I'd like give feedback regarding "good old" Gods&Magic that will also be relevant for anounced Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries:
In short:
Would it be possible to design the future sections on all deities - particularly those of the core deities - in such a way, so that all relevant stat block info can be retrieved there without having to consult Player Core 1 (formerly CRB) in parallel?
In bit more detail:
I frequently look up details about deities in Gods&Magic. I really love that some (in this case: the core) deities got extended statistics, like:
Realm, Allies, Enemies, ..., to Sacred Animal/Colors etc. Very much contributes to more dense lore and atmosphere.
However, I regularly need to know the other, basic statistics and mechanical details like Edicts/Anathema, Cleric Spells, Font, ... Domains, Favored Weapon as well. For the "Other Deities" from Gods&Magic and newer deity-containing-LO-books these basic statistics and mechanical details are in the respective book. But for the "Core Deities" of all they are not.
Consequently, for the "20 deities who are most influential in the Inner Sea region" - which also tend to be the ones I refer most often - the way of retrieving all their relevant information is the most inconvenient one. Effectively, I have to open Gods&Magic and PC1 or Gods&Magic plus a web resource in parallel and consolidate the info on my own.
I can guess why it was originally styled that way in Gods&Magic: Aiming for modularization/better maintainability by implementing the concept of Single Source of Truth (SSOT).
SSOT could work fine when having tool support (like a document management system or an integrated development environment) and clickable-hyperlinks. It doesn't quite work for me for lore-centered books, where my brain usually likes to find all relevant information easily accessible, ideally at first glance in a self-contained way. (Not always possible, but definitely possible for the deities sections.)
If SSOT was and still is a requirement, I could think of ways to implement it while still providing all info for a Deity in Divine Mysteries. An example method would be to explicitly state that for certain stats (like Edicts/Anathema, Cleric Spells, ...) PC1 is the authoritative source and that they are only copied&pasted to Divine Mysteries for convenience. This could be emphasized by graphical elements like different background color and/or via side-bars.
However implemented, having all info in one place would be a significant usability improvement to me. Thank you for your time to read and hopefully consider this.
Then I have not expressed myself clearly enough, I'm sorry. My request centers around the consolidated statistics blocks. That is, I kindly request that the new book contains the (Quote:) "mechanical information required to play a champion, cleric, or worshipper of one of the 20 core deities".
To be more explicit: This should somehow include (repeat) the statistics from PC1:
- * Areas of Concern
- * Edicts
- * Anathema
- * Divine Attribute
- * Cleric Spells
- * Divine Font
- * Divine Sanctification
- * Divine Skill
- * Domains
- * Favored Weapon
Additionally, all further "information useful for understanding those gods" remain highly welcome. For instance the following fields from G&M:
- * Realm
- * Allies
- * Enemies
- * Relationships
- * Temples
- * Worshippers
- * Sacred Animal
- * Sacred Colors
Unsurprisingly, we had similar feedback internally. Don't worry! The core deities will have their stat blocks in Divine Mysteries so you won't have to flip back to Player Core.
Thanks Luis for the quick reply. And I can only concur with cori: That's wonderful news.
Very much looking forward to Divine Mysteries.
(Albeit with a little fear that the path of some clerics, especially my own ;-), might be shattered by the impending death of one or more deities. But that is a fear for another thread. :-)
There is no perfection without change.)
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Additionally, all further "information useful for understanding those gods" remain highly welcome. For instance the following fields from G&M:
- * Realm
- * Allies
- * Enemies
- * Relationships
- * Temples
- * Worshippers
- * Sacred Animal
- * Sacred Colors
My single biggest hope for Divine Mysteries is to get the name and location of each deity’s Realm. Pie in the sky would be a short description of each. The rest of this info would also be deeply appreciated. They are nifty bits of worldbuilding that are I find I use a lot when I have them.
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I would love some alternative worship methods.
it is historically accurate that people would worship horribly destructive gods, but not be doomsday or maniacs. The Goddess Sekhmet was a goddess of war and of destruction. But she was worshiped to keep her placated.
