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When Paizo created their Campaign Setting and introduced Aroden as the dead god of Humanity / Society / Prophesy, as much as I liked it, I felt it would be more playable in my own games if he had just mysteriously vanished instead. Aroden was Prophesied to Return and usher in a new Age for Humanity and Society -- but instead he disappeared from existence. WorldWound rifts open; Aye of Abendego whirls around; Prophesy goes haywire and Divine Casters go insane. Yada Yada. Aroden is gone without a trace.
Some NPCs who still worship Aroden get spells, some not so much. Some have their sanity, er, some not so much.
Now I need help.
Several months ago when my group started a new Campaign, one of the players decided to build a Life Oracle of Aroden and try his hand as 'Party Healer.' And his character background includes an all-consuming drive to figure out what happened to his god.
I never intended to come up with an answer to 'What Happened' to Aroden! I just liked that 'He Disappeared' more than I liked 'He died"!
....I'm going to go through some of the Old Threads where we posited 'How' Aroden died looking for ideas to consider.
But I'm HOPING for some ideas from The Community on what happened to Aroden if he Didn't die, but rather just vanished.
ALL your thoughts are very Welcome.
And many THANKS in advance.
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Couple things - and I may well be wrong about these.
- Pharasma was the goddess of prophecy. Aroden was a god with a prophecy about him that failed to come to pass. That distinction is really, really important for Aroden stories!
- The implication to me has always been that Aroden’s death is one of many symptoms (like the Eye of Abendego, the Worldwound, and Lung Wa’s collapse) of the core issue (prophecy failing to exist anymore) that came to pass. I just don’t see an Azlanti being the lynchpin of the entire universe like that.
I'm pretty sure every official source has said that they never intend to give any official answer, or even really offer any clues to what happened to Aroden, so if you're after anything with sources to back it up, especially from the Lost Omen era than I think you're out of luck.
That said- I needed an answer for a particularly curious and persistent player a few campaigns ago. My answer was this.
He lives amongst the stars with the other Azlanti who fled Golarion and will eventually become the Azlanti Star Empire from Starfinder.
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I don't think that Aroden would have gotten involved with the Azlanti Star Empire, especially since they are a bunch of bigots and exploiters of other races.
There have been plenty of hints in Pathfinder 1E adventures that suggest that Aroden is not completely gone -- Wounded Wisp and others. The existence of 1E traits that gave a benefit to Aroden's true believers also suggested that he didn't die.
But this is the central mystery of the system. Paizo will never answer it, precisely so that GMs can have the opportunity to do so. I do think this could be an epic quest for your players when they reach higher levels. Have them go to Boneyard, and then travel through various versions of the After life, searching for Aroden.
Aroden's domain on Axis was a massive city designed as an idealised utopia that he encouraged his followers to replicate. Following his death, it was not absorbed by Axis and became known as the Empty Court, an empty wasteland contested by numerous parties, including his former follower Milani, who has rebuilt part of the Empty Court into the Refuge of the Red Rose, her second divine realm. The axiomites have declared the Empty Court a region distinct from Axis until someone wholly claims it.
If I were writing this adventure, it would have twelve parts, one for each of Aroden's 12 guises: artist, beggar, craftsman or artisan, farmer, fisher, hunter, merchant, scholar, shepherd, soldier, tailor, and thief.
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I remember someone suggesting that Aroden is actually inside the Eye of Abendego, and that someone trapped him there on the moment of his Return, creating the impression of his death. If someone can sail into the eye of the world's worst hurricane, which has been going strong for over a century, break through or undo whatever magical seals were put in place, and fight the forces of whoever put him there, they might be able to free Aroden. Why you would want to is another matter.
Personally, I prefer the idea that Aroden gave up his godhood voluntarily to avert the disastrous unintended consequences his prophecied return would have, either dying or diminishing to become Pharasma's servant, the Echo of Divinity who swears he totally isn't Aroden you guys, no just ignore that portrait that looks just like him and is captioned "Aroden smites Tar-Baphon." Even rather than just announce he's stepped down, he prefers people to think he died than to know he abandoned them in their time of need, albeit to serve a greater good. A LOT of Arodenites were sacrificed on Asmodean bonfires, or washed away catastrophic tsunamis that lashed the coasts, begging their absent god for salvation he either couldn't or wouldn't send, and it fell to his herald Iomedae and the then-living saint Milani to help themselves. If he's still around, he's keeping his head down out of sheer shame because he can't face the followers, saints and herald he betrayed, even if it was for a good reason, or because they would struggle to accept that this timeline is the better one and wouldn't believe him.
