The Godsrain Prophecies Part Seven

For what it's worth, I never really saw gluttony as being purely about food. There's nothing wrong with enjoying food. It's about excess and hedonism at the expense of others' basic needs. Urgathoa is absolutely a goddess of hedonism. The Dead don't need to eat, they just like to--and they sure don't need to eat people. And I'm positive there's other forms of selfish hedonism in her repertoire.

I think you could really get into the weeds in some fun ways if you took those considerations even further. Like, what is "need," exactly, in this context? While the undead don't really eat or drink to survive, we know from a couple of examples, chiefly vampires and ghouls, that going without for long enough can erode their sanity and turn them into feral monsters. The zombie archetype from Book of the Dead pretty explicitly spells out that consuming the brains of living creatures helps you retain your own memories and thoughts for longer, as well, and keeps you from becoming a shambling sack of meat and bone.

Something fun for a more scholarly necromancer character to muse about, for sure.

Bear in mind, Pathfinder in particular owes a lot of its DNA to 3rd edition D&D... which had a "core" pantheon of (IMO, insanely boring and forgettable) Greyhawk deities... but never used the words "Greyhawk" or "Oerth" anywhere in the text.

Vecna is an amazing god, actually. Probably my favorite D&D God in the strictest terms about what a god is. St. Cuthbert demanding good so much he's neutral about it makes him a great antagonist (for the time and place I was, at least) Pholtus also makes clear that Greyhawk good does not equal our good. Wee Jas is one of the better death gods in D&D and has some fantastic imagery. Corellon Larethian is the biggest example of "your good is not our good." He/She was abusive of Lolth and her followers, has next to no regrets about it, but is still CG.

Eldritch Yodel wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

man wouldn't we all look so stupid if it's abadar

I mean, I personally find Abadar very interesting and my #5 favourite core deity, so my reasons on why he's probably ok is more because he's the in-universe explication why money and calendars (which might have different names for months & year 0's, but apart from that are entirely the same) are standardized throughout the entire world.

The War of Immortals clearly starts due to someone messing up a measurement conversion.

Okay, this was a joke, but it got me thinking.

Earlier I called Desna one of Lost Omens's most thematically important gods. That's in part because Pathfinder is, appropriately, all about journeys and exploration. The oceans are vast and bottomless. The River Kingdoms are wild and dangerous. The Mwangi Expanse and Varisia are as much defined by the space between settlements as the settlements themselves.

With all that being said, the world is being stubbornly, painstakingly mapped out. Every detail of the physical world has been fastidiously written and catalogued, and as time goes on, more and more uncertainty is devoured by the encroaching inevitability of the sourcebook. When I tried to figure out how long a journey from Sandpoint to Kyonin would take, I had to get out a map and a calculator.

But we've seen divergences from this. More and more books have been themed with biased or unreliable narrators, framed almost more like stories than anything else.

If we accept the idea that Desna's nature lies at the heart of Pathfinder's theming, one could argue that Abadar is the flip side of that--after all, after you find those paths, surely someone's got to map them. What is the point of new frontiers if you cannot fence them in? One could also argue that Abadar is Pathfinder's antithesis. If Abadar ever truly gets his way, there will be no more wilderness, no more uncharted territory. The Pathfinders become almost obsolete, and explorations become nearly entirely urban--even rural exploration is along maintained roads. And Abadar looked upon his domain and wept, for there were no paths left to find.

But what if Abadar dies?

Measurements fail. Maps are discovered to be inaccurate. Cities are found in the midst of territory thought to be charted. The strength of empires grows brittle, and roads declared safe become hazardous. In some ways, it is a blessing for travelers and adventurers. In others, it is a curse. Paradoxically, the death of the god of civilization also leads to greater struggles for the world's nomadic peoples, as journeys become perilous endeavors. Of course, many of them had already learned not to count on help from states, and the Bellflower Network blossoms into a force Cheliax has no chance to outmaneuver. Debts are misplaced, property law weakens, economies collapse.

And then the wars begin. With the uncertainty of maps comes vagueness of borders. Nex and Geb are brought back into conflict for the first time in millennia. Cheliax and Andoran find that they have both laid claim to the same town. Brevoy's tense sort of peace shatters, and the River Kingdoms expand.

