the Chapel, claiming it is an affront to your religion. Get chased down by an angry mob of drunks who are sober for the first time in a decade.
• Go run around trying to convert people to Space Jesus! Conduct sermons in the Chapel and elsewhere about how Space He died in a Space Crucifixion to absolve Space Humanity of its Space Sins. Make pamphlets about Space God's Space Deeds and Space Blessings, leave them in places.
• Design intricate Satanic cable art on the floor of the Chapel. Make crayon summoning circles. Spray ketchup absolutely positively 100% real blood in service to your dark master.
• Knock out a wall in your office and install a window so you can watch the station hurry by in horror and panic while you quietly sip your tea.

There's no end to the dumb shit you can do!

If you're looking for more serious work, you can try searching for corpses and hauling them to Medbay to be revived. You have the tools for it; the Chapel morgue has body bags that make transporting corpses surprisingly fast and bottles of formaldehyde, which, when injected into a corpse, preserves it indefinitely. Since the medical personnel are often swamped with work and stuck in Medbay as a result, and you generally aren't very busy, you can be of surprisingly great help. Since your ID can't open many places by default though, you might want to ask the Head of Personnel (or Captain or HoS) to give you some more access on your ID, particularly Maintenance and Medbay access.

It doesn't have to be a one-way street either. If Medical finds a corpse that can't be revived for whatever reason, you might be to convince them to hand it over to you for a funeral. You can then hold a wake, cremation, or whatever suits your roleplaying fancy for the sending off the dearly departed.

Faith Mechanics

A chaplain's true strength come from the faith of their followers―literally, the game gives you a resource called Faith (as distinguished from your holdout pistol, Faith) for having people in the Chapel (whether it's for sermons, rituals, secular events, what have you). Faith is invisible, but you can sense its effects. The game never directly tells you how much Faith you have (though it does give indirect, imprecise clues in certain situations), but this wiki gives specific numbers to give you a better, more precise sense of what's going on behind the scenes.

You start with 1000 Faith, and every few seconds, you gain around 5 Faith for every human (includes lizardpeople, skeletons, etc. but not humans who are NPCs), cyborg, AI, and player-controlled critter standing in the Chapel; this is reduced to 1 Faith if you have the Atheist trait. There are several beings who do not contribute Faith for standing in the Chapel:

• Atheists, that is, people with the Atheist trait.
• NPCs
• Unconscious people
• Corpses
• Ghosts
• Vampires
• Thralls
• Wraiths, including their revenants

Again, the game does not outright tell you how much Faith you have; there's no counter, meter, bar, or whatever on your screen tracking Faith. Rather, it gives you signs; you can get a feel for it when you're healing people with the Bible. If there are multiple chaplains, they all use it individually.

What does Faith do? It powers your Bible. Healing people and smiting unholy creatures with the Bible requires Faith, and the more Faith you have, the more effective it is. Thus, your true strength really does come from the faith of your followers. The specific mechanics behind this are explained here.

Special equipment

The holy one of the station has some unique equipment that nobody else has access to. It's important to know what it does.

The Bible

Sadly, you don't have access to a Torah, Qu'ran, Tripitaka, or an STC blueprint to fit your other robes, but the Bible has an interesting power all of its own. The Bible can also smite the undead, dispel hostile enchantments, and even heal people, at the risk of causing brain damage. However, it can only do so if it's used by someone with Chaplain training, i.e. you. If someone who isn't the Chaplain tries to use it, it'll have no effect. In fact, it'll actually hurt them for 10 BURN, which they see on their end as "The book sizzles in your hands." The Bible can also store items, with linked storage between multiple Bibles; unlike with its other powers, people without Chaplain training can use its storage abilities.

Healing

When you strike someone with your Bible, it has a chance to heal them for some BRUTE and BURN. The precise chance for healing is 40 + (Faith*0.02); in other words, the more Faith you've gathered, the more likely you are to heal them. You have 1000 Faith at roundstart, so when the round begins, you have a 60% chance (1000 * 0.02 is 20, and 20 + 40 = 60) to successfully heal someone.

