What would such a cult look like? I don't buy that the neutral evil clerics of Pharasma can go against their goddess and embrace undeath, and actively taking on the death side of Pharasma's portfolio by killing random folks treads on the toes of other deities. A band of kidnapping mid-wives, perhaps?
Forgive me if this is covered in the recent Pharasma article, but I don't own the Carrion Crown adventure path to read it and there's nothing on the wiki about what evil clerics of Pharasma would be like.
a cult that is following ome grand plan to either send specific people to be judged by their goddess. by killing them so they go to the spire. or any other contrivance you can think of.
though I'd like to add death cults and undeath do not need to go hand In hand.
a cult that is following ome grand plan to either send specific people to be judged by their goddess. by killing them so they go to the spire. or any other contrivance you can think of.
though I'd like to add death cults and undeath do not need to go hand In hand.
Agreed that death cults and undeath do not have to go together. My concern about a cult intent on killing certain people is that Pharasma is completely neutral on the idea that certain people deserve to die; she just judges them when they come and waits patiently for that day to happen, not looking to expedite matters. I would like a neutral evil cult that is not a heresy. I find heresy a lot harder to explain within the ranks of spell-casting clerics, given that Pharasma would actively be granting spells to these heretics.
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Agreed that death cults and undeath do not have to go together. My concern about a cult intent on killing certain people is that Pharasma is completely neutral on the idea that certain people deserve to die; she just judges them when they come and waits patiently for that day to happen, not looking to expedite matters. I would like a neutral evil cult that is not a heresy. I find heresy a lot harder to explain within the ranks of spell-casting clerics, given that Pharasma would actively be granting spells to these heretics.
But that's the thing: She wouldn't care. Not caring is actually sorta her thing. As long as her followers oppose undeath, act to assure more births, and keep scrupulous birth and death records they can do almost literally anything else and still recieve spells. Ritual torture of all those who 'fight their appointed role' or self-centered money grubbing are equally acceptable to her...and one of her Clerics who practticed both would still get his full spells from her. Why? Because she just wouldn't give a damn.
I suppose Pharasma likes births and deaths, but there's nothing in her portfolio about healing. Perhaps a cult dedicated to "un-healing" people, people who should have died, but were saved through healing, medicine, or perhaps even through the brave acts of adventuring heroes?
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Perhaps a cult dedicated to "un-healing" people, people who should have died, but were saved through healing, medicine, or perhaps even through the brave acts of adventuring heroes?
I think there's potential there. A NE cult of Pharasma who go around killing those who've received any magical healing, as it's an unnatural delay in the return of their soul to the spire. They'd make a great enemy for an adventuring party, as the party has more-than-likely avoided death thanks to magic, many, many times.
Perhaps a cult dedicated to "un-healing" people, people who should have died, but were saved through healing, medicine, or perhaps even through the brave acts of adventuring heroes?I think there's potential there. A NE cult of Pharasma who go around killing those who've received any magical healing, as it's an unnatural delay in the return of their soul to the spire. They'd make a great enemy for an adventuring party, as the party has more-than-likely avoided death thanks to magic, many, many times.
The same would go for raise dead recipients also.
For that matter, do clerics of Pharasma have any tabboos against being raised?
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For that matter, do clerics of Pharasma have any tabboos against being raised?
According to James Jacobs, no.
A splinter faction could certainly have such issues, of course. :)
I know it's a sick idea but we are talking NE here, so how about they kill women who just gave birth as a way to celebrate both aspects of their goddess, then keeping the babies to raise even more sick cultists?
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Along the same lines, a bit of pop culture cheese, the cult could be essentially "The Final Destination" and take care of those pesky near death experience jokers who somehow dodged the Lady of Graves' deciding hand.
Eos' idea is actually a pretty solid idea, with the macabre midwives ensuring the baby's survival and the mother's demise as a cruel circle of life sortta thing.
You could even have a cult of elven or dwarven priests (so they're old enough to have been prophecy themed priests back when Aroden was around) who have gone mad from the death of Aroden and are running around with blank parchments pronouncing the prophesied deaths of whoever they find 'written' on the prophetic scroll they carry, and subsequently executing the will of prophecy and in turn their Goddess.
Since I'm about to run a Carrion Crown side campaign, these ideas are sorely tempting me.
Good stuff all :)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 Dr"
Hell why waste any of it?
Why not a cult of mostly Non-cleric fanatics lead by a group of insane oracles who direct the faithful. They could kill new mothers, or take back the lives magic has saved or brought back from the spire. They might even take to "correcting" fates mistakes by killing some folks the seerers say should have died or whose deaths they say are the Goddess will.
