| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, with the War of Immortals playtest making it pretty clear now that multiple gods will die and rampant speculation already underway who it is going to be, I thought it might be fun to make my personal tier list, of the best and worst gods of the setting (and those in-between). And of course everyone else can post their preferences as well. :)
I'm of course including all the big 20 in this list as well as some personal favorites of mine from the minor gods as well as one of the mayor gods of Tian Xia.
: These are the best gods the setting has to offer, in terms of flavor and personal preference.
Saranrae: My absolute favorite deity of Golarion above them all, her themes of redemption and swift justice, together with her dedication to good and honesty, just make her really compelling to me.
Cayden Cailean: The self-made god of freedom and bravery is basically a top tier choice for adventurers and it's always fun to play as an adherent of his credo, with his penchant for alcohol in moderation and parties in general.
Nocticula: The demon lord who rose above her own nature and became a prime example of how free will can also lead to a better road down the line. Since I am big on redemption in stories, of course I feel quite drawn to her.
: These are gods who are thematically well placed in the setting and have interesting and/or fun themes, but do not quite make the cut to be ones favorite.
Asmodeus: He's a real go-getter, having subdued an entire nation with the help of mortals, generally having his finger in a lot of pots and also having competent underlings overall. He's not as interesting as, say, Mephistopheles, but definitely someone who has an important role in the setting and who's presence is felt in the lore at most times.
Desna: The other god of adventurers, she is an inspiring figure, who gets set a bit back by her seeming aloofness, due to her alien origins. When reading about worshippers of her in the setting, to me at least there always was a bit of a disconnect when determining what they found so great about her.
Pharasma: Probably the most influential god in the setting, due to her governing life and death itself and being the judge of souls at the end of their journey. Also, psychopomps are really cool. Still, the severeness her followers normally exhibit in interactions with others makes me personally also feel a bit cold towards her. However, she's the only "true" neutral god in the setting which actually seems to have a personality of sorts.
Urgathoa: While I personally find her abhorrent, it's undeniable that her focus on gluttony and hedonistic behaviour, aside from her being the goddess of undeath, makes her stand out from other evil deities of undeath I've seen in other settings. Also, her worshippers can be pretty dang stylish, if evil.
Zon-Kuthon: Well, talking about stylish, the spiky torture edgelords who follow Zon-Kuthon certainly stand out and their very presence has a big influence of how the entire setting is perceived. That they often turn up in adventure paths as minor or mayor antagonists (or even unexpected allies in some cases) makes his presence felt like few other deities of the setting.
Besmara: I like pirates in media and dang, she's the most stylish one a person could wish for. Her beautiful red-headed priestesses from some AP's also make me like her a lot, what can I say?
Shizuru: I also like samurai, so a goddess of samurai, honor and the sun is bound to be a favorite of mine. IF Paizo makes the mistake of killing Saranrae, I do hope she can step in and take over for her.
: These are deities who fill important roles in the setting, but have something missing, be it flawed personalities or just unteresting/off-putting aspects to them, so that they miss getting into the top spots.
Abadar: Another very important god to the setting, the one who is responsible for fair prices, economic stability and the growth of civilization. However, given his view of "law over decency", at times his worshippers come off as impediments to overcome rather than persons, as can be seen for example at times in Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Iomedae: Ah, yes, the goddess of honor and warfare and smiting your behind with 20d6 points of damage if you dare to get sassy. I fear Wrath of the Righteous has colored my view of her somewhat negatively, what can I say?
Milani: Given the prevalence of tyrannies on Golarion, one would think that she would have a bigger place in the cosmology, but Milani is relegated to minor god status, due to what I think is Cayden just being better at what she does and more popular and fun to be a worshipper of as well.
: These are deities which have some cool elements, but which are held back by either being pretty boring or just problematic elements.
Calistria: Goddess of Lust and Vengeance. For me those two aspects just don't gel together very much. And to be honest, the bee motive also doesn't do it for me at all. That she is the main goddess of elves also doesn't work for me, given that I view elves on Golarion as neither particularly lustful nor vengeful.
Irori: The concept of Irori as someone who pushes his believers towards a path of self-perfection is generally good, but in practice results in a lot of NPC's who come off as boring try-hards. Irori lacks, to me, a fun component which makes playing as one of his worshippers just thematically more interesting and fun.
Norgorber: Three aspects of Norgorger are interesting, i.e. espionage, thievery and assassination. The fourth aspect, killer clowns with giant razors, i.e. murder, is what ruins him in my personal opinion. Also the name Norgorber, which for me always makes me want to name him Norgorby, in honor of the great Mikhail Gorbachevs nickname Gorby.
Lamashtu: The example of how you don't rise above your own nature when ascending to godhood. However, the pretty gross focus on monstrous births makes her at least somewhat interesting as a provider of antagonists to player characters.
: These are deities which are mostly just boring or have serious flaws which put them below other deities in terms of being interesting or just likeable.
Shelyn: Shelyn kinda lacks personality traits which make her interesting and, to be perfectly honest, her worshippers who have turned up in the AP's I've played have also been boring the hell out of me. She needs a bit of an edge to go beyond just a nice person who wants beautiful things and has a drunk mean brother she wants to fix.
Rovagug: Making his followers just unreasonable CE murder-hobos, who you can kill without feeling bad and him having zero personality traits beyond "kill! destroy!" makes Rovagug pretty boring. You can barely make an adventure around Rovagug cultists, because they are so self-destructive that they just fill the role of trash mobs to rush the party.
Torag: I gotta say, Torag is way too much of a "generic dwarven deity", after already having spent time with Moradin in the Forgotten Realms. I certainly have not seen a single interesting aspect of the guy and his tendencies towards murking the "enemy of his people" as a LG deity is kinda problematic for me as well.
Gorum: Another case where the lack of personality aside from "I don't want peace! I want problems, always!" is kinda killing my interest in him. He just comes off as way too neutral in things for me, so that lack of personality is just off-putting.
Erastil: Aside from the de-canonized woman-hating bits about him, Old Deadeye still comes off as too much of a stodgy bore to me, personally. He needs to get a bit more proactive to make him interesting in my eyes.
: Yeah, I'm skipping directly to F, since the last two deities just don't work for me at all. And of course it's those filty Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me. :p
Gozreh: Gozreh is just... boring. And I get it, neutral god of nature, because nature is neutral. But, sorry, other settings have produced at least interesting gods of nature, like Mielikki. I think there's no greater sin for a god in a fictional setting than being plain boring.
Nethys: And again, Nethys is boring. Yeah, he has a dualistic nature and his worshippers dress funny, but magic is a really important part of a fantasy setting, which to me means that we should get a god of magic who at least has interesting principles. This "cycle of creation and destruction" thing just feels impersonal and off-putting. I would prefer it much more if he got his s#*& together and started doing more stuff hands-on.
So, those are my opinions. What are your favorite gods? Who do you wish should be more prominent? I certainly would love for Nocticula to get a big 20 spot.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, Mielikki is just stolen from finnish mythology :p
Anyhoo, I personally think what lot of core 20 gods needs is just feeling of them having done interesting things in the past, like mythology involving them and such. Force of nature type gods like Gozreh and Nethys have interesting role I think greek god types ones can't always fulfil.
Anyway, Kurgess is the best ;p Also appreciate Zyphus the salt lord, Achaekek the murder mantis, Grandmother Spider troller of Asmodeus among others. I in general also have lot of appreacitation for demigods that people would consider obscure, such as Nurgal the cooler half of Nergal and Areshkagal. Heck I like entire Azlanti pantheon too
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Setting aside the Osiriani pantheon, since it's really not fair to measure real-world gods against fictional ones, and limiting myself to the Core 20 I'm more familiar with:
- adore
Sarenrae - I mean, she's so popular she's found a footing on Exandria. She's the quintessential Pathfinder god, the archetypal good goddess, the nurturing sun that can warm your crops or scorch the unjust, and she's queer-friendly, there's not much to dislike and plenty to love. Even the stuff to criticise, like smiting Gormuz, just adds to her character - despite being a god she's still got flaws, and room to grow and change.
- love
Desna - You really can't not love an Elder God hiding as a cutesy butterfly woman. Desna presents a pleasant, appealing facade, but when you dig in there's some real big concepts and terrifying implications that makes her an interesting goddess.
