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Or you could just do it now, so that we as your community can understand your world and the miniscule interactions everything has better. In fact you could probably create whole AP's around the info provided. little by little adding more and more up to a point where you feel you have taken this game as far as it can go in which you reveal how the universe ends.
I dont see how giving us this info would hurt the game at all. in fact it would probably draw more people as well due to the full richness of the Lore of this universe. You can still create ripple effects it will just be more clear to your players why these things are happening.
Do people still excitedly talk about "Lost" now that they know the answers? Nope.
I'd rather keep people engaged and excited than given them a few moments of ah HA and then watch as they wander off to look for new mysteries to vex and entice.
One thing that seems to be mostly-true is that stronger deities often have larger areas of interest. Pharasma's pretty much in charge of the Boneyard, Asmodeus rules Hell, and territory's pretty important for demon lords, too. XD Of course, for individual reasons, a deity might not have much territory of their own, so it's hardly a perfect measure.
That said, I'm glad that most of the material keeps it as "the Gods can be what they need to be for your game". It's very helpful for the approach I take to my own games. XD
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Creative Director
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Ah, ok, so it's basically souls that are 'bad' worshippers? Oof, that has some nasty insinuations for that LN cleric of Asmodeus that channels positive energy and that CG girl of Nocticula that just believe their deities are misunderstood. Ouch...Even all-powerful neutral deities need to follow certain rules. Even if those rules are never to be revealed to mortals, be they in world or in real life.
In other words... it's not Pharasma's fault if a worshiper gets sent to Groetus or whatever... it's the worshiper's fault for failing. Desna, in this case, wouldn't blame Pharasma. She'd blame the failed worshiper and would understand that she didn't want that tainted soul around anyway.
Tainted?? That means then that it's something the soul does that determines it's going to be annihilated by Groetus instead of going to an afterlife?
What in the world is that?? I mean, obviously it's not just being evil, so I don't think it has something to do with alignment, but now I'm intensely curious what marks a soul for erasure.
The word "tainted" doesn't have any mechanical connotations at all. It's just a word I used to indicate that some souls of worshipers are not desirable to a deity—they want devout worshipers, not failed worshipers. It's not something the soul does. It's something the living person does while alive that is out of step with their belief.
And that's one of the reasons why I think that worshipers of a deity who aren't the deity's alignment are a bad idea. You CAN still be a devout worshiper and be one step removed from your deity's alignment, mind you, but it's just a LOT harder to do so than if your alignment matches the deity's alignment.
Note also that the punishment for being a poor worshiper isn't always the same either.
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Creative Director
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So one day, when the earth is blackened husk from the suns slow expansion and pathfinder comes to an official end due to the printing presses melting, we may see an answer XD?
anyways, on the tainting topic: yeah, pretty brutal. You play religion for keeps in golarion! I guess gods get less forgiving about such things when you can't deny that the god exists, and what they want you to do.
To go somewhat back to topic: assuming that most gods have an "Average" (an average that pharasma will be excluded from, since apparently she'll throw it way off), what might that average be? Seeing as how one of the more impressive and well known efforts of a god was throwing a moon in the way of an incoming planetkiller during earthfall, should we consider that a "standard" god? Because if so, that would certainly explain why one can't stat gods. Moving moons is preeetty far out of the realm of pathfinder stats to reasonably express.
Not from me! I plan to be dead and haunting a redwood forest FAR before that point in time.
And indeed, religion is for keeps in Golarion. That's kinda the point of religion in the game, in fact. Don't sign up to worship at a church you know you'll not be good at worshiping, in other words!
And not being interested in assigning power levels to the deities includes not being interested in setting out what powers an "average" deity might have.
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Creative Director
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And not being interested in assigning power levels to the deities includes not being interested in setting out what powers an "average" deity might have.
To go somewhat back to topic: assuming that most gods have an "Average" (an average that pharasma will be excluded from, since apparently she'll throw it way off), what might that average be? Seeing as how one of the more impressive and well known efforts of a god was throwing a moon in the way of an incoming planetkiller during earthfall, should we consider that a "standard" god? Because if so, that would certainly explain why one can't stat gods. Moving moons is preeetty far out of the realm of pathfinder stats to reasonably express.Such is fair. I suppose I'll ask that to the fine forum folks, then: what do YOU guys use as the "Baseline", if you have one? I think I'll keep "moving moons" as my line of average.