All the while, shards of Abadar's divinity rain down from the sky to shatter the very order he fought to impose. Warmongers are empowered. The Two Headed Eagle is no more, and with him gone, perhaps the key he forged for Asmodeus has formed a flaw. Perhaps the Rough Beast senses that one of its jailers is no more, and it, too, might join the fray.

...

Yeah, probably not. I have no idea why this would lead to all those lesser deities dying, unless the war gets especially out of hand. Still, it's fun to think about.

Cole Deschain wrote:

Bear in mind, Pathfinder in particular owes a lot of its DNA to 3rd edition D&D... which had a "core" pantheon of (IMO, insanely boring and forgettable) Greyhawk deities... but never used the words "Greyhawk" or "Oerth" anywhere in the text.

Vecna is an amazing god, actually. Probably my favorite D&D God in the strictest terms about what a god is. St. Cuthbert demanding good so much he's neutral about it makes him a great antagonist (for the time and place I was, at least) Pholtus also makes clear that Greyhawk good does not equal our good. Wee Jas is one of the better death gods in D&D and has some fantastic imagery. Corellon Larethian is the biggest example of "your good is not our good." He/She was abusive of Lolth and her followers, has next to no regrets about it, but is still CG.

He's maybe one of the most Greek gods in a pantheon of very Greek gods. Most of the gods of Greyhawk aren't especially reasonable people. Garl Glittergold started a holy war because he was too curious to not drop a mountain on Kurtlemak's head.

I don't know if this is actually canon, but one thing I'd heard was that Abadar was the Watsonian explanation for item pricing being consistent across regions so that GMs don't have to worry about that math, or currency exchange, or any of that. He/his institutions prevent price gouging in most areas, and that sort of thing. If that is in the actual lore, he might be safe just because he's a helpful handwave for a gameplay abstraction.

Maybe the War of Immortals starts as a squabble over his domain--it being, after all, a very successful portfolio in spreading one's influence on the Material Plane. You can always find scattered deities who can fill in the gaps just enough for GM's sakes.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

For what it's worth, I never really saw gluttony as being purely about food. There's nothing wrong with enjoying food. It's about excess and hedonism at the expense of others' basic needs. Urgathoa is absolutely a goddess of hedonism. The Dead don't need to eat, they just like to--and they sure don't need to eat people. And I'm positive there's other forms of selfish hedonism in her repertoire.

I think you're right. The Urgathoa prophecy called out the undead for eating and drinking so quickly that they barely tasted anything.

...which is another poke at the whole "personal nightmare" thing or something similar... because they've fallen so far into the gluttony of it that they've lost even the hedonism.

As for Abadar... if he somehow did manage to map out all the roads and tame all of the untamed wilds, I think he'd welcome it with satisfaction, rather than tears. He's a God of civilization, after all. More civilization, more better. The part where you do the civilizing is important, sure, but it's important for the result rather than for the process.

I won't pick a fight, because I feel like any argument is likely to veer wildly off-topic, but I'll just say that Wee Jas is one of my very favorite deities of all time and *starts picking a fight and has to redact the rest of this post*

Encountering a fellow Jasidan in the wild is always a plus!

The frontier of Erastil turning into the heartland of Abadar is a whole thing. They're both orderly and prize communities over individuals, but long-term Erastil's small communities can, at best, endure as old neighborhoods within cities as what I will, for lack of a better word, term "civilization" marches onward.

Re: The Greyhawk deities- I have no more constructive way to say this: If they work for you, great. Sincerely, enjoy them!
But they leave me alternately snoring or rolling my eyes. I think in the whole bunch (and who the hell brought up Pholtus when we're talking about the 3.0 core rulebook lineup? :P ), I can find a use for maybe Vecna. In Ravenloft. As a Darklord trapped by the Dark Powers.

(Speaking of a setting with some fun religions...)

The frontier of Erastil turning into the heartland of Abadar is a whole thing. They're both orderly and prize communities over individuals, but long-term Erastil's small communities can, at best, endure as old neighborhoods within cities as what I will, for lack of a better word, term "civilization" marches onward.

...and then you get an apocalypse or two, and the tide rolls back the other way for a while. Looks like we're coming up on another one quite soon, actually.

Evan Tarlton wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

For what it's worth, I never really saw gluttony as being purely about food. There's nothing wrong with enjoying food. It's about excess and hedonism at the expense of others' basic needs. Urgathoa is absolutely a goddess of hedonism. The Dead don't need to eat, they just like to--and they sure don't need to eat people. And I'm positive there's other forms of selfish hedonism in her repertoire.

