Nature Deities in Golarion

[Virellius]

So, I was doing some thinking, and something strange stuck out to me. Golarion doesn't have a 'wildmother', Mother Earth, Gaea type deity.

There's Gozreh, but in every depiction I've ever seen, they seem very closely tied to weather, wind, and waves, and less to animals and green things.

There's the Green Mother, but she's very much DANGEROUS flora, seductive aspects of nature, and also evil.

There's a few empyrean lords focused on things adjacent to the concept, like farming.

Am I just missing something? The Green Faith exists, as does worship of individual Green Men, but afaik, there is no neutral or good aligned plant and animal themed natural divinity.

I wonder why that is? I feel like such a clear and obvious gap in traditional divinity concepts is intentional.

On a side note, IS there anything in setting tying Gozreh more strongly to terrestrial nature? It may be just my recent reading of Mwangi Expanse but They seem so specifically tied to a more... Wet nature.

[keftiu]

The Bonuwat have long worshipped Gozreh as a sort-of pantheon with Desna, as the composite being Shimye-Magalla - maybe start there?

[Set]

I think there was a conscious choice to avoid the more traditional sorts of deities found on Earth mythology. There's not a king of the gods, or a favored son, nor an earth mother.

Even the ones who lean into a trope, like Calistria, a goddess and a trickster, but hardly a 'Loki' or Torag, a god and a smith, but not the 'smith of the gods' who created Gorum's armor or Iomedae's sword.

While I grew up with the Realms and Greyhawk, where you could point at Mielikki or Ehlonna and say, 'There's my Artemis!,' I kind of prefer the lack of obvious parallels and that the gods of Golarion are a bit more 'messy' and organic feeling than the checking off a list that it would feel like if someone had just ticked off the boxes and had a typical 'goddess of the hunt' and 'god of the sun.'

[KaiBlob1]

There are Erastil and Ketephys, both sort-of hunt dieties, and also Cernunnos, who has the edicts "Protect forests and other natural areas, advocate for animals and plants, take and commit to decisive actions". That's probably as close as you're gonna get. There isn't really a "Demeter" type figure. You could look through This list of Nature domain deities to see if anyone else fits your goal better.

[Set]

I vaguely recall a nature / earth / agriculture goddess among the old Azlanti gods (perhaps the one that's married to Erastil, these days?). Jaida, IIRC.

I'm sure that there's an Empyreal lord who might fit the bill as well. Halcamora, perhaps?

[Gisher]

Set wrote:

I vaguely recall a nature / earth / agriculture goddess among the old Azlanti gods (perhaps the one that's married to Erastil, these days?). Jaida, IIRC.

I'm sure that there's an Empyreal lord who might fit the bill as well. Halcamora, perhaps?

Good memory! I had completely forgotten about her. Jaida definitely has a "Demeter" vibe to me.

[JackieLane]

Cernunnos seems like the closest fit, although to my knowledge we don't know much about him, and he obviously doesn't have the "mother" part of the role, which is fine to me. And yes, Jaidi fits the Demeter role quite well. In fact, if you take that whole family as a sort of pantheon, it would work great : Erastil and Jaidi are the parents of Halcamora and Cernunnos.

As for gods of animals other than hunt-focused ones and Cernunnos, I recall something mentioned in Ruins of Azlant : There was a very ancient god of animals and travel at some point, but he was killed by Lamashtu, who stole his powers over animals and beasts and twisted them. Just found his name : Curchanus. It's in the description of a staff.

[WagnerSika]

Mielikki was inserted to Faerun from Finnish folklore. She and Artemis are both associated with hunting but Mielikki was not a hunter herself. They were quite different deities in character.

[Seventh Seal]

There's also the neutral giant goddess Fandarra. She is both an earth & fertility goddess associated with old knowledge. While she was a contemporary of Erastil (& thus is an old deity), she never gave up the wild side of her primal nature to become more 'acceptable' to more 'civilised'* societies.

Maybe she's a good stand in for the old Gaea-type mother goddess (as opposed to Jaidi, who is definitely more of a Demeter-type mother goddess)?

Hope this helps a little. :)

* By 'civilised', I mean a group of people that has come together at a central location & cleared/drained the surrounding area (of woodland/wetland) enough to build a relatively large, sustainable community with a set of codified laws (like a small town) & that utilises its surrounding resources to a greater degree than subsistence, perhaps allowing for trade with other such communities.
Of course, different cultures & ancestries will have their own idea of what is 'civilised', but the description given here is what Erastil came to represent (initially, at least) & what Fandarra rejected, so...

[The Raven Black]

Civilized comes from civis which is latin for citizen. It has the same root as city.

The original root word has meanings like living in one place and also being part of a family.

So belonging to a group of people that freely live together in a given place.

I think it fits your description.

[ikarinokami]

inner sea gods does list a demeter like goodness of the harvest, if i recall. ill check my book later

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

just recently learned that Dispater's wife is a neutral goddess of green things that grow despite the odds in a hostile environment. May not entirely fit the bill, but still a nature deity I found most interesting. Think her name was Erecura with or without an 'i' in there somewhere

[Gisher]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

just recently learned that Dispater's wife is a neutral goddess of green things that grow despite the odds in a hostile environment. May not entirely fit the bill, but still a nature deity I found most interesting. Think her name was Erecura with or without an 'i' in there somewhere

Erecura

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

That's the one. Certainly not a traditional nature deity in any sense of the word, but still interesting. I'm a little surprised given that it is anathema to her to despoil nature that none of her character options include nature aspects, or even an allusion to the fact that she grows a lush garden in the heart of the fire-and-steel city of Dis.

[The Raven Black]

Sounds very Persephone-like. The daughter of Demeter.

[Perpdepog]

I hadn't heard of her before now. She's pretty awesome; I may need to make a character who worships her.