I know most people will say Rovagug but I think Zon-Kuthon is worse since Rovagug at least kills you quickly.
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I'll probably check back in a bit, but I would look at Book of the Damned.
Some of the special niches those demigods fill are... Out there...
What's interesting about the gods is that they each represent a special form of evil, as there are many things considered horrendous. For example Urgathoa perverts the sanctity of death, Rovagug represents sheer destruction, and Asmodeus represents enslavement.
It's like the whole Demon vs Devil argument. Regardless of what they do and how, it's pretty messed up! Some fear the monsters representative of beasts, some the monsters representing temptation, and others embodying the pinnacle of what's wrong with humans.
TL;DR
What's your biggest fear? ;)
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There's a dwarven deity who even dwarves see only as a necessary evil, and those who follow her as a patron deity 'are normally those consumed by hatred and nothing else.' Technically Dranngvit is LN, but with dwarves and their deities you can usually assume that their alignment by their deeds and beliefs is a step closer to evil than that they're listed as.
Probably Sarenrae her conform or die mantra doesn't seem very good for some one who is suppose to be good aligned.Well seeing as how she doesn't have that mantra it's a non-issue.
I'm not sure why you say she doesn't have that mantra.
Yet there are those who have no interest in redemption, who glory in slaughter and death. From the remorseless evil of the undead and fiends to the cruelties born in the hearts of mortals, Sarenrae's doctrines preach swift justice delivered by the scimitar's edge.
Also,
In battle, Sarenrae's clerics become dervishes, ready to destroy irredeemable corruption.
and,
The Dawnflower anchorite travels throughout the wilderness, fighting evil and offering redemption
So, it's very much, offer evil a chance to not be evil and if they refuse the offer, kill them swiftly.
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That's less an issue of Sarenrae and more the murderhobos killing in her name.
She disapproves of those that do not respect redemption, notably the cult of the Dawnflower. Golarion has many real world issues including the perversion of faith to justify violence.
For PCs, most enemies they face are irredeemable. It's just the nature of D&D.
Besides... That's really different from the swan-headed dude that is the patron demon of serial killers who like to prolong suffering.
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Redeem =/= conform.
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Conform or Die is not the same as Try to Redeem Evil but if it refuses destroy it.
Conform implies worship Me or Die
Offer Redemption on the other hand is stop being evil, but doesn't require worshiping a specific deity. Also, nothing says you can't defeat and then offer again.
Isn’t there a demon lord detailed in the Book of the Damned whose purview is molesting children?
Pretty sure he’s the worst.
That's less an issue of Sarenrae and more the murderhobos killing in her name.
She disapproves of those that do not respect redemption, notably the cult of the Dawnflower. Golarion has many real world issues including the perversion of faith to justify violence.
Does the cult of the dawnflower not have clerics? Warpriests? It seems to be that Sarenrae is willing to sponsor them. And you can't just say "oh they're actually being sponsored by something evil they don't know" cause that's straight headcanon. Good headcanon, but headcanon.
That's also a fair point I think. We've got patrons of rape in three flavors, but no-one seems to bat an eye at them. My vote would go to one of them I guess. "Most evil" just asks "what bad thing touches your nerves most?"For PCs, most enemies they face are irredeemable. It's just the nature of D&D.
Besides... That's really different from the swan-headed dude that is the patron demon of serial killers who like to prolong suffering.
Isn’t there a demon lord detailed in the Book of the Damned whose purview is molesting children?
Pretty sure he’s the worst.
SPEAKING OF. He got un-made from what I understand. So, he's disqualified-ish?
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Pharasma. The arms dealer for the inter-planer wars.
Pharasma. The arms dealer for the inter-planer wars.
I was playing the Kingmaker RPG and an NPC lawyer mentioned that because he represented a Necromancer in court Pharasma has prevented him from ever having children.
Guy, literally doing his job as a lawyer to represent the defendant, has his bloodline literally cut off because he represented the wrong person.
Super fricking rude.
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I don't know that evil can be quantified or measured in a way you could see once and for all who has the biggest.
Even ignoring the very idea of how intrisically subjective evil is.
Rovagug would destroy everything, with little reason, but also not really out of cruelty.
Others would break individuals in the most mind-meltingly cruel ways for fun, sport or just out of boredom.
And then you have the Outer Gods and the like, who just exist and do so in a way noone else can possibly comprehend, and who likewise hold no regard for anything unlike them. Using them as tools until they break, arguably simply because mortals are so far beneath their concern they don't even qualify as worthy of attention for half of them (which might be a good thing, considering).
