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Greetings.
I find myself Disliking Arazni, from her concept to her planned inclusion as a Core Deity. But I know I am not an expert on the setting and only know the basics. So I want to lay out what I know and would like to hear counterpoints or parts of her lore that I miss. I want to know what there is to Like about Arazni.
My Issue in general is, she seems like an Edgelord with a tragic backstory, who is spiting the odds and will topple the mighty, but still frowns upon those who are good and right.
To get into the specific. She was a friend to Aroden who decided to make her an Herald after she died. She helped fight Tar-Baphon, but there something I don't understand what happend. She was seemingly called, which to my knowladge just brings an outsider over, it doesn't grant control over the called creature. But it was specified that the Knights of Ozem, those which called her, Bound her like a usual summon. Either she was summoned or they offered her a contract of service which is usaully done to control a called Creature like a Demon or devil. Which ever of the two happend, this planted a seed of doubt and Mistrust to her loyal followers.
Then she died to Tar-Baphon, which implies she got called. Dying to the Whispering Tyrant is easy, no issue there. But if she was called, why did she aggree to a Binding she did not like? Or this implies that she Knights of Ozem overpowered their Herald into a Contract against her will, which seems even more bizzare.
That was not her end though, because Geb somehow managed to revive the corpse of an Outsider, and made her a Lich Queen against her Will. Given Geb is arguable one of the top 3 most powerful Necromancers on the world, you can have an explanation. It still just seems utterly bizzare on why you want to make her an intelligent undead given she would hate Geb (which she does) nor make her powerful which she would try to use against Geb. I get Geb is one of the most spitful Mortals that exist, but that seems quite reckless. Why not make her a Mindless Zombie, more insult to the Knights of Ozem and less risk of something going wrong.
Which happend when for some reason she ascended back into freedom and is not surprisingly against Geb. And now she is an Opponent against those which Spite her, Geb, Urgatoah and the Whispering Tyrant. But she still is a rebel against Iomedae because how dare she be Aroden's Inherintor, while Arazni herself at the time was the Lich Queen of Geb to my understanding, so she wasn't exactly in a position to do that herself.
And now there are plans of making her a Main Deity. Which I feel is redundant.
To my understanding her Goals are: Survive the Odds, help misused Undead, and spite those which wronged you.
All those you can do with other deities. Vengeance can be both found in Urgatoah and Calistria. Spiting those which wronged you is specifically Calistria's main point. even to a Point surviving.
Being against the common use of Undead, Pharasma is the Deity for that. And she even would fill a better role as a main opponent of the Pallid Princess. Ustalav being a nation which hates the Whispering Tyrant as a Cultural Touchstone and Pharasma as their Patron Deity would make that even stronger of a Point.
If you want to Fight for the Rights of Undead we have Urgatoah.
as a Deity of Rebels, we have Milani, who with what happend in Hells Rebels, I could see being on a Rise to Power. Not even to mention of Cayden Cailean, already a Core deity who is great for Rebels.
So her backstory is in my eyes a mess to make her as tragic of a character has possible. And is now the Lone Wolf who is alone against the world. But on a Divine Scale.
So what am I missing, that makes her worth of being a Core Deity? Am I missing some cruicial detail that explains the oddities I see? Or is my dislike simply a personal bias?
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I do also find her quite narrow for a core deity, as most of her portfolio can is found in other core deity (while the rest don't have that much overlapping with each other), but there is one distinctive trait that none of the other 19 can claim being that she is the one most fitting for nonevil undead (while urgathoa is a deity for specifically evil undeads, and pharasma is into "every undead shall die for good or at the very least become mortal again", which isn't really conductive to an undead PC).
So her existence make sense as a "racial deity" for nonevil undead PC, kinda like Torag is for dwarves, something that can also be taken by character outside of that ancestry, but that was obviously made to fit that one option more than any other. The catch is that "nonevil undead" is clearly not a core PC option (so far), so her inclusion to the core 20 feel weird. The one explanation I can find is that Paizo want to move forward the Tar Baphon plot and want to make undead PC less of a rarity (possibly with the rumored remastered version of book of the dead), and advanced her to the core 20 for that reason.
But so far, yeah, I feel that Achaekek would be more fitting as a core 20 replacement than her.
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Urgathoa is not a deity heroic or “good” people would worship.
Pharasma is for the destruction of undead, not about the dignity and plight of those who did not want to be, just destroy them, so a very different viewpoint than Arazni.
There’s multiple types of “vengeance” and Calistria encompasses them all, mostly seeming to focus on holding grudges like a score rather than being an avenger. There’s a bunch of revenge deities, it’s a common theme and motivation.
Milani is already a full deity. Arazni became a full deity and is getting added to the core 20 pantheon, most likely due to what happened to Lastwall and Tar Baphon and people’s thoughts on the matter. She isn’t being made more powerful than any other deity.