Oh, also, in case anybody had read the details that I've missed: do worshipers matter a great deal to the gods? Like, are they in any way powered by belief, or do they like it primarily as a means to get people to do stuff for them? Pathfinder seems to lean towards the latter, but I could be wrong.
We don't use a baseline at all. That's the point of not assigning stats or rules to the gods. This way we can have them do whatever we need them to do in order to tell the story we want to tell.
The amount of worshipers or power of a religion's combined faith doesn't "power" the gods, like it did in D&D. A god with no worshipers can be just as powerful as a god who everyone worships. The primary thing a person's faith does is help sort his/her soul in the Boneyard; the stronger your faith, the more likely it is you'll get a better position in the afterlife in your deity's realm. The more damaged and broken your faith is, the more likely it is you'll be sent on to punishment in the afterlife. Furthermore, the size of a deity's church in a mortal realm is the amount of influence that deity has on that particular mortal realm, since deities do not personally interfere in mortal affairs as a general rule (there are RARE exceptions).
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Does this mean that Clerics (Capital C because I mean the class) are never fed to Groetus? Well... Except maybe Clerics of Groetus, that is.
This is a very interesting discussion, filing my head with tons of questions and possibilities. I'm tempted to ask but fear that answers to those questions will straitjacket my imagination. I guess I kinda like the slow trickle of information, with lots of wiggle room for speculation. I'm glad Paizo uses this approach.
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Does this mean that Clerics (Capital C because I mean the class) are never fed to Groetus? Well... Except maybe Clerics of Groetus, that is.
I could see it happening (albeit very rarely).
Imagine a cleric of Gorum who has been so worn down by the years of endless, pointless bloodshed. He continues to fight - gloriously, even! - but in his heart, he is consumed by the idea that all his fighting is meaningless in the face of the imminent end. He fights to the bloody last, all the while simultaneously dreading and welcoming the end he knows is drawing nearer and nearer.
And when his end finally comes, he stands before the Lady of Graves... who slowly points upward, to the skull-faced moon.
He welcomed the end, and now it welcomes him.
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Kinda off topic and I know this is a subject that's sensitive for obvious reasons. But now I'm curious about the religions of Earth in the context of Pathfinder's universe. Are we to assume that the current active religions of 1918 Earth are all true to some extent?
How I run it in my games is, since this is one of those worlds where magic and the supernatural is all but vanished, Earth's deities simply can't or won't directly speak to their worshippers or give them divine power. Deities known on Golarion are basically unheard of here (with notable exceptions like Asmodeus, Lamashtu, Egyptian deities).
I know Paizo wouldn't say which religion is "right" or which are actually worshipping a different aspect of a deity worshipped in Golarion, but since it's specifically canon for our home world to exist in the exact same Material Plane as Golarion, I can't help but be curious.
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Could a lesser deity match a greater deity under certain circumstances like when the issue at hand intersects with the dietys' sphere of interest?
For example, lets say Milani killed Aroden. The very act is an act of revolt, not only against him who sponsored her but against set fate and perhaps the fabric of reality. But because she is goddess of revolts and hope and all that good stuff and acting in an area where she is supreme, for an hour, a day or a moment she was Aroden's superior.
Though most of the time, she's a relatively unimportant player.
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There's no traffic between 1918 Earth and Golarion, so it's really a moot, and more likely unanswerable question. I'm more than happy to go with the idea that the only dieties that exist on Earth are the beings of the Cthulu Mythos. i.e. the unfathomable powers of the Dark Tapestry. It would explain much of the differences between the two worlds such as the total lack of divine and arcane magic.Kinda off topic and I know this is a subject that's sensitive for obvious reasons. But now I'm curious about the religions of Earth in the context of Pathfinder's universe. Are we to assume that the current active religions of 1918 Earth are all true to some extent?
