Who's your least favorite god?

[MageHunter]

It's actually quite interesting to think that Vildeis and Erastil are the same alignment. It's interesting variation that they are diametrically opposed on the value of loved ones.

[UnArcaneElection]

blahpers wrote:

Thebazilly wrote:

I'm not a fan of Desna and Nocticula, for the aforementioned "reeks of writer favoritism" points.

I was pretty intrigued by Nocticula... until I found out that she was the goddess of succubi. Redemption is only for the sexy demons, I suppose. Ew.

Agreed. As far as deific character development, I'd rather see, say, Mazmezz redeemed (c'mon, we need a non-evil insect patron) than "Hey guys, have you read The Dresden Files recently?".

Non-evil insect patron . . . Suddenly, I have this vision of a spinoff: The Dresden Flies . . . .

[Set]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Non-evil insect patron . . . Suddenly, I have this vision of a spinoff: The Dresden Flies . . . .

"The thing people don't get about flies is that they gather around corpses and haunted places *to warn us that there's something bad there.* The buzzing is a warning to stay away."

[captain yesterday]

Starfinder has Hylax.

[Dragonchess Player]

LittleMissNaga wrote:

Asmodeus is definitely a mary sue, but it helps somewhat that he's his own sue, in a way. The whole Ihys story is a lot funnier if you assume Asmodeus is lying through his teeth about it all to make himself sound more awesome. Same with all his "Exactly as planned" stuff.

I've always had a suspicion that Asmodeus was actually the "submissive" twin, rather than Ihys. It would potentially better explain some of his more "extreme" attitudes.

Either that, or they weren't really twins. If Asmodeus was effectively the younger brother with a huge sibling rivalry complex, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[Knight Magenta]

neonWitch wrote:

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:

,’:\

Because the idea of free will is incoherent in a deterministic universe (read: in any conceivable universe)? That’s ah, that’s the joke. Nothing to do but laugh or cry. x)

Though obviously forcing people to act against their preferences is a Bad Thing, and the idea of letting people act on the conclusions they come to, commonly referred to as allowing people to exercise their free will, is a less bad thing (in most circumstances).

Not to necro, but the real-world universe isn't deterministic, it's stochastic. God plays with dice, according to our current understanding of physics.

That doesn't help much though. Random != Free will.

[CorvusMask]

Concept of free will being incompatible with determinism sounds really dumb to me even if I know its by definition like that :P

Like, if people made choices randomly, then they wouldn't really be real people right? I mean, you make choices you want to make, so obviously you would have made same choice in same situation with same knowledge you had every time. So hence idea of "You already chose to do that choice so you don't have free will" sounds dumb because they had to choose that thing they are going to do later on anyway

[Jeven]

CorvusMask wrote:

Concept of free will being incompatible with determinism sounds really dumb to me even if I know its by definition like that :P

Like, if people made choices randomly, then they wouldn't really be real people right? I mean, you make choices you want to make, so obviously you would have made same choice in same situation with same knowledge you had every time. So hence idea of "You already chose to do that choice so you don't have free will" sounds dumb because they had to choose that thing they are going to do later on anyway

Yes, you have free will. Here is a simple test: tomorrow, instead of driving/walking your usual route, choose a slightly different one; or, if you are visiting the grocery store, pick up an item you have never bought before.

The thing with free will is if you consciously recognize that you might be following patterns and that your choices are defaulting to the inevitable, you can deliberately change that by consciously choosing anything but the default option.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Jeven wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Concept of free will being incompatible with determinism sounds really dumb to me even if I know its by definition like that :P

Like, if people made choices randomly, then they wouldn't really be real people right? I mean, you make choices you want to make, so obviously you would have made same choice in same situation with same knowledge you had every time. So hence idea of "You already chose to do that choice so you don't have free will" sounds dumb because they had to choose that thing they are going to do later on anyway

Yes, you have free will. Here is a simple test: tomorrow, instead of driving/walking your usual route, choose a slightly different one; or, if you are visiting the grocery store, pick up an item you have never bought before.