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Arazni is the deity of survivors. She's much more relevant to people across all cultures and lineages than most of the core 20, since there are people all over the world that experience trauma and overcome it. She's not about undead rights, or rebellion, or any active cause- she's about "how you survive the worst stuff the world could throw at you, and the feelings that are inherent to doing so."
So for Arazni revenge is not the goal, but "hurt the people who hurt you" might make you hurt less. At the very least, you could keep them from hurting somebody else. There's no grand poetry in revenge, it's simply practical.
Like an easy hook for any Araznian character is "I murdered the person who was abusing me so that they would stop, and turned to Arazni's people to get away with it." She's the deity people turn to either before or after they've decided neither to "give up" nor "continue to suffer undignified abuse."
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Regarding how all the mechanics of calling versus summoning versus binding versus whatever happened to Arazni, I feel this quote from a little while ago applies here too:
It's because gods don't have set rules. When anything associated with a god happens, it does so differently as the storyteller wants. Godsrain was unique to the situation surrounding Gorum's death.And if the death of Gorum is causing his blood to rain down across the world creating new demigods, why did the death of Aroden not do the same when it wrecked the Inner Sea? Is it because there wasn't enough of Aroden left to do so, or because something took that power before it could fall?If dead deities leave a body behind, where do you think Aroden's corpse ended up ?
A certain Whispering Tyrant would love to know (TBT, TB doing a JSA Golden Age trick with Aroden has been in my head for years).
Further, magic itself is whatever the storyteller needs to do. We have rules on player (including the DM) magic because when we're telling a story together, we need set rules to establish a baseline. People writing the setting have more room to maneuver.
TLDR: don't give yourself a headache trying to work out why what happened to her can't be explained by how our rulebook spells work. Writers don't necessarily follow the rules and deities don't even HAVE rules.
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Arazni is about offering power to the wounded and powerless. She's there for spite, for survival, for drawing a hard line between the victim you used to be and the respect you now demand. If you ever need a goddess who believes in hitting a bully so hard he never hits you again, killing your abuser, or doing what it takes to stay alive when everyone thinks you should've given up and died, Arazni is your girl. That's one of her 'points.'
The Inner Sea's had a huge surge in undead with the death of Lastwall, the rise of Tar-Baphon, and all sorts of other necromantic shenanigans. Pharasma, the oldest deity in the setting and one of the most respected, says that all of those undead must be destroyed - even those who never chose this fate, but are now unwilling to be killed yet again. When most are content to let Pharasmins handle the undead their usual way, Arazni offers another path, along with some of the only empathy for that situation to be found. That's another 'point.'
Lastly, she's Aroden's old buddy - a witness to and participant in some of the major events that define the Lost Omens setting as a whole, along with suffering from his worst decisions. That's a really useful perspective for telling stories about a core pillar of the world, to say nothing of how she acts as a narrative bridge to finally telling Arcadian stories, something the team's wanted to do for years. Add in how she comes with interesting relationships with other core deities like Iomedae and Urgathoa, and you've got a god that opens up an awful lot of potential plotlines by taking center stage. That's 'point' three.
All of those at once adds up to an Arazni who's intimately tangled in several major chunks of worldbuilding, enables a variety of PC concepts (survivors of all sorts, revenge-seekers, unwilling undead), and feels pretty unique to Pathfinder. I quite like her!
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Regarding how all the mechanics of calling versus summoning versus binding versus whatever happened to Arazni, I feel this quote from a little while ago applies here too:
It's because gods don't have set rules. When anything associated with a god happens, it does so differently as the storyteller wants. Godsrain was unique to the situation surrounding Gorum's death.And if the death of Gorum is causing his blood to rain down across the world creating new demigods, why did the death of Aroden not do the same when it wrecked the Inner Sea? Is it because there wasn't enough of Aroden left to do so, or because something took that power before it could fall?If dead deities leave a body behind, where do you think Aroden's corpse ended up ?
A certain Whispering Tyrant would love to know (TBT, TB doing a JSA Golden Age trick with Aroden has been in my head for years).
Further, magic itself is whatever the storyteller needs to do. We have rules on player (including the DM) magic because when we're telling a story together, we need set rules to establish a baseline. People writing the setting have more room to maneuver.
TLDR: don't give yourself a headache trying to work out why what happened to her can't be explained by how our rulebook spells work. Writers don't necessarily follow the rules and deities don't even HAVE rules.
Thank you for that, that actually answered a seperate question I had unrelated.
And creative freedom is understandable. It doesn't explain the narrative issue I have: that the Knights of Ozem, one of the most noble order of Knights, supposidly forced their herald, their Saint, to serve them in a way that caused Mistrust. Which is important now given that is a part of the reason she mistrusts her former allies. So it sounds bizzare, and the only narrative purpose I can see, is to make her backstory even more tragic.
