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Mine would have to be Iomedae due to a certain infamous scene in Herald Of The Ivory Labyrinth (not going to spoil it here, look at the Wrath Of The Righteous forum if you're curious)
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Mine would have to be Iomedae due to a certain infamous scene in Herald Of The Ivory Labyrinth (not going to spoil it here, look at the Wrath Of The Righteous forum if you're curious)
I know this is cheesy, but, when I happend to recite the whole, May Imodea's light guide you or whatever it is, at the EXACT right moment to unlock her hidden armory, she became my 2nd favorite of the gods. Behind Desna.
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Norgorber. His whole thing seems to be secrets for the sake of having secrets. Boring.
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Cayden Cailean - too overrated. Everyone loves him because he's a boozehound? Lame.
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ZOn Kuthon, I hate playing paladins, but I could create one dedicated to exterminating his cult.
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Nethys... Ok, back in D&D 3.5, the deity of magic was Boccob, who was essentially similar to Nethys, as he claimed that magic is mightier than morality. However, he made it look like he was simply a researcher trying to push the magic arts further and further.
Nethys is... a god with a split personality disorder, who's constantly trying to get more power via magic even if it means to destroy the world.
I'm almost tempted to accuse Nethys of causing the Gap, in Starfinder...
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Gorum. Because Paizo decided that the god promoting the single greatest source of death and suffering in the history of mankind should be neutral.
"He is indifferent to whether his followers are knights in plate mail, goblins wielding dogslicers, or children armed with table knives-anyone willing to put up a fight, no matter how pathetic or pointless, is worth swinging at." Inner Sea Gods pg. 62
Neutral my ass!
Especially annoying is that his Divine Fighting Technique is one of the best, but in order to get it, you have to worship the deity promoting mass-raping, pillaging, starving civilians, drafting, child soldiers, burning houses, and all-around wholesome slaughter.
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Sarenrae, because the only reason people seem to pick her is because she's a good aligned deity that gives you the fire domain. Then once a player reads up on her they start playing their character as a homicidal zealot (which isn't an incorrect interpretation). She seems like she's supposed to be all about redemption but the reality is most clerics come across as bullies. "change your ways or die"
It's all because when you read about her everything seems fine until you get to the part where it says.
"Yet there are those who have no interest in redemption, who glory in slaughter and death. Sarenrae's doctrines preach swift justice delivered by the scimitar's edge."
Which seems to get interpreted as "well I tried to change their ways(by yelling at them to change), they said no and so now I have to kill them."
It's frustrating because you can't really even call them out on it.
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Sarenrae, because the only reason people seem to pick her is because she's a good aligned deity that gives you the fire domain. Then once a player reads up on her they start playing their character as a homicidal zealot (which isn't an incorrect interpretation). She seems like she's supposed to be all about redemption but the reality is most clerics come across as bullies. "change your ways or die"
It's all because when you read about her everything seems fine until you get to the part where it says.
"Yet there are those who have no interest in redemption, who glory in slaughter and death. Sarenrae's doctrines preach swift justice delivered by the scimitar's edge."
Which seems to get interpreted as "well I tried to change their ways(by yelling at them to change), they said no and so now I have to kill them."
It's frustrating because you can't really even call them out on it.
Well, if you COULD get the Fire domain without having to worship either her or Asmodeus (I have access only to the basic pantheon, unless I'm playing a Dwarf), if might be interesting... let's be careful though, any Fire deity is likely to be highly destructive.
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Desna. She comes across as the one god one developer really liked and bugged the rest of the crew to put her in the game, then she got all of the exposure they could possibly cram in to golarion books.
It doesn't help that her whole theme is this very vague "freedom" thing, but also luck for some reason? Besides the fact that it's a powerful domain along with the travel one, I don't see the two having anything in common. It feels more like a miscellaneous pile of traits than anything else.
EDIT: Someone mentioned Cayden Cailean, him too. He says he encourages his followers to "drink responsibly" but that's not how he became a god, now is it?
