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I had a lot of fun describing a neutral-keyed effect in a PbP of mine recently. The energy targeted souls with deeply held convictions that emphasized the actions of the target--"I am obligated to do x, I will do y if I want to"--and passed over souls with convictions that were more compromising or passive/reactive. Sort of like how lightning causes more damage the more it's slowed down passing through something. The casters were druids who'd basically chosen to stall the apocalypse rather than risk trying to prevent it outright, so it seemed fitting for their version of neutrality to punish more proactive or uncompromising essences. "It's not our place to assume we're the most qualified to make these decisions or fight these battles, so the most ethical and moral action is to simply stall."
Neutral-mandated druids are goofy as heck, of course, but the effect itself felt like it made sense to me.
It's a matter of taste, Sibelius, and I respect your takes on it. :)
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I don't mind alignment in general, but I don't really like... say, champion reactions being alignment driven. The subtle coding that you can't have a CG hero meting out divine vengeance or a LG champion offering glimpses of redemption feels unnecessary and pigeonholing to me.
I agree. Its hardly unbalanced for a GM to allow the various champion abilities to be more available to other alignments. It would be one of the first things I'd do when would building and creating a religion - what options make sense for this religion. Vengence makes sense for a lot of different religions.
And imo alignment damage would be better served as just... another damage type. Juggling the weirdness with neutral deities is annoying and I don't like the cosmic gaminess of, say, a neutral follower of a good deity being better equipped to fight denizens of the lower planes than a good follower of that same deity... because an LN follower of Torag can deal Good damage without being susceptible to Evil damage themselves.
Or just define alignment damage as being religion specific. IE it affects any creature that is not a member of or not aligned with that religion. Then neutral religions don't miss out.
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Honestly, I think the "alignment-based effects are like energy passing through a creature's soul or being, and the wrong alignment basically slows the energy down and causes interference" interpretation really works for me. It's not mental, it's targeting the same essence that decides which afterlife you end up in. Or incarnum-based, if you like. :P
Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.
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Elysian Fields, Jannah or Valhalla not to your liking? I suppose Nirvana doesn't quite line up.
Its just the factor that Christianity is the largest religion in this games largest market. The more liberal flavours of Christianity tends to de - emphasise miracles/divine acts - which in a game with real gods is counter productive.
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Honestly, I think the "alignment-based effects are like energy passing through a creature's soul or being, and the wrong alignment basically slows the energy down and causes interference" interpretation really works for me. It's not mental, it's targeting the same essence that decides which afterlife you end up in. Or incarnum-based, if you like. :P
Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.
"The paladin's blade of justice harms you because your soul is effectively a holiness resistor and is getting cooked right now," is a pretty evocative and sensible mental image. I may have to steal that.
I have indeed noticed the weirdly pseudo-Christian polytheism that D&D tends to have. On the one hand, I find deities being effectively the divine leaders of a philosophical outlook (saying you follow Sarenrae is effectively saying you believe in telling the truth, redeeming evil, and healing the sick, following Desna is believing in the sanctity of dreams and taking back the night from monsters, etc) makes them more relatable, but I still wish it felt a little more like different deities weren't competing to be the one true religion when in-setting they're supposed to be broadly worshipped pantheons or polytheistic collections of gods.
I'm contemplating putting together a homebrew setting for a game and I'm lowkey stick right now on modelling the gods after a more historical polytheistic relationship (it doesn't matter if the gods are good, they're your more powerful patrons) or leaning into that philosophical polytheism with more pantheon aesthetic
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This is rather minor, but Effortless Concentration not available to Clerics and Oracles seems mostly arbitrary. It was interesting that it somehow affected the two full divine casters when I first found out about it, but now, I don’t think there’s a really good reason for it. I still wonder if there’s a lore reason. Otherwise, it has the same vibes as Druid not having access to Cantrip Expansion.
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This is rather minor, but Effortless Concentration not available to Clerics and Oracles seems mostly arbitrary. It was interesting that it somehow affected the two full divine casters when I first found out about it, but now, I don’t think there’s a really good reason for it. I still wonder if there’s a lore reason. Otherwise, it has the same vibes as Druid not having access to Cantrip Expansion.
I didn't understand why they didn't have it either. A strange omission.
