Arcane Apotheosis - What are some ways to ascend?

Good Question

The sorcerer wants to be the god of Enchantment and Illusions, Passions, Families, Kitsune, and Beauty.

Kind of wanting to sit next to Daikitsu as a god of interpersonal Kitsune relationships, the natural kitsune inclinations for magic and grace.

Good point. I think I can blend Enchantment/Illusions into something, and Beauty/Passions

Interpersonal relationships and families? That seems like something that would fall under the general Kitsune portfolio, and that portfolio is already the demense of Daikitsu. It is a good idea to try to not tread on the toes of the one who should logically be your biggest ally.

Additionally, I'm not seeing a thread of how those portfolios tie together. Daikitsu is Agriculture, craftsmanship, kitsune, and rice. That makes her a goddess of a quiet mountain village full of fox people who farm rice, make good solid tools, and live together in fox-person harmony. A mother-goddess peace-loving hippy-dippy thing. It works, it gels. I can see a few ways your listed portfolios might gel but I'm not sure which one you're going for, or how they tie into your previously-mentioned interest in "greater good of my people."

Finally, there's a question of what your character has already done and been in life.

Try to think of parables and legends that gods do and have done that your character might do. Say a Kitsune is doing something wrong; do you punish him, teach him, or empower someone else to defeat him? Say there are 2 people in trouble; one is a child lost in the woods, one is a man facing bandits, which one is more fun to help and how do you help them? Suppose that there is a war, Kitsune vs. humans, to help one side is to harm the other; do you abandon them to their fate, or do you influence one side or the other?

Think of other moments of strife or instances of divine intervention, be it major interventions like a hand of god crashing down or minor interventions like a bird alerting a would-be victim before her ambusher could strike.

And be sure to tie it into who your character already is. The crazed, power-hungry bomb-thrower who is constantly searching for more monsters to burn and artifacts to obtain/consume suddenly turning into the peaceful lover of Shire pipe-leaf and quiet days sweeping his doorstep is a bit of a disconnect. Sure he can LEARN to love that sort of thing, but it's a character development process.

The NPC wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

The NPC wrote:

Nethys was kind of like Dr. Manhattan in some respects. Cast his spell, gain knowledge, gets torn apart, and then pulls himself back together.

Bear in mind though that most(If not all) who ascended to divinity didn't have godhood as an end goal but as a step towards something else.

Iomadae = Be a better servant of Aroden.
Cayden Cailean = Why not?
Irori = Self mastery.
Norgorber = Secrets
Aroden = The furtherance of humans.
Neythis = Knowledge
Sarenrae = Not striving for it, but service was her goal.
Asmodeus = Control and the destruction of free will.

You get the idea.

Sarenrae and Asmodeus didn't really "ascend" to godhood, since they've been around since the Beginning. The rest are valid, though.

They jumped the gap between demigod and god. That's an ascension of a sort.

IIRC in the Golario setting Asmodeus started as a full god along his brother Ihys while Sarenrae was an Empyreal Lord that ascended to full godhood when Ihys was killed.

That's if you take the Book of the Damned at face value. Additionally Word of Creator states that Asmodeus is an ascended devil.

Gods aren't always constrained by linear continuity or coterminous patterns of genesis and existence. They have also been known to use the terrifying school of magic known as "Retconjuration."

Here's a list of all the mortals who have ascended to godhood that I'm aware of:

Aroden: Last of the Azlanti. Inherited the tremendous power the aboleth invested in the Starstone when he raised it from the sea, creating the isle of Kortos.

Cayden Cailean: An honorable but careless mercenary who passed the test of the Starstone in a drunken bet.

Iomedae: Already a hero of the Shining Crusade when she passed the test of the Starstone. Rather than becoming a god in her own right, Aroden chose to make her his herald. After her master's death, she rose to the rank of deity in his stead.

Irori: Achieved total perfection and left his mortal frame behind.

Kurgess: In life, he was a legendary sportsman. After dying to an act of treachery, Desna and Cayden Cailean elevated him to godhood amidst rumors that he was their half-mortal love child.

Nalivinati: Ascended through some previously unknown method. The Pathfinder Society is currently investigating the matter.

Nethys: Achieved mastery of magic and observed all that transpired on all planes. Became both mad and deific.

Norgorber: Passed the test of the Starstone, though how and who he was beforehand is entirely unknown.

Urgathoa: The first mortal to reject death, by fleeing Pharasma's boneyard back to Golarion she became the first undead being and ascended.

