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Okay, first of all I am not talking about a paladin here, just to get that out of the way. It's also not a cleric (though, it's an oracle of Flame...)
So, if an oracle of Flame was born and raised in Cheliax, could she be Lawful Good and worship Asmodeus? I don't for the most part see why not, especially if this is her focus...
Builder characters believe in the importance of close-knit families and strong communities, and they teach others to be self-sufficient. Builders revere order and law, regarding these concepts as the answer to all of civilization's problems; for them, a strong, benevolent government is what allows civilizations to thrive. Builders often assist in creating actual structures and items as a part of community's attempt to improve members' quality of life.
If you are a builder, you:
Strive for order and organization.
View strong government as necessary for civilization's cultivation, and strong families and communities as the building blocks of successful settlements.
Use your creativity and skills to teach others how to improve their lives and communities, and gladly offer your assistance when others are moved to create order and structure.Code: You bring order to society through your creations, whether material or philosophical.
Seems to me it would work, as she wouldn't necessarily need to be doing actual good all the time, but all of that would be very beneficial to Asmodeus, would it not? Since, it seems to me the way he's kind of written in Pathfinder is that he's the God of Order and Tyranny yes, but that Tyranny is strict adherence to Order... which then is where the evil comes in. Kind of the old "absolute power corrupts absolutely" idea.
So, thoughts?
I dont think it would go. Asmodeous is doing bad bad things and you wouldent stay good if you kept celebrating him and justifying him. I think it is a interesting starting point but it is a point to evolve from as soon as you meet your first devil. You must start out with low wisdom and int if you want to have groun up in Cheliax and still think Asmodeous good.
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I think it could work, especially if you have a sheltered upbringing...I don't believe their are any rules saying common followers have to be one step away from their God's alignment. I would say that eventually such a character should probably catch on that Asmodeus isn't at all a good god.
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Well, yeah oracles don't have to worship ANY deity, and I guess in a way she wouldn't worship him any more than a lay person does, like I said the reason that she does is because she's from Cheliax (and her twin sister actually does... she's Lawful Evil) Everyone in Cheliax that doesn't want to get in trouble better at least SAY they worship Asmodeus. I could make her Lawful Neutral, but I kind of like the duality of one good sister one evil sister.
I think instead of trying to make asmodeus fit cleanly with lawful good on the nine point alignment spectrum, you should take a more realistic approach. Don't worry about alignment and have the character view himself as a good person who is just a realist in a very bad world. If people can't be trusted, then we must settle for contracts. If people can not function as a uniformed community, we must have laws. Sure, there are good gods out there, but they don't run nations that function. You get a lot of people paying lip service, the clerics toiling with good intent and the gods themselves just saying "Just, you know, be like awesome and stuff. If we come together, we can like, get rid of evil" while the homeless starve in the streets, and the people at the top of society exploit it. Just like how Asmodeus was a perfect thing who has fallen and been forced to embrace the morality that is allowed by the reality of the world he lives in, and use the means available to make an ordered and fair, if not particularly clean or nice, world, so must mortals.
And then put down LN on your character sheet and stop worrying about it because alignments are silly.
This is where Fantasy RPG games differ to the extreme with the real world. In the real world people for the most part don't consider themselves to be evil even if they are. Do you all think that Hitler thought he was evil? I don't think he thought he was evil I think he thought that he was helping the world in his own twisted way. So if Golarion was like the real world which it is not I don't think that evil gods especially a conniving one like Asmodeus would present himself to the world as evil and it would be very likely that many unsuspecting people would be tricked or born into a religion where he presents himself as good or at least neutral. So yes a lawful good person in that sense could worship an evil god. However as she started to discover the truth of who and what her god actually stood for her alignment could be effected if she continued to follow a god she then knew was evil.
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It's basically paying lipservice unless you're within the alignment matrix for Asmodeus. For example, everyone in Cheliax at least pretends to bow down. But not all of them are LE, LN, NE. This is not true worship though. If you actually support and practice worship of Asmodeus, the best you can hope for is being LN.
We had a topic before about a Paladin of Asmodeus, and the eventual conclusion was that the only way a Good person could worship him was if he didn't actually know who Asmodeus was, which means he wasn't actually worshiping him. He was a Paladin of a made up LN god who happened to also be named Asmodeus.
You'd have to not only be willingly ignorant, but you would never get any boons from this worship.
I made a neutral flame oracle not long ago that worships both Saranae and Asmodeus. Well worship isn't the correct term but is more inspired by facets of the two.
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I made a neutral flame oracle not long ago that worships both Saranae and Asmodeus. Well worship isn't the correct term but is more inspired by facets of the two.
Party Member 1 So, what skills do you bring to this adventuring company?
Party Member 2 I burn things. I burn things with fire. Pretty pretty fire... *Stares into hearth fire in hypnotized trance*
lol
Yes.
