It would be very funny if Big A kicks it and the remaining rulers of Hell just decide to peacefully share power.
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I really do think Asmodeus has a target on his back, and I'm increasingly not sure Hell needs a deity representing it in the core pantheon.
Norgorber can inherit a lot of the tyrant role, Abadar handles the legalism, there's no shortage of other powers to make a terrible pact with (Nidal, famously has a contract with Zon-Kuthon), and we then get a slot on the pantheon. Would folks be okay with it being someone other than a fiend getting that promotion?
Ydersius makes good sense if the Sekmin are rising as a threat, and is my favorite of the options out there so far.
There's a difference between "God who offered a single pact to an entire nation way back when" and "God who is prepared to offer you a pact right now. Also, part of the point of Asmodeus's deals is that they're not necessarily terrible. Like, they can be. You can totally ruin your life by making the wrong deal with Asmodeus... but there are also diabolists out there with Asmodeus pacts (in Cheliax in particular) who are doing reasonably well by it. It's not safe, but there are people who decide to go through with it for entirely valid reasons that don't make them crazy or stupid or deluded or whatever. An Asmodeus contract can be tempting even if you're fully informed. That's part of the point.
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I really do think Asmodeus has a target on his back, and I'm increasingly not sure Hell needs a deity representing it in the core pantheon.
And what of Cheliax?
Losing Asmodeus and not replacing him in the core pantheon functionally leaves Cheliax without a patron deity. The last time that happened, the nation was thrown into a decades-long civil war which gave rise to House Thrune, and we've only recently had another in the form of the Glorious Reclamation and the secession of Ravounel.
Unless the plan is to effectively cripple House Thrune and set the stage for someone to roll in and topple the entire regime, Cheliax needs Hell's backing, and fracturing the state worship of Asmodeus into worship of the 12+ other archdevils, general Diabolism, or turning them into a secular power isn't going to provide much of a unifying force when the Glorious Reclamation: Part Deux marches in backed by Iomedae, arguably the "rightful" patron goddess of Cheliax.
It would be really weird if Hell didn't have a representative amongst the core pantheon. It would be the only major plane to lack one. Even if Asmodeus buys it, I would assume someone/something would take his place.
Mephistopheles was both the antagonist in Faust, and the original denizen of Hell in the Golarion cosmology. If we view "the layers" as representative of the hierarchy then Asmodeus is on the 9th and Mephistopheles has the 8th.
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What if Abrogail figures out a way to snag divinity? Plenty of ways for mortals to become gods and maybe she's more clever than has been given credit.
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What if Abrogail figures out a way to snag divinity? Plenty of ways for mortals to become gods and maybe she's more clever than has been given credit.
Wouldn't be against that...
What better way to hammer home the "Cheliax doesn't serve Hell, Hell serves Cheliax" thing than for Queen Abrogail to somehow replace Asmodeus at the top of Hell's hierarchy and announce the addition of "a new province" to the Chelaxian Empire. Also goes a long way to make up for all the territory they've lost of late.
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Well, certainly not with that attitude.
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That reads like bad story telling.
A very powerful lich with who knows how much time spent planning to kill Aroden (a human god) failed. But Queen Abrogail who at most has live 70 years is going to kill the literal king of hell?
You do not just kill a god. Much less one of the rulers of an entire major plane with mortal hands. Heck even the good elemental lords were mearly captured and you want some random queen to do better?
Never said she had to be the one to kill Asmodeus - that can be the work of another god or something else of similar scope.
Just entertaining the idea that, if he were to somehow die, perhaps Abrogail has worked herself into a contractual position to "inherit" rulership of Hell from him. From there it would just be a matter of holding it, and that certainly doesn't have to be a sure thing. I'm all for Hell being divided between multiple factions in some state of war (be it hot or cold) with one another.
Let her acquire godhood in some fashion ("inherited" from Asmodeus as well, a trip to the Starstone, etc.) and just enough alliances with other archdevils to nominally hold on to control while she works to entrench herself and begin converting the faithful of Asmodeus over to herself to build up her divine powerbase, and that's really all that's necessary.
