I may be running a one-on-one PbEM for someone using Golarion. What I am considering for an over-arching plot is that a Cult of Reason has sprung up. Power hungry men are using the frustration of the poor and downtrodden at unsympathetic gods. The argument will be that the gods abuse their power while millions suffer. Therefore, the gods are unworthy of worship.
Obviously, the gods would crush such a movement (well, maybe not obviously, but in my world they would) …unless one of the gods is secretly aiding it.
I would like to pick one god that is actively aiding this movement, things like actually granting spells to Clerics of this movement. Perhaps Calistria just for the trickery? I would also like at least one god 'duped' into helping the movement. Perhaps Calistria convinces Cayden Cailean that mortals should not only be free to choose which god they worship, they should be free to worship no god at all.
Thoughts?
This is classical Hell/Asmodeus thinking, but the Daemons would also get into it.
One of the classical levels of Hell is where Atheists burn. Asmodeus would be happy to manipulate the commoners into abandoning all the other gods. That sounds like a WONDERFUL idea to him. That nicely leaves all clerical power in his own hands. He'll just tell his people to keep their worship secret and enflame this movement for all it's worth.
His people are already rewriting history in Cheliax, that all the other gods DID abandon them.
Note that an entire Golarion nation, Rahadoum, is built around this entire concept...no worshipping the gods, look what they did to us. It doesn't deny they exist, it simply mandates NO divine interference in the lives of men.
==Aelryinth
Matthew Morris:
Yes, the Athar. Loved them, they were great.
Technically you could also argue that the Believers of the Source (Godsmen) could be argued to be anti-deity as well.
Be careful though, if the movement spreads too much then the neutral and evil deities would have not much of a problem crushing it.
My player's character may be an Avatar sent to crush this 'nonesense'.
It depends a bit I suppose, often evil gods in myhtology were called demons and devils, so if that is the case they would be quick to ruin the image of the so called gods. Devils in particular have been known to divert mortals away from the gods though that might be a bit different now since Asmodeus is offcially one of the gods now.. his worshippers might not consider him such though and place him above the gods.
In Golarion cults of Rovagug are a very likely anti-god movement.
Perhaps Razmiran cell has been destroyed by the gods and their minions, in a desperate bid the leader of the order tries the test of the starstone to challenge the gods power.. and succeeds.
Be careful though, if the movement spreads too much then the neutral and evil deities would have not much of a problem crushing it.
Unless the cult finds some sort of way to strike a blow at the gods in general and weaken them enough that they can't be taken out.
Also, you could just create a god for this purpose. Maybe a mortal who was of the strongest believers of one of the gods, until he was told to do something that he could not reconcile and found a way to challange the gods instead.
Also, you can worship ideals rather than gods. Just pick a list of spells - I'd probably go with a lot of cancellation and neutralization spells.
PbEM = ???
Play-by-Email.
I'd say Milani would support such a movement, just for the heck of it.
The thanatoic titans and their demodand servitors are all about this.
Razmir? :P
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In Golarion, Sivanah's clergy may be behind-the-scenes supporting Razmiran.
Gods & Magic 47 mentions that her clerics can use shadow conjuration to cast healing spells, while p 57 has the Mask of the Living God, a healing item used by the Church of Razmiran, that uses shadow conjuration as a prerequisite (and since clergy of Sivanah are the only ones who can use shadow conjuration to cast healing spells...).
Pharasma, everyone's gotta go eventually.
Nyarly, just to mess with those young gods nonsense.
Cultists of the Great Old Ones would make a solid choice though.
I may be running a one-on-one PbEM for someone using Golarion. What I am considering for an over-arching plot is that a Cult of Reason has sprung up. Power hungry men are using the frustration of the poor and downtrodden at unsympathetic gods. The argument will be that the gods abuse their power while millions suffer. Therefore, the gods are unworthy of worship.
Obviously, the gods would crush such a movement (well, maybe not obviously, but in my world they would) …unless one of the gods is secretly aiding it.
I would like to pick one god that is actively aiding this movement, things like actually granting spells to Clerics of this movement. Perhaps Calistria just for the trickery? I would also like at least one god 'duped' into helping the movement. Perhaps Calistria convinces Cayden Cailean that mortals should not only be free to choose which god they worship, they should be free to worship no god at all.
Thoughts?
Perhaps the long lost founder of this Cult of Reason passed the Test of the Starstone, and intentionally kept his/her success quiet.
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Perhaps the long lost founder of this Cult of Reason passed the Test of the Starstone, and intentionally kept his/her success quiet.I may be running a one-on-one PbEM for someone using Golarion. What I am considering for an over-arching plot is that a Cult of Reason has sprung up. Power hungry men are using the frustration of the poor and downtrodden at unsympathetic gods. The argument will be that the gods abuse their power while millions suffer. Therefore, the gods are unworthy of worship.
Obviously, the gods would crush such a movement (well, maybe not obviously, but in my world they would) …unless one of the gods is secretly aiding it.
I would like to pick one god that is actively aiding this movement, things like actually granting spells to Clerics of this movement. Perhaps Calistria just for the trickery? I would also like at least one god 'duped' into helping the movement. Perhaps Calistria convinces Cayden Cailean that mortals should not only be free to choose which god they worship, they should be free to worship no god at all.
Thoughts?
I always though Norgorber was shifty...
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The 'master plan' of the anti-theist movement would likely have some bearing on the nature of its sponsor.
One option;
Does the head honcho want to replace the worship of all other gods with his own purportedly anti-theist movement, which would end up revering him as the 'mortal who overthrew the gods,' (and himself becomes divine, essentially becoming the new boss, much like the old boss)?
Another option;
Does the anti-theist power think of himself as a bodhisatva-like figure, preaching to overthrow the gods, and only retaining his own divinity to serve this goal of freeing all of man, with the intent of abandoning his divinity and passing on when men are free of the tyranny of his peers?
Neither option has to be carved in stone, either. An anti-theist could start with the best of intentions, to free mankind from the powerful outsiders that jerk them around and demand their obeisance (and, oh yeah, *enslave or devour their souls at the end of their lives*), but end up turning into just another powerful mortal-manipulating outsider, at the end.
Someone like Irori could easily fit the 'free men from the gods, and then dissolve into nothingness, mission accomplished' approach, while someone like Norgorber could intend to just replace the *other* gods and take over as the 'one true god.'
Pharasma, very much a working part of 'the machine,' would be the least likely to go this route, IMO. If the cosmology were such that reincarnation was the natural order of things, and that souls are meant to be perpetually recycled, and the various good and evil gods hoarding souls in their heavens and hells are detracting from the sum total of creation and causing the universe to break down (allowing the Things in the Outer Dark to creep ever closer...), then Pharasma, in her role of assigning souls to various outer planes, is a vital tool in the machine of destroying the material plane, by taking and taking and taking souls away from it to empower / serve various extraplanar agencies, fraying and shredding the material plane as they endlessly strip-mine it of precious souls...
