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Now I am curious about realities where the Survivor wasn't Pharasma. Do they get 'subsumed' into Pharasma, or is their reality dramatically different?
I think maybe you have a misunderstanding.
Pharasma was the Survivor of the last multiverse or reality as you called it. Based on the lore we have, it's always someone different. And at least in Pharasma's case she's grooming her daughter to be her successor.
Doing some further searching of Golarion lore, I did find a reference to "Those Who Remain" which references the outer gods in general. It says they exist outside of reality and the multiverse, and the particular lore implies they too survive each iteration of the multiverse. However I have to say I hate this, as the whole concept becomes a lot less meaningful if all the outer gods get to stick around. It's no longer the Survivor and the Watcher, it's Friends.
In truth, I don't know that we have enough information to call any one statement the pure canon. But my head cannon would be that in each iteration of the multiverse Yog-Sothoth recreates the other outer gods.
Why "3 or more"?
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Why "3 or more"?
The Survivor gets to be in 2 universes. Everybody else just gets 1.
I believe Yog-Sothoth has always been the Watcher, but it's *possible* that someone else gets the gig in the future.
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Why "3 or more"?The Survivor gets to be in 2 universes. Everybody else just gets 1.
I believe Yog-Sothoth has always been the Watcher, but it's *possible* that someone else gets the gig in the future.
*Please note, apparently these rules don't apply to the outer gods (including Yog-Sothoth) so the whole watcher thing is dramatically less cool to me.
But now that Prophecy is broken and Omens are lost, no one (maybe not even Yog-Sothoth) knows what is in store for anyone in the future.
Maybe the outer gods can all die this time.
And maybe this reality is forever.
It's possible, but no one knows for sure. Before prophecy was broken Pharasma was aware and sure of when the multiverse would end, but as you said since prophecy broke perhaps the defect that would cause the multiverse to end can be changed.
However, I prefer to imagine that perhaps the Seal that is used to create new universes is actually a condensed form of Azathoth which the Survivor uses to create a "big bang" like process. And Yog-Sothoth is there to make sure the whole thing continues...because reasons.
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Crackpot theory : Someone / something is using the cycle of life and death of the realities for their own purpose, maybe similar to how the cycle of life and death within reality maintains its existence. They created Yog-Sothoth to provide a psychological anchor to the Survivor so that the latter does not become immediately crazy and suicidal because of feeling absolute loneliness.
This they know because the first attempts without the Watcher were abysmal failures. The realities were basically stillborn and thus useless for their unfathomable purpose.
I have it in my head from somewhere that at the same time Aroden allegedly died* and prophecy failed (and the Eye of Abednego appeared and Deskari and his minions opened the Worldwound) the Seal disappeared. I wonder if that's normal, or if not whether it's ever happened in any previous multiverse. I also wonder if the Seal disappearing is a cause or an effect (or neither… or I suppose both).
*"Habeus Corpus" as the lawyers say.
If that were true, his sister would be from the previous universe too. Too many exceptions.
I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
I really like this idea, it would be cool to see it play about by having some version of "Order," or "Law" exist as a domain for divine classes to make their focus and for the focus spell to do cold iron damage, and for a disorder/chaos domain to silver damage.
This would back door keep the Law/Chaos axis in the game, but only for people that care about it. The only weird thing about it is that silver as chaos damage is a little strange outside of the devil context. Maybe reworking werewolves/lycanthropes to be somehow bound to an edict or an anathema that would make silver damage harming them for its chaos fact make more sense?
It would be a cool tie in to the generally Chaotic Good Ekujae Elves and how an anti-materialist culture that also has good cause to distrust gold, has value for Silver.
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I don't recall which book it's in but there's definitely something about Zon-kuthon knowing the end was coming and ensuring a 'seed' of him survived, Dou-bral was the 'new' universe version of him, the seed called to him (when he went off into the void) and when he found it boom... Zon-kuthon was back and Dou-bral was no more.
Edit: Here we go, hinted at in Book of the Damned and the Nidal sourcebook, but this is James explaining it at a PaizoCon panel.