The precise amount of BRUTE and BURN is more complicated: (Faith*0.005) + 5 + random integer between -3 and 3. Basically, more Faith equals more healing. With the starting 1000 Faith, you may heal 7 to 13 BRUTE and 7 to 13 BURN (1000 * 0.005 = 5, 5 + 5 = 10, 10 - 3 = 7, 10 + 3 = 13). The (Faith*0.005) is capped at 30; to reach this number, you need 5000 Faith, at which point you're healing 27 to 33 BRUTE and 27 to 33 BURN (5000 * 0.005 = 25, 5 + 25 = 30, 30 - 3 = 27, 30 + 3 =33). The BRUTE and BURN numbers always match each other; you can, say, heal 17 BRUTE and 17 BURN but never 11 BRUTE and 23 BURN.

The game never gives you these numbers directly, but it does try to give some hints in the flavor text for the healing:

Amount Healed	Message
1 to 8	[Your name] heals [their name] mending his/her/their wounds!
9 to 15	[Your name] heals [their name] with the power of Christ!
16 to 24	[Your name] heals [their name] by the will of the LORD!
25 and up	[Your name] heals [their name] in service of heaven!

The down side is that if it fails, the bible instead does 10 brain damage if they're not wearing some sort of helmet, which can add up and cause serious problems, including death. Still, when compared to lying disabled for 10 minutes or dying, many, many people will be happy to trade a few IQ points for the merciful healing of Jesus. If you're striking atheists, it works differently; they get 5 brain damage but no healing.

Hexbreaking

In addition to fixing corporeal wounds, the Bible also reverses various supernatural afflictions. It cures cluwnes. Hit one with the Bible, and you have a 25% chance of turning them into a "Cleansed Cluwne", stripping away (literally) their ugly, accursed cluwne clothes, restoring their sense of balance, and returning them to their pre-transformation name. It's also good for people cursed by Plaguebringer Wraiths, because hitting them with the Bible has a 75% chance to remove all their curses. Yes, all of them—Blindness, Blood, Rot, Weakness, and even Death—all at the same time. When you successfully lift someone's curse(s), spooky black smokes suddenly emanates from their body.

Hurting

The Bible also hurts undead creatures, specifically Vampires, their Thralls, Wraiths, and their revenants, giving them BURN damage. The precise amount and chance to do this both follow the exact formulas for healing people. (More tips on them fighting them in later sections.) However, while they are certainly unholy, the Bible does not inflict extra damage on Changelings or cause any other special effects. It also has no effect on Wizards, though as mentioned above, it does cleanse any cluwnes they may create; more on that later too.

Also fart on the Bible and something unfortunate will happen. Unless you're an atheist.

Hauling

It also works like a box, in that you can store things in it. But don't put anything too incriminating in it; every Bible links to one single common inventory space that anyone, even laity, can pull from. Put your whiskey ceremonial wine in it instead. The shared inventory also means that if you put a bomb in there and set it off, an explosion occurs at every Bible. However, there are some limits. When detonating single tank bombs and transfer valve bombs in Bibles, the more Bibles there are, the weaker the boom.

Faith

In addition, the Bible you spawn with is loaded with faith. Literally, it has a gun named Faith in it. Only someone with Chaplain Training (i.e. you) has enough faith to click on the bible to pull it out and put it back in, though anybody can wield and fire it just fine. It starts with 4 shots of .22 LR. Four's not enough to kill someone on its own: each shot does 22 BRUTE, so with 4 that's up to 88 BRUTE, much less if the person has armor. Try using it with another weapon, perhaps as a coup de grace, or somehow find more ammo. Also, hide it from GuardBuddies and Secbots ; it's contraband, and you don't have a permit for it.

If you actually don't care about Faith and just want to access the Bible's inventory, you can just click-drag it onto yourself.

Holy Water

The Chaplain also starts with a phial of holy water in their office in the Chapel. One always spawns in a "do-it-yourself holy water kit" in the Deus Ex Machina machine, often another phial is sitting on a desk nearby. Holy Water is the proof positive way to test for a Vampire, if one is caught and trying to deny what it is. Splashing Holy Water on a human won't hurt him at all, but splashing Holy Water on a vampire will very obviously burn the undead abomination. Splashing holy water on a human also heals brain damage, if that person does not have the atheist trait, which can offset the brain damage of the bible.