The thing with free will is if you consciously recognize that you might be following patterns and that your choices are defaulting to the inevitable, you can deliberately change that by consciously choosing anything but the default option.

The counter argument of course is that given perfect knowledge of the universe from start to present, why couldn't you predict someone's actions? Because that someone wants to believe in free will and doesn't like the idea that they are unwitting agents of, for lack of a better word, fate?

Nonsense.

We can't prove or disprove the existence of free will in any way at this point in time, so the entire discussion is pretty irrelevant. Whether or not there is such a thing as free will, whether or not things are predetermined, the end result is the same for us so there's no point in cluttering up a thread with amateur philosophy.

[Xenocrat]

Jeven wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Concept of free will being incompatible with determinism sounds really dumb to me even if I know its by definition like that :P

Like, if people made choices randomly, then they wouldn't really be real people right? I mean, you make choices you want to make, so obviously you would have made same choice in same situation with same knowledge you had every time. So hence idea of "You already chose to do that choice so you don't have free will" sounds dumb because they had to choose that thing they are going to do later on anyway

Yes, you have free will. Here is a simple test: tomorrow, instead of driving/walking your usual route, choose a slightly different one; or, if you are visiting the grocery store, pick up an item you have never bought before.

The thing with free will is if you consciously recognize that you might be following patterns and that your choices are defaulting to the inevitable, you can deliberately change that by consciously choosing anything but the default option.

He doesn’t have free will. If he does what you suggest it’s because his brain is wired to respond that way given your request and his other environmental requirements competing for his decision making functions. If he does, it’s because he’s wired to not care about requests of randos on the internet or he has more important things going on.

Of course there is no “he,” either. Consciousness is as much an illusion as free will.

[MageHunter]

If I have no free will, but my brain is just that good at tricking me, does it matter or make a difference in my life?

[Xenocrat]

MageHunter wrote:

If I have no free will, but my brain is just that good at tricking me, does it matter or make a difference in my life?

Nothing matters, organization of cells that runs processes that think they are conscious and refer to their collective as “MageHunter.”

[CorvusMask]

In any case I think arguments about freewill is ridiculous because lack of free will means that some people apparently have fate to have nervous breakdown about whether they have freewill or not :P

(either way, all the "brain has already done choices for you" argument is kinda eh anyway because its subject that isn't fully researched anyway. Like at least one research claims otherwise that humans can cancel choices brain already made)

[Asmodeus' Advocate]

CorvusMask wrote:

(either way, all the "brain has already done choices for you" argument is kinda eh anyway because its subject that isn't fully researched anyway. Like at least one research claims otherwise that humans can cancel choices brain already made)

Erherm.

*cough*

Humans are their brains.

And, as brains are physical things that follow physical laws, as predictable in advance as any other complex system, people’s actions are in a sense predetermined. There’s not . . . any counterargument, that I’ve ever heard.

MageHunter wrote:

If I have no free will, but my brain is just that good at tricking me, does it matter or make a difference in my life?

I’d think so. It’d change your perspective on a lot of things. Make you more empathetic, maybe, perhaps make you less likely to blame people for perceived shortcomings.

Or maybe you’ll go off the deep end like a Batman villain and declare that the only thing that matters is immediate gratification. I dunno. But a change in perspective so great as realizing that you’re a biological robot should make a difference in your life.

Xenocrat wrote:

Of course there is no “he,” either. Consciousness is as much an illusion as free will.

I’d beg to differ.

We have a better idea of what consciousness is than we used to - but saying it doesn’t exist is like disproving Thor and then saying there’s no such thing as lightning, only “atmospheric electric phenomena” or some equally synonymous phrase.

But perceived disagreement on my part could be due to us using the word “consciousness” in different ways. I define a consciousness as a self-aware intelligence. How do you define it?

[MageHunter]

Xenocrat wrote:

MageHunter wrote:

If I have no free will, but my brain is just that good at tricking me, does it matter or make a difference in my life?

