Now that my medium has reached a high enough level, I'm considering branching out with them a bit, and channeling the Hierophant spirits sometimes. As the character is Tian, I had them venerate the entire Tian Xia pantheon, but now that I'm considering using the Hierophant's divine spellcasting ability (and the ability to alter which deity I'm channeling a spirit connected to), I am faced with a rules question...
Will a Holy Symbol tattoo of all 20 Tian Xia deities cost 100 gp, 2000 gp, or somewhere in between?
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For the purposes of PFS play you can't worship a pantheon (while you were fine to venerate them), meaning you will need to choose a deity to worship (while you would still be technically able to venerate others - so long as one is your focus and the only one you worship). (Though it appears with the Hierophant - you could go more the way of the Druid and not need a specific deity leaving you to venerate a pantheon. Your divine focus for spells would be holly/mistletoe. - I'd say this is definitely more of a rules gray area however than choosing a single deity)
As for the tattoos - I'd say 2000gp as there isn't a pantheon symbol (to my knowledge) so it would be 20 individual tattoos (possibly combined into one piece of body art)
The way the Hierophant spirit works past 6th level makes the deity of the spirit channeled matter, and consequentially the holy symbol used would matter. One day my Medium could be channelling a LE cleric spirit, the next a NG Cleric spirit. I would normally just go with the Mummy Benny approach of just having all the wooden holy symbols but an all-inclusive tattoo just seems too flavorful to pass up.
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For the purposes of PFS play you can't worship a pantheon (while you were fine to venerate them), meaning you will need to choose a deity to worship (while you would still be technically able to venerate others - so long as one is your focus and the only one you worship).
Okay, I agree with this statement. I recognize it's validity and truthfulness in the current writing of the rules.
How then, do we get a valid Inquisitor with the approved and valid Green Faith Martial archetype in PFS?
I know we can make the argument, "well you worship Gozreh", but I'm curious how that helps thematically when it's clear, with the archetype you worship The Green Faith (the pantheon). I'm sure there are other examples, but the Green Faith archetypes popping up here and there over time are the best example I can identify where perhaps the rules of the game have outgrown the rules of the campaign.
Something to consider.
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The Green Faith Archetype is interesting as an exception. I'm not sure what is different about it to allow it vs. other pantheons (or examples). I know cases have been made for the Green Faith in the past and maybe it is due to those arguments. In general however pantheistic beliefs aren't allowable. (Another possible example is the Order of the Godclaw of the Hellknights - though IMO you can also choose to worship one while venerating the others. And an even more interesting conundrum in Aroden - who you can't worship as he's dead, but can provide mechanical benefit which is stronger than venerating). Faith in PFS is certainly a moving target, but the safest and most general interpretation is worship = mechanical benefit = 1 deity.
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Faith in PFS is certainly a moving target, but the safest and most general interpretation is worship = mechanical benefit = 1 deity.
Aaaah, and that's what makes the Green Faith Martial archetype the very interesting exception to the rule. For the rest of them I've seen it doesn't matter and there's nothing mechanical. If you're a ranger and you want to worship The Green Faith, you can say you worship a pork carnita and it'll be the same mechanically for you.
What makes that archeype interesting is that it's for the Inquisitor. And Inquisitors get domains. And the god you worship determines which domains you get access to. And that archtype specifically modifies the domains to be a different set to match what The Green Faith can access. So in order to use the archtype you would get a different set of domains than what your deity would permit. Which in turn means there is a mechanical benefit which exists simply because the Archetype is permitted.
Not much you can do about it. You can still say you worship Gozreh and take whatever you want from the archtype. But it's an unfortunate loophole that I can't say, "I worship the Green Faith" (again, in that particular instance).
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You can absolutely worship a pantheon.
You pick a deity from the pantheon and use their holy symbol.
Now that my medium has reached a high enough level, I'm considering branching out with them a bit, and channeling the Hierophant spirits sometimes. As the character is Tian, I had them venerate the entire Tian Xia pantheon, but now that I'm considering using the Hierophant's divine spellcasting ability (and the ability to alter which deity I'm channeling a spirit connected to), I am faced with a rules question...
Will a Holy Symbol tattoo of all 20 Tian Xia deities cost 100 gp, 2000 gp, or somewhere in between?
Golarion dieties for the most part don't operate in a Greek style Pantheon as in being united in an organisation with a "head diety" who runs the Pantheon with top-down decrees. There are dieties that have more influence than others and dieties who have ties... but for the most part, they tend to operate on their own, managing their own portfolios and relationships with other dieties on an individual basis.
Tian dieties operate somewhat differently because they come from a more unified continental culture than Avistan, or Garund. (Vudra is it's own special case because of it's overall pantheistic approach to the divine.) But they're not family or that closely tied together the way the Greek dieties are. I suspect it's part of a design decision to make Golarion that much more "not" the Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk.