Would Pharasma have issues with her faithful casting spells like animate dead to use undead in battle, or would she see that as distasteful?
Would Pharasma have issues with her faithful casting spells like animate dead to use undead in battle, or would she see that as distasteful?
She would have a serious problem with that. Undeath is the biggest blasphemy in the Pharasman religion. If a player did that with a cleric of Pharasma that I was GMing, I'd strip them of their magic spells until an atonement was completed.
Would Pharasma have issues with her faithful casting spells like animate dead to use undead in battle, or would she see that as distasteful?
"Issues," would be putting it mildly: undead are an abomination to Pharasma. Her faithful wouldn't GET that spell to begin with, and would be in very hot water for even asking for it.
As far as I know if you are a Pharasmite, using or animating undead is about the biggest taboo that you have.
While the spells that animate dead are legal for nuetral and evil clerics of Phasmara i will have to join the choir and say that it's such a big a taboo that would most likely strip him of his powers after the second casting.
I'm onboard for those saying that a cleric of Pharasma wouldn't even get those spells in the first place, even though by RAW they could. Just doesn't make any sense.
They get replaced in the Death domain spell list for non-animating spells for example.
I can't really think of any circumstances where a cleric of Pharasma would even consider creating an undead even if only for a few minutes. It simply goes against all their teachings, trainings and core beliefs.
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Issues? No. The cleric tries to raise undead and BAM.. is no longer one of her clerics. Issue solved.
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Issues? She'd have a whole subscription!
No matter what some silly rules say about alignment and cleric spells, the very attempt to prepare these spells would get you into serious trouble. Like your wife found a bra in your car that isn't hers trouble.
What about a LN Necromancer worshiper of Her who hates Undead but annimates and controls them to fight and kill other undead?
And no, "alchemical undead" is NOT a valid loophole
Would Pharasma have issues with her faithful casting spells like animate dead to use undead in battle, or would she see that as distasteful?
Even thinking about it Pharasma would inform her high ups in the material plane and an inquisitor would be paying a visit very soon. And as Divine spells come from the deity (as far as I can work out) its a non-starter for clerics of Pharasma no matter what alignment they are.
What about a LN Necromancer worshiper of Her who hates Undead but annimates and controls them to fight and kill other undead?
It's like the scientist who brutally robs and murders people to fund his cancer research.
The end do not justify the means.
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Yeah, Pharasma is right out for this concept, due to her own beliefs, as are any good aligned dieties, due to the alignment descriptors involved.
Try Abadar or Nethys or Gorum or Calistria (or Besmara, Groetus, etc.), if you want to make a cleric who uses undead to fight undead.
Alternately, an Oracle of Bones or of the Juju Mystery can do this sort of thing, or a Wizard of any god or alignment (although a wizard who serves Pharasma and animates undead will be considered a heretic by the church of Pharasma).
A non-evil cleric of one of the evil gods, obviously, could go this route as well, although a neutral cleric of Urgathoa who raises undead to fight and destroy other undead may *also* be working at cross purposes with the tenets of his goddess...
A neutral cleric of Achaekek, who considers risen undead to have defied the will of the gods, and thus part of his purview to destroy, could well use animate dead to put other undead down, for instance, and could make for an interesting RP angle. As Achaekek serves as the unofficial 'assassin of the gods,' the wandering dead could be seen as defiance of Pharasma, and it become a holy task to put them down, in the eyes of someone devoted to Achaekek, even if he is willing to call up other undead to assist him in this task (since a mad killer dog is okay, as long as it's *your* mad killer dog...).
Some neutral gods might be better choices than others. Gorum might regard the fallen dead as failures, to be left to rot, and frown on his clergy animating 'failures' or leaving perfectly good armor and weapons on their unworthy bodies. Calistria might consider a final act of vengeance to animate the corpse of someone who has wronged one of her clergy and force it to serve the offended party for all eternity. There's no rule or guideline anywhere saying 'no undead' for clergy of Gorum or Sivanah, but, thematically, it might be easier to RP a cleric of a god who is easier to reconcile with that sort of thing, like Groetus.
A Nexian Nethyn cleric might focus on using the dead to fight the dead, due to his nation's ages-old state of uneasiness with neighboring Geb.
Rationalizing a Gozran cleric makign regular use of animate dead would be doable, but not nearly as intuitive.
What about a LN Necromancer worshiper of Her who hates Undead but annimates and controls them to fight and kill other undead?It's like the scientist who brutally robs and murders people to fund his cancer research.
The end do not justify the means.
