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Gorum, our god of war himself is confirmed to be marked for death. Now the question is, how will he die? Who or what will kill him? Let's have some fun with conjecture while we wait months for the answer.
I dont have a good guess right now, but I don't think he'll die IN the War of Immortals, but that his death will CAUSE the war of Immortals.
In nearly all of the Godsrain prophecies, the god who died caused a lot of havoc with their domains. Almost twisting them out of control. I think similar happens here. The god of war dies, and as a result the biggest war the universe has ever seen starts.
Let's keep the interesting theories going!
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I think Szuriel cheap-shots him in some fashion. It'd fit.
The Rider of War examining the Godsrain prophecies and deciding that if killing the God of War unleashes war, well... party on!
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I mean, Szuriel's waving her sword around on the cover of War of Immortals... it feels like that makes things pretty clear.
EDIT: ...though now that I think on it, both Prey for Death and Curtain Call are part of this event. The former's about Achaekek devotees, the latter seems to have Norgorbor-following villains; that's two murder-gods in the air at the same time.
Creative Director
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I mean, Szuriel's waving her sword around on the cover of War of Immortals... it feels like that makes things pretty clear.
EDIT: ...though now that I think on it, both Prey for Death and Curtain Call are part of this event. The former's about Achaekek devotees, the latter seems to have Norgorbor-following villains; that's two murder-gods in the air at the same time.
Interesting.
He was forced to take a math test
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Gorum got incinerated by a rogue umpire.
RIV Gorum.
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As I understand it, Gorum's death triggering the war makes a lot of sense. With his divine realm in Elysium, he's technically allied with the upper planes, which means they're about to lose one of their biggest powerhouses. That opens up a lot of opportunities for the fiends and evil gods to make a play. God of War is also a very juicy portfolio a lot of fiends would love to grab.
On the mortal side, while Gorumites are warmongers, they do enforce a limited code of conduct. If that goes out the window, well, yikes.
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It will be Szuriel with a steel chair.
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Gorum got incinerated by a rogue umpire.
RIV Gorum.
Is this a good time to mention that I made an entire lyric game about Landry Violence, tragically-departed batter for the Hades Tigers?
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I can see him being stabbed by surprise, but I hope that, while dying, he's able to go out fighting.
I think it'd be interesting if his death was SUPPOSED to be a stealthy assassination, but he fights back enough that he's basically blowing the war horn. (Or whatever the phrase is.) Like, the PLAN was to kill him and throw his body somewhere it'll cause maximum turmoil; but he survives long enough, draws enough attention, that everyone knows WHO'S to blame.
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I think what I'm most interested in is what could kill Gorum? Not so much who, but by what means? I think someone mentioned there was black smoke or shadow coming off of his armor; I wonder if that's important somehow.
Back whispy smoke coming out of a massive whole in the front of his chest/armor and the only remnant of his greatsword is the pommel and handle with crossgard shattered and the blade nowhere in sight except for one tiny little red chip. He is slumped to his knees with his chin on his clavicle and there are cracks radiating out from the whole in the armor. The armor and helmet itself looks empty and black inside almost like Aphonse from FMA as if when he died only the armor was left behind.
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I think what I'm most interested in is what could kill Gorum? Not so much who, but by what means? I think someone mentioned there was black smoke or shadow coming off of his armor; I wonder if that's important somehow.Back whispy smoke coming out of a massive whole in the front of his chest/armor and the only remnant of his greatsword is the pommel and handle with crossgard shattered and the blade nowhere in sight except for one tiny little red chip. He is slumped to his knees with his chin on his clavicle and there are cracks radiating out from the whole in the armor. The armor and helmet itself looks empty and black inside almost like Aphonse from FMA as if when he died only the armor was left behind.
A tiny bit of Gorum remains, growing into a tiny baby god.
"I AM GORUM!"
