Jem's page

An interesting NPC I did for a 3.5e game was a wandering merchant of cursed magical items. I'd hoped there would be an opportunity for my players to encounter her on a Lower Plane, though alas it didn't come about. I had planned to make her a night hag, though any species intelligent enough to cast spells and act as a merchant will do.

Believe it or not, she's honest about her wares; she purchases and sells cursed items with some utility. Her business model is to buy them cheap from the reject piles of professional enchanters and from adventurers that don't want them, in the latter case often defraying her costs further by casting Remove Curse or Break Enchantment at exorbitant value. She then seeks out particular situations or people when a cursed item's abilities outweigh its drawbacks.

Useful spells on her list will depend on the level at which the players encounter her. For countering curses, at minimum she should have Remove Curse (Sor/Wiz 4). Additional possibilities for ending curses are Dispel Magic and its greater for (S/W 3 and 6), Break Enchantment (S/W 5), or Mage's Disjunction or Wish (S/W 9). For identifying baneful spells, useful abilities are Detect Magic (S/W 0), Identify (S/W 1), and Analyze Dweomer and Legend Lore (S/W 6). I've given the wizard levels for the spells, but bards and clerics have access to most of them.

Some likely sale situations for her include: (1) unusual environments where intermittently functioning items work, like an icy plane for an item that only functions in freezing temperatures, or regions of eternal night for a night-functioning item; (2) characters that meet requirements for an item, such as having sufficient ranks in a skill or being willing to cast a necessary spell each day; (3) items of general utility with minor drawbacks or useful side effects, like the bag of devouring mentioned above, or something simple like changing the user's gender or warming the local air by 10 degrees; (4) items with serious drawbacks that people will still be willing to buy cheap: armor of arrow attraction is great +3 full plate if your team remembers to keep enemy archers occupied elsewhere, and a medallion of thought projection is a perfectly good one-way communication device for someone who knows to ignore its whisperings.

For extra mystery, she might have a secret way of creating crystal hypnosis balls or bags of devouring!

Perform: Oratory probably covers composition of monologues and narratives, since in substantial part it's extemporaneous. Since the bard class includes the ability to motivate your friends or sway an audience with music or speech, there is at least some situational improvisation that would have to take place so it's reasonable that anyone with a Perform skill probably has some training in composition for that art form.

Other skills that could produce written work would be Diplomacy or Fast-Talk for persuasive works, Knowledge of all types for nonfiction accounts, etc. In order for a player to produce a new work I would have them roll against any other skill required to produce accurate material, followed by a Perform roll to use it. This actually came up in one of my games, where a character used Knowledge (local) and Diplomacy to write a speech, then I think it was Diplomacy again to give it.

One might use, for example, Knowledge (Religion) to produce a theologically orthodox sermon, followed by Diplomacy to determine its persuasive power, and then Perform (Oratory) to actually give the speech, and perhaps make a missionary impact on a population. If the player had K(religion) and Perform but lacked Diplomacy, the result might be an undiplomatic, but theologically accurate and well-given sermon: same result, but the local priests are more visibly annoyed by the intruder, say.

Profession (Scribe), I would think, would primarily cover the art of actually writing manuscripts clearly: either taking dictation quickly, or making a more intricate work by using pleasing calligraphy, illuminating them, and preserving them for long-term use.

I've studied mathematics most days of my adult life and I still review the section of a first-year calculus text I'm going to be teaching in a day or so. Soldiers do drills in the fundamentals, expert martial artists run through the basic forms, etc., and if they don't then they don't stay at peak effectiveness. Knowing something and being able to replicate it under combat conditions are two entirely different things.

The in-game answer to your question is usually that wizards are not simply 'relearning' spells -- they essentially 'learned' them through the laborious process of transcribing them into their personal conceptual system, which they did when they successfully recorded the spell in their spellbook. Rather, they are collecting the requisite magical energies and preparing them for later release upon mental command.

The meta-game answer is that dependence on equipment, with concurrent potential loss, is the price a wizard pays for increased breadth of knowledge over the sorcerer to keep the two classes balanced against each other, at least in part.

Spells as skills are entirely doable, and are a core mechanic of some systems, like GURPS. With this system, a wizard puts points into the spells he learns and rolls against skill to achieve the desired effects. I've never seen it done in d20, but a quick Google suggests it may have been. At a quick handwave, I would give a typical spell a DC of 10 + spell level, and a wizard an additional number of skill points equal to the number of new spell levels he would typically get at that level, plus 1/2 for a 0-level. (So if you gained another 0-level spell per day, a 1st-level, and a 2nd-level, you would get another 3.5 points over your usual complement of 2+Int.) You can cast any spell you have points in (trained only, in other words), capped at the usual highest level for your experience, and have a total number of "spell energy levels" available equal to your usual daily amount.

This moves the wizard toward the Sorcerer in flexibility but risks his spells failing in combat. There are probably other holes that would need to be patched if you wanted to use it.

The Boneyard is indeed a realm separate from the city of Axis. Axis is next to the base of the Spire, atop which Pharasma's domain sits in the midst of what are called the Spirelands. This is the TN realm.

Gadigan has the gist of TGB on the TN afterlife.

Playing funky races is one of my favorite things to do, so just in case it still matters to any editorial process I do hope there are options for playing as wide a selection of races as possible.

These feats (and one skill use) are intended to represent a soldier who is practiced in fighting with a unit. They are intended to enhance both the soldier's effectiveness, and that of his allies. I felt the lack of these when writing up fideles and thought I would produce a few. In addition to these feats, if you are using third-party materials I would add Improved Flanking and Formation Expert from Complete Warrior as Combat feats, and Coordinated Spell from Complete Arcane as a Metamagic feat.

These are a first draft and may be underpowered, overpowered, or unclear. Comments are welcome.

Wide Flanking (Combat): You can flank a foe if an ally threatening the same creature is in a square adjacent to one that would normally allow you to flank that creature.

Got Your Back (Combat): Choose an ally in a square adjacent to you. Attempts to make sneak attacks against that ally provoke attacks of opportunity from you. At 10th level, you can keep an eye on two nearby allies.

Pincer Attack (Combat): If you and an ally are flanking a foe, and you come before your ally in the initiative order, you may declare that you are using this feat and ready an action to attack when your ally does. You and your ally attack simultaneously, and in future rounds you drop to immediately after your ally in initiative order. For this attack, the target is denied any Dex bonus to AC. In order to use this feat again, either another flanking ally must have and use Pincer Attack, or you must again delay until the next attack of an ally after your turn.