I think you're right. The Urgathoa prophecy called out the undead for eating and drinking so quickly that they barely tasted anything.

...which is another poke at the whole "personal nightmare" thing or something similar... because they've fallen so far into the gluttony of it that they've lost even the hedonism.

As for Abadar... if he somehow did manage to map out all the roads and tame all of the untamed wilds, I think he'd welcome it with satisfaction, rather than tears. He's a God of civilization, after all. More civilization, more better. The part where you do the civilizing is important, sure, but it's important for the result rather than for the process.

Yeah, I was purely saying that for the reference. I almost put "James Jacobs" in Abadar's place, actually. X3

... That's one of those weird things that's never really been explored.

What does it mean when a deity is regional, compared to another that's got a much broader appeal?

It feels kind of odd, given that we're talking about cosmic beings with extraordinary power and influence. Doubly so when we see in these prophecies that their existence directly influences their portfolios.

It's partly for these reasons I feel that we must necessarily imagine there is some manner of communication barrier between gods and the universe, and even between gods and their followers. There is evidence that this may be true to some extent in the setting--the Old Sun Gods of Mzali worked alongside Sarenrae, but were forgotten to the point that their people could not hear them. The Old Sun Gods may have been ascended rulers, but if they can be shut out to such an extent, it's reasonable to imagine that the communication process might not be a simple one.

For me, at least, there are several parts of the setting that stop making sense if you assume the gods have a direct line to anywhere in the universe. One of the most pressing examples is how the story of a cleric or paladin falling doesn't really work if their deity (who is presumably paying attention to what their followers do at least most of the time) can take them aside and address whatever is causing them to careen off the path?

Now, there's no clear answer why, for example, Pharasma or Asmodeus might not be known in every world in the Universe, given that as rulers of their planes, their divine purview is functionally pan-cosmic, and if myths are true about certain other deities like Desna filling in all the stars should be known in all places, but it generally seems as though there are myriad divinities out there and different families of gods might be more concerned with different worlds, or different regions within one world. After all, the Egyptian pantheon has ties both to Golarion and Earth, surely they aren't the only gods ever to appear on more than one planet.

And certainly, cosmic being or not, it doesn't really make sense for a deity like Iomedae to be known much further than the Inner Sea, same as nobody in the Inner Sea has any reason to worship and ascended being from another planet without something introducing that faith to the planet.

If the rest is left up to what mortal worshippers decide is most important to them, it makes sense that the local Shizuru supplants Sarenrae as the predominant sun god. Since Shizuru is a benevolent deity, Sarenrae has no particular need to concentrate her efforts establishing a following when there are other worlds in need of kindness... even if it's a little unclear how and why Shizuru's popularity overtook the goddess who may have helped create the entire universe in the hearts and minds of the Tian people in the first place. It's not that Sarenrae is necessarily more powerful--there's no reason to assume the most powerful god inherently gets the most worshippers--but where did Shizuru's following come from in the first place?

Cole Deschain wrote:

The frontier of Erastil turning into the heartland of Abadar is a whole thing. They're both orderly and prize communities over individuals, but long-term Erastil's small communities can, at best, endure as old neighborhoods within cities as what I will, for lack of a better word, term "civilization" marches onward.

...and then you get an apocalypse or two, and the tide rolls back the other way for a while. Looks like we're coming up on another one quite soon, actually.

The Ashen Man lurks around the corner.

The Ashen Man lurks around the corner.

Huh. That's new lore to me... and he's apparently all wound up in apocalypses and prophecies of same. Perhaps he's the author of these little contributions?

I want to say, this whole event has been doing amazing at its intended purpose. I didn't even know half of what I suddenly find myself starting arguments over about the gods. I forgot how compelling some of them are.

I want to say, this whole event has been doing amazing at its intended purpose. I didn't even know half of what I suddenly find myself starting arguments over about the gods. I forgot how compelling some of them are.

Very much this.

