Thread title, essentially!
Paizo is slowly revealing which deities are safe through the beautifully written Godsrain Prophecies, and I'm wondering about people's thoughts on which ten deities will have their status remain a mystery by the end of these revelations. For those who are unaware, Paizo will only reveal the safety of ten deities, so another ten will still be in danger until the actual reveal.
What are your bets?
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The prismatic ray, Zon Kuthon and the three starstone gods won't be safe. The first four and Iomedae because lots of things point toward them, so keeping the suspence as long as possible just make sense. The other starstone gods because they are the newest deity, and cause the least upheaval if they die (and thus the least interesting prophecies).
As for the other three, it's a toss up. I'd guess Irori for the same reason as the starstone ones, not far reaching enought to have an interesting enought prophecy. Either Calistria or Abadar to keep one "larger god" open that wouldn't have that interesting a prophecy.
And finally Gozreh because they's my pick for the dead god, druids don't tend to worship them but be atheist/green faith/animist, the elemental lords are taking away their "god of element" niche, so it doesn't hurt player options much. And the death of the god of nature would make a big enought shakeup on golarion to justify the war, with just the right amount of relevancy in the current political climate.
If Gozreh isn't the one, I expect them to have a prophecy tho. In which case my bet is on Erastil or Torag.
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I think Desna is completely safe, and I don't expect her to be in any doubt - all the more reason for Sarenrae and Shelyn to be on the scary half of the list.
Urgathoa will take center stage when it's time to finally kill Tar-Baphon, which I don't think we're doing here - she'll get a prophecy.
Gorum is my current vote to die.
Iomedae's in danger. Cayden's in danger... but not really, he's too beloved. Erastil and Gozreh are probably getting threatened, but I think they survive.
My 10 safe predictions(bold are confirmed) are: Pharasma, Asmodeus, Rovagug, Sarenrae, Desna, Irori, Lamashtu, Torag, Iomedae, Calistria.
So at risk are: Urgathoa, Abadar, Gorum, Nethys, Gozreh, Zon-Kuthon, Shelyn, Erastil, Cayden, Norgorber.
Some of these are for metatextual reasons (you kill Torag or Iomedae at the climax of a story, not at the start of a story, for example).
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Admitting my firm conviction that the Pharasma kicking the bucket is the juiciest plot bunny since the death of Aroden, my criterion for "should they not be safe" ultimately comes down to "is their death an interesting stoy to tell, or change the universe in interesting ways." Therefore, my list would have included:
* Pharasma
* Sarenrae
* Asmodeus
* Rovagug
* Desna
* Iomedae
* Urgathoa
* Torag
* Norgorber
* Nethys
Obviously, the first and third of this list have now been declared "safe" (though I'll believe it's not just throwing people off the scent when I see it) but this is loosely my preference, in descending order of how much I would care about their loss. I like Nethys as a worldbuilding element, but I don't know if a god of magic, more revered by wizards than pious people, is a useful god, and filling Norgorber and revealing he WAS just four halflings in a trenchcoat all along might be a nice way to split his different aspects into separate gods and add a bit of diversity to the setting. We know Torag is gone by the time of Starfinder, though that doesn't necessarily mean he will die in Pathfinder, though I think Paizo really has no reason to keep them separate to that degree. And Urgathoa feels like a goddess whose niche is already better filled by Lamashtu or Zon-Kuthon.
From Urgathoa up, I begin to care a lot more. Iomedae is the Inheritor, the last servant of Aroden still standing other than Milani, who had to catch the pieces as he fell. Her dying might be an interesting way to show that Aroden's legacy isn't done fading, and that there might still be mysteries to his death that have ongoing consequences. Desna is a goddess of cosmic importance, hinted to be a Elder God,nd possibly older than this universe despite Pharasma's claim to that, If she dies, what does that mean for the other Elder Gods who otherwise seem as far above the gods as the gods are from us? And Rovagug, the sleeping Sword of Damocles in the core of the planet, is another god gone by the time of Starfinder, but is also a setting lynchpin - I like to think the reason Heaven and Hell limit their actions on Golarion is because ultimately, neither side want to wake the Rough Beast and aren't willing to risk Second War in Heaven, even if they think they could win it, if it might release the ultimate embodiment of the phrase "F!!+ Around and Find Out." If he's gone, does Hell step up its game in CHeliax? Do the Heavens start getting more involved?
