The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Osirion

I also would have expected more Lawful-ness, but that would make for a pretty lopsided and one-note pantheon (everyone but maybe Set and Isis, the biggest breakers of Ma'at, and, naturally, Apep, being Lawful).

Ha. Isis, inventor of necromancy, is NG. :)

A possible patron for white necromancers?

Especially white necromancers with the Gravebound archetype...

Sissyl: There are surprises here too. I noticed immediatly that Sobek wasnt Evil. That surprised me as Crocodiles traditionally in Egyptian culture were feared because they prowled the Thebes looking to 'kill' those who got too close. Thus their connotation as 'evil' and thus I would assume Sobek would be. I think its an interesting (and welcome) development that he is not. The same goes with keeping Apep and Set separate. They are two deities which were always quite similar and i always viewed Set more as LE than NE. The fact that Set is not a god of foreigners in Golarion but more the god of Storms and Deserts (as well as Darkness) is very interesting.

All in all I love it.

Again, Sobek was never seen as truly Evil in ancient Egypt, not as we understand the concept of Evil anyway. Sobek was necessary evil, which technically makes him "not evil". CN is a perfect fit. Sobek was super violent and fairly unpredictable but not malicious. In fact, he was seen as a protector deity - his violent outbursts would ward off evil spirits. As for his association with crocodiles: there is a huge difference between killing (all carnivorous animals kill as part of the cycle of life) and purposeful or systematic killing with malicious intent (which would be Evil).

As for Set, he's a tricky one since there are so many interpretations. Some of those interpretations do tend to mix him up with Apep (which I don't agree with and it gives Set a worse reputation then he deserves). Depending on which version of the Egyptian pantheon you use and which myth cycles you keep and which ones you ignore, Set could be NE, LE, LN, N, or CN. The thing is Egyptian mythology underwent many story changes and myth cycle revisions throughout the religion's 3000 year history. So it's all a matter of which snapshot of time you go with (Early Dynastic, Late Kingdom, etc.) or which myth cycle you choose (Ogdoad, Ennead, etc.).

If I understand this properly, deities are universal (what with mentions of faiths "in the Material Plane, just not widely on Golarion"), but just end up getting praised by different names in different languages. They can also share duties and portfolio overlaps.

While Pharasma is the main goddess of death on Golarion, she can also get assisted in the afterlife bureaucracy by Anubis, Osiris, and perhaps even Hades (Pluto)?

Also, if there were any Osiriani goblins, they'd probably add the ibis to their list of hated animals.

If I understand this properly, deities are universal (what with mentions of faiths "in the Material Plane, just not widely on Golarion"), but just end up getting praised by different names in different languages. They can also share duties and portfolio overlaps.

While Pharasma is the main goddess of death on Golarion, she can also get assisted in the afterlife bureaucracy by Anubis, Osiris, and perhaps even Hades (Pluto)?

Also, if there were any Osiriani goblins, they'd probably add the ibis to their list of hated animals.

The Ibis, what a dirty, dirty bird.

There's no goblins in Osirion? Who do the Pahmet take their hatred out on if there's no ready supply of gobs nearby?

Should we expect some Stargate jokes/references?

Shisumo wrote:

Why does Sobek have the Scalykind domain? Are we going to see a crocodilian subdomain, by any chance?

There already is one. It's a druid domain in the religions book from about 4 months ago.

That's a full domain, not a subdomain; Sobek would be a really good fit for it, of course, but he doesn't have it. Instead he has Scalykind, which is snakes. (And Wadjet, for some reason, doesn't have Scalykind...) Scalykind would make sense with a Crocodilian subdomain to go along with the Dragon and Dinosaur subdomains already out there, but so far it's a no-show...

I'm a little surprised that Nephthys made the list. I know she is one of the big ones, but it seems too close to Nethys*

I assume is it just a coincidence from the fact that Nethys' name was originally made up to sound kind of Egyptian, but it would be kind of neat if there were some kind of in-world reason.

*YMMV based on pronunciation. I say it with the ph as f, so Nephthys and Nethys wind up sounding really similar

Well, Nethys actually was Osiriani before his ascension, so...

I do like the fact that just because Paizo is borrowing the names /deities from reality that isnt a direct snatch and grab.

Brb, making a female gray-skinned orange-horned tiefling cleric of Bastet with a white lion animal companion through the Animal domain.