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While it's technically true that with prophecy broken, it's entirely possible that this universe becomes ever-lasting because who knows what could happen, what I feel is the much more significant implication is that prophecy was the only certainty that this multiverse would survive long enough to continue the cycle into another, and now the odds are more like a hundred to one that the thousand things which could plausibly cause the universe to fail actually succeeds.
I kind of vibe with the idea of the 'naturalistic' cosmos having a limited lifespan. It's not that the universe will end by destruction, it's that eventually it will just run out of the energy that fuels its existence. The cosmos is so much bigger than any god, it doesn't seem likely that broken prophecy would mean it never has to end--sure something cosmically miraculous could happen, but the idea that the multiverse is fated to end feels less like "And one day the world will be destroyed (unless somebody averts the disaster)" and more like, "And eventually the candle will burn to the bottom and the flame will go out".
I guess on a similar note, I don't feel like it's "Survivor and Watcher ... and everyone else too" because it feels more like the Survivor and Watcher are the only ones significant to the cosmic generation cycle. I seem to recall the implication that the outer gods are not always the same from one universe cycle to the next because which ones happen to end up in the void where the universe will be created at the centre of the cosmos isn't the same each time.
So it really seems to me more like the... metaverse?--the reality which exists beyond the farthest shell of the Abyss--is a void of incomprehensibility with no proper sense of time, and it is filled with alien beings like the outer gods in a manner like bacteria fill a droplet in a petri dish. When the universe forms, the outer sphere forms a bubble around a central void where the material plane is going to go, but by some inevitable process, a scattering of those alien bacteria end up caught inside the bubble. What differentiates Yog-Sothoth from the other outer gods is unknown, but it remains that the Watcher is one half of a cosmically significant pair which govern the succession of universes, regardless how many other beings exist in a timeless infinity beyond the Abyss.
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PS looks like it was said already, but Zon-Kuthon's body was Shelyn's brother. Zon-Kuthon himself is an alien entity that was originally said to come from when Dou-Bral went for a walk outside of reality and came back wrong. It seems like the entity that calls itself Zon-Kuthon may have been something from the previous incarnation of the universe which managed to jettison itself and escape the end of its universe and ride out until the new one was formed.
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Hm. Presumably there are two souls involved here: the soul which was Zon-Kuthon in the previous universe, and the soul which became Dou-Bral in this universe. If this is true, what happened to Dou-Bral's soul?
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I have it in my head from somewhere that at the same time Aroden allegedly died* and prophecy failed (and the Eye of Abednego appeared and Deskari and his minions opened the Worldwound) the Seal disappeared. I wonder if that's normal, or if not whether it's ever happened in any previous multiverse. I also wonder if the Seal disappearing is a cause or an effect (or neither… or I suppose both).
*"Habeus Corpus" as the lawyers say.
You're basically in Pharasma's shoes there. She wonders exactly the same.
Me, I believe someone took / broke the Seal to break Fate, for whatever purpose they have, and killed Aroden to make sure it was indeed broken.
Likely someone who was not happy with the Fate they were supposed to get.
Thinking about the latter, maybe the person Pharasma was grooming to become the next Survivor did it.
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I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
That is already in use in that Devils are hurt by silver while Demons are hurt by cold iron.
But it would make lycanthropes creatures of Order by nature which really does not fit.
Vampires are hurt by silver too, but being undead, they might be considered strongly leaning to Order by nature.
Originally Fey being hurt by cold iron has the same root as the metal prohibition on Druids : the idea that civilisation (exemplified by metalworking and metal tools) is the antithesis of untamed nature.
Werewolves being vulnerable to silver come from the idea that the moon has power over lycanthropes and silver is the metal of the moon.
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I have it in my head from somewhere that at the same time Aroden allegedly died* and prophecy failed (and the Eye of Abednego appeared and Deskari and his minions opened the Worldwound) the Seal disappeared. I wonder if that's normal, or if not whether it's ever happened in any previous multiverse. I also wonder if the Seal disappearing is a cause or an effect (or neither… or I suppose both).
*"Habeus Corpus" as the lawyers say.
You're basically in Pharasma's shoes there. She wonders exactly the same.
