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Looking through my copy of Faiths of Corruption, I was surprised and slightly pleased to find that a few of the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones were listed as Chaotic Neutral, giving players the opportunity to worship them in Pathfinder Society games and not be immediately cast out for evil intent. The only problem I foresee with this, is how does one go about worshipping these beings in a Neutral manner?
The two pitfalls I see of worshipping such beings is that one would either be very evil, or very insane. I would like to avoid these as much as possible. I realize that simply calling on the Outer Gods is to invite madness upon oneself, but surely there must be ways to go about with these creatures as your patron deity without fulfilling the gibbering lunatic trope. So, help me out, fellow Pathfinders, what are they? What are ways you can partake in worship of such beings without being too evil or too crazy?
All thoughts on the matter and advice appreciated. Don't be shy!
The end is coming, the old ones will awaken and push into this dimension, law, chaos, good and evil will not matter.
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A good choice of worship for clerics. Okay, I lied its a great choice. I too am a fan of the great old ones. I would give the cleric bluff, and max out the skill. If asked about his faith, he can lie directly or give vague answers. Something along the lines of "I worship the force of balance, beyond this world. It has many names but at the same time, none know its true name so those names are meaningless." He could say something like that(borrowed a bit from the buddhist scriptures detailing emptiness is form and form is emptiness). I played a cleric of groetus in a molthune campaign. I gave him bluff and he managed to deceive the party for a time. I didn't max out the skill or burn a feat in skill focus bluff so.... the cleric of calistria in the party eventually saw through me.
Anyways, I would suggest playing him like an average joe. Not high profile, doesn't appear ambitious. He is however, devout in his worship and is getting more and more powerful in the powers of madness and chaos.
You don't have to be evil to worshp a chaotic neutral deity. That part is do-able. The more difficult part is inviting madness onto yourself. The way I see it, they inherently become a bit insane. As a dm, I would not say the character becomes stark blabbering insane. I would actually put it down to a charisma penalty (a bit like the alienist prestige class but without the weird growths). Through his madness, he gains valuable insight other faiths do not grant. I would talk to the dm. See if he could implement something like this. Hope that helps.
Worship can be a lineage or local (Innsmouth) thing, that is what we have always done around here. I'd pondered putting a noble lineage in a game, a group of wardens and keepers of mountain holds that had long had different gods, that of the old ones.
Doesn't have to make you insane, there may be truth and wisdom in such a calling. Alien mindsets might break a man, or they may adapt and appreciate the different view.
Yes equalizer, your old veteran Molthunian soldier who after one too many battles, became a follower of Groetus was a great fit. He had a calm about him, never failed a fear check and seemed more rational than some other characters. It all worked out.
The funniest part, was the Callistrian put a neonate to watch you at that important battle versus the shambling creatures with no bones. They thought you would sabotage the defence but you pulled him close and said, look around you, I don't need to do a thing. The end is coming. Poor guy was terrified.
Ha ha, and when they had a big victory and were all celebratory, the cleric would just chuckle and seem to say via body language, well not today, but soon, like he was entertained they weren't all dead. The man had a respect for living and surviving, but ultimately he didn't care.
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Chaotic Good Cleric of Asatoth, he wishes to help the protect the poor and weak so they may be around to experience his glory..then explode.
Gotta save them for the big bang!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth
What can I say. Too much war can break a man. Not everyone passes all their sanity checks.
It broke him, into something stronger.
The falling anvil and odo spell were so great together.
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Remember that probably two thirds of the people worshipping a CN god are CN or CE, so most of them are going to be evil and/or destructive jerks anyway.
I think there is a couple of ways to do a CG though.
(1) As said before by The equalizer about philosophy.
(2) Old cults that don't really understand what they're doing. Some cult that worships Azathoth as the "great creator". If you see a primitive druid/cleric who channels positive energy and worships the sun, he looks pretty Good. He might talk about "The Creator And Destroyer Sun" but it still sounds ok.
