Creative Director
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Groetus is a CN god. Mechanically, a Good cleric should be possible. How does one justify a Good cleric that wants to bring about the end-times?
Just curious. :) A player of mine thought it would be fun to play a Good cleric of him, and I'm not sure how that would work.
This is a good case of "Just because it's technically legal by the rules doesn't mean it's a good idea."
I'd require a good cleric to give me a really good explanation why he'd want to be a good guy who worships the inevitable coming of the end of the world, honestly. And for that matter, same goes for evil, since the end of the world is just as bad for evil folks as it is for anyone else.
Which is why the VAST majority of Groetus's worshipers are insane.
I suppose a CG cleric who's trying to spread the word of the end times and that you should do good works until then so that when the end DOES come, you've lived a good life would be okay. Kinda depressing though...
I could see an evil follower of Groetus being someone that believes the world will end, eventually, and is just impatient about the timetable. They think that "unmaking things," i.e. established foundations of the world, will help to get the ball rolling on the eventual unmaking of the universe.
So they try to overthrow established governments (the stronger the better . . . Andoran is just as likely a target as Cheliax, and Absalom, given its age and resistance to invasion in ages past, a prime target), set off diseases, look for magic that causes natural disasters (what better way to disrupt things than to cause earthquakes and volcanoes), all more or less hoping, without confirmation from their god, that "like gathers like" and the universe will start unraveling the more the world does.
Given that they worship Groetus, and that they are impatient for the End to come, they actually enjoy these acts that they are causing. In other words, they don't just grimly thing that "this needs to be done," but rather, since it will happen eventually, they might as well have fun doing it. They feel the warm glow of a job well done when they see a plague spread and radically change a region, and they might even compete with other like minded cults over who caused the "tipping point."
At least, that's how I would play the evil ones as a GM.
Maybe an insane cleric of Groetus trying to bring an end to pain and suffering by bringing an end to everything.
Life, existence, is pain. This pain will only go on until everything has come to an end. I want to be a part of that, I want to end all pain and suffering. No more suffering, doesn't it sound wonderful?
Groetus is coming! Act busy!
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Maybe an insane cleric of Groetus trying to bring an end to pain and suffering by bringing an end to everything.
Life, existence, is pain. This pain will only go on until everything has come to an end. I want to be a part of that, I want to end all pain and suffering. No more suffering, doesn't it sound wonderful?
My player thought about that as a "Good" cleric. To me, it sounds like every stereotypical 'end the world' villain since the dawn of time. Just because they think it's good doesn't make them so. :)
A lot of good ideas though, I'll have to point my player towards this thread.
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It's very tangential but, running with the 'believing in rapture' and ending of the world to save people from pain ideas mentioned earlier there was a philosopher by the name of Hugo Grotius. His motto was 'time is running out'.
He was a cleric who theorized that "Jesus' sacrificial death occurred in order for the Father to forgive while still maintaining his just rule over the universe."
You could modify that to fit Golarion -- the world has to end in order for yadda yadda yadda...
Or an ex-priest of Aroden driven mad by his death.. Aroden had to die and the world end in order for everyone to be saved
Only came to mind because Grotius and Groetus sound the same in my head.
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I suppose a CG cleric who's trying to spread the word of the end times and that you should do good works until then so that when the end DOES come, you've lived a good life would be okay. Kinda depressing though...
Once again, all of our problems are solved with philosophy. Fire up the Logotherapy, boys! Someone's character concept is in danger!
(from the linked site)
- Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable.
- People have a will to meaning.
- People have freedom under all circumstances to activate the will to find meaning.
The gist of it is, life has meaning, even at its most rotten; a person is free to find meaning even in the face of an unavoidable fate;
a person can see a bleak future but still want to do good.
I find this to be a very handy philosophy for Golarion, considering the psychological tenor of nations like Ustulav and the Worldwound.
So don't worry, my fellow CG clerics of Groetus. Frankl says it's okay to heal your teammates.
Usually, I would add a disclaimer about mixing real-world and in-game philosophy, but we're talking motivation rather than action, so I think we're safe.
There are many Christians alive today who are looking forward to Armageddon happening in their lifetime, because that means all Evil is wiped away and everything Good gets to live forever in the presence of God.
A good Groetus-worshiper is in pretty much the same position.
A good Groetus-worshiper is in pretty much the same position.
Christian=Grotean
Grotean=Insane
I don't need a calculator to do that math.
Seriously though, the literal end to the bible is insanely tame.
I thought Groteus just wants to smash and eradicate, or does he simply end this universe to begin another? Or is it simply just the end?