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the many things that drew me into Pathfinder from 3.5e was that the deities actually felt like they had some colour to them. I'll be the first to admit, at least part of this impression might be as shallow as literal colour compared to the much more washed-out art in 3.5, but it's definitely more than that, too. It's definitely things like "Oh, a non-evil death goddess, that's cool" and "Butterfly night goddess of travel would make an interesting character concept" and of course "The sun god isn't another old white man with generic fatherly vibes? Hallelujah"

Wee Jas was always a goddess I discounted as a superfluous magic goddess, even among a pantheon of gods I had almost negligible interest in, so it wasn't until much later I learned how interesting she could be--iirc being cited as one of the inspirations for both Pharasma and the Raven Queen. Aside from the core pantheon I think my favourite deity might have been Kurtulmak, mostly because the enmity between kobolds and gnomes left me feeling very righteously indignant on behalf of the kobolds getting the short end of that stick.

Anyway, more power to anyone who loved the 3e era gods. They weren't my thing but they did have occasional things I vibed with, and I'm not here to yuck somebody else's yum.

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

Right? I also love how thoroughly Paizo is establishing that the death of a villainous god is not necessarily going to be a net positive for the world. A lot of us early on wondered if Paizo would kill off a "villain" god, since surely that would reduce the setting's tension instead of upping it. But what would happen if Lamashtu died and left all those outcasts and monsters without their protector? What if the death of Gorum, the Lord In Iron, leads to a plague of supernatural rust that allows the Whispering Tyrant to gain a foothold, or causes all runes placed upon iron to fizzle out, forcing everyone to finally make the switch to black powder?

On a totally unrelated note, I realized why I've been ignoring Sarenrae and Iomedae as options. I think their deaths would be very compelling by nature--they are widely and rightly beloved goddesses, and losing either of them would be devastating for the world--but I've been struggling a lot more to think of, well, a twist. Like, I think a lot of us are probably assuming that the death of Sarenrae or Iomedae would be a typical "goes down fighting a worse evil". And that's fine! But all of these deaths so far have been very ironic, very fitting. Like our psychopomp scribe says, each prophecy has exposed some banality or vulnerability.

I don't think it's enough for a goddess of heroics to go down fighting. If it's going to measure up to the rest of these, I feel like the death needs to mean something. So, here are some theories.

Cole Deschain wrote:

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

How Iomedae Dies

Oh. I like that. Is it too late to do this one? Has the final Godsrain already been sent to the presses?

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Cole Deschain wrote:

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

How Iomedae Dies

Oh. I like that. Is it too late to do this one? Has the final Godsrain already been sent to the presses?

From what I know of the printing process, if it's not sent, it will be in the comiing weeks, so definitely no time to change anything. ;)

Clearly the only option is for Paizo to kill a second god in a couple months so I can be right, which is the most important thing in all this. :)

I can't remember who said it last page, and I'm not going to go back and check, but I take issue with the idea that someone coming back (after they've been killed and dead for years) means there's no "permanent consequences", and that things would just go back to how they had been.

Maybe it's because of the dreams I've been having; which tell me how I'd react to things when I believe they're real (because I'm not aware I'm dreaming), not just what I consciously assume.
My father died when I was twenty; with the exception of scattered months here and there, I'd lived in the same household as him since I was born, so he was a pretty influential part of my life. He'd regularly show up as a figure in my dreams, along with my mother; that's what happens with stuff that's been a big part of your life. And that didn't stop when he died; I didn't find it weird in my dreams to see him, any more than I find it weird when any other stuff happens in a dream.

It's been over a decade. I have that many years' worth of life experiences for a life that doesn't include my father anywhere. Most often, when I dream about him, he's just there, like anything in a dream. But sometimes... I remember the newer stuff, and how it doesn't make sense if he's around. I ask him where he's been all those years, why he left us if he could come back. (I've never gotten an answer, or at least not one I can recall on waking.)

There's simply no space where "my father, who died when I was twenty" could neatly fit in to, in my life of "over a decade since he died". If he somehow came back to life, and returned to me and my mother, he wouldn't be "coming back to how things had been", we'd need to build an entirely new relationship, living arrangement, expectation of power dynamics, etc etc.

And that's completely skipping over the issue of "people normally don't just come back from the dead"; even WITHOUT the question of "how would someone return after a decade-plus in the ground, what caused it, how much is everyone else freaking out about either him in particular or a mass-resurrection event", his death -- what it did to our family, and how it damaged us each individually -- wouldn't be negated by him no longer being dead.

...
Now if it turns out that the specific phrasing WAS that the killed deity wouldn't be returning PERIOD, then this isn't specifically relevant to that particular character; but my point still stands.