They could even be well organized with a different seerer and group of cultist over seeing different aspects of deaths "adjustments"
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I tap into the WW Euthanatos death-mages for inspiration. Pharasma is a goddess of fate, as well as death, and there are only so many 'fates' out there, so many opportunities available for people to succeed or be happy or find true love. Some jerks come along and win the lottery, and then blow it all and end up in the poorhouse five years later. Some jerks marry the most amazing woman, and then treat her like crap and cheat on her.
Each time the goddess of fate puts an amazing opportunity down, and one of these wastrels snatches it up and wastes it, he's stealing opportunities that could have been wonderful for someone less destructive or wasteful or selfish by nature, and a NE cult of Pharasma might consider it their sacred duty to find people who have wasted grand opportunities, ones that could perhaps have benefitted many other people, and eliminate them. Symbolically, they see themselves as 'rescuing' fates that have been squandered and 'trapped' by these fate-spoiling people, releasing the energies of opportunity, of destiny itself, to reforge these fates and return these opportunities to the world, to perhaps land next time on someone who will better appreciate or deserve such a fate.
As there is only a finite number of opportunities, the NE cultist of Pharasma sees himself as a recycler. It's not people he wants to re-incarnate, it's the opportunities for wealth, happiness, success, power, etc. that certain individuals have squandered.
The cult would be *very* unpopular with the upper classes and the noble families, as opportunities are heavily concentrated in those social strata. The first born son who is a bit of a wastrel, and nowhere near so studious or devoted or practical as his younger sister, might find himself a target of this cult, who wish to 'recycle' his destiny as heir to the kingdom to the so-much-more-worthy (in their view) second-born.
Indeed, anyone who seems likely to inherit a position of importance, by dint of bloodline or just living long enough that it falls upon them, instead of through merit or 'worthiness' (and, of course, 'worthiness' is determined by the cultists, whose standards may not jibe with anyone elses...), would have reason to fear these unofficial Arbiters of Succession.
Being evil themselves, perfectly willing to murder someone who just *seems* like they wouldn't deserve an opportunity that seems likely to be headed their way, so that it falls on someone 'more deserving,' their own standards of 'deserving' might reflect their own cold-blooded and (in their eyes) pragmatic nature.
A scheming younger sibling who is ruthlessly efficient at managing the men and territories under his command, might be seen as 'more worthy' than the benevolent and beloved, but somewhat lax and overly compassionate, elder brother. These are the kinds of guys that would look at Thor and Loki and say, 'Loki is more intelligent, has studied hard to earn power, rather than have it just handed to him by his daddy as a present, and actively wishes to rule. We should kill this Thor, so that the more worthy Loki becomes king.'
On a more public front, the Arbiters would be greatly concerned with geneology and succession, and that would likely be their 'cover story' or 'front organization.' While their secret agenda would remain twelve layers deep into the onion that is their organization, the vast, vast majority of even their own faithful would be more concerned with keeping fantastically detailed and accurate maps of succession and lineage, going back, in some cases, thousands of years, and being treated as nearly sacred relics in their own right. Lower ranking clergy, mostly experts, would toil endlessly copying in meticulous detail the ancient geneologies, so that they can be disseminated to distant repositories. (The church, in times past, lost one such repository, and many irreplaceable documents were destroyed. It is believed that the destruction was deliberate, by rulers who wished to muddy lines of succession and plant a bastard usurper on the throne without anyone having legitimate claim to refute his parentage. So now, they copy everything, and try to have every document copied and stored within at least two different repositories.)
Being such a transcriptionist can be dangerous, at times, as the inner council has it's own agenda, which may sometimes make it useful for them to refute the lineage of someone they deem worthy (or 'add' someone they deem worthy to a royal bloodline that they do not actually share), which requires them to alter the geneological records in their store, and silence any expert who would challenge that 'new' history...
They could even be well organized with a different seerer and group of cultist over seeing different aspects of deaths "adjustments"
In several 3PP 3.x products I saw an 'Endings' Domain for clerics of a particular diety that abhored the concept of raise dead or ressurection. The clerics would gain spells to detect the 'twice-dead' and eventually even a technique by which they could use their Turn Undead (or even Destroy Undead!) powers on those who had been raised or ressurected. Pathfinderizing it would just require adding a 'Detect Reborn' spell that works similarly to Detect Undead, and a special Feat that allows them to channel positive energy to cause damage to anyone who has been raised from the dead, as if they were undead.
As the returned-to-life have cheated death by skipping out of the line in the Boneyard and 'rebuked Death,' so to can the clerics of Death rebuke them in turn, and send them right back into the line, back to the judgement they attempted to flee.