Breaking the Pact (EAFW)

: Herak watched through clouded eyes as the gith piled the bodies of his family and friends beside him onto the pyre. The terrible gith leader lit a torch off of the flaming walls of a burning home and threw it into the dreadful mass of the maimed and the dead.
: As the stench grew and the flames danced a deadly path toward Herak, the gith band vanished back into the desert.
: Thoughts of vengeance spurred Herak's flagging strength, and he crawled down from the top of the burning mound of bodies, though not before the searing flames branded him forever as the village's only survivor.
: For hours, Herak crawled away from the smoking ruins of his home until he came to rest on an old stone structure where he had played as a child. Sunlight eventually closed his swollen eyelids, and Herak wondered why he had been spared only to die beneath the baking sun.
: A strange man hunched over him. The man had fiery red hair and eyes that danced like the flames of a campfire in the wind. Herak saw that the man had healed his wounds, but the scars remained-permanent reminders of gith savagery.
: The stranger took Herak to a cave near an old stone monument, and he prepared a flaming meal. As they ate, they talked, the fire priest hinting of the great power and vengeance of fire. Herak listened eagerly and finally asked that the stranger teach him all he knew.
: Over the next few months the fire priest taught Herak the fury of the flame and its cleansing nature. Herak turned the man's lessons into an obsession, and he knew that someday he would turn the power of the inferno against the savages that had massacred his people.
: Faster than he had thought possible, he had passed the Initiation, and Herak the Priest of Fire was born.
: Now the gith would pay.
: -The Fire Priest's Tale
On those rare occasions when a cleric cannot or will not fulfill his vows, the elemental powers that answer his call will deny him the energy to recharge his spells. This refusal may be a temporary suspension or it may be permanent.
Should a cleric squander his patron's resources or allow others to do the same, the elemental plane will refuse him access for one to six days. When this period is over, the pow ers will allow the cleric a single second chance. If a similar event occurs again within a fortnight, the cleric is forever shut out. Of course, atonement spells, wishes, and other extremely powerful magic may repair the link.
There are occasional situations in which a cleric may forsake his or her vows without retribution. Consider the tale of Paxitus, a cleric of water.
: "Gather 'round the fire, friends, and let me tell you of the day I helped a forest burn." Paxitus let the full impact of her words sink in before continuing. After the lessons she had taught these nomads the last few days, her words struck them as blasphemous.
: "It was in the summer of my youth. From friends, I had heard that south of the Ringing Mountains was a jungle struggling to survive against the conquering desert. Forests like these are the greatest water reserves on Athas, save for the few, rare lakes. I knew I must see this wonder before the hot sun bleached my bones.
: "After more than a year of traveling, I finally saw the giant trees of one of the last forests on Athas. The people there were tough but fair, and they understood the nature and the value of the land beneath their homes.
: "After a week of generous hospitality, word reached us that a powerful defiler and his army was bearing down on the jungle like a plague of locusts. One of his vermin soldiers was captured, and it was revealed that the wizard had prepared a spell that would make him as powerful as the sorcerer-kings themselves. All he needed was the vast energy of the jungle to empower it.
: "The villagers and I prepared to face the approaching horde, but we knew ours was a lost cause. Anyone who even considered opposing a sorcerer of his power would be destroyed in a matter of moments, but we had to try.
: "And then a figure, unlike anything I have ever seen before or since, appeared through the blurry waves of desert heat and sand. He was a tall male, scarred across the face and hands by a searing fire of long ago. His hair was brilliant red, and his eyes danced like hearth flames. His name was Herak, and he was a cleric of fire.
: "Herak, too, had heard of the defiler's plans and had come to thwart him, but his plan was a terrible one: burn down the mighty jungle and deprive the defiler of the energy he sought. We all gasped in horror. I tried to convince the villagers that he was insane, a madman, but the elders sadly gave Herak permission to destroy their jungle village.
: "They were forced to restrain me, and I watched in hopeless frustration as Herak and the villagers began to set fire to the precious forest. Herak became frenzied, shooting jets of flame high into the lush foliage and calling down great pillars of pure fire. The wet jungle could not stand against his onslaught and soon it blazed with a brightness the like of which my humble eyes had never seen.
: "Herak laughed and chortled at the destruction, and I was sure the villagers had made a grave mistake. Then, as the last mighty tree crumbled in a heap of smoking ash, I saw the defiler and his army of lackeys appear on the horizon.
: "Herak led the jungle warriors out of the smoky ruins and met the defiler on the barren sands. With no energy to power his spells, the wizard and his army were easily defeated. But before it was over, Herak called down one last pillar of fire from the sky. It fell upon the sorcerer, and his screams and popping bones still echo in my nightmares.
: "Years later, I returned to the village. The jungle had grown back and was now stronger than ever. Fire is a destroyer, but it is also an agent of cleansing. Had the defiler ruined the jungle, it would still be a pile of ash blowing across the rocky soil. But that which is destroyed by nature, by fire, always grows back stronger than ever.
: -Paxitus's Tale
This is one way in which a cleric might break his vows to the elemental plane that sustains him, without incurring elemental wrath. Still, at the Dungeon Master's option, the remote elementals might revoke the priest's power for a few days as a reminder. The life of a cleric, like life in the wild expanses of the Tablelands, is seldom fair.