(Long post warning)
I have several questions regarding religion in Golarion. I like the distinction drawn between the faithful, atheists, and agnostics. The deities themselves run the gamut from the spectrum from “very cool” to “meh” but I’ve yet to find a RPG pantheon that gets the “very cool” award for each deity.
I’ve got the Campaign Setting, Gods & Magic, and several APs that detail various faiths.
Pros:
• Clear depiction of gods & their spheres/foci/areas of interest
• Universal gods (since they’re demonstrably real that makes sense). No racial pantheons/gods per se although some are favored over others by certain races.
• Nice info on types of personalities & classes that are drawn to the various priesthoods
• Nice info on “typical duties” of priests
Cons:
• Too many gods!!!! (and the number keeps growing!) I thought Greyhawk had a lot but at least they were organized (mostly) into competing pantheons. I get the “nod to Greek mythology” vibe. However, by RAW, ALL of these deities exist. Yet, unlike the gods of the Scarred Lands (to cite an example), tribute/acknowledgement of all of the gods really isn’t expected/required. Do we really need all of this many gods + archdevils + demon lords + etc, etc.?
• Despite Law being an actual force in the universe and having multiple Lawful-Something deities, Golarion is strangely lacking in organized religions operating at anything higher than the temple organizational level. We’ve got assassin’s guild, explorer’s guilds, and merchant consortiums that operate at regional or continental scales of operations. But churches, having an active, demonstrable patron who presumably gains power by the number of followers he/she has can’t establish a central authority?
To illustrate this last point, here’s a summary of info on “Churches” taken from Gods & Magic:
Abadar – heirarchy local to city
Asmodeus – mention of Cheliax and co-existence with nation’s bureaucracy. Secret shrines elsewhere.
Calistria – “very casual” hierarchy. Is it regional, national, city, town, or temple hierarchy?
Cayden Cailean – no hierarchy
Desna – “extremely disorganized” and “no formal chain of command”
Erastil – church is “simple & practical”; comments pertaining to hierarchies seem to refer to temple hierarchies rather than the church/faith as a whole
Gorum – discussion of priests, temples, and pecking order of temple hierarchy. No mention of church/faith as a whole.
Gozreh – follows the priest & temple focus model.
Iomedae – priest & temple focus again. Discussion of church circles, which appear to consist of hierarchy within a given temple.
Irori – temple focus/mention
Lamashtu – church “is scattered and lacks an overall hierarchy”
Nethys – ranking in the church again is limited to ranking within a particular temple (since benevolent and malevolent churches have different ranking systems, clearly they aren’t part of a single, unified faith)
Norgorber – temple focus only
Pharasma – temple focus only
Rovagug – banned faith in most cities; no central authority
Saranrae – allows “mobility between temples”; temples “organized like family”. Theoretically, this could lend itself to regional or national sects, each with a separate hierarchy.
Shelyn – the church “as a whole is disorganized”. Seems to apply to the temple as much as it might be a statement towards the faith as a whole.
Torag – “organized like a defensive army”. Presumably on a city, national, or regional scale. Not sure how you would organize a continental or global faith as an army but I suppose it’s possible.
Urgathoa – church is “scattered and cell-based”
Zon-Kuthon – “no real overarching organizational tenets”. Each cell/temple has its own hierarchy.
Clearly, church is sometimes used as a term for the larger faith as a whole and other times it appears to be limited to “church hierarchy” as it applies to individual temples.
I can appreciate the chaotic faiths being adverse to central authority structures and follow along the lines of mystery cults, independent temples, etc. I’m just struck by the lack of central authorities, even at a regional or sect-level.
Now in many a campaign, is this an issue? No. But it seems that a huge trove of role-playing potential was ignored/discarded for the sake of “keeping it simple” (my estimation – not claiming anyone said this was the reason).
The Mendevian Crusades would make a lot more sense if a central authority was helping to organize the efforts and allocate resources. As written, the folks fighting the Worldwound must have to maintain a hell of a communications network to reach the various circles in Avistan alone.
What about splinter sects?
What about heretical cults/sects? The hells have a whole level devoted to scribing heresies and lies to lead the other gods’ faithful astray. It’s up to each temple to fight the seductive lies of hell all on their own?
I’m not asking these questions to throw stones. I’m a big fan of Golarion, largely due to its treatment on cultures and races. Although there are a lot of great religion-nuggets in the setting, I’m just trying to understand Paizo’s intent with respect to the 2 areas I listed as “cons”. I can come up with my own take on things, I’m just curious as to whether this is “upcoming content”, “working as designed”, “didn’t really focus on that”, or some other reason.
I've read through your post twice and am not entirely sure what you are asking. If you are asking why there is little to no central authority among the various major religions, I can offer my own opinion (and it is only an opinion). If there was a central authority at one point in time, the priests themselves ignored it until it became irrelevant.
Take a lawful god like Abadar for example. Lawful god should be the most organized of all the alignments. Clerics can be LG-LN-LE. Who do you have as the high priest? If you put a LG High Priest on the throne, they will focus on raising money to assist those in need. They might even hire an inquisitor to force the LE churches to be charitable. That would cause some serious infighting in the church. Same would happen with a LE High Priest. The HP would ban charitable acts, requiring them to focus on profits. Even if they only place LN HP's on the throne, the central authority would have to be so weak that to keep both the LE and the LG factions under the same tent, that it would be of no use to anyone.
Now take a LG god like Iomedae. A LG god that focuses on Valor, Rulership, Justice and Honor should be rather easy to have a central authority. Until you have two nations that both honor Iomedae make war upon each other for perfectly legitimate, non-religious reasons like trade, resources, or (heaven forbid) some kind of manifest destiny. If anything, their focus on rulership would tear the central authority of a church apart should a king (supported by Iomedae priests of the nation) believe he have a god-mandated right to rule that other nation (who is supported by Iomedae priests). Put yourself in the HP's position for a second. What do you do if you are the central authority? Do you take sides? If you do, you are condemning your own priests on one side for doing their holy duty. Plus you also run the risk of your priests in other nations turning their back on you. If you do nothing, you look weak and no one pays you any heed. Especially since you are the HP of Honor and Rulership and many will feel that by allowing your own priests and followers to fight one another, you are not doing them justice. Reasons like this are why there are so many different variations of Christianity.
