Okay, family medical stuff has calmed down. I can respond now.
I can comment on the Arcane magic thing. Arcane magic and magic of all types existed before the Sundering. Using Arcane above other types of magic was still rare, but some did. Those who did when transported to the Mortal Realm retain the ability to cast Arcane (you don't forget how to tap the primal powers). However, I have never met in playtest, or heard of in any other context, a caster from the Mortal Realm who can cast Arcane. At very least it's even more rare there.
Yeah, it's pretty rare, but some people still practice it. There are probably even people in the church who practice it, concentrating on spell lists that don't attack suspicion. Gerik practices elemental magic, so he looks like a magician and is more likely to draw witch-hunters.
The Church in general would consider using Arcane magic at least as evil as using any magic. There may be some who see it as more divine and pure magic, but those would probably consider it an even bigger blasphemy to use it than regular magic.
This isn't Gerik's fault, because I've let him believe this, but this isn't quite right. Technically, the Church doesn't have a problem with Arcane, it's the original magic of God, after all. However, the people that are likely to realize this are also not going to move against Gerik because they'll assume that he's a Gnomish Priest and that killing him would be an act of Holy War against the Gnomish Church. Those who don't care about that aren't likely to care about the legal history of Arcane Magic, so really it doesn't matter for Gerik. He looks like a magician and the people that would burn him for that would burn him for that regardless.
But if you made an arcane caster that didn't appear to have essence or mentalism-type magic, it's unlikely anyone would question him, and if they took him to trial over it, he'd almost certainly get off clean.
For money, the coins you bring with you are holy relics and extremely valuable. Certain groups (Sinius, Lonnuso, etc) might kill you for having them, since you obviously stole them. We gave them to Gleann for safe keeping, and he gave us local money.
I use this to give the party money whenever I want. The party's coins get taken by Gleann in the first adventure who sets them up a merchant to sell them on the black market and invest the money. So anytime I feel the characters are behind a money curve (they don't get a lot of treasure between adventures 4 and 7) I can just have a caravan of money show up on their doorstep from their merchant business. In fact, there's probably several shipments of money looking for them at any given time. This is really handy in games like 4e where the game is balanced assuming a certain adventuring income.
The chaos your appearance might cause is softened by Gleann sheltering you and making sure you'll at least pass cursory inspection before turning you loose on the world.[/spoiler] At that point, as long as you don't go around shouting that you're from Heaven (or are a Gnome so no one will believe you anyway), no one should be the wiser.
I hope that helps.
Yeah, you might be dressed like your from heaven, but who's going to know that and if they do, whose going to assume you did anything but imitate heavenly styles.
Bob