Arazni is about offering power to the wounded and powerless. She's there for spite, for survival, for drawing a hard line between the victim you used to be and the respect you now demand. If you ever need a goddess who believes in hitting a bully so hard he never hits you again, killing your abuser, or doing what it takes to stay alive when everyone thinks you should've given up and died, Arazni is your girl. That's one of her 'points.'
The Inner Sea's had a huge surge in undead with the death of Lastwall, the rise of Tar-Baphon, and all sorts of other necromantic shenanigans. Pharasma, the oldest deity in the setting and one of the most respected, says that all of those undead must be destroyed - even those who never chose this fate, but are now unwilling to be killed yet again. When most are content to let Pharasmins handle the undead their usual way, Arazni offers another path, along with some of the only empathy for that situation to be found. That's another 'point.'
Lastly, she's Aroden's old buddy - a witness to and participant in some of the major events that define the Lost Omens setting as a whole, along with suffering from his worst decisions. That's a really useful perspective for telling stories about a core pillar of the world, to say nothing of how she acts as a narrative bridge to finally telling Arcadian stories, something the team's wanted to do for years. Add in how she comes with interesting relationships with other core deities like Iomedae and Urgathoa, and you've got a god that opens up an awful lot of potential plotlines by taking center stage. That's 'point' three.
All of those at once adds up to an Arazni who's intimately tangled in several major chunks of worldbuilding, enables a variety of PC concepts (survivors of all sorts, revenge-seekers, unwilling undead), and feels pretty unique to Pathfinder. I quite like her!
That sounds very Solid. Your Summary, together with PossibleCabbage and Scarablob, did give me atleast an angle to make her a valid choice as a Deity. And as much as I still dislike her Backstory as a overdrawn tragic mess, your last point is quite interesting. She would have a unique Perspective, and insights to an Era from a less favorable angle on the Shining Crusade. And she has connections to Arcadia? That I was not aware off.
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And she has connections to Arcadia? That I was not aware off.
As a mortal, she hailed from the Arcadian land of Xopatl (Tyrant's Grasp: Borne by the Sun's Grace is set there because of this), and many of her adventures with Aroden (like fighting Cuetzmonqualli from Lost Omens: Monsters of Myth) took place on her home continent. There's at least one mention somewhere in 2e of Kazutal, the Arcadian jaguar protector goddess, wanting to look out for her because of it all.
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I certainly didn't dislike her before, but this thread is making me appreciate Arazni a lot more. Even beforehand, I think she is a lot more interesting than a few of the core deities. I find Erastil and Torag boring, and I actively dislike Aroden (because I hate capitalism). I think she is a good choice for filling Gorum's empty spot in the main 20.
I agree that she is pretty tragic as a character, but she is a character that draws her strength from that and pushes back. Calistria, by contrast, does not come from a place of vulnerability like Arazni. Urgathoa is a cruel hedonist that will absolutely turn someone unwillingly to undeath.
With the move away from alignment and, by necessity, the "always evil undead" thing, I think she fills the role nicely as the intermediate between Pharasma and Urgathoa.
Actually this does bring a question I've always wondered. Why did the knights of Ozem bind Arazni? If she was Aroden's Herald, and they were presumably allies with the Knights of Ozem against the whispering tyrant, why did the knights do that? Seems scummy.
Actually this does bring a question I've always wondered. Why did the knights of Ozem bind Arazni? If she was Aroden's Herald, and they were presumably allies with the Knights of Ozem against the whispering tyrant, why did the knights do that? Seems scummy.
Officially I believe that they bound Arazni so that she couldn't be subverted against them by Tar-Baphon's magic. I don't completely get it (I suppose it's fair that they believed Tar-Baphon might have some magic that could take control of a god?) but it's always struck me as a little weird binding your boss, who is presumably more powerful than you in the first place? There is unfortunately not quite enough information on how the binding went down currently released to the public.
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Actually this does bring a question I've always wondered. Why did the knights of Ozem bind Arazni? If she was Aroden's Herald, and they were presumably allies with the Knights of Ozem against the whispering tyrant, why did the knights do that? Seems scummy.
They were in 1E and only had wizards near at hand at the time :V
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I certainly didn't dislike her before, but this thread is making me appreciate Arazni a lot more. Even beforehand, I think she is a lot more interesting than a few of the core deities. I find Erastil and Torag boring, and I actively dislike Aroden (because I hate capitalism). I think she is a good choice for filling Gorum's empty spot in the main 20.
I agree that she is pretty tragic as a character, but she is a character that draws her strength from that and pushes back. Calistria, by contrast, does not come from a place of vulnerability like Arazni. Urgathoa is a cruel hedonist that will absolutely turn someone unwillingly to undeath.
With the move away from alignment and, by necessity, the "always evil undead" thing, I think she fills the role nicely as the intermediate between Pharasma and Urgathoa.
