Evil Worshipers of Good and Neutral Gods?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


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Hey everyone! I've been doing some digging and haven't found quite what I'm looking for, so I'm hoping maybe you guys have some references that I can use.

TL;DR: Got any examples of bad guys from the good and neutral aligned deities that I can use for a campaign?

After playing in pathfinder society for a few years (As the designated GM of my play groups, it's the only time I get to play) and I've fallen in love with the history and stories of Golarian. In particular, I've fallen in love with Rahadoum. A society of dark humored, snarky atheists who reject the divine right of the gods is super fun to read about (Such as in "Death's Heretic" or "The Redemption Engine") and fun to play as a character for (I have a society pure legion enforcer).

Now, as you may or may not know from the lore, Rahadoum has it's "Laws of Man" and bans religion within it's borders because of the "Oath Wars" where a Good god (Sarenre) a Neutral god (Nethys) and a Evil god (Norgorber) have a devastating three way war that wrecks the region, convincing the Rahadoumi people that, no matter what the alignment or creed, gods just aren't worth the trouble.

I was curious however if anyone has other examples from the lore of good and neutral gods who have either cults or entire branches of adherents who have been known to do great evil or cause trouble. I'm planning on running a campaign taking place in Rahadoum, and I want all my characters who pick a god to have to deal with the fact that at some point trying to claim "My god is Good/Neutral!" is not gonna fly with the Rahadoumi, and I figure any examples of negative followers would be greatly pushed as propaganda on the part of the Pure Legion.


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Sarenrae is unfortunately the queen of this. Many of her followers in Qadria and Osirion are dissident. Just look at the Cult of the Dawnflower.

Nethys (as noted), is right behind her in this regard, as his philosophy is essentially Do Magic, Make Money (so you can do more magic). No moral restrictions at all.

Vildeis and Ragathiel are both pretty extreme, and could easily be considered troublesome and problematic. I'm sure many of the CG deities, particularly those that oppose slavery, could be considered extremely troublesome as well.

Dark Archive

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The forums themselves can be mined for stuff.

Torag can be associated with dwarven supremacy / genocide of traditional dwarven enemies, even if that's not what his creed actually states.

Iomedae has associations with the Burners in Mendev, sketchy racist crusaders who persecute and oppress and exploit the locals and Sarkorian refugees under the pretense that they are untrustworthy or demon-cultists or whatever.

Erastil's 'stay home and raise kids' tenets, applied to *both* genders can be twisted to support a more misogynistic stance.

Calistria and Gorum are super-easy to paint as supporters of vindictive misandry or bloodthirsty warmongers.

Gozreh could be tied to the Eye of Abendago, which is a powerful symbol of the savagery of nature.

If you want, you can easily come up with crazy interpretations of various faiths, and suggest that Shelyn's church celebrates physical beauty as being virtuous over any sort of moral worth, and may even have some sinister agenda of 'beautifying' the areas around Sheylnite churches by arranging for accidents to happen to 'ugly' buildings (forcing them to be renovated) or to 'ugly' *people* (driving them out of the area, so that they don't 'bring down' the surroundings).

(I picked Shelyn for that example since she's close to the last god I could come up with an 'evil' interpretation for.)


Dot-3

Liberty's Edge

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Shelyn, you mean the sister of Zon Kuthon who took his weapon from him instead of killing him right away ?

Countless innocent mortals have paid a terrible price for this divine "mercy"


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You could have worshipers of Cayden Cailean take his idea of personal freedom warped into a desire to see all governments abolished (for violating freedoms), which then warps into a desire for anarchy, which THEN turns into a desire to "watch the world burn".

Crazy people can justify anything, roll with it and have FUN!


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I rather expect a lot of evil worshippers of good gods are more aspirational. It would be so nice to be more like their god, but there are just so many things that have to be dealt with every stupid day. "You see, no matter how you want to deny it, you need people like me, who see things clearly and are willing to do the hard things........."


