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*Here's a little something I thought up to shake the world of Pathfinder a bit. Also, I don't know where this should go so please do put this thread onto another part of the forum that is more appropriate.*
For many years, the inhabitants of Golarion thought they knew about all the deities in the universe. But there was one deity that had eluded them all: Omnia, the All-God. No one (not even the gods themselves) is quite sure how a being of such great power could go undetected, for the All-God's power could be felt through out every plane of existence, with the Great Old One Cthulu and the Witch Queen Baba Yaga (who, for the most part, where actually stationed on Earth) being more shocked than anyone else. Omnia revealed to everyone that it (for the All-God possessed no gender) was able to hide its aura and that most recently had chosen to live as a human on Earth and had just died (thus returning to godhood) and decided to venture for pastures new.
With Omnia once again appearing, Golarion witnessed many sweeping changes as the God of Balance (unlike the other gods) was very active in dealing with the affairs of mortals and even created many a stir in the Outer Planes (such as: freeing Rovagug, claiming that the Rough Beast was a 'necessary evil', resurrecting the gods that had died - which included bringing back Dou-Bral and the spirit wolf Thron, even though both Zon-Kuthon and his herald were still present - and even resolved many tiffs with grace and in diplomatic fashion).
Despite living as a male human, the God of Balance does not have a true form - claiming to be a being of non existence - which only further baffles both mortal and god alike. As such, Omnia is usually depicted as a male (the All-God's race depends on the race creating the visage, eg humans will depict Omnia as a human whereas orcs will depict Omnia as an orc etc) with painstakingly handsome features (even followers of Zon-Kuthon and Lamashtu believe it to be a great insult to have Omnia scared or deformed in any way) but always dressed in finely kept nobleman's clothing (with priests instead garbing Omnia in the sacred outfit of the faith that they represent).
The All-God's relations with the other deities is, by far, the most intriguing. As Omnia is a being so bizarre and powerful (even to the Outer Gods of the Dark Tapestry) that all respect the All-God through fear and awe. The exact extent of Omnia's relations are mainly shaped by the mortal life it led and its need for balance to be maintained. How it reacts as whole to the other deities (for now, only the top twenty will be covered) is listed below.
Abadar: Omnia respects Abadar being the god of order in its purity and marvels at how grand cities can be, but nevertheless, finds Abadar to be quite stubborn and close minded. Not to mention something of a coward (as the god of cities wears fine plate mail armour yet prefers using a crossbow).
Asmodeus: Perhaps one of the more interesting relationships, Asmodeus firmly believes that he will always have the All-God's favour as Omnia's favourite colour is red (the colour Asmodeus has in abundance) and when Omnia suddenly appears the Prince of Darkness immediately pledges his allegiance, even when the former only seeks to talk (which causes great embarrassment for Asmodeus and the sniggering of the other deities is often heard).
Calistria: Unlike most who chase after the Savoured Sting (which usually ends disastrously once Calistria gets bored), Omnia prefers to let the elven deity do all the chasing as Omnia finds Calistria to be very dangerous and unpredictable (even though the All-God is much more extreme when it comes to lust and vengeance). Also, when Omnia was a child, the All-God was once stung by a wasp he/it squished and still possesses the 'scar' on his/its right hand middle finger. Thus the All-God claims that he/it too has felt the sting of revenge.
Cayden Cailean: One of the more relaxed relationships, Omnia finds the Drunken Hero to be reckless yet fun and overall, pleasant to be around. The All-God is always up for having a drink with Cayden Cailean and respects the former mortal's bravery and sense of justice.
Desna: The Great Dreamer is ever thankful to Omnia for resurrecting her old mentor, Curchanus (restoring his domains to him although Desna was still able to have the travel domain), though she is disappointed that Lamashtu still has control of the beast domain (but the All-God did state that Curchanus had the positive side of the domain - animals' being able to form strong bonds with indigenous peoples - whereas Lamashtu had the negative side - animals' fear and mistrust - while the All-God himself/itself had both sides, positive and negative). In addition, Omnia likes the thought of constant travel but believes that one should have a final destination (in the case of Desna's followers, the place they wish to have their final rest at) and often accompanies Desna on her never ending journey as he/it is the only being able to truly do so as well as to comfort her should she become saddened (the All-God's mortal life had made him/it something of a softie) but the Great Dreamer did have some sad moments that Omnia couldn't help with (as the All-God has no intention of killing Ghlaunder and alas developed a phobia of butterflies as a child - although he/it likes caterpillars and has no problems with moths).