To be honest, I think if Paizo inaugurate another edition of Pathfinder eventually, and do another setting refresh or even a full-on reboot, they could do worse than end this era with a story about discovering Aroden and stopping his return, or perhaps going back in time and causing his absence because he was about to kickstart an age of imperialism, conquest and tyranny that makes even Cheliax look tame. It's clear that Aroden was a DEEPLY problematic figure, who did some terrible things that people are still dealing with the fallout from, such as the people of Xopatl, causing the Black Desert, and failing to properly deal with Tar-Baphon. Even Iomedae, who was probably deeply upset to find her god vanish, might accept that his return would have consequences that should be stopped, and his desire to personally intervene on Golarion could trigger a war with Hell that would a.) leave both Hell and the Heavens vulnerable to the forces of the Abyss, and b.) risk unshackling the Rough Beast if the war on Golarion gets bad enough. Aroden, even badly injured and missing his divine power, could put the greatest Runelord to shame. Tar-Baphon ushered 1e out the door. I think Aroden could do the same for 2e.
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(Paizo) never intend to give any official answer.
Well, of course. But for 15 years we've been discussing possibilities. (In 2010 I became 100% certain that he committed ritual suicide that day as a metagame function of passing-the-torch to various PCs -- to let them take over for humanity and such -- since you know, Aroden is completely just a metagame reason for PCs being the future of the setting rather than a deity.)
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IF Aroden didn’t die, what happened?!
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(I have a Player whose PC Really wants to find out.)
1)
My answer was this.
(Aroden) lives amongst the stars with the other Azlanti who fled Golarion and will eventually become the Azlanti Star Empire from Starfinder.
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2)
I remember someone suggesting that Aroden is actually inside the Eye of Abendego, and that someone trapped him there on the moment of his Return, creating the impression of his death.
.
3)
Aroden gave up his godhood voluntarily to avert the disastrous unintended consequences his prophesied return would have: Either dying, or diminishing to become Pharasma's servant.
....
Even rather than just announce he's stepped down, he prefers people to think he died than to know he abandoned them in their time of need, albeit to serve a greater good. … He's keeping his head down out of sheer shame because he can't face the followers, saints and herald he betrayed, even if it was for a good reason, or because they would struggle to accept that this timeline is the better one and wouldn't believe him.
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4)
Discover Aroden and stop his return, or perhaps go back in time and cause his absence because he was about to kickstart an age of imperialism, conquest and tyranny that makes even Cheliax look tame. It's clear that Aroden was a DEEPLY problematic figure, who did some terrible things that people are still dealing with the fallout from, such as the people of Xopatl, causing the Black Desert, and failing to properly deal with Tar-Baphon. Even Iomedae, who was probably deeply upset to find her god vanish, might accept that his return would have consequences that should be stopped, and his desire to personally intervene on Golarion could trigger a war with Hell that would a.) leave both Hell and the Heavens vulnerable to the forces of the Abyss, and b.) risk unshackling the Rough Beast if the war on Golarion gets bad enough. Aroden, even badly injured and missing his divine power, could put the greatest Runelord to shame.
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Aroden's domain on Axis was a massive city designed as an idealized utopia that he encouraged his followers to replicate. Following his death, it was not absorbed by Axis and became known as the Empty Court, an empty wasteland contested by numerous parties, including his former follower Milani, who has rebuilt part of the Empty Court into the Refuge of the Red Rose, her second divine realm. The Axiomites have declared the Empty Court a region distinct from Axis until someone wholly claims it.
I didn't know of this; can you pretty please tell me from what source it is -- I'll grab it off my bookshelf and read up on it (or maybe buy it if by odd chance I don't have it).
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But I'm HOPING for some ideas from The Community on what happened to Aroden if he Didn't die, but rather just vanished.
ALL your thoughts are very Welcome.
In a related Starfinder campaign, Aroden pops out of a temporal anomaly in 324AG and is rather surprised that millennia have passed and he was presumed dead.
