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Characters can worship any deity or philosophy listed on page 482 of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, or any other source listed in the Additional Resources document.
Characters with the priest theme must choose a deity or philosophy whose alignment is within one step (on either the good-evil axis or the law-chaos axis) of the character’s alignment.
That being said, I remember a conversation about Ghibrani PCs worshipping [redacted] somewhere here on the boards, and I *believe* it was established that any character can style themselves to worship whatever or whomever they want, but any mechanical choices (such as the Priest theme) must abide by the quote above.
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I don't think anything was really resolved, its a big pile of mess without errata or official clarification.
There was a principle from PFS that's essentially you can copy the stats for an existing, documented, legal society thing but change the name purely for flavor. Eg, a pitch fork might be the most appropriate weapon for your PC flavor-wise but doesn't exist in any documented material, so use the stats for a trident instead.
We know Shelyn still exists, the developers have clearly stated that the only god from Pathfinder that isn't available is Torag since he's with Golarian as its protector.
Pick a deity that's similar. Put down Shelyn with that other deity in ()'s. Use the other deity's stats (alignment restriction, etc) for crunch but Shelyn for flavor, eg Shelyn (Yaraesa).
So for a similar example if you're making a Ryphorian dragon-rider priest of Apsu, put something like Apsu (Iomedae) down. Use all the stats from Iomedae, namely the alignment restriction and upon 12th level a spell that makes sense for her, but for flavor your holy symbol is a dragon and in RP promote Apsu.
... and if Shelyn/Apsu/etc are ever officially added, drop the () deity and continue as if it was never there because the actual god you worship has almost no impact crunch-wise.
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You're mixing up a few different terms.
"Reskinning" was the practice of using the stats for one item, but wanting it to be treated as something else. A player famously used the stats of a riding wolf, but called it a pig, so it could be brought into settlements and not be treated as a wolf. This was not allowed.
"Veneration" and "worship" were two different words used in relation to deities. You could only "worship" one legal deity, and gain mechanical benefits from them, but you could "venerate" any number of deities, and they need not be legal. You could even create your own.
The text from the Starfinder Roleplaying Guild Guide I quoted only mentions worship, and only legal deities, but nothing can really stop you from having your character state they worship Bug-Eye, the lesser known Ghibrani deity of Paranoia, or Shelyn, this goddess of Art that I read about in an old Pathfinder Chronicle.
But you couldn't have a Dragonkin priest worship Apsu, as that would go against the text I quoted above. And you certainly couldn't reskin Iomedae as Apsu, either. That would be expecting NPCs to interact with your PC differently, not to mention the quandry of what happens when Apsu is published, but either isn't legal, or is too different from Iomedae mechanically to be a viable choice for your PC.
Your non-priest Dragonkin, however, can certainly say they worship Apsu. It gives you zero mechanical benefits, and NPCs would interact with you no different than if you just didn't have a deity.
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A possible clarification could be added to the Guide such as this:
In the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild characters may either worship their deity or philosophy of choice and/or venerate any number of deities or philosophies, as described here:
"Worship" is limited to any deity or philosophy listed on page 482 of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, or any other source listed in the Additional Resources document.
PCs required to select a deity or philosophy as part of their class, theme, archetype, or feat (such as PCs with the priest theme) must choose a single deity whose alignment is within one step (on either the good-evil axis or the law-chaos axis) of the character’s alignment, or a philosophy that closely matches their ideals and goals."Veneration" is a flavorful choice allowed for players who roughly follow the teachings of or otherwise relate to any number of deities or philosophies, whether they be listed as legal, illegal, or even of the player's creation. For example, a Dragonkin character could "worship" Iomedae, and gain access to any mechanical benefits granted to worshippers of Iomedae, but also "Venerate" Apsu, a deity from Lost Golarion.
I think this is overly verbose, though, and could probably go through a couple edits.
Also the current language of matching alignments to philosophies absolutely needs to be fixed, because philosophies don't have alignment listings.
