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Pharasmins absolutely should follow their doctrine and kill us. The Pact Worlds similarly should fulfill their obligations and treat the church of Pharasma as a terrorist organization to be suppressed and prosecuted as necessary.
Funny how governmental disapproval and suppression works out.
Sometimes when you try to smother a fire it just makes it burn brighter. History (both in-game and out) has proved that many times before. Let's see what happens when we through these martyrs to the proverbial lions.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Undead of Eox aren't people. They are undead, they may be citizens by the terms of the Pact, but they are undead and are to be treated as such. Take a look at First Contact, the bone sages don't have racial statistics and are NPCs only.
As long as you believe someone isn't a person, it's okay to kill them.
That's the message I'm getting here.
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Every single time, as far as I believe Pharasma is concerned.
Absolutely. Pharasma would strongly argue that all undead should be destroyed for the good of everyone. But Pharasma is not a Good deity.
She's Neutral. And that means that what she thinks of as 'good' and what is actually morally right can be strongly at odds with each other.
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The Undead of Eox aren't people. They are undead, they may be citizens by the terms of the Pact, but they are undead and are to be treated as such. Take a look at First Contact, the bone sages don't have racial statistics and are NPCs only.As long as you believe someone isn't a person, it's okay to kill them.
That's the message I'm getting here.
But these aren't just humans with squiggly lines scrawled across their faces. These aren't even someone combining a few animals together and uplifting them. This isn't even a group of aliens whose true forms and goals are beyond our understanding. The undead are not the weird looking tribe over there that has a different culture and speaks a different language, they are quite literally antithetical to life. Mindless undead are mere puppets animated by negative energy, a force that is destruction and entropy distilled. When there is a natural portal to the Positive Energy Plane in space, we call that a star. When there is one to the Negative Energy Plane? It is a black hole. Even when the undead in question is intelligent, it doesn't make the situation any better, in fact it makes it worse. Yes, intelligent undead still have their souls, but souls are inherently things of the Positive Energy Plane where they are born, and exposure to the Negative energy plane twists and mutilates them. It interferes with all but the most powerful resurrection magic, and that is not because the soul is "in use", as even being turned into soulless and mindless undead screws with the process. Undeath is fundamentally against the natural order of life and death, with the first case of undeath ever resulting from Urgathoa refusing judgement from Pharasma and escaping back to the mortal world, which had the side of creating disease. People aren't just prejudice against undeath because it is gross or it's sufferers act differently, they are rightfully concerned with its defiance of metaphysics and damage it does to souls.
Just my two CP, though.
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Every single time, as far as I believe Pharasma is concerned.Absolutely. Pharasma would strongly argue that all undead should be destroyed for the good of everyone. But Pharasma is not a Good deity.
She's Neutral. And that means that what she thinks of as 'good' and what is actually morally right can be strongly at odds with each other.
Pharasmin terrorists are Evil. And that's okay with the goddess herself.
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Pharasmin terrorists are Evil. And that's okay with the goddess herself.Every single time, as far as I believe Pharasma is concerned.Absolutely. Pharasma would strongly argue that all undead should be destroyed for the good of everyone. But Pharasma is not a Good deity.
She's Neutral. And that means that what she thinks of as 'good' and what is actually morally right can be strongly at odds with each other.
Eh. Enough undead are evil that some Pharasmin partisans are probably Neutral and deeply misguided.
But yeah, many are Evil and Pharasma is fine with that. Why wouldn't she be?
To Pharasma, who has existed before the universe it is hinted at, it's not the extending life/unlife that she cares about, it's that Undeath actually damages the process the universe works on.
My suggestion is that she is thinking too narrowly, and needs to re-evaluate her hypothesis. Is it breaking the system, or is it merely an unforeseen part of the system that she should embrace and perhaps even encourage?
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The big problem with the Natural Order argument is that the Natural Order isn't "Good" in Pathfinder/Starfinder, it is Neutral.
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I don't think she cares about expanding her followers. I mean, if the goddess of life and death, who may be the oldest being in existence, says that undead are a perversion of the natural order of life and death, there's every reason to take her at her word.
Only if said goddess is so unyielding and intractable that doubting her authority is considered heresy.
ETA: Being a god doesn't automatically justify their viewpoint as unquestionable, anyway- just look at all the gods with differing viewpoints and moralities in Golarion. They can't all be "right".
She can't just 'decide' to be 'more enlightened' and give undead a pass. That would be like a lion deciding to become more enlightened and eat rocks instead of wildebeest; it isn't consistent with her nature, and wouldn't work anyway.
I think an intelligent, sentient being choosing to re-evaluate their belief system- whether a "god" or a mortal- is a little bit different than asking an unreasoning animal to change its nature.
I still contend that Pharasma's looking at this whole cycle of life/death thing too dogmatically, and could well stand to adopt a more holistic attitude about it. What good has her blind crusade against "undeath" done in all of the existence of the PF/SF universe accomplished so far? It hasn't made undeath any less a part of the heartbeat of the universe.
