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As someone with a bizarre imagination and a odd taste in music, many of my ideas end up originating from songs, like this one, a Servent of a dark God who lacks the general maliciousness of most others of her gods faithful(idea originating from 'take me to church'). I was thinking that might be interesting especially if I chose to play a warpriest, since this opens the doorway to a more militant options without locking me into a specific alignment(like lawful good or chaotic evil).
The question is should I. Considering all the stigma attached to evil, especially chaotic evil, Should I try building a warpriest of lamashtu that is chaotic neutral. I would make no secret of it, but still try to be a hero like the others.
You can be a divine caster of any alignment outside of Paladin or Druid - which have specific class restrictions. Your only real restrictions are a) if you want to have the character worship a specific diety at which point your character needs to be in one step of that alignment and b) the alignment of your party members.
So if you wanted to worship Lamashtu (what's not to love - favourite weapon is a falchion and access to cool domains and subdomains) then yes, she is a very solid choice.
There are other evil-ish entities (Groetus and some of the Old Ones) which are more chaotic neutral which may suit too. I think it comes down to your concept and vision for the character.
Also can you elaborate more on the group your are playing in? Number of characters? Alignment? Their general disposition?
Be a character that takes an activity associated with the god, an activity that can be relatively benign, and be kind of evil in how you go about the activity (or at least more intense about it than a normal person).
For example, my Gunslinger of Dahak enjoys hunting. My neutral good Druid of the Silver Crusade also enjoys hunting, but in a more respectful and wholesome manner. My Gunslinger is more vicious and combatant about his hobby, and treats it more like his primary reason for adventuring.
One thing to bear in mind is that even if you are neutral you will detect as evil (and chaotic) because a warpriest's aura matching their god's alignment rather than their own. But so long as you don't have a paladin in the party, or good aligned cleric that likes to prep detect evil, that is largely a non-issue (though NPC's might be tough).
The other issue I see is that a warpriest isn't like any other cleric, they are all about fighting. While a cleric can be a primary spellcaster and focus on some more benign aspects of an evil deity, a warpriest is already inherently more violent, meaning those who worship evil deities will have a hard time maintaining neutrality.
I seriously think that if you really want a neutral warpriest of an evil deity you'd be much better served going for a NE or LE deity, so you can claim to be fighting in the name of some potentially just goal.
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The reason I chose Lamashtu at first was in part the alignment fitted with the nature of the character. Chaotic evil is generally hedonists or rampaging monsters, rather than the psycopathic, world ending, or generally more dangerous neutral evils, and my character is less about law and order as much as "everyone needs to eat, and if that might mean killing, stealing or eating people, that's just how it goes down".
Another thing was in general first glance, Lamashtu really does not have an agenda of world ending or pure destruction, she is just the mother of monster kind and celebrates deformity, which I could have the character possibly interpret as a love for even the lowest and most down trodden of the masses.
I am also not as familiar with the other gods of Golorian, having never played a game of pathfinder before, despite a real desire to play. So what I know is from only a handful of sources.
Also the character I am making is female, and also I want to have her worship a female God of Golorian, and there are not that many that fall into that area, as much as I would like. I might turn to searching for another God of that alingment, while also looking for a more suitable God for my purposes.
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A chaotic neutral follower of Lamashtu would be most focused on the beauty of the grotesque. Think Tim Burton style heroes.
I picture a character who is fatalistic about life and death, who honors deformity, and views his divine duties from an authoritarian perspective. In his personal life, he doesn't go out of his way to slaughter people or exploit them, and can even be nice to his friends. On duty, though, he is unflinching. He's probably superstitious and duty-bound, with a flash of greed and cruelty.
Its good your considering the idea, I approve of expanding the concept of divine followers.
Anyway, Lamashtu seems to have a portfolia focused on corruption. Her medium: birth, deformity, etc, are towards achieving the despoiling of purity (Like all demons really). So, unless your character understands Lamashtu in a different light, how will you interpret corruption of purity, and why fight for it? THAT is the question to ask.