Iomedae - Iomedae fills a lot of the same niches Sarenrae does, as a goddess of good whose followers have a history of militancy, but Iomedae has a lot less patience and willingness to offer her enemies room. Evil dies. Whether they could be redeemed is irrelevant in the moment when you make the split-second decision. And, weirdly for an Ascended, she's had to work her way up from merely being Arazni's replacement as Herald to having power thrust upon her with Aroden's death and having to cobble the remaining Arodenites together into a new coherent faith. I think if Aroden isn't actually dead, or somehow came back, he is going to face a reckoning from his former herald, who should be understandably furious at having his baggage dumped on her.
- like, but don't love
Lamashtu - She's almost the perfect archetypal evil goddess - a mother of monsters, an encourager of chaos and monstrosity, but with just enough to think there might be something a bit more to her. I had a fascinating conversation with a trans friend who is of the opinion that Lamashtu would be a PERFECT patron for trans villains, a "be the monster you know you are, without compromise or negotiation" patron for victims lashing out, if not for her anathema being treatment of illnesses, which would preclude transitioning.
Rovagug - The omnipresent and archetypical chained beast, Satan rising from the pit, Ghidora waiting for Godzilla to awaken him. The only thing I wish was better was his worshippers ethos - nihilism doesn't easily make for a coherent cause to organise around, since the very act of organising is antithetical to that ethos. And for such a looming threat, he's had very little impact on the plot of the major APs, the spectre of his unleashing really hasn't figured into the major world-changing events. And I get that it would be very easy to lean too hard into that - every other Star Wars movie has yet another Death Star - but it would be nice to see him at all.
Torag - the closest thing we have to a myth-accurate Thor, if he was less known for smiting giants and more known for his role as a family patriarch - it's easy to forget from his Marvel adventures that the mythological Thor was just as much of a family man as he was a beer-swilling giant-slayer, and had a wife and lovers, children with stories of their own (which have largely been lost), and had his own estate and lands*. He was probably even the central figure of the pantheon in some areas, displacing Odin and Freyr. Torag comes with an extended cast of characters to engage with alongside him, and an ethos for his chosen people and those who choose him. I just wish his aspect as a patron of the Ulfen was more well known. He isn't just the god of dwarves, plenty of humans find things to respect and revere in him, but the dwarf angle gets played up a lot at the expense of his human appeal.
- not as big a fan of as other people
Erastil - Erastil feels like a necessary deity, but not one I would ever necessarily worship, a bridge between Abadar and Gozreh who sits uneasily between the two. Like if Odin mellowed out and hung up Gungnir and handed Valhalla to someone else, then took up gardening in his old age. Which is a vibe, and one Paizo can build on the make more interesting, but at the moment Erastil feels like someone NPCs would be more likely to venerate than PCs to me.
Nethys - For the founder of a great empire, the god of magic, he doesn't really have much Impact on things. The split between a good side who wants to show people how to use magic, and an evil side that wants to show everyone why they should fear it, is an interesting dynamic that hasn't really been explored and, like Gozreh, I think he would be more interesting if he was outright split into two separate aspects, each warring for dominance over their chosen portfolio.
- meh
Zon-Kuthon[/B] - He's Hellraiser. That's...well, that's kinda it. And that's really all he wants or needs to be.
Norgorber - try as I might, I just can't grok Norgorber in any of his aspects. Almost as much as Zon-Kuthon, Norgorber feels like the archetypal brooding loner in a trenchcoat sitting in the corner, but at least ZK is unapologetic about what he is. I might appreciate him more if I read more about him, but lack of interest is a big hurdle.
Urgathoa - No significant issues, but I can't help thinking that most of her worship could just as easily be folded into Lamashtu.
- dislike
Shelyn - I think the fact that I keep mixing Shelyn up with the more immediately arresting Desna and Calistria says about as much as needs to be said. The only thing she has going for her is her dynamic with Zon-Kuthon, and her relationship with Sarenrae and Desna, which centres her story around others.
- really dislike
[spoiler=Expand]Gorum -
Anyhoo, I personally think what lot of core 20 gods needs is just feeling of them having done interesting things in the past, like mythology involving them and such. Force of nature type gods like Gozreh and Nethys have interesting role I think greek god types ones can't always fulfil.
This is really the problem with Gorum, I think. A god of war CAN be interesting, but he has to have something more than fighting. Even Ares has his notorious affair with Aphrodite and a fondness** for puppies. I like to think Kurgess better represents something embodied by Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball than the spiky armour he appears wearing/as - the ultimate fighting spirit, neither good nor evil but capable of kindness and cruelty, always looking for the next challenge and negotiating everything and everyone else in their life around that. But we only see that reflected in his followers, not him. Who does Gorum have to test himself against, who has matched blades with Our Lord in Iron and lived to tell the tale? Who does Gorum hunger to challenge himself against, but has never been able to best? Like Torag, does Gorum have family, friends, a community of people that he fights for or with?
- beyond the Core 20
Chamidu - B-Tier. Chamidu has an IMMEDIATELY arresting appearance, and a suspicious enough connection to Rakshasas that before I read Impossible Lands I speculated that she might also be a patron of redeemed Rakshasas. And that was before there was really much to her at all. I think it takes something special to draw that amount of attention with barely anything, and I hope she gets more attention in future Jalmeray/Vudra-based content.
Dis Pater - A-Tier. Call me predictable, but references to the Classics are right up my alley and Dis Pater presents a more appealing infernal ruler figure to me than Asmodeus. He also has some complexity to his character, with a Hades/Persephone relationship with Erecura, and a Hades/Zagreus dynamic with Ragathiel (who may also BE an aspect of Dis Pater, rather than just his son, splitting off the remaining noble sentiments into a separate being).
Grandmother Spider - A-Tier. The Mwangi Expanse needed something to set its gods apart, and Grandmother Spider was one of the earliest means of doing that, and more successful than Shimye-Magalla.
Kurgess - A-Tier. Kurgess has a really endearing origin, and interesting apotheosis, and a portfolio that makes him a patron of both gladiators and professional athletes. I think if anyone would be a friend to Gorum, willing to put up with their more militant nature for the things they have in common, it would likely be Kurgess.
Nocticula - A-Tier. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't love Nocticula's narrative path, from the goddess of Succubi to finding enough of a measure of redemption to leave evil behind her. I haven't read enough, or experienced the adventure where it happens, for her to be S-Tier but I can see why she would be for others.
Shizuru - A-Tier. She has a lot of mythology and character, the Isis to Tsukiyomi's Osiris, and embodies a lot of aspects that I'm kinda surprised she hasn't expanded into the Inner Sea much yet. If Sarenrae does die, and the Padishah Empire has to look for a new divine patron, there are worse goddesses to import than Shizuru.
The Osiriani Pantheon - S-Tier. As already noted, I adore the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, and although I can appreciate the arguments that Paizo would have been better off making their own Egypt-like gods if they wanted a Fantasy Egypt setting, I've found it thoroughly rewarding researching them for my Mummy's Mask game, and found that research really makes the setting feel more fleshed out to me and my players, even for the fictional gods - I've been able to flesh out the Pharasmins and Nethysians in ways that wouldn't have occurred to me without it.
* Thor's home was called Thrudheim, and may have been named after his daughter Thrud. The idea that Thor was comfortable hanging out in his daughter's hall, protecting her honour from giants but also very proud of her as a Vaklyrie in her own right, is an endearing image.
** don't look too hard into that if you don't want to be upset.
WHoops, missed that I hadn't formatted the E-Tier properly which folded the F-TIer in with it.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ya know after seeing lot of core 20 gods getting flack in the "whos gonna die" thread, I think this thread is good opportunity to note my own opinions in non tier list manner:
Abadar: Deity perfect for LN antagonists you don't want to murder, good excuse why church of Sarenrae would have spellcasting service cost(because crhuch of Abadar demands it) and in general really good for world building and npcs.
I think what lot of people forget about gods is that how gods' presence in the world comes up is as important as the mythology of god in itself.
Asmodeus: Eeeeeeeh I think problem with Asmodeus is I personally have is that the Archdevils are more interesting than he is because they can get more directly involved than he does. That said, I would be delighted if my headcanon of there having been multiple Asmodeus who rereplaced each other secretly came to be true, see what I really need with Asmodeus is at least one revelation of his lies as prince of lies since his current status of "maybe everything he says is lies, maybe that's the lie that you thinkt hey are lies" is bit too ambiguous for my tastes.
That said, Asmodeus has very big important role as patron deity of Cheliax and the head honcho of church of fantasy satan, so his weight in setting is much more interesting than him personally, though he is great side character or antagonist in other deities story.
Calistria: In kinda danger of being phased out since paizo doesn't like to highlight sexual content anymore, but has managed to stay around even then. She does have some interesting trickster deity qualities and wasp thing is fun, but she does kinda have scorned lover thing going on.
