Morning,
So my players have moved from the idea of simply ruling the isle in the Way of the Wicked AP to wanting to kill the god Mitra.
Normally I would never allow this, but seeing this AP has no bearing on the inner sea (our normal stomping ground) and Mitra is never used anywhere else, I feel that this would be a once in a life time chance to have an epic mortal vs deity battle.
My question becomes this - How do my players pull Mitra from his home plane, where he would simply think them out of existence, to the prime where he would be 'killable'?
Never mind the stat block(s) or any of the actual fight, I am simply looking for advice on what would cause a god to manifest wholly on the prime plane.
Nothing.
Mitra might use an avatar to manifest to make an example of the PCs, but wouldn't be stupid enough to show up someplace Asmodeus himself could come wreck his day.
Just my 2 CP.
That having been said...if in your world this is the only place that venerates Mitra, it may behoove him to defend his worshipers, or he'll lose power. I still think swarming the place with high CR angels would be smarter than showing up himself, but, hey. Drama.
Is there seriously a Mitra (I haven't read WotW). Oh d&d and your taking real world gods/material.
Anyways.
Rules as written, the gods are beyond mortal reach, yeah?
Thankfully, who cares about that. You're going to have to make something up, but, that's something you can do!
For my part, when players put together these extreme goals I think the best way to handle it is make it a very, VERY complex ritual with complex and thematically appropriate steps. They need to research lost tomes, find these ancient secrets, then complete a series of quests to get all the pieces together, then write a spell that can use this unique magic to 'Trap' the god. This is very similar to how I am handling a player working on becoming a lich.
Off the cuff, what I would do is: As Krysbeayssfaz said, there IS no reason/way the god would choose to manifest on the prime - too dangerous/too much aftermath. But it IS plausible that he might send an avatar. Make it so the players discover a hint that the god can be "trapped" - that with the right magic/ritual, prepared and set, can force Mitra to manifest wholly into the body of an avatar he sent willingly.
There would be something like three pieces to the ritual, in addition to the quest of even *discovering* this stuff.
First, you require a True Link - something like, the most ancient reliquary of the god, their first link to the world, the first sacred thing they touched - this might be an ancient lost artifact, buried beneath the earth, or it might be sequestered at the heart of their most powerful temple.
Second, you require the spell - this is some sort of 9th+ level spell, with both arcane and divine components - maybe a reverse engineered Imprisonment, combined with a dimensional anchor, the symbol spell, etc - and then must be custom crafted for this exact casting. Maybe they require the aid (voluntary or otherwise) of several very powerful casters, or a mystic theurge, or maybe they need to hunt down rare and unique material components (other than the Focus - the True Link)
Third, you require the Net/Trap/Trigger - The PCs should have to build, say, a set of towers, or nodes, or whatever around the island, bound to this spell, which, when the god is inside their border, focus the power and lock it down to trap him on the island. These could be large scale, or small, or whatever you want. They might also be a vulnerable point after the spell is cast.
With these three pieces, the PCs are ready to cast the ritual to trap the god (it might even weaken him, or make him only obscenely powerful instead of impossibly powerful, who knows). Killing him is up to them.
There should also be other obstacles - for example, this plan must be kept secret - Mitra may not know how, but all gods are cautious in their own way, and aware that they are not *truly* immortal. If he finds out, their plan is ruined. This means they still need to be schemey, and come up with a way to move forward without tipping their hand.
They should face opposition - even if the god doesn't know what's going on, other agents of god, or his church, or whatever should be set against them - especially if you go the true link route, give them a foe in the paladins and clerics and slayers of the diety, backed by all the divine might of the PCs final foe.
Finally, they need to come up with a plan to lure Mitra's avatar to the plane. What is their plan to get him to manifest an avatar, instead of, as Kynsaeazyzn said, just sending an army of angels?
