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So, while I was trying to avoid doing my homework, I decided to calculate the number of possible unique gods based on combinations of domains and alignments. I did this using the rules for deities presented by the game (5 domains and must take Law, Chaos, Evil, or Good domain if alignment includes it). I decided not to factor in favored weapon.
There are 33 possible domains available from Paizo , but these include the four alignment domains which are already decided by the alignment of the god, so we are left with 29 possible domains given an alignment. Each deity has five domains, but two of those are determined in advance for LG, CG, LE, and CE deities. One is determined in advance for NG, LN, CN, and NE deities. None are determined in advance for N deities. Using the combination formula, one can determine the number of possible deities for each alignment.
If you didn't click the link, C(X,Y) means number of combinations of Y objects given X options.
Lawful Good[C(29,3)]=3,654
Neutral Good[C(29,4)]=23,751
Chaotic Good[C(29,3)]=3,654
Lawful Neutral[C(29,4)]=23,751
True Neutral[C(29,5)]=118,755
Chaotic Neutral[C(29,4)]=23,751
Lawful Evil[C(29,3)]=3,654
Neutral Evil[C(29,4)]=23,751
Chaotic Evil[C(29,3)]=3,654
Summing these together can be expressed as 118,755+(23,751*4)+(3,654*4) which equals 228,375 unique combinations.
So, in case you ever wondered, there it is :P Obviously two gods can be unique even if they have the exact same domains, but I was just curious, and I figured a few others might be as well.
Let me know if I made any mistakes! Now I need to find another distraction that feels like I'm doing something useful while avoiding actual work...
tl;dr: There are 228,375 possible unique gods given the standard domains and alignments.
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That Inner Sea Gods book is going to need a lot more pages.
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hu..... well thank you....... what about sub-domains......
That Inner Sea Gods book is going to need a lot more pages.
Ha!
hu..... well thank you....... what about sub-domains......
I believe that sub-domains are specifically a player choice. A deity doesn't have specific subdomains to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
However, that does mean the number of unique clerics based on domain increases quite a lot!
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With numbers like that, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the Test of the Starstone is a sudoku puzzle.
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So can my inquisitor finally take a god with the lawful, good, and darkness domains and become the Batman I always intended him to be? *PREPOST EDIT*-ok, found two empyreal lords that have that set. One of which actually gives a nice animal motif (sure, owls were already done by the watchmen, but meh)
Also, the demonlord of community and healing.
I'm pretty sure that each god gets a set of 5 specific domains that followers can choose from. Looking at the god listings in the wikis, there is always a listing for them. The math gets odd when you add them though, since a god can only have subdomains of one of their domains obviously, and that is not nice and neat at all since some domains have a ton of subdomains.
The math gets really wonky if you start adding in favored weapons as a factor. And hell, the portfolios are 'any random thing we want them to be' but still represent a way to differentiate gods.
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That Inner Sea Gods book is going to need a lot more pages.Ha!
hu..... well thank you....... what about sub-domains......I believe that sub-domains are specifically a player choice. A deity doesn't have specific subdomains to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
However, that does mean the number of unique clerics based on domain increases quite a lot!
In Golarion the god determines which sub-domains a cleric has access to. Still though that's quite impressive.
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Certain Domains don't 'play well' with others, and probably wouldn't be normally found in combination, due to wonky design assumptions.
Glory, for instance, modifies positive energy channeling, and offers three or four [good] descriptor domains spells, none of which an evil cleric (or neutral cleric of an evil god) may be able to access. ('Cause, apparently, evil peeps can't be glory-seekers? Even though an evil cleric of Gorum is a viable option even in Golarion?)
The Sun Domain similarly has a Domain power that's positive energy channeling specific, so no evil sun gods need apply.
Death has three or four [evil] spells, and so there can be no kindly shepherds of lost souls or benign death-gods. (Barring the use of Repose, instead.)