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"Reskinning" was the practice of using the stats for one item, but wanting it to be treated as something else. A player famously used the stats of a riding wolf, but called it a pig, so it could be brought into settlements and not be treated as a wolf. This was not allowed.
Obviously that isn't the case here. Mounts have a clear mechanical effect, choosing the species of your mount is choosing their combat stats.
And you certainly couldn't reskin Iomedae as Apsu, either. That would be expecting NPCs to interact with your PC differently, not to mention the quandry of what happens when Apsu is published, but either isn't legal, or is too different from Iomedae mechanically to be a viable choice for your PC.
If this was Pathfinder I'd agree with you here. Pathfinder Clerics gain bonus spells from their deity's domains and subdomains, thus a cleric of Iomedae would be mechanically different from a cleric of Apsu.
However, Starfinder gods really have only one functional mechanic: alignment. As long as the alignments match (Apsu/Iomedae both being LG, and Shelyn/Yaraesa both being NG) there's no mechanical difference. Starfinder's developers are simply not going to publish a source book that changes the alignment of a Pathfinder deity.
The only thing left is the Priest's 12th level ability in that the choice of spell needs to be reasonable for the deity. Eg, Charm Person or Command wouldn't be good choices for a priest of Desna. The same would be true for "Cayden Cailean (Desna)" since they're both CG deities who value freedom.
I'd challenge you to find a single 1st level mystic spell that you'd permit for a priest of Shelyn but not Yaraesa. By "permit" I mean player sits down at your table with a 12th level priest and as a society GM you'd feel the spell they chose is so misplaced that you wouldn't allow it.
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Obviously you shouldn't take that feat.
Without question there are disadvantages in not choosing one of the core 20, for example the already rarely useful 6th level Priest ability is virtually worthless; eg, outside of Songbird Station there's been no mention of Shelyn worship.
And certainly there's people who don't understand why you'd build an "unoptimized" PC and assume you're trying to somehow gain an unfair advantage. Its a game. People play it to have fun. Some people play it "to win", others play it for the roleplay.
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Starfinder isn't a game about finding loopholes in the rules to create overpowered PCs. Society play is already non-lethal enough that players regularly complain about the lack of challenge. But this topic isn't about something that gives players an advantage, its about the restricted flavor palette players are allowed to use for PC backstory.
Anyway - there's an easy fix for this: publish the data.
Put the alignments for the CRB philosophies in an errata. When a new deity or philosophy is introduced include enough information that a priest of that deity can be played either in a stat block or in a sentence such as AP9 page 29.
In the planet stat blocks add cultural information such as predominant sentient species, homeworld language, and predominant religions. Eg we still don't know what the predominant religions of Arniselle are. When someone creates a Morlamaw Priest what philosophies or deities are they likely to follow? What about the Copaxi? The Marixah Republic?
I'd personally love to see home world and faith boons. Eg, as it stands a Brakim PC's homeworld must be Bortan 2 or a Pact Worlds planet. A home world boon for New Thespera (where "slave" species like the Brakim are documented to live, AP9 p62) would be awesome. There's plenty of space pirate themed PCs from the Diaspora, how about orphans who grew up on Outpost Zed? Maybe other Azlanti worlds in the future?
Since AP9 we know the patron goddess of the Azlanti is Lissala, who's lawful evil and who's portfolio includes duty, fate, and obedience. She's a minor Pathfinder goddess and her cults appear in several PFS scenarios. It'd be great to see a boon for her, eg for a lawful-neutral brakim priest who espouses her "positive values" even after escaping the Azlanti.
Starfinder Society Developer
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Anyway - there's an easy fix for this: publish the data.
Just stepping in to say, I think everyone on the Starfinder team wants to put out as much data as possible. However that translates into more words, which translates into more work hours, and then the ensuing support that goes into those words. I'm not saying a new quick line of "Commonly Worships X/Y/Z" would take a ton of time, however there's some other reasons for us avoiding that...