Plus demigods and outsiders, who sometimes have good reason to hate mortals (looking at you, qlippoths), but who ultimately don't have much free will in the matter.
And whatever the Dominion of the Black is, as well as those we just do not know.
Add to that those who are not technically "evil" but are really just as dangerous ... Like, our version of chaos and law aren't quite Moorcock's, but neither are healthy in excess, even with this softer take on them.
Edit for the Pharasma KM thing : Wow. That is petty. Will that join the Iomedae quizz in "examp!es of how hard it is to write gods" ? At least phapha isn't good.
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I'm surprised the infamous trivia contest hasn't been brought up yet.
?
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Wrath of the Righteous's bit with big Io herself. Evidently the main thrust of the situation is players can get blasted for failing know checks. I hear there's more nuance to it than that but I wouldn't touch anything Mythic with a 30ft pole so I can't say for sure.I'm surprised the infamous trivia contest hasn't been brought up yet.?
In the context it made perfect sense to be honest. Testing mythic heroes and all, the punishment is basically a slap on the wrist and most of the questions shouldn't be difficult.
In the context it made perfect sense to be honest. Testing mythic heroes and all, the punishment is basically a slap on the wrist and most of the questions shouldn't be difficult.Wrath of the Righteous's bit with big Io herself. Evidently the main thrust of the situation is players can get blasted for failing know checks. I hear there's more nuance to it than that but I wouldn't touch anything Mythic with a 30ft pole so I can't say for sure.I'm surprised the infamous trivia contest hasn't been brought up yet.?
Lawful Good people do not inflict lethal damage on someone who annoys or disrespects them.
Never forgive, never forget.
Iomedae is most Evil, hands down.
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So I am hearing that petty spite over disrespect is more evil than the stuff some of the demon lords are into? You know the stuff those demons do that would get this post deleted by a mod if I described it? Not buying it.
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For some folks, honest evil is less evil than false goodness. The latter is certainly more difficult to combat.
Sure, but how many innocents died, or had awful lifelong trauma inflicted on them by the infamous 'trivia contest'? Calling that more evil lessens the horror of real atrocities.
{. . .}
Anyway, I lean towards deities that effectively corrupt a concept by being the main/only deity of said concept e.g. insects are Evil because there are no good deities interested in them but a few Evil ones. While potentially not the most evil, I do think they're the most in need of opposition or destruction.
No good deities interested in insects? Desna has at least a bit of interest in some of them . . . .
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I would agree the thing with Iomedae really bothers me and seems more like something an evil sphinx would do than any sort of god.
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A ray of frost a slap on the wrist. 20d6 damage is like a hellfire missile to the face (even a rocket launcher only does 10d6)
A ray of frost a slap on the wrist. 20d6 damage is like a hellfire missile to the face (even a rocket launcher only does 10d6)
a what? RoF does an invariable 1d3 dmg, sounds like a regular slap on the wrist when applied to a mythic character...
What you describe resembles a Cone of Cold more, or a Polar ray (Dex Drain notwithstanding)
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She has some sonic attack that does up to 20d6 damage if you answer a question wrong. And if you (not unreasonably) call her a psycho for doing this she perminately makes you blind and mute. What a hero!
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I try to judge who is 'the most evil' by their effects or intended effects on the world. While folk like Zon-Kuthon or Norgorber or Urgathoa or Lamashtu aren't nice, their evil tends to be 'small' or self-contained or selfish in nature.
Rovagug, on the other hand, would wreck everything if he had the choice, and Asmodeus is aggressively expansionist evil, spreading like a cancer. Those two seem to be the kind of evil that can't be ignored and won't 'mind it's own business.'
Most of the demon lords, archdevils and, especially, daemons in general, seem 'more evil' to me than some of the 'evil' big 20 gods.
Some of the neutral gods seem borderline. Calistria, Gorum and Pharasma can come across as sketchy as hell, at times.
But 'most actively expansionistically evil' is just my own personal yardstick, and I totally get that others will have different criteria than just scale or impact or ambitions or 'affect on the world.'
She has some sonic attack that does up to 20d6 damage if you answer a question wrong. And if you (not unreasonably) call her a psycho for doing this she perminately makes you blind and mute. What a hero!
At this point, you're a group of possibly actual quasi-deities being auditioned to go fight a demon lord in his own realm. Wimps, cowards, and fools need not apply =P
As to most evil god of the setting, I'm going to go with Asmodeus.