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I would imagine that most evil "worshipers" of good gods are merely paying lip service to put on a good show to others.

Those that tell themselves that they're being sincere in their worship are probably deluding themselves and are actually motivated by selfish reasons.

(e.g. An evil opera singer prays devotions to Shelyn asking for a successful performance, but has no compunction against spreading horrible false rumors about her rival after the show.)

A famous example of an evil worshiper of a good god.

Shadow Lodge

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You could have someone who makes a big show of prayer to one religion, while actually being a part of another. Most adherents to Ghalunder pretend to be Desnans, either to avoid suspicion or to just make Desnans look bad. Norgorberites who just paint one half of their masks white and claim to be Nethysists?

"I worship the moon!"

"Oh, Tsukiyo?"

"Actually, Groteus."

Then, for example, you could have a CE Razmirite, claiming to worship a LG god who's actually both LE and a false god.

While I do like the idea of Evil people joining Good religions because they're redemption seekers, you could just as easily have, say, a LE Abadarite claim to be LG and that wealth is a function of moral worth, not, say, inheritance or embezzling, so his great wealth totally proves how good he is, and how all poor people must be lazy thieves or something. LG Abadarites would probably see right through that, though.


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The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

You could have someone who makes a big show of prayer to one religion, while actually being a part of another. Most adherents to Ghalunder pretend to be Desnans, either to avoid suspicion or to just make Desnans look bad. Norgorberites who just paint one half of their masks white and claim to be Nethysists?

"I worship the moon!"

"Oh, Tsukiyo?"

"Actually, Groteus."

Then, for example, you could have a CE Razmirite, claiming to worship a LG god who's actually both LE and a false god.

While I do like the idea of Evil people joining Good religions because they're redemption seekers, you could just as easily have, say, a LE Abadarite claim to be LG and that wealth is a function of moral worth, not, say, inheritance or embezzling, so his great wealth totally proves how good he is, and how all poor people must be lazy thieves or something. LG Abadarites would probably see right through that, though.

Actually wealth being a sign of Abadar's favor is expressly part of the religion. Abadar does not promote direct charity as he feels it weakens the community. Lawful Evil is perfectly Inkeeping with a lot of the church's tenets. This thread does touch on one thing I seriously dislike, The Thousand Flavors of Divinity. Anything but a perfect match is wrong to a lot of people. Anything but a perfect match must be a sham. Pity that.


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Daw wrote:
The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

You could have someone who makes a big show of prayer to one religion, while actually being a part of another. Most adherents to Ghalunder pretend to be Desnans, either to avoid suspicion or to just make Desnans look bad. Norgorberites who just paint one half of their masks white and claim to be Nethysists?

"I worship the moon!"

"Oh, Tsukiyo?"

"Actually, Groteus."

Then, for example, you could have a CE Razmirite, claiming to worship a LG god who's actually both LE and a false god.

While I do like the idea of Evil people joining Good religions because they're redemption seekers, you could just as easily have, say, a LE Abadarite claim to be LG and that wealth is a function of moral worth, not, say, inheritance or embezzling, so his great wealth totally proves how good he is, and how all poor people must be lazy thieves or something. LG Abadarites would probably see right through that, though.

Actually wealth being a sign of Abadar's favor is expressly part of the religion. Abadar does not promote direct charity as he feels it weakens the community. Lawful Evil is perfectly Inkeeping with a lot of the church's tenets. This thread does touch on one thing I seriously dislike, The Thousand Flavors of Divinity. Anything but a perfect match is wrong to a lot of people. Anything but a perfect match must be a sham. Pity that.

The main point of divergence would be the actively stomping on the little guy, I imagine.


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Set wrote:

If you want, you can easily come up with crazy interpretations of various faiths, and suggest that Shelyn's church celebrates physical beauty as being virtuous over any sort of moral worth, and may even have some sinister agenda of 'beautifying' the areas around Sheylnite churches by arranging for accidents to happen to 'ugly' buildings (forcing them to be renovated) or to 'ugly' *people* (driving them out of the area, so that they don't 'bring down' the surroundings).