On a less workload-related note, including this content without supporting context could be confusing for players ("ZOMG this species worships an evil deity so they must all be evil people!). There's also the very real concern that we box ourselves in for telling certain future stories. Say, for example, a species turns out to be wildly popular, like morlamaws, and that we shifted our focus from a prior plan to do something with morlamaws, but had decided that they commonly worshiped X/Y deities when deity Z would be way more appropriate for what we decided to do with them down the line.
So it's certainly a bit of a balance for us. That being said, PCs are intended to be exceptional, so even if a morlamaw or copaxi worships something that isn't considered a "common deity" it's an entirely valid choice!
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Certainly - what you publish becomes cannon and it makes sense to hold it back until you're sure what you're going to do with it. But back to the topic of this thread, since PCs are expected to be exceptional, priests of rarer deities should be an option.
There's certainly boons that could be offered without boxing yourselves in. Eg, worship of Shelyn or Lissala, both of whom we know the alignments and portfolios for, both are documented in Starfinder (Pact Worlds and AP9 respectively) and have fans from Pathfinder.
Eg an upcoming scenario that deals with the Azlanti or takes us back to Songbird Station could offer a boon that allows a priest of that religion in the same way race or language boons are offered in first contact scenarios. I'm sure many players would love it.
Or at least poke Rob (since he spoke on the subject last Wednesday) for a post or errata giving the alignments for the 6 philosophies detailed on CRB p482. This has been outstanding since August 2017.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I'm kinda expecting that the mainline Starfinder development team is going to do a Gods book at some point, and that should cover a lot of the existing but ill-defined material, and give us a good handhold for how to format newly introduced religions on the future so they're immediately useable.
A boon just for being able to flavorwise say "I worship this god" seems a bit lackluster to me. Yeah, it lets you make a priest, but if that's all, it seems like a lot of effort. Starfinder boons were supposed to be more impressive than that - we were supposed to slot just a few of them but then they should be a bigger deal than "+2 vs. cabbage sellers in Southwest Cheliax".
A boon describing an off-Broadway deity AND giving some mechanical impact, that would be cool. For example an "Azlanti sympathizer" boon that lets you worship Lissala and gives a Lissalan option for the Divine Blessing feat.
This could also be the kind of boon that you introduce in one season, then a few seasons later when a new gods book is published it becomes available to everyone. So it's an early-access boon.
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"Hey, not all performers are in to Shelyn. She's kinda tame and goody-two shoes. Me, I'm more of a Talavet guy..." The Pact World's most popular reality host pops in. "Wha-a-at? You don't think an Eoxian can worship a Kasathan god? Duuuuuude. Have you even looked at the skeletons in the Starfinder pawns box?"
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Starfinder Society Developer
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I want to humorously point out that after I stated "rulings need to be sufficiently future proofed", the man in charge of minimizing word count added three paragraphs of context to my point ^_^
Context is for kings. [terrible sci-fi nerd reference!]
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Starfinder Society Developer
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"You can worship Shelyn in six years, when the Starfinder release schedule permits a Deities book" is, admittedly, not the greatest motivating factor to play Starfinder Society in the next five years. ^_^
However this hasn't been officially said. You can still worship Shelyn as almost any character build allowed in the campaign, just as long as you aren't interacting with the exceptionally small number of rules elements that call on deity information. I've seen tons of characters playing worshippers of Shelyn, Cayden, Calistria, and even other obscure deities from the olden days of Pathfinder. If anything, Starfinder is more permissive in terms of what is available for players to select in terms of their divine patron!
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You can still worship Shelyn as almost any character build allowed in the campaign, just as long as you aren't interacting with the exceptionally small number of rules elements that call on deity information.
Thank you for the clarification.
There are a number of people who believe, based on the minimal coverage of religion in the Guide, that you could not worship Shelyn, or Mother Tuoloo, or [insert non-specific deity here].
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A boon just for being able to flavorwise say "I worship this god" seems a bit lackluster to me.
I think it'd be neat if playing through a scenario where you work with the priests of Shelyn on Songbird Station results in a slotless boon allowing you to create a Priest of Shelyn yourself - you helped them, and inspired some of them with the virtues of the Starfinder Society. We've seen race boons on chronicle sheets along the same lines.
