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Since my first Society character is an Iomedan Paladin, I'd be a little annoyed if Iomedae bit it and I had to change her personality to deal with the fact that her goddess, the font of her divine power, has died, and she has to figure out either how to be a fighter or how to Paladin for a different god. I would be a little amused at the chaos as a writer and current home game GM, as Iomedae and her church are front-and-center of one of the most important running plotlines in Second Edition.
(but also the idea of killing the second God of Humans in a century feels like it would put to an end the idea of humans as a powerful fantasy race, because if their prime gods are dying left and right, how good are they anyway?)
Sophiriel squares her shoulders and says, "I fight on, as I always have: On the side of the just, against those who oppress, so this I swear to Milani the Everbloom, great Sister of slain Iomedae, I will seek injustice and unjust rulership and put an end to both."
Since my first Society character is an Iomedan Paladin, I'd be a little annoyed if Iomedae bit it and I had to change her personality to deal with the fact that her goddess, the font of her divine power, has died, and she has to figure out either how to be a fighter or how to Paladin for a different god. I would be a little amused at the chaos as a writer and current home game GM, as Iomedae and her church are front-and-center of one of the most important running plotlines in Second Edition.
(but also the idea of killing the second God of Humans in a century feels like it would put to an end the idea of humans as a powerful fantasy race, because if their prime gods are dying left and right, how good are they anyway?)
Sophiriel squares her shoulders and says, "I fight on, as I always have: On the side of the just, against those who oppress, so this I swear to Milani the Everbloom, great Sister of slain Iomedae, I will seek injustice and unjust rulership and put an end to both."
I love the second paragraph, and the third is very evocative. I am appreciating the couple of character reactions so far...
Well, going down the line...
Favorite Core Deities (I can never pick just one)
Desna- She croaks, I riot. Yes, a riot of one. I'll do it. She's a massive part of the Pathfinder/Golarion brand identity for me, and easily my favorite of the Core twenty rocking a Good alignment tag for as long as those endure. That said... it would be a hell of a story, and if Black Butterfly's still around... Anyway. As an old L5R fan, I'll just say that the right kind of death for a beloved character can actually be very satisfying.
Pharasma- Already safe, yay!
Favorite non-Core Encore
Black Butterfly- Look, I love her, but... if she gets croaked in this event, it's... not exactly gonna be a surprise. Essentially the quiet gothy shadow of Desna...
Ashava- Plz no kill.
Moloch- Honestly, if anything, I'd rather see him rise in prominence. I know some conventionally evil deities are going the way of the dodo, but I hate to see a good villain wasted, when killing them off in my home games is much, much more satisfying...
Yog-Sothoth- Yeah, pretty sure Yoggy's gonna be fine. Likely to be backgrounded a bit, just for the sake of IP identity, but...
Acavna- Already dead when we "met" her XD
Bonus- My two leading picks in the Core 20 dead pool-
Asmodeus- Would be a massive shakeup, would draw some lines between PF and D&D, would matter, plus there are all these archdevils in the Nine Hells just itching for a chance to jockey for power. And Zon-Kuthon would be only too happy to fill his shoes in some areas.
EDIT: Also, Cheliax is a part of the setting that has been thoroughly explored and examined. We're all Thruned up.
Calistria. Why? Honestly, because while having the love and lust deities be different is cool as hell, Calistria's kind of in the sweet spot of being popular and important enough to have a massive impact, while not being particularly load-bearing. She's an elven deity a lot meaner than Pathfinder's elves are meant to be and doesn't really jive with a lot of what elven culture is presented as being about despite being the most prominent elven deity- Desna honestly seems a better fit for most of Golarion's elves. Plus, in a setting with Arshea, Arazni, Nocticula, Grandmother Spider, and others running around, her core "interests" of lust, revenge, and trickery have led to her feeling very unfocused. Norgorber, who literally has cults worshiping different aspects of him seems to have a more... coherent identity.
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I shall now read way too much into this.
Gods that only allowed evil worshipers were pathfinder society illegal anyway. So they're not safe.
Merged gods are fine. So something like Zon Shelyn would keep working.
Pharasma's death (and Aroden's) both break their clerics' ability to cast. So it's not as easy as "you can just keep worshiping them and your faith sustains you".
So I hypothesize that it's either an evil-only deity, or the death transfers domains, or both.