(I picked Shelyn for that example since she's close to the last god I could come up with an 'evil' interpretation for.)

I mean, that's not even "twisting" her teachings, that's outright ignoring them, because a big tenet of Shelynite belief is that beauty is more than appearance and that a beautiful soul is something far more wonderful than a beautiful face.

Silver Crusade

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A couple of the above examples have actually been used in published adventures. Groetus is a CN god whose worshipers are the primary villains in a series of Pathfinder Society adventures. And Ghaulander worshipers pretending to be Desna worshipers is from a module.

Also, there's a cult of Norgerber who pretend to be Pharasma worshipers, I believe in Ulstalav, but I could be remembering wrong.

And I never understood why the goddess of piracy (Besmara) is CN. How can she have any good worshipers? It would make more sense for her to be CE, as I'm sure half her worshipers are. My own CN cleric of Besmara in PFS is actually from Rahadoom. Becoming a cleric was his way of rebelling against his homeland, but he went for the goddess of freedom on the sea when he sailed away from home and became a pirate. He's all about freedom and greed, and hates his overly restrictive homeland.


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Fromper wrote:
And I never understood why the goddess of piracy (Besmara) is CN. How can she have any good worshipers?

She's a fairly easy patron for any navel-based adventuring party (just as Gorum's an easy patron for any land-bound mercenary crew).

If you pledge herself to her and pay her due, then she's got your back; she doesn't really give a damn what you're doing otherwise.

And like Gorum, I can easily see groups of her worshipers fighting each other, and her backing both for the hell of it.

And perhaps that's the easiest way to think of it - Besmara is aquatic Gorum.


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Another thing for Besmara: Obviously, we want to be able to include the main pirate alignments, CN and CE. If we go with just these, Besmara ca n be either of these two, but no other alignments.

However, Besmara is also the parton of various other terrors of the shipping lanes, many of which are true neutral owing to their animal intelligence.

CN is the only alignment that allows CN, N, and CE worshippers.


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You could have evil NPCs make small donations to buy off the negative attention of good deities, just like good/neutral may do the same with small donations. (See the main character in the Hell's Rebels AP's fiction line, a cleric, make a small donation to Asmodeus, essentially as a token of respect and it being what's done in Cheliax.


...I feel like this implies "accepting bribes to overlook wrongdoing" is something a lot of good deities would actually be willing to accept, though. XD Probably wouldn't go for that in my own games, though I can understand some other GM's running with it.

Bribing evil deities seems more plausible.


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Fromper wrote:
And I never understood why the goddess of piracy (Besmara) is CN. How can she have any good worshipers? It would make more sense for her to be CE, as I'm sure half her worshipers are. My own CN cleric of Besmara in PFS is actually from Rahadoom. Becoming a cleric was his way of rebelling against his homeland, but he went for the goddess of freedom on the sea when he sailed away from home and became a pirate. He's all about freedom and greed, and hates his overly restrictive homeland.

Deities do not possess alignments solely to define who can worship them. Yes, for our purposes during character creation, that's a big factor if one wants to make a Cleric or the like, but that's secondary.

You seem to be looking at it flipped the wrong way around. The deity's team jersey determines what kinds of Clerics they can get, rather than the Clerics determining the deity's team jersey.

GM Rednal wrote:

...I feel like this implies "accepting bribes to overlook wrongdoing" is something a lot of good deities would actually be willing to accept, though. XD Probably wouldn't go for that in my own games, though I can understand some other GM's running with it.

Bribing evil deities seems more plausible.

Why not? It makes a certain amount of sense in the grand scheme of flawed, pseudo-Greco-Roman-personified deities, and someone who is doing that sort of thing has to maintain the ability to be part of society.