Darkness summons shadows, which makes the summoning [evil] and locks out good clerics. (While there is precedence for non-evil shadows, in the Shadowdancer PrC, that's likely to get Juju Oracled with extreme prejudice eventually.)
Ideally, any Domain that isn't an actual alignment Domain should not have aligned spells, or domain powers that are restricted to channeling one color of energy or another, and it shouldn't be any 'weirder' to have an evil Glory-seeking carnage-loving warlord than a kindly comforting good-aligned speaker for the dead with the Death domain (although the Repose Domain was a patch for this specific problem back in 3.0, only exacerbated by three other domains now having alignment-restrictive powers or spells).
There is a Lawful Good deity in Golarion that grants the Darkness domain.
i just asked because of my homebrew game i made
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With numbers like that, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the Test of the Starstone is a sudoku puzzle.
Which is the God of the sudoku?
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With numbers like that, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the Test of the Starstone is a sudoku puzzle.Which is the God of the sudoku?
Probably something with the Law, Knowledge, and Madness domains.
It would be fairly easy to redo the calculations for each alignment, with the # of domains that aren't antithetical to the alignment of the deity. Other, non-alignment specific, mutually exclusive domains would be more complicated though (Sun and Darkness maybe? - god of eclipses?). Those would require counting them as one option, then doubling the results for anything that chooses them.
Would be a lot more restricted if the non-alignment domains of a god could not be entirely contained by another god. All the LG,CE,CG,LE gods are limited to 3,654 combinations (not counting Death/Good exclusions), and it actually shrinks from there because of the Neutral gods, because as you add domains, you would match more of the 3-domain gods. (e.g. two gods could have Animal and Sun, with one having Water and one having Plant. But if another god had Animal, Sun, Water, & Plant that would knock out the other two, so to speak).
Great topic!
I'm a fan of the Pratchett/Discworld system of gods. They start as small spirits, barely able to penetrate the consciousness of a dreaming human, and try to gain worship as a means to gain power.
Thus, all gods are technically in competition with each other for worshippers, and thus power, and tend to take on aspects of worship (such as Love, War, Sheep, etc.) in order to corner a market.
That way, multiple gods can have the same alignment and aspect, but who gets worshipped depends on who can win over the local market... I mean worshippers.
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I would much prefer a setting where there are not only different gods competing for a market, but significant diversity within a religion as well (Jesuits vs. Franciscans vs. Templars, for example).
I'm a big fan of Norgorber, for this reason. While it seems like at least one faction within Paizo *hates* the idea that clerics can be one step away from the alignments than their gods, Norgorber, with his four possible alignment combinations, and four distinct faces, really works well with the mechanics (clerics one step away) and the flavor (four distinct 'orders' within the church).
Father Skinsaw, lord of crazy murderers, pretty much has the CE worshippers locked up.
Which aspects (Blackfingers, the Gray Master and the Reaper of Reputation) would best reflect his NE, LE and N followings might be debatable, but could certainly be a nice marriage of setting flavor and game mechanics that, unfortunately, is not only not terribly common, but seems to be in the process of being actively discouraged.
The neutral gods seem like the ideal place for these sorts of dichotomies. NG, NE, LN, CN and true N followers of Gozreh, Pharasma and Nethys likely have some pretty strong disagreements about the proper way to interpret their gods tenets, as would CG and CE followers of Gorum or Calistria, or LG and LE followers of Abadar and Irori.
I love that sort of thing.
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@ Bieber Astronaut: you could have a setting like that RIGHT now. Take Abadar. He has the following domains:
Earth
Law
Nobility
Protection
Travel
Now throw away ALL the fluff on this deity in the WIKI. Finally consider that this deity grants the faithful access to only TWO of these domains at a time and that his worshippers are any kind of Lawful or true neutral.
what would it look like if the main, "Vatican City" style temple in your homebrew had clergy generally concerned with Earth and Law? I can imagine lots of ancient earthworks around a stone temple complex with neat, orderly plazas of stone, columns and pillars, and set times when the deity is worshipped throughout the day.
now consider you move a little inland, to a castle just outside the main capital. Here a noble is served by an advisor with the Law and Nobility domains. This singular priest and his parish are highly concerned with politics and seek to exploit their position beside the noble to modify local and national laws for their benefit. This guy ALMOST sounds like a bad guy huh?
