[HoE] A Question on moving from Weird to Wasted West

[Ralph Dula <rdula@ezonline.com>]

Hey all,

I've a question on being fair to all my players in my posse.  We're soon
going to run through Fortress O' Fear, and bring any surviving characters
to the Wasted West.  My problem is that two of my four players want to turn
the characters into Templars, which takes a year of game time.  My gaming
group is not the type who would enjoy role-playing the duo's transition
from squire to full-fledged Templar, and sadly I can't convince them to go
for the quick-fix Anti-Templar route to power.  What I'm thinking of doing
is after they go to the future I immediatly advance the campaign time to
one year in the future, just after the duo graduate from squire to Templar.
 My question is what do I do for the other two characters, to represent the
year they were running around?  I suggested running them through seperate
adventures to reflect that time, but my players said "Nope."  

Here's my idea.  In the City O' Gloom boxed set by studying  Hellstrome's
books you got two skill points for every months of study.  I'm thinking of
giving the two non-Templars 24 skill points, only useable to increase
skills they would use every day in the Wasted West, like scroungin',
survival, and such.  Any other ideas?

Oh, another problem just occured to me.  One of the two Templars-to-be
already has Faith:Roman Catholic.  Does that mean he has to buy Faith again
in the Templar's Saints, do I just convert his faith to Saints
automatically, or is he barred from even being a Templar since he already
has Faith in something other than the Saints?  I know there's an example in
the HOE rulebook of a character losing his faith and then becoming a
Templar, but good old Zlywiec has always been played as a devout Roman
Catholic, and I don't even think the Apocalypse would change his ways.

-Ralph