Fact checking - Gods or aspects of gods acting directly on Golarion

[Mikaze]

I just want to make sure this thing I'm working on meshes with how things typically work on Golarion.

Would a deity physically manifesting on Golarion itself to smack some sense into a mortal they consider of great importance to their goals be out of line with the standard deific procedures amongst Golarion's pantheon? Are there any repercussions for such an act? And if so, how dire? (just in case the deity in question would consider this act worth it)

Spoiler:

Basically, long-story-short: There's an orc woman who Sarenrae intended to lead her people away from Rovagug wasn't getting the hint, so the Dawnflower decides to get the point across on orcish terms and hands her chosen one a savage beatdown followed by a traumatic vision of what future awaits her race if she can't lead them down a different path.

Are there any consequences that could befall Sarenrae for this? Is she even breaking any divine pacts or laws by acting this directly?

[W E Ray]

You mean, other than getting Rovagug to focus all his Divine energy against her instead of several deities "equally"?

. . . .

Way back when, I struggled with something like this -- why D&D deities didn't actually do anything. I mean, heck (I thought to myself), if I were Pelor I'd just go down to Oerth, murder Iuz and take a radioactive crap on the Temple of Elemental Evil.

But in order for the game to move forward that can't happen.

My solution -- not terribly novel (or unique), is that the deities don't do anything more than give Clerics spells because if they do their god-enemies would retaliate in like fashion and the Prime would become a Divine wasteland. So no more souls to be born, choose an alignment, die and go to an Outer Plane to fuel the Deity for eternity.

Of course, this kinda solution don't work for deities such as Tharizdun and Rovagug.

Oops.

I can see that these two can't do more than give their Clerics spells cuz they're in prisons. But I'm not sure why Deities (including Sarenrae) aren't considerably more active on the Prime against these imprisoned annihilation-fetish morons.

Maybe Sarenrae, for logistical and resourse-distribution reasons, only allows X amount of power to go to certain things. If one Favored Soul can't figure it out she'll try another; if one Cleric ain't so wise, she'll give her power elsewhere.

And this can be applied to your Orc chick . . . . Sarenrae allocated X amount of power (whatever you determine in your Campaign Design) and that will go for however many years it needs to. Just because the mortals think of months or years or decades as being long doesn't mean Sarenrae does.

Sarenrae can allocate the power out to this Orc and, 3 or 4 decades from now look back at the situation to see where things stand. (Even though your Campaign will be long over)

[Sean K Reynolds]

This doesn't apply to Golarion, but in Greyhawk, the gods had a balance of power, and whenever St. Cuthbert was allowed to intervene directly in the world, it was with the understanding that the evil powers would have a similar opportunity. So... direct interventions from either side were rare.

[Kthulhu]

IIRC, after Arazni got whacked by Tar-Baphon, Achaekek was created and the rest of the gods generally stopped appearing directly on Golarion.

[James Jacobs]

The deities tend to not directly involve themselves in the mortal world, because that causes rapid escalation. If one deity interferes, then others are quick to follow.

So they generally don't directly meddle, and take much more subtle routes or, more often, act through minions or clerics or the like.

In any case, the gods and goddesses have a lot more on their plate than squabbling over Golarion.

[Shisumo]

This is exactly the sort of thing the heralds are meant for. (In fact, Sunlord Thalachos even has a history of acting as a giver of prophetic visions, though the Age of Lost Omens has made this practice less useful...)

[Mikaze]

Thanks for the info guys.

Damn, got a lot of rewriting and rethinking to do.

Sunlord Thalachos could work(the event is set somewhere around 4000-4100 A.R.), but it kinda wrecks some of the religious visual these guys would have to work with.

One reason I was hoping it could work was to show Sarenrae actively taking a risk with real consequences for her, a bit like what was said about Desna's stunt with that demon lord in Book of the Damned 2. Just to show how important this matter was to her and such.

edit-smacks forehead Sarenrae can still appear in the form I need in the vision itself and deliver the beatdown there. Should have thought of that earlier!

[Thanael]

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

This doesn't apply to Golarion, but in Greyhawk, the gods had a balance of power, and whenever St. Cuthbert was allowed to intervene directly in the world, it was with the understanding that the evil powers would have a similar opportunity. So... direct interventions from either side were rare.

Yes, it's called the Compact of the Gods.

Read this recent thread on canonfire for more details about it.