How To Role play a Neutral Evil Cleric of Pharasma


Advice

Dark Archive

I am having trouble thinking how I would role play him


Hey, V.Z.K.:

Ooo, that certainly is an interesting angle on a cleric of Pharasma :3

For my own brain, here is Neutral Evil (Warning! It's a bit of a wall of text.):

Neutral Evil:
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn't have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.

Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.

Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.

Neutral evil characters care only for themselves, and do whatever they think they can get away with. They place no stock in the ability of laws or codes to protect them, and thus don't bother to follow them. At the same time, they're less spontaneous and prone to whimsy than chaotic evil characters. In some ways, neutral evil is the purest form of evil, unburdened by any other tropes or tendencies. Whether a neutral evil character has chosen to practice evil for its own sake or—more often—simply has no empathy for others, the result is the same: cold, unfeeling cruelty.

Those who care nothing for others or the pain they cause, or who strive toward such indifference, are drawn to this alignment.

Perhaps your Neutral Evil cleric of Pharasma is a real cynic when it comes to life and death? Pharasma is also the goddess of fate, so maybe there is a level of determinism there that leaves your cleric sour? Or perhaps your cleric finds sadistic joy in fate, prophecy, birth and death? how "meaningless" it can all feel in the end and how we're all at the mercy of the Lady of Graves' judgement?

If you follow Pharasma, you would still find undead abhorrent, though... (Perhaps undead are a perversion of your "evil" sense of temporal life?)

Neutral Evil characters have "cold, unfeeling cruelty" so perhaps your cleric has a large sense of indifference and apathy towards other people since we all die and are judged by Pharasma anyway?

I'm just free-form spit-ballin' here, haha.

Oh man, I'm not sure! I think this is really cool, though, and worth exploring. These kind of character options are always neat if you're scratching your head as to how it will work. It may be a case of something that will just be really fun to discover at the table once you start gaming. ;)

Apologies I couldn't give a more concrete response. Cheers, Mate!

Liberty's Edge

Specialize in hunting down the Non-Evil undead and gladly send any fool in your holy way to the goddess post haste

Also on your hit list graverobbers who defile sacred sites for Good and noble reasons

Basically any blasphemer your softer colleagues would try to restrain or reason, you just kill. Your way is far more efficient

You are also great at hunting necromancers. Taking control of their undead blasphemies and using them to dispense holy Pharasmin punishment before sending them back to the peace of the grave


Power hungry.

Hungry for political power, perhaps. In Ustalav, the state religion is Pharasman, even though the populace is largely Varisian. In the distant past, a dynasty of Pharasman kings persuaded a bunch of Desnan nomads to settle on the land--taking it away from Kellid tribes, actually--and convert to the worship of the death goddess. Your character could be a ruthless would-be conqueror looking to convert populaces to her goddess's worship.

Hungry for the power to judge, perhaps. Pharasma's divine portfolio is pretty much deciding who lives and who dies--well, everyone dies, but when and how is the Gray Lady's sphere of influence. Your character could be judge, jury and executioner to anyone who gets in her way, seeing murder as a mode of worship.

Hungry for magical power, perhaps. Pharasma is first-rank god, and her church holds a lot of mysteries. A cleric in her service could rise to be one of the most powerful spellcasters in the world. Your character could be obsessed with obtaining magic items that boost her abilities--the better to serve her goddess, and herself.

I had a lot of fun portraying a neutral evil inquisitor of Pharasma in a Carrion Crown game who was all of these, and reveled in her sinister reputation. She especially loved forcing good Pharasmans into situations where they had to make moral compromises, which she considered teaching them what the Gray Lady was really like.


Incidentally, the whole anti-undead thing is just one corner of Pharasma's worship. Your character doesn't have to be one of the churches' exorcists, any more than she has to be a midwife or prophet or sexton. Oh, she should eliminate undead when the opportunity arises, but it doesn't have to be, like, her calling.

If you want to stand out from people's conceptions of a Pharasman cleric, consider taking the Water domain. It's not the most powerful option, but you can play it up as the chill of the grave and the mysterious waters of birth and death.

Shadow Lodge

There are some aphorisms/prayers that are typical for followers of Pharasma. They might help you somehow:

"Not this year, not yet."
This seems to appeal to the more Neutral Good side of things. An individual might still have important things left to do in life and might not be ready for the boneyard/judgement.

"All who live must face her judgement"
This seems to appeal to the more Neutral Evil side of things. Death is your ticket to judgement by the Lady of Graves.

My Neutral Cleric of Pharasma uses both in equal measure.

Since a Neutral Evil character does whatever they can get away with, maybe your Cleric could be a bloodthirsty killer, ushering as many souls as possible along to Pharasma for judgement. It wouldn't be murder for murder's sake, but killing for judgement's sake.
You could make thematic choices when creating the character too. For instance, this character probably wouldn't take a feat like Selective Channel, but would freely channel negative in combat if they could get away with it.
I'd suggest Death and Repose domains.

They might say stuff like "NOW is your time. Judgement is nigh."

They could be just as likely to quietly slip in a dagger to finish off a dying stranger (or ally) as to apply healing magic.


Some options....

Many of the clergy of Pharasma are associated with death. Accordingly a neutral evil aligned person is someone who I would think would enjoy dealing out death but isn't a serial killer (chaotic) or some assassin (lawful). So someone who is an executioner or of a like mind is a decent starting place for ideas, indeed I saw one vague reference to this.

Second, do you have any prophecies in the setting to play off of? Perhaps your character is one who believes that he is the prophecy come true or it is his divine duty to play a part in it.... But his methods are very brutal.

Third, just be merciless or very cold where you can. Another way to look at it is your not yet as wise as Pharisma on your neutrality so your still on the darker side of her ideology. You could then one day change your alignment to true neutral as a plot arc and mayb even take envoy of balance some day.


Kill them all. Let Pharasma sort them out.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / How To Role play a Neutral Evil Cleric of Pharasma All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.