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Yeah setting wise most of the religions make little sense. Instead of being a pantheon, they are still often conflicting deities/religions despite no overlapping responsibilities. It is a little bit like a bakery and a bike store considering each other competitors……
But that is more setting criticism than system. And I like that (overall) the newer parts of the setting like Mwangi seem already better in thinking through their settings than the earlier hodge podge of nations.
Now that strange combo of nations is helpful in selecting a small subset from to use for feats etc. in your own setting though….
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I had not considered alignment damage before. I think it might be something like gravity. You send energy that pulls at the soul towards the alignment component you chose. If the soul is going in the opposite direction, something tears inside, hence the damage.
I tend to think of it as the fantasy trope mirrored by crosses or holy water against demons or vampires but for all alignments. All the alignments are variations on the base idea.
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I think my biggest problem with system(yeah I know this is gonna be underwhelming) is locking outside of combat yeah.
Either DCs are too high(meaning they should be lower so that crit successes are more likely) or they should require less successes to open :P
(I forgot if I nitpick it here, but while I overally like +10 crit success thing, I think dcs sometimes are designed around "success has to be hard" rather than "crit success should be hard" which is what I think skill dcs should be designed around)
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Yeah setting wise most of the religions make little sense. Instead of being a pantheon, they are still often conflicting deities/religions despite no overlapping responsibilities. It is a little bit like a bakery and a bike store considering each other competitors……
But that is more setting criticism than system. And I like that (overall) the newer parts of the setting like Mwangi seem already better in thinking through their settings than the earlier hodge podge of nations.
Now that strange combo of nations is helpful in selecting a small subset from to use for feats etc. in your own setting though….
Part of this is that the gods act more like people then shops sellers or infallible beings. To be more exact they act like the actual pantheons in myths doing whatever they want, bringing them into conflict with other gods that want the exact opposite. This is part of why the death of Aroden is such a big deal in the lore. Gods don't just die, especially gods that are super important. This is also why Iomedae is such a hot head compared to the other gods, she is quite literally new to the whole dynamic and doesn't quite know her place.
Now what makes it worse in PF2 is that everything is so tight, and instead of "Oh I worship this pantheon because X RP reason" its "I worship this pantheon because it gives me X, Y, and Z power." They took the pantheon feats and managed to make them even more shallow than they used to be.
Choosing deity for power rather than RP is absolutely nothing new to PF2, like at all.
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Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.
That surprises you? The game is very, very much an american game, and I am not just referring to the creators being Americans, but rather the distinction between Eurogames and Amerigames.
Short version: Eurogames have rock-solid mechanics first, then pad sme fluff around it, Amerigames are big on fluff, trying for mechanics to fit the fluff.
So yeah, D&D is based on christian mythology cross-bred with Tolkien mostly. And yes, the Arthurian legend is very much part of christian mythology. As are the Devil/Satan/Lucifer, angels and demons.
If you are looking for a slightly different take on a setting born from christian mythology, look at the cosmology of 'The Dark Eye'.
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Short version: Eurogames have rock-solid mechanics first, then pad sme fluff around it, Amerigames are big on fluff, trying for mechanics to fit the fluff.
I am not familiar with the origin of most games to know there was even a difference. I know there are always exceptions to any rule, so my limited experience immediately points me to Games Workshop who is notorious for having poorly written mechanics that not only require extensive errata often before the rules are even published, but constantly release more rules that contradict or outright ignore existing ones that require even more errata. There are one of the worst examples of a power-creep system I can think of. Doesn't stop me from playing of course, just saying :-)
So yeah, D&D is based on christian mythology cross-bred with Tolkien mostly.
I wouldn't say 'mostly.' I find there is as much influence from such authors as Vance, Howard, Burroughs, even Lovecraft as there is Tolkien. While they are not usually referenced largely because they focused on SciFi rather than fantasy, the stylings of Asimov, Van Vogt, even Clarke and Bradbury can be found throughout RPG fantasy.
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Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.That surprises you? The game is very, very much an american game, and I am not just referring to the creators being Americans, but rather the distinction between Eurogames and Amerigames.
Short version: Eurogames have rock-solid mechanics first, then pad sme fluff around it, Amerigames are big on fluff, trying for mechanics to fit the fluff.