Asmodeus thinks all mortals in general deserve to be tortured for eternity simply for the sin of existing.
If we're lucky, we may be permitted to work for him and help him torture others after a couple thousand years.
If we're lucky.
If I'm being serious and not nerdraging about Iomedae, Asomodeus is hard to argue against. I concede that the demon lord of "strangers, kidnapping and candy" and others like him are beyond imagination in their awfulness, but they're just not very prevalent. Like Set said, a much more personal, localized Evil. No world altering consequences, much more small strings of crime and blasphemy.
Meanwhile, you have Cheliax being one of the strongest countries on the continent while actively and openly worshiping devils. They already have colonies, and they don't seem like the type to sit back and build higher walls when they're more land to take. Naval juggernaut, power-hungry, expansionist. I'm not saying he doesn't have any competition for Evil badass of the universe, but it's a lot of distant seconds in my book.
One of the worst parts is that I don't think you can ever put enough lipstick on "The Demon Lord of child molestation" to make it a mainstream thing, but people can be turned around to full-blown devil worship in small steps. Devils are about laws, laws are stable, stable is safe. Just like Cheliax's civil war, you can inject Asmodeus right after a big social upheaval or disaster, and people will fall right in line. "I want things to be normal, I want to stop the bandits, I want to go to church and go to work and stop worrying." Asmodeus is also already legal to worship in a number of other places, so it very much normalizes him. The Prince of Law rather than Darkness or Lies. Good PR is scary as Hell.
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Edit for the Pharasma KM thing : Wow. That is petty. Will that join the Iomedae quizz in "examp!es of how hard it is to write gods" ? At least phapha isn't good.
This action btw literally makes the
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Then again the Pathfinder Kingmaker has some really strange ideas about Alignment. The way the alignment system works is that any action you take that has the alignment tag shuffles your alignment one "step" closer to that alignment. Unfortunately, that means that it is totally possible to change alignments for taking a Neutral or Aligned/Neutral action. For instance, a Lawful Good Character an change to a Neutral Good character because they made too many Neutral Good choices.
While this might make sense if viewed in a bubble, The main issue comes from the dialogue trees, sometimes you are presented with situations in which all 9 alignment options aren't available (unlike in a table-top scenario where you can always take an action that follows your alignment). In these cases, you either stray from your set alignment or you can opt to take a dialogue choice that lacks an alignment tag.
However, sometimes the game does NOT provide you with the option to take an option without an alignment tag. Sometimes, you're forced to choose between two alignment extremes, like Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil with nothing in between.
This is most frustrating as a Paladin or another alignment based class like a Druid, where sometimes the game can end up forcing you to fall. For instance, I've been placed in scenarios where (had I been less careful with my decisions) I'd have fallen for choices such as:
"Lets save these slaves from their burning cages" (Chaotic Good)
"I don't need a torture chamber, turn this place into a hospital" (Neutral Good)
"Lets talk this out instead of murdering each other" (Neutral Good)
Can you imagine playing a tabletop game and having your GM telling you that your Paladin fell for opening up a Clinic? Its a really frustrating game design feature. Especially since the game SHOWERS you in Neutral and Chaotic good actions but only has a handful of Lawful Good actions. I'm basically forced to take every single Lawful Neutral action I come across in order to stay Lawful Good because of all the Neutral Good forced dialogue choices.
Hell, I'm even taking Lawful Evil options. I'm literally forced into BEING EVIL because I'll fall if I keep taking the neutral good options.
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If I'm being serious and not nerdraging about Iomedae, Asomodeus is hard to argue against. I concede that the demon lord of "strangers, kidnapping and candy" and others like him are beyond imagination in their awfulness, but they're just not very prevalent. Like Set said, a much more personal, localized Evil. No world altering consequences, much more small strings of crime and blasphemy.
Meanwhile, you have Cheliax being one of the strongest countries on the continent while actively and openly worshiping devils. They already have colonies, and they don't seem like the type to sit back and build higher walls when they're more land to take. Naval juggernaut, power-hungry, expansionist. I'm not saying he doesn't have any competition for Evil badass of the universe, but it's a lot of distant seconds in my book.
