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I need a guide on what deities I should choose for my characters. I'm the kind of guy who'll roll up a new character sheet whenever he has new concept, which has put me up to 53 character sheets for a different setting before.
So, I'd like to know; what is the best way for finding which deities to worship for each of my characters? It's costing me a lot of time to find the ones I think fit most.
Is there like a flowchart or something?
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Is there like a flowchart or something?
Yes! Good idea. I'll get on it.
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Is there like a flowchart or something?Yes! Good idea. I'll get on it.
Can't tell if sarcasm. xD Too many years on the internet have made me a pessimist. But if you really do plan to work on a flowchart, thank you so much! It'd help a lot with rolling new characters, considering how much flavour you can get from the gods of Pathfinder.
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Can't tell if sarcasm. xD Too many years on the internet have made me a pessimist. But if you really do plan to work on a flowchart, thank you so much! It'd help a lot with rolling new characters, considering how much flavour you can get from the gods of Pathfinder.Is there like a flowchart or something?Yes! Good idea. I'll get on it.
He may be sarcastic, but I think this is a GREAT idea
*runs off to do it*
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A flowchart does sound like a good idea, especially if it's a big one that gets the Empyreal Lords and Archdevils and various other deities.
While that's being done though, how familiar are you with the Inner Sea Campaign Setting, Sacredless? I kinda have a lot of it memorized, so I could likely help you character-by-character.
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No, I was serious! I've given up on sarcasm on the internet because it's always misread one way or another.
Anyway, the thing with a flowchart, as I'm discovering, is that the first question funnels you quite a bit, perhaps prematurely. Would you guys rather the first question be alignment-related or interests/background-related?
The former would work best for divine spellcasters, since they have to have a similar alignment to their deity, but the latter might work better for everyone else.
Also, how many deities are we talking here? Core 20 or the whole appendix of Inner Sea Gods?
To expand the discussion, don't forget about atheists, characters who worship multiple deities, characters who worship pantheons, characters who worship splinter versions of the mainstream religion, characters who call themselves members of a religion but don't practice, characters who are searching for a connection to the divine but haven't found it yet, and the millions of other variations.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Desna's Blessings Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
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The archives of nethys has an entire page of gods, including all of them, the other pantheons and any rules they might have.
the only thing they are missing is the order of the godclaw pantheon.
Also, a page for the feats that affect channeled energy.
Literally, you can simply scroll down the page and see each domain the deity gives, but not the subdomains.
am I the only one who thinks that is the STUPIDEST idea ever?
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I've decided to start with the question, "What do you most value?"
Possible answers on the flowchart include: Happiness, Courage, Creation, Truth, Harmony, Life, and Nothing.
In making this flowchart I have three goals: 1) I'm trying to make sure that you're not pigeonholed into worshiping one deity after answering just one question. 2) I'm also trying to avoid any dead giveaways like 'Nature' (Gozreh) or 'Justice' (Iomedae). 3) I'm trying to give options that people IRL might answer. Few actual people would answer 'slavery' but they might highly value their own opinion and control.
Here is one sample chain: "What do you most value?" -> "Happiness" -> "How does one obtain happiness?" -> "In a bottle" -> "What's in that bottle?" -> "Alcohol" -> "Cayden Cailean" -or- "What's in that bottle?" -> "Something I concocted." -> "Norgorber"
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A flowchart does sound like a good idea, especially if it's a big one that gets the Empyreal Lords and Archdevils and various other deities.
While that's being done though, how familiar are you with the Inner Sea Campaign Setting, Sacredless? I kinda have a lot of it memorized, so I could likely help you character-by-character.
That would be great, yes! :D My biggest problem is that each time I think I find a deity to worship, I'll eventually discover one that fits my character even better.
Characters are as follows;
Lef the Lamplighter; A minotaur with a heart of gold, though not neccesarily the brightest bulb in the bunch, he once came upon the idea that if the roads and streets were lit, perhaps more travelers would travel them and drive evil away. Since, he has become a professional lamplighter, seeking out the places in the greatest need of literal illumination.
Thosil of the Savored Swallow; Once a courtier at a lower noble's court, Thosil and his clan/house were driven out by demons from the World Wound. Commoners trifled with his ability to cope with poverty and he set out to prove his family could live on a beggar's wager. After a few years of protection racketeering and highwaymanning, he's started a slow-food tavern he guards from gorgers and undisciplined.
