War of Immortals: Battle between Thoth and Nethys, and later between Osirion Pantheon and Hag Pantheon, and more

[Mammoth Daddy]

**spoilers** involving plot points of the Godsrain fallout but can someone explain to me what happened to the pantheons and characters mentioned in the title?? I read a short AMA that revealed consequences of War of Immortals, and I have mixed feelings

Spoiler:

Are the hag and Osirion pantheon gone? Which gods and how many? Is Paizo gonna do a proper send off and feature (in an AP, scenario, or adventure) their last climatic appearance in the setting?

Spoiler:

I am withholding negative feedback for now, because I realize that settings have to change and there could be good storytelling value and reasons for this development, but I would like some behind the scenes info from Paizo as to why and how this was done. I realize it’s pretty juvenile to get so attached but now I have make some new headcanon to incorporate all this and it’s consequences for old and future characters.

As an aside, Paizo’s choice of combining these gods for this particular resolution feels definitely ‘Kitchen Sink’, and my brain is already wondering what a home brew campaign featuring these events would look like in terms of overarching shared themes. Do hags even exist in Egyptian mythology?? What would an Osirion/hag themed party do with regard to the events hinted at in the book? I assume it would be to stop the hag gods but <shrug>

[Mammoth Daddy]

Also: who else in Godsrain/ WoI dies or disappears???

[keftiu]

I've been pretty vocal about not liking the Egyptian pantheon being in Golarion for a long while now, but I'm a little surprised to see them actually gone! Bon voyage, I suppose.

[BookBird]

Id definitely find it surprising if the whole pantheon was gone, at least lorewise. I'm sure a divine coven would be powerful, but powerful enough to spirit away an entire pantheon sans Thoth? And even then, it would mean that the entire pantheon agreed to go mess up the Hags. Which... Are we to believe that Set and Horus or others buddied up? Doesn't make much sense. Of course, the real answer probably doesn't involve the lore and is actually something like "we wanted to get these guys out but didn't want to focus on them so we disappeared them on a sidebar", but I'm trying to look at it from an in-lore lens.

Anyway, I've not read the book yet, merely going off what others have said. Names I've heard include

spoiler:

Horus, Ra, Anubis, Isis, Ma'at, maybe a few others I'm not remembering.

so maybe not the whole pantheon. Then again, as stated previously, this is probably less about the lore and more about not bothering with them anymore, which is a shame, I quite liked a few of them.

[Grankless]

I had no idea there even were hag gods other than Gyronna.

[Rysky]

Sekhmet ;_;

[pauljathome]

Rysky wrote:

Sekhmet ;_;

Yup. One of my favourite PFS characters is an awakened leopard ClawDancer who used to be a temple guardian for Sekhmet. Great character (mechanically and for flavour).

At least mechanically she gets no powers from Sekhmet so won't be affected by any changes PFS makes wrt dead Gods. But she'll be quite peeved if her beloved patron is no more.

[Mammoth Daddy]

I said this elsewhere but from what I hear, the development includes:

Spoiler:

Thoth dying in a duel with Nethys; resulting in a magical “whirlpool” in the Inner Sea; Hag gods exploiting this whirlpool for nefarious ends; all culminating in a battle between Hag gods and Ancient Osirion Gods with both disappearing…somewhere.

I don’t know if it’s the whole pantheon. That’s also what I’m trying to figure out. I have a human cleric of Sobek character I’ve been wanting to do for a Strange Aeons campaign, and while that’s still possible, their future looks a lil bleak afterwards.

Really hoping Paizo at least gives us a proper send off, with an AP, standalone adventure, or pfs scenario featuring the event. Not gonna hold my breath.

[Gisher]

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I don’t know if it’s the whole pantheon. That’s also what I’m trying to figure out.

As I understand it, PFS will be posting guidelines for players whose deities are no longer available. I'd expect them to list the dead/missing deities as part of that.

I think that's probably your earliest opportunity for getting clarification on which deities were involved here. (I assume that Divine Mysteries will also have that information, but it's not out until November.)

[Mammoth Daddy]

Gisher wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I don’t know if it’s the whole pantheon. That’s also what I’m trying to figure out.

As I understand it, PFS will be posting guidelines for players whose deities are no longer available. I'd expect them to list the dead/missing deities as part of that.

I think that's probably your earliest opportunity for getting clarification on which deities were involved here. (I assume that Divine Mysteries will also have that information, but it's not out until November.)

Where can I find that?

[FallenDabus]

BookBird wrote:

Are we to believe that Set and Horus or others buddied up? Doesn't make much sense.