Keep in mind that Lamashtu is now Society-legal - The addition of so many monster ancestries as core meant that not having Lamashtu as a legal Society option meant basically any Society monster ancestry character would otherwise basically automatically be outcast from their people. So it's not true that not being Society-legal NOW is a strict bar from becoming Society-legal after WoI or a guaranteed target on the deity's back.
Right now, Pharasma is the ONLY deity we know is safe, because she's supposed to die - just not NOW.
I know Asmodeus has been…useful in Golarion, but all the real word Biblical devil stuff has weirded me out since ADnD. And I know Golarion “shares” our universe (see soldiers and Rasputin in Reign of Winter) but it’s still mega iffy that we have these anachronobodies hanging around like a bad guilt complex.
Would be a massive positive step to cut out the whole lot of them IMHO.
Achaekek. There’s a fun being. Let’s have more like them...
Basic Bro of me though it may be, Cayden Cailean is not only my favorite Pathfinder deity, but one of my favorite deities in anything.
Weird considering I don't even drink myself. I just really like him as a guy and I have always liked gods that are, sure gods and thus grandiose, but also someone you can talk to like a person.
I really can't see Cayden dying because he's such a popular and unique part of the Pathfinder lore, but if he did...
Well there's not currently any character I'm playing that would be hugely effected. Although I've had an Investigator who is a devotee of The Accidental God for a while now. That character would probably have to be pretty well reworked if it happened.
As for me, Golarion would still be one of my favorite settings, but I'd be pretty distraught over it, and it would probably make me focus more on my homebrew world games for a while.
I'm reasonably certain my favorite deitiy is going to die because almost all of the deities that seem (to me) most actually likely to be the one to go are among my favorites.
That said, Shelyn is probably my top favorite and while it's entirely plausible I kind of feel like she's safer than some others. Even so, I would be quite sad to have such a fresh take on a love and beauty goddess go.
My Champion, Solveig, would probably be devastated should her patron die. Incidentally, I'd already had opportunity to explore what might happen should she be forced to turn away from her deity (she was in the grips of a crisis of faith knowing that if a certain character tried to surrender to her to take advantage of her code, there was a reasonable chance she'd convince herself that killing him on the spot would be the right course of action.)
When she (very likely) fell from this action, I decided it was likely she'd ultimately turn to Calistria. As a Forlorn vourinoi living in Taldor, Shelyn's faith had saved her from despair, but her love for freedom above all things could ultimately take on a darker edge if needed. Of course, in that case I would probably have pursued a character arc about returning to Shelyn after further growth, but in this case Shelyn dying would make that impossible. I feel like the death of her goddess would also turn her to favour the vengeful goddess, but under the right circumstances Desna seems like a likely option if her faith in mercy isn't shaken.
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Honestly I don't think I'll react well no matter what deity's death is ultimately revealed. As I've said elsewhere, I've had anxiety about this since it was first announced, and it's gotten to the point where I'm kind of scared to make new characters to play because I don't wanna have to write out the traumatic experience of them potentially outliving the god they worship, especially since I tend to play characters whose classes revolve around their religion.
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Honestly I don't think I'll react well no matter what deity's death is ultimately revealed. As I've said elsewhere, I've had anxiety about this since it was first announced, and it's gotten to the point where I'm kind of scared to make new characters to play because I don't wanna have to write out the traumatic experience of them potentially outliving the god they worship, especially since I tend to play characters whose classes revolve around their religion.
Take comfort. Rahadoum is here for you. Try a Rahadoumi Kineticist. Let this whole "godswar" thing be something that happens to other people, while you get to sit back and say "See? We keep trying to tell you about this. Gods are just bad news."
...or, if you must have a patron, possibly consider a Goblin Witch. Pick a Patron who's low enough profile that they won't be involved in the coming fracas, and let them be your deity of choice. Being a Goblin means that you don't have to be bound by other people's ideas of what a god should or shouldn't be.
As a somewhat less safe options, if you truly must have a God, and having your god and your class be intertwined matters to you... try a Kineticist, and revere one or more of the elemental deities - ideally the new ones. They aren't core 20, and they probably won't get ganked so soon after being introduced. That's a bit more of a diceroll, though.
...or just roll with one of the deities that's been marked as safe. We've got Pharasma. We've got Shyka. We know that both of those are going to make it.
Lots of options.
Real talk, I'm more anxious about the none-core lineup than whichever of the Core 20 gets it in the neck :P
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But I still think this tilts things in favor of PFS-illegal deities dying.