The Red Mantas Assassins are a smaller organization. IIRC, they are invite only. That type of organization, they can exert much more control over the actions of individual cells. Being a member of the RMA is more like a franchise. If you do not follow what the central authority says, you lose the name RMA and their benefits (and possibly lives as well). Major religions are more like a loose alliance. They all have a few ideas they agree on and are willing to work together on, but can be at each other's throats on every other issue.
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While I don't have much of an answer as I add one more question. What was the former chuch of Aroden like in regards to central authority. Something tells me that of all the churches, this is the one that might have behaved the most organized. I have nothing to back this up.
Who knows, the very risk of Aroden returning to Glorion and organising his chuch fromt he top down might have been to much for the rest Gods? and the answer to this question is unlikely to be made clear to us at all.
Other questions also arise to the idea of centralized religion. How many of these religions have high temples, cathedrals and grand mosques? Who ever controls those are the power players in thier religion.
The next question is do those power players have a reason to work together. Using example of real world religions (which I shall pass no judgment on other than to bring up some commonalities) there were examples an enlighten one having followers that spread the word and those followers were expected to work together especially in the example of Christianity.
You certainly can state that the Cleric is made to be in that similar role. But there is no reason to cast any of Glorion’s deities roles of similar to say any of earth’s standard messiahs. (Just bring this up for the point of conversation. No one has suggested to do so in this thread yet.)
So IMHO the main reason most of the dieties don't have centralized power in hier chuches is because for the most part, the dieties doesn't don't particularly value it. I don't really think as the game materials have been written that the dieties want thier Clerics to be the conduit that the faithful must find salvation and hence need a hierarchy to handle that sort of activity.
And let me be clear about this. This is just my opinion, and I may have missed something in all the material that I have read. I can never tell if I'm stepping on someone's toes when i make religous statements like this. If i have, I'm sorry.
Now could there be some material writen about a chuch trying to centralize power through out the Inner Sea. I could absolutely see that. I thing the church of Abadar would be a great example of this. I sort of see Abadar stepping into fill the spot that Aroden left and becoming arbitors of trade, guiding kings and princes to promote civilization really makes sense. But mostly to the power players to the church. As for Abadar, as long as his word is going out, things are being done in his name, I don't think he cares.
So take what I say with what ever value you want. But this is what I take away from all the materials I get.
When clerics of a certain level can cast Commune and speak with the deity directly, there is a greatly reduced need for any church heirarchy above that level. There may still be some for mundane administrative purposes in an advisory co-ordination role, but they won't have the authority that a 'real-world' church hierarchy would, as they would be routinely bypassed by going directly to the deity (simply for the time-savings, if for no other reason).
IMO, there is no such thing as to many gods. Oh sure, limit the number of major deities, but there should be some kind of spirit for every road, villages, forest, creek, and ancient weapon in the game.
<snip: lots of interesting stuff>
Firstly, it was late and I was tired so if I wasn't clear, I apologize.
You've got some interesting ideas there and some I can certainly see from a game perspective. However "priests themselves ignored it" doesn't really jive with a lawful-anything PoV. And all of the lawful faiths, regardless of deity worshipped, adopted the same approach?
While your argument on Iomedae's beliefs might contribute to a conflicted nature of her church could happen, I don't think it holds up as being plausible in the long-term. If entire cultures can embrace a (albeit idealistic) code of chivalry and paladins can embrace a code of conduct, are you really telling me a central authority that has the means of conducting two-way communication with it's deity can't establish a code, law, or canon for the waging of war and settling of disputes amongst the faithful?
As for the Abadar example, the shift in focus driven by a new high priest equates to politics, pure and simple. It's just politics contained within the faith rather than external to it. Since Abadar is ok with priests of LG, LN, and LE faiths, whose to say he wouldn't let the internal politics work the matter out rather than resorting to a more heavy-handed approach?
In just those two examples cited above, I took a problem and showed how it could be turned to campaign story fodder. (No right or wrong about it, just a different take.)
I think Paizo took the approach they did because they felt it was simpler from a game perspective and perhaps from a writing perspective as well. It just seems odd to me given the attention to detail and seeding of adventure ideas dripping throughout the setting itself. Thus, the question on the approach taken.
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I do think that it makes sense that the lawful gods would have had larger hierarchies but that those organizations do not currently operate on a global scale.
Examples from my Golarion:
Asmodeus: In Cheliax, his church is extremely rigid and hierarchical, supervised by devils directly. This church operates fist-in-glove with the House of Thrune as an empire and is actively promoting the expansion of the Asmodean faith across Golarion. As a result, outside Cheliax, the Asmodean faith is suppressed most vigorously by those states opposed to Cheliax and elsewhere viewed as a Chelish inflitration generally. To counteract that, some Asmodean groups explicitly defy Chelish emissaries in the hopes of currying local favor or protection. In all of this, Asmodeus encourages the competition among groups to weed out the weak and to insure the maximum spread of evil.
Sarenrae: Sarenrae's faith was once completely hierarchical, organized in the great Empire of which Qadira is only the westernmost satrapy. The loss of Osirion as a satrap was predicated by an internal schism within the faith of Sarenrae (similar to the Sunni/Shia split in Islam) based on the intended successor to the role of First Imam of the Dawnflower. For 10 years, the Dawnflower did not speak to her followers on the question of who to follow and has since expressed her view that the office of First Imam be abolished in favor of each High Priest communing directly with the Dawnflower. As a result, the hierarchy has become organized around cultural groups and a priest may receive a dispensation to either adventure/missionary or transfer to another home church. Each church operates within the Communion of Dawn, an annual planet-wide communion with Sarenrae on the dawning of the Vernal Equinox when the Dawnflower provides all her High Priests with guidance for the coming year and disputes are ironed out. Gaining title as a High Priest is thus extremely coveted among Sarenrae's faithful.
