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Pharasma has Death as one of her domain, but there is a major problem with that. The Death domain is inherently tied to necromancy, and somewhat tied to evil. Pharasma is not evil, and sees necromancy as an abomination. You could just rule that Pharasma doesn't grant access to the Death domain, but that's the easy way out. I would much rather change it, so that Pharasma grants access to a special, non-necromantic, less evil, Death domain.
Has anyone else done this, or does anyone have any good ideas on how to do this?
There was a Repose domain printed somewhere, that could be updated to PF. Looking around for it now.
It already has been updated, it's in the Pathfinder RPG book and the Pathfinder SRD.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/domains#TOC-Repose-Do main
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Pharasma has Death as one of her domain, but there is a major problem with that. The Death domain is inherently tied to necromancy, and somewhat tied to evil. Pharasma is not evil, and sees necromancy as an abomination. You could just rule that Pharasma doesn't grant access to the Death domain, but that's the easy way out. I would much rather change it, so that Pharasma grants access to a special, non-necromantic, less evil, Death domain.
Has anyone else done this, or does anyone have any good ideas on how to do this?
Within Pharasma's church, creating undead is forbidden and controlling existing undead is frowned upon. This would imply evil clerics do exist, but maybe estranged from the main church. The use of necromantic energies is not forbidden or frowned upon. The Death domain does grant access to undead producing spells that a cleric of Pharasma would be unable to cast, but cleric's get two domains. So the simple fix would be to do nothing.
Alternatively, you could swap out the undead spells for other necromancy spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.
I'm having the same problem working up a slightly heretical Priest (ToS) of Wee Jas.
Going with Death and Repose (instead of Magic or Law) since it fits the character concept more.
Within Pharasma's church, creating undead is forbidden and controlling existing undead is frowned upon. The use of necromantic energies is not forbidden or frowned upon.
This.
And, as an aside, Pharasma has nothing against evil clerics. She allows NE clerics just as she allows NG (or LN, N, and CN) clerics. As long as said NE clerics do not attempt to create undead, they aren't being heretical. The church frowns upon commanding undead, but it's not heresy. So, while the Death domain has three spells a Pharasmite cleric would be forbidden to cast (animate dead, create undead, and create greater undead), the rest of the domain is perfectly legitimate and actually shares just as many spells (including slay living and wail of the banshee) with the Repose domain.
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I didn't quite formulate my orriginal post correctly. Pharasma doesn't frown upon the use of necromantic spell. What she does frown upon is the creation and controlling of undead. It was clarified (officially) in another thread that animating someone as undead damages the soul, which is allegedly why you can't bring someone back with raise dead if they have turned into undead, even if you slay the undead. This means that even reanimating a single skeleton from 100-years old bones to guard your house is forbidden in the church of Pharasma.
In the Death Domain, I would say the following abilities/spells are in line with Pharasma's teachings: Bleeding Touch (sp), Death's Embrace (sp), Cause Fear, Death Knell and Death Ward.
Slay Living, Destruction and Wail of the Banshee from the Death Domain are death effects, and thus prevents the use of Raise Dead. If the prevent the use of Raise Dead because they damage the soul, like being reanimated as undead does, then they might be forbidden too.
Animate Dead, Create Undead and Create Greater Undead from the Death Domain are definitely very forbidden, and would make a cleric violate the code of conduct enough to lose all spells and class features untill atonement.
But what should be done about this? Should Pharasma clerics just accept it, take another domain, or live with the fact that they can't use half of their spells from the Death domain if they choose it? Or change the domain to a special undead free Pharasma Death domain? Or make Pharasma provide some sort of Simulacrum Souls to her clerics to inhabit animated bodies instead of their original inhabitants, and death effects that doesn't destroy souls, but instead trap them to prevent Raise Dead?
Pharasma is the ONLY deity with the Repose domain, which also grants slay living, destruction, and wail of the banshee. Clearly, Pharasma has no problems with people using [death] spells. Indeed, she is the Goddess of Death, the reaper of souls.
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Pharasma is the ONLY deity with the Repose domain, which also grants slay living, destruction, and wail of the banshee. Clearly, Pharasma has no problems with people using [death] spells. Indeed, she is the Goddess of Death, the reaper of souls.
Very good point. And as she is the Reaper of preferably Healthy and Undamaged Souls, I guess we can assume that death effects doesn't actally damage the souls, as creating undead does.
For the clerics of Pharasma who choose the Death Domain, I would replace the controversial spells with other spells of equivalent level related to death or the destruction of undeads.
For example :
3rd level : replace animate dead with speak with dead or searing light
6th level : replace create undead with undead to death
8th level : replace create greater undead with sunburst
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Pharasma is the ONLY deity with the Repose domain, which also grants slay living, destruction, and wail of the banshee. Clearly, Pharasma has no problems with people using [death] spells. Indeed, she is the Goddess of Death, the reaper of souls.Very good point. And as she is the Reaper of preferably Healthy and Undamaged Souls, I guess we can assume that death effects doesn't actally damage the souls, as creating undead does.
Nope, only brings them under her domain!
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Personally, I am of the opinion that Pharasma's priests should have to deal with the forbidden spells. Ultimately, Pharasma is an impartial deity, much like the forces at her command. I can see her giving access to certain magics and then telling her clerics not to use them. As with other neutral churches, there is probably a significant schism in the interpretation of Pharasma's teachings. Although the use of undead spells is explicitly forbidden and will require atonement (as has already been pointed out), death effects, raise dead, and similar effects can be seen as a way to either re-establish or corrupt the natural order of life and death, depending upon the sect.
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You know, I know this is an older post, but I have a cleric of Pharasma who is using the domains of Death and Repose (with the subdomain Souls). And this is a society char, so I am CN of course. That being said, I channel positive energy to heal my allies and use the death domain as a way to punish those who would bring the dead back to life. I also play him as a coward unless there is something akin to undead around. He then feels as if he is filled with the power of pharasma to destroy all undead and those who control the undead, and will use Death and Repose to bring forth these unholy abominations to death!
So I see it more in how you play the character rather than what it looks like, after all, you could worship and evil god but yet be neutral and still do good things.
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I hope this helps. James Jacobs wrote this on a blog post
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Pharasma. Turns out that nonevil goddesses of death sort of wreak havoc on the domain system—especially if they're as stringently anti-undead as Pharasma is. Because pro-undead spells always seem to sneak onto domain spell lists when you start talking about death and souls and stuff. It's easy enough to simply not prepare domain spells that create undead, but it still feels kind of disappointing to me that Pharasmins "miss out" on some domain spell options. For those of you who want a more Pharasma-friendly version of the Death domain and the Souls subdomain... behold!
Pharasma-Friendly Death Domain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead. 6th-level domain spell: Replace create undead with antilife shell. 8th-level domain spell: Replace create greater undead with symbol of death.
Pharasma-Friendly Souls Subdomain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead.
James Jacobs
Creative Director