Penniless, devout old character rising within (9)
I believe the answer is:
penurious
'penniless' is the definition.
(I know that penniless can be written as penurious)
'devout old character rising within' is the wordplay.
'devout' becomes 'pious' (devoutly religious).
'old character' becomes 'rune' (ancient symbol).
'rising' says the letters should be written in reverse (going up in a down clue).
'within' is an insertion indicator.
'rune' in reverse letter order is 'enur'.
'pious' placed around 'enur' is 'PENURIOUS'.
(Other definitions for penurious that I've seen before include "Extremely poor" , "Indigent" , "hard up" , "Needy" .)