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Just trying to find out the best gods and favorite and why.
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Pharasma because unlike other gods she isn't out there spouting her own creation myth even though she is the most likely to know the truth of the matter. Also despite being more powerful the the rovagug itself she's sitting back and letting things happen rather than interefering all the time like the other gods do.
Babayaga technically not a god but she has made people into demon lords and is as powerful as Cthulu and could grant domains should she want to, but doesn't want the hassle of worshippers.
Shelyn she just feels a bit less holyer than thou than most of the other gods, looking particularly at Irori >.>
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Sarenrae, beacuse I love redemption stories.
Asmodeus, because I love "redemption" stories.
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Groetus. Because I like quiet.
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My favorites are:
Shelyn because the focus is on personal expression and appreciation, and because there's really nothing bad or even unpleasant about her or her church (while avoiding being dull and uninteresting).
Pharasma because of her neutrality and detachment. She has no agenda save for the cycle of life and death itself, yet that lack of agenda doesn't translate to a lack of passion in her followers.
Asmodeus for his classic role of being the charming corrupter, and the mix of law, order, ambition, and power that he encourages. It makes his followers some of the most complex and dangerous.
Cayden Cailean just for the whole irreverence of his existence, that "how did I even get here?" feeling to it. It's a thumb in the eye to the more serious deities. His is the ultimate "anything is possible" story.
Venkelvore! She make goblins hungry so they never stop eating their enemies!
Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters, because sometimes monsters need father too. "Demon Mother's Mask" great tool for "animal husbandry".
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My top three are Iomedae, Calistria, and Zon-Kuthon (Iomedae because I'm a sucker for knight in shining armor types, plus she's an ascended mortal; Calistria because she's just so damned interesting, and playing one of her clerics is a delight; and Zon-Kuthon because I like the Cenobites). I also really like Asmodeus, Gozreh, and Irori.
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Desna- Because she combines stereotypically "wimpy" traits with staunch face-stomping- and also shows both the virtues and vices of Chaotic Good without being a cardboard cutout.
Shelyn- Because she was pretty much the first love goddess in an RPG who wasn't portrayed as either insufferably vain and shallow or as the object of a sexually frustrated developer's fantasies. And the idea of these highly artistic priests of love and beauty swinging glaives around is a hoot.
Pharasma- A terrifying,implacable, inscrutable death goddess... who hates undead and doesn't even do the worst things she does out of malice. Her sheer indifference is almost reassuring.
Ng- So delightfully weird!
Honorable mention: Ashava, Black Butterfly, Tolc, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth
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Desna, because when you read the lore you realize she's really a benevolent eldritch horror from beyond the stars older than pretty much the rest of the gods and possibly golarion itself. And she likes butterflies.
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Torag, Erastil, and Apsu - because they mesh well with my favorite character archetypes
Achaekek - because I love the red mantis assassins
Shelyn, Imonhiel, Dalenydra, Sarenrae, Brigh, Olheon.
Shelyn for love, art, morale-boosting, and preventing harm in the first place.
Imonhiel and Dalenydra for healing, amongst other things.
Sarenrae for healing, redemption, protecting people... basically everything other than writing off all followers of Rovagug and keeping her afterlife almost completely hidden from everyone.
Brigh for advocating for constructs, the scientific method, and the sharing of knowledge.
Olheon for being the most reasonable and admirable Lawful deity I'm aware of and for making all systems of government she is involved in less soul-crushingly horrible.
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Logic dictates that Brigh is the superior goddess.
Abadar, my hobgoblin cleric turned paladin would tell you. ;)
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Pharasma for being a non-Evil death deity that dislikes undead. Also, no overdone reaper look.
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Nethys for casting a spell that lets him see the entire multiverse all at once. "But he went insane", you might say. Sounds like bitter grapes from someone who didn't get to ascend.
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Damerrich for being the patron saint of edgelords, but still managing to be a legitimately Good god. Always regret that you were forced to take a life, but never regret taking it.
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Vildeis for representing the extremist, hardcore Good that you would expect from an outsider. An angel who stabbed out her eyes with a black dagger so that she would never again have to suffer the sight of evil is one of the most metal things I've ever read in my life.
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Lissala is... complicated. I love her for being strict but fair, expecting people to follow their superiors and actually rewarding obedience instead of tricking them into killing their wives or other cartoon villany. Lissala also gave us the Lissalan Snake Sigil spell, which is one of the best ever put to paper by Paizo.
The problem I have with her is her alignment. I'm pretty sure she was supposed to be a Lawful Neutral goddess. I'm aware that James Jacobs has explicitly said she was always LE, but it just never fit to me. Her teachings inspired Xin, a LN wizard, to develop the seven virtues of rule. I understand that you can call anything a virtue if you want, but these virtues were then corrupted into the sins. So you have to tell me how wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and rest are Evil. If you can manage that, then try to explain how they got corrupted into the sins if they were always whatever Evil spin the rulers put on them. I've heard it argued that Krune was her high priest and he was Evil. This is true, but he was a Wizard. He could claim to be the high priest of Shelyn if he wanted to. Being LE is also completely okay with a LN god.