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I see Groetus as a Lord of Destruction, much like Gorum, though with different and further-reaching interests. Gorum does not care that you fight for Good or for Evil. Just that you fight.
I would say Groetus would be much the same to his followers. It does not matter whether you are trying to destroy Good or Evil systems as long as you destroy.
A Good follower of Groetus might devote himself to ending Evil, so that innocent creatures can enjoy a kind of heaven on earth before the inevitable End comes.
On a sidenote, Gorum will inevitably battle Groetus when the End comes because no world means no battle, no conflict. And it will be the first and only fight that Gorum ever loses.
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I see Groetus more as the janitor of the gods. He's standing at the back of the hall, by the switches, with a mop and a bucket. Every so often he checks his watch, or taps his foot a little, projecting that resigned air of "No, really. Any time you like. I've got nothing better to do, honestly.". And once everyone else is gone, he gets to sweep up the debris of the meeting and turn out the lights.
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Actually...
When I will run the Second Darkness AP, the PCs will hook up with a good, altruistic and understanding Cleric. He will help them out, provide healing and services, and generally will be the much-needed Shalelu/Vencarlo of the SD. A straight man (or woman) NPC to help the players out.
Once they hit the Land of Black Blood, they will run into him for the last time. He has realized what the Drow are after, and he sees it as the most beautiful thing possible - an end to end all wrongs, an apocalypse that everybody needs so much, the joyous song of ultimate destruction of all evil, pain and misery. That's when he will reveal that he is a high-ranking priest of Groetus, sent on a mission to ensure Allverah's plan succeeds.
I'm looking forward to see how my players will handle the hard truth that it's either him or the world. I rarely like my own ideas, but this one makes me giggle every time I think about it :)
That's when he will reveal that he is a high-ranking priest of Groetus, sent on a mission to ensure Allverah's plan succeeds.
Your cleric would actually be on a sabatoge mission, too. Just the PCs want it smaller, he wants it BIGGER.
Actually...
When I will run the Second Darkness AP, the PCs will hook up with a good, altruistic and understanding Cleric. He will help them out, provide healing and services, and generally will be the much-needed Shalelu/Vencarlo of the SD. A straight man (or woman) NPC to help the players out.
Once they hit the Land of Black Blood, they will run into him for the last time. He has realized what the Drow are after, and he sees it as the most beautiful thing possible - an end to end all wrongs, an apocalypse that everybody needs so much, the joyous song of ultimate destruction of all evil, pain and misery. That's when he will reveal that he is a high-ranking priest of Groetus, sent on a mission to ensure Allverah's plan succeeds.
I'm looking forward to see how my players will handle the hard truth that it's either him or the world. I rarely like my own ideas, but this one makes me giggle every time I think about it :)
I like your idea. Do you mind if I steal it to use in my SDAP?
Groetus is a CN god. Mechanically, a Good cleric should be possible. How does one justify a Good cleric that wants to bring about the end-times?
Just curious. :) A player of mine thought it would be fun to play a Good cleric of him, and I'm not sure how that would work.
To my way of thinking a good aligned cleric of Groetus would focus on preparation for the inevitable end times. From this aspect, it doesn't necessarily need to be a relishing of the apocalypse, so much as as an acceptance of its inevitability. There are precedents for such an ethos in both real world and mythical religions that are not classified as evil. The Revelation of St. John would be a rather obvious example. . .
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I can't help but think this is a good example of where situational alignment restrictions might be sensible, like how LN St. Cuthbert and Wee Jas worked.
CG is justifiable for Groetus.
Maybe a CG cleric of Groetus believes in the rapture?+1
I can tell that you are not from a very fundementalist Christian background. When I was a kid I would go to the Southern Baptist Church for the free cookies and punch and play with other kids, plus it was a very rural area and there was not much else to do.
I remember multiple Sunday School teachers trying to inform me that we should pray and do things to hasten the return of Jesus and the end of the world. Like we should support Isreal since the return of Jews to Jerusalem or the Restoration of the Temple was a sign of end times according to them.
These people were basically good people, but because they were so certain that they were saved (and they very well could have but that is another discussion) and that end of the world heralded the coming the Kingdom of Heaven, they saw the end of the world as a VERY positive thing.
I could see a CG cleric of Greotus very much approaching the end of times that way. This actually sounds like an interesting character. You run around asking if everyone is saved yet. And while your intentions are good, because you feel so pressed for time (after all the end of the world is just a few days away) you often come off a d*ck.
I could also see them played as a grim determinist trying to make the best of the inevitable. It may be a fate he doesn't relish, but is resigned to.
