Groetus >= Outer Gods / GOOs?

[John R.]

I was reading up on Groetus in Gods & Magic and he sounds very powerful (for a god) in his aims to bring upon the end of the entire universe. His description seems to match up with the outer gods and great old ones in that he is mostly incomprehensible and indifferent to the mortal realm.

So is Groetus actually powerful enough to bring upon the end of the universe or is he only patiently look forward it? If he is that powerful, does that put him at or above the power level of outer gods/GOOs (assuming outer gods/GOOs are a higher tier than typical Golarion gods, if that is even the case)? Is his nature and origin equal to theirs, whatever that might mean?

I'm feeling a lot of similarities and sort of wondering if he might be Golarion's equivalent of Lovecraftian deities.

[Albatoonoe]

He is patiently waiting. He is not causing it. Think of him like a god of hopeless nihilism.

[James Jacobs]

Groetus, who I invented back in the very early 90s, is very much inspired by some elements of the mythos, but he's not actually intended to be an Outer God. Albatoonoe has the right of it; he's a passive deity. He's watching and waiting, not plotting and planning.

[John R.]

What about his origin? Is that equally mysterious, or is he known to be created or eternal (no beginning)?

He sounds like a very interesting though challenging deity to center a character (cleric/champion) around. Any suggestions on roleplaying without being too passive or even detrimental to the party?

[James Jacobs]

John R. wrote:

What about his origin? Is that equally mysterious, or is he known to be created or eternal (no beginning)?

He sounds like a very interesting though challenging deity to center a character (cleric/champion) around. Any suggestions on roleplaying without being too passive or even detrimental to the party?

It's mysterious in that I don't know if we've said in print. I know where he came from in my homebrew, which treats him a little bit differently. I'll copy/past his (unedited raw text) legend below for the curious, but note this is not canon for Golarion, despite the appearance of several familiar names (since those names come from my homebrew as well). You can certainly see the influence of Lovecraft and cosmic horror in there, for sure...

Spoiler:

The Prophecies of Groetus This large tome contains the 999 prophecies of Groetus. At some point during the Age of Faith, Groetus was one of the greatest of ancient Thassilon's diviners. His knowledge of all subjects was vast and most impressive, but he knew he had only scratched the surface of the total well of knowledge. He became obsessed with what he didn't know; the more he learned, the more he knew that there was to learn, and this concept drove him mad. He began to use all of his considerable resources to learn more, and sold all of his material wealth save for his books in this pursuit. Eventually (or so he believed) his work paid off, and he learned secret rumors of the first creations of the deities. These primal creations, as the first-made of the gods, represented to Groetus the primal source of knowledge, yet he could find nothing more of their existence except for obscure references in ancient texts from a time believed to be before the Age of Savagery. These bits of knowledge were tantalizing to the extreme, and spoke of how the ancients were tasked with the charge of guiding the development of life. But they failed in this task, somehow, and the gods smote them and cast them out. What became of them is unknown; methods of contacting the divine such as commune or contact other plane were singularly and strangely uninformative—as if the divine were purposefully ignoring the spells. But Groetus did find one possible source of information. He told no one of the location or nature of this source, fearing it would be stolen from him. What is known is that in the year 741, Groetus traveled alone into the wild of the northern mountains and was gone for 17 years. He reappeared in 724 in the city of Thassilon before his old friend Dematrus, sage and high priest of Lydia.

Exactly what he told Dematrus is also unknown. What is known is that Groetus' journey into the wilds of the north changed him—and not for the better. Those who glimpsed the sage speak of skin that had turned alabaster white, of black eyes filled with stars, of a voice that seemed to come from everywhere when he spoke, and of a terrible feeling of unease that radiated from him like the agony of a man dying in extreme pain. Certainly, what Groetus whispered to Dematrus on that fateful meeting was of great power... for a mere ten minutes after Groetus appeared in Thassilon and ventured into the inner sanctum of the temple of Lydia to speak to Dematrus, a terrific explosion tore through the building and a large portion of the temple collapsed. An instant later, a terrible sphere of white energy rose from the ruin, and Groetus' voice echoed throughout the city.