Um... yes? Set was one of Re's most ardent defenders against Apep? There is obviously the longstanding rivalry with Horus and the murder of Osiris, but he was still depicted as a leader and an extremely important God within Kemetic myth.

Perennial reminder that Seti I and II were both named after Set still conceived of as being divine manifestations of Horus on earth. This is one of the reasons I'm with keftiu - Kemetic mythology and culture is vastly more nuanced than what fantasy RPGs tend to portray and it really needs an RPG dedicated to IRL mythology to do it justice (games like Scion spring to mind). Set is vastly more than a one note evil deity and bluntly, the way Pathfinder has portrayed him bothers me more and more as time goes on.

[Gisher]

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

Gisher wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I don’t know if it’s the whole pantheon. That’s also what I’m trying to figure out.

As I understand it, PFS will be posting guidelines for players whose deities are no longer available. I'd expect them to list the dead/missing deities as part of that.

I think that's probably your earliest opportunity for getting clarification on which deities were involved here. (I assume that Divine Mysteries will also have that information, but it's not out until November.)

Where can I find that?

My guess is that they'll announce it in a blog post once they've posted their guidelines on War of Immortals. But that's just a guess.

[CorvusMask]

Ah, I missed there was thread for this. But yeah, I'm really confused of if its whole pantheon or not, I really do hope its not whole pantheon since lot of remaining ones are still in my favs list and it'd be really neat of the pantheon partially remains with its status quo shaken up xP

(I think Anubis was only one of my favs that got yeeted(though I got real nostalgia for Ra because I played age of mythology as kid xP), Bastet, Sekhmet, Wadjet, etc might be safe if they didn't somehow magically disappear despite not taking part in event?)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

CorvusMask wrote:

Ah, I missed there was thread for this. But yeah, I'm really confused of if its whole pantheon or not, I really do hope its not whole pantheon since lot of remaining ones are still in my favs list and it'd be really neat of the pantheon partially remains with its status quo shaken up xP

(I think Anubis was only one of my favs that got yeeted(though I got real nostalgia for Ra because I played age of mythology as kid xP), Bastet, Sekhmet, Wadjet, etc might be safe if they didn't somehow magically disappear despite not taking part in event?)

Kinda feeling that way too, especially since Age of Mythology: Retold came out last month and I've been reliving that nostalgia.

That being said, I have...both positive and negative feelings about this event. On the one hand, there's no way to make a change this big without it feeling...inelegant? On the other hand, though, it does make things a lot more interesting IN Osirion, especially since the presence of the Egyptian gods always felt...like it was there out of obligation more than anything else. Like, you had to have Ra, Isis, Set et al because Osirion was "the Ancient Egypt place" on Golarion, more there to serve as a place to put pyramids for your adventurers to loot and mummies to curse them, which is how its predecessor used Pharaonic Egypt's culture and gods through all of its editions, really. This was compounded by the fact that as others have stated, even in the Adventure Path they were introduced in, Mummy's Mask they barely factored into it compared to Golarion deities like Nethys, Pharasma and Areshkigal, especially given Nethys was explicitly stated to be the top god of Osirion, divinely inspiring its first Pharaoh and there was little to no explanation as to how the judging of the dead presided over by Anubis, Thoth and Osiris superceded Pharasma's judgment. So in all honesty, they weren't implemented all that elegantly in the first place, which makes their abrupt departure feel less impactful.

And I do feel this gives more room for Osirion to distinguish itself and develop more of its own identity, something it's been steadily doing over the years along with the rest of the setting.

[CorvusMask]

I got the list from discord, so the deities that intervened with hags where Ra, Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Ma’at, and Isis. So those along with Thoth are the ones that are definitely gone.

I do think that is good list to yeet to shake things up and avoid some funny questions about "wait how does the mythology interact with rest of setting" but I do legit hope they didn't get rid of other ones "just because" because story as presented it doesn't really make sense for the ones that didn't intervene to just have gotten magically yeeted because they were in shared pantheon x'D

[keftiu]

FallenDabus wrote:

BookBird wrote:

Are we to believe that Set and Horus or others buddied up? Doesn't make much sense.

Um... yes? Set was one of Re's most ardent defenders against Apep? There is obviously the longstanding rivalry with Horus and the murder of Osiris, but he was still depicted as a leader and an extremely important God within Kemetic myth.

Perennial reminder that Seti I and II were both named after Set still conceived of as being divine manifestations of Horus on earth. This is one of the reasons I'm with keftiu - Kemetic mythology and culture is vastly more nuanced than what fantasy RPGs tend to portray and it really needs an RPG dedicated to IRL mythology to do it justice (games like Scion spring to mind). Set is vastly more than a one note evil deity and bluntly, the way Pathfinder has portrayed him bothers me more and more as time goes on.