Undead have never been Always Evil. Just the vast majority of them.
In Remaster, the vast majority of them seems to be Unholy.
The setting has not changed.
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But so far, yeah, I feel that Achaekek would be more fitting as a core 20 replacement than her.
This.
I don't find Arazni the least bit interesting. Certainly not a compelling candidate for true godhood much less one of the Core 20.
At least not because of any reason we've been given in the Lore. Maybe because of her previous relationship with Aroden she could be elevated to a true deity, but only if it has something to do with the possible return of Aroden.
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If there's one thing I am 100% confident will never happen in the ongoing Pathfinder storyline it's "Aroden comes back" since the mystery of "what happened to Aroden" is something they have said, repeatedly, that they're not going to resolve.
Creative Director
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Not every deity in the core 20 needs to be "interesting" to every person. The core 20 exists not as an attempt to model a pantheon that's thematically trying to represent a region, but as a pantheon that's attempting to model game play choices for a tabletop RPG for more than one person. This means we want to have a number of deities represented on that list that gives PC clerics and other PCs who want to worship a deity a healthy range of options to choose from. Originally, we picked 18 so that there'd be 2 for each alignment, and rounded out that with a few extras (a LG one for paladins, and a N one for druids) to arrive at a managable and fun "core 20," which matched the fact that it's a game that uses a d20 for its base mechanic but also kept the pantheon from being to enormous and intimidating for newcomers.
I created many of the deities on that list for my homebrew, and among those are ones like Abadar, who I don't find particularly interesting except as an enemy religion in a campaign. Others on the list I didn't create that I don't find particularly interesting include Torag and Irori. But those three and the rest ARE interesting to plenty of other folks.
I also created Arazni and included her during development of the 2nd Adventure Path volume, "The Skinsaw Murders," at first to start seeding into the world some "named liches" but also because I wanted to explore the storyline of a woman who had been oppressed and would in time find revenge against her oppressors. That storyline for various reasons took a LOT longer to pay off than I hoped it would, but the women who ended up writing her story later did a much better job than I could have so it was well worth the wait. Her ascending to the core 20 to fill the vacancy left by Gorum handily keeps the "chaotic neutral" vacancy occupied, thematically, even though alignments aren't part of the game anymore, but also because she's a particular favorite of many folks on staff and also may readers and gamers out there. She also brings something new to the table, rather than just being boring and replacing Gorum with another war god, becuase if we did that, then what would have been the point of killing the war god in the first place.
There's certainly more to this than that, and I'm more focused these days on the adventure side of the equation rather than the world lore, but that's my take on why Arazni is the best and right choice to fill the vacancy resulting from Gorum's death.
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Not every deity in the core 20 needs to be "interesting" to every person. [...] but as a pantheon that's attempting to model game play choices for a tabletop RPG for more than one person. This means we want to have a number of deities represented on that list that gives PC clerics and other PCs who want to worship a deity a healthy range of options to choose from. [...]
I created many of the deities on that list for my homebrew, and among those are ones like Abadar, who I don't find particularly interesting except as an enemy religion in a campaign. [...]
I also created Arazni and included her during development of the 2nd Adventure Path volume, "The Skinsaw Murders," at first to start seeding into the world some "named liches" but also because I wanted to explore the storyline of a woman who had been oppressed and would in time find revenge against her oppressors. That storyline for various reasons took a LOT longer to pay off than I hoped it would, but the women who ended up writing her story later did a much better job than I could have so it was well worth the wait. Her ascending to the core 20 to fill the vacancy left by Gorum handily keeps the "chaotic neutral" vacancy occupied, thematically, even though alignments aren't part of the game anymore, but also because she's a particular favorite of many folks on staff and also may readers and gamers out there. She also brings something new to...
Thank you for that answer. Of course I can afford to not like her, because you guys give us plenty of Deities to choose from. There is no argument there
For example I really like Abadar in Contrast, a Deity who represents Civilization in a setting where there are plenty of monsters in the Wilderness, and who gives value to things as a principle to make law and society possible, its interesting to me.Also thank you for the insight on how Arazni's backstory happend from the Writers Side, it does explain how her Story seems like going around a couple corners to now show up.(and now that you mention it, I know exactly what spot we would have found that info in The Skinsaw Murders when I played in the AP.)
To the Point of her being a Unique Deity for the Spot, that thanks to this discussions I have come to aggree on. She provides a diffrent angle from the other Deities and is not a straight up replacement of Gorum.
I can now approach her from a diffrent angle, I might even challange myself to make a Dhampir Avenger Rogue dedicated to her. If I already see her as an Edgelord Deity, why not use that as a start?
