There's a Drift Crisis style event coming to Pathfinder! There's going to be a war in the outer planes, and one of the Core 20 is going to die! This is not a drill!
To ask the obvious question: who's getting the axe?
If the goal is to keep Starfinder as a possible future, then it probably won't be one of the overlapping gods. I'm comfortable saying that Abadar, Desna, Iomedae, Pharasma, Sarenrae, Urgathoa, and Zon-Kuthon are safe. The Zon-Shelyn talk in the Starfinder 2e announcement probably means that Shelyn is safe. There's a chance that it's misdirection somehow, but my gut says otherwise. Rovagug is probably also safe, because he's really unlikely to be taking part. Torag vanished with Golarion, so he should be safe as well.
Some of the PF 20 were ported over to SF as other gods. They might be safe, but their diminished prominence means that a retcon is much less noticeable than for a core deity.
My gut says that Asmodeus would be the most convenient choice. The actual figure is also a king of Hell in some mythological sources so he’s fair game to keep, but at the same time Paizo wants to differentiate itself from WotC as much as possible. A civil war in Hell would make for great story fodder, which must also be considered. Then there's the Key. Who knows what will happen to it should it's bearer get killed?
Then again, Lamashtu is canonically concerned about getting taken out, and a war would be perfect cover. Or, dying in a war would be a glorious death for Gorum. However, it could be that the recently announced Wardens of the Wild might have to step up should Gozreh fall. But dying might explain why Nethys isn't in Starfinder...
So many possibilities. Well, 20 possibilities. I'm slightly leaning Asmodeus for now. What do you think?
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As I've said in other threads, with the visions at the end of Stolen Fate, which includes the war this upcoming death will take place in, a vision where the PCs "watch the Sun die" makes me incredibly worried about Sarenrae. Both because losing one of the biggest Big Goods of the setting and a personal favorite of one of the devs WOULD be a strong way to signal a "nothing will ever be the same again" sort of change and because it would effectively cleave Pathfinder and Starfinder into two separate canons with finality (even more than it already is with Redeemer Queen Nocticula in Pathfinder and Demon Lord Nocticula in Starfinder).
I don't know what bothers me more; the fact that Sarenrae is among my favorite deities in the setting, and losing her would be an unimaginable tragedy for the whole of Golarion (including more than a few of my own PCs), or that if they committed to this I'd lose a lot of the reassurance that Starfinder kind of was about the direction Pathfinder's story was going. Like, I could take comfort in the fact that nothing fatal was going to happen to Sarenrae, or Iomedae or such in Pathfinder because they appear in Starfinder, so Gap or no Gap they'd at least be okay. But killing off a Pathfinder God who is present in Starfinder would unambiguously declare that Starfinder is NOT Pathfinder's future. And I'd hate that, because I have such an obsessive-compulsive need to adhere to canon that there being two canons means I'd have to choose which set of characters I've played and will play are henceforth delegitimized.
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And I'd hate that, because I have such an obsessive-compulsive need to adhere to canon that there being two canons means I'd have to choose which set of characters I've played and will play are henceforth delegitimized.
I've always read it as a multiverse. In particular, Starfinder was the destiny of Golarion... and then Abadar didn't show up, and Fate was broken forever, and suddenly it wasn't anymore. On the flip side, it was a future that was written into reality hard enough that even being severed from its past couldn't kill it, so we wound up with the Gap and then it started back up again - two timelines that were sheared apart by a traumatic event, each managing to exist independently, both canon.
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I don't think "keeping Starfinder as a possible future" is a priority since the Gap means that continuity is irrelevant.
Considering the overarching metaplot of PF2 involves Tar-Baphon's threat to all mortal life, we haven't done anything with the Knights of Lastwall yet (or their mysterious patron), and we've done a lot to flesh out Geb and put it in a stable place- I think the most likely candidate for "who gets got" is Urgathoa.
Specifically, if Arazni can end Urgathoa (and take over as "the undeath god") that allows her to take revenge on both Geb and the Whispering Tyrant. Remember, Urgathoa possesses Tar Baphon's soul cage.
But the two deities most likely to die and have that not take are Sarenrae (b/c the phoenix rises from the ashes- rebirth is tied to fire) and Urgathoa.
Sarenrae is also my favorite among the current Core 20, and I'd also hate to lose her. As I said, I really do think the overlapping core deities are safe. I don't think they're going to definitively declare that SF is or isn't PFs future. Keeping it ambiguous allows more room for stories while keeping the player base appeased. It's a lot easier to make SF PF's future at you table if they don't say it isn't, or to keep it as just a possible future if they don't say it will definitely happen.
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But the two deities most likely to die and have that not take are Sarenrae (b/c the phoenix rises from the ashes- rebirth is tied to fire) and Urgathoa.