Much further away on the road we find a traveling cleric (like...nomad performer Traveler type). This woman is neutral in alignment and has no love for the laws and strictures of the capitol on the coast. She came to her faith dramatically in the heat of battle with kobolds and has made it her mission to establish Sanctum Posts; magic item posts along the road a traveler can sleep while bound to and the device will cast Sanctuary on them so they will not be accosted. Her services are as needed and she doesn't even understand why stone is any more important than other elements in her faith.
Now then, this gives you:
The Order of the Righteous Foundation, also known as the First Order - they are the primary worshippers of Abadar in these lands and the progenitor of holy father church
The Noble Fraternity of the Oath - an all-male sect focused on political gains. They are barely tolerated for their usefulness to the First Order
The Traveler's Aegis - more a set of guidelines than hard rules on how to provide safety to others on the dangerous roads of these lands. The faith is entirely personal, spread by word of mouth in taverns, at crossroads and in accords struck along the highway
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Heck, you could even take it a step further: Saints and Martyrs
What if a guy who personified the Law and Protection aspects of the church of Abadar was martyred at the stake for harboring enemies in a civil war? You might have a knightly monastery called the Order of Saint Gheld and the Harboring Way. Here paladins are trained, monks (NPC Experts, not hy-ya types) hold masses to the patron on high holy days and clerics visit the sick and needy in the nearby communities to deliver aid free of charge since the wars have left many as indentured servants to their lords.
Or a step beyond that...what if the saint wasn't even a cleric?
At the Owlsmeadow Orphanage the famous witch, Baelba Owlsmeadow, harbored the orphans made by the recent civil wars. When she was approached with a demand to give up these children as the slaves of a cruel baron she refused. When the baron's goblins arrived to cart them off she gave her life and defeated the baron's brutes. Her familiar, an inteligent owl she called Winter's Heart led the children through the forest to a chapel where they were granted asylum.
When the children related the story of what happened, the clergy returned and retrieved the fallen witch. She was interred in their crypt and given the highest honors; since then all orphans have invoked her name for their protection and deliverance to worthy homes. The Owlsmeadow Orphanage contains a shrine to her memory. Priests who pray specifically to her gain Protection but also the Magic domain.
AWESOME huh?
There is a Lawful Good deity in Golarion that grants the Darkness domain.There is indeed. Hence my comment about it probably getting Juju Oracled out of existence eventually, or being tweaked, like those alternate spells suggested for Pharasma clerics with the Death domain.
I found two empyreal lords offering darkness. One was for spies, the other was an owl. They seemed to be created with "Chronicle of the Righteous," which was released recently enough (May 2013) to the Juju alteration that they would have already decided to make the clear cut schism of good/evil. So they seem unlikely to be errata'd.
There is also a major Tian Xia deity with Darkness/Moon as domains,
Heck, most deities with the moon domain are good (well 2 out of 3 is a poor sample). Have to say though-having moon laser eyes is something I want to keep on the side of good, if only because ....LASERBEAMS!
Anyway, shadow dancer will not get that kind of errata treatment, since it was grandfathered in.
In Golarion the god determines which sub-domains a cleric has access to. Still though that's quite impressive.That Inner Sea Gods book is going to need a lot more pages.Ha!
hu..... well thank you....... what about sub-domains......I believe that sub-domains are specifically a player choice. A deity doesn't have specific subdomains to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
However, that does mean the number of unique clerics based on domain increases quite a lot!
