So is this Cult of Devourer for real "nihilistic"?


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Referring to this for those who didn't notice:

"Hopping from planet to planet in both the civilized Pact Worlds and the uncharted worlds beyond, the heroes must contend with both the undead Corpse Fleet and the nihilistic Cult of the Devourer, each of which seeks to acquire the alien artifact for its own purposes."

So while that doesn't say much, from track record Paizo uses nihilistic as shorthand for CE leaning "Raw we want to kill everything" factions so this seems like Starfinder is going to do same thing.(at least it sounds like faction is trying to find alien artifact to destroy stuff) Which of course triggers my berserk button pet peevee thing which causes massive philosophical ranting tendencies in me. So here is me venting out, light heartedly(seriously people, don't please get angry at my ranting :'( I'm just really excited about philosophy in general, it was my favourite subject in high school) and stuff about what I think counts as nihilism, I doubt anyone cares about my inane meaningless opinions, but hey it makes me feel better when I don't keep them inside my head.

Speaking of philosophical ranting tendencies, I started writing an explanation of what intristic values and such mean, but I figured out nobody wants to hear that anyway(and if they did they would google. I don't mind explaining if someone is too lazy to google though and asks anyway) so just moving to my point: So like, I have no problem with nihilistic villains, pop culture seems to consider all philosophers to be evil anyway, but "Raw destroy everything because life is meaningless!" isn't nihilistic by definition. Like, trash has no value in general, right? When people generally see trash on street, they don't go "Raw must destroy all trash", they ignore the trash because they are too lazy to pick it up and clean environment.(unless to them, they have their own reason why consider a trash valuable. Like collecting bottlecaps because they like doing so. Which doesn't go agaisnt nihilist's beliefs) If villain believes life has no value, that doesn't logically lead to thinking life is worth destroying, they are more apathetic about life than aggressive towards it, so that villain would end up killing people in their way, but their motivation wouldn't be built around killing people.

So like, here is my example of two bad guys, one of them is nihilistic and one is not, its rather easy to guess which is which considering what I've been ranting around here:

Let's say that both villains live in world which is really complex life mimicking simulation made by some sort of ascended beings(so matrix). Villain A upon finding out that life is "fake" and not "real" freaks out, goes mad and founds a cult which's purpose is to destroy this "fake" reality which in progress would kill everyone in the "fake" reality. Villain B upon finding out shrugs as real or not real, they are crimeboss with money to make. They find "fake" reality enough real to them anyway.

Villain B is obviously the nihilistic one as they don't consider "true" reality being anymore worth than the simulated one, it doesn't affect their fake money in fake reality where they use it to gain fake benefits. Unless they can use it to their benefit somehow, they don't really care. Villain A in meanwhile considers fake reality to be worthless because it isn't real, they consider status of reality to be important enough to change their actions and goals.

(Nihilism is in general really weird concept in setting where there is actually intristic value in existence. Assuming Starfinder still has alignment, good & evil are metaphysical concepts that do exists, good things are good because they are aligned with good, evil actions are evil even if intention is good. So Nihilist would either refuse to believe that alignments exists, or take similar position to atheists in settings were gods exists and believe that good nor evil is inherently superior/better to each other.)

Soo bringing it back to Starfinder, are Cult of Devourer going to be just like Rovagug cultists and believe that life sucks so hard it needs to die(meaning they aren't actually nihilistic) or are they actually going to have philosophy guiding them that is truly nihilistic? Nihilism is in general really hard to imagine in extreme aligned characters who have lofty goals, nihilism is easier with characters whose goal is just benefits to themselves, like comfortable life, money, hedonistic pleasures, etc. Like I have much easier time imagine megacorp CEO who does any vile thing to gain money being nihilistic than doomsday cult leader since doomsday cult leader usually in fiction believe life being inherently bad thing that needs to be destroyed.

...Welp that was tiring me out. But yeah, I doubt anyone agrees with that since nobody cares about philosophy on Internet, but I wanted to get that rant out since I'm sad it keeps being used wrongly xD Nihilism can be used for really horrifying and alien way of thinking quite effectively, devolving it to "life sucks, must kill life" is ignoring its complexity and potential in writing villains...


Dude, breathe.

Silver Crusade

*offers hugs*

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thecursor wrote:
Dude, breathe.

