Are there any towns or cities in Golarion that worshiovthe Outer Gods as a whole? Having trouble finding anything in the lore.
Cheers,
TDP
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That is an excellent question, and my hunch is no, such a community wouldn't survive very long, whether due to extermination by outside forces or from self-destructing in service to their mad and uncaring gods.
It's not unusual for such persons to have infiltrated a community, possible even to its highest level, but it's rare indeed for the entire community to serve.
Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth are probably the best candidates for Outer Gods a community could worship and still remain viable.
At least for mortals, anyways. The Mi-go I've seen in print usually worship Shub-Niggurath (and will force other races to convert or die), but the fungi critters are probably better adapted to such worship than us primates are.
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As far as I know, the canon answer is no.
That said, you can just make one up. Any middle of nowhere community could be infiltrated by an Old Cult and eventually have everyone worshiping an Outer God. Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath would be good picks, and a community of indifferent Azathoth cultists could be interesting if you want a less blatantly hostile option.
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I believe the village of Illmarsh, Ustalav, may be the one.
The Old Cults
Mad Fanatics of Unnamable Gods
Alignment: CE
Headquarters: Carrion Hill, Illmarsh, others
Leader: Varied
(...) Several insane factions seek out ancient gates and thin places through which they might commune with their impossible masters, and the menhirs of Vieland, the rank swamps of the Graidmere, the dead town of Scrawny Crossing, the village of Illmarsh, and the city of Carrion Hill number among the brightest beacons to these insane servants.
Illmarsh: No one goes to Illmarsh, an insular community even by Versex’s unfriendly standards. The swampy rot of Soddentimbers, the marshy western reaches of the Forest of Veils, intrudes upon the village’s decomposing wooden frames, just as though the primal molds were welcomed among the sagging porches and thickly curtained windows. An abandoned boardwalk lined by half-sunken fishing boats crumbles along the foam-blasted waterfront, the wooden planks stretching into piers reminiscent of incomplete bridges, each a path directly from the community’s heart to the swirling maw of the murky deep.
Part 4 of Carrion Crown Adventure Path, "Wake of the Watcher", gives more details about Illmarsh.
Creative Director
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There are plenty of villages and smaller that worship the Lovecraftian deities, but once you get into towns proper, no... in such locations these cults are hidden and secret pretty much. The "flavor" of these religions doesn't work so well if they're out in the open on a mass scale as you might see in a city or even a town scale.
Wow typos, worship* is what I meant up there!
Thanks for all the feedback everyone!
Illmarsh and the like were exactly the thing I was looking for! Any other good APs or other good sources of Old cults like that?
Cheers,
TDP
Old Cults also play a major role in Strange Aeons. I'm not aware of any other Adventure Paths that deal with them, but there are likely some Modules that involve them.
Hmmm. The Illmarsh cult is actually
They then learn that the Dagon cultists are long-term allies with a Skum settlement in the nearby bay that also worshiped Dagon. However, the party will then learn that the skum had been recently subjugated by Mi-Go, who in turned forced the surviving skum to convert to Shub-Niggurath, and the skum high priest was sincere enough that he's getting spells now.
IIRC, James Jacobs has commented that if Wake of the Watcher was made today, they probably would've replaced the Skum with Deep Ones, based on how unusually religious this colony is.
Considering Azathoth is the size of a star I would imagine he has some cities built on his body that are peopled by aliens who worship him (though, considering he's so dumb he probably doesn't even know).
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Creative Director
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Considering Azathoth is the size of a star I would imagine he has some cities built on his body that are peopled by aliens who worship him (though, considering he's so dumb he probably doesn't even know).
I've always imagined Azathoth is more than just the size of a star—he's a living star, and as such anything you try to build on him or near him will get pretty much insta-destroyed.
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Hmmm. The Illmarsh cult is actually
** spoiler omitted **
I would be fine with replacing the Skum, in general, with Deep Ones entirely. Deep Ones are, IMO, the aquatic body-horror critters that Skum kind of failed at being anyway.
But that way also lies the possibility of replacing Gillmen entirely with Deep One Hybrids, and that's a step towards putting an entire sub-population of Cthuloid horrors right into Absalom, which might be a step too far for some. :)
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Hmmm. The Illmarsh cult is actually
** spoiler omitted **I would be fine with replacing the Skum, in general, with Deep Ones entirely. Deep Ones are, IMO, the aquatic body-horror critters that Skum kind of failed at being anyway.
But that way also lies the possibility of replacing Gillmen entirely with Deep One Hybrids, and that's a step towards putting an entire sub-population of Cthuloid horrors right into Absalom, which might be a step too far for some. :)
That woudln't work though because skum are aboleths' foot soldiers :p So completely replacing frog fish people with fish people would create connection between deep ones and aboleth that doesn't make sense
Same way, replacing gillmen with deep one hybrid wouldn't work out because gillmen's purpose is being aboleth sleeper agents :p Unless you just want to phase aboleth completely out of setting
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I would be fine with replacing the Skum, in general, with Deep Ones entirely. Deep Ones are, IMO, the aquatic body-horror critters that Skum kind of failed at being anyway.