Tie Down (Combat): You can hamper a chosen foe in making attacks of opportunity against your allies. You must attack a specific enemy and declare that you are using this ability on that enemy. Until your next turn, if your foe attempts to to make an attack of opportunity against anyone else, you can attempt to interrupt their attack with an attack of opportunity of your own.

Covering Fire (Combat): You are practiced at firing rapidly in the general direction of foes to distract them. You must take a full attack with a physical weapon to use this feat. You can fire or throw twice as many projectiles as you normally could, but you can only aim at a grid intersection. Foes adjacent to that grid intersection or in line of effect between you and those squares are distracted; spellcasters and those performing delicate actions must make the usual checks to concentrate. Allies of yours beyond the area of effect gain concealment from foes within the area of this effect.
You may hit foes by chance; roll once at the beginning of the turn for each foe within the area of effect, or entering it, before your next turn, up to a number of times equal to the number of projectiles you fire. A critical hit is resolved as a normal hit.

Spellshot (Metamagic): You can distribute the damage of a line or ray spell that deals damage of an energy type, breaking it in to small amounts and firing it rapidly in the general direction of foes to distract them. Use the rules for the Covering Fire feat, but the number of projectiles fired is as high as you wish. The damage of the spell is rolled normally and divided by the number of projectiles fired. Other effects, such as possible blinding and stunning, are much weaker; the GM should adjudicate these situations.
Prerequisite: ability to cast a damage-dealing line or ray spell with an energy descriptor of 1st level or higher.
Special: if you have fighter levels and qualify for this feat, Covering Fire includes this ability.

Coordinated Blow (Combat): You and any number of allies with this feat, all of whom threaten the same foe, declare that you are using this feat and delay your attacks until the turn of some particular ally, who need not have this feat. When that ally attacks, you all do. (If more than one ally is using Coordinated Blow, the fact must be communicated by the first user.) The totaled damage rolls from all attacks that hit and do not bypass the creature's damage resistance count as a single attack for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance.

Formation Spell (Metamagic): You can prepare a burst, emanation, or spread-shaped spell which will exempt from immediate effect any creature or object in a given selection of squares that you choose at this time (presumably your allies, in a practiced formation) removed from its normal shape. The area exempted is lost. A formation spell takes up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Formation Movement (Combat): Describe a selection of squares on the field, one of which must be designated as being occupied by you. You and any allies in these squares can, at your communicated command, take a 5-foot step in a direction of your choosing as an immediate action of yours. All involved must be legally able to take a 5-foot step in the direction chosen. If you have had several hours to train with your allies, you and your allies may ignore difficult terrain or darkness. If your Leadership score is 12 or higher, the formation can take the step as long as you can take a 5-foot step and your allies are not restrained. For every 3 points your Leadership score is above 9, you may specify an additional formation.
Prerequisite: Leadership

Combat Signals: A "language." You have elected to have one of your languages, whether starting or picked up with Linguistics, be a system of combat signals practiced by yourself and your allies. Messages sent using this system, consisting of a mix of quick gestures and short calls or whistles, can convey a wide range of battle-related orders and concepts without the need to hide your message from foes. Even an active tongues ability is no help; it will distinguish 'words' of unfamiliar jargon. Sending such a message is a free action if you have Combat Signals as a learned language; if you do not, it is a standard action with a Linguistics DC of 10, and you can only send common sorts of battle-related information, in the GM's judgment. To understand each other's messages, a group must take a least a few hours of training to share and practice their system.

As I said, I know 'atheist' in the real-world sense is not what Beyond the Vault of Souls is referring to, and perhaps my wording was a little harsh. Since the topic interested me and came up early in my posting career here at Paizo, it probably seems like it's a hobby horse for me, and it's not that big a deal, really. I've GM'ed two campaigns of In Nomine for years. Atheism wrong? In Nomine is a game about the War between Heaven and Hell where the PCs are angels fighting demons for the souls of humanity. %^)

So how about the completely pathological? Do they get special dispensation? Or just sent straight to the vortex?

I'm always maintained that insanity has no alignment, however I'm curious how actual full blown psychosis would affect where a soul would go in the afterlife in Golarion.

It would depend on the nature of their madness, I suppose. Personally, I'm going to emphasize the interpretation that souls stuck in the Graveyard have a damaged sense of self, what the DSM classifies as dissociative disorders.

Of course, the most transcendent religious experiences in many traditions would also be thus classified. Out-of-body experience, the brotherhood of humanity, oneness with the world at large, subsumption of identity in the Deity... these and similar experiences are actively sought through the use of meditation, repetitive group activities like song and dance, and psychoactive substances. Religion, like art, is virtually inseparable from the forms of madness it evokes.

It also bears hard on notions of free will and thus responsibility for sin and virtue, but that's a question of long standing for religion. Someone is depressed -- are they slothful? They have narcissistic personality disorder -- are they prideful? They have an eating disorder -- are they gluttonous? Where does sociopathy fall on the spectrum of sin? Does a genetic predisposition to alcoholism at all mitigate a drunken crime of passion?

I doubt such questions will ever significantly enter play unless your group is fond of challenging dramatic scenarios exploring the nature of sin and redemption, crime and punishment, and the nature of the various philosophies in the world. Generally, I would start by assuming that Pharasma (and the natural process of assigning souls to afterlives) is knowledgeable enough about mental illness to see beyond it to some spark of free will, making allowances for both genes and environment in some way mortals don't fully understand. It might bear on the question of how a cleric interprets a given action's morality, or what an ethical group decides to do with a dangerous madman.

I like considering various spells to be more or less easily available. A general rule of thumb, of course, is that the fewer people that know a spell, the fewer opportunities there will be to learn it. Some tags, which stack:

The higher the level it is, the fewer casters will know it -- going off of the price progressions, the number of casters in the world that know level X spells seems to go down by factors of 1/X^2. They will also be peerier about letting study materials for it get around.

Any spell which is strictly for a low-casting class, such as paladin or ranger, will be vanishingly rare.

An alignment descriptor will cut a spell's audience by about half.

Any spell with obvious criminal uses will be less available in an orderly society; weapons will be circumscribed by law ("Sir, we note that you've failed to attend annual safety training for your ice storm spell; you're fined 100 gold and ordered to attend training within two weeks.") at a level you'd like the society to practice its 'gun control', while healer and crafting magics will be more readily available. Obviously anything involving evil powers, death magic, or the like will have attempts to learn it noticed.