So, will these gods be in the Inner Sea Gods hardcover?

I'm guessing probably not, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Love that Bastet is going to be in Pathfinder now. I've always been a big Sharess fan (Sharess is Bastet in Forgotten Realms) and Calistria never quite did it for me as a replacement. I see Bastet is Chaotic Neutral though, so mixed feelings about that.

Why do I feel the need to create a Sobek cult consisting fully of Kobolds? I mean, fertility and military prowess are right up their alley and I could easily see them identifying themselves with crocodiles instead of dragons. In that comparison they'd probably view themselves as two different ends of the spectrum: Crocodiles are big and strong but stupid and they are smart but physically unimposing. Oh, and they are both ambush predators.
The only thing that doesn't fit is Sobek as CN while Kobolds tend to be Lawful. Not that big a deal though.

Whoo!! :DD

I can't wait for the deity articles and more artwork on these folks :)

I'm also excited to see how the duality between Hathor and Sekhmet is handled :DD

For Anubis and Osiris is their favoured weapon a light flail or a heavy flail?

I think that's more of a matter of having an issue with well-known gods or "pop-culture" gods being in the setting. The Egyptian gods are hardly even close to the first mythological deities to be incorporated into the setting.

And I don't think it's fair to hold different deities to double standards, unless you're also not a fan of any of the following: off the top of my head Golarion is already familiar with Asmodeus, Ahriman, Lamashtu, Sun Wukong (plus several other Asian deities that are identical to their Earthen counterparts and only have slight spelling variations to their names), and I won't even begin to list the fiendish Demigods hanging about.

Plus, even if the Egyptian deities were the only Earth gods with a connection to Golarion that would be fine too. There's no rule saying that if Ra decides he wants to be worshiped on multiple worlds then Zeus, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, and Shiva have to play follow-the-leader. It has nothing to do with the Egyptian pantheon being special, they just happen to be interested in another planet. Maybe some of the other Earth pantheons are as well or maybe they aren't. I don't think it's a matter of something metaphysical stopping other pantheons from interplanetary worship, but rather a simple matter of inclination.

The difference is that entities like Ahriman, Asmodeus, Lamashtu, and all the others or most of them anyhow have been drastically altered from what people thought of them in the past. They are close to being completely things with the same name slapped on, and are at best very broad strokes versions of histories depiction of them, if even that. Beyond that there is no effort to even pretend they are the same thing. They are also done on an individual bases. That's very different than wholesale bringing in an entire real world pantheon from ancient mythology in a setting like Golarion that already has intricate and carefully created gods of it's own and trying to portray them more closely to how those entities were viewed in the real world past.

I made a hero lab file with this information in

catdragon wrote:

Seems like there ought be more evil gods...

But that is probably just my opinion.

Trinite wrote:

Interesting choice to make Ra LN instead of LG. What was the thought behind that choice, may I ask?

The Block Knight is pretty much spot-on with the choices behind the deities and their alignments, domains, and so forth. I go into more detail about the design challenges of this pantheon in the foreword to Pathfinder #80, but beyond the things The Block Knight mentioned, I also had to make sure the Ancient Osirian deities also fit in with the core 20 Golarion deities. For example, what do you do with Anubis when Pharasma is already the goddess of death, or Ra when you have Sarenrae as the sun goddess? Not to mention the fact that the Ancient Egyptians had way more than 20 gods, and that many of them changed over time (or even absorbed other gods who had previously been distinct entities).

In the end, I had to make the choices that felt right and did what we needed to do within the setting, and when dealing with actual historical entities, there's no way that everyone will be happy with every choice made. But I did my best, and I'm looking forward to people's comments when they get the chance to read the full article!

Thanks, Rob! That does make sense.

For Anubis and Osiris is their favoured weapon a light flail or a heavy flail?

It's flail in the Core Rulebook, or light flail in Ultimate Equipment. They're the same weapon.

So, will these gods be in the Inner Sea Gods hardcover?

I'm guessing probably not, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Love that Bastet is going to be in Pathfinder now. I've always been a big Sharess fan (Sharess is Bastet in Forgotten Realms) and Calistria never quite did it for me as a replacement. I see Bastet is Chaotic Neutral though, so mixed feelings about that.

They will not. They're physically located there, yes, but they're not temporally located there. Their worship is largely out of fashion and not really a part of day-to-day life in the Inner Sea anymore.

