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I think it's important to remember that souls only merge with a plane after, basically, they decide they want to. The official explanation was something along the lines of "even the wonders of the outer planes can get tiring after a couple of thousand years", so they basically go "yeah, I'm done" and sort of fade out for awhile until the Maelstrom sends them to be reborn. Nothing forces them to do this.
Sure, sorta!
Petitioners are the souls of mortals brought to the Outer Planes after death in order to experience their ultimate punishment, reward, or fate. A petitioner retains fragments of its memories from life, and its appearance depends not only upon the shape it held in life but also upon the nature of the Outer Plane to which it has come.
Creatures who die, become petitioners, and then return to life retain no memories of the time they spent as petitioners in the afterlife.
A petitioner who dies is gone forever—its “life force” has either returned to the Positive Energy Plane or, in some cases, provided the energy to trigger the creation of another outsider.
Petitioners who please a deity or another powerful outsider can be granted rewards—the most common such reward manifests as a transformation into a different outsider, such as an archon, azata, demon, or devil, depending upon the petitioner’s alignment.
In rare cases, a creature can retain its personality from life all the way through its existence as a petitioner and into its third “life” as an outsider, although such events are rare indeed.
Because when you become a Petitioner, you lose the vast majority of who you were previously. Your personality and memories are fractured and destroyed. From there, you become physically reshaped by the plane of existence you are sent to by Pharasma which means that in addition to wiping away everything from your soul that made you a unique person they have also twisted your body into a new shape as well.
From there, you either exist until you are powered up by another being, eaten by a bigger outsider, or eat enough other Petitioners to become a full blown Outsider. An outsider who, as noted, will become an entirely new creature.
Alternatively to being empowered or consumed, you can die from another death where you cease to exist forever OR fall to pieces from a lack of a will to exist. A will, worth noting, that may be entirely different from the will you had during your "real" life as pretty much everything that made you a unique person has been stripped away.
If I did this to a group of PCs or even to another group of people in front of my PCs, they'd stare on in absolute horror at this Villain's deeds.
But hey, Gods, so its k
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Rahadoum FTW
Then what about the obsequious evil? Like a pathetic sniveling unambitious minion. Hell would suck for them!
Not all petitioners who "graduate" to the local outsider race lose memories of their mortal life. Trelmarixiam (the Horseman of Famine) vividly remembers his (including how he killed off his entire planet which is how he became Horseman in the first place) Only thing he can't remember is how he died.
Then what about the obsequious evil? Like a pathetic sniveling unambitious minion. Hell would suck for them!
They probably stay lemures forever since that's kind of the whole point of lemures (to be wimpy and pathetic monsters.)
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Not all petitioners who "graduate" to the local outsider race lose memories of their mortal life. Trelmarixiam (the Horseman of Famine) vividly remembers his (including how he killed off his entire planet which is how he became Horseman in the first place) Only thing he can't remember is how he died.
I'll wager a soul able to become the freaking Horseman of Famine probably falls under the "rare" category mentioned above. The vast majority of peons get the Lethe treatment whether they like it or not. I remember that much from pre-Planar Adventures at least.
Also outsiders (presumably including petitioners) CAN be resurrected but it takes a limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection. I also always thought they only die for real if killed on their home plane. If killed somewhere else they respawn on their home plane (at least it was that way in DND).
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What I've gotten from these threads (fun threads, BTW, folks!) is that I'm glad this is just some fantasy cosmology built for fun and maximum adventuring potential. If I thought for a moment that this was JJ and Friends' idea of a Just World™, . . . well, I'd be very, very worried about them. ; )
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The pig is wise.
Your probably right about most outsiders not remembering. I would guess only powerful outsiders (like CR 15+) remember their mortal lives.
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One of the most horrifying things about Golorian’s divine comedy is that all the petitioners being tortured in the lower planes have no idea why.
WOuld they be any happier about it if they did know why?
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I was under the impression that though memories tend to fall away, personalities still remain.
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Perhaps that's what happened with the Gap in SF. Someone attempted to weaponize this affect of the afterlife and wiped everyone's memories. Maybe an elf did it.
Interesting idea. A thought: why do petitioners lose some of their memories? I was thinking some get left behind in their body somehow. Which, incidentely is why speak with dead works: it accesses the memories stored in the corpse.
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What I've gotten from these threads (fun threads, BTW, folks!) is that I'm glad this is just some fantasy cosmology built for fun and maximum adventuring potential. If I thought for a moment that this was JJ and Friends' idea of a Just World™, . . . well, I'd be very, very worried about them. ; )
If I thought for a moment that our world was somebody's idea of a Just World™, I'd be very, very worried about them.
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What I've gotten from these threads (fun threads, BTW, folks!) is that I'm glad this is just some fantasy cosmology built for fun and maximum adventuring potential. If I thought for a moment that this was JJ and Friends' idea of a Just World™, . . . well, I'd be very, very worried about them. ; )If I thought for a moment that our world was somebody's idea of a Just World™, I'd be very, very worried about them.
Well yeah but with a Utopia too many people wake up from the matr--
Ha! You're right, our reality is real.
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WOuld they be any happier about it if they did know why?
Petitioners really aren't the same entities as the mortals who used their souls first. They're entirely new people. Newborns.
And if the mortal who got first dibs on your soul was evil, you're born into a world of fire and constant pain.
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Can we get back on topic? People always seem to massively derail my threads. Anyway, I think the Empyreal Lord Arshea seems like one of the most good (at least the most good Empyreal we've seen so far
Who set up Pharasma's system of soul sorting, anyway? Did the other gods have a say in the matter?Probably her, she’s one of the oldest and she is the most powerful so,,,, whose gonna argue. It’s not like gods get a bad deal anyway xDKind of sure Pharasma isn't one of the oldest. Isn't she pissed at Lamashtu for devouring her mentor? Didn't she take over her mentor's job in the Boneyard?
Pharasma IS officially is the most powerful of the Core Dieties.
It is implied that Pharasma, as the goddesse of birth, gave birth to the universe. Which would make her the oldest.
You are confusing Pharasma with Desna. Desna's mentor Curchanus was killed by Lamashtu.
^That said, it would be interesting to have a setting in which the deity of death isn't the first one doing that job . . . for that matter, it would be interesting if some other deities weren't the first doing their job, especially if some of their predecessors were still around . . . .
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It is implied that Pharasma, as the goddesse of birth, gave birth to the universe. Which would make her the oldest.
There are also creation stories around Apsu and Tiamat, and around Asmodeus (and possibly others). I think Paizo has been intentionally vague about the actual creation story.
Is there a god of immortality? Because in a world like that, that would be the most "good" god.What are the ways to immortality? I know only the magical discovery from UM, and that would come from Nethys...
Be a high level Wizard/Sorcerer/Arcanist, get high UMD, Contingency and a scroll of Reincarnate, as well as two scrolls of Restoration/one scroll of Greater Restoration. Cast Contingency with Reincarnate on yourself, stipulation "I die". Slit your own throat, reincarnate into a healthy younger body of a random race. Rinse, repeat, don't die to external violence or be smart and set up some Clones in secret laboratories for the case that this does happen.
That's at least what I'm planning on for my sage bloodline Sorcerer.
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Your probably right about most outsiders not remembering. I would guess only powerful outsiders (like CR 15+) remember their mortal lives.
There are cases (like in the first module of Hell's Rebels) of low level outsiders remembering their past lives. But, yeah, special circumstances apply.
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IMO, of the big 20, Sarenrae feels like the 'most good.' She's got idealistic views, but is active and can be pragmatic at times. (She's got a sword, for the times when her ideals don't win the day, but it's not her first and last resort, as it may be with Iomedae, who seems less 'win hearts and minds / give peace a chance / everyone deserves a shot at redemption' focused and more 'kill 'em all, and I'll sort 'em out'.)
In different ways, Shelyn, Erastil, Torag, Cayden and Desna feel more constricted by their specific areas of focus, and less 'universally' good, to me. They also feel more passively good, in that their faiths aren't out there doing good, the same way that Sarenrae's seems to be. Torag and Desna seem kind of race-focused, and if you're not a dwarf or a Varisian, not as much help. The churches / faiths of Cayden and Shelyn and Erastil feel particularly passive, and don't feel to me like they get out of their way to help people, and are more likely to sit around drinking, painting and / or running the farm, waiting for evil circumstances or opportunities to 'do good' to walk up, interrupt what they are doing, and get all up in their face.
