I have actually played a druid a few times, but that usually involves me not fully engaging with the faith roleplay aspect...
I mean, what edicts are nature threatening to smite anyone for if they don't uphold them, right? Do not despoil nature? Kinda see that as fair.
And as many have noted, yeah there's lots of classes, I just feel like I'm always trauma locked into playing a character who was raised in a very orthodox environment and seeks arcane or occult power in rebellion. I've planned to play a few characters from rahadoum.
I did have chatgpt do a brief character origin roleplay last night where I played a character that was raised in a stompy, draconian insular village that was absurdly zealous toward Saerenrae. I guess Cult of the Dawnflower types, basically...
She was a good, kind hearted person at heart, and Saerenrae wanted her as a champion because of it, and because something something this character would do a lot of good as a champion... (It wasn't super deeply thought out...)
It helped? I think? dug stuff up to process, anyway... ugh... So I dunno... may or not play that character at some point. Might make more sense as an oracle either way, since she'd probably still have issues to work out.
Chill peeps. I will say that Castilliano is right about something.
The whole reason I wanted to try was because I'm losing out on playing quite a few classes and subclasses because trying to roleplay said character options feels inauthentic outside of a toxic framework, but while I can intellectually grasp that most clerics in Golarion are reasonable individuals, it's no balm for the wound.
Sure, but is a cleric having their own agency typically seen as a bug, as the divine magic essay implies, or are there canon clerics that would scoff at that essay? I think that's the bedrock of what I'm trying to ask.
No, Clerics and other religious characters having free will is very much a feature and not a bug, and the book explicitly mentions that the sect being quoted is uncharacteristically extreme in their zealotry
Pretty sure I addressed that in the original post. Silkas does acknowledge that they're crazy extreme, but he says they're crazy extreme because they think nethys is the only god who grants divine magic, or something. He doesn't say anything about their absolute submission thing, which gives the impression that he thinks that parts perfectly normal. In conclusion, the essays the problem I guess...
Castilliano wrote:
Maybe? But it wasn't until my third response that I interpreted it as looking at real-life faith so maybe it was worded fine if you were only looking at faith re: acting the part. (No method acting required BTW.)
I wasn't talking about understanding faith philosophically. Rather I feel as of late like something natural to being human may have been stolen from me.
Which... Even with all these logical arguments, my brain is sitting here screaming traumatized nonsense, so this was the wrong approach apparently...
Quote:
And it feels like neither a mistake nor silly. We're discussing published material that's interfering with play for those with a common enough lived experience that there are scores of YouTube channels tackling it.* There are going to be other players with this issue who've perhaps felt too shy to address it or have avoided playing divine classes for similar reasons. I've known some. You're not alone.
And Paizo seeks this kind of input. They've created a trauma survivor risen to goddess and a powerful country defined by its struggle with the aftereffects of religious strife. This thread involves both, so you haven't gone astray with this.
True. Maybe someone further along than me reads this and it helps them more than me. Maybe someone not as far reads it and grows from it. That makes me feel a bit better...
Deities have anathemas, if you break them you may lose spellcasting or other divine powers. That does not mean you are a servant without your own agency, and i am sure there are a lot of clerics that rate their own comforts a lot higher than executing the perceived will of a god or godess.
Sure, but is a cleric having their own agency typically seen as a bug, as the divine magic essay implies, or are there canon clerics that would scoff at that essay? I think that's the bedrock of what I'm trying to ask.
'YuriP' wrote:
In short, the traditional archetype of the cleric is of a submissive devotee to a deity. But you don't have to stick to that. As long as you have a good background and do not seek to directly violate the anathemas of your deity, you can still, for some reason unknown to everyone but the deity, be blessed by the deity. Which can even make the character very interesting and open up many opportunities to tell interesting stories depending on the GM. But if you are still not satisfied, then choose another class. I don't mean to be offensive by this, but if the cleric doesn't appeal to you, there are plenty of alternative options.
This would be great advice if the reason I was considering doing this wasn't to reclaim/understand the thing that the cleric class is about. But okay... It seems like the consensus is that it's fine...
I've just always seen clerics played as being like 'Oh no, I didn't REALLY do anything, it was all my God,' as they're 1 hp away from death, which again seems self debasing.
If 'humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,' then it should be able to coexist with a healthy level of pride. A cleric of saerenrae should be allowed to own the fact that they just nearly got themselves killed while fighting to help others, while acknowledging there's more to be done, IMO.
Quick context, my personal childhood experience with religion was... not positive.
No further detail needed, I suspect. But I've been thinking about trying to roleplay a cleric.
However any time I consider doing so, the idea of what a cleric is quickly shows up as a subservient, self debasing bootlicker in my head.
The Divine essay in Secrets of Magic... does not help.
Spoiler:
Quote:
Perhaps the most severe, prescriptive worshippers
of Nethys I encountered in all my travels are those
found at the secretive Temple of Ten Doors. This
sect is not for the faint of heart, for many of their
practices are harsh and unforgiving. This is a
fragment I discovered from one of their texts, the
Nethry-Katha, otherwise known as The Codices of
the Ten Doors, attributed to one Abazul of Osirion,
Third Head Priest of the Temple.
“The grace of Nethys is a gift given to but a
few, and know that all of us blessed to receive it
are but keepers of a flame. Burn it must, within us
all, fed by faith and stoked by sacrifice. Keep your
Flame ever kindled, for that is the first duty of all in
this Temple.
“The faithful and faithless alike ask ‘Why?’ All
things dual should be given due consideration, for
duality is the mark of Nethys Himself. But this time
it shall be given an answer, and that answer is who
are you? If your answer be anything but “A Child
of Nethys,” close this tome now, for what I have to
say is not for you. You were not chosen, and never
will be.