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I also created Arazni and included her during development of the 2nd Adventure Path volume, "The Skinsaw Murders," at first to start seeding into the world some "named liches" but also because I wanted to explore the storyline of a woman who had been oppressed and would in time find revenge against her oppressors. That storyline for various reasons took a LOT longer to pay off than I hoped it would, but the women who ended up writing her story later did a much better job than I could have so it was well worth the wait. Her ascending to the core 20 to fill the vacancy left by Gorum handily keeps the "chaotic neutral" vacancy occupied, thematically, even though alignments aren't part of the game anymore, but also because she's a particular favorite of many folks on staff and also may readers and gamers out there. She also brings something new to the table, rather than just being boring and replacing Gorum with another war god, becuase if we did that, then what would have been the point of killing the war god in the first place.
I understand why she's a key player in the story, and that she's popular, but I think the reason why I (and some others) found her weird as a "core deity" inclusion so far is that I didn't quite see what "core PC" (or "core villain") archetype she open that is important enought to be one of the first godess introduced to new players.
To use your exemple, I get why Gozreh exist, even if they may be my least favorite of the core 20. There needed to be a god of nature that's not tied to civilisation like Erastil, so that druid and other "wild" character have an available deity. I personally prefer to play and represent my druids and other "wild" characters as ahteist or animist, but never worshipping something akin to a deity, so Gozreh does nothing for me, but I understand that some (maybe the majority) like their druid with gods, and so I understand why they're needed.
Meanwhile, Arazni at a glance don't seems to me to fill some "core" spot in the pantheon, be it as villain or as PC. Her revenge aspect was already filled by Calistria, and while she is a perfect godess for nonevil undead PC, those are for the moment far from being a "core option" that would warrant a place in the core 20 for her.
But Keiftiu's comment made me reevaluate her "survivor" aspect that isn't really shared with any other core deity, and it's true that she would fit the most with the kind of PC that follow the "Byronic hero" archetype, the kind that had a really hard life up so far and is rather jaded but is still trudging onward, which is a popular enought archetype to warrant a core 20 place. As for the druids, It's the kind of character that I personally wouldn't represent as religious at all, so didn't even thought that they may be in need of a deity, but I can see why some people would like a deity like that.
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To add to why Geb was fine with reviving a dead god and making her a figurehead without fearing reprecussion: he put her under a compulsion to obey himself and the graveknights (who stole her corpse in the first place) that he made her bodyguards. She couldn't refuse their commands, no matter how powerful she was. Also why he did it: the Knights of Ozem were spoiling for a righteous crusade, and sent a squad of paladins into Geb to assassinate its ruler and set up an invasion. Geb the ruler responded to this brazen attack by a foreign power by turning their fallen goddess into a puppet monarch, as both a warning to Lastwall and so he could spend more time prepping for Nex's return.
The implications of Arazni's early reputation and the compulsion established later on are not great.
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If there's one thing I am 100% confident will never happen in the ongoing Pathfinder storyline it's "Aroden comes back" since the mystery of "what happened to Aroden" is something they have said, repeatedly, that they're not going to resolve.
Then you know EXACTLY where I stand on Arazni's elevation to one of the 20 Core Pathfinder deities.
She's fine as a demigoddess, though.
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She also brings something new to to the table, rather than just being boring and replacing Gorum with another war god, becuase if we did that, then what would have been the point of killing the war god in the first place.
Nobody would disagree that replacing Gorum with another War god would be boring.
There's certainly more to this than that, and I'm more focused these days on the adventure side of the equation rather than the world lore, but that's my take on why Arazni is the best and right choice to fill the vacancy resulting from Gorum's death.
If I were you, I don't think I ever could have given up on a world lore position. The lore of Golarion is what makes Pathfinder special.
Runequest (Glorantha, really) has been ruined for me because Greg Stafford is no longer in control of Glorantha lore (because he passed a few years ago) and it has been taken over by a "committee" of people essentially. That committee doesn't have a very clear vision of Runequest's world lore (beyond Dragon Pass and the Lunar Heartland) and it has become muddled ever since.
I get that you probably like overseeing the adventures part of Paizo, but I would implore you to at least keep a major input (and veto power if possible) on where the Golarion lore is going.
If satisfying that Chaotic Neutral aspect of the Core 20 isn't a thing anymore (because alignment has pretty much gone by the wayside), I would humbly ask that you and Paizo pick a better god to fill Gorum's spot.
Achaekek would be a perfect candidate, in my opinion. For various reasons, it's super-easy to justify, too.
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Paizo has THREE of these same characters:
Arazni, Nocticula, Shorsen
Each of them is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL. One is a bloody handed tyrant manipulator and schemer, the other is a DEMON PRINCESS, the last has controlled the bodies of others for millennia to do what they want, and advocated that more of this is better than less.
They do like, one kinda altruistic thing, and BOOM. REDEEMED.
They make for fun villains. They do not make for fun patrons.
