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I don't quite understand the debate here. Both sides seem to be arguing rule 0. If in your game you want to disallow N clerics of Evil gods, then do it. If in your game you want to allow them, then do it.
As for the OP's question, which was basically printed text vs. the wiki, I think it has already been solved as missing info (whether you agree with it or not) on the wiki. The RAW provide a general guideline, and offer no specific, clear cut exception for this particular deity. So, be it oversight, intention, or ambiguity, the RAW would seem to allow it. Further customization falls under the rule 0 comment above. We can only hope that further clarification will be included in the upcoming Inner Sea world guide update.
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I'm gonna have to side with Seeker on this (for the most part). If you must actively participate in killing a completely random person and you find yourself not only okay with this, but worshipping the god that makes you do this, you are evil. Done.
One exception: IF the god doesn't care whether the choice of sacrifice is truly random, you deliberately pick people who you know to be criminals/evil, AND you only worship the deity in the context of a portion of their portfolio that does not include wanton murder of random people, then you MIGHT be able to pull off neutral. But, it's a fine line to walk, so be prepared to have the DM taking away your cleric powers every so often for betraying your deity.
Personally, I would just tell the person to worship the concept by itself and be one of those abstract clerics, or I would invent some minor deity that wants that piece of the portfolio for their own for the cleric to worship (Creating an interesting rivalry story while I was at it).
@Laughing Goblin: In my mind this isn't a matter of whether a N cleric could become a cleric of that deity, but rather how long it would be before they became evil because of what they must do as part of that faith. By RAW a N cleric can follow that deity, but RAW doesn't say anything about how easy it is to stay that alignment.
Pretty much STabby, also the book does says weak members will be killed by the other clerics long before they become clerics. You simply don't get to be a member of that church without getting your hands dirty. If someone else feels you do not have the will or temperament to do murder in his name then well they weed you out. You will not be allowed to embarrass them.
You can try to be non evil all ya want but his church as written is just not set up for it.
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If you can do this and no be evil, no way anyone ever falls for committing an evil act.
You are defining 'do this' oddly. Not every single follower of Norgorber is 'doing this.' One dude, probably the head of the congregation, is 'doing this.' The rest are standing back and watching.
Just like we stand back and watch all sorts of terrible things our various governments and faiths and ethnic groups do, without necessarily being evil. You can, believe it or not, be part of a group that does some bad things, without actually supporting every single bad thing.
As a Christian, there are those who believe that I'm supposed to stone to death anyone who works on the Sabbath or cuts their hair or eats shellfish or sleeps with someone of the same gender. I don't happen to agree with those particular tenets of my faith (because I'm a Gentile, not a Jew, so those rules never applied to 'my people,' and Jesus made a new Covenant that did away with that stuff anyway, even if I were Jewish). I don't consider myself evil for being part of a faith that includes those rules, and a fair number of people that believe in them.
There's also a bunch of stuff about treating the poor with respect and giving of myself and charity and compassion and doing unto others in my religion, *but that doesn't make me good, either.* I have to get off my butt and actually donate food to the soup kitchen, or volunteer at a free clinic, or do some Habitat for Humanity work, or whatever, before I can even even have the presumption to call myself 'good.'
I personally have to perform acts of good, or evil, before I'm morally responsible for those actions. Allowing bad things to happen (or good things) doesn't make one bad (or good). It's a moral non-event. A cosmic shrug. Ethical laziness, perhaps.
Similarly, a neutral good follower of Sarenrae doesn't turn evil just because she lives in Qadira, and her family owns a bunch of slaves. She may not like the practice, she may think it's dehumanizing and immoral and refuse to own any slaves herself, but she's not evil for being part of a group (ethnic, cultural, national or religious) that tolerates the practice. An Andoran doesn't automatically gain 'good points' just for being Andoran. He has to actually go out there and do some good for that.
But maybe that's the big issue here. One side of this discussion is assuming that one can be passively 'accidentally' good or evil, by standing too close to evil people, places or things, while the other assumes that one has to actively choose to do something good to be good, and actively choose to do evil to be evil.
I don't believe so much in evil-by-association. Or good-by-association. Either status must be earned.
I still believe in free will.
And so, evil or good, becomes meaningful, because it's a *choice,* not just 'something that happens to you.'
Evil becomes less excusable, as the evil individual made deliberate choices that led to actual deeds, not just something that the evil person can say, 'Oh, I never did anything evil, I just grew up in Nidal and never spoke out against all the torture and stuff, 'cause it was just the way things were and I didn't want to rock the boat (and possibly get dragged off and tortured until I stopped complaining about all the torture...).'
Good becomes more precious, as it is a good forged in choice, sacrifice, commitment and action, not just 'passive good' that the Andoran falconer picked up from his neighbors, despite never having actually lifted a darned finger to help anyone other than himself.
