Yeah, something like a cleric devoted to the abstract idea of trickery, greed, nihilism, etc could do just fine. And of course, with divine spells at his disposal, the townies would be more inclined to believe in his false god.
Dot.
The problem I would forsee are the reactions of other religions in the area. That's up to the DM and the setting. Golarion has a fake god already (Razmirran - ? spelling), but no Clerics (Clerics have to have a god in Golarion). Besides established religions, there are devout followers of other gods and, in the long run, the gods themselves. If you're poaching worshippers, sooner or later someone, mortal or divine, is going to be irritated.
*edit* I have my own setting, and in it the local religions would fall on you like a ton of bricks. Might be an interesting scam in the short run, but I'd have my escape well planned. Really, really well planned...
i wouldn't allow a player to pull a false god out of their hat. but if they wanted to be a cleric devoted to a specific high CR monster (Around CR20+) such as a specific balor or great wyrm dragon that has a cult devoted to them. i would accept that.
the minimum requirement is that the monster have a minimum CR of 20, after applying the advanced creature template and adding either hit dice, class levels, or size increases. that said creature be a sentient being (int 3+). the monster need not be a proper spell caster, but they need some means of attracting a level of either respect or fear sufficient to at least start a localized cult.
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I think it is a Feat not a Prestige Class. Though it might be an Archetype.
Sorc archetype and prestige class
Ok so it was an Archetype that was in the Inner Sea Magic.
During one of the many campaigns my group took part in we made a go at this. The party had been transported into an alternate reality that they were completely unfamiliar with. The GM had the world almost completely fleshed out but was missing some pieces of his pantheon (he had the major good and evil gods). Thus we brought worship of Kachong-Ghachong, God of the Other Side to the world. The best part was the dual understanding of the Other Side. We weren't talking about the metaphysical Other Side, we were talking about the literal other side. For everything that had two sides, Kachong-Ghachong was the God of the other side. For example, the temples had the front door at the back of the temple. When people would flip a coin, they would pray for the desired outcome. You know how when you flip a coin into the air then catch it and flip it over before you uncover it, that last flip was called seeking Kachong-Ghachong's blessing. Alas, the campaign ended before we were able to get too absurd but I've always considered resurrecting the Great One in another world.
I once played a character (a psion thrallherd) that claimed to in fact be a god trapped in mortal form. His cohort(thrall) was kind of like a high priest and his followers(believers) would come from far and wide to worship him. It was a lot of fun and it freaked out the other players, especially since psionics doesn't work like divine or arcane magic (no holy symbol, spell book etc).
As for the followers themselves they couldn't technically be clerics since I wasn't able to grant spells. I simply claimed that as long as I was trapped on the mortal plane in mortal form my followers must experience a loss of power as well.
In your case either your GM will let you have spells or not, it isn't really up to you but worst case scenario just fake it, Use Magic Device is a good skill for this as is Bluff and I'm pretty sure there are feats in addition to the classes above that allow you to fake spellcasting. Otherwise you could always just be a witch maybe, having your "god" be you patron and you would still have healing(in the form of hexes and spells).
half the evil gods of golarion have the trickery domain, as does Calistria (an almost evil god)
For an example, I can see a player starting a new cult who all worship "the lord".
Lord this, lord that, all the good things this lord does for them, all to find out that they are worshipping "lord asmodeus" , I can't see Asmodeus have a problem with that. Nor can I see Norberger having issue with it, a complete sleeper cell of followers somewhere, none of whom are evil themselves. how delicious.
During one of the many campaigns my group took part in we made a go at this. The party had been transported into an alternate reality that they were completely unfamiliar with. The GM had the world almost completely fleshed out but was missing some pieces of his pantheon (he had the major good and evil gods). Thus we brought worship of Kachong-Ghachong, God of the Other Side to the world. The best part was the dual understanding of the Other Side. We weren't talking about the metaphysical Other Side, we were talking about the literal other side. For everything that had two sides, Kachong-Ghachong was the God of the other side. For example, the temples had the front door at the back of the temple. When people would flip a coin, they would pray for the desired outcome. You know how when you flip a coin into the air then catch it and flip it over before you uncover it, that last flip was called seeking Kachong-Ghachong's blessing. Alas, the campaign ended before we were able to get too absurd but I've always considered resurrecting the Great One in another world.
Permission to use this?
Permission to use this?
By all means, please feel free.
I was thinking of doing something interesting with this kind of idea in the campaign i'm in.
Backstory
In a previous campaign I had my Half-Elf Bard, Jim Raines convince a town to rename the town after him. I set up in his story that after the campaign (I never got to use the character again) several people set up a religion following the Great Jim Raines the Lichslayer
In my current campaign I claim that my character is a direct descendant (It is about 250 years later)of Jim Raines and he is an Aasimar. The Church of Raines has only small amounts of followers in the area of that original campaign but enough for it to be somewhat dominant in that area. My current character the Aasimar Ninja (Emilio du Fransisco von Raines) follows this church lightly but is now in a different region.
How Clerics Work
A few of the clerics are more dedicated to the ideas of Jim Raines such as freedom and song rather than as an actual deity. Other "clerics" are just Alchemists or Bards who believe that their skill and arcane abilities come from a divine source as Jim Raines, himself, was an arcane caster