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Varian Jeggare, from the pathfinder tales stories and novels, officially "worships" Asmodeus due to that being the established church of Cheliax. He actually worships Desna, and is either NG or CG, I forget which.
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Varian Jeggare, from the pathfinder tales stories and novels, officially "worships" Asmodeus due to that being the established church of Cheliax. He actually worships Desna, and is either NG or CG, I forget which.
Hmm, that might work. I could have her secretly worship an Empyreal Lord, but then say her sister is an Antipaladin of Asmodeus (Fire Mountain Games Lord of Darkness archetype)? If they at all got along her evil sister more than likely figure it out, and if the didn't get along then well yeah. So, if say the Evil sister knew she didn't REALLY worship Asmodeus would she be amiss by not hating her sister? I mean in theory yeah she'd be trying to 'convert' her sister more truly to Asmodeus but then at the same time her sister would be trying to convert her away. Actually that might be an interesting dynamic between them...
If her sister was a LE worshipper of Asmodeus but not a cleric, inquisitor, or antipaladin, then they could maintain a cordial, if not necessarily intimate, familial relationship. It would be like a fundamentalist Christian whose sister still gives lip service to Christianity but spends a lot of time with wiccans and atheists and is adopting a value system based on those rather than that of fundamentalist christianity. They still care about each other, but in order to interact they have to engage in a system of mutually suspended belief: the lapsed christian sister pretends to still believe in fundamentalist christianity (i.e. asmodeanism), and the fundie sister pretends to believe her.
If the LE sister is a cleric, inquisitor, or most especially an antipaladin, she is breaking the tenets of her god if she doesn't either make an ultimatum to her sister along the lines of "I love you, but if you don't abandon your heretical ways and toe the asmodean line, you're out of the family, and I'll give you just one chance to leave Cheliax now", or just report her to the church authority and allow the tender mercies (ha!) of the asmodean hierarchy take care of things going forward. Refraining from actions along these lines would very likely cause the antipaladin to fall (rise?) and might cause the cleric or inquisitor to lose access to spells.
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If her sister was a LE worshipper of Asmodeus but not a cleric, inquisitor, or antipaladin, then they could maintain a cordial, if not necessarily intimate, familial relationship. It would be like a fundamentalist Christian whose sister still gives lip service to Christianity but spends a lot of time with wiccans and atheists and is adopting a value system based on those rather than that of fundamentalist christianity. They still care about each other, but in order to interact they have to engage in a system of mutually suspended belief: the lapsed christian sister pretends to still believe in fundamentalist christianity (i.e. asmodeanism), and the fundie sister pretends to believe her.
If the LE sister is a cleric, inquisitor, or most especially an antipaladin, she is breaking the tenets of her god if she doesn't either make an ultimatum to her sister along the lines of "I love you, but if you don't abandon your heretical ways and toe the asmodean line, you're out of the family, and I'll give you just one chance to leave Cheliax now", or just report her to the church authority and allow the tender mercies (ha!) of the asmodean hierarchy take care of things going forward. Refraining from actions along these lines would very likely cause the antipaladin to fall (rise?) and might cause the cleric or inquisitor to lose access to spells.
Well, that's just it especially since the good sister isn't a cleric, she doesn't have to go around doing good deeds all the time when her sister knows, she could mostly stay neutral around her sister and focus more on the Lawful side... Kind of like how a paladin of a Lawful Neutral deity is still Lawful Good, but he's more concerned with the Lawful thing than Good as long as he doesn't do EVIL, he's golden.
But, yeah I might have to just end up making the non-antipaladin sister Lawful Neutral... Though as I said, I did like the duality, I do still want them to be able to get along... so something needs to compromise.
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The Hellknight Order of the Godclaw provides one way out for a religious lawful good Chelaxian. That order worships a pantheon of five deities -- Asmodeus, Abadar, Iomedae, Irori, and Torag. Since a member of that order offers prayers to all five of these deities, he can truthfully answer yes to the question of whether he worships Asmodeus, even if one of the other four deities is his actual chosen patron.
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In PFS, lay worshippers are also required to be within one step of their deity's alignment.
In a home game you have a lot more latitude and you could go in a number of interesting directions with it. This is not as "out there" as some other posters have implied:
Though Asmodeus is unquestionably evil, his lawful nature draws many nonevil but law-abiding individuals to his faith, and his status as the recognized patron deity of Cheliax means that even a few good-natured souls may exist uncomfortably within his church (though never as divine spellcasters, and rarely in positions of any real power).
My inclination in developing the character's faith would be to play with pursuit of power. We tend to associate power with evil but power is not itself evil - it is what you do with it, and the lengths people will go to attain it, that are at fault. Otherwise there would be no high-level paladins.