Only very, very slightly. Alex's post was expertly worded.
Killing off one of the PFS-legal deities is still very much a possibility. The only promise is that it wouldn't invalidate existing character builds. There are plenty of other options for handling it than that though if it does end up being one of the PFS-legal deities that dies.
And I am not entirely sure that the PFS organized play leaders even know which deity is getting dropped.
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But I still think this tilts things in favor of PFS-illegal deities dying.Only very, very slightly. Alex's post was expertly worded.
Killing off one of the PFS-legal deities is still very much a possibility. The only promise is that it wouldn't invalidate existing character builds. There are plenty of other options for handling it than that though if it does end up being one of the PFS-legal deities that dies.
And I am not entirely sure that the PFS organized play leaders even know which deity is getting dropped.
Related, there's no promise it won't invalidate future character builds.
Make a level 1 cleric of each Deity while you can!
Hm. This could be also spun to a crisis of self. My 1e barbarian would be devastated if she were to find that Gorum finally lost a war. Especially since she converted to Our Lord in Iron when she got tired of her hometown religion and left Cheliax for, if not good, at least chaotic neutral.
Nethys dying seems incredibly improbable to me. The whole left in the core 20 would be pretty gaping as the pursuit of magical power just doesn’t fit anywhere else and mechanically his portfolio feels built up too much to toss away. My Redeemer of Nethys PFS character is already struggling enough to rebuild her life as a dedicated servant of the divine instead of a practicing wizard, after her accident.
The god that dies is going to get exploded in the sky and rain down on people perhaps all over Golarion. I will be pretty surprised if it is not Sarenrae and the sun domain is just given over to a pantheon of deities, none of which are “the” sun god of the setting (like the moon is in Golarion). Shelyn is ready to step up more fully as the god of redemption and forgiveness and fire is more for the elemental lords anyway. That will mess with a couple of my players’ characters when it happens, but I don’t think I am likely to have any Gods die off in my existing games, and instead not bring any of the new mythic stuff into my games until it is done at the start of a new campaign.
Vin, gnoll thaumaturge necromancer worshiper of Zon-Kuthon: Vin worships Zon-Kuthon as part of the bargain for getting an off-the-books resurrection in Geb after an unfortunate accident. If Zon-Kuthon dies, in the game he'd be relieved at finally getting to relax again. He's definitely picked up a taste for some of Zon-Kuthon's principles, but masochism doesn't really mesh with his personal hedonism.
Bonus: I'll also do a rebuild of him as an exemplar who managed to steal a small piece of divinity from his god's demise, although probably not for that particular game.
Personally: I'll be a little bummed. Zon-Kuthon is a fun god to make work, and Nightglass plus Nidal, Land of Shadows 100% sold me on Nidal as a setting element. Fortunately, Paizo looks to be geared up to help mitigate the issues. Zon-Shelyn has already been mentioned for Starfinder, and presumably will be used in Pathfinder if Zon-Kuthon is killed. Furthermore, the author of Nightglass is involved in the upcoming godwar tie-in novel if I understand correctly. (And realistically, finding the right group for a Nidal game is tricky anyway.)
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Me if they kill off my personal favorite, Lamashtu: I'd definitely be disappointed if this happens. Lamashtu got some excellent improvements to her edicts/anathema/lore that allow her worshipers to embrace monstrous solutions to their difficulties. She's also one of the few chaotic evil deities with solid reasons someone would want to worship her, and I'd definitely lose some interest in the pantheon overall. Even if alignments are going away, having Rovagug, whom almost nobody worships, as the only major deity in that corner feels kind of hollow.
My Lamashtans are all using some older gnoll lore from before the kholo rework, and generally could still work because the actual ongoing blessings they receive from her are limited- it's mostly variations on being blessed with demonic blood. Maybe an exemplar or two, since feasting on the corpse of a god is only fitting for followers of Lamashtu who did the same herself.
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Holy and Unholy are very telling about the deities.Sure... but they tell different things than alignment did.
Like, being Holy doesn't mean that you are necessarily "good". It really means two things.
- You signed up on the side of the angels in the War in Heaven.