"I KNOW ALL TO KNOW FROM THE INNER SPHERE. I TRAVEL NOW BEYOND THIS SPHERE OF FALSE KNOWLEDGE TO THE GREAT TRUTH THAT AWAITS ME BEYOND LIFE AND DEATH. YET DESPAIR NOT, FOR WHEN I HAVE HAD MY FULL I SHALL RETURN TO TEACH WHAT I HAVE LEARNED. AND YOU SHALL ALL REJOICE, AND MY WORD SHALL AWAKEN THE TRUTH."

With that, the sphere flashed into the night sky and was gone.

Dematrus' body was never recovered, but a large tome written in Groetus' hand was eventually found in the rubble of the temple ruins. This tome of 1000 pages held hundreds of prophecies written in magical writing that reformed to the reader's native language. Each of the first 999 pages held a different prophecy, yet each reader of the book had difficulty remembering what was within, save for a few key passages. No one has ever made it to the final page of the book—the contents there remaining the tome's greatest mystery of all. At first, the church of Lydia allowed all scholars to read the tome, but when it became obvious that many of these scholars were being driven insane by the prophecies and tried to force what they had read to become reality (often resulting in terrible destruction and mayhem), the church instead entrusted the keeping of the tome to the church of Hyarak. The Prophecies of Groetus were hidden away in his greatest temple, the Shining Cathedral in Donarj, and there they remained for many years until they were stolen by an unknown force in 339 AR. The book has been missing ever since.

(Lydia is the goddess of good magic in my homebrew; there were also deities of evil magic [Bolag] and neutral magic [Proetus]; when we built the core 20 for Golarion there was a point where these three were in the list but we chose to condense them down into a single neutral deity, Nethys, to save space for other concepts. Hyarak is a god of balance and knowledge, whose core concepts work better with D&D lore than with Pathinder lore, so he never made the transition at all... I suppose Irori is the closest analogy to him on Golarion.)

As for how to roleplay his faith... I've seen them done as sort of crazed doomsayer prophets, like grizzled end-of-the-world preachers. In a way, I almost think that Rorsharch from Watchmen would make a compelling Groetus worshiper.

[John R.]

James Jacobs wrote:

John R. wrote:

What about his origin? Is that equally mysterious, or is he known to be created or eternal (no beginning)?

He sounds like a very interesting though challenging deity to center a character (cleric/champion) around. Any suggestions on roleplaying without being too passive or even detrimental to the party?

It's mysterious in that I don't know if we've said in print. I know where he came from in my homebrew, which treats him a little bit differently. I'll copy/past his (unedited raw text) legend below for the curious, but note this is not canon for Golarion, despite the appearance of several familiar names (since those names come from my homebrew as well). You can certainly see the influence of Lovecraft and cosmic horror in there, for sure...

** spoiler omitted **...

Awesome! Thank you and thank you for your input as well, Albatoonoe.

[Claxon]

Yeah, I've always imagined Groetus to not be all that powerful. Rather he has a destined goal to fulfill and otherwise doesn't do much. Probably not even really directing his faithful, aside from on occasional tidbit of maddening insight/information into something.

What we know about him being the god of end times is that his role is to basically vacuum up the multiverse (the material plane and all the others) after the last soul is judged by Pharasma and that the only thing that is supposed to escape is Pharasma appointed survivor to start the next universe and the being(s) that exist outside the multiverse (I believe referred to as the Watcher). I believe it's implied the Watcher is one of the Outer Gods.

[John R.]

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, I've always imagined Groetus to not be all that powerful. Rather he has a destined goal to fulfill and otherwise doesn't do much. Probably not even really directing his faithful, aside from on occasional tidbit of maddening insight/information into something.

What we know about him being the god of end times is that his role is to basically vacuum up the multiverse (the material plane and all the others) after the last soul is judged by Pharasma and that the only thing that is supposed to escape is Pharasma appointed survivor to start the next universe and the being(s) that exist outside the multiverse (I believe referred to as the Watcher). I believe it's implied the Watcher is one of the Outer Gods.

Oh ok, so the end of the universe does not mean the end of all existence on all planes of existence including the end of time? It's a bit hard to understand the world of Pathfinder as it relates to the real world when there are other known planes of existence. I just assumed every part of those were also included as parts of the universe.