Erastil: Omnia sees in Old Deadeye a stalwart ally and a true (albeit, a little overbearing sometimes) friend. On many occasions, the two have gone on great hunting trips (usually betting on who can bag the best prey) but they never kill what they catch or anything else.
Gorum: Though Omnia has no love of violence and bloodshed (a fact that the Lord in Iron knows very well), the All-God nonetheless gladly engages in combat with Gorum should the god of war seek to fight. However, though they both use great swords, Gorum wields his weapon with both hands but Omnia effortlessly uses just one. The outcome of the battles usually end in a tie, with Gorum winning the odd few (though the Lord in Iron, not that he would ever ask, suspects that the All-God goes easy on him).
Gozreh: One of the two deities (the other being Nethys) that claim to truly be one with the God of Balance, as both Gozreh and Nethys have a 'ying yang' concept. Omnia's own standing with Gozreh is somewhat awkward, because the All-God finds Gozreh's female side enchanting Omnia has to remember about Gozreh's male side. Although the Wind and the Waves remain completely unaware of this.
Iomedae:
Irori:
Lamashtu:
Nethys:
Norgorber:
Pharasma:
Rovagug:
Sarenrae:
Shelyn:
Torag:
Urgathoa:
Zon-Kuthon:
Statistics:
Other Names - the All-God, the True Creator, the God of Balance
Alignment - Neutral
Domains - All
Sub Domains - All
Favoured Weapon - It's Own Might
Places of Worship - Everywhere
Nationality - Earthling
This is it so far, I will be fleshing out the details at a later date.
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Ok, so when does he turn into a turtle?
Um...not a fan of this. I'll leave it at that as I don't want to insult you...it is just ultimate powerful beings just bore me...especially when they start running roughshod over characters I like.
It is kind of like a GMPC on the deity level.
Yep, this bugs me in the same way all the revision & Realms-Shattering Events ruined the Forgotten Realms for me. If a GM wants to make such drastic and sweeping changes, it seems better to just start off with the pantheon he/she wants instead of stomping all over existing canon.
At the very least, such changes should be part of epic adventure paths where the PCs' actions, for good or ill, have a significant bearing on the outcome of such events.
Just my opinion.
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This doesn't work for me, likewise, because it tries to have its cake and eat it, too. Overgods work best when they are distant and inhuman--you introduce a "supergod" when your normal pantheon feels too powerful and idealogical for the universe to exist the way it does. Ao is brought up only to judge or punish gods who violate the inexplicable rules of Faerun. The Lady of Pain exists only to explain why Sigil isn't a warzone between all gods and demons. Past this, the two entities are only barely personalized, if at all. This lack of humanity or self-motive makes it easier to accept fact that they exist as macguffins; because we know so little about them, it is easier to accept that they are part of an even greater mystery.
Omnia, on the other hand, is entirely too active, and too human, for that suspension of disbelieve to work. You describe Omnia as being very active in the affairs of mortals--meaning that a creature greater than Azazoth is know getting directly involved in affairs that should be the domain of PCs, and also means that Omnia will have a ton of exposure, demystifying him.
Worse, the god has a clear agenda and personal opinions independent of the "campaign fiat" that Overgods are usually made to enforce. He is anti-violence, thinks plate armor and crossbows are cheese tactics, believes that all journeys should end, and most strangely, lets his opinion of other gods be affected by little events in his mortal childhood (like a wasp sting). It would be one thing if the information were church doctrine or the like, or even if the story about wasps or butterflies were fables about Omnia, used to deliver important church doctrine. But as writtern, it seems like pure characterization.