Aroden: Aroden's faith was, and is, still completely hierarchical. At one point, the Pontifex Maximus of Aroden had the power to crown Emperors and impose peace treaties on nations. That title has not been filled, however, since the last Pontiff committed suicide on the first anniversary of Aroden's disappearance. Now, the few remaining priests of Aroden act on their own best understanding of the dictates (or Bulls) of the long-dead Pontiff.
Iomedae: Iomedae directs the acts of her church directly and commissions crusades on her own. In that regard, she takes a much more hands-on approach than either Aroden or her predecessor as herald, Arazni. The organization of her church is seamless and unified but its highest mortal level is that of the temple. Above temples, the hierarchy is completely celestial in nature and military in organization with Iomedae as commander-in-chief. The Mendevian Crusade, for example, is supervised by a General that happens to be a Solar and many regional groupings of temples are coordinated by the ascended spirits of high priests whose eternal rewards are to lead the faithful on Golarion to even greater glories on behalf of the Inheritor.
I don't think any of this contradicts the text of the various published sources but it helps me to give my lawful clerics a better sense of their place. Abadar's system hasn't been fully developed by me yet but I suspect he would also have a mixed mortal/celestial hierarchy dominated by LN outsiders focused on the harnessing and sheltering of wealth without concern for national ambitions. Of the various Lawful gods, I think only Asmodeus has a real hand on a nation's pulse and most priests, I would think, would find the cause of nations pedestrian and jejeune compared to the real struggle for divine power and worshipper's souls.
Greek Gods - 100+ gods, plus additional spirits, demi-gods, and god-like creatures
Celtic Gods - 100+ gods
Egyptian Gods - 1500+ gods
Slavic Gods - 50+ Gods, and another 30 or so major spirits and demons
Discworld: 2000+ gods, and research theologists find more every week.
While Golarion might have many gods, they're not nearly as many as our world has/had - after all, Caedwyr's listing above contains just 4 out of many, many cultural collections of gods from our real world. Odin and his Norse deities are missing, Tiamat and the other Babylonians, and we haven't gotten that far East yet...
One important thing to remember: The 20 "core deities" (From Abadar to Zon-Kuthon) are the only ones with wide-spread and numerous followings in the Inner Sea region. Other deities are obscure, localised, or so specialised that most people will live out their lives without ever hearing about them.
I think it's important to have localised religion. Why would every place be the same?
As for lack of a global organisation of churches: I always though they all head a central authority - their god(dess). Organisations like the Pathfinder Society lacks a divine superior who guides his/her followers all over the multiverse, so they have to do that themselves.
...
Cons:
• Too many gods!!!! (and the number keeps growing!) I thought Greyhawk had a lot but at least they were organized (mostly) into competing pantheons. I get the “nod to Greek mythology” vibe. However, by RAW, ALL of these deities exist. Yet, unlike the gods of the Scarred Lands (to cite an example), tribute/acknowledgement of all of the gods really isn’t expected/required. Do we really need all of this many gods + archdevils + demon lords + etc, etc.?....
This is a complaint I don't really understand, coming from the perspective of someone who lives on Earth and is aware of the breadth of gods present in most polytheistic pantheons.
Greek Gods - 100+ gods, plus additional spirits, demi-gods, and god-like creatures
Celtic Gods - 100+ gods
Egyptian Gods - 1500+ gods
Slavic Gods - 50+ Gods, and another 30 or so major spirits and demonsIn a polytheistic world, with the breadth of cultures, races, and peoples I am surprised that there are not more gods. Take a look at earth and the thousands of gods we have that have been worshiped or acknowledged by just the human race.
The difference being, in Golarion, rather than a reliance upon faith and miracles or divine intervention occuring rarely or at all (not trying to delve into an actual religious discussion here), in Golarion each of those deities demonstrably exists. Potfolios overlap or at least infringe upon one antoher and presumably, new gods will continue to be added to the setting.
Additionally, strictly from a game perspective, in my experience once the number of gods goes beyond 20-30 players tune out. There's little point in players paying attention to the gods at that point beyond "who can heal me" and "who's the evil cult sponsor this time?".
You eventually reach a point where there are either too many to keep track of or it goes into farce and you end up getting comments like "who's the god of crossing guards", or "I want to make a cleric that worships the god of pixie dust". Once everything has a deity dedicated to it, anything can have a deity dedicated to it.
If you're using our world as an example, all of those pantheons did not acknowledge each other and in many cases, competed with one another as cultures mixed.
Plus, religion and belief often vary from place to place. Serenrae in Quadira is seen as a harsher deity than otherwise, because the sun is harsher there than in, say, Varisia. Her followers have to contend with a very hostile environment, as well as enemies mostly from the Lamashtu camp, maybe with a bit Rovagug thrown into the mix. And hers is the major religion in that land. In Cheliax, on the other hand, her faithful have to work against the merciless oppression of Asmodeus and his infernal bureaucracy, and do so more covert.
An overreaching "Pope" with supreme authority over these two cults and all the others would be sorely overtaxed - and would not be suited to lead all these diverse churches with their different methods and situations equally. Better to have a high priest in every place, someone who knows the lay of the land and its faith.
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I tend to prefer less dieties as well, such as the 'big eight' in the Scarred Lands (and found the plethora of demigods added with later books to be a distraction, especially, my pet peeve, the racial demigods).
On the other hand, I'm a total hypocrite and love Roger Moore's demihuman dieties (but very few introduced afterwards...). Sometimes it's annoying how out-of-character I get. :)
Golarion has a funky mix of 'too many' and 'too few' gods, for my taste. Threads pop up from time to time asking who is the god of fertility or who is the god of the fey or who is the god of time, and no specific Golarion god(dess) necessarily fits these particular tropes (although many of them can have those aspects added, for flavor), which leaves me wondering what sort of design process went into the choosing of the 'big 20.' If I were coming up with a pantheon from whole cloth, I'd probably want to dig out my 2nd Edition Complete Priests Handbook and try to peg as many of the 'common tropes' as possible.