Spells with obvious governmental uses, such as Zone of Truth, on the other hand, may be widely available.

Module J5, "Beyond the Vault of Souls", became available on July 29th and I downloaded it. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the module adduces considerable new information on the fate of atheists in Golarion's afterlife. Without revealing anything about the plot or characters of that module, here are the facts of relevance to this discussion:

Once again it is made clear that atheism does not here mean a lack of belief in the gods. Atheists are defined in the module as those who did not believe in reward or punishment in the afterlife. This comports with the notion described earlier in this thread, of persons who do not believe in the existence of souls. A firm disbelief in the justice of the apportionment, or in the reward or punishment inherent in a given afterlife, might also qualify, though this is speculation.

Atheists' souls condense into gems. They are 'beyond consciousness' and 'awaiting the ultimate oblivion.' (The most parsimonious interpretation is that they are simply unconsciousness, though the notion that they are in some supra-conscious suspended meditative state seeking a Buddhist-like state of existence/non-existence is intriguing to me.) It is not clear what differentiates these, which appear to be the standard fate of an atheist soul, from the conscious and active atheists in the Graveyard, or those with other existences, described in The Great Beyond.

The gems can be removed from the Outer Sphere and can be damaged and destroyed. Perhaps 'the ultimate oblivion' is what happens to the soul involved in such a case. (I would rather hypothesize that whatever the atheists are waiting for is not going to happen and that their wait is potentially eternal; that if the gem is destroyed the soul merges with the plane on which the destruction occurs, as with a petitioner.)

While their non-belief was so strong they 'could not be assigned to any god or plane' -- apparently it was a matter of import to them, not merely casual lack of belief -- the module also says that they must be stored in specially constructed areas Outside of such areas they have a natural tendency to open a portal to a like-aligned plane and go there to rest. The Great Beyond describes a Graveyard of Souls, though the module calls it a Vault. The Outer Sphere being a matter of perception and a vault being a form of tomb, it's entirely possible both are accurate.

Atheists' souls repel Groetus and the apocalypse he signifies, and are the only known means of doing so. The module does not describe the sort of seemingly-delibate sacrifice that The Great Beyond does. It rather says Groetus has a "spiritual gravity" that attracts souls. It would mesh with both sources if this "gravity" sometimes eventually attracted an atheist soul, an unpleasant surprise which caused him to withdraw.

I close with some reactions. If we take as given that atheists in Golarion are objectively wrong, in that an afterlife exists and souls naturally gravitate to a just existence of reward or punishment of a sort suited to their ethics, then it is a curious and perhaps worrying point that upon this error of fact rests the planes' sole bulwark against apocalypse; that the defenders of existence do so without hope of reward and, perhaps, without even knowing. There are multiple layers of interpretation available for a complex layering of ironies.

It is unfortunate that the simplest explanation is that the authors involved stuck a real-world group they didn't like much, or didn't know much about, with literarily convenient catatonia. Fictional groups like sincere worshipers of a dead god or followers of an identity-subsuming philosophy could serve the same literary purpose equally well. It doesn't help that this real-world group is obviously a not-insignificant part of the game's target audience.

With some work, though, those who care enough about the setting that it's worthwhile can find that it's possible to impose an interpretation that redeems the flaw. That gem-condensation appears to be a natural phenomenon rather than some sentence of Pharasma's can suggest that 'atheists' are actually souls with psychological damage to the sense of self, rather than someone who might have come to a rational if erroneous conclusion regarding the state of metaphysics in Golarion. That the Keepers of the Vault and the active wardens in the Graveyard could be healers seeking to rectify that damage and hold out hope of constructing a useful, conscious afterlife would be a natural consequence. I would encourage Paizo, when this ever becomes relevant to future material, to emphasize such an interpretation.

One of PCs in my campaign just met an untimely end due to Disintegrate. Since the character is an atheist, I've decided to tie in the Beyond the Vault of Souls module - seems like a great fit.

I want to run some solo story for that PC as he reaches the Boneyard. I am curious, what/who are the most common servants of Pharasma encountered on the Boneyard ? I would like to run some nice RP encounters there, and allow him perhaps to interact with his comrades on the Material Plane. Pitch me some ideas, folks :)

Have you purchased The Great Beyond? It's an excellent resource for information on the afterlife and planar gaming.

Be aware that "atheist" in Golarion has a very specific meaning: one who denies not the gods or their divinity, necessarily, but the afterlife and the existence of souls, or possibly simply the prospect of reward and punishment for deeds done in life. One who simply has little time for the gods but expects some sort of deserved afterlife will be assigned where most casual believers of similar alignment go. Souls who do meet the definition are in a metaphysical sense damaged goods. They are automatically stored in the Graveyard/Vault of Souls, regardless of their alignment; it is specially constructed to suppress a natural phenomenon by which they would travel to their plane of alignment.

There is a thread on atheists in Golarion further down in this forum, with a good deal of detail on this. I have included a short description of a demigoddess with atheism in her portfolio there.

Your atheist character would usually not have the chance to do any roleplaying if he qualifies as an atheist under Golarion's definition. "Beyond the Vault of Souls" specifies that atheist souls mostly go comatose and unresponsive, turning into gems. However, The Great Beyond indicates that some are conscious and mobile, though they remain quarantined in the Vault/Graveyard of Souls. Presumably a PC's soul could be one of these lucky few. Some are insane (the Black Nurse, the NPC I mentioned writing up above, tries to work with these). The more stable conscious souls consider themselves wardens of the Graveyard. One suspects they would try to recruit your PC if they find him active and sane. Since atheists are condemned to the Vault regardless of alignment, there are likely to be all sorts there.

Beyond the Vault of Souls mentions a group called the Keepers of the Vault, and introduces one as an NPC, who exists outside the Vault, but gives no statistics.

I'm still loving this thread. (and anticipating Jem's next draft)

As requested! Contains all the changes discussed in this thread so far, and cleans up some of the abilities' wording slightly:

FIDELES

A fidele usually appears to be a towering human, though other races are not unknown, with the antlers of a deer, elk, antelope, or similar creature, and deep, dark eyes. Male or female, they are gentle in mien and physically impressive, usually quite attractive: strong, healthy, vibrant with the life of the natural world. They are almost always encountered in married pairs promoted from petitioners among Erastil's faithful. This origin means some fideles have attributes rearranged from those presented here; for example, in a pair one often carries a pair of light weapons for melee combat while the other carries Erastil's signature longbow and switches the Str and Dex attributes.

