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I get bored and make insane lists for no reason at all!
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Domain distribution among the top 20 gods of Golarion.
Air – N, NG (G1, N2)
Animal – LG, N (G1, L1, N1)
Artifice – LG (G1, L1)
Chaos – CE, CE, CG, CG, CN, CN (C6, E2, G2, N2)
Charm – CG, CN, NE, NG (C2, E1, G2, N1)
Community – LG (G1, L1)
Creation – NA // LG (Apsu)
Darkness – LE (E1, L1)
Death – LE, N, NE, NE (E3, L1, N3)
Destruction – CE, CN, N, LE (C2, E2, N2)
Earth – LG, LN (G1, L2, N1)
Evil – CE, CE, LE, LE, NE, NE (E6, C2, L2, N2)
Fire – LE, NG (E1, G1, L1, N1)
Glory – CN, LG, NG (C1, G2, L1, N2)
Good – CG, CG, NG, NG, LG, LG, LG (G7, C2, L3, N2)
Healing – LN, N, NG (G1, L1, N3)
Knowledge – CN, LN, N, N, NE (C1, E1, L1, N5)
Law – LE, LE, LG, LG, LG, LN, LN (L7, E2, G3, N2)
Liberation – CG (C1, G2)
Luck – CG, CN, NG (C2, G2, N2)
Madness – CE (C1, E1)
Magic – LE, N, NE (E2, L1, N2)
Nobility – LN (L1, N1)
Plant – LG, N (G1, L1, N1)
Protection – LG, LN, N, NG (G2, L2, N3)
Repose – N (N1)
Rune – LN, N (L1, N2)
Scalykind – NA // LG (Apsu), CE (Dahak)
Strength – CE, CG, CN, LN, NE (C3, E2, G1, L1, N3)
Sun – LG, NG (G2, L1, N1)
Travel – CG, CG, LN (C2, G2, L1, N1)
Trickery – CE, CN, LE, NE (C2, E3, L1, N2)
Void – NA // CN (Groetus)
War – CE, CN, LG, NE (C2, E2, G1, L1, N2)
Water – N, N (N2)
Weather – CE, N (C1, E1, N1)
So, that leaves the following domains 'weighted' slightly (or, in some cases, heavily) towards;
Chaos - Chaos, Charm, Destruction, Liberation, Luck, Madness, Strength, Travel, Trickery, Void, War, Weather
Evil - Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Strength, Trickery, War, Weather
Good - Air, Animal, Artifice, Charm, Community, Creation, Earth, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Liberation, Luck, Plant, Protection, Sun, Travel
Law - Animal, Artifice, Community, Creation, Darkness, Death, Earth, Fire, Good, Healing, Law, Magic, Nobility, Plant, Protection, Rune, Sun
Some of these are no-brainers. Obviously, Law is going to be heavily weighted towards lawful dieties. Less obvious is that Good is more common among the major lawful dieties, and Law is more common among the major good dieties. Kinda fits the widely held notion that lawful good is the 'goodest' good.
But there's fun potential to consider niches for a chaotic or evil god associated with Animal (similar to the Realms' Malar), or an evil or chaotic Sun god (a cruel and capricious version of Amaunatar), or a god of Nobility that is a diety of the decadent excesses of the noble class, being more chaotic and evil than that other interpretation of 'noble.' Such entitled twits would be all noblesse oblige and lead others to their own ends, like the Iconic cavalier, Alain, not much caring if their 'leadership' results in them getting a bunch of enthusiastic peasants killed.
A lawful god of Madness, or a chaotic god of Community, seems a bit off, but a chaotic god of Fire or a lawful god of obedience or diplomacy (with the Charm domain)? That's not hard to picture.
An aboleth-friendly diety (or the Unspeakable One) might be evil and / or chaotic, and grant access to the Rune domain.
A good god of Death? (A benevolent protector of the dead, frex.) An evil god of pain, suffering and torture who grants access to the Healing domain?