Me, I believe someone took / broke the Seal to break Fate, for whatever purpose they have, and killed Aroden to make sure it was indeed broken.
Likely someone who was not happy with the Fate they were supposed to get.
Thinking about the latter, maybe the person Pharasma was grooming to become the next Survivor did it.
Isn't it implied that Pharasma's youngest daughter is being groomed to be the next Survivor? Or I suppose it's only an in-universe rumour with no verification.
I'm rather fond of the idea that the loss of the seal is a normal part of a multiverse reaching its maturity, but I concede the idea that something bad happened to it is inherently more dramatic. Like who or what gave the multiverse cancer? Whatever happened it probably took an immense happening to get it done, because if you could just break the only feature of the multiverse that predates Pharasma by hitting it really hard, prophecy probably shouldn't have survived the the first dozen eons.
I really like the idea of cold iron being "law" damage whilst silver is "chaos". I wouldn't make it a kind of 1-1 where it's guaranteed or explicit, but it'd be interesting if they gave proteans & aeons those matching weaknesses and as such implying it. Of course, there are issues with it, not just the were- issue, which I think can be solved with a single line of flavor text, but more greater with divs and nasurgeth which are both outsiders with weaknesses to the "opposite" from what it should, which might make how they're supposed to act a bit confusing if there's this implied matching. Hmm... Interesting topic.
I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
That is already in use in that Devils are hurt by silver while Demons are hurt by cold iron.
But it would make lycanthropes creatures of Order by nature which really does not fit.
Vampires are hurt by silver too, but being undead, they might be considered strongly leaning to Order by nature.
Originally Fey being hurt by cold iron has the same root as the metal prohibition on Druids : the idea that civilisation (exemplified by metalworking and metal tools) is the antithesis of untamed nature.
Werewolves being vulnerable to silver come from the idea that the moon has power over lycanthropes and silver is the metal of the moon.
'thropic sorts might be bound to the Lawful progression of the phases of the moon, with their form dictated by the various phases thereof.
Vampires could be the lawful extrapolation of undeath, where to continue to exist they need to consume the blood/chi/whatnot of the living.
Cold-wrought iron was *far different* from modern metalworking technique, and it was because of that primal creation that it interfered with the Fae (from my recollection).
As beings of the First World, it might have a 'grounding' effect on them which forces them to try and 'return' to the First World when it's not possible for them to do so, which is what is causing the damage. (This could then be extrapolated to demons via similar means)
I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
That is already in use in that Devils are hurt by silver while Demons are hurt by cold iron.
But it would make lycanthropes creatures of Order by nature which really does not fit.
Vampires are hurt by silver too, but being undead, they might be considered strongly leaning to Order by nature.
Originally Fey being hurt by cold iron has the same root as the metal prohibition on Druids : the idea that civilisation (exemplified by metalworking and metal tools) is the antithesis of untamed nature.
Werewolves being vulnerable to silver come from the idea that the moon has power over lycanthropes and silver is the metal of the moon.
Oop, didn't mean to respond two-for-two but the idea that werewolves are vulnerable to silver is only about 80 years old and very plausibly was inspired by Dracula. My understanding where that novel and monster got the trait is based on the idea of silver being an inherently pure metal, thus why vampires would have no reflection if seen in a (silver) mirror.
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Oop, didn't mean to respond two-for-two but the idea that werewolves are vulnerable to silver is only about 80 years old and very plausibly was inspired by Dracula. My understanding where that novel and monster got the trait is based on the idea of silver being an inherently pure metal, thus why vampires would have no reflection if seen in a (silver) mirror.I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
That is already in use in that Devils are hurt by silver while Demons are hurt by cold iron.
But it would make lycanthropes creatures of Order by nature which really does not fit.
Vampires are hurt by silver too, but being undead, they might be considered strongly leaning to Order by nature.
Originally Fey being hurt by cold iron has the same root as the metal prohibition on Druids : the idea that civilisation (exemplified by metalworking and metal tools) is the antithesis of untamed nature.
Werewolves being vulnerable to silver come from the idea that the moon has power over lycanthropes and silver is the metal of the moon.