Still npc wise her presence is welcome since Calistrian priests are badass.
Cayden Cailean: Hes the presence we need to lighten things up, without him around things would be too dour. His presence as god of adventures and fun drink a lot priests is pretty important for keeping tone of setting not get too dark.
Desna: Eh, I like her as celestial moth god, but I don't actually get her as much as most people do.
I mean, she is god of travelers and luck, but that just means its kinda funny when her priests setup a shop in city instead of wandering around? Like its still important role, but its very much deity that seems to work much better for pcs than for npcs since there aren't lot of wandering npcs around in aps that leave and go as they please.
Erastil: God of farmers and community is VERY important for setting, but less so for adventurers. Still he makes for interesting alternate pc characters AND ALSO THEY BETTER NOT KILL OFF THE ONLY ANIMAL HEAD GOD OF CORE 20 NOW THAT HE FINALLY HAS A FAMILY ahem
Gorum: Favorite among certain law vs chaos fanatics I know, because immovable force of FIGHTING setting up shop in border of Elysium just to fight things at borders is just hilariously awesome. His role as cleric of battle crazed maniacs is also important.
Gozreh: Fulfills very important role as god of nature worshippers who aren't druids or green faith worshippers. Has interesting role as god who is more of force of nature than a person.
Iomedae: God with lot of interesting on going story potential and good pc god, what there is to say about god of archetypical paladins who is inheritor of dead god's faith?
Irori: Master monk god that plays the role of straightman to gods shenanigans. Seriously, he seems to be build to be the serious one with only amusing thing about him being riding on his nephew's back in that one Gruthastra picture. I think "serious boring one" is important niche to fulfill plus Irori is pretty badass.
Lamashtu: Best evil god in core 20, don't @ at me ;P She is qrotesque, but motherly, she is the one demon that seems like she actually has ideals besides doing things because its evil.
Nethys: Eh he is kinda hard to get read on because his dual personality makes him act like force of nature rather than person. Overally his priests tend to be more interesting than he is.
Norgorber: Four package mystery who might not be four halflings in trenchcoat who kicked out fifth as their sidekick. Let me be rank here: Skinsaw Cult is my favorite recurring enemy cult in entire pathfinder ;P I kinda want to see plotline where Norgorber splits into four gods who then have battle royale with each other before fusing back together. Anyway, been loving Norgorber stuff in Agents of Edgewatch.
Pharasma: Could be spookier, but yeah lot to like about Pharasma's nature as "neutral arbiter of the dead" and her impact on setting, including her moments of "I don't take crap from anyone, get curse'd".
Rovagug: Godzilla treshold god where if they got released, nothing would stay same anymore, thus they can't get released. However, their worshiper make for great "massive horde of evil crusading maniacs" stories.
Sarenrae: She is pretty great yeah and has interesting history with other gods and interesting presence in world such as with Kelesh.
Shelyn: My favorite good aligned god in core 20 tbh, I just like her paladin code being super pacifistic and her status as the super nice incorruptible one.
Torag: Dwarven god of defense war and smithing isn't super interesting by himself, but he is interesting in context of greater dwarven pantheon and dwarven cultural depression (though 2e seems to have went lighter on that as well)
Urgathoa: She has lot of interesting aspects to her, but I gotta admit, her worshippers are much cooler villains than she actually is.
Zon-Kuthon: I like ZK a lot. Why? He is horrifyingly evil, but he actually makes sense as LN worshipper god because he already has what he wants, so he just focuses on preaching about pain and suffering. So he has that fascinating role as bad guy who needs toppling but whose worshippers make for fascinating morbid allies
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just realised I forgot to rank Pharasma, so I suppose I'll do it here.
B-Tier. I don't hate her, she has a lot to like about her, but something about being the ultimate arbiter of where ALL souls go, all other judges subordinate to her authority, just rubs me the wrong way. I'd much rather ways to get into the afterlife be multiple choice, rather than everyone getting routed through the same judge. With 2e dumping alignment as a fixed gameplay mechanic, I think there's an opportunity to do exactly that - and the goddess of death dying herself would make for a pretty cool, and status-quo upsetting, story that could rock all the planes until a replacement(s) can be found.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm going to list these alphabetically because I'm just going through the book.
Abadar-A: I'm personally put off by what is essentially the God of Capitalism. But he is very important to the setting, being the god of money, merchants, and cities. He is also unique enough that he has his charm.
Asmodeus-C: There isn't much if any difference between Paizo's version of Asmodeus and other versions of Asmodues that existed D&D 3e or earlier. It isn't that he isn't interesting, but he loses points for not being more original.
Calistria-D: Calistria seems like a strange mismatch of traits that would be more fitting for a strange minor god or split up among multiple gods. Wasps, and Sex, and Vengeance, AND Elves. I've never made a character who worshiped her nor seen a player who did. Her concept seems like the designers had a few random qualities were just slapped together.
Cayden Cailean-S: What can I say, I LOVE my Drunken god of Heroes, Adventures, and Liberation! I know that some people are put off by his drinking aspect, but there is just so much MORE to Cayden Cailean that he remains one of my favorites.
Desna-B: There is a fan hypothesis that Desna is basically a Good Natured Outer God. While probably not true, having a Good God of Travel, stars, and dreams be a GOOD thing instead of a source of madness is interesting.
Erastil-C: Personally, I find him a little boring. But I honestly find nature gods boring in general. He does play a nice counter to Abadar though, with both being gods of different Communities.
Gorum-F: How is a god of war boring? If you look at IRL mythology you either see stories of Gods like Ares being made the fool of, or stories like Hercules kicking ass and taking names! Where are the stories of Gorum, what is his personality, how is a god of war boring?!
Gozrey-D: It is a nature god of water and air. Is kind of interesting since they play up their Two Aspects bit, but otherwise just seems like another boring nature god.
Iomedae-S: I know some people dislike her, but I LOVE my Paladin God! Want to play a HERO but not be a drunk, this is your GOD! Bonus points for cool lore with being the Inheritor!
Irori-D: Somehow I find Irori almost as boring as Gorum. But at least Irori has an interesting origin story. Plus he is essentially The Buddha.
Lamashtu-B: An Evil Goddesses of Monsters that also has some positive qualities due to being the Goddess of childbirth, thus giving people an actual reason to worship her!? Yes please! If the writers were to give her a redemption arch I wouldn't mind.
Nethys-C: same problem as Gorum, kind of boring. But unlike Gorum at least Nethys has an interesting origin story. The crazy/sane duality also gives the hint of a personality.
Norgorber-B: Most people will tell you that Norgorber is a god of four aspects. But the truth is that he is really 4 gods in a trench coat!
Pharasma-A: A neutral god of death, that is also the god of life, fate and prophecy! Yes please! I've always liked Pharasma and found her an interesting part of the greater cosmology.
Rovagug-C: One on hand you have a rather bland god of destruction who just want to destroy everything just because. On the other hand you have a god that was fought against by literally every other god, sealed up inside a prison, a prison that became the world! The god itself isn't that interesting, but his story IS!
Sarenrae-S: I love Sarenrae as much as I love Iomedae. When I play a cleric it is either a cleric of Iomedae or of Sarenrae! No notes, chef's kiss!
Sheyln-A: Some people are put off by her because they think that as the god of love she is also the god of Lust & Sex. But Sheyln is NOT Aphrodite of Greek myth. She is the god of beauty, of art, and romantic love! You want mindless crazed lust, go worship Urgathoa.
Torag-D: A dwarf god for dwarfs. Only reason he isn't F is because he at least has non-dwarf craftsmen that worship him. So there is some creativity going on.
Urgathoa-A: The challenge with making any Evil God is how to make them appealing enough that non-crazy people would want to worship them. Urgathoa passes that test. Glottony, indulgence, pleasure, THIS is your GAL! You want to be a crazed sex fiend that would make Slaanesh blush? You don't worship Sheyln or Calistria, you worship Urgathoa!
Zon-Kuthon-D: I don't GET the appeal of Urgathoa, I really don't. Asmodeus has the LE tyrant angle, Norgorber is for assassins and serial killers, Urgathoa is for the over indulgent, even Rovague is for the self destructive niellists. But what does Zon-Kuthon bring besides a Pin Head astetic? Self mutilation? To me he is ONLY interesting due to his relationship with his Sister Shelyn.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Limiting myself to the Core 20 here, and prefacing it all with these being very subjective personal preferences...
Calistria: Elves are aliens with inhuman timespans, and the goddess of getting even without being consumed by vengeance speaks to an elven set of cultural principles in a way that scratches my brain just right. The wasp color schemes look great, the sex positivity is fun, and she feels uniquely Golarion - what's not to like?
