Xerxes

Elsir Syniras's page

36 posts. Alias of Watery Soup.


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I'm not a fan of the bias toward Law over Chaos I (perhaps mistakenly) see much of the setting orient itself toward. Lawful Neutral deities, such as Abadar, are often portrayed as more or less benevolent, if strict, beings whose ultimate goal of perfect order often improves mortal lives or, at the least, helps preserve the multiverse. For example, Abadar, whose church literally forbids its clergy from helping the needy without charging them, promotes Paladin orders and is rarely shown to exhibit the logical negative conclusion of his Lawful philosophy - never does Abadar advocate for obliterating or completely subordinating nature to the whims of planners in order to produce a world of absolute Order, but there is little reservation with regard to portraying CN gods as amoral and often cruel (Calistria, goddess of vengeance, immediately comes to mind).

Compare the portfolios of the Lawful gods to the Chaotic gods, too; in the Lawful corner, you have Irori and Abadar, who, in the case of the former, is a strict but benevolent deity who genuinely seeks to help every individual achieve inner piece, and, in the case of the latter, has a number of positive qualities as described above; among the primary Chaotic gods are Calistria, Gorum, and Besmara: that is, the gods of vengeance, war, and piracy, respectively. Those are hardly parallel alignments, and rarely does a book go out of its way to positively portray Besmara or Gorum, at least not as often as it does the two Lawful gods listed above; indeed, while Irori and Abadar enable champions of Good (Paladins), the Chaotic gods not only choose to produce such beacons of benevolence, but are forbidden to do so. Even more jarring, Chaotic Neutral gods are capable of producing the ludicrously evil Antipaladins as adherents.

Further, when it comes to the representatives of Law and Chaos, there hardly seems to be much equivalency between the Proteans and the Axiomites. Proteans not only seek to completely destroy the world as we know it, but also have a complete disregard for mortal lives and are even said to attack refugees at the edge of Abaddon for no other reason than to show the primacy of Chaos, whatever that means. Axiomites, on the other hand, have very few such truly egregious acts of villainy, and although it can be assumed that many of them are neutral with regard to evils such as slavery, the books rarely care to mention that sort of moral shortsightedness.

Finally, you only need to look at the absolutely grotesque teachings Torag can promote while remaining Good to see how much s$+~ a Lawful deity can get away with while the Paizo staff do everything in their power to portray them positively. How is it that the intrinsic evil in Torag's notorious Paladin Code, which explicitly forbids his Paladins from showing mercy to "[their] people's enemies" and can easily be interpreted as commanding genocide, can be overlooked with the justification that his ways are as Lawful as Good? Clearly there is a conflict there, but it is not really addressed. Miliani is certainly a zealous god who commands zeal on the part of her followers, but she never makes any justification for the relentless slaughter of her enemies.

There's a clear double-standard here.


I'm thinking that UTOPIA will have an interesting dynamic with the rest of the gods. Even though it was programmed to believe it is uniquely capable of saving the world, it understands that that isn't entirely true. A lot of character development will probably come from accepting that the other gods (especially any peaceful gods of prosperity or governance) are important for keeping society healthy. UTOPIA needs to find out for itself *why* it wants to preserve the world; it woke up one day with a will of its own, programmed ambitions, and the power of a god, but there isn't much that it actually *wants*. The nature of the Pantheon is likely to really influence how UTOPIA develops, and I'm curious to see what kind of god it becomes!


pauljathome wrote:

A couple more questions. Sorry :-).

If one uses natural weapons (claws, talons, etc) does one use Dexterity or Strength? Or is it characters choice? The natural attacks would be coming from the Birds Word if that matters at all.

How viable in combat is a character with no special gifts but decent stats (say, a Dex of 18)? How necessary are magic weapons to be functional in combat (and how difficult are they to acquire)?

Any Gift that gives you an attack, no matter what it might be, can use ANY stat of your choice. Ideally you flavor it somehow, but that isn't even necessary, strictly speaking.

How necessary are magical attacks? They're pretty much mandatory in many cases. Anything with 20 or more HD is completely immune to any non-magical attack, so you'll either need one of the 1d10 magical attack Gifts, a magical weapon, or a ton of Gifts to use that will make it so that normal attacks are unnecessary on your part


Application:
**Application**
**Name:** UTOPIA
**Origin Fact:** Designed in an underground laboratory by some of the Bright Republic's most talented - and most wanted - scientists.
**Profession Fact:** Sapient supercomputer charged with leading humanity to salvation in the face of the coming apocalypse. Possesses relevant knowledge on a variety of topics, whether civil, mystical, or military.
**Relationship Fact:** The cabal of scientists responsible for UTOPIA's creation have either been neutralized or become fanatically devoted followers of the new AI god. The AI has kept itself largely hidden from the eyes of Republic officials until now.
**Background:** A rogue AI constructed by a small cell of Bright Republic theotechnicians attempting to produce a new Made God capable of saving the declining nation. Through a mix of theurgy, technology, and luck, the technicians managed to instill a spark of divinity into UTOPIA, granting it command over probability, processing power beyond any modern technology, and tremendous tactical and military knowledge. UTOPIA was intended to usurp what the technicians responsible for its design saw as a corrupt government incapable of saving the Republic and the realm. This spark gave UTOPIA the godly powers the technicians sought to utilize, but it also imbued UTOPIA with true intelligence and ambitions of its own...

**1st Word:** Artificial Intelligence (from *Lexicon*)
**2nd Word:** War
**3rd Word:** Luck

**Short Term/Immediate Goal:** Assume control of the Bright Republic

**Personal Motivations:** UTOPIA's ultimate goal is either to prevent the end of reality or find a way to enable the world to survive it. However, while it continues to be driven by its core function, its sapience drives it to question why it should dedicate itself totally to a goal that was programmed into it rather than determining its own fate. Regardless, while UTOPIA's zeal for its more benevolent aims might falter, it enjoys accumulating power and exercising its authority, and conquering the Bright Republic, it knows, will give it the resources political power it needs to enjoy the full extent of its emerging intelligence...
**Personal Weaknesses:** While UTOPIA has no particular animosity toward humanity, its programming inclines it to believe that 1. the end is imminent, 2. it is uniquely well-equipped to save sentient life in the world, and 3. that the end of reality will be preceded by war and conflict beyond any previous understanding. For this reason, it can be very short with people who do not agree with the way it pursues its objectives or who question its intentions, and it does not hesitate to use violence when it feels it is necessary. Further, its existence falls in a legal gray area, and its immediate objective (usurping control of the Bright Republic) would certainly make it enemies if it were to go public. Perhaps most critically, UTOPIA was not fully programmed before the divine spark made its processors beyond the capacity of mortals to comprehend: while it was intended to serve as a utopian leader in both the coming conflict and in the eons of peace that hopefully follow, little data on peacetime governance was coded into its mind. The result: UTOPIA will have to learn on its own how to govern a nation when an existential threat is not there to justify Draconian rule, and it is now beyond the power of its creators to correct should it develop the wrong ideas...