Checking Wikipedia, there were books from 1840 and 1865 mentioning silver as particularly efficient against werewolves.
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Note to all interested in the Golarion setting : I currently consider 2 posters as awesome sources of reference on it.
Keftiu for Golarion itself and its many parts and people.
Sibelius Eos Owm for the Great Beyond.
There are other posters whose name escape me right now who also show great knowledge of the setting. But these two people are the ones that automatically come to my mind.
I want to thank them both.
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Checking Wikipedia, there were books from 1840 and 1865 mentioning silver as particularly efficient against werewolves.Oop, didn't mean to respond two-for-two but the idea that werewolves are vulnerable to silver is only about 80 years old and very plausibly was inspired by Dracula. My understanding where that novel and monster got the trait is based on the idea of silver being an inherently pure metal, thus why vampires would have no reflection if seen in a (silver) mirror.I always used Fey as the purest representation of Chaos.
That means that Law Damage = Cold Iron. Therefore Chaos Damage must be Silver.
That is already in use in that Devils are hurt by silver while Demons are hurt by cold iron.
But it would make lycanthropes creatures of Order by nature which really does not fit.
Vampires are hurt by silver too, but being undead, they might be considered strongly leaning to Order by nature.
Originally Fey being hurt by cold iron has the same root as the metal prohibition on Druids : the idea that civilisation (exemplified by metalworking and metal tools) is the antithesis of untamed nature.
Werewolves being vulnerable to silver come from the idea that the moon has power over lycanthropes and silver is the metal of the moon.
Oh hey, what do you know? I tried to fact-check myself but zeroed in on the comment about the Beast of Gévaudan (commonly mis-attributed as an early reference to silver bullet weakness when the actual silver reference didn't come in until after Dracula) but missed that much more pertinent references from the 1800s about silver buttons and shapeshifters.
Always happy to be proven wrong while learning something new and interesting!
Also thank you for your kind words and putting up with much of my quibbling over details and interpretations, particularly in this thread!
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You're quite welcome. The one thing I will regret with the disappearance of the 3.5 schools of magic is that we will never have the final word on why some spells were Necromancy.
In my musings, I hit on something about it having to do with the cycle of life and death. But a few moments later I could not, for the life of me, remember what this flash of insight was.
I think it would be cool to recognize that the process and behavior of were creatures and vampires is predictable and structured enough that it is not that the creatures themselves are bound to act lawfully, but that their physical bodies just require following certain primal rules and it would be awesome for moon lore to factor in to silver being a material representation of freedom from constraint that has been bound in the sky to follow a specific pattern that it cannot escape.
I feel like the real reason that spells got put into weird schools was more practical than theoretical. I remember hearing from one of those Mark and Linda twitch streams that when they got spells from freelancers, some 80% of what they got were "transmutation" since all magic changes something, so work was done at the editorial level to say "okay, we like this spell, but where else can we justify putting it."
I don't think there was a good diagetic reason for why spells were in specific schools. I think it was always kind of a kludge.
But a lot of people like to go "well I am chaotic but I have this code that I follow" or "I am lawful but only when it suits me"; Both of which are actually represent by being neutral.
In fairness, part of that comes from the setting material itself often being contradictory. Core setting material itself has chaotic beings that represent traditional values and lawful beings that represent lying and betrayal.
And don't even get me started on 5e piling this on even further with its "this character will kill you or help you on arbitrary whims that change every day so she's true neutral" or "this character is purely pragmatic and will murder innocents without hesitation but only if it's beneficial to them so they're unaligned" weirdness.
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You're quite welcome. The one thing I will regret with the disappearance of the 3.5 schools of magic is that we will never have the final word on why some spells were Necromancy.
In my musings, I hit on something about it having to do with the cycle of life and death. But a few moments later I could not, for the life of me, remember what this flash of insight was.
I think about that thread still sometimes! That thread was really mostly about the interaction between souls and negative energy, but I suppose at least we got some hinting in Secrets of Magic about the relationship between disease and necromancy.
Vitalism can be enormously beneficial in healing all manner of afflictions and is generally regarded as the most benign subspecialty of necromancy. While the anatomical and pathological studies needed to master the art still raise a few eyebrows in less enlightened quarters, most learned minds accept vitalism as a perfectly respectable field.