Alternatively, the goddess of gluttony, hedonism and undead; Urgathoa is a very easy to understand motivation for non-evil to appreciate. No one wants to die, and everyone enjoys the good life.
Since Chaotic Neutral is your only option, your character would basically just be a giant dick.
You could do:
TRAITS Fate's Favored, Reactionary
VARIANT CHANNELING Monsters (Harm) (Affected Creatures gain a channel penalty on attack/damage rolls against summoned/called creatures equal to -(1 +1 for every 5 Warpriest levels you have).)
BLESSINGS Strength, Chaos
RACE Hmn Weapon Finesse
CL1 Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Kukri)
CL2
CL3 Dual Enhancement, Double Slice
CL4 Channel (-1)
CL5 ???, Channel (-2)
CL6 Weapon Specialization, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
CL7 ???
CL8
CL9 Improved Critical (Kukri), Greater Weapon Focus
CL10 Channel (-3)
CL11 Quicken Blessing (Chaos)
CL12 Greater Weapon Specialization, Great Two-Weapon Fighting
Make sure to pick up a pair of Agile Kukris asap, although the high Crit Rate means you won't HAVE to worry too much about that as usual.
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Its good your considering the idea, I approve of expanding the concept of divine followers.
Anyway, Lamashtu seems to have a portfolia focused on corruption. Her medium: birth, deformity, etc, are towards achieving the despoiling of purity (Like all demons really). So, unless your character understands Lamashtu in a different light, how will you interpret corruption of purity, and why fight for it? THAT is the question to ask.
Alternatively, the goddess of gluttony, hedonism and undead; Urgathoa is a very easy to understand motivation for non-evil to appreciate. No one wants to die, and everyone enjoys the good life.
The difficulty in choosing between the two is that generally Urgathoa is almost as monsterous as Lamashtu, considering that the palid princess played a big part in causing trouble in "curse of the Crimson throne". The problem is with viewing either in a good light is they are creatures of evil, and therefore possess the stigma. It would be easier to worship a splinter variation of either God, which creates its own list of problems.
I don't delve much into deities but I skimmed some of Lamashtu to see if I could help. There's a line, "The cults of Lamashtu celebrate no known regular holidays, though births, deformities and demonic visitations are often the cause of hedonistic and debauched celebrations among the them."
So, what if you focused heavily on being in awe of deformities, demonic visitations and corruption? Example: "Oh my... are those tentacles you have instead of hands? Amazing. Simply awe inspiring. You ma'am, you're quite possibly my new favorite person.... YOU HAVE TENTACLES FOR FEET TOO! WHAT?!"
Or. You could be artistic (picking of skills for it such as craft: painting) and you might vandalize mundane pieces of art, statues of angels, paintings of a pleasant woman and corrupt them into something your character feels is more beautiful. Essentially you don't think mr. potato head looks right with everything in normal place, so you rearrange it so his arm is where his eye would be. Perhaps you could even be compulsive about it. Finding it hard not to "correct" the world into your view of beauty.
Not sure that will work however, just flavoring. As I said, I don't play divine casters almost at all, so I'm unsure of what's required to make the warpriest work roleplay wise.
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Since Chaotic Neutral is your only option, your character would basically just be a giant dick
That is not true, unless you are basing that on either chaotic characters you have seen played, or ones you have played. Considering that (if she is even worshipping Lamashtu after this thread), she will be defiantly be a little unstable in the head, that does not make her the kind to just mess with people without good reason. She only lets the crazy out in battle, when she dons her jackel mask and starts laying into her opponents with a pair of falchions. After that, she generally is calm and collected, if quirky with very odd interests(like trying to tame some monsters(without much success,since Lamashtu is not a God of animals)).
She is not a fan of order, since order is what keeps people oppressed and keeps the 'unwashed masses in a state of squalor' while the rich can lord it over them. This haterd of order does not mean that she actively goes out of her way to cause the authorities problems. She does believe in the benefits of oopertunities being taken while the brand is hot, so if someone loses something valuable, she will try to get it back for a reward.
