Cleric's Aura and Faiths of Balance

[Wycen]

Recently started a new campaign and my character is a cleric of Calastria. From looking at the Core book I assumed Calastria was a chaotic goddess and thus her cleric's would have chaotic auras.

But then my DM mentions that in Faiths of Balance she's called a neutral god.

So, I'm curious about how that works for auras and at the same time, interested in the cosmological differences that make a chaotic or lawful god "neutral" in the Pathfinder universe.

[Kain Darkwind]

She's chaotic neutral. So you're both right.

[Gauss]

The battle between Good and Evil gets more play than the philosophical differences between Law and Chaos. This is why the Faiths line of books are based on the Good-Evil axis rather than the Law-Chaos axis. A group with LG and CG characters can work, but a group with LG and LE is harder to deal with. Still harder would be CG and CE since at least Law has a way to deal with each other in the law. - Gauss

[Wycen]

If we ignore Schrodinger's cat, what about the aura? If a chaotic neutral god is "neutral" then we get that cool "oh you don't radiate a strong aura of any particular nature" situation.

[blahpers]

Gauss wrote:

The battle between Good and Evil gets more play than the philosophical differences between Law and Chaos. This is why the Faiths line of books are based on the Good-Evil axis rather than the Law-Chaos axis. A group with LG and CG characters can work, but a group with LG and LE is harder to deal with. Still harder would be CG and CE since at least Law has a way to deal with each other in the law. - Gauss

This always bothered me. Paladins are the embodiment of LG, but generally end up erring on the side of good when it comes up. They get Smite Evil; why not Smite Chaos as an archetypal option? You shouldn't have to take a prestige class for that.

[ShadowcatX]

A LG deity's cleric radiates Law and Good. A NG deity's cleric radiates Good. A CN deity's cleric radiates Chaos.

[Are]

She's not neutral. The Faiths of Balance book is for deities that are neutral on the good-evil axis, but it contains deities of the LN, N, and CN varieties.

Just like the Faiths of Purity books contains LG, NG, and CG deities, while Faiths of Corruption contains LE, NE, and CE deities.

In theory they could have instead made books separating the deities on the law-chaos axis, in which case Calistria would have been part of the book on chaotic deities, which would have included the CG, CN, and CE deities.

In any case, her clerics have an aura of chaos.

[blahpers]

Also, plenty of conflict available in a party with LG and CG. Hell, wars start all the damn time because of a one-step difference in ethical philosophy (and occasionally with a no-step difference).

CG fighter: "Just lemme break in and take the grappling hook. We can't afford to wait until morning for the store to open."
LG cavalier: says "You do that and I'll haul you down to the local constable myself".
CG fighter: "I'll leave some money next to the till to cover the busted door."
LG cavalier: "It's still breaking and entering. Plus, what's to stop someone else from robbing the place once the door is hanging off its hinges?"

etc.

In my experience, they're just as difficult to reconcile as good versus evil (and just as interesting).

[Bobson]

blahpers wrote:

In my experience, they're just as difficult to reconcile as good versus evil (and just as interesting).

I once designed a whole campaign around a world where LG and LE were closer together than LG and CG. Effectively, "It doesn't matter if my neighbor's going to twist the law all out of shape to better himself, so long as he's still within the law."

Then, of course, the villains were CN/CE instead of NE/CE, and the party encountered a silver dragon and a blue dragon working together (they didn't like each other, but they had similar enough goals)...