Is Lucifer part of the pathfinder campaign setting?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


Hey everyone. After reading through the Tome of Horrors I was interested in the story of Lucifer and how he was thrown out of hell by Asmodeus. It seems though that Lucifer doesnt exist within the pathfinder hell as I cannot recall any mention of him? Is this correct and if so is pathfinder's Asmodeus just Lucifer with a different name not another being entirely?


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Lucifer is statted up in Tome of Horrors Complete but that doesn't mean he'd occur in Pathfinder's actual campaign setting, and in fact as a third-party publication Tome of Horrors wouldn't even be able to use Pathfinder Campaign Setting material. The Tome of Horrors is setting-neutral, generally.

Asmodeus and Hell are both free-for-all names though (being older than the games that use them), so they are mentioned in Lucifer's entry in Tome of Horrors. According to Tome of Horrors, Lucifer is an adversary of Asmodeus and Asmodeus kicked him out of Hell when he took over. So Lucifer dwells on another Hell-like plane. Such a plane doesn't actually exist in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting though. It exists in Tome of Horrors basically to give Lucifer a plane to be over.

According to some mythology of the Creation of the Multiverse presented in some of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting materials, Asmodeus is possibly the oldest living being in the multiverse (there was another as old, but he died), so he didn't come along and kick Lucifer out of Hell, he created the place. (Pathfinder Campaign Setting intentionally leaves creation stories as legends though, so they "might be true" but aren't actually confirmed as true.)

Lucifer doesn't actually exist in canon form in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting. You can add him to your game as an enemy of Asmodeus, or make Lucifer another name for Asmodeus, but neither of these would be canon for the setting as Lucifer isn't defined as an entity in the setting.


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Well since Earth exists in the Pathfinder Universe (thanks to "Reign of Winter" does that mean earth's deities and devils also exist?

Dark Archive

The greatest thing about being a DM is the freedom to incorporate what you please.
Lucifer is a planned deity in my game, and I plan to later make him 'core' for all later games as well.

Dark Archive

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Mavrickindigo wrote:
Well since Earth exists in the Pathfinder Universe (thanks to "Reign of Winter" does that mean earth's deities and devils also exist?

Earth doesn't have divine magic, and the definition of a God or God-like being requires it to have the ability to grant divine magic.

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Actually, I would wager that the deities and gods of Earth do exist for Earth but are farther removed from their believers than the other planets.

The majority of Christian faiths also believe that god does not grant miraculous power anymore, nor does he visit them in revelation.

Or you could just say that with a lack of magic in this world, divine magic is much weaker and harder to use.

If I were to have a fantasy game on Earth, I certainly would consider having Lucifer as a known arch devil if not an active one.


More to the point, what the hell are we supposed to do with a CR 39 monster?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devils-un ique/devil-lucifer-prince-of-darkness-tohc

Is he supposed to be an epic-level opponent? Is he supposed to be insurmountable, but his stats are given as a courtesy?

A whole batch of level 20s would be hard pressed to kill this guy...


There exists Earth, Yarth, Oerth, Laterra, and so on. One of these versions of Earth probably has Lucifer.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Lucifer is not a canonical part of Golarion. He can certainly play a role in a home game, but he has no role in the print products.

Silver Crusade

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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he wouldn't show up in Pathfinder print products.

;)


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Sounds like a great set up for a crazy pub owner/bartender named Lucifer somewhere in the River Kingdoms, who will swear that Asmodeus stole Hell from him. Everybody assumes he's nuts, but... WHO KNOWS!?!?!? Would your PC believe him, and help him try to get Hell back from Asmodeus' clutches? :-)


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Quandary wrote:
Would your PC believe him, and help him try to get Hell back from Asmodeus' clutches? :-)

Ain't nobody got time for dat.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Paige Stormblood wrote:
Hey everyone. After reading through the Tome of Horrors I was interested in the story of Lucifer and how he was thrown out of hell by Asmodeus. It seems though that Lucifer doesnt exist within the pathfinder hell as I cannot recall any mention of him? Is this correct and if so is pathfinder's Asmodeus just Lucifer with a different name not another being entirely?

