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I'm wondering... would Rahadoum have a fair number of shaman, or almost none? They've rejected the idea of divine dominion, but....The Travel Guide says that all Divine casters are given the boot, including Witches, Oracles, and Summoners, so the answer depends on a Shaman's spell list. It also makes note of a group of Druids explicitly sworn to both the Laws of Mortality and to nature, so it seems like toeing the party line philosophically helps you a lot - and as the text notes, combating Rahadoum's encroaching desertification earns you a lot of goodwill.
I imagine the final bit of that is really what matters. If you hop off a boat in Azir and immediately start raving about how mortals should serve the spirits, the Pure Legion is probably going to rough you up... but if you're smart about what you say and provide a tangible benefit to the state, it's likely to go over much better.
Where things get messy is with ancestor spirits. I can see the Rahadoumi turning their nose up at it on principle, but it's significantly harder to argue their usual points against what is literally your own mortal kin. This could be fruitful territory for drama with any Garundi folk in the region who, like the nearby Yerbira, keep to their older traditions. Does the Pure Legion really care to tell these people not to take orders from dearly departed grandma?
Isn't dear departed grandma now a petitioner, maybe even a direct servant of a deity ?
And Nethys, Irori, Iomedae and other mortals turned deities do not get a free pass in Rahadoum.
Not to mention a proper Rahadoumi ancestor would not want anyone worshipping them.
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They also had 3 feats besides Sahir-Afiyun. 2 of them gave you temp HP when you took/ended it, the other one gave bonuses vs emotion and fear effects.
Also, considering that Pesh comes from a native cactus it is highly likely that it was a local who started farming it. Then a local decided to sell it. Whether it's now run by locals, the government, or foreigners is a different matter.
I have to wonder if the indigenous Badawi people first made use of pesh. I think there's compelling stuff there, if this traditional medicine or spiritual aid has been so warped by the forces of outside commerce.
Just a note that with MC Dedication feats widely available, a Shaman could be MC Cleric or Champion and vice versa.
So, communing with spirits and serving a deity are not fundamentally opposed.
Indeed. To continue the earlier dwarven tangent, one could just as easily feel like duty to Torag, to the clan ancestors, and to the spirits of stone are all in harmony with one another.
Rahadoumi antipathy extends towards all forms of divine magic too, even stuff that doesn't require a deific source.
The anathema even calls our "divine or religious" which suggests they realize that not every instance of the former is also an instance of the latter, but they still disdain it.
It's less clear why, since most of their rhetoric is specifically about deities, but they do.
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Rahadoumi antipathy extends towards all forms of divine magic too, even stuff that doesn't require a deific source.
The anathema even calls our "divine or religious" which suggests they realize that not every instance of the former is also an instance of the latter, but they still disdain it.
It's less clear why, since most of their rhetoric is specifically about deities, but they do.
How does Rahadoum feel about genie binding?
I have to wonder where the line is between getting a wish from a Marid and making a pact with a Couatl. I'd love to hear a Rahadoumi perspective on the celestial pacts underpinning Holomog, for instance - is that bargain a bridge too far?
EDIT: I'm so sad that 2e Couatl aren't celestials. I'm leaving it in.
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Rahadoumi antipathy extends towards all forms of divine magic too, even stuff that doesn't require a deific source.
The anathema even calls our "divine or religious" which suggests they realize that not every instance of the former is also an instance of the latter, but they still disdain it.
It's less clear why, since most of their rhetoric is specifically about deities, but they do.
I guess they see religion as the overt influence of deities but are also deeply suspicious of more covert deific approaches, including those where the mortal does not even realize they are serving divine will.
Norgorber was one of the 3 deities whose conflict pushed Rahadoumi away from divine worship after all.
Try to not draw too much inference from 1E mechanical sources. For example, “Primal” would be closer to Wellspring magic than 2e primal magic. And sometimes they put an archetype on a class that gave it another class narrative entirely, not simply a variation of the parent class, so it’s possible not all shaman archetypes are practitioners of shamanism.
As far as Rahadoumi, the world guide says that practices that resemble religions but don’t specifically worship deities are allowed but held in suspicion. As that seems in slight conflict with the travel guide, I’m curious which interpretation applies to shamanism. And mediums when it comes to that.