Golarion's 'big 20' feel less structured, and more like they popped up more organically. On the one hand, that's totally cool, because it's kind of how real world mythologies formed, willy-nilly and a god at a time, folded into a 'pantheon' with little or no dwelling on their 'place' in that pantheon or artificial attempts to give everyone a role or niche (and possibly leading to inter-faith squabbling, as Erastil, Calistria and Lamashtu all try to lay claim to the 'fertility' niche, for instance). On the other hand, this isn't a real world mythology, made up from a dozen names and portfolios with no way of contacting said diety and no way that these dieties would divide up responsibilities. In a fantasy world where a pantheon of dieties exists, and has for centuries, if not millenia, niches would have been established, defended and maintained a long time ago, and it doesn't seem likely that any of them would have been 'overlooked.'
So, as sometimes happens, I'm on both sides of this issue. I like less gods, aesthetically, but, in the case of Golarion, it still has some 'holes' that could use filling.
Racial demigods still stick in my craw, 'though. Every racial demigod that fails to be as cool as Aerdrie Faenya or Baervan Wildwanderer (and Chiktika Fastpaws!) or Arvoreen can go take a hike, IMO.
Droskar, god of mind-numbing toil and substandard craftsmanship? Wow, a Dwarven Sam Walton. Just not getting the appeal.
Discworld: 2000+ gods, and research theologists find more every week.While Golarion might have many gods, they're not nearly as many as our world has/had - after all, Caedwyr's listing above contains just 4 out of many, many cultural collections of gods from our real world. Odin and his Norse deities are missing, Tiamat and the other Babylonians, and we haven't gotten that far East yet...
One important thing to remember: The 20 "core deities" (From Abadar to Zon-Kuthon) are the only ones with wide-spread and numerous followings in the Inner Sea region. Other deities are obscure, localised, or so specialised that most people will live out their lives without ever hearing about them.
I think it's important to have localised religion. Why would every place be the same?
As for lack of a global organisation of churches: I always though they all head a central authority - their god(dess). Organisations like the Pathfinder Society lacks a divine superior who guides his/her followers all over the multiverse, so they have to do that themselves.
No argument from me. I'm just surprised that it's tilted so one-sided in favor of the local temple for almost all of the faiths.
As for the many gods and "Top 20", I get it. I just question the usefulness/necessity of the list continuing to expand at the rate we've seen.
Plus, religion and belief often vary from place to place. Serenrae in Quadira is seen as a harsher deity than otherwise, because the sun is harsher there than in, say, Varisia. Her followers have to contend with a very hostile environment, as well as enemies mostly from the Lamashtu camp, maybe with a bit Rovagug thrown into the mix. And hers is the major religion in that land. In Cheliax, on the other hand, her faithful have to work against the merciless oppression of Asmodeus and his infernal bureaucracy, and do so more covert.
An overreaching "Pope" with supreme authority over these two cults and all the others would be sorely overtaxed - and would not be suited to lead all these diverse churches with their different methods and situations equally. Better to have a high priest in every place, someone who knows the lay of the land and its faith.
Agreed again. However, to use your examples, it would be just as likely to create regional hierarchies that have slightly different foci or interpretations of the faith.
It doesn't have to be a global hierarchy. I was merely citing it as one option for "spreading the faith" in a consistent fashion.
I'm also not a fan of heavy-handed involvement by the deities themselves. I think it makes it too easy for deities to be used as pet GM-NPCs. YMMV.
<snip: lots of very cool stuff
Excellent stuff! I realize each GM can take this kind of approach and ultimately, it's probably what I'll resort to doing. Just kind of surprised Paizo didn't to take some of the religions in different directions if for no other reason than additional differentiation between the faiths and the role-playing opportunities it presents.
I tend to prefer less dieties as well, such as the 'big eight' in the Scarred Lands (and found the plethora of demigods added with later books to be a distraction, especially, my pet peeve, the racial demigods).
On the other hand, I'm a total hypocrite and love Roger Moore's demihuman dieties (but very few introduced afterwards...). Sometimes it's annoying how out-of-character I get. :)
Golarion has a funky mix of 'too many' and 'too few' gods, for my taste. Threads pop up from time to time asking who is the god of fertility or who is the god of the fey or who is the god of time, and no specific Golarion god(dess) necessarily fits these particular tropes (although many of them can have those aspects added, for flavor), which leaves me wondering what sort of design process went into the choosing of the 'big 20.' If I were coming up with a pantheon from whole cloth, I'd probably want to dig out my 2nd Edition Complete Priests Handbook and try to peg as many of the 'common tropes' as possible.
Golarion's 'big 20' feel less structured, and more like they popped up more organically. On the one hand, that's totally cool, because it's kind of how real world mythologies formed, willy-nilly and a god at a time, folded into a 'pantheon' with little or no dwelling on their 'place' in that pantheon or artificial attempts to give everyone a role or niche (and possibly leading to inter-faith squabbling, as Erastil, Calistria and Lamashtu all try to lay claim to the 'fertility' niche, for instance). On the other hand, this isn't a real world mythology, made up from a dozen names and portfolios with no way of contacting said diety and no way that these dieties would divide up responsibilities. In a fantasy world where a pantheon of dieties exists, and has for centuries, if not millenia, niches would have been established, defended and maintained a long time ago, and it doesn't seem likely that any of them would have been 'overlooked.'
So, as sometimes happens, I'm on both sides of this issue. I like less...
100% agree.
While your argument on Iomedae's beliefs might contribute to a conflicted nature of her church could happen, I don't think it holds up as being plausible in the long-term. If entire cultures can embrace a (albeit idealistic) code of chivalry and paladins can embrace a code of conduct, are you really telling me a central authority that has the means of conducting two-way communication with it's deity can't establish a code, law, or canon for the waging of war and settling of disputes amongst the faithful?