The Pathfinder Hell isn't the Christian Hell. It's loosely based on Dante, but that's mainly because of it's 3.5 heritage.

Keep in mind that many of the classic Arch Devils from the annals of D+D came fro non-Christian/Judaic sources. Asmodeus in particular has Zoroastrianism roots as a demon of wrath, and kaballic as a demon of lust whose one story appearance is about an obsession from keeping a certain woman's marriage from being consummated by killing seven of her husbands before their respective wedding nights' consummation.


Asmodeus is featured in the Book of Tobit.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Shalafi2412 wrote:
Asmodeus is featured in the Book of Tobit.

Presumably he got absorbed into Kaballic lore during the Jewish exile in Persia. between that period of the fall of the last Judaean King and the liberation under Cyrus.


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The traditional depiction of Asmodeus in Dungeons and Dragons much more closely fits with Satan/Lucifer's characterization in Christian fiction such as The Divine Comedy*, Paradise Lost, and Faust, far more so than with the characterization of Asmodeus/Asmodai/Asmoday from the Book of Tobit and the Lesser Key of Solomon, where he's portrayed as a lustful trickster archetype.

That being said, Pathfinder's depiction of Asmodeus, at least in origin, borrows more from Zoroastrainism's Angra Mainyu(incidentally, another name for Ahriman, or at least an entity often equated with Ahriman), being the evil one of two deities from the beginning of the universe, and being opposed to free will. It differs, of course, in that Asmodeus of Golarion actually defeated his good adversary where as Angra Mainyu was destined to be vanquished.

That being said, much of his characterization after his Pathfinder origin story does match up with traditional (though not biblical) depictions of Satan/Lucifer.

* In the sense that he is imprisoned in hell. In other respects, Asmodeus, both of traditional D&D and Pathfinder, differs considerably from Lucifer as depicted in The Inferno; Dante depicts Lucifer as ultimately a stupid, impotent brute, a truly pathetic and ineffectual figure. D&D/Pathfinder's Asmodeus is anything but.


Wolf Munroe wrote:
... According to some mythology of the Creation of the Multiverse presented in some of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting materials, Asmodeus is possibly the oldest living being in the multiverse ...

Thread necro~

This is a fascinating discussion, but I have a point or two to make:

Black Magga, for one, is stated to be "older than the gods themselves", so it's possible she (and maybe the mothers of oblivion) existed on some plane of existence before the birth of Ihys and Asmodeus, and was somehow subjugated by Lamashtu to serve as her messenger. I'm GMing RotR right now, so that's why it's fresh on my mind. =) The creation of the mothers of oblivion is also a mystery, so they may also predate the gods. The fact that Magga is still CR 15 in RotR - after weakening by probably 1 CR every slumber cycle - multiplying by maybe one cycle every thousand to ten thousand years, over all the eons... yeah, she was probably truly a sight to behold in her heyday; maybe even more powerful than many of the middle or greater gods.

The aboleths also claim to predate the gods, but such a claim may only be grandstanding by the creatures; that is such a long time in the past that they may either be misremembering, or simply boasting that they've been around so long that they don't recall there ever being anything else existing before they did.

Rovagug's origin is so mysterious that he may be among the primordial beings. For all anyone knows, he's the primeval manifestation of annihilation, a more-comprehensible form of Azathoth. Whether he is a true god or simply the mightiest of all qlippoth, he is a being of such incredible power that even the, quote, "original" god — Asmodeus — was unable to defeat him. Indeed, it took a cadre of gods - good and evil, enemy and foe alike - in a combined, ages-long effort to simply weaken him enough (likely only to a large enough fraction of his power that he could subdued) that they could cast him into a prison, placing an effectively world-bound seal around him, and giving the key to arguably the most powerful god, the only primordial creation-myth god remaining: Asmodeus. That should probably be left to sink in for a moment: a creature - who may not even be truly a god - so powerful that the gods themselves cannot destroy, they can only seal him away and pray that he never bursts free, or he may well have become so powerful in his slumber that they may never defeat him again. Probably, in Pathfinder mythology, Rovagug is the representation of the Great Beast of Revelations, except his end result is factual, total annihilation of all living things across any plane he can break in to... which, considering his power, is probably all of them.