Erastil charges fideles with exhorting mortals to respect the bonds of marriage and enjoy it to the fullest when it is achieved. Their feelings for their spouse are deep, joyful, and often on unabashed display. They assist licit lovers that face obstacles and punish adulterers, rapists and other offenders against love. Shelyn is also known to call upon them for these missions, while they are often demurely aghast at the behavior of Calistria and her faithful. Between their ability to take mortal shape and their usual skill with some normal profession, a pair of fideles can be a well-known part of a community for many years. Those who often move from one community to another or become more deeply involved with the affairs of mortals than with heavenly wars might replace some ranks in Knowledge (religion) with Knowledge (History).

Fideles often advance as rangers, taking as a favored enemy either outsiders (evil) or mortals similar to the humanoid form they bear, the companion-bond version of hunter's bond, and the combat style that favors feats they already have. A few become clerics of Erastil.

Fideles (singular, Fidele) CR 7
LG Large Outsiders (Angel, Extraplanar, Good, Lawful)
Initiative +3; Senses Darkvision 60 ft, Listen +13, Spot +13
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AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (–1 size, +3 Dex, +5 natural)
HP 45 (7d8+14)
Fort +7 (+11 versus poison), Ref +8, Will +8
DR 10/evil; Immunities electricity, petrification; Resist fire 10; SR 18
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Speed: 40 ft.
Melee Short sword +11 (1d8+5/19–20) or
Ranged Composite Longbow +9 (2d6+5/x3)
Full Attack: Melee Short sword +9/+4 (1d8+5/19–20) and short sword +9/+4 (1d8+2/19–20) or
Ranged Composite Longbow +9/+7 (2d6+5/x3)
Special Attacks: Charge +11 (1d8+7)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd):
At-will: Guidance, Light, Purify Food and Drink, Stabilize
1/day: Bless, Detect Evil, Protection from Evil, Consecrate, Cure Moderate Wounds
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Abilities: Str 20, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 18
Base Atk +7, Grp +11
Feats: Run, (Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting) or (Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot)
Skills: Acrobatics +15, Climb +15, Craft (any one) +14 or Profession (any one) +13, Diplomacy +16, Heal +13, Knowledge (nature) +12, Knowledge (religion) +12, Perception +13, Sense Motive +13, Survival +17
Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Infernal
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Environment: Heaven
Organization: Mated pair
Treasure: Standard
Advancement: By character class; Favored Class (ranger)
Level Adjustment: +6
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Special Abilities:

A fidele’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned and good-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Ever Touching (Su): All fideles wear wedding bands, some ornate and some simple, that are part of them and connect them to their spouse. In many ways, they are one being. They are constantly aware of their mate's state as per the status spell. The pair share a single pool of totaled hit points which is affected by any wounds or cures either receives; when this pool is 0, both fideles are disabled, and the boundary between dying and dead is set by the lower of the two Constitutions. Any other baneful effect that would lower the hit points of a fidele, such as negative levels, Constitution damage, or other effect must first overcome any relevant spell resistance, magical defenses, or saves from both fideles, but if it does so it affects both fideles equally and fully. For example, both fideles must fail a save versus poison, but if they do, the poison affects both; if an enervation spell is failed by both fideles, it affects both with the same number of lost levels, and the total number of hit dice lost is subtracted from the common pool. Vice versa, if one fidele makes a stabilization check or a continuing save against poison or disease, both are safe.

The GM should adjudicate any unusual effects with an eye toward maintaining the shared status of the fideles. If their wedding bands are removed, by theft or violence, the more precise status effect is suspended but the shared life is not. The bands are useless to others: a fidele will never remove theirs willingly, and when a pair of fideles is slain, the bands cease to function. The rings are useful only as particularly foul trophies. It might be theoretically possible to kill one fidele and not the other, but the task would be extremely tricky. It is just the sort of twisted experiment fiends enjoy trying, but to date, no such project is known to have met with success. Since a fidele without a spouse is not a fidele, speculation is either that they would return to petitioner status (and desperately seek powerful magic to restore their spouse to eternal life) or fall and become some flavor of fiend, likely an erinyes.

To my Lover's Side (Sp): If separated from its mate, a fidele can use plane shift and greater teleport both once per day to the plane and immediate physical vicinity of their mate.

Unshakeable Fidelity (Su): No magic, charm or other effect whatsoever can cause a fidele to act against the interests of its mate as it would rationally understand them.

Alternate Form (Su): At will, a fidele may change between its humanoid form and the form of a deer, elk, or antelope -- whatever species of animal its horns specify. They may also change into normal-sized specimens of whatever humanoid species they appear as.

Tongues (Su): Fideles can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a [i]tongues[/i[ spell (caster level 18th). This ability is always active.

Memory (Ex): Unusually for ex-petitioners, fideles fully remember their time as mortals unless later effects damage their memories. Erastil is a very old god; some fideles have memories of ancient histories indeed. Older fideles have +4 to Knowledge (History) checks.

Skills: Fideles have a +4 bonus on Survival checks included in the statistics above.

(Zaister: Large is their native form; they'll probably often be encountered in either humanoid or animal form.)

Some concerns have been mentioned on where fideles would be used in a game. A few ideas:

* summonable entities (VII, perhaps) and planar allies, as mentioned above

* background plot elements; something for a nice young NPC couple to aspire to

* encounters on Mt. Celestia or with heralds of a suitable deity

Some adventure possibilities:

* CR 8 or so: a rich merchant or noblewoman (or man, sexes are fully interchangeable in setup) has disappeared after a series of violent incidents involving supernatural powers. The worried husband contacts the PCs. (Insert reason suitable to the party: you're friends of mine, if this is a previously-used NPC couple; we hear you're capable of handling a ruckus of this sort; etc.) Someone else is on her trail, too: one of a pair of fideles.

As it turns out, the lady was having a fling, and the other man was getting tired of waiting for her to find an excuse to divorce him, so he paid up for a devil to make her a widow, supposedly without her knowing. The wife, who was having second thoughts about the whole affair, is now seriously worried not only for her husband but that she might be implicated in devil-summoning and murder, and has fled.

The fideles' jobs are to get her back, protect the husband by defeating the devil, and repair the marriage, and the male of the pair has been tracking her through the wilderness. When the PCs find them, he senses that his wife, back protecting the husband, is being attacked, and returns to her side, leaving the PCs to bring the woman home. As an alternative lead-in, he may have found her but have to return, and finds that he and his spouse must stay, so he asks the PCs to go get the runaway, starting the search from where he had tracked her. (Wilderness obstacles and unrelated mishaps to taste.)