Thanks for beating me to this explanation! Balking at how Set could ever be seen as allied with the other gods is ignoring his role in the daily myth of the sun and considerable amounts of nuance beyond that. He's ambitious, for sure, associated with the desert and foreign lands... but he's still just as much a servant of Ma'at as any of the others.

The other note I'll add is: I'd have accepted the "Ancient Osirian" pantheon more easily if literally any other Earth pantheon had been imported whole-cloth... but instead, that was reserved entirely for Theme Park Egypt. It's Orientalist and tacky; their absence will hopefully help that part of the Golden Road shine as its own fantasy setting.

[keftiu]

pauljathome wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sekhmet ;_;

Yup. One of my favourite PFS characters is an awakened leopard ClawDancer who used to be a temple guardian for Sekhmet. Great character (mechanically and for flavour).

At least mechanically she gets no powers from Sekhmet so won't be affected by any changes PFS makes wrt dead Gods. But she'll be quite peeved if her beloved patron is no more.

If you're looking for some Golarion-specific equivalents: Adanye is a cat goddess who is a guardian of the home, while the three Old Sun Gods of Mzali (Chohar, Luhar, and Tlehar) are all solar lion deities; Tlehar in particular is a passionate lioness, which matches Sekhmet pretty well.

And that's really it for me - you can put sun-themed cat goddesses in your Fantasy Africa without it literally just being Bast and Sekhmet.

[CorvusMask]

But that's not about looking for replacement, that's about liking the ones that might have gotten removed ^_^;

(but yeah I found it bizarre that Egyptian gods were present, but stuff like Norse gods was off limits. It is in retrospect kinda notable how Inner Sea human cultures rarely have any kind of ethnic gods in first place. Like skalds do't have their own pantheon, kellids didn't, but osirion did and Jalmerey as colony of Vudra had their own gods worshipped in vudra as well and Qadira had sarenrae even though we didn't see other Casmaron deities...

Yeah it did stood out that Ancient Osiriani gods are both only real life pantheon(there are real life gods though other than them) AND only human ethnic group pantheon in inner sea in 1e. Like even mwangi expanse didn't have its own set of gods until 2e, and only reason why we probably got tian xia gods was because dragon empire books gave continent different treatment than what inner sea region got)

[Mammoth Daddy]

I mean, the lore will/should still have to include them when dealing with ancient Osirion ruins and texts, but all their clerics, relics and pantheon specific rituals are now defunct.

They still EXISTED. But are now MIA (or possibly dead)

Thoth squick Exemplar anyone?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

keftiu wrote:

The other note I'll add is: I'd have accepted the "Ancient Osirian" pantheon more easily if literally any other Earth pantheon had been imported whole-cloth... but instead, that was reserved entirely for Theme Park Egypt. It's Orientalist and tacky; their absence will hopefully help that part of the Golden Road shine as its own fantasy setting.

Yeah! I mean, it's not like they imported the Aesir and Vanir to be a Lands of the Linnorm Kings exclusive pantheon! :P

Besides, the more I got thinking about this, the more I felt it wasn't thought through to closely (or more accurately, that both the setting's writers and we, the players, are thinking things through more now and noticing this stuff could either be jettisoned or dramatically improved). How come these Osiriani gods weren't worshipped in Osirion's former holdings like Thuvia, Nex or Geb and their cultural influence seems to stop at Osirion's current borders? Why didn't their worship get imported to places Osirion traded with, especially Absalom? These weren't the kinds of questions we'd ask back then, but now that we are, it lets us do more cool stuff with it, both in future books and at our own tables.

You could write an entire campaign up set in Osirion alone grappling with the consequences of this event, how Osirion grapples with the power vacuum created by multiple priesthood no longer having divine power and losing all the authority and influence that comes with it, how its culture shifts as the churches of Nethys and Pharasma reassert dominance, a renaissance for Primal magic thanks to the Ruby Prince and the recent freedom of the good elemental lords, SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!

[CorvusMask]

I mean... Ancient Osirian gods were stopped being worshiped actively until 2e started when the gods had renaissance of sorts after Mummy's Mask.

We ironically had more lore of ancient osirian gods in 2e than in 1e.

Like, removal of entire pantheon would just be return to 1e status quo where Nethys and Pharasma is regional main religions. Its why I think its more interesting if some of them got yeeted and now entire pantheon has its status quo changed

[FallenDabus]

keftiu wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sekhmet ;_;

Yup. One of my favourite PFS characters is an awakened leopard ClawDancer who used to be a temple guardian for Sekhmet. Great character (mechanically and for flavour).