Just imagine the opportunities for shocking twists, though!
- War between the gods!
- Sarenrae dies because Reasons. She was probably going all-in trying to smite someone who deserved smiting.
- Sarenrae gets better!
- Arazni takes out Urgathoa, seizes Tar-Baphon's soul cage, does horrible things to him and claims his lands for her own. They're still filled with undead.
- Urgathoa gets better!
- Some third deity dies.
But the two deities most likely to die and have that not take are Sarenrae (b/c the phoenix rises from the ashes- rebirth is tied to fire) and Urgathoa.Just imagine the opportunities for shocking twists, though!
- War between the gods!
- Sarenrae dies because Reasons. She was probably going all-in trying to smite someone who deserved smiting.
- Sarenrae gets better!
- Arazni takes out Urgathoa, seizes Tar-Baphon's soul cage, does horrible things to him and claims his lands for her own. They're still filled with undead.
- Urgathoa gets better!
- Some third deity dies.
This general scenario crossed my mind. One of the 20 is going to die and stay dead, but there's nothing saying that others won't die temporarily. It would be a great way to keep interest high.
Haha, ironically, Sarenrae is one of my favorites but I'd be pretty interested in seeing her die... But I do love my dramas. :B I'm low-key hoping for some tragic turn of events.
That said, I'm under the assumption that she is pretty well-beloved at Paizo and I'm not so sure that she would pass away because of that. Same thing with Desna. I could see Iomedae dying, more in the sense that I don't see a reason on why she couldn't be it, and maybe Calistria or Erastil as well. Having Nethys or Abadar die sounds like it should change a lot of things in the setting, especially for Nethys, and I'm not so sure that would happen right now.
I'd be pretty mild on any of the evil deities dying, though, unless their death could create some more cool hooks around Golarion. Wouldn't love if their death just wrapped some issues up. Ultimately and realistically, I do believe that it's Asmodeus though, for the post-OGL context.
My wildcard choice is Pharasma! That would be pretty unexpected.
They said "at least one" and killing aspects of Norgorber would allow us to have fractional god-deaths.
We have a backup Desna in the Black Butterfly.
Torag is absolutely someone who would sacrifice himself for a sufficiently good reason.
Killing Gozreh would mean that nature is less "under control".
If Arazni can't be the Undeath Goddess if Urgathoa dying doesn't stick, she could be the REVENGE Goddess, so Calistria is kind of redundant.
We could resolve the Shelyn/Zon-Kuthon thing too.
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I don't think "keeping Starfinder as a possible future" is a priority since the Gap means that continuity is irrelevant.
Like I said, the fact that some stuff made it through the other side of the Gap was reassuring to me because it sort of said "it's okay, we're not going to indiscriminately blow up your favorite aspects of the setting or arbitratily and unceremoniously kill off your favorite members of the pantheon for cheap drama the way Forgotten Realms did with The Spellplague."
This new development opens that door back up again, the potential that a character I've poured a lot of time and love is swept up in some catastrophe because the canon setting's had such a massive upheaval that even iconic big-name characters protetected by plot armor and brand recognition are messed up, so what chance does your lowly PC have surviving something that should unceremoniously wreck them by statistics alone? Kind of like how it seemed to me that any Council of Thieves PCs are doomed by Hell's Vengeance, because why WOULDN'T they join The Glorious Reclamation in protecting their city and thus die at the hands of the Hell's Vengeance PCs?
Besides, Stolen Fate put that gun on the stage about the sun dying, so by Chekhov it's gotta be fired SOMEHOW!
If there's one thing that would make me ragequit the setting, it would be killing Saranrae. She's by far my favorite fantasy god(dess) across all settings I know.
...Zon-Kuthon are safe. The Zon-Shelyn talk in the Starfinder 2e announcement probably means that Shelyn is safe.
I think the writing is on the wall here. My money is on a sibling squabble where both Zon-Kuthon and Shelyn die, but are remade into a new/combined deity.
I mean, Zon-Kuthon could "die" in the sense that Shelyn could excise the corruption out of Dou-Bral, freeing her brother at long last. Then that same corruption could find a different host and come back later.
I think the 2 of the 20 that are absolutely safe (because they are the big bads of the setting) are Asmodeus and Rovagug.
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My wildcard choice is Pharasma! That would be pretty unexpected.
During the entire god war, absolutely no one dies at all and then in the last three minutes Groetus comes in crashing down on the Boneyard and Pharasma dies. The end.
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Asmodeus as the embodiment and divine ruler of a Hell that represents unholy order is a very strong D&Dism.
Paizo has been working hard to trim D&Disms from Golarian ever since Remaster was announced.