Tiph the Taxidermist; Tiph is a halfing straight from the Hobbit if Hobbits were snobbish elitist casual academics. One day, her husband had bought a taxidermed griffin whelp which she swore high and low was a fake. To prove a point, she set out on an adventure to mount a real griffin and show up her husband. Since, she has decided to start a Museum of Mounted Monsters to show firsthand would-be adventurers what awaits them.
Delder the Diplomancer; Delder is a postmaster and summoner whose eidolon is a sheet of transdimensional paper which he folds complex origami shapes into for the eidolon to fight with. Delder believes that war magic is not nearly as valuable as utility magic.
Sleek-Lock-and-Key; A construct designed to manage traps, devices and locks, Sleek had a semblance of sentience which tortured her after managing a dungeon long since forgotten for almost a century. After she was freed by a group of adventurers, Sleek tried best to cope with her multiple personality disorder and enjoy as much interaction with social animals as possible. Her stilted, long-limbed appearance frightens commonfolk, though.
Emhyr Bluefurnace; This dwarf met his husband in a barracks-brawl and they knocked some of each other's teeth out. A decade later, they were married and adopted a girl, whom wanted to become an adventurer when she grew up. Emhyr was dissatisfied with the options of armor she had when she was little, so he took it on himself to create practical, but aesthetically pleasing armor for his girl and soon, any other woman whom pays for it.
Jailar Tanthread; This elf was once a custodian for an organization devoted to covert operations for justice and order. Remarkably, they have an almost supernatural ability to tail someone through the woods in fullplate armor. However, his organization was betrayed. His wife, an honored member, has left him behind, surrendering to an undisciplined lifestyle and his daughter has become independent several decades ago. Thus, Jailar vows to honor his organization in their stead.
Nahbat; A tomb raiding and animal hunting catfolk with a fondness of sweet things. In each dungeon she visits, she performs the ritual I call "The Wager"; to appease the gods, she places all her valuable on an alter; she challenges anyone whom finds it to either take the treasure and leave or succeed where she presumably failed with even more treasure to boot.
This is just a few of them, so you can imagine how I operate on the front of character creation. xP An easy way to choose gods for them to venerate would help me ground my work immensely. :)
No, I was serious! I've given up on sarcasm on the internet because it's always misread one way or another.
Anyway, the thing with a flowchart, as I'm discovering, is that the first question funnels you quite a bit, perhaps prematurely. Would you guys rather the first question be alignment-related or interests/background-related?
The former would work best for divine spellcasters, since they have to have a similar alignment to their deity, but the latter might work better for everyone else.
Also, how many deities are we talking here? Core 20 or the whole appendix of Inner Sea Gods?
Honestly, I wouldn't know! I do like me some obscure gods, but I suppose that the end-goal is finding gods with a base philosophy which people can identify with and take cultural hints from. So, probably the base 20 and any peripherals that aren't race-specific?
I think that you should probably start with questions related to alignments, though not in a leading, "Are you Lawful Neutral" way. Rather in ways which could describe the gods' individual opinions of the alignments. Broad strokes before narrowing down, I suppose?
Of course, since I'm not neccesarily familiar with the Inner Sea gods, I don't know if my suggestions are helpful.
I've been trying to make a quiz, the number is too big and complex for a flow-cart... *goes back to dealing with annoyances*
So, like a personality test for the Inner Sea Gods? Sounds awesome! :D
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The archives of nethys has an entire page of gods, including all of them, the other pantheons and any rules they might have.
the only thing they are missing is the order of the godclaw pantheon.
Also, a page for the feats that affect channeled energy.
Literally, you can simply scroll down the page and see each domain the deity gives, but not the subdomains.am I the only one who thinks that is the STUPIDEST idea ever?
I actually thought about making a sub-category for channel energy feats in specific, but I've held off so far on making my own defined categories. As the number of them grows and grows however, it is becoming more tempting.
Also, are you referring to the missing subdomains on the Deity pages? That was a conscious decision on my part. You can look at the reasoning in this thread.
Oh, and adding the Order of the Godclaw pantheon is possible. I need to look that up again.