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I don't delve much into deities but I skimmed some of Lamashtu to see if I could help. There's a line, "The cults of Lamashtu celebrate no known regular holidays, though births, deformities and demonic visitations are often the cause of hedonistic and debauched celebrations among the them."
So, what if you focused heavily on being in awe of deformities, demonic visitations and corruption? Example: "Oh my... are those tentacles you have instead of hands? Amazing. Simply awe inspiring. You ma'am, you're quite possibly my new favorite person.... YOU HAVE TENTACLES FOR FEET TOO! WHAT?!"
Or. You could be artistic (picking of skills for it such as craft: painting) and you might vandalize mundane pieces of art, statues of angels, paintings of a pleasant woman and corrupt them into something your character feels is more beautiful. Essentially you don't think mr. potato head looks right with everything in normal place, so you rearrange it so his arm is where his eye would be. Perhaps you could even be compulsive about it. Finding it hard not to "correct" the world into your view of beauty.
Not sure that will work however, just flavoring. As I said, I don't play divine casters almost at all, so I'm unsure of what's required to make the warpriest work roleplay wise.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and what a beholder finds beautiful might differ from what a human finds beautiful.
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Hello beloved sister, our great Mother loves all of her children even if they worship false parent idols. I try my best to convince them to come back to our glorious Mother, to increase the size of our loving family, and to come out the cities to behold the savage beauty of the wild. Our great Mother finds beauty in everyone of her children much like her beloved acquaintance Shelyn who I soon hope is brought into the fold of our family.
Sorry I got sidetracked sister you must know that our beloved Mother loves when we complete great feats in her name and the more we spread her name the more of her children will flock home. Rescue a nation, or a prince from a dragon and always remember that Mother has been cheering you from afar, make sure that they know that her help allowed you to preform such a feat and hope that they join our loving family.
The idea that such a warpriest is a giant dick or has to fetishize acts of evil presumes that such a character acknowledges Good as a worthwhile concept. You could be fairly nice and simply not believe this "Good" idea is worthwhile in itself. Presumably not all the Aztecs were resolutely evil; some were probably just like, "Well, the gods like to drink blood, you see. So feeding them blood is just what you do. Welp, time to go sacrifice some captives."
If you just don't psychologically, ethically acknowledge that every being has inherent worth and dignity, there isn't any kind of contradiction with, on the one hand, being basically decent, and on the other, worshiping a demon goddess. Being nice to your neighbors and slaughtering enemies of your god of deformity and monstrous fecundity does not present any kind of contradiction if you don't believe in universal Good.
Vikings had no problem raiding their neighbors, stealing their stuff, and carrying off their women. Not doing that was just not a strong value in their culture. People in almost every culture in history have accepted slave ownership, an intrinsically unfair system that easily enables Evil. Yet, a good many of those people were probably Neutral. "Being unfair to slaves" was just not something that bothered them.
You could play her as an apologist for the goddess? You might want to consider the mutant eye trait which gives you a third eye. It could be because of this deformity you were scorned by wider society which drove you to the faith of Lamashtu, where ugliness and deformity is celebrated, despite you not being as evil and demented as a more typical follower. Since you're playing a female you might like this item:
Demon Mother's Mask.
Personally I think a priest of Lamashtu would want the unwashed masses to live in a state of squalor and would be more then happy to see people oppressed so long as they're the ones doing the oppressing. Chaos in the case of worshippers of Lamashtu is that it is the most direct means to the destruction of civilisations. The faith of Lamashtu is all about raping, pillaging and spreading corruption - according faiths of corruption anyway. You would definitely be a heretic in this faith.
Side not: I find it irritating how hedonism is associated with evil and amorality in pathfinder. I'm quite happily playing a chaotic good hedonistic wizard at the moment.
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To me, any Neutral character removes herself from the morality of the question, and focuses more on the ideological principles.