As for the Abadar example, the shift in focus driven by a new high priest equates to politics, pure and simple. It's just politics contained within the faith rather than external to it. Since Abadar is ok with priests of LG, LN, and LE faiths, whose to say he wouldn't let the internal politics work the matter out rather than resorting to a more heavy-handed approach?
The holy roman empire was lead by the pope and by an emperor. The political struggle between those two is what finally led to the breakup of the empire, but before then, there were LOTS of small wars within the empire. The church seldom took a stance on them. As a result, the church at that time, had little to do with Justice or Valor. (Disclaimer, I'm not bashing christianity, simply stating church history. I am a christian.) Iomedae herself would probably lose her portfolio if she allowed something similar to happen between her priests. And sure the priests would only support their nation if they waged war in the proper fashion, but that doesn't mean that the church will be successful in settling 100% of all disputes.
Remember, Iomedae is a war god, not a peace god. Working things out by talking, not exactly in her nature. Plus talking out solutions is a VERY modern concept. That really only came about post WWII. Wars in the middle ages were sometimes fought for the silliest reasons: I want that wine producing land for myself, you stole my whore, you married your daughter off to someone else, there is not enough food in the land to feed the peasants for winter (and war will either kill off enough of them to make the food go around or they will capture more food producing land), because they can, they are worshiping God in a different way (the middle ages equivilent of nerdrage edition wars), there was some slight at a dinner party.
Remember, even the good kings are greedy selfish people. They consider "let talk out our differences" more a sign of weakness rather than enlightened practicality.
So maybe we should be asking for a good Religion & Churches book, that kind of goes along with the Gods and Magic book as a Chronicles book. I have always felt that a lot of D&D potential is lost because this area is not fleshed out to any particular degree.
However I will point out that in Golarion, this is now the "Age of Lost Omens". Perhaps this particular chaotic approach to organization in religions is a direct result of that. Central authorities are used to 'pick a direction', as it were, and right now they can't. This lack of focus could be a very recent thing, and could be something of a hook for divine-guided players.
+1-description of more holy rites, sacrifices and liturgies (which a GM can describe during his game and which pious PCs can experience)
-description of a internal priest hierarchy. (name and function of priest ranks in the church )
-typical layout and details of a sample temple
+1
So maybe we should be asking for a good Religion & Churches book, that kind of goes along with the Gods and Magic book as a Chronicles book. I have always felt that a lot of D&D potential is lost because this area is not fleshed out to any particular degree.
+1
However I will point out that in Golarion, this is now the "Age of Lost Omens". Perhaps this particular chaotic approach to organization in religions is a direct result of that. Central authorities are used to 'pick a direction', as it were, and right now they can't. This lack of focus could be a very recent thing, and could be something of a hook for divine-guided players.
While that's an intersting idea, I don't think it's viable for Golarion unless clerics lose the ability to commune. Also, there's that whole Oracle class coming out...
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I think that Paizo purposefully did not include religious authority because they wanted political governments to have some sort of actual meaning. If (in a setting like Golarian) "the Church" and any nation faught, that nation would fall. Same with any guild, council, or whatever. "The Church" (meanin a global political group backed by at east one deity, but likely more), would simply take Absolom, or rather would have taken it a long time ago, and the faction shadow war just wouldn't matter.
I also tend to like fewer deties, but with broader scope. This makes playing a divine character of one deity much more interesting, because you then also have to look at which portios of th faith you follow, which sect you are part off, and opens up a lot of room for being different.
Imagine if there were only one battel/strength/war/conflict deity ouththere, but te faith ranged from LG to CE, both because different societies viewed the faith(s) in different light. For the orcs and ogres, it would be about conquest and the strongest rules, while to the elves it might be more about war games, tactics and theory on war, to the dwarves, about tradition and tough labor and hard work to temper themselves towards true martial and spiritual purity.
However I will point out that in Golarion, this is now the "Age of Lost Omens". Perhaps this particular chaotic approach to organization in religions is a direct result of that. Central authorities are used to 'pick a direction', as it were, and right now they can't. This lack of focus could be a very recent thing, and could be something of a hook for divine-guided players.While that's an intersting idea, I don't think it's viable for Golarion unless clerics lose the ability to commune. Also, there's that whole Oracle class coming out...
I suppose it depends on how you work it as a DM. Frankly the events of Aroden's death caught everyone by surprise, including the gods. Plans that had been set up millenia ago that would be triggered with the arrival of Aroden on the material plane, by each and every god, would be thrown out the proverbial window and new plans "quickly" put into place.
Commune is a nice spell to find out what your god has in mind for you, but if all mortals get is a quick "I'll get back to you! Keep doing what you've been doing.", this could quickly degenerate into individual factions probably based on geographical and political landscapes, based out of local temples.
As far as the Oracle is concerned, maybe it is part of the response by the gods to the new uncertain situation...
All of this is serious conjecture on my part, and I agree with you that an official response would be great.
Golarion has a funky mix of 'too many' and 'too few' gods, for my taste. Threads pop up from time to time asking who is the god of fertility or who is the god of the fey or who is the god of time, and no specific Golarion god(dess) necessarily fits these particular tropes (although many of them can have those aspects added, for flavor), which leaves me wondering what sort of design process went into the choosing of the 'big 20.'
Well, fey don't need no gods and probably find the whole worship thing ridiculous, time takes care of itself.
And fertility? You need someone with that specific part in his portfolio so he can get in fights with the gods of family, love and lust?
I guess the design process was "make a cool list of 20 cool deities, not have a big huge chart to cross off things in order to cover every aspect anyone could conceive as an important of a god's portfolio."
The fact is that everyone has a different list of things they think a pantheon needs to cover.
Golarion's 'big 20' feel less structured, and more like they popped up more organically. On the one hand, that's totally cool, because it's kind of how real world mythologies formed
And it makes perfect sense here, too, because they're not really a "pantheon", in that they're not what a single culture assembled as their list of imaginary friends. They're an "all-stars team". Desna's from Varisian faith, Torag is the dwarven deity, Asmodeus is a devil-turned deity, and so on.
