Are they good analogs to fiends? I don't own the "Inner Sea Gods" sourcebook so I'm really in the dark about them.
Empyreal Lords are thematically & mechanically the Celestial equivalents to the Archdevils & Demon Lords. They are demigod-level entities capable of bestowing divine magic upon worshipers.
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It's a difficult question, because Empyreal Lords are impossible to describe. One might ask the same about birds. What are birds? We just don't know.
Pretty much Good demigods.
Hmm.. as demigod level entities, do they grant spells all the way to 9th level, or do they, as in 1e I believe, only grant up to 3rd?
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Hmm.. as demigod level entities, do they grant spells all the way to 9th level, or do they, as in 1e I believe, only grant up to 3rd?
This is all online.
All the way to 9th.
A mythic (N)PC with divine source is the only sort of spell granting entity that can fail to provide 9th level spells.
(Divine source lets you grant spells up to your tier.)
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It's a difficult question, because Empyreal Lords are impossible to describe. One might ask the same about birds. What are birds? We just don't know.
Magnets, how do they work?
For all intents and purposes, they're gods you can kill.
Several (if not all), have 4 Domains and 4 Subdomains.
Arch Devils, Demon Lords, Empyreal Lords, and Great Old Ones are all not-gods.
Technically Deities in Pathfinder are so OP that they can't be encountered, and fiat things into happening.
They're Yoda's mantra incarnate - "Do, or do not; there is no try"
Deities don't roll - Deities simply DO.
Demon Lords, Archdevils, Empyreal Lords, Great Old Ones, and any other Mythic Tier 10 monsters built in a similar manner are a concession that allows players to Rage Against the Heavens and cause Ragnarok if they really feel like it - you won't find Irori being stat'ed out, but you sure as hell can punch Great Cthulhu in his face if you want (well, assuming you even CAN, but you have more of a chance against the Slumbering One than you do with mussing Irori's hair).
Here's the information you're looking for. Inner Sea Gods is also good, but it doesn't focus on the Empyreal Lords specifically.
It's a difficult question, because Empyreal Lords are impossible to describe. One might ask the same about birds. What are birds? We just don't know.
What are birds? They are delicious.
Here's the information you're looking for. Inner Sea Gods is also good, but it doesn't focus on the Empyreal Lords specifically.
Thanks. Now to scrape up the cash... lol
Empyreal Lords, or the Lords of the Empyrean, are unique outsiders who have transcended their original forms and have acquired a small spark of divinity, becoming demigods.[1][2] They guide mortals on the various paths to righteousness,[3] and the goddess Sarenrae herself is said to have risen from their ranks.[4] Angels, archons, azatas, and powerful agathions known as agathion leaders have all entered the ranks of empyreal lords.[5]
Source. More information on each of the lords is also available.
Thanks, Kudaku. Right after I looked at your link I found a link on Archives of Nethys. Looks like I'll be adding to the religion in my homebrew, now.
Thanks, all!
Some of the LG ones used to be called arch-angels iirc.
Happy to help. :)
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It's a difficult question, because Empyreal Lords are impossible to describe. One might ask the same about birds. What are birds? We just don't know.
A warm blooded vertibrate with feathers and a four-chambered heart. That's like sixth grade biology, IIRC.
The real question is, as I asked JJ on his thread (and was flat-out denied an answer) given that full deities can die, such as Aroden, and demigods such as Empyreal Lords, Great Old Ones, Arch Devils, and Demon Lords can grant just as powerful spells and have their own worshippers... or even (in the case of Sarenrae, Lamashtu and Asmodeus) ascend TO deityhood, what is it that makes a deity a deity? Why is it THEY can't be statted out, but the nigh-gods can be? What is the defining characteristic of full deityhood, in non-rules terms?
I would guess the same arbitrary reasons that Jesus is more legitimate than Thor, because.
I would guess the same arbitrary reasons that Jesus is more legitimate than Thor, because.
They are different religions entirely. One literally claims mutual exclusivity from the other.