So my money is on him.
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Haha, ironically, Sarenrae is one of my favorites but I'd be pretty interested in seeing her die... But I do love my dramas. :B I'm low-key hoping for some tragic turn of events.
That said, I'm under the assumption that she is pretty well-beloved at Paizo and I'm not so sure that she would pass away because of that. Same thing with Desna. I could see Iomedae dying, more in the sense that I don't see a reason on why she couldn't be it, and maybe Calistria or Erastil as well. Having Nethys or Abadar die sounds like it should change a lot of things in the setting, especially for Nethys, and I'm not so sure that would happen right now.
I'd be pretty mild on any of the evil deities dying, though, unless their death could create some more cool hooks around Golarion. Wouldn't love if their death just wrapped some issues up. Ultimately and realistically, I do believe that it's Asmodeus though, for the post-OGL context.
My wildcard choice is Pharasma! That would be pretty unexpected.
I think the thing is, if you are going to kill a neutral/good god, it really has to be one with some popularity. I kind of feel like Erastil or Abadar would kind of get a collective shrug if you killed them off, versus a deity like Desna. Not that I think Desna will die mind you.
Design Manager
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This general scenario crossed my mind. One of the 20 is going to die and stay dead, but there's nothing saying that others won't die temporarily. It would be a great way to keep interest high.
And if we're going to kill one of the core 20, are any of the other gods really safe?
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They’ve been pretty consistent in saying Starfinder is its own canon (see: Nocticula not having ascended in it), so unless that changes I wouldn’t look to the post-Gap pantheon for clues.
Now, does the two games playing nice with each other mean canon might start getting along better? Who knows.
There's a Drift Crisis style event coming to Pathfinder! There's going to be a war in the outer planes, and one of the Core 20 is going to die! This is not a drill!
To ask the obvious question: who's getting the axe?
If the goal is to keep Starfinder as a possible future, then it probably won't be one of the overlapping gods.
Unless it's a time warping event. Something changes the past in a way that rewrites the future.
Makes for a great way to let SF2E have retcons of things from SF1E that no longer fit the Paizo vision.
Everyone in some 'edition change-over' story experiences a bubble effect where things have subtle change around them, and the PCs work to limit the impact - with the adventure end result being limiting it to just the things getting retconned.
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Zon-Shelyn can be a SF1->SF2 transition thing that recently happened in that timeline and not be part of the upcoming PF2 event. In Starfinder Shelyn has always post-Gap up to current SF timeline beeen distant and hard to reach for her followers as she's off on the fringes looking for a way to heal her brother. Most likely this merger happens as a way to conclude that quest.
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Honestly, I’m warming up to the thought of killing Asmodeus off… because of the knock-on effects for Cheliax.
I think killing off Asmodeus and having Mephistopheles move on down to the big seat is fine. Or even Baalzebul leap frogging to get some much delayed recompense for complaining too much to the boss.
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I kinda of like the idea of Rovagug dying because I feel with that you could do a whole "killed the big bad but that was holding something back even worse" or Asmodeus would be fun throwing with it throwing hell into chaos as other demon lords vie for being the new the top dog
Maybe Rovagug died first.
I mean, maybe that's what starts this whole godswar thing off in the first place. Right now, there's at least a little bit of "uneasy truce" and realpolitik going on because they've got this horrible trapped thing that's an existential threat to basically everyone and you want to tiptoe around the nukes at least a little, but if he wound up dying? Suddenly all sorts of gloves can come off.
Then, too, there's a lot of space for things to get mucked with. One of the core 20 is going to straight-up die. Cool. How many of them are going to change?
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I just can't see Rovagug getting killed, because if it was possible to kill Rovagug, why didn't they do it billions of years ago instead of caging the Rough Beast?
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I mean, because they couldn't then but can for whatever reason now is the obvious answer.
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They hadn't invented player characters yet.
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I think Saranrae is safe for one reason. It would be really rough to have a cleric of saranrae featured on the new Player Core, who is the Iconic Cleric, and then have their goddess die a year or two later. Having a core diety die could already be dicey for new players, but having the one explictly featured as a character option feels rough. Irori and Imoaedae feel safe for simillar reasons but since monk and champion are in player core 2 and we dont have official covers for them yet, they could potentially change them and just havent revealed that yet.
That being said Saranrae does have some evidence that it could be her. But still I think it would be a bad look.
Asmodeus is my favorite, he would have msasive ramifications for the setting, has a lot of options for successor which could also lead to stories, and I can see his death causing a ripple effect for a bunch of other dieties to die. Maybe one of the more aggressive good gods does the deed, someone like Ragathiel but dies as well.