I do think that death is highly overrated as a stake. There are worse ways to hurt. Today's blog post should show us that.

I also give marks, though, for not having everybody whose name we know survive the big shakeup event.

*coughDAMMIT40Kcough*

For no particular reason.

Clearly the only option is for Paizo to kill a second god in a couple months so I can be right, which is the most important thing in all this. :)

I'm up for an event where they kill off all the Gods. Ragnaroks are fun- my homebrew is set after one.

The interesting thing is that if Rovagug dies, a lot of prophecies are really screwed.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Cole Deschain wrote:

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

How Iomedae Dies

Oh. I like that. Is it too late to do this one? Has the final Godsrain already been sent to the presses?

I'm okay with having 2 great stories about How Iomedae dies.

Cole Deschain wrote:

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

How Iomedae Dies

And now I want this to actually happen.

Or Iomedae goes down saving her from the Whispering Tyrant. That could be especially meaningful.

Or Iomedae goes down saving her from the Whispering Tyrant. That could be especially meaningful.

I feel it would be too easy.

I am now fixated on :

But Iomedae does see all of this and she intervenes, the way you described (most inspiring).

And maybe the Starstone shatters, its power reinforcing that of Iomedae's divine essence and ending up creating all these Exemplars out there.

I'm not sure Arazni is on that kind of trajectory as it stands, but I guess we'll see!

The interesting thing is that if Rovagug dies, a lot of prophecies are really screwed.

Prophecy's already broken, so...

It's already broken, sure, but I've noticed that everyone still generally assumes that the whole "world ends, Groetus arrives, the Survivor remains" prophecy is still true? But Rovagug is a key figure in that prophecy.

It's already broken, sure, but I've noticed that everyone still generally assumes that the whole "world ends, Groetus arrives, the Survivor remains" prophecy is still true? But Rovagug is a key figure in that prophecy.

Then people have not heard of the three fears of Pharasma, that prophecy indeed is no more, the Seal is gone and that even Pharasma does not know if the life and death cycle of the multiverse endures or if it was broken.

Basically, even at the cosmic level, nothing is for sure anymore and anything can happen.

I think you call them "fears", and not "certainties", for a reason, though! There's a difference between, "I'm not sure if those prophecies are still in effect" and one of the prophecies being directly, irrevocably violated.

I do find it a little interesting that Arazni and Calistria are going to have to share revenge - though the former is significantly less interested in moderating it among her followers.

This is a super deep cut, but I was thinking about it in light of TRB's post. I'm not sure Arazni is a goddess of revenge.

Calistria's Edict is very simple and direct: "take revenge". Not a lot of wiggle room. But Arazni's is just, "despise and never forgive those who have hurt you". That's very different from revenge. A worshiper of Calistria leaving an abusive relationship is obligated to exact some sort of payback. An Araznian leaving an abusive relationship is only obligated to leave and never go back.

Arazni and Calistria may share the Pain domain, but Arazni also has Protection and Freedom. In the Last Breath, Calistria inspires the pantheon's followers with her "thirst for vengeance", while Arazni inspires with her "unyielding spirit". Arazni does have a vengeance-themed boon, but it only activates on your death--meaning it's only activated at the point you've already lost the chance to live your best life.

Arazni and Calistria definitely do share an unforgiving streak, but where Calistria tells her followers to get even, Arazni tells her followers to get away. Arazni obviously isn't anti-vengeance--I'm pretty confident that she's fully picking up what Calistria's putting down--but considering her second edict is "do whatever it takes to survive", I don't think she's the type to go on a self-destructive vengeance crusade. Acting with dignity and holding her enemies in contempt as she renders them irrelevant is the best revenge of all. Aroden is dead. Geb is trapped doing the job he hates most. Arazni is a god now, and Tar-Baphon, despite his most desperate efforts, is not.

Prophecy being broken I think far more alludes to the possibility that when the world ends, there might be no survivor and the cycle of creation will be broken. Like I don't really expect that Groetus is going to hold off forever just because there's no prophecy, nor any of the dozen other things said to end the world. The loss of prophecy might only mean nobody cleans up after Nyarlathotep has awakened the great old ones and left all life besides raving with eldritch madness.

Like, it might mean this cycle continues forever, but even if it does it may not be in any manner comfortable or familiar to us today, and that aside the world only needs to end once.