In short, Paizo pls.
I forgot Mazludeh! She's awesome, too. Encouraging cooperation, mutual defence, etc and Holomog's central deity. Holomog, the one place known when, facing disaster, the people turned to Good instead of Evil. Not sure why everyone else was insane, but at least the people of Holomog were reasonable...
Anyway, she's a great deity and everyone who can should definitely read her write-up in the Distant Shores books. :D
Despite our great Lord Aroden's passing (which was, of course, all part of his master plan), we should all be thankful for what he gave humanity in our new age and time. And, in his death, what he gave the world as a whole.
An unshackling from fate. The most horrendous of our reality's faults.
PRAISE BE TO THE LAST AZLANTI!
Desna, because when you read the lore you realize she's really a benevolent eldritch horror from beyond the stars older than pretty much the rest of the gods and possibly golarion itself. And she likes butterflies.
Not to derail but can you expand? I'm aware of some of the lore and I could see the living in the sky in the material plane thing being a bit outside of normal god MO and she is a traveller so beyond the stars works, but she also has a thin with Cayden which seems less Eldritch ish
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Cayden Cailean - because **OOPS** "I'm a what, now?" is the best divine origin story I've seen so far.
Abadar because a god of materialistic things is so counter-intuitive to so many christian beliefs. Also gods of civilization make the most sense in my head
Groetus because he's the size of a moon and the concept is fantastic.
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Cayden Cailean - because **OOPS** "I'm a what, now?" is the best divine origin story I've seen so far.
I have to agree, though. Cayden being 'The Accidental God' is such a wonderful story and really makes for fun worshipers since they're mostly just fun-loving thrillseekers and drinking enthusiasts who just want you to enjoy yourself as well. And that's Cayden's big thing and I really like it. He might be a bit persistent about his romantic pursuits but I would think he's good-natured about it? Oh, and he fights fascists with Milani. What's not to love?
His 'holy text' is a bar plaque. It's kind of implied any bit of random wisdom you might find your parents repost on Facebook that a bar owner thought up would probably end up being attributed to him if it was generally good spirited. That's hilarious.
My true fave is still Shelyn though. I am all for a god that wants me to love myself and love others equally, and try and coax out the kindness in others. Her philosophies are ones I can really get behind.
Desna, because when you read the lore you realize she's really a benevolent eldritch horror from beyond the stars older than pretty much the rest of the gods and possibly golarion itself. And she likes butterflies.Not to derail but can you expand? I'm aware of some of the lore and I could see the living in the sky in the material plane thing being a bit outside of normal god MO and she is a traveller so beyond the stars works, but she also has a thin with Cayden which seems less Eldritch ish
IIRC she's originally from the great beyond/outer veil/whatever its called. And the only other things from out there are stuff like star spawn, Cthulhu, and whatever turned Dou Bral into Zon Kuthon.
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My true fave is still Shelyn though. I am all for a god that wants me to love myself and love others equally, and try and coax out the kindness in others. Her philosophies are ones I can really get behind.
Shelyn- Because she was pretty much the first love goddess in an RPG who wasn't portrayed as either insufferably vain and shallow or as the object of a sexually frustrated developer's fantasies.
More or less my reasons to really like Shelyn.
The fact that love-related characters are so often1) weak or plain hedonists
2) some kind of sex maniacs as if love was equal to sex
is a thing that has often bothered me.
Shelyn is a great goddess not just an stereotype.
In a World where violence can solve pretty much anything and where you have to make harsh decissions so often, being able to keep seing beauty and love and fighting for it is a difficult thing.
IIRC she's originally from the great beyond/outer veil/whatever its called. And the only other things from out there are stuff like star spawn, Cthulhu, and whatever turned Dou Bral into Zon Kuthon.Desna, because when you read the lore you realize she's really a benevolent eldritch horror from beyond the stars older than pretty much the rest of the gods and possibly golarion itself. And she likes butterflies.Not to derail but can you expand? I'm aware of some of the lore and I could see the living in the sky in the material plane thing being a bit outside of normal god MO and she is a traveller so beyond the stars works, but she also has a thin with Cayden which seems less Eldritch ish
The Dark Tapestry? I thought thats where the outer gods were chilling.
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Sheyln, because of all the reasons mentioned so far.
Milani because to me she is all about acting on truth to power. The understanding that allows one to do that is the most frightening thing and the bravest thing I can think of which is to face uncomfortable truths.
Well, I'm probably a little biased...
Razmir.
Because that one guy who paid to Shelyn was never found again... But hey! Sweet makes and nice drugs.
Razmir.
Because that one guy who paid to Shelyn was never found again... But hey! Sweet
makesmasks and nice drugs.
Slight... Typo there...
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Can I choose myself?
Can I choose myself?
Just because you slote Lolth's divinity once and used it to turn both yourself and Lolth into fey lords does not mean you are a god.
...Okay it kind of does, but it goes against the spirit of the whole thing.