Have you read Rasputin Must Die? Its author assumed that many of the religious stories of old were legitimate accounts... unless, in your suggested canon, these Dark Tapestry powers were behind events such as the biblical Exodus. That doesn't really seem like their style. ^_^
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Have you read Rasputin Must Die? Its author assumed that many of the religious stories of old were legitimate accounts... unless, in your suggested canon, these Dark Tapestry powers were behind events such as the biblical Exodus. That doesn't really seem like their style. ^_^There's no traffic between 1918 Earth and Golarion, so it's really a moot, and more likely unanswerable question. I'm more than happy to go with the idea that the only dieties that exist on Earth are the beings of the Cthulu Mythos. i.e. the unfathomable powers of the Dark Tapestry. It would explain much of the differences between the two worlds such as the total lack of divine and arcane magic.Kinda off topic and I know this is a subject that's sensitive for obvious reasons. But now I'm curious about the religions of Earth in the context of Pathfinder's universe. Are we to assume that the current active religions of 1918 Earth are all true to some extent?
Nyarlathotep is a tricky guy. :D
Maybe one of his avatars about 1918 years ago was a carpenter.
Since the thread is about power levels, and people have been asking about different aspects of the gods...
What happens when a demon lord or empyreal lord ascends to god-status? Specifically, I am thinking of one mentioned in a certain AP. When (or if) that one ascended, they transformed their portfolio and alignment. Did they also ascend in power too? Or is it that they're just "well sort of marginally stronger" but still at the demon/empyreal lord level? Along that line, can a deity lose divinity? Specifically I am thinking of 3.5's old system where you could have like "divinity - 0" and they're like a local saint that has one single shrine and that's about it.
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Even the hard-and-fast" rules of the gods" can be broken, under the right circumstances.
A mortal can't fight a god... except for Tar-Baphon.
A mortal can't "kill" a god... except for Savith, and later the PCs. (And I guess Lamashtu vs. Curchanus.)
As LazarX says, just tell your story. ^_^
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And not being interested in assigning power levels to the deities includes not being interested in setting out what powers an "average" deity might have.
To go somewhat back to topic: assuming that most gods have an "Average" (an average that pharasma will be excluded from, since apparently she'll throw it way off), what might that average be? Seeing as how one of the more impressive and well known efforts of a god was throwing a moon in the way of an incoming planetkiller during earthfall, should we consider that a "standard" god? Because if so, that would certainly explain why one can't stat gods. Moving moons is preeetty far out of the realm of pathfinder stats to reasonably express.Such is fair. I suppose I'll ask that to the fine forum folks, then: what do YOU guys use as the "Baseline", if you have one? I think I'll keep "moving moons" as my line of average.
Oh, also, in case anybody had read the details that I've missed: do worshipers matter a great deal to the gods? Like, are they in any way powered by belief, or do they like it primarily as a means to get people to do stuff for them? Pathfinder seems to lean towards the latter, but I could be wrong.
We don't use a baseline at all. That's the point of not assigning stats or rules to the gods. This way we can have them do whatever we need them to do in order to tell the story we want to tell.
The amount of worshipers or power of a religion's combined faith doesn't "power" the gods, like it did in D&D. A god with no worshipers can be just as powerful as a god who everyone worships. The primary thing a person's faith does is help sort his/her soul in the Boneyard; the stronger your faith, the more likely it is you'll get a better position in the afterlife in your deity's realm. The more damaged and broken your faith is, the more likely it is you'll be sent on to punishment in the afterlife. Furthermore, the size of a deity's church in a mortal...
Does that mean there are a number of major gods that don't have any worshipers? If so what would they represent? Evolution? Quantum Mechanics? Just stuff that are important as building blocks to how reality works but don't directly affect mortals?
Does this mean that Clerics (Capital C because I mean the class) are never fed to Groetus? Well... Except maybe Clerics of Groetus, that is.I could see it happening (albeit very rarely).
Imagine a cleric of Gorum who has been so worn down by the years of endless, pointless bloodshed. He continues to fight - gloriously, even! - but in his heart, he is consumed by the idea that all his fighting is meaningless in the face of the imminent end. He fights to the bloody last, all the while simultaneously dreading and welcoming the end he knows is drawing nearer and nearer.
And when his end finally comes, he stands before the Lady of Graves... who slowly points upward, to the skull-faced moon.
He welcomed the end, and now it welcomes him.