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Achaekek is just cheesy. "I aM ThE MaNTiS!!!". Yeah, whatever bugboy, take it down a level or two.
Well, if you COULD get the Fire domain without having to worship either her or Asmodeus (I have access only to the basic pantheon, unless I'm playing a Dwarf), if might be interesting... let's be careful though, any Fire deity is likely to be highly destructive.
I don't have a problem with a good aligned fire diety. If she were retribution instead of redemption I think it would be fine.
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Aroden. Hands-down, no contest.
The Ascended pantheon are actually my favorite deities in Pathfinder, but Aroden riles me unlike anything else in Golarion lore.
And it's not really Aroden's fault - he's actually fine - it's Paizo's fault.
Because for some reason, Paizo decided to do a J.J. Abrams-style mystery box with regards to the death of Aroden, and they did so in the most infuriating way possible.
If Paizo's official stance was, "The death of Aroden is a mystery, and while we have our own official answer, we're never going to use it or release it, so you should feel free to explore it for your personal games without fear that we'll release something that would invalidate the events of your home game," that'd be totally fine with me. Likewise, if their stance was, "The death of Aroden is a mystery, and we will explore it in a future Adventure Path at some point," that'd also be totally fine with me.
Instead, the official stance is that, "The death of Aroden is a mystery, and we may or may not ever release our official answer," which incenses me beyond a reasonable or rational degree to which I should care.
Paizo seems oblivious to the fact that there are some people who care very, very deeply about canonical lore. If it's a space that's open to personal exploration, that's awesome, if it's a space that's well-defined, that's awesome, if it's a space that we know *will* be definitely, totally cool: each of those creates boundaries within which characters and stories can be explored. Aroden occupies a very different space, in which the mystery surrounding Aroden actively removes the ability to explore any creative space surrounding a pivotal moment in Golarion lore.
And for that, he's a terrible deity.
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I'll throw another vote in for Sarenrae.
The whole Gormuz incident was unbelievably mishandled. As in, it pulls one right out of their suspension of disbelief.
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Ghenshau, the empyreal lord of ignorance, placidity, and simplicity. He's got a page in Chronicles of the Righteous and I think he's supposed to combine a kind of Toaist wu wei (action without effort) concept with taking it easy and enjoying the simple things in life. I love all of these aspects.
However, I think the ignorance aspect is taken too far. Its fine to be ignorant, as that's just the state of not knowing something, but Ghenshau actively encourages burning books and destroying knowledge. Not just evil books like the Book of the Damned, but any books. This may have been an oversight or something, but this feels needlessly destructive and morally gray at best.
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Gozreh, because it sounds lame when said out loud and because it presumes to be the God of Nature, a concept that needs no deity and whose reverence is already well-trodden by druids.
...Okay, that isn't my absolute least favorite deity, but I could "grinds my gears" all day about the Inner Sea pantheon.
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Nocticula is my least favorite deity. She is your standard Weird Sex Dark Goddess that every Goth/Emo teenager who thinks they're being edgy and unique comes up with for their homebrew setting. She and her brother are well known patrons of violent sexual criminals, yet somehow she's become a fan favorite regarded as "not so bad" compared to other Demon Lords.
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Not to invalidate anyone's opinion, just to point out a few things...
Desna. [...] It doesn't help that her whole theme is this very vague "freedom" thing, but also luck for some reason? Besides the fact that it's a powerful domain along with the travel one, I don't see the two having anything in common. It feels more like a miscellaneous pile of traits than anything else.
Her core ideas are "dreams" and "stars", and the rest flows from that. Starting with Stars: They are used to navigate, so she's the guardian of travel and nomads, and due to that associated with freedom. Stars are also used to predict the future, so she deals with prophecy and fate, but due to freedom, it's the "make your own fate" luck version of fate.
Dreams are... a bit tedious to justify (partially because it treats the dreams from "hopes and dreams" and "dreaming in your sleep" as the same thing), but can be connected through hope (stars are also a "light in the dark" ), being metaphorical destinations you can try to reach ("reach for the stars" / reaching your dreams - and, given that there's a literal Plane of Dreams, (sleeping) dreaming in Pathfinder does involve (mental) planar travel), and... Well, in a more literal sense, because people sleep at night.So, there is a theme. Still doesn't mean that you have to like her, especially since...