So yeah, D&D is based on christian mythology cross-bred with Tolkien mostly. And yes, the Arthurian legend is very much part of christian mythology. As are the Devil/Satan/Lucifer, angels and demons.
If you are looking for a slightly different take on a setting born from christian mythology, look at the cosmology of 'The Dark Eye'.
First time I've heard claim that Eurogames are more about crunch O_o;
Like most european roleplayers claim that European roleplaying games are all about grit and roleplaying while American roleplaying games are war games :p
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Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.That surprises you?
No, I'm just thinking about how evangelical Christianity defines how we think about religion as a whole. It's a problem when you want to incorporate other religions' mythologies but put them all under a Christian-coded umbrella.
It's not unique to PF2, but it exists in PF2.
As for the gods feeling like a pantheon, they really don't feel that way to me. They're too human. The Greek gods were human, but almost cartoonishly so. We think of them nowadays as basically caricatures, fey, violent and temperamental and demanding respect. There were no "good gods" and "evil gods". They were either beings to appease or lessons to heed.
But, like, Pathfinder gods just feel like people. I think it's partially because D&D as a subgenre kind of has this fixation with overthinking things ("how does this work? wouldn't x suggest y? why don't they just do z?"), and partially because of the Christianized "the god you worship has to be your One True God" implications. The former means that every god's motivations and mindset got nitpicked and clarified way too much, the latter means that you're kind of discouraged from having any attitude towards your god other than reverence as a cleric. This has gotten a little better (I love the Mwangi gods), but, like, there are no stories about Desna tearing up a woman's tapestry and driving her to suicide out of jealousy and only feeling guilty afterwards. She's Good! She would never do that! It would be a plothole! Ding!
Here's my specific PF2 complaint: I think they missed a great opportunity to deemphasize deities and alignment for clerics. Let the clerics simply pick their own domains and such. Make devotion to a particular deity or pantheon a class feat, but make it optional to define in the character's statblock. If a PC wants, they can grab domains from Dagon, Grandmother Spider and Desna, because maybe they pray to all three for different problems.
EDIT: Also, a reason they don't feel like a pantheon? Not enough weird family dynamics. I like Lamashtu stealing the beast domain from Cernunnos. That kind of thing is, to me, a lot more compelling than "everyone worked together to trap Rovagug". Wow, a bunch of people who only know each other from work trapped this other guy none of them knew outside work. It doesn't feel super interconnected. :P
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That's fair! I have really weak opinions on the gods--it's not a drum I bang on often. Especially since the absolutely breathtaking work in the Mwangi Expanse book came out. This isn't a praise thread, but gosh, my biggest complaint about the Mwangi Expanse book is it wasn't the first Golarion book to ever release. This book is getting me excited about buying other setting books again.
Shoot, that's still just praise. Um... there's not a goloma plushy yet? Yeah, that. Absolutely outrageous. Paizo is circling the drain. Hope someone gets fired for that one. This is why the rd edition was the best one.
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Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.That surprises you?No, I'm just thinking about how evangelical Christianity defines how we think about religion as a whole. It's a problem when you want to incorporate other religions' mythologies but put them all under a Christian-coded umbrella.
It's not unique to PF2, but it exists in PF2.
As for the gods feeling like a pantheon, they really don't feel that way to me. They're too human. The Greek gods were human, but almost cartoonishly so. We think of them nowadays as basically caricatures, fey, violent and temperamental and demanding respect. There were no "good gods" and "evil gods". They were either beings to appease or lessons to heed.
But, like, Pathfinder gods just feel like people. I think it's partially because D&D as a subgenre kind of has this fixation with overthinking things ("how does this work? wouldn't x suggest y? why don't they just do z?"), and partially because of the Christianized "the god you worship has to be your One True God" implications. The former means that every god's motivations and mindset got nitpicked and clarified way too much, the latter means that you're kind of discouraged from having any attitude towards your god other than reverence as a cleric. This has gotten a little better (I love the Mwangi gods), but, like, there are no stories about Desna tearing up a woman's tapestry and driving her to suicide out of jealousy and only feeling guilty afterwards. She's Good! She would never do that! It would be a plothole! Ding!