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Is that from the stream?I think what I'm most interested in is what could kill Gorum? Not so much who, but by what means? I think someone mentioned there was black smoke or shadow coming off of his armor; I wonder if that's important somehow.Back whispy smoke coming out of a massive whole in the front of his chest/armor and the only remnant of his greatsword is the pommel and handle with crossgard shattered and the blade nowhere in sight except for one tiny little red chip. He is slumped to his knees with his chin on his clavicle and there are cracks radiating out from the whole in the armor. The armor and helmet itself looks empty and black inside almost like Aphonse from FMA as if when he died only the armor was left behind.
The words are mine. There was actual art on the stream which is what I made the description from.
They are gonna make a wrap-up blog post tomorrow so the art will likely be there but I took a screenshot if you can't find it yourself I can send you the screen on discord or email if you pm me.
Khorne got tired of the pretender. :p
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Hey, has anything been done lately with that destructive metaphysical phenomenon that occurs when planar substrate becomes damaged? 'Cause I forgot it existed until like 2 days ago, but the smoke leaking out of Gorum's breastplate kind of reminds me of Blackfire.
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Is that from the stream?I think what I'm most interested in is what could kill Gorum? Not so much who, but by what means? I think someone mentioned there was black smoke or shadow coming off of his armor; I wonder if that's important somehow.Back whispy smoke coming out of a massive whole in the front of his chest/armor and the only remnant of his greatsword is the pommel and handle with crossgard shattered and the blade nowhere in sight except for one tiny little red chip. He is slumped to his knees with his chin on his clavicle and there are cracks radiating out from the whole in the armor. The armor and helmet itself looks empty and black inside almost like Aphonse from FMA as if when he died only the armor was left behind.The words are mine. There was actual art on the stream which is what I made the description from.
They are gonna make a wrap-up blog post tomorrow so the art will likely be there but I took a screenshot if you can't find it yourself I can send you the screen on discord or email if you pm me.
Thank you.
Very interesting because it seems we're missing a crucial step between Gorum dying and his essence, body and bits of armor raining from the sky and empowering mortals willy nilly.
Maybe someone purposefully killed him as part of a ritual to cause the Godsrain.
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Newest crackpot theory : the Bound Prince stirs. Szuriel is terrified that he will free himself and destroy the Riders (including herself).
With help from other deities (Norgorber is the usual suspect, maybe Moloch too), she devises a ritual that will unleash war on the whole Universe so that she can gorge herself on power and hopefully be able to survive the Oinodaemon's wrath.
The ritual needs her to kill a deity though. She chooses Gorum because he has long been a rival of hers, should be easy to get in a fight and, with his death, War will be even more unconstrained than before. Not to mention he would be the one most profitting from Universal War instead of herself if he was still alive.
Newest crackpot theory : the Bound Prince stirs. Szuriel is terrified that he will free himself and destroy the Riders (including herself).
With help from other deities (Norgorber is the usual suspect, maybe Moloch too), she devises a ritual that will unleash war on the whole Universe so that she can gorge herself on power and hopefully be able to survive the Oinodaemon's wrath.
The ritual needs her to kill a deity though. She chooses Gorum because he has long been a rival of hers, should be easy to get in a fight and, with his death, War will be even more unconstrained than before. Not to mention he would be the one most profitting from Universal War instead of herself if he was still alive.
I'm not sure it's a crackpot theory... Paizo have long been leading us to Oinodaemon getting involved in business, so maybe it's the return of the Bound Prince that triggers the planar war.
Hey, has anything been done lately with that destructive metaphysical phenomenon that occurs when planar substrate becomes damaged? 'Cause I forgot it existed until like 2 days ago, but the smoke leaking out of Gorum's breastplate kind of reminds me of Blackfire.
Was Blackfire anywhere in 2e?
I'm not sure it's a crackpot theory... Paizo have long been leading us to Oinodaemon getting involved in business, so maybe it's the return of the Bound Prince that triggers the planar war.Newest crackpot theory : the Bound Prince stirs. Szuriel is terrified that he will free himself and destroy the Riders (including herself).