A lawful diety of Luck or a good diety of Knowledge could change things up, from the current association of Luck with chaos and Knowledge (slightly) with evil.
No good happy-go-lucky Trickery gods here, either, like Garl Glittergold. Pranks and pratfalls are less likely to be the subject of amusement, being associated with cruel and malevolent powers.
The slight tendency towards Magic to be dominated by gods of evil aspect could result in a society that isn't exactly in love with the idea of magic, and make the agenda of the Arcanamirium of Absalom that much harder, as magic is more likely to be associated with selfish or destructive uses than with helping the people or benefitting society.
Weather is weighted slightly towards chaotic and evil, thanks to Rovagug, which might result in sailors and farmers having a somewhat uncharitable view of nature and weather as capricious and cruel, a destructive force. If a wizard shows up and forces the storms to abate, they'd be less likely to side with the druid who shows up later and says that this was a bad thing, since weather is more likely to be perceived as an unruly and unkind thing. If a local good goddess of rain and growing things was associated with the weather, locals might be far more charitable towards the phenomena.
Artifice being associated with law and good might result in a society that tends to regard tools as inherently blameless. A town that attempts to forbid the carrying of crossbows on the city streets might find that the local citizenry is less inclined to put up with that sort of ordinance.
These sorts of associations might be irrelevant in some lands. In Qadira, for instance, Urgathoa and Asmodeus are distant foreign dieties, of little local relevance, and so their association with Magic would be less in their face than it would be to a citizen of Andoran or Ustalav, who regularly have to deal with the clergy and followers of evil dieties associated with Magic, with no local good (or even neutral) patron of magic to offset that negative impression.
Just to point out (because it hasn't been done already): Any list like this is going to favor neutral alignments due to the fact that there are five possible neutrals and only three possible instances of the other alignment components.
I would be slightly interested in seeing what alignments have the most domains available to them.
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Just to point out (because it hasn't been done already): Any list like this is going to favor neutral alignments due to the fact that there are five possible neutrals and only three possible instances of the other alignment components.
Yeah, I was actually listing the neutral-weighted ones as well, but I skipped it, since they were all more or less neutral-weighted...
And, IMO, NE, NG, CN and LN don't really count as being 'neutral' anyway. NG is just 'good, without a focus on law or chaos,' really.
I would be slightly interested in seeing what alignments have the most domains available to them.
That might be fun. I kinda wish I'd done it in Excel, so that I could just sort it that way...
LG - 11, NG - 9, CG - 7, LN - 9, N - 13, CN - 9, LE - 8, NE - 8, CE - 8
It's hardly a surprise that Neutral would take it, since the Neutral gods don't have to put up with 20% to 40% of their Domain options being eated up by alignment Domains.
LG did surpisingly well (since each of their three gods had to fork out for Good and Law, meaning that they could only make 11 if *none* of them shared a domain in common beyond those two), and CG got kind of boned by the similarities between Cayden and Desna's interests.
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And thats essentually why I hate the premade Cleric/Deity concepts of settings. Much better to be able to choose an almost paradoxical faith and have fun than the very limited concepts that even FR and true Greyhawk offer.
Why not a LG or NG faith of death and Darkness, or Native American Tricksters, and wisdom, and Community?
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I looked at the 'lesser' gods a little bit as well, thinking that maybe they would balance things out, but they served to intensify some of the associations.
Counting the twelve most common 'other gods,' Death gained +2 evil, Destruction +4 evil, Liberation, Luck and Protection +1 good, Travel +2 good, Trickery and War +2 evil, etc.
Chaos and Evil, like Law and Good, also became more strongly linked.
Nice!
Also, really needing a good-aligned deity of darkness and trickery now...perhaps chaotic too, if only to try and move that weightedness away from Lawful Good as "greatest good".(huge pet peeve)
A desert culture that considers the sun god a cruel and tyrannical force, and the night goddess a sheltering motherly sort that hides them from him (and more worldly authorities) when she can, could fit this sort of theme.