[CorvusMask]

John R. wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, I've always imagined Groetus to not be all that powerful. Rather he has a destined goal to fulfill and otherwise doesn't do much. Probably not even really directing his faithful, aside from on occasional tidbit of maddening insight/information into something.

What we know about him being the god of end times is that his role is to basically vacuum up the multiverse (the material plane and all the others) after the last soul is judged by Pharasma and that the only thing that is supposed to escape is Pharasma appointed survivor to start the next universe and the being(s) that exist outside the multiverse (I believe referred to as the Watcher). I believe it's implied the Watcher is one of the Outer Gods.

Oh ok, so the end of the universe does not mean the end of all existence on all planes of existence including the end of time? It's a bit hard to understand the world of Pathfinder as it relates to the real world when there are other known planes of existence. I just assumed every part of those were also included as parts of the universe.

Multiverse exists as bubble in vast nothingness inhabited by incomprehensible eldritch beings.

But yeah recommended reading on this subject is Concordance of Rivals :D

[Claxon]

John R. wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, I've always imagined Groetus to not be all that powerful. Rather he has a destined goal to fulfill and otherwise doesn't do much. Probably not even really directing his faithful, aside from on occasional tidbit of maddening insight/information into something.

What we know about him being the god of end times is that his role is to basically vacuum up the multiverse (the material plane and all the others) after the last soul is judged by Pharasma and that the only thing that is supposed to escape is Pharasma appointed survivor to start the next universe and the being(s) that exist outside the multiverse (I believe referred to as the Watcher). I believe it's implied the Watcher is one of the Outer Gods.

Oh ok, so the end of the universe does not mean the end of all existence on all planes of existence including the end of time? It's a bit hard to understand the world of Pathfinder as it relates to the real world when there are other known planes of existence. I just assumed every part of those were also included as parts of the universe.

I mean it does effectively....but we don't really have words or understanding to describe what it will be like after the material plane universe (and all others) are consumed by Groetus. There will be like 2 survivors for sure, but the outer gods (as I understand them) can exist outside the multiverse as we know it.

To expand on your question about universe vs multiverse, it's the difference of moving to one plane to another.

For the most part (there are some planes that violate this rule) you can't physically walk from one plane to another (or at least not without some sort of magic that helps move you between planes). SO conceptually the material plane is one "universe" as we would typically think of it. The multiverse is the multiple universes (planes) that compose the entirety of existence as most beings would be capable of experiencing it.

We know there are beings that can exist outside our concept of the multiverse, and one of those is supposed to restart the multiverse albeit with some slight changes that Pharsama has planned with her successor.

As for a question of who is the most powerful deity, James Jacobs has gone on record at least one time stating he believes his concept of Pharasma is the most powerful deity in the multiverse. But she is also tied intrinsically to the multiverse since she created and is prophesized to end with it, but also to task a survivor for the next incarnation of the cycle.

[John R.]

So I did read the fluff at the beginning and end of Concordance of Rivals and Claxon's explanation also helped fill in the gaps in my understanding further. Thank you, both.

[Claxon]

Glad I could help!

[Yqatuba]

Does Groetus actually WANT to fall down and destroy the Boneyard? Or is it something that's just destined to happen and no one can stop it (even Pharisma?)

[Perpdepog]

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, I've always imagined Groetus to not be all that powerful. Rather he has a destined goal to fulfill and otherwise doesn't do much. Probably not even really directing his faithful, aside from on occasional tidbit of maddening insight/information into something.

What we know about him being the god of end times is that his role is to basically vacuum up the multiverse (the material plane and all the others) after the last soul is judged by Pharasma and that the only thing that is supposed to escape is Pharasma appointed survivor to start the next universe and the being(s) that exist outside the multiverse (I believe referred to as the Watcher). I believe it's implied the Watcher is one of the Outer Gods.

The Watcher is one of the epithets for Yog-Sothoth, at least according to the Pathfinder wiki, and IIRC he is referenced in Concordance of Rivals as existing when the multiverse was made, so I believe that it's him who is being referred to.

