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How are the practices of any of them (piracy, trickery + revenge + prostitution, and war) not supposed to be Evil overall?I don't see anything remotely evil about trickery, revenge, or prostitution. Those are all solidly neutral in my book.
Agreed. I think Gorum should be more evil for spurring conflict through refusing non-violent resolutions and accepting any attempted defense as an excuse for a fight (a cleric of Gorum would be obligated to slaughter a child defending himself in a blind panic using nothing but rusty kitchen knife), but I don't think Calistra is actually worse for prostitution or tricky, since the former is a profession she strictly encourages between consenting parties who are not coerced on either side and is safe and as part of a business transaction or just exchange of needs. And the latter is historically considered virtues of mental prowess in heroes like Odysseus, who he was pretty famous for also being considered a top bloke. Why does he get a pass :P
Calistra's been fundamental to stopping numerous f#!!ups on the part of other gods (Desna most famously), and honestly I think she gets a bad rap for being a god of sex. Do people have this problem with Arshea as well? Honestly, I never found anything particularly wrong with either at all.
Besmara is just a pirate and pirates do what pirates do. Mostly she seems pretty alright so long as you pay tribute appropriately and work eith your crew.
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How are the practices of any of them (piracy, trickery + revenge + prostitution, and war) not supposed to be Evil overall?I don't see anything remotely evil about trickery, revenge, or prostitution. Those are all solidly neutral in my book.Meant to say "practices" instead of "promotion".
Somebody that promotes people doing those things as ends and not just means is definitely promoting Evil. Ways to do the above and NOT be Evil:
Piracy: Only if you are doing the Robin Hood thing. This is not Besmara's shtick.
Trickery: Self-defense. Calistria doesn't limit it to this.
Revenge: Justice. Calistria doesn't do it for justice.
Prostitution: Survival. Calistria goes far beyond that.
War: Self-defense and/or justice. Gorum quite explicitly doesn't care about these things.
Calistria is a Goddess of Sex, prostitution is just one facet of that, and definitely not evil.
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It's an extremely vague obedience because as I said, there's absolutely no requirement that your wrongdoer actually have done something worthy of capital punishment. That and the fact he offers you no alternative in the case you can't find some execution fodder (virtually every other deity that needs a person other than you to complete their obedience generally has a solo alternative).
All doesn't help with the SMITE THEM ALL image Rags has garnered for himself.
Actually there is, on account of said deity asking you to do so is Lawful Good. And as I've stated before, followers with Obediances aren't addicts that freak out if there is no one to execute. If there isn't that's usually a good thing.
And what "Smite them all image" has he garnered for himself, or are just being applied to him by others? There's his writeup in Chronicles of the Righteous and his Code in Divine Anthology, I don't know if any other writeups or information for him.
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Calistra. I just do not get the point of her. At all. She's all over the place. She's the goddess of sex, but also, Elves, and also bugs, and also revenge. Because reasons. Oookay.
She's very popular with Elves, but she's not to my knowledge a Goddess of Elves. And she only likes wasps, for their ability to sting multiple times, not all bugs.
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The Bottom of the Barrel: Cayden "Pointless" Cailean. Brings nothing to the table that other deities don't with more panache, and habitual drunkenness is a Bad Thing. The only use I've found for this guy is using his cult as a hiding place for Hastur worshippers (with the rapiers and the chaos). If they owned up to the deleterious effects of his worldview and skewed him Chaotic Neutral (like Sun Wukong), I could accept him as a sometimes-jerkwad sometimes-benevolent trickster, but he's clearly meant to be the gallant "Bro" we all want to hang out with. Nope.
Silver Medal of Shame: Norgorber is also less than thrilling to me because he's... well, to an L5R fan, he's every lame stereotype of the Scorpion Clan with none of their redeeming traits. Oh, look at the secretive stock thief/assassin deity.
Third in the Herd: Torag. Lawful Good Dwarf Forge God is a Lawful Good Dwarf Forge God. Oh, and he's the father figure of his own pantheon? Almost nothing we haven't seen a thousand times before.
Dishonorable Mention By Alignment- note that I dislike the three prior deities FAR more than any listed here:
Chaotic Good: Cayden Cailean is the only CG Pathfinder deity I actively dislike, and I dislike him enough to mention him here again with emphasis.
