I’ve known Gorum longer than anyone else. Although he’s changed and developed in ways I never considered, he was created for my homebrew setting back in the very early 90s, as I was rounding out my campaign setting in preparation for a big campaign I was going to run for several friends in my college dorm.
He wasn’t the first, second, or third divinity I created for my setting (those honors go, in order, to Yamasoth, Treerazer, and Desna), but he was part of the larger group of two-dozen or so gods I invented once the world-building bug bit me. I wanted a deity in my setting who was someone like Crom, someone non-clerics like Conan could pray to or curse to before, during, and after a fight. Unlike Crom and Conan, though, I wanted this god of war to be fully armored and armed in iron and steel. And so the idea of a god who presents as an animated suit of armor was born into my setting.
When it came time to build Golarion, we were very pressed for time. We had to simultaneously close out the magazines and then jump right into producing our own RPG content without skipping a month, due to the realities of the subscription-based promises and methods Paizo had been built on. It’s very difficult to build an adventure in a world without proper nouns. You can make that up as you go, but that runs the risk of rushing an important job. So as I was put in charge of the Pathfinder Adventure Path line, I made the decision to draw from my then 15-year-old setting for much of that lore. Which included the deities.
We wanted to do 20 “core deities” from the start because it was a fun number to aim at (this being a d20 game), but also because that allowed us to create two different types of deities for each of the 9 alignments, with 2 left over to pad the numbers (one of those went to Neutral to create a “best choice” deity for druids, and one of those went to Lawful Good to create a “best choice” deity for paladins).
Gorum ended up making the jump from my homebrew at that stage into the public by being one of the two chaotic neutral deities chosen, and for the next 17 years, he would serve as Golarion’s god of war.
Illustration by Maichol Quinto
Roleplaying the Grim Reaper
When we decided it was time to shake things up in the Lost Omens setting, the death of a god made the most sense. We’d done this at the dawn of the campaign with the death of Aroden—even though his death took place a century earlier, it still was a huge part of our world’s lore. But killing off someone no one knows about is very different than killing off someone who some folks have known for 17 years (or in my case, closer to 34 years). We had a lot of discussions about which of the core 20 deities we wanted the metaphorical Grim Reaper to visit. We didn’t want to kill off an evil deity, since that would have less emotional impact, but we also didn’t want to take out a deity we had strong plans for in the future, or whose role in the setting was significantly load bearing.
In my homebrew in the early 2000s, I killed off Abadar as part of a plot where the world was slipping into entropy and the PCs had to step up to help prevent more gods from being killed, and he was thus my first nomination. But he’s also someone who’s a handy non-evil villain to have around, and beyond that, he had a role in the future in Starfinder. Other folks suggested other deities, but in the end, we all settled on Gorum. Here was a god who wasn’t evil, who was part of the core 20 but didn’t have a particularly strong role in the lore, didn’t represent a specific ancestry or character class, but who was still popular enough that his death wouldn’t feel hollow. It would still sting. It would still be noticeable. And it would absolutely change the setting—especially when we decided that the death of the god of war wasn’t going to make war go away, but instead let war run rampant.
llustration by Kendal Gates
Witness Him!
Unlike Aroden’s death, which was and will remain shrouded in mystery, we aren’t being coy about Gorum’s death. The specific methods by which he dies will be spelled out in print, and your PCs will be able to take part in multiple adventures impacted by the event—an event known as Godsrain, and which begins a period historians will refer to as the War of Immortals. We’ll have information about what your clerics of Gorum can do next, particularly in adventures where the event takes place after you’ve already potentially started playing clerics of Gorum. We hope the specific details of how and why will resonate with everyone in the same way they do with me and everyone on the editorial team at Paizo!
During PaizoCon last month, we revealed more details about where and when Gorum dies, as well as how you can read those details as a GM, how your PCs can take part in those details as they play out in the course of play, or how you can experience them in the form of fiction. Those who want light spoiler information about where you can find out more, read on. Those who want to be surprised about the event when it happens in your game—I’ve already said too much!
SPOILERS
Gorum’s death is described in detail in the upcoming standalone adventure, Prey for Death. Where that event takes place during the adventure, I won’t say more now, but GMs who read the adventure will find that information front and center. How much the players learn, and when that learning happens, depends on the choices they make during play, of course!
The Curtain Call Adventure Path will be starting in a world before these events take place, but by the end of that three-part, high-level campaign, Gorum will be dead. While the direct impact of this will be less than it was in Prey for Death, other developments rising from the event will be on full display. Again, the timing of where and when Godsrain falls during Curtain Call isn’t something we’ve revealed, but it will become obvious once the first volume (and its short summary of the campaign’s three chapters) is published.
After that, War of Immortals presents additional information about the rules involved with these events, Lost Omens Divine Mysteries spends some time exploring the way the gods of the setting are changing, and the novel Godsrain chronicles some in-world fiction involving some familiar iconic heroes as they experience certain developments caused by the death of Our Lord in Iron.
Illustration by Mark Tarrisse
After these, we’re not simply going to let the topic go, of course. The Godsrain may be over, but the War of Immortals is only beginning. And while we’ll soon reveal the exact event in which Gorum dies in print for you to read, there are other new mysteries that event sets up. Mysteries we have plans for. These events—Gorum’s death and other still-unrevealed-complications that death creates—will continue affecting the Lost Omens setting from this point forward, much in the same way that the re-introduction of the runelords in the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path continues to have ripple effects, the closing of the Worldwound allows for the exploration of new stories, and the secession of Ravounel sets up brand new narratives to experience. The War of Immortals is larger in scope and scale than all of those, though, make no mistake. You’ll see the aftermath of the Godsrain play out in the Triumph of the Tusk Adventure Path later this year, and it has some ripple effects that help kick things off in next year’s just-announced Spore War Adventure Path as well. Not every adventure will be focused on these events—the one after Spore War won’t, for example—but just as we’re still telling stories about runelords or the aftermath of the Worldwound or the fate of Ravounel, what goes down during the War of Immortals is here to stay.
Unlike Gorum.
But do not weep for him! Instead, maybe the next time your PC slays a dragon, defeats an evil warlord, or simply earns a new weapon or suit of armor, raise a sword in his memory.
James Jacobs
Pathfinder Creative Director of Narrative
Witness the God of War!
Friday, June 21, 2024
