(i agree that the bug idea is weak sauce, but i just suggested something that is more in line with this god)Insects are the only thing that has a birth rate quick enough to have a constant supply and small enough to carry. If you rely on mammals, you need several VERY randy opossums [gestation periods of 12-13] if you travel or are in a place without 365 newborn creatures in a year.
(i agree that the bug idea is weak sauce, but i just suggested something that is more in line with this god)Insects are the only thing that has a birth rate quick enough to have a constant supply and small enough to carry. If you rely on mammals, you need several VERY randy opossums [gestation periods of 12-13] if you travel or are in a place without 365 newborn creatures in a year.
i think a determined follower could find enough cats and dogs within an entire city.
admittedly, that would require them to use minions to do it due to time/suspicion concerns.
but obedience feats, particularly cor the prickly demon lords, are things that i tend to mentally associate withthe heads of a cult, or at least its elite members.
with a large enough operation, they could do it locally- maybe pass themselves off as a dog breeder or something (which of course creates another adventure seed where the cult is sending out a ton of dogs infected with abyssal taint, the dogs would appear normal, but they will all go crazy at once and over take the city when a ritual is completed)
i prefer the mammal route, since they bleed than bugs. which makes them better demonic sacrifices.
i think a determined follower could find enough cats and dogs within an entire city.
I was thinking of more 'rural' areas. I tend to think of Lamashtu cults as 'out in the stick', were monster breeding and cannibalism can go unnoticed. Sort of like the CE version of druidism.
i think a determined follower could find enough cats and dogs within an entire city.I was thinking of more 'rural' areas. I tend to think of Lamashtu cults as 'out in the stick', were monster breeding and cannibalism can go unnoticed. Sort of like the CE version of druidism.
i suppose. but i think there would be occasional operations to 'strike out against those weak lambs that hide in their cities'.
i suppose. but i think there would be occasional operations to 'strike out against those weak lambs that hide in their cities'.i think a determined follower could find enough cats and dogs within an entire city.I was thinking of more 'rural' areas. I tend to think of Lamashtu cults as 'out in the stick', were monster breeding and cannibalism can go unnoticed. Sort of like the CE version of druidism.
Oh I don't disagree, just that rural area's aren't likely to have 365 baby cats/dogs every year unless they build a huge puppy mill to feed the 'leader'. Using mammals just requires a huge amount of micromanaging unless it's in a truly immense city.
As a GM I find it amusing that players believe killing a small vermin qualifies for a deific obedience.
I'm curious why you think it doesn't? A vermins can be "a creature that has been alive for no more than a week": it doesn't say mammal, sentient or anything other restriction. If you want to houserule it otherwise, you'll have to give the player a heads up what YOU want to change the requirement to. It's NOT cool to spring it on a player without warning.
And to "Your patron will notice and proclaim your faith is on par with your sacrifice", it's symbolic more than anything else. You don't get MORE power from eating a baby gold dragon anymore than you get less for an insect. [unless you make that a houserule too] It's kind of a slippery slope if you start tying it to the quality of the sacrifice as players WILL expect a boost in the ability if they get better ones if they get penalties for worse ones.
Oh I don't disagree, just that rural area's aren't likely to have 365 baby cats/dogs every year unless they build a huge puppy mill to feed the 'leader'. Using mammals just requires a huge amount of micromanaging unless it's in a truly immense city.i suppose. but i think there would be occasional operations to 'strike out against those weak lambs that hide in their cities'.i think a determined follower could find enough cats and dogs within an entire city.I was thinking of more 'rural' areas. I tend to think of Lamashtu cults as 'out in the stick', were monster breeding and cannibalism can go unnoticed. Sort of like the CE version of druidism.
..now you have me going to the math.
you have a week to kill the thing after birth. there are 52 weeks in a year. cats and dogs are prone to litters, so you might get a week's worth per litter.
the math gets even easier if you are looking at multiple nearby pioneer settlements.
I always took the "you gotta murder a whole lot, like a WHOLE lot" obediences to be flags for "worshiping this being is probably not for PCs".
But like the Ragathiel folks skate by killing things who *just* did something evil (like on the previous round of combat.)
There are some non-evil obediences that can be dangerous to perform. Those of Apsu and Sivanah from Inner Sea Faiths come to mind, as they involve walking in a straight line for about half an hour and then walking back.
Then there are obediences like that for Naderi that might be undoable in your current location (in this case, if there is no river nearby).
And I remember choosing not to create a character who would have had the Deific Obedience (Sarenrae) feat because I knew that the party would be in the Darklands for the foreseeable future.
...Generally a criminal's sentence is considered to be complete after a single execution. Unless they have committed additional crimes since being raised, executing them again isn't justified
That's a bold assumption to make about a society in which the dead can be raised. Given that the whole "if they fail to kill you with an execution you get to go free" is wholely a TVism. For instance the state of Texas has had to execute the same man upward of six times before due to faulty equipment. The sentence is "until dead" which you know they missing a requirement for that case to be shut if you come back.