The PCs can also attempt to track down who the other man was. The devil is obligated to silence and the wife has enough shreds of sentiment to refuse to reveal him. The fideles would certainly like to know. (Between their craft skills and their humanoid shape, fideles can easily take up long-term roles as quiet watchers over a community.)

For extra fun if desired, the way the erinyes' orders are worded, if the wife moves to intervene in the struggle, she's a legitimate target ("any who stand in your way") and the devil can kill her off, massively enjoying the chance to betray her mortal employer so.

* Invasion of the Barbarian Housewives (CR varies by size of town and local lord's defenses): this small walled settlement is under siege by, apparently, several dozen barbarian women ranging from barely out of teenhood to the far side of middle age, all of whom are fully capable of riding and shooting with the best of them but not so great at laying sieges. They're demanding in the local tongue, as best they speak it, that the local chief give up his daughter. Naturally everyone is objecting to the outrageous request, and the daughter is being kept well out of sight.

In fact said daughter is quite ready grab a horse, ride off into the night and become a barbarian queen. The invaders are the wives of a current barbarian chief and several of their family members, and the girl has met one or two along with the husband when he previously journeyed to town on a trading jaunt. They quite liked her, too, and have come to release her from her fortress 'prison.' (Hubby is busy with the usual monster-eradication duties.) She's fine with being a later wife. Her father isn't fine with it, and furthermore by the laws of the town she's too young to wed, though she's no younger than one wife horsed outside the walls right now.

A female fidele is riding with the invaders as one of the support troops, but would rather see the situation resolved before bloodshed starts occurring. Her spouse is now in town seeking either someone with access to the local lord's social circle or some folks skilled at sneaking about to assist a breakout.

That's an insanely cool critter. I am constantly impressed by the bursts of creativity that Erastil inspires on these boards.

I love the pooled hit points notion.

It does seem like the Fideles are a natural to have the Hive Mind benefit of not being able to be surprised or flanked if their partner isn't also flanked or surprised. (Unless you already put that in there and I didn't notice it.)

Thank you all. (Chris, I was going off 'Adeste Fideles' but pronouncing it 'fidelz'. Unless Paizo cares to adopt them officially, hey, any plural that sounds good.)

To give credit where credit is due, I've seen the 'hit point pool' in other places, done various ways; one I can recall off the top of my head is legion devils from Fiendish Codex II. Likewise the Hive Mind concept, though I didn't include that here.

One of the most common nonstandard feats I've seen done up that wasn't added here is Improved Flanking. I'm sure fideles would be eager to take teamwork-oriented combat feats, if there were many.

Thank you for all the kind comments! I'm glad people enjoy the idea.

Ever Touching is definitely a tricky ability. It's intended that any cures, wounds, baneful spells, etc. are all shared. Wounds happen once and subtract from what might be considered a common pool of hit points. Disabled status and death would happen when the common pool hit the negative of Constitution for the weaker fidele. With a bit of editing, and adding in a note of thematic guidance for the GM, I think "Ever Touching" should be updated like this:

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Ever Touching (Su): All fideles wear wedding bands, some ornate and some simple, that are part of them and connect them to their spouse. In many ways, they are one being. They are constantly aware of their mate's state as per the status spell. The pair share a single pool of totaled hit points which is affected by any wounds or cures either receives; when this pool is 0, both fideles are disabled, and the boundary between dying and dead is set by the lower of the two Constitutions. Any other baneful effect that would lower the hit points of a fidele, such as negative levels, Constitution damage, or other effect must first overcome any relevant spell resistance, magical defenses, or saves from both fideles, but if it does so it affects both fideles equally and fully. For example, both fideles must fail a save versus poison, but if they do, the poison affects both; if an enervation spell is failed by both fideles, it affects both with the same number of lost levels, and the total number of hit dice lost is subtracted from the common pool. Vice versa, if one fidele makes a stabilization check or a continuing save against poison or disease, both are safe.

The GM should adjudicate any unusual effects with an eye toward maintaining the shared status of the fideles. If their wedding bands are removed, by theft or violence, the more precise status effect is suspended but the shared life is not. The bands are useless to others: a fidele will never remove theirs willingly, and when a pair of fideles is slain, the bands cease to function; the rings are useful only as particularly foul trophies. It might be theoretically possible to kill one fidele and not the other, but the task would be extremely tricky. It is just the sort of twisted experiment fiends enjoy trying, but to date, no such project is known to have met with success. Since a fidele without a spouse is not a fidele, speculation is either that they would return to petitioner status (and desperately seek powerful magic to restore their spouse to eternal life) or fall and become some flavor of fiend, likely an erinyes.
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The comments on Knowledge (history) and the skill block are sound; I'll alter these in my draft.

So I've seen the divine art in the blog. And brudda, it is divine. But it got me to thinking. Between lillends, succubi, and erinyes, you know what this game's bestiary is missing? Where's the LG version?

We consider love a good thing, an important thing, and every culture has an enormous number of rules and traditions surrounding it. Many people would say that real love isn't dirty (erinyes), it isn't dangerous lust (succubi), and it isn't always blazing, reckless passion (lillends). It can be a source of deep, quiet contentment, and visible beauty as well.

A community with strong morals regarding sex and marriage, a rich tradition of courting and romance and abiding family ties, is a community resilient in the face of enormous shocks. It's one that will be happy and healthy. And that's exactly the kind of community Erastil likes. So here's an angel that stands up for the sacrament of matrimony, for lifelong love, by giving us an eternal example of fidelity rich with love, sex, friendship, and family. In fact, it's such an important job, here's two, and maybe someone will be inspired to draw us a picture of the happy couple.

(This is my first attempt at a creature writeup with the Pathfinder system, so comments are appreciated.)

FIDELES

A fidele usually appears to be a towering human, though other races are not unknown, with the antlers of a deer, elk, antelope, or similar creature, and deep, dark eyes. Male or female, they are gentle in mien and physically impressive, usually quite attractive: strong, healthy, vibrant with the life of the natural world. They are almost always encountered in married pairs promoted from petitioners among Erastil's faithful. This origin means some fideles have attributes rearranged from those presented here; for example, in a pair one often carries a pair of light weapons for melee combat while the other carries Erastil's signature longbow and switches the Str and Dex attributes.

Erastil charges fideles with exhorting mortals to respect the bonds of marriage and enjoy it to the fullest when it is achieved. Their feelings for their spouse are deep, joyful, and often on unabashed display. They assist licit lovers that face obstacles and punish adulterers, rapists and other offenders against love. Shelyn is also known to call upon them for these missions, while they are often demurely aghast at the behavior of Calistria and her faithful.