(3) The CN old ones are the ones that don't really care about humans. They're just too big. They don't really want to kill all humans, just make changes. Those changes will happen to kill all humans. They're probably perfectly happy with their clerics making the world a better place. Azathoth might like his clerics getting rid of negative energy. He doesn't really care that you are doing that by destroying a lich-kings armies. But most people aren't going to get that your god is only supporting you because he thinks you make the universe taste better.
Scientists tell us that the sun will go out and that in five billion years humanity will be dead. The Universe doesn't care about us, we're just an accident. An unimportant accident. Doesn't make people want to go out and kill the universe or lynch scientists though.
(4) Look to destroy the forces of statis (CN), flavour with "take the jerks down first". If you're out there trying to overthrow the worship of Devils in Cheliax, most people are going to think you're a good guy. Even if you take down the inevitables (those guys are jerks) most people will applaud. And its not like the Proteans are your friends - CN kill each other as much as anything else because they're Chaos.
(5) Do you even need to hide it? How many people, even people with knowledge: religion, are going to know that the cleric wandering around healing people for free and killing undead worshipping some obscure god named Azathoth is *actually* worshipping an archaic "evil" god? And know it well enough to go "nope. Evil" not "wow, that guy got some bad press in those millenia old history books."
We may know that the outer gods aren't nice, but that is because we understand the mythos in a way pretty much no-one in the mythos does.
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I'll quote a fellow board member for this one
The existential despair of 'there are no gods watching over us, or, if there are, they are vast, cool and unsympathetic, and care not for us at all,' is indeed a powerful part of the 'age of enlightenment' issues that Lovecraft was addressing, but they can still exist in a setting where there are powerful benevolent outsiders as well, so long as the ancient horrors remain a threat. Note that, in Golarion, the majority of gods, good or evil, are from other dimensions, and not native to this reality. The gods *of this world* are the old gods, and the only escape from them is to *literally* escape, swearing your soul to some extradimensional outsider, and fleeing the plane entirely.
That's pretty dark, right there. Sell your soul. Doesn't matter to whom, Asmodeus or Iomedae, but sell it fast, because if you don't get out, the god of this world is named Azathoth, and you don't want none of that.
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I believe the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods, with their unknowable alien minds and even more obscure motives, are beyond the constraints of an alignment system just as they are beyond our concepts of time and space. The only reason mortals apply the "chaotic" and "evil" labels to them is because we are totally unable to comprehend or to even imagine them clearly. They are creatures of Chaos because they don't fit into our view of what we consider "normal" in our Universe, thus defying our understanding of its "laws", both physical and metaphysical. Evil because they are uncaring, looking at mortals as tools, sacrifices, or not even worth their consideration, just insignificant microbes that happen to exist where the Old Ones do, as well.
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Which also leads me to tear at my hair, wear sack cloth, eat ashes, and beg those who wield the powers of Paizotic Creation to come out with a complete supplement for the game featuring ONLY Lovecraftian creatures and gods.
Beastiary 2, wake of the watcher, carrion hill and I think one other, has really all that you need for beasties. As for Old Gods worship, its there as well scattered over a few different supplements too.
It may make an interesting personal project for you to consolidate them into one document.
Considering I don't have all those different sources, that might prove difficult...lol
If you're asking yourself who you really are and you question the force fed religions of man and you just can't see... so clear your mind. Fear is god's pillar and it has made you blind. Can't you wake up and see that the world is blind and trying to see. The architects left us many signs but the answers lie in death.
Taking a ride on the terror train later? Well played sir, well played.
There is wisdom though in recognising how common blindness is, and how feebly and desperately people grope for something to hold onto and believe in.
The cleric of the old ones smiles.
CN sounds more like Chaugnar Faugn
CE would be Ghatanthoa....
LN would be Yig...any writeups or homebrew of these three?