Erastil: Old Deadeye covers an essential fantasy niche ("forest archery person") without being of the wilderness, and it's that focus on the home and the family that makes him stand apart. Leaning into the classic holy hero with a bow as an Erastilian always feels great.
Iomedae: As Erastil is to Rangers, Iomedae is to Paladins - but with the added wrinkle of being a young deity, the Inheritor to a divine legacy absolutely full of snarls. The way her relatively inexperience and more emotional, mortal-like perspective comes through is really fresh.
Norgorber: There much "sillier" names out there in the genre, and those complaining about such things miss out on a great bad guy; shrouded in mystery, tied oddly to Halflings, appearing in four aspects, lairing beneath the most perfect city in the cosmos - the perfect villain!
Zon-Kuthon: A beautiful deity lost everything to alien powers past the edge of the universe; remade, he commands that pain is joy and disfigurement is beauty. The oldest nation in the world is bound to him. You can't get cooler or more sinister than ZK, even if most Velstracs are too triggering for me to ever touch in actual play; torture god Torag is an old D&D 4e favorite of mine.
Asmodeus: He runs Hell and offers people bad deals. He's got red skin and horns. His minions are ever-scheming, but will likely never topple him. There's nothing wrong with Big A, and his mortal pawns are fun enough, but it's certainly been done before.
Desna: The friendly alien moth who tells you to be free, who inspires dreamers and wanderers to believe that better things are possible... you can do a lot worse for a "good guy" deity than that. I always love a dash of the cosmic in my fantasy.
Irori: A mortal man demonstrating that there is not one, but many paths to divinity for those with discipline holds a real allure. Irori gets a bad rap as Off-Brand Buddha, but his dwarven disciples and ascended scholar nephew add enough spice for me to like the guy.
Nethys: This dude rocks. The dichotomy of magic in its creative and ruinous aspects, paradoxically brought into one deity who won't save you from your own ambitions. I love his direct hand in the founding of Osirion. If only Clerics of the Wizard Guy made more sense mechanically.
Rovagug: Sometimes you really just need a big monster and a bunch of apocalypse cultists; not every antagonist needs a deep moral dilemma. Its threat to the world and its enormous kaiju-style babies are too valuable to ever lose out on.
Sarenrae: Redemption for some, scouring fire for the rest - it's easy to grasp how a Sarenite should act, and that's part of the reason people love her so much. I'd like her more if we spent quality time on the Golden Road/in Casmaron, I think.
Cayden: OMG, he was *so* drunk, he doesn't remember passing the Test of the Starstone! Every Golarion newcomer's favorite piece of trivia has never done anything but remind me of my least-favorite roleplayers and a childhood spent in a neighborhood full of bars. He gives me the biggest ick imaginable.
Gorum: War for the war god! Fights for the fight throne! An uncomplicated deity for players who want to be violent meatheads; I like my warriors with a little more nuance.
Gozreh: Nature deities have never been my favorite, and the only thing I can tell you about this one is that they're popular in a few different Mwangi regions. I'm sorry, Gozreh.
Lamashtu: The mother of monsters is a mythological standard for good reason. People have made the disability- and queer-forward lenses for her faith before. I'm still not really interested in the Evil Pregnant Lady in my tabletop games, and that's okay.
Pharasma: "The Pharasmins are here, and they don't like undead" feels like a stock trope that's been beaten into the ground. I just can't gel with someone so impartial, and wish the lost prophecy/universal survivor elements of her story came out more.
Shelyn: She's pretty and likes pretty things. The most interesting things about her are that her evil brother turned their dad into a monster, and that she's dating two very cool ladies. I'm excited for whatever 'Zon-Shelyn' stuff is happening over in SF2 Land, because she doesn't do much for me here.
Torag: My opinions on Torag have previously gotten threads locked, but in brief - the guy with an Orc genocide and a Hellknight Order on his hands has never felt as shiny and Good as some books have presented him. We'll see what a post-SKT world does for my opinion of the guy.
Urgathoa: She's undead and eeeEEeeEeeEeeeEEeEvil, and she likes to party hard. There's just not a lot there. I wouldn't cry if Zura replaced her, or if Tar-Baphon stole his goddess's throne for himself.
EDIT: As for outside the Core 20, I've got a couple favorites!
Black Butterfly: A mute, alien shadow - but one with a kind soul. Everything I enjoy about Desna, amped up with a stranger spice.
Casandalee: An Android from another galaxy was killed, but her mental back-up was installed aboard a magical satellite that carried her to godhood. In a world where muskets haven't proliferated yet, she's advocating for harmony between organics and synthetics. I *live* for this kind of genre mash-up stuff. Also, her lipstick's gorgeous!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ohhhhhh BOY do I have some opinions.
Core 20 first, then some favored other deities...
Pharasma. There's something kind of reassuring in her stony silence and impartiality. She's a god whose perspective actually feels suitably Olympian. As a reader of Pratchett, she gives me "Azrael in Reaper Man vibes. While not the first essentially all right deity of death in TTRPGs, she sticks the landing better than most.
Erastil. A stag-headed archery god of community and rural living? Kind of a curmudgeon? I enjoy him. And a ranger deity who emphasizes the people a ranger looks after is just good fun.
Gozreh- A TTRPG nature deity who isn't a Green Man analogue? Sold!
Asmodeus- Man do I hate him. Man isn't that the point?
Zon-Kuthon- ibid, plus some tragedy
Lamashtu- She's fun, and operates in extremely dark and nasty ways while having clergy with some scraps of nuance.
Calistria- Deliberately a bit complicated and dangerous to get close to. I actually wish she wasn't so bolted to being the primary Elf god for so much of the game's history, given that Golarion's elves on the whole make rather poor Calistrians :P
Shelyn- After decades of RPGs making love goddesses who are vain, shallow, and hard to like, one who's about finding the love and beauty in everyone was such a welcome change of pace the shock hasn't worn off yet.
Rovagug. Big bad monster god of breaking stuff. Sounds fun.
Nethys. I like a magic deity who not merely doesn't take moral or ethical stances, but apparently can't. It's... pleasing.
Iomedae. More interesting than Gorum, but still essentially a deity with onyl one or two notes in her musical range. Luckily they're good ones.
Sarenrae. As a "big good," she's all right, but I confess, she just doesn't click with me on any deeper level.
Irori. Lawful Neutral monk self-improvement god who apparently exists and does things and matters a lot in Vudra.
Urgathoa- Oh, right, the death goddess hates undead, guess we'd better tick that box. And give Urgathoa some hedonism so she has more to do than just raise armies of zombies.
Cayden Cailean. Years ago, I created a thread for people to tell me what it was they saw in him. Someone called him "the god of bros." That is precisely the problem. Hate him. Hate him, he never shows up in games I have a hand in running, he sucks, I hate him. The god of "hold my beer and watch this" being presented as some kind of amazing hero everyone likes makes me want to claw my eyes out. Literally everything he brings to the table, Desna does better. Or Sun Wukong.
None-Core now...
Tsukiyo- A neurodivegent moon deity who's an absolute good guy. hell yes.
Grandmother Spider- Look, she's just cool, all right?
Nocticula the Redeemer Queen- Less for the story (which, due to the way publishing schedules work, felt kind of rushed) than the end result. I like where she ended up.
Moloch- Sometimes you just need somebody to punch until your hand falls off.
Shyka- Because it's hilarious seeing who Shyka will be next!
Ashava- Kiiiiiiind of an Eilistraee expy in some ways, but you know what, I'm okay with that.
Nhimbaloth- "The Willows" is creepy as hell, and that's basically her whole deal. Yes please.
Mahathallah- She just rings my bell, okay?
Sivanah- I wish she'd mug Norgorber for more of his deception schtick.
Arshea- As a beacon of a positive take on sexuality, Arshea is a delight.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Huh. Okay. Let's see...
Actively Like:
- Zon-Kuthon: not for his own sake, but for the story of Nidal. That whole "We sold the soul of our country to a dark god for protection and it worked thing is really cool to me. I'm a sucker for deals with the devil done right. Past that, he generates antagonists both in "stable evil country that you're going to have to keep dealing with" and "random cults and infiltrators that you need to hunt down and stamp out". If he didn't have Nidal going for him, there's a good chance he'd be down in "actively don't like".
- Abadar: hey - I'm a natural-born tool of the establishment, and it shows. I just like this guy... for pretty much exactly the same reason that a lot of people hate him. It is what it is. He's also a great source of characters who can be helpful (while making you swallow your bile) and can be opposed (without making you justified in killing them) and can actually easily swap back and forth between the two depending on the adventure in question.