Shelyn, for instance, is operating on levels of love and creative endeavor and Desna focused on freedom, while Sarenrae, at least to me, seems more like the sort of god whose church who'd run an orphanage, or halfway house, or hand out food to the hungry. (To be fair, Asmodeus' church might do all those things as well, for completely different reasons...)
That said, Sarenrae's church is huge, and has some dark elements that have crept into it, which I blame happily on those various demons and devils and evil sorts who corrupt churches and faiths deliberately. Geryon's gotto promote those heresies somewhere, and it makes sense from a meta-textual sense to 'blame Geryon' for any alignment inconsistencies that have crept into write ups of good gods like Erastil (misogyny!), Torag (genocide!), Iomedae (burners oppressing the natives in the Worldwound!) or Sarenrae (pro-slavery militant cults!). All easy enough to rationalize as the gods not being *perfect* at countering the propoganda and machinations of those attempting to splinter off worshippers and being unwilling, in general, of just immediately abandoning any branch of their faith that 'gets it wrong,' taking a longer (immortal) view and attempting get things back on track 'in a generation or two,' rather than just concede all those misguided souls to Geryon (or whomever).
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Groetus is the clearly the objectively most benevolent in action, because he will end the appalling nonsense and futility that is existence.
None are good by intention, because consciousness and free will are illusions.
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If you going with the "Gods are powered by belief" thing, that's not how it works on Golarion and in the Great Beyond.As far as I can tell none of them.
All the Golarian gods simply seem to be spouting various types of proganda to gather in souls that then become fuel for their personal power.
Sure, some have propaganda that is nicer than others, but the Gods themselves are all simply predators/parasites at their core. Even the ones who use good messages in their ad campaigns are evil.
Haven't you seen the end of Elf? That's exactly how it happens! ....wait, is Santa Claus a god?.... hmmm Archimedes will have to conduct more research.
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Can we get back on topic? People always seem to massively derailmythreads.
I fixed this to reflect reality more accurately.
I know it's a derail about a request for "let's not derail" but I just want to mention:
1) I'm really glad you're here, and I've enjoyed seeing how active you are and how many threads you're making
2) while you can strive to keep things on topic (and you can strive, that's fine) conversation will drift naturally over time based on the topic and collective interests; on this point
- 2a) the side-topic of whether or not Golarion's afterlife is "just" at all is valid and "on topic" insomuch as anyone seeks to either prove or explain their own viewpoint of apathy and general matheism (and general malsentience) towards the omniverse and objective morality of Golarion; hence, within that context, things were never derailed (though they might not have gone as you desired, originally)
- 2b) if you spend any significant time on any forum that is not, broadly, considered "kind of" dictatorial and/or heavy-handed in moderation (though there is nothing wrong with a strong lawful mindset compared to a strong individualist or permissive one) - and Paizo is not - I strongly urge you to find it within you to be less irked by folks not following your original vision, as well as learning to accept "topic drift" (at least nominally), even if you don't particularly enjoy it or don't feel that the original conversation has reached a logical conclusion (which others might disagree with, or might feel that there is no logical conclusion). The reason is that, frankly, this is a public forum where people can say what they want, and will, barring moderation, and if moderation gets too heavy-handed, people will simply leave and/or rebel until there's a cultural shift... and that's never really a pleasant event for (most of) those who go through it. As someone who has started topics or threads that were either derailed or quickly followed a vision that wasn't my intent, I understand the frustration, but it's a reaction that needs to be (at least nominally) quelled - that is, you're still going to feel annoyed, and you're still going to want X thing, but there's only so much influence you can leverage, and, for your own sanity, you need to accept how topic drift occurs. This is not an insult, nor is it any sort of a dislike of anything noted, here, nor of what you said: instead it's a statement borne from concern built off of past experience.
You've got cool ideas. People will make of those what they want, because this is a public place, and that's how people do.
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More on topic:
- Arshea's pretty good
- Shelyn's pretty good
- Sarenrae's pretty good
- Andoletta's pretty good
- Malek Taus' (or was) pretty good
Somewhere in there is probably one of your "best" answers.
You are not gonna get people to agree on this, not even by the longest of long shots. Three of my own top picks include Andoletta, Erastil, and Iomedae (), though Apsu, Arshea, Easivra, Sarenrae, and Shelyn are all really solid, too. There are a ton of others, and I love most of 'em, but it's questionable whether many are "good" (or acknowledged as such by many) and others are too obscure... and I've forgotten even more, as people just don't talk about 'em as much as they deserve.
But, if you're asking who, in all of PF, is the most goodliest of good gods who ever godly gooded, we have to go with the absolute daggum best, son, like no one ever was.
"But Tactics, he's not a g-"
- I will thank you to take your DAGGUM heretical unbelief and shove it where the sun don't shine; you know, right down Ydersius' maw- oh, wait, you can't, 'cause he sewed the jerk's mouth shut. You can't even do that, according to the rules! I rest my case.
Also, this is a great resource that I highly recommend.
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- 2a) the side-topic of whether or not Golarion's afterlife is "just" at all is valid and "on topic" insomuch as anyone seeks to either prove or explain their own viewpoint of apathy and general matheism (and general malsentience) towards the omniverse and objective morality of Golarion; hence, within that context, things were never derailed (though they might not have gone as you desired, originally)
I know that I seemingly managed to kill the conversation, however, I'd like to bring it back by briefly launching into the semi-topical opinion that Golarion's afterlife is not unjust - just unjust by many afterlives we currently broadly appeal to.
We, broadly, appeal to our current sense of self and self-identity as absolutely valuable and infinitely precious, and expect our afterlives to continue this; and, it's worth noting, this isn't inherently wrong, but it is fundamentally flawed.
As an example, I am myself. I have always been myself. I was myself before I was sentient, as a mere zygote in my mother's womb. I was myself when my brain had finally developed enough to start firing synapses and my heart started beating. I was myself when I took my first actual breath, when I ate my first real food (milk), and when I was "alone" (relatively) for the first time in my existence in a crib. I was myself when I took my first steps, when I spoke my first words, or when I scootched awkwardly along the floor prior to the whole "first steps" thing. I was myself when I walked out of church to go potty and pointed towards the pulpit when people looked at me. When I sung in front of crowds. When I asked for prayer requests on behalf of others that would have been embarrassing. I was myself when I rolled on skates, when I discovered roller blades, and when I played video games with my Dad and by myself.
I was myself when, as a kid at some point or another, I had my first crush. When I watched cartoons. When I hated chocolate; when I discovered that I loved it. When I ate food and expunged the remnants - first in a diaper, then in toilets (hopefully!). I was myself when I was in the hospital having my appendix taken out, and when I was in the hospital watching my wife have our Youngest taken out of her. I was myself when I was in Highschool dreaming of girls, in college dreaming of girls, and engaged dreaming of my wife. I was myself when my Eldest was first born, and was myself years before when I prayed for whatever child and wife I might have some day. I was myself when I came up with really (really) weird and highly ignorant childish variants of sexual fantasies and myself when I discovered what sex was really like.
I am myself writing this, just as I was myself the first time I was learning how to type on the keyboard.
There cannot be any denial that any of this was, in fact, "myself." I am the exact same person I was on the day I lost my first tooth to the day I lost my wisdom teeth. From the moment I was born until this one.
But I can tell you this: I am definitely not the same person.
This is a great mystery of humanity, but not one we always put much stock in because it's so very banal. It happens every day to everyone. At every moment in our lives, we labor under the "until the end of time" delusion (that is, the way things are now, this is how they will be, "until the end of time" - or at least of our time), and we labor under this delusion even when we're aware of it. Much like - from what I recall - confirmation bias or Stokholme Syndrome - the more aware that we are that it exists the more likely we seem to be to fall prey to it, regardless of our preparation. Wwweeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiird.
But that's the thing. It's pretty clear that the kid that engaged in a "sword fight" with lit candles with whoever stood behind him at Kindergarten graduation is not the bearded weirdo who is writing things at this keyboard. I mean, I don't even remember the candle-thing, but it happened, and it's not something I would ever do now, but it's definitely a part of my history, as many people remember it, and it's documented by pictures.
So, what? Does that candle thing "not count" as "me" in this instance?
It totally does. That was totally me.
... but I am not that guy. And that guy is not me. But I am that guy, and he is me.