- (possibly) Some appropriate authority on that side accepted you.So it does say a lot about their feelings on certain matters, and who they're willing to associate with. If a deity asserts that all of their followers must have Holy sanctification, then they probably aren't particularly friendly with Asmodeus. At the same time... you could very easily have some minor deity who was a really very unpleasant individual, utterly obsessed with personal revenge against (greater evil deity here) to an unhealthy degree, with a bevy of profound personality flaws... and they'd want that holy sanctification, and there's a good chance they could get it. They wouldn't have been any kind of "Good" under the old system - probably Chaotic Neutral at best - but they can be Holy, and even obligate Holy.
Anyway, that's my long form way to say that I hope she survives.I'm actually cool either way on whether or not she survives... but if she dies, I hope she dies well - ideally taking an evil deity of equal or greater value out with her.
Being dedicated to Holy means upholding the values previously known as Good.
Same for Unholy and Evil.
@Quid-est: thanks for the answers in terms of your characters AND possible Paizo pivots! As a gnoll fan, a thaumaturge fan and and Lamashtu fan it was certainly nice to read all that. Though I must admit, my knowledge of Lamashtu beyond being the mother of monsters is a little sparse, so I'll have to come to grips with more of her lore. (I think a lot of my gnoll=Lamashtu stuff comes from older edition Yeenoghu/demon worship, plus maybe some vague recollection of Pathfinder Lamashtu and gnoll connections? I'm not really across Mesopotamian roots, but Wikipedia helped me out a little...)
I particularly like the feasting on gods lore...
Almost irrespective of who it is, I have tepid interest in what changes in Arazni to make her popular enough to be one of the new core 20.
As she currently is, her portfolio is rather on the narrow side.
While they have said that Arazni won't take over the portfolio of the core 20 deity that dies, I haven't seen anything stating that she won't absorb portfolio items from any of the other deities who will die.
well since i already know Nasty Phas is stickin around i guess i'd just do my "you can't do this lmfao ur a jerk go to hell oh wait you wouldn't because it's not boring there ya drowsy ass wet fart BURNNNNNNT i ain't goin nowhere go chew a bone loser :P" speech again and then Auntie Urgy's gonna make me a god again. like it's not even hard y'all keep UP
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Almost irrespective of who it is, I have tepid interest in what changes in Arazni to make her popular enough to be one of the new core 20.
As she currently is, her portfolio is rather on the narrow side.
I could see it if Urgathoa dies and all undead gain sentience and complete free-will on the spot and thus the chance to escape the overwhelmingly evil/Unholy trend.
And Arazni steps in to negotiate a truce with Pharasma for all those unwilling undead that do not wish for death, but just to exist peacefully until they meet destruction.
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@Quid-est: thanks for the answers in terms of your characters AND possible Paizo pivots! As a gnoll fan, a thaumaturge fan and and Lamashtu fan it was certainly nice to read all that. Though I must admit, my knowledge of Lamashtu beyond being the mother of monsters is a little sparse, so I'll have to come to grips with more of her lore. (I think a lot of my gnoll=Lamashtu stuff comes from older edition Yeenoghu/demon worship, plus maybe some vague recollection of Pathfinder Lamashtu and gnoll connections? I'm not really across Mesopotamian roots, but Wikipedia helped me out a little...)
I particularly like the feasting on gods lore...
Glad you enjoyed it! Back in Ye Olde 3.5 Days, Paizo had their gnolls frequently be Lamashtans because Lamashtu had (allegedly) given birth to the first gnolls. (For my character in the Bronze Age game, I had the story be that the first gnolls were distorted reflections of Lamashtu shaken out of the water by her thunderous footsteps as she walked by a lake, something that tied in nicely with his mirror implement.) I think that by the time we hit PF2, the understanding was that gnolls in a particular region were typically that way, but it was far from universal. If we go back to the region, we'll probably get an updated version of things with a bit more legal distinctiveness and the benefit of another fifteen years, but I enjoy taking some elements from the old version.
Lamashtu's big claim to fame is that she's responsible for one of the few deicide cases we know of, having killed the god of beasts, Curchanas, and ascended as a result. (Lamashtu's influence on the world is my go-to explanation for why wild animals in games seem to be a lot more willing to pick fights.) She also killed a few of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Regardless of what Paizo does, I do kind of expect Lamashtu to be a big player in any war of the gods as one of the few who's "been there, done that", outside the whole Rovagug thing.
Being dedicated to Holy means upholding the values previously known as Good.
Same for Unholy and Evil.
I would be interested to know your sources.
