What gods do you think they'll have?
So far I got
Cayden ~ Dionysis
Gorum ~ Ares
Shelyn ~ Aphrodite
(Please excuse my spelling - I can't be bothered to find my books on Greek mythology.)
Iomedae = Athena
Torag = Hephaestos
Gozreh (sea aspect) = Poseidon
Gozreh (land-based nature aspect) = Demeter ... don't forget the Eleusinian mysteries
Sarenrae (in a male aspect) = Apollo
Lamashtu = Hecate?
Pharasma = the Fates (all three of them)
Calistria = the Furies (all three of them, if they're not LN or LE)
Zon-Kuthon = Hades? (a slightly kinky version)
Desna = Selene
... it's bit difficult. Either one has to ignore the gender of one side of the equation, or the alignment in some cases. For example, were Abadar not LN, I might be inclined to equate him (or Irori) with Hermes. Irori could also be a possibility for the more athletic aspect of Apollo.
Hermes could also be Nethys, given that Hermes is the god of magic ("Hermeticism").
Things get a little dicey with a one to one juxtaposition, in part because the Golarion pantheon is meant to break the Olympian mold.
In terms of canon, there are supposedly Cyclops-worshipers in Iblydos. I would consider looking into the Greek mystery religions for possible ideas, which often saw correspondences that combine the gods in interesting ways:
I.e., the Eleusinian Mysteries combined intoxication and drugs with an ancient Earth cult; the Dionysian Mysteries are all about wine and resurrection; the Orphic Mysteries about music, and escape from reincarnation. There are also the Ophites, the Pythonesses, and other snake-oriented sects.
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Cayden is absolutely the reincarnated Bacchus Zagreus.
Perhaps there was a forgotten God, slain by Rovagug, but the other Gods took his remains and placed them in an earthly shell - so the Human Cayden was born and eventually reattained Godhood, and his Mystery Cult is merely an adventuring drunk on the surface, but like Bacchus, symbolizes the True Path within it; adventuring is living, making the soul stronger, more complete, and through it you can attain your purpose and destiny and escape the bonds of the world.
I think I am going to make Cayden like this in my game and run with it, making him a much more secret and important God. Certainly, the idea of a deity and tradition, a secret way, beyond the old faith of Aroden for humanity to have access too is a cool idea.
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Perhaps there was a forgotten God, slain by Rovagug, but the other Gods took his remains and placed them in an earthly shell - so the Human Cayden was born and eventually reattained Godhood,
The Starstone as the remnants of divinities that have been slain or otherwise 'lost' to the world, and whose power is being 'recycled' by redistributing it to a new generation of gods, is a neat concept.
It's very much a 'divinity can neither be created nor destroyed, merely transformed' sort of idea, with the 'law of conservation of divinity' requiring that for every god that dies, a new one eventually be born, to stitch up that 'hole' in the great tapestry.
I like it better than Starstone-as-candy-dispenser.
It leads to the scary notion that people will continue to 'fail' the Test of the Starstone, because it's currently empty. It used up all of the 'lost divinity' fueling it to empower Cayden, Norgorber, Iomedae, etc. and won't be able to jumpstart any more aspirants to divinity until a currently extant god kicks it and their divinity 'recharges' the Starstone. Lissala, for instance, is stubbornly clinging to existence, despite having been mostly forgotten. If she dies, someone may again be able to 'pass' the Test of the Starstone again...
There's also the fun story hook of a cult that believes this sort of thing, and interprets Iomedae, Norgorber or Cayden as a reincarnation of some ancient god, and starts up a heretical cult devoted to Cayden as god of prophecy (using hallucinogenic mushrooms and alcohol to reach 'enlightenment') or Iomedae as goddess of domestication (warhorses, hounds and hawks, primarily), obedience and servitude (of men, and not just animals) and training / education or something, depending on what 'dead god' they have decided that the Starstone Scion actually represents.
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It leads to the scary notion that people will continue to 'fail' the Test of the Starstone, because it's currently empty. It used up all of the 'lost divinity' fueling it to empower Cayden, Norgorber, Iomedae, etc. and won't be able to jumpstart any more aspirants to divinity until a currently extant god kicks it and their divinity 'recharges' the Starstone. Lissala, for instance, is stubbornly clinging to existence, despite having been mostly forgotten. If she dies, someone may again be able to 'pass' the Test of the Starstone again...
I went with the premise the Starstone was also empty. But it was refueled by the spirit and power of those failing the test until a threshold was reached. Once the threshold of power was reached to power a new god, a soul was selected by the sentient Starstone. It took thousands of high powered creatures to refill. That was how I explained the difference in time between ascensions. In my game all the ascended gods exist only on Golarion.
The players in my group wanted to try the test. Each player was taken on a unique mini-quest that tested their character based on how they had portrayed and roleplayed their characters throughout the campaign. As long as they remained true to concept, they advanced. They knew going in that only one would emerge. The barbarian/sorcerer...
Lots of neat ideas here all. We've already got lots of ideas in the works for Iblydos, but totally keep this going. It's a great way for us to gauge what people want to see and to determine where we might have gone too crazy.
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Since you asked....
For some reason I have this strange notion that some of the people of Jistka fled when the Tetrikaninkanenkanenkanen League, or whatever, came to power and ended up settling in Iblydos, making the "Iblydosians" distant decendants of Jistka. It makes more sense than them being related to Jistka than Kelesh, yes?
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Since you asked....
For some reason I have this strange notion that some of the people of Jistka fled when the Tetrikaninkanenkanenkanen League, or whatever, came to power and ended up settling in Iblydos, making the "Iblydosians" distant decendants of Jistka. It makes more sense than them being related to Jistka than Kelesh, yes?
Not really, people from Jistka would have to pass through/by 2 empires that worked together to destroy Jistka...
And since neither empire (Osirion or the League) existed before Jistka, Iblydos, for all we know, was before them. Certainly they have some relation to Koloran, the Cyclops empire in Casmaron, which was very old.
The island of Kortos has a Greek thing going on, but maybe it had Iblydan connections, since it makes a fine colony for trade from the Obari to the Inner Sea.
In terms of Asian locations - well, the Greeks did once rule Persia and parts of India in the RW. Certainly the most important cultural connections of Ancient Greece were eastern - with Asia Minor and the Near East, not with the Balkans or Italy, at least until later.
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And since neither empire (Osirion or the League) existed before Jistka, Iblydos, for all we know, was before them. Certainly they have some relation to Koloran, the Cyclops empire in Casmaron, which was very old.
Yeah, there is the part about being the oldest human civilization n Casmaron. Doesn't specify how that elates to Avistan and Garund civs. And Ghol-Gan, the Garund cyclops emire was many thousands of years earlier than Jistka.
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Yeah, that all makes sense -- well, except the part that a handful of Jistka refugees would have to get past Osirion and the Tekritanentanentanentanen League (3 or 4 refugee ships could've easily sailed up to the top of the Inner Sea and straddled the bottom of Cheliax sailing east, then southward into the Obari Ocean. Or maybe even sailed south along the western shore of Garund, circumnavigating it until they hit the open sea and sailed north by north-east until finding Iblydos.)
But, yeah, I know that Jistka refugees as the ancestors of modern day Iblydos probably only works in my head. It's just that when you look at modern day Rahadoum and it's disgust of religion, I dunno, that seems almost as intelligent to me as the Goldn Age Grecians that Iblydos reminds me of.