What did I eat for lunch on Thursday two weeks ago? You know, I have no idea. And odds are, I wouldn't choose to eat that same stuff. It was probably fine, but not something I'm terribly interested in repeating. But, hey, maybe I would. That's fine. But I'll tell you one thing: man, do I hate chocola- no, wait, no, that was before I tried those stale "blondies" (the kind of "brownies" except not solid chocolate with the M&Ms in them?) when I was, like, somewhere between thirteen to sixteen years old that one time. (Tootsierolls were alright, previously.) Now? DAGGUM, but GIMME SOME CHOCOLATE~!
Does that line divide the "me" that was before and the "me" that was after? No, of course not. That's silly.
But, man, let me tell you, being a married dude, I did not start off as devoted to my wife as I am now. Don't get me wrong - I was (and remain) desperately in love with her, and have had exactly zero cheats, ever. But when we were first married? I was a young man who liked girls. Heck, I still like girls. Girls are great. But... now I have an orientation to my wife, and that's pretty much it. Ideas, concepts, fantasies, and so on (I'm being as "family-friendly" as possible here) they're great and cool and fun, but if I place an actual "myself"-alike into those mental spaces or situations, it goes from, "This is a fun fantasy" to "OH, GOSH, NO, WHY, LET ME OUT, OH, WWWWHHHYYYYYYYY"-type squick factor real quick. It did not start this way. I am not that guy who married my wife, even though he and I are totally the same guy.
Now, of course, liking or disliking chocolate, being oriented exclusively to your wife or towards females in general, and choosing to perform or to avoid performing potentially dangerous acts of candle swashbucklery are all extremely finite and limited examples (), but the point holds true, that throughout life you change and become a different person.
So... what stayed the same?
- my hair colo- no, actually, I started blonde, got shaved that one time, and it grew back brown, nevermind
- my eye colo- no, I was born blue-eyed, but now I'm brown eyed; pretty common, really
- my skin color? Yeah, maybe. Eh, close enough, anyway. This is a very, very weird thing to identify as "me" though.
- my race? Yeah, I've been human the whole time (I think).
- my home town? Not even close; I was born in one (but barely remember it), and have had three to five that I consider "home" in a real sort of way.
- my nationality? Okay, here's another one that's remained the same; it's poor proof, however, given that others change theirs readily, and, honestly, it's a weird thing to pin your (eternal) sense of self to. Also, I've lived extensively in other countries, to the point that this one (the US) became an alien place for a while.
- my ethical and moral outlook? Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-AH! Oh, wait, I was the one asking this question and was, apparently, serious. Nice self slam, me. Anyway, no. I am still the same religion as I was raised (though that required reaching a level of cognizance that I didn't start with), and hypothetically hold the same morals, but the nuances therein are vaaaaaaaaaaast and extremely difficult to use language to clarify. But let us just conclude with, "Yes, but... no." and move on.
- what I do with my free time? What I find entertaining? Oh, gosh, no. Also, don't look at my past while I was in private. N-... no reason. >.>
- my desires and how I want to impact the world? No. Just... no. That has... not stayed the same. At all. (So glad I am not what I wanted to grow up to be. So. Daggum. Glad.)
- my sense of self? LOLno.
So, then... what changes in Golarion's afterlife?
1) you go from being "human" to "outsider"
> 1-a) maaaaaaaaaaaybe your skin tone changes to, like, chalk or verdigris or something
... huh, that list was shorter than I expected.
Now, to some extent, you might think that this is what makes it "unfair" somehow - that the afterlife needs to be more "just" and changes how you interact with yourself. But... why?
If you want to look at it negatively, your two options are:
> 1) you either enter into eternal stagnation
> 2) you lose your current sense of self and change into something unrecognizable
And (secretly) neither of those are actually bad things.
Our terror comes from not understanding why, exactly, we would not want to be who we currently are, as we value the things that we value now... well, now. But as we live and continue to live, we will most definitely change, and change again. We will forget significant parts of our past that may well define and shape us. We will change and become someone else, even as we remain us.
The PF cosmology simply takes that to the logical conclusion. It follows a process that encourages that exact cycle to continue onward.
The question, "But what about simply becoming a bulwark of one sliver of reality against the maelstrom? That seems... pathetic or insignificant, doesn't it?"
Sure, I guess you could look at it that way. Or you could look at it as "eventually it becomes increasingly clear how very important it is to maintain the things you value for an increasingly long time - asymptotically approaching infinity - and/or finding reprieve from what amounts to eternal ennui or torture (depending on your specific afterlife tailored to your nature and the choices that you've created over time; i.e. honoring your free will with the natural and reasonable consequences thereof), and thus you eventually head toward a similar fate. If this seems depressing, eh. You've had a really, really, really frickin' good run by that point. Sure, you no longer remember that one time that you had a combination of diarrhea and chicken pox, but... so what? You didn't remember it before you died, either.
Some simply cannot find comfort in anything like that cycle. And, okay, I guess. That's fine. Feel free to be dissatisfied. Nothing wrong with that, either.
But it's not inherently unjust.
(Also, in a universe where refusal to believe in demonstrably tangible deities is a thing, suggesting people should get off fine for snubbing said entities is roughly analogous to suggesting that people that throw themselves off a cliff shouldn't have to be hurt at the bottom because gravity should be optional. Sure, you can absolutely cling to that belief - that's you're right after all - but it's kind of silly. Now, in this world there's a significantly better and more well-reasoned argument to make against required belief, but in PF it gets relatively silly quite quickly. If you're interested in game worlds where faith is much more a matter of faith and less demonstrable fact, I encourage you all to check out Eberron. It's a really cool setting with actual tangible divinity... and reasons to believe, disbelieve, or find lacking.)
((If you disagree with PFs morality, that's more valid: I'd suggest that you reevaluate it for your own games - a solid thing to do - and can make arguments that specific instances are unwarranted, relative to our world - two notable parts of lore come to mind - but, fundamentally, you're arguing that the guidelines for morality as-printed do not match our own, to which I'd argue, "Yeah, but... have you met Physics? She's pretty rockin'. Also not present in the Core rulebook." Effectively, PF provides a rough framework for a similarity to our world, in the same way that anime or a novel does, even if said novel is set in a universe where the four classical elements are things and you can alter reality by this one old weird trick speaking the correct arcane language or whatever. It gets the jist down if you're not too stuck on the nitty-gritty, and if you are for cultural reasons, it's suggested you make note and change it. None of this has been to fundamentally sway you out of your current morality, or into PF's, but rather to point out that PF's afterlife is not inherently terrifying or all that different from actual life experience, and is internally consistent with its own stated morality, in a broad way. But I love me some rules nitty-gritty, so I can see the appeal of following that rabbit hole.))
Anyway, given the afterlives, and the fact that I enjoy things that I enjoy,
- Arshea's pretty good
- Shelyn's pretty good
- Sarenrae's pretty good
- Andoletta's pretty good
- Malek Taus' (or was) pretty good
- Iomedae's pretty good
- Erastil's pretty good
- Easivra's pretty good
- Apsu's pretty good
- Old Mage Jtambe's the best and goodest
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Saranrae.
NG so nothing else is in the way of being good.
She's also a god OF good rather than a god who just happens to be good. Shelyn, Desna, and calden cayden all ARE good but its not really their defining character trait, focus, or sum total of their being.
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For me, I can't say I've had to many changes of my interests, strengths, or weaknesses. I had a scratch in my proverbial record, so I ran the same state for enough time for it to become ingrained into everything I do. I came into a world with too many people, and in a sense I only withstood it by believing it is better to be one of one than one of many. That my stat total matters less than the fact that it is minmaxed (min Cha, max Int, for the curious). And, because of how heredity works, I can't say I have ever known what normalcy is like.
The PF afterlife can be a new blank slate to start again. But my slate has never been blank. There would be no "again". The part of my existence that was built around bumps that have since been smoothed over would be conclusively and utterly finished. I can't really call it life-after-death when I am completely gone, can I? Heck, pushing back the Maelstrom is probably something important enough to be worth true death. I just object to the intermediary step of being just another face defined by a different definition than how I define myself.
I'm just curious why you'd think you would be.
Example (presuppose all are named "Bob"):
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
- CG human male commoner 1, Int 20, Cha 7; skills: knowledge ([same six topics]) x6; skill focus (knowledge [the same two skills with ranks]) x2
... man, I just created seven really different characters, just now. Like, holy carp, they are nothing alike. (For the record, I am being absolutely serious, even though I'm delivering it in a glib manner.)
How can I make that argument?
Easily.
Mechanics inform personality, but do not define personality.