She comes across as the one god one developer really liked and bugged the rest of the crew to put her in the game, then she got all of the exposure they could possibly cram in to golarion books.
...she's definitely a bit of a creator's favorite.
Nocticula is my least favorite deity. She is your standard Weird Sex Dark Goddess that every Goth/Emo teenager who thinks they're being edgy and unique comes up with for their homebrew setting. She and her brother are well known patrons of violent sexual criminals, yet somehow she's become a fan favorite regarded as "not so bad" compared to other Demon Lords.
Well, she's semi-officially trying to redeem herself. To add to that, the one redeemable demon (kickstarted by Desna, see "creator's favorite" above) in official material is a succubus. If there's redeeming going on, it has to be a pretty one!
Personally... I don't really dislike any god, but Irori always seems kinda bland to me. I keep thinking of him as "that Monk God". He also has a knowledge theme, but Nethys has divination, so...
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Norgorber. His whole thing seems to be secrets for the sake of having secrets. Boring.
Secrets kept are weapons wasted.
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Cayden Cailean, as a long-standing matter of record.
BONUS EDIT: An entire thread about altering deities to better suit.
I actually like Cayden Cailean because he's kind of a silly god. It's like if there was a god of synth pop or something. I might worship him but most people would probably consider him a kook.
Cayden all depends on interpretation. Think of an old slightly alcoholic Irish poet/warrior1, or a Daoist sage saying "well, there's wisdom in the bottom of the cup". The problem is that people don't respect alcohol anymore, {old man rant}. But yeah, the presentation is kind of sad.
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Also there are some "real" gods of alcohol (Bacchus/Dionosys being the most well known). So there is some precedent for it.
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Nethys. His whole schtick is "Magic." He literally has one area of concern, while the rest have at least three (the core 20, at least).
Also, most evil-aligned deities. I just don't get why you'd worship the mother of beasts, a torturer, or a deity of destruction. Asmodeus has some flair, I'll give him that, but he's the only exception.
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Also, most evil-aligned deities. I just don't get why you'd worship the mother of beasts, a torturer, or a deity of destruction. Asmodeus has some flair, I'll give him that, but he's the only exception.
It makes sense to me. Think of it this way, the evil creature upon finding out about a particular evil deity.
"So, you're telling me that if I do more of this thing I like to do but say a little prayer each time I do it, then I will be given divine power?! Sweet! sign me up!"
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I dislike Abadar, but I think it is mostly due to players I have at my tables than the actual Deity itself. Most player-characters I have met that worship the guy are roleplayed as either lawyers who constanly question the legality of things (and I mean of everything), or fanatic taxcollectors who constantly try to add more numbers to my game (including trying to create invoices).
This is a fantasy game for crying out loud... These things should be background things commoners or experts should be doing. Why the hell are you even adventuring?!?
Also, most evil-aligned deities. I just don't get why you'd worship the mother of beasts, a torturer, or a deity of destruction. Asmodeus has some flair, I'll give him that, but he's the only exception.It makes sense to me. Think of it this way, the evil creature upon finding out about a particular evil deity.
"So, you're telling me that if I do more of this thing I like to do but say a little prayer each time I do it, then I will be given divine power?! Sweet! sign me up!"
I can imagine monstrous creatures worshiping Lamashtu, but no human(oid) in their sane mind would ever do that, IMHO.
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I can imagine monstrous creatures worshiping Lamashtu, but no human(oid) in their sane mind would ever do that, IMHO.Also, most evil-aligned deities. I just don't get why you'd worship the mother of beasts, a torturer, or a deity of destruction. Asmodeus has some flair, I'll give him that, but he's the only exception.It makes sense to me. Think of it this way, the evil creature upon finding out about a particular evil deity.
"So, you're telling me that if I do more of this thing I like to do but say a little prayer each time I do it, then I will be given divine power?! Sweet! sign me up!"
