I asked James Jacobs about this, but he said it would take too long to answear the question.
Within the rules it is possible to play certain character of long lived races to have actualy been alive (all though young) when Aorden was alived and lived thru the timew period of his death. Suck a life experience I would think would have a major effect on such a character. Also it would be a interesting RPing.
So I have come to you asking to share ideas about the events that happened to Golarion and reaction to them. Also what were the effect on different
For instance it stated all the gods went into shock at what happened to Aorden...maybe for a week prayer were not being answeared...or the gods being distracted divine magic worked strangly.
Also maybe the elves seeing perhaps another period of darkness prepared to leave...
Anyway anybody got ideas?
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Jeb Surleygut, the famed gnomish sorcerer who's renown across Casmaron is unparallelled amongst gnomish adventurers in some small unnamed province of Kelesh, was sipping tea at a local watering hole when all the humans started pulling their hair out. Not knowing much of the human religions, he asked a few of his contacts within the Supreme Church of Sarenrae.
He found out that some Human God from the west, Aroden, had just died or some nonsense, and that was mayhaps bad? Jeb shrugged and went back to his tea while the priests went around soothing the masses who suddenly became uncomfortable that the patron god of humans had just bit it.
...
To me the gnomes probably would be mildly interested in the event. In their quest for new experiences, they might have tried to seek out lost secrets to why he died, or to meet people who were impacted by the event to share in their sad (or happy) experiences.
These hundred and change years later, some of those gnomes who've not turned white already, would still fondly remember how the humans who followed the deity had a crisis of faith as an interesting time in their lives.
I would imagine in areas where Aroden wasn't worshiped as much (Casmaron, Tian-Xia) that the social impact would have been much more centered around all the natural disasters happening. After all, Tian and Vudra probably see gods die on a regular basis, whats so bad about one of those esoteric gods the pale faced Chels pray to biting it? The Kelesh, being closer to the IS, would probably have put up a precautionary eye toward the Pit of Gormuz, in case this powerful god's death unstoppered another one of those Spawn.
My wife is currently playing an outsider who was effectively bound to Golarion to live for the last nine hundred years or so, raising a mortal (but magically changed to slow-age) child (instead of the child's father which my wife's character had more or less accidentally eliminated forever... it's complicated).
ANYWAY.
Exceedingly devout worshipers of Arazni and Iomedae after her*, they'd always also prayed to Aroden because he's "that bigger god" that Arazni and later Iomedae worked for. They lived in Westrcrown in secret under direct orders from Arazni (which they took super-seriously, even after her death) not to interfere with the nobility of Westcrown and raise the child instead in a relatively-"normal" (if secretive) home.
She saw so many cool things (and even subtly assisted in the creation of the Hell Knights by helping Ruel get off the death-sentence hook when she was - randomly - chosen as one of his jurors and couldn't be bought, and used persuasion, but not magic to get the other jurors' agreement and magic to make the bad guys attempting to arrange bribes to just go away, figuring she was invited in...).
The moments of learning of Arazni's death (after having arrived so recently in the world and being blessed/reformed only a few years before by her) sent them into weeks (and, after a fashion, years) of mourning. Mourning came again, this time mostly with fury, when they learned Arazni was defiled and her grave robbed (but the PC couldn't leave to do anything because she needed to protect her daughter). Mourning Arazni came one more time, this time with nausea, when the hideous rumors... rumors that Arazni had become... something else... the "harlot queen" of Geb... filtered back to them.
Enter Aroden's death (the family was in the central plaza having camped out there to witness the gods return). They hunkered into their apartment for the few weeks of disastrous storms (not needing to eat helped this) not knowing what, precisely, happened. The subsequent riots were terrible, but she mostly just used suggestion while the golem used many illusions to make would-be rioters and looters go away from their house and (when they could) keep the local neighborhood calm. But when the civil war erupted... things changed.
Due to wanting to raise her daughter (and, you know, keep her alive), and the horribly potent magical assaults everywhere and unbelievable waves of murder-soldiers during said civil war, they basically were forced to pack up and move somewhere else (turned out to be Absalom).
Through all this, there wasn't much time to really get that Aroden was dead. It wasn't until they were rather safe that it finally fully kicked in.