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Fun idea: Norgorber killed him, and the murder of a god was his apotheosis. The story of Norg passing the Starstone test was one of his many lies and rumors, created specifically to hide the truth as is his way.
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Aroden went Outside because he needs Dou-Bral's knowledge to repair Rovagug's Cage before it breaks.
We actually started the campaign with some Cenobite stuff. The PC Oracle of Aroden, indeed, got a little bit too close to some Relics and Prayers to Sugroz and Inkariax -- and the Ghost of Kazavon the Blue. It'd be a neat tie-in to bring it all back if there's some more Shadow Plane / Midnight Lord / Cenobite stuff that brings his character arc all around. .... I could see Aroden Lost deep, Deep in The Dark Tapestry.
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Norgorber killed him, ... passing the Starstone Test.
This really sounds good. But alas, I want Aroden alive and vanished.
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Aroden , god of Humanity or Dead Beat Daddy Deity? a Zo! exclusive....
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When Paizo created their Campaign Setting and introduced Aroden as the dead god of Humanity / Society / Prophesy, as much as I liked it, I felt it would be more playable in my own games if he had just mysteriously vanished instead. Aroden was Prophesied to Return and usher in a new Age for Humanity and Society -- but instead he disappeared from existence. WorldWound rifts open; Aye of Abendego whirls around; Prophesy goes haywire and Divine Casters go insane. Yada Yada. Aroden is gone without a trace.
Some NPCs who still worship Aroden get spells, some not so much. Some have their sanity, er, some not so much.
Now I need help.
Several months ago when my group started a new Campaign, one of the players decided to build a Life Oracle of Aroden and try his hand as 'Party Healer.' And his character background includes an all-consuming drive to figure out what happened to his god.
I never intended to come up with an answer to 'What Happened' to Aroden! I just liked that 'He Disappeared' more than I liked 'He died"!
....I'm going to go through some of the Old Threads where we posited 'How' Aroden died looking for ideas to consider.
But I'm HOPING for some ideas from The Community on what happened to Aroden if he Didn't die, but rather just vanished.
ALL your thoughts are very Welcome.
And many THANKS in advance.
Here's an idea: this PC had a vision of the Dead God... but is he dead? The vision said something like "find me..." but then the figure in the light, hazy and obscure always, faded into nonsensical images/sensations (write a few down, and space them through the campaign - the smell of poinesttias, snow falling upwards, a seagull standing atop a cactus...).
Maybe there's others who have seen the same vision. These precious few have gone mad, wandered into the rough places in the world and never been heard from again, or broke themselves in their sojurn.
The PCs meet one of these travelers, gone mad, another, in some distant place, dead or dying, and a third who has forsaken the quest, who will not speak of their path, beyond the warning to stay away from the calling. What does the PC choose, knowing these dire fates?
You don't have to answer the final question for the PC. Is this Aroden, calling from some occluded location? Some sort of resonance of the God? A trap flung by the deity into the future (or the past)? Something else?
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That is really intriguing.
It may solve a critical problem in that, while I want the player to be able to follow his PC's goals, the group has to go forward wigh the overall campaign.
But as the PCs start using Demonwing to explore The Abyss, the Oracle of Aroden could be getting some kind of these visions you're suggesting.
Moreover, the concepts in our most recently published AP, GateWalkers -- and even a little bit of the theme of the current Stolen Fate AP -- will give me some specific, usable ideas for my own situation.
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they are a bunch of bigots and exploiters of other races.Is he not, in recent canon, still a LN deity of humanity rather than of all races?
Has there ever been a G in his description?
Nope.
And when you get into the stories about him, that N is pretty iffy sometimes...
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And when you get into the stories about him, that N is pretty iffy sometimes...Human supremacy is neutral because the reader is human.
Edit: /s
Aroden dicked over plenty of fellow humans.
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And when you get into the stories about him, that N is pretty iffy sometimes...Human supremacy is neutral because the reader is human.
Edit: /s
I've made it part of my Golarion that Norgorber and his acolytes claim that he is the "True God of Humanity"
When you get into some of the more fun Aroden stories, The Last Azlanti is closer to the Four-Faced God than he is to the Inheritor in more than a few of them...