The key to this phase/obstacles - in particular parts 1 and 3, are that you *don't* need an answer. In fact, it is much, much better if you set the stage and let the PCs come up with their own plan. It doesn't really *matter* what lures the god - let them come up with an idea or two, make it difficult to accomplish, and let them succeed in the end in luring him.
In general I don't think gods should be killable but....
Any fight needs to be harder than fighting a
at the same time or it will be anticlimatic. Use the mythic rules to come up with something terrifying if you want a fight, make sure it has a good chance of crushing the pc's (Level 20 mythic rank 10 Paladin would be a good start with some extra spell immunities , flight etc).
Also consider Mitra#s church worships 3 aspects of Mitra perhaps they have to deal with all three either at the same time or sequentially.
There is as a plot hook mentioned in one of the books a ship lost at sea while carrying a Mitran artefact that the church is desperate to recover perhaps this is a remnant of Mitra's mortal life and can be used to summon him to the material plane in a mortal form.
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Others have had good ideas about avatars, and I mostly agree; Mitra would use an avatar to solve his worldly problems.
But what if the avatar fails?
Well, he'll send another, and another, and...
But what if they all fail? Meanwhile, Mitra is losing worshipers, losing temples, and losing divine power. I mean, there must be SOME reason beyond ego that gods want/need worshipers, right? That reason is power. It's been suggested in numerous books and movies and RPGs that the amount of power a god has is proportional to the amount of worship he receives. A god with zero worshipers dies, or at least becomes non-existent.
So if Talingarde is the only place where he is worshiped, and all of his high ranking priests and largest temples and really all or nearly all of his mundane worshipers are being tortured and killed and destroyed, and if every avatar he sends gets destroyed, then he will HAVE TO take matters into his own hands or risk annihilation.
All your players need to do is start destroying all things and all people who worship Mitra. It's not enough to make the religion illegal - faithful worshipers will keep worshiping in secret. Kill them. Destroy the temples, let no two stones of a Mitra holy site every come into contact again.
Plus all that other stuff about rituals and traps and artifacts and such.
I'm currently running WotW, the players are carefully chosen gestalt characters and will be Mythic by the end of book 2.
They might have a chance to defeat a god, after book 6, maybe.
Gods don't follow normal rules. They can bend them.
Remember what fighting death was like in 2nd ED when you pulled his card form the deck of many things? Yeah, multiple attacks per round vs multiple foes and spells, etc. It should be really really hard, and most of them should die in the effort, imho. He's a god.
In general I don't think gods should be killable but....
Any fight needs to be harder than fighting a
** spoiler omitted **
at the same time or it will be anticlimatic. Use the mythic rules to come up with something terrifying if you want a fight, make sure it has a good chance of crushing the pc's (Level 20 mythic rank 10 Paladin would be a good start with some extra spell immunities , flight etc).Also consider Mitra#s church worships 3 aspects of Mitra perhaps they have to deal with all three either at the same time or sequentially.
There is as a plot hook mentioned in one of the books a ship lost at sea while carrying a Mitran artefact that the church is desperate to recover perhaps this is a remnant of Mitra's mortal life and can be used to summon him to the material plane in a mortal form.
** spoiler omitted **
What book mentions this sunken ship? I can use that as a tie in.
Thank you all for you assistance. I know gods should not be killable and I never have allowed anything like this before, which is why I would like to try it.
We are adding mythic into the mix to even give them a chance, but looking over some of the older editions stat blocks for gods is scary.
pg 83 book 1 The Wreck of the Dawn triumphant
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We are adding mythic into the mix to even give them a chance, but looking over some of the older editions stat blocks for gods is scary.
Previous edition stat blocks aren't super meaningful - for example in 3.5 there was a pseudo-rule that in addition to divine rank (god level), a god couldn't be lower than 40th level - except that's totally meaningless with PF.