By the way, I’m really intrigued by a lot of the suggestions here, and am too curious what a transactional approach to spell slots could offer. The reserve feats of late 3.5 might offer inspiration as well. They might even work better in PF2 than they did in 3.5, thanks to the trait system.
So... the idea of having your powers come from transactional relationships with multiple spiritual entities is just cool in general. It allows for a lot more nuance than the standard "I serve you" or "you serve me" thing, or event he witch's "I have a single patron that I work for" schtick. Being able to trade spell slots for stuff seems like a great way to start modeling that.
As for how interested I personally am in playing that kind of character... well, I think that's a matter of degree, mostly. If it's something like the reserve feats, where you cash in a few slots here or there for repeated-use powers... that's not all that exciting. On the other hand, if there are viable builds that would let me cash in all or almost all of them for benefits that aren't just x-per-day powers, and have enough flexibility that there are still meaningful build decisions to make after having decided to do that? That becomes really *very* interesting.
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So... various interesting ways to play this...
- Inflexible feats: This is probably the simplest. It's feats that have a slot cost. Represent stable, consistent ongoing arrangements and understandings between you and one or more spiritual entities, where each knows what they're giving and getting, though the door is still open for occasional renegotiation (retraining).
- Semi-flexible feats: The cost structure is the same as the inflexible feats, but during your daily prep you have some control over what the benefit for that day is going to look like.
- Daily prep trades: Various spiritual entities have ongoing offers for you that you can choose to either take or not take on any given day, and possibly invest more or less in. Generally, these opportunities are going to be opened up by various feats or class features you might have.
--- Particular thought: one or more feats where the feat itself would cost spells known, but having the feat would give you alternate ways to invest those spell slots.
- Daily prep haggling: This is one where the trades are not quite so safe, and you don't know exactly what you're going to get going in. Basically like the daily prep version, but you roll a die (probably a simple check) and it has a meaningful effect on the benefit you gain, the price in slots, or both. You might also have spirit relationships where what they have on offer any given day varies somewhat randomly, but you get to see what the offer is before you decide to invest in it.
- Alternate Payment: You might have some spirits who are interested in things beyond spell slots... so you invest that spell slot up front to gain some daily benefit, but if you can arrange to make them happy in some other way, you can get the spell slot back. Does interesting things to the caster daily flexibility/power curve. Balancing this one might be a bit tricky, though.
/********/
Also, I admit it, if this thing comes out anything even a little bit like what I'm currently hoping for, I will absolutely try to build a summoner who habitually trades in all four of their spell slots for other stuff and just runs off of eidolon, focus powers, and cantrips. Depending on what's on offer, I may try to build more than one.
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How okay would folks be with a new Shaman absorbing the Medium’s schtick, the way Spiritualists were folded into the 2e Shaman? “I commune with and host ephemeral beings” seems like the thematic foundation of both.
How okay would folks be with a new Shaman absorbing the Medium’s schtick, the way Spiritualists were folded into the 2e Shaman? “I commune with and host ephemeral beings” seems like the thematic foundation of both.
Spiritualists were folded into the summoner because narratively and mechanically they were fairly close in implementation. Quite a few differences when you get down to the details, but close enough that they were covering extremely similar ground.
The Medium is the champion to the shaman's cleric, and a narrower version of that scope.
Edit: now, if you mean the playtest medium, that I could certainly see absorbed into the shaman. Though I'd prefer that to be the basis of a new Harrower class.
How okay would folks be with a new Shaman absorbing the Medium’s schtick, the way Spiritualists were folded into the 2e Shaman? “I commune with and host ephemeral beings” seems like the thematic foundation of both.
I was really bummed with the spiritualist folding into the Summoner. It makes sense from a design perspective, but for me the biggest draws for the Spiritualist were fighting alongside your companion, the subtle necromantic themes of the class, and the flexibility of your spirit shifting between modes and providing different benefits (other than just being a permanent animal companion). Which are all things the 2e Summoner just doesn't do that well. But I also acknowledge the transition makes a lot of sense and Spiritualists weren't a super popular class.
So for me, that fusion depends a lot on how much the Shaman leans into the medium's ideas. I'll be kind of bummed if, say, the closest thing we get to the Champion Medium ends up looking like the Warpriest.