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The real Aroden died the moment that he first encountered the Starstone. The 'god' Aroden was just a sockpuppet operated by the Starstone.
The same is true of all of the other people who 'passed' the Starstone's test.
;)
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Aroden went Outside because he needs Dou-Bral's knowledge to repair Rovagug's Cage before it breaks.
I think this is my favourite option if you are going with "He is still alive" since it creates a reason why his connection to Golarion is either faulty or non-existent.
Plus it brings in Zon-Kuthon which is such a unique part of Pathfinder lore (even if I rarely consider using him in a campaign due to my current table's and the trauma involved in Zon-Kuthon).
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I've recently come to like the idea that he SUCCEEDED in returning, but because a god cannot be allowed to walk the world unrestrained (because it would cause a cascading escalation between the forces of Heaven and Hell that risks unleashing the Rough Beast) he was unceremoniously stripped of his divine power, arriving as a mortal man again, and nobody believed him. Kinda like the theory that Talos from ESO has gone missing by the time of Skyrim, and has unknowingly been reincarnated as the player character. Aroden arrived to find a Cheliax wracked by sectarian violence, tried to take up a sword to establish his reign, and was unceremoniously killed in a back-alley by everyday thugs, his soul traversing the River of Souls where a very surprised Pharasma did her best to salvage what was left of him. He continues to leave the circumstances enigmatic out of sheer embarrassment.
The tidal waves and Eye of Abendago happening at the same time are a complete coincidence, and should probably be dealt with.
I remember someone suggesting that Aroden is actually inside the Eye of Abendego, and that someone trapped him there on the moment of his Return, creating the impression of his death. If someone can sail into the eye of the world's worst hurricane, which has been going strong for over a century, break through or undo whatever magical seals were put in place, and fight the forces of whoever put him there, they might be able to free Aroden. Why you would want to is another matter.
Personally, I prefer the idea that Aroden gave up his godhood voluntarily to avert the disastrous unintended consequences his prophecied return would have, either dying or diminishing to become Pharasma's servant, the Echo of Divinity who swears he totally isn't Aroden you guys, no just ignore that portrait that looks just like him and is captioned "Aroden smites Tar-Baphon." Even rather than just announce he's stepped down, he prefers people to think he died than to know he abandoned them in their time of need, albeit to serve a greater good. A LOT of Arodenites were sacrificed on Asmodean bonfires, or washed away catastrophic tsunamis that lashed the coasts, begging their absent god for salvation he either couldn't or wouldn't send, and it fell to his herald Iomedae and the then-living saint Milani to help themselves. If he's still around, he's keeping his head down out of sheer shame because he can't face the followers, saints and herald he betrayed, even if it was for a good reason, or because they would struggle to accept that this timeline is the better one and wouldn't believe him.
To be honest, I think if Paizo inaugurate another edition of Pathfinder eventually, and do another setting refresh or even a full-on reboot, they could do worse than end this era with a story about discovering Aroden and stopping his return, or perhaps going back in time and causing his absence because he was about to kickstart an age of imperialism, conquest and tyranny that makes even Cheliax look tame. It's clear that...
Good points. Although 'Deity does shady/nasty stuff' is a tale as old as time with our Norse/Greek pantheons getting up to hair curling shenanigans(Zeus, I think you can skip becoming a dove or pile of gold to get busy) Plus Sarenrae and Asmodeus knock boots from time to time.
Some other things that have been discussed here is that the deities are purposely holding back technological advancement as a way to keep a monopoly on things like healing and with out things like vaccines many 1 sp/day peasants are going to go without that CLW when Timmy falls down a well. I wonder what their reaction to magictech places like Ebberon would be.
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Aroden went Outside because he needs Dou-Bral's knowledge to repair Rovagug's Cage before it breaks.
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But what will come back?
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This is actually the direction I'm going in my campaign -- that Aroden has gone deep in The Dark Tapestry and 'gotten lost' -- not too unlike Dou Bral who 'touched' The Dark Tapestry on his 'visit' and came back as ZK.
The PC Oracle in my group who's pushed me to design this stuff for his character will eventually have to go out into The Dark Tapestry. That'll be for when the group is more 19th-20th Level. .... And I won't decide what to do when they get there until we're much closer to, you know, getting there.