Mythic might do something, but also, I would encourage you to think outside the box in terms of 'big epic boss fight' - you want the final showdown to be good, but you can get just as much meaning/epicness out of the journey - we've already said something has to happen to make the god mortal - there's nothing to stop you from making that tone Mitra down to 'EXTREMELY powerful' instead of 'a god', you know? And then design an interesting encounter.
I think it'd probably be more interesting to build him as a variant solar w/ class levels, or a 20th level gestalt cleric/something mythic 10, lus some goodies, plus his allies/minions (he has to have something, as single mob boss fights are never good in PF) - then you can add some interesting set pieces - maybe he's teleporting across the island, trying to undo what the PCs did as the fight continues.
Maybe at 2/3HP he summons half a dozen major angels and tries to delay the PCs. Maybe he can cast miracle every 1d4 rounds (unless the PCs do something? Who knows) and true resurrects the champions of good/high priest/20th level paladin the PCs thought they had defeated, etc.
Edit: Oh, one other thought -
But what if they all fail? Meanwhile, Mitra is losing worshipers, losing temples, and losing divine power. I mean, there must be SOME reason beyond ego that gods want/need worshipers, right? That reason is power. It's been suggested in numerous books and movies and RPGs that the amount of power a god has is proportional to the amount of worship he receives. A god with zero worshipers dies, or at least becomes non-existent.
So if Talingarde is the only place where he is worshiped, and all of his high ranking priests and largest temples and really all or nearly all of his mundane worshipers are being tortured and killed and destroyed, and if every avatar he sends gets destroyed, then he will HAVE TO take matters into his own hands or risk annihilation.
All your players need to do is start destroying all things and all people who worship Mitra. It's not enough to make the religion illegal - faithful worshipers will keep worshiping in secret. Kill them. Destroy the temples, let no two stones of a Mitra holy site every come into contact again.
I'm not really a fan of this idea for a couple of reasons. One is that, even in an evil game I honestly don't think massive wonton slaughter and genocide is exactly... fun to RP. Another is that IC, this is a fantastic way to get every good character, nation, and god actively working against you. There's a reason Asmodeous sends agents to Talingrade, NOT an army of devils. You think Iomedae/Sarenrae are just gonna like, chill while you commit genocide? Even if they don't want to start a war/divine conflict, they're gonna sit still for that? Didn't go so great for the Nazis.
On that note, actually, I doubt *Asmodeus* would be on board for this plan at all! He doesn't like to actually start shit with the other gods; PCs killing a god throws into light the fact that gods CAN be killed by mortals - gods such as Asmodeus; Asmodeus has also historically sided AGAINST the godslayers in the setting, allying with the good/lawful gods against those who would disrupt the 'order of things' with deicide.
Remember that Lawful Evil means gaming the system. Asmodeus works within the rules to corrupt, conquer, enslave. Lawful evil is Stalin, is Tywin Lannister - it isn't just 'wreck shit', yeah?
Hello, I'm a yithian with lots of suggestions
If you wish to have a campaign in which your player characters have to slay a god, this is possible. the question is how make it work and how make it memorable.
Now, if you are having a mythic way of the wicked like me or mr Rojosama, i believe you can have the following possibilities.
