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IIRC, this is about all that's been revealed.
Short version: CG, creator of language, god of freedom/free will.
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What type of deity?
A really cool guy.
Some folks have referred to him as being a bit of an alalogue for Ahura Mazda.
He was one of the First gods, along with his brother. If the Book of the Damned is to be believed, he and Asmodeus were the first two, period.
Dude fought for and died for everyone in the multiverse, to ensure that free will could be a thing. He was a, if not the, Big Good in the Pathfinderverse.
He's been dead since the early days of existence, but he's still winning.
Dot for later.
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What type of deity?
A really cool guy.
Some folks have referred to him as being a bit of an alalogue for Ahura Mazda.
He was one of the First gods, along with his brother. If the Book of the Damned is to be believed, he and Asmodeus were the first two, period.
Dude fought for and died for everyone in the multiverse, to ensure that free will could be a thing. He was a, if not the, Big Good in the Pathfinderverse.
He's been dead since the early days of existence, but he's still winning.
Your "Hell yeah, light, and hope" mini-rants always bring me epic joy, Mikaze.
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What type of god? A dead one of course!
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He was one of the First gods, along with his brother. If the Book of the Damned is to be believed, he and Asmodeus were the first two, period.
Meh. Asmodeus claims he was the first god, along with Ihys. Apsu claims he was the first god, along with Tiamat. Lots of gods seem to claim they were the first gods. Big talk from little gods trying to feel more important than they are. Gods that don't have anything to prove just hang out in the middle of the cosmos listening to music (piping flutes and drums preferred), and destroy your star system if you bother them too much.
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Hey, I'm still bucking for a Mikaze cult...
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Asmodeus and Ihys were the first gods in their region of reality, the area around the Seal (whatever the heck that is). Even that volume of Book of the Damned acknowledges that they later met beings from elsewhere.
It's really difficult to decide who really came first on the knowledge we've been given.
Asmodeus and Ihys were the first gods in their region of reality, the area around the Seal (whatever the heck that is). Even that volume of Book of the Damned acknowledges that they later met beings from elsewhere.
It's really difficult to decide who really came first on the knowledge we've been given.
I'm kind of swinging towards the opinion that "first" both doesn't matter and is entirely inaccurate in every way.
I suspect that there was no "first", so to speak.
I think that when the Proteans reached out and opened the way to the Abyss, they literally found an alternate reality - I don't mean another plane, I mean they found a whole different omniverse.
It would be kind of like if all the Avatar the Last Airbender folks got together and used their mad element-bending powers to bend (and blend) their reality into... Star Wars. People'd from both universes would all be like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...?", but once the gate is open, that's it, and it can't be closed again, and slowly the to realities integrate into each other (and eventually some dumb shmoe from Marvel accidentally ratchets their omniverse-spanning device up to '11' and merges Marvel-earth with Star Wars earth, and no one in the Airbender/Star Wars galaxy noticed until they were all the same reality already because it was too far away and too much time had passed). And so one claims to be "the first" because, you know, "I'm the oldest, and these guys are the newbs", but the same is true from the other guys' perspectives too, so...
But that's just my pet theory.
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Asmodeus and Ihys were the first gods in their region of reality, the area around the Seal (whatever the heck that is). Even that volume of Book of the Damned acknowledges that they later met beings from elsewhere.
It's really difficult to decide who really came first on the knowledge we've been given.
This. Early history on the planes is a very hazy thing. This is a good thing. :)
Obviously the proteans are correct however...
...(Joking!)
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Warning: may be somewhat controversial:
Personally, I always though the name IHYS looks like a trope from Western art.
IHS is a Latin abbreviation for Jesus. INRI is the inscription above him on the cross.
Ihys was slain by a spear.
This seems to parallel the spear of Longinus.
However, these may be parallel tropes that weren't intended. I can't say. If what I suspect is true, Ihys may not really be dead. Or something. Asmodeus is known to lie, after all.
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Azathoth: pweee pweeee pwooooo
Asmodeus: Damn squatters.
Ihys: Be nice, bro.
Obviously the proteans are correct however...
The tricky thing about the proteans is that they could be right and wrong about everything at the same time. If anyone's going to spawn Quantum Elementals, it's probably gotta be those folks. :)
Yanno...looking at Ihys, and his leading the charge of chaos and change in the early days....I really have to wonder about any possible Protean ties he may have had.
...and now I'm wondering if his current "dead" state is actually him having achieved "freedom of concept". He's not locked into a single state of being, and whatever presence he's had is something so subtle it goes undetected by damn near everyone.