Donating some gold to Asmodeus isn't going to cover up having broken into one of his temples, killed the priests, used their bodies to defile the place, cleaned it up, had Good Clerics go around casting Hallow and Consecrate everywhere, destroyed the statuary, used the ritual implements to do good and nice things and then melted them down to sell them off, etc. So too, trying to destroy Iomedae's big ol' Cathedral in Mendev's capital isn't going to be covered up by donating to her.

Still, they're not going to sweat the small stuff when they've got bigger fish to fry.

Evil is definitely more likely to actively want and solicit bribes or threaten bad juju if bribes aren't given. I don't recall any of the Golarion deities doing that, though, at least not offhand.

I can think of two deities that demand that kind of thing in Forgotten Realms, possibly three. So it's definitely a concept that exists in the general treatment of such deities in the type of game we're talking here.


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Well, the most bribe-able is probably Moloch. XD Book of the Damned Vol. 1 describes him as being generally mercenary and willing to provide - always for a price, of course, but there's an extremely good chance of getting a response if you ask for one.


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Propitiatory sacrifices (Bribes) are a thing for Gozreh by sailors. Besmara gets a little of the sailor action as well. Non-worshippers propitiate Desna for safe travels, Abadar for good deals, Pharasma for safe births and the list goes ever on and on.

If you want all the gods bound to perfectly matched up worshippers that's your choice, but it seems awfully contrived, and dull, to me. Maybe only one facet of the god speaks to you, and the rest is an awful mismatch, but that might have to be enough for you.

Liberty's Edge

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The Order of the Godclaw is full of Lawful Evil Hellknights who count Iomedae and Torag as two of the five deities they venerate.


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PrinceRaven wrote:
The Order of the Godclaw is full of Lawful Evil Hellknights who count Iomedae and Torag as two of the five deities they venerate.

This is true, though it's a mistake to say that, in-canon, the Order of the Godclaw is LE, or even that Hellknights are LE.

Canonically, Hellknights are strictly lawful, and that's all - LN is the order of the day, and the majority of all members' alignments is LN. LE most certainly outnumbers LG, but LG is still a present and valid alignment for Hellknights, as a general rule.

Godclaw, in specific, seems more than likely to have a hefty number of LN worshipers of the LG gods. In fact, the lictor is lawful neutral, and one of their noted armigers is a LG paladin.

(This makes its destruction at the hands of the Glorious Reclamation especially tragic and ill-advised.)

But yes, such a place may well be one (and seems more likely than many others) that holds LE worshipers of good deities, and LG worshipers of evil deities.


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Part of the reason for Besmara's alignment might be because she doesn't really care about your reasons for piracy, in much the same way that Gorum doesn't care about your reasons for fighting. Ryu from Street Fighter would work fine as a worshiper of Gorum because he loves fighting even though he's a nice, genial guy who protects the weak, for example. And in that same vein a CG privateer working for Andoran to capture Chelish slave ships to free their human "cargo" in return for bounties from the government is perfectly in line with Besmara's doctrine.


Gorum is another one that seems misplaced as "Chaotic Neutral". I think that this and other similar examples stem from an ongoing confusion between Chaos and Evil that has been around since AD&D 1st Edition (really, since Basic/Expert/etc. D&D, although in some versions of that they didn't even try to define Good-Evil as a separate axis from Law-Chaos).


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UnArcaneElection wrote:

Gorum is another one that seems misplaced as "Chaotic Neutral". I think that this and other similar examples stem from an ongoing confusion between Chaos and Evil that has been around since AD&D 1st Edition (really, since Basic/Expert/etc. D&D, although in some versions of that they didn't even try to define Good-Evil as a separate axis from Law-Chaos).

Not really. All Gorum wants is for people to fight. He doesn't care why they do it, just that they do. Gorum is called a god of war, and while he does like himself some war, he's more properly called a god of battle and martial prowess in general. He has no interest in questions of morality and really no interest in anything that doesn't relate to battle and martial glory, which is not an inherently Good or Evil thing in a universe that has an objective standard for these things and has judged that violence is not an inherently Evil act (which is good, because if it was then basically every Pathfinder campaign ever is an evil campaign).