Mephistopheles and Asmodeus, however, are from the same religious pantheon, and not only do they not claim to be mutually exclusive, but are allies...yet Asmodeus is a true deity and Mephistopheles a mere demigod archdevil. Both have worshippers, both grant a full spectrum of spells, both can, according to the laws of Golarion, die...one is a deity, one is not...with no further explanation than "that's just how it is"...heck, no definition of WHAT it is, though, or what IT means!
A more proper analogy to real world religion would be the Titans and the Olympians, Ganesh and Shiva, or anything else that is literal in-pantheon comparison.
I think, practically speaking, it is the rules terms that predominate: if it has stats, a player will come up with a plausible way to kill it, and I gather that’s not the way the developers envisage deities for the setting. In non-rules terms, given what sorts of amazing things high-level characters can do, let alone demi-gods or full deities, I think you would have to think about being able to do things that even such powerful beings would find worthy of reverence. To paraphrase Zaphod Beeblebrox, “We’re not going to be great – we’re not going to be amazing – we’re going to be AMAZINGLY AMAZING!” Or as someone else posted earlier, by whatever unfathomable quirk of fate and the metaphysics of the Golarion multiverse,
Deities don't roll - Deities simply DO.
What would a being have to be able to do, perhaps, or have done, for something as powerful as an empyreal lord to recognize a qualitative difference between their ranks in existence? I don't know about you, but my imagination is beginning to balk - hence the Hitchhiker's Guide reference. :)
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Sarenrae's throwdown with Rovagug would be a pretty good example.
She was an Empyreal Lord (presumably CR 30) when she entered that fray.
She not only didn't die, she stopped Rovagug in its tracks long enough for a number of other deities to rally to her side (and build a prison for it); she ultimately punched Rovagug out and shoved it into the Dead Vault.
By the act of being the first being to go toe-to-toe with Rovagug and not merely live, but outright win, she ascended to being an actual deity.
She probably made the breakthrough mid-battle, even. A trial by fire.
I think it comes down - if it has stats, it has defined limits. Since true gods don't have stats, they don't have defined limits.
Cernunnos, Vildais, Ragathiel, etc. - they can exhaust their powers and run out of steam.
Sarenrae can't.
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Ascending to godhood is possible, obviously.
Cayden Cailean passed the test of the Starstone, after all.
Dude solo'd the Tomb of Horrors and beat Acererak by LITERALLY beating him.
All while drunk.
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...
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SHUT UP - IT'S MY HEADCANON!
Look, I'm trying to point out that if your looking for a rational set of objective reasons for something within the context of gods and religion, your going to be disappointed... Period.
Personally, my stance on gods vs demigods and the topic of death is this: demigods can be killed by PCs, gods can be killed by plot devices. A good example would be the Azlanti goddess Acavna, who died shattering the aboleth-summoned meteorite which caused Earthfall into a thousand pieces, or Amaznen, who was so distraught over Acavna's death that he sacrificed himself to drain away all the magic remaining in those fragments, thereby saving Golarion from utter annihilation.
However, and this is a BIG however... those were minor deities. Full deities, yes, and thus not entities you would actually stat up and allow PCs to fight, but still minor deities more or less only worshiped on Golarion. By comparison, Pharasma is the goddess of the Boneyard everywhere and is many orders of magnitude more infinitely powerful than any other deity in Golarion's pantheon save perhaps Asmodeus and Rovagug.
Similarly, Aroden was pretty much only worshiped on Golarion, and so his death was, in the grand scale of things, not actually a very big deal, and was perhaps for equally important reasons as Acavna and Amaznen's. Indeed, he might have given his life using all his divine power to accomplish one single goal in intentional emulation of two of the deities he would have once worshiped as a mortal.
I know the mechanical definition of a full deity is that they're not statted and never will be, but my point is what is the in-universe difference between, say, the most powerful demigod and the weakest deity? What is that dividing line? For example, Demon Lords control a layer of the abyss, while Nascent Demon Lords do not. That is a distinct point of ascension. That is what makes a Demon Lord.