Neutral Good: n/a. I appreciate every single Neutral Good deity.
Lawful Good: Torag's the only one I mind, really.
Chaotic Neutral: Gorum is like Khorne without the style... or the honesty.
Neutral: n/a. I like 'em all.
Lawful Neutral: n/a. I find Abadar tiresome, but it's really more of a mild dislike of his portfolio from a personal standpoint. By those standards, nearly every evil god would make the list.
Chaotic Evil: Thamir Gixx. I don't like Norgorber, why would I like the Chaotic Halfling version?
Neutral Evil: Apart from Norgorber, they all pretty much work for me.
Lawful Evil: n/a. They're all pretty good, so far as they've been detailed.
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I should have specified. The murderhobo smite em all thing is very much a player perspective. Unlike the other deities I mentioned, my beef with Ragathiel is on a more meta level. Due to things like his portfolio and obedience you see a LOT of the trigger happy paladin type nonsense I described from players and as a guy who loves playing knights in shining armor, I balk at him basically setting paladin stereotypes back 20 years.
Ah, yes, but that's very much a player problem, not a deity one.
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Calistria is a Goddess of Sex, prostitution is just one facet of that, and definitely not evil.
Prostitution is, at its heart, a service industry. A prostitute is no more inherently evil than a masseur, gardener or engineer. It is an exchange of time and services for money.
One could raise the "but sex is sacred" argument, but then that raises questions about individual freedoms, and walks a rather dangerous line. Indeed, if one is opposed to prostitution (or any other industry), one needs to focus on those creating the market (the customers), not those servicing it.
Now, if we're talking about involuntary prostitution (which should not be assumed), what you're talking about then is not prostitution persay, but slavery. And that's a different kettle of fish.
Callistria is CN not because she is affiliated with prostitution. You could easily have a LG god of prostitution if you wanted. She's CN because she espouses valuing pleasure over attachment, freedom over obligation and vengeance over mercy. She doesn't espouse taking pleasure at the cost of others (except those who wronged you) nor does she espouse imposing on the liberties of others.
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The Bottom of the Barrel: Cayden "Pointless" Cailean. Brings nothing to the table that other deities don't with more panache, and habitual drunkenness is a Bad Thing. The only use I've found for this guy is using his cult as a hiding place for Hastur worshippers (with the rapiers and the chaos). If they owned up to the deleterious effects of his worldview and skewed him Chaotic Neutral (like Sun Wukong), I could accept him as a sometimes-jerkwad sometimes-benevolent trickster, but he's clearly meant to be the gallant "Bro" we all want to hang out with. Nope.
This is hilarious to me because from the cultural perspective of an Australian, he actually embodies a lot of the positives Australian's want to see of themselves (without any of the realties of what we really are). A top bloke who knows how to have a good time and enjoy himself while looking out for his mates and being responsible while genuinely enjoying and exposing a doctrine of freedom and inclusivity. As such, I suppose I can't bring myself to see him as bad because honestly I think Australia could take a few pointers from him. XD
Hus drinking practices are also generally how people view drinking in Australia (minus thr big pissups which are just for getting rowdy on an off day)
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I think Australia could take a few pointers from him.
I pity any country that embraces getting sauced on the regular.
(I pity a lot of countries... ;) )
EDIT: More seriously, from the cultural perspective of an Alaskan, I've seen "casual" drinking kill far too many people to see that aspect of Cayden in anything but a bad light, and nothing else about him really works for me either. He feels like someone's PC jokingly tarted up as a god ("Yeah, he got blackout drunk and whammo!"), and while that may have been the point, it's not one I care for.
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I think Australia could take a few pointers from him.I pity any country that embraces getting sauced on the regular.
(I pity a lot of countries... ;) )
EDIT: More seriously, from the cultural perspective of an Alaskan, I've seen "casual" drinking kill far too many people to see that aspect of Cayden in anything but a bad light, and nothing else about him really works for me either. He feels like someone's PC jokingly tarted up as a god ("Yeah, he got blackout drunk and whammo!"), and while that may have been the point, it's not one I care for.
Nah, I totally understand where you are coming from. It's clearly something that different people see in different lights. I think all of them have a good point.