That phial is usually the only source of holy water on the station, though it is possible for Chemistry to make more. It's quite easy to; it's simply water mixed with wine and mercury. Water is found exactly where you'd expect (sinks, bottled water, etc.), you can ask the Bartender to get you some wine and they can usually give you mercury too. If not, the Scientists can. In fact, that aforementioned "do-it-yourself holy water kit" in your Deus Ex Machina machine also contains 3 bottles of mercury (50 units in each) and 3 bottles of wine (30u in each) precisely so you can make it on your own.

Magic Sandals

The Chaplain starts with this neat footwear in the Deus Ex Machina vending machine, and unless there's a Wizard on board, they're the only pair. When you wear them, the sandals act like improved galoshes in that you can't slip on ice or get stunned by runaway segways, while also stopping you from slipping on wet floors. They're also very difficult to steal once you put them on; it takes 10 seconds for someone to strip them off of you, much longer than the normal 2.5 seconds.

The Chapel Itself

The Chapel itself has a few nice things you should be familiar with. Next to (and sometimes right inside) your office is room with a crematorium, which can be used to reduce bodies to ash. Simply click on it to pull out the tray, shove whatever/whoever you want to bake into ashes onto the tray, click on the crematorium to push the tray back in, and press the switch. This is one of the few ways to permanently destroy a Changeling and is useful for a traitor Chaplain to hide his tracks.

Speaking of hiding tracks, the crematorium also contains a few morgue units for storing bodies. They are never used for any legitimate purpose, and even for illegitimate purposes it's very rare to see them used. However, if you glance in and see that any of the slabs have a red light on their bottom, it means they're occupied. If you're not sure why they're occupied, you should probably find out.

Most chapels have a mass driver that launches things into deep space. Again, this is never used for any legitimate purpose, but if some assistants are jonesing for the donuts in Security, it can be fun to launch the donuts into space right in front of them.

Most Chapels also have a confessional, nominally to be used by a Chaplain hearing confessions. In reality, it's only used by to smoke weed in total privacy.

Finally, the Chapel area has a holy aura that burns Vampires who have not consumed 1800 units of blood, and totally locks down a Wizard's spellcasting. People fleeing from these antagonists will often burst into your Chapel looking for sanctuary.

Deus Ex Machina

The Deus Ex Machina vending machine in the Chapel Office contains a wide variety of outfits for all manner of religious gimmicks. It also dispenses "scriptures", which look like books but don't actually have any written text on them, essentially making them props. There's no spare Bible, but there is a "do-it-yourself holy water kit" with supplies for making extra holy water. When hacked, it provides scriptures with more unusual themes.

You need the Chaplain's Office access level to dispense items from this machine. You automatically get this as a Chaplain, but non-Chaplain acolytes who want a hold of the religious supplies within will probably need some help.

The Wraith, the Wizard, The Vampire and You

To somewhat make up for the Chaplain's total uselessness when it comes to every day life on the station, you are the hard counter for three classes of antagonists. The masterminding wraith will constantly find you obstructing its plans, the stealthy vampire will avoid you at all costs, and the noisy wizard will loathe every moment of your existence.

Note that the following notes only apply to people who originally spawned as Chaplains. Someone who is promoted to Chaplain does not get the innate changes mentioned here.

Wraiths

While you're no Damien Karras or Ghostbuster, you are well-equipped to counter this rare but highly malevolent ghost. You have not one, but two means of depriving the wraith of corpses: the crematorium and the mass driver. A wraith without its corpses is a weaker wraith, because without them, it has to wait longer for its Wraith Points to replenish, meaning revenant rampages, skeleton uprisings, and ghastly possessions are fewer in between. While you still have to wait for the wraith to Haunt or cross a salt line attack to it, your bible and the power of Christ contained within will do great damage to the wraith, compelling it back to oblivion. In addition, as the local cleric, you enjoy an number of advantages when the wraith raises the dead up as revenants. You cannot be Crushed, Pushed back, knocked down with Shockwave, or be targeted by Mass Command, and your bible, as with the wraith, can do great damage against the revenant.