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I would be interested to know your sources.Being dedicated to Holy means upholding the values previously known as Good.
Same for Unholy and Evil.
I found the post where I recanted my heretical views of Holy and evil being compatible.
Nothing prevents me from playing a cruel and deeply evil Exemplar who is Holy.
Seems about right to me...
I just don't have a strong association between holy and good.
Actually the rules do and I was wrong about the evil and Holy Exemplar :
"The holy trait indicates a powerful devotion to altruism, helping others, and battling against unholy forces like fiends and undead. The unholy trait, in turn, shows devotion to victimizing others, inflicting harm, and battling celestial powers."
(From the Remaster Core Preview).
Yeah, unfortunately, Paizo didn't get rid of alignments completely. Holy and Unholy are still alignments. Luckily, they are much rarer, but for gods they still indicate what the designers consider as "good" and "evil". And for Clerics and Champions, you are still bound to such a vision of "good" (and sometimes "evil"). And also Oracles and Divine Witches, Summoners and Sorcerers.
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To the "how do you react" question:
4 years ago I made a ganzi oracle of Acavna. She was in Thassilon when it time bubbled. When she came to the present day, she discovered that not only had her goddess sacrificed herself to save the world, but 10,000 years later barely anybody even remembered her.
So yes, she was devastated. She wound up with the pathfinder society as they knew the most about Azlant. She would tell people "Call me Acavna" as an act of remembrance and tried to spread word of the moon goddess. While she was a bit of a trickster before the time jump, that has been buried under overwhelming grief in the present. After 3 years of game she had recovered enough to start sometimes using her own name (Phengos) and her trickster side was starting to re-emerge, but it's still slow going. The big aids to this were actually her ganzi tail randomly grabbing things and presenting them to her, and a some time travel games inside and outside of org play that allowed her to talk with my starfinder grief councilor character.
Art of Phengos/Acavna: First set, second set.
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Almost irrespective of who it is, I have tepid interest in what changes in Arazni to make her popular enough to be one of the new core 20.
She is the deity of the abused who wish to better their circumstances and for survivors who never return to what they survived, and hurt people who want revenge on those who hurt them. That seems like something that's going to cross enough cultures that while you won't see giant temples to Arazni anywhere, you will have enough small shrines from people who resonate with her deal.
Almost irrespective of who it is, I have tepid interest in what changes in Arazni to make her popular enough to be one of the new core 20.She is the deity of the abused who wish to better their circumstances and for survivors who never return to what they survived, and hurt people who want revenge on those who hurt them. That seems like something that's going to cross enough cultures that while you won't see giant temples to Arazni anywhere, you will have enough small shrines from people who resonate with her deal.
I mean... yeah. If you look at the Core 20...
In a game focused on the Inner Sea region that way Pathfinder has historically been, seems to me Arazni would be at least as potentially popular as-
* Norgorber. Sure, some "regular" folks might try to placate him, but not one of his four major subsects is exactly going to operate aboveboard. Not exactly a cathedral in every major city.
* Zon-Kuthon. Were it not for Nidal, I'd see ol' Zonny as being very much an underground deity. He doesn't even have Asmodeus' fixation on contracts and legalese to underpin wider appeal.
* Rovagug, most of whose followers exist outside of anything like civilization by definition, and whose lifestyles don't exactly encourage longevity.
And a few of the others are kinda niche.
* Nethys is undeniably important, but it's not a focus I can see people giving a toss about if they're just trying to get through another day of farming turnips.
* Irori seems more like a big deal in places like Vudra. Not exactly a religion that's going to be particularly widespread if you work in the Printer's Guild.
* Asmodeus owes his inflated market share mostly to having stepped in when Cheliax wanted a new divine patron and then parlayed importance in a major nation into more widespread recognition.
* Urgathoa seems to owe any real popularity to most people wanting her to stay the hell away from their lives.
Arazni can easily stand in such company, especially if she does anything particularly important or cool during the divine shakeup we have coming.
I found the post where I recanted my heretical views of Holy and evil being compatible.
Ah! But even here they are more limited.
"The holy trait indicates a powerful devotion to altruism, helping others, and battling against unholy forces like fiends and undead. The unholy trait, in turn, shows devotion to victimizing others, inflicting harm, and battling celestial powers."