Here's my specific PF2 complaint: I think they missed a great opportunity to deemphasize deities and alignment for clerics. Let the clerics simply pick their...
Check Desna and Ghlaunder for feeling guilty afterwards ;-)
And you can find several such examples about the Good deities (Sarenrae, Shelyn), which usually end up in threads on these boards explaining how these deities cannot really be Good.
Interestingly, I remember no such examples about Evil deities doing some Good act and feeling guilty about it.
And note that the core 20 are not a pantheon at all. They are just the top 20 entries in the list of most popular/common deities in the Inner Sea area.
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Now what makes it worse in PF2 is that everything is so tight, and instead of "Oh I worship this pantheon because X RP reason" its "I worship this pantheon because it gives me X, Y, and Z power." They took the pantheon feats and managed to make them even more shallow than they used to be.
PF1 players whose Cleric domain choice is "anything with Travel or can I reskin Tsukiyo?" would like to have a word with you.
Also, have you seen anything like that happening in PF2? I mean, in actual gameplay? Yes, it's the obligatory "hey Temperans, have you played PF2 yet" question :)
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Yeah, exactly. They don't really feel like they're supposed to be a pantheon. Which is fine! I just like pantheons. I loved how Greyhawk and Eberron really emphasized pantheons (Eberron moreso, but Greyhawk had a subtle connective tissue to it I still love).
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To me, the Pathfinder gods feel largely uncomplicated. Good gods have few flaws (aside from sometimes being too good) and evil gods have few redeeming qualities (about the only thing they can use to appeal to followers is power). It’s a problem with the alignment system and the supernatural embodiment of good and evil.
I would like to see some more neutral deities with complex ideologies. Abadar, Nethys, and Calistria are a start, but I think there is room for much more.
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Oh, here's a hot take. I think Asmodeus and Abadar are mutually redundant, and are mostly only different gods because Pathfinder is usually resistant to the whole "worship different aspects of gods" thing. Abadar and Asmodeus are extremely similar, and while that would work if they were counters to one another... they kind of aren't. Asmodeus is evil and Abadar is merely kind of awful. I don't find the contrast super compelling. Didn't Starfinder scrap Asmodeus and emphasize Abadar's amoral side more? I think that's the right call.
I'm not saying they're badly-written gods, to be clear! To me, though, they just feel like two sides of the same coin--and not in a cool Good vs. Evil way. Sure, Abadar's into civilization and cities... but so is Asmodeus, really, just less directly. When I think Asmodeus, I think Cheliax, the Biggest Baddest Empire in Golarion. I think tyrants and dictators who rule their cities with an iron grip.
And all that would work if Abadar offered a more meaningful contrast! Grandmother Spider is a really cool counter to Asmodeus, because while they're both tricksters, her contrasts are meaningful and interesting. But Abadar's biggest contrast to Asmodeus is a greater focus on capitalism. And, like... if I don't see capitalism as morally superior to, or thematically distinct from, vaguely-defined "tyranny", that doesn't carry a lot of impact for me.
To me, Abadar is store-brand Asmodeus. Or, if you prefer, Asmodeus is cartoon villain Abadar.
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I think the whole "PF1 character, I'm a lawyer who is literally the Devil's Advocate" Asmodeus worshippers sort of muddied the waters of how Asmodeus is supposed to be one of THE big bads in the setting.
Abadar is a banal kind of evil, Asmodeus is supposed to be your turbo fuel injected high octane evil, just the kind that's polite and passes itself off as reasonable, etc.
Like the two biggest villains in the Pathfinder cosmology are supposed to be:
1) Rovagug
2) Asmodeus
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The trilogy of Lawful A FTW : Abadar, Aroden, Asmodeus. Can you tell which is which ?
Oh, I think I know this one! One of them keeps taking things that don't belong to him and causing irreparable damage due to his meddling. Then he died.
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See, I never even saw Asmodeus as the villain of Golarion. He seems way too passive. I never quite got the point of him. But in fairness, I never got much into Chelaxian lore.
I'm being a little mean right now, and I don't like that. I think I got oversaturated with Cheliax content and it made me dislike Cheliax/Asmodeus more than is really fair.