Here's some evil deities and their neutral followers:
- Asmodeus: A LN character that thinks treaties, contracts and constitutions are the only way of bringing order to the world. Will try to twist contracts/agreements into her own favor though, arguing that this is not trickery -- she considers one person is as fit for ruling as its ability to best one's opponent's while technically keeping one's word.
- Lamashtu: A CN character who worships the Mother of Monsters for having the courage of improving upon nature with her own creativity... this guy just loves the idea of being able to shape beings by his own will, and create better, stronger, more powerful creatures. Believes insanity to be inspiration - as only through insanity one can truly envision things beyond one's limited senses.
- Norgober: A TN character who thinks knowledge is power. She doesn't want to murder, kill and steal just for the sake of power though -- yes, she's willing to go to any measure to obtain secrets, if the situation calls for it. Very objective driven, trying to maintain her affairs under full control, but not megalomaniac.
- Rovagug: A CN character who loves brawls, fights, skirmishes, battles, massacres, slaughters, you name it -- but just because he enjoys them does not mean he'll fight anyone. He's training for the end of times, for that one last, great battle... and he seeks worthy opponents of his blade. If faced with weaklings or harmless creatures, he doesn't consider that worth his time and will rather "annihilate" a good tankard of ale and be merry instead.
- Urgathoa: A TN character who is the ultimate hedonist. She'd forgo the usual culinary choices of other Urgathoan worshippers for a slow-cooked bronze dragon flesh entrecôte marinated in a fine wine aged by Elves for millennia. Her taste in carnal pleasures is quite similar, as well... "Life is but a candlelight waiting to be snuffed, so we might as well burn our brightest while we can" is her motto.
Just some ideas... see how they are all more focused on the ideals rather than in their completion.
(idea originating from 'take me to church')
Interesting. Wasn't that the song about gay men being persecuted, beaten and killed just because they are gay?
To me that sounds more like an evil follower of whatever god.On Topic: Lamashtu might be a difficult choice.
Slavery is oppression, so it would be better that the were no more slaves or slavers. So those she cannot free, or should not be free, she leaves to the will of the great mother(likely in front of some ravenous beast).
I don't think a Lamashtu follower would "problematize" this.
If you are free, great.
If you own slaves... good for you, I'm sure they'll be useful. Better keep them in line.
If you are a slave... then you are a huge chump. How can you even believe yourself to be a slave? Your mind is free, free to create, free to envision universes upon universes of your own creation...
If you consider yourself cursed for being a slave, then you lack imagination.. Your slavers are as in bondage to you as you are with them. Any link between a creature and another, including the link between a slave and his oppressor, can be exploited and perverted...
Your oppressors expect something of you. They believe they control you. Their minds have grown lazy and unimaginative... So hunger, my brother! Hunger for that reality in which these people who wrong you are the ones below your heel! Just as the Mother gave wings to the flightless and fangs to the toothless, you too, my brother, can cast a new fate for yourself...
(Of course, after saying this to a slave, a Lamashtu follower would feel extremely gratified for creating a new monster of her own...)
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To me, any Neutral character removes herself from the morality of the question, and focuses more on the ideological principles.
Here's some evil deities and their neutral followers:
...
- Asmodeus: A LN character that thinks treaties, contracts and constitutions are the only way of bringing order to the world. Will try to twist contracts/agreements into her own favor though, arguing that this is not trickery -- she considers one person is as fit for ruling as its ability to best one's opponent's while technically keeping one's word.
- Lamashtu: A CN character who worships the Mother of Monsters for having the courage of improving upon nature with her own creativity... this guy just loves the idea of being able to shape beings by his own will, and create better, stronger, more powerful creatures. Believes insanity to be inspiration - as only through insanity one can truly envision things beyond one's limited senses.
- Norgober: A TN character who thinks knowledge is power. She doesn't want to murder, kill and steal just for the sake of power though -- yes, she's willing to go to any measure to obtain secrets, if the situation calls for it. Very objective driven, trying to maintain her affairs under full control, but not megalomaniac.