As for me, Arazni is PERMA-DED in my homegame. She ain't gonna make that transition to divinity.
Paizo has THREE of these same characters:
Arazni, Nocticula, Shorsen
Each of them is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL. One is a bloody handed tyrant manipulator and schemer, the other is a DEMON PRINCESS, the last has controlled the bodies of others for millennia to do what they want, and advocated that more of this is better than less.
They do like, one kinda altruistic thing, and BOOM. REDEEMED.
They make for fun villains. They do not make for fun patrons.
As for me, Arazni is PERMA-DED in my homegame. She ain't gonna make that transition to divinity.
I mean, of the three, Arazni is both the one that seemingly got the least overall "nice", and the one that deserve/fit redemption the most, since her fall into evil wasn't of her own volition but due to her being betrayed and then doused in evil juice turned into an undead.
I was a bit sceptical about her becoming a core deity all of the sudden, but her being a deity for edgy byronic character and nonevil undead is far more interesting than her staying "the harlot queen of Geb". Like, I can see the point of them being more interesting as full, irredeemable villain for Sorshen or Nocticula (altho I really disagree for Nocticula at least), but I really don't think Arazni lich queen 1e incarnation was that interesting.
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Like if you're going to omit Arazni from your version of Golarion, the Knights of Lastwall are going to need another divine sponsor for the Crimson Reclaimers.
Personally I think that the interesting part about Arazni is that she's *not* redeemed. She's mean and selfish and angry but also endorses good causes. She's interesting because her story is decidedly not over, and doesn't necessarily end up in a good place.
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Paizo has THREE of these same characters:
Arazni, Nocticula, Shorsen
Each of them is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL. One is a bloody handed tyrant manipulator and schemer, the other is a DEMON PRINCESS, the last has controlled the bodies of others for millennia to do what they want, and advocated that more of this is better than less.
They do like, one kinda altruistic thing, and BOOM. REDEEMED.
They make for fun villains. They do not make for fun patrons.
As for me, Arazni is PERMA-DED in my homegame. She ain't gonna make that transition to divinity.
How is Arazni irredeemably evil? She got forced into undeath by Geb after being forcibly bound to her followers and then broken and used as a projectile by Tar Baphon. Then she tried to escape but never could while the Knights of Ozem gladly write her off as "The Harlot Queen", Aroden her former friend adventures about fighting demon lords but doesn't come to help her. Like jesus Arazni never asked for any of this and just wanted out.
Personally I think that the interesting part about Arazni is that she's *not* redeemed. She's mean and selfish and angry but also endorses good causes.
I have clearly been watching too much Disney Plus lately, because I saw this sentence and thought, "oh. She's Agatha Harkness, isn't she?"
And of course they're clearly not the same, but poking at where they do have similarities suggests an archetype after all: the anti-hero.
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Remember that Core 20 is also the most well-known deities in the Inner Sea Region.
I have never liked Arazni myself, because I feel she has a GMPC vibe.
But given how active she has been in the few years since her coming back as a deity and how strongly opposed to TB she is + her portfolio of if you've been wronged, I will support you without asking you to change your ways, I can totally see how her worship might have become quickly popular.
And with the conflicts and wars coming with all their hurt bystanders, I can see her cult growing by leaps and bounds.
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Paizo has THREE of these same characters:
Arazni, Nocticula, Shorsen
Each of them is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL. One is a bloody handed tyrant manipulator and schemer, the other is a DEMON PRINCESS, the last has controlled the bodies of others for millennia to do what they want, and advocated that more of this is better than less.
They do like, one kinda altruistic thing, and BOOM. REDEEMED.
They make for fun villains. They do not make for fun patrons.
As for me, Arazni is PERMA-DED in my homegame. She ain't gonna make that transition to divinity.
To be fair of those 3 the only one who I hate getting the redemption ark is Shorshen. As said Arazni was forced into the evil role and Nocticula If memory serves they had been working on her redemption arc before pathfinder was even pathinfer (Ie still 3.5) Shorshen on the other hand is a person that is a mass murderer, a manipulator, a slaver and well considering the number of concubines and her area of magic specalty certain other unfortunate suggestions as well.
On the matter of Arazni becoming one of the core 20 maybe I'm misremembering or new lore has been added in since the end of 1e but the impresion I had always got was she was completly uninterested in the whole being a goddess and followers thing so does strike me as a bit of a change in attitude to me.
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Mean and selfish?
She was leading the fight against Tar Baphon, told her people a direct assault couldn't work, and they decided they knew better, and bound her. Forcing her to fight to the death in a pointless attack with NO HELP from her god, Aroden. Then she is raised as an undead against her will, bound by an undead incel. Worshiped by those who are antithetical to everything she believed in. When she finally breaks free, yeah, she's gonna have some trust issues, especially with the supposedly righteous who were the first who bound her.