Just because it is a potentially unpredictable deviation in the pattern of how Pharasma perceives the cycle of life to behave doesn't make it unnatural.
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But these aren't just humans with squiggly lines scrawled across their faces.
Well, I mean some probably have squiggly lines across their faces. They're people with free will, ya know!
These aren't even someone combining a few animals together and uplifting them.
Why would you combine them? There's a spell for uplifting: awaken. No need for DNA-tampering.
This isn't even a group of aliens whose true forms and goals are beyond our understanding.
That's irrelevant, and, as noted upthread, it may well be worth killing creatures such as that - survival may depend on mutually exclusive things.
The undead are not the weird looking tribe over there that has a different culture and speaks a different language,
Well, I mean, again, some of them are.
they are quite literally antithetical to life.
So is life, but that ain't stopped us, yet.
Mindless undead are mere puppets animated by negative energy, a force that is destruction and entropy distilled.
I mean... sort of? Except... not really. And explicitly not in SF.
When there is a natural portal to the Positive Energy Plane in space, we call that a star.
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnope.
In PF, at least, it seems (from what we know) that stars are phenomenally hot places bursting with positive energy that blur the lines between positive energy plane and plane of fire.
This differs from a portal in that a portal is a singular discreet hole from which something floods. Planar bleeding is when two things are related enough that "bleed" from one to the other happens.
That said, stars are crazy deadly, yo. Like, super deadly. I would strongly recommend going into one.
Similarly, the positive energy plane: it's not a place you want to be. It will explode you!
Of course, if the sun is "toned down" enough (because it's planar bleeding, not the actual plane) that it doesn't explode you from sheer positive energy, and is presumed to give off plenty of good life energy to sustain you, despite its fires... well, a fiery place where you can't die and the gravity is too big to escape sounds like somewhere else I've heard of... some place very different than anything associated with "good"...
When there is one to the Negative Energy Plane? It is a black hole.
HECK, YEAH! The single most useful thing we can ever tame for the proliferation of life as we know it across the multiverse! And, of course after all the stars die out!
Even when the undead in question is intelligent, it doesn't make the situation any better, in fact it makes it worse. Yes, intelligent undead still have their souls, but souls are inherently things of the Positive Energy Plane where they are born, and exposure to the Negative energy plane twists and mutilates them.
[citation needed]
It interferes with all but the most powerful resurrection magic,
Of course, there's something else that interferes with resurrection magic of all kinds: [death]. Those spells suuuuuuuuuuuuuck (... the "life" out of you).
And yet, they are not fundamentally evil.
Killing creatures with inflict spells or channeling negative energy into their corpses doesn't make it harder to raise them.
I mean, really, if you want to wreck moderate-level magic, simply chop a dude's head off and fry it to ash. Good luck raising them with that fifth level spell!
... oh, wait, no, there's the fourth-level reincarnate, ready and super-willing to give you infinite free immortality!
Pharasma clearly doesn't have a bone to pick with this spell, so...?
And, I mean, really: reincarnate is just plain better.
and that is not because the soul is "in use",
[citation needed]
as even being turned into soulless and mindless undead screws with the process.
But... how does it?
For example, a person could die, have, say, a hair of his thereafter chopped off, and used as the focus for a reincarnate spell, and then animate his own dead body. Paradox: if animate dead inherently causes problems with the soul, how could that happen?
Obviously, it doesn't work that way, which means something different (and probably less sinister) is going on.
Undeath is fundamentally against the natural order of life and death,
[citation needed]
with the first case of undeath ever resulting from Urgathoa refusing judgement from Pharasma and escaping back to the mortal world, which had the side of creating disease.
This is fair. The question is whether or not that's the result of undeath, or that's the result of Urgathoa using it.
People aren't just prejudice against undeath because it is gross or it's sufferers act differently,
No, that's pretty explicitly the problem.
It's gross (you're examples are all about disease, and most people don't like rot, and death is terribly icky) and people affected by it - may - act differently (hence the arguments about inherent alignment).
they are rightfully concerned with its defiance of metaphysics and damage it does to souls.
This is fair. The problem is that most of the issues brought up don't really bear out, when looked at more objectively, whether within the system, or out of it.
Undead can be evil, and certainly have a massively strong trend/pull toward evil in Pathfinder. That's canon. Yet, despite that, time and again, there are non-evil undead.
Ghosts of all kinds.
Irori's mummies.
Non-evil S'sS-style juju oracles.
Several really old vampires.
A number of haunts.
The ancestor spirits of taiga giants.
Wyrmskulls.
That... weird... spider... thing.
All those? They're in Pathfinder. Officially canon. Part of the setting ().
Fundamental to it, in many ways.
And this is all in Pathfinder where it's been canonically stated multiple times that undead are bad and should feel bad.
Starfinder has had its creators come out and state the opposite of this.
Just my two CP, though.
And, really, it's a fair and shiny set of coppers. But it fundamentally doesn't apply in a setting that is inherently different.
What changed? I'unno.
Maybe someone corrected the crappy Uragathoa-inspired undeath spells from long ago.