At least mechanically she gets no powers from Sekhmet so won't be affected by any changes PFS makes wrt dead Gods. But she'll be quite peeved if her beloved patron is no more.

If you're looking for some Golarion-specific equivalents: Adanye is a cat goddess who is a guardian of the home, while the three Old Sun Gods of Mzali (Chohar, Luhar, and Tlehar) are all solar lion deities; Tlehar in particular is a passionate lioness, which matches Sekhmet pretty well.

And that's really it for me - you can put sun-themed cat goddesses in your Fantasy Africa without it literally just being Bast and Sekhmet.

Oooooooo - the Mzali trinity in Osirion would be rad! Gimme, gimme, gimme!

[keftiu]

FallenDabus wrote:

Oooooooo - the Mzali trinity in Osirion would be rad! Gimme, gimme, gimme!

The Mauxi Mwangi people are also heavily influenced by the culture of Ancient Osirion, which provides a possible link between the two!

[Mammoth Daddy]

Excerpt from WoI book, compliments of TheFinish in another thread:

Spoiler:

When the Godsrain fell, a white fire burned beneath the waves of the Inner Sea north of Sothis. Nethys and Thoth both appeared in all their splendor. They pulled the glow from the sea and it wreathed both gods of magic in its glory. At first they appeared united in their goal of protecting great Osirion from the fallout of this dread event, though soon it became clear that they warred over control of the gathered power. Ultimately, ‘twas the All Seeing Eye who prevailed, and Thoth was cast from this world like a shooting star, disappearing beyond sight or cognizance. I question if even Nethys, in his infinite knowledge, could have predicted that this battle between gods of magic would prove the precursor to an event of even more staggering consequence.

Spoiler:

As Nethys returned to his divine realm, a great whirlpool appeared in the place where he had battled, and the hag goddesses Gyronna, Mestama, and Alazhra formed a coven there and performed some great working. Then did the old gods of Osirion rise to end the hags’ threat, but even the combined power of Ra, Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Ma’at, and Isis seemed unable to penetrate the barrier of magic surrounding the coven. As the ritual reached its zenith, it seemed certain that whatever the dark goddesses sought should surely come to be, but Gyronna blinked and stuttered, her words that echoed across the region in an unknown tongue stumbling for but a moment. In that instant, the combined gods of Osirion shattered the barrier and both they and the hags were pulled into a great nothingness. Many sages, as well as priests of the lost deities, claim to have seen visions of another world both like and unlike our own where the gods came to rest, but whatever and wherever that place might be, none may say. All we know for certain is that prayers to the old gods of Osirion now go unanswered.

[Unicore]

I am ready for a high level Golden Road AP that really digs into Nethys' past and is full of wizard-trapped location-based adventuring.

[PossibleCabbage]

keftiu wrote:

I've been pretty vocal about not liking the Egyptian pantheon being in Golarion for a long while now, but I'm a little surprised to see them actually gone! Bon voyage, I suppose.

It was genuinely weird for a culture as close to the Inner Sea to have a completely separate set of gods than the ones their literal neighbors recognize.

Like a different set of gods on the other side of the world is a different kettle of fish than having a different set of gods than Thuvia, Qadira, Katapesh, and heck Absalom.

[BotBrain]

Yeah from an out of setting perspective I'm pretty happy they're gone. I've always found it odd that they're the only earth gods that were worshipped in both, and it always felt wrong, though I never can put my finger on why.

In universe we will see how it gets handled. I'm definetly both interested in, excited for, and concerned about Divine Mysteries now.

[Gisher]

Gisher wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

Gisher wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I don’t know if it’s the whole pantheon. That’s also what I’m trying to figure out.

As I understand it, PFS will be posting guidelines for players whose deities are no longer available. I'd expect them to list the dead/missing deities as part of that.

I think that's probably your earliest opportunity for getting clarification on which deities were involved here. (I assume that Divine Mysteries will also have that information, but it's not out until November.)

Where can I find that?

My guess is that they'll announce it in a blog post once they've posted their guidelines on War of Immortals. But that's just a guess.

I found the conversation that I was thinking of.

Josh M Foster wrote:

...

Tomppa wrote:

There's also a bunch of non-core 20 deities that are going to die. Will those be handled with the same rules (immediate rebuild when one of them is announced, like with God, Varix the Despoiler, and Sturovenen the Dragoneagle?) and do we need to wait for OP's confirmation for each death/deity, or can we just assume that any that dies results in a rebuild?

While such characters will get rebuilds just like Gorumites, not all of those deities will die when Gorum dies, and not all have been announced. As such, to give you all time after that announcement, those characters can be played until the end of 2024.

So at some point they'll be announcing which gods are no longer available, and then PFS players will have until the end of 2024 to rebuild characters that mechanically depend on those deities.