Alternate theory: Ihys is scattered and infused into the souls of every being of reality possessed of free will. Including his brother.
EDIT-Oh snap. Spin-off theory from that: The only way to remove whatever essense of Ihys is in a soul is to remove their free will. Hell is all about crushing the free will out of its victims. Asmodeus wants his brother back.
Warning: may be somewhat controversial:
Personally, I always though the name IHYS looks like a trope from Western art.
IHS is a Latin abbreviation for Jesus. INRI is the inscription above him on the cross.
Ihys was slain by a spear.
This seems to parallel the spear of Longinus.
However, these may be parallel tropes that weren't intended. I can't say. If what I suspect is true, Ihys may not really be dead. Or something. Asmodeus is known to lie, after all.
Whoa. I had been thinking of capitalizing IHYS to parallel YHVH just for theme, but this.
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Asmodeus and Ihys were the first gods in their region of reality, the area around the Seal (whatever the heck that is). Even that volume of Book of the Damned acknowledges that they later met beings from elsewhere.
It's really difficult to decide who really came first on the knowledge we've been given.
I'm kind of swinging towards the opinion that "first" both doesn't matter and is entirely inaccurate in every way.
I suspect that there was no "first", so to speak.
I think that when the Proteans reached out and opened the way to the Abyss, they literally found an alternate reality - I don't mean another plane, I mean they found a whole different omniverse.
It would be kind of like if all the Avatar the Last Airbender folks got together and used their mad element-bending powers to bend (and blend) their reality into... Star Wars. People'd from both universes would all be like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...?", but once the gate is open, that's it, and it can't be closed again, and slowly the to realities integrate into each other (and eventually some dumb shmoe from Marvel accidentally ratchets their omniverse-spanning device up to '11' and merges Marvel-earth with Star Wars earth, and no one in the Airbender/Star Wars galaxy noticed until they were all the same reality already because it was too far away and too much time had passed). And so one claims to be "the first" because, you know, "I'm the oldest, and these guys are the newbs", but the same is true from the other guys' perspectives too, so...
But that's just my pet theory.
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Mikaze's little theory of the good is ALWAYS winning makes any campaign setting it's applied to rather boring. It makes the PC's actions pointless. It's like a game set in the Forgotten Realms where Elminster ISN'T always too busy to deal with stuff, and he rushes in to save the PCs and resolve the problem if they get into too much trouble.
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Ihys what Ihys and that's all that Ihys.
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Mikaze's little theory of the good is ALWAYS winning makes any campaign setting it's applied to rather boring. It makes the PC's actions pointless. It's like a game set in the Forgotten Realms where Elminster ISN'T always too busy to deal with stuff, and he rushes in to save the PCs and resolve the problem if they get into too much trouble.
Mind that those theories are all on a super-macro and abstract level.
Lives, ideals, cities, countries, loves, worlds, universes, and souls can still be lost.
And the thing about hte Ihys-infusion theory is that Ihys has no say in what they do with their free will, for good or ill. (especially since it would defeat the point)
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The parallel is too much of a coincidence.
Also, if you are totally against seeing religious posts here, this isn't meant to be a sermon or a way for me to force this on you. I am only attempting to point out similarities.
Some sects of Christianity actually believe that all of mankind are part of a spiritual family that existed before creation. In these beliefs Christ and Lucifer were part of this family as well, and thus brothers. Some of these sects hold that they were two of the more powerful and favored sons of God.
The argument that sparked a war in heaven between the two was over agency, or the ability to choose for ones self and also referred to as free will. Lucifer wanted to force everyone to live perfect lives and he wanted all the glory and power. Christ wanted people to choose and have free will, but none of the glory.
Pre-birth Christ was worshiped as YHVH (or Jehovah). In life, his Romanized name was indeed abbreviated IHS.
Christ didn't die form the spear wound, and was already dead by the time the soldier pierced him with it. However, the spear is extremely important in religious and supernatural lore.
Christ went through such a great amount of pain in the garden of Gethsemane that he bleed from his pore. His cries of pain must have been intense.
Most Christians hold that Christ suffered and paid a debt for all mankind, overcoming sin and death. Just about all of them believe that he still lives.
So I would say that Ihys and Asmodeus are intended to be parallel to Christ and Lucifer. Enough has been changed that we don't have to worry about real world religion taking over Golarion, but this starts to make me wonder.
With Russia in our world being the setting of part of the RoW AP, wouldn't it make sense in at least the game lore that Asmodeus and Ihys had such a huge impact that they are in fact worshiped on other worlds? Plenty of other gods are inspired by real world mythology. The stories, legends, and myths don't have to all be unified among the worlds and everyone won't be worshiped equally. In Golarion, Asmodeus is more widely worshiped than his brother. On earth, it is the other way around.