That's both a lot more constrained and more specific than the old "Good/Evil" thing. There's a lot less implied conflation that way. Like, before, you had this idea where Good Gods Must Be Good. I had people straight-up telling me that Good deities weren't allowed to have any moral features that were in any way associated with (their conception of) Evil. Here, it's much more straightforward. Are you strongly inclined to help other people for its own sake and fight those that are the opposite? Then you can be holy. Are you strongly inclined to hurt and torment people, and fight against those Holy schmucks over there? Then you can be unholy.
Basically, making things simple means that the overall "problematic" thing gets cut down a lot. Like, asserting that Vildeis is an Exemplar of Good is potentially concerning to some people. Just asserting that she's Holy, though? Like, seriously, she is out there every day, hunting down the unholy and smiting the wicked... and she does it for love of others in general, to try to make the universe a better place.
There's other stuff it allows, too. Under this system, it's entirely possible for someone to, say, be both holy and deeply racist. You can have a dwarf, for example, who legitimately sees orcs as a threat to his people and nothing more. He doesn't hate them, he doesn't have any particular desire to harm them, and he's certainly not trying to victimize anyone. It's just that the only people he really cares about are other dwarves. Inside the community, he is generous and caring to a fault (when he has the time) and he has a particular hatred of demons and undead (because he knows that they are a threat to his people, and he's seen that first-hand) but only cares about non-dwarves with respect to the effects that they have on dwarves. (Humans: often good, but not to be trusted unless you know them well. Orcs: Almost never helpful. Generally a threat.)
I make no assertion as to whether this person would count as "good" or "evil". I personally think it's "messy", as so many morality questions in real life are. I think, though, that based on the given criteria, this individual could petition the Holiness Engine, have it recognize him as "cares strongly about helping (some) others", "no real desire to harm others for its own sake", and "totally has a hate-on for demons and undead" and be happy to sign him up.
I wish it hadn't had a direct moral component. I'd rather leave the fuzzier morality stuff in the realm of "not rules-adjudicated". If I'm incorrect, and there's actually a more complete and complex concept of what morality means to the Holy/Unholy engine, then I'm wrong. I hope not, though. I'd rather not get dragged back in.
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Lots of stuff
Sorry, but I can't be on board with what you say.
The definition of holy is made in a single sentence, so it's short. Stating that holy is limited to altruism and helping others but can then be racist, sexist, murderous, manipulative, abusive, etc... seems very much a flawed reading. It is the good ol' Good as we know it. It's not a new version that only cares about helping others but can carry very problematic political or personal views in the name of "holy".| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, but I can't be on board with what you say.
The definition of holy is made in a single sentence, so it's short. Stating that holy is limited to altruism and helping others but can then be racist, sexist, murderous, manipulative, abusive, etc... seems very much a flawed reading. It is the good ol' Good as we know it. It's not a new version that only cares about helping others but can carry very problematic political or personal views in the name of "holy".
The problem with good/evil alignment was that "good" and "evil" was in itself an absolute moral statement. A "good" character or faith imply that this character is ultimately good beyond nuance, and thus anything they did was tacitally endorsed by the writer as good. Even in the cases where a writer wanted to have nuance and have bad side to good characters, the fact that the character itself was classified by the rules of reality itself as "fundamentaly good" clashed with this idea. This is what sparked a thousand debate on "wether Miko should have fallen earlier" and "wether so and so deity/character is actually good".
Holy/unholy meanwhile, don't imply such an absolute morality, but rather imply sides in a cosmic conflict. One tied to selfishness and one to altruism, as their description said, but it's not the absolute moral statement that naming the sides "good" and "evil" was before. The presence of less savory people and idea in the "holy" side is much more understandable. The common trope of the "end justify the mean" angel that we can see in Ragathiel for exemple was pretty hard to justify as good, but it's very understandable as "holy".
This is why IMO the lawfull/chaotic axis never sparked even a tenth of the debates that the good/evil one did. Because these aren't moral statment, and such it's far more understandable why a chaotic something have a somewhat orderly side, and why a lawfull something sometime have a twisted sense of order and protocol, when a good character exhibiting even a bit of evil behavior feel wrong.
Holy/unholy meanwhile, don't imply such an absolute morality, but rather imply sides in a cosmic conflict.
I'd agree with you if Paizo made a statement about Holy and Unholy being just sides in a cosmic conflict. Unfortunately, the only thing describing these notions speak also about altruism and inflincting harm. So we can keep alignment debates for Holy and Unholy characters until Paizo realizes their mistake and stop associating moral values to these 2 things.