I suspect we'll have a list of lost gods (at least the ones whose worship was allowed in PFS) shortly after the release of War of Immortals (October 30).

[BookBird]

keftiu wrote:

FallenDabus wrote:

BookBird wrote:

Are we to believe that Set and Horus or others buddied up? Doesn't make much sense.

Um... yes? Set was one of Re's most ardent defenders against Apep? There is obviously the longstanding rivalry with Horus and the murder of Osiris, but he was still depicted as a leader and an extremely important God within Kemetic myth.

Perennial reminder that Seti I and II were both named after Set still conceived of as being divine manifestations of Horus on earth. This is one of the reasons I'm with keftiu - Kemetic mythology and culture is vastly more nuanced than what fantasy RPGs tend to portray and it really needs an RPG dedicated to IRL mythology to do it justice (games like Scion spring to mind). Set is vastly more than a one note evil deity and bluntly, the way Pathfinder has portrayed him bothers me more and more as time goes on.

Thanks for beating me to this explanation! Balking at how Set could ever be seen as allied with the other gods is ignoring his role in the daily myth of the sun and considerable amounts of nuance beyond that. He's ambitious, for sure, associated with the desert and foreign lands... but he's still just as much a servant of Ma'at as any of the others.

The other note I'll add is: I'd have accepted the "Ancient Osirian" pantheon more easily if literally any other Earth pantheon had been imported whole-cloth... but instead, that was reserved entirely for Theme Park Egypt. It's Orientalist and tacky; their absence will hopefully help that part of the Golden Road shine as its own fantasy setting.

I appreciate your clarification, but I feel parts of that aren't really directly applicable? Real life Set might've been all that, sure, but here we're dealing with Pathfinder Set, and I'm not sure if we can apply much of the real life stuff to it. Maybe. It's weird with Earth existing in the world as well. And also because he's pretty undeveloped, likely because... Real mythology exists. But I digress. In Pathfinder, Set is the lord of the dark desert, and he's really into murder and the undead. Doesn't necessarily match with the real myths.

Regarding 'Theme Part Egypt's, I'm not sure I'd agree. Personally, Earth existing in-lore and having the whole affair with Reign of Winter is one of the most interesting parts of PF lore to me, and having some deities from Earth also present in Golarion is very nice continuity, as logically deities would have no reason to be confined in one plot of land. Id go even further than Paizo have and have such deities appear anywhere where their domain is of interest rather than just Osirion. Does open up some interesting questions though, stuff like "are the ancient Egyptians the only people on earth to have worshipped true gods, or are other Earth deities also existing and just don't have any stake in Golarion?" I vaguely remember there was a collaboration with Chaosium at some point, so maybe Call of Cthulhu canon applies, and the reason Earth has no divine magic is because Nyarlathotep is f@*@ing with people and blocking off other gods.

Anyways, I do actually agree with them trimming the Osirian pantheon. Having the entire thing unfortunately doesn't really work if you're not going to develop it, and raises too many weird lore questions. Having just a few maintains the nice nod and allows you to use them together with actual Golarion deities while feeling less "theme-parky". I do hope we get to keep Wadjet. Could do with a nice snake deity. Yig, Ydersius, even Nalinivati can't exactly be called that.

[Morhek]

I guess I'm relieved that they aren't dead, and it's not as if modern Osirion will miss them all that much even if I personally am in mourning. I just feel like this was a crude, brute-force solution to something that wasn't really a problem. If Paizo didn't want to deal with the Egyptian gods, they didn't have to - there's plenty of Sarenite history in the country to draw on, and fleshing out its Keleshite Interregnum era and drawing on the rich history of Medieval-to-Early Modern Egypt would have set Osirion apart from just its Ancient Egyptian tropes. There are entire dynasties of Satraps and Sultans and Caliphs that barely got a mention in older material. It's also not as if the status quo as it existed has meaningfully changed - the Ancient Osiriani gods were already more distant figures, barely remembered and not intervening in the affairs of their few mortal worshippers, with only the cults of Wadjet and Apep having noteable footholds. But now they've effectively closed off the Egyptian gods as even a (canonical) option, unless the resolution of the Godsrain ends with the status quo being reset again, and unless their remaining clerics can still cast spells even though their gods are silent now.

At some point, a flat-out retcon would have been smoother. Put it down to the consequences of time being affected by the Godsrain, or heck, tie it into the time travel that was happening in Return of the Runelords as an unintended ripple effect.