Also... there was no room in the book for one more pantheon.

Also... we did this article after Inner Sea Gods was off to the printer.

catdragon wrote:

Seems like there ought be more evil gods...

But that is probably just my opinion.

Trinite wrote:

Interesting choice to make Ra LN instead of LG. What was the thought behind that choice, may I ask?

The Block Knight is pretty much spot-on with the choices behind the deities and their alignments, domains, and so forth. I go into more detail about the design challenges of this pantheon in the foreword to Pathfinder #80, but beyond the things The Block Knight mentioned, I also had to make sure the Ancient Osirian deities also fit in with the core 20 Golarion deities. For example, what do you do with Anubis when Pharasma is already the goddess of death, or Ra when you have Sarenrae as the sun goddess? Not to mention the fact that the Ancient Egyptians had way more than 20 gods, and that many of them changed over time (or even absorbed other gods who had previously been distinct entities).

In the end, I had to make the choices that felt right and did what we needed to do within the setting, and when dealing with actual historical entities, there's no way that everyone will be happy with every choice made. But I did my best, and I'm looking forward to people's comments when they get the chance to read the full article!

I look forward to reading that forward. When I first joined PFS a number of years ago, I was immediately drawn to the Osirion culture because it so closely paralleled what I enjoyed of ancient Egyptian culture. I do like what has been done for the Old Gods Pantheon, but must profess two disappointments.

The first is Horus. He was the god of retribution and vengeance, but I see he is once again designed more or less as "Ra's Heir". Since Ra was designed into this Pantheon, I am having trouble understanding why Horus was changed to be Ra's twin.

The second is Maat's weapon. I was looking forward to seeing more traditional Egyptian/Osirian weapons for this group an seeing the Varisian Star Knife for yet another deity is a bit of a let down to me.

I am very pleased to see a variety of the lesser known deities included, Selket aka Sekher, has always been an interesting study for me.

As already mentioned multiple times, this particular pantheon is difficult to nail down simply because it did change so often, each Dynasty, and even each region, had their own take on the mythos. So please feel free to take my observations with a grain of salt, after all I am a bit biased... :)

With that said, thank you everyone a Paizo for the wonderful work and I look forward to this Adventure Path.

Corrected a typo in the title and the image credits

Did the people of Osirion originate on Earth (as Baba Yaga did), or do they merely worship the same gods as the ancient Egyptians? (Also wondering, if Osirion is named after Osiris, is he the head of the pantheon?)

How does the addition of these gods affect the standard golarion cosmology? Each of the Ancient Osirions get their own fiefdom on the appropriate outer plane or what?

Infinite universes tend to have extra space just laying around.

Infinite universes tend to have extra space just laying around.

True, but that infinity has, so far, been divided up in a specific way. I realize that squeezing new stuff in is done easily enough, but a new official pantheon needs to fit in the established cosmology somehow, or that cosmology needs to be scrapped, or at least tweaked to account for the new arrivals. The only unassigned "empty space", cosmologically speaking, might be the space beyond the Abyss in the outer sphere....and that doesn't quite fit. So......which sub-infinities are the new gods going to be officially assigned to? Outer planes are now double-booked? A new outer plane (or several) just for them? Or they just live out in the Osirion desert somewhere?

Adam Daigle wrote:

Infinite universes tend to have extra space just laying around.

True, but that infinity has, so far, been divided up in a specific way. I realize that squeezing new stuff in is done easily enough, but a new official pantheon needs to fit in the established cosmology somehow, or that cosmology needs to be scrapped, or at least tweaked to account for the new arrivals. The only unassigned "empty space", cosmologically speaking, might be the space beyond the Abyss in the outer sphere....and that doesn't quite fit. So......which sub-infinities are the new gods going to be officially assigned to? Outer planes are now double-booked? A new outer plane (or several) just for them? Or they just live out in the Osirion desert somewhere?

There assigned to the outer planes that match there Alignment(Anubis's realm is on Axis and Osiris's realm is on Heaven and Hathor's realm is on Elysium)

Guang wrote:

Adam Daigle wrote:

Infinite universes tend to have extra space just laying around.