- Arazni: I like the dissonance and the tension there and the bone-deep searing vendetta that's entirely justified and... I just like her.
/**********/
Almost like:
- Asmodeus: If he were just a little less inclined to screw people on the fine print, and had a look that gave him the dignity he's supposed to have instead of making him look like a crazed hot mess, I'd like him better. I *want* to like him. He is so close. On the bright side, if I ever run a game, it'll be easy enough to shift him to the Asmodeus that I wish he was without really having to adjust anything else.
/*********/
Actively don't like:
- Norgorber: Ugh. Just ugh. Twitch twitch twitch. So creepy. Still, I suppose he serve a purpose.
- Urgathoa: There's just a lot about her aesthetic that I find really unpleasant. At the same time... well, there *is* real value in having an evil deity of undeadness, and she's at least an interesting take on it. Also, she helps prop up Geb, and I love the idea of Geb.
- Gorum: Very nearly *any* character who might be inclined to take Gorum as a deity could be made more interesting by having that option taken away and instead picking *anyone* else. On the one side, he's just profoundly one-dimensional and uninteresting. On the other, that one dimension is just pointless testosterone-fueled violence without purpose. Is worst God.
- Rovagug: just like Gorum except that it's destruction instead of Violence. He gets... maybe half of a pass because of being evil (and thus justifying some adversaries) and the whole thing around imprisoning him gives him a few points for interesting, but Rovagug himself is just really bland. He'd be more interesting if dead.
/***********/
The good gods... all seem largely unobjectionable? I guess I'm not a super fan of Cayden, but other than that I do a lot of shrugging. I like the twisty stuff, and none of them are really all that twisty. I think my favorite good god is probably Vildeis, and that's probably because I keep wanting to ship her with Arazni and/or ZK. I'm looking forward to how the Iomedae/Arazni relationship turns out, but Iomedae is kind of the land one of that pair. I honestly have difficulty remembering which is which between Desna and Shelyn a lot of the time.
Irori, Gorum, Nethys, Pharasma? These are all pretty similar. They're okay. No complaints. They do the thing that they do, and I'm glad they're there, but I jsut dont' care all that much.
Lamashtu is... okay. How much I like her is directly dependent on how evil she's being. Lamashtu as an actual full-on evil deity is just generally unpleasant. Lamashtu in the partial redemption look that people have been drawing out of her more recently is a lot more interesting.
Callistra is *interesting*, and I'm glad she's there, but she doesn't really resonate with me at all. Like, the morality mix she has is cool and everything, but I basically don't connect with *any* of it.
huh... I look back on my previous post and... there are so many little errors I'd like to fix. I think it's basically still readable, but....
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cayden Cailean: The drunken adventurer god that's been around for way more than I ever remember. He's fun but I wish more emphasis was put on his adventures with other gods, whether its Trudd, the Prismatic Ray or someone like Irori. No adventurer is going to last long solo.I would eat those stories up. CC hasn't really got much of a holy text, IIRC the whole thing is intended to fit on a plaque on a wall and boils down to "Don't be a dick," but if he had any sort of extended canon or a series of parables I could totally see them taking this form, like a cross between scripture, tavern tales, and Pathfinder Chronicles.
Erastil: God of the Hearth, Home and the Hunt, he mostly loses points for how little emphasis is put on his family. I feel like they should be as important to him as Torag's pantheon is to him.Wait, has Erastil even got a family? I don't recall one now.
Now I really want a "Buddy Cop" movie with Cayden and Irori.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I personally don't have any of the core 20 I hate. Just those that could use some more love. These will be in order of most to least liked.
Asmodeus: For an evil deity, it's important to have someone who's despicable but also one you'd love to hate. Asmodeua fits that build perfectly. Built from the main antagonistic country, his history goes back to almost the beginning. He sees himself as the protagonist, ranging from his arguments against free will to betraying his best friend and building an entirely different society set to his own ideals. Yet on occasions he almost seems amiable enough to trust... to an extent. This allows for a wide range of characters from brutal dictators to an evil PC you can't help but admit to being an ally. Yet ultimately, he and his followers believe in one mantra above all: Amadeus always wins. He is the Xanatos of Golarion. No matter which way you think he's won, he will find a way to turn it to his benefit. This makes for an infuriating villain, and one that makes their unraveling all the more satisfying.
Urgathoa: She is whatsoever else would build into a boring villain hell bent on turning everyone undead and clips it on its head. More than anyone, she and her followers would deny that she is evil. All she wanted to do was live forever and live out her life to the fullest. Bringing out Pharasma's wrath was only a subject of hurt feelings. She's the person who would argue necromancy is a noble cause and other practices such as enchantment are the truly bad spells [strikethrough]even if it involves the unwilling entrapment of souls[/sktrikethrough]. Yet she also has room for those who do want to kill and subjugate the living. Ultimately, she calls for the benefit of undead-kind, regardless of the consequences on others. This also leaves a good variety of villains as well as a cooperative PC under the right circumstances.
Cayden Calien The archetypal adventurer God who lucked his way into goodhood. He is the embodiment of a player's tendency to devise wild and wacky adventures and bullrun their way with a chaotic smile. There are some negative aspects players may pick up as brazen drunks who hit on anything that moves and others may feel like that is what he's about, but information emphatically rejects those assumptions. He's just fun to play as and it's pretty easy for anyone to make a character with him to mind.
Calistria: What could have been seen as an unfortunately immature look into sexuality has evolved into some of the most complicated and interesting deities out there. While the most people focus on her lust aspects, she also has other distinct aspects in trickery and Revenge. And followers can follow any combination they want. You can also have them in various fews with other groups... and their own. Add in the element of being the head elven deity and you have one of the most diverse range of followers of the core 20. I do think the other aspects of her portfolio should be used, but I don't want the first one to go away.
Norgorber: A God who's so secretive not only no one knows what he looks like we have not 1 but 4 different groups of followers. How's that for complication. The possibilities as antagonists are endless from corrupted officials to thief guild and poisoners to straight up serial Killers. Ans imagine all these groups either helping each other... or fightingamong themselves. I also liked that the aspects had different alignments back when that was a thing so they could technically play as a PC spy. Other than that or your typical loner rogue, the choices for PCs can be limiting though not impossible.
Lamashtu: Chaotic evil deities can be harrowing as they can be the most disturbing ones to handle. Yet the top demon has wnough wriggle room for any setting. You can go from generic priestess that wants to destroy a city to some truly heinous acts depending on whether your group is okay with that. It also makes sense that she's the most sensible out of all the demons even if there's still tention among them. Shecalso has some classic rivalries with the likes of Desna and Asmodeus. And she might be amiable enough as an evil PC with some builds.
Sarenrae: The archetypal Big Good of the Core 20. Her history as being one of the first students of the old gods and dealing with his death at the hands of Asmodeus as well as that has shaped hwr thinking over time is just fascinating. She is quick to forgive yet can passionate strike down those who refuse and it makes for some of the most interesting dynamics with all the other gods. As for her aspects and followers... I'm not quite as interested in them. Despite the varied range of her domains of healing and the sun, it doesn't leave as much room for variety. I guess it would more depend on the individual rather than the goddess they worship. Part of it was hope for bringing back the Cult of the Dawnflower... just without the slavery.
Abadar: One look at Abadar and you might see him as a money-obsessed greed-dog that does whatever it takes to be rich... and yet Abadar himself does seem boring at first glance. But that's only scratching the surface. His followers can have the full range of doing what's needed to advance civilization and maintain settlements. Sure you can have greedy followers, but you can also have generous ones who want citizens to excel and thrive. It leaves players with many paths on how to build a follower as well as create different kinds of conflict. We just need more to do for him.
Shelyn: As others said, it's nice to see a deity of love that's not vain in that sense. As such, her followers can try and do the same with helping others deal with love (and not just typical monogamous love) as well Las seek it themselves. They also have the chance to have a number of professions as a goddess of the arts and beauty. She also holds hidden strength, wielding a non-typical weapon and her relationship with her fallen brother. She and her followers do tend to be a bit one note, but it's fun seeing creative ideas on how her followers help others. She also has a cool rivalry with Calistria and likely trade followers between love and lust. I'll miss that if either of them get offed.
Zon-Kuthon: He gets the most of his praise from Nidal, a truly bizarre and brutal theocracy with like-minded folks. You'll know what when you see one... which can be an issue when trying to think outside the typical follower (Laori aside). His nation also mirrors his enemies such as Deana and Sivanah as his sister Shelyn with whom he has a fascinating relationship. I guess another issue is that he doesn't leave as much room for cooperation as much as Asmodeus would imo. I know he probably has the most number of non-evil followers out of the evil ones in APs and it does allude to his relationship with Shelyn, but it doesn't feel like there's much room for budging.