Cheliax gets to keep its status as the "Hell nation" and has a newly-ascended god-queen to unify under, while Hell itself has much more room for internecine conflict under a new and untested ruler.
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Removed a baiting post
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Literally any of the archdevils have a higher chance of getting that throne if Asmodeus falls. Heck even hell itself has a higher chance of getting that throne rather than Abrogail II. Cheliax is important to Golarion, it is not that important to hell or Asmodeus.
Again, not talking about Abrogail somehow coming out on top in an infernal war of succession.
I'm looking at it more as a scenario where the contract between House Thrune and Asmodeus included a provision where rulership of Hell would be turned over to the head of House Thrune in the event of Asmodeus' death, and Asmodeus, timelessly immortal and with zero reason to even remotely expect the possibility of House Thrune somehow outlasting him, agreed to it and used it as leverage for better terms elsewhere in the contract.
Then, Asmodeus unexpectedly bites it in the upcoming god-war due to the actions of Sarenrae/Iomedae/whomever, and Abrogail's claim to the infernal throne suddenly becomes tangible. The archdevils split over whether to treat her as an illegitimate usurper to be ousted or trying to use her as a puppet ruler while they serve as the powers behind the throne, and meanwhile Abby has to play them off one another to secure her position while she works to build up the strength to operate at a divine/planar level.
It's a hypothetical, sure, but it seems like a turn of events that keeps Cheliax somewhat stable while also significantly shaking things up for Hell in potentially interesting ways, at least to me - more so than just killing Asmodeus and passing the throne of Hell to Mephistopheles because he's next in line would.
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I'm much less concerned about what God is going to die. It may be shellfish, but I'm much more concerned about which PC will die next. I've been a good goblin. I sware on all my pointy teeth. I really hope it's not me. Please don't make it me. I still have adventuring to do, and trash to find and sell...
With alignment gone, I actually would like to see devils get their day in Golarion not tied to Cheliax. Like a mega plot that included a little Cheliax/Hellknights post LAW vs CHAOS would be ok But I want to see more of the devil-kobold connection and something more global than all devil stories are set in Cheliax. I don’t really have feeling one way or another about the A-mang living or dying, but I could see the forces of Heaven and Hell having to team up to stop a protean Armageddon, leading to someone getting betrayed and killed.
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Anyone read Tamora Pierce’s ‘Circle of Magic’ book series with Sandry, Daja, Tris, and Briar?
Look Briar and Tris will always be my favourites but let’s be honest- It’s Sandry- the stitch-witch who can literally weave different magics together -that stands out as most powerful. She literally bound their fates together as a group, and so as a buff/support caster- I think weaver might be fun -maybe it allows you to temporarily transfer abilities and statuses to one another.
With you on this one. I think that one of the new classes is a caster, and is most likely the rare class as I would not be surprised to see a caster that can alternate between the four magics, arcane, divine, occult, and primal, at will. Possibly a studied caster who must memorize spells as normal, but can swap out spells freely (limited times, I would assume) like the 1E Arcanist did. Imagine being able to learn any type of magic and prepare it, but spend 10 minutes refocusing and swap out a spell for another of equal or lower level. That would be pretty strong if you can choose any spells from the four different magics, and definitely a reason to be rare. Just a thought
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Tar-Barphon is a lich and a powerful one at that. Him killing a fellow demigod is possible. I am pretty sure that Areelu Vorlesh is older than a century, and even if she wasn't she is an outsider and a prodigy (remember outsiders are born as adults unlike mortals).
Also just the fact that you have a high level mythic mortal (demigod) does not make you good enough to kill a god. If that were the case none of the runelords would have died or even feared what a few random people could do.
rummages through City of Locusts and the Ask James Jacobs thread
Areelu Vorlesh actually wasn't born an outsider, she was a born a Sarkorian human who then became a witch. Her recent transformation into a half-succubus was explicitly called out as unusual in Wrath of the Righteous, as a matter of fact.