True, but that infinity has, so far, been divided up in a specific way. I realize that squeezing new stuff in is done easily enough, but a new official pantheon needs to fit in the established cosmology somehow, or that cosmology needs to be scrapped, or at least tweaked to account for the new arrivals. The only unassigned "empty space", cosmologically speaking, might be the space beyond the Abyss in the outer sphere....and that doesn't quite fit. So......which sub-infinities are the new gods going to be officially assigned to? Outer planes are now double-booked? A new outer plane (or several) just for them? Or they just live out in the Osirion desert somewhere?

There assigned to the outer planes that match there Alignment(Anubis's realm is on Axis and Osiris's realm is on Heaven and Hathor's realm is on Elysium)

Mostly.

There are some very strange arrangements even among the Big 20. Calistria and Gorum are decidedly NOT Good, yet both of their realms are in Elysium while NE Norgorber's realm is underneath LN Axis, and is rumored to even be a part of how that city works.

Perhaps the Old Gods of Osirion have interconnected realms spanning multiple planes? Or all on one plane? Or perhaps they're broken into smaller sets with connective links between them, like a spiritual Nile or a realm of Duat connecting the Boneyard to the realms of the gods.

We may find out more next month. :)

Cosmologies—which are infinite—are too big to really fully “get” as far as mortal minds go.

I mean, look at our real world universe, rather what we know of it now. Look at how many billions of billions of galaxies, each having billions of stars and worlds... and that’s just what we have been able to see.

That’s just the Material Plane, which is surrounded by equally infinite Elemental Planes, which is surrounded by also infinite Ethereal and Astral.

Beyond that is another spread of infinities—the Outer Planes.

Most of these other planes are even bigger than the Material Plane, so omnipotent beings and their outsider minions have plenty of space to hang out.

And now I want my 20 MAJOR gods of every other cultural Pantheon out there in Golarion.

The next one should be the Azlanti pantheon of course.

Sun, Glory and LN ?

You guys do realize that you just made a Cleric of Ra the best Versatile Channeler ever, right ?

Mostly.

There are some very strange arrangements even among the Big 20. Calistria and Gorum are decidedly NOT Good, yet both of their realms are in Elysium while NE Norgorber's realm is underneath LN Axis, and is rumored to even be a part of how that city works.

"Well, we tried to build in the Maelstrom, but we gave up after the third time our foundations spontaneously transformed into chickens that got eaten by the wolves that appeared out of the walls..."

Mikaze wrote:

Mostly.

There are some very strange arrangements even among the Big 20. Calistria and Gorum are decidedly NOT Good, yet both of their realms are in Elysium while NE Norgorber's realm is underneath LN Axis, and is rumored to even be a part of how that city works.

"Well, we tried to build in the Maelstrom, but we gave up after the third time our foundations spontaneously transformed into chickens that got eaten by the wolves that appeared out of the walls..."

We built the first sanctum, and that dissolved into the maelstrom.

Mikaze wrote:

Mostly.

There are some very strange arrangements even among the Big 20. Calistria and Gorum are decidedly NOT Good, yet both of their realms are in Elysium while NE Norgorber's realm is underneath LN Axis, and is rumored to even be a part of how that city works.

"Well, we tried to build in the Maelstrom, but we gave up after the third time our foundations spontaneously transformed into chickens that got eaten by the wolves that appeared out of the walls..."

Apologies, you all look like Lego bricks to us.

The Golux wrote:

Mikaze wrote:

Mostly.

There are some very strange arrangements even among the Big 20. Calistria and Gorum are decidedly NOT Good, yet both of their realms are in Elysium while NE Norgorber's realm is underneath LN Axis, and is rumored to even be a part of how that city works.

"Well, we tried to build in the Maelstrom, but we gave up after the third time our foundations spontaneously transformed into chickens that got eaten by the wolves that appeared out of the walls..."

Apologies, you all look like Lego bricks to us.

Guess they weren't "The Special".

It brings up an interesting Conundrum though. I am going to pick out Ra here. While not identical to Sarenrae (who is not lawful but does share the Sun in her portfolio) would it be safe to assume that with the Kelish invasion of Osirion that RA's fath was more or less absorbed into Sarenraes or something similar? While most of these gods would probably only have a few dozen worshipers by todays in game date, it would be interesting to see what the Qadiran Invasion and domination of Osirion culture would of done to the religons of the time in Osirion.