If you look at Gorum's doctrine, he himself doesn't specifically advocate killing your foes; after all, he doesn't really care about the results of a battle, just that it happens. He certainly doesn't advocate attacking noncombatants, and in fact tends to take a dim view of it (though the moment that dumb, brave farmboy picks up his dead father's sword and waves it around at you he's stopped being a noncombatant in Gorum's mind). If Gorum is evil because battles tend to cause a lot of pain and suffering, then Gozreh's evil too, because the winds and the waves can cause all kinds of suffering without any actual malice on Gozreh's part.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Evil worshipers of good deities?

Pretty easy stuff.

A Sczarni who kisses his symbol of Desna for luck before heading out for another night of murder and thievery.

An Iomedaean zealot setting fire to some poor tiefling midwife because he believes she's a demon-spawned witch.

A hedonist who's super into the idea of Arshea's worship for the wrong reasons.

A follower of Kurgess who really does think winning is everything.

A devoted believer in Milani whose revolution grows ever-bloodier, whose tactics to overthrow the corrupt become every bit as vile as what they oppose.

The neutral ones are even easier- after all, they allow evil Clerics, meaning that evil actions don't even result in a loss of spellcasting ability for actual priests, never mind laymen.

A Pharasmin Inquisitor who doesn't care who he has to hurt to wipe out the undead in the region.

Besmara really should be evil, honestly, but even allowing that she apparently isn't, the majority of pirates are murderous scuzzbuckets of the first order.

A Gorumite concerned with bloodshed and victory above all else

An Iroran monk so consumed with perfecting her personal enlightenment that she kills anyone who cannot answer her riddles.


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Leingod wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

Gorum is another one that seems misplaced as "Chaotic Neutral". I think that this and other similar examples stem from an ongoing confusion between Chaos and Evil that has been around since AD&D 1st Edition (really, since Basic/Expert/etc. D&D, although in some versions of that they didn't even try to define Good-Evil as a separate axis from Law-Chaos).

Not really. All Gorum wants is for people to fight. He doesn't care why they do it, just that they do. Gorum is called a god of war, and while he does like himself some war, he's more properly called a god of battle and martial prowess in general. He has no interest in questions of morality and really no interest in anything that doesn't relate to battle and martial glory, which is not an inherently Good or Evil thing in a universe that has an objective standard for these things and has judged that violence is not an inherently Evil act (which is good, because if it was then basically every Pathfinder campaign ever is an evil campaign).

{. . .}

Not all violence is evil, but senseless violence is evil.

Cole Deschain wrote:

{. . .}

A follower of Kurgess who really does think winning is everything.
{. . .}

Shouldn't that be a follower of Kurgess who thinks that winning is the only thing?


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UnArcaneElection wrote:
Leingod wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

Gorum is another one that seems misplaced as "Chaotic Neutral". I think that this and other similar examples stem from an ongoing confusion between Chaos and Evil that has been around since AD&D 1st Edition (really, since Basic/Expert/etc. D&D, although in some versions of that they didn't even try to define Good-Evil as a separate axis from Law-Chaos).

Not really. All Gorum wants is for people to fight. He doesn't care why they do it, just that they do. Gorum is called a god of war, and while he does like himself some war, he's more properly called a god of battle and martial prowess in general. He has no interest in questions of morality and really no interest in anything that doesn't relate to battle and martial glory, which is not an inherently Good or Evil thing in a universe that has an objective standard for these things and has judged that violence is not an inherently Evil act (which is good, because if it was then basically every Pathfinder campaign ever is an evil campaign).

{. . .}
Not all violence is evil, but senseless violence is evil.