I don't believe her exact age is known, it's true, but she's much, much, much younger than Tar-Baphon, Sorshen, Jatembe, or their ilk. She was a just a human witch in 4600 AR when she got tossed in jail, and humans, as you say, don't live that long. So max like 180 years? Probably? Very spry compared to 11,000 year-olds like Alaznist and Sorshen, all the same.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=702?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Q uestions-Here#35065
Regardless, I'm getting off-topic. My point about Tar-Baphon was merely that he, as decidedly not-a-god, could whack a demigod. I agree demigod is not the same thing as god, just making the point that non-divine beings can sometimes do extraordinary things. Like ascend to godhood.
I'd agree that Abrogail taking over Hell is unlikely for a whole host of reasons, though.
He "whacked" a creature of the same level as him. That's like a level 1 PC killing a goblin commando.
I just like the thought of thinking that (at least) a god (Pathfinder) and a planet (Starfinder) are both gonna get “whacked”.
I personally feel making Abrogail Thrune ascend (or even not ascend but still somehow take control over the plane of Hell) would be odd. Whilst sure, it'd be interesting, there's also other interesting options out there and kind of gets rid of Chelliax as the "big evil empire", seeing at that point it'll just feel more like "Giant Diololic incursion into the material plane" (or, if Abrogail still lives there: The capital of Hell), which is a very different vibe (as right now whilst, sure, it has the help of Hell, they're still seperate groups).
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What if Asmodeus gets whacked… and Hell has an election to replace him?
A transparently-corrupt, nightmarish farce of the democratic process, of course, but that’s just politics, sweetheart.
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What if Asmodeus gets whacked… and Hell has an election to replace him?
A transparently-corrupt, nightmarish farce of the democratic process, of course, but that’s just politics, sweetheart.
I feel like Paizo would want to devote significantly more staffing to "keeping the forums under control" if they did anything that close to politics.
I'm reminded when Fallen London straight up discontinued their annual "Election for Lord-Mayor of London" community event, because people started comparing the Dream-Cat, the Tentacle-Man, and the Brilliant Chemist to *actual real world political figures and parties* and things got out of control.
Didn’t the infernal lord/duke? of the first layer of hell have to pay hell itself an entire world’s worth of souls just to acquire such an honour?
It’d be a weird (chaotic) economy of souls if a simple empress over a single (if large) nation somehow managed to become Hell’s ruler all because of her ambition and rulership of a nation on a world the game just so happens to care about.
It’s just a bit too neat and easy methinks. Should the bloodstained glass ceiling of hell be shattered- it’s gonna take a triumphant, gore-caked, **Queen of Night** to rise to the occasion.
And a Queen only respects her equals.
Abrogail who???
Queens of Nights would make powerful patrons for any campaign villain.
I think you all are dialing way too hard in on this "It's sure to be Asmodeus" kick.
Now... I honestly don't expect that it will be a female deity, if only to avoid the slight stench of the fridge. They're not going to have their first deicide be female. That still leaves 12 options. Thing is... why do you assume that the god who dies will be one of the evil ones?
(Quick glance suggests that we have 12 male to 8 female deities in core, and 7-7-6 Good/Neutral/Evil.)
Like... what about Cayden Cailean? Prone to unwise behavior, and kind of a putz. The explanation of how he became a god is literally "drunken shenanigans". Token harvest god because no one else seems to care about wheat in the same way, but that's a joke too, because he seems to mostly care about grains for their use in alcohol. Knocking him off allows for a more coherent and serious harvest deity, reduces the degree to which alcoholism is glorified and sanctified, and allows for some general pathos and exploration of "what do you as a player do now that your god is dead?" in a way that knocking off an evil deity really wouldn't.
Also, he is primed to go out in a blaze of glory doing something that's a perfect fusion of "heroic self-sacrifice" and "hold my beer, I got this".