With help from other deities (Norgorber is the usual suspect, maybe Moloch too), she devises a ritual that will unleash war on the whole Universe so that she can gorge herself on power and hopefully be able to survive the Oinodaemon's wrath.
The ritual needs her to kill a deity though. She chooses Gorum because he has long been a rival of hers, should be easy to get in a fight and, with his death, War will be even more unconstrained than before. Not to mention he would be the one most profitting from Universal War instead of herself if he was still alive.
Would love to see some Bound Prince plotlines, especially if it means that Daemons can actually do something in an AP besides appearing as occasional goons. I'm not sure Szuriel could ever hope to stand against Gorum, being merely a demigod, but I suppose Lamashtu managed to kill Churchanus while still a Demon Lord. By throwing a bunch of demons at him beforehand admittedly, but also... that shouldn't have done anything? I feel like gods are far above such stuff. But it's an exercise in futility to try to "power level" gods. We have two assassin gods in the forefront, so she probably had help if she had a hand in this. Doubt it's Achaekek though, with the whole "not killing gods" thing. Unless some big change is coming to him as well.
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Hey, has anything been done lately with that destructive metaphysical phenomenon that occurs when planar substrate becomes damaged? 'Cause I forgot it existed until like 2 days ago, but the smoke leaking out of Gorum's breastplate kind of reminds me of Blackfire.Was Blackfire anywhere in 2e?
Nowhere that I can see, but it has earned a mention as recently as 2018's Plane-Hopper's Handbook, so it doesn't seem like a thing the developers have forgotten about. On the other hand, it's possible that we lost it in The Divorce, and it's worth noting that the Riftwardens, sworn foes of the Blackfire Adepts, don't seem to have come up lately, either.
More than one prophecy had the main domain of the dying god become unruly and cause a great upheaval, like the undead surge with Urgathoa, or the widespread destruction with Rovagug.
It's fitting that the death of Gorum causes a cosmic war.
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Humor aside, my big hope is that he goes out like a champ, not a chump. Like, giving as good as he got or better.
What if the events of Rusthenge ties into this some how. I am just glad that Lamashtu wan't killed off, now my jackal rogue is a happy fat puppy.
I'm going to go with a completely different route than I think what anyone else has suggested (unless I missed it).
Gorum, in the midst of this war of the gods is having the time of his existence. This is what he was made for! But something happens, something that makes him realize that fighting, that combat, isn't the answer and shouldn't be what he's doing. And then he unmakes himself because a deity focused on fighting who suddenly realizes that fighting isn't always the answer is a contradiction that simply unmakes his existence.
I think someone or something killing him in combat is honestly way too boring and expected a death for a god of war.
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Look, it's very simple: Steve walks warily down the street with the brim pulled way down low. Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet, machine guns ready to go. Are you ready? Hey! Are you ready for this? Are you hangin' on the edge of your seat? Out of the doorway the bullets rip to the sound of the beat, yeah!
And that's how Gorum bites the dust. He's just another one!
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Gorum's sword had not cleared leather
'Fore a bullet fairly ripped,
And Cixyron's aim was deadly with the big iron on his hip...
I'm going to go with a completely different route than I think what anyone else has suggested (unless I missed it).
Gorum, in the midst of this war of the gods is having the time of his existence. This is what he was made for! But something happens, something that makes him realize that fighting, that combat, isn't the answer and shouldn't be what he's doing. And then he unmakes himself because a deity focused on fighting who suddenly realizes that fighting isn't always the answer is a contradiction that simply unmakes his existence.
I think someone or something killing him in combat is honestly way too boring and expected a death for a god of war.
I really like this idea. Kind of like a Obi-Wan on the Death Star kind of situation. he chooses to allow himself to be killed for a greater purpose.