Maybe Sarenrae changed mid battle to a deity, as has been postulated, but HOW did she change? "To a deity", obviously, but what is the difference?
JJ has said before, IIRC, that number of worshippers isn't what does it or even what grants them power. After all Cayden and the other ascended humans (probably) didn't have worshippers the second they finished the starstone test, and I'm sure Rovagug didn't have enough worshippers to justify needing a confederation of gods to bring him down.
So if it's not number of worshippers, it's not the ability to grant powers, and it's not even immortality of all things, what is pathfinder's in-universe, non-rules qualifier of pure divinity vs nigh divinity?
I think the idea is that "Demigods" like Great Old Ones, Empyreal Lords, Archdevils, etc., are all localized to one planet or another, while true Deities are universal.
Think of it like this - in DC, Zeus is a God, yes, but his power is limited so that he can only affect things on whatever planet he's on, which is typically Earth; likewise, even New Gods like Darkseid and High Father are limited in influence mainly to only New Genesis or Apokalips, though as they are able to use Mother Boxes, they can travel to other worlds and influence them while they are there.
On the other hand, there ARE true Deities in DC - true universal forces - and they're much higher than Gods. While a few cosmic entities like Kismet do exist, the highest of the high, the true "gods" of DC, number 8: The Creator, and The Endless.
Though even The Endless can be killed (ironically, even Death herself), they are LITERALLY forces of the Multiverse, and they MUST exist or else reality itself would start to fall apart. There's even evidence that they traverse ALL realities, and are OMNIversal beings (Death has shown up, in passing, in Marvel comics, meaning the Endless may exist in all realities, not just the DC universes).
Think of the Deities of Pathfinder like the Endless - their power is SO vast that they are forces across the entire universe in PF, while Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, Archdevils, and even Great Old Ones have very limited influence on reality (typically the planet and the satellites of whatever planet they're usually on).
I think it's a matter of scale, influence, and voyance. The distance between a god and demigod is greater than the distance between a demigod and a mortal.
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I think the idea is that "Demigods" like Great Old Ones, Empyreal Lords, Archdevils, etc., are all localized to one planet or another, while true Deities are universal.
Nope. Iomaede isn't even much known on the other side of Golarion, while some of the demigods such as the four horsemen or some of the more powerful demon lords or archdevils are truly multiversal powers,
Cernunnos, Vildais, Ragathiel, etc. - they can exhaust their powers and run out of steam.
Sarenrae can't.
Aw don't just tease us like this.
Aw don't just tease us like this.Cernunnos, Vildais, Ragathiel, etc. - they can exhaust their powers and run out of steam.
Sarenrae can't.
Energizer Dawnflower.
*stares in wonder at what his simple question has wrought*
Dude solo'd the Tomb of Horrors and beat Acererak by LITERALLY beating him.
Is that really written somewhere? I didn't think they went into that much detail.
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So if it's not number of worshippers, it's not the ability to grant powers, and it's not even immortality of all things, what is pathfinder's in-universe, non-rules qualifier of pure divinity vs nigh divinity?
I'd say it's the scale they can operate on.
For example, most demigods cap out at a realm about the size of an Earth-class planet.
Desna has a realm on the Prime Material that's a star. And that's just one of her divine realms. She has at least one other.
Asmodeus found an existing plane (possibly already inhabited by the kytons), conquered the entire plane (causing the kytons and pack up and leave for the Shadow Plane), and remade it to match his desires - including dividing it up into 8 layers and delegating seven of the layers to his servants. He later created what's now the 3rd layer to serve as the "house" for Mammon, a favored servant who'd fallen in Asmodeus' service but not quite actually died.
Not all deities choose to operate on a large scale (I don't think Achaechek even maintains a realm), but when they do, it's big.
I know the mechanical definition of a full deity is that they're not statted and never will be, but my point is what is the in-universe difference between, say, the most powerful demigod and the weakest deity?
What's the in-universe difference between a fourth level character and a fifth level character?