The difference between Prayer, Prayer and Prayer

In Exalted when one sys Prayer there are actually 3 separate types.

First is the Bread and Butter of the Gods, the measuring stick for their might and status.  This is the simple prayer in which one humbly show devotion and makes entreaties to the Gods.  Such as “please keep xxxxx safe”, or “please make yyyyy fall in love with me”, or “dear god we like to thank you for this meal”, and such.  Gods have the natural ability to both hear and process these prayers. 

The Standard Rule Book mentions that Prayer action requires a difficulty 7 roll of Charisma+Performance with each dot of resources sacrificed lowering the difficulty by 1.  That makes little to no sense in the fact that humans are designed to provide prayer as fuel for the inhabitants of Yu-Shan.  With these stringent requirements all of Yu-Shan would starve.  There for it must mean a separate form of prayer.  This roll will now be called “Invoke Miracle” as opposed to “Prayer.”  Success in this action means this special prayer not only sounds special in the ears of the God, it also creates an link between the two.  The God is able to use a single Charm through the person or on the person.  Failure in this roll means little, the God would still hear it as a basic prayer and may still intercede, and, like basic prayers, he would have to physically arrive at the invoker to utilize his charms.  Thus it is best to do these rituals at/near the God’s sanctum or domain.  Thus you have these story of Merlin arriving at the Lake (Lady of the Lake’s Sanctum is near by) to beseech her help (thus whether he succeed or not, the Lady may still aid him.  Should he do so elsewhere the Lady can only provide aid if he succeeded in his Invoke Miracle roll.  It is unlike the Lady will physically travel to his location and provide aid should he fail.)

The third type of prayer is the Thaumaturgy Religious Rituals.  These are holy processes that invokes an aspect of the God’s power and nearly always use Charisma+Performance instead of Intelligence+Occult as per normal Thaumaturgy rules.  Like all methods that taps a god’s aspect, the god in question cannot stop someone from gaining bonuses from a correctly performed holy rite.  However, these rituals may be Thaumaturgy but they are still prayers.  So a God is aware when it is performed and still get his allotment of Ambrosia.  Thus most do not care when it is put to a inoffensive purpose.  One might want to think twice about invoking a Religious Ritual against the God’s interests however.