Hey, I can talk really fast and still breathe in real life, my normal speaking speed is fast and I don't feel sick for it- okay actually I need to take a breath :'D

Rysky wrote:
*offers hugs*

Uh, thanks for hugs, but I don't think pet peevees are hugs serious even if I get worked up on them? :'D Maybe? Well anyway, thank you


Hmm. I've always associated Pathfinder's take on "nihilism" with the NE daemons, but I'm not sure that really is all that wholly different from your fundamental point.

Also...hugs. ;-)


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CorvusMask wrote:

Referring to this for those who didn't notice:

"Hopping from planet to planet in both the civilized Pact Worlds and the uncharted worlds beyond, the heroes must contend with both the undead Corpse Fleet and the nihilistic Cult of the Devourer, each of which seeks to acquire the alien artifact for its own purposes."

So while that doesn't say much, from track record Paizo uses nihilistic as shorthand for CE leaning "Raw we want to kill everything" factions so this seems like Starfinder is going to do same thing.(at least it sounds like faction is trying to find alien artifact to destroy stuff) Which of course triggers my berserk button pet peevee thing which causes massive philosophical ranting tendencies in me. So here is me venting out, light heartedly(seriously people, don't please get angry at my ranting :'( I'm just really excited about philosophy in general, it was my favourite subject in high school) and stuff about what I think counts as nihilism, I doubt anyone cares about my inane meaningless opinions, but hey it makes me feel better when I don't keep them inside my head.

Speaking of philosophical ranting tendencies, I started writing an explanation of what intristic values and such mean, but I figured out nobody wants to hear that anyway(and if they did they would google. I don't mind explaining if someone is too lazy to google though and asks anyway) so just moving to my point: So like, I have no problem with nihilistic villains, pop culture seems to consider all philosophers to be evil anyway, but "Raw destroy everything because life is meaningless!" isn't nihilistic by definition. Like, trash has no value in general, right? When people generally see trash on street, they don't go "Raw must destroy all trash", they ignore the trash because they are too lazy to pick it up and clean environment.(unless to them, they have their own reason why consider a trash valuable. Like collecting bottlecaps because they like doing so. Which doesn't go agaisnt nihilist's beliefs) If villain believes life...

Well it would help, when Paizo describe a cult as being nihilistic, that they go a bit further into detail about said cult. Is it their actions that are nihilistic? their philosophy? or is it as you elude to just a shorthand for a certain alignment.

I mean, form you musings, I would presume that the Cult of the Devourer is suppose to be composed of cultists, who have broken under the implications of Existential Nihilism. If there is no intrinsic meaning or value to life, then it would be very easy to just lash out at you surroundings in frustration, at you own powerlessness. Which would be behavior very fitting to a bunch of CE lunatics.
Not that in any way is actually the focus of Existential Nihilism. Most philosophers in this field tend to focus on either how to live, despite the lack of intrinsic values or on how to create new values to live for.

By the way, sorry if my writing/spelling/grammar/sentence structure isn`t very clear. English isn`t my first language and when I`m thinking philosophically I tend to revert to my native language.


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I don't think nihilism and an urge to destroy everything are mutually exclusive. Or actually I do, but consider: in general I agree with your assessment that most nihilists aren't actively genocidal, or even bad people - there's a decent article on TV Tropes about a sort of character called a straw nihilist. In short, so-called nihilists who use their own misunderstood philosophy as a reason to be bastards. But of course, having a reason for doing anything at all is counter to nihilism.

Yet therein lies the rub. A true, perfect nihilist has no reason. No reason to think, to feel, to live. They would waste away and perish without lifting a finger to prevent it. Absolute nihilism is impossible short of immediate suicide. Thus, it becomes a matter of degrees.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I know someone very well. He leans nihilistic because he thinks that nothing in the world has any inherent meaning, there is no afterlife, and every action is simultaneously predestined and irrelevant. At the same time, he would sure like to see the extinction of humanity in his lifetime. If he could bring about that extinction himself, he would do so without a second thought. Is he a true nihilist? No, because he is appalled by the vagaries of life and would like to see it all snuffed out. These beliefs preclude absolute nihilism. But damned if he doesn't lean heavily towards it on a sliding scale.


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I was going to argue with you about nihilism, but what's the point?


I thought NE was the alignment of destructive nihilism in Pathfinder (e.g. daemons).