Maybe some gods got together to fix the "evil" glitch (or whatever) running through reality.
Maybe nothing - it's been floated around that this is a variant future with a variant past. If that's the case, then maybe creating undead has never been evil in this iteration.
Frankly, we don't know.
What we do know, however, is that they're not inherently evil anymore.
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Oh, and as an aside, I can (at least slightly) prove one part of Rysky's argument true, though, unfortunately, it will prove another part false in the doing.
See, we can prove something definitively: undead aren't monsters (though fiends are) - of course, they're not "person"(s) either.
See, by way of mechanics, we have a very handy reference for what a "person" or "monster" is: the charm person spells only affect humanoids - the only kind of creature described as a "person" by way of mechanics, while charm monster affects many other kinds... including humanoids (so, then, they, too, are monsters) and non-humanoids (see also: the hold and dominate spells). Undead are something else, though, which we can see by the command undead and control undead spells.
So, sure. You might not be able to call an undead a "person" as proven by the mechanics.
But make sure you're clear, here: angels, demons, and every "person" in existence is, clearly, a "monster" as well. Undead (and constructs) are the only non-monsters.
Only if said goddess is so unyielding and intractable that doubting her authority is considered heresy.
That's pretty much the definition of "heresy" though.
ETA: Being a god doesn't automatically justify their viewpoint as unquestionable, anyway- just look at all the gods with differing viewpoints and moralities in Golarion. They can't all be "right".
Doesn't make their view morally unquestionable.
But having different (even opposing) views, doesn't guarantee any sort of evil. Certainly different gods with different views on good can both be correct, whether or not they agree with each other on what is "best" - as evidence, they both have the "good" alignment.
She can't just 'decide' to be 'more enlightened' and give undead a pass. That would be like a lion deciding to become more enlightened and eat rocks instead of wildebeest; it isn't consistent with her nature, and wouldn't work anyway.
I think an intelligent, sentient being choosing to re-evaluate their belief system- whether a "god" or a mortal- is a little bit different than asking an unreasoning animal to change its nature.
I am not so sure of this. In PF, at least, full-on gods have been described as embodying the very concept (above even things like empyreal lords) of what they espouse, and may, therefore, be less able to choose differently. In the case of a lawful good or neutral good or chaotic good deity, this isn't really a problem, though, and may well be a goal to which all good people strive.
(Note: I'm not saying it's impossible; it's probable that they can can change, but it's more probable that it's much more difficult for them to do so. This is in PF, though, so the rules of SF might well be different.)
I still contend that Pharasma's looking at this whole cycle of life/death thing too dogmatically, and could well stand to adopt a more holistic attitude about it. What good has her blind crusade against "undeath" done in all of the existence of the PF/SF universe accomplished so far? It hasn't made undeath any less a part of the heartbeat of the universe.
I will say that we don't know this, for sure. It may very well be the only thing that has stopped undeath from devouring everything that exists. We're not entirely sure.
Just because it is a potentially unpredictable deviation in the pattern of how Pharasma perceives the cycle of life to behave doesn't make it unnatural.
This is totally true, though.
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Only if said goddess is so unyielding and intractable that doubting her authority is considered heresy.That's pretty much the definition of "heresy" though.
Semantics. :p
What I mean is, a god isn't the ultimate authority simply by virtue of being a god. Else all positions of all gods must therefore be true and every single person (and other god) is in violation of the ultimate doctrine of all things (whatever that may be) by virtue of harboring differing opinions or questioning those viewpoints.
So just because she espouses to be the (or "a") goddess of death and life, and she views undeath as unnatural, doesn't necessarily make her right.
I am not so sure of this. In PF, at least, full-on gods have been described as embodying the very concept (above even things like empyreal lords) of what they espouse, and may, therefore, be less able to choose differently. In the case of a lawful good or neutral good or chaotic good deity, this isn't really a problem, though, and may well be a goal to which all good people strive.
The problem I have with this viewpoint is embodied by those gods that have attained their divinity by virtue of achievement or other external factors (ie, the Starstone). Are they now permanently stuck with whatever their belief system was when they ascended? (Good thing Cayden Cailean wasn't a mean drunk!) If they lose any free will and choice because they are now gods, then why would anyone aspire to such?
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To Pharasma, who has existed before the universe it is hinted at, it's not the extending life/unlife that she cares about, it's that Undeath actually damages the process the universe works on.My suggestion is that she is thinking too narrowly, and needs to re-evaluate her hypothesis. Is it breaking the system, or is it merely an unforeseen part of the system that she should embrace and perhaps even encourage?
We're not talking about Einstein on relativity here. It isn't a 'hypothesis'. She's been there since before there were mortals. The cycle may very well be here invention, or else she act as its guardian. The system worked perfectly, the way it was meant to, for eons before Urgathoa screwed everything up. Why would she encourage a flaw in the system?
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The big problem with the Natural Order argument is that the Natural Order isn't "Good" in Pathfinder/Starfinder, it is Neutral.
