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Simple question with a likely extremely complex answer: do we as players know how Gozreh functions as the god of nature, in a world with numerous weaker nature deities, the elemental lords who rule the natural elements, and the Green Faith who do not worship a god but do revere Green Men among other things, who have the ability to grant divine power?
Has there ever been discussion on how a God of Nature who grants Divine spells and not Primal spells coexists with lesser divinities who fill a more explicit connection to Gozreh's own primary domain?
It seems like this would be a VERY interesting in-setting discussion for druids and clerics (for example, are clerics of Gozreh commonly ALSO druids?)
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Way I see it, the difference is worship. Gozreh has Clerics and grants them Divine spells because they are an approachable figure you can interact with (or think/hope you can) through worship and prayer.
Not different from praying to Pharasma for matters of birth and death.
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My understanding is that Gozreh represents the primal forces that drive a living world and make it habitable. The atmospheric cycle, ocean currents, plate tectonics, stuff like that.
While the Green Faith is all about the living biosphere. Animals, Plants, Bacteria etc.
The Elemental Lords represent the metaphysical elements that the material plane (now Universe in Remaster) is made of.
A sort of heirarchy would go.
The Elements are the substance which worlds are made of. (Elemental Lords) Leads to:
The dynamic forces of an active world that make life possible. (Gozreh) Leads to:
Life itself. (The Green Faith)
Now you would think this would make the Elemental Lords more powerful than Gozreh because they represent something even more fundamental than s/he does. But they're demigods and Gozreh is a full Deity. So you can't necessarily judge how potent a god is by the significance of their portfolio.
All great responses.
I've been really interested in how a Cleric of Gozreh differs from a Druid of the Winds and Waves. Does the Druid also acknowledge their power flows through Gozreh in some form? Do they REJECT Gozreh's influence in nature as being somehow unnatural?
Both would be very interesting character discussions.
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All great responses.
I've been really interested in how a Cleric of Gozreh differs from a Druid of the Winds and Waves. Does the Druid also acknowledge their power flows through Gozreh in some form? Do they REJECT Gozreh's influence in nature as being somehow unnatural?
Both would be very interesting character discussions.
I would say a Cleric is more based on the relations with the deity, their servants and the worshippers. Whereas the Druid is more focused on the natural phenomena. But that is only RP / characterization. IIRC, Gozreh like most, if not all, Golarion deities has priests from non-Cleric classes.
IIRC PF1 even mentioned some Druids being priests of Gorum.
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I've been really interested in how a Cleric of Gozreh differs from a Druid of the Winds and Waves. Does the Druid also acknowledge their power flows through Gozreh in some form? Do they REJECT Gozreh's influence in nature as being somehow unnatural?
(Note: I've written on the Green Faith for Paizo, but I'm not speaking in an official capacity. Only what's in print is canon.)
The Green Faith accepts Gozreh as a god *of* nature, but not as Nature itself (which they consider beyond personification). Much the same way way Sarenrae is the goddess of the sun, but isn't physically the sun.
For me, the difference between Gozreh worship and the Green Faith is structural. D&D-style druids are not based on the ancient Celtic religion, so much as the relatively modern, British fraternal order. So I see the Green Faith as being structured like a fraternal order/mystery cult, with secret rituals, levels of initiation, but also public charity work. Gozreh worship is much more church-like, with public buildings and open rituals.
There's also room for multiple gods/religions of the same things, much like a parliament has shadow ministers. So, returning to Sarenrae, she represents the goodly side of the sun, whereas Nergal represents its, excuse the phrasing, darker side. Ditto, Gozreh, Green Faith, Elemental Lords, etc. regarding nature.
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In my Ironfang Invasion campaign, the stormborn druid Stormdancer multiclassed to a cleric of the Green Faith. The player multiclassed because no-one in the party could cast divine spells and chose the Green Faith because that would require the smallest change in the druid's behavior.
Furthermore, Stormdancer was a friend of cleric Noelan who ran the Riverwood Shrine in Phaendar on the edge of the Fangwood Forest.
Most of the buildings in town are strictly functional in design, but the shrine was designed to be beautiful as well, being constructed from logs dredged from the thick silt of the ice-cold Marideth River. The shrine is intended for any worshipers to use, but most people in town venerate Erastil or Desna, and so statues and symbols of these two faiths decorate the walls in the form of homemade amulets, artwork, and offerings.
A stone shrine to the Green Faith—far older than the larger temple or anything else in the area—stands beside the temple, accommodating local Green worshipers.
Another NPC, retired ranger Aubrin the Green, served as the cleric of Cayden Cailean for Phaendar.
Noelan was scripted to die early in the module. However, my wife would be out of town on the first game session, and she asked for an early adventure with two of the four other players to establish her character Sam. In that pre-adventure we saw Noelan and his assistant Rhyna in action as priests and the Green Faith seemed most appropriate for Noelan.
In the fifth module, Prisoners of the Blight, the party encountered a nature god, Gendowyn, Lady of Fangwood face to face. She was a long-lived glaistig fey who had planted and nurtured the Fangwood millennia ago and ascended to godhood in the process. She was physical enough to have been imprisoned by a rival for centuries, until the PCs rescued her, so I guess she counts as only a demigod. Unlike Gozreh she was a nature god of local concern, only the Fangwood and the fey in it, though she did once aid in a battle against Treerazer in Kyonin. Nevertheless, that does not stop PCs far from the Fangwood as selecting her as their deity.
Simple question with a likely extremely complex answer: do we as players know how Gozreh functions as the god of nature, in a world with numerous weaker nature deities, the elemental lords who rule the natural elements, and the Green Faith who do not worship a god but do revere Green Men among other things, who have the ability to grant divine power?
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It seems like this would be a VERY interesting in-setting discussion for druids and clerics (for example, are clerics of Gozreh commonly ALSO druids?)
It comes down to Gozreh is the god of nature, Gendowyn is a local god of nature, and the Green Faith worships nature itself.
Has there ever been discussion on how a God of Nature who grants Divine spells and not Primal spells coexists with lesser divinities who fill a more explicit connection to Gozreh's own primary domain?
Domain is the key word. The domains are not gods but they are sources of divine power. The oracle class has an unusual relation with the domains, able to tap their divine energies in an awkward connection that leaves them cursed. Each oracle mystery is associated with two domains. In contrast, each god is associated with that least four domains.
Pathfinder has a nature domain that is not a god of nature nor nature itself. Yet all nature gods are associated with the nature domain. I imagine that Gozreh's primordial godhood led to the creation of the nature domain. Gozreh and all other nature gods pull from that domain to grant spells to their followers. Thus, no matter how weak a gods is, such as nearly-mortal local god Gendowyn or the non-god philosophy Green Faith, their domains safely channel full-powered divine spells to their clerics.
I played with this concept to develop a homebrew Godhood Archetype for Characters to Earn Deity Status. This let one of the PCs in the Ironfang Invasion campaign, the fey-blooded leshy sorcerer Gold-Flame Honeysuckle, rise to fledgling demigod status to battle Hadregash, the barghest hero-god of dominion and slavery (details at link). Gold-Flame Honeysuckle chose the domains change, confidence, family, and toil, so technically she is not a nature god. However, we have the oddity of a demigod who casts 10th-level primal spells herself, but grants her followers divine spells instead. Though we did put her two favorite primal spells, Haste and Dragon Form, on the list of additional spells granted to her clerics.
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Mathmuse, you’re one of my favorite folks on these forums - killer stuff!