That it can also be used to parasitize and blight the living is unfortunate, but no worse than an evoker’s fireballs or an illusionist’s deadly phantasms.
But alas if we want to get back to properly arguing about arbitrary spell school categories, we should pop ourselves back on over to the wizard remaster thread--or I suppose make a new one, since it wasn't a wizard-only discussion at that point.
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To pick an argument that's more on-topic, "I'm chaotic but there's a code I follow" is actually a corebook CG champion, but go off I guess. I have never really understood people who say a chaotic character can't manage any kind of code. A code can be either lawful or chaotic depending what the code asks you to do, the code itself isn't inherently non-chaotic. The strictness of your adherence to a code may speak to lawful and chaotic tendencies, but any chaotic code is probably only going to focus on what's important or else include room for flexibility as befits its adherents.
If Law = Enforcement and Chaos = Freedom, then most decent sentients will be Neutral.
Apologies for the brief previous post.
Far too often I have seen Lawful=Good and Chaos=Evil so Lawful Good=Best Good.
After the removal of Good and Evil alignment (A throwback to Red Box), it appears that there are those who want to keep L and C to preserve that status quo.
Yet if I as a person were charted on such an axis, I would be between that and a maelstrom.
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TBH on these boards I feel I have often seen Lawful taken as Evil Lite by several posters.
I believe it is because they have strong Chaotic leanings and will tend to equate Law with Evil (and Good with Chaos). Just as those with strong Lawful leanings tend to equate Chaos with Evil (and Good with Law).
Truly, my life would have been poorer without the alignment grid and the ensuing debates.
Thank you all for this, even if it will soon vanish forever.
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TBH on these boards I feel I have often seen Lawful taken as Evil Lite by several posters.
I believe it is because they have strong Chaotic leanings and will tend to equate Law with Evil (and Good with Chaos). Just as those with strong Lawful leanings tend to equate Chaos with Evil (and Good with Law).
Truly, my life would have been poorer without the alignment grid and the ensuing debates.
Thank you all for this, even if it will soon vanish forever.
We could always start arguing about astrology. What sign of the Cosmic Caravan are you and what does it say about your romantic prospects with that cute nephilim two doors over? Find out now!
... Actually do we have any description of caravan signs in the vein of the zodiac? I don't know where I left my Occult Mysteries book and I don't have time to look.
I don’t think it is that helpful to have two letters in a monster stat block try to direct GMs on how to bring a creature to life and give it motivations in an encounter or adventure. In written adventures we need motivations and ecologies for creatures. This is far more helpful than alignments.
In Monster books (RIP Bestiaries) we need that stuff too, probably even more text dedicated to it, because we need a range of motivations and locations this creature can fit in their worlds.
For example, assuming that lawful societies exclusively value utilitarian function over aesthetics is to suggest that logic is inherently lawful and emotion is inherently chaotic. That kind of value assessment is not only reductionist to the detriment of creativity, it reinforces preconceived notions about “the right kind of good.”
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Only good creatures like soft pillows is a different approach to alignment debates, but assigning alignment based upon home decor feels pretty reductionist to character building. Urgathoa might have something to say about soft, comfortable and ornate belonging to Chaotic Good.
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I was responding to this :
“ A lawful creature will like a funtional and practical design much more than a wild impractial design, while the opposite is true of a chaotic creature. Similarly, a good creature will like a comfortable and soft design, while the opposite is true of an evil creature.”
That seems presumptuous and reductionist to me. If that wasn’t your argument then I guess I misread what you were trying to say. Lawful people can strongly experience emotion. Chaotic people can still use logic, they just might come to different conclusions about how to react to knowledge and emotions. Fantasy lore is full of lawful dwarves who never forgive a slight and hold a grudge against all reason. And Zyphus can coldly and logical apply nihilism and the certainty of meaningless death.
... Actually do we have any description of caravan signs in the vein of the zodiac? I don't know where I left my Occult Mysteries book and I don't have time to look.
I believe we do, though I can't remember where or what they are.
ah, here we go.