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Playing with the possible RL religious connections a bit more:
One of the things that has caught my imagination the most was a reference in this big Book o' Angels(one that Erik Mona references quite a bit, IIRC). It was an exhaustive listing of angels that turned up in religious texts, folklore, etc.
One of Michael's titles was "The Angel of Chaos". It never went further over the details on exactly what kind of chaos, but it was something that's been rolling around in my head ever since, especially with so many portrayals of Lucifer as a being of Law.
I've always wanted to see that angle explored somewhere. Pathfinder's version of the first war really resonated with that, I think. :)
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Some hypotheses in approximate chronological order:
-Asmodeus and Ihys create or at least shape the Material Plane. The Outer Gods may have been part of the area being played with from the outset, may have moved in from Elsewhere, or may be creations of the Seal-gods but would really rather lie about that to make themselves scarier.
-As lesser mote-souls are created and spread out to the new life-bearing planets, the mote-goddess Pharasma (scarcely younger than A&I) is assigned to make sure they get recycled appropriately.
-As the Material Plane comes in contact with the Maelstrom, the Elemental Planes form as a sort of buffer between them. The mote-gods craft realms for themselves out of the Maelstrom. The proteans, miffed at all this order intruding on them, look for more chaos and dig too greedily and too deep, linking to the Abyss and accidentally defining this previously unobserved and uncollapsed quantum as a place of utter nightmare. The qlippoth invade the Maelstrom.
-Ihys introduces free will to his motes. Pharasma finds that many of them don't sync up right with their creator anymore, and starts consigning them to other islands in the Maelstrom. Particularly warped souls become the first daemons, kytons, and larvae.
-Asmodeus sees DK&L, sees what the mortals have been doing to become them, and goes apeshit. The War in Heaven happens, Ihys dies, Asmodeus claims Hell for himself. Most of the kytons move to the Plane of Shadow, as Azzy co-opts hellbound souls to become lemures and then devils.
-Around this time, an early Horseman creates demons. Qlippoth become a minority in their own home, further pissing them off. Lamashtu ascends to godhood by stealing the life and purviews of the ancient god Curchanus, setting sentients and wild creatures against each other throughout the cosmos.
-Titans rebel against the gods. The rebellion is squished, thanatotic titans move to the Abyss and create demodands.
-Rovagug invades the Material Plane with intent to nom. All the gods team up against him; Sarenrae and Asmodeus cooperate to seal him into Golarion, cementing that out-of-the-way world's place of profound importance to the cosmos and attracting a lot of divine attention. Sarenrae ascends to godhood, Asmodeus walks off with the key to the Cage and a smile on his face.
-The entire history of mortal life on Golarion passes in an eyeblink compared to everything written above, and here we are.
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Just a funny thing...
Sarenrae has wings of fire and is a war like goddess who fights to put down evil.
Michael is said to be an arch angel with wings of fire and is associated with wars and battles where great evil was put down.
Michael could be considered a huge supporter and right hand man of Jehovah.
Sarenrae could be considered a huge supporter and right hand woman to Ihys.
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Why not Shyka the Many? Each reality-plane had its own eldest beings, after the proteans destroyed the ''barriers'' between them it's become confusing.
Oh the truth would make your heads spin!
But spoiling my fun is the fact that truth of the unpoisoned variety is something you'll rarely ever get from me. Though I suppose Tabris might have. Or not. Lies are so much more fun! Says the entity with a distinctly outside and often maliciously bored perspective on Golarion's cosmological history.
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If I remember right, one of the founders of Paizo, Johnny Wilson, is/was a pretty devout Christian, with a PHD in Theology. The name paizo is from Koine greek (the greek used to write most of the early New Testament). I wouldn't be surprised to see some elements of his faith inspiring something he helped create. I know that with my faith, I find myself slipping elements of it into games/characters I play.
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Some sects of Christianity actually believe that all of mankind are part of a spiritual family that existed before creation. In these beliefs Christ and Lucifer were part of this family as well, and thus brothers. Some of these sects hold that they were two of the more powerful and favored sons of God.The argument that sparked a war in heaven between the two was over agency, or the ability to choose for ones self and also referred to as free will. Lucifer wanted to force everyone to live perfect lives and he wanted all the glory and power. Christ wanted people to choose and have free will, but none of the glory.
You've pinged my interest, because obscure Christian history and the development of its various offshoots as well as the cultural and historical milieu that they arose out of is something of a thing for me.