I agree with the person who said her revenge is different from Callistria's. Callistria's is more... healthy. It is a revenge that can be carried out over years, because we're living life and have other things to do. Arazni's revenge is immediate and visceral because we don't survive if we don't take it.
And why are we ignoring that she can serve as a War god, a goddess of battle. one who knows defeat. one who will not glorify senseless violence and cruelty, because she knows what it is to be on the other side of those things.
As much as I'd love a patron of "good" undead, I don't see her as tolerating undead any better than Iomedae, despite being one herself. Because, again, the Undead were the ones worshipping her in Geb while she was bound and forced to serve.
And I will not stand for Nocticula slander. She is nothing like Arazni. Yes, she was a demon queen, who fought her way up through the ranks with guile and cunning, and knowing when strategic mercy was the best option. And when she found herself going through apotheiosis and realizing that cruelty and evil were not part of her domain she gladly left those things behind and became a patron to those who wanted to better themselves.
But I've always been a fan of Arazni since I started researching the deeper lore on the cosmology of Golarion.
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I feel that if Arazni (a lich) and Nocticula (a demon lord) can change their ways, surely a human such as Sorshen can change too.
I would also argue there is a big diffrence in that those two never really had a choice in the matter whilst Sorshen willing chose to do all that stuff (Also dosent help in the ap itself it comes across less as wanting redemption and more sick of the other runelords with a dose of not wanting ganked by the next adventuring party that comes along)
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I'm also just chiming in on the calling and binding matter. Heralds are meant to be called; that's why they were designed in the first place- as a representative of a god with low enough power to be called (and even bound, with probable consequences) by PCs.
Yeah, it's surprising that Aroden let his followers bind her. That's a big part of the problem, and another thing in a long list of Why Aroden Wasn't a Great Guy.
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As for why Geb would turn her into a lich when that's riskier- it clearly wasn't all that risky for him based on the information available at the time, and a mindless undead wouldn't have accomplished anything of what he wanted. He was able to force Arazni to run his country for over a thousand years. If Arazni's plan had gone as she'd intended, she'd have just been unbound from lichdom and dead. Geb would have gotten away with it consequence-free. The whole "surviving as a full-fledged deity" was a surprise to both of them, and trying to plan around people becoming gods means never getting anything done.
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I will say though, it does seem that the majority, if not all, of the redemption arcs we've seen so far have been "Hot lady stops being evil", which is a complaint of mine because it definitely feels one note and kinda skeevy.
Mean and selfish?
She was leading the fight against Tar Baphon, told her people a direct assault couldn't work, and they decided they knew better, and bound her. Forcing her to fight to the death in a pointless attack with NO HELP from her god, Aroden.[...]
Thank you for a bit of clarity on what happend in that original Binding situation.
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I will say though, it does seem that the majority, if not all, of the redemption arcs we've seen so far have been "Hot lady stops being evil", which is a complaint of mine because it definitely feels one note and kinda skeevy.
Well, Sorshen was the Runelord of Lust and Nocticula was the Queen of of the Succubi, so...
Also, like someone else said above, Arazni has not been redeemed.
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I feel that if Arazni (a lich) and Nocticula (a demon lord) can change their ways, surely a human such as Sorshen can change too.I would also argue there is a big diffrence in that those two never really had a choice in the matter whilst Sorshen willing chose to do all that stuff (Also dosent help in the ap itself it comes across less as wanting redemption and more sick of the other runelords with a dose of not wanting ganked by the next adventuring party that comes along)
Arazni certainly never had a choice in going evil, though I'd argue that Nocticula probably did since demons come from highly sinful souls that almost certainly did something awful in their mortal lives.
As for just being semi-redeemed, they all sort of fit into that slot in one way or another, though Sorshen seems certainly the most self-interested and coolly pragmatic about it. I think it's good to see some variety among all the redemption stories, though; some people give up evil after being in enforced evil, some people live in evil happily before gradually deciding against it for moral reasons, and some people live in evil for a long time before realizing that it's no longer cool (or safe) and so decide to avoid it for their own survival. Lots of ways it might come about, though in Sorshen's case if be worried that she might switch back to evil if she saw a great opportunity for it.
That all said, I do agree that Sorshen's redemption story is somewhat less satisfying that the others'. I'll grant that humans would have an easier time of it than demons or undead of course, but my issue is more to do with the story and it's foreshadowing. Specifically, Arazni was portrayed as an unwilling servant of Geb for a long time, especially once it was shown that the Council Libertine were her jailers not her lovers, so it wasn't surprising that once she finally broke free she quickly took a more moderate ethos. Likewise, Nocticula's interest in redemption has been hinted at in multiple APs for years, so everyone who read them was expecting it to become a plot point somewhere along the road (though there was always the possibility it was a ruse for her to assassinate a full deity and take their power, which certainly added some spice to our guesses). On the other hand, Sorshen didn't get an awful lot of screentime before her redemption, and I don't recall any particular hints about her being interested in it beforehand, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course a person in Sorshen's position could certainly come to redemption in the way the AP describes, it just that Sorshen's story didn't have that nice lead-up over the years to tickle my interest.