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I really like Pharasma for being a neutral goddess of death, which I feel is closer to the concept of a death-related deity than an evil one, Cayden because the story of his ascension is just amazing, and Asmodeus, because the fact that that the Satanic god is sometimes the "Token Evil Teammate" with the good guys is hilarious to me. However, I'm fairly certain that if I lived on Golarion, I would worship Abadar, given that I love rules so much.
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Eh... while I am here, I might as well give my top deity for each alignment, so here goes nothing. Entries spoiled for length.
While Shelyn is often a default for a number of my characters, I don't really have any personal favorites.
Some deities or how players/worshipers represent them annoy me at times, but that's about it
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Milani. Hopeless uprisings are the best uprisings out there.
Cayden. HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS.
Ragathiel. An angel with a flaming chainsaw, murderkilling everything that's evil in order to piss his devil dad off, while the devil dad just laughs as it's all part of his plan? Delicious.
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I also like that her and Iomedae are explicitly on good terms, bucking the trend that occasionally pops up that goes "Oh, X is a different alignment than Y, therefore they can't get along!" which irks me, seeing how it plays into the stereotype that alignments are straightjackets and not just general beliefs and characteristics and ignores that most parties span the upper six alignments with not much hassle.
That point of view is odd (the whole different alignments can't get along, thing) considering that the published materials go out of their way to show how the worshippers of various gods get along as well as the gods themselves. Hell, Asmodeus is on at least cordial terms with most of the gods to one degree or another, and essentially everyone loves Shelyn (go figure), even friggin' Rovagug (though, admittedly, in a very twisted way).
Sivanah. I just love the mystery and layers upon layers of intrigue that come with her. Even the gods don't know who she is and how she got there. And then comes her lending power to Razmir's followers in his stead. Nobody knows why, might just be for fun. The fact she's also Zon-Kuthon's, or at least Nidal's, greatest enemy is a nice bonus.
I have a thing for trickster gods as well, so the Lantern King and Sunwuko are high on my list as well(Picoperi is their goody-two-shoes cousin and as such less interesting)
I'm also quite fond of Vildeis. She's an odd one, a wholly good entity who nevertheless has more in common with some of the evils she fights than with some of those on her end of the spectrum.
Pharasma. Her dispassion and her silence are magnetic to me; the fact that she is a final final arbiter, the ultimate judge without an agenda of her own... She forwards no cause, she trumpets no virtue, she doesn't even punish those who transgress against her. Not, of course, until she finally, conclusively, wins the day by attrition, and those who have flaunted her displeasure stand before her and have to recognize that all of their refusal and bluster went by in the blink of her alabaster eye. Now, ambition will be met with indifferent but inescapable justice.
I also like that her and Iomedae are explicitly on good terms, bucking the trend that occasionally pops up that goes "Oh, X is a different alignment than Y, therefore they can't get along!" which irks me, seeing how it plays into the stereotype that alignments are straightjackets and not just general beliefs and characteristics and ignores that most parties span the upper six alignments with not much hassle.That point of view is odd (the whole different alignments can't get along, thing) considering that the published materials go out of their way to show how the worshippers of various gods get along as well as the gods themselves. Hell, Asmodeus is on at least cordial terms with most of the gods to one degree or another, and essentially everyone loves Shelyn (go figure), even friggin' Rovagug (though, admittedly, in a very twisted way).
Eh... I was more going that there are certain players (even members of these boards, not that I am about to name names or anything) that seem to think that people of differnt alignments can't get along (i.e. I have seen it argued on these boards that since Iomedae is LG and Milani is CG they must not be able to stand each other due to being on different sides of Law/Chaos) so just seeing something that shows that is blatantly wrong makes it so I don't need to get into an argument about alignment for the next hour, which is nice for everyone involved.
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Ragathiel, the Anti-Lucifer, is the awesome deity of "F~%& YOU EVIL DAD" so definitely gets my vote.
Also, Urgathoa is my favorite evil God. She's just the Goddess of hedonism anyway, which isn't that bad anyway compared to Zon-Kuthon ot Rovagug. Yeah, yeah, the possible (definite) necrophilia is a bit weird, sure, but I like to think I'm open-minded when it comes to sexuality and sexual expression so embracing such a faith seems just up my alley. Besides, feeding your more darker desires really shouldn't be something to taboo/evil in Golarion when you have Cayden, Arshea and Shelyn all telling you it's fine and good to express yourself. Seems pretty hypocritical to me and probably all a dog-whistle for the "good guys" to discriminate against Urgathoa's undeadiness. For shame.
#UndeadUnlivesMatter
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Nethys...The god of Bi-polarisim who does not GaS
Nethys...The god of Bi-polarisim who does not GaS
It is nice to have a mentally ill god that's not evil.
Abadar because the god of wealth is perfect for any PC/murderhobo/mercenary
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Erastil, because someone needs to be responsible.
Abadar, because cities and civilization are awesome.
Shelyn, for all the reasons listed above.
(Yes, I often play LG characters. Does it show?)