Other Gods of Osirion


Mummy's Mask


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I did a bit of a deep dive into Ancient Egypt for my Mummy's Mask game, and while I think the Old Gods provided by Empty Graves are a decent and versatile sampling, it doesn't really represent just how fricking many gods the Egyptians worshipped - even for the ancient world, it was a dizzying number and the Egyptians had no problem with different regions having their own theologies and embracing contradiction. There was really no ONE Egyptian religion, but rather hundreds of loosely affiliated beliefs that shared similar themes but could be very different. Osirion is also missing some of the Hellenistic influence that popular culture associates with Egypt - the Ptolemaic Kingdom left a last impression, and it is through Greek and Roman authors that we know so much.

So as a pet project, I went through as many gods as I could and statted them out as a supplement to Empty Graves. There's a bit of redundancy here - Amun, Atum and Aten were often syncretised with Ra, there are various lioness or cow goddesses that fill similar niches to Sekhmet or Hathor, and so on. But I thought it would be nice for those who want a few more authentic options, or slight twists on something more familiar. Sokar is not the same as Osiris, though the two were often syncretised, nor were Khnum and Ra, or Hathor and Mut. I've also included a few of the Hellenistic syncretic gods that emerged with the Greek colonisation and Roman conquest, with the excuse of trading links with distant Iblydos. Hopefully there's something for everyone in here. The justification (supported by wording in Empty Graves) is that the ones provided are the ones that still have prominent cults, while these are either extinct or almost extinct, but have just enough of a presence that with a suitable dedicated follower to rebuild the faith they could make a comeback.

As a sample of what can be found here:

* Amun, the Hidden One, whose breath rolls back in mercy and is patron of the traveller in darkness
* Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice Great, alternate aspect of Thoth and god of hidden knowledge and alchemists
* Isfet, Falsehood, the antithesis of Ma'at who embodies chaos and lies
* Khonsu, the Pathfinder, god of the waxing and waning moon who dismembers gods to nourish the glorious dead
* Mafdet, Slayer of Serpents, progenitor and patron of the Maftets of the desert
* Seshat, Mistress of the House of Books, daughter of Thoth and patron of libraries and scholars
* Taweret, She of the Pure Water, the hippo-headed protector of the household and women
* The Aten, the Sole God, heretical precursor to the Monad
* The Ogdoad, the eight gods of Hermopolis who presented a possibly older, rival cosmogony to the more familiar version of the Ennead

I've done a lot of research, and I've tried to be as respectful of the original gods and belief systems, avoiding some of the orientalist and exoticist tropes that TTRPGs tend to indulge in with ancient cultures. I've also credited sources of text quotes and artists as best I can, and included a selection of my own reading list. But I hope people like it!


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Great work. I may have to steal some of this for my games soon.


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Good to have some free alternative ancient Osirioni gods guide stuff out there for PF1e [mebbe even PF2e with enough adaptin'], Morhek. ;)


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I'm still not as familiar with the 2e mechanics as I'd like to be, but eventually I would love to work in 2e domains and edicts. Especially with Pantheons, since groupings and triumvirates were an important part of Egyptian worship (the Ennead / the Ogdoas / Osiris, Isis, Horus / Amun, Mut, Khonsu / Ptah, Bastet/Sekhmet, Maahes/Nefertum, etc.) But for the immediate future, this was a pet project for my own interest and for my own game, which is still 1e.


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Thank you for your work on this! :)

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Amazing stuff.


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A little belatedly, I'm back with an update!

Firstly, I've vastly expanded the number of gods since I first posted, and have included a number of Canaanite and Hellenistic gods. Egypt was a diverse place, and it would feel wrong to omit some of the more prominent foreign cults. I've included some justifications for their inclusion involving Ninshabur and Iblydos, but I'll be honest, I know they're a stretch and I'm fine with that. I originally used some art I found across the internet, with links to the artists' pages, but I've gotten permission from an artist who has also been working on the Egyptian pantheon to use his art and I'm thrilled with the quality of it and the authenticity it lends. I am now up to 70 different gods, and I can't promise I won't add more in time.

Secondly, I've done the previously suggested 2e conversion! Given Paizo's removal of alignment as a mechanical concept, I've also chosen to omit them here, leaning harder on the Edicts and Anathemas, though as a confession most of them are copied from canonical gods to save time. I hope to go through them, rephrasing them where appropriate or necessary, though it's also a consequence of redundancy - many of the gods included represent things already canonical to Paizo's setting, or mentioned elsewhere in the document, and are included for the sake of completion, not necessarily because they're filling a niche that was previously empty. There's only so many ways you can rephrase "uphold order" before you realise you're making work for yourself. I also intend to add some Pantheons, to represent some of the way the Egyptians grouped their gods - the Ennead of Heliopolis, the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, the Theban Triad, the trio of Isis, Osiris and Horus, etc - but that's work for another day.

I'm also working on documents for Norse, Greek, Mesapotamian and Celtic gods, though those will probably for a different thread, or I'll wait until they're all done and post them together.

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