Iomedae: Her journey into being the newest deity of the Core 20 is rife with interesting stories. And her followers do allow for a little more wriggle room personality wise. It just feels like she's been given a bad hand in Golarion. None of it has been her fault, but there's been too many instances where the actions of she and her followers have blown up in their faces. I think it's gotten more to do with the world where there's just been so many stories of her followers failing to live up to the ideal... including Iomedae herself eyes Wrath of the Righteous it makes me wish we had more instances of pure heroism from her followers. Keeping up with the typical paladin isn't a bad thing.
Nethys: dhow he became God by way of being a literal. God-emperor is cool. His dual nature is also nice as well as how they rank their followers by the amount of magic they wield, setting the tone for some arrogant bad guys. But it feels like he should be more of a big deal than he actually is. Not everyone who uses magic should worship him, but he doesn't seem to command as much of a presence as you'd think for casters.
GorumYou can say the same with the God of War, except he doesn't have a cool backstop to go with him. He also took a hit when clerics couldn't be CG anymore (thankfully it won't matter anymore in the remaster version or he would be in C tier). I just think there's a lane for Gorum fighters who fight evil for the challenge rather than for the greater good (hence his presence in Elysium and the late nation of Vigil). Otherwise he merely fights to instigate war... which doesn't leave much for creativity.
Erastil: He's been pegged as the stubborn guy who'd close down the dance hall for the ruckus it causes. While there's more aspects of that for him, it doesn't offer more for him than that. Both Ketephys and Jaidi end up being more interested than him as a result.
Gozreh:As others have said, they fulfills their role as the nature God and not much else in that regard. The dual nature ends up being less interesting than Nethys. People aren't restricted in what they can be, but there's not much to talk about besides interactions with other deities.
Grandmother Spider- for being the perfect main got for the expanse and troll against Asmodeus.
Achaekek;: A god with his own set of assassins look cool.
Alswta: For fair negotiators.
Besmara: Cool pirate queen who's pretty loose in wh she calls followers.
Naderi: Cool tragic deity who herself and followers can go an number of ways depending on the environment.
Milani: Representing pure freedom fighters.
Zyphus: For being the most wonderful troll out there.
Seizure and Tsukiyo: Such a wonderful love story.
Lymnieris: Nuff said
Black Butterfly: A wonderfully weird emyreal lord
Kelinahat: A paladin spy just feels awesome
Dispater: The most amiable Archdevil around
Ardad Lili: Perfect for manipulative yet tragic women in Cheliax
Ceyanan: I like someone who takes a more proactive role of helping souls.
The Pale Horse: As above, yet with more force and is a literal horse.
Charon: For his unique blend of death. Of both body and soul. Also one of the oldest beings in the universe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, here's my tier list, with the order of deities within a specific tier correlating to how "high" or "low" the deity is in it (so I guess it's really more a ranking than anything - though note any deities sitting anywhere from A to C tier - and Abadar too - could easily be moved up or down a position or two depending how I'm feeling at that specific day). Important to keep in mind with it though, there really isn't any core deities I actually dislike, with me having a positive view on pretty much every deity apart from Irori (whom I have... an entirely neutral view on). This is just my best attempt at shifting things into a tier list despite that fact.
Pharasma. Used to be my favourite deity, now just my #2. I generally enjoy themes of death, and even more than that really enjoy a neutral death deity, something which Pharasma executes incredibly well.
Urgathoa. I'm a big fan of undead, and Urgathoa is easily my favourite "main undead deity", finding a comparatively quite unique position. Instead of a standard "I use necromancy because it grants me power to do evil, mwhaha" types, Urgathoa really is just "Live large, die young, come back as an undead so you can keep partying", with it being stated that the reason she decided to come back as an undead and in doing so fundamentally rewriting the laws of the universe was not because of some great villainous plot, but simply because she wanted to experience everything the world had to offer. Her holy text is a cookbook.
Abadar. As much as I have some heavy irl socialist leanings, Abadar really is effective at depicting a non-evil god of civilisation and commerce. His goal is to maximise wealth in civilsation, but the key thing is that "10 people are absurdly rich" is in practice far less wealth for the civilisation than "10,*000 people are well off". When his bankers offer you a loan for your business, it's not because they want to make money off you (well, that certainly plays a part, and depending on the specific member may play a BIG part) but because they legitimately want your business to succeed and thus bring more prosperity. One of his holy texts is just a civil engineer guidebook for city planning. He's also a generally load-bearing deity, being the in-universe reason for why the currency & calendars are standardised globally (plus, the logical option of the deity of the cleric the PCs payed to cast a divine spell)
Caydae Cailean. Paragon form of the archetypical adventurer, ascended to divinity. He was an orphan who decided to travel the world as an adventurer to do good; carousing, flirting, and making some bad drunken decisions as he went... namely taking the test of the Starstone which only two people in all of history ever succeeded before. Of course, he succeeded, but then just sort of kept doing what he was doing as a god: telling his followers to go out helping orphans and topple tyrants whilst enjoying a good drink while you do so. I also quite enjoy how he's the only core deity to keep a surname, unlike even Iomedae, Nethys, or Irori who presumably did have surnames which were well known beforehand; Cayden wanted people to be able to tell exactly *which* Cayden-who-was-an-adventurer is now a god for the context of everyone who knew him as a mortal. I also quite like how he decided to resurrect his dead adventuring buddy (who the note was a prostitute is quite nice, positive depictions of sex workers is swell) so she can be his herald, as uplift his pet dog to celestial-status so he could keep it.
Gorum. Yeah, he's just your archetypical god of war, but sometimes you just need a really simple archtypical god of war, y'know?
Gozreh. I'll fully admit, he'll almost certainly get knocked down to B tier within the next few months, but right now at least she holds an important place for me, for admittedly entirely personal reasons (namely, only realising my own enby status around the start of this year, which also because of the whole War of Immortals thing I was thinking about Gozreh a lot more as he was a lot of people's pick, and thus causing her own enby status to really resonate with me, knocking up a deity who was previously D tier way up here)
Zon-Kuthon. Whilst a lot of my enjoyment of Zonny comes from Shelyn, this is about where I'd put him even ignoring that (accounting for it, probably top of B tier or bottom of A tier). Yes, "Mwhaha, I'm Pinhead, evil god of sado-masochism" is a bit odd, but honestly he makes it work. The fact that Nidal is legitimately one of the oldest nations in the whole world as per his promise is important. As well as that, I quite like how in places like Geb his followers almost act like a support system for living folks as "well, undead can't feel pain as good, so we gotta protect the living!". His whole pain & suffering thing is also fairly easy to understand why so many people would fall into it: If your life has been filled with horrible things, there is certainly an appeal to going "Actually, pain and suffering are good things, embrace it".
Lamashtu. Evil, yes, but evil in such a way that it honestly makes sense why so many non-evil ancestries still venerate her. She teaches being monstrous is good and never let go of it... just also that you should spread this monstrousness to others. Other folks in the past have made far better essays on how Lamashtu is a really interesting deity than I ever could, so I think I should just accept that and suggest you read one of those.
Norgorber. I quite like his whole four aspects thing, and whilst individually a few of them are quite plain the fact they're all there together makes him very very versatile as a deity. I'd go on, but unfortunately given part of the nature of his lore there isn't tons to talk about
Sarenrae. She's a nice deity to have around and very effectively fills the roll of "cleric-y sun deity of goodness" whilst still finding her own unique personality.
Torag. Dwarf god. I quite like a lot of his dynamics with his family and he is quite effective at playing the roll of the "Lawful Good god of being a dwarf" (yes alignment isn't a thing anymore, but it still makes sense here imo), but he's not all that more than that.
Rovagug. He's Rovagug, the big monster at the center of the planet who wants to destroy everything & all the other gods had to team up to beat. Important to the setting, but as a character of his own? He sort of inherently doesn't have much to latch onto.
Desna. I really want to like Desna, I really do. Tons of other people seem to just utterly adore her. That said, no matter what I try she just never seemed to click with me. Like, she's alright, but even when I intentionally try to get really interested in her she never has seen more than middling to me. Do quite like how in Starfinder she decided that people are used to bugs enough that she can show her true form of a moth lady though. (Also, keep in mind that I honestly probably have a fairly comparable opinion to some of the gods in C tier, she mostly just got here because I still have that opinion in spite of actively trying to improve it, unlike the C tier's where it's just because I haven't really gotten around to doign a real deep look at)
Erastil. He's cool and all and fills and a lot of important for the setting to cover areas of concern (pretty much THE god for the vast majority of non-adventurers from rural areas), and actually for a while held a low-C tier position, but he's also just... somewhat eh.