Bob is married to Sue, has been (and will be) loyal for his entire life and loves chocolate and sitcoms, but has no interest in sci fi. Sue loves him, but finds his sense of humor... weird, at best, and is mildly annoyed by the fact that she has to make the first move toward anything romantic, but has never regretted doing so, and they're destined for lifelong love.
Bob has been married five times, and has never really found true love, though he continually thinks he has (it's just things always fall apart after a while). His favorite thing is curling up with romantic stories and a bottle of wine with a loved one. ... whoever that is, this year.
Bob is a hard man emphasizing facts and finding flights of fancy nonsense. Deeply suspicious of authority, he hides the fact that he's lonely by focusing on his studies and by participating in endless forum debates and arguments.
Bob is a softie and easy pushover. He has little luck at work because he can't say no, and he lacks the required ambition to actually compete for a higher place in society. He has a crush on this cute girl in the office named Sue, but she's attached to someone who's actually, you know, "cool," and he just can't go for it.
Bob is twice-widowed man and can't really convince himself to try again. He's doing his best for his two-year-old and seven-year-old, but it's hard. He has an excellent education, but he really has never been able to do anything with it, stuck in a dead-end job and has no real courage to try for a "better" job - after all, if he does, it's a risk and he needs to make steady money to keep his kids fed and educated now, rather than better money later. He hates this, though, and quietly builds resentment against his employers, society, life, and work and his place in it.
Bob is lonely man, quiet, and one who's always been ostracized, ever since his school days. He lucked into a great job (his parents had solid connections), but he's just not happy there, and never fit in with local culture. He's frustrated and just wants to... do something with life, you know? But he hasn't and can't bring himself to hurt his parents, even if he deeply believes they were wrong to "force" him into this job by using their connections to get him here. His colleagues don't like his bitter attitude, but are forced to admit that his intelligence surpasses the rest of them. He doesn't really care about their approval, though - he just cares about his parents.
Bob is basically the same as the last guy, but he absofrickin'-lutely loves his daggum job. Life is a rockin' good time. His colleagues find it weird how happy he is all the time - it's just... creepy... but he's intelligent enough that it doesn't matter that he unsettles them with his creepy smile, and what does he care?
Bob is a failed stand-up comedian. He loves manga and sci-fi, and long held a dream of being a famous stand-up, but could just never make it work. He feels... oh, wait, I ran out of Bobs before I ran out of Bobs.
But the point is merely this: statistics only define part of your story. Don't like being a cog? You reject someone defining you differently than how you define yourself? Great! Be an azata!
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Just noticed this:
{. . .}
Haven't you seen the end of Elf? That's exactly how it happens! ....wait, is Santa Claus a god?.... hmmm Archimedes will have to conduct more research.
Don't you know that Santa Claus is actually Tom Bombadil?
Just noticed this:
{. . .}
Haven't you seen the end of Elf? That's exactly how it happens! ....wait, is Santa Claus a god?.... hmmm Archimedes will have to conduct more research.Don't you know that Santa Claus is actually Tom Bombadil?
This is fantastic.
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I'd like to bring it back by briefly launching into the semi-topical opinion that Golarion's afterlife is not unjust - just unjust by many afterlives we currently broadly appeal to.
I think the big difference is that our current self is an evolution of our past self. The past informs the present.
Wiping your identity and starting from scratch (in the Pathfinder cosmology) seems quite immoral because your new "masters" are then free to shape your blank mind to their own ends. In effect, the Pathfinder afterlife is something of a reeducation camp -- their is no evolution of your identity, hard disc wiped, reprogrammed.
Except that's fundamentally untrue.
While much of what you remember is gone, consider this: you are (literally, in this case) the product of your choices, and none others.
While you are then handed over into the hands of a divine entity to be judged, consistently you've placed yourself in the hands of those individuals, who have arrived at their position either by nature (because they simply are that) or by fundamentally and individually achieving that status. Rejecting their authority is kind of like suggesting, "Well, Einstein is dumb and I hate him - he shouldn't be famous, because I could come up with his theories on my own." Yeah, sure, maybe, but you didn't, and he did, and the fact that he did has altered our world forever.
Now, you might argue that said individuals are not "wise enough" to judge your fate or whatever. But given that any given "your" wisdom is ~10 (~20 at most) and experiential lifespans are a few thousand years at most, and compare that to ~24 (at minimum) and a few thousand years (also at minimum, from what I can tell), you're starting in an entirely different spectrum.
Now, you might rightly argue, "But a mortal can (without too much difficulty) achieve a wisdom score of much higher (20 base + 5 levels + 5 inherent + 6 enhancement = 36; +10 = 46 with mythic)" - and you'd be right in thinking that's achievable! - it's also missing the context.
With a deity with millennia of experience, if they have a lower wisdom score and are of a good alignment, their tendency will be to bring those higher wisdom individuals onto their staff; i.e. you'd be the extremely rare individual who actually is retained and whose council is valued.
Now, compare the other side of the coin:
> you are now a spirit who, honestly, can't really survive well outside of your (newly) native world (a home generated by your own choices)
> you lack the personal ability to move from plane to plane
> those who do are generally really busy
> you know there are things and people and events and all sorts of other stuff that you've left behind and (due to logistical elements) can never do anything about
So... congratulations, I guess, you get to suffer an inability to do anything about the things you care about. Enjoy ignorance and agitation for a while and maybe forever?
Looking at an example of this, let's go back to that first CG Bob I mentioned before, and his wife, Sue. Now, it never comes up, because, frankly, it's not relevant in their lives but his wife Sue happens to be a LN a NG individual who is a little more rules-minded than Bob's fierce independence, and, though she values his spirit, she usually just rolls her eyes and moves on with her days. So Bob, as men are want, ends up dying before his wife does, and becomes a petitioner and heads to Elysium and is now able to do all the CG stuff he'd like to. Except, of course, he still loves his wife (after all, he remembers her). Now, Bob is in paradise, but cannot actually enjoy it, because, frankly, he's too worried about his wife. He can't actually see her (she's not in Elysium), and he can't actually do anything about that. Now, maybe Calistria is willing to bend the rules, but... why? What is he going to do for her? Since cheating is out (he loves his wife after all), so the Calistria route isn't really a thing he can get behind. Maybe Desna? She'd love to! ... but there are those other gods that look down on her for breaking those rules, and, besides, she's really busy what with this whole demon-soul-snatching-thing going on right now, as well as looking for a way to resurrect a, you know, actual god (which is kind of difficult) or at least take down an evil one. It can go on this way. So Bob retains his whole... Bobness... but finds it useless to him or anyone else, and, fundamentally, finds paradise kind of miserable. But it's okay! He'll see Sue again! ... except he probably won't, because they're both level 1 commoners and she's going to an entirely different afterlife. So maybe he gives up on the whole "Sue"-thing and just enjoys? That's cool, right? But then... why bother with the memories in the first place? They ultimately represent a vestigial part of himself that he attaches as being more important to his place in reality (and his self-identity after death) than they actually are. Just like my appendix~!
Now, why might some actually have the invitation to remain and others not? Simple: finite resources.
Many people suggest that it's unfair, but the ultimate fact is that in the afterlife, even divine entities aren't truly infinite (or, if they are in more limited versions of the same - which they aren't in PF, even with more interesting interpretations of limited infinity). Why do souls merge with the plane to prevent it from going back into the maelstrom at all? Because the gods can stop the maelstrom, but not by themselves.
Beyond that, those memories can be quite toxic and can mess with a person's head. Let's say that there's a sweet, senile old lady who has been for the majority of her life (let's say 45 of her 90+ years) chaotic good; she's had brief stints as other alignments (N at birth, for example), but over-all she's been solidly CG. Her memory's not so good, anymore, but she's happy. She passes peacefully. Then she wakes up in the afterlife, and gets to go through all of her memories. She gets to witness how her family scraped and struggled, all the extra money they had to pay, all the luxuries and difficulties they had to keep her alive and with them, and, in the end, she was still taken from them. She gets to relive every traumatic event that she'd successfully forgotten, every bad thing, every unpleasant moment. Sure, she has great moments, too, but that one thing that really hurt in the past that she was only able to get over with years of effort? Yay, it's back, and the hurt is fresh as ever! Now all those years of struggle get heaped right back on her, and she gets to undergo everything all over again. It's quite possible that she stays CG, but what if the bitterness turns her less good... CN, N, or even some variant of evil? That is... miserable. Here, enjoy paradise, sucker, oh well~! Now, there is no doubt that there would be people there waiting to help with such trauma, but why put people through that kind of trauma? Again?