On the other hand, this isn't a real world mythology
Doesn't mean it's not a good one, or that it mustn't follow some of the conventions of real world mythologies.
In a fantasy world where a pantheon of dieties exists, and has for centuries, if not millenia, niches would have been established, defended and maintained a long time ago, and it doesn't seem likely that any of them would have been 'overlooked.'
Why not? Things happen.
Plus, it doesn't have to be 'overlooked'. Some concepts just didn't work out. The fey thing, for example: Why would there be a god of the fairies? They wouldn't worship it. Even if lack of worship doesn't kill a god on Golarion, the guy would have undergone retraining ages ago.
Other aspects (like the time thing) probably never needed a patron.
And some aspects, like fertility, are contested, and have been so since before time.
Droskar, god of mind-numbing toil and substandard craftsmanship? Wow, a Dwarven Sam Walton. Just not getting the appeal.
He fits the duergar perfectly, though. Call it concurrent evolution, if you will.
I could personally have done without a dwarven dwarf god of dwarven dwarfishness, but seeing as even Paizo hasn't managed to make the little gritsuckers in any way original or interesting, I guess that god is necessary.
As for the many gods and "Top 20", I get it. I just question the usefulness/necessity of the list continuing to expand at the rate we've seen.
So which lands should have no local deities?
What is so bad about an ever-growing number of localised deities that are irrelevant to the big picture? They come with the detailing of locations. It's like saying "We have enough rivers now! New sourcebooks should not add rivers to the more detailed maps, the big ones we see on the big map are all we need." Just doesn't work that way.
I'm also not a fan of heavy-handed involvement by the deities themselves. I think it makes it too easy for deities to be used as pet GM-NPCs. YMMV.
I never said that I want a heavy-handed involvement by the deities themselves. But we're talking religion here. Theist religions usually feature advocating the Will of the Lord. You don't need FR-styile visits of deities on holy days for tea and crumpets to let the deity be the highest authority. You could have a completely distant or even an imaginary, non-existent deity and the faith around that deity would consider their god(dess) to be the highest authority.
The deities can work through visions and inspirations. A priest of sufficient experience would probably be considered to be the Voice of the Deity, being most in tune with His/Her Divine Will. And that doesn't even take into account the possibility to enter holy communion using powerful divine magic.
I also tend to like fewer deties, but with broader scope. This makes playing a divine character of one deity much more interesting, because you then also have to look at which portios of th faith you follow, which sect you are part off, and opens up a lot of room for being different.Imagine if there were only one battel/strength/war/conflict deity ouththere, but te faith ranged from LG to CE, both because different societies viewed the faith(s) in different light. For the orcs and ogres, it would be about conquest and the strongest rules, while to the elves it might be more about war games, tactics and theory on war, to the dwarves, about tradition and tough labor and hard work to temper themselves towards true martial and spiritual purity.
So instead of having to choose between Gorum, Iomedae, Rovagug and Urgathoa as war gods and pick the one that fits your vision of battle the most, you fuse them into one gestalt and people have to choose between the "Gorum", "Iomedae" and so on sects?
Tomato, tomato.
Plus, you can still follow only parts of your deity's portfolio, even though there are more gods with more narrow foci.
As far as the Oracle is concerned, maybe it is part of the response by the gods to the new uncertain situation...
Oh no!
The oracle class is suitable for all eras you could possibly choose to play in!
The last thing we need is game world events being used to get new rules into the setting. They destroyed the forgotten realms with that kind of crap.
The rules serve the game world, not the other way around.
As for the many gods and "Top 20", I get it. I just question the usefulness/necessity of the list continuing to expand at the rate we've seen.
So which lands should have no local deities?
What is so bad about an ever-growing number of localised deities that are irrelevant to the big picture? They come with the detailing of locations. It's like saying "We have enough rivers now! New sourcebooks should not add rivers to the more detailed maps, the big ones we see on the big map are all we need." Just doesn't work that way.
If they're irrelevant (your word), why include them? Wouldn't it make sense for one of the existing deities to have a patron saint, a splinter sect/cult, or that the original deity's portfolio be broad enough that the "local deity" isn't required? Detailing yet another deity to an ever-growing list takes content & space that might go towards other things that might see use at the game table beyond "the local area".
And correlating geographic detail of "zooming in" from a 100,000'->30,000'-> 1,000' view so you can add those rivers & features to adding "Itchycrotch, lord of nether regions" doesn't hold up too well. It ain't the same thing by a long shot.
I'm also not a fan of heavy-handed involvement by the deities themselves. I think it makes it too easy for deities to be used as pet GM-NPCs. YMMV.
I never said that I want a heavy-handed involvement by the deities themselves. But we're talking religion here. Theist religions usually feature advocating the Will of the Lord. You don't need FR-styile visits of deities on holy days for tea and crumpets to let the deity be the highest authority. You could have a completely distant or even an imaginary, non-existent deity and the faith around that deity would consider their god(dess) to be the highest authority.
The deities can work through visions and inspirations. A priest of sufficient experience would probably be considered to be the Voice of the Deity, being most in tune with His/Her Divine Will. And that doesn't even take into account the possibility to enter holy communion using powerful divine magic.
Except that, without a hierarchy beyond the local temple, you might not have a consistent "Will of the Lord" without direct involvement by the deity. Yet the "Top 20" are presented as having uniform beliefs/doctrines, etc. That works for "chaos" but less well for "law".
YMMV.
I would suggest that the gains from having a hierarchy beyond the temple are minimal in comparison to the costs.
The major benefits I would see would be a more consistent presentation of the deity and their will along with being able to have an increase in focus as the leader can present a single set of goals that need to immediately be achieved (like being able to organize and minimize the costs of transporting and arming people for the Mendevian Crusade).
For the consistent "Will of the Lord," given the distances characters often face, I would guess that more often than not the closest higher ranking member of your church is not the leader of the temple in the biggest city in country. Instead their deity is closer the than the nearest city.