What's more, there is another issue with listing Omnia's relationship with every god--it's treating Omnia as though he were their peer. Overgods exist on a magnitude above the regular pantheon. Omnia battling Gorum to a standstill isn't like the quarterback practicing with the freshman in football--it's Eli Manning going toe to toe with a four-year-old.* Or, in a broader sense, it's the principal hanging out with the junior high students after school. Even if the other students enjoy his company, it takes away from his status as someone who is not to be argued with when he enacts school policy. Supergod should not feel like "one of the boys" if his responsibility enscopes everything that has or ever will exist.
((Football fans feel free to include a better player than Eli Manning, he's just the last player I've heard mentioned that came to mind.))
All of this ends up creating an Overgod that feels more like a superhero than a longstanding, quintessential force of the universe. It's true that gods can carry mortal values and feel very human, but in most good RPG games they have certain qualities that prevent them from overshadowing the player characters. The gods are distant and must be worshipped to give the world their attention, or a pact of noninterference is what prevents the gods from plunging the earth into celestial war. Overgods usually exist to enforce that noninterference--Omnia outright breaks its tenants in the opening paragraph.
And though it's unrelated to the main problem, the character assassination of the gods does this idea no favors, and makes Omnia sound even more like a fan-character. Because Overgods are so powerful, they need to be background characters because of problems like this. If Omnia can prompt Asmodeus to swear fealty without asking, get Calistria to chase him, and lets Gorum win one fight out of a thousand to protect its reputation, what's going to happen to the players' ego when Omnia delves into mortal affairs?
Frankly, if I want an omnipresent entity of balance in my games, I'll just keep using the Monad like I planned.
Not really a fan of this.
If you want a different pantheon in your game world, I'd recommend starting from scratch with a homebrew campaign setting.
Good luck!
Not really a fan of this.
If you want a different pantheon in your game world, I'd recommend starting from scratch with a homebrew campaign setting.
Good luck!
To be fair I don't get the sense the OP wants a different pantheon just to shake up the existing one. Which is fine.
It is also perfectly acceptable if the OP wants to do this to their version of Golarion. I mean I doubt my Golarion looks that much like yours...
And I did not mean to discourage the OP from his creative exercise in posting this.
It was just not to my taste. And not something I would do personally.
What I'm seeing is a combination of quasi-Christianity being injected into a fantasy game setting (a difficult idea to pull off in a way that isn't cringe worthy in one way or another) and a new GM created special snowflake Mary Sue supergod being thrown in with the existing game world pantheon. This is the GMPC problem writ large, and is very unadvisable
Basically, if I was a player I'd be vary wary of this being introduced into a game I was in.
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But when. Does he turn. Into a turtle.
I wouldn't do this in Golarion because it doesn't really fit in there (at least not "present" Golarion -- it could fit into a future dystopian evolution of Golarion), but I have toyed around with the idea of a (already dystopian) setting that would have not one, but a whole collection of deities [b[each[/b] claiming to be the One True God (of Everything), with each claiming that all of the others are all imposters/devils/demons/figments/etc., and that followers of all the others are all going to Hell or something like that, and each having some degree of success in demonstrating their claims to their followers. ("You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time . . ." -- the latter group is the one you want to concentrate on.) Followers of each one would generally think of followers of others as apostates, blasphemers, cultists, heathens, heretics, or at best as quitters. Thus, you have the One True Church of God, the One Church of the True God, the Church of the One True God, the Church of the One God of Trueness, the One Truly Godly Church, the One God True Church, the True One God Church, and the One Church of the God of Trueness, and the True Church of the God of Oneness, and the Church of the True God of Oneness, just to name a few. Each not only grants their followers the spells needed to expose the followers and associated Outsiders of the others as heretics and demons, but also careful instructions about what to do when those deceivers from one of the other self-proclaimed churches cast deceptive magic on them to make it appear that they are the heretics and demons.
Now in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, most deities (even most of the Evil ones) don't do this, if for no other reason that they aren't in a position to do this. But in the future . . . Asmodeus smiles . . . .