I think you just provided yourself with the answer: sanity is not a prerequisite for worship. When is the last time you saw a Lamashtu worshipper with a sane mind? There might be somewhere (and kudos to those who can play such a person without "because gameplay reasons" arguments).
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I agree that Lamashtu is the go-to for those who have lost their mind and want to become full-fledged monsters, but there is another class of people who would worship Lamashtu: Parents.
Lamashtu's Mark gives your children the "fiendish" template. If you live in a cruel, uncaring world where your children's only chance of survival is to be strong and feared, then Lamashtu provides something valuable (and probably a useful philosophy also).
While that certainly qualifies as "off your rocker" in the real world, it's closer to "slightly unhinged" in Golarion.
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I'll throw in as absolutely despising Desna. No other deity in the pantheon is such a ridiculous Mary Sue. Her writing seems to just be the musings of an aroused 13 year old, turning much of the female deities in the pantheon into an absurd harem, even when it actively detracts from the mythology in doing so. Pharasma is a non-partisan element whose entire point is to be nonbiased in the acts of the Great Beyond, but nope, even she gets roped into the harem in Planar Adventures. Desna's shadow becomes an empyreal lord, and she bones Cayden before he ascends and gives birth to Kurgess which not only is absurd, but also steals from Cayden's myth (as despisable as he is, he doesn't need his toes tread on) and sours that of Kurgess. She's the ridiculous self-insert of 'oh I'm so attractive' when half of that behavior should belong to other, more fitting, deities, like Calistria or Nocticula. /rant
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Also there are some "real" gods of alcohol (Bacchus/Dionosys being the most well known). So there is some precedent for it.
Or Sun Wukong.
But this thing is, these deities also concern themselves with the dangers and drawbacks of boozing, whereas Cayden is just a bro-tastic beer commercial.
I know a lot of people don't like ol Norgie, but I am fond of the God of Secrets because he reminds me of a Ranald from the Warhammer fantasy series.
And Ranald's an utter bastard >_>
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I don't like any of the Starstone-empowered. I mean, I can get behind the idea of a magic relic that grants you a spark of divinity, but When you look at the backstories of so many demigods, beings like Empyreal Lords, Archdevils, Demon Lords, Elemental Lords, the Eldest, etc are eons old and took millenia proving temselves and made it to...demigod. Even the 'other' full gods include beings that are almost as old as the universe, like Apsu who have existed since before the dawn of time, fought Rovagug, etc. And not one, not two, but FOUR humans (and no member of any other race, with the possible exception of Norgorber) became full gods (indeed, among the twenty most important gods) by touching a rock? Come on. If they each had their own path to power, like Nethys or Irori, maybe I could take it. If it had worked for Aroden, but that had exhausted most of the stone's power and subsequent touchers only became demigods, that wouldn't be so bad. But it's crazy to have this one chunk of rock allowing humans, even particularly exgeptional ones, vault all these other divine beings. Also, what's to stop a demigod like Dispater or Ymeri or Nocticula or Ragathiel from showing up, passing the test easily, and becoming a full god? Maybe a good god, or even a Lawful Evil god, sees reasons not to. But you can't tell me there wouldn't be Demon Lords or Daemonic Harbingers showing up at Absalom weekly trying to pass the test and gain more power. It just really strains suspension of disbelief to me.
Also, most evil-aligned deities. I just don't get why you'd worship the mother of beasts, a torturer, or a deity of destruction. Asmodeus has some flair, I'll give him that, but he's the only exception.
Would you expect evil guys to worship good deities then?
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Would you expect evil guys to worship good deities then?
Yes! Yes I would.
All the evil deities out there, their parishioners are damned to the lower planes upon death. If you've no foresight whatsoever, or are desperate for some reason or other (If I knew that their was an afterlife I don't think that much of anything could faze me. Heck, I'd probably just run off and martyr myself at the Worldwound. No point sticking around on the Prime Material when by all counts Heaven is a nicer place.) than I can see someone damning themself for fleeting power while on the mortal coil.