That said, I've never heard of this one before since it's rather far off from any of the Orthodox/proto-Orthodox, gnostic, or later offshoots that I'm aware of. Is this an LDS and its theological progeny thing? If so my knowledge is remarkably slender by comparison when it comes to their theology, which would explain why I'd never heard of anything like that among modern or any historical Christian sects either still extant or not.
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In LDS, Jesus is the oldest "spirit child" of the Father, and Lucifer is also a "spirit child," making them "brothers." See here, scroll down.
In LDS, Jesus is the oldest "spirit child" of the Father, and Lucifer is also a "spirit child," making them "brothers." See here, scroll down.
Thanks for the answer. :)
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Is this an LDS and its theological progeny thing?
Yes, this is an LDS thing. I was attempting to be general to avoid sounding too preachy about my own religion. I have met a few others who didn't belong to the LDS church who had similar beliefs, but those are rare. Mostly, other Christians just say that such an idea is evilbadwrong.
The IHYS/YHVH parallel is just stunningly awesome. Way to go on igniting a tinderbox of intriguing speculation, Jeff.
Do we know who wrote that section of the book?
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The IHYS/YHVH parallel is just stunningly awesome. Way to go on igniting a tinderbox of intriguing speculation, Jeff.
Do we know who wrote that section of the book?
Yeah, Jeff came in juggling theological hand grenades and rolled three 20's in a row on Inspire Productive Discussion. ;)
I believe it was F. Wesley Schneider that wrote in Ihys and the entirety of the first Book of the Damned which is where Ihys is first mentioned. IIRC, that is.
!
Just remembered a discussion with a friend that started off about something else and led to the Ihys/Asmodeus conflict: Asuras.
Asuras' basic flavor in the Pathfinderverse is that they are flawed creations of the gods. Asmodeus got onto Ihys because of the chaos and troubles that started because they were all learning how to do creation, souls, and free will.
Maybe Asuras came out of those rough early days? Maybe they were part of hte justification used by Asmodeus and/or the forces of Law for their side of the conflict?
Then again, Asuras dwell in Hell. Hmm.....
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The IHYS/YHVH parallel is just stunningly awesome. Way to go on igniting a tinderbox of intriguing speculation, Jeff.
Do we know who wrote that section of the book?
Schneider wrote all of it I believe.
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So going with the gnostic angle, my mind immediately wanders to the Asmodeus/Ihys dynamic having a gnostic parallel of the Sethian/Ophite variety, except on Golarion, Yaltabaoth (here called Asmodeus) ultimately appears to have won. Or lies about having won, which would make the parallel even closer.
That's really obscure stuff though.
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Schneider wrote all of it I believe.The IHYS/YHVH parallel is just stunningly awesome. Way to go on igniting a tinderbox of intriguing speculation, Jeff.
Do we know who wrote that section of the book?
Yeah, Wes has layers. Like an onion, or the Ptolemaic Universe.
There's some secret sauce he's added in Golarion - from talking to him off the record - that's pretty cool. Some of it may never be official in a printed sense, for various reasons.
On this, though, I have no idea. It seems suspicious, to my medievalist brain, but sometimes random noise becomes something fractal-like and compelling simply by accident.
Re: the Asura, the gods' mistakes has always intrigued me. It's not a RW idea. In the RW Asuras aren't good because there's a finite amount of soma/amrita, and the Devas hoard it for themselves, and the Asuras are unscrupulous in trying to seize it. Since people worship the Devas and the Devas reward people for it, Asuras displacing the gods would also be a disaster for humanoids. However, in Golarion, perhaps the Asuras' resentment of the gods derives from a legitimate beef? (or a series of the same)? Not sharing soma might be a mistake if it would have assured a paradise, since the Asuras wouldn't have wrecked so many things.
Devas make a lot of mistakes, actually, mostly by handing out boons (miracles) like candy, even to the undeserving.
But then, in Hinduism, free will and its existence is a matter of whether the world is material or illusion. If it's illusion, our apparent free will is an expression of a single consciousness and temporal cycle (Brahman or Shakti -But then, realising one's self as the godhead is the ultimate free will) and if it's material we have total free will because the gods are limited. Either it's immediately accessible or very distant.
I feel that the Asuras should represent the human-ness of the Vudran gods. But that human-ness, even if it causes evil, also provides for empathy and delight. In that regard, the Asuras as aggrieved kin - like in South Asia - makes for a family dynamic - clearly an aspect of Hindu polytheism - including the ticked-off sibling; families are a very humanoid, very flawed, very wonderful thing.