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Creative Director
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My hope is that we haven't seen the Blackfire Adepts or Riftwardens because there just hasn't been an appropriate place to insert them yet that wouldn't make things feel too busy. We've had one or two planar breach scenarios, I think, but since those two organizations got written in we've had other extraplanar and plane-protecting groups pop up, like the alliance of different elements devoted to freeing the goodly Elemental Lords, for example.Nowhere that I can see, but it has earned a mention as recently as 2018's Plane-Hopper's Handbook, so it doesn't seem like a thing the developers have forgotten about. On the other hand, it's possible that we lost it in The Divorce, and it's worth noting that the Riftwardens, sworn foes of the Blackfire Adepts, don't seem to have come up lately, either.Hey, has anything been done lately with that destructive metaphysical phenomenon that occurs when planar substrate becomes damaged? 'Cause I forgot it existed until like 2 days ago, but the smoke leaking out of Gorum's breastplate kind of reminds me of Blackfire.Was Blackfire anywhere in 2e?
One of the things I've always been personally frustrated by with the Riftwardens and Blackfire Adepts is that they're defined by their adversity to each other, so that tends to make them a bit one-note and makes it difficult, traditionally, to talk about one without having to spend just as much page count talking about the other.
That said, they've been off-screen long enough that I think it's coming up on a good time to start doing something with them again, but if we do, I think I'd prefer to pick one of them and not the other and build them up so that they can stand on their own two feet, and then do the same thing with the other one at a later date, so that when and IF we do something about their bickering, it's got more meat on those bones than just a pretty barebones "we exist because we oppose the other" sort of vibe.
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I really like this idea. Kind of like a Obi-Wan on the Death Star kind of situation. he chooses to allow himself to be killed for a greater purpose.I'm going to go with a completely different route than I think what anyone else has suggested (unless I missed it).
Gorum, in the midst of this war of the gods is having the time of his existence. This is what he was made for! But something happens, something that makes him realize that fighting, that combat, isn't the answer and shouldn't be what he's doing. And then he unmakes himself because a deity focused on fighting who suddenly realizes that fighting isn't always the answer is a contradiction that simply unmakes his existence.
I think someone or something killing him in combat is honestly way too boring and expected a death for a god of war.
That might also explain the Godsrain phenomenon, by sublimating his essence into the material plane, he is empowering others to be able to fight on.
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I mean, gods have perished in spectacular fashion before, so, say, an exemplar empowered by Acavna running around right after Earthfall makes perfect sense...
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Design Manager
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Animists definitely predate the Godsrain; just because the game never focused on them in this way before doesn't mean the cultures and traditions that they come from weren't present in the world!
Exemplars I kind of think of as like the difference between the Incredible Hulk and Marvel's mutants; a specific event could always have created the Hulk, but the circumstances were so rare and particular that it occuring even once wasn't something you could predict or explain. Following the Godsrain, there's now a common origin story and source from which exemplars can spring.
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Granted I'd also love to fight the Blackfire Adepts, but it's easier to imagine adventures where the Riftwardens appear more easily than the Blackfire Adepts, I think because I'm not super clear on what the Blackfire Adepts' end goals or motivations are; I just think their ability to summon stuff and fling around blackfire is super cool.
It seems like the Blackfire Adepts are... mostly just apocalyptic nihilists? They've got "evil and crazy in bad ways" and not much more than that. They're the sort of people who worship Rovagug. The only thing that sets them apart is their methods.
So, if you want to fit them into a campaign... well, start with a nice, standard apocalyptic nihilist start. Like... Andoran. Andoran used to have nobles, right? Fairly unpleasant ones? And then suddenly it didn't. So now we have a nice little spot for third-generation Andoran noble expatriates who've been raised on the idea that the land and peasants and slaves that were rightfully theirs were stolen from them. Oh, and ready access to tomes of evil magic, too - they manged to take most of the Forbidden Library with them when they fled.