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Knocking him off allows for a more coherent and serious harvest deity, reduces the degree to which alcoholism is glorified and sanctified, and allows for some general pathos and exploration of "what do you as a player do now that your god is dead?" in a way that knocking off an evil deity really wouldn't.
I do have to disagree with this, as Cayden Cailean is absolutely not a god of alcoholism. The community around pathfinder tends to discuss him exclusively as a god of getting drunk, but any of the vaguely recent books tend to make clear that excessive drinking is not supported by either the deity or the majority of his followers:
While the consumption of alcohol is central to most of Cayden’s worship, drinking to excess and dependency on drink are seen as misuse of the Accidental God’s gifts. Clergy who develop such an addiction are encouraged by their community to take a large role in the faith’s other works, such as maintaining orphanages or supporting rebel efforts, and those who recover often work to assist others with their own recovery from alcoholism.
People also tend to write off the way that these books focus on other aspects of his teachings - 'drunk god became a god while drunk and no-one knows how' is funny, and I get why it leads to the understanding that many people have of him. But he's always been a god of bravery and doing the right thing too, and PF2 books have spent a lot more time discussing his efforts to oppose tyranny with bravery than his efforts to get drunk.
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Asmodeus dies, and is replaced by a force more evil than he could ever dream of being ... a committee.It would be really weird if Hell didn't have a representative amongst the core pantheon. It would be the only major plane to lack one. Even if Asmodeus buys it, I would assume someone/something would take his place.For me I found that Asmodeus being the ruler of his plane make him stick out like a sore thumb compared to the other core 20 (except Pharasma but she is the only one that really feels fitting to be like big boss of her own plane) but I do see what you mean and while I hope if the replacement is in Archdevil they don't end up being the big boss of hell (kinda think hell shouldn't have a big boss if big A bites it) so they don't feel so out of place in comparison to the rest of the core 20
… the HOA.
Hell Owner’s Association
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Like... what about Cayden Cailean?
It's possible, and I agree with you that as a sort of adventurer god Cayden would be in a prime position for some heroic sacrifice.
But it strikes me as a kind of underwhelming and slightly boring choice to me too. It would remove a quirky and highly visible piece of setting identity from Golarion, while not necessarily adding anything. He's not some big player in divine politics or anything right now.
So from a design standpoint he's a god that would be relatively easy to kill off, but also one whose death feels contrary to the goals of making Golarion more Golarion and whose death wouldn't necessarily shake up the setting on its own outside the obvious (though that admittedly might be appealing depending on what Paizo wants out of the story).
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Like... what about Cayden Cailean?It's possible, and I agree with you that as a sort of adventurer god Cayden would be in a prime position for some heroic sacrifice.
But it strikes me as a kind of underwhelming and slightly boring choice to me too. It would remove a quirky and highly visible piece of setting identity from Golarion, while not necessarily adding anything. He's not some big player in divine politics or anything right now.
So from a design standpoint he's a god that would be relatively easy to kill off, but also one whose death feels contrary to the goals of making Golarion more Golarion and whose death wouldn't necessarily shake up the setting on its own outside the obvious (though that admittedly might be appealing depending on what Paizo wants out of the story).
See... on the flip side, I feel like "evil god dies" doesn't really shake the setting in quite the same way for any of the evil gods. There are Evil Gods who only have scattered cults following them, and in their case, killing them off just makes the scattered cults mostly collapse and/or go away. That's not significant. There's the ones that are patrons of some evil country or other, and killing them... well, you get the same cult-withering thing, and then the country itself goes through some spasms and then either reforms into a non-evil country (makes the world significantly more boring), collapses under its own weight (makes the world somewhat more boring), or finds a new evil deity patron (meh?)