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Calistria is a Goddess of Sex, prostitution is just one facet of that, and definitely not evil.Prostitution is, at its heart, a service industry. A prostitute is no more inherently evil than a masseur, gardener or engineer. It is an exchange of time and services for money.
One could raise the "but sex is sacred" argument, but then that raises questions about individual freedoms, and walks a rather dangerous line. Indeed, if one is opposed to prostitution (or any other industry), one needs to focus on those creating the market (the customers), not those servicing it.
Now, if we're talking about involuntary prostitution (which should not be assumed), what you're talking about then is not prostitution persay, but slavery. And that's a different kettle of fish.
Well, that's the thing. I see no indication that Calistria cares about whether the prostitution is truly voluntary, involuntary, or coerced allegedly voluntary but really the perceived least of several bad choices. And that's before considering anything about what other social ills go with it other than those directly related to the trafficking of sentient beings for exploitation.
Callistria is CN not because she is affiliated with prostitution. You could easily have a LG god of prostitution if you wanted. She's CN because she espouses valuing pleasure over attachment, freedom over obligation and vengeance over mercy. She doesn't espouse taking pleasure at the cost of others (except those who wronged you) nor does she espouse imposing on the liberties of others.
Funny you should mention that. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a Lawful Good deity (I think actually Empyreal Lord) of prostitution in Golarion lore -- not my thing, but at least she explicitly works to rescue and rehabilitate people from involuntary prostitution. Unfortunately I can't remember her name (I tried searching on www.pathfinderwiki.com for Lymneris because somebody mentioned that above, but that wouldn't pull up).
By the way, I forgot to mention that Calistria also has enough of a tolerance to Evil to commission Antipaladins.
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My dislike for deities is more lukewarm than anything else.
I don't like Cayden's worshipers. He tends to be their excuse to do stupid adventurer things.
When I first read the write up for Calistria my first thoughts were "She should be evil." Trickery I can see as neutral, but the others have always been evil to me. I still think she should be on the evil side of things, but now I am used to her being where she is.
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God I hate is Asmodeus, because the rw reaction by some of the player kinda creeps me out. He's basically facism personified with a side of corporate exec who poisons your kids and then hides behind the law.
And he has people lining up to be hellknights, in game and out.
That is seriously disturbing.
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Erm, Hellknights don't give a s*$@ about Asmodeus. They hate Devils and other fiends.
Their whole philosophy is that they're a great threat because they're so organized and regimented, so we need to be as organized and well trained as they are to fight them.
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Erm, Hellknights don't give a s@!~ about Asmodeus. They hate Devils and other fiends.
Their whole philosophy is that they're a great threat because they're so organized and regimented, so we need to be as organized and well trained as they are to fight them.
Basically this.
However, Hellknights are not monolithic. For instance, you have the Order of the Godclaw, that counts Asmodeans among its ranks (Asmodeus is one of 5 Lawful deities that they worship), as do some of the other Hellknight Orders (for instance, I would be very surprised if the Order of the Chain DIDN'T have a fair number of Asmodeans, what with the common portfolios of slavery); then on the other hand you formerly had the Order of the Torrent (until they got hosed a few days before the start of Hell's Rebels) that didn't have any Evil members (that undoubtedly has a lot to do with why they got hosed).
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Erm, Hellknights don't give a s%+* about Asmodeus. They hate Devils and other fiends.
Their whole philosophy is that they're a great threat because they're so organized and regimented, so we need to be as organized and well trained as they are to fight them.
In-game you're correct, unfortunately I've seen a lot of people play all of them up as Pro-Asmodeus/Pro-Hell/Pro-Thrune.
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Calistria, as a deity of Freedom and sex (and not evil) is definitely against involuntary prostitution, and just because she allows some evils (her Antipaladin code isn't that bad, and they end up in Elysium) doesn't mean she's okay with all evils, otherwise she would be CE, not CN.
Lymnieris is the LG God of prostitution btw.
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Both are complicit to me. Ragathiel doesn't attract those players by coincidence.I should have specified. The murderhobo smite em all thing is very much a player perspective. Unlike the other deities I mentioned, my beef with Ragathiel is on a more meta level. Due to things like his portfolio and obedience you see a LOT of the trigger happy paladin type nonsense I described from players and as a guy who loves playing knights in shining armor, I balk at him basically setting paladin stereotypes back 20 years.Ah, yes, but that's very much a player problem, not a deity one.
