Hunting and Sacred Animals

[Tacticslion]

I'm curious about divine views on hunting and sacred animals.

I'd presume it depends, of course, on the deity in question, and the context.

Four classic examples follow:

Erastil almost certainly wouldn't care if you hunted a dear deer of his (that's how he gained his herald, after all), and especially not if it's for survival. I would even go so far as to say that it makes sense that he expects you to hunt deer - he is all about keeping the balance between civilization and nature, and allowing runaway populations of deer does no one favors. But slaughtering dear deer just because is a bad.

Shelyn likely frowns on killing songbirds unless there's a very good reason. Even if there's a good reason, she would likely encourage you to keep and redeem whatever it is, if possible - she's not the goddess of redemption (that's Sarenrae) but she's slowly but methodically purified the ancient evil Whisperer of Souls (you know the evil artifact that corrupted her own brother by EvilCenobiteShadowBeastAliens) just by being BestGirl love incarnate, and she probably expects her followers to at least make the attempt, if at all reasonable.

Desna likely wouldn't like it if you smushed butterflies, but of anyone I'd imagine she tends to understand that rules gotta be bent or broken. Butterflies might be pretty, but if they're evil you'd best kick in their door crush them remorselessly, take a selfie doing so, and then hear the lamentations of the demons make a hasty exit after having seen the sights.

Asmodeus deeeeeeeeefinitely hates it if you hunt serpents, and will personally damn your soul (if he can) if you do, but you better sacrifice a serpent (and goat, naturally - also preferably the sacred animal of literally any other god, except the one he's trying to con right now, oh, you idiot, I was conning them, oh, you're gonna get it, now) if you want to propitiate him (also he'll use the opportunity to damn your soul).

And that's where the clarity ends for me, honestly.

Kill a zebra Nethys likely thinks your brilliant but also secretly hates you and will curse you, but with appreciation... unless you didn't use magic, in which case it's just a curse, thanks?

Urgathoa also curses you if you swat a (bot)fly?

I'unno!

(Though I thiiiiink it's canon that to those who harm snakes, Ydersius never cared never cared unless he wanted to hate you while Yig takes special exception... YMMV, exceptionsapply, applywithinfordetailsatyourownrisksucker.)

So I'm curious if we know their general responses.

Most specifically I was looking at was Calistria and wasps. And, yes, that sounds weird, but there are people who eat wasps - or at least the larvae - as part of the seasonal cycle (most notably I know of a place in Japan, though there are at least several others). Would that be fine, 'cause Cali don't really care anyway? (And especially if you honor her?) Or would she likely take that as a personal affront?

For the Core set that's Abadar (monkey), Calistria (wasp), Cayden (dog), Gorum (rhino), Gozreh (actually he's certainly fine with it so long as you don't wack the environment), Iomedae (lion; probably only for "legitimate" reasons, though), Irori (why is this a snail), Lamashtu (jackal; she's def. cool with it, probably, so long as you do horrible things, first?), Norgorber (spider; yeah, okay, he's probably fine), Pharasma (whippoorwill - yes 'cause goddess of death, or no 'cause <ain't natural/affronts her senses/insert-reason-here>?), Rovagug (scor-pion), Sarenrae (dove; legit if you're starving, maybe?), Torag (honeybadger, "hahah, good luck, suckers"), and Zon-Kuthon (bat; no... but you can torture and mutilate it so long as it lives?). I mean, I'd love to hear Asmodeus, Desna, Erastil, and Shelyn, too.

And non-core gods.

Acavna (when she lived)? What even is hers, anyway?

Achaekek? I could really see this going either way... but definitely not both?

Aroden (back in the Aroden-old days)? ("If it helps humans..." maybe?)

Bastet? (might be kinda hard to overlook killin' a thing when it shares your face, ya know? glances out the window, sees humanity acting, and retracts the complaint, no that's still legit, we're just good at convincing ourselves otherwise, unfortunately, and I'll stop here)

Besmara? (pretty sure she's cool if you kill whatever? But <expletive deleted> camulatz, amirite? (just kidding, she probably love 'em, just wishes they had more water))

Camazotz? (and how does he feel about camulatz, who I always confuse with him?)