Golarion seems to have a thing about deities being connected to the "first" of something. Urgathoa ascended because she was the First Undead, Asmodeus's portfolio's were defined when he committed the First Act of Treachery, Abadar keeps the First one of everything in his vault, etc.

It sounds to me like if you can be the first one of something on Golarion, you get to become the god or goddess of that thing. You're obviously not the first kitsune, or the first sorcerer, but you might still be able to do or create the First something. You're going to have to get incredibly creative on this one, and you'll also have to accept that whatever you do first is probably going to be a defining feature of what you become the god or goddess of, so plan accordingly.

Alternatively, you could somehow manage to get the First of something from Abadar's vault. You'd probably have to do it in a way that convinces him to let you keep it, but if so, you'd probably get to ascend to at least demigodhood on the basis of being its keeper.

The minor goddess Milani has a herald Courage Heart who is describe as being raised up by the goddess for her sacrifice and extreme deeds in the goddess's eyes.

Now that's a far way off from full godhood (or goddesshood, let's be equal opportunity) but it maybe provides a hint to another way. Maybe an act of extreme sacrifice, saving multiple worlds or preventing some sort of unimaginable evil/force would draw enough attention from one or more gods for them to impart enough power to the individual to qualify as ascension (especially if multiple gods are involved).

EDIT: Its also worth pointing out that Milani was only considered a saint until she attracted enough worshipers

Okay so I was going to choose one of the ways that was brought up, and decided that if I was going to go for godhood, I needed to go for broke. So since I'm supposed to be a 9 tailed god of arcane power, I might as well take a ninefold approach to it. I have some of them down but could use some help filling out the rest!

Current Ideas are:

1: Attain ninth tail. Check.

2. Acquire an artifact of Mythic Power. Check.

3. Absorb the powers from 9 powerful Kami, must willingly pass on their wards to me.

4. Acquire sufficient believers (999 kitsune should be sufficient)

5. Decisively defeat an enemy of the gods. Handling the Tarrasque 'problem' should be a good one.

6. Gather endorsement from 9 gods. (This alone is astronomically difficult. One god's endorsement should be at some degree doable, but nine? inter-pantheon politics alone would make this stupid hard)

7. ?

8. ?

9. Use a perfectly worded wish to bind the other avenues together.

~~~~
Perhaps I can be the first one to go way overboard. :p

That was a joke. But I think that this is a lot of extra, if perhaps unnecessary effort. But I like the symmetry of nine tails=nine paths to godhood.

Again, if any suggestions to help make the nine different things work, I'd appreciate it. Or suggestions for 7 and 8.

Just start eating souls and see what happens.

I shouldn't have read this one while drinking a glass of water.

Spend 1 year each steeped in one of the 9 alignments? Perhaps riding inside the head of a different person who exemplifies each alignment?

Restore space-gojiraAgmazar to his proper place among the stars (and tick off the bone sages in the process).

Unite The Fuzzy Peoples (ratfolk, catfolk, kitsune, shifters, probably some others I'm failing to think of).

Complete the giant statue in Po-Li, something something, eternal emperor.

Conquer, cleanse, and repair the flying city of Yjae, fold it into your empire.

Chart Valashmai.

What's the City of Yjae?

You can find out more about it here.

Also the Dragon Empires Gazeteer gives some fluff on it to get started, if you just want to know whether or not you want to open that can of worms.

Go to the bottom of the Pit of Gormuz and return alive.

Actually, just clear out 9 major problem areas, such as the Haunted Nation of Shenmen, the Clicking Caverns, construct an elf gate or other fast-travel connection between Jinin and Kyonin, kill the Kraken in Wanshou.

Rescue 9 stolen souls from the darkest pits of the abyss.

"I can do it! I can do it nine times!"

Ninefold path, nine alignments... maybe if you somehow manage to "transcend alignment" and change your alignment to not True Neutral, but truly "unaligned" or "all alignemnts at once"? Then you're basically accepting (or rejecting) all nine of the traditional paths to the afterlife, and if that on its own doesn't make the pantheon sit up and take notice, at the very least it should make Pharasma scratch her head about where to send you when you go.

Ninefold path, nine alignments... maybe if you somehow manage to "transcend alignment" and change your alignment to not True Neutral, but truly "unaligned" or "all alignemnts at once"?

That's only three mythic tiers' worth (Beyond Morality).