But the notion of communing with spirits and investing resources in that spirit, diminishing one capacity in favor of other powers, is a really intriguing way to expand into both sets of design spaces so I kind of dig the idea right now.
How okay would folks be with a new Shaman absorbing the Medium’s schtick, the way Spiritualists were folded into the 2e Shaman? “I commune with and host ephemeral beings” seems like the thematic foundation of both.definitely feel like that should be a subclass/feat chain/class archetype instead of a core part of the class. Possession is definitely one way to deal with spirits, but I feel like many if not most shamans wouldn't partake in that.
Is it that uncommon? I’m admittedly nowhere near well-read on the subject, but inviting the spirits to speak through you seems like a pretty significant shared touchstone.
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Communing with spirits is common. The act of inviting one into the practitioner's body is a bit more of a mixed bag.
Is it that uncommon? I’m admittedly nowhere near well-read on the subject, but inviting the spirits to speak through you seems like a pretty significant shared touchstone.
Mediums were closer to being Synthecist summoners than anything. I could see THOSE rolled into the same class. Possibly even the shifter depending on how it is implemented.
Is it that uncommon? I’m admittedly nowhere near well-read on the subject, but inviting the spirits to speak through you seems like a pretty significant shared touchstone.Mediums were closer to being Synthecist summoners than anything. I could see THOSE rolled into the same class. Possibly even the shifter depending on how it is implemented.
I want the Synthesist so terribly. Opens up a small mountain of character concepts, and turns the Summoner from a class I really dislike to one I’d thoroughly enjoy.
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Not sure about the synthesist.
They anticipated it would have been an archetype, but we all know it's impossible for an archetype to require only an eidolon to work with.
I have the feel it would somehow be extended to companions in addition to eidolons, allowing any class to benefit from it.
I also expect a feat meant to also merge with your familiar ( not for combat purposes).
I believe the specific idea advanced by the devs when the class released was that Synthesist would be a Class Archetype solely for the Summoner, something we already have precedent for in the (tragically underwhelming) Spellshot Gunslinger.
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I can imagine 2 kind of shaman activities : communing with the spiritual world in general (including projecting yourself there / entering it) and communing with specific spirits (including inviting them in your body).
Those could be 2 subclasses for the Shaman. Or maybe 2 sets of feats.
And yes, I see the Shaman as a full caster.
I can imagine 2 kind of shaman activities : communing with the spiritual world in general (including projecting yourself there / entering it) and communing with specific spirits (including inviting them in your body).
Those could be 2 subclasses for the Shaman. Or maybe 2 sets of feats.
And yes, I see the Shaman as a full caster.
Is there a “spirit world” in Pathfinder? Spirit Guides, Kami, and Hantu all seem to be from the Material Plane.
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What I'd like to see from a Shaman:
- Wisdom based spellcasting, full slots, spontaneous casting.
- Primary subclass determines the flavour of your spirit communion and your spell list - animal/wild spirits for Primal, Ancestor spirits/ghosts for Occult, and outsiders? for Divine.
- A selection of spirits that serve as a toolbox that Shamans commune with depending on situation. Each spirit comes with particular focus spells and adds specific spells to their repertoire while attuned.
- Communion takes 10 minutes, meaning that Shamans have exceptional strategic flexibility, and limited tactical flexibility.
- Shamans start with three choices of spirit and add more at higher levels/can unlock them with feats.
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There are several worlds home to a variety of spirits, including the Material. I think most applicable for out purposes here are the 'vitae' aka nature spirits made of pure life energy, who I think dwell on the Material. Ancestor spirits could be in a number of locations, most immediately the Ethereal, aka Ghost World, or several locations in thr Astral plane, including that structure which appears to be made of several enormous feathers, albeit Lost Omens cosmology seems to posit that the only safe place for the deceased is in Pharasma's Boneyard. Worth noting that ancestor spirits are fully capable of lingering in the Boneyard for hundreds of years pre-Judgement.
Meanwhile, fey are often thought of as a kind of spirit, so that being the case certainly the First World counts in a manner of thinking, albeit many of the creatures there probably don't. On the other hand, undead spirits like actual ghosts and shades probably hang out in any of the Material, Ethereal, or Shadow planes.