No, but that's still not something accountable to him, no more than the Paladin class itself is from all the jerk players and jerk GMs involved with it.
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Calistria, as a deity of Freedom and sex (and not evil) is definitely against involuntary prostitution, and just because she allows some evils (her Antipaladin code isn't that bad, and they end up in Elysium) doesn't mean she's okay with all evils, otherwise she would be CE, not CN.
Lymnieris is the LG God of prostitution btw.
Okay, that explains it -- I was missing a letter and the search engine couldn't figure it out.
Also, Lymnieris lore link.
Edit: Technically, Lymnieris could have Hellknights. Disturbing thought.
In-game you're correct, unfortunately I've seen a lot of people play all of them up as Pro-Asmodeus/Pro-Hell/Pro-Thrune.Erm, Hellknights don't give a s%+* about Asmodeus. They hate Devils and other fiends.
Their whole philosophy is that they're a great threat because they're so organized and regimented, so we need to be as organized and well trained as they are to fight them.
Order of the Rack? Certainly pro-Thrune. Order of the Scourge? Not so much.
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*nods*
That doesn't stop people from playing them as cruel Devil worshipping tyrants though.
I now want to make a Helllnight Order inspired by Lymnieris that patrol Red Light Districts to keep an eye out for the workers and who also hunt down sex traffickers.
Ima gonna do it.
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^For Order of the Rack, Order of the Chain, and Order of the Godclaw, and probably Order of the Gate, playing them as cruel Devil worshiping tyrants is fairly spot on for a large fraction of the members.
For Order of the Nail, Order of the Coil, and probably Order of the Pyre, playing them as cruel tyrants is fairly spot on for a large fraction of the members.
Order of the Scourge sounds like militarized privatized cops, which could certainly be cruel.
Order of the Pike sounds like contract-bound murderhobos.
Order of the Torrent (if any are still around) and Order of the Scar sound like private security firms that are actually into doing something good.
Order of the Crux is Undead -- specifically, Graveknights that in their pre-Graveknight life were so Evil that other Hellknight Orders decided to eradicate them. Apart from tactical/strategic considerations, it almost doesn't matter whether they are Devil-worshipers.
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Meant to say "practices" instead of "promotion".
Somebody that promotes people doing those things as ends and not just means is definitely promoting Evil. Ways to do the above and NOT be Evil:
Piracy: Only if you are doing the Robin Hood thing. This is not Besmara's shtick.
Trickery: Self-defense. Calistria doesn't limit it to this.
Revenge: Justice. Calistria doesn't do it for justice.
Prostitution: Survival. Calistria goes far beyond that.
War: Self-defense and/or justice. Gorum quite explicitly doesn't care about these things.
As a general rule of thumb I don't want to argue with people about their beliefs in this thread, but I think saying that prostituting ones self out of anything other than necessity is evil is a bit 14th century.
It should be up to the individual, not just something only the destitute can turn to.Also trickery is chaotic not evil. Trickery for more than just self defense can be playful for one thing.
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Anyway back to the matter at hand, the most commonly mentioned name seems to be Iomadea who I actually forgot about in my initial post but yeah I think she is up there for me to. Trumpet them to death if they don't do as I say. Is not good, and if a Paladin did it I'm pretty sure they'd fall.
the other common name to my horror is my Lady Pharasma
almost exclusively because she is incredibly powerful, but doesn't do anything. I think what causes this problem is having a god that governs where spirits go (which gods need/want) means they have to be neutral otherwise the balance would tip and one side would win and has to be incredibly powerful, otherwise either side could just try to steal the spirits they want.
But by making her all powerful and neutral you end up with the problem people have with her, of her not doing anything. Yet equally she can't do anything as that would be favoring one side over the other and thats not neutral.
Not to mention what some people hate about her is also one of things people love most. Complete uncaring neutrality is pretty kewl and scary to some people
best put here
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.
isn't it interesting that the reason people hate her is also the reason people love her. And also the concept of a neutral over god, is problematic to so many of us. Fun stuff I think.
My favorite complaint was this one.
Pharasma Someone upthread called her a Mary Sue and I'm hesitant to use that moniker only because she never does anything, but it certainly does fit in a sense. She's so powerful and so cool and so beyond everyone but why should anyone care because she's about as exciting as a jar of dirt.
