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What might a follower of the various deities of Golarion say to another person as a short salutation or saying when greeting them, or when taking leave?
These tend to be short, pithy sayings that sound like little blessings. For example, in the real world, you might hear a Christian say "May you have blessings at home and for everyone in your family". (Disclaimer: I am bringing that example up only because I know it, and I am not trying to make any larger point than that).
Originally I was going to ask this just for Shelyn, since my tabletop group's character is a Shelynite and I am running out of ideas. I figured I could shamelessly tap the collective creativity of the forums. :) But then I thought, why limit what could be a generally useful discussion to just one deity?
The quotes from the deity's holy texts, aphorisms, and paladin's codes presented in Inner Sea Gods are a pretty good starting point for getting ideas. The holy text quotes are the easiest. For Shelyn, you can derive "Fill your heart, eyes, and mind with the beauty of the world" though it's a little long. Sarenrae gives us "May your inner light be a guide for others".
It's a little tougher with the deities on the evil end of the spectrum just by nature of how the sayings end up sounding, but...even evil characters have friends, companions, and people they respect. So it still works, it is just a little harder. You might hear "May your soul be reshaped in his design" in Cheliax, for instance. A Zon-Kuthon cultist writing to another might end a letter simply with "Yours in pain." (As I said, I am not terribly good at this. My brain doesn't work in these directions. Hence the thread.)
What else might you hear from the various followers on Golarion?
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I often shamelessly rip off real world cultures-not so much for greetings ("Hail and well-met" seems a suitable generic greeting) as for prayers, but...
Shelyn- I've given my Shelynites a pretty obvious Navajo paraphrase for a prayer (with apologies to the Navajo): "In beauty I walk. With beauty before me, I walk. With beauty behind me, I walk. With beauty below me, I walk. With beauty above me, I walk. With beauty all around me, I walk. It is finished in beauty."
For salutation, you could shorten and modify it to, "In beauty we walk," looking for a reply like, "with beauty all around us," and "it is finished in beauty" for goodbye, but that's sorta clunky.
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Torag: As the forge made thee. & Till the stone takes ye.
Cayden: Cheers to your coming. & I shall toast thee tomorrow.
Gozrah: As the winds take thee.
Erastil: As our forebears once met. & GET OFF MY LAWN!
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Shelyn- I've given my Shelynites a pretty obvious Navajo paraphrase for a prayer (with apologies to the Navajo)
This is a great idea, and it helps me expand my pool of sources.
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Sarenrae: The flame rises at our meeting. & May the Dawnflower light your path.
Gorum: You're not dead yet? & Till our blades meet again.
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Pharasma: Face Judgement Almighty!
Err... I guess that is more of a battle cry, but it still sounds pretty D@#$ cool. Right guys?
...Guys?
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Desnan battle cry/statement of badassery/prayer of protection (with apologies to the Dakota)-
"You cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine."
Gorumite battle cry (with apologies to the Klingon Empire, and, less humorously, various real-world cultures that have used it)-
"Today is a good day to die!"/"It is a good day to die."
The next collection is lifted from the Dune novels of Brian Herbert:
Desna:
"Be prepared to appreciate what you meet."
Irori:
"Ultimately all things are known because you want to believe you know."
"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."
"The nose causes the tail!" (Part of a larger story: There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening where a single board had been removed from a wooden fence. Each day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening — first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day the man leaped to his feet with a light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: "It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!")
"Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything."
Urgathoa:
"If it tastes bitter, spit it out."
Erastil:
"Real boats rock." (Taken as a commentary on things seeming to go perfectly- nothing real is ever that easy.)
Abadar:
"An offer is only as good as the real thing it buys."
Gozreh:
"You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will."
Gorum:
"Expect only what happens in the fight."
"May thy blade chip and shatter." (Originally, "May thy knife chip and shatter," but Gorumites aren't so picky about the tools they use)
Nethys:
"The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever."
Shamelessly ripped off from Legend of the Five Rings and/or Legend of the Burning Sands:
Norgorber:
"I can swim." (See the full skinny on this here)
"Blows should be felt and not seen."
Erastil:
"Be more concerned with good actions than great ones."
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Need to fit "Live long and prosper" in here somewhere . . . .
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Need to fit "Live long and prosper" in here somewhere . . . .
I am leaning towards Cayden Cailean there, maybe with a side of Erastil.
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Abadar is the most Vulcan.
Abadar is the most Vulcan.
I considered Abadar at first, but decided he's more focused on civilization as a whole than on an individual. But maybe I was being too picky there, given "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few" and all that.
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^Actually might be more fitting to Irori, with his ideal of self-perfection . . . Which he did manage to take far enough to become immortal and very powerful, so apparently the saying actually worked for him.
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Abadar is the most Vulcan.
Nah, he may be about orderly civilization, but he's also about bank.
Irori is about self-mastery. He should get any and all Vulcan philosophy you feel like porting.
Now, I can see certain Rules of Acquisition fitting Abadar... and others fitting Norgorber.
As far as "Live long and propser"/"Peace and long life" as a matched set of social interactions... Prophecies of Kalistrade.
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Calistrian line: "Wanna sting me?"
"If I be waspish, best beware my sting."
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Stolen from the Maori:
Erastil-
"Marry a man with calloused hands"
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My inquisitor of Groetus ended every journal entry with "One day closer, one day gone." Every kill he benedicted with "One soul closer, one soul gone."