I guess in a way it does link in to what it also did to the image of Sarenrae to the locals. Whilst no doubt a lot of Osirions did embrace the faith of Sarenrae, it is also likely that followers of RA might of been persecuted by particuarly devout followers of Sarenrae (nicely of course :) ) or what might also be likely, that RA was claimed to simply be a follower God of Sarenrae or a local variation of the God (ie the same god just different names)

The other interesting thing of note is that the Egyptian practice of the merger of gods ie Horus-Re etc has not happened here.

what might also be likely, that RA was claimed to simply be a follower God of Sarenrae or a local variation of the God (ie the same god just different names)

So sort of like what happened to some pagan faiths under Christianity.

Sun, Glory and LN ?

You guys do realize that you just made a Cleric of Ra the best Versatile Channeler ever, right ?

Possibly not:

Note: This feat only applies to necromancers, neutral clerics who worship neutral deities, or neutral clerics who do not worship a deity—characters who have the channel energy class ability and have to make a choice to channel positive or negative energy at 1st level. Clerics whose alignment or deity makes this choice for them cannot select this feat.

Makes a shadow puppet doggie with one hand
This is Anubis, the egyptian god of death
Makes a shadow puppet doggie with the other hand
This is skippy the wonder dog, can YOU tell the difference?

My girlfriend and I would LOVE it if you made these PFS-legal. Pretty please? :)

Apologies, you all look like Lego bricks to us.

Tasty, tasty Lego bricks...

Cosmologies—which are infinite—are too big to really fully “get” as far as mortal minds go.

I mean, look at our real world universe, rather what we know of it now. Look at how many billions of billions of galaxies, each having billions of stars and worlds... and that’s just what we have been able to see.

That’s just the Material Plane, which is surrounded by equally infinite Elemental Planes, which is surrounded by also infinite Ethereal and Astral.

Beyond that is another spread of infinities—the Outer Planes.

Most of these other planes are even bigger than the Material Plane, so omnipotent beings and their outsider minions have plenty of space to hang out.

This.

The Maelstrom is as far as anyone can tell, infinite, and new planes have solidified out of its chaos as time has gone on. There's plenty of real estate to go around even just on the non-infinite but mind-bogglingly large other planes of the outer sphere, even before you get into the Maelstrom and Abyss.

Plus since gods aren't restricted to dwelling within a plane that strictly matches their alignment, it's actually more open to expansion IMO to some other cosmologies.

I wonder if Geb didn't make the list because of his name...

Don't forget Nyarlathotep in his form as The Black Pharaoh!

Yeahhhhhhhh

The black raven wrote:

Sun, Glory and LN ?

You guys do realize that you just made a Cleric of Ra the best Versatile Channeler ever, right ?

Possibly not:

Versatile Channeler wrote:

Note: This feat only applies to necromancers, neutral clerics who worship neutral deities, or neutral clerics who do not worship a deity—characters who have the channel energy class ability and have to make a choice to channel positive or negative energy at 1st level. Clerics whose alignment or deity makes this choice for them cannot select this feat.

It's possible Ra does not allow the channeling of negative energy.

Interesting take on the feat's wording.

I always read it as meaning those cases when the deity's alignment makes the choice for the Cleric.

Ra's writeup should clarify this. As is, there is no such restriction and a LN/TN Cleric of Ra fulfills all the conditions of the feat.

Barring specific mentions to the contrary, I think the second sentence in the note is simply clarifying the first sentence. Certain neutrally aligned D&D 3.5 deities had notes specifying the turn/rebuke undead choices of their neutral clerics, but to date I have never seen any such information specified for any Pathfinder/Golarion deity.

Are there any good resources online for learning more about Set's complexity/evolution as a deity?

what can people tell me about the differences between Ra and Horus? Thinking about making a paladin worshiping one of the two. need to know who im thinking on.

-Thanks

edit: Also, i like these gods being in pathfinder. After all, if earth is in the same reality, why wouldn't these gods be worshiped in two mirrored nations?

Ambrosia: I used to have a good list of these but sadly its long gone

I normally use this site http://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/set.html

the Britannica online is also good.

Schiffer: in 'standard' mythology , Horus was said to be the son of Osiris. He got into a fight with Set over the killing of his father in which he inflicted a nasty injury on set (as set did to him)

He was also known as the protector of the Pharaohs.

In many versions he is actually combined with Ra, so Horus-Ra.

so if my paladin was "blood of the pharaohs" Horus would be a good fit?