Nothing matters, organization of cells that runs processes that think they are conscious and refer to their collective as “MageHunter.”

But I am consciously incapable of accepting that as truth. My brain will never fully understand it regardless of the truth.

I ate a crepe today fully understanding my perception of reality is false. Didn't make me any less happy.

While an interesting line of inquiry, my brain chemistry ensures that my life will go on unabated.

If nothing matters, don't I have the false freedom to pretend it does? :)

[Jeven]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

so there's no point in cluttering up a thread with amateur philosophy.

It would be best not to reply if you don't want to clutter up the thread with the subject ... because, look what happens! the cluttery conversation continues!

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

The counter argument of course is that given perfect knowledge of the universe from start to present, why couldn't you predict someone's actions? Because that someone wants to believe in free will and doesn't like the idea that they are unwitting agents of, for lack of a better word, fate?

Nonsense.
We can't prove or disprove the existence of free will in any way at this point in time, so the entire discussion is pretty irrelevant.

You reasoning is valid. In a way I do agree with you.

However, the point I was trying to make, is that if people believe they have "free choice" then that should impact their decision-making.
If they don't believe then there is less incentive to mull over choices and take responsibility for their decisions - then they are just passengers who helplessly go wherever the driver takes them.

[CorvusMask]

And in general, arguing that you don't have free will is really bad argument for escaping responsibility :P

[Xenocrat]

CorvusMask wrote:

In any case I think arguments about freewill is ridiculous because lack of free will means that some people apparently have fate to have nervous breakdown about whether they have freewill or not :P

(either way, all the "brain has already done choices for you" argument is kinda eh anyway because its subject that isn't fully researched anyway. Like at least one research claims otherwise that humans can cancel choices brain already made)

That's just one part of the brain overruling another part.

CorvusMask wrote:

And in general, arguing that you don't have free will is really bad argument for escaping responsibility :P

There is no such thing as responsibility, there are just evolved strategies of social punishment that illusionary consciousness has assigned words like responsibility, fault, and blame to. At the end of the day collectives of people who punish individuals who commit certain acts thrive more than collectives who do not punish such individual acts, and those that dress this up in language such as crime, evil, responsibility, etc. find it easier to make the collective go along with the punitive behavior.

[CorvusMask]

There is also line between philosophical debate's semantics and being inane though, at the end that is really complicated way to say "Hah, I reject societal standards!"

[Yqatuba]

Personally I think it's a bad idea to apply real life physics and science to Pathfinder considering the Pathfinder universe is full of stuff that flies in the face of physics and science and can only be explained by "It's magic". One could just say there is free will in Pathfinder and it's magic.

[Mikdrop Walkov]

CorvusMask wrote:

There is also line between philosophical debate's semantics and being inane though, at the end that is really complicated way to say "Hah, I reject societal standards!"

Boom!

[Asmodeus' Advocate]

Jeven wrote:

If they don't believe then there is less incentive to mull over choices and take responsibility for their decisions - then they are just passengers who helplessly go wherever the driver takes them.

Um . . . no?

Why would knowledge that a sufficiently intelligent observer could predict your actions in advance change the amount of effort you put into deciding the best course of action? You still have to live with the consequences of whatever you do.

I mean, perhaps you blame yourself (and others!) less for mistakes you make, but that’s just good mental health.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Jeven wrote:

Yes, you have free will. Here is a simple test: tomorrow, instead of driving/walking your usual route, choose a slightly different one; or, if you are visiting the grocery store, pick up an item you have never bought before.

That's not a free-willed choice, that's a deterministic reaction to the combination of your (Jeven) suggestion and your (hypotetical responder) character and personality.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Lunging back somewhat in the direction of the subject of the thread:

I have no problem with Asmodeus' "just as planned" because if you're going to do a Prince of Darkness/Big Red Source of All Evil and make them plausible as a threat, and as running a Hell full of devils many of whom are very strong and also very smart, they need to be really smart. Orders of magnitude more than the smartest human you have ever come across, and similarly more competent than the most competent manipulators; I personally have no difficulty imagining that.