And then we come to the big two that every man and his dog has speculated about. Sarenrae is a major force for good in the cosmos, but not without an uncomplicated legacy - Paizo have retired the Cult of the Dawnflower (which I still think is an overcorrection, but not unjustified given the tropes they were based on), and patron goddess of the largest empire on Golarion. And then you have Asmodeus, the ruler of Hell, whose absence would cause a MAJOR vacuum. In a Golarion context, the loss of either would hurt some major nations in the Inner Sea, and send shockwaves across the world - the loss of Sarenrae could break up the Padishah Empire of Kelesh and leave Qadira stranded and isolated, forced to either deal with Taldor or..."deal" with Taldor. Eric Mona has said in another thread that he's been piecing together an internal document for Casmaron, and coinciding a new version of Casmaron with the demise of the patron goddess of its empire would certainly be serendipitous if not deliberate. Chaos in Hell could erode Cheliax's power even more, or perhaps force it to adopt a new patron or patrons, perhaps an Infernal Bureaucracy pantheon in place of the single sovereign of Hell.
And finally, Pharasma. The death of Sarenrae might cause chaos in the heavens, the loss of Asmodeus will leave Hell roiling, but Pharasma would leave the entire cosmos untethered, interrupting the very cycle of life and death itself, and forcing all the planes to scramble for a solution to keep the wheels spinning. The Daemons and Sahkils might rejoice, and give Paizo an excuse to give some more screentime to its own evil outsiders rather than the more familiar Devils and Demons, and could even force the Heavens to reluctantly ally with Hell to find out what happened and who did it, and bring them to a justice they can agree on. It gives Paizo a chance to broaden the category of Death God without making them all subordinate to someone else, shakes up the afterlife in a way that isn't just Heaven or Hell duking it out, and touches every plane of existence with its consequences, a status quo changed big enough that Paizo can easily dump huge chunks of the Forgotten Realms lore they were originally stuck with adapting with an in-universe rationale.
In conclusion, Pharasma Delenda Est and I'll believe she's TRULY out of the running when the AP finally comes out.
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I feel like the final 10 list has to be somewhat spicy (if it only involves gods like Erastil who would suck if they died, but are boring options, then it wouldn't be spicy)
So I'd guess final list would be
Cayden
Iomedae
Norgorber (all ascended basically)
Desna,
Sarenrae
Shelyn (all prismatic ray basically, they are unlikely to die, but they might not want to deconfirm Sarenrae so that we can be paranoid of whether divine mysteries cover makes her safe or not. I can see Sarenrae being deconfirmed though while leaving rest of them here)
Zon-Kuthon(because at least one evil deity needs to be included)
Nethys (I honestly think he will be one of deities going to be deconfirmed, but I'm less confident on remaining 10 after 7 first ones)
Abadar
Erastil (they are going to include one of boring gods to kill, so it was either Erastil or Abadar so I included both)
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Among the last 10, I foresee Cayden Cailean because players love him, ditto for Sarenrae. Zon-kuthon because how he would react to Shelyn's death as a What If is much more interesting than the other way around. And Urgathoa to keep uncertainty about the future fate of Tar Baphon.
I will go further on that post I made on another thread.
We have 2 groups : the 10 What If deities and the 10 Uncertain deities. I am deliberately putting aside the fact one deity will bite the dust.
In the first group we have Pharasma and Asmodeus, so still room for 8.
Which would feel better for the 18 remaining deities ? To stay Uncertain or to have a What If ? What would be the most fun for the authors to write and for the fan base to read or keep guessing / worrying ?
My take :
Abadar : interesting What If, most fans do not care about him dying => What If.
Calistria : interesting What If, some fans like her, many do not care => What If.
Cayden Cailean : boring What If, beloved by a lot of fans => prime candidate for Uncertainty.
Desna : great What If, liked by the fanbase but not as much as some others IMO => What If.
Erastil : interesting What If, most of the fanbase does not care about him => What If.
Gorum : so-so What If, part of the fanbase likes him and another dislikes him => likely Uncertainty.
Gozreh : same as Abadar => What If.
Iomedae : interesting What If, beloved by the fanbase, it's much of a toss. I would go for Uncertainty though as this raises the greatest interest => Uncertainty.
Irori : boring What If, lukewarm fanbase => whatever category ends up needing a god to fill the numbers.