I think that the intention is that Pharasma is neutral in the way Gozreh is neutral. It's a matter of balance. She doesn't show favoritism to good or evil, law or chaos. She makes perfectly impartial, unwaveringly fair judgement of where each soul should go. She isn't Good, because Good would imply a skewed judgement when it comes to Evil. Her judgement is unfailingly just, no matter who she's judging. She's the perfect avatar of 'blind justice', which essentially requires perfect neutrality.
Only if said goddess is so unyielding and intractable that doubting her authority is considered heresy.
That's pretty much the definition of "heresy" though.
Semantics. :p
Well...
;D
What I mean is, a god isn't the ultimate authority simply by virtue of being a god. Else all positions of all gods must therefore be true and every single person (and other god) is in violation of the ultimate doctrine of all things (whatever that may be) by virtue of harboring differing opinions or questioning those viewpoints.
So just because she espouses to be the (or "a") goddess of death and life, and she views undeath as unnatural, doesn't necessarily make her right.
This is true.
The main thing I wanted to clarify, though, is that even when gods disagree, we can prove that the disagreement doesn't make them evil, because they aren't (fundamentally).
I am not so sure of this. In PF, at least, full-on gods have been described as embodying the very concept (above even things like empyreal lords) of what they espouse, and may, therefore, be less able to choose differently. In the case of a lawful good or neutral good or chaotic good deity, this isn't really a problem, though, and may well be a goal to which all good people strive.
The problem I have with this viewpoint is embodied by those gods that have attained their divinity by virtue of achievement or other external factors (ie, the Starstone). Are they now permanently stuck with whatever their belief system was when they ascended? (Good thing Cayden Cailean wasn't a mean drunk!) If they lose any free will and choice because they are now gods, then why would anyone aspire to such?
Because you've already chosen.
Look at it this way: if I were given the choice to be a good person, and to be guaranteed that, I would be happy to sever my will from the ability to make evil choices by embodying a concept of good.
"Why would anyone give up free will?" is an easy answer: "If my free will leads me to choose evil, it's not a good or worthwhile thing to cling to, if the alternate is ensuring that I make myself good instead."
In a way, it's a sacrifice, sure. But it's one that I'm really quite fine with making - if I become an ultimate force for good, who really cares if I no longer have the choice to murder children because it's convenient - I've become fundamentally good, and that's actually really cool.
And, I mean, really, we can prove that gods have an aspect of free will (probably more than mortals) simply by this: we have multiple lawful good gods who have disagreements in the way to handle things.
Fundamentally, this means their own, expressed, individual personality is proven to come forth, even in the middle of being an absolute representation of their alignment.
(Also, gods can change - we might not be sure if they can change alignment, or to what extent those changes can be, but we know at least one god has changed over time: Erastil. So, if something is lost, it's an aspect of free will, not the whole shebang.)
I don't think she cares about expanding her followers. I mean, if the goddess of life and death, who may be the oldest being in existence, says that undead are a perversion of the natural order of life and death, there's every reason to take her at her word.Only if said goddess is so unyielding and intractable that doubting her authority is considered heresy.
ETA: Being a god doesn't automatically justify their viewpoint as unquestionable, anyway- just look at all the gods with differing viewpoints and moralities in Golarion. They can't all be "right".
Well, yes. Doubting a god's authority is usually heresy if you follow that god. Pharasma's whole shtick is overseeing life and death and being an impartial judge of the dead, so assuming that the cycle of life and death and where souls go afterwards is 'just, like, her opinion man' is a bit nonsensical. Her viewpoint is basically embedded in how the universe works. If she changed, it wouldn't be the same universe. That's what it is to be a major deity.
She can't just 'decide' to be 'more enlightened' and give undead a pass. That would be like a lion deciding to become more enlightened and eat rocks instead of wildebeest; it isn't consistent with her nature, and wouldn't work anyway.I think an intelligent, sentient being choosing to re-evaluate their belief system- whether a "god" or a mortal- is a little bit different than asking an unreasoning animal to change its nature.
Being an impartial watcher and judge is her nature. She is an intelligent being, sure, but she's also essentially a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity. Especially for major gods with exclusive purviews, that's pretty much how it is. She basically keeps some of the underlying machinery of the universe running properly. Suggesting she try doing things differently is like suggesting maybe we should play around with the strength of gravity; it would cause untold haos, for unkown (and likely negligible) gain.
I still contend that Pharasma's looking at this whole cycle of life/death thing too dogmatically, and could well stand to adopt a more holistic attitude about it. What good has her blind crusade against "undeath" done in all of the existence of the PF/SF universe accomplished so far? It hasn't made undeath any less a part of the heartbeat of the universe.Just because it is a potentially unpredictable deviation in the pattern of how Pharasma perceives the cycle of life to behave doesn't make it unnatural.
I mean, that'd make for an interesting home game, where the the gods are blind dogmatists who don't really know what they're doing, but it's a long way from canon. For all we know, her 'blind crusade' has kept the entire universe from ending up static boring, where a few liches rule dead worlds and nothing ever happens because the living have been exterminated. Undeath is explicitly unatural. Canon is that the cycle worked unfailingly for eons until, sometime after Rovagug was caged, Urgathoa corrupted it. Ending that corruption would return things to their proper order.