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Like the two biggest villains in the Pathfinder cosmology are supposed to be:
1) Rovagug
2) Asmodeus
I know he's technically supposed to be dead, but I would argue that we can expand that list to include the Bound Prince. Rovagug represents a nigh unstoppable destructive force that wants to devour the universe in a tide of suffering and anguish, Asmodeus represents the death of individuality and free will, and the original daemon represents cosmic entropy breaking down the very cycle of life and death, the absolute destruction of souls. I mean, he has already been defeated and overthrown by his own followers, but that moon hanging hungry over the plains of Abaddon isn't watching itself.
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I feel like the Whispering Tyrant resonates more with me as a "setting villain" than Asmodeus or Rovagug, but maybe that's just because the PCs interact with him and his servants way more.
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I mean, the thing about PCs is that PCs generally face off against problems that they are able to solve. So that rarely involves the sort of "ruin the cosmos itself" sort of thing (rare exception: Xhamen-Dor). Factions like the Algollthu and the Whispering Way are more likely to cause damage on a massive scale than an actual deity, but they're also the sort of things that a party of adventurers could actually theoretically put a stop to.
We're not going to dethrone Asmodeus any time soon and Rovagug is still bound, but still causing problems. These are problems that won't go away. Unlike the sort of more personal atrocities that the likes of Norgorber, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon, and Lamashtu aim for, Asmodeus and Rovagug have very large scale plans that are extremely bad news for the entire universe. Unlike other evil entities like the Bound Prince and the Qlippoths (who absolutely mean maximal harm) Asmodeus and Rovagug are in position to do something about it. I mean, Rovagug is caged but still causes serious problems by straining at his confinement.
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Oh, that reminds me. You know something I'm starting to notice about D&D settings? How come the cosmologies and religions are always, like, really Evangelical Christian? Almost all the gods seem to proselytize, and most settings have the "if you're good, you go to heaven, if not, you get punished eternally" ruleset.That surprises you?No, I'm just thinking about how evangelical Christianity defines how we think about religion as a whole. It's a problem when you want to incorporate other religions' mythologies but put them all under a Christian-coded umbrella.
It's not unique to PF2, but it exists in PF2.
As for the gods feeling like a pantheon, they really don't feel that way to me. They're too human. The Greek gods were human, but almost cartoonishly so. We think of them nowadays as basically caricatures, fey, violent and temperamental and demanding respect. There were no "good gods" and "evil gods". They were either beings to appease or lessons to heed.
But, like, Pathfinder gods just feel like people. I think it's partially because D&D as a subgenre kind of has this fixation with overthinking things ("how does this work? wouldn't x suggest y? why don't they just do z?"), and partially because of the Christianized "the god you worship has to be your One True God" implications. The former means that every god's motivations and mindset got nitpicked and clarified way too much, the latter means that you're kind of discouraged from having any attitude towards your god other than reverence as a cleric. This has gotten a little better (I love the Mwangi gods), but, like, there are no stories about Desna tearing up a woman's tapestry and driving her to suicide out of jealousy and only feeling guilty afterwards. She's Good! She would never do that! It would be a plothole! Ding!
Here's my specific PF2 complaint: I think they missed a great opportunity to deemphasize deities and alignment for clerics. Let the clerics simply pick their...
D&D games have a pantheon based mythology with an afterlife, which a lot of religions have. Some of the major religions that would be difficult to mirror in the D&D world are any religions with reincarnation and becoming a spirit of the land.
I would say in addition to Christian mythology there is a lot of Egyptian and Greek in its design with little bits of many things, but with a lot more gods. But you can choose who you follow and where you go. If you follow Norgorber very well, you get to go to his realms. It's more like your soul tends to swear allegiance to a particular god who has particular teachings and expectations who gets to claim your soul for his realm after you die.
D&D has always been this mishmash of ideas taken from many, many sources and shoved into one game world to give people an enormous number of options. Their take on gods and religion is part of that.
To my knowledge doing evil things does not necessarily get you sent to a "bad" place in a D&D world. Usually you just pray to some evil god and have your soul claimed by an evil god or maybe one of the devils for service or work in some place with other like-minded people.
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I mean, the thing about PCs is that PCs generally face off against problems that they are able to solve. So that rarely involves the sort of "ruin the cosmos itself" sort of thing (rare exception: Xhamen-Dor). Factions like the Algollthu and the Whispering Way are more likely to cause damage on a massive scale than an actual deity, but they're also the sort of things that a party of adventurers could actually theoretically put a stop to.