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Some other things that have been discussed here is that the deities are purposely holding back technological advancement as a way to keep a monopoly on things like healing and with out things like vaccines many 1 sp/day peasants are going to go without that CLW when Timmy falls down a well. I wonder what their reaction to magictech places like Ebberon would be.
I've never liked this, and in my world the reason adventurers have to pay for services is because clerics paid by the state normally offer their healing services for free, but every spell they cast on an adventurer who went and got himself Mummy Rot or cursed or whatnot is a spell they can't use on a farmer who cut his leg off with the plough, a housewife struggling with a difficult birth, or the sick and disabled of the city who would otherwise go unhelped. Adventurers don't have to go out and lead a life of danger, but they do, so they go to the back of the queue unless they can make it financially worth passing over the more deserving. Even Abadarans have a set number of free spells for commoners per day, though they expect a charitable donation for their generosity.
At least, that's what I've decided.
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Here's the way I think of it, when I'm the GM (though it will never really be relevant):
Aroden was set to return, to begin his Age of Glory. He just looked ahead a bit into the deterministic future he'd planned out for his people.
He saw himself micro-managing the lives of his worshippers.
He saw his worshippers praying for guidance on what to eat for every meal.
He saw people asking him for answers to everything, instead of learning things on their own.
He saw people turning from him, calling him tyrannical.
In that moment, he asked himself what made him any better than the ones from whom he'd freed his people, the algollthu?
He went to Pharasma, and asked for advice. She suggested something along the lines of allowing his people to make their own future.
So, with her help, he entered a sort of Deific Early Retirement. He allowed his herald to Inherit his mantle, and watches in silence.
...He might have gotten a laugh out of watching Tar-Baphon blow himself up by accident.
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The old golarion conspiracy theory thread has some good insights. I think you may have been part of that thread, back in the day.
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Nethys was messing with time magic and snapped something load-bearing, which is also why prophecy doesn't work any more (because the world's a few degrees off the normal chain from cause to effect). Aroden doesn't realize anything has happened, because no time has passed for him whatsoever; and he seems "dead" to his followers because he currently doesn't exist in relation to their timeframe. Nethys was very sorry, and promised to never do it again.
A few millennia later, Nethys was messing with information magic, and that's how we got the Gap.
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Regardless of what you choose as far as Aroden's final disposition, your Oracle of Life could still keep their powers whether Aroden is alive or dead.
Whereas Clerics actually get their divine powers from a deity, I don't believe Oracles necessarily get THEIR powers from a deity. They get them from some "source."
It might be a deity, it might not. If they do come from a deity, it may not be from the one they think it's coming from.
An example might be an Oracle with the Time mystery. One of Pharasma's domains is Time. It would be reasonable to think that that Oracle's source of Power is Pharasma so he decides to devote himself to her.
But Yog-Sothoth is the BIG Time deity in Pathfinder. It could very well be that Yog-Sothoth is that Oracle's Source of power and, for some inscrutable reason, never let the Oracle know that.
For all the Oracle knows, Pharasma is his source and does everything in her name.
Likewise, the Oracle in your game, W E Ray, could believe Aroden is still alive because they still get their divine powers (Spells and stuff) even though their source isn't actually Aroden. It could be that the ACTUAL source of that Oracle of Life's power is a remnant of a mostly-dead Azlanti god of Healing or some other weird source.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
The Oracle in (Ray's game) could believe Aroden is still alive because (he) still gets (his) divine powers. .... It could be that the ACTUAL source of that Oracle of Life's power is--
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Yeah, it's something I played with in my head a year or so ago when we started playing. For my game, the PC Oracle does indeed get his Divine abilities from Aroden, despite the deity's lost state deep in the Dark Tapestry.
However,... the Player doesn't know that! Several times in-play over the last year I've made it 'feel' like there's a 'problem'(ish) with his casting the Healing spells, etc. Sometimes when he meditates for an hour each day to get spells he feels "Cold" or something -- I remember when we Levelled-Up to, like 9th, and he Channeled for the first time with an extra d6 I told him he felt like a 'darkness' or something was channeling through him -- just stuff like that. All roleplay Flavor, no Crunch. But ultimately his PC will learn that, indeed, it IS coming from Aroden and he will have to go out into The Dark Tapestry to rescue his god. Like 20th Level'ish when our campaign is over.