Interesting quote.
Norgorber’s cult splits itself into four groups, with each focusing on one of his aspects and ignoring the others.
Yep it is interesting the only thing they seem to have in common is that one rite. Other then that it's almost 4 churches
I wonder what happens to worshippers that are nowhere near a temple then?
Have to do it alone. Religious rites of clergy are not simply skipped if ya don't have a crowed watching.. Not as much fun without the banquet though I guess, good part is ya miss the high priest speech :)
That does explain that, but then as the clergy kills off the weak you need to be smart to last to old age anyhow don't ya.
I don't see why ya couldn't. But ya see the day never changes so you plan ahead, snag a traveler, or someone that went "missing" in the woods a few months ago where they found "the body".
It is very doable you simply need to plan.
Pantheons are fine, however clerics in golarion may not worship a pantheon. Well they can but they have a main god and are not granted powers by the pantheon but that good.
Oracles however do however gain from a pantheon or group of gods.
Outside of Golarion it depends on your world. But as this was a setting question I tried{most of the time} to stick to the setting rule not general rule.
Is there a particular reference that states Golarion clerics cannot be pantheistic? I know the Cleric entry states most are dedicated to a single deity, but there are documented occurrences of pantheistic clerics in Golarion. For instance:
Elven faith is more pantheistic than that of many races, and while a particular elf might favor one deity over another, all are acknowledged and respected. Even elf clerics worship this way and may select their domains from different elven deities, including those of Desna, Calistria, and Nethys.
This pretty clearly lets elves, at least, be truly pantheistic clerics.
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Stop encouraging him! We've already done this argument to death, about how they didn't come out and say outright that clerics in Golarion must have a god, only implied it to avoid shutting out DMs that want godless clerics in their game. Seeker takes the implied statements to be 'there are no godless clerics and pantheistic clerics must still pick one god' and I take it to be 'we are not restricting godless clerics from the setting'.
Did I miss anything seeker? :)
Sorry, I missed that dialogue...in any case, I'm not talking godless clerics here, but rather pantheistic clerics. I don't have any position on godless clerics--it's not something that's every come up (or likely to) in my games and so hasn't been an issue.* Since I'd been playing around with some elven concepts, that bit from EoG immediately popped to mind.
*If it did come up, I'd allow it. I'm an old Mystara fan, and being a cleric of a philosophy rather than a god was a basic part of that campaign setting. The "godless cleric abuse" problems I've seen from players just trying to get the best domain combo doesn't fly in my games--I just whack such a silly player with the GM-hammer. No rules necessary.
Officially they can not
There's ABSOLUTELY panthesim in Golarion. As mentioned above, the temple in Sandpoint... one of the FIRST temples we ever talked about, is a pantheistic temple.
Clerics in Golarion generally have to worship a single deity.
Oracles, though, do not. We specifically created their flavor to support panthestic divine casters. Or divine casters who simply want to embody faith in a single concept (or "mystery") such as flames or bones or whatever.
Why should every priest be devoted to one god? It makes no sense to me. Why can't a cleric pray to all the deities in the pantheon, calling upon whichever makes sense for whatever spell they're casting at the moment?Because that's how we define the role of the cleric class. A servant of a single specific deity who gains magical powers in return for his/her servitude.
As I mention in my previous post, characters who generally recieve magical powers for pantheistic worship do exist in Golarion: oracles (or arguably druids or even paladins or rangers). They're not clerics, though.
Same as for arcane spellcasters who don't learn spells and study them with spellbooks; those guys aren't wizards, and part of being a wizard is your spellbook.
Of course, feel free to change things how you want in your game. In Golarion, though, the official way clerics work is one deity.
Note that the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebok is NOT a "Golarion-only" book. But we do retain the flavor of "clerics worship a deity" for the same reason we retain the flavor of "wizards use spellbooks" or "barbarians have rage powers." It's all part of what defines the class as what it is.
It would be a setting thing. In Golarion the CS does not cover this , but there is one instance and that is the order of the Godclaw, They worship a some called heretical teaching that combines Asmodeus Abadar, Iomedae,
Irori, and Torag. They have the domains of Glory, Law, Protection, Strength, and War. Their favored weapon is the morningstar.This is the one and only example I know of, although many push for the four philosophy from the CS, but only one of those has more then one god,and one has no gods.And in any case those do not seem to grant domains or have clerics who are not clerics of a god.
You still need to pick a deity in Golarion in order to be able to pick your domains. Even if you're a member of the order of, say, the Godclaw. Note that there's more than clerics in that order.
So officially for Golarion a cleric has a single god, If ya want to have your gifts granted by more then one god that is an Oracle not a cleric. So even Elven clerics would have a main god with domain's chosen form that one god it seems.
