Information on Camazotz?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


Who is this deity? His domains are listed in Inner Sea Gods, and part of his realm was described in Book of the Damned: Lords of Chaos, but beside that there seems to be little information.
Who worships him, and what are his and his cults goal?


Here you go!


Okay, thats helpful, but whats his agenda? And who are these priests who worship him?


???

Those... are some strange questions.

His agenda is "I'm a chaotic evil abyss-dwelling monstrosity focused on bats, blood, caverns, and nocturnal predators."

The priests that worship him are those to whom such things are interesting or important for whatever reason. They are, simply defined, the priests that worship him. If that seems tautological, that's because it is. But that's the same answer we can give you about any priest of any deity, outside of campaign-specifics which are up to the GM (or AP).

I mean, who would worship a goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath? The priests who worship her (because her portfolio is of interest to them). That's Urgathoa.

This guy is bats, blood, caverns, and nocturnal predators. Anything that makes those things more important is something that pleases him, because it makes him more important. Anything that makes those things less important infuriates him because they make him less important by extension.

That's pretty much all you need to know.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for specific rivalries with other gods, or whatever, there doesn't seem to be anything like that.

He's not a demon lord, merely a minor god, but he lives in the Abyss... therefore, it's likely that he has bad relationships with some demon lords and dangerous but interesting relationships with others. Probably not friends with Lamashtu, but maybe a lover/spawner of children with her. Definitely not friends with the qlippoth - any of them. Fundamentally, the idea that he pulls souls of worshipers to himself puts him at direct opposition to what the qlippoth are about. He may hate or love Nocticula for killing Vyriavaxus. He probably hates Abraxus for "taking" the land of Black Blood from him.

His home realm. Beyond that, I don't think you're going to get many answers that you don't develop yourself.


Tacticslion wrote:

His agenda is "I'm a chaotic evil abyss-dwelling monstrosity focused on bats, blood, caverns, and nocturnal predators."

....
I mean, who would worship a goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath? The priests who worship her (because her portfolio is of interest to them). That's Urgathoa.

Agenda means goals. Even CE gods have an endgoal. Their interests are simelar to this goals, but they don´t really reveal them. Kostchichie wants to recover the stolen fragment of his soul, to regain his former form, despite having giants in his portfolio. Urxhel hates trolls, despite having trolls in his portfolio. Hell, even Cthulluh has an endgoal. Camatzoz is either a mindless monster, or he has a goal.

Does he want to cover the world in shadows? Does he want to tear down society? Thats my question.
And the black blood of Orv? Did he want it, because it was powerful magic, or did he want it because it´s a metapher for blood? This behaviour suggest a greater plan.

Urgathoas worshippers are people seeking immortality and people who want enjoy endless feasts, humanoids, and undead.
This is the bulk of her church.
What is the bulk of Camazotz church? Werebats? Assassinsguilds? Savages, who fear the darkness? Aberrations?


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I'm sure he has goals, but until we get a deity article about him in a adventure path, I doubt we will seem him fleshed out more.

Dark Archive

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Religious practices might include staking people (captured enemies, people who broke arbitrary laws, whatever) out for nocturnal predators / vampire bats, to 'keep them happy' and from devouring the local worshippers.

That this might end up with the unfortunate result of encouraging local predators to lurk around the communities and wait for their free meals of long pig would be amusing to the CE god, and kind of a 'stupid tax' on his followers, since they'd be inadvertently training the local monsters that they are yummy and that lurking around their communities is a great way to stay fed.

On the other hand, well-fed beasties might also be prone to not eating the local priests and their followers, since they have grown accustomed to not eating people that aren't tied up and incapable of putting up a fight (or smeared in aromatic butter, or wearing tinkly bells, or some other sign that this here one's for eatin' and that one there's not for eatin'), leading to the local priesthood perhaps having 'trained' (kinda/sorta...) nocturnal beasties like dire vampire bats, or stirges, or whatever, on call to impress the hoi-polloi (and secure their own positions of power in these communities) and fight off rivals.

The followers might consider it in their best interests to propitiate their god, and feed the beasties, because it's the way the god (or, his priests) taught them how to live in this monster-infested area, and also sort of 'protects' them from rival tribes or communities, who *don't* have this special sort of tactic for co-existing with the local nocturnal predatory creatures. They might think themselves blessed with the gods protection, or just cleverer than their neighbors, who live in fear of the beasties they've (more or less) 'tamed' by feeding them regularly. The priests of Camazotz would encourage this sort of thinking, and suggest that the followers of less clever / less brave / less worthy gods in neighboring communities are fit only to feed the beasties, encouraging raids on those communities to take captives to bring home and stake out for the beasties.

The fact that their practices are the *reason* why their area has such a thriving population of man-eating nocturnal beasties, while neighboring communities don't have to take prisoners and feed them to the predators, because they have heroes who go out and kill them / keep them away from their communities, is an irony lost on these Camazotz worshippers, who grew up with the simple formula of 'feed monsters, don't get eaten by monsters' and are not eager to stop doing what has worked for them for so many generations.

Camazotz probably finds it funny that he's got entire human communities trapped in a cycle of degeneracy, increasingly incapable of even conceiving of breaking free from this tradition of feeding each other to monsters...


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Iirc Camazotz predates Pathfinder, appearing in 1e/2e Greyhawk as an Olman deity and is based on a real world Mayan deity/demon . He's the vampire Death Bat!

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