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Groetus! Groetus is the afterbirth of the End Times. A tatterdemalion pushing the broom after Our Lord Rovagug's circus parade. He will be swallowed up in the final conflagration of undoing before the Rough Beast returns to the bosom of The Pancreator. Until then, his goals dovetail nicely with His.
Groetus's good clerics teach people to die well. They teach them to cluster into shelters during cataclysm, which happily will make them easier to catch in God's Holy Talons, and support one another in adversity, keeping more worshipers of the false gods alive until they are fed into the Sacred Maw of the Unmaker. They advise kings and mages against spells of mass destruction - they do not want the world to end until their funny little moon-god decrees it, but the Rough Beast is jealous of His prerogative to tear this world down to its foundation.
They warn people of the spiral goddess' final judgment, although they don't warn the gods of THEIR final judgment at the hands of the Father of Earthquakes. A pity, but it is why He chooses humble evangelists such as myself to spread His good news.
A friend of mine and I are building a cleric and inquisitor of Groetus for PFS play. We are leaning towards them being the guys on the street corner with the wooden placards preaching about the end times coming and repenting. Very nice guys, but sort of....off if you get my drift.
Another potential way to play them would be a fatalist in the Calvinist sense (or hyper-calvinist to be more correct as mainstream Calvinism does not equal fatalism). A little research into Calvinism would foster a lot of potential roleplay ideas for such a cleric. Such a character might be resigned to the end rather than relish it, and see his calling as preparing for it's inevitable coming. This would be an alternative to some of the more insanity based archetypes. Perhaps one can play each type and you get an "odd couple" motif going.
A friend of mine and I are building a cleric and inquisitor of Groetus for PFS play. We are leaning towards them being the guys on the street corner with the wooden placards preaching about the end times coming and repenting. Very nice guys, but sort of....off if you get my drift.
I wonder where these would be most common? Off the top of my head I'd think Galt,Carrion Hill, perhaps Thrushmoor. . .
Another way to play it....is for a the good aligned priest that you could placate him with whorship and non-evil sacifices to delay the end of the world. Sure he would probably be a separist priest.
Another believe that if it is inevitable...the end of the world...than it is not neccessarily a evil things. If you surrender to it...you'll find peace.
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The key here is a continued existence without pain- if Groetus succeeds, is this what happens? If he is striving for nihilism and negation of self and all and his clerics know this then it's a pretty tough sell for a chaotic good guy.
If someone believed that there was another 'age' meant to come after the apocalypse, that this 'age' was broken somehow (with the death of Aroden perhaps being seen as a harbinger of how 'broken' this age was, and how the whole thing needed to be torn down, to allow a 'healthy' better world to form in its place), it might be rationalize-able.
Disease, for instance, and undead in general, and perhaps even hunger, are believed in Golarion to only exist because Urgathoa flipped Pharasma the bird and refused to go quietly into that good night. That could be considered the first 'nail in the coffin,' to a good nihilist, as they see disease, undeath, possibly hunger, pain, etc. as signs of the world being broken, unnatural things that shouldn't exist, and if this broken world were allowed to end, and be replaced by a better world, everyone would be born on this new world free from hunger and pain and disease, the way 'it was meant to be' before Urgathoa (or possibly Pharasma, whoever you want to blame) messed everything up and made the mortal world a place of suffering and privation.
The seduction of Zon-Kuthon into a twisted masochist serving dark things that have no place affecting the mortal world, the chaining of Rovagug (who may have been originally intended to destroy things that threatened the order, such as Urgathoa, or the things that have ensnared Zon-Kuthon), the ascension of 'mere' demon lords (Lamashtu) and archdevils (Asmodeus) and angels (Sarenrae) to stand among the gods, in defiance of their proper stations, etc., etc. could all be considered things 'wrong' with this universe, and justification for it needing to be 'rebooted.'
A dash of Kali Yuga, a sprinkle of comic book 'retcon,' and a pinch of millenialist fervor, and you could probably justify a good nihilist, who sees the current world as a broken and fouled place of suffering and pain, and wants to return the universe to an untainted state.
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the ascension of 'mere' demon lords (Lamashtu) and archdevils (Asmodeus) and angels (Sarenrae) to stand among the gods, in defiance of their proper stations, etc., etc. could all be considered things 'wrong' with this universe, and justification for it needing to be 'rebooted.'
A bit OT but Asmodeus is NOT an ascended archdevil in Golarion. He's a full God and always has been. He even claims to be the oldest God in existence and nobody (even among the other Gods) actively disputes him.