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I think that the intention is that Pharasma is neutral in the way Gozreh is neutral. It's a matter of balance. She doesn't show favoritism to good or evil, law or chaos. She makes perfectly impartial, unwaveringly fair judgement of where each soul should go. She isn't Good, because Good would imply a skewed judgement when it comes to Evil. Her judgement is unfailingly just, no matter who she's judging. She's the perfect avatar of 'blind justice', which essentially requires perfect neutrality.
That interpretation sounds more Lawful Neutral than Neutral.
But regardless, her being neutral rather than good is my point.
Messing with the natural order != evil, it just isn't neutral.
To Pharasma, who has existed before the universe it is hinted at, it's not the extending life/unlife that she cares about, it's that Undeath actually damages the process the universe works on.
My suggestion is that she is thinking too narrowly, and needs to re-evaluate her hypothesis. Is it breaking the system, or is it merely an unforeseen part of the system that she should embrace and perhaps even encourage?
We're not talking about Einstein on relativity here. It isn't a 'hypothesis'. She's been there since before there were mortals. The cycle may very well be here invention, or else she act as its guardian. The system worked perfectly, the way it was meant to, for eons before Urgathoa screwed everything up. Why would she encourage a flaw in the system?
1) Doesn't make her infallible.
2) We don't know how correct she is about her own statements; and we don't know whether or not she is the inventor, judge, or whatever.
3) Again, it's just as possible that it was because it was Urgathoa that discovered it that problems came up.
The big problem with the Natural Order argument is that the Natural Order isn't "Good" in Pathfinder/Starfinder, it is Neutral.
I think that the intention is that Pharasma is neutral in the way Gozreh is neutral. It's a matter of balance. She doesn't show favoritism to good or evil, law or chaos. She makes perfectly impartial, unwaveringly fair judgement of where each soul should go. She isn't Good, because Good would imply a skewed judgement when it comes to Evil. Her judgement is unfailingly just, no matter who she's judging. She's the perfect avatar of 'blind justice', which essentially requires perfect neutrality.
That is super her intention.
True Neutral is entirely not required, though.
Point in fact, JJ's home game (where Pharasma came from) she was lawful neutral. "Everything in its place, and a place for everything."
Really, any alignment could work for her, and solid arguments could be made, depending on her purposes and the care she shows toward others.
As a lawful good, for example, she may recognize the potential for goodness within even fundamentally evil creatures, hence, instead of obliterating chaotic evil, she puts it in the place it can do the least harm (the abyss), until such a time as it is necessary to erase it all, or it is redeemed.
As a chaotic good, she would be fundamentally respecting the individualism of a given entity - even if their choices were wicked, she respects the nature of the soul's free will and individual characteristics, and places it where it would feel the most free to be itself.
As a chaotic neutral, she doesn't owe an explanation to anyone. She is the boss of her, dang it, and shut it.
As a chaotic evil, she holds the power, and the system is her private joke on the omniverse. She's not the joker kind of CE, she's the kind that has everything she's ever wanted and <targeted swear word> if you think it should be different.
As a lawful evil, she genuinely doesn't care about anyone or anything but herself and her will - there will be order, her damn it, and she will enforce it!
I mean, I could keep going and hit the neutrals, but you can see it, I hope.
There really isn't a "bad" alignment for a goddess like Pharasma.
Well, yes. Doubting a god's authority is usually heresy if you follow that god. Pharasma's whole shtick is overseeing life and death and being an impartial judge of the dead, so assuming that the cycle of life and death and where souls go afterwards is 'just, like, her opinion man' is a bit nonsensical. Her viewpoint is basically embedded in how the universe works. If she changed, it wouldn't be the same universe. That's what it is to be a major deity.
Actually, that's not really what being a major deity is at all. At least not in Pathfinder.
"Major" deities have died (Ihys, Curchanus, and so on), and while it can have had an effect on the universe, it didn't quite happen like you're suggesting.
They may embody concepts, but the concepts do not require them to function properly (otherwise magic would have stopped working between Acavna and Nethys, for example).
That's a major difference from some earlier settings (most notably another favorite setting of mine, FR; I like a lot of settings :D).
Being an impartial watcher and judge is her nature. She is an intelligent being, sure, but she's also essentially a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity. Especially for major gods with exclusive purviews, that's pretty much how it is. She basically keeps some of the underlying machinery of the universe running properly. Suggesting she try doing things differently is like suggesting maybe we should play around with the strength of gravity; it would cause untold haos, for unkown (and likely negligible) gain.
I mean, that'd make for an interesting home game, where the the gods are blind dogmatists who don't really know what they're doing, but it's a long way from canon. For all we know, her 'blind crusade' has kept the entire universe from ending up static boring, where a few liches rule dead worlds and nothing ever happens because the living have been exterminated.
This is possibly quite true! ... or not!
We just don't know!
Undeath is explicitly unatural.