- Rovagug: A CN character who loves brawls, fights, skirmishes, battles, massacres, slaughters, you name it -- but just because he enjoys them does not mean he'll fight anyone. He's training for the end of times, for that one last, great battle... and he seeks worthy opponents of his blade. If faced with weaklings or harmless creatures, he doesn't consider that worth his time and will rather "annihilate" a good tankard of ale and be merry instead.
- Urgathoa: A TN character who is the ultimate hedonist. She'd forgo the usual culinary choices of other Urgathoan worshippers for a slow-cooked bronze dragon flesh entrecôte marinated in a fine wine aged by Elves for millennia. Her taste in carnal pleasures is quite
This I like. It makes sense that you have the key ideas being the main thing rather than the extremes of methods used to attain them. One Asmodian might beleive that to improve things you should go through the due process of law and order and he would be right, while another Asmodian goes for the whole oppression thing to ensure that order is kept, and to the God, that would also be considered right. Same can apply to neutral gods, as you have Servents of besmara being on both dashing and swashbuckling corsairs keeping evil at bay on one side, and on the other being true monsters that make even the most violent storm or monster look tame.
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Everyone always thinks that your goals must be openly evil to play an evil character.
Hogwash.
If possible to be less than not-at-all, this poor thinking applies far less to chaotic neutral worshippers of an evil Power.
Chaos = individual freedom, individual power, not collective power. Prizing deformity can easily be squeezed into this as a philosophy.
So play a character who is openly in favor of freedom, who is not interested in evil for evil's sake, but as a war priest enjoys the powers granted her. She can be bloodthirsty. That can resemble evil. But she's not killing them that don't need killing, she just loves her bloody work.
The goody two-shoes types object? Hell, what do they know? Their own paragons of good are the Paladins, and the paladins are constantly entering combat and slaying their enemies.
Further, see if your DM will grant you a modified power that makes it clear that your goddess grants you power differently than that granted to others. One good option is to give a bonus to each of your "cure" spells, but the scars only cure function, not appearance. Those who go into battle every day and get magically cured to go back again? They're going to look damn ugly after a while.
It's possible that people won't even look to your for healing, thinking that you won't have spontaneous heal spells - but you might.
You can love Lamashtu's focus on individual freedom and individual power and think the world of her willingness to love those that organized societies cast off ...while still wishing she might be less selfish. You think that there are no theological fights within Catholicism? Many of those priests are very different from each other in how they see God.
You're not nearly as limited as you think you are. Be a bloodthirsty warrior for freedom. That's everything She wants, isn't it? And yet, if you do it because you believe the world will be a better place if we learn to love the different and if we're not afraid to kill in the defense of a better world (and...
This is so true, I wish others would understand and utilise it more.
This I like. It makes sense that you have the key ideas being the main thing rather than the extremes of methods used to attain them. One Asmodian might beleive that to improve things you should go through the due process of law and order and he would be right, while another Asmodian goes for the whole oppression thing to ensure that order is kept, and to the God, that would also be considered right. Same can apply to neutral gods, as you have Servents of besmara being on both dashing and swashbuckling corsairs keeping evil at bay on one side, and on the other being true monsters that make even the most violent storm or monster look tame.
I like to think that churches of Asmodeus have LN, NE and LE followers struggling for power... the LN's are statesmen who only want to bring order to chaotic regions - the most palatable of the bunch and the ones chosen to represent the church abroad; the LE's are Saboranolan bureaucrats who want to bring everything under control of the church - so this makes them usually the most likely to hold positions of power in the church... the NE's are your run of the mill lawyer.