Irori. I'll admit, I frequently forget he exists. His character never really resonated with me, and seeing I haven't really gotten around to reading about much in Vudra yet (closest would be a bit of Jalmeray's section in Impossible Lands, but unfortunately that was really the one part of that book which never clicked with me) I haven't really gotten to see how he affects areas where he's important either
I'll list off some notable non-core deities I love in another post at some point.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Shelyn. Easily my favourite core deity. She plays with the traditional Aphrodite-inspired tropes in a way which really just speaks to me personally. Sure, she's a goddess of love, but not just romantic/sexual, but also familial (I mean, her longest most notable connection to another deity is her one with her brother after all) and friendship. Sure, she's a goddess of beauty, but not just physical beauty, but inner beauty as well. She really does just teach to be the best person you can be and love others. I'm not really sure how to elaborate on my enjoyment of her properly--
For a moment I couldn't remember what it was that initially drew me to Shelyn (aside from the "Wait, did that say the beauty goddess wields a glaive?") but you've basically written my answer for me on this one.
I don't think I could make my own list and actually keep consistent across the whole core 20, but universe said a lot of what I might (except I am a Desna fan and I'm quite fond enough of Asmodeus' "a place for everyone and everyone in their place" evil vibes to rank him higher).
Poor Irori. I think he's neat, but I can't shake him from the sense of him awkwardly filling in the archetypal Monk right down to being a foreign God to the Inner Sea. If we could go back and establish from the start that there are martial monastic orders native to the Inner Sea, I feel Irori would be allowed to be more interesting as the foreign god from the impossibly large Vudran empire, especially in the form of a self-ascended deity. It's not that he would even necessarily be anything different than he is now, Ijust feel like he would have room for his other lights to shine besides justifying the existence of a core class in this region.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
My favorite Irorans are a group of Pahmet dwarves who worship him at a desert monastery in Northern Garund. More examples of non-Vudran followings like that would go a long way towards making him fit. I raised this somewhere recently, but it's silly that we never see Irori-forward Hellknights of the Godclaw, for instance.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Shelyn. Easily my favourite core deity. She plays with the traditional Aphrodite-inspired tropes in a way which really just speaks to me personally. Sure, she's a goddess of love, but not just romantic/sexual, but also familial (I mean, her longest most notable connection to another deity is her one with her brother after all) and friendship. Sure, she's a goddess of beauty, but not just physical beauty, but inner beauty as well. She really does just teach to be the best person you can be and love others. I'm not really sure how to elaborate on my enjoyment of her properly--For a moment I couldn't remember what it was that initially drew me to Shelyn (aside from the "Wait, did that say the beauty goddess wields a glaive?") but you've basically written my answer for me on this one.
I think part of the reason I love Shelyn is that she's decidedly not the Goddess of pretty things and being loved, she's less the Goddess of Beauty and Love and more the Goddess of Art and Romance- she's active not passive.
Like in her role as the Goddess of Art she's less about "celebrate beauty" and more about "cultivate beauty in the world around you"- the role of the artist is to turn the block of marble, pile of junk, paint and canvas into something beautiful, or alternatively to uncover the beautiful thing that was always present just harder to perceive. Her prohibition on "destroying art" is less about "the value art has intrinsically" and more in "honoring the work that an artist put into cultivating beauty in the world." It's similar to why Erastil doesn't want you burning farmland- it's just the sense of "somebody worked hard for that, and other people need it" is less tangible with Shelyn than it is with Erastil.
In her role of the Goddess of Romance it's less "make him/her/them love me" and more "cultivate the inner light inside of yourself so that you are capable of loving and being loved." Just like you cut away the parts of the block of marble that aren't part of the statue or you weed the garden so that flowers can grow, you sculpt or cut parts of yourself and you web of social interactions that stand in the way of your inner light blinking at the same frequency as someone else's.
For a Goddess that falls into the archetype of "extremely passive" just due to her portfolio of pretty things and happy people, Shelyn is uncommonly proactive, which is what makes her great.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It always struck me that Irori should be less about "what you wear or how you fight" and more about your dogged pursuit of self-improvement. He should be more concerned with whether or not you skipped leg day than whether or not you're showing off your calves to the world.
|
It always struck me that Irori should be less about "what you wear or how you fight" and more about your dogged pursuit of self-improvement. He should be more concerned with whether or not you skipped leg day than whether or not you're showing off your calves to the world.
A feat allowing worshippers of Irori to use all Monk stances while in armor would be fun.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The problem with being a monk deity devoted to self-improvement is that your followers just do their own thing honing their skills and training up... which means they just kinda... exist in insular enclaves pointedly not really intersecting with the rest of the setting most of the time.
Despite my own personal distaste for proselytizing, I think Irori's faith could seriously do with some more activist clergy, like... training farmers to defend themselves, serving as philosopher-teachers of communities or what have you... 'cause as they generally come off when they show up at all, they just seem kinda... there.
..(aside from the "Wait, did that say the beauty goddess wields a glaive?")...
Oh yeah, I do greatly love the fact that despite all that love stuff she's still one of the top deities in terms of "How much do you associate their weapon with them" (note: not their followers, the deity themselves. A distinction which mostly just means Desna gets knocked out because I don't think I've ever once actually seen art of her wielding a Starknife, even if it's fairly iconic) and having said holy weapon being 100% unambiguously a type of weapon used for fighting people (unlike say Erastil's longbow which is a hunting weapon, or Pharasma's dagger which is a ritualistic weapon).
There's actually a fair few things I didn't bring up in that original post (such as her connection to Zonny or the Prismatic Ray), but decided to leave them out for the sake of brevity.
|
|
Alternatively mix in some Western Monk flavour and have the various monasteries be scribing out elaborate enlightened manuscripts with the fanciest possible calligraphy or be brewing really good beer or what have you to support themselves and inspire other people to improve themselves.The problem with being a monk deity devoted to self-improvement is that your followers just do their own thing honing their skills and training up... which means they just kinda... exist in insular enclaves pointedly not really intersecting with the rest of the setting most of the time.
Despite my own personal distaste for proselytizing, I think Irori's faith could seriously do with some more activist clergy, like... training farmers to defend themselves, serving as philosopher-teachers of communities or what have you... 'cause as they generally come off when they show up at all, they just seem kinda... there.
Monks brewing beer is how we got the Stumbling Stance for sure.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My favorite Irorans are a group of Pahmet dwarves who worship him at a desert monastery in Northern Garund. More examples of non-Vudran followings like that would go a long way towards making him fit. I raised this somewhere recently, but it's silly that we never see Irori-forward Hellknights of the Godclaw, for instance.I've always squared that by assuming they conflict. Irori's traditional fighting styles all depict someone being unarmored, and the Hellknights are nothing if not slaves to tradition. Unfortunately, their traditions align with everyone wearing heavy, spiky plate armor.
I know that sounds like I'm making a joke but I would be genuinely unsurprised to find the Hellknights were that stubborn and intractable on that point.
Irori's whole thing is that there are many individual paths to perfection! He and the Hellknights share a belief in total discipline (he has Anathema: repeatedly fail to maintain self-control), and there's nothing in his deity statblock demanding graceful Asian-style Monks other than Favored Weapon: Fist. You could totally be a devout Iroran who focuses on being a master swordsman and/or an unstoppable wall of full plate.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
- The Iroran Sacred Order of Archivists defend written history from revisionists and propagandists (including those glory-seeking Pathfinders!), and were a lynchpin of Hell's Rebels.
Eh. They all died in the backstory, and their being Iroran specifically wasn't all that foundational to their praxis (hoarding and cataloguing objects in a secret dungeon).
(...)
Then there's the Exhaustive Path, who decided self-perfection means checking off every mortal...
That... actually sounds kind of similar to what Actual Historical Rasputin preached, at least in as far as "I'm reminded of it, without looking anything up to see how accurate I am"; any chance of some cross-pollination there?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
- The Iroran Sacred Order of Archivists defend written history from revisionists and propagandists (including those glory-seeking Pathfinders!), and were a lynchpin of Hell's Rebels.
And are dead by the time we "meet" them.
- His nephew Gruhastha wrote Irori's biography so hard that he then became a book that also became maybe the most extremely ripped god.
Deities are hardly what is called for.
- His faithful can become 900-pound celestial tigers who train mortals, and in their spare time hunt powerful creatures so they can play tag with them.