We're not going to dethrone Asmodeus any time soon and Rovagug is still bound, but still causing problems. These are problems that won't go away. Unlike the sort of more personal atrocities that the likes of Norgorber, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon, and Lamashtu aim for, Asmodeus and Rovagug have very large scale plans that are extremely bad news for the entire universe. Unlike other evil entities like the Bound Prince and the Qlippoths (who absolutely mean maximal harm) Asmodeus and Rovagug are in position to do something about it. I mean, Rovagug is caged but still causes serious problems by straining at his confinement.
Just because we do not know what the Bound Prince is up to does not mean nothing is happening.
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Actually, I was reading about Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife recently and I was struck by how many elements are reflected in parts of the journey through the Boneyard. That said, I believe the original point was about how the gods are presented with regards to their worship among the living. Pathfinder 2e has introduced a limited glimpse into clerics being able to choose pantheons, but they're also very loose, except in cases when they're all specifically tied to a single ancestry, such as the dwarf god family.
As an aside, the Great Beyond actually does feature direct reincarnation as a possible afterlife, though it is implied to be less common. Also for that matter you can choose to become a spirit of nature, but that's largely associated with Gozreh worship. Technically if you consider fae as nature spirits, you can also become one of those by going to the First World after death but thats not really the same thing.
Addendum: the more development the cosmology of the setting gets, the more I'm pleased with the vast complexity of the multiverse and the diversity of mythological and religious themes and experiences that are represented there, but sometimes the fleshing out serves to highlight the contrast between that diversity and the inheritance from D&D where gods are almost akin to a series of miniature monotheisms. It is getting better, but it's also still deeply influenced by D&D's rather western assumptions about what a church/religion looks like.
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I don't really see Asmodeus and Abadar as all that comparable. Like, they're both interested in Order and Civilization but that's about it.
Asmodeus' whole thing is about oppression, domination, and subjugation. Abadar's core tenants are mostly about just working hard and preserving society as a broad concept. It's pretty tame stuff.
See, I never even saw Asmodeus as the villain of Golarion. He seems way too passive. I never quite got the point of him. But in fairness, I never got much into Chelaxian lore.
This is one reason I don't like how personified Golarion deities are.
There's this unfortunate combination of:A) Pathfinder deities are very humanlike with ambitions and goals, rather than existing more staticly within their role.
B) Pathfinder as a game made a conscious decision that PCs should not be meddling directly in the affairs of the divine. They're meant to be beyond the scope of mortals. As a corollary, Pathfinder gods are noninterventionist.
C) Pathfinder is first and foremost a game about a team of heroes solving problems, which means things beyond the scope of their actions aren't really a focus of the story.
Bring them all together and it creates this environment where the deities often tend to feel kind of passive at best or completely ineffectual at worst.
Asmodeus and Pharasma, imo, suffer the most from this. The gods that tend to just sit in their own wheelhouse existing end up feeling like they suffer the least as a result too.
... TBH one thing I'd really like to see is feats, archetypes, or even a class that plays more into the idea of pantheism. While I'm fine with Clerics having a patron deity, it feels... I dunno, obvious to me that the average person might make an offering to Desna and Gozreh before going on a trip... or say a prayer to Gorum before heading out into battle, or make a toast to Cayden when they're out bar hopping with friends, or any other such minor acts to dozens of gods depending on the circumstance.
I think it would be really neat to have that reflected in some mechanical space.
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With Abadar, he's not really capitalism - though that gets involved, obviously - but like... trade itself. Civic-mindedness. He hates excessive loans, and requires clerics to accept goods and services in lieu of cash. The main thing that Sucks about him is his treatment of slavery, but even then it's in a "old man could do better" way in that he opposes manumission but still doesn't want slavery to exist. It's easy to see a LE Abadaran villain, but it's really not something that he himself is party too; it's just the way of civic life, unfortunately. (Same reason I like that Axis has Norgorber living there - gotta have crime to have laws against.)
EDIT: *and* per the Absalom book at least, Abadar is pro-union.
