Nocticula.
Because she'd be a great choice for the Patron Goddess of some Drowic Noble Houses.
"but, but, she's not a goddess..." I'm sure some will say.
"wait for it..." Would be my response...<evil grin>
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Ragathiel, the only correct deity for an Alchemist who wants to suicide-bomb temples of evil gods and goblin orphanages. For The Greater Good!
Sounds kind of self-defeating . . . .
Core Deity-wise, I would say Nethys and Erastil,
Erastil as the ancient proto-Aroden with one foot in wild world and embodying survival ethos,
Nethys likewise playing role in foundations of civilization, with purported ties to Jatembe etc.
Arazni of course awesome being Evil because she was made to be Evil, i.e. Evil incarnate.
I like Osirioni pantheon as whole, Wadjet my favorite amongst them,
just being an interesting combo of aspects (river, serpents, LG, anti-deceiver) and overall feel re: role.
(though she triggers my gripe with forced Alignment domains, making non-Neutral gods more boring...
when she could have had Scalykind IF ONLY! i houserule otherwise, of course )
Nalinivati's duality intrigues me - magic/love AND Nagaji patron (who are LN vs her TN alignment*),
on one hand founding state religion of Nagajor, on the other inscrutable lore of mystics and lovers.
* which coincidentally is interesting way to marginalize LG/LE within L-inclined Nagaji Nalinivati priesthood
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Naderi makes for a pretty great love triangle with Shelyn and Urgathoa.
LG - Iomedae I guess. Erastil is alright too.
NG - Shelyn is nice and all, but Arshea should have part of the main twenty in my opinion. They just seem to do Shelyn's job better.
CG - Cayden Cailean the Anti-Frat Boy. I would have picked Milani but Cayden's got her beat when it comes to personality.
LN - Aroden. Really wish he wasn't dead.
N - Nethys is crazy awesome.
CN - Gorum knows what is best in life.
LE - Asmodeus because Zon-Kuthon is a disgusting freak that Shelyn should have killed a long time ago. Redemption and sibling love be damned.
NE - Norgorber. His name is a bit weird but the guy (or gal?) knows how to do evil competently. Urgathoa is pretty likeable as well.
CE - Menxyr. Don't ask why.
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^Which one -- that Shelyn should be the disgusting freak, or that Zon-Kuthon should have killed her long ago?
(Note that if you choose both, you get just about right back where you started, except for gender reversal.)
Zon-Kuthon is a disgusting freak that Shelyn should have killed a long time ago. Redemption and sibling love be damned.I always thought it would bevso much cooler if it was the other way around.
As in Zon-Kuthon trying to turn Shelyn to the dark side so they rule the outer planes as brother and sister?
That would definitely be cool.
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Which one -- that Shelyn should be the disgusting freak, or that Zon-Kuthon should have killed her long ago?
(Note that if you choose both, you get just about right back where you started, except for gender reversal.)
Zon-Kuthon killing her long ago. Though I have suspected that her wrestling the glaive from him was a bit, . . . fabricated, so the idea of him corrupting her to join him could also be pretty cool and horrific.
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There are a couple I really like that I don't think have been mentioned yet.
One is Tsukiyo, because I love the idea of a Lawful Good god of the moon who grants the Darkness and Madness domains (among others). I haven't seen them play up the madness angle much at all, which I'd kind of like to see; maybe some remnant from when he died. I have a half-formed idea that I really like for a character who got lost in underground caves, went insane from loneliness and sensory deprivation, and then pledged herself to his service when she finally escaped (crediting him with helping her survive in the dark).
The other one is Bolka, the dwarven goddess of marriage, because I feel like she offers an interesting counterpoint to the stereotypes of dwarves. We usually see dwarves as fearless raging warriors, so the idea of a nervous dwarf offering a prayer to Bolka before shyly approaching a girl and asking her out is something I find wonderfully compelling. I also like the fact that she's described as beautiful, an adjective not typically applied to dwarves.
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I always liked Desna and Shelyn. Lamashtu is pretty awesome too. However, Nocticula and Norgorber have too much of BWAHAHAHAHAAA to their names.
I always liked Desna and Shelyn. Lamashtu is pretty awesome too. However, Nocticula and Norgorber have too much of BWAHAHAHAHAAA to their names.
Add Sarenrae to Shelyn and Desna and that's my choice.
Maybe Urgathoa too because she adds some interesting twist to the Goddess of Undeath concept.
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Besmara the Pirate Queen. Hands down for me. Buttkicking goddess that raids the hells, heavens, and everything in between. She has a supernatural planeshifting pirate ship and for me at least makes for interesting clerics and divine classes.
Desna, Cayden, Sheyln, and Gozreh are all really close after that for me. And Ragathiel too.