Lamashtu : so-so What If IMO, and a fascinating evil goddess => Uncertainty.
Nethys : awesome What If, does not emicit that much interest in the fanbase => What If.
Norgorber : could be a really great What If, many in the fanbase like him but not as much as other deities => What If.
Rovagug : excellent What If, fanbase does not care one iota about him => What If.
Sarenrae : very interesting What If, much beloved by the fanbase => Uncertainty for the same reasons as Iomedae.
Shelyn : has to be taken into account with Zon-Kuthon as I believe they will be in opposite groups to create the most tension. So-so What If, beloved by much of the fanbase => Uncertainty.
Torag : could be a great What If, not really beloved by the fanbase => What If.
Urgathoa : completely linked to Tar-Baphon. Could be an interesting What If but Uncertainty leaves far more possibilities open => Uncertainty.
Zon-Kuthon (see Shelyn) : great What If because of Shelyn's reaction, most of the fanbase does not care for him => What If.
So, I'm ending up with
What If :
Abadar
Calistria
Desna
Erastil
Gozreh
Nethys
Norgorber
Rovagug
Torag
Zon-Kuthon
That makes 10 of them : I need to take 2 off this list.
The less interesting What Ifs IMO would be Calistria and Norgorber. With Torag 3rd.
So my bet on Uncertainty/Not safe for maximum hype and fun is the following 10 :
Calistria
Cayden Cailean
Gorum
Iomedae
Irori
Lamashtu
Norgorber
Sarenrae
Shelyn
Urgathoa
It will be amusing to see in the following weeks how wrong I was.
Gods, I didn't realise all the typoes in my last post until it was far too late to correct them. Apologies.
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I think the ones they released in the recent WizKids box, Abadar, Calistria, Desna, Sheyln, Gorum, and Sarenrae. Since nothing is going to make people more nervous than the ones they just bought not being safe. As for the other 4, Rovagug, Gozreh, Urgathoa, Iomedea.
Just because Rovagug I think would be the most interesting since… well… nothing has happens with the rough beast, and him getting split up would cause a lot of problems for everyone.
Gozreh, because they just made a big book on elements and their planes so… they just seem kind of redundant.
Urgathoa, because if Arazani takes over, and she looks, kind of reborn? It would go pretty good in a way to remove the EVIL aspect of undead, which could be cool. (Also enemy of Calistria and Arazani, so… I have my bias and want my favorite goddess to live.)
Iomedea, because, I might upset her fans but this is just my opinion, she is the most boring of the gods. With a lot of her most interesting parts being how she became a god, which was supposed to be Arazani. A kind of typical crusader goddess with a neat backstory. Arazani is similar, but with just more going on. Iomedea would definitely make a big deal, don’t get me wrong. But, even if it is obvious, it does make sense.
My vote is still for Rovagug and by no means do I want Imoedea gone.
Hm, I'm trying to consider what metric they would be deciding this on. So there's the first few criteria, "which god is actually dying" and "which gods do we really REALLY want to write a story about what would happen if they died"; but that's not going to cover all of them. Next, stuff would be sorted by "which gods do we have the best stories for what would happen if they died" and "what would cause the most suspense" and "what would muddy the waters to keep people from guessing which of the remaining ten is most likely to die"; but I don't know what the priority order would be for those.
...actually, the first-order criteria, they're both "which do we really REALLY want to write about", except the former also includes "and we want to write the whole future of the setting about this, not just a short story".
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I’m bad at getting my points across and I feel that what I said about Iomedea came off a bit too harsh. She is not the most boring goddess. I just do not care much for the crusader vibe. Though I understand that a lot of people love that! It’s just not my thing. She has a lot going on, if that sort of thing is the vibe you love!
I just don't like the idea of killing Iomedae since killing off the least tenured of the Starstone gods kind of makes her look like a chump, which is undesirable. Plus the reason you'd kill her off and not, say, Cayden is mostly linked to "unlike Cayden, Iomedae is active in the setting" which also seems like a bad thing to underline.
Like if the story I wanted to tell was "there's something wrong with the Starstone" I'd kill off Cayden or Norgorber before I'd kill off Iomedae. Cayden, when his luck finally runs out, and Norgorber because he held on to a secret when sharing it probably would have saved him. There doesn't really see like a good reason to kill Iomedae besides "she's inexperienced", "everything is ultimately Aroden's fault", and "people got weirdly upset about that one scene in WotR."