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So, my thoughts (and remember my preference is towards literary, trope heavy Shamans, not actual historical or current practices):
-I'd prefer Primal, spontaneous caster. Shamanism is usually linked to rural or nomadic cultures, with the necessary interdependence with nature that implies. Note, not "reverence", but interdependence. But if Divine is needed for flavor or balance reasons, I'd like for them to be able to dip into primarily into primal for their off-list spells.
-The flavor of the class would be tied to spirits teaching shamans their spells. Not a single patron like witches, but multiple minor spirits that the shaman entreated with over time. Roleplay opportunity for seeking out uncommon spirits for uncommon spells.
-Additionally, daily you'd prepare your allotment of cantrips by bargaining with particular spirits during your preparations. Probably also be able to get access to other spells, though I'm not certain if my suggestion for picking signature spells is the way to go, or if this could be the first class that natively uses flexible spellcasting. I admit, that last seems like an intriguing way to express that transactional flavor that Michael described. Since you chose spells and their levels each day, it would provide an easy path towards simply not preparing all of your slots in order to gain bonuses.
That it would carry notes of the 3.5 Spirit Shaman class is a bonus, but not really necessary.
-As far as what powers would be available, there's a couple options.
--You pick a "spirit guide" at 1st level that favors a certain suite of abilities. The exact power of those abilities depends on the level of the slot you sacrifice. The guide would like also give you a skill based focus cantrip (something like Inspire Heroics as a cantrip) as a baseline ability.
--Free for all: you just pick up whatever ones appeal to you, paying the cost in known spells.
---My initial thought would be these abilities would be a mix of focus powers and focus cantrips, but other possibilities like bonus proficiencies and skill feats might work as well.
-If the spirit guide option is chosen, this would be the easiest way to add off-list spells into a shaman's spells known.
But all that is mechanics. The class fantasy would be, as I said, a member of a nomadic or rural culture, with each individual shaman finding their own preferred way to navigate their relationships with spirits rather than a more formal set of anathema or edicts. This would also be reflected by their choice of skill cantrip.
There are shamans that use whistles or dances to control their power, make a deep study of Survivalism, Naturalism, or Medicine, or use honeyed lies, an intimidating personality, or a more diplomatic approach to spirit interactions. This could be their "subclass" if the spirit guide doesn't work for whatever reason (though much less than most subclasses get, so more of a methodology or druid order than, say, a deity or bloodline). This would also be a good spot to introduce actual shamanistic practices. Could be as little as a single line of flavor in each skill ("favored by rural practitioners in Old Raztlan, these shaman recite semi-historical narratives, as well as local legends of people that may well have never existed, to call up the power of hero-saints of ages past." for Society, for example)
Have to go to a party, but I'll expand on this thought tomorrow.
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Oh they absolutely would be. "Usually linked to rural or nomadic cultures" doesn't preclude other options. In fact the Society skill option I imagined as primarily urban.
And, in fact, "nomadic" does not preclude urban settings. How many people move from apartment to apartment, neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city? Even on Golarian.
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I like this. But then Shadowrun spoiled me on shamans even before Werewolf added to it.
Shadowrun and Werewolf are two franchises pretty infamous for going hog-wild on Native American appropriation and weird racist nonsense. I'd prefer if neither were anywhere near a 2e Shaman's designer's thoughts.
Not to say there aren't parts of both I like, but... they're about as far from Paizo's representation-forward mindset as tabletop games can get.
I think many roles of the Shaman (as expressed by most previous comments) could be performed by current classes, and such a breadth of them that it'd be impossible to contain all those abilities into one class, i.e. having a Shaman King viable sidekick alongside full casting.
I'd like the Shaman class to lean into the areas where it differs (which some comments did address) or which are so iconic that Shamans should have primacy in them (i.e. Divinations).
In that vein, here's what I'd need:
-Wis-based full casting
-Access to a broad range of Divination spells, more than any list can do
-Altered states (outside combat at least, as beginning while inside combat seems a bit odd)
-Roots in ancestry worship and animism, also perhaps in broader concepts of nature and the universe
And here's what I'd like:
-Nature as its magic tradition, though with the ability to poach iconic abilities (much like the Witch does, and Clerics to fit their Domains)
-Spontaneous casting, much of this because I can grok a Shaman being to a Druid like an Oracle is to a Cleric. I would not give up being Wis-based for this though; I'm unsure how attached Paizo/the meta is to Spontaneous casters being Cha-based.