To be clear, though, this is all in forum posts, not from a published source it seems. This is a fairly important distinction, since not everyone reads the forums. As such, a person using Elves of Golarion would be fully justified in having pantheistic clerics. Hopefully they'll put more teeth to this in the Inner Seas supplement...
For my tastes, I actually like the shift to oracles as the pantheistic representative. Having the "old elves" that still follow those gods be oracles instead of clerics gives a nice distinction between the old and new cultures among elves that fled vs. those that stayed behind.
Also keep in mind that they tend to rework some of the older books as concepts no longer fit. The setting was new and in flux but as it stands the elves like the god claw or anyone else can worship 1 god or 15 but a cleric only gets 1 main god and that one is where his power comes from.
The new book is likely to kill this iF they even recall it. I agree with ya I like that ideal of oracle/cleric split as if the old ones were more touched by all the gods.
Yep, just like the guns in Alkenstar getting toned down historically. I do hope they make an actual statement regarding pantheism in the Inner Seas book, however. Otherwise the elves at least have a pretty good "get out of jail" card on the issue.
Yeah they do, but so did the godclaw and that was shot down.
Shot down in the forums, though. Most of our local players don't read the forums, nor consider them official. So, when we're running games at our meet-up I stick to printed material only to avoid arguments. It's not a problem for my home game--it goes however I want (with consideration for player concepts/desires) of course.
Shot down in the forums, though. Most of our local players don't read the forums, nor consider them official. So, when we're running games at our meet-up I stick to printed material only to avoid arguments. It's not a problem for my home game--it goes however I want (with consideration for player concepts/desires) of course.
You're just going for rule0 as your defense here erian. Which is fine, if you and your group want to run it your way, more power to you for it.
Shot down in the forums, though. Most of our local players don't read the forums, nor consider them official. So, when we're running games at our meet-up I stick to printed material only to avoid arguments. It's not a problem for my home game--it goes however I want (with consideration for player concepts/desires) of course.You're just going for rule0 as your defense here erian. Which is fine, if you and your group want to run it your way, more power to you for it.
I'm not sure if you mean my home game or the meet-up?
For home games, like I said it's not an issue. We've had a consistent group for years, and they roll with whatever craziness I come up with (currently, HP are measuring fatigue (at 25% character is Fatigued, at 0 HP character is Exhausted) and they can spend them to do stunts. Critical hits deal actual Con damage (1 point per crit multiplier). And I don't give out any standard magic items--all the normal "+1 to this check, +2 to that ability" stuff is handled with an Advantage Point System). So yeah, we pretty much do what we want.
At meet-ups, however, it's not possible to know who will be playing or what familiarity they have with the game. As such, it's much easier to go with printed material only, no house rules, since that ensures everyone is on a level playing field. Rule 0 doesn't work nearly as well here, although I'm not hesitant to make a call mid-game if necessary to keep things moving. This is a much more "organized play" atmosphere, even if we're not playing an official OP system/module.
Oh I agree there. Most folks I used to game with never even look online{the internet is for porn ya know} But there are a lot of loose ends laying about on alot of subjects that as the setting vision has became a bit more clear are being weeded out of just outright over ruled.
Wait.
There's porn on the Internet?
How'd that happen!?!
Dagnabit. It's always about the money!
Now, to bring this back around to the purpose of this thread, if a Neutral cleric looks at porn on the Internet, would he become Evil?
Dagnabit. It's always about the money!
Now, to bring this back around to the purpose of this thread, if a Neutral cleric looks at porn on the Internet, would he become Evil?
If he became addicted to snuff porn, then probably!
Or midget donkeyshows maybe
Or midget donkeyshows maybe
I have a nagging feeling somewhere in my subconcious behind a locked door that i know what this means. But i have no desire to open said door to find out with certainty.
where's your sense of adventure!
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Speaking purely from a GM's perspective, non-TN deities have a vested interest in the fate of the world. They are passionate and dedicated to specific causes, and they expect their clerics to conform to this as well.
This is why I do not allow Neutral aligned clerics *at all* unless they are clerics of a Neutral aligned deity. While Neutral aligned deities will accept clerics that have at least one part of their alignment neutral, no other deity will accept a TN cleric; it just doesn't make sense.
I think we're looking at the alignment chart a bit too laterally; keep in mind the planes where these deities dwell. The Hells where Asmodeus dwells is *mildly* lawful aligned and *mildly* evil aligned. It would make sense that his clerics could be LE, NE, or LN, as they are conforming to at least one aspect of the plane upon which he resides as well as not opposing the other aspect.