But all the non-casters? What motive do they have for worshiping an evil god? They get nothing out of it! Much better to follow one of the goodly gods and hope that you get around to redeeming yourself before you bite it.
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Personally I doubt most good gods would let a evil petitioner into their domain after death (especially if they just worshipped them out of fear of going to hell). Also to use Asmodeus as an example, I always figured his faithful wouldn't get tortured in Hell like most petitioners but would more likely be the ones doing the torturing. Also not all evil gods live in the lower planes
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I've always disliked the term "least favorite" because to me it implies they're still a favorite just less so than the others. I tend to prefer to phrase it in terms of which ones I actively dislike.
Nocticula in and of herself is fine I guess as far as evil deities go, but the fact that Paizo keeps trying to push her as the redeemable Demon Lord in spite of being the patron of rapists annoys me. "Well, people want to stick their genitals in there so she can't be all bad" mentality annoys me on a very deep level. Killed her very dead in Wrath of the Righteous.
I think Lamashtu gets pushed a lot harder than she should; she's a very niche deity that turns up in every region's pantheon & has a month named after her when more socially acceptable evil deities don't. Fact that she's also the in game justification for keeping good & evil a race war with her being the progenitor of many of the monstrous races also makes me not a fan.
Tend to hate on Baphomet a lot for James Jacobs thinking he was being clever by giving Baphomet a cheap and uninteresting win over Asmodeus, something that didn't add to the story, didn't make it more interesting, didn't make Baphomet look impressive & only served to make Asmodeus look momentarily incompetent. Killing Baphomet in a single round of combat was very satisfying.
I'm not a particular fan of Pharasma. She doesn't really have a personality, she's just aloof and above it all and that's boring. I feel the very concept of death being the oldest & most powerful force in the cosmos is in and of itself getting kinda tired & played out even if I can appreciate death being presented as a natural & neutral force rather than something evil to be feared, but Terry Prachett's Death, Niel Gaiman's Death, Supernatural's Death, even the freakin' Raven Queen had compelling or at least interesting personalities. Pharasma's just powerful & boring.
Torag's pretty insanely dull.
I tend to forget that Erastil exists.
I don't know why but I'm not a fan of Abadar. Maybe because he just look like a guy and is so thoroughly nondescript. Maybe it's because they tend to focus more on his positive traits almost to the point that he could be LG when you could do interesting things with him essentially being the god of colonialism & gentrification, though I get why they'd want to avoid those subjects.
Aside from Moloch, Barbatos, and from a strictly visual perspective, Baalzebul, I'm not a fan of any of the archdevils. Maybe because I'm also not a fan of Pathfinder's slant on them being male only given that Glaysia & Fiernia are two of the more interesting ones in D&D but they're not open content.
Calistria kind of bores me and strikes me as a bit juvenile. On a bit of a petty note for myself, I just haven't found any of the artistic depictions of her attractive, personally, so that takes away from her aura a bit. Something interesting could be done with her if elves in general were more in line with her whole, petty revenge & hedonism thing but James Jacobs' elven favoritism pushing them more in a Desna CG direction undermines that.
On that note, while I don't have any disdain for Desna, I do fully see an earlier poster's point about her feeling kind of shoehorned in & being one designer's pet project that doesn't really fit with the others. I don't dislike her for it but I totally see where they're coming from. Also, I'm not a fan of the star knife.
Edit: Forgot Zon Kuthon. Ignoring that with Starfinder we know he's not getting redeemed/cured, and ignoring that he's just a Hellraiser rip off we didn't need, my main thing is that I just do not buy him having a cult. I buy Asmodeus. I buy Rovagug. I buy Norgorber - even if I don't buy Norgorber's contrived & artificially structured cult but hey, active gods can organize their religion however they want. Hell, I even buy Lamashtu despite what I said about her earlier.
But I don't buy Zon Kuthon's faith attracting any kind of real following.
