The player character Twining Gold-Flame Honeysuckle in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign has a curious backstory. She started as an ordinary twining gold-flame honeysuckle vine in the fey-infested Fangwood Forest. A wandering druid awakened her as a leshy familiar. Honey and the druid traveled around the villages in and near the Fangwood as healers. Bandits killed the druid, but Honey survived and became a leshy character rather than reverting to an unintelligent plant. She studied the bandits from hiding--giving her the Criminal background--and killed them off. Then she resumed making the rounds to the villages as a healer until at 6th level she had to rescue some villagers from the Ironfang Invasion, met the party, and joined them.
Honey was so accustomed to being a familiar that she attached herself to the catfolk monk in the party and declared that she was his familiar.
Later, in Prisoners of the Blight the party rescued the goddess Gendowyn, Lady of Fangwood, from captivity. While that happened at the end of the module, I altered events so that the party got to spend some time with Gendowyn. She had been a glaistig, a kind of long-lived fey, from the First World, moved to Golarion, planted and tended the Fangwood Forest, and founded the Accressiel Court as a home for fey in the Fangwood.
Proud and possessed of strong emotions, Gendowyn
considered all the glaistigs of Golarion to be her sisters, and so when the tyrant Treerazer slew Hephloma, guardian of the Fierani Forest, in 2506 AR, Gendowyn gathered her Accressiel Court into a fey army and marched against the nascent demon lord. Though their battles slew many in Treerazer’s cults—even capturing a legendary weapon, the Spiteful Scimitar—Gendowyn was eventually turned back, bearing several festering wounds from Treerazer that took the self-proclaimed earth goddess decades to fully heal.
Somehow, Gendowyn had become a goddess simply from tending and guarding the Fangwood and its fey for millennia. Or maybe fighting Treerazer had something to do with her godhood.
Honey expressed an interest in becoming a god herself, the god of familiars.
I considered that and realized that it would solve a major philosophical problem in my campaign. The religion of Hadregash, the pro-slavery barghest hero-god, would prevent a treaty to end the Ironfang Invasion because the followers of Hadregash would not give up the human war captives that they claimed as slaves. I needed to take the religion of Hadregash down a notch. I decided that if Honey became a godling, then Hadregash could show up to battle her--and lose.
And that worked. The 19th-level party fought a 23rd-level avatar of Hadregash and won. Hadregash would survive, but his clerics lost their divine powers for a day. And he would have to give up being a god of slavery and instead become a god of fighting for dominance.
The Godhood archetype is still a first draft and Honey has barely had time to test it. But two other discussions on the forum relate to it, so I am posting it now.
Godhood Dedication feat 8
Rare, Archetype, Dedication
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisite Your areas of concern from your personality or reputation align strongly with two domains. You are trained in Religion and expert in a skill associated with one of your domains.
Access You accessed a source of divine power, such as passing the test of the Starstone, becoming the herald of a god, or claiming the remains of a dead god.
You gain the initial domain spell of both domains as innate divine focus spells. You are trained in divine spell attacks and DCs. You start with a focus pool of 2 Focus Points. You refill your focus pool during your daily preparations, and you can regain 1 Focus Point by spending 10 minutes using the Refocus activity devoted to your areas of concern related to your domains. If you already have a focus pool with at least 1 focus point, then the size of your pool grows to 3 focus points.
Whenever you learn another Godhood archetype feat, you select an additional domain, up to a maximum of four domains, and gain its initial domain spell as an innate divine focus spell. This does not increase the size of your focus pool.
Special You can select other dedication feats. Godhood is a slow path.
Special Other feats give you followers. This means that you must work with the GM to write Edicts and Anathema for your clerics, champions, and similar deity-based classes to follow. Those classes can then select you as their deity. If you do not have a full list of Devotee Benefits, the follower lacks the missing benefit until it is acquired.
Advanced Domain Feat 10*
Cleric
Archetype Godhood, Soul Warden
Prerequisites An initial domain spell
* This version of the Advanced Domain feat is intended for use with an Archetype and has a different level for access than the original feat.
Your godhood has unlocked deeper connection to your domain. You gain an advanced domain spell from one of your domains. Increase the number of Focus Points in your focus pool by 1.
Special You can select this feat multiple times. Each time, you must select a different advanced domain spell from a domain for which you have an initial domain spell.