Or, perhaps, you mean, "only current memories"...? Well, amnesiacs and dementia patients clearly lose out, here.
"Only memories that you created while not under the influence of disease, possession, or mind-altering substances?" Right, so please define disease. 'Cause I've got a lousy memory sometimes. Am I diseased?
"Only memories of events you want?" Well, that's nice, but it quickly gets into bad times when foolish people retain memories that will hurt them through eternity, and cause a festering internal evil that equals the badness for everyone.
"Only the memories that would make you happy in eternity?" And, ultimately, I think that's what PF does. A person's individual free will (their ethical and moral choices) are respected and they are sent to a broad area which fits their philosophical and moral outlook, while retaining enough memories to "be themselves" in such a way as their eventual eternal fate isn't torture or torment (or is torture or torment, but isn't unfairly earned - also, in at least the latter case, Asmodeus makes sure to burn the individuality out of his victims faithful, so there clearly is still individuality).
Does this seem sucky? I'unno. I prefer my own religious outlook, but it's fairly internally consistent when compared to PF's morality and ethics.
And, again, the part of you that persists is still you, even if you have no memories thereof. A simple example of this is meeting a person with full amnesia. They don't suddenly stop being themselves just because of an inability to access their memories (though personality changes may occur, usually because of the other parts of you that are damaged).
So... what is "you?"
We generally attach our personalities to our definition of ourselves, which seems to be fairly solid, but if that's the case, as I've pointed out, that's a thing that fundamentally changes with our experiences and understandings of the world (for better or worse).
Our memories? People actually lose those, and, regardless, we actually change our own memories all the time (every time we spin up a memory, in fact, we're apparently changing it bit by bit).
Our physical form? No, definitely not - otherwise, I'll never be a whole person: my appendix taken out when I was young means I'm fundamentally broken, somehow.
Our choices? This, ultimately, is the view that PF takes of it, at least partially. That's not to say that if you've made a bad choice you can't change... fundamentally, PF argues quite the opposite. But your moral decision making ultimately informs your course in the realm beyond death.
PF attaches several things to souls:
- memories
- choices (moral and ethical)
- experiences
- desires
- personality
- emotions
... and then suggests that these are things that change over time. It suggests that memories are partially attached to the soul, partially to the body. It suggests that moral and ethical choices shape and guide our destiny, but can be rewritten by newer ones - which is the tragedy of a fallen do-gooder, or the amazing beauty of a risen villain. It suggests that our experiences proved context for those choices, while our desires motivate them: both of which are partially built from our personality, and partially from our memories (while also building our memories) and emotions as memories.
Upon death, the memories seem to fade - some staying with the flesh, others with the body - but this doesn't seem to remove or negate any of the other elements. And, again, the fact that Asmodeus has to burn the individuality out of his souls indicates that they are individuals - even the LE stormtroopers that get sent straight to his waiting clutches in hell by the droves via good adventurers are all individual enough that he has to torment them until every trace of what they once were is gone before they're ready for his use.
I don't think there is a "blank mind" - it's a mostly-empty memory, but you're still, ultimately, you, regardless.
Again, I much prefer my own religious outlook, but this one isn't quite the horror it's often made out to be... unless it is, which, you know, you do you, and also there's lichdom (plus polymorph any object, yo) or other routes you can take in protest, or you can just reject Pharasma's judgement (again, you can do this, so you're clearly still some version of you), in which case you end up poking around for a while until you die. Seems boring, but, eh, if you want, go for it.
And she can't be blamed for putting would-be trouble-makers in a moderately-okay-if-boring place, because, honestly, they're just causing problems; and she's not a good god, she's neutral and can do what she wants - like a honey badger, except actually a god and fundamental to there being souls at all. And you may then protest the "need" for "souls" to exist in the first place, which, fair, but, you know, they do.
If you feel no attachment to your soul after death, do what you want now and don't worry about it later. If you still want to worry about it, think of it like an involuntary post-death organ donation, or think of Pharasma as the cosmic trash collector-cum-recycle-center of the universe: you build up a bunch of moral and ethical detritus over your existence, and she sorts it and places it where it goes. Green living and all.
Really, it's a kind-of-okay system, all things said and done.
Man, my posts are coming off as so much more combative and argumentative than intended. Sorry! I’m rereading them and am all, like, “Woah; harsh.” Sorry! Mostly I mean it in a pleasant tone. Siiiiigh.
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If you feel no attachment to your soul after death, do what you want now and don't worry about it later. If you still want to worry about it, think of it like an involuntary post-death organ donation, or think of Pharasma as the cosmic trash collector-cum-recycle-center of the universe: you build up a bunch of moral and ethical detritus over your existence, and she sorts it and places it where it goes. Green living and all.
Really, it's a kind-of-okay system, all things said and done.
I think the main problem comes up when people who take this view then decide that they'd ranter not die at all. Then you get Pharasma getting upset with you and Murats knocking on your door.
The meta issue is that if you don't feel any attachment to your (character's) soul but you play with someone who does. That generates an intractable disagreement about the cosmology. You can see it in this thread! Some people say "why defy Pharasma, you heretic!" While others say "It's my life! I only have one."
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Man, my posts are coming off as so much more combative and argumentative than intended. Sorry! I’m rereading them and am all, like, “Woah; harsh.” Sorry! Mostly I mean it in a pleasant tone. Siiiiigh.
That's life, innit? I often come across as far more combative than I really am . . . I have weakly held opinions, argued passionately.
While much of what you remember is gone, consider this: you are (literally, in this case) the product of your choices, and none others.
That's not entirely true.
I mean, the argument can be made that no one has any choice in any manner, but even ignoring that, in the Pathfinder cosmology you are, more than anything, the product of Pharasma's choices.
Saying that LE people "chose" to go to hell is as preposterous as saying that American criminals "chose" to get executed. Or that fourteenth century "heretics" "chose" to get inquisitored. No, they didn't. I mean, sure, you can make the argument that at some point they started a causal chain that ended with them being victimized, but if you're making arguments about causal chains than you're invalidating the idea of people making choices at all.
Pharasma's the person who decides to wipe people's memories and send them to Hell. The inquisitor is the one "culpable", as much as a human can be blamed for anything, not the person who disagrees with the church.
And she can't be blamed for putting would-be trouble-makers in a moderately-okay-if-boring place, because, honestly, they're just causing problems; and she's not a good god, she's neutral and can do what she wants - like a honey badger, except actually a god and fundamental to there being souls at all.
That's not . . . that doesn't make any sense.
I can't say that I'm a neutral person and can therefor do whatever I please. If I'm powerful enough, I can, and no one can stop me, but preemptively declaring oneself immoral does not preclude others from passing moral judgement.
(Also, in a universe where refusal to believe in demonstrably tangible deities is a thing, suggesting people should get off fine for snubbing said entities is roughly analogous to suggesting that people that throw themselves off a cliff shouldn't have to be hurt at the bottom because gravity should be optional. Sure, you can absolutely cling to that belief - that's you're right after all - but it's kind of silly.
I suppose you'd think I'm kind of silly.
I think that in a fair and just universe, one designed by an intelligence for the purpose of being fair and just, people who throw themselves off cliffs shouldn't have to be hurt at the bottom, because gravity should be optional.
That the universe doesn't care about you is not a credit to the system. That it'll hurt or unmake you if you, due to circumstances outside your control, aren't intelligent enough to grasp the rules is quite obviously a design flaw. If a person designed such a universe, they'd be seen as a monster.
Saying that it's fine if the gods arbitrarily punish people (what in Hell is punishment for, if rather than leading to behavior modification it just leads to becoming a devil or being fed to the End God?? And, if we're operating under some sort of barbaric eye-for-an-eye system of morality, where hurting people becomes ethical if they hurt someone else first, what crime, what crime, is heinous enough to merit cold-blooded torture?) for being delusional baffles me, especially from someone who spoke so vehemently just yesterday against a case of people defending internet trolls by saying, "if he can't learn, he clearly deserves it."
Really, it's a kind-of-okay system, all things said and done.
I strongly disagree.
And, not to be rude, I find the fact that you think so just the tiniest bit unsettling. The Pathfinder cosmology wasn't designed to be a kind-of-okay system, as far as I can tell. It was designed to be cosmic horror, and it succeeds at that.
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That's not entirely true.
I mean, the argument can be made that no one has any choice in any manner, but even ignoring that, in the Pathfinder cosmology you are, more than anything, the product of Pharasma's choices.