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Lef the Lamplighter- For a nonevil-Minotaur Chadil (who counts celestial minotaurs among his servants)
Thosil of the Savored Swallow- Dikastu (Goddess of Rice), Khepri, or Thisamet. Or an Atheist (the gods can go screw themselves)
Tiph the Taxidermist; - Athiest or Lorthact
Delder the Diplomancer;Irez (governs over the written word)
Sleek-Lock-and-Key; Brigh
Emhyr Bluefurnace; Likely just the Dwarven Pantheon
Jailar Tanthread; Erastil
Nahbat; Bastet
To pick better I'd need to know their Alignments first This is a rough guess
I'm a dystheist. Are the gods real? Yeah, they are powerful. But am I obligated to worship them? Nope.
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The thread of this title inspired a vision of a game show with an Atheist on one corner and hidden from him out of sight three would be dieties desiring his/her worship?
What would one call it? And who would be the host?
'Blind Faith', hosted by Caecilia Blakros?
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Are there any updates for this? :o
This is what I have so far. More to come!
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Are there any updates for this? :oThis is what I have so far. More to come!
Everything is so tiny, and the zoom button doesn't work.
I am going to talk about choosing a deity for a cleric as its more significant.
1 Eliminate all the gods and character ideas that won't fit the party, more or less.
You can probably play a LN cleric of Asmodeus in a neutral party. With a bunch of Paladins...
2 Look at the game mechanics. I tend to start with mechanics and develop the personality more slowly and organically.
3 Consider the various game mechanic options I like and see how the characters are shaping up. Pick the one I like.
With non-clerics, I tend to have my character as the same alignment as the god I worship, and always with a cleric. It seems more logical to me if you think about what worship means. Of course humans are by no means always rational, but its still the way I think.
Everything is so tiny, and the zoom button doesn't work.
Yeah, I noticed that. Try downloading the file to your computer and then opening it there.
It looks fantastic thus far, Dustin! Looking forward to seeing more! :)
Thanks Sacredless!
With non-clerics, I tend to have my character as the same alignment as the god I worship, and always with a cleric. It seems more logical to me if you think about what worship means. Of course humans are by no means always rational, but its still the way I think.
I used to do that more consistently, but recently I've been running a single-player Moonsea-based game and they arrived in Hillsfar, where the Red Plumes (the over-lord's personal mercenary army) almost all were absolute believers in Tempus (a chaotic neutral deity of war)... and almost all were neutral evil (with a fair amount of lawful or chaotic thrown in there with a few neutrals).
And that... was really fascinating. Tempus was definitively two steps away, alignment-wise, from the "general" alignment of the group. So why were they so ardent?
Precedent, and the power of a priest who was within alignment specs. The local high priest was CN, and quite powerful. A lover of battle, he sees the Zhents (lawful evil, to the core) as a rather terrible thing, and the Red Plumes are the largest singular military force in the southern region of the Moonsea, and also completely devoted to destroying the Zhentarim. So great is the priest's faith and zealotry, that he preaches that death in battle is the honorable way to go... and the 'Plumes believe and follow. They honor their fallen comrades (evil =/= without friends), they show great courage, and generally just want to shove steel into people's faces... perfect sociopathic neutral evil behavior, that just kind of dovetails nicely with Tempus' position as a god of war.
This dichotomy, the rather intense difference between their alignment and faith fascinated me, and was something that really caught me off guard.
And, before I really thought through why the relationship worked, I'll admit that I kind of hated it.
But having played through them as GM, really getting into their mindset and understanding who and what they are, it... really works. It makes a lot of sense that they'd follow the battle lord, especially given that the cleric blesses them before battle all the time with spells from the lord of battle, gives rousing and inspiring wartime speeches to steel them for combat, and opposes their greatest enemy. Not to mention that the cleric was strong allies with the overlord that paid them (before said overlord's alignment went south, I'd guess, as he was originally true neutral), and under that overlord they went from a simple mercenary band of a few hundred to over five-thousand strong, with practically unlimited authority within the city of Hillsfar (including brutal punishments and shaking down merchants for protection), so long as they don't interrupt trade.
That kind of thing can create those seemingly impossible situations, and... it's actually pretty great.
They genuinely believe they love Tempus as he is, even as they don't mesh alignment-wise. They honor him as their god, the priest as their chaplain, and are ardently faithful, even as they misunderstand some of his core tenets (despite said priest's efforts - the guy doesn't have that big a charisma bonus).
Anyway, while I still feel that it would be far more common for creatures to follow gods with similar alignments, the experience of the Tempus-worshiping Red Plumes actually taught me a lot about how strong dichotomies can come into being, and I've lost a lot of my aversion to such things.
EDIT: dang it, bag! Ninja'd.