Religious Avatars - General

Religious Avatars
Once a cleric reaches the ability to cast 2nd level miracles he or she is also able to secure the support of a divine spirit (or Avatar) channelled through their holy symbol. Unlike druidic totems and arcane familiars, an avatar will very rarely manifest physically but will instead support the cleric through empowerment in one particular aspect of the cleric religion.
Procedure
When the cleric decides that he wishes to channel an Avatar into his holy symbol, he should make his way to a site consecrated to his or her religion and there spend a full 24 hours in prayer and meditation. A sacrifice of some form is also required, dependent upon the religion. The cleric then chooses which aspect of his religion that he or she most desires to manifest and presents a holy symbol up for the Avatar to use as a focus.
Once a holy symbol is used as an Avatars focus, any cleric seeing the symbol will be able to sense something about the symbol (this will manifest itself as warmth/comfort through to discomfort/revulsion depending upon the relationship of the Avatars religion to viewing clerics). The holy symbol will not detect as magical, or good/evil although true sight will reveal the nature of the symbol and give information as to the religion followed by the Avatar.
Religion 	Possible Aspects	Sacrifice
Universal	Healing
Persuasion/Insight
Anti-Undead	A personally valuable item
Barosa 	Lore/Knowledge
Wisdom
Resilience/Fortitude	A valuable book or scroll
Perceval 	Negotiation
Appraisal/Understanding
Support/Cooperation	Money (at least 50gp/lvl)
Shanah 	Personal Combat
Concealment
Assessment/Analysis	A valuable weapon
Wyldwood 	Cleansing Fire
Travel
Natural Awareness	Cleric will be set a quest
Note that the Holy Symbol does not gain any particular resistances or protections, and if it is destroyed for any reason then access to the Avatar is lost and a re-channelling ritual will need to be performed by the Cleric.
Avatar Powers
Once summoned into the holy symbol the Avatar will provide a number of abilities to the cleric commensurate with the clerics level. In addition, the cleric will always be aware of where the avatar is (in the instance of losing their holy symbol for example) and providing that the avatar is within 30’ the cleric will gain +1 to all saving throws.
Avatar States
The Familiar Spirit can be in 1 of two states:
Manifested:
A cleric will only ask his Avatar to manifest in the direst of circumstances, manifestation is instantaneous and can be initiated at any time providing the Holy Symbol is within 30’.
Manifested, the Avatar with take a form similar to the Cleric and will act to support the Cleric as required. Specific Avatar abilities depend upon religion and aspect.
The Avatar will remain manifested for 4 hours, at which point it will return to the spirit realm. The Holy Symbol which had acted as the Avatars focus will corrode and break and the Cleric will need to resummons – note that the clerics selected aspect cannot be changed.
Latent:
The normal state for an Avatar, its spirit is contained within the Holy Symbol and it provides a number of abilities to the Cleric.
Clerical Death
Should the Cleric die, the Avatar will remain in the Holy Symbol – powerless – for up to 24 hours, after this time it will return to the spirit realm and the Holy Symbol will corrode and break. If the Cleric is returned to life before the Avatar has departed, then the link is re-established. If however the Avatar has left the Holy Symbol then a re-channelling ritual will need to be performed.
Avatar Loss
In the event of Avatar loss for any reason (manifestation expiry, holy symbol destruction etc.), the Cleric will be significantly weakened for a period of 3 days. The nature of the weakness suffered will depend upon the religious aspect that the Avatar represented.