Curiously, though there are archetypes for nearly all the major deities and gods of mankind, I can't find one for Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah/etc. Maybe Sarenrae, but she could be considered a more mid-level god, compared with the immense, reality-shaping power of other gods. You might say Ihys, but to be a true archetype for Jehovah, such a being would have to be the one true creator of all things, including the primordial and creationary gods, and the highest of all creation. If he does exist, he either hasn't been represented, or could be simply referred to as the energy from which the first gods were borne, and who simply prefers to let all creation do its thing while he so subtly manipulates matters that not even the gods know he exists...


There is an Elohim creature. They don't really do much, though. As in, you don't look at it and "this thing could kill a god" let alone be a god. I take the statblock to be kind of a sarcastic joke. :P

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
KL Sanchez wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
... According to some mythology of the Creation of the Multiverse presented in some of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting materials, Asmodeus is possibly the oldest living being in the multiverse ...

Thread necro~

This is a fascinating discussion, but I have a point or two to make:

Black Magga, for one, is stated to be "older than the gods themselves", so it's possible she (and maybe the mothers of oblivion) existed on some plane of existence before the birth of Ihys and Asmodeus, and was somehow subjugated by Lamashtu to serve as her messenger. I'm GMing RotR right now, so that's why it's fresh on my mind. =) The creation of the mothers of oblivion is also a mystery, so they may also predate the gods. The fact that Magga is still CR 15 in RotR - after weakening by probably 1 CR every slumber cycle - multiplying by maybe one cycle every thousand to ten thousand years, over all the eons... yeah, she was probably truly a sight to behold in her heyday; maybe even more powerful than many of the middle or greater gods.

The aboleths also claim to predate the gods, but such a claim may only be grandstanding by the creatures; that is such a long time in the past that they may either be misremembering, or simply boasting that they've been around so long that they don't recall there ever being anything else existing before they did.

Rovagug's origin is so mysterious that he may be among the primordial beings. For all anyone knows, he's the primeval manifestation of annihilation, a more-comprehensible form of Azathoth. Whether he is a true god or simply the mightiest of all qlippoth, he is a being of such incredible power that even the, quote, "original" god — Asmodeus — was unable to defeat him. Indeed, it took a cadre of gods - good and evil, enemy and foe alike - in a combined, ages-long effort to simply weaken him enough (likely only to a large enough fraction of his power that he could subdued) that they could cast him into a prison, placing an effectively world-bound seal...

It's also pretty well hinted that the Elder Gods are even more ancient than Pharasma, or possibly anything else in creation in "The Elder Mythos" in the back of "In Search of Sanity"


If he was a liar and thief from the beginning he might be around.


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KL Sanchez wrote:
Curiously, though there are archetypes for nearly all the major deities and gods of mankind, I can't find one for Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah/etc.

That mainly has to do with the political consequences of getting to close to a present real-world religion, as opposed to pantheons we all "know" are purely mythological. There's also the fact that something modeled on a single all powerful all knowing diety really doesn't leave room for anything else.


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The recent Archduke articles from Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance have also been dropping bits of Asmodeus' backstory - enough to strongly suggest that Asmodeus' claim of being one of the original gods is simply a lie.

Odds are really good that Asmodeus used to "merely" be a powerful empyreal lord.

(My personal theory is that Ihys made both Asmodeus and Sarenrae, and murdering his maker is part of how Asmodeus became the first devil and attained true divinity.)

Lucifer probably won't be an official part of Pathfinder until Mr. Schneider decides he is. But touching him probably means coming dangerously close to actually doing stuff with a modern active religion (Christianity), and so I suspect Paizo won't go there. (There's many reasons why Asmodeus is Asmodeus and not Satan. And yes, Asmodeus is a separate mythological entity from Satan.)

I've actually used Lucifer in my home game as Earth's malebranche* (who put in a guest appearance (as an ally) during my mythic Reign of Winter game).

You and I can mess with the stuff that Paizo shouldn't.