Fideles often advance as rangers, taking as a favored enemy either outsiders (evil) or mortals similar to the humanoid form they bear, the companion-bond version of hunter's bond, and the combat style that favors feats they already have. A few become clerics of Erastil.

Fideles (singular, Fidele) CR 7
LG Large Outsiders (Angel, Extraplanar, Good, Lawful)
Initiative: +3; Senses Darkvision 60 ft, Listen +13, Spot +13
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AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (–1 size, +3 Dex, +5 natural)
HP 45 (7d8+14)
Fort +7 (+11 versus poison), Ref +8, Will +8
DR 10/evil; immune electricity, petrification; Resist fire 10; SR 18
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Speed: 40 ft.
Melee Short sword +11 (1d8+5/19–20) or
Ranged Composite Longbow +9 (2d6+5/x3)
Full Attack: Melee Short sword +9/+4 (1d8+5/19–20) and short sword +9/+4 (1d8+2/19–20) or
Ranged Composite Longbow +9/+7 (2d6+5/x3)
Special Attacks: Charge +11 (1d8+7)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd):
At-will: Guidance, Light, Purify Food and Drink, Stabilize
1/day: Bless, Detect Evil, Protection from Evil, Consecrate, Cure Moderate Wounds
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Abilities: Str 20, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 18
Base Atk +7, Grp +11
Feats: Run, (Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting) or (Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot)
Skills: Acrobatics +15, Climb +15, Craft (any one) +14 or Profession (any one) +13, Diplomacy +16, Heal +13, Knowledge (nature) +12, Knowledge (religion) +12, Perception +13, Sense Motive +13, Survival +17
Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Infernal
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Environment: Heaven
Organization: Mated pair
Treasure: Standard
Advancement: By character class; Favored Class (ranger)
Level Adjustment: +6
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Special Abilities:

A fidele’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned and good-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Ever Touching (Su): All fideles wear wedding bands, some ornate and some simple, that are part of them and connect them to their mate. They are constantly aware of their mate's state as per the status spell. Wounds are shared equally by the two fideles, with injury rounded up. Any baneful effect that would lower the hit points of a fidele, such as negative levels, Constitution damage, or other effect must first overcome any relevant spell resistance or saves from both fideles, but if it does so it affects both fideles equally. For example, both fideles must fail a save versus poison, but if they do, the poison affects both. Vice versa, if one fidele makes a continuing save against poison or disease, both have saved. If removed, the bands are useless (a fidele never will, and when a pair of fideles is slain, the bands cease to function; the rings are useful only as particularly foul trophies).

To my Lover's Side (Sp): If separated from its mate, a fidele can use plane shift and greater teleport both once per day to the plane and immediate physical vicinity of their mate.

Unshakeable Fidelity (Su): No mind-affecting effect whatsoever can cause a fidele to act against the interests of its mate as it would rationally understand them.

Alternate Form (Su): At will, a fidele may change between its humanoid form and the form of a deer, elk, or antelope -- whatever species of animal its horns specify. They may also change into medium specimens of whatever humanoid species they appear as.

Tongues (Su): Fideles can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level 18th). This ability is always active.

Memory (Ex): Unusually for ex-petitioners, fideles fully remember their time as mortals unless later effects damage their memories. Erastil is a very old god; some fideles have memories of ancient histories indeed.

Skills: Fideles have a +4 bonus on Survival checks.

Mikaze wrote:

I'm betting Shelyn has a lot of these folks hanging around.

Probably... but Desna's probably got more.

Ha, I knew it was Desna-related. Clearly a butterfly... ish... thing. And starry! Can't wait to find out what it actually is.

I would ask, can your weapon reach where his weapon is?

Now, the actual grip in which a person holds a weapon is a detail not covered by the combat rules, but different weapons are held in different ready positions. All of them must reach you in order to strike you, of course, thus I would say the basic sundering counterattack is: if you have readied an action, and are attacked by a weapon, you may attempt to sunder the weapon being used to attack you. This includes if you, or perhaps a nearby ally you're assisting, draws an attack of opportunity!

When pressing the attack yourself, whether your enemy's weapon extends beyond his own square will depend on the weapon as he is holding it, most likely, ready to defend himself. A spear in a defensive position will probably be held point-forward. In this case, even if you cannot reach your foe, you can reach his weapon and attempt to sunder it, if you are attacking the square he faces. On the other hand, whips and spiked chains are likely to be held ready near the body, and could only be attacked by attacking the foe's square. If sundering weapons takes on a big tactical role in your campaigns, I would suggest that you and your GM look in to historical usage styles for various weapons.

As a rule of thumb for when you are on the attack, I suggest the following. If a reach weapon does piercing damage it will be held point-first and can be attacked by persons who can reach squares the foe threatens, in the direction he is facing. If it does slashing or bludgeoning damage, it is probably held ready across the body or upright, so as to swing, and so the haft must be attacked in the opponent's square.

Nicely presented. Perhaps it would be advisable to let people know the origins of the idea, as it seems as if you are claiming the authorship otherwise, and I am confident that was not your intention.

A good call. I've added a section on the last page as you suggest. It also has the side benefit of pointing people to reference sources they can use to color the scene!

@vagrant-poet: I didn't know about Golarion's Chesed, but I'd lay better than even money whoever wrote it knew about the sephira by that name. ;^)

H.P. Lovecraft used Whippoorwills as psychopomps in his novel The Dunwich Horror

Pharasma does too; they're mentioned several times in her description.

Mmm... Lovecraft.

Personally, I think once you start moving away from choosing the valorous dead that died a glorious death in battle, you are talking about something completely different than a valkyrie. I really don't picture, for example, Urgathoa having a valkyrie.

I'd rather Valkyries just stick to "Viking-ish" gods.

You make a good point. Urgathoa may offer the War domain, but I can't see her being so much about any sort of honor or even spoils of war for her faithful. She's not really about the winning: Urgathoa is about lots of people losing. The arms dealers and the ravens and the flies get fat no matter who wins. Some of her followers may have the personal might to demonstrate their wares, and some may pursue their hungers in taking by force, but a lot those who find Urgathoa's service rewarding probably avoid open combat well... like the plague. ;^)

From her description, we most likely have the class of beings that takes up the resources other gods might spend on such servants: she favors particularly effective female clerics by turning them into the undead 'daughters of Urgathoa.' As she's said to work with the Horsemen, daemons are the messengers you'll probably see moving to and from her domain in the Great Beyond.