Is this person still a Cleric (again, the Class) at that point though? This sounds to me like a man of the cloth who has lost his faith but is going through the motions because he doesn't know anything else.
Even so, is such a lapse of faith really a dealbreaker? I mean, if this particular cleric didn't do anything contrary to his old faith should he really be punished, for lack of a better word, so severely?Divine ethics is... difficult.
What happens to the people of Rahadoum?!
Questions aside, I do like that bit of storytelling! Very evocative.
What happens to the people of Rahadoum?!
Bad things probably.. they aren't even atheists.. they know the gods exist and collectively telling them we hate you go F off. The Worst gods have super bad things planed and even the best gods has to have some pretty stern punishment lined up.
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As it's been revealed, Tar-Baphon fully intended, in fact needed to lose that fight.Even the hard-and-fast" rules of the gods" can be broken, under the right circumstances.
A mortal can't fight a god... except for Tar-Baphon.
A mortal can't "kill" a god... except for Savith, and later the PCs. (And I guess Lamashtu vs. Curchanus.)As LazarX says, just tell your story.
I'm fully aware of that. In 95% of cases, you can assume I'm familiar with printed material.
That said... I don't think he would have been too upset to be the Slayer of Aroden. ^_^
No, I imagine that if Tar-Baphon had beater Aroden, he would've shrugged, and then gone to find a stronger god to challenge.
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Does this mean that Clerics (Capital C because I mean the class) are never fed to Groetus? Well... Except maybe Clerics of Groetus, that is.I could see it happening (albeit very rarely).
Imagine a cleric of Gorum who has been so worn down by the years of endless, pointless bloodshed. He continues to fight - gloriously, even! - but in his heart, he is consumed by the idea that all his fighting is meaningless in the face of the imminent end. He fights to the bloody last, all the while simultaneously dreading and welcoming the end he knows is drawing nearer and nearer.
And when his end finally comes, he stands before the Lady of Graves... who slowly points upward, to the skull-faced moon.
He welcomed the end, and now it welcomes him.
He sighs, shrugs, and raises his memory of a sword. One last battle, then he can rest.
If I recall my fluff correctly, Asmodeus did not ascend from being a "mere" archdevil - it's far more likely that he pre-dates all devils and was as strong as he is to start with.
As for Sarenrae, Inner Sea Gods implies that others' belief in her was responsible for her ascension. This had apparently been an ongoing process - the more support she got, the stronger she grew. Of course, it's important to note that in Pathfinder, gods are not explicitly powered by belief - they don't need followers, though it might help to have them. XD
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I'd guess that Asmodeus is not merely an ascended devil; he's the very first devil, and probably used be some other sort of exemplar entity (like an angel or archon) before he fell.
Asmodeus might even be the very first fallen outsider.
And in the very act of becoming the first, he filled in a hole that the universe didn't know it had.
If he wasn't a fullbore god before that, he certainly was afterwards.
Urgathoa repeated this feat later - by apparently becoming the first undead, she became something the universe had been "missing" and so became the paragon of all undeath.
Attaining true godhood seems to be different for every single god.
Sarenrae did it by challenging Rovagug while she was "merely" an Empyreal Lord and winning.
Milani apparently did it by holding Aroden's domain against all comers after his death.
And so on.
(And then on the other hand, you've got folks like Baba Yaga - those who could be gods, and decided they want nothing to do with it.)
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Creative Director
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Speaking of which, the Eldest in the Fey Revisited book, they're full on god level of power in the First World the way it's written, but 'just' demon lord/empyreal lord level outside of the First World. Is that supposed to be correct James, or did that slip through editing?
The eldest are demigods. They grant only four domains, and have stats—they range in CR from 26 to 30. This is regardless of whether they're encountered on the First World or not. Fey Revisited is wrong. NOTE That doesn't mean there aren't actual full-on deities on the First World... we just haven't said anything about them yet.
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There's a difference between first evil outsider and first fallen outsider.
For example, odds are really good that Rovagug, a god-level qlippoth, is older than Asmodeus.
Qlippoths, daemons, and kytons are all older than devils, while demons are usually younger. (Some demon lord are converted qlippoths, and thus quite ancient indeed.)