Ah, thanks for the information! Yeah, subdomains do complicate the math a bit. Is there any limit on how many subdomains a deity grants?
Certain Domains don't 'play well' with others, and probably wouldn't be normally found in combination, due to wonky design assumptions.
Glory, for instance, modifies positive energy channeling, and offers three or four [good] descriptor domains spells, none of which an evil cleric (or neutral cleric of an evil god) may be able to access. ('Cause, apparently, evil peeps can't be glory-seekers? Even though an evil cleric of Gorum is a viable option even in Golarion?)
The Sun Domain similarly has a Domain power that's positive energy channeling specific, so no evil sun gods need apply.
Death has three or four [evil] spells, and so there can be no kindly shepherds of lost souls or benign death-gods. (Barring the use of Repose, instead.)
Darkness summons shadows, which makes the summoning [evil] and locks out good clerics. (While there is precedence for non-evil shadows, in the Shadowdancer PrC, that's likely to get Juju Oracled with extreme prejudice eventually.)
Ideally, any Domain that isn't an actual alignment Domain should not have aligned spells, or domain powers that are restricted to channeling one color of energy or another, and it shouldn't be any 'weirder' to have an evil Glory-seeking carnage-loving warlord than a kindly comforting good-aligned speaker for the dead with the Death domain (although the Repose Domain was a patch for this specific problem back in 3.0, only exacerbated by three other domains now having alignment-restrictive powers or spells).
True, true. This is definitely theoretical. Practically, the actual number of possible coherent gods would both be less because of the issues you bring up. On the other hand, the number is also infinite because gods can have the same domains and still be unique. In fact, that sounds like an interesting design challenge...
I would much prefer a setting where there are not only different gods competing for a market, but significant diversity within a religion as well (Jesuits vs. Franciscans vs. Templars, for example).
Hey! It's Justin Rocket! I remember you from a YouTube argument we had (assuming it's the same person), haha. There are some elements of what you describe in Golarion as others have mentioned. I don't think anyone's mentioned the schism in Sarenrae's church yet though where one sect in the church is significantly more militaristic than the rest.
@ Bieber Astronaut: you could have a setting like that RIGHT now. Take Abadar. He has the following domains:
Earth
Law
Nobility
Protection
TravelNow throw away ALL the fluff on this deity in the WIKI. Finally consider that this deity grants the faithful access to only TWO of these domains at a time and that his worshippers are any kind of Lawful or true neutral.
what would it look like if the main, "Vatican City" style temple in your homebrew had clergy generally concerned with Earth and Law? I can imagine lots of ancient earthworks around a stone temple complex with neat, orderly plazas of stone, columns and pillars, and set times when the deity is worshipped throughout the day.
now consider you move a little inland, to a castle just outside the main capital. Here a noble is served by an advisor with the Law and Nobility domains. This singular priest and his parish are highly concerned with politics and seek to exploit their position beside the noble to modify local and national laws for their benefit. This guy ALMOST sounds like a bad guy huh?
Much further away on the road we find a traveling cleric (like...nomad performer Traveler type). This woman is neutral in alignment and has no love for the laws and strictures of the capitol on the coast. She came to her faith dramatically in the heat of battle with kobolds and has made it her mission to establish Sanctum Posts; magic item posts along the road a traveler can sleep while bound to and the device will cast Sanctuary on them so they will not be accosted. Her services are as needed and she doesn't even understand why stone is any more important than other elements in her faith.
Now then, this gives you:
The Order of the Righteous Foundation, also known as the First Order - they are the primary worshippers of Abadar in these lands and the progenitor of holy father church
The Noble Fraternity of the Oath - an all-male sect focused on political gains. They are barely tolerated for their usefulness to the First Order
The...
Always a pleasure reading your ideas, Mark :)
FYI : Demigods follow different rules for # of domains and subdomains, so you'd have to add in all the possible combinations of Demigods as well.