You could play her as an apologist for the goddess? You might want to consider the mutant eye trait which gives you a third eye. It could be because of this deformity you were scorned by wider society which drove you to the faith of Lamashtu, where ugliness and deformity is celebrated, despite you not being as evil and demented as a more typical follower. Since you're playing a female you might like
i'd also suggest something like this. You an be a warpriest with an agenda of part revenge, part wanting to show them you are better than them, part missionary and part revolutionary: tearing down the status quo order so we can build a better world from the ashes (where either monsters get to be the top dogs this time, or where monsters and fluffy kittens play together in the sunny fields)
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And if I need to die for that to happen, then I will do that. I would prefer to find another way. Maybe even go to mythic tIer and become a demigod so I have a better chance. I could happen. Not likely all over the world but it could happen, and for something as big as trying to change the world you need to start small.
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This I like. It makes sense that you have the key ideas being the main thing rather than the extremes of methods used to attain them. One Asmodian might beleive that to improve things you should go through the due process of law and order and he would be right, while another Asmodian goes for the whole oppression thing to ensure that order is kept, and to the God, that would also be considered right. Same can apply to neutral gods, as you have Servents of besmara being on both dashing and swashbuckling corsairs keeping evil at bay on one side, and on the other being true monsters that make even the most violent storm or monster look tame.I like to think that churches of Asmodeus have LN, NE and LE followers struggling for power... the LN's are statesmen who only want to bring order to chaotic regions - the most palatable of the bunch and the ones chosen to represent the church abroad; the LE's are Saboranolan bureaucrats who want to bring everything under control of the church - so this makes them usually the most likely to hold positions of power in the church... the NE's are your run of the mill lawyer.
Your run of the mill lawyer that will potentialy lie, cheat or manipulate legal loopholes to ensure his client gets off mostly Scot free.
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Now I am at a loss. I was completely unaware that a falchion was actually two handed(so there goes my duel wielding falchions) but also i consulted the relevant source books(faiths and philosophies, Faiths of Corruption, Champions of corruption, Champions of Balance and Faiths of Balance) and my character would need to be some kind of redemption seeking former cultist of Lamashtu(which is a lot harder than it sounds to try and be) and be pulling away from the goddess actively in some way.
The problem is I am now in a space of stuck, with no goddess i can actively turn to with ease.Other than neutral godesses, but that's a bit of a cop-out from whole "trying to do good, while also being tied to the dark malevolence of evil powers" thing. Its a really uncomfortable place to be in.
Maybe I do it based on a neutral demigod, or a misinterpretation of the gods teachings, as in following what i think is the right way, even though it runs counter to what most of the other servants of Lamashtu follow. That kind of thing i assume places you as an outsider to the cults more deviant activities, like handing out fliers for the next raid or acting as the door guard to the big orgies. The repeated not-getting-it has the effect of placing you as an expendable member, and while there is a taboo to killing members of lamashtu's faithful, there is nothing to stop them simply placing the character in a dangerous situation as a means of 'culling the weak from the herd'. And if they should come back, just calling them a heretic and butchering them on the spot.
I'm fond of the 'doing good with evil powers'trope (though I've yet to play it)but I don't think the warpriest is best suited to this as they must act in accordance with their deity or lose their class abilities and spells. Better classes suited to this trope are the sorcerer and bloodrager since their powers are tied to the blood and the witch and the oracle as they get their powers from ambiguous sources not necessarily of their own choosing.
You could play your priest as a sort of Social/Monster Darwinist.
You believe that Lamashtu has called you to cull the weak so that the strong and mutated survive and flourish. You can view killing a monster as returning it to Lamashtu so that she can make use of it and give birth to something better.
In social settings, you would find most humans unsuited for world Lamashtu is building, but you would think that those strong enough to adapt and survive are blessed by Lamashtu (even if they don't know it). You have no sympathy or pity for the weak, only respect for the strong.
You could also be a heretic in that you think of abnormality as a "deformity." You would think of anything that sets you above "normal" as a gift from Lamashtu, even if it is something non-worshipers of Lamashtu might also value. (i.e. abnormally high strength, abnormally high con, abnormally good swordsmen)
Your character could just be so bitter and cynical that she considers everyone a monster regardless of physical form. Including, perhaps most especially, her own self.
Perhaps due to lingering guilt over a past misdeed?