A non-evil race with darkvision, such as dwarves or svirfneblin, might also have a more respectful and admiring view of darkness, and a less benevolent view of the sun and light in general.
Halflings in Cheliax, escaping along the Bellflower network under cover of night, and operating through stealth and sabotage, might revere a patron angel/azata who focuses on some combination of Chaos, Darkness, Good, Liberation and / or Trickery. (I'd choose only one of the alignment domains, so that I could fit Darkness, Liberation and Trickery in there, making her either a CN prankster or a NG angel.)
I wouldn't consider this artificial sort of 'balancing out the alignments / domains' notion to be a justification to come up with another 'big 20' god (since the setting is more interesting with some funky imbalances or inherent biases, as fodder for development and characterization), but tossing in an Empyreal Lord to fill one these niches and serve as adventure fodder or local flavor hardly seems setting-breaking.
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First, it's been stated in the Errata thread for the Inner Sea World Guide that Apsu was intended to possess Artifice, not Creation.
Second, Law and Good are strongly correlated because there are three LG dieties, while only two of any other non-True Neutral Alignment. It's got little to do with LG being the 'best' good, and more to do with Torag having good publicity (he's the only primarily racial diety except Calistria to make it into the big 20).
Third, Chaldira Zuzaristan, the Halfling goddess of, well, a bunch of stuff is NG with Good, War, and Trickery as her Domains, and she's one of only two Racial Gods Halflings have, so her worship isn't that rare. Their other god, Thamir Gixx, also has Trickery as a Domain, though seeing as how he's CE, that's less unique. Heck, going by that, I'd lay odds that any purely Halfling diety will be inclined to have Trickery as a Domain. Which makes a great deal of sense when you think on it...
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First, it's been stated in the Errata thread for the Inner Sea World Guide that Apsu was intended to possess Artifice, not Creation.
Ooh, that's good to know. I just assumed that, like Scalykind and Void were for quite some time, it was a domain that hadn't been updated yet.
Second, Law and Good are strongly correlated because there are three LG dieties, while only two of any other non-True Neutral Alignment. It's got little to do with LG being the 'best' good, and more to do with Torag having good publicity (he's the only primarily racial diety except Calistria to make it into the big 20).
Iomedae seems to be the one who 'broke the glass ceiling' and lopsided the pantheon towards LG a hair, since Erastil and Torag are both archetypal (the horned huntsman, the 'blacksmith of the gods') and much older dieties, while Iomedae occupies the upstart role of 'inheriting' her position from a fallen previous diety (herself being a blend of Athena and Apollo, kinda-sorta, although her Sun association feels a bit tacked on...). Torag's totally old-school, IMO.
Anywho, the original post wasn't an attack or criticism of the design of Golarion's 'pantheon,' so much as an analysis and discussion. I hoped that I had made that clear with the commentary about how having, say, magic, fairly strongly associated with evil, and artifice more strongly associated with law and good, might lead to some 'setting character assumptions' among the common people.
It's just stuff to noodle around with to get ideas as to what sort of base assumptions people growing up in a world heavily colored by the associations of these particular gods with these particular assumptions might make to various otherwise morally and ethically non-sum phenomena.
For instance, the sun has two major good dieties associated with it, with their influence spread across the region. The sun is likely going to be regarded as a good thing. Nobility is associated only with law, which *suggests* that nobles are going to be considered inherently trustworthy in this setting, even if that isn't necessarily true of every single noble, or any single non-noble. It's just a tendency that would likely exist, due to there being no major chaotic, good or evil gods associated with Nobility.