[The Raven Black]

Morhek wrote:

I guess I'm relieved that they aren't dead, and it's not as if modern Osirion will miss them all that much even if I personally am in mourning. I just feel like this was a crude, brute-force solution to something that wasn't really a problem. If Paizo didn't want to deal with the Egyptian gods, they didn't have to - there's plenty of Sarenite history in the country to draw on, and fleshing out its Keleshite Interregnum era and drawing on the rich history of Medieval-to-Early Modern Egypt would have set Osirion apart from just its Ancient Egyptian tropes. There are entire dynasties of Satraps and Sultans and Caliphs that barely got a mention in older material. It's also not as if the status quo as it existed has meaningfully changed - the Ancient Osiriani gods were already more distant figures, barely remembered and not intervening in the affairs of their few mortal worshippers, with only the cults of Wadjet and Apep having noteable footholds. But now they've effectively closed off the Egyptian gods as even a (canonical) option, unless the resolution of the Godsrain ends with the status quo being reset again, and unless their remaining clerics can still cast spells even though their gods are silent now.

At some point, a flat-out retcon would have been smoother. Put it down to the consequences of time being affected by the Godsrain, or heck, tie it into the time travel that was happening in Return of the Runelords as an unintended ripple effect.

I respectfully disagree completely.

Mysteries are far better than retcons.

In fact this makes me interested in the Old Osiriani deities in a way nothing did before.

[CorvusMask]

I just hope they didn't arbitrarily yeet the rest of pantheon as well.

Like even if you assume they ALL appeared at scene to stop the hags and description only mentioned ones trying to break barrier... Why exactly would they ALL appear at scene? That is one of most artificial ways to get rid of group, have them all come with each other despite having different roles, areas of concern and etc.

Like you see it all the time in fiction where some organization is like "ah yes, we all need to be in there, so we leave skeleton crew behind in HQ", then they all get ambushed and wiped out and HQ is vulnerable as well and its very clearly because that's what writers wanted to happen rather than it making sense in universe. So I really hope the "old gods don't answer to prayers anymore" isn't supposed to be confirmation for entire pantheon

[FallenDabus]

BookBird wrote:

I appreciate your clarification, but I feel parts of that aren't really directly applicable? Real life Set might've been all that, sure, but here we're dealing with Pathfinder Set, and I'm not sure if we can apply much of the real life stuff to it. Maybe. It's weird with Earth existing in the world as well. And also because he's pretty undeveloped, likely because... Real mythology exists. But I digress. In Pathfinder, Set is the lord of the dark desert, and he's really into murder and the undead. Doesn't necessarily match with the real myths.

If that's the conclusion we come to, its one more case of cultural appropriation of a non-European mythological and religious tradition by a Western game - one that doesn't have many modern worshipers, but does have an active worship in neopagan communites. See also the implicit Orientalism that was already meantioned.

Thanks, but no thanks.

[CorvusMask]

I'mma in the camp of "Creative freedom is nice" and "mythological accuracy is also nice", the latter is double true when the mythological thing is supposed to be the "actual" one and not just inspired by it(like osirian gods aren't just inspired by egyptian gods, they are supposed to be the same ones, so Set kinda perpetuating misunderstanding is equivalent of the "Hades = Satan" problem).

Also former doesn't excuse using mythological name for something that
isn't anywhere close to what its supposedly inspired by. It was wild to learn what yaoguia actually are compared to 1e yaogai mutant bear with tentacles. (well okay, to be accurate, 1e yaogaui was "magically mutated creature that combines multiple different creature together, but since example one was bear with tentacles, every appearance of yaogaui just used example statblock instead of being unique creatures soooo yeah)

[Kavlor]

Personally, I am happy with these changes. I myself categorically did not like that the gods of Osirion are literally a complete adherence to the canons of Egyptian mythology, and not an attempt to create something alternative, based on real mythology. So I fully support the removal of these gods from the setting.

[Jerdane]

The removal of the hag deities is interesting in itself. Wonder if the devs considered their presence to be a bit misogynistic, especially since Kostchtchie is no longer around to represent their opposite. Maybe we'll also see some more benevolent/less malevolent hags as a result.

(It would also be really funny if their sudden absence somehow catapulted Baba Yaga into godhood involuntarily as all their former followers start praying to her out of desperation!)

[CorvusMask]

Kavlor wrote:

Personally, I am happy with these changes. I myself categorically did not like that the gods of Osirion are literally a complete adherence to the canons of Egyptian mythology, and not an attempt to create something alternative, based on real mythology. So I fully support the removal of these gods from the setting.