... and yea it'd be neat if an associated Divine Blessing option were included. More work, but pretty neat.
It'd likewise be neat to see the same for a non-Pact Worlds deity. I'm sure not all Vesk worship Damoritosh, and what about the unnamed deity of the scoured stars that we can assume the Jinsuls worship?
"You can worship Shelyn in six years, when the Starfinder release schedule permits a Deities book" is, admittedly, not the greatest motivating factor to play Starfinder Society in the next five years. ^_^
I've seen a lot of PFS players irked by this as well. More than a few of our local PFS players have called Starfinder "too new" and want to wait a few years before getting involved.
However this hasn't been officially said. You can still worship Shelyn as almost any character build allowed in the campaign, just as long as you aren't interacting with the exceptionally small number of rules elements that call on deity information. I've seen tons of characters playing worshippers of Shelyn, Cayden, Calistria, and even other obscure deities from the olden days of Pathfinder. If anything, Starfinder is more permissive in terms of what is available for players to select in terms of their divine patron!
But the Priest theme is one of those few rules elements that interacts with deities.
That leaves us with second-rate options such as an Icon of Shelyn, Dragonblood of Apsu, or a Cultist of Lissala... and sure it could be combined with being a Mystic, but still not quite the same.
Contributor
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"You can worship Shelyn in six years, when the Starfinder release schedule permits a Deities book" is, admittedly, not the greatest motivating factor to play Starfinder Society in the next five years. ^_^However this hasn't been officially said. You can still worship Shelyn as almost any character build allowed in the campaign, just as long as you aren't interacting with the exceptionally small number of rules elements that call on deity information. I've seen tons of characters playing worshippers of Shelyn, Cayden, Calistria, and even other obscure deities from the olden days of Pathfinder. If anything, Starfinder is more permissive in terms of what is available for players to select in terms of their divine patron!
I was more referring to Lau's (certainly unofficial) theorizing. But this is very good to know!
Posts upthread, by people far more versed in Starfinder Society rules than I, seemed to be saying that I couldn't even claim to worship (or "venerate", in PFS terms) Shelyn until such a document had been printed. Thank you for the clarification. ^_^
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Starfinder Society Developer
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That leaves us with second-rate options such as an Icon of Shelyn, Dragonblood of Apsu, or a Cultist of Lissala... and sure it could be combined with being a Mystic, but...
I'm not sure I would consider them "second-rate" options, just not the specific combination desired. An icon of Shelyn makes as much (if not more) sense in a lot of stories than a flat Priest theme would. I recognize it's not ALL options, and that people generally want _every_ option to be available as soon as possible. Trust me, we'll get there.
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"You can worship Shelyn in six years, when the Starfinder release schedule permits a Deities book" is, admittedly, not the greatest motivating factor to play Starfinder Society in the next five years. ^_^However this hasn't been officially said. You can still worship Shelyn as almost any character build allowed in the campaign, just as long as you aren't interacting with the exceptionally small number of rules elements that call on deity information. I've seen tons of characters playing worshippers of Shelyn, Cayden, Calistria, and even other obscure deities from the olden days of Pathfinder. If anything, Starfinder is more permissive in terms of what is available for players to select in terms of their divine patron!I was more referring to Lau's (certainly unofficial) theorizing. But this is very good to know!
Posts upthread, by people far more versed in Starfinder Society rules than I, seemed to be saying that I couldn't even claim to worship (or "venerate", in PFS terms) Shelyn until such a document had been printed. Thank you for the clarification. ^_^
I find that it is important to remember, what I like to call the "Who the...cares?" rule. See this rule is quite simple, when you are putting together your character and want something to be slightly different, and that thing gives you absolutely no mechanical benefit, but sounds cool, just think to yourself "Who cares?". Who cares? It is giving you no mechanical benefit, who cares? And as a direct derivation, the "why do you care?". For instance, if you go to songbird station for a scenario claiming to worship Shelyn (in no mechanical way) and you go, "Hey fellow worshippers!" and the npc's are like "what's uuuuuuup!?". And then another player is like, "hey wait, you can't worship Shelyn! Her portfolio is not in any book or anything!". That is the appropriate time to use the derivation, "WHY do you care? I'm getting no mechanical benefit? WHY are you wasting our time with this?".