I have no problem with Cayden Cailean because he's just like any number of characters I have GMed for would become if they happened to stumble backward into apotheosis, and no deity more established had already locked down booze as an area of interest.

I don't find Erastil or Shelyn particularly compelling as deities for an adventurer to follow, because their primary areas of interest seem to me to tend strongly towards ways of life other than adventuring, but those are important parts of human(oid) living generally and I'd want to see them represented in any pantheon. And I have a feeling that one could get an interesting conflict going between followers of Erastil and Abadar in their relative preferences on smaller or larger communities of humans if one wanted to build a campaign around something more interesting than the same old boring Good vs. Evil.

The impression I got about the Osirian pantheon is that much as they gave up on ancient Osirion eventually and headed off for Earth to play with Egyptians, they may well have come to Golarion from playing with other worlds, and that would explain why they'd not made a great deal of impact outside of Osirion.

And with regard to why anyone would ever worship Zon-Kuthon; the guy's been outside the known multiverse, and found something that changed him utterly. Everything else we have had hinted at about what might be beyond the known multiverse is pretty seriously horrific (the qlippoth maybe coming from outside, though IIRC some proteans claim to have created them, and also the entry for the hekatonkheires titan in Bestiary 3). So if Z-K can make a moderately convincing claim that what he is doing is in some way necessary to holding off something similar levels of horrific or worse, all it takes is a leap of faith, which is not to my mind outside the psychologically plausible range of things humans have done based on faith in RL.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

I have a philosphical question, if the Maelstrom is eating all the outer planes what happens if it succeeds?

Apparently the multiverse as a whole goes through cycles of existence, the manasaputras are strongly connected with this.

So far as I am aware, there's nothing been said definitively in lore about how this works, but "the Maelstrom wears everything down to nothing except Pharasma and a bunch of proteans leaping around and doing proteanishly random things for timeless ages until one of them lets some qlippoth in again, or otherwise does something that starts more defined outer planes crystallising out of the quintessence for long enough to develop inhabitants" would feel a plausible answer.

The question would be whether the Maelstrom eats the Outer Planes faster than recycling souls and outsiders builds them up; it must be fairly closely balanced for the current multiverse to have existed on the timescale it has. (Which raises the thought that the effects of the Drift in the Starfinder era might just be enough to throw that balance off and eventually destroy this instantiation of the multiverse; now stopping that would be a fun really high-level campaign.)

[Yqatuba]

I thought of another: the qlippoth lord Isph-Aun-Vuln. While she's fine in concept the picture looks like a giant meatball with a mouth and eyes (well, to me at least) making it impossible to take her seriously.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Rare footage of Isph-Aun-Vuln

[UnArcaneElection]

Yqatuba wrote:

I thought of another: the qlippoth lord Isph-Aun-Vuln. While she's fine in concept the picture looks like a giant meatball with a mouth and eyes (well, to me at least) making it impossible to take her seriously.

Sort of like how Azathoth looks like a flying mass of spaghetti . . . ?

[Yqatuba]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Yqatuba wrote:

I thought of another: the qlippoth lord Isph-Aun-Vuln. While she's fine in concept the picture looks like a giant meatball with a mouth and eyes (well, to me at least) making it impossible to take her seriously.

Sort of like how Azathoth looks like a flying mass of spaghetti . . . ?

Perhaps Azathoth, Isph-Aun-Vuln, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are all the same being!

[Klorox]

except the FSM is supposed to be more benevolent/manipulative, while Azathoth is mindlessly destructive, Isph-Aun-Vuln being a meatball rather than nooly excludes it from it being the same being.

[The Guy With A Face]

Nocticula is my least favorite god.

[Jeven]

The Guy With A Face wrote:

Nocticula is my least favorite god.

Did she finally get her promotion from CE demon lord to CN sex goddess?