Grandmother Spider?

Gyronna? (it's a mystery! ... nah, just kidding, she will curse you, even and especially if you had no idea, because, and I quote, "<this text has been removed and replaced by your local family-friendly text bar>, you <oops, almost missed some>!"***)

Jaidi?

Kofusachi?

Milani?

Shimye-Migalla? (Does she/they have "oops all animals" or "butterflies" or something else as this aspect?)

The Peacock Spirit (he def. hates ya messin' with his chosen image; the jerk*)

... and so on.

Any canon instances of any of these showing up in text would be really cool to hear about, too!

*:

He put a lot of thought and effort into that! Maaaaaan! He ran that con for something like 10k years, dudes! Just respect the feather and cater to his ever whim, 'cause he deserves it, and ya coo'**.

** Yes, this is a pun on bird sounds.

***:

Yes, this is a pun about cursing and cursing.
"But, Tactics, what happened to the two-asterisk note?"
Read the one-asterisk note!

[Tacticslion]

In addition, I'd imagine what you use them for definitely factors in.

Calistria may be cooler with it if you use wasps for, say, creating a love potion for a crush or to embarrass or steal a romantic partner form a rival.

Erastil would be the opposite of that when used for those same purposes, I'd imagine?

And so on. Any thoughts or clarifications there would be pretty great, if you all have them.

[pauljathome]

I think you're pretty much bang on. Fairly clear cut with some dieties, less clear for others (I agree with pretty much all of your examples, at least the ones where I have enough Canon knowledge to have an opinion :-))

Best bet is for the player and GM to have a discussion and hopefully come to some kind of accord on how it works in THERE Golarion. There is no way in heck that you'll get universally applicable rules

[Mark Hoover 330]

Let's take it a step deeper: are there differing attitudes based on the aspect of the deity you're worshipping?

I love me some Pharasma in my setting, so I'll start there.

Pharasma is True Neutral in alignment, but her faith can be NG, LN, CN, N, or NE in alignment. Also the deity is worshipped for access to 5 primary Domains: Death, Healing, Knowledge, Repose and Water. Her sacred animal is the Whippoorwill. Following that link shows you how there are regional superstitions around the bird in Ustlav, a region of Golarion, where folks in that region believe, among other things, killing a whippoorwill curses you to spread disease and sadness forever.

That, however, is a regional superstition.

So what's cannon? There's nothing much in the wiki specific to Pharasma on the bird other than they SOMETIMES serve as her psychopomps, their presence is an omen of her favor and falling out of favor with the Goddess might reveal a dead whippoorwill to the victim.

So then... what does hunting one of these birds do?

Well, perhaps the NE sects of the faith consider it a decadent obedience to properly hunt and prepare just one of the birds in your lifetime, consuming it whole, beak and all, to honor Pharasma and have an aspect of her inside of you always.

On the other extreme, perhaps NG rangers or LN Inquisitors in service to the Lady of Graves take whippoorwills as Animal Companions and not only revere them as sacred but punish those who hunt or cage them.

What if LN groups, focused on the Domains of Healing and Repose do in fact hunt and cage whippoorwills. However, once captive the birds are communed with using spells, rites and incense so that clergy and bird become one and thus the orderly rhythms and patterns of the whippoorwill's song can be analyzed and mimicked to soothe the living and encourage natural healing while enhancing magical repairs.

Maybe there's even a sect of druids, N in alignment, who technically worship an aspect of Pharasma as a weeping spirit of the water (Repose, Water) and to them the whippoorwills are nothing more than a primal omen. In this case, being naturalists, what if these druids... kill the birds, remove their bones, then make small pouches from which they cast said bones and read omens of the future?

In other words... it's whatever you want.

Even in a world where a super high-level cleric could literally walk beside their god, no one mortal should fully know the mind and heart of a divine being. If a god in PF can have multiple alignments worship them, and in some of the expanded media from Paizo even be worshipped in different forms depending on the region, this should mean that there's no one way the deity's worship is experienced.