* He's an infernal duke in the write up because it was written pre-Hell Unleashed and I was working from Lortacht's stat block as a basis. But yeah, he's intended as the malebranche for Cthulhu's prison.


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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
KL Sanchez wrote:
Curiously, though there are archetypes for nearly all the major deities and gods of mankind, I can't find one for Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah/etc.
That mainly has to do with the political consequences of getting to close to a present real-world religion, as opposed to pantheons we all "know" are purely mythological. There's also the fact that something modeled on a single all powerful all knowing deity really doesn't leave room for anything else.

And I believe Paizo is staying away from "living" religions in general.

Which is why Tian Xia has a set of all new deities who are very similar to existing Japanese deities, but are not actually those deities.


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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
KL Sanchez wrote:
Curiously, though there are archetypes for nearly all the major deities and gods of mankind, I can't find one for Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah/etc.
That mainly has to do with the political consequences of getting to close to a present real-world religion, as opposed to pantheons we all "know" are purely mythological. There's also the fact that something modeled on a single all powerful all knowing diety really doesn't leave room for anything else.

While true, they do tease that on the top of the mountain of Heaven is flat and that some see a garden whose gate has long rusted off or a huge, empty throne. So, they've gone there. They just didn't do a whole lot with it. I like to think there is room for an overgod creature similar to Ao. Though, I've not seen any group elsewhere or people here play with the idea.


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*Raises hand*

I have. This is actually really important for what I like to think of as my main series of games.

Home Game Plot Details:
I'm running multiple tables of a basic game idea, and as far as the background lore goes, the fundamental idea is that all of their stories are true, but take place on different worlds. Basically, it's a whole lot of multiverse theory... but that's where things start to get a little more complicated.

Essentially, each world is part of a fractal-like reality for the progression of souls. Different parts of the fractal (i.e. game settings) are watched over by different figures that are technically overgods, although they're really more like forces of nature that work to ensure the smooth functioning of reality and that all things begin and end in their proper time. They don't have worshipers, they don't grant spells, and very few figures, even among the gods, know they exist in the first place. The players - who take the positions of fallen and forgotten deities trying to reclaim their status after an unknown event ripped them from the heavens - actually have the opportunity to meet their local overgod, who's about the only person who really knows what's going on. XD

There's more to it, but the overdeity does exist, and they're basically neutral towards what's going on... directly, anyway. They're not overt about their actions, but they're actually helping the players by shrouding their actions from the sight of the gods and other powerful figures until they regain enough power to defend themselves again. Otherwise, y'know, somebody opposed to the player would pounce in overwhelming force the moment they found out about the players, and I had to find a good reason to stop that from happening. XD Also, the players have absolutely no idea how deep the cycle goes, but there's at least a few more layers of overdeities who are increasingly distant from the actual game realm, and for whom the life and death of entire universes is the smallest event worth noticing.


In most games I've run, regardless of setting, I have an overgod referred to as The Powers That Be which is an immensely powerful but utterly indifferent force. The truest of true neutrals.


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Zhangar wrote:
The recent Archduke articles from Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance have also been dropping bits of Asmodeus' backstory - enough to strongly suggest that Asmodeus' claim of being one of the original gods is simply a lie.

A Lawful creature claiming itself as being one of the oldest creatures in the multiverse? *LAUGH/Wriggle of Protean Coils/SnIcKeR*


Remember, Pathfinder's setting basically takes place in the Cthulhu mythos. In that setting, everything everyone has ever known about Earth is a lie, including, I suppose, Christianity and pretty much every other religion (Except the Egyptian Pantheon, as those have been proven to exist, but seem fond in going to different planets and forsaking their old homes (like Golarion)).

Earth is possibly closer to the Dark Tapestry than Golarion, which is why you don't see clerics of Sarenrae there. Its just that far out from the view of the Pathfinder deities and closer to the all-encompassing horror that is space. I mean, the Mi-Go come from Pluto, which puts them pretty freaking far from Golarion, but right next door to Earth.


