Reading through the fey obedience in First World campaign setting, I noticed that there is no requirement in the feat or the associated prestige class that you be within one alignment step of the eldest. I can sort of understand that since the Eldest don't seem ideologically motivated, as long as you do what they want they may not care in your heart.
But I then noticed that NONE of the obedience feats actually impose alignment closeness as a requirement. The divine classes do, and the divine prestige classes do, but not the feats.
Is there any general one step rule actually published anywhere, or errata/FAQ about the obedience feats that require you to be within one step? I think most people assume it exists because it's explicitly published for divine classes, but as far as I can see it doesn't actually RAW exist otherwise.
It's entirely a matter of "does your GM require worshipers of a deity to be within one step of that deity's alignment" and there's considerable table variation on that.
"You must be within one step of your deity in alignment" is a rule for PFS, but it s not, in general, a rule.
I personally see no inherent contradiction in, say, a Chaotic Good Sailor being a devout worshiper of Gozreh.
It does not technically exist, though as a GM I impose a rule that everyone must be within one step of any deity that they are gaining a mechanical benefit from.
To me it just doesn't make sense that someone who is so ideological removed from a deity would be interested in the religion enough to actually do the things required (from an RP standpoint) to gain the feats or abilities. If they want to RP coming into a religion and changing their alignment to match then I wouldn't have a problem.
It's entirely a matter of "does your GM require worshipers of a deity to be within one step of that deity's alignment" and there's considerable table variation on that.
"You must be within one step of your deity in alignment" is a rule for PFS, but it s not, in general, a rule.
I personally see no inherent contradiction in, say, a Chaotic Good Sailor being a devout worshiper of Gozreh.
Impose no limits than you have the wag who insists that his Lawful Good sailor could take on the Divine Obedience of Rovagug.
Well I will argue it makes sense for the Eldest more so than regular deities. They actually have a smattering of off alignment servants mentioned in their home base write ups. Magdh (LN) has a bunch of CG psuedodragons, for example.
Impose no limits than you have the wag who insists that his Lawful Good sailor could take on the Divine Obedience of Rovagug.
I'm going to ask that player "so how, from your character's perspective can you simultaneously value law and goodness and also venerate a being that wants to destroy literally everything? Like how do those notions get reconciled?"
If their answer is sufficiently convincing (and it'd have to be awfully persuasive for that to pass) I have no problem with it. I'd prefer to think of a setting's deities as gods of things and ideas, not gods of alignment, and people worship the gods who represent those things and ideas that are most important to them. An LG person who is primarily concerned with liberating the oppressed and keeping roads and other routes of travel safe can worship Desna as far as I'm concerned, no problem. People, after all, tend to worship the gods for what they represent, not for their individual personalities.
If they don't explicitly say so then no. Deific obedience says nothing about alignment but the Evangelist prestige class that has deific obedience as a pre-req does have the 1 step of alignment as a pre-req so the prestige class does but the feat does not.
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure the demonic/daemonic/devil/celestial prestige classes all require same or one step alignment. But feysworn does not.