The uprisings in Andoran and Galt against the established nobility could be seen as dangerous and wild things, with the common folk of other nations breathlessly trading tales of rioting, looting, etc. The Asmodeans in Cheliax would likely spread such tales with great enthusiasm, wishing to firmly cement in the mind of their lower classes that anarchy and revolution is a terrible and dangerous thing, and that those born to the noble class are inherently more trustworthy and better suited to lead than the wild mob. (Galt, sadly, provides them no end of fodder for such cautionary tales, even if the Asmodean might file off the serial numbers and give the impression that a very real tale of Galtan atrocity happens 'all the time' in neighboring Andoran...)
Third, Chaldira Zuzaristan, the Halfling goddess of, well, a bunch of stuff is NG with Good, War, and Trickery as her Domains, and she's one of only two Racial Gods Halflings have, so her worship isn't that rare. Their other god, Thamir Gixx, also has Trickery as a Domain, though seeing as how he's CE, that's less unique. Heck, going by that, I'd lay odds that any purely Halfling diety will be inclined to have Trickery as a Domain. Which makes a great deal of sense when you think on it...
I just stuck to the big 20, and peeked at the 'little 12' in the Inner Sea Campaign Guide to see if any of the 'associations' radically changed.
Considering the various elven, dwarven, halfling, etc. dieties, to examine the built-in assumptions that an elf, dwarf or halfling might have, would certainly be an interesting side-topic, 'though.
For the elves, for instance;
Calistria (CN) - Chaos, Charm, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery
Desna (CG) - Chaos, Good, Liberation, Luck, Travel
Nethys (N) - Destruction, Magic, Knowledge, Protection, Rune
Findeladlara (CG) - Air, Chaos, Community, Creation, Good
Ketephys (CG) - Animal, Chaos, Good, Plant, Weather
Yuelral (NG) - Artifice, Good, Knowledge, Magic
[Findy's Creation domain seems likely to change to Artifice, as did Apsu's.]
No evil gods. No lawful gods. More good than neutral gods on the moral axis, more chaotic than neutral gods on the ethics axis.
Luck is a popular elven focus. Artifice is surprisingly well-represented, thanks to Findy and Yuelral, so there's no 'luck is better than skill' slant here. Elves value both. Magic is also strongly represented. Animal and Plant and Weather are linked to a single diety, making the elves of Golarion 'not your daddy's tree-huggers.' (Unlike, say, the Realms, where the twelve deities of the elven pantheon had *four* dieties with the Plant domain.)
The most common non-alignment domain? Knowledge. Elves apparently drink that stuff in!
Reading just the racial write-ups, it's possible to see the curious gnomes, always seeking new experiences, as being more obsessed with knowledge, but looking at the elven pantheon, we see that half of their racially-preferred dieties offer Knowledge as a domain.
From these sorts of observations, come all sorts of fun roleplaying hooks or bits of local flavor, such as a snoopy elven bard obsessed with finding out people's secrets, who picks up some ranks in Linguistics, Perception and Sense Motive, in addition to some Knowledge skills.
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I'm growing really fond of that Darkness/Trickery oriented angel idea, for desert cultures or halflings. Kind of thinking of a "Sarenrae's Daughter"-like figure...possibly tied to that rumored daughter of Sarenrae that became a demon lord as a sibling or someone that moved in the opposite direction from the fallen scion...
On Thamir Gixx, IIRC, it was heavily hinted that he and Norgorber were one and the same in Halflings in Golarion. I don't think it was state outright however.
If we go completely crazy and throw in the Lords, demon lords, devil princes, and such as well where would we end up?
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If we go completely crazy and throw in the Lords, demon lords, devil princes, and such as well where would we end up?
You lost me at 'crazy.'
'Cause that's where I would have ended up. :)
(The sheer number of demon lords (28 in PF 18, not counting Lammy herself) and archdevils (9, not counting Azzy), compared to the six empyreals, just seemed like it would throw any meaningful comparison out the window. Add on the 4 daemon horsemen, the 4 new evil elemental lords, and the exclusively neutral and evil eldest, and you've got a *ton* of domains available to Team Evil, compared to the good guys.)