One of the worst parts is that I don't think you can ever put enough lipstick on "The Demon Lord of child molestation" to make it a mainstream thing, but people can be turned around to full-blown devil worship in small steps. Devils are about laws, laws are stable, stable is safe. Just like Cheliax's civil war, you can inject Asmodeus right after a big social upheaval or disaster, and people will fall right in line. "I want things to be normal, I want to stop the bandits, I want to go to church and go to work and stop worrying." Asmodeus is also already legal to worship in a number of other places, so it very much normalizes him. The Prince of Law rather than Darkness or Lies. Good PR is scary as Hell.
Asmodeus is a comfortable evil, the kind who makes folks happy to sacrifice their freedom for stability and safety. He's the wet dream of fascists everywhere, as the scariest thing about Asmodeus is that he's evil that works.
Nothing is scarier than evil functioning as a well oiled machine. Does this make him the most evil? Probably not, but it sure makes him spooky since its so easy to just keep quiet and go along with him.
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Probably also of note that is that Asmodeus generally advances his cause in the mortal realm as doing a whole "stability through honorable tyranny" thing - his religion is pretty well tailored towards making him look like a reasonable option for the common (if somewhat desperate) person.
But then, in the Outer Planes, beyond the perception of most mortals lies Hell - an entire nigh-infinite dimension that has been molded to Asmodeus's whims and stands as a monument as his absolute hatred of mortals and free will.
(Asmodeus is also the only god who can realistically claim an entire Outer Plane as his divine realm, and so shape that entire Outer Plane to suit his whims. Every other god living in Hell does so with his permission. (Though evicting a fellow true god like Dahak would probably be difficult, even for Asmodeus.) Even Pharasma only controls most of the Boneyard, not all of it.)
Hell is the closest thing to Asmodeus's real face, and represents what he really wants for the universe.
Asmodeus is completely bugf*+! evil, dedicated to an eternal crusade to conquer the cosmos and crush everyone else in it, masquerading as affable evil.
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I'd say it's a multi-way tie... a lot of evil deities represent things we find absolutely abhorrent, and since there are so many of them...
I mean, going down the line, sticking purely to beings with a formal evil alignment, and simply listing deific "areas of concern"- things they promote as laudable goals to pursue? Note- this leaves out piles of deities whose interests involve participating in these things, or whose worshipers absolutely fit under the umbrella of the crime in question- they just don't have it listed in a handy chart for quick reference- followers of Zyphus, for example, absolutely commit murder, but Zyphus isn't considered a "god of murder."
For just three "Bad Things:"
Murder/Assassination: Norgorber, Achaekek, Nocticula, Shax, Set, Yaezhing, Cagnazzo, Fharaas
Slavery: Asmodeus, Jacarkas, Droskar, Zursvaater, Hadregash, Lanishra
Torture/Pain: Zon-Kuthon, Doloras, Andak, Venkelvore, Ananshea
So... there's a lot of awful to go around, and I hesitate to crown a superlative.
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I think the Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be tied for 'Most Evil Gods' of Pathfinder. They're all Neutral Evil, Evil that is unrestrained by order or disorder. True Evil, if you will. They are architects of extinction on a multiversal scale, but it isn't the impersonal destruction of Rovagug. For the Horsemen, it is very personal, almost intimate in a twisted way. They want you and your people to suffer before the end, and then to swallow whatever is left of your soul afterward to ensure you can never come back.
That is TRUE Evil.
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Arguably, Rovagug is just trying to get rid of the trash that keeps dumping its trashy souls into the Abyss and thereby feeding the Demon infestation there . . . .
Hands down Irori. He is the patron of hell knights and his inaction is worse because as perfect as he is, he refuses to involve himself unless it has to do with his church. If that wasn't bad enough, spelling his name backwards spells irori.
Isn't irori a chick though?
Is he a she? The wiki uses he but gender doesn't exist and is fluid. Unless you're trying to suggest that women can't be evil...
Asmodeus. In addition to the points already made, the pathfinder wiki says he basically invented murder and treachery.
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Hands down Irori. He is the patron of hell knights and his inaction is worse because as perfect as he is, he refuses to involve himself unless it has to do with his church. If that wasn't bad enough, spelling his name backwards spells irori.
Where has anything said that Irori has anything to do with Hellknights, other than Order of the Godclaw claiming to have him (and Abadar, and Torag, and Iomedae) as a patron?
{. . .}
Although members of the Godclaw pay homage to the lawful doctrines of the gods Abadar, Asmodeus, Iomedae, Irori, and Torag, it is uncertain from where they get their divine power; it may be the case that their magic comes from their own convictions.
{. . .}
Almost smells of a setup job by Asmodeus . . . .