-Int as secondary stat (much like Cha is to Clerics). As well as to be different, also because Shaman served as lorekeepers.
-Ability to pick up a Lore (maybe other skills too) w/ daily prep.
-Strong abjurations, broader than the Nature list contains
-Fierce options, since not all Shaman were nice folk with crinkly smiles
-Non-combat companions, mostly because I think the cost of having viable combat companions might cost too much, though Druid managed somewhat so I'm swayable.
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Is there a “spirit world” in Pathfinder? Spirit Guides, Kami, and Hantu all seem to be from the Material Plane.
Maybe? This was actually one of the reasons I wanted Juju and the Wendo to make a return in some form to Pathfinder (obviously with a big facelift and appropriate writers). It seemed like it actually suggested something of a "spirit world" in a more conventional sense. From Serpent's Skull:
Central is the belief that the spirit world, hana juju, exists in parallel to the Material Plane, encompassing all that we see. It is in the interests of all to commune with hana juju, and this communion is conducted through the wendo, a vast pantheon of spirit beings who seek congress with the Material Plane. ... Though largely unseen, the spirit world of hana juju is tangible to the peoples of the Mwangi Expanse. Spirit ceremonies and rituals are part of everyday life.
Maybe this is just another way of referring to the Ethereal Plane? In either case, it'd be nice if 2e did a little remodeling for that one, as well. Nothing major, but its status as a transitive plane makes it a bit more flexible, seeing how it overlaps and seems to exist parallel to the Material plane. It'd be cool if the Ethereal Plane's very categorization as a "plane" could be blurred a little, to grant it a stronger connection to the material world and nature itself. Fun as Pathfinder's gods and divine realms are, I don't like how theistic religions kind of dominate the narrative, with everything else feeling like it exists subserviently to a pantheon of gods' cosmic design. It'd be nice if the world were presented in such a way to make a stronger case for religions like Shamanism, the Green Faith, God Callers, Shoanti Animism, etc. Have them exist not as "other philosophies that exist under this world of gods," but as valid truths exposing different facets of cosmos's inner workings, as powerful and true in their own way as anything of divine origin.
Between their words and her thoughts, Jiri didn't notice Sera until the paladin sat beside her, close on the small bench.
"You call yourself a shaman."
It was a statement, not an accusation, but still Jiri shifted warily to face the woman beside her.
"In the common tongue, it's the word that fits best. I speak to the spirits, in the air and the earth and all the parts of the world."
"Do you not follow any god, then?"
Was the woman proselytizing? "Gods are powerful spirits. I give them great respect."
Having the ontological nature of Golarion be a little more mysterious would, I think, be a good thing, that would open up the world up to more kinds of stories, like Firesoul, which was a book I very much enjoyed. Would also make Rahadoum's place in the world all the more interesting, and even some of the other deities, like Urgathoa or Gozreh – one who's very existence is a challenge to the gods' own cosmic design, and the other who seemingly exists as a manifestation of the natural world itself ("A timeless entity birthed from the first wind to stir the vast oceans...").
The pieces are all already there, I think, and it seems like there's already been some shifts in this direction. Maybe it was even intended to be like this all along, and the gods' rule being the ultimate authority in Golarion's cosmos is more a misconception than anything else. I'd just love to see them go all the way with elevating nontheistic philosophies to a place of validity and importance, especially with a Shaman class.
“Jatembe, this is not your river,” the spider whispered. “Your lot is to spiral down the silver flow and disappear.”
But even in the days after sky joined earth, Jatembe was already old and wise. He deduced the secret of souls. “But the river flows from me, and I flow in the river. How can I intrude on what I make, and on what has made me?”
The spider was surprised. She cocked her head, listening to someone secret, and nodded. “The Lady agrees. Seek your Understanding on her river.” When Jatembe looked down, his chest was no longer a wellspring, and he was already riding Bunta among the silver currents.