This dude clearly doesn't know how exciting a jar of dirt can be, I've heard people sing about having a Jar of dirt.
My first vote goes to Zon-Kuthon. His concept might be executed well, but I find the whole pain topic quite disturbing. I am surprised he didn't get any vote yet.
Gozreh also lacks profile - he / she is the dualistic god of nature, ok. Then there is the usual storm, rain etc.. To be fair, I find nature usually quite boring in fantasy games - if I wanted it, I'd just open the door, walk a bit and experience it in real life.
So my problem is rather with the respective topics, not so much with the actual god. Within the Core deities, I can't find a third least favorite god. A lot of them are quite stereotypical, but that makes them easier to understand for new people. The majority has some interesting facets and they cover a lot altogether - so far I never had a problem to find a deity for my PCs or even NPCs.
I hesitate between Son Kuthon and Urgathoa...
I just don't see why Pharasma, force of nature that it is, doesn't plain destroy Urgathoa over multiple violations of his domain...
I hesitate between Son Kuthon and Urgathoa...
I just don't see why Pharasma, force of nature that it is, doesn't plain destroy Urgathoa over multiple violations of his domain...
Pharasma is a she I'm pretty sure.
For why she doesn't destroy her, she is a powerful evil god destroying her would be favouring good quite heavily.
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Torag is your typical dwarf god. I think that's kind of lame so I probably hate him the most.
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Agreed. I think Gorum should be more evil for spurring conflict through refusing non-violent resolutions and accepting any attempted defense as an excuse for a fight (a cleric of Gorum would be obligated to slaughter a child defending himself in a blind panic using nothing but rusty kitchen knife).
Followers of Gorum are required to defeat their foes, not slaughter them. There is a whole aspect of his worship about letting your defeated foes live so they can come back and offer a more challenging fight.
My least favorite is Torag. I like the rest of the dwarven pantheon, but Torag seems so bland.
Let's see...
Lawful Good: Torag, I guess. Sure someone's already mentioned this but the guy's just another generic LG Dwarf creator god. Come on Paizo, you can't except us to forget that Moradin exists.
Neutral Good: Shelyn. She's actually a pretty neat goddess all things considered, but the thing that makes me choose her as my least favorite over Sarenrae is that her Paladin Code is super lame. It takes the murderhobo Paladin problem and reverse it to the extreme where apparently I have to accept the surrender of every utterly inhuman monster in Golarion, even when they're so obviously full of it. No thanks.
Chaotic Good: Findeladlara. As a non-elf I find her racism very inconvenient. Scared we humies might still steal all your fancy, pansy elf trade secrets, huh? Well don't be because you backward ass tree-huggers ain't got nothing on good human innovation. Humanity F%&# Yeah!!!
Lawful Neutral: Alesta, the magic door lady, bores me.
Neutral: And guess what?! Boring druid gods like Gozreh are boring. Surprise, surprise. Also he/she/they/it is a Deep Green hippie, which almost scares me more than Not-Pinhead.
Chaotic Neutral: Stop ripping off cool stuff Paizo! I know you played Majora's Mask and loved it like any rational person, but Groetus is too much.
Lawful Evil: The costumes that Achaekek's makes his worshipers wear are stupid and I hate them and him.
Neutral Evil: Not-Kylo Ren really needs to get over the whole dying pointlessly thing. Your life and death had no objective meaning or purpose, boohoo. Just play RPGs and distract yourself from the horrific void that is life. Works for me and all my friends.
Chaotic Evil: Dahak. Daddy issues do not impress me. Try harder, little boy.
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Pharasma is tremendously boring for the reasons cited upthread. I'm also not too happy at the incredibly evocative "god of death" narrative space being taken up by such a non-entity. Pharasma's diehard neutrality makes so much of the mythos and potential story around death in Golarion totally uninteresting.
Shelyn reads like a terrible Mary Sue with token efforts to be inclusive and socially progressive. She's perfectly beautiful, but is never vain or jealous. She encourages the appreciation of both inner and outer beauty, except she shuns those with only outer beauty, and accepts those with only inner beauty. She appreciates the effort of making art more than the result (making her the goddess of the participation award). She's not a martial goddess but she still is perfectly capable of fighting with the glaive she stole from her evil bro. No god hates her (even the evil gods are generally neutral), and most of the good deities are constantly trying to win her affection. Even her evil bro's minions are barred from harming her clerics.