Yeah, but Gorum doesn't specifically hold up senseless violence as the ideal, which is why he's a CN god instead of a CE one (I'm pretty sure there's at least one demon lord or infernal duke with "senseless violence" as a specific part of his purview). You can fight for senseless reasons, you can fight for practical reasons, or malevolent ones, or completely altruistic ones, and Gorum's cool with you either way, because it's all fighting to him. If you're a boisterous CG cleric or warpriest who prays to Gorum for strength and strong opponents, Gorum's just as eager to give you his divine power as he would anyone else who shared the thirst for glorious combat; no demon lord would do that.


Gorum's lack of distinction between purposes for violence essentially defaults him to supporting senseless violence.

I would say something similar for Besmara.

If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Deadpool achieving divinity.

(*)Or if you define alignment half steps like D&D/Planescape cosmology, which Pathfinder currently doesn't do, Chaotic Neutral (Evil).


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UnArcaneElection wrote:

Gorum's lack of distinction between purposes for violence essentially defaults him to supporting senseless violence.

I would say something similar for Besmara.

If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Deadpool achieving divinity.

(*)Or if you define alignment half steps like D&D/Planescape cosmology, which Pathfinder currently doesn't do, Chaotic Neutral (Evil).

If that's your criteria, then Gozreh's evil too.

Dark Archive

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UnArcaneElection wrote:
If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Deadpool achieving divinity.

Per the rules, as an Assassin, he must be evil. Funny and popular, but still evil, like the Joker or Harley Quinn.

Then again, he killed Phil Coulson, who I can't stand, so he can't be all bad... :)


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Set wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:
If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Deadpool achieving divinity.

Per the rules, as an Assassin, he must be evil. Funny and popular, but still evil, like the Joker or Harley Quinn.

Then again, he killed Phil Coulson, who I can't stand, so he can't be all bad... :)

Well, just because works as an assassin doesn't mean he's got levels in the assassin PrC; given his skill set he's more like a ninja, anyway.


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Also:

Assassin, Requirements Section wrote:

{. . .}

Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to become an assassin.

We haven't seen any evidence that Deadpool has done that (or for that matter, killed somebody solely to make a profit), so he couldn't qualify for the Assassin prestige class anyway.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

Also:

Assassin, Requirements Section wrote:

{. . .}

Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to become an assassin.
We haven't seen any evidence that Deadpool has done that (or for that matter, killed somebody solely to make a profit), so he couldn't qualify for the Assassin prestige class anyway.

Well, I'd guess you're talking about the film I've not seen.

The comics, though...

Dark Archive

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Anywho, the assassin class reference was a joke, as is, quite often, the character of Deadpool. Alignment discussions regarding super-heroes/villains/professional killers never seem to go well. :)

A more interesting side-topic spurred by the discussion earlier would be how about those *good* worshippers of neutral (or even evil) gods?

Good worshippers of Gozreh or Irori have their work cut out for them, good worshippers (and clerics!) of Calistria and Gorum, even more so, and then there's those people who live in Cheliax or Nidal, immersed in the faiths of Asmodeus or Zon-Kuthon, who are rowing against the tide and have good hearts. I could pretty easily see a good follower of Gozreh or Irori, but Calistria and Gorum (and Besmara, the non-evil Great Old Ones, etc.) seem harder to justify without making the follower crazy or naïve or a bit of both.

And then the (non-clerics, anyway) who live in Nidal, and aren't evil, but actually kind of nice and kind-hearted and all that, but still go to church on Sunday and watch people torture each other, because it's the thing to do if you don't want to be involuntarily offered up as this week's object lesson? Ditto Cheliax and the faith of Asmodeus. It's obviously not possible to be a cleric of Asmodeus and be good (or chaotic), but can one of the lay followers be good, and still pay lip service to the Prince of Lies?

The real world is chock full of people who follow the faith of their parents, and square the circle by kind of ignoring any tenets of their faith that they personally don't agree with (cafeteria Catholics, as one particular group are called), despite us having hundreds of different faiths to choose from. Golarion seems little different, in that respect, with hundreds of different faiths to choose from, and yet entire regions having some faiths more prominent than others, despite the local culture not necessarily all following the alignment of their regional god. (Qadira, for instance, with Sarenrae nearly as dominant as Asmodeus is in Cheliax, and yet doesn't scream 'NG' nation.)