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For Desna:
"Pleasant dreams"
"Open roads"
"Clear skies"
"Good fortune"
"May the road rise up to meet you"
"May the wind always be at your back"
(Borrowed from an Irish blessing)
General Susumo in Kaoling:
"Service to the state"
"Glory to the race"
(Stolen from the Draka novels by S.M. Stirling)
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Irori:
"Ultimately all things are known because you want to believe you know.""Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."
My Irori worshiping PC will have to steal that last one and quote it to the chaotic members of her party.
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I have a dwarven mountain druid in Giantslayer that after every kill he gazes upon the dead and says, "From the mud we came and to the mud we return." Sometimes it's shortened to just "..back to the mud"
got that from the Joe Abercrombie books
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"hold my beer and watch this...
Wouldn't those be the last words of a follower of Cayden Cailean?
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I have a dwarven mountain druid in Giantslayer that after every kill he gazes upon the dead and says, "From the mud we came and to the mud we return." Sometimes it's shortened to just "..back to the mud"
got that from the Joe Abercrombie books
"Back to the mud, the earth's richer and we're poorer for it."
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For Desna:
{. . .}
"May the wind always be at your back"
(Borrowed from an Irish blessing)
{. . .}
This helps build up an idea for an Oracle whose Curse comes from a mistranslation/mistranscription of the above: "May the wind always come from your back" . . . .
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These are all fantastic! Thank you, everyone!
Shelyn:
May love warm your heart and home. (adapted from an Irish blessing)
There is beauty in all things.
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"Argraghrarraraghakthpsakalak!" - Rovagugians, generally accompanied by fire and an axe to the face
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They're not so much salutations as proverbs, but this (war)priestess of Shelyn tends to say, "All life has the potential for beauty" and "A life is a masterpiece in progress".
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I've had the soundtrack to Hamilton running through my head lately. Let's do this!
"Raise a glass to freedom." - A common toast among worshippers of Cayden Cailen.
"Never be satisfied." - Aphorism among Calistrians. Refers to both the lust and revenge aspects of her portfolio.
"You are running out of time." - Saying attributed to Groetus. Occasionally used as a death threat by his worshippers.
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I've had the soundtrack to Hamilton running through my head lately. Let's do this!
"You are running out of time." - Saying attributed to Groetus. Occasionally used as a death threat by his worshippers.
Bonus points for mining Hamilton!
Groetus is an interesting case since his followers tend to be madmen and recluses, but PC followers are more "functional" by necessity. We actually have a cleric of Groetus in our game right now, and like you suggest above, her emphasis is on time: the world may end at any moment, so we must act now.
A mixture of greetings, partings, and aphorism ideas for Groetus:
"Act now; later is too late."
"May you use your time shrewdly."
"Awaiting the end." or "Yours at the end."
"In the end we trust."
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Abadar
"have I got a deal for you!
"Limited time offer
"time is money and you're not making me enough of either right now
"Ooo a copper!
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Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:
Abadar-
"Free advice is seldom cheap."
"You can't free a fish from water."
Norgorber-
"The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife."
"Whisper your way to success."
Irori or Nethys-
"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."
From Star Wars:
Cayden "Least-Favorite-Core-Deity-Ever" Cailean-
"Never tell me the odds."
From Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey:
Irori-
“Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail”
Milani-
"A man has to know he had a choice before he can enjoy what he chose."
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Zon-Kuthon-
Oh, no tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.(hellraiser)
Further Cenobite-esque goodness, all but one of them from lesser entries in the series...:
"There is a secret song at the center of the world, and its sound is like razors through flesh."
"I'll reap your sorrow slowly."
"What you think of as pain is a shadow. Pain has a face. Allow me to show it to you."
"We have such sights to show you!"
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More literature- this is from Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima:
Erastil-
"Understanding comes with life."
"[E]very generation, every man is a part of his past. He cannot escape it, but he may reform the old materials, make something new.."
Iomedae-
“A man does not flee from truth”
Desna-
"[G]rowth is change. Accept the change, make it a part of your strength."
"[D]estiny must unfold itself like a flower, with only the sun and the earth and water making it blossom, and no one else meddling in it."
Nethys-
“The germ of creation lies in violence.”
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Pharasmin sayings:
"May your fate treat you kindly." A farewell.
"There are two times when we are all equal in our lives: at birth, and at death. Fate is how you spend the time between." Pharasmin proverb
"The spiral has led me to you." A greeting.
"The bones fall where they may." A proverb, equivalent to 'so be it'.
"May your soul decay before you reach the end of the line." A curse, hoping for cosmic dissolution on a soul before it can be judged.
"There is an astradaemon waiting for you, let me help you two meet." Precursor to violence.
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Daemons/Horsemen of the Apocalypse:
"To the end of the world."
"To the end of all life."
"Oblivion awaits . . . ." (this last one stolen from Dark Archons in StarCraft 1 -- too bad StarCraft 2 doesn't have them)
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do do dododo
Ravogaog
dodo do do
Ravagog
dodo do do do dodo do do do do dodo do
Ravagog
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"The night may be long, but the sun always rises." Sarenite proverb about enduring adversity.
I imagine that worshippers of Lamashtu refer to each other as "brother" and "sister" since they see each other as the metaphorical (or possibly physical) children of the Mother of Monsters.
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do do dododo
Ravogaog
dodo do do
Ravagog
dodo do do do dodo do do do do dodo do
Ravagog
And now this tune is in my head. There's only one proportionate response. I've got to destroy all existence...
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"more people have ascended to godhood by fighting a giant space rock than legally won manumission through the chelaxian legal system"