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I think that it's Nethys that's getting the axe. Their function and theming got MAJORLY disrupted in the switch to Traditions with PF2 as they weren't from a sort of universal God of Magic that was painted with a dualistic form and somewhat mirrored existence as a kind of oxymoron and now that things are divided into four Traditions plus a handful of alternate access methods that poach from multiple the whole dualistic approach of being half Arcane and Divine just ... doesn't really work anymore, or in the least, if interpreted in a direct manner Nethys lost more than half of their dominion over Magic as a thing.
Besides, I can't really imagine there is any Deity in the setting whose death would be more likely to create a global (or universal?) "godrain" where their magical essence is dispersed and leeches into the land and people of the setting since his mere existence is constantly at war with itself, full of contradictions and narratively speaking he is just about always ready to explode due to the constant internal conflict between creation and destruction which, those two themes alone would almost perfectly describe the consequences of the death of a God in the setting that both destroys and cuts off the power to the domains provided to his followers as well as randomly effusing the material plane (and probably others as well?) with RAW deific magical energy.
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I think that it's Nethys that's getting the axe. Their function and theming got MAJORLY disrupted in the switch to Traditions with PF2 as they weren't from a sort of universal God of Magic that was painted with a dualistic form and somewhat mirrored existence as a kind of oxymoron and now that things are divided into four Traditions plus a handful of alternate access methods that poach from multiple the whole dualistic approach of being half Arcane and Divine just ... doesn't really work anymore, or in the least, if interpreted in a direct manner Nethys lost more than half of their dominion over Magic as a thing.
Besides, I can't really imagine there is any Deity in the setting whose death would be more likely to create a global (or universal?) "godrain" where their magical essence is dispersed and leeches into the land and people of the setting since his mere existence is constantly at war with itself, full of contradictions and narratively speaking he is just about always ready to explode due to the constant internal conflict between creation and destruction which, those two themes alone would almost perfectly describe the consequences of the death of a God in the setting that both destroys and cuts off the power to the domains provided to his followers as well as randomly effusing the material plane (and probably others as well?) with RAW deific magical energy.
Huh? Nethys isn't about divine/arcane dualism at all, and never has been. He's about magic's power for creation and destruction. PF1 already had three traditions of magic, with psychic magic as the third.
Was Nethys whole duality theme supposed to be representing the duality between divine and arcane magic? I though that it was more simply a "good and bad"/"creation and destruction" duality, with both traditions having their exemples of destructive/bad magic and contructive/good magic.
My interpretation was that nethys was pretty much the god of UNLIMITED POWER, and the incarnation of the old question about wether power corrupt or wether it depend on those who yield it, with Nethys favoring all those that search for it without caring about how it is used, as long as it is.
His death would be a perfect way to start a war tho, if only because a lot of other deity would want to take over his domain, so it might start an all out war between those that want his power for themselves and those that want it to prevent the other to get to it first. However, given that DnD have a things for killing their godess of magic again and again, I think it's kind of unlikely, if only because Paizo is trying to get out of DnD shadow right now, which would be difficult if they start mimicking their most well known storylines.
I think that it's Nethys that's getting the axe. Their function and theming got MAJORLY disrupted in the switch to Traditions with PF2 as they weren't from a sort of universal God of Magic that was painted with a dualistic form and somewhat mirrored existence as a kind of oxymoron and now that things are divided into four Traditions plus a handful of alternate access methods that poach from multiple the whole dualistic approach of being half Arcane and Divine just ... doesn't really work anymore, or in the least, if interpreted in a direct manner Nethys lost more than half of their dominion over Magic as a thing.
Besides, I can't really imagine there is any Deity in the setting whose death would be more likely to create a global (or universal?) "godrain" where their magical essence is dispersed and leeches into the land and people of the setting since his mere existence is constantly at war with itself, full of contradictions and narratively speaking he is just about always ready to explode due to the constant internal conflict between creation and destruction which, those two themes alone would almost perfectly describe the consequences of the death of a God in the setting that both destroys and cuts off the power to the domains provided to his followers as well as randomly effusing the material plane (and probably others as well?) with RAW deific magical energy.
I only ever thought of nethys as the arcane magic god. I mean all gods are the divine magic gods, his flavor certainly doesnt fit primal, and occult is not really in his flavor profile either.