The penalties that I would see with involving this would be that once you start breaking temple organization into regions, it would cause issues when war rolls around. I do not think that having a temple in country A being subservient to another temple in country B, when the two countries are at war with one another would produce beneficial results for the church.
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Right now, I am pretty happy with the number of deities. In my games I don't generally use all of them at the same time. Instead, I prefer that when one gets into the region, that there is a smaller less of important deities. That way, I am not dealing with twenty or forty gods. Instead I have about four to six core gods along with a couple regional gods that I can focus on. This is how I see it being done in the Pathfinder setting books, so I'm good with the setting as is there.
It would be interesting for a setting that has only five deities, but I don't really think that it is better compared to what exists in the Inner Sea region or what is is described in Vudra.
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I also tend to like fewer deties, but with broader scope. This makes playing a divine character of one deity much more interesting, because you then also have to look at which portios of th faith you follow, which sect you are part off, and opens up a lot of room for being different.Imagine if there were only one battel/strength/war/conflict deity ouththere, but te faith ranged from LG to CE, . . .
So instead of having to choose between Gorum, Iomedae, Rovagug and Urgathoa as war gods and pick the one that fits your vision of battle the most, you fuse them into one gestalt and people have to choose between the "Gorum", "Iomedae" and so on sects?
Tomato, tomato.
Plus, you can still follow only parts of your deity's portfolio, even though there are more gods with more narrow foci.
Not really true though. It looks that way on the surface, but with fewer, broader deities, that means they would have more portfolio's, Domains, aspects, etc. . . Which means, from a players perspective, that a character has more options, more combinations.
Being a follower of the Iomedae brand of war means your restircted to her specific focuses and tenets, possibly with minor differences, such as with Sarenrae, (except that those differences don't actually mean anythin mechanically, so are they really differences). [That is to say that a Qadiran and Andorian Cleric of Sarenrae both have the exact same spell options, class options, and Domains, even if the Qadiran Cleric "views" Sarenrae as a more neutal natural force, it doesn't change anything mechanically].
Back to the fewer Deities RP-wise, that opens up a lot more concepts, too. It means that the fewer deities, but more potential for their diversity means that they can be flushed out more over all, while leaving much of the specifics in the players hands, where it really needs to be. It is their character after all. One of the more interesting aspects about game religion is seeing it's contrasts. How one group interprets this or that slightly differently, or blends their cultural view in with a faith's beliefs. The current system, since 3.0, has always been rather terrible for this, without GM's pulling things out of their butt, so to speak. With fewer deities, this could be both flushed out and directly a part of a characters concept. At the same time, this would allow religion to be more customizable, and therefore relatable to everyone involved.
Wars in the middle ages were sometimes fought for the silliest reasons: I want that wine producing land for myself, you stole my whore, you married your daughter off to someone else,there is not enough food in the land to feed the peasants for winter (and war will either kill off enough of them to make the food go around or they will capture more food producing land), because they can, they are worshiping God in a different way (the middle ages equivilent of nerdrage edition wars), there was some slight at a dinner party.
Don't forget the classic..someone sent someone else a box of Tennis Balls..which led to the Battle of Agincourt..or Azincourt as we are apparently supposed to call it now under the EU
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I ... love Roger Moore's demihuman dieties (but very few introduced afterwards...).
Every racial demigod that fails to be as cool as Aerdrie Faenya or Baervan Wildwanderer (and Chiktika Fastpaws!) or Arvoreen can go take a hike, IMO.
Tim Hitchcock and I were just talking about how much fans we are of Roger Moore. I loved his tenure at Dragon.
And Set's statements like the above is why I'm a Set fanboy.
Old shcool FTW !
And Clangeddin Silverbeard for the battlefield !
Well, there are definitely churches that are organized on a pretty large scale (cf. Asmodeus in Cheliax). Sure, none of them are Catholic kind of organized (though maybe the faith of Aroden was, sounds like) but then again few are... Most only aspire to the Orthodox still-split-by-country model.
In terms of faiths most likely to have something like that - Sarenrae seems like it partially fills the Islam niche and more farflung worshippers are probably independent, but a lot of the core Inner Sea region seems like it'd be more internationally organized.
And I'd expect the church of Abadar to have a secret Illuminati-esque guiding cabal.
If they're irrelevant (your word), why include them?
It's not my word. I found it and thought it would fit, so I used it. I cannot tell you who invented it, but I don't think anyone has exclusive rights to it.
And I said irrelevant to the big picture. The articles and books about specific locations are about the small picture. They further detail those areas. That means they'll add more detail about it.
Wouldn't it make sense for one of the existing deities to have a patron saint, a splinter sect/cult, or that the original deity's portfolio be broad enough that the "local deity" isn't required?
Actually, since the big 20 are mostly local deities that made it into the all-stars league, so to speak, it makes more sense to have many deities, many of which are just local things.
It's like saying there should only be a dozen sports teams, and instead of having small, local sports teams, you have "sub-teams".
It's just not how things are on Golarion.
Detailing yet another deity to an ever-growing list takes content & space that might go towards other things that might see use at the game table beyond "the local area".
If you went with the saint thing (which also exists, by the way), you'd have to detail those instead.
Whether you use the "religion" allotment of the book for new deities, patron saints of deities, or how deities are viewed in some area (if there are special views on them), you will use up space. I personally find that a good thing. I want those books because they're full of used-up space.
And again, I could say "If the area only had that one big river, you wouldn't have to ever mention smaller ones, and streams, and creeks, and smaller lakes, so you could use the extra space to detail - what? In the end, the most efficient use of space is to have one generic country. You only need one book for that and you're done with the setting.
I don't want Paizo to go that route.
And correlating geographic detail of "zooming in" from a 100,000'->30,000'-> 1,000' view so you can add those rivers & features to adding "Itchycrotch, lord of nether regions" doesn't hold up too well. It ain't the same thing by a long shot.
That's where we disagree.
I say it's a pretty good analogy: You go into more detail, you'll get small detail, things that don't matter on a larger scale but are important for the area.
