I think it is an error, and I would think he would want his fellow archdevils to have followers.
Keep in mind that it's house Thrune that makes those rules, not Asmodeus...he might not care one way or the other ;)
Just because something is cool with the Church of Asmodeus doesn't mean that Cheliax proper is willing to put up with it. Remember, Thrune gives Asmodeus and the Hells the marching orders*, not the other way around!
* -- They think.
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The Cheliax companion notes:
Some faiths, however, are forbidden upon pain of torture and execution. These include the worship of any god of chaos or any demon or devil other than Asmodeus.
I understand the outlawing of demon and daemon cults, but the part about outlawing the worship of other devils doesn't seem quite right. To elaborate, this is from Faiths of Corruption:
Asmodeus, being by far the most powerful being in all the layers of Hell, does not see the worship of his archdevils as a threat, knowing that their worship is an extension of his own.
So, am I the only one seeing a conflict here?
I'd ignore the Cheliax Companion line, since Faiths of Corruption is far more recent. Both the Inner Sea World Guide and the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting list Cheliax as the center of worship for Diabolism.
I could see Asmodeus frowning on major temples to individual arch-devils, but a Diabolist church, that honors Asmodeus as the ruler of the others, and has smaller individual altars, shrines or even clerics of the 'lesser' arch-devils would probably be an acceptable thing.
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I kind of imagine worshipers of Asmodeus in Cheliax to look at the other devils as kind of like his saints. They're not gods in their own right, but they're aligned with Asmodeus and serve him.
To that end, I'd think Cheliaxian government would frown on anyone worshiping any other devil without paying Asmodeus his due as well. Kind of like if they worship the other devils as gods, they're committing a heresy, but if they pay homage to them as agents of the divine law of Asmodeus, they're being devout.
Creative Director
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The way religion works in Cheliax is complicated, but yeah, what it boils down to is that the government is NOT the same as the Church of Asmodeus there. AKA the government doesn't allow the worship of other devils, but the church doesn't mind it since they know those prayers all eventually more or less end up serving the same goal.
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Hmm... might be good if you put something you could expound on that at greater length on the publishing-schedule... ;)
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I played a Lawful Evil Chelaxian Invoker of the House of Thol. He didn't worship devils so much as he saw the Chelaxians just using them as tools to reach their own goals. He viewed the devils as serving him, not the other way around.
And Kajehase, there is a Cheliax-book for the Campaign Setting called Cheliax, Empire of Devils.
Nope. That's a Player Companion.
I played a Lawful Evil Chelaxian Invoker of the House of Thol. He didn't worship devils so much as he saw the Chelaxians just using them as tools to reach their own goals. He viewed the devils as serving him, not the other way around.
And Kajehase, there is a Cheliax-book for the Campaign Setting called Cheliax, Empire of Devils.
Cheliax, Empire of Devils is in the Player Companion line, not the Campaign Setting line. While they're both in the same actual campaign setting, the player companions are half as long, and are usually more player-friendly/spoiler-lite, with more focus on setting specific crunch.
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From what I've read, the guys that would actually prosecute this are either inquisitors of Asmodeus (who really don't care) and hellknights which are often based on diabolist teachings. So who really enforces the ban on devil worship?
Doesn't that sound perfectly Chelaxian, 'though?
The guys who have been charged to make sure that you aren't a Diabolist are, themselves, riddled with Diabolists...
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Not really. It sounds like a poor attempt to rationalize the line from the Cheliax Player Companion.Doesn't that sound perfectly Chelaxian, 'though?
The guys who have been charged to make sure that you aren't a Diabolist are, themselves, riddled with Diabolists...
True. Given multiple (and more recent) sources stating that Diabolism is a-okay in Cheliax, I'm inclined to ignore that line from the Players Companion to Cheliax.
Indeed, having local Chelish banks and countinghouses increasingly dedicated to Mammon, instead of Abadar, could make for a fun bit of local flavor. Similarly, active diabolist acolytes who are advancing the agendas of Dispater, Geryon, etc. (under the overall aegis of the Church of Asmodeus) could be very interesting. The other arch-devils might be regarded more like 'saints' than actual godly peers of the Big A, but still have a place in his heirarchy of sinners.
Information in the Player's Companions tends to get ignored anyway. What's the favored weapon and alignment and domain options for Apep, Wadjet and Khepri again? (Let alone the sub-domains and inquisitions?) Yeah. Didn't think so.
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Perhaps devil worship or diobolism could become "decriminalized" as opposed to legalized.
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... and hellknights which are often based on diabolist teachings ...
Lies and slander. The Hellknight Orders enforce the law absolutely, and the ban on worship of devils serves the greater good of Cheliax. Devils are tools. Allies. We emulate them to gain strength over ourselves, and in so doing the strength to control them. To worship a devil is heresy and weakness at best, abominable collusion with otherworldly slavemasters at worst.
The inquisitors of Asmodeus share a similar place outside the bounds of the law yet bound to it. One of the few occasions that draws us into full cooperation with the Asmodean faith is the spread of another devil's cult. Often, I suspect that the church conceals such cults from us, but when they find one to be beyond usefulness or when one works directly against the aims of Asmodeus they make staunch allies and even occasional patriots.
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I think it would work out somewhere between Jesus in Catholic theology and Hestia in Greco-Roman worship.
With the Greeks, while Zeus was the ruler of all the gods, Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth, was always honored first in any service. That was the rule as set down by Zeus, and while Hestia was very low key as a goddess, there was the idea that extremely dire things would happen if you failed to honor her first. Like that time Demeter went on strike because she was upset about Persephone being abducted by Hades. But likely worse.
With Jesus, the theology is that all the saints, apostles, and even archangels and the Virgin Mary are not worshipped so much as asked to act as intercessors to Jesus.
So, with Cheliax, it's not that your counting house is worshipping Mammon so much as you're taking him as your patron devil, asking him to intercede on your behalf with Asmodeus. It would be heresy to declare Mammon a god in his own right, but honoring an Arch-Duke of Hell who is subordinate to Asmodeus is a perfectly legitimate theological workaround.
Not entirely off topic.....
How do Chelaxians view conjurers and summoner calling Demons ?
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Not entirely off topic.....
How do Chelaxians view conjurers and summoner calling Demons ?
If Golarion had a Blood War type situation, where demons and devils were violently opposed to each other, I could see Chelish wizards deliberately calling up demons to kill in lavish pro-Asmodean rituals (since killing a called creature, at least in 3.X, killed it 'for reals,' while getting a summoned creature killed was just a mild inconvenience), thus using their conjurings to destroy 'enemy soldiers.'
But in Golarion, demons and devils don't seem to have any more or less animosity for each other than archons and azata, so that might not be a 'thing.'
Indeed, Chelaxian Wizards might find it hilarious to call up archons, angels, azata, agathions, etc. instead for that same purpose, binding and sacrificing them to glorify Asmodeus. (Clerics of Asmodeus would ironically not be able to kill angels in service to devils, in this way, since they would be unable to cast [good] spells, even if you intend to call that angel down for wicked, wicked purposes.)