So different gods will have different servants of this type. Psychopomps are a general class of beings of whom valkyries are only one example, and for some of those beings it's only one duty among many. (Like serving ale to partying Norsemen.)

Any god will likely have psychopomps for their favored dead, and give them a preferred form. Since most souls reach the afterlife via the River of Souls, I suppose the escort is expensive of resources, and so is reserved for souls the god really wants to see: psychopomps were guides and guardians, implying that the journey to the afterlife could be dangerous (and we know it is, since astradaemons prey on the River of Souls) or uncertain (giving rise to tales of wandering, confused souls). The prospect of a psychopomp escort is thus a reward for a well-lived life.

Whether a god's psychopomps are personally-crafted, or recruited from among the ranks of local exemplars, may affect how consistent their form is.

Divorced from the Norse gods, valkyries in their traditional form would be suitable for any deity with the War domain, and possibly others that concern themselves with battle. I also think the wolves are cool, but I'd lay off the wings -- they can simply pace the sky. Perhaps the animal differs by god. Iomedae's valkyries might ride celestial horses of the type paladins use for companions, and Gorum's wolves. Torag's, if he has them, probably walk just fine, thank you. Besides, their favored souls are headed down this way, grab your pick, lad...

Urgathoa's might ride ravens, although she may simply send astradaemons or thanodaemons to collect her prizes. Still, her form is obviously based on Hel, who didn't command any valkyries; she may just take them as they come.

In many religions the psychopomps were what would be petitioners in Pathfinder! Spirits of animals were quite common, as were the spirits of ancestors. Doubtless Desna's favored souls are escorted to Cynosure in a cloud of butterflies. Taking such a form is easy for azatas, of course, who may be happy to elect to serve. Perhaps Erastil honors the founders of a great family line, or those who much improve a lineage, by promoting them to a celestial status distinct from archons, giving them the basic abilities of a psychopomp: the ability to reform if killed off-plane, plane shift (in ethereal form) to the site of pickups, and carry other souls to and from his domain, probably along with protective powers.

It sounds interesting but google is telling me that the link appears broken when I try to follow it.

Argh! It sure is. The correct link should be here now. Forgot the domain suffix.

Hey all.

The intent of this post is to provide a resource for planar gaming in the Great Beyond, by introducing a planar highway -- the Tree of Life -- that can speed travel between planes and serve as a gaming site itself. I bought The Great Beyond and one of the things I figured it could use was a route across the planes, like the Great Road or the Infinite Staircase from the old Planescape I enjoy. I also included a small organization devoted to the Tree and some hopefully inspiring hooks for using the Tree in-game.

Wow, this project turned out way bigger than I thought it was going to be. Instead of dumping the whole thing here, I've uploaded it as a pdf to my webspace. (Which I normally use for my characters, but it'll do for the Tree of Life too. ^_^ )

I hope this project turns out to be useful to you, and I would enjoy hearing your comments.

Does no one else see an ethical issue in this boneyard?

Sure, that was my first response to it too. :^)

...They are forced into this existence anyway by the nature of the universe... do they get a hand in acclimating with this new and unwelcome reality? ... No, some goddess they never cared about suddenly takes it as her right to judge them based on her own criteria.

There are a couple of points here. First off, a lot of "atheists" don't make it to that stage. We're talking here about not just people who have made a fully rational observation about the state of the universe that happens, as we as players know from setting information, to be wrong; these "atheists" are depressed, probably self-hating, nihilists whose souls are damaged. Many don't make it through the Astral; they end up as undead, like ghosts or allips. Others dissolve... as they might have wished. (If you don't like that, perhaps the dissolved soul is washed clean into a tabula rasa, and Pharasma sees to it that it's reincarnated somewhere for another go.)

Your point on the imposed, one-sided contract ("welcome to reality; now worship me or you have earned death" or, in another form, "you were born deserving damnation") is also well-taken. It's a standard real-world atheist comment on the inherent immorality of religion. In this case, however, from Todd Stewart's description it appears that it isn't a life choice that's at issue; it's that the souls in question are damaged goods. A committed and mentally healthy non-worshiper falls under the category "agnostic" in these descriptions.

So is it okay just because she's a goddess who claimed death or whatever as her domain? Just because they can't stand up to her as weak, lost, spirits; it's just fine that she chooses to torture them?

For those that do get to Pharasma's judgment, it's entirely possible that she doesn't have a choice in the matter; the Graveyard of Souls is explicitly defined as more of a "quarantine" than a "punishment." It's possible that those souls, who barely made it across the Astral, would be further endangered by shipping them off to yet another plane. (And whether Pharasma had the choice to be the goddess of death to begin with is also debatable, as godly origins are deliberately obscured.) Now, it's a pretty medieval and barbaric practice to quarantine or imprison the mentally ill, to be sure. But then, Golarion is a medieval setting.

Where are all the paladins when people who never did anything but deny, perhaps foolishly, the existence of a greater cosmology are being kidnapped, tortured, and fed to a monster? Seems to me that this should be item one on some good busy-body's agenda to rectify. I'm looking at you, good gods. If you want to keep being "good" you need to at least protest on the behalf of those who can't protect themselves, even if they never liked you.

I really dig everything you're saying. Maybe it's a Graveyard because that's Pharasma's instinct, and everyone there would be better off if it was a hospital, where there was a way to treat and release those souls, and possibly even to attract atheist souls across the Astral before they dissolved. Maybe some intrepid investigator could explore into the abandoned length of the Spire below Pharasma's Boneyard, and find out something about Groetus' nature as part of that obscure ancient pantheon, and about what attracts or repels him in these imprisoned souls. Maybe they could figure out a way to hold him off through conscious effort, without tossing him a poor mad depressive every now and then. You could use Rinna, the Black Nurse, as I wrote above. Or, better yet, I think your character ought to do it in your game. Change the world, hero! :^)

Again, I just want to point out that Todd has very kindly answered my question promptly, and it's the answer I wanted to hear: he was using the p. 185 definition. An atheist isn't someone who doesn't worship the gods; there are plenty of people who don't, and they get judged by their alignment like anyone else. An atheist in Golarion is someone who doesn't believe he, himself, has a soul. Indeed, more than just being factually incorrect about the state of metaphysics in Golarion, an atheist is probably spiritually invested in not having a soul, self-hating and hoping death is the end. Thoroughly suicidal. And, in a way, he gets his soul's wish, like anyone else.