However, while the wraith usually cannot directly attack you, the wraith can find several ways to indirectly hurt you. You are still vulnerable as any of the crew to wraith-animated objects, and a clever wraith can find a way to knock you down so it can cast Command on the ground you've been smacked down upon. With revenants, while you're immune to Crush, Push, and Shockwave, you are not immune to Touch of Evil, so don't be surprised if you find yourself dead and floating alongside the wraith you just tried to kill after your attempted revenant crusade.

Vampires

You're in a pretty good position against Vampires. You're immune to almost all of the vampire's tricks, so a vampire has to fight on far more even footing with you around. Your bible does a fair bit of BURN damage against vampires, and you are the only person on the station guaranteed to have one of their biggest anathemas, holy water. Splashing holy water on a vampire is about as effective as splashing acid on a normal crewman's face, so it's a quick and easy way to test someone's claims of innocence.

You can also use the chapel as a safe zone, dragging victims away from hungry vampires and performing triage on them in your office. Vampires need a lot of blood to be immune to the chapel's damaging aura, so most of them will cook to cinders before they can hack into your safe zone, and your immunity to Glare, Chiropteran Screech, Diseased Touch, Call Frost Bats, and Hypnotize puts you in a very good position to simply run away with a vampire's victim with them being nearly powerless to stop you.

Your last line of defense is that your blood, when drunk, burns vampires like holy water, and destroys some of the blood in their pool. This only works when a vampire is drinking directly from you, so you can't bleed into a beaker and splash people with it to test them. This is mostly a safeguard against inexperienced vampires, or vampires that attack you when you're not wearing your chaplain outfit or ID. With your immunity to most of their powers, you can set yourself up as a stalking horse this way, but be warned that nothing but your own robustness will stop the vampire from strangling you, bashing your skull in with a fire extinguisher, or flying away in Bat Form while ordering their undead minions to brutally murder you.

Wizards

Wizards just plain hate the chaplain's guts. For one, the chapel is a sanctuary that locks down their spellcasting. The chaplain himself is immune to direct effects of most the spells. If there are reports of a crazy bearded guy running around, it may be worthwhile go to security and ask to be armed and deputized. Put on the magic sandals from your closet. Any spells that directly target you will fizzle, and security wants that on their side.

However, like with vampires, do not make the mistake of thinking that you are invincible. The wizard has plenty of tricks that can still affect you. Summoned golems, for example, can consist of some very nasty things and will attack you on sight. If you do not have your magic sandals on, you can also slip on ice created by the ice beam spell. If a wizard gets the better of you, it's a safe bet that they will shred you in any way they can manage. You are not replaceable, so don't let that happen.

In addition, a good smack over the head with the bible by a holy one (one with the laity will just do nothing) has a chance to cleanse anybody unfortunate enough to fall to the Clown's Revenge. More specifically, it lifts the cursed cluwne clothing and horrifying honking noises associated with Cluwneing Around, the separate dropping of items associated with the confusingly named "Dyspraxia" (separate from the mutation), and the random stuns from both. Keep this in mind as the Wizard reduces the entirety of Medical and Command to gibbering, fumbling abominations of nature, forever in everlasting torment and far from the grace of the gods.

Other Things About Being a Chaplain

Cults

Cults have been done a thousand times before you got here, and chances are, your fantastic idea will be the worst of those thousand times. Murderous cults are banning material. Don't even try it.

The Ghostly Mysteries

As Chaplain, you may sometimes see a spooky message in your chat along the lines of "You sense a disturbance emanating from [object] in [area]". This is nothing to be alarmed about, there isn't some disaster occurring in some galaxy far, far away. Instead, this simply means somewhere in that area mentioned, a Ghost is using a Ouija board.

Speaking of dead people, you can Examine a corpse to see their last words, in the format of "Their/His/Her last words were:". If you fancy yourself an amateur sleuth, you could use this is figure why the Head of Personnel was found dead in the Pool, still wearing floaties...or just check out the hilarious things people say before they kick the bucket (sometimes literally).