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Mavrickindigo wrote:

Remember, Pathfinder's setting basically takes place in the Cthulhu mythos. In that setting, everything everyone has ever known about Earth is a lie, including, I suppose, Christianity and pretty much every other religion (Except the Egyptian Pantheon, as those have been proven to exist, but seem fond in going to different planets and forsaking their old homes (like Golarion)).

Earth is possibly closer to the Dark Tapestry than Golarion, which is why you don't see clerics of Sarenrae there. Its just that far out from the view of the Pathfinder deities and closer to the all-encompassing horror that is space. I mean, the Mi-Go come from Pluto, which puts them pretty freaking far from Golarion, but right next door to Earth.

Reign of Winter implies that magic has ebbed and is at a low point on Earth. Which probably explains why clerics are not running around casting cure light wounds on people or why arcane magic seems to be limited to folks using a few obscure and madness-inducing texts.

A good chunk of the demons/archdevils/empyreal lords/etc come from real world mythology. So it might be that some figures who are important on Earth simply are not interested/have much influence/etc on Golarion, and vice versa. Kind of like how Orcus, Demogorgon, and Tiamat are referenced in Pathfinder lore, but focused on other realms (e.g. WoTC settings)


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Buri Reborn wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
KL Sanchez wrote:
Curiously, though there are archetypes for nearly all the major deities and gods of mankind, I can't find one for Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah/etc.
That mainly has to do with the political consequences of getting to close to a present real-world religion, as opposed to pantheons we all "know" are purely mythological. There's also the fact that something modeled on a single all powerful all knowing diety really doesn't leave room for anything else.
While true, they do tease that on the top of the mountain of Heaven is flat and that some see a garden whose gate has long rusted off or a huge, empty throne. So, they've gone there. They just didn't do a whole lot with it. I like to think there is room for an overgod creature similar to Ao. Though, I've not seen any group elsewhere or people here play with the idea.

I wasn't that particularly fond of Ao, and I've noticed that he's pretty much been all but retconned out of the history of the Forgotten Realms. Once you set up an actual all-knowing, all powerful OverGod, you get into the same philosophic issues such as the Problems of Evil and Suffering you have with the standard model... with no good story worthy answers. The gods that we have work okay, because like the Greeks did with their deities, we don't need for them to be perfect.


Personal Campaign Setting stuff:
I handled that issue by having the overgod figures focused on enabling free will. They aren't going to force people to behave a certain way... but they do step in to ensure free will is never compromised. Essentially, the idea is that morality can't exist unless people are reasonably free when making their decisions... and that even the gods have no right to simply control people like puppets.


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GM Rednal wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

I've heard that argumment before. My response is that I fail to see how free will would have been compromised, if God had left out creating certain things such as Altzheimer's.


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Personal Campaign Setting stuff:
Disclaimer: Personal campaign setting stuff should not be confused with personal beliefs about the real world, which is not the subject of this thread. XD And I'm sure the mods would prefer it if I avoided diving into that, so...

In the game world, things like that are often the result of evil forces actively working to undermine mortals... and evil forces often have free will, too. In at least some views, it may be no more 'right' to stop beings from committing 'evil' than it is to force them to do 'good'. In short, beings are permitted to do bad things to each other because free will wouldn't be possible otherwise, which is moderated somewhat by the impermanent nature of anything they do. They can hurt you... but they can't hurt you forever. Furthermore, the purpose of reality is not to keep people happy, safe, or healthy at all times. Reality is not fundamentally fair that way, and if people want it to be better, they need to do their part to make it better. They live with both the reality that is and the reality they decide to create.

In my own setting, it's often the experiences people have that matter. When souls get enough experiences, they advance deeper into the cycle (which generally means a new world, with new situations for them to experience - think, oh, going from Pathfinder and Golarion to Call of Cthulhu and Earth). The actual purpose of all of this is unclear, because the only beings who know aren't telling. XD Most non-divine beings tend to have two layers of souls. The first is the one that directly interacts with reality, and can be affected by others. The worst that can happen to it is being destroyed until a given reality ends. However, there's also a second layer of the soul that cannot be negatively affected by outside forces, even the overgods - they're fundamentally sacrosanct, but influence the lower soul based on experiences. Unusually notable figures within the setting - such as those that are abnormally courageous or talented without having been made that way - tend to come from stronger souls that are closer to moving on.