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Zon-Kuthon killing her long ago. Though I have suspected that her wrestling the glaive from him was a bit, . . . fabricated, so the idea of him corrupting her to join him could also be pretty cool and horrific.Which one -- that Shelyn should be the disgusting freak, or that Zon-Kuthon should have killed her long ago?
(Note that if you choose both, you get just about right back where you started, except for gender reversal.)
Or like everything on the subject says she did take the glaive away from him like a badass.
Eh, think I'll go ahead and give a full list by alignment.
LG: Shizuru. One of my favorite characters was a follower of hers, real big into the whole, way of the samurai thing.
NG: Shelyn. More for her role as a patron of the arts, poetry, and music.
CG: Milani. Viva la revolution. She trumps Cayden for me - who I do like - by being at once more focused with the uprising/revolution thing, but also because Cayden's drunkenness can feel rather gimmicky at times.
LN: Irori. Not gonna lie, part of it is because I'm a fan of old kung fu movies. But I do like gods of self reliance.
N: Nethys. It's funny in that the "god of magic" is usually my least favorite god in any setting - I hate Mystra with a passion. But Nethys is very fun, very entertaining, and very intriguing in ways that I haven't seen a god of magic be before.
CN: Gorum, as discussed previously.
LE: Asmodeus. If I'm being 100% honest, I prefer D&D's Asmodeus to Pathfinder's so a lot of my appeal for Asmodeus is legacy'd in from that. I don't like how they tacked on the misogyny, I don't like how they repeatedly have demons punk him, and I don't like how they first craft this interesting background for him and then years later push the idea that it's a lie and the truth is a less interesting version of his D&D backstory. But the core concept of Asmodeus is still one of my favorites.
NE: Charon. Charon is just the coolest.
CE: Nulgreth. CE is honestly probably my least favorite alignment and I don't like the majority of PF's CE offerings. But I love orcs and Nulgreth has a great look.
If we go by alignment...
CG- Desna. Honorable mention to Black Butterfly, Milani, Ashava, Tolc.
NG- Shelyn. All day, every day. Sarenrae and a lot of the Empyreal Lords are all right, but Shelyn rocks.
LG- Erastil. Probably my least favorite of the deities in this post, but he's more interesting to me than most of the LG crowd.
CN- Yog-Sothoth, but Azathoth is cool too.
N- Pharasma, but Ng is not far behind.
LN- Alseta. My least-favorite alignment still manages to house a pretty solid deity.
CE- Lamashtu
NE- Charon. Accept no substitutes.
LE- Moloch, by a nose. I really, really like the Lawful Evil lineup in Pathfinder. The Lords of the Nine, Zon-Kuthon, Achaekek, Ardad Lili, Mathtallah, and on, and on, and on...
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I like many of them, and have played Clerics of Nethys, Urgathoa, Erastil, Calistria, Abadar, Asmodeus, etc.
My favorite over all, of the big 20, would probably be Desna. I like everything about her but the starknife, which I allow to be replaced with the shuriken, if the player prefers. Rovagug is probably the only big 20 god I've got zero interest in.
Of the lesser gods, it's a tossup between Brigh and Sivanah, although I'm also fond of Alseta, and the lesser elven gods (all three of them).
For Tien gods, Qi Zhong and Nalinivati(sp?) are right up there. My bias for gods of magic is rearing it's head.
As a GM, Geryon and his diverse heresies has great potential... :>
Apparently I'm super-sexist, and prefer goddesses to gods.
You pig!
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It is true that a lot of magic gods tend to be 'I study a lot and am overpowered because magic!'. Nethys is more than just a big OP wizard.
N: Nethys. It's funny in that the "god of magic" is usually my least favorite god in any setting - I hate Mystra with a passion. But Nethys is very fun, very entertaining, and very intriguing in ways that I haven't seen a god of magic be before.
My issue tends to be that gods of magic tend to lack a philosophy. At least a philsophy beyond "man, magic is awesome!" There's not much separating most gods of magic, in my mind, from, say, an elemental lord and a boring one at that, one that just represents the element in a "this is a thing that is in your world, that permeates your world, and I represent it with no philosophical thoughts besides. glory to the thing!"
I guess it's that I've never viewed magic as being a pursuit in and of itself. If I practiced magic as an artform and dedicated myself to the perfection of that art, then I'd be more inclined to worship Shelyn. If I practiced magic primarily as a tool for war, then I'd worship a war god, because magic would be my weapon the same as a fighter's sword would be his. If I practiced magic purely in the pursuit of knowledge, then I'd worship a god of knowledge. So on and so forth.