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I can tell you beyond a reasonable doubt that Rovagug will be safe.
Paizo needs him to end the world.
I couldn't care less about:
Gorum
Gozreh
Irori
Shelyn
Zon-Kuthon
Abadar
Nethys
Urgathoa
Erastil
Lamashtu
Of those 10, I'd say Urgathoa is most likely to buy the farm. Now that Arazni is among the divine, Urgathoa is completely superfluous.
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I can tell you beyond a reasonable doubt that Rovagug will be safe.
Paizo needs him to end the world.
I agree that I can't imagine they'll kill off Rovagug without making something much worse than having a caged rough beast trapped in the planet core happen, but when you look at the sheer variety and number of ways that the world has been predicted to end, I really don't think they need to keep it for that specifically. There are more than enough dark omens pointing to the doom of the entire universe that just sorting out which ones might come true in which order could be its own branch of eschatology.
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I am very much loving all the theory crafting.
Irori won't die, but neither will he be marked 'safe' in advance.
This is because his death would be so uninteresting it would be a stretch to even come up with a good 'What If?' story for it.
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I mean, I think I've theorized that before, but tbh, that's exactly why he should have one of these stories.
Like Irori isn't relatively boring as character trait, he is honestly vast majority of gods: they don't have that much mythology about their deeds or current activities, so they mostly stay as background figures that are easy to sum up.
So having death story would be opportunity to give more characterization moments to him.
Cayden's What If made me somewhat interested in him. Maybe it could happen with Irori too.
I absolutely would buy some story of the form "Irori figures out that he's not as perfect as he thought he was, then subsequently dies". The problem is that it's hard to imagine any sort of big story you could spin out of Irori being out of the picture."
With Gozreh or Nethys or something you could have something of the form "the force they were identified has spiraled out of control."
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For me, I most want to see Irori's story because I genuinely can't figure out what it might be that would be interesting; thus given a writer with a sufficient level of skill (like what we have), I'm pretty much bound to go "oh I'd never THOUGHT of that, that's so cool and/or it makes so much sense", and that's something I really enjoy.
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Cayden's What If made me somewhat interested in him. Maybe it could happen with Irori too.I absolutely would buy some story of the form "Irori figures out that he's not as perfect as he thought he was, then subsequently dies". The problem is that it's hard to imagine any sort of big story you could spin out of Irori being out of the picture."
With Gozreh or Nethys or something you could have something of the form "the force they were identified has spiraled out of control."
Cayden's story didn't have really greater implications on setting either.
But yeah thing with Irori is that he is important in Jalmarey and Vudra, but I don't think we have lot on information on how exactly
Cayden's What If made me somewhat interested in him. Maybe it could happen with Irori too.
Gozreh also, though they already have more potential for interesting things about them IMO.
People saying how Cayden's What If made them interested in him makes me really hoping we get a prophecy on Desna. She is probably the most common pick I see for people's favorite deity, yet she has just never really clicked with me no matter how much I tried. I don't dislike her or anything (I don't really think there's a single deity I don't care about, closest is one or two who I occasionally just straight up forget exist), but she just doesn't really do much for me (To the point where she's currently sitting somewhere between my 14th to 18th favorite core deity). I'd love a prophecy to drop and give me something about her to really get me excited about her.
Tempted to go with Abadar.
* Other gods could handle his portfolio, 2 (Erastil and Asmodeus) are in the safe zone.
* His monopoly on banks is a bit weird, and even Hell might run those better.
* He is the Keeper of the First Vault, the things kept in there are a good enough reason to kill him and start a war.
* Meta one, in setting the current year on Earth is 1929.
Tempted to go with Abadar.
* Other gods could handle his portfolio, 2 (Erastil and Asmodeus) are in the safe zone.
* His monopoly on banks is a bit weird, and even Hell might run those better.
* He is the Keeper of the First Vault, the things kept in there are a good enough reason to kill him and start a war.
* Meta one, in setting the current year on Earth is 1929.
I'm not so sure we can trust the "year" thing; we know they've been working on this for a bit, but there's also been some, ah, difficulties in their schedule, so can we assume that they meant for it to happen in this particular year?
I mean they might have; I legit do not know, I'm just raising a question.(If we get his what-if, I hope there's a reference to that in it.)