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Nethys is a Divine being that was self-enlightened through the use and mastery of Arcane Magic who ended up seeing through the veil, beyond the void and witnessed all of creation and destruction granting him ultimate magical divine power and godhood.
His Divine Skill is Arcana, the Skill that governs and defines understanding and technical experience with Arcane Magic.
All of his Cleric Spells are poached from the Arcane list.
He is one depicted and described as a being of dualistic and internally opposed halves representing his complete mastery of his mortal goals/talents via Arcane magic which can and always has been generally been able to be described as the most destructive of the forms of magic for one half and the other is that of creation and protection which are almost always associated with the Divine. His theming doesn't reach jive with the themes of Occult or Primal traditions as BOTH of these mainly focus on and play around with themes relating to growth/change/projection of fundamental energies or life itself for Primal Magic and Occult instead relates to twisting the form or perceptions of things that exist or channeling powers from the outer and more bizarre realms, neither of the two really directly tie into destruction or creation in nearly as direct a manner as Arcane and Divine which are two words/concepts that almost fully and completely define what Nethys is about. In other words his conceptual theming and identity is tied back to the older pre-tradition divide between Arcane and Divine which were the only two real domains for magic when he was created/written, his dominion over "all of magic" makes far less sense nowadays and I can't really think of a much better way to wrap up the sort of internal war he represents than him simply being -destroyed- utterly and his magical divine essence -creating- all manner of brand new magical divine beings, places, and events as the two clashing forces within him are finally released, if ANY being in the system represents a "giant divine magical bomb" better than him then I'm really not sure who it could be.
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"Killing off a god of magic because the new system's magic works differently" is a very WotC move that I'd be surprised to see Paizo pull. Nethys is a god of magic but not the only one, and he's very, very new as a god on the timescale. Treating him as the god of magic in a cosmic sense doesn't really work. He's popular in the setting because he's local.
It's really easy to say that "He maintained his somewhat Osirian view of magic that focused on divine and arcane magic" or "He grants arcane spells because that's what he used in life". Arcane and divine cover material, mental, vital, and spirit aspects between them, so it still works fine as covering "all magic" in its own way.
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One of the main issues with Nethys is that if your character is super into magic, and you want to learn more about magic, so you can do more things with magic, and that magic is exciting and you love learning... your character is a Wizard who might worship Nethys, not anyone who actually receives divine power from Nethys.
It's just kind of weird to me how Nethys's clerics are not wizards. It's sort of similar to how if nature is your thing, it probably makes more sense for you to be a Druid or a follower of the green faith than Gozreh worshipper.
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One of the main issues with Nethys is that if your character is super into magic, and you want to learn more about magic, so you can do more things with magic, and that magic is exciting and you love learning... your character is a Wizard who might worship Nethys, not anyone who actually receives divine power from Nethys.
It's just kind of weird to me how Nethys's clerics are not wizards. It's sort of similar to how if nature is your thing, it probably makes more sense for you to be a Druid or a follower of the green faith than Gozreh worshipper.
I mean, a big portion of his priesthood probably is made up of wizards. Gods don't exist just for the cleric class. But learning to be a wizard is generally hard and expensive. If someone deeply wants magic but can't afford the schooling to learn it, they could pray to Nethys, who might grant it. They might also care more about Nethys than abstract magic- just because Nethys cares more about magic than himself doesn't mean his followers have to. On the opposite side, someone might care deeply about the duality of creation and destruction, something that divine (with heal and harm) embodies better than arcane, or particularly focus on the healing aspect of creation. Someone might be blessed by Nethys first, or saved by magic that they can't perform themselves, and become a priest out of gratitude.
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I mean, a big portion of his priesthood probably is made up of wizards.
Yep.
You have clerics, druids, shamans, oracles, inquisitors, occultists, warpriests, spiritualists, paladins, witches, and summoners all occupying religious or at least lay clergy posts in published material with some regularity.
And Irori has a bunch of monks in his priesthood, Nethys has wizards, Norgober has rogues, etc.
In 1e, I always saw Nethys as the mystical theurge holy deity. Like, if you are a cleric/wizard theurge then then the most natural option is to worship Nethys (and if you're a druid/wizard then youthe most natural option is to be from the Magaambya).
I haven't played a nethys believer in either edition, but when I do, I know that I'm going to either go theurge, or to take a spellcasting multiclass archetype in my already spellcasting class.