In the same vein, why do people insist on sounding like this:
"BUT I WANT THE GREEN LOLLIPOP!"
"Well they don't have the green one now, how about a purple one? It is your favorite and the green is only your second favorite?"
"BUT I WANT THE GREEN ONE RIGHT NOW!"
Yes, that is exactly how it appeared.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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In the same vein, why do people insist on sounding like this:
"BUT I WANT THE GREEN LOLLIPOP!"
"Well they don't have the green one now, how about a purple one? It is your favorite and the green is only your second favorite?"
"BUT I WANT THE GREEN ONE RIGHT NOW!"
Well this sounds a lot like Brexit...
But I agree, have fun with it and work it into an awesome character, it's a ROLEPLAYING GAME not a full on MECHANICAL GAME. If you can't have something that you can roleplay that doesn't even have any mechanical benefit, what's the point even playing...
I say enjoy the roleplay and the "shocked" looks from other players if it comes to that too!
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The only concern one might have would be getting told the emerald green lollipop is what one MUST use when one desires a lime-green lollipop. No Deviance, Kilroy
This is set aside for the time being with a request for patience.
Just means people will need to be more creative with themes, archetypes, and classes. That can't be a bad thing, can it?
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"Who cares?"
Me. I care.
Moreso since we're now getting more Deity specific options introduced in Starfinder. It's not that it doesn't grant a mechanical benefit, but the opposite, it inhibits those that would gain a mechanical benefit.
You pick an option that would give a mechanical benefit from your deity, so you can't pick Shelyn. Whereas everyone else in the party can worship her. Bit of a disconnect there. "I play a space Priest so I can't have Shelyn as my deity, but the Soldier, Solarion, and Technomancer are fervent worshipers..." or "I can actually play a space priest as long as I don't actually pick the Priest Theme."
Not as bad as PFS yet it will most likely head that way.
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Starfinder Society Developer
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It's easy to tell yourself "Who cares?"... right up until you meet the GM, or organizer, or Venture-Officer who does.
Then you can point that GM/Organizer/venture-officer to the following:
Official Clarification: A PC can venerate whatever deity or philosophy they choose. This, however, does not allow the PC to select mechanical options (such as the Priest theme or the Divine Blessing feat) which rely on deities/philosophies having clearly defined alignments (for the Priest Theme) or additional supporting rules (such as in the case of Divine Blessing). Also, this is not permission to justify evil actions for those characters, and all standard Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild rules of play apply.
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So, beyond the ongoing discussion of "please, provide us these rules as quickly as you can" is it safe to say that the concerns in topic are now resolved?
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It's easy to tell yourself "Who cares?"... right up until you meet the GM, or organizer, or Venture-Officer who does.Then you can point that GM/Organizer/venture-officer to the following:
Official Clarification: A PC can venerate whatever deity or philosophy they choose. This, however, does not allow the PC to select mechanical options (such as the Priest theme or the Divine Blessing feat) which rely on deities/philosophies having clearly defined alignments (for the Priest Theme) or additional supporting rules (such as in the case of Divine Blessing). Also, this is not permission to justify evil actions for those characters, and all standard Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild rules of play apply.
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So, beyond the ongoing discussion of "please, provide us these rules as quickly as you can" is it safe to say that the concerns in topic are now resolved?
Thruston, as the OP, I feel this adequately answers my question and I consider my self satisfied. My character, Harry the Hotspur, roguish envoy who loves art and beauty, is officially SFS legal.
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Rovagug is still trapped inside Golorion , where ever it is and hence unable to give spells to his crazy idiot followers.
Right, but mystics don't need someone to power them up. There's nothing preventing some crazy idiot rovagag worshiper from studying mysticism from books or looking sideways at the drift and suddenly start casting spells.