So now this kid is a seething mass of resentment that hates the world in general and Andoran in particular, and this one particular city in Aondoran most especially, because he heard stories about how their family was rightful rulers and it was great and then their people betrayed them. So really what he wants, more than anything, is to Make Them Pay. Well, the people who actually did the "betraying" are probably all dead by now or something, but killing off their descendants should do the trick, right? Anyway, the kid decides that this is the generation when the family Gets Their Revenge, and he's the one that's going to do it. So, like any self-respecting ex-noble of Cheliaxan derivation who needs power, the first step is to go around making deals with extradimensional entities. You start with Grandfather Asmodeus, and work your way down from there.
Somewhere along the way while he's trading for power, one of the entities he's dealing with puts him in contact with a member of the Blackfire Adepts. The Blackfire Adept, in turn, manages to convince him that, hey, causing the city to simply cease to exist in a Horrible Dimensional Shredding Incident would be a great way to get his revenge. The Adept then happily hooks him up with some pertinent rituals and a few more contacts (also Adepts) and sends him on his way.
Now we fast-forward to about a decade later. You have this guy, along with whichever minions he's managed to acquire by whatever means (payment, will-binding, lies and trickery, good old-fashioned charisma... whatever). He's actively working to set up a ritual to try to catastrophically rend the wall between realities in the vicinity of this particular smallish Andoran city (or town, or largish city, depending on your level range). He has powers and resources that he got from years of trading favors with Horrible Things and many, many long nights of studying forbidden tomes. He knows a lot of dimensional magic. The party's job at this point... well, honestly, you can probably write the rest of this story just fine without my help.
There you go. One ready-made adventure starring a reasonably coherent Blackfire Adept, and nary a Riftwarden in sight. Bonus points for the party if they figure out that he's telling each of his minions different lies and manage to turn one or two of them. Hopefully they don't try to turn the one that's actually a demon in disguise.
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Back when I was (I think I said 30% at some point) sure it was going to be Iomedae, one of the big things that I felt was important with such a story was that it had to be done in a way that let Iomedae keep a certain amount of agency and respect for who she is.
I feel the same with Gorum, even though I'm not as interested in him as a character.
I personally wouldn't want to see him assassinated in the night. Even if he is going to be hunted down and killed specifically, I hope that it isn't via a god-killing blade to the back. I hope he is given the opportunity to go out the way he would prefer, in the most glorious battle he's ever had, facing down against either someone who can absolutely match him, blow for blow, or even possibly multiple foes who all should be his equal but who he is able to match because this is his day and his fight and he's not going out so easily.
Whether that is some self-sacrifice during a greater threat, or whether it's a gauntlet thrown down that he is excited and eager to pick up, it doesn't matter. I want to see the Our Lord in Iron prove his name as he dies.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Exemplars I kind of think of as like the difference between the Incredible Hulk and Marvel's mutants...Following the Godsrain, there's now a common origin story and source from which exemplars can spring.
I'd compare it more closely to the terragen bomb that went off in NYC and created a ton of Inhumans than mutants, since it was also a singular event that served as a catalyst to make a bunch of superpowered individuals. Inhumans existed before and will exist after, but there sure is an easy way to explain why there were a ton of new ones all at once back when that happened (that wasn't just that Ike Perlmutter didn't want any mutants to stick it to FOX).
/comics nerd rant
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Design Manager
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Exemplars I kind of think of as like the difference between the Incredible Hulk and Marvel's mutants...Following the Godsrain, there's now a common origin story and source from which exemplars can spring.I'd compare it more closely to the terragen bomb that went off in NYC and created a ton of Inhumans than mutants, since it was also a singular event that served as a catalyst to make a bunch of superpowered individuals. Inhumans existed before and will exist after, but there sure is an easy way to explain why there were a ton of new ones all at once back when that happened (that wasn't just that Ike Perlmutter didn't want any mutants to stick it to FOX).
/comics nerd rant
Totally fair, actually.