For Me the Ends Justify the means (after in real life losing my wife to cancer)
For Me the Ends Justify the means (after in real life losing my wife to cancer)
Perhaps you do, and are not the only one - at least for some means and ends. At least if it's people you don't know - as opposed to, say, a childhood friend. Caring for some people more than others is part of human nature, I guess.
The thing is, Pharasma is a goddess. She/it is not human, she's probably never been mortal. Whatever she's been before, now she's an incarnation of a concept: death, judgement, fate, (re)birth... As the goddess of those things Her existance is tied to them, and ensuring that they happen as they should is the most important thing in her existance. These are things people take for granted, and she makes sure they are.
Most deities find undead repellent, because deities are part of a universal "natural" order undead are not part of. That's true for Pharasma as well, but there's another layer, a personal one. She is the deity of the end and judgement ordained to every soul - and undeath is a denial of those things. They are an anathema of what she stands for, and their existance is a personal affront. It's both a matter of pride (their existence denies her reign over death) and duty.
It's not just a matter of feelings, either. Remember, Pharasma is a goddess. Undead, as a denial of what she reigns over, are an anathema on a metaphysical level. They are a perversion of what she stands for, of what she is. To accept those things, to tolerate them, means to deny what she is. For her, that's probably unbearable - and probably literally impossible, like a human denying breathing. She deals in absolutes, because she is, essentially, part of these absolutes.
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I grabbed this off of the Paizo Bloog. I think James Jacobs wrote it
Pharasma-Friendly Death Domain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead. 6th-level domain spell: Replace create undead with antilife shell. 8th-level domain spell: Replace create greater undead with symbol of death.
Pharasma-Friendly Souls Subdomain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead.
As a non Cleric Im sure people can make mistakes in their own twisted interpitation of religion look at how much our religions are mis interpetated
As a non Cleric Im sure people can make mistakes in their own twisted interpitation of religion look at how much our religions are mis interpetated
There will always be some heterodoxy, at the very least one has to be able to account for clergy and thus interpretations of several alignments. However, it tends to be in the fringe issues, and I consider issues such as "thou shalt not suffer the undead" to be a pretty big thing in Pharasmin faith.
There will always be some heterodoxy, at the very least one has to be able to account for clergy and thus interpretations of several alignments. However, it tends to be in the fringe issues, and I consider issues such as "thou shalt not suffer the undead" to be a pretty big thing in Pharasmin faith.
Amen, Brother.
Greg
Creative Director
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I grabbed this off of the Paizo Bloog. I think James Jacobs wrote it
Pharasma-Friendly Death Domain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead. 6th-level domain spell: Replace create undead with antilife shell. 8th-level domain spell: Replace create greater undead with symbol of death.
Pharasma-Friendly Souls Subdomain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead.
He did indeed write that.
Yeah, Pharasma is right out for this concept, due to her own beliefs, as are any good aligned dieties, due to the alignment descriptors involved.
Try Abadar or Nethys or Gorum or Calistria (or Besmara, Groetus, etc.), if you want to make a cleric who uses undead to fight undead.
Alternately, an Oracle of Bones or of the Juju Mystery can do this sort of thing, or a Wizard of any god or alignment (although a wizard who serves Pharasma and animates undead will be considered a heretic by the church of Pharasma).
Wait Juju Mystery? Where's that?
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AP39, Serpent's Skull, City of Seven Spears
Wait Juju Mystery? Where's that?
Wholeheartedly recommended for anyone wanting to play a good/neutral necromancer-type character. Their mystery allows them to take the [Evil] descriptor clean off a lot of the undead creating spells because they're made through the use of willing spirits. Their mindless undead are always neutral and the intelligent ones are of the same alignment as their creator.
Of course some undead that can be made with those spells seem impossible to function as anything other than completely evil(ie: Devourers), but that's mainly good cause for the GM and player to heavily reflavor those beings and what they do into something fitting their new alignments.
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He did indeed write that.I grabbed this off of the Paizo Bloog. I think James Jacobs wrote it
Pharasma-Friendly Death Domain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead. 6th-level domain spell: Replace create undead with antilife shell. 8th-level domain spell: Replace create greater undead with symbol of death.
Pharasma-Friendly Souls Subdomain 3rd-level domain spell: Replace animate dead with speak with dead.
Thank you for chiming in. I wrote "I think" because I didn't want to put words in big toothy T Rex mouth of yours.
AP39, Serpent's Skull, City of Seven Spears
Wait Juju Mystery? Where's that?
Thanks. I'll see if I can look into that. Quick question: You're not going to eat me are you?