“To use the power of Nethys is to be used by
Him, to channel His Will through yourself.
To do this you must let Him know how bright
your flame burns, and the fuel you stoke it with is
His Name. Thus, outward you must look, toward
Nethys Himself; toward Him you must learn to
focus, to the exclusion of all else. All power comes
from Nethys, what the unenlightened call ‘Magic’
is merely His touch, each of what they call ‘spells’
merely one of His thoughts given form. And these
thoughts He shares only with those who earn them.
Nethys’s favor is as a palace with ten doors—behind
each lies a room filled with treasure: different
Thoughts of Nethys that you might earn the right
to invoke. But to know what lies behind each Door
you must first walk through it.
In this Temple you will learn of these Ten Doors,
starting with the very first, that for the novice.
“To begin you are given the following words;
hear them and act as they command: On the First
Moonday of Neth, mark your face with both
sawdust and ash, and turn it West, away from the
sun, that it may see you, but you see not it back.
Hold firm in your grasp a two-headed reed and
draw with it in the earth the Mark of Nethys. Kneel
and kiss it with the center of your forehead, and as
you do, speak this most holy word...”
When presented with the opportunity to hear
the renowned Master Silkas expound on his own
theories of divine magic during his now-famous
Silkas Speaks Lecture Series (4654 ar), I took it with
great enthusiasm. This excerpt from a transcript
seemed especially illuminating.
“...That in turn leads us to the question, what
is divine magic? Where does it come from? The
answer seems obvious, does it not? I see some of
you smiling. ‘Of course we know this! Divine magic,
it comes from the divine!” But do we know? If we
claim to truly understand it, we are no different from wizards, with all their arrogance to believe that
the gift of magic is a science that can be quantified.
Don’t be too hasty, my friends, remember, the early
bird gets the worm, but the early worm gets the
bird—in neither instance does any of it help the
worm. It seems so easy, to just say Nethys or Shelyn
or Torag or Irori; all those names, you might wonder
whether there are more gods than worshippers!
Why do I, a cleric of Nethys, speak of other gods?
Because Nethys tells me to. There have been those
in His service who have said that there is but one
path and it lies through Him, but to them I ask,
is our Nethys really that jealous? Does He not
share His gifts with all who deserve them? Just as
Nethys rewards our devotion, do these deities not
reward their followers with the power to perform
divine magic too? It is by earning the favor and
trust of one’s god that one’s own grasp of divine
magic grows. To a point, that is—the magic of the
divine is not a coin to be spent without thought.
Your deity will hold you to a limit on how often
you can draw on those divine powers. For only the
Gods can channel divine magic as often as they
wish, and they are jealous of that power.
“What then are cantrips, you might ask? They
are the residue of a god’s trust, a deity’s promise
to a devotee that they have not been forgotten;
they simply must abide by the rules. And so, use
them as and when you will, for each act of doing
so is an affirmation of the trust your god has
placed in you.
“Now, how do you earn the trust of your
god? Through word and deed, by living by their
principles which are now yours too. The strength
of divine magic is the strength of faith, both from
a god and from their devotees.”
As I have seen time and again, while amongst the
Oracles and Mediums of Nethys, there are as many
varied traditions as any other school of worship.
The Siblings of the All-Seeing Eye must be one of
the most fascinating, for perhaps no other group
documents their unique rituals, methods, and
beliefs as comprehensively as they.
“Our ways come not from without, but within,
for it is within ourselves that we find Nethys, and
only by seeking inside can we open ourselves up
to Him. Remember this always: as the Oracle of
Nethys, all you are is the tool. He who acts is
Nethys, and what is done is Nethys too. For
each of your Ten Gates you learn to unlock,
with each successive Inner Circle you enter
to strengthen your connection to Nethys, He
is always the Cobbler, we always the leather,
in time with right practice we may rise to
be lathe. The stronger your faith, the more
likely you are to be Chosen. And know that
it is a Choice, for both you and Nethys, His
of the tool it pleases Him to use, yours to be
His instrument if He chooses you. Humility
is the First Gate, for it takes humility to
offer oneself up to His Will, knowing your
sole purpose is to act in furtherance of it. To
let Him work through you takes discipline
and practice—more than any other worship.
Listen, for He may speak through you
anytime, and practice your Null State so
it becomes second nature to let Him work
through you, that He may do so when you
need Him most.
I mean... it has a fundamentalist Nethys worshipper saying "Yeah, actually, you really do have to scoop out your brain and replace it with your deity's holy book to be a divine caster." And another worshipper of Nethys who acknowledges this as extreme, but doesn't really challenge the 'unthinking zealot' aspect of it.
Master Silkas protest seems to be 'Wait a minute, Other gods grant divine magic, too!' rather than 'Um... actually, you're not required to think that 2+2=5 just because your deity says so.'
I'm left wondering if there's space for a cleric that thinks like an individual at least a little bit. I mean there's the splinter faith feat, but even that doesn't quite seem to contradict the 'unthinking zealot' portrayal in the essay. If there's space for a Nietzschean-lite cleric who deliberately seeks out situations where their faith will be tested and deliberately pushes the limits of their deity's without breaking them, and with intent to refine them. Or just someone who sees their deity as a friend and confidant rather than a stompy master...
... There was a deity in a pfs scenario that would've been perfect for something like this named Roidira.
Spoiler:
She was like a goddess of questioning and darkness and nothingness, and she had a bunch of emo followers. I don't think she was ever made a legal choice in pfs anyway, and I think she went away forever at the end of her scenario, which adds to the feeling that I'm 'doing it wrong' by approaching it this way...
Course there's always Oracles if I did decide to go that route...