As far as adventurers are concerned, it's basically "just another Great Evil thwarted", and that barely moves the needle on shaking up the setting in a real way. If it's a deity that PCs might reasonably follow, though? Where there are established and well-respected churches in countries that the PCs might call home? Suddenly you have a bunch of ex-Champions and ex-Clerics running around with a divine patron who doesn't exist anymore. There are people who'd insist that they can't be dead. There are people who'd try to bring them back. There's real trauma there that people the PCs might care about are actually dealing with. There's also the hole in the pantheon. If Cayden is dead, then who does the farmer pray to for help with their crops? Sure, all of that stuff can happen in evil countries for evil gods too, but the people who'd be playing as PCs wouldn't have reason to care nearly as much.
...and yeah, I picked Cayden in part because he's not some big player in divine politics or anything right now (and because heroic self-sacrifice would totally fit him as a thing, and because he always felt underwhelming as a harvest deity). At the macro level... not such a big deal. At the micro level, though, it's huge.
See that doesn't really strike me as 'Interesting trauma' so much as just something that will annoy players because an interesting, setting iconic player facing option goes away.
The only real novelty is in the shock value of it, and then business goes back to normal right afterward. That just feels lazy. Most of the other suggestions in this thread do a lot more in regards of creating big stories and allowing Paizo to do more with the setting, which should be the goal of creating some huge event like this.
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I’m dialing in on Asmodeus because he’s the only one of the Core 20 with the same name and job as a god in D&D. I think it’s hard to underscore how dicey I think that makes his position, and we don’t lose much with his death - Cheliax, Devils, and Hell will all still be what they are without him, albeit shaken up some in the interim.
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I’m dialing in on Asmodeus because he’s the only one of the Core 20 with the same name and job as a god in D&D. I think it’s hard to underscore how dicey I think that makes his position, and we don’t lose much with his death - Cheliax, Devils, and Hell will all still be what they are without him, albeit shaken up some in the interim.
Asmodeus has a deep historical record as not only a devil, but the greatest among devils (below Lucifer). The fact that they "have the same job" is really not an issue.
5e Asmodeus appears to be mostly into magic, mind-control, telepathy and, especially, lies. PF2 Asmodeus is really into order, discipline, tyranny, and contracts. Other than the things that are very much part of the historical record, they have basically nothing in common.
Heck, if anything, PF2 Asmodeus resembles In Nomine Asmodeus more than either one does 5e, and it's still not close enough to be a legal issue.
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I can't now remember where I read it, or maybe it was in a live stream, but I distinctly remember someone making a comment about Golarion headed in a lighter/the world is getting better direction and Michale Sayre saying something along the lines of "just you wait."
While I see the reasons for thinking Asmodeus is going to die, I think there is a good chance it someone bigger and/or, if it is someone like Asmodeus, it is not the forces of "good" that are winning with this god-slaying.
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I mean let's face it demonology isn't science. Most people don't realize that Satan and Lucifer are separate entities :p
Like sure Cayden could die and reason why he in starfinder has no idea what happened during Gap is that he was restored back to life or something, but Cayden would really be boring option to kill because there is no domino effect if he dies. Same for Erastil. I don't like idea of them killing off Sarenrae, but Sarenrae is main religion in empire of Kelesh, that alone would have major domino effects.
Thing about Asmodeus dying is that it wouldn't just be "great evil is defeated", it could be start of larger cosmic war due to situation in hell destabilizing (heck I assumed start of deities fighting each other could be result of divine intervention cold war finally going hot, but maybe its actually starts because of someone assassinating Asmodeus)
Well, if you want dominoes, we're back to Torag. That would drop some dominoes.
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Well, if you want dominoes, we're back to Torag. That would drop some dominoes.
Would it though? I figure just "one of Torag's family members would take over and things would mostly be the same". Like they're Überdwarfs, they wouldn't have a succession problem.
Torag would be my choice for "if they died, the fewest things would change."
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Torag I feel the only people it really effects are like dwarves
I feel like Dwarves as a people would mostly figure "everybody's father passes eventually" and just pick themselves up, push forward and keep the fallen in their hearts and minds.