Except that, without a hierarchy beyond the local temple, you might not have a consistent "Will of the Lord" without direct involvement by the deity. Yet the "Top 20" are presented as having uniform beliefs/doctrines, etc. That works for "chaos" but less well for "law".
They are? Since when?
They get a general description, which doesn't necessarily mean it's like that everywhere.
And, as I said: you don't need direct involvement beyond the granting of spells and the exchange of information via divination magic, signs and portents or heralds and the like.
And the books usually describe those: They say how Cayden Cailean shows his displeasure by a guy getting drunk and sick after just one ale, or having a really bad hangover without drinking that much, and so on. The divination type spells are right there in the core rules, and the articles usually tell us about a couple of divine messengers and the deity's herald itself.
It's important to remember that while the gods do not walk the earth, neither are they as distant and uninvolved as their (possibly non-existent) real world counterparts.
Back to the fewer Deities RP-wise, that opens up a lot more concepts, too.
Just ditch deities, then. Now you have ultimate customisability. It also gets rid of deities that seem to lack a face since they're deities of a hundred different things.
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Just ditch deities, then. Now you have ultimate customisability. It also gets rid of deities that seem to lack a face since they're deities of a hundred different things.
Back to the fewer Deities RP-wise, that opens up a lot more concepts, too.
I wouldn't suggest going that far for a typical campaign. I can see a specific campaign like Dark Sun.
I wouldn't suggest going that far for a typical campaign.
See, that's the thing. I wouldn't go and have only a handful of deities with very broad areas of interest, either. Doesn't seem right. They seem so ill-defined. How the heck did this chick become goddess of arts, beauty, love, lust, fertility, animal husbandry, family, protection, community, civilisation, trickery and ships? And how does an omnipriest of that deity look like? Someone who's a polygamist that regularly attends exhibition-orgies that involve his whole family and community, including pets?
That poor girls would never get anything done, what with the thousands of areas of concern she has. :P
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See, that's the thing. I wouldn't go and have only a handful of deities with very broad areas of interest, either. Doesn't seem right. They seem so ill-defined. How the heck did this chick become goddess of arts, beauty, love, lust, fertility, animal husbandry, family, protection, community, civilisation, trickery and ships? And how does an omnipriest of that deity look like? Someone who's a polygamist that regularly attends exhibition-orgies that involve his whole family and community, including pets?
I was actually thinking more along the lines that different societies might view the deities in different ways, and that the deities might grant more abilities based on those views. For example, lets say that there is a deity of water. To sea traveling raiders, said deity might represent a powerful, chaotic natural force, that is neutral morally, but fickle to those that do not make the proper sacrifice before setting out to sea. However, to the desert peoples, said deity might be a good natured life-giver, whose focus is about healing, protection, water, order, and community survival.
Now priests generally wear blue, green, or white colors, and all their holy symbols are a wave crecenting over, but they also have very different ideas and views, and no one that meets said Cleric for the first time knows what to expect. Are they a CN sailor-priest with Strenghth, Chaos, Water, or Weather or a holy healer and leader with the Law, Healing, Protection, Community, or Water.
Or, maybe a third sect that somehow blends the two?
See, that's the thing. I wouldn't go and have only a handful of deities with very broad areas of interest, either. Doesn't seem right. They seem so ill-defined. How the heck did this chick become goddess of arts, beauty, love, lust, fertility, animal husbandry, family, protection, community, civilisation, trickery and ships? And how does an omnipriest of that deity look like? Someone who's a polygamist that regularly attends exhibition-orgies that involve his whole family and community, including pets?I was actually thinking more along the lines that different societies might view the deities in different ways, and that the deities might grant more abilities based on those views. For example, lets say that there is a deity of water. To sea traveling raiders, said deity might represent a powerful, chaotic natural force, that is neutral morally, but fickle to those that do not make the proper sacrifice before setting out to sea. However, to the desert peoples, said deity might be a good natured life-giver, whose focus is about healing, protection, water, order, and community survival.
Now priests generally wear blue, green, or white colors, and all their holy symbols are a wave crecenting over, but they also have very different ideas and views, and no one that meets said Cleric for the first time knows what to expect. Are they a CN sailor-priest with Strenghth, Chaos, Water, or Weather or a holy healer and leader with the Law, Healing, Protection, Community, or Water.
Or, maybe a third sect that somehow blends the two?
+1. Nice examples.
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Oh no!
The oracle class is suitable for all eras you could possibly choose to play in!
The last thing we need is game world events being used to get new rules into the setting. They destroyed the forgotten realms with that kind of crap.
The rules serve the game world, not the other way around.
Hi. Forgotten Realms was ruined by 4.0. That is all, carry on.
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+1. Nice examples.
Thanks, I just think it would be a cool idea. I t also puts a part of the creativity back in the player hands the same way a lot of non-Divine classes have it with their Guilds, Wizard schools/Towers, armies, or whatever. Monk's temples.
Also, keep in mind, that when I say this, I am taking it for granted that it is also a part of the players responsibility to come up with an in depth background and premise for their beliefs. I am not saying that Clerics or Divine characters should have univesal Domain combination choices, but rather that they have a looser, but still existant framework to create their own specific philosophy, without the DM automatically saying that Pelor/Illmater/Paladine/Sarenrae disapproves and your now a level 15 Commoner until you change your ways and get a real Cleric to cast Atonement.
Hi. Forgotten Realms was ruined by 4.0. That is all, carry on.
I actually kind of like 4E FR, but I have never been a fan of FR before then. <not a 'flame war", just saying that it is not a universal opinion> I understand though, as I loved DL up until they "destroyed" it with the partial 3E Chaos War.
Hi. Forgotten Realms was ruined by 4.0. That is all, carry on.Oh no!
The oracle class is suitable for all eras you could possibly choose to play in!
The last thing we need is game world events being used to get new rules into the setting. They destroyed the forgotten realms with that kind of crap.
The rules serve the game world, not the other way around.
yup