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^No superheroes? Okay . . . If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Bugs Bunny achieving divinity.

(*)Or if you define alignment half steps like D&D/Planescape cosmology, which Pathfinder currently doesn't do, Chaotic Neutral (Evil). Although you can make a good case that Bugs Bunny started out at Chaotic Neutral (Evil), and slowly migrated away from Evil, although never becoming fully Good.


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Bugs is Lawful Good.
Daffy Duck, on the other hand, is Chaotic Neutral.


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UnArcaneElection wrote:

Gorum's lack of distinction between purposes for violence essentially defaults him to supporting senseless violence.

I would say something similar for Besmara.

If you want to show me a true Chaotic Neutral (as opposed to Chaotic Evil(*)) deity, show me something like Deadpool achieving divinity.

(*)Or if you define alignment half steps like D&D/Planescape cosmology, which Pathfinder currently doesn't do, Chaotic Neutral (Evil).

This attitude is why morally neutral people in Pathfinder/D&D settings are justified in killing off do-gooding busybodies every now and then. You're going to spit me out because I'm lukewarm? I'm going to set you on fire because you won't leave me alone.

There's a middle ground between violence to hurt people for your own gratification and using violence to protect others or yourself. Besmara and Gorum enjoy some conflict, but don't demand that it be deliberately cruel or selflessly helpful. If you try to force the issue from either side they'll happily stomp you for preference.


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^Gorum doesn't just enjoy some conflict -- he wants conflict to occur as much as possible -- that's his shtick. Similarly, Besmara promotes piracy regardless of the cost to others, although at least she has her sea monsters to keep her busy some of the time.


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It's probably worth noting that Gorum got changed a little between his original god article/Gods & Magic write-up and his final article in Inner Sea Gods.

IIRC, in his original write-up, Gorum was absolutely fine with slaughtering civilians - anyone who couldn't defend themselves deserved what they got.

In Inner Sea Gods, that's changed to Gorum viewing the slaughter of civilians with disdain - the work of criminals, not warriors.

(I.e., if group of Gorum worshipers came across a field hospital, they'd probably leave the sick, injured, and medical staff alone. They might be jack-asses and help themselves to the supplies before moving on, but they wouldn't murder people. On the other hand, worshipers of Szuriel, Moloch, Kotschtchie, or Nurgal would just kill or enslave everyone there.)

Weirdly enough, Gorum probably would hate the trench warfare of WWI - where battle was just an endless mire where you waited for your turn to die.

Gorum wants battles to happen, but he also wants them to be won. A conflict that descends into endless slaughter with no prospect for victory will not bring glory, and Gorum loves glory so much he frikkin' grants it as a domain.

Being a good-aligned follower of Gorum doesn't strike me as terribly hard for an adventurer - it just means you're constantly seeking a fresh battle against evil (though non-evil threats like dangerous beasts will do in a pinch), and have little interest in the pursuit of a civilian life style.

"I want to fight the bad guys" is pretty much all the justification you need.


I could have sworn the disdain quote was along the lines of "those who don't even offer a fight are barely worth a disdainful beheading" or something along those lines. I personally don't have ISG but I recall that being how Gorum's battlefield doctrine was described to me along with anecdotes along the lines of a kid cowering behind a table with a notched kitchen knife is all Gorum needs to declare you combatant and worth a greatsword to the giblets. Maybe that was the old version, but if it isn't that puts Gorum pretty firmly into CE on account of being Khorne without a skull throne.

Shadow Lodge

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Cole Deschain wrote:


Besmara really should be evil, honestly, but even allowing that she apparently isn't, the majority of pirates are murderous scuzzbuckets of the first order.

I would look at Black Sails. It is very much a Law vs Chaos type show with many of the characters qualifying as Good or becoming Good (and other becoming less good). But Captain Flint, Billy, Miranda definitely qualify for good. Madi is good throughout and Silver arguably becomes good.