... [citation needed]
Canon is that the cycle worked unfailingly for eons until, sometime after Rovagug was caged, Urgathoa corrupted it. Ending that corruption would return things to their proper order.
[citation needed]
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Inner Sea Gods' entry on Urgathoa says explicitly that "Her existence is a corruption of the natural order" (p.157). The bit about the timing of her escape from the Boneyard and unleashing undeath upon the world I get from the PathfinderWiki article on Pharasma, which cites Gods and Magic (which I don't have to check).
I didn't mean to imply that, for example, souls would stop being sorted if Pharasma died, but rather than things work the way they do because she's running things. Were she to stop doing so, or start trying other methods, it would radically alter our understanding of what "birth", "death", "prophecy", etc meant and how they operated. She's not required for things to work, but she's an essential cog in the machine for how they work currently.
Funny note: my phone autocorrected "cog" above to "dog", which makes for a hilariously mangled metaphor. From now on I'm always going to think of Pharasma as the "dog in the machine" of life.
SWEET~!
I love citations!
:D
Also, I can see that.
EDIT: To be clear, though, it says that Urgathoa is a corruption of the natural order. That... could still be related to the problems so long associated with undeath. That is, "She started it out by doing it wrong, now it sucks for everyone."
Funny note: my phone autocorrected "cog" above to "dog", which makes for a hilariously mangled metaphor. From now on I'm always going to think of Pharasma as the "dog in the machine" of life.
... sooooooo... this is basically all just Silent Hill, then. XD
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The big problem with the Natural Order argument is that the Natural Order isn't "Good" in Pathfinder/Starfinder, it is Neutral.And yet the deity that wants to annihilate it (ie the Devourer) is Evil
The devourer wants to annihilate literally everything, not just "the natural order".
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Good Pharasmins will teach Good undead about the cycle of souls and how it sustains the whole of reality through life and death. They will show them that once they are destroyed they will be judged dispassionately by the goddess and sent to the reward their Good soul deserves. And they will offer their help in transitioning peacefully to death, ie back to the cycle. If the undead still clings to unlife after being thus enlightened, they will tearfully end its corruptive existence and free its soul
That is if they reach the Good undead before their Evil Pharasmin brethren do"The only good thing you can do, now, is die." is a really hard sell. Probably not impossible, but really hard.
Especially when compared to, "Don't use your eternal existence to make things better for others - you dying will be much better than improving health care, feeding the poor, and ensuring equality."
And the Pharasmin being the servant of the cycle of Life and Death, will show the undead how fleeting and transient these Good acts are compared to the very real threat to all that is and all that will be that the mere existence of the undead constitutes
That these acts might just as well be performed by living beings who are by their nature a strenghtening of the cycle of existence rather than a weakening of it
That in fact they could even be performed, or even greater and better ones, by the soul of the undead in its future incarnations
And that the undead, up to that point unknowingly, was already hurting an innocent soul : its own
And that's where good people start fighting about things.
YES. I must admit that I am endlessly frustrated by the idea that Good people will never fight between themselves just because they are Good
They are still people with all the imperfections and failures it implies. And they can end up having opposite points of view about what the ultimate Good is or how it should be reached. And they can become violent about it and even be tempted to Neutrality or even EvilPerfection is the province of the gods and in PFRPG/SFRPG maybe not even that
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The devourer wants to annihilate literally everything, not just "the natural order".The big problem with the Natural Order argument is that the Natural Order isn't "Good" in Pathfinder/Starfinder, it is Neutral.And yet the deity that wants to annihilate it (ie the Devourer) is Evil
The natural order, the cycle of life and death, is the mechanism that sustains the existence of Everything
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Pharasmins should be politically-savvy and easily take the long-term view. They will not act in haste and imperil their church and thus their mission. Rather they will observe the undead and gather all the evidence that will one day convince the Pact Worlds to disavow Eox.
By itself, this presence will prevent the Eoxians from doing anything too rash.
I am pretty sure the Pact Worlds are quite happy with this situation as it keeps Eox from becoming such an obvious threat that they would have to start a war with it
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We're not talking about Einstein on relativity here. It isn't a 'hypothesis'. She's been there since before there were mortals. The cycle may very well be here invention, or else she act as its guardian. The system worked perfectly, the way it was meant to, for eons before Urgathoa screwed everything up. Why would she encourage a flaw in the system?
Perhaps the system is larger than her conception of it? It may not be working the way she wants, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. Perhaps Urgathoa didn't actually introduce a flaw, but merely helped bring to light an aspect of the process that had heretofore been unforeseen, even by the goddess of prophecy?
Heck, maybe that's why Aroden died and broke prophecy- to help lift self-imposed blinders off Pharasma and others and allow them to see beyond the shackles of their tunnel vision.
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Again, that might make for an interesting home game, but canon says "Her existence is a corruption of the natural order". That's not from a Pharasmin perspective, that's from Urgathoa's own entry in Inner Sea Gods.
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Again, that might make for an interesting home game, but canon says "Her existence is a corruption of the natural order". That's not from a Pharasmin perspective, that's from Urgathoa's own entry in Inner Sea Gods.