Pharasma also doesn't have free will, though. It doesn't exist, and consciousness is nothing more than an emergent feature of deterministic processes underlying it. If Pharasma really thinks she's choosing the fate of souls she's just as deluded as my mother is when she gasps in genuine fear that James Bond is about to be killed during a tense scene in a movie. None of this is real, and the outcome is predetermined.
The Pathfinder cosmology wasn't designed to be a kind-of-okay system, as far as I can tell. It was designed to be cosmic horror, and it succeeds at that.
As with all evolved systems, it wasn't designed at all. It just is.
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Pharasma also doesn't have free will, though. It doesn't exist, and consciousness is nothing more than an emergent feature of deterministic processes underlying it. If Pharasma really thinks she's choosing the fate of souls she's just as deluded as my mother is when she gasps in genuine fear that James Bond is about to be killed during a tense scene in a movie. None of this is real, and the outcome is predetermined.
That's not entirely true.
I mean, the argument can be made that no one has any choice in any manner, but even ignoring that, in the Pathfinder cosmology you are, more than anything, the product of Pharasma's choices.
True.
But that's no way to convince anyone of anything. I find that the only way to debate with most people is to grant their core assumptions about how the world works - otherwise I have to first convince them that people do not get to choose what they think or believe, and then I must convince them that even if morality is a human construct, it's still important and even if no one is culpable for their actions, we still have to decide whether their actions were right or wrong, and only then can I get to arguing about whether something is harmful or beneficial. And every additional thing I have to get someone to accept that 1) no relevance to the topic on hand, and 2) they have no stated interest in, is another point of failure introduced to my long-winded rants, another point where they might get up and walk away, another reason for a failure to communicate.
The Pathfinder cosmology wasn't designed to be a kind-of-okay system, as far as I can tell. It was designed to be cosmic horror, and it succeeds at that.As with all evolved systems, it wasn't designed at all. It just is.
Pathfinder was designed by an intelligence, on a level. An intelligence created through a deterministic process beginning with matter's existence, but created by an intelligence nonetheless.
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{. . .}
{. . .}
Really, it's a kind-of-okay system, all things said and done.
I strongly disagree.
And, not to be rude, I find the fact that you think so just the tiniest bit unsettling. The Pathfinder cosmology wasn't designed to be a kind-of-okay system, as far as I can tell. It was designed to be cosmic horror, and it succeeds at that.
After reading Tacticslion's post, your reply sounds disturbingly plausible . . . especially this last part.
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AA: you're being suuuuuuuuuuuuper rude (and you clearly know it by statement), my dude, but it's cool.
We're passionate nerds, here, so it happens.
Also, there is a... lot... here that needs to be addressed.
So... words, incoming. Lots and lots of words.
First:
I suppose you'd think I'm kind of silly.
No. I find your arguments kind of silly, and rather intentionally and knowingly rude, but you're a cool dude and I like you.
I find that the only way to debate with most people is to grant their core assumptions about how the world works
Here's the first basic issue with your rebuttal - you are entirely refusing to do that.
My premise has never been that the PF afterlife is perfect or perfectly just within our set of values. Rather, given PF's own morality system and expectations, it's "kind of okay."
As an example:
I mean, the argument can be made that no one has any choice in any manner, but even ignoring that, in the Pathfinder cosmology you are, more than anything, the product of Pharasma's choices.
Saying that LE people "chose" to go to hell is as preposterous as saying that American criminals "chose" to get executed. Or that fourteenth century "heretics" "chose" to get inquisitored. No, they didn't. I mean, sure, you can make the argument that at some point they started a causal chain that ended with them being victimized, but if you're making arguments about causal chains than you're invalidating the idea of people making choices at all.
Pharasma's the person who decides to wipe people's memories and send them to Hell. The inquisitor is the one "culpable", as much as a human can be blamed for anything, not the person who disagrees with the church.
Nah.
You're conflating two related-but-different things: choice, and consequences. Further, you're buying into a simplistic view of good and evil which doesn't hold up under its own weight.
Choice is the ability to take moral (or ethical) action based off of a combination of circumstance, intent, and will. This is often displayed as a simple on/off switch of good or evil, but people are usually more complex than that. Pharasma's judgement is not her choosing to arbitrate, and it's pretty clear in-lore: she was unable to deny the NE souls a place for NE souls to go, and so permitted them to Abaddon. She is a judge, but her judgment is impersonal (hence neutrality) and she is mechanistic in her determination. Pharasma has choices, but her choices are (in some ways) quite limited due to the moral action of those she judges. Her job - her core function - is to get people where they're supposed to go based on a complex function of faith, alignment, and choices.
Consequence is the natural result of your moral (or ethical) action. There are always multiple consequences, and Pharasma does not even determine those consequences. Of course no one chooses to go to Hell. Hell is what happens when you have excessive powers of Lawful Evil essence grouped together, and Pharasma places lawful evil souls in the lawful evil place, because that's how their moral choices followed. Your argument, then is that you object to the consequence of actions based off of perceived extra-PF morality, and, here's the thing: your ability to hold that belief (or champion it, even if you don't hold it) is legitimate, but where it becomes illegitimate is where I covered it at the beginning:
I know that I seemingly managed to kill the conversation, however, I'd like to bring it back by briefly launching into the semi-topical opinion that Golarion's afterlife is not unjust - just unjust by many afterlives we currently broadly appeal to.
This, then, is acknowledging that our own thematic opinion of what should be "just" within our own world isn't automatically reflected within Pathfinder's afterlife, but rather,
Does this seem sucky? I'unno. I prefer my own religious outlook, but it's fairly internally consistent when compared to PF's morality and ethics.
None of this - none of this - smacks of "cosmic horror" of any sort.
EDIT: man, this is way too big. I'm going to break this into multiple posts. Sorry!
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Again, let me point this out:
- there is nothing wrong with you finding the afterlife horrifying in a cosmic way; this does not make you wrong or lesser
- there is nothing inherently horrifying in a cosmic way about the PF afterlife; at least, not when shown through its own metrics
This is not the same as saying that there are no horrifying pieces in the cosmology. (Evil is bad, m'kay?)
This is not the same as saying that you must like or respect the setting or must hate the setting or that you may not feel fear or disgust. (People enjoy horror movies and Lovecraft, after all.)
This is merely pointing out that it's not inherently horrifying. It's just a big (re)cycle.
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But that brings us to a different objection you posit:
I think that in a fair and just universe, one designed by an intelligence for the purpose of being fair and just, people who throw themselves off cliffs shouldn't have to be hurt at the bottom, because gravity should be optional.
That the universe doesn't care about you is not a credit to the system. That it'll hurt or unmake you if you, due to circumstances outside your control, aren't intelligent enough to grasp the rules is quite obviously a design flaw. If a person designed such a universe, they'd be seen as a monster.
So... wow. My dude, there are... there are lots of things here, but ultimately, this is... this argument is really hard to handle because it makes a lot of assumptions about how people develop and what morality even is that just... they don't work.
But let's start with just the first part, "gravity."
Gravity is a method of keeping things coherent and organizing the universe into a way that more or less makes sense. But let's take several looks at how it might be to have gravity be optional. How optional? How does that even work?
Does everything experience gravity except sentient creatures? Is it a universal law until I say it's not, and how broadly does that apply? If I say it is not, does that only count for me? If I end it now for me, do I go flying off into space as I am no longer tethered by the bonds of the planet (potentially burning up in the atmosphere due to more stuff ala laws of the universe), or do I just mitigate it somewhat? Would it be just if applied to an amoral actor (like the dog, from before), or would it be unjust? Is sentience the defining factor? Morality? At what point is it relevant?
The answer I'm guessing is that your aim with making gravity optional (as was my indication) is to negate all negative consequences for actions taken: that is a consequential determination should be non-extant.
This is... very problematic for a large number of reasons, but it results in this: every single person that exists is divine, and everything is meaningless. In this scenario, there is no moral action, because there can be no moral action. This doesn't mean that everything is evil - just that it's irrelevant and amoral.
Because let's continue down this rabbit hole (and it's an amazing rabbit hole), though it results in this: if there are no consequences for my actions, my actions are literally meaningless in a broader context.
But first, let's (briefly) look at the (unintended) concept of no consequences for my actions: if I try to move a cup to my lips and fail, this is doofy and clearly not what's meant. So some consequence for my actions must fall to my domain - that is, I must have some method of working my will upon reality so my desires are manifested to some extent.