Watch Firefly, and you can easily picture "good" Pirates existing, in that verse. It's a show about mostly CG smugglers after all.

You can see the Rebels in the Star Wars Universe engaging in piracy for the greater good from time to time.


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Leingod wrote:
If that's your criteria, then Gozreh's evil too.

Please elaborate as to what you mean and why you think that whatever Gozreh is doing that would qualify isn't evil.


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Gozreh isn't evil. She may be outright hostile, or at least appear so to the clueless who damage nature or make no attempt to adapt to or deal with the environment.

Silver Crusade

Zhangar wrote:

It's probably worth noting that Gorum got changed a little between his original god article/Gods & Magic write-up and his final article in Inner Sea Gods.

IIRC, in his original write-up, Gorum was absolutely fine with slaughtering civilians - anyone who couldn't defend themselves deserved what they got.

In Inner Sea Gods, that's changed to Gorum viewing the slaughter of civilians with disdain - the work of criminals, not warriors.

(I.e., if group of Gorum worshipers came across a field hospital, they'd probably leave the sick, injured, and medical staff alone. They might be jack-asses and help themselves to the supplies before moving on, but they wouldn't murder people. On the other hand, worshipers of Szuriel, Moloch, Kotschtchie, or Nurgal would just kill or enslave everyone there.)

Weirdly enough, Gorum probably would hate the trench warfare of WWI - where battle was just an endless mire where you waited for your turn to die.

Gorum wants battles to happen, but he also wants them to be won. A conflict that descends into endless slaughter with no prospect for victory will not bring glory, and Gorum loves glory so much he frikkin' grants it as a domain.

Being a good-aligned follower of Gorum doesn't strike me as terribly hard for an adventurer - it just means you're constantly seeking a fresh battle against evil (though non-evil threats like dangerous beasts will do in a pinch), and have little interest in the pursuit of a civilian life style.

"I want to fight the bad guys" is pretty much all the justification you need.

Yeah, I've always thought of Gorum as the Klingon of the Golarion pantheon, but with slightly less emphasis on honor. He reminds me of Kor, the original Klingon, who was disappointed that the war he wanted against Kirk and the Federation didn't happen, because "It would have been glorious."


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kerney wrote:
I would look at Black Sails.

Serious statement: I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Quote:
Watch Firefly, and you can easily picture "good" Pirates existing, in that verse. It's a show about mostly CG smugglers after all.

Smugglers do not seek out victims to violently rob. Pirates do. Mal and company DO engage in clear-cut theft for hire twice- once in "The Train Job" where they almost immediately regret it and try to make good. Then, when they rob a hospital, the script bends over backwards to point out that the resources they're taking will be replaced almost immediately because it turns out that ripping off medical supplies is inherently shady enough to require an immediate justification.

Moreover... I don't see Mal and company worshipping someone like Besmara when you've got Milani or Desna on hand.

Quote:
You can see the Rebels in the Star Wars Universe engaging in piracy for the greater good from time to time.

Piracy that is exclusively against Imperial interests- and I have yet to see anyone whip up an Imperial Freighter that isn't armed to the teeth and escorted by military vessels- is an outlier. Hence my original statement where the overwhelming majority of pirates are evil murderous scumbags.

It's also, even in your example, a "time to time," activity "for the greater good," making it a necessary evil at best.


Cole Deschain wrote:
Kerney wrote:
I would look at Black Sails.

Serious statement: I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Quote:
Watch Firefly, and you can easily picture "good" Pirates existing, in that verse. It's a show about mostly CG smugglers after all.
Smugglers do not seek out victims to violently rob. Pirates do.

This isn't true at all. Robbers are just seeking people to take their stuff, if the current owners don't object there is no violence. It's they who strike at the peaceable pirates simply seeking to board their ship and remove their cargo. It's no wonder they have to use violence to protect themselves from people who place their possessions above the pirate's lives.

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