Her existence, explicitly. That may be different from undeath.
Urgathoa’s existence is a corruption of the natural order; some say her first divine footprints upon the soil of the Material Plane birthed plague and infection and that the first undead shadows and wraiths were born of her breath.
Heck, the creation of disease is relegated to "some say" instead of being presented as fact.
In that same entry,
Urgathoa is an utterly amoral, hedonistic goddess, concerned only with sating her own desires, regardless of the consequences others might suffer.
<snip> so her followers indulge in gluttonous depravity, attempting to cram as much sensation into existence as possible. Urgathoa’s faith embraces breaking and surpassing taboos, so nothing is forbidden.
<snip>
Asceticism and self-restraint are repugnant—unless they are themselves part of some obsessive and gluttonous game—and the unrestrained excess of undeath is a state to aspire to.
<snip> [Her worshipers] demand experience without limits or repercussions and perpetually chase hedonistic sensation. Although the church of Urgathoa is primarily interested in undeath, some cults focus on her gluttonous aspect, indulging in lavish orgies and decadent feasts of food and drugs. The vices of those who worship Urgathoa tend to become ever stranger and more demanding as they advance in her service.
None of that is fundamentally tied to undeath, and even the suggestion that undeath causes disease is rumor, not proof.
What's more, we've had developer commentary that explicitly notes that undead aren't evil.
Look. I'm not anti-Pharasma by any means.
But it's clear that she's not a "good" deity, in this setting.
We don't actually know or understand the nature of undeath. It may be harmful. It may just be really irritating to a goddess of birth and death.
We know Urgathoa's existence is a corruption of "the natural order" - but here are a few more, and some more, and some more. These are explicitly terrible creatures who actively work to pervert the cycle of life and so on. I mean, they explicitly make pacts that circumvent Pharasma's judgement. And you absolutely cannot forget about these guys.
But, and here's the thing, this is still part of the natural cycle... that is, IF you presuppose that "the natural order" is "following Pharasma's judgement" - because, frankly, she's rather explicitly responsible for most all of that, by way of her judgement, most specifically the horsemen and daemons.
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There is an obvious reason this debate never ends:
There is an intractable contradiction between free will and inherent, immutable alignment. The two are simply mutually exclusive.
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There is an obvious reason this debate never ends:
There is an intractable contradiction between free will and inherent, immutable alignment. The two are simply mutually exclusive, and no amount of discussion will change that.
Not so much, depending on what you mean. This is the same thing with prophecy.
The problem comes when people try to define what "free will" really is.
If it's just making a random choice, it differs little in substance from insanity.
Inherent alignment is a limited but free will, at least insomuch as any concerns a it individualism are concerned.
Sure, Angels can't normally choose to eat babies and murder college students, but they can choose a whole host of things, ranging from pacifism, war, color and food preferences, technological preference, and even specific version of ideology.
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If I understand things correctly, the protection and citizenship only applies to Eoxian undead. The Corpse Fleet and any undead found in the Near and Vast have no such aegis. Therefore they can be destroyed if a pharasmin deems it necessary.
So, destroy the wild undead you come across and keep an eye on the undead you have to live with.
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There is an obvious reason this debate never ends:
There is an intractable contradiction between free will and inherent, immutable alignment. The two are simply mutually exclusive.
Good thing nothing in Pathfinder (or Starfinder, presumably) has an immutable alignment, then.
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If I understand things correctly, the protection and citizenship only applies to Eoxian undead. The Corpse Fleet and any undead found in the Near and Vast have no such aegis. Therefore they can be destroyed if a pharasmin deems it necessary.
So, destroy the wild undead you come across and keep an eye on the undead you have to live with.
Sort of.
You really shouldn't kill any sentient being unless it is self defense or in the defense of others.
But the real problem as you note, is not Pharasmins killing mindless undead or even random intelligent undead, but killing citizens of Eox who should be protected under the pact that was created which formed the Pact Worlds.
Good thing nothing in Pathfinder (or Starfinder, presumably) has an immutable alignment, then.There is an obvious reason this debate never ends:
There is an intractable contradiction between free will and inherent, immutable alignment. The two are simply mutually exclusive.
Well, I mean, there's also that... XD
EDIT: Ninja androids... ;D
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Good thing nothing in Pathfinder (or Starfinder, presumably) has an immutable alignment, then.There is an obvious reason this debate never ends:
There is an intractable contradiction between free will and inherent, immutable alignment. The two are simply mutually exclusive.
Telll that to the "undead are inherently evil and can therefore be destroyed at will" crowd.
Also, which thread are you READING?
I mean, I pointed out, like, right up there, where the subtype itself notes that even creatures made out of literal evil could change alignment...
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I assume Pharasmans get their anger out by killing some of the huge numbers of mindless and feral undead on Eox that aren't pact citizens.
I'm sure they intend to get around to the upstanding citizens, but when you have to choose between killing true monsters that no one, not even their former fellow citizens, seems to care about, and people that appear to be minding their own business (and are likely to have serious physical and political defenses), which makes more sense?