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snip
I don’t know that I have anything of value to add, but thank you for such a wonderful post! I’ve definitely been puzzling over that Jatembe story since Legends dropped, and would love to see some more mortal-first perspectives, even as someone who likes gods and characters of profound faith in them a ton.
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I forgot some things:
-I don't want a martial aspect to the Shaman, at least not in the weapon-wielding sense. Of course there should be shaman-like abilities which boost martials via Archetypes). While some of the reason is thematic (shamans in armor?), most of the reason is such ability/flexibility would prove costly to its budget.
-Ordeals seem fitting, coming from several real world traditions. Perhaps as a way to improve one's odds w/ Rituals, or as a type of Ritual. Not sure how to mechanically balance them doing much else.
-I'd like a way for Shamans to work together well, which might be as simple as having the intrinsic right builds to do Rituals together to having "cash out a spell slot" abilities to amplify their ally's casting, like by adding Metamagic. IMO they have an inherent "help our people as a whole" vibe (even the evil ones when it comes to their own allies).
-Spiritual journeys. Really unsure how to implement in an RPG mechanically (easy enough narratively). Visionquests (et al) seem like priorities, whether it's engaging in them or assigning them. This would include access to non-Primal spells for otherworldly travel. I suppose ordeals & such journeys could fall under an umbrella term.
Really wondering how well "buying abilities by burning spell slots" will balance (or could balance, since it's in the speculative phase). Seems a hard call since the ability kind of has to match the value of the spell, yet since it's also more utility, there's a price to be paid somewhere. One thing I'd like to see there is some form of precasting, perhaps to alter a spell into a Reaction (and yes, likely at a steep cost, and perhaps only Abjurations, Heal, and similar spells).
Oh, and Shaman King seems like one of the worst sources for mechanical inspiration! That crew has dual-classes, if not more.
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Since it hasn’t been said out loud yet in this thread - I’d certainly welcome a little 3.5 Binder inspiration in a Shaman class. The Legendary Spirits of the PF1 Medium seem like a lot of fun, but were tragically before my time, and came late in that edition.
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I dearly want a further exploration of what’s up with the Amurrun faith. 1e gestured a little at a catfolk origin myth where the “spirits of creation” tasked them with hunting evil beings (demons specifically get called out), and there was even a Shaman archetype tied to Amurrun that manipulated luck!
It seems our feline friends are one of the most spirit-heavy peoples of the Inner Sea.
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Since it hasn’t been said out loud yet in this thread - I’d certainly welcome a little 3.5 Binder inspiration in a Shaman class. The Legendary Spirits of the PF1 Medium seem like a lot of fun, but were tragically before my time, and came late in that edition.
Oh, yes, I'd love to see a Binder in PF2, though I don't think it'd belong on a full caster chassis, at least not if the "bindings" (whatever they were called, doh!) were to be as powerful & role-defining. That might need to be an actual Medium (or Binder?) class.
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I think you might be misunderstanding something. The universe of the Golarion setting is not a "world of the gods" any more than it is a "world of spirits" or a "world of mortals" or whatever someone might think off. Most of the gods are off in their corner of the universe doing their own things just as much as the mortal are in theirs doing the same thing. If you are calling the various elemental, alignment, and other miscellaneous planes "divine realms" you are using the wrong term.
The various planes are not "divine realms". Divine realms are effectively demiplanes and sections of other planes that specific gods either created or took for themselves. They are hardly relevant to most people or purposes.
As for the "theistic religions dominate the narrative", you literally listed a bunch of religions that are not "theistic" all of which have a decently large part of the game. Which btw God Callers are theistic they just worship eidolons...
I mean, the gods canonically created the material plane, and the overwhelming majority of souls that die go to their realms (or planes, if you prefer), and they are infinitely more powerful than anything that the non-theistic faiths worship. That's like saying that a large company is not the world of the CEO. Sure, the majority of people aren't ever going to interact with the CEO, and there are (hopefully) rules limiting what exactly the CEO can do, but the CEO is still more or less going to be the one who is the final decision maker and generally one of the most if not the most important people in the company.
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Yeah no, that isn't how the major planes work. The gods aren't CEOs most aren't even managers, the closest thing to those ranks are: Pharasma which has to make sure the boneyard run smoothly and no one is skirting death (pesky liches) and Asmodeus who has a lose grasp over hell.