FYI : Demigods follow different rules for # of domains and subdomains, so you'd have to add in all the possible combinations of Demigods as well.
You're right of course. I just wanted to calculate possible full deities first.
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On the other hand, the number is also infinite because gods can have the same domains and still be unique. In fact, that sounds like an interesting design challenge...
The easiest way to totally mix up gods with many shared domains is to explore differently aligned, or different racial or national or cultural specific takes on the same theme.
A LN dwarven god with Community, Protection, Law and Strength might be *very* different from a LN human god with the same four domains, and their LE worshippers could even take their faith in a 'dwarven supremacist' or 'humans first!' sort of direction, while even their LG paladins might consider their first duty to protect their own people, and their own culture, and not so much 'those other people.'
It's an artefact of 3.X that any god with an alignment is automagically a god *of* that alignment, even if, in some cases, they really aren't that rigidly defined by their alignment (and, in the old days, could even be sort of halfway between a couple of alignments, like Wee Jas, who was Lawful Neutral with some Evil tendencies). In the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, there was even Istus, a true Neutral goddess of fate and destiny and luck, who simultaneously offered both the Chaos and Law domains, which I thought was awesome, and totally on-theme for her nature, as a goddess of both random chance *and* lockstep predestination, at the same time.
Good gods of Darkness and Madness have started to appear.
Time for some evil gods of Animals (nature, red in tooth and claw), Artifice (evil engines of war and torture devices and dungeons and cruel weapons!), Community (our kind against the outsider! subvert your personal ambitions to the betterment of the state!), Glory (Alain, anyone? I sacrificed a hundred peasant militia to take this hill and plant my banner, and I'd do it again!), Healing (stop struggling, zis is for science! You vill be faster, stronger, and, more importantly, obedient...), Liberation (anarchy now! burn it all down! guillotines for everyone!), Luck (bad, bad luck, catastrophes, curses, etc.), Protection (if you just give up these freedoms, we will grant you security!), Sun (Pelor, the Burning Hate! or Amaunator, gone terribly wrong.), etc.
Since the lack of Garl Glittergold in Golarion, or St. Cuthbert, there's totally a niche for a good Trickster god, as well, or a good god with the Destruction domain, who is a bit more militant and 'burn wickedness down and let good things grow in it's ashes' in mentality.
They have a CE power with the sun domain. It is the demonlord Nurgal, who is worshiped by sun-fearing creatures much in the same way volcanoes tend to be worshiped.
If I remember correctly, his demonic obedience grants you a laserbeam from your mouth.
The Sun Domain similarly has a Domain power that's positive energy channeling specific, so no evil sun gods need apply.
There is one evil sun god, Nurgal
EDIT: We're one step closer to Pelor, the Burning Hate.
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Hm. This may be time to mention one of the (many) homebrew campaign worlds I just cooked up, deity-wise.
Here's how:
WORLD
a) Take a map of Golarion. No, go on.
b) Take a single country. Randomly (rolled) apply attributes from one (1) Forgotten Realms region and one (1) Eberron region.
- b1) Forgotten Realms regions are used twice. Eberron regions are only used once. This creates some small overlap of Forgotten Realms regions, but Eberron regions represent substantial variations from the base "inherited" culture of overlapping FR regions. ()
c) Relate the two regions together.
GODS
a) Make a list of the Golarion Big 20.
b) Roll on the Deities and Demigods book to replace a single deity.
- b1) The new deity gains the old deity's portfolio elements and domains.
c) Roll on the Forgotten Realms gods list to augment the deity in question as under "b)".
d) Roll on the Eberron faiths list to augment the deity in question, as under "b)".
e) All alignments that differ from the core deity alignment become heresies and heterodoxies (though, of course, the game world doesn't necessarily put it that way).
f) Smash the myths together to create a quasi-coherent whole.
The result?
Surprisingly smoothly integrated.