Asmodeans are encouraged but not required to oppress those beneath them:
When you worship Asmodeus, you worship your innate potential. You seek knowledge, wealth, treasures, respect, and above all, power. Doing so echoes the core tenet of the Asmodean church, which is that power does as it will, and the most powerful are those who exercise their will the most effectively. You push for discipline, order, and control over yourself. How you demonstrate your mastery is your choice, but your life is an unending quest for power.
My concept of a good-aligned Asmodean would be someone who seeks power in order to strengthen, improve, and protect their community. They are likely more Lawful than Good and could be quite punitive compared to other LG characters, but genuinely do well by their social lessers and prefer to achieve power with others instead of at others' expense. They may believe that a strong servant or subject is more useful to them than one who has been torn down. There is likely a strong element of possessiveness or territoriality in this: the character demonstrates her strength partly through the strength of her subjects and any threat to them is an affront to the character:
“Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!" ---Tiffany Aching, The Wee Free Men
I don't think that an ultimatum from the sister would be necessary. The sister would certainly find her weak and deluded, and would of course try to convert her to a more proper, masterful point of view. She may think that her goodly sister's compassion is tempting someone to take advantage of her. But antipaladins and paladins may work with those of the opposite alignment for the sake of long term goals, including corruption/redemption. Asmodeus in particular is capable of co-operating with goodly folk and playing the long game - there is no reason he would forbid his followers to be subtle in their efforts to bring LG persons around to the proper way of doing things. IIRC other churches are even allowed in Cheliax as long as they admit the superiority of Asmodeus.
The biggest issue with the character is that direct obedience to an Asmodean hierarchy would probably require her to oppress others on behalf of her superiors - and bucking the hierarchy would be a big no-no so the situation would quickly turn into a choice between faith and alignment. The character is probably more sustainable if separated a bit from that situation. Even being part of a mostly LN Asmodean order, or the Order of the Godclaw, would probably allow the character to avoid orders she found morally unbearable - but still allow some tension between her sense of duty and compassion.
Outside of the church itself the biggest moral threat is the idea of moral compromise. The character will be much more prone to believe that the end justifies the mean than most LG types. For example, she will likely believe that a show of strength, even a brutal one, is sometimes necessary to ensure lasting order and security. While this would cause paladins problems it's not necessarily (expect table variation!) a dealbreaker for a LG alignment but could very easily turn into an excuse for cruelty.
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The Hellknight Order of the Godclaw provides one way out for a religious lawful good Chelaxian. That order worships a pantheon of five deities -- Asmodeus, Abadar, Iomedae, Irori, and Torag. Since a member of that order offers prayers to all five of these deities, he can truthfully answer yes to the question of whether he worships Asmodeus, even if one of the other four deities is his actual chosen patron.
In a home game you have a lot more latitude and you could go in a number of interesting directions with it. This is not as "out there" as some other posters have implied:My inclination in developing the character's faith would be to play with pursuit of power. We tend to associate power with evil but power is not itself evil - it is what you do with it, and the lengths people will go to attain it, that are at fault. Otherwise there would be no high-level paladins.
Asmodeans are encouraged but not required to oppress those beneath them:
My concept of a good-aligned Asmodean would be someone who seeks power in order to strengthen, improve, and protect their community. They are likely more Lawful than Good and could be quite punitive compared to other LG characters, but genuinely do well by their social lessers and prefer to achieve power with others instead of at others' expense. They may believe that a strong servant or subject is more useful to them than one who has been torn down. There is likely a strong element of possessiveness or...
Ah, thank you both! I totally forgot about the Order of the Godclaw and Weirdo's (totally not TL;DR :) ) post was very helpful... and kind of along the lines of what I was thinking originally, in having her be of the "Builder" philosphy in the Champions of Purity book.
Plus, another reason she would be more Lawful than Good is as an oracle, her curse is "Legalistic" (though I did once make a chaotic good oracle with the Legalistic curse... that was fun hehe)
EDIT: On a related note, can Paladins (and therefore an Antipaladin with Way of the Wicked's Lord of Darkness archetype) join the Order of the Godclaw? Seems to me they could, they would just be a paladin of Sarenrae or Torag, and less Asmodeus or in the antipaladin's case, Hail, Asmodeus!
EDIT 2: Oh I just looked on the Pathfinder Wiki and one of the two leaders is a Paladin... haha so that answers my question. :D
So, if I make both sisters part of the Hellknights Order of the Godclaw, then that can justify them working together even if they don't always see eye to eye alignment wise! :D
Weirdo's (totally not TL;DR :) ) post was very helpfulTL;DR? Me? ;)
Hey! That's my schtick! It's even my name! Hmph...
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Weirdo's (totally not TL;DR :) ) post was very helpfulTL;DR? Me? ;)
Glad you've worked out your concept - have fun!
Ha, yeah I meant it as you made a really long post but it was well written so I wasn't like thinking it was too long... :) But realizing that most of my friends would say it was TL;DR, I was saying it was not :)