I appreciate that they wanted to do something different than a standard god/goddess of love or fertility, but Shelyn's lack of any flaws or potential for drama make her ehhhh.
I love Desna for being an unconventional eldritch-ish space goddess, but the writers have just overloaded her with too much in her domains. Luck + Travel + Space + Dreams are all very disparate elements that could each have had their own fairly major goddess. With all of them on one plate I find she ends up being the patron goddess of the typical adventurer way more than, say, Cayden Cailean, who ends up being a small portion of Desna's stuff + excessive alcohol.
Sarenrae is just totally confused, being far too militant to harmonize with the redemptive and healing aspects of her supposed domains. Sarenrae doesn't seem to actively DO any healing or redemption other than what she does passively, while her followers do a whole lot of slaughtering in her name.
Most of the male deities are tremendously simplistic and boring, from make-sure-the-money-flows Abadar to generic-fighty-dwarf Torag.
The 3 I hate the most are: Calistria, Cayden, and Desna.
I hate how these deities get so many amazing feats and mechanics. Like Wasp Familiar, or Bravery in Action, and several Divine Fighting Techniques, etc etc.
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I don't hate any of pathfinder's deities.
Deity write-ups have come a long way, so I have no complaints. :-)
"while her followers do a whole lot of slaughtering in her name."
Cult of the Dawnflower is a heretical sect and definitely not the main makeup of her followers.
True. I still wish we'd get an explanation as to why she doesn't take their powers away. I mean, is she busy fighting an army of devils on some planet far, far away to be bothered with this or something?
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True. I still wish we'd get an explanation as to why she doesn't take their powers away. I mean, is she busy fighting an army of devils on some planet far, far away to be bothered with this or something?
"while her followers do a whole lot of slaughtering in her name."
Cult of the Dawnflower is a heretical sect and definitely not the main makeup of her followers.
She's just about to.
Events in Golarion only happen when you as a GM have them happen, or APs/Modules happen, otherwise everything is mostly stasis.
The Directorsaur has expressed interest in doing an AP about the schism though.
This was much harder than the other one. I don't frown upon any of Paizo's deities, because they all fit pretty comfortably into their roles.
I guess if I had to say which one I've used the least in my campaigns, it would be Gozreh. None of my players ever think to thank Gozreh for the generous weather, and they don't shed any tears when they see a burnt forest or an abandoned quarry, in fact they get rather excited and invigorated at the destruction of the natural world.
True. I still wish we'd get an explanation as to why she doesn't take their powers away. I mean, is she busy fighting an army of devils on some planet far, far away to be bothered with this or something?
"while her followers do a whole lot of slaughtering in her name."
Cult of the Dawnflower is a heretical sect and definitely not the main makeup of her followers.
She's just about to.
Events in Golarion only happen when you as a GM have them happen, or APs/Modules happen, otherwise everything is mostly stasis.
The Directorsaur has expressed interest in doing an AP about the schism though.
Oh. Well that's good to hear.
In fact, its so good I can BEARly believe it.
Thanks for the info, Rysky. :)
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Anyway back to the matter at hand, the most commonly mentioned name seems to be Iomadea who I actually forgot about in my initial post but yeah I think she is up there for me to. Trumpet them to death if they don't do as I say. Is not good, and if a Paladin did it I'm pretty sure they'd fall.
the other common name to my horror is my Lady Pharasma
almost exclusively because she is incredibly powerful, but doesn't do anything. I think what causes this problem is having a god that governs where spirits go (which gods need/want) means they have to be neutral otherwise the balance would tip and one side would win and has to be incredibly powerful, otherwise either side could just try to steal the spirits they want.But by making her all powerful and neutral you end up with the problem people have with her, of her not doing anything. Yet equally she can't do anything as that would be favoring one side over the other and thats not neutral.
Not to mention what some people hate about her is also one of things people love most. Complete uncaring neutrality is pretty kewl and scary to some people
Problem is, she comes off as just being really damn lazy rather than Neutral for any moral sake. She's explicitly stated to be the strongest deity in the game, by a wide margin.