Nethys actually does have a philosophy behind him in that his focus is on the dichotomy of magic being a tool of both creation and destruction. There's a focus on how, yes, magic can make you a god, basically, but it can just as easily destroy you - physically or mentally - and that's the line you must walk in it's pursuit.
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Nethys actually does have a philosophy behind him in that his focus is on the dichotomy of magic being a tool of both creation and destruction. There's a focus on how, yes, magic can make you a god, basically, but it can just as easily destroy you - physically or mentally - and that's the line you must walk in it's pursuit.
To me, that still fits pretty firmly into the "man, magic is awesome!" group.
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To me, that still fits pretty firmly into the "man, magic is awesome!" group.
Nethys is one of the more interesting ones, of various fantasy magic gods. Boccob and Azuth are both kind of boring. Mysta bugs me, and generally failed as a 'god of magic' increasingly surrendering entire schools of magic that she didn't like to various evil gods. The magic gods of Krynn got little real development, that I can recall.
Wee Jas, of Greyhawk, was my favorite pre-Golarion magic-god, but she had other stuff going on, like death and law, and was dating the Greyhawk equivalent of Cayden Cailean, despite being mostly incompatible, personality-wise, just to mix things up.
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Pharasma. A non-evil goddess of death and birth? Thank you very much. I like that she oversees the whole life cycle of living beings, from the cradle to the grave, with a no-nonsense attitude.
Of the core 20:
LG - Erastil. It's nice to have a deity with nature as part of his domain that isn't "nature good, civilization bad, full stop." He very much inhabits the space between wilderness and cities, and is thus able to see the good and the bad in both.
LN - Irori. As a huge wuxia fanboy, I'd be compelled to like the guy anyway, and he is both living proof and a deity devoted to human excellence and becoming more than you were born to be.
LE - Zon-Kuthon. I do like Asmodeus, but I think Zon-Kuthon has a more interesting backstory and personality. There's a big question mark on whether there's anything left of Dou-Bral within Zon-Kuthon, and a LN worshiper of Zon-Kuthon is a more interesting prospect than a LN worshiper of Asmodeus (i.e. the prototypical Hellknight).
NG - Shelyn, who is probably my favorite of the core 20. Goddesses of love and beauty in mythology are almost always shallow, callow, jealous and cruel, so to me, Shelyn is a breath of fresh air. Not to mention the fact that she actually did used to be the typically flighty, shallow love goddess but grew out of it is a nice angle, and the fact that she was able and willing to throw down against her now-evil brother and take his glaive is pretty badass coming from a goddess who really doesn't focus on combat.
N - Nethys. As stated above, most gods of magic, especially the Neutral ones, tend to be pretty bland "magic is a thing, and I'm really good at it" types. Nethys, on the other hand, represents the boundless potential of magic to both lift you up and destroy you. He's at once enlightened and insane, and worshipers of each of his possible alignments can worship the same god while focusing on very different aspects of him, but all combined by a belief that magic is the power to create and destroy in its purest, most elemental form, which does a lot to justify what would otherwise just be typical "magic users are the best, you can all suck it" snobbery.
NE - Urgathoa. She's a goddess of undeath you can actually understand people who don't necessarily start out evil worshiping, because who hasn't wanted to be able to indulge in the good things in life? Her portfolio of gluttony speaks to something very ordinary and human, so I can actually understand a goddess of sickness and the undead becoming a major figure of worship.
CG - Cayden Cailean. I see it like this: You can definitely tell that this is a guy who never sought out godhood, and isn't quite as cut out for the job as the other "Prime Ascended," as Golarion's formerly human major gods are called. And you can tell he knows it, too. But he's trying, because he owes it to the people who worship him, and because even if he wasn't exactly a model citizen, he was a hero long before he was a god, and so he's trying. That's worth a lot in my eyes, even if the alcohol thing is sometimes played up too much IMO.
CN - Gorum. He's basically Crom, and I like Conan too much not to like Our Lord In Iron. I also like that he really does come off as someone who doesn't care either way how or why you fight, just that you do. If you worship Gorum, you can spare and redeem the defeated or you can brutally slaughter them while they stand helpless before you, and Gorum legitimately doesn't care either way. Most of the time, war gods like Gorum are all "kill/enslave your enemies or you're a big sissy baby," which makes them lean a lot harder toward CE. Gorum walks the walk of being a CN god of warfare. It's very telling that orc tribes who forgo the usual orc pantheon in favor of Gorum are actually the nicer ones.
CE - Lamashtu. The goddess herself isn't especially interesting, but a lot of her imagery and themes are creepily fascinating. Rovagug just wants to destroy everything, but Lamashtu has a twisted affection for her spawn worthy of the title "Mother of Monsters," and the twisted themes of motherhood her cult puts front and center helps it stand out from other evil cults in Golarion.