Do note that one of the Primastic Ray is confirmed to will get a Godsrain Prophecy, while the other two wont. So that limits the possibility of who's safe/unsafe quite a bit
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Some posters have floated an alignment theory: we'll get a prophecy for one god of each alignment, with either LG or N getting two. I know that alignment isn't a thing anymore, at least technically, but this has been in the planning stages since before the Remaster. Therefore, this would serve as a last nod to that system.
We have gotten two N deities (Pharasma and Nethys), one LE (Asmodeus), one CG (Cayden Cailean), one NE (Urgathoa), and one LG (Erastil). There are four spots left, and four alignments: NG, LN, CN, and CE. If the pattern holds, then we can expect prophecies for a combination of (Sarenrae/Shelyn), (Abadar/Irori), (Calistria/Gorum), and (Lamashtu/Rovagug). Also, if the theory is correct and the pattern holds, this means that Desna, Gozreh, Iomedae, Norgorber, Torag, and Zon-Kuthon are on the chopping block.
If these choices are correct...
Sarenrae/Shelyn: I lean Shelyn for prophecy and Sarenrae for chopping block. Watching the gods deal with the death of the only god that they all love (in their own ways) is juicy, and it would have a huge impact on Z-K. We were told that the Prismatic Ray prophecy would give us some hints, and I think that's what they involve.
Abadar/Irori: Irori for prophecy, Abadar for chopping block. Irori hasn't gotten a lot of coverage, so a (false?) prophecy of his death might be a good place to start. Besides, Souls at War gave a good list of reasons for Abadar to be on the block. I didn't even register the 1929 one.
Calistria/Gorum: This is the one I'm least certain about. I lean Gorum for prophecy, Calistria for chopping block. We could get something deeply cool out of a Gorum prophecy, and Calistria was instrumental in stopping a possible war already.
Lamashtu/Rovagug: Believe it or not, Rovagug for prophecy and Lamashtu for chopping block. I know how I'd write a prophecy of Rovagug's death and I'd love to see if something like that shows up in print. Also, Lamashtu was Nualia's patron deity. You know, the first AP issue's main villain. Killing her would have an impact, and there would be repercussions for Varisia.
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I think Irori's likely to be safe, not because he's "boring" (as some have said) but because we simply haven't spent a ton of time with the major centers of Iroran faith in canon yet. Such a thing would be a huge shake-up for Vudra, but the loss of the old normal wouldn't really be coherent for us.
For someone in the Core 20, he's awfully underrepresented in the Inner Sea. Other than Jalmeray and the dwarves at Tar Kuata, I don't know where he really shows up - you never really feel his influence in Hellknights of the Godclaw, it seems.
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One left! Who is it?
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Now that the 10 unsafe deities are revealed, I got interested in seeing how good the community was at their predictions, and this thread was the main one I saw that wasn't just predicting the big death itself.
Most folks picked 5-7 of the correct deities. Keftiu only got 1 pick wrong (Erastil), but also only said 7 names. Evan only got 2 wrong, but also had more declared safe gods to work with at the time they made their list.
The most common incorrect picks were Desna and Zon-Kuthon (5 times). The most common correct pick as to which god was unsafe was Sarenrae (8 correct picks), followed by Shelyn (7 correct). The unsafe deity with the fewest predictions was Torag (only 2 correct), followed by Lamashtu (only 3).
I'm probably the only one who cares about this stuff, but thought it was interesting.
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Now that the 10 unsafe deities are revealed, I got interested in seeing how good the community was at their predictions, and this thread was the main one I saw that wasn't just predicting the big death itself.
Most folks picked 5-7 of the correct deities. Keftiu only got 1 pick wrong (Erastil), but also only said 7 names. Evan only got 2 wrong, but also had more declared safe gods to work with at the time they made their list.
The most common incorrect picks were Desna and Zon-Kuthon (5 times). The most common correct pick as to which god was unsafe was Sarenrae (8 correct picks), followed by Shelyn (7 correct). The unsafe deity with the fewest predictions was Torag (only 2 correct), followed by Lamashtu (only 3).
I'm probably the only one who cares about this stuff, but thought it was interesting.
Not the only one. Thank you.
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Abadar, Calistria, Gorum, Gozreh, Iomedae, Lamashtu, Norgorber, Sarenrae, Shelyn, Torag is our final 10, as I don't think it's been said.