So now let's look at a more reasonable concept: that I can never get hurt nor suffer bad consequences for my choices.
This comes in all sorts of flavors of rainbows, but many are horrifying or at least highly distasteful (ex: "I perform torture but we all forget five seconds from now, so no big"); but the ultimate expression of this idea is that what I want to occur occurs as I want it to occur, and this is true for all people at all times. This, then, validates choice and permits people to avoid all negative consequence except for that which they choose.
... and quickly results in nonsense, because it means that either there is going to be a clash in omnipotent individuals (and pain will result, or there results a kind of "divine gridlock" where nothing is accomplished), or the omniverse continuously splits into infinite new truths where you can have sentient servants that totally willingly voluntarily choose to serve you willingly and with no outside influence even though this was all created as-is by your omnipotent power, meaning they don't have free will, even though they totally do. And that's possible because you (or someone) wants it. See also the infinite universes idea where a;klvna;klfvn asdfk;vn a;kldfn is just as valid a moral and ethical debate as "don't hurt people, y'all" is. But here, too, is the problem, because, unless you put in some kind of limiter, you're going to result in people who create hellscapes filled with people who they torment because they think it's fun.
If that occurs, then we've all got problems, because by the morality that created this situation, we're morally obligated to go stop that from happening. See: divine gridlock, above. Of course, if the moral action is to go stop that from happening and we succeed, what do we do with the offender? Place them in a "no-no" zone where they can't do that? Alter their consciousness and existence? Let them do their thing (after all, they are divine, by definition) and not interfere? Of course, unless someone wanted to be potentially stopped, by our laws of no-consequence, they couldn't be stopped... or they were (effectively) created by our laws-of-no-consequence just so they could be stopped... which means that we indirectly created those people that were tortured for our own hero fantasies, making us indirectly culpable, providing consequence...
... it's a sticky situation is what I'm saying with too much weirdness to really make sense. And evil things would definitely still be happening, and it would be the fault of whoever gave unlimited power to those who use it for evil. Also, there'd most certainly be a world exactly like this one with us arguing about stuff, so...
But, of course, all of that is just presupposing we took ourselves as we are now and put us in a "no consequence, all is permitted" field. The real issue is that you, I, and everyone and everything we know or care about would likely not exist in such a situation - even the concept of Will would have to change.
So, let's presuppose that there is an ambient field of potential where anything anyone desires can become a reality. There are no rules and no laws and no limits and no consequences unless they are introduced, and then it only goes so far as to contain to itself. The kind of sentience and existence that we have - and thus everything we care about - is meaningless in such context. Morality doesn't exist, and nothing matters, because all is permitted. What's more, sentience is irrelevant - why would sentience arise? Mostly just random chance that something with a will (if it could exist at all, it would arise by random chance - that "no rules" part) happened upon the idea of creating sentience in the manner that we recognize it, but, in doing so, it would have to create consequences... otherwise our sentience itself is a form of madness with no bearing on reality. This is the ultimate expression of the "gravity should be optional" clause...
As an aside, this looks a hecka lot like the Maelstrom... and would, inevitably, somewhere within, give rise to something resembling the system Pathfinder uses.
Somewhere, out there, in the maelstrom, is likely a place exactly like what you're suggesting. Any apparent-problems are just "local."
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Now, if you want to discuss "cosmic horror" in PF's afterlife: the evil afterlives are "cosmic horror" in the sense that there is evil, it is an active presence, and it is fundamentally bad, m'kay. The Abyss is creepy and awful. Abaddon is disturbing. Hell is miserable. These can be horrifying.
But there's no real need to have terror over the other afterlives, because if they represent an existential crisis, it's a pointless existential crisis, as the problem of "losing yourself" has already happened by the nature of death.
So, here's the objection: "It's terrifying because a 'not me' (that is a remnant of what I once was) or 'me, but only kind of' is recycled and used by others as they see fit."
This seems like a fair argument on the surface, but I cover it above:
If you feel no attachment to your soul after death, do what you want now and don't worry about it later. If you still want to worry about it, think of it like an involuntary post-death organ donation, or think of Pharasma as the cosmic trash collector-cum-recycle-center of the universe: you build up a bunch of moral and ethical detritus over your existence, and she sorts it and places it where it goes. Green living and all.
Now, and here's the important part, you may still reject Pharasma's judgement, and she ultimately has a way to handle that. You don't go to the place you're assigned (by consequence), you go to the place where people who disagree with said assignment are assigned. What's fascinating about this, is that there's always time to have a changed fate until you collapse (though the criteria for how you change your fate are unclear).
but if you're making arguments about causal chains than you're invalidating the idea of people making choices at all.
Nah. You're re-contextualizing everything as if the one choosing should also be able to choose all consequences, and that invalidates all morality. Let's take a look at some examples of your post, above:
Saying that it's fine if the gods arbitrarily punish people (what in Hell is punishment for, if rather than leading to behavior modification it just leads to becoming a devil or being fed to the End God?? And, if we're operating under some sort of barbaric eye-for-an-eye system of morality, where hurting people becomes ethical if they hurt someone else first, what crime, what crime, is heinous enough to merit cold-blooded torture?) for being delusional baffles me, especially from someone who spoke so vehemently just yesterday against a case of people defending internet trolls by saying, "if he can't learn, he clearly deserves it."
So, you're conflating two very, very different things in an effort at vilification.
-1) moral choice
-2) amoral choice
This is where Pharasma comes in as judge and arbitor.
You're suggesting that Pharasma is evil because she automatically condemns the morally unhealthy or delusional.
- 1) this is not supported in-text
- 2) people are judged by their alignment, which is the result of their actual essence as developed by their informed choices
- 3) those incapable of making moral choice are, by definition, not sent to a place where moral action is fundamental to being (see: animals)
Thus, your objection stems from failing to engage the system on its own merits, and passing judgement on a false (or at least unclear) set of criteria, usually by twisting something to mean something else (though that twisting may be entirely involuntary: that's a major potential issue in communication - when people speak the same language, but secretly do not). Effectively, you're starting from, "Pharasma sucks, let me prove it by making the evidence fit." instead of, "Pharasma sucks, let me prove it by seeing what the evidence says."
So, then: does a person make a moral choice? They are moral in that choice. Does a person make a non-moral choice? They are amoral in that choice. Their amoral choices do not define them as moral agents, and they are not judged based on that category of choices.
This also falls into the tragedy of villainy and how people can be molded differently by the same circumstances due to their choices from them. People are molded not just by their circumstance, but by their moral reactions and choices to it. (In Pathfinder.)
If you suggest that my disgust at how CWC was molded into a more horrible person is somehow hypocritical due to the influence of others on what he became: but it is entirely consistent. CWC was capable of moral choices, but he was incapable of learning from his mistakes (or, rather, it was highly difficult for him to do so, and how he did so was in a manner differently from others; he clearly "learned" things, but not in a manner broadly considered "normal").
But for now: if an entity is incapable of making moral choices, they are judged in an amoral manner.
Let's take a non-human example: if you take a dog (an amoral creature) and repeatedly taunt and beat it with sticks, yelling and harming it, you are also going to create a monster. This is a fundamentally horrible thing to do, incidentally, and you are creating a terrible thing. But the dog is still an amoral actor, as it lacks the ability to make moral judgments. This clearly holds true in PF, as is evidenced within the setting.
Beyond that, I am uninterested in dragging anything involving real life into it, because I'm engaging this on PF's moral system (which, as noted in multiple instances, is not the real-world moral system, any more than PF physics is the real-world physics; it's just "close enough" to run an internally-consistent game world off of).
Second, you're conflating two very different decision elements in an effort to cast everything as horrifying and wrong.
Let's put this in context:
- you have a person who will act on their nature; that nature is to "debase or destroy innocent life, sometimes for little or no reason." (see: Evil.)
- you have a person who will act on their nature; that nature is to "value and protect innocent life, even at great expense to themselves." (see Good.)
What will happen? Neither will be happy or satisfied; any coexistence is fundamentally impossible.
So, what to do? Place one in one place, and one in another. Where to place the former, though? With like-natured individuals. What will happen? They will debase and destroy others. Is this a good thing? No. But it is more utilitarian than putting that creature into the place of the latter, because doing so is far more evil.
... unless, of course, you purposefully alter the nature of the former against its will (see icky morality), or you simply annihilate the former (which causes its own problems). But if you annihilate the latter, you've got a different problem: someone who also falls under the same moral values, but also happens to have godlike might, strongly desires souls, and a key that can unleash something that eats everything, including both former and latter. "But that's extortion and evil..." you might say.