A group of divine servitors (ascended petitioners, really) who hang out only in Iroran temples. Not exactly what I'm getting at here.
- An Iroran monk figured out a way to travel to the Ethereal Plane by punching someone in a dream.
Sounds more Ryu-in-Street Fighter/pseudo-Shaolin, not really a solution to the issue of their role in society.
- Fleshwarps and mutants in the Mana Wastes worship Irori in pursuit of their own self-perfection, however alien the nature or process of that perfection might be to others, or if "perfection" might simply mean an easing of suffering. (Impossible Lands 309)
Acceptable! But niche as hell.
The largest public arena in the Inner Sea is also Absalom's temple to Irori, even if the Irorans aren't delighted about it.
Which feeds into the issue with the faith as presented.
Then there's the Exhaustive Path, who decided self-perfection means checking off every mortal sin at least once.
Useful villains.
Want Irorans who perform civic duties educating people? They run the public schools in Prada Hanam.
So... one case of what I'm asking for.
Gotta say, the overwhelming majority of your examples kind of prove my point. They're reclusive weirdos and/or people who absolutely cannot function in wider society, which means it's a very difficult religion to put a particularly human face on going off of what is there.
I just realised I forgot to rank Pharasma, so I suppose I'll do it here.
B-Tier. I don't hate her, she has a lot to like about her, but something about being the ultimate arbiter of where ALL souls go, all other judges subordinate to her authority, just rubs me the wrong way. I'd much rather ways to get into the afterlife be multiple choice, rather than everyone getting routed through the same judge. With 2e dumping alignment as a fixed gameplay mechanic, I think there's an opportunity to do exactly that - and the goddess of death dying herself would make for a pretty cool, and status-quo upsetting, story that could rock all the planes until a replacement(s) can be found.
Bear in mind that Pharasma was THE first deity, she was responsible for the creation of the current version the multiverse (she was the survivor from the previous version of reality, and had an artifact/key thing that presumably supplied the "energy" and Pharasma was directing it....maybe) so to me it actually makes incredible sense that she is the literal judge of all souls. And bear in mind for some reason soul juice is what keeps the multiverse from collapsing in itself and repeating the series of events that lead to Pharasma creating a new multiverse (and one day it will grind to a halt and happen anyways because there is a flaw in creation).
The repercussions of Pharasma dying would probably be too huge for her to actually die.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
They were in a nation full of state censors and book burners what else could they do with the knowledge they collected publish it and get themselves executed?
Whether the Sacred Order's praxis was justified by their circumstances is beside the point -- the point is whether it depended on their Iroran-ness, that is, whether they needed to be Irorans to do it.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just realised I forgot to rank Pharasma, so I suppose I'll do it here.
B-Tier. I don't hate her, she has a lot to like about her, but something about being the ultimate arbiter of where ALL souls go, all other judges subordinate to her authority, just rubs me the wrong way. I'd much rather ways to get into the afterlife be multiple choice, rather than everyone getting routed through the same judge. With 2e dumping alignment as a fixed gameplay mechanic, I think there's an opportunity to do exactly that - and the goddess of death dying herself would make for a pretty cool, and status-quo upsetting, story that could rock all the planes until a replacement(s) can be found.
Bear in mind that Pharasma was THE first deity, she was responsible for the creation of the current version the multiverse (she was the survivor from the previous version of reality, and had an artifact/key thing that presumably supplied the "energy" and Pharasma was directing it....maybe) so to me it actually makes incredible sense that she is the literal judge of all souls. And bear in mind for some reason soul juice is what keeps the multiverse from collapsing in itself and repeating the series of events that lead to Pharasma creating a new multiverse (and one day it will grind to a halt and happen anyways because there is a flaw in creation).
The repercussions of Pharasma dying would probably be too huge for her to actually die.
We know Pharasma will not be the one dying.
And now I wonder if the dead deity will be judged by Pharasma after meeting their fate.
And now I wonder if the dead deity will be judged by Pharasma after meeting their fate.
I believe so, I vaguely recall it was a big deal when Aroden died because no one ever saw him go through the line of judgement and I think Pharasma refuses to speak about the topic. But normally everyone, even a dead god, goes through judgement.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And now I wonder if the dead deity will be judged by Pharasma after meeting their fate.I believe so, I vaguely recall it was a big deal when Aroden died because no one ever saw him go through the line of judgement and I think Pharasma refuses to speak about the topic. But normally everyone, even a dead god, goes through judgement.
I believe Pharasma confirmed having judged Aroden, which is why we know for certain he is dead. But she indeed will not say anything else on this matter.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe Pharasma confirmed having judged Aroden, which is why we know for certain he is dead. But she indeed will not say anything else on this matter.And now I wonder if the dead deity will be judged by Pharasma after meeting their fate.I believe so, I vaguely recall it was a big deal when Aroden died because no one ever saw him go through the line of judgement and I think Pharasma refuses to speak about the topic. But normally everyone, even a dead god, goes through judgement.
Now that you mention it, I think you are correct. She only confirmed he was judged and nothing else.
But that does also confirm gods are judged by Pharasma after death.
I don't really have much of a favourite deity (even considering that I DM on Golarion because I like reading the cource material which I bought to read for fun, unlikt any other campaign world previosly).
(I'm more interested in places than people, honestly - ask me a list of favourite countries...)
But one or two stand out.
1) Shelyn. It's only been brought up once, but the thing that made me do a double take was that fact we have a love goddess tanking around with a freaking evil=god-outer-horror death glaive puts her into easily Best Love Deity Ever. Backed up with Actually Having A Sensible Paladin's Code (a bastardised version of ehres and I think Saranrae's forms my houserule's default one), the interesting reasons why she has that aforementioend glaive and she was easily the most memorableof the Golarion deities to me.
(And really, love-deities get such a poor wrap. Given that society and media continually tells me love is supposed to be the most powerful force, and all the big heroes are motivated by it are they not? (Even, let's face it, at the core, Batman, because Parents...) Yet in RPGs, in general, love deities tend to be amostly off-colour versions of Aphrodite et al with heavy sex connotations as well.) And that is the best we can do with the vaunted most powerful force in the universe...?[1])
Incidently, the majority of my current game's party are Shelyn worshippers, solely because the bard/cleric/mystric theurge was as impressed with the whole gliave thing as I was and persuaded the rest oif the oplayers (who had not picked a diety, save for the Paladin of Saranrae) solely so he could spam Blessing of Fervour...
2) Aroden. God of humanity, and dead. Not only a novel concept that's been used to drive the world narrative and a great mystery, I'm all for anything that nudges, even a little, humans out of the place they ALWAYS occupy in any narrative, RPG or otherwise.
3) Cayden Calidan. A god who ascended due to booze. I do not like booze. I do not like booze culture. I am not impressed by drunken antics and thus, as someone put it up-thread, succiently, the "god of bros" does absolutely nothing for me. At least he has the decency to be Good-aligned, though, I suppose.
4) Urogotha. Goddess of undeath and hedonism. The goddess of vampires, then, basically. The least interesting type of undead (no, vampires are BORING, most especially BECAUSE they're practically alive[2]), admittedly with zombies making a yawn-inspiring push not far behind. Why do we never get a diety of undeath who's actually INTERESTING?
But even there, these are really just more emphatic "blehs," they're serivicable dieties as far as they go.
Passing mention to Desna, Saranrae, Nethys, Pharasma, Asmodeus and Rovagug, for at least being deities that have held Done Enough in the mythos to recall stuff they've done off the top of my head (and especially in regard to Osirion).
Nocticula I'm discounting because if not solely for Wrath of the Righteous (the game) I'd never she distinguished her from the rest.
[1]"But what about your homebrew world's dieties, Aotrs?" Honestly, I've never fleshed them out much; the major nation is off-brand rome, so they have an off-brand Hellanistic pantheon. But the major three Good goddesses are like, the one who is basically a paladin herself, the goddess of fey,, nature and magic and the goddess of death and the most developed of all the ppantheon is on the other side: the Dark Lord, who is more like Sauron-mixed-with-Thrawn and is, moreover, explictly a demigod. So yeah, I even include my own stuff in that.
(Now, much, much further afield in my work-related-fluff, the love goddess of the United Concorde of Divine Realms - aka that Magical Girl-based stellar nation - breaks the mould more.)
[2]At least the "baddest dude" (sic) of the Undead on the planet has the decency to be a Lich.
But hell, I'm *glances at avatar* probably the biggest proponent of liches around, but, like, what if next time, it was a mummy or a ghost or a poltergiest...?