Only those two are really the "final decision makers" of their major plane, and they are that because of their...
The non-theistic religions don’t take part in the cycle of souls (or at least on any significant scale) and don’t have a ton of power (at least in comparison to the gods). The gods created the universe, it is “their world” both literally and figuratively.
On a macro level, that pretty objectively makes them more important. We have a few examples of non-theistic religions being more important on a micro/personal level, which is nice, but it’d be really cool to see a non-theistic religion gain importance on the same scale as a theistic one. The closest we have now I think is the Green Faith, which is still pretty limited in scope.
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It is my understanding that the age of creation is a largely unknown time, where all we have of what happened there are mostly stories told by specific in world entities with agendas and goals.
Not factual "This is how creation happened." Like the dwarves believe that Torag forged the world. Not that he actually did. Golarion is a world where things like destiny and ancient history live as myth, not as inescapable, immutable reality.
There are a lot of in-world myths of creation of course, but we know for a fact that the gods created the material plane, as that’s non-narrative description. Which gods did it is unknown, but largely irrelevant.
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I dearly want a further exploration of what’s up with the Amurrun faith. 1e gestured a little at a catfolk origin myth where the “spirits of creation” tasked them with hunting evil beings (demons specifically get called out), and there was even a Shaman archetype tied to Amurrun that manipulated luck!
It seems our feline friends are one of the most spirit-heavy peoples of the Inner Sea.
Given how Catfolk call gods as being just powerful spirits, is it possible that their spirits of creation is synonymous with "gods of creation"? Meaning, that they might be talking about when the material plane was still young. It would also mean the evil beings could be something specific, or just a general "go fight evil".
Now I am really curious as to how their creation myth would compare with things like the dwarf who were forged by Torag.
The Rivethun believe Torag isn’t a god, but rather the most powerful and important spirit to dwarves, which suggests that some cultures simply see the gods as “just” major spirits. If the Amurrun believed they were made by the gods, wouldn’t they say so, rather than consistently leaning on ‘the spirits of creation?’
I’m reminded of the Athar from old Planescape, who looked at a cosmos full of planar beings and said “the gods are just especially big outsiders, why should I serve them?”
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I think you might be misunderstanding something. The universe of the Golarion setting is not a "world of the gods" any more than it is a "world of spirits" or a "world of mortals" or whatever someone might think off. Most of the gods are off in their corner of the universe doing their own things just as much as the mortal are in theirs doing the same thing. If you are calling the various elemental, alignment, and other miscellaneous planes "divine realms" you are using the wrong term.
The various planes are not "divine realms". Divine realms are effectively demiplanes and sections of other planes that specific gods either created or took for themselves. They are hardly relevant to most people or purposes.
As for the "theistic religions dominate the narrative", you literally listed a bunch of religions that are not "theistic" all of which have a decently large part of the game. Which btw God Callers are theistic they just worship eidolons...
I'm aware that there's a distinction between "divine realms" and the planes, and in retrospect my post does appear to have used those two things a little interchangeably, which was clumsy on my part. The planes are distinct from the machinations of the gods, but they are also distinct from the Material Plane – an utterly different reality – which makes things tricky sometimes when trying to adapt nontheistic philosophies which would otherwise benefit greatly from these planes, like the Ethereal Plane or Dimension of Dreams. Pathfinder's cosmology is, based on the way I've read it, a fairly tight narrative, which makes it great for running planar adventures. At the same time, it's restrictive in other ways. Take this section from Planar Adventures, emphasis mine:
"While the forces that guide the multiverse are nearly impossible to resist, the path of every soul is not necessarily the same. Many belief systems inaccurately represent the experience of the deceased, but countless mortals cleave to these philosophies nonetheless. Some mortals believe their souls aren't free until they receive a proper burial. Some cultures say the soul has different parts with distinct postmortem functions. Some believe they personally have a purpose to fulfill before they pass on. Still other don't believe in souls at all, expecting dissolution after death.