Steve Geddes wrote:
I was going to argue with you about nihilism, but what's the point?

Spoken like a true Last Man

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Just to note, yeah Daemons are referred as nihilistic, but so are the orcs and Rovagug's CE cult. I wouldn't be surprised if Cult of the Devourer is new replacement for Rovagug's cult.

Generic Villain wrote:

I don't think nihilism and an urge to destroy everything are mutually exclusive. Or actually I do, but consider: in general I agree with your assessment that most nihilists aren't actively genocidal, or even bad people - there's a decent article on TV Tropes about a sort of character called a straw nihilist. In short, so-called nihilists who use their own misunderstood philosophy as a reason to be bastards. But of course, having a reason for doing anything at all is counter to nihilism.

Yet therein lies the rub. A true, perfect nihilist has no reason. No reason to think, to feel, to live. They would waste away and perish without lifting a finger to prevent it. Absolute nihilism is impossible short of immediate suicide. Thus, it becomes a matter of degrees.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I know someone very well. He leans nihilistic because he thinks that nothing in the world has any inherent meaning, there is no afterlife, and every action is simultaneously predestined and irrelevant. At the same time, he would sure like to see the extinction of humanity in his lifetime. If he could bring about that extinction himself, he would do so without a second thought. Is he a true nihilist? No, because he is appalled by the vagaries of life and would like to see it all snuffed out. These beliefs preclude absolute nihilism. But damned if he doesn't lean heavily towards it on a sliding scale.

I actually agree with that, its not in human nature to be perfectly anything, including perfectly nihilistic, humans aren't that simple. Nihilists do have their own values for things, they just reason it differently. So like, instead of life being good because it just is good, they have their own reasoning why they want life. Nihilist Outsider though, that would be something that could perfectly personify the philosophy and result in something utterly bizarre.

And yeah, its not impossible to do actually nihilistic genocidal villain either, my problem is that Paizo keeps using nihilism as sort hand for those genocidal villains so it will eventually dilute meaning of the word in public consciousness :/ We are just supposed to know right away from "nihilistic Cult of Devourer" what the cult is like while nihilism can mean a lot of things... And I've never really seen good or neutral aligned nihilist in Paizo's material or any other interpretation than ones wanting a doomsday scenario.


I tend to think that when nihilism is used in this kind of context, it refers to the Russian nihilists where were known for violence, rather than the more philosophical approaches.


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CorvusMask wrote:


I actually agree with that, its not in human nature to be perfectly anything, including perfectly nihilistic, humans aren't that simple. Nihilists do have their own values for things, they just reason it differently. So like, instead of life being good because it just is good, they have their own reasoning why they want life. Nihilist Outsider though, that would be something that could perfectly personify the philosophy and result in something utterly bizarre.

And yeah, its not impossible to do actually nihilistic genocidal villain either, my problem is that Paizo keeps using nihilism as sort hand for those genocidal villains so it will eventually dilute meaning of the word in public consciousness :/ We are just supposed to know right away from "nihilistic Cult of Devourer" what the cult is like while nihilism can mean a lot of things... And I've never really seen good or neutral aligned nihilist in Paizo's material or any other interpretation than ones wanting a doomsday scenario.

Yeah, picturing an outsider that personified nihilism would be odd. Scratch that; it would be unfathomable, at least to humans. I agree that Paizo (along with many video games, books, movies, other media etc.) does like to use nihilism as a shorthand for "evil and genocidal," but it really is an effective - if not accurate - way of saying this character cares about no life, his own included, in a single adjective. Misuses adjective? Yes, but there aren't too many words with the gravitas of nihilism.

I think the CN god-thing Groetus is a decent portrayal of a non-evil nihilistic being, and he can indeed have CG followers. His intention isn't to destroy creation out of spite. Actually, his intentions are utterly unknown and incomprehensible. But he's not the "I'll kick a puppy because I'm such an awesome nihilist" sort.

Without going too far down the philosophical rabbit hole, I think nihilism is one of the weirder and more ephemeral concepts humans have come up with. Like infinity, or zero. We can kind of sort of grasp them, but in the end our minds just aren't wired to grasp them.


Does it count as nihilistic if Groetus has figured out that the universe came from a Big Bang and could be "reset"? Maybe all Groetus wants is to be able to turn the universe off, and turn it back on again, like the Architect from The Matrix.

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