Divine Skill feat 10
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
Choose a skill that is not Religion. When you gain followers, this skill becomes your Divine Skill for them and the ability associated with the skill becomes a Divine Ability for them. You gain a skill increase in that skill and in Religion. An increase to legendary proficiency will not take effect until 15th level.
Develop Communion feat 12
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
You gain followers.
When you are a master in Occultism or Religion, you learn the Commune (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rituals.aspx?ID=6) ritual. When you are a master in Nature, you learn the Commune with Nature (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rituals.aspx?ID=7) ritual. You do not require a secondary caster for them and your casting time is one hour rather than one day. Other people can use Commune to contact you, but your responses are limited by the spell.
Select an expert skill out of Nature, Occultism, or Religion. It increases to master. If none are expert, you may train a skill instead.
Develop Divine Font feat 12
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
You gain followers.
You gain divine spells that channel either the life force called vitality energy or its counterforce called void (The Remastering will rename positive energy and negative energy). Chose heal or harm. The divine fonts of your followers match this choice. During your daily preparations, you can prepare 2 heal or harm spells, depending on your choice, at your highest spellcasting level (half your character level rounded up). You are expert in divine spell attacks and DCs.
Special You may select this feat twice. When you select it a second time, your followers gain a choice of heal fonts or harm fonts, and you yourself can prepare each spell as either heal or harm. The number of spells increases to 2 plus your Charisma modifier (minimum 2). If you already have a divine font from another source, follow the instructions here as if selecting this feat a second time.
Develop Favored Weapon feat 12
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
You gain followers.
Choose a weapon. It becomes the favored weapon of your followers. Your proficiency in that weapon increases by one rank: from untrained to trained, trained to expert, expert to master, or master to legendary. If your proficiency increases from another source, this increase applies from the new starting proficiency. When you critically succeed at an attack roll using your favored weapon, you apply the weapon's critical specialization effect; use expert divine spell DC if the critical specialization calls for a DC.
Establish Afterlife feat 16
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
You gain followers.
Chose an outer sphere plane as the afterlife for your followers, though the god Pharasma decides on the afterlife of each individual. You have established a home on that plane and you have a spiritual presence there that can associate with the spirits of your followers. This spiritual presence cannot leave, but you share senses with it and can consult with your dead followers for researching information. You gain plane shift as a divine innate spell. You can cast it twice per week to travel to your afterlife home, temporarily merging with your spiritual presence, or to return physically to your previous location. You don't require a tuning fork.
Establish Cleric Spells feat 16
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication
You gain followers.
Chose a 1st-level spell, a 3rd-level spell, and a 5th-level spell. Each spell can be any tradition and could be lower than the named level, but the spell must relate to your domains, your Edicts, or your Anathema. Your clerics can prepare those spells as if they were divine spells. You can prepare the 1st-level spell during your daily preparations. If you are a master in Religion, you can prepare the 3rd-level spell instead. If you are legendary in Religion, you can prepare the 5th-level spell instead. You are expert in divine spell attacks and DCs.
Full Status feat 20
Archetype Godhood
Prerequisites Godhood Dedication, four domains granted by Godhood feats.
Select Edicts, Anathema, Afterlife plane, Areas of Concern, a pair of Divine Abilities, Heal or Harm font, Divine Skill, Favored Weapon, and Cleric Spells, consistent with choices made in other Godhood feats but filling in gaps. You are a god offering full deity benefits like Cayden Caylean, Iomedae, and Kurgess. You can select the physical age of your body. One hour after you die, your body and any gear remaining on it disappear and you manifest them fully healed and repaired in an location that you visited or in your afterlife. A god or other entity of deity-level power who has authority over you or caused your death can interfere with this reincarnation to imprison you instead.
The philosophy behind the Godhood feats is that the character is gradually building up the devotee benefit features listed in a typical diety entry, such as Cayden Cailean.
Anyone can worship a deity, but those who do so devoutly should take care to pursue the faith’s edicts (behaviors the faith encourages) and avoid its anathemas (actions considered blasphemous). Each deity below has their alignment listed in parentheses after their name, followed by a short description and their edicts, anathemas, and the alignments permitted for followers. Following that are benefits available to the most ardent devotees of the deities. You get these benefits only if you’re a cleric of the deity or some other rule specifically gives you a devotee benefit.
Each time the character adds a devotee benefit, they gain a similar benefit themselves. Since those benefits are designed for balanced characters, that makes these features mostly balanced yet with a divine flavor.