At least, I assume the various ghoul, wraiths, skeletons, and the like that the Eox entry mentioned aren't pact citizens. That's how it read to me, but I could be wrong.
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Remember when vampires and zombies were bloodsucking, flesh-eating monsters we killed indiscriminately and not shiney pretty beings with complex histories and sentience? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Anywho, on Eox, there is the Halls of the Living where living beings live on Eox. I imagine this is where the church is at. Especially since it is at this city that host deadly reality shows where death is possible. I also imagine participants must sign a waiver if they are followers of Pharasma and their dead body is not to be messed with by Eox authority.
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I'm not saying she'd choose to wage war with everyone. I'm saying that she's an important goddess almost everywhere, and most of the Pact Worlds would probably prefer to turn a blind eye to Pharasmin attacks on Eox (whom nobody likes much anyway) rather than risk alienating an important segment of their own populace.
As Stalin famously said, the only thing thst matter to Eox rulers is «how many divisions does the Pope have?»
Pharasma doesn't have hellknights, or powerful resources like AbadarCorp or fleets like Iomedae. A few Pharasmin zealots might do some guerrilla tactics and terrorist like operations in Eox, but going an all out war against Eox is a different thing. Navy fleet, airforces, tank divisions and tactical nukes aren't things that Pharasma's church seem to have. Eox on the other hand is a military powerhouse.
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We're not talking about Einstein on relativity here. It isn't a 'hypothesis'. She's been there since before there were mortals. The cycle may very well be here invention, or else she act as its guardian. The system worked perfectly, the way it was meant to, for eons before Urgathoa screwed everything up. Why would she encourage a flaw in the system?Perhaps the system is larger than her conception of it? It may not be working the way she wants, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. Perhaps Urgathoa didn't actually introduce a flaw, but merely helped bring to light an aspect of the process that had heretofore been unforeseen, even by the goddess of prophecy?
Heck, maybe that's why Aroden died and broke prophecy- to help lift self-imposed blinders off Pharasma and others and allow them to see beyond the shackles of their tunnel vision.
I am playing that card in Strange Aons, which I am GMing
I'm using a pharasmin NPC,Winter Klackzca, to run the point that the Elder Mythos are not natural. THE BBEG, Xhamen Dor, creates semtient undead-plant people. I made the NPC lose her mind, yelling that it was not possible duch thing. Those undead were not even Urgathoan-like monstrosities,they were not souks stolen from the river of souls. They are different, unnstural, impossible, uncanny lovecraftian thibgs
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I'm not saying she'd choose to wage war with everyone. I'm saying that she's an important goddess almost everywhere, and most of the Pact Worlds would probably prefer to turn a blind eye to Pharasmin attacks on Eox (whom nobody likes much anyway) rather than risk alienating an important segment of their own populace.As Stalin famously said, the only thing thst matter to Eox rulers is «how many divisions does the Pope have?»
Pharasma doesn't have hellknights, or powerful resources like AbadarCorp or fleets like Iomedae. A few Pharasmin zealots might do some guerrilla tactics and terrorist like operations in Eox, but going an all out war against Eox is a different thing. Navy fleet, airforces, tank divisions and tactical nukes aren't things that Pharasma's church seem to have. Eox on the other hand is a military powerhouse.
Do we know this? Lawful Neutral is only one step from Neutral. A Pharasmin Hellknight order is hardly inconceivable. It also seems a bit of a stretch to say that the goddess who's responsible for birth, death, and prophecy doesn't have powerful resources.
The goddess herself is all-powerful, like any greater god. She also does not interfere personally in mortals' affairs, like any greater god.
It is the pharasmin church what doesn't seem to be extremely well prepared for all-out wars, unlike other, more militaristic churches, like Asmodeus or Iomedae.
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I was thinking more in terms of who her worshippers would be and what they'd have control over. Midwives, ob/gyns, funeral directors, morticians, coroners, these are the sorts of people who are going to be drawn to Pharasma. If the church says "Hey guys, we're going on strike until the government quits supporting the persecution of our brothers and sisters on Eox", society is going to have some serious issues. The core rulebook notes that every graveyard is a shrine to Pharasma. I suspect the church of Pharasma maybe heavily involved in the ownership of hospitals generally (because that's where you find the maternity wards and morgues, both of which are within her purview), and and perhaps land more broadly (cemeteries are always needing more land, after all). I mean, when you can count on pregnant couples and senior citizens, you've got the Morse of all(heh) interest groups. Sure, maybe some people are mostly paying lip service out of self-interest, but this is a universe where the gods are known to be real and powerful, I'd wager there are a lot fewer people who pay lip service to a deity but ignore their directives.
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Well, yes,I already said that. Pharasmin zealots with personal weaponry doing terrorist-like attacks vs Eoxian civilians? Can see that. Rebels with guerrilla tactics, like the Resistance in V? For sure.
Defeating Eox's Fleet, full of Dreadnoughts, Battleships snd Carriers, then wipe out Eox's army and destroyibg their civilization?
I don't see anything in the books that suggests Pharssma's church have anything even close to that.