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So going with the gnostic angle, my mind immediately wanders to the Asmodeus/Ihys dynamic having a gnostic parallel of the Sethian/Ophite variety, except on Golarion, Yaltabaoth (here called Asmodeus) ultimately appears to have won. Or lies about having won, which would make the parallel even closer.
That's really obscure stuff though.
One has to wonder how proteans(and the Speaker in the Depths) could play into all that, if the material reality is a spiritual prison. :)
I feel that the Asuras should represent the human-ness of the Vudran gods. But that human-ness, even if it causes evil, also provides for empathy and delight. In that regard, the Asuras as aggrieved kin - like in South Asia - makes for a family dynamic - clearly an aspect of Hindu polytheism - including the ticked-off sibling; families are a very humanoid, very flawed, very wonderful thing.
Speaking of! (and this is the other thing my friend brought up with Asuras)
It is believed that the first upasundas were created from the jealous followers of a man who achieved divinity through his own force of will. Those of his followers who felt abandoned when this new deity ascended to the Great Beyond sought other ways to achieve immortality, and fell pray to one of the asura ranas, who granted them their desire by transforming them into beatific ones.
Hmmmm.... I really want to see the family dynamic angle get some real play when Vudra gets some spotlight time now. :)
Yeah, Wes has layers. Like an onion, or the Ptolemaic Universe.
There's some secret sauce he's added in Golarion - from talking to him off the record - that's pretty cool. Some of it may never be official in a printed sense, for various reasons.
Aw man, that's no fair, teasing like that...
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It strikes me that there's a good chance that Ihys never existed at all. The only source that mentions him is the Book of the Damned, and although the angel Tabris seems to have gone to incredible lengths to acquire accurate information on the lower planes, one shouldn't forget that his only sources were devils.
Considering Tabris' fall, maybe the whole myth of Ihys was cooked up specifically to plant a seed of doubt in his heart, and possibly those of his celestial superiors. After all, the upshot of the story seems to be that free will, and by estension all good, only exists because Asmodeus *allows* it to exist, and that Hell is a reflection of the true nature of the multiverse.
One would think that Sarenrae would be able to clarify the matter, since she was evidently something of a confidant of his. And yet she and the other gods have never deigned to mention the conflict at all.
Some hypotheses in approximate chronological order:
-Asmodeus and Ihys create or at least shape the Material Plane. The Outer Gods may have been part of the area being played with from the outset, may have moved in from Elsewhere, or may be creations of the Seal-gods but would really rather lie about that to make themselves scarier.
-As lesser mote-souls are created and spread out to the new life-bearing planets, the mote-goddess Pharasma (scarcely younger than A&I) is assigned to make sure they get recycled appropriately.
-As the Material Plane comes in contact with the Maelstrom, the Elemental Planes form as a sort of buffer between them. The mote-gods craft realms for themselves out of the Maelstrom. The proteans, miffed at all this order intruding on them, look for more chaos and dig too greedily and too deep, linking to the Abyss and accidentally defining this previously unobserved and uncollapsed quantum as a place of utter nightmare. The qlippoth invade the Maelstrom.
-Ihys introduces free will to his motes. Pharasma finds that many of them don't sync up right with their creator anymore, and starts consigning them to other islands in the Maelstrom. Particularly warped souls become the first daemons, kytons, and larvae.
-Asmodeus sees DK&L, sees what the mortals have been doing to become them, and goes a*#*$~@. The War in Heaven happens, Ihys dies, Asmodeus claims Hell for himself. Most of the kytons move to the Plane of Shadow, as Azzy co-opts hellbound souls to become lemures and then devils.
-Around this time, an early Horseman creates demons. Qlippoth become a minority in their own home, further pissing them off. Lamashtu ascends to godhood by stealing the life and purviews of the ancient god Curchanus, setting sentients and wild creatures against each other throughout the cosmos.
-Titans rebel against the gods. The rebellion is squished, thanatotic titans move to the Abyss and create demodands.
-Rovagug invades the Material Plane with intent to nom. All the gods...
Your hypothesis sir, is pure gold. but would want to know more about that mysterios primeval stuff called the Seal, also in the book of the damned 3, it is said that the daemons didn't exist before mortal life. Also how is the plane of positive energy and negative energy related to the "seal." as far as i know the souls of the mortals are created in the positive energy plane.
Speaking of parallels with Christianity, it looks like this thread rose again from the dead...
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How did I miss its first incarnation? This is a great thread.
One of Michael's titles was "The Angel of Chaos". It never went further over the details on exactly what kind of chaos
That's because Saint Michael is the patron saint of paratroopers.
So is Ihys then supposed to be resurrected?