Chaplain XP

Like clerics in your favorite tabletop RPGs, you earn XP! Rather than combat or quests, you get it by the following actions:

Action	XP Earned
Hurt/smite a Vampire, Wraith, or Wraith Revenant with your Bible	2
Heal someone with your Bible. Base 30% chance of earning XP for it each time, goes up with damage healed.	1
Get targeted by a Vampire,Wizard or Wraith power, have it fail/cause no effect due to your Chaplain Training.	2
Complete the "Have no corpses on the station level at the end of the round." objective.	50

XP goes towards your Chaplain level, but it doesn't unlock powers, boost health, or anything. Rather, you unlock certain rewards at certain levels. Or normally you would, but unfortunately, there are no job rewards for Chaplain yet.

There is also a leaderboard for Chaplain XP, primarily for bragging rights.

Crew Objectives

As a loyal crew member, you can sometimes be assigned some strictly optional objectives to keep yourself busy while you wait for something to happen. If you complete your objectives by the end of the round, you'll get Chaplain XP and some bonus Spacebux. If it's the first time you've completed an objective, you might even earn a medal too. As a chaplain, you can expect to see the following:

Have no corpses on the station level at the end of the round.
If you see this, throw up your arms and say fuck it, because this is never, ever happening.

If you somehow do manage to achieve this objective, the game will give you the Bury the Dead medal. There is no reward associated with the medal, aside from proof that you managed to do the impossible.

Sinister Minister: Antagonist Chaplain

On the surface, an antagonist Chaplain plays much like playing antag on roles with low starting access; you relax, schmooze, and be social until you find someone in a vulnerable position. You then kill that person, assume their identity, and go from there. Most people are used to the Chaplain being harmless and useless, so this is easier than you might think. Simply asking someone to follow you into a trap will work more often than not, though you should ideally have a rather inescapable trap set up, such as an electrified door that you convince the victim to open.

The Sin-dicate: Traitor Chaplain

As a Traitor, you can order a few items to alleviate your role's low starting access. The EMAG can open pretty much every door, so long as it isn't welded or bolted, and the syndie omnitool contains all the tools used door-hacking in one convenient package. You could also order an agent card; it can "copy" access from other ID cards onto itself, which can be quite useful if you put in the effort. It has a few other perks too, including the ability to set a custom name and job title, so you can name yourself appropriately for a gimmick.

There are two job-specific items of traitor Chaplains. One is the mini-Bible. If you love tricking people into farting on bibles, you'll love this too. Its sprite is very small, so it's easy to hide it under other objects, and even people with the Atheist trait will get gibbed, unlike the regular bible. Put it on the ground, lay down and hide the bible with your body, and watch as people try to fart on your face only to get smited. You might be surprised at how many people fall for it, for the opportunity to fart on another spaceperson's face is mighty tempting. Rather unfortunately, its gets overshadowed by the other Chaplain-specific traitor item...

And that other item is the faustian bargain kit, which gives you everything to need to harvest your victims' souls in contracts with demonic twists. It's simple; just click on a person with a contract in your active hand and a demonic pen in your other hand to complete the contract. (If you do the reverse, you'll just stab them with the pen, though doing so will put them in the ideal situation to sign a contract.)

Different contracts confer different "benefits". Some make the signee infinitely produce bees, some make them an immortal monster in cluwne gear, some grant vampire or Macho Man powers (though not the actual antag status); many simply cause amusing and/or ironic deaths. You can Examine a pact for some clues on what it offers, though, in true genie fashion, it won't quite tell the whole truth. If you need more contracts, use the Summon Contract ability in your Souls tab to exchange a little pen and briefcase damage for an additional contract or simply complete the contracts you currently have to grant yourself a random contract.

With each contract you complete, your demonic pens and briefcase do more damage and stun longer, and your special lawyer suit's melee and ranged protections increase--godsends when some Security Officer or vigilante is out for your Mephistophelean ass. But beware--the more souls you sign over, the less human you become...

Gallery

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