John R wrote:

He sounds like a very interesting though challenging deity to center a character (cleric/champion) around. Any suggestions on roleplaying without being too passive or even detrimental to the party?

Back in PF1E I made a cleric of Grotus who seemed to work pretty well. Back then you could have any alignment within one step of your deity's, so I made her CG. She was a member of a borderline heretical (In so far as orthodoxy and heresy apply to Grotus' faith) sect called The Attendants of the Glorious Fall, who figured that the end of the whole multiverse would be pretty amazing to watch, and so it was their duty to ensure everyone was comfortable and in the best possible position to watch it happen ... you know until they were wiped out along with everything else. Sort of like the friend who makes everyone snacks and gets the drinks during a movie night.

Because of that she was often motivated to help the party survive, if for no other reason than the off chance that being on the Material Plane would mean being farther from Grotus if/when he fell, and prolong the show for all of her new friends.

[Claxon]

Yqatuba wrote:

Does Groetus actually WANT to fall down and destroy the Boneyard? Or is it something that's just destined to happen and no one can stop it (even Pharisma?)

It's unclear what Groetus wants, or if he even is awake/conscious enough to matter. In my opinion he seems more like a slumbering god waiting for his appointed time to act, while occasionally mummering maddening truths to those that will listen.

[Claxon]

Perpdepog wrote:

Back in PF1E I made a cleric of Grotus who seemed to work pretty well. Back then you could have any alignment within one step of your deity's, so I made her CG. She was a member of a borderline heretical (In so far as orthodoxy and heresy apply to Grotus' faith) sect called The Attendants of the Glorious Fall, who figured that the end of the whole multiverse would be pretty amazing to watch, and so it was their duty to ensure everyone was comfortable and in the best possible position to watch it happen ... you know until they were wiped out along with everything else. Sort of like the friend who makes everyone snacks and gets the drinks during a movie night.
Because of that she was often motivated to help the party survive, if for no other reason than the off chance that being on the Material Plane would mean...

I like that concept....but there is a flaw. In that Groetus doesn't do what he's supposed to do until all souls have been judged. It's unclear if it includes outsiders and deities, but it seems pretty clear that all your average mortal humanoids will be dead before Groetus starts his action.

[The Raven Black]

I remember reading somewhere (I believe in a cannon source) that Groetus chose this role for himself, which implies he is definitely aware and self-conscious enough to make such a choice.

The main problem with communication with Groetus is that any being that is below a deity, no matter its nature, goes utterly mad when approaching the Godmoon.

Due to a traumatic event involving imprisonment and attempted conversion in

AP spoiler:

Ruins of Gauntlight (Abomination Vaults)

, my low-level Investigator underwent a complete personality change and is now a devoted of Groetus, due to having shared this hard moment with a Groetan Thassilonian Barbarian who did not survive this trial.

From CG, she became CN and might even become CE if she pursues her most unsavory interests, but she will definitely help and keep alive anyone who opposes the BBEG and their deity simply because she now hates both with an uncontrollable passion.

Note that, in her headcannon, the disappearance of the Seal and the breaking of Prophecy means that anything is possible now and thus Groetus will finally be able to end everything, including the Outer Gods, to usher in the paradise that will come after.

[Perpdepog]

Claxon wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Back in PF1E I made a cleric of Grotus who seemed to work pretty well. Back then you could have any alignment within one step of your deity's, so I made her CG. She was a member of a borderline heretical (In so far as orthodoxy and heresy apply to Grotus' faith) sect called The Attendants of the Glorious Fall, who figured that the end of the whole multiverse would be pretty amazing to watch, and so it was their duty to ensure everyone was comfortable and in the best possible position to watch it happen ... you know until they were wiped out along with everything else. Sort of like the friend who makes everyone snacks and gets the drinks during a movie night.
Because of that she was often motivated to help the party survive, if for no other reason than the off chance that being on the Material Plane would mean...

I like that concept....but there is a flaw. In that Groetus doesn't do what he's supposed to do until all souls have been judged. It's unclear if it includes outsiders and deities, but it seems pretty clear that all your average mortal humanoids will be dead before Groetus starts his action.

Yep; characters tried to point that out to my cleric, too, but she wasn't going to let a little thing like logic stop her.