I may post my work so far if there's enough interest. Actually formatting for the forums would be a bear, though, and the god-stuff alone takes up 12 pages in Microsoft Word, even on 9.5 font and in a mostly short-hand, if comprehensible, style (it would be more like nine, but if I want them to be fully or mostly on one page to avoid page breaks in the middle of thoughts, it expands to twelve).
I've not even fully explained all the different regions beyond stuff like, "Absalom: Lands of Intrigue, Unapproachable East", or "Molthune: the Unapproachable East" (), or "Nirmathas: the Vast", or "Numeria: Underdark/Darguun" (), or "Rahadoum: the Dale Lands", or "Cheliax: Cormyr/Thrane", and so on.
Anyway if stuff like that with Nerull being the Silver Flame, and having elements of Gozreh, and Erevan Ilesene, and being named "Nergal") and having heresies and heterodoxies that variously claim him as lawful good, true neutral, or chaotic neutral are your kind of thing, than... this may just be the thing for you.
Or maybe not. I just figured since I just finished it, I would share.
Man, I wrote more about that than I meant to. But I'm leaving it because I'm kind of nerding out over it. :)
Glory, for instance, modifies positive energy channeling, and offers three or four [good] descriptor domains spells, none of which an evil cleric (or neutral cleric of an evil god) may be able to access. ('Cause, apparently, evil peeps can't be glory-seekers? Even though an evil cleric of Gorum is a viable option even in Golarion?)
Nevermind Evil Gorum clerics. Asmodeus is ALL ABOUT glory, and none of his clerics can cast Good spells. Even the Lawful Neutral ones. (I know Glory isn't actually one of his domains. But don't tell me it wouldn't fit. It fits better than a Trickery domain that lets you turn invisible instead of outsmarting foes.)
The Sun Domain similarly has a Domain power that's positive energy channeling specific, so no evil sun gods need apply.
Nevermind Nergal, Ra, all kinds of Evil sun gods. Sun gods were generally goodish in cold/temperate climates, and often evilish in hot/desert climates.
Since the lack of Garl Glittergold in Golarion, or St. Cuthbert, there's totally a niche for a good Trickster god, as well, or a good god with the Destruction domain, who is a bit more militant and 'burn wickedness down and let good things grow in it's ashes' in mentality.
Isn't that why Cutherbert got to be 'LN, with good tendencies', sort of the inverse of Wee Jas?
I kind of think of Cayden as the Good trickster god. (Even if he doesn't get Trickery. See my comments above about Asmodeus not getting Glory.)
Doesn't a god need a portfolio though to reign over? Having domains available doesn't sound like it would be enough too me. You'd have to claim a part of what makes up the life of mortals (or Golarion as a whole). Though it does appear some gods can share the same distinct aspect (such as love, death, etc etc).
Sure. A favorite of that post will count.
I wrote the details here, to avoid derailing this too much, though I can cross-post it if people want and it's deemed not "off-topic" (or not too much so).
I only printed the barest amount of information, there. Not much at all.
(Also, if anyone has ideas for the name of the world, I'm all ears. I might not take them, but I'm open to suggestions.)
Doesn't a god need a portfolio though to reign over? Having domains available doesn't sound like it would be enough too me. You'd have to claim a part of what makes up the life of mortals (or Golarion as a whole). Though it does appear some gods can share the same distinct aspect (such as love, death, etc etc).
It depends.
In most understandings, yes, a god needs a specific portfolio beyond their domains.
The Eberron Campaign setting had an interesting take in that it implied that the domains were the portfolio, or rather created it as a natural by-product. I really liked that after I thought about it for a while, even though I didn't at first. (Faiths of Eberron later more-or-less retconned the idea so that each god and pantheon had a separate portfolio that went beyond their domains, which, while slightly disappointing, was also cool in its own way, and used in the project I mentioned above.)
Edit: blarg, silly me is silly. Finalizing editing and writing.