Torag, urgathoa, or one of the siblings seems like other likely dieties imo. I think the siblings are safe so that starfinders lore can still be its own thing.
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Please Paizo, don't hurt comrade Torag, father of the proletariat!
I believe Gozreh going down would be more interesting narratively. It would definetily make the wild howl, and I always felt Gozreh is just there for no other reason than giving druids a deity if they are not into the coolest green faith. And, are there not like 12 expanded nature deities in ROTE?
There's also the Wardens of the Wild, who could step up as nature deities collectively. There's also Algenweis, who we've known about sine Gods and Magic but who hasn't been expanded upon.
One of the reasons I lean away from the twins is that it would change Nidal as we know it. Zon-Shelyn would be very different from Zon-Kuthon, and wouldn't require the same things. They certainly wouldn't tolerate the same things. Nidal hasn't gotten the kind of focus that some other nations have, so a radical shakeup doesn't make sense until it's been explored.
The same is not true of Cheliax, which has been fairly well explored. Asmodeus' death would be a huge blow to the Thrune regime, and there would definitely be changes. At the same time, we could also get a Cheliax that still fills its narrative function. Hell is bigger than Asmodeus, no matter what he might think. There would be internal turmoil, but House Thrune could shop around for a new internal patron. That period of internal turmoil could provide Andoran for the opportunity it needs to take the Thrunes out of the equation. The consensus is that Andoran would be the aggressor in the A/C war. This could be the final push to make them strike, assuming said war isn't part of this plotline.
Honestly, I’m warming up to the thought of killing Asmodeus off… because of the knock-on effects for Cheliax.
A very good point, which would suit me as a) “Asmodeus” has always been a really, really weird inclusion in DnD and iterations and b) as much as a devil-state is like, totes ughmaginahtahv, its time it went the way of the owlbear.
Honestly, I’m warming up to the thought of killing Asmodeus off… because of the knock-on effects for Cheliax.A very good point, which would suit me as a) “Asmodeus” has always been a really, really weird inclusion in DnD and iterations and b) as much as a devil-state is like, totes ughmaginahtahv, its time it went the way of the owlbear.
So you're saying that you personally don't like it?
Well, your voice matters as much as it matters.
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It matters not!
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It matters not!
Go away LSB! Anyway, for what it’s worth, I really like the visual aesthetic of the hellknights. That counts for a bit…right?
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If, after new new Starfinder 2e comes out, they are separate canons according to Paizo (which the differing versions of Nocticula suggests), then technically, no god is safe from one of them being killed off in Pathfinder Remastered.
Also, I am having strong flashbacks to City of Heroes (before it officially closed) where they did "One will die" for a major hero in their canon. They killed two.... because they never said "Only one will die".
Now, that being said, killing multiple deities in a setting potentially sets up other problems....
As to my particular vile speculation..... (I'm going to leave out deities that I don't have an opinion on.)
Asmodeus could be on the chopping block simply to continue the move away from D&D similarities, but it's not like Asmodeus is specific to D&D, like, say Zariel is. (Note, I am not aware of Zariel appearing anywhere else.)
Caydean Cailean is probably too much of a fan favorite to be offed, but they could tie it into something like the power of the Starstone fading.
Gorum could have bit off more than he could chew, so he's a possibility.
Iomedae is probably safe, unless Paizo wants to do the continued kicking anything related to Aroden in the nuts, or they're doing something with the Starstone.
Irori is probably safe, because.... why? I mean, if you're going to kill a deity in the PF2e setting, there's more interesting choices.
Norgorber.... honestly, if they kill him, the rest of the gods would probably think it's some kind of twisted trick/plan of his.
Pharasma is a little too important to the cosmology of the setting to just kill.
Rovagug is probably safe. If, canonically, a coalition of good and evil gods could only imprison him, not kill him, then it's unlikely that {insert plot device} is going to kill him.
Zon-Shelyn is so basically fused version of Zon-Kuthon and Shelyn
If we can know why that happened to them...
We often hurt the ones we love.
So, I guess the handcuffs are padded/fuzzy and safewords are a must.
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I don't think Starfinder poses any shackles to continuity. Sarenrae could die but return sometime during the Gap, and nobody would know.
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I get the feeling that the biggest repercussions are what the devs are looking for. Something to really shake up the canon. So the safest bets for who to easily kill off might be the least likely to die and the ones that are “too important” have their heads cleanly and well-placed on ye olde chopping block.
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I'm actually going to throw a massive curve ball and say Asmodeus dies. Because Asmodeus is a huge lynchpin of the settings and would cause the biggest disruption in the entire cosmos. Not to mention the meta reason of "5e also uses the name Asmodeus and that's a big no-no.". He's in a similar realm as the Drow, so he gets the axe.
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The Drow become the Word!