1 - If you are scared to fight a god, but don't wish to have them to fight avatars and such, a simple solution may be to work around the divinity of Mitra. If Mitra were to be not a true god, like Asmodeus, but an empireal lord like Ragathiel this would be way easy and explain why his worship is so limited compared to others. In my company, as example, he's a true god, but instead of having domain himself, he "guards and herald" the influences of other gods, that are worshipped in Talingarde under his guise (Torag, Sarenrae and Iomedae). If you wish to know more about this, let me know
2 - killing a god is not only about getting the pcs uberbuffed and fight a dude, but is more akin to deeply change the entire cosmo. As such, great rituals should be conducted to allow mortal pcs to fight against a god in even terms. If you wish to allow your player to get that chance, then they need to plan this up. a good way may be using the dreadful ritual detailed in book 7 as a lure to call Mitra directly in the world to stop it. While doing so, Mitra could be "investing" so much of his divine power by stopping the ritual, that his physical existance may be weaker, on the level of power of an empireal lord. About destroying the temples, i was under the impression that gods do possess lots of personal power by themselves, but that in order to employ and transfer it on the material plane, they had to have worshippers, otherwise their influence was more akin of those of the demon lords, that in order to give you boons require souls or great sacrifices in exchange. So the eradication of the mitrian church should not impact on Mitra himself, but could negate the use of high level spells from his worshippers (like in book 4, when the king dies, any scroll of true resurrection left do not work cause the three flames are been extinguished)
3 - killing a god requires mythic. I do not know how much mythic tiers you wish to allow your pcs to get, but i suggest 4 or less. afther 4, it because too much to handle, and if you go to see the forums about mythic rules, you'll see i'm right. a good point of ascention is either end of book 2 (destruction of the artifact) or end of book 3, with ara mathra's death (he should totally be mythic). i can well see a group of level 20 tier 3 or 4 characters fighting a gs 30 empireal lord in a glorious battle.
4 - killing Mitra could be not the optimal option. as Arnakalar said, killing gods is too chaotic. all that power should not be destroyed, but transformed. So, maybe your pcs can:
1) corrupt Mitra into an infernal being -
2) trap Mitra forever in a layer of hell
3) devour Mitra's divinity and each of them take an aspect of mitra, becoming "infernal nobility" and herald
With that said, I await your considerations
using the dreadful ritual detailed in book 7 ...
There is no book 7 lol.
using the dreadful ritual detailed in book 7 ...There is no book 7 lol.
Now there is http://paizo.com/products/btpy98aq?Way-of-the-Wicked-Book-7-Tales-of-Taling arde
Listen to your players. When they brainstorm how to find out how to kill a god and how to kill a god, their speculations will be incredibly helpful and empowering to the players when they realize they're on the right track.
using the dreadful ritual detailed in book 7 ...There is no book 7 lol.
I stand corrected. I just got it and that ritual is PERFECT! What gid wouldnt come down to save the isle that contains the entirety of their followers? Perfect ending.
Morning,
So my players have moved from the idea of simply ruling the isle in the Way of the Wicked AP to wanting to kill the god Mitra.
Normally I would never allow this, but seeing this AP has no bearing on the inner sea (our normal stomping ground) and Mitra is never used anywhere else, I feel that this would be a once in a life time chance to have an epic mortal vs deity battle.
My question becomes this - How do my players pull Mitra from his home plane, where he would simply think them out of existence, to the prime where he would be 'killable'?
Never mind the stat block(s) or any of the actual fight, I am simply looking for advice on what would cause a god to manifest wholly on the prime plane.
I am sure that getting past all of the Solars would end the PC's. He really has no reason to show up when he has enough outsiders that can do the job for him. The only thing that I think that would cause a God to show up is another God showing up first.
Even if the PC's could defeat Mitra I don't think Asmodeus or the Lords of the Nine would be comfortable with them being around, and having that type of power so they are likely going to die anyway.
However if you want to overlook all that the PC's are likely going to need mythic levels, or you can have some Mcguffin that can weaken a deity. I think the Mcguffin is the easier route.
Since Mitra is confined to Talingarde for his worship, I would suggest that you create 3 avatars that represent each of his aspects. The three manifest after the princess, her mother, and the solar are defeated, and the ultimate fight for Talingarde begins. The best way to do this is to use Deities and Demigods from 3.5/3.0, and build a divine probably 8 to 10 rank deity with said abilities. Grant the PCs some mystic tiers to use or artifacts to use, since the DR on an avatar of divine rank 8 or 10 is going to be at least 20 epic, perhaps higher. You're looking at a CR 30+ encounter in any event. possibly higher. Probably 33 I think. For the example of a demigod, Cthulu from Bestiary 4 is one example. So are the higher end demon lords for just one avatar.