She clearly wants to stop Groetus, because she keeps taking action against him.
Except instead of just destroying him, she feeds the souls of atheists to it, destroying them utterly for all time as a temporary measure.
Actually, yeah, f#$! Pharasma. She's way worse than Iomedae. She's as bad as most Daemons.
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True. I still wish we'd get an explanation as to why she doesn't take their powers away. I mean, is she busy fighting an army of devils on some planet far, far away to be bothered with this or something?
"while her followers do a whole lot of slaughtering in her name."
Cult of the Dawnflower is a heretical sect and definitely not the main makeup of her followers.
She's just about to.
Events in Golarion only happen when you as a GM have them happen, or APs/Modules happen, otherwise everything is mostly stasis.
The Directorsaur has expressed interest in doing an AP about the schism though.
Oh. Well that's good to hear.
In fact, its so good I can BEARly believe it.
Thanks for the info, Rysky. :)
Np.
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Cayden. I never really got the trope of alcoholic heroes, and much, much less of alcoholic gods.
Drunkeness was pretty widely abhorred in the middle ages. If they want to do a god of alcohol right, they should drop the fratboy theme, and go with a more sinister "god of regret", who soothes the sad by washing their problems away... temporarily.
Second would be Asmodeus. So overdone... no originality. Feels way too stale.
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Let's see...
Neutral: And guess what?! Boring druid gods like Gozreh are boring. Surprise, surprise. Also he/she/they/it is a Deep Green hippie, which almost scares me more than Not-Pinhead.
Druid gods can be interesting and are extremely interesting in real life (Try Odin, Brigh, most Shinto "earth/Kuni" Kami, Pele etc) but for whatever reason (that and lame domains) so there is no lack of inspiration, but I agree this guy is kinda boring.
Any reason why RPG companies can't come up with non lame nature deities?
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This was much harder than the other one. I don't frown upon any of Paizo's deities, because they all fit pretty comfortably into their roles.
I guess if I had to say which one I've used the least in my campaigns, it would be Gozreh. None of my players ever think to thank Gozreh for the generous weather, and they don't shed any tears when they see a burnt forest or an abandoned quarry, in fact they get rather excited and invigorated at the destruction of the natural world.
I have an Arial sorcerer who is getting pretty close to worshipping Gozreh as a way to further enhance her connection with the wind and rain. It just seems appropriate.
In addition, that sounds highly disturbing...who isn't a little upset by even purposefully burnt forestry? I recently went across central Tasmania, which is exceptionally forested compared to the rest of Australia, and we hit a large patch of controlled burnoff to prepare for the summer. Bushfires are a national problem. But it looked...harrowing. There is genuinely nothing all that pleasant about seeing burnt tree husks for several acres...and this is after an hour of moving through bush with trees taller than most buildings.
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This was much harder than the other one. I don't frown upon any of Paizo's deities, because they all fit pretty comfortably into their roles.
I guess if I had to say which one I've used the least in my campaigns, it would be Gozreh. None of my players ever think to thank Gozreh for the generous weather, and they don't shed any tears when they see a burnt forest or an abandoned quarry, in fact they get rather excited and invigorated at the destruction of the natural world.
I have an Arial sorcerer who is getting pretty close to worshipping Gozreh as a way to further enhance her connection with the wind and rain. It just seems appropriate.
In addition, that sounds highly disturbing...who isn't a little upset by even purposefully burnt forestry? I recently went across central Tasmania, which is exceptionally forested compared to the rest of Australia, and we hit a large patch of controlled burnoff to prepare for the summer. Bushfires are a national problem. But it looked...harrowing. There is genuinely nothing all that pleasant about seeing burnt tree husks for several acres...and this is after an hour of moving through bush with trees taller than most buildings.
Pyromaniacs love the thrill of seeing something beautiful burn into nothingness.To feel the warm grow of fiery oblivion from afar. To smell the earthy ashes that float in the air. Its just...wonderful.
Or, um, so I've heard anyway.
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The only Golarion deity I actively hate is Cayden, for the same reasons others have mentioned. The number of relatives I have who have reached the age of majority and are not alcoholics can be counted on zero hands. I get that he's supposed to be goofy and fun, which is why I never rain on the parades of people playing his worshippers, but I'd just as soon never encounter the god again.