Of course, this has almost no effect whatsoever at the game-table level. XD It's more... really deep background for the events of the game. And settings can be made in many different ways, of course. This is just the way I've done it.


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Zhangar wrote:

The recent Archduke articles from Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance have also been dropping bits of Asmodeus' backstory - enough to strongly suggest that Asmodeus' claim of being one of the original gods is simply a lie.

Odds are really good that Asmodeus used to "merely" be a powerful empyreal lord.

(My personal theory is that Ihys made both Asmodeus and Sarenrae, and murdering his maker is part of how Asmodeus became the first devil and attained true divinity.)

Lucifer probably won't be an official part of Pathfinder until Mr. Schneider decides he is. But touching him probably means coming dangerously close to actually doing stuff with a modern active religion (Christianity), and so I suspect Paizo won't go there. (There's many reasons why Asmodeus is Asmodeus and not Satan. And yes, Asmodeus is a separate mythological entity from Satan.)

I've actually used Lucifer in my home game as Earth's malebranche* (who put in a guest appearance (as an ally) during my mythic Reign of Winter game).

You and I can mess with the stuff that Paizo shouldn't.

* He's an infernal duke in the write up because it was written pre-Hell Unleashed and I was working from Lortacht's stat block as a basis. But yeah, he's intended as the malebranche for Cthulhu's prison.

Which would basically mean they had the exact same idea as the team who wrote up 4e's core setting's backstory of Asmodeus and added in the detail of him lying about it.

Which, you know, works for me given that the version of Asmodeus I use is far closer to the 4e version than he is to Pathfinder's version - he isn't a rampant misogynist who got outplayed by a third rate demon prince like Baphomet in my home game, for starters.


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I solved the over deity problem by having her sleep, and our existence is tied to her sleeping. If she wakes up, then we fade away from reality like a dream.

Silver Crusade

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Odraude wrote:
I solved the over deity problem by having her sleep, and our existence is tied to her sleeping. If she wakes up, then we fade away from reality like a dream.

*nods*

I run with a similar ideal in my homebrew too.

Liberty's Edge

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FormerFiend wrote:
Which, you know, works for me given that the version of Asmodeus I use is far closer to the 4e version than he is to Pathfinder's version - he isn't a rampant misogynist who got outplayed by a third rate demon prince like Baphomet in my home game, for starters.

Baphomet is actually the smartest Demon Lord currently statted. He's not remotely 'third rate' at the thing he beat Asmodeus at.

And really, even canonically, it was Asmodeus's pride that really beat him there. He tried to trap a minotaur in a labyrinth. And pride is sorta Asmodeus's besetting sin...


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MMCJawa wrote:
Reign of Winter implies that magic has ebbed and is at a low point on Earth. Which probably explains why clerics are not running around casting cure light wounds on people or why arcane magic seems to be limited to folks using a few obscure and madness-inducing texts.

So Earth is waiting for either ShadowRun or Rifts to occur?

And of the two, ShadowRun is infinitely preferable...


Deadmanwalking wrote:
FormerFiend wrote:
Which, you know, works for me given that the version of Asmodeus I use is far closer to the 4e version than he is to Pathfinder's version - he isn't a rampant misogynist who got outplayed by a third rate demon prince like Baphomet in my home game, for starters.

Baphomet is actually the smartest Demon Lord currently statted. He's not remotely 'third rate' at the thing he beat Asmodeus at.

And really, even canonically, it was Asmodeus's pride that really beat him there. He tried to trap a minotaur in a labyrinth. And pride is sorta Asmodeus's besetting sin...

And if him being a minotaur had anything to do with how he escaped, I'd still ignore it and throw it out the window as shoddy writing because that's still absurd. Instead, he escaped by "teaching himself magic". That isn't smart, that isn't clever. That's him getting out because the writer says he gets out.