Mm, but what if something destroys Groetus? What if the Great Old Ones never wake up? What if Rovagug eats itself before it has the chance to devour the world? These things are impossible, and Pharasma knows this, just like she knows Aroden will return in 4606 AR.

Oh, sure, any million-in-one chance crops up nine times out of ten, I'm just saying my first assumption about the end times prophecies being broken isn't that the world doesn't end, it's that it's end doesn't come as it was meant to be. Sort of like, if there was a hero fated to die saving the world in a certain day, them surviving that day doesn't naturally lead to the assumption that they will never die of anything from then on, it just means that that the bad ending has come to pass. Even if none of the prophecies ends up happening, who knows, maybe creation's forge just peters out one day, finally exhausted, and the hollow empty shell of the universe just lingers in the inter-cosmic medium while the maelstrom erodes the outer sphere.

It's possible nothing will ever disrupt any of the complex processes that keep the cosmos running, but that's not my first assumption just because we don't know precisely which order they were supposed to happen.

But of course, impossible odds are the stuff stories are made of.

The last "there's no way this could happen except for the exact way this happened" story Paizo told was Tyrant's Grasp right?

Sure, Sibelius, I wholly agree and think it's a really neat insight! My only point was that narratively, killing off Rovagug would still be impactful in further contradicting existing prophecies.

Oh, hah, my earlier post was mainly in response to TRB's mention of the Windsong Testaments. I agree that Rovuagug dying would be all manner of confusion for the state of prophecy, even that is already broken.

I am fascinated by this look into your Age of Worms lore though O.O

Cole Deschain wrote:

It might be a pretty blatant bit of marketing sensationalism, but it's definitely helping bring home how fleshed-out most Pathfinder deities are.

Right? I also love how thoroughly Paizo is establishing that the death of a villainous god is not necessarily going to be a net positive for the world. A lot of us early on wondered if Paizo would kill off a "villain" god, since surely that would reduce the setting's tension instead of upping it. But what would happen if Lamashtu died and left all those outcasts and monsters without their protector? What if the death of Gorum, the Lord In Iron, leads to a plague of supernatural rust that allows the Whispering Tyrant to gain a foothold, or causes all runes placed upon iron to fizzle out, forcing everyone to finally make the switch to black powder?

On a totally unrelated note, I realized why I've been ignoring Sarenrae and Iomedae as options. I think their deaths would be very compelling by nature--they are widely and rightly beloved goddesses, and losing either of them would be devastating for the world--but I've been struggling a lot more to think of, well, a twist. Like, I think a lot of us are probably assuming that the death of Sarenrae or Iomedae would be a typical "goes down fighting a worse evil". And that's fine! But all of these deaths so far have been very ironic, very fitting. Like our psychopomp scribe says, each prophecy has exposed some banality or vulnerability.

I don't think it's enough for a goddess of heroics to go down fighting. If it's going to measure up to the rest of these, I feel like the death needs to mean something. So, here are some theories.

** spoiler omitted **...

Keep going, these perspectives are awesome

I think the problem with killing a basically heroic God at the start of the event is that a fitting death for Iomedae or Torag or Sarenrae would involve "sacrificing themselves to prevent a worse disaster" but as an inciting event for a story it doesn't really work without doing the legwork to establish the nature of this disaster that's being prevented and the necessity of this sacrifice.

Likewise "We finally ended Rovagug" or similar is a fitting endpoint for a mythic campaign, not the thing you start with, since there's no real way for a team of heroes to top that.

So I think whoever dies has to be in the middle of the former alignment column, one of Abadar, Irori, Gozreh, Calistria, or Gorum.

I think it strongly depends on the exact circumstances of the god's death, just like the death of an evil god. I'm also not sure they'd get the perfect fitting heroic death. Acavna tried that, and it still didn't work out so great for anyone.

But the thing I'm pointing at is that the death is the thing that kicks off the War of the Immortals. I'm not sure if you were telling the story of Earthfall if you would start with Acavna and Amaznen.

Like you'd want to do something about the collapse of Azlanti society brought on by paranoia and unrest cultivated by the Veiled Masters (or the increasing realization that they exist.)

Well, there's nothing saying that the deity has to cause all the circumstances of their own demise. If Iomedae's death involves the shattering of the Starstone, that seems like something that could set off a war.