[blahpers]

Klorox wrote:

except the FSM is supposed to be more benevolent/manipulative, while Azathoth is mindlessly destructive, Isph-Aun-Vuln being a meatball rather than nooly excludes it from it being the same being.

FSM is the OG Pure Being, while Azathoth is a poor copy, an abomination. FSM sent His begotten children, the flumphs, to warn us not to be deceived by False Pastas; it is up to us whether to listen to His message.

[The Guy With A Face]

Jeven wrote:

The Guy With A Face wrote:

Nocticula is my least favorite god.

Did she finally get her promotion from CE demon lord to CN sex goddess?

She's CN, but her portfolio includes midnight, artists, and exiles.

She didn't replace Calistria like I expected she would. At least she has that going for her.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Jeven wrote:

The Guy With A Face wrote:

Nocticula is my least favorite god.

Did she finally get her promotion from CE demon lord to CN sex goddess?

If that's summation of her portfolio color me uninspired. We already have a CN sex goddess.

[Sam Phelan]

Removed some posts quoting or referencing removed content, and additional content which derailed the thread. Thank you for flagging and moving on.

[That Kind Of Orc]

Erastil. Misogynist bastard.

[Jeven]

That Kind Of Orc wrote:

Erastil. Misogynist bastard.

Just think of him as Grandpa's god. Like on planet Earth almost everyone before the 1960s was just like that!

He seems more quaint and old-fashioned than horrible. And Golarion teenagers need an authority figure to rebel against! The old Erastilites can look on horrified as their kids becomes Cayden cultists.

[Alphavoltario]

Personally: Haagenti

Just for the sole reason of being the primary, and practically only, alchemy god (excluding Nethys from that, who seems to dip his hands in anything remotely considered magic... sit down Neth), and being a duplicitous two-faced jerk at that.

Also why is his favored weapon a battleaxe? Because he's a demon lord? Wouldn't something more 'techy' with more intricacies be more appropriate? Like a repeating crossbow? Or just alchemical items in general?

[MageHunter]

A precise surgeon would probably use a delicate scalpel to modify, say, your chin. The Aboleth fleshwarpers probably are exact and intentional in this way.

Haagenti is anything but. He doesn't make precise changes he essentially hacks away at your being throwing abomnible chemicals and creatures at you, torturing you until you are completely ruined. Never pretty or precise; messy, horrendous, and painful.

A battle axe feels pretty symbolic of how he modifies people.

[Sandal Fury]

Yqatuba wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Yqatuba wrote:

I thought of another: the qlippoth lord Isph-Aun-Vuln. While she's fine in concept the picture looks like a giant meatball with a mouth and eyes (well, to me at least) making it impossible to take her seriously.

Sort of like how Azathoth looks like a flying mass of spaghetti . . . ?

Perhaps Azathoth, Isph-Aun-Vuln, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are all the same being!

Clearly FSM is a triune being. Azathoth is the noodles, Isph is the meatball, and it seems likely that Jubilex is the feculent sauce.

[Yqatuba]

Alphavoltario wrote:

Personally: Haagenti

Just for the sole reason of being the primary, and practically only, alchemy god (excluding Nethys from that, who seems to dip his hands in anything remotely considered magic... sit down Neth), and being a duplicitous two-faced jerk at that.

Also why is his favored weapon a battleaxe? Because he's a demon lord? Wouldn't something more 'techy' with more intricacies be more appropriate? Like a repeating crossbow? Or just alchemical items in general?

Well keep in mind he's not just the god of alchemy but essentially the god of mad science, so being evil makes sense. That said, I agree the battleaxe seems inappropriate.

[captain yesterday]

Have you ever swung an axe, it's pretty sweet.

[Jeven]

Yqatuba wrote:

Well keep in mind he's not just the god of alchemy but essentially the god of mad science, so being evil makes sense. That said, I agree the battleaxe seems inappropriate.

I guess if he has an experimental subject strapped to the table and says he's just going to do minor bit of surgery, then pulls out his battle-axe ... limbs are going to be flying here and there like a mad woodcutter hacking a tree.