Pro-Rahadoum / Misothiest Campaign

[Failedlegend The Eternal Gish]

There's not too much info about rahadoum and the only two modules i found (Port Godless & Heresy of Man) seem anti-rahadoum, what I do know is:

- Religions/Gods/Worship is straight up illegal caused by a massive religious war roughly 2000 years ago

- Despite the above a small amount of people still worship in secret

- Slavery is legal (planning to nix this since were currently playing hells vengeance and i'd rather not have that theme repeated)

- Outsiders/Dieities tend to use rahadoum as a "neutral ground" often causing issues such as having invisible fights

- Governed by the "Laws of Morality" but beyond "No gods" none of these laws have been stated by paizo

- Pirates from the shackles cause troubles alot especially with shipping goods south

- Shipping goods north is also an issue due to cheliax and their control of aroden's arch

- it's a haven for scientists, philosophers and other intellectuals

All that said my starting "hook" for the campaign will be something along the lines hunting down some secret religious sects and eventually meeting an outsider who tried to find a diety to follow but looked to closely and found out that regardless of alignment the gods of golarion are all pretty ****ed up (ie. Erastil punishes people by turning them into animals to be slaughtered, Cayden is a stalker, etc. etc.) so fled to rahadoum as the only place free of religion (as far as i know), eventually leading to the party trying to spread ragadoums way of doing things, possibly even running the dieties out of golarion (one idea is gaining control of the astral plane to prevent travel between the outer and material relam)

Note: This campaign won't be canon even for my home game its just a little fun for my players and a campaign type ive always wanted to play or DM so I don't mind bending the lore (ie. exaggerating the dieties faults)

So yeah anyone ever done or have any ideas/suggestions a misothiest/god killer campaign have any ideas (please don't reply if all your going to say is "gods can't be killed. etc.")

[Claxon]

I think an outright god killing campaign isn't fun. They've never made since to me as a player because the power level difference is so immense and things just start to get ridiculous.

I would personally be more interested in setting up a campaign where devotees of Rahadoum are interested in setting up an area in the material plane where divine magic doesn't function and outsiders can't enter.

We already have areas where magic doesn't function reliably, the Mana Wastes. And outsiders can be bound via magic circles. These provide a basis for these kind of effects, but simply much larger scale. Artifacts would probably be involved to create these kinds of effects.

[Tim Emrick]

Rahadoum has a bizarre culture, even by Golarian standards. They have ample reasons to mistrust and avoid divine worship, but healing injuries, curing diseases, and defending themselves from evil outsiders (like the divs, who enjoy stilling up trouble throughout northern Garund) all become more difficult as a result.

For an interesting look into the Rahadoum mindset, I would recommend James Sutter's novel Death's Heretic and its sequel, The Redemption Engine. Neither is set in Rahadoum, but the main character is a former Pure Legionnaire who has gotten tangled up in conflicts between the gods thanks to a moment of crisis in his past.

[Failedlegend The Eternal Gish]

Tim Emrick wrote:

Rahadoum has a bizarre culture, even by Golarian standards. They have ample reasons to mistrust and avoid divine worship, but healing injuries, curing diseases, and defending themselves from evil outsiders (like the divs, who enjoy stilling up trouble throughout northern Garund) all become more difficult as a result.

For an interesting look into the Rahadoum mindset, I would recommend James Sutter's novel Death's Heretic and its sequel, The Redemption Engine. Neither is set in Rahadoum, but the main character is a former Pure Legionnaire who has gotten tangled up in conflicts between the gods thanks to a moment of crisis in his past.

Oooo thanks i'll check those out i also found a short blog post that involves rahadoum not sure if its canon though.

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh2g?Tales-of-Lost-Omens-Question ing-Nature#29

[Algarik]

For the mechanical aspect, i think there's 3 ways of dealing with it.

1. Mythic Campaign. Build Gods as CR30 creatures. You can take a look at Cthulhu and Hastur to get a grasp of what a CR30 creature looks like.