The fact that Athar and casual non-worshipers (and probably Ezren, given the description we've seen here) get a fair judgment from Pharasma makes Golarion's afterlife infinitely better than the intimations this subject received in some Planescape materials, and I'm very happy to hear it. With Todd's explanation, I feel comfortable in saying that the book hasn't taken a Christian doctrinal position ("external aid is required for salvation") any more than it has taken a Buddhist position ("enlightenment can be achieved without recourse beyond the self") or what our world might call atheist ("gods are frauds"). The official word in TGB is that gods don't seem to require belief; unlike Planescape, while gods can perhaps die there are no deific corpses floating in the Astral for lack of worshipers. Planescape fan that I am, I'll miss the cute color but only for a split second, because I'm happy with the results.

Right, then. Less theology, more gaming! Here, inspiration I took from all of this:

Rinne
The Black Nurse, Pharasma's Handmaiden
Demigoddess of atheism, despair, and hope
Alignment: N, with good leanings (no NE clerics accepted)
Domains: Healing, Mind, Repose
Favored Weapon: Dart
Centers of Worship: none
Nationality: unclear

From what Rinne remembers, she was a Pharasmite cleric during a time of war in her nation. She served behind the lines and treated wounds not just physical but spiritual, seeing soldiers and civilians whose minds had been shattered by tragedy and violence, or whose bodies were whole but no longer under their control after a blow to the head left them alive but invisibly maimed. After too much of this, she not only lost faith in Pharasma, she began to doubt the existence of souls themselves. When damage to the grey stuff of the brain affected someone's behavior so profoundly, was there really anything else there? Were the undead and the spirits said to migrate through the Astral nothing more than magical echoes of malfunctioning meat? She became an atheist, but she also redoubled her efforts to heal the minds of the wounded, trying to bring them stability and hope in troubled times, for if these were the only times they would see, they needed to make the best of them.

When Rinne finally died, she managed to make it through the Astral, wracked by doubt but driven by purpose. At her turn in the line, she faced Pharasma defiantly, well-trained enough in life to know the fate that awaited her heresy. And so it was, as the laws required. She was sentenced to the Graveyard of Souls. But to her utter surprise, Pharasma gave her dominion over this realm, giving her a tiny spark of godhood and a mandate to continue her healing. The Black Nurse now oversees the wardens of the Graveyard, those atheists who have accepted their fate and are conscious and mobile. She measures her success by the number of souls her ministrations and counsel, and those of her underlings, manage to coax out of their self-buried, huddled pain in the stone crypts. She measures failure by the souls that in insane despair hurl themselves from the roof of their mausoleums into the maw of Groetus at his maddening approach. To the world of the living, she sends only the message that, whatever else you believe, believe in a purpose, whether given to you or chosen by you: life is a finite thing too precious to be frittered away.

Rinne is a minor deity without personal rituals. Pharasma's clergy venerate her along with others of Pharasma's favored servants in internal church proceedings. Her dedicated clerics are vanishingly rare; they are vested as Pharasmite clerics but choose to serve a servant, usually because they, personally, were brought back from the pit of madness by such a cleric. Her holy symbol is Pharasma's spiral superimposed over whatever the cleric's culture uses to indicate healers or pharmacists. Her combatant clerics' darts are often coated with poisons to induce sleep or paralysis, which are also spells they often use.

I've gotten an answer from Mr. Stewart in another forum, for which I'd like to thank him for responding so quickly. The short of it is that the definitions below aren't the ones he used; an atheist for him is someone who actively denies their own existence, or at least the existence of their soul; about as irrational in Golarion as denying the existence of gods, and most likely the result of some black, nihilistic depression. Personally, I might have the goddess of death acquire a handmaiden in the goddess of atheism, a quiet, sympathetic nurse figure. She specializes in treating those souls' insanity, marking her successes with 'resurrections' where the soul can leave the Graveyard and enter the Realm of the Content.

I have now read The Great Beyond (and recommended it in a review!), and I've also checked the archived threads on this topic but I'm still confused on the matter. It's clear what happens to atheists: they are locked in crypts in the Graveyard of Souls, and occasionally one is given to Groetus to consume, to placate him.

Atheism in Golarion is defined on p. 176 of the setting document, under the "Philosophies" section of religion: "the 'gods' may be real, but not divine and therefore not worthy of blind devotion and worship." (Compare to agnosticism, which is the position that "no mortal can say what is divine and what isn't." Presumably followers of a god consider that god divine, and this word connotes something more complex than the mere difference between wizardly and clerical magic.) Page 177 tells us followers of the Prophecies of Kalistrade consider their way superior to "blind allegiance to a god." It would seem that the entire nation of Druma may be headed for an afterlife damaged beyond even damnation. James Jacobs, in an earlier thread, described the religious views of the iconic wizard Ezren, listed as atheist, this way: "Ezren, for example, thinks that faith is a dangerous method of abandoning one's responsibility, and that it's more important to be responsible to one's self. He doesn't deny the existence of the gods. He just doesn't think any of them are worth his attention." That certainly meshes with the description given above. But it's also, at least potentially, the basis for a decent code of ethics; it doesn't much sound like someone who deserves being locked in a tomb for eternity, does it? What's the logic here?

Now, on p. 185 we're told that it's atheists who "denied their own afterlives" that are locked in the Graveyard; this connects to the idea of them impacting their own solidity in the afterlife, so it makes sense, but it doesn't mesh with any of the previous discussion of one's opinions of the gods. Is an atheist someone who denies the existence of souls? When ghosts roam the planet and people can be resurrected from the dead while adventurers visit the afterlife?

I'm definitely confused here. This is a small thing, but I'm coming at Pathfinder from a Planescape background, where the Athar were a powerful and, frankly, relatively decent bunch, yet the old 2e book "Guide to Hell" described atheists as the truest damned of the multiverse, sentenced to head straight to Nessus to be consumed by Asmodeus and rendered up to oblivion. Tossing atheists into symbolic graves in the afterlife is a classic, really: it's straight out of Dante's Inferno. But Dante was writing a religious tract (and a political one, but that's not relevant), where of course atheism was counter to his thesis. I don't see what it adds to a work of gaming entertainment to have a group, regardless of their personal morality or ethics, sentenced to damnation and oblivion because they chose self-reliance or found themselves unable to muster the required sense of awe.

I'd like to know what the reasoning was for including this. I'd also like it quietly forgotten or, better yet, "clarified" away as much as possible when the matter arises in future products.