It was basically another moment of divine shell-shock, though substantially lessened by the earlier ones (that of word of Arazni's death and later defiled...), and the general storms and chaos of such an event... actually kind of helped. It made sense that such madness would exist in the world when a god that was so important and prominent died, and a small part of her kind of wishes something similar had happened to 'mourne' Arazni's death and subsequent abuse (though, of course, in truth, she's exceedingly grateful that no such destruction actually occurred and that innocents were spared at least the fallout from one deicide and corruption).
The fact that she already worshiped Iomedae heavily also helped, and she gladly fully switched her worship entirely to The Inheritor's church.
While she's curious about what caused Aroden's death, and even though she's lawful good, she (like most demons) is somewhat more concerned with the "short term" (though that word is somewhat misleading in this context - 900 years spent raising a child to be a good person and a devout worshiper of Arazni/Iomedae/Aroden is not insignificant, but is somewhat "short term", even if it is the majority of her life memory**), and doesn't expect that Iomedae will be passing any time soon (genuinely putting all her faith in the Inheritor).
She's mostly just interested in returning Westcrown to it's former glory... a glory that she knew, personally, and from real, genuine experience. A glory unrivaled by any current city (even the incredibly vast Absalom, at least the parts where she and her "family" of three lived). And for her money (and soul-stuff) she feels that only by having Iomedae front-and-center and the young goddess taking the rightful role as gloried goddess of Westrcrown (and even more fully attaining the title of "Inheritor") will that happen.
One of the biggest impacts on her as a character was the insecurity of prophecy. She'd relied a very great deal on prophecy up until now (the ring that altered her alignment being prophetic as well, if only empathically so), so it was difficult when her life was thrown into such chaos... but part of her actually kind of enjoyed the freedom again.
So, that's the current story we're working on.
* A pre-ascension young mortal Iomedae had literally saved her when she was blasted by one of Tar Baphon's stray spells when she entered the portal to Golarion for the first time. Again, long story.
The rest is up above, and now we're into the Council of Thieves: Arazni is dead and turned into a corrupt lich, Aroden is dead, and the spirit of the vow to be kept to Arazni no longer applies in any way... and evil outsiders are greatly interfering with a city that had been her home for the last nine-hundred years.
** Sort of. She recently got her memory back, but it's more like watching a 10,000-year-long super-interactive movie: it's... a thing... but she's entirely disconnected from her previous life as an evil demon. Literally nothing in that life has any more meaning to her than useful information she could get from "watching" (and engaging with her other senses too) a super-documentary.
I think it would have been atleast disconcerting to the other races. Ity would not be...'meh'...sounds like a human issue. Especialy seeing how all the gods were in shock by it. And also racial pantheons are not as strongly rooted as in other setting.
James Jacobs said something about the world being covered in storms for weeks. So I kinda can see people who live during that time period get apprehinsive about thunder storms that last a while.
I'm not entirely sure that it was the Avastani coast, the Inner Sea coasts, or the entire world. I know I've read seemingly conflicting entries... and while technically all of them could be true simultaneously, I'm not sure that it's what was supposed to be implied.
Still, I'd agree: Halflings have been brutalized by Chelliax's corruption (even more so than they ever were previously) and Pharasma's losing a lot of face due to the suddenly-unreliable prophecy.
The fact that a god - any god - died and no one knows why (or if they do, they aren't telling) is perfect fodder for paranoia. If it happened once, what's to stop it from happening again?
That said, some likely would treat it as a 'human issue'... and likely, based on where they were in the world and how badly the storms affected them, some others may tend to retreat from and/or blame humans (and 'their god') for the problems. Those without a particularly high wisdom score (and/or who are particularly secular in their outlook) might reasonably respond like Jeb above. My wife's character was already old enough to personally know two goddesses - one who died (and got defiled and corrupted), and another who ascended from being a mortal... to her it was another tragedy in the 'divine family' she revered already.
Regardless, the other races in Avistan, no matter what, would take notice and understand the significance, as Aroden's death effectively created Andoran, Galt, Molthune, Nirmathas, and Sargava as independent entities, Chelliax's fall to Diabolism, the opening of the World Wound, Eye of Abendego (including the the fall of Lirgen and Yamasa and the creation of the Shackles as a genuine force), and, of course, the rise of Iomedae as a true force unto herself.
Fact is, there is a very large amount of direct fall-out from Aroden's death. Everyone will take notice.
The main question is how it affects them personally.