It would also help if Baphomet demonstrated any actual intelligence throughout his appearances outside of that instance. Instead I'm supposed to believe that the guy who went charging into Nocticula's layer of the Abyss only to be instantly and effortlessly slaughtered has the patience and cunning to outplay Asmodeus.

If it had been Pazuzu, or Abraxas, or, in the olden days, Graz'zt, well, I still wouldn't be particularly happy about it for reasons I'll lay out below, but I wouldn't be as bothered because those are at least some of the more interesting, cooler demon lords, in my personal opinion.

And I'll be the first to admit that some of this is simply personal bias. Devils are my favorite kind of fiend, and demons are my least favorite out of the big three and rank lower for me than several of the more minor varieties. Where as James Jacobs is on record as saying that he prefers demons to devils by a large margin. So a good bit of it is simply a fundamental disagreement over which variety of fiend is more interesting and more deserving of a push and a spotlight.

So when they have Baphomet, who's one of the least interesting demon lords to me, get one over on Asmodeus, who, taking into consideration all his different portrayals over various settings, is in my top three favorite deities, my reaction is not to take note and suddenly get interested and think more highly of their portrayal of Baphomet, but rather to, if anything, think less of their portrayal of Asmodeus.

Liberty's Edge

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FormerFiend wrote:
And if him being a minotaur had anything to do with how he escaped, I'd still ignore it and throw it out the window as shoddy writing because that's still absurd. Instead, he escaped by "teaching himself magic". That isn't smart, that isn't clever. That's him getting out because the writer says he gets out.

That's not exactly what happened. He explicitly used his understanding of mazes, and specifically the maze in question, to unlock his own understanding of magic. Which is exactly the kind of thing magicians, gods, and epic heroes do in fiction. And pretty seriously cool.

FormerFiend wrote:
It would also help if Baphomet demonstrated any actual intelligence throughout his appearances outside of that instance. Instead I'm supposed to believe that the guy who went charging into Nocticula's layer of the Abyss only to be instantly and effortlessly slaughtered has the patience and cunning to outplay Asmodeus.

No, he really has (effectively putting full deities in no-win situations, the whole Worldwound plot, etc.). The incident you refer to is an example of rage overcoming good sense, which is debatably a low Wisdom action...but Wisdom and Intelligence are very different things. Indeed, Baphomet has the lowest Wisdom of any statted Demon Lord (okay, tied with Sifkesh) to go with the highest Intelligence.

To reflect this, Baphomet has a temper, and is occasionally prone to hasty and ill-considered acts upon occasion (like the one that got him caught by Asmodeus in the first place). His strength is in planning, and he's very impressive when he has time to do so and doesn't let his temper get the best of him.

Giving him time to plan a prison break was a serious error, is what I'm saying.

FormerFiend wrote:
If it had been Pazuzu, or Abraxas, or, in the olden days, Graz'zt, well, I still wouldn't be particularly happy about it for reasons I'll lay out below, but I wouldn't be as bothered because those are at least some of the more interesting, cooler demon lords, in my personal opinion.

See, I find Baphomet way more interesting than Pazuzu or Abraxas. He's got a much more interesting backstory, a more interesting breadth of servitors, and more interesting flaws IMO.

FormerFiend wrote:
And I'll be the first to admit that some of this is simply personal bias. Devils are my favorite kind of fiend, and demons are my least favorite out of the big three and rank lower for me than several of the more minor varieties. Where as James Jacobs is on record as saying that he prefers demons to devils by a large margin. So a good bit of it is simply a fundamental disagreement over which variety of fiend is more interesting and more deserving of a push and a spotlight.

That's not a good reason to object to a portrayal, IMO. And they've actually been doing a whole lot on Devils recently in the last couple of APs, so I'd think you'd be happy about that.

FormerFiend wrote:
So when they have Baphomet, who's one of the least interesting demon lords to me, get one over on Asmodeus, who, taking into consideration all his different portrayals over various settings, is in my top three favorite deities, my reaction is not to take note and suddenly get interested and think more highly of their portrayal of Baphomet, but rather to, if anything, think less of their portrayal of Asmodeus.

But, by your own admission, this is pretty much entirely your pre-existing bias speaking, not any actual rational critique of the portrayal.

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