So I would like ways to worship Rovagug in order to keep him quiessent.
Or worship to Lamashtu as a a goddess of motherhood and creation by monstrous races who would not necessarily have the same view of her as malevolent force.
I would love some alternative worship methods.
it is historically accurate that people would worship horribly destructive gods, but not be doomsday or maniacs. The Goddess Sekhmet was a goddess of war and of destruction. But she was worshiped to keep her placated.
So I would like ways to worship Rovagug in order to keep him quiessent.
Or worship to Lamashtu as a a goddess of motherhood and creation by monstrous races who would not necessarily have the same view of her as malevolent force.
People already do that in setting and always have.
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People already do that in setting and always have.I would love some alternative worship methods.
it is historically accurate that people would worship horribly destructive gods, but not be doomsday or maniacs. The Goddess Sekhmet was a goddess of war and of destruction. But she was worshiped to keep her placated.
So I would like ways to worship Rovagug in order to keep him quiessent.
Or worship to Lamashtu as a a goddess of motherhood and creation by monstrous races who would not necessarily have the same view of her as malevolent force.
Placating evil deities is not well represented in the setting.
Followers of Rovagug try to free him. Not to lull him back to sleep.
I would love some alternative worship methods.
it is historically accurate that people would worship horribly destructive gods, but not be doomsday or maniacs. The Goddess Sekhmet was a goddess of war and of destruction. But she was worshiped to keep her placated.
So I would like ways to worship Rovagug in order to keep him quiessent.
Or worship to Lamashtu as a a goddess of motherhood and creation by monstrous races who would not necessarily have the same view of her as malevolent force.
I realy like this idea, and have implemented it in some way into "my" golarion, by having rovagug be worshiped as a deity of nature in the underdark for exemple.
Of course, the biggest problem with it is that the gods aren't just nebulous philosophies, but actual beings with their own goals and wants, so it make little sense that they would help worshippers that are too far off mark. The "apocryphal domains" from 1e divine anthology is a good way to implement these alternate take on their cult I think, with them receiving slightly less power as a price for not following the main zones of interest of their deity.
A way I could see it work in PF2 (and how I used it with my neutral rovagug worshippers) is through liberal use of the minor curse. Because the god isn't entirely pleased with these faithfull, it afflict them with the minor curse constantly or at least pretty often. In exchange, the cult have a slightly altered version of the edict/anathema of their deity, that is more in line with their own interpretation, and they don't lose their power as long as they follow these new rules, even if they somehow break the old ones.
It does require quite a bit of GM fiat and interpretation of the deity personality tho, as some interpretation that go completely against what the deity is about shouldn't fly, as the deity would never empower someone that mistaken about them.
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People already do that in setting and always have.I would love some alternative worship methods.
it is historically accurate that people would worship horribly destructive gods, but not be doomsday or maniacs. The Goddess Sekhmet was a goddess of war and of destruction. But she was worshiped to keep her placated.
So I would like ways to worship Rovagug in order to keep him quiessent.
Or worship to Lamashtu as a a goddess of motherhood and creation by monstrous races who would not necessarily have the same view of her as malevolent force.
Placating evil deities is not well represented in the setting.
Followers of Rovagug try to free him. Not to lull him back to sleep.
I was surprised and delighted to see that Willowshore features in the middle of its a lake a shrine where folk make offerings to stave off disaster, and the deity is (was) the CE goddess of destruction.
I hope we get some notable missing deities that didn't make the cut the previous time around as well as some new artwork for those who don't have one yet.
Reposting those I put in the Gods & Magic thread: Ssila'meshnik (for Il'setsya), Ceyannan, Set, Abhoth, Mhar, Cthulhu, Arqueros,Reymenda, Shemhazai and Kelinahat as well as a revised Hadregash.
An inquisitor class would be nice too.
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A class isn't gonna be put inside a Lost Omen book, especially without the 1-year standard public playtest.