Whatever the GM decides is cannon for the treatment of a sacred animal in the name of a deity, there might be a half-dozen different smaller sects or denominations that still invoke that deity and receive spells from them, but they hold completely different interpretations of the sacred animal.

Heck, with Erastil, halflings are shown to swap out his sacred bow for a sling; stone giants worship him as a fur-clad giant like them. Is it THAT much of a stretch then to say that halfling druids revere hunting dogs instead of stags in relation to the deity, or that perhaps rangers domesticate and use enormous Dire Elks as mounts or Animal Companions?

[SOLDIER-1st]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Let's take it a step deeper: are there differing attitudes based on the aspect of the deity you're worshipping?

I love me some Pharasma in my setting, so I'll start there.

Pharasma is True Neutral in alignment, but her faith can be NG, LN, CN, N, or NE in alignment.

That's no longer true. Her allowed alignments now are NG, LN, and NN.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Ok, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that there are different people, worshipping Pharasma in different ways. Also Solja 1 I got my data from the Golarion Wiki so it hasn't been updated appropriately I guess.

In my own setting I divide worship of deities along alignments and sometimes Domains. You could also use regional or racial differences, socio-economic factors etc.

Then of course, you can also look into heresy. Like, what if a demon posed as a Pharasmin oracle for decades, advising NPC Adepts on the "right" obedience to follow re: whippoorwills? The Adepts still offer their prayers and still get spells, but maybe Pharasma shows her displeasure in some subtle way. The demon explains these maladies as coincidence or blames them on some external threat. Over time this local "sect of Pharasma" actually becomes a heresy cult actually drawing its powers from Lamashtu or something.

See, you gotta have something for the Inquisitor class to do other than just using Bane against monster types. If part of the class' fluff says they're dedicated to rooting out heresy and blasphemy, then having different styles of worshipping the same god/goddess is a potential reason for that class to persist.

[James Jacobs]

The whole point of things like sacred animals, sacred colors, and all that is to help players with themes for their characters, and to help GMs with themes for building NPCs and temples and religious organizations based on faiths.

That said, the fact that these are "sacred" means just that. They're sacred. You shouldn't abuse them if you're a worshiper, because it's disrespectful or even downright blasphemous. The idea of a character who constantly looks to skirt the line while worshiping a deity by trying to do things as much as possible against the faith while not "breaking their faith" is not a great way to portray a cleric or other true believer at all. It's a fun idea for a heretic or some sort of disrespectful or irreverent character, but it's also something that can far too easily offend or annoy both NPCs and other players or GMs, so make sure if you want to take this route with a character that the rest of your table consents to you playing such a disrespectful/irreverent character.

For something like organized play, I'd suggest not doing this at all, since if you disrespect a faith worshiped by another player character, that's a great way to trigger party/player conflict, and that's not in the spirit of cooperation. It's the same sort of disruptive play you'd cause if you decided to bring an assassin into a group of paladins, or a non-violent monk into a group of fighters, or a superstitious magic-hating barbarian into a group of wizards. Make characters who work well with the other characters, and if it's in organized play, make characters who work well with the setup.

[Tacticslion]

Makes sense! Thank you!

It's pretty strictly home game, for me, and I was wondering if something like yogurt developed by wasp larva (akin to yogurt cultures developed by bee larva) would be considered respectful (developing a whole... thing... out of wasps) or disrespectful ('cause, you know, eating wasps).

That broadly led to more questions about specifics for other deities.

Thank you for the insight into intent!

[James Jacobs]

Another way to think of sacred animals is that they're the deity's all-time favorite pet.

How would you treat the pet of someone you respected, adored, or loved? That's how you should treat the sacred animal of your faith.

[Tacticslion]

Ooh... neat way of thinking about it!

[Tacticslion]

Also - I really appreciate you answering my question in your AMA thread; I asked you there as I really didn't think you'd comment here, but it's awesome that you did! Thanks!

(I know that's basically what you do, but I wanted to mention it's really appreciated! Also, this isn't that thread, but you often ask us to stick to questions only, there, so I thought I'd mention it here, to avoid voiding that request.)