"Welcome to the nature of dealing with evil gods."
And here is where the problem lies: the existence of evil divinities, at all, in a system, requires that some level of compensation for those entities exist. I mean, you might disagree, or think they don't deserve it (and, you know, I agree with you there), but they do exist and you have to work around that.
And, you know, putting a bunch of evil people together (because, really, where else are you going to put them) will always end up with the same results. And, outside of being threatened, there are severe potential ethical/moral issues with simply annihilating the essence/remnant of a thing, in the same way that people have ethical/moral issues with mind-control. Unless you then choose to exploit them for your own labor or power (see: ethical/moral issues) or attempt to alter their nature by persuasion (which doesn't happen outside of unique circumstances or by forcing the issue, both of which require power and effort and time, and one of which holds a huge slew of ethical/moral issues), ... and so on. Pretty much anything else you'd do with them has ethical and moral issues.
So: put them together into a single place where they have all of their like-minded associates.
Pharasma never tortures them. Is uninterested in torturing them. Finds their torture distasteful (she is Neutral, not Evil). But she places them there because there's nowhere else for them to go. Pharasma could totally start a new LE pasture somewhere with all these souls of debasing killers wandering around but... that's an awful lot of effort, and she's currently busy maintaining the universe, so, no. That's dumb.
Asmodeus on the other hand, is evil. As a consequence, he's fine with torture and debasement.
Does Pharasma's handing them over to a torturer make her complicit? To an extent. But she only places them within a lawful evil realm, because that is what they are as a result of their own actions. And, again, Pharasma isn't a good entity. She is a neutral entity.
This is not really cosmic horror. This is utilitarianism (with a potential does of nihilism if you find such as system as lacking in any real meaning).
But how is Pharasma neutral if she permits torture? Because by doing so in her utilitarian post, she also provides for a pleasant afterlife for all those not evil. She fundamentally leaves both the just and unjust to their own devices, simply placing them where they (by nature of their own free will exercised by themselves) belong. We have focused exclusively on the negative. She exercises equal effect on the positive.
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But what makes this horrifying?
I mean, ultimately?
Let's take a look at some options that have been floated.
"I don't matter." is one option. But... that's true whether or not there's an afterlife, so it's kind of an irrelevant objection. This is nihilism, and really only holds cosmic horror if you allow it to horrify you. Also, it's frankly untrue: you fundamentally matter to a lot of people, and if you value them, your existence matters.
"There are people doing evil to others without consent." is another. But... that's true whether or not there's an afterlife, so it's kind of an irrelevant element. Again, this only results in cosmic horror if you allow it to horrify you. And, it may not be their consent, but it is their comeuppance. It doesn't make those doing the evil right in any way, but it is a reasonable outcome for their own (morally culpable) choices.
"I don't believe there should be consequences for actions." is a third. But... that's a fundamentally amoral stance (chaotic neutral, in fact; a believer may chaotic good if they think it should apply to all people and is for everyone's good, but the resultant existence is fundamentally chaotic neutral) whose ultimate expression is a negation of all moral actions entirely. Ultimately, there is no reason to even have an expression of self in this conceit, and any moral judgement about our current existence is needless because, in the end, an existence of the kind we currently experience would be the natural consequence of "anything goes." (Unless you refuse to allow such an existence, which implies enforcing your own moral code, suddenly bringing in consequences and/or limitations, leaving people dissatisfied and potentially constituting a kind of mental torture as they are unable to express themselves as themselves.) That said, this is one that
None of this, by the way, is even considering Pathfinder's afterlife, except to reference it in minor ways. This is just... well... the consequence, as it were, of posited arguments.
In Pathfinder, morality values moral decision and action, and allows for some element or concept of a person to continue to exist after death.
As an aside, if Pathfinder is a form of cosmic horror, how much more would novels or games be? I mean, within them, you have protagonists who fundamentally have no meaning beyond their trials... which are created by a sentient external actor. Evil? Writing a novel in which something bad happens to someone is the highest of evils. Making any kind of story at all is malevolence beyond reckoning. From the perspective of those within the stories, they are sentient independent actors... but they are fundamentally enslaved to the will of whatever author writes them, and any negative consequences are the results only of an author that makes them for his or her own benefit.
If you don't accept that... then accept the morality within the work as created to judge it on its own merits, or don't consume the media (or do and complain about it; valid, I suppose* XD).
And, within the framework of Pathfinder's morality, the afterlife is kind of okay. Not the best, certainly. But kind of okay.
On the other hand, Eberron's afterlife is much more firmly within the realm of "cosmic horror" (though, again, only if you allow it to horrify you; there are distinctive elements within the work that intentionally find it "not horrifying" on a cosmic level by the application of religious faith).
Either way, I wouldn't particularly want Pathfinder's afterlife, and don't particularly wish for it to exist. As noted, I tend to like my own values and faiths much better. But... it's not fundamentally horrifying. Depending on your interpretation, you and others either cease existing, or you and others find a kind of continuation in a life that is built out of the natural consequences of individual choices. And if you have a problem with that, it has a place you can go to keep refusing Pharasma's judgement for as long as you like, or you can uselessly protest the idea that gravity exists, at which point I'll just shrug and either point to the rule book or suggest you house rule it... but if you do the latter, then you're going to want to continue houseruling things until you're not playing Pathfinder. Which is fine! There are lots of fun games out there! Maybe you'll make another one!
(Though I may suggest, "You get everything you want and there are no bad things that happen." doesn't make for either a compelling story or gaming experience outside of limited wish-fulfillment gaming.)
Either way, by it's own merits, "it's kind of okay."
*
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Ugh. That's, like, five posts. Sorry, guys. Uuuuuuuuuuuugly. I'm bad at being succinct.
Also, please clarify if I've somehow misconstrued a proposition or objection. I'm very interested in the "no consequences" especially, because I simply can't come up with a "stopping point" that isn't entirely arbitrary or unjust in its own way (and, either way, would result in an entirely different everyone to the point where none of us would exist), and am interested in seeing what the "stopping point" for a lack of consequences actually is.
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OK, so, this is talk-typed, so, you know, reader beware. However, I just thought of this example, and I wanted to get it out there before it was too late to mention. An example of why PF cosmology is kind of OK, given its own morality, and the elements within itself, which differs from our own comes not from PF itself, but rather from a rather famous and extremely well-liked cartoon: Tom and Jerry. Now, on the surface these things seem like they have very little in common, and, in fact, they do have very little in common. However, they both have this in common: the morality that they have within their own universes is fundamentally different from the morality that we have with an artist. Tom and Jerry, if translated to our universe, would be a horrifying, disgusting, evil thing. In their own universe, it’s just kind of slapstick comedy for us to consume. Why is this? Because the consequences to their actions are fundamentally alien to the same consequences of those same actions in our world. There are moral, or Emeril based exclusively on who is the protagonist at what time, and usually it’s Jerry being the protagonist, because Tom happens to be bigger and tougher. But, there are examples of one or the other actually dying parenthesis and then getting better parenthesis, yet in another episode one can be shot full of holes and suffer no consequences except leaking water after he drinks a cup. This does not make there universe more moral than ours, nor does it make our universe less Morrow then there is, but rather it shows a difference of consequences and different elements that are important. Note that Tom can still be evil, at least buy the standards of his own universe, even if he seems unable to kill the mouse. Similarly, Jerry, or that dog that they run into everyone snow while his name I never remember. To me, and my sensibilities, the show is her Renda’s, disgusting, and, frankly, and fun. But I know people love it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It has its own moral values, its own set of rules, and its own concept for what and how it should be judged in-universe. If I applied our moral standards to that universe, I would be doing a disservice not only to those who enjoyed it, But the concept of most fictional universe is in general. Which is my point. I can certainly point out that I don’t like a thing, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But that does not necessarily Mean that sad thing is wrong, bad, or inherently horrifying, even if it seems so to my personal tastes or views.
AA: you're being suuuuuuuuuuuuper rude (and you clearly know it by statement), my dude, but it's cool.
No, it’s not cool, but thank you for saying that.
I’ve a good enough memory to know how acerbic I often come across as, but that seldom helps in the moment. I know that I’m rude in the general sense, but I don’t realize it in the specific sense until it’s pointed out to me. And then I feel like a dick.
I swear I sound like a nicer person in meatspace - I more or less write like I speak, but inflection’s enough to turn polite(ish) incredulation to mean-spirited mockery.