On the other hand Sarenrae is a NG deity, meaning the plane she inhabits is *strongly* good aligned. Because she does not take a stance on the lawful-chaotic axis, she doesn't care if her clerics do or don't. But since goodness is her *entire* archtype, I can't see her accepting a non-good cleric in a million years. Likewise, Norgorber would be unwilling to accept a non-evil cleric into his ranks either.
As far as I'm concerned, the wiki is correct.
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Officially they can not
Heart of the Jungle describes 'nature spirit' worshipping Clerics that can choose from Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water and Weather domains, as well as ancestor worshippers. James must be annoyed that examples of what he doesn't want to exist in Golarion keep creeping into product. :)
I think TriOmegaZero said it best, it's DM discretion. In my last campaign I had a NE god called the Devouring One, who actively sought to destroy all other gods. A few of his followers were NG warriors (and a LG Paladin) who were crusaders out to destroy only evil gods.
Why did he allow this? Because I wanted a morally ambiguous set of semi-bad guys who were being duped by an evil god. Did it matter that the LG paladin was 3 steps from his alignment? Eventually. Had the campaign continued, that group would have slowly slid to NE (as they saw more and more gods as 'evil') with the Paladin being corrupted into a Blackguard.
So, as for the N cleric of a NE god... Which of these options fits your world?
- It could not be allowed. Some gods are just picky like that.
- It could be fine, just pick the right person to kill, or skip the ritual entirely. (The god might not care, but the other clerics might.)
- What if the god doesn't care and only the followers do? He could be prosecuted by his own church, yet still receive spells from the god.
- What if he's not alone, and becomes a voice of reform in the church?
You're the DM. What kind of game do you want to play, and what is the god like in your world?
The only place it has been officially stated for Golarion is for the PFS version of the world. As far as Joshua is concerned, there are no pantheistic clerics. I also could have sworn that in another thread, that James or one of the other Paizo folks said it would be clarified in the revised Campaign Setting that the big 20 and affiliated lesser deities could not have pantheistic clerics as followers. Of course, this means that other parts of the world could still have pantheistic faiths, just that it does not happen in the Inner Sea region.
Still I don't like to have everything boxed up in alignments, corrupt clerics of good deities make such memorable villains, also I do not like a god watching over your shoulder all the time and b*$!!slapping you when you stray from the one true path. It turns D&D religion in something stale and boring.
In that regard I like pantheistic clerics better as in having them draw their power from the believe in the pantheon rather than one god, even if they usually pick a patron deity, this allows for a credible way for clerics to focus on certain aspects of deities who's alignment might not be otherwise compatible by core.
As far as I'm concerned, the wiki is correct.
You may want to take care with that statement, since I changed all the wiki entries to allow Neutral clerics...
I have a player who is playing a cleric of Norgorber, who is NE. The player wants to be of a Neutral alignment. According to the core rulebook, page 166, that should be within 'one step' of NE, being one step 'up' on the alignment chart. However....I was browsing the PathfinderWiki and saw that priests of Norgorber can only be LE, NE, or CE. http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Norgorber
Is this true? Should I accept the information in the wiki over the core rules? Is the wiki incorrect? Or am I reading the alignment chart wrong? Is it written somewhere that priests of Norgorber can only be evil? I think my biggest concern is that i'm interpreting the alignment axis chart wrong. Thanks.
This is an RPG, there are no rules.. merely guidelines.
While for mechanic reasons it makes sense, it doesn't always work for what the player wants to do. I adjust to fit the player character build if it doesn't affect the game in any other way. The idea here is to have fun, and you bend the rules of the game to fit your fun.
Ha! I love those subversive writers. Keep up the good work! Eventually the evil editor will fall. ;pHeart of the Jungle describes 'nature spirit' worshipping Clerics that can choose from Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water and Weather domains, as well as ancestor worshippers. James must be annoyed that examples of what he doesn't want to exist in Golarion keep creeping into product. :)
More then likely it will be ruled untrue{see god claw}. JJ is the Creative Director, some stuff my slip in but if he says it is a mistake then it is a mistake and will be fixed once they find said mistake.
The again set is not talking about the same thing as panthesim . What he is talking about are specific being that grant domains. Not a group of gods. What you stated is are not panthesim based cleric neither are they "godless" as something grant those powers and if angered can strip them.
Ha! I love those subversive writers. Keep up the good work! Eventually the evil editor will fall. ;pHeart of the Jungle describes 'nature spirit' worshipping Clerics that can choose from Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water and Weather domains, as well as ancestor worshippers. James must be annoyed that examples of what he doesn't want to exist in Golarion keep creeping into product. :)
But that is not part of the Big 20 deities of the Inner Sea, which is what most of the pantheistic argument is centered on, but are rather a bunch of nature-worshipping natives in the jungle or ancestor-worshipping peoples in the far east, so there is no reason for this new content to be voided.