2. Scale the Gods down. There's two way of doing this;
2A. Gods are afflicted with a curse/magic device or whatever fits your fancy. Build them as High level character. You could even run an E6 campaign in which Gods are 10-12th level character.
2B. Depower everything else. Player character stay the same level, but you reskin everything else. For example, a CR 4 Brown bear wouldn't just be a brown bear. It would be a cosmic bear or something. Gods would be high CR creatures or high level NPCs.

3. Keep the fluff but play in another system. Something like Mutant&Mastermind is better suited to handling super epic feat.

IMO, second or third option would probably be the best. I've never tried mythic, but in my opinion, pathfinder feels terrible at higher level.

[Failedlegend The Eternal Gish]

I don't think the group is interested in another system 2A (weakening the gods) is how i plan to start the campaign off.

oh and theres minor rumblings amongst the group aabout possible do a kind of kingmaker: rahadoum

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Take a look at Mystara's Glantri for some inspiration for a misotheist society in a D&D world. The Principalities of Glantri is the best entry in what is for my money the best series of country splats ever made (the Known World Gazetteer series).

As for how to handle a godkiller campaign: aim small. Target a god that is small, weak, and whose death doesn't have world-shaking consequences.
PCs might take the Test of the Starstone not because they want to become a god but because they want to kill a god. They could even believe they are not properly gods, just really powerful beings with suspiciously godlike qualities that make it their business to kill actual gods - humans++ are very good at self deception. The PCs could also ascend just by being so damn good at defeating divine minions that locals start hero-worshipping them, giving them enough spiritual juice to ascend.

As for the mechanics, you can try to use the 3.0 "Deities and Demigods".

[Algarik]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

The PCs could also ascend just by being so damn good at defeating divine minions that locals start hero-worshipping them, giving them enough spiritual juice to ascend.

And then they become the very thing they swore to destroy, genius, i love it!

Failedlegend The Eternal Gish wrote:

I don't think the group is interested in another system 2A (weakening the gods) is how i plan to start the campaign off.

oh and theres minor rumblings amongst the group aabout possible do a kind of kingmaker: rahadoum

If you're comfortable with high level pathfinder, then Mythic play might be what you're looking for to handle those high CR threats.

Deities and Demigods is a good suggestion as well, but it's probably even more broken than Mythic play. You might wanna look at epic level rules from 3.5(or was it 3.0?) too if you want to make diety and demigods compatible with pathfinder.

If i were you i'd ask your players how they would prefer to play the game. Have they ever played high level campaign?

The highest i've played in pathfinder was 15 and i felt like everything was just inflated numbers and broken spells. I also ran a Dnd 5e game up to lvl 19 and my players hated the higher level as it consisted mostly of rocket tag, banishment spam etc. High level play is not for everyone. Some can make it work, but it just breaks my soul.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The Epic Level Handbook has more broken stuff than D&DG, IIRC. But yeah, some people don't like high level play. A lot of this depends on the level of optimization people prefer. Like with any level of play, differing levels of optimization in a group leads to some people not having as much fun, and high level play makes this more pronounced.

We've found that if you stick to RAI (at least what we believe is RAI), high level play works just fine.

[SheepishEidolon]

Failedlegend The Eternal Gish wrote:

So yeah anyone ever done or have any ideas/suggestions a misothiest/god killer campaign have any ideas (please don't reply if all your going to say is "gods can't be killed. etc.")

If you start at level 1 (or so), you could keep the players busy with fighting various cults. IMO divine casters are underused as opponents and bosses, so you could offer some fresh experiences here.

The cults could be very different: Well organized vs. isolated believers, rotten to the core vs. misguided Good, barely hidden vs. multiple layers of safety, secret alliances with locals vs. shunned by pretty much everyone etc..

Outsiders make a good complement to the cults, and you could try to use everything available: Archons to azatas, inevitables to proteans, asuras to qlippoths. Devils and demons are something players encounter pretty much in every campaign, so I wouldn't use them too much.

Instead of outright killing a deity, it can be satisfying enough to thwart their plans or destroy their favourite avatar (usually CR 15). If you are set on the deicide, fast advancement track, a few sprinkles of mythic and maybe some favorable plot developments (deity is currently vulnerable because X) might help.