The kytons were apparently the original inhabitants of the plane that would become Hell. The kytons left for the Plane of Shadow after Asmodeus moved in and took Hell over, at which point the Damned started becoming devils instead of kytons.
Asmodeus isn't the first evil outsider by any stretch.
But he might be the first outsider to switch teams, with his posse (Dispater, Mammon, Baalzebul, the Whore Queens) making the transition shortly afterwards.
Mephistopheles is the first devil actually made in Hell, and as such serves as the avatar of Hell. But the very oldest devils, such as Asmodeus himself, predate Asmodeus' rule of Hell.
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Creative Director
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Ok, good to know about the Eldest, but now I'm curious, are there any beings who ARE 'full-on deific power' in a specific location/situation, but 'just demigods' in all other locations/situations?
Nope. That causes complications, since that would mean the number of domains they grant would change... but when and how? It really just doesn't make sense to me.
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You don't need to "match" something to be able to kill it; you just need to be able to survive its attacks and pierce its defenses.
Which is a thing that PCs do fairly often...
Though, here's question - are there entities in the Pathfinder univsere that are equivalent to the true gods in raw power but aren't gods? (Marvel's Galactus would be an example of such a being, I think.)
Sort of like how Baba Yaga, Tar-Baphon, the kaiju, and the Oliphant of Jandalay are all in the same weight class as demigods but aren't demigods at all.
Wonder if that's what Dou Bral ran into...
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Or technically a large number of spellcasting aboleths killed two Azlanti gods with a giant rock I suppose.
Neither the aboleths nor their giant magical* rock killed those two deities, those two deities sacrificed themsevles in order to save most of the life in the surface of the planet, they could very well allow them all to die and (along with other deities) restart life on the surface of the planet but they chose not to.
*remember tha the core of this "giant rock" was the starstone
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It should be noted, at least with demon lords, that they are more powerful in their home plane and get a lot of perks. Not enough to bring them up the full diety level, but certainly enough to make them more formidable if they were facing off against heros/other demigods/maybe even some true gods.
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I was under the impression that it wasn't the Starstone to begin with - it was getting covered in Acavna's blood (on top of being a mix of unknown celestial materials, aboleth magic, and the "scar tissue" of the planet) that really turned it into the Starstone and gave it its special powers.
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Nope. That causes complications, since that would mean the number of domains they grant would change... but when and how? It really just doesn't make sense to me.Ok, good to know about the Eldest, but now I'm curious, are there any beings who ARE 'full-on deific power' in a specific location/situation, but 'just demigods' in all other locations/situations?
Alrighty, so there's no occasion when any demigod being can match a gods power (due to domains), but are there occasions where any being can match a gods power?
Such as when Lamashtu killed whats-his-face for his divine spark, showing a non-deity can kill a deity. Or technically a large number of spellcasting aboleths killed two Azlanti gods with a giant rock I suppose.
I guess I'm mostly asking if non-gods can match the power of gods in specific scenarios.
Once you can match a god's power... you're a god, essentially. But if what you're REALLY asking is "Can a non-deity kill a deity?" then THAT answer is yes.
A demigod doesn't need to be as powerful as a god to challenge or defeat that deity; Lamashtu is a great example of this having happened. Similarly, a PC doesn't need to be more powerful than the foe she attacks in order to beat that foe. Planning, circumstance, luck, and having help all factor in. And given the right situation, a group of powerful PCs or mortal villains could destroy a deity as well, although not by using the "rules" to do so, since deities don't have stats. To defeat/kill a deity, PCs or NPCs would have to go on a lot of quests or simply have the story be about that.
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If it is a true deity and not a faker like Rasmir then you need to assume that their power level is OVER 9000
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Ok, so question about this: Can you be as powerful as a god, and refuse to be a deity? To say 'oh hell no I don't want to deal with worshippers, just be a super badass that can go on date's with Calistria or beat up Nethys because he's a nerd'. Baba Yaga as an example certainly seems to have power on par with some gods (she certainly makes demon lords look weak with how she dealt with Irrisen and making winter), but is definitely not a deity.
Absolutely. Fun thing about not defining what deities can and can't do is that it puts no limits on the stories.