(removing them doesn't change canon though or replace them with alternative egyptian style gods though)

Tangent, unrelated to topic wholly, but come to think about it, isn't war of immortals pretty good chance to have storyline of "god reincarnated as mortal post death" and etc? Hmmm

[James Jacobs]

Kostchtchie was removed for the same reason Orcus was. Unlike Pazuzu or Baphomet (deities that also have a D&D legacy), Kostchtchie and Orcus's recognizable elements were too OGL mired to make it into the remastered non-OGL game. Jubilex too, but even more so, since he's 100% D&D.

[Kavlor]

James Jacobs wrote:

Kostchtchie was removed for the same reason Orcus was. Unlike Pazuzu or Baphomet (deities that also have a D&D legacy), Kostchtchie and Orcus's recognizable elements were too OGL mired to make it into the remastered non-OGL game. Jubilex too, but even more so, since he's 100% D&D.

Have you considered going back to the original Kostchtchie story from Russian fairy tales? After all, he could practically be called the first true lich, since he had a full-fledged phylactery and a complex way to destroy it. That would be a nice nod to Slavic mythology. After all, you already have Baba Yaga.

[Set]

keftiu wrote:

The other note I'll add is: I'd have accepted the "Ancient Osirian" pantheon more easily if literally any other Earth pantheon had been imported whole-cloth... but instead, that was reserved entirely for Theme Park Egypt. It's Orientalist and tacky; their absence will hopefully help that part of the Golden Road shine as its own fantasy setting.

Yeah, I'd love a setting that is 'fantasy old Earth' with Egyptian, Babylonian, Norse, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Celtic, Aztec, etc. pantheons of gods, *or* a purely fantasy setting with made up gods like the Scarred Lands or Dragonlance settings. (Even Greyhawk had a mythological outlier, with Camazotz, and the Realms had several, like Mielikki, Oghma and Silvanus, as well as, again, pretty much the entire 'Mulhorandi' pantheon of Egyptian gods.)

All sorts of made up gods like Pelor or Sarenrae or Lathandar, and *then* one or two pantheons from real world mythology just feels weird to me.

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

But I have no solution to this. Making a 'pure' fantasy world of made up countries full of generic white people with no Africa or Asia or Persia analogues is straight up erasure, so that's not the way to go, obviously!

Even with the removal of at least some of the Egyptian gods, there's just a ton of real world mythological figures crawling around the Archdevil and Demon Lord spheres. Asmodeus, Baphomet, Pazuzu, Lamashtu, etc. Kind of baked in, at this point.

OTOH, I love the idea of Abadar, Pharasma, Nethys, etc. being more 'Egyptianed up' to showcase their importance to the Osirioni. Seeing an Egyptian midwife/cleric of Pharasma with mummified whipporwill talisman and curved 'cordcutter' dagger notched to cut umbilical cords (and also usable to cut a fool who messes with her!), or a lector-magician-priest of Nethys with the 'eye of power' and shooting ankh-shaped shackles of light at someone like something Dr. Fate would do (fancy Hold Person graphic!), would be coolness!

[James Jacobs]

Kavlor wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Kostchtchie was removed for the same reason Orcus was. Unlike Pazuzu or Baphomet (deities that also have a D&D legacy), Kostchtchie and Orcus's recognizable elements were too OGL mired to make it into the remastered non-OGL game. Jubilex too, but even more so, since he's 100% D&D.

Have you considered going back to the original Kostchtchie story from Russian fairy tales? After all, he could practically be called the first true lich, since he had a full-fledged phylactery and a complex way to destroy it. That would be a nice nod to Slavic mythology. After all, you already have Baba Yaga.

Yes, just as we considered doing the same for Tiamat, but in the end we decided against that because folks who play Pathfinder know those more as their D&D versions, and making big changes like that would potentially confuse and annoy folks. We're already kind of walking that line with Baphomet no longer being a minotaur deity, but that's "easier" for us to do since we spent so much time with him on-screen in Wrath of the Righeous building him up as a conspirator deity with ties to Asmodeus and Lamashtu while also moving away from his D&D appearance to the more classical look. We never did any of that with Kostchtchie; we weren't as forward-thinking with him (or Orcus or Tiamat for that matter), so they're being replaced by deities and demons and the like who will do the same role in the setting as the D&D ones did, but which aren't exports from D&D.

[CorvusMask]

Even if we never get mythologically accurate Tiamat, I hope Dahak will get new mommy dragon god post remaster x'D (it was never explored, but I did legit like the ye olden lore Apsu Tiamat Dahak dynamic)

[Mammoth Daddy]

James Jacobs wrote:

Kavlor wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Kostchtchie was removed for the same reason Orcus was. Unlike Pazuzu or Baphomet (deities that also have a D&D legacy), Kostchtchie and Orcus's recognizable elements were too OGL mired to make it into the remastered non-OGL game. Jubilex too, but even more so, since he's 100% D&D.