But that way also lies the possibility of replacing Gillmen entirely with Deep One Hybrids, and that's a step towards putting an entire sub-population of Cthuloid horrors right into Absalom, which might be a step too far for some. :)
That wouldn't work though because skum are aboleths' foot soldiers :p So completely replacing frog fish people with fish people would create connection between deep ones and aboleth that doesn't make sense
Same way, replacing gillmen with deep one hybrid wouldn't work out because gillmen's purpose is being aboleth sleeper agents :p Unless you just want to phase aboleth completely out of setting
Eh, it should be possible for the Deep Ones to be like other races and not monolithic in their religious views.
Perhaps some Deep Ones feel abandoned by Dagon or whoever, and have turned to the Aboleths, or have rejected him, or even been seduced away / dominated by the Aboleth, and now serve them. (Ditto the 'Gillman' communities of Hybrids in Absalom, remaining refugees from their Dagon-worshipping kin, but also attempting to remain free from Aboleth machinations, less successfully.)
Others remain loyal to Dagon, and nothing changes, other than the two factions hate each other.
Still, it's just a thought. Perhaps the Deep Ones are incapable of *not* worshipping Dagon. I just never really cared for Skum, and thought they were always a thinly-veiled attempt at evoking Deep Ones anyway, and since Golarion already had *actual* Deep Ones, could consolidate a bit.
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Yeah, but skum fill the whole "genetically engineered to be canon fodder for conquering manipulative race" thing, deep ones allied with aboleths would just be regular alliance or conquered people thing.
In general, I just oppose idea that there should be only one evil fish person race :p Its like saying "You only need sahuagins and nothing else! Locathans fill the niche of non evil fishes"
(but yeah, I do agree that skum are kind of deep one expies, except they are male only while deep ones have both sexes)
Skum are... deep ones lite. Which is a good thing.
They're the disposable high numbers army of fish men. They might be recognizable to the average fishmonger.
Deep ones are the more advanced ones, more insidious, and fewer people are even aware of their existence.
Well, the Skum began as D&D Deep One expys (and sort of took over the role of the older kuo-toa in OGL contexts, since the Kuo-toa were "product identity" but the Skum weren't- which is ironic, since Kuo-toa have themselves moved towards a more Deep One-esque portrayal), and Pathfinder inherited them as such- and used them as such, particularly in Wake of the Watcher...
But then Deep Ones got added (as a move- welcomed by people like me- to put a little more active Lovecraft into the game)- slotting the Skum back into being an Aboleth servitor race. Per some post of another in the "Ask James Jacobs" thread, most Skum "worship" Aboleths, not deities- which fits with the ego of the Aboleths quite nicely, and are meant to fill a different narrative niche from Deep Ones.
A'course... between Skum, Deep Ones, Sahuagin, and Locathah, to name just four, Pathfinder's got a fair pile of bipedal fish-folk
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And yet only one kind of lizardfolk :(
(kobolds are dragons, they don't count! And saurians are dinosaurs, in other word, birds)
Oh, there's a few of those, too. Troglodytes, if nothing else.
And then there's Reptoids, which kind of fit the more Freeport-esque PC race version of Serpentfolk (unlike Pathfinder Serpentfolk, which are more 'powerful monsters' than something playable alongside dwarves and elves and humans).
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From a few posts up there: yeah, I'd figure you'd have to be suicidal to even consider landing on Azathoth in the first place.
Speaking of, I recently ran a module (the Dragon's Demand) where one of the PCs was a CN cultist of Azathoth. The townsfolk were bewlidered at someone who'd openly pray to the blind idiot god, especially preferring to heal than anything else. Eventually, we agreed that the healing spells looked like, "You intone a prayer, then hork a mouthful of enzymes on the wound, which feels better immediately. I'm sure there won't be any long-term complications at all."
The Baroness offered knighthoods to everyone who won at the end, "On the condition that you don't convert anyone."
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Creative Director
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Considering Azathoth is the size of a star I would imagine he has some cities built on his body that are peopled by aliens who worship him (though, considering he's so dumb he probably doesn't even know).I've always imagined Azathoth is more than just the size of a star—he's a living star, and as such anything you try to build on him or near him will get pretty much insta-destroyed.Doesn't Azathoth have art? I don't think PF art, but Lovecraft art, which shows him as basically a gigantic pile of flesh, tentacles, mouths, teeth and sphincters. So he could have a city on his 'solid' surface. If they survive the necessary gravity he'd be producing (and since we know there are plenty of living things on Golarions sun, which is the same size as Earth's sun, IE a main sequence G-type star, there are clearly things that can handle star gravity.
Azathoth has been around for coming up on 100 years in our world, so he's had almost a century of inspiring artists. There are literally hundreds of illustrations of him out there already, and they're not all the same. Some show him as a mass of tentacles. Some as a person. Some as a star. Some as a monster with an actual shape. And so on.
We illustrated him on page 65 of Pathfinder AP #109, and so in the context of our version of him he's a star with tentacles and thus not something you can build things on. In other settings or stories all sorts of different things are possible, but I've only got the authority to answer this question as far as his incarnation in Pathfinder goes.
Love all the ideas guys! Thanks for the help!
Cheers!
TDP
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Considering Azathoth is the size of a star I would imagine he has some cities built on his body that are peopled by aliens who worship him (though, considering he's so dumb he probably doesn't even know).I've always imagined Azathoth is more than just the size of a star—he's a living star, and as such anything you try to build on him or near him will get pretty much insta-destroyed.
Astronaut: You can't send us on a mission to land on the sun! We'll burn up!
Scientist: Don't worry, we're sending you at night.