Edit again: Also I don't like Nethys on general principle. I actually like Nethys individually because he's got personality(two of them, even) and a cool design, but I don't like the concept of a "god of magic" on a conceptual level. Sure, magic is a force unto it's self like nature, but from a humanoid-centric perspective I think of it more as a tool. A means to an end rather than an end to itself.
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Would you expect evil guys to worship good deities then?Yes! Yes I would.
All the evil deities out there, their parishioners are damned to the lower planes upon death. If you've no foresight whatsoever, or are desperate for some reason or other (If I knew that their was an afterlife I don't think that much of anything could faze me. Heck, I'd probably just run off and martyr myself at the Worldwound. No point sticking around on the Prime Material when by all counts Heaven is a nicer place.) than I can see someone damning themself for fleeting power while on the mortal coil.
But all the non-casters? What motive do they have for worshiping an evil god? They get nothing out of it! Much better to follow one of the goodly gods and hope that you get around to redeeming yourself before you bite it.
Let's say you're a goblin.
You can play nice-nice, live a peaceful life of helping and sharing, go to Heaven when you die, and live peaceful eternity of helping and sharing. Alternately, you can stay Neutral Evil, eventually turn into a Daemon (if you survive long enough in Abaddon as one of the Hunted), and devour souls. One of these options is more attractive to a goblin (and to evil people in general).
Worshiping an evil god, then, fills the same purpose as worshiping a good god: You hope to find some favor with your god by advancing his/her/its goals, making your afterlife somewhat easier/better.
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I can't be the only one who hates Iomedae.
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I'm sorta amused that people are saying Desna is the author's pet for the Good gods anyway. I would have pinned that one on Shelyn in a heartbeat.
Goddess who's even more granola chewing than the actual goddess of redemption but oh watch out, she also can throw down well enough beat up Pinhead gorged on a near perfect divine artifact weapon and can totally fix that in time! Oh oh, she's also friends with everyone and even the evil gods want to play nice because she's just so gosh darn pretty and nice. Even Rova -"the pretty ones die first" -gug is willing to slow down a bit with her! *eyeroll*
On the vein of author's pets, Asmodeus gets my vote for the Evil side. I swear, everything that happens vaguely relating to Asmodeus is all part of the master plan, including, nay, especially when he gets beaten. It's like Tzeentch only without realizing in the back of your mind that the "Just as planned!" is part of the joke. Absolutetly nothing got my goat more than the ending of Hell's Rebels where after beating up the final boss, the adventure caps with Mephistopholes rolling up to you and saying "Good job heroes, you've totally done what the boss wanted and even if you lost he'd have won anyway! Now go back to being silly sheep losers,"
That's Asmodeus in a nut shell. Nothing but Xanathos gambits without them being gambits. Except that bit with Baphomet (and why Baphomet eternally gets some props from me). It also doesn't help that his fanbase here seems to keep pushing him as the respectable evil god. Oh he'll tell the truth (except when he doesn't) and keep his word (after monumentally screwing you over in the fine print). Truly the best of the evil gods there... *eyeroll 2*
I'll also add that Asmodeus is essentially a villain sue and that's why I don't like him. I'm a big fan of the fact that Starfinder kicked him out of top 20.
Pharasma would be my pick, she is everything I would like except for two little flaws, deals with death and has the domain check, deals with fate check, deals with rebirth check, has the healing domain check, true neutral check, favored weapon dagger whyyy??? this should be a scythe, and the most important deal breaker.... she hates undead and wants them all to die.
She judges if a soul is deemed worthy to pass in the afterlife, she's not causing death like the Grim Reaper. Zyphus is the Reaper-like deity, but his favored weapon is the heavy pick.
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Pharasma would be my pick, she is everything I would like except for two little flaws, deals with death and has the domain check, deals with fate check, deals with rebirth check, has the healing domain check, true neutral check, favored weapon dagger whyyy??? this should be a scythe, and the most important deal breaker.... she hates undead and wants them all to die.
Because she's the goddess of birth as well as death. Knives are not only used to sever the connection between an infant and the mother (by cutting the umbilical cord), but are also needed to perform a Caesarean section in case something goes wrong.