Given that the whole "if they fail to kill you with an execution you get to go free" is wholely a TVism [...]
Side note: Today, it's completely off, but two centuries ago and earlier, surviving your execution could get you a pardon, depending on circumstances.
Of course, that was usually under the reasoning that surviving an execution was god's will, which takes an entirely different turn when you have gods like Rovagug or Zyphus around. If it's not clear who caused whatever accident that in turn caused the execution to fail, you might as well just pull it off again.
And even those pardons were based on the morality of a world were you can't raise the dead, so yeah - it's not really relevant for a world were bringing you back after a week is pricey, but far from impossible.
I haven't been able to find any substantiated cases of pardons for failed executions. There have been cases where a mob interferes and as a result prevents a second go at the execution, but it has never been a part of actual law either written or common law. A lot of the pop culture belief in it comes from failing to understand old timey trials by ordeal, where surviving or not surviving was what determined your innocence or guilt.
It was never common, which isn't surprising since "surviving execution" wasn't that common either. But Anne Greene, for example, was given a pardon due to the mix of "The law wasn't fair" and "She survived the execution", which spun itself into a neat "God gave her a second chance, and so should we" narrative.
Others were simply executed again. It could give you a pardon, it didn't guarantee one. Also, it still required a pardon, without it, you'd also just get executed again.
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I haven't been able to find any substantiated cases of pardons for failed executions. There have been cases where a mob interferes and as a result prevents a second go at the execution, but it has never been a part of actual law either written or common law. A lot of the pop culture belief in it comes from failing to understand old timey trials by ordeal, where surviving or not surviving was what determined your innocence or guilt.
Margaret Dickson, hanged, survived, granted pardon.
You are confusing a logical argument based on a narrow reading of RAW versus religion in general and the definiton of worship or patronage. It is disrespectful to your Patron. It implies that a sacrifice of a worm is equivalent to an intelligent being. I'm not saying it won't work, but there are bound to be consequences.
In general I don't think it is a wise strategy for a divine based class to continually shortchange their deity.
What you're doing is inventing requirements that aren't there. If the deity WANTED "an intelligent being", it'd say that or at least imply that: it does not. What it does is require a life not more than 10 days old. Period. It's NOT a narrow read, in fact it's the only way to read it without adding information that is not included.
Now if you're the Dm you are within your rights to houserule some other requirement but please don't try to put that houserule forth as the actual written rule. It's not "shortchanging" your diety to give them exactly what they asked for. Greater/lesser effect for the quality of the sacrifice if a complete invention on your part: again, totally fine as a houserule but that's nowhere in the game text.
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You are confusing a logical argument based on a narrow reading of RAW versus religion in general and the definiton of worship or patronage. It is disrespectful to your Patron. It implies that a sacrifice of a worm is equivalent to an intelligent being. I'm not saying it won't work, but there are bound to be consequences.
Some thoughts;
1) A worm wouldn't be equivalent to an intelligent being, but since the obedience doesn't call for an intelligent being, but just a living creature, that's not relevant. There are obediences that specifically call out an intelligent sacrifice, such as that of Ragathiel, so it's not like the deity can get away with saying 'but I obviously meant X, even though I said Y...'
2) What if the animal was a favored animal of a despised rival deity, such as a songbird, representing Shelyn, or a butterfly, representing Desna?
Gruesomely killing a bat, which is both the holy animal of Nocticula (a rival she's not fond of) and, as a flying animal, a holy animal of Pazuzu (who she actively hates), might please Lamashtu, for the symbolism, if nothing else.
In general I don't think it is a wise strategy for a divine based class to continually shortchange their deity.
Sensible, in most cases. Obviously exceptions would exist in the cases of deities who may be unaware, and are certainly uncaring, of their 'worshippers,' like many of the Great Old Ones.
And it's not like one has to be a divine-based class to take an obedience. Fighter-types, in particular, can benefit from many of them, and it's not like they are going to lose their bonus feats for not upholding some clerical code.
Margaret Dickson, hanged, survived, granted pardon.
You're right there. Though my point would still mostly stand in that she wasn't just found to be alive immediately afterwards and pardoned. She was only found to be alive after she was out of the court's hands and with people who wanted to protect her.
it's not like the deity can get away with saying 'but I obviously meant X, even though I said Y...'Lamashtu can totally say that. She's a chaotic evil deity. She can say whatever she wants. Whether what she says is reasonable or true is inconsequential :P
You're right there. Though my point would still mostly stand in that she wasn't just found to be alive immediately afterwards and pardoned. She was only found to be alive after she was out of the court's hands and with people who wanted to protect her.
It's also yet another case of "pregnant women hid pregnancy (illegal) and hid the most likely stillborn baby (also illegal) which meant it was treated as infanticide". People knew the law wasn't just in such cases (pregnant women couldn't find work, but hiding pregnancy was illegal, so single pregnant women had the choice between doing something illegal or starving), and saw these loopholes as divine justice.