For most, these beliefs are peripheral to their greater being and don't affect their souls' greater journey. Yet for some, these beliefs are strong enough to temporarily divert their travels upon the River of Souls. Fixated on some aspect of life, such souls become temporarily stuck near the Material Plane. Some are vaguely conscious of certain details in the world, usually their bodies or individuals of particular importance, and linger near them upon the Ethereal Plane. Others follow paths outlined by their philosophies to eventual reincarnation. Still others loiter in wait for something to draw them back to life. But time weighs upon all souls. As passions and ties to the Material World dull, most of these souls eventually slip away to join the River of Souls."
The way this passage is packaged, different philosophical takes on death and spiritual existence seem like, at best, aberrant methods of conforming to Pharasma's divine order, and at worst, artificial products of passion and fervent belief that are real only insofar as their practicioner believes them to be real, and whithers the more that soul becomes detached from their former life in the Material Plane. Sangpotshi is a philosophy that "is separate from the faiths of the gods and the facets of multiversal morality," yet still must account for and reconcile with Pharasma's cosmological order in the section describing it in Gods & Magic.
This clearly isn't intended to be the complete picture, as there are aspects of Golarion's cosmological world that exist outside of Pharasma's divine order, like the Monad or Manasaputras. People don't have to be loyal to good-aligned divinities to be good in Golarion, reincarnation is a legitimized expression of the cycle of souls, and the very way Pharasma created the worlds is depicted in such a fashion that they nearly formed themselves, granting the cosmos natural agency in a fashion that was apparently antithetical to the way the previous reality she belonged to worked (Concordance of Rivals). There is clearly no (explicit) supreme divine order. But the way the Material Plane is sort of treated, best as I can understand it, as this vassal state of reality, a temporary processing location to divvy out souls between distinct planar interests, which kind of undermines narratives that see the natural world itself as the locus of cosmic order.
I'm not saying I want anything retconned about Pathfinder's cosmology. Just repackage it maybe. Example. Make this: "Yet for some, these beliefs are strong enough to temporarily divert their travels upon the River of Souls. Fixated on some aspect of life, such souls become temporarily stuck near the Material Plane. But time weighs upon all souls. As passions and ties to the Material World dull, most of these souls eventually slip away to join the River of Souls."
Into this: "Yet for many, their bonds within the Material Plane are strong enough to chart a different course through the River of Souls, the silver stream delivering them back to the Material Plane, to the place where they belong. In time, some of these souls seek out a final resting place in Pharasma's court."
Something like that. Something that treats the Material Plane (the Inner Sphere itself, really) as a distinct, independent order unto itself, and a final destination for many souls, like any aligned plane beyond. Again, it kind of arguably functionally works that way already, but it would be nice to present it as such, in a more obvious fashion.
As for Sarkorian God Callers – that's kind of tangential so I'm going to try to be brief here – I'm not sure God Callers are necessarily theistic? At least in the same way theism is usually practiced. Like, I got the impression most Sarkorian "gods" are categorized as such only in the capacity that Shinto kami are sometimes represented as "gods" by outsiders, while the term itself is a bit of a misnomer that misrepresent the fundamental nature of many of them. In the sample summoner we got in Secrets of Magic – "Your eidolon is a god born of the land's life force" – I doubt the intent here was that the player would literally summon a god to fight for them. Indeed, in the Player's Companion "Faiths and Philosophies, Sarkorian God Calling religion was actually described in the "Fallen & False Deities" section, written thusly:
With such a wide range of creatures classifying as gods, what then counts as a false god? Though the term may be thrown around loosely by members of various faiths to disparage those who disagree with them, a false god is any worshiped creature or patron that doesn’t actually have the ability to grant divine magic to its flock. For instance, the god callers of Sarkoris worship their summoned eidolons, yet these gods could be called false.
The issue is complicated by the fact that there are, literally, Sarkorian gods in the conventional sense described in Gods & Magic. Yet this same book, when referring to these creatures in a broad sense, described them as "unusual and unique beings...typically referred to as gods by those who revere them." There doesn't seem to be an explicit answer to the question: "are the "gods" of Sarkorian God Calling technically gods the way Pathfinder traditionally categorizes them?" The compromise I've personally been using is that the term "god" itself is more of a misnomer in translation, representing a complex issue in Sarkorian faith. Some Sarkorian eidolons are indeed gods in the conventional sense, but not all. PC God Callers don't literally summon gods to fight for them.