Have you considered going back to the original Kostchtchie story from Russian fairy tales? After all, he could practically be called the first true lich, since he had a full-fledged phylactery and a complex way to destroy it. That would be a nice nod to Slavic mythology. After all, you already have Baba Yaga.

Yes, just as we considered doing the same for Tiamat, but in the end we decided against that because folks who play Pathfinder know those more as their D&D versions, and making big changes like that would potentially confuse and annoy folks. We're already kind of walking that line with Baphomet no longer being a minotaur deity, but that's "easier" for us to do since we spent so much time with him on-screen in Wrath of the Righeous building him up as a conspirator deity with ties to Asmodeus and Lamashtu while also moving away from his D&D appearance to the more classical look. We never did any of that with Kostchtchie; we weren't as forward-thinking with him (or Orcus or Tiamat for that matter), so they're being replaced by deities and demons and the like who will do the same role in the setting as the D&D ones did, but which aren't exports from D&D.

Okay, but any insight as to the removal of the Osirion or Hag Pantheon? Like what motivated the change?

I’m a lil flabbergasted that this is all we get for the send off so far

[James Jacobs]

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Kavlor wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Kostchtchie was removed for the same reason Orcus was. Unlike Pazuzu or Baphomet (deities that also have a D&D legacy), Kostchtchie and Orcus's recognizable elements were too OGL mired to make it into the remastered non-OGL game. Jubilex too, but even more so, since he's 100% D&D.

Have you considered going back to the original Kostchtchie story from Russian fairy tales? After all, he could practically be called the first true lich, since he had a full-fledged phylactery and a complex way to destroy it. That would be a nice nod to Slavic mythology. After all, you already have Baba Yaga.

Yes, just as we considered doing the same for Tiamat, but in the end we decided against that because folks who play Pathfinder know those more as their D&D versions, and making big changes like that would potentially confuse and annoy folks. We're already kind of walking that line with Baphomet no longer being a minotaur deity, but that's "easier" for us to do since we spent so much time with him on-screen in Wrath of the Righeous building him up as a conspirator deity with ties to Asmodeus and Lamashtu while also moving away from his D&D appearance to the more classical look. We never did any of that with Kostchtchie; we weren't as forward-thinking with him (or Orcus or Tiamat for that matter), so they're being replaced by deities and demons and the like who will do the same role in the setting as the D&D ones did, but which aren't exports from D&D.

Okay, but any insight as to the removal of the Osirion or Hag Pantheon? Like what motivated the change?

I’m a lil flabbergasted that this is all we get for the send off so far

I have no insights or info there; someone from the Rules/Lore team would be able to speak to that more in depth.

[TriOmegaZero]

I appreciate that the removal is so minor that those who don't want to play with it can easily ignore it.

[The Raven Black]

Set wrote:

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

If you look closely at the Inner Sea Region, you will see that it's actually full of 'exotic' places / tropes to an American guy : Galt, Taldor, Irrisen, Lands of the Linnorm Kings ...

[Kavlor]

The Raven Black wrote:

Set wrote:

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

If you look closely at the Inner Sea Region, you will see that it's actually full of 'exotic' places / tropes to an American guy : Galt, Taldor, Irrisen, Lands of the Linnorm Kings ...

And in my personal opinion, in the case of Taldor, not enough was done to make it unique. I would have been happy if the characters from the Taldor aristocracy wore not the standard European dresses and uniforms, but something inspired by real Byzantine clothing.

On the other hand, I prefer to mostly ignore Irrisen's existence.

[Darth Game Master]

Kavlor wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Set wrote:

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

If you look closely at the Inner Sea Region, you will see that it's actually full of 'exotic' places / tropes to an American guy : Galt, Taldor, Irrisen, Lands of the Linnorm Kings ...

And in my personal opinion, in the case of Taldor, not enough was done to make it unique. I would have been happy if the characters from the Taldor aristocracy wore not the standard European dresses and uniforms, but something inspired by real Byzantine clothing.

Seconded. Obviously it doesn't need to be exactly accurate to the Eastern Roman Empire--it really shouldn't be, both because Golarion generally avoids copying history that directly and because there are lots of differences like the equivalents to Egypt and Syria not being part of it at any point--but it'd be nice to at least have more of the clothing, architecture, & other visual aspects of that period and some influences from the cultures of the Balkans and Anatolia. But I'll admit I'm heavily biased as a Byzantine Empire nerd haha.

[Arkat]

James Jacobs wrote:

I have no insights or info there; someone from the Rules/Lore team would be able to speak to that more in depth.

Still waiting for someone from the Rules/Lore team to enlighten us about why the Hag and Osirion pantheons were removed...