While it would require someone with far more expertise to confirm this absolutely, I am now convinced that this set of so-called prophecies are all authored by the same hand. Some of this is due to the handwriting on the documents that have been found in more pristine condition (it is perhaps fitting that a prophecy dedicated to the death of the Lucky Drunk was found on a scrap of parchment that looked like it had been dragged through the floor of more than one tavern), but the rest I attribute both to the places in which they were discovered and, I believe, the rhythm of the writing (though I would be a bit more sure of that if I had read The Peculiarities of Prophetic Speech more closely despite what I believe to be a truly excessive number of footnotes). I am sure that Lorminos knows someone who can confirm my beliefs if needed. That is if, of course, my Lady wants a set of writings so inflammatory to be so widely seen. I am far from convinced of the truth of any of them, and a single author could point as much to a singular troublemaker wishing to create strife as someone with a sudden gift of foresight.
—Yivali, Apprentice Researcher for the Lady of Graves
The Death of Cayden Cailean
Cayden Cailean had never thought himself a liar. A storyteller, sure, in the tradition of the tavern, where convincing someone of your worth might mean a refilled tankard. Who among his fellow patrons hadn’t added enemies to boost their tale of combat or invented some new twice-trapped room deep within the dungeon of a newly fallen foe? To claim that he’d become a god was more than normal boasting, but he couldn’t quite remember what had happened with the Starstone. Maybe he had passed its test and that was what kept him alive. Maybe he’d become a god and godhood felt no different than mortal existence. Maybe he would take another round of good ale on the house (a thank you from the barkeep for the honor of his presence). Maybe as he told his tale he could almost believe it. At least until the nightly dreams began.
They started off as flashes, tiny moments in the dark of night—a clanging sword that echoed down a long and shadowed hallway, the smell of new-cut marble turned impossibly acrid, the taste of blood and honey in the space behind his tongue. And still, no matter what they were, each vision woke him shuddering—skin drenched in sweat, heart racing wildly, cold breeze crawling up his spine, a voice he’d never heard before that whispered in his eardrums—liar, drunkard, cheater, thief. One day you will pay for this with everything you owe.
Cayden Cailean would never call himself a cheater. How could he know belief alone could make a deity? But every time the story spread that he had passed the Test of Starstone, something shifted in him, brought him that much closer to true divinity. By the time he heard his story chanted like a rowdy prayer, he was every inch the god that he had claimed to be. He did his best to share the gift, empower those who followed him, pass blessings out like cups of drink to those who strived for freedom. But no good deed had earned him pity from the voice that stalked his dreams, a whisper he now recognized as that of the Starstone itself, murmuring about the flask that he kept tight against his waist—forbidden, stolen, holy power. There will be a reckoning.
The flask was Cayden’s property from long before the Starstone, but now it held a draft he’d brought back from the Cathedral—a distillation of the power held within its core. And while he still could not remember what he’d done to make or bring it back, he knew that every sip gave him a taste of the divine. His followers’ convictions may have been the thing that made him a god, but all beliefs grow worn and frayed and faded over time. No matter who believed in him, he knew one thing down to his core: the liquid in his flask was what kept his lie alive.
But every tiny sip of nectar took his dreams on twisted paths, until he dreamt of death in the Cathedral every night. And after he had died each way the Test of Starstone could devise—some with the sound of steel on bone, some with the fall of flesh to floor, some with a bargain on his tongue that faded in a gasping breath—it left him with a final and unalterable verdict: time for you to pay your debt, return to mortal life.
Cayden Cailean had never minded being mortal, but as his story shifted, he mourned his legacy. Word spread, as words are wont to do, of his deceitful rise to grace, and those who’d raised his name in praise could barely muster pity. The innkeepers and brewers he’d counted as his worshipers now barred him from their premises, afraid they would be thought of as complicit in his lie, and soon the one-time god had faded out of public life, so far removed that no one knows quite how and where he died. Some say it happened in an alley, slumped over in the pouring rain, while others claim he died in battle fighting for a righteous cause, or braved the Starstone once again in one last fatal try.
Iomedae and Norgorber, as fellow gods Ascended, both moved to quell the rumors that they had also cheated to obtain divinity—Iomedae appearing on the front lines with her champions in tireless demonstrations of her prowess on the battlefield and Norgorber eliminating each one of his followers who dared to voice dissent or wonder who he used to be. But neither sees the true change that still lurks along the margins, as one after another shop begins to claim that, for a cost, you too can be transformed from mortal life to deity. If all it takes is stories and a liquor no one understands (as noted in a few reports of Cayden’s sad demise), then nothing stops a hundred shops from selling sugar water and a complement of town criers to those who feel that being god is next on their agenda—a warlord here, a despot there, the righteous and the vengeful—and what new revolution might they bring if they do rise?
A god created from belief alone? That is both deeply intriguing and somewhat baffling, as this is the first report I’ve read of such an occurrence. Surely if this were truly possible, I’d have encountered it before in my studies. This will require more research, though with what time I will pursue it I know not. It does make me wonder how many believers one might have to acquire to cross the boundary from mortal to god, and whether belief was nearly as important in this case as the Starstone nectar mentioned above. I have no doubt that if someone were able to distill a liquor from a source of pure divine power, it would be Cayden Cailean, but for those of us not blessed with that specific set of skills, I am struck by the idea that you could solve for number of believers and gain divinity simply by exceeding that threshold. Equations are not my strong suit, but I may see if I can find a collaborator and determine what that number might be. Though it might be difficult to do without revealing where the idea has come from. Perhaps it would be better to wait until I have all the prophecies properly analyzed and know what my Lady wishes to do with them before I begin making them a basis for a new research field, but it is hard not to get excited!
About the Author
Erin Roberts has been thrilled to be able to contribute a few small threads to the fabric of Golarion in the pages of books like Lost Omens Firebrands, Lost Omens Highhelm, and Lost Omens Travel Guide. In addition to her work for Paizo, she freelances across the TTRPG world (and was selected as a Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program Winner in 2023), has had fiction published in magazines including Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Dark, and talks about writing every week on the Writing Excuses podcast. Catch up with her latest at linktr.ee/erinroberts.