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Same reason I like that Axis has Norgorber living there - gotta have crime to have laws against.
Source please.
Can't say I'm too surprised. There's likely no one in the universe more predictable an more easy to work around (or behind, or to remain hidden from) than the lawful, unchanging, almost robotic denizens of Axis.
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Honestly, I think I just don't like noninterventionist gods as a concept. Sometimes it kind of feels a lot like someone overthinking myths and legends--"But if the gods exist, why don't they solve everyone's problems?" Probably because they don't want to, or because it's unseemly, or because it would cause more trouble in the long run, or simply because that would make a very boring story. I liked how Olidammara just wandered around Greyhawk making mischief, getting trapped by archmages, etc. I like petty gods. If gods are noninterventionist, you know the first thing I wonder? "Why do I care about them?"
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Same reason I like that Axis has Norgorber living there - gotta have crime to have laws against.Source please.
Can't say I'm too surprised. There's likely no one in the universe more predictable an more easy to work around (or behind, or to remain hidden from) than the lawful, unchanging, almost robotic denizens of Axis.
People in Axis aren't "robotic". It's a vibrant city, with everything that comes with it. It's the most city a city can get. Duskfathom being in Axis is established in War for the Crown Book 5, Planar Adventures, and Gods & Magic. https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Duskfathom
Axis is a fascinating place. People do their jobs and things work, but also they do all the things people in cities do. They are certainly not "unchanging". They have local governance that cycles out through elections, even.
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I never stopped to think about this, but maybe the noninterventionism thing may in fact contribute with certain deities seeming ineffectual. I can kind of see it with Asmodeus and Pharasma, but I think that generally, it's worse when deities do try to intervene in some way (when they otherwise wouldn't).
I mean... C'mon friends, Iomedae? After finishing the WotR PC game and browsing around, people seem to really dislike her. Like... You know. Calling her useless, egostical, arrogant, and even framing her as downright malicious sometimes. And she was the only deity that was trying to do something more actively!
Meanwhile ms. look at the bright stars and dream nice that will totally dive right into the abyss to kick some demon's butt for personal justice/revenge, no matter the consquences, was floating around space looking at the pretty sun.
(Totally love Desna btw. Also really love Iomedae)
But more realistically, I dunno. If deities could just walk around freely, wouldn't the world eventually kapoof because of holy war and whatnot? How other settings justify this?
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Same reason I like that Axis has Norgorber living there - gotta have crime to have laws against.Source please.
Can't say I'm too surprised. There's likely no one in the universe more predictable an more easy to work around (or behind, or to remain hidden from) than the lawful, unchanging, almost robotic denizens of Axis.
Norgorber's divine realm is Duskfathom the undercity of Axis. Planar Adventures is the first source that comes to mind but it's probably in Great Beyond and other locations as well.
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Honestly, I think I just don't like noninterventionist gods as a concept.
I think Noninterventionist gods are just a knock-on effect of "having a lot of them" since if extremely powerful beings kept affecting the setting, the agency of player characters would go down, and since these beings are invariably going to have contradictory portfolios they would be constantly working to undo each other. So taken seriously this quickly devolves from a "game in which you can tell fun stories about heroic adventurers" to "absurdism simulator 2.0"
My preference for deities would be to have them be far more mysterious and hands off than the Pathfinder baseline. The fact that people can diagetically have reliable information about "what happens after they die" is a thing I have never liked (and part of why I do permadeath* in my homebrew). To wit, in order to inform the players about the various deities, their servitors, their realms, etc. we've created a world where the characters know things *far* above their pay scale as mortals.
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See, I don't think "extremely powerful beings affecting the setting" is that big an issue. Many mythologies have room for both meddlesome gods and great heroes. I think the problem with D&D is this idea that deities have to be especially powerful in a fight, as if "could beat you up" is what makes a deity worth worshiping. It's very much a holdover from the days when "low level -> mid-level -> high-level -> epic level -> godhood" was seen as the sort of trajectory PCs were supposed to take.
Many mythologies have gods that are not only vulnerable, but downright petty, and are still very much important, because they have a symbolic or spiritual significance that goes beyond combat ability. I dunno, I think we take for granted that gods need to have the highest CR in the game (or "they're too badass to even get a CR") in order to be compelling.