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To the Point of Redemption of Arazni, I can't say I have heard anything about that until now, nor did I get that impression that there is any suppose to be.
She was the Undead Puppet of a Necromancer, and now is free to do what she wants. She is definitly not as kind anymore as she was back when she was the Herald of Aroden, but I see no theme of Redemption.
I don't know of any Crimes she commited? Sinful acts since she got free? To my knowladge all she is doing now, is trying to get back at Geb, Tar-Bahpoon and Urgatoah and not much else. And neither sound Sinful. She might be ready to do cruel and cutthroat tactics to do those, but until she does any of that, it is speculative.
The Themes I see is Spite those who are against you, and Struggle despite the Odds. Be scarred but be alive.
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Personally I think that the interesting part about Arazni is that she's *not* redeemed. She's mean and selfish and angry but also endorses good causes.I have clearly been watching too much Disney Plus lately, because I saw this sentence and thought, "oh. She's Agatha Harkness, isn't she?"
And of course they're clearly not the same, but poking at where they do have similarities suggests an archetype after all: the anti-hero.
No. She’s basically Sylvanus Windrunner from Warcraft III, before that character’s deliberate transformation into the very thing that abused her.
Arazni represents tho a different choice. “Screw redemption, screw willful corruption, Ima gonna find a third path.”
I like her. She likewise reminds me of The Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II. The heavens and traditional forces of good don’t always have it right, and there is beauty in reclaiming moral autonomy.
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Arazni is great for revealing the existentialism and flaws within the setting’s cosmology. The idea that neither the chief forces of good, evil, or judgement are omniscient, omnipotent, or necessarily “correct”.
It also means that despite the presence of literal gods, Pathfinder’s cosmology bears greater similarity to our own in the sense that goodness, purpose, and meaning aren’t exactly clear. There’s ambiguity, differences of priorities- and agency- all bound within a context where nothing is safe, and the reasons for things are often inscrutable, absurdist, and manifold.
Thus players can be agents (whatever that means) as e’en Pharasma doth not know the meaning nor proper course of creation’s entirety. It hath become something new.
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That all said, I do agree that Sorshen's redemption story is somewhat less satisfying that the others'. I'll grant that humans would have an easier time of it than demons or undead of course, but my issue is more to do with the story and it's foreshadowing. Specifically, Arazni was portrayed as an unwilling servant of Geb for a long time, especially once it was shown that the Council Libertine were her jailers not her lovers, so it wasn't surprising that once she finally broke free she quickly took a more moderate ethos. Likewise, Nocticula's interest in redemption has been hinted at in multiple APs for years, so everyone who read them was expecting it to become a plot point somewhere along the road (though there was always the possibility it was a ruse for her to assassinate a full deity and take their power, which certainly added some spice to our guesses). On the other hand, Sorshen didn't get an awful lot of screentime before her redemption, and I don't recall any particular hints about her being interested in it beforehand, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course a person in Sorshen's position could certainly come to redemption in the way the AP describes, it just that Sorshen's story didn't have that nice lead-up over the years to tickle my interest.
Yeah, Sorshen "redemption" (if we can call it that) is definitively the one that feel least earned and satisfying. I think it's primarely because it feel largely accessory to Nocticula own redemption, it's like she was a "package deal" with her, except that as you said, Nocticula's redemption have been hinted at for a long time, while Sorshen's just kinda happenned.
I also think that the lack of sympathetic backstory don't help Sorshen here. Arazni and Nocticula have the fact that they didn't chose to be "always evil" creature, and that they were under the thrall of a more powerfull (and evil) entity for a while, so their evil deeds had something of a "making the best out of a bad situation" kind of deal, which makes it easier to forgive and accept that they have now changed and shouldn't be treated like the monster they were. Sorshen meanwhile don't have that, it seems that she willfully betrayed Xin to become a fearsome tyran, enslaving peoples and committing untold cruelty for centuries, for no reason other than because she wanted to rule.
Now, I have to say, a "redeemed" runelord that stopped doing evil because they simply don't care about ruling a country anymore is an interesting plot thread, especially since all of their evil were done so long ago that it's not as if their victim still live and call for justice. It's an interesting quandary for good parties, do they (try to) kill the ancient evil to avenge people who are long, long, loooooooong gone, risking failure and that this may push said ancient evil into doing evil stuff again, or do they chose to leave and let live since they're not hurting anyone anymore?
But I can't help but think that one like Krune would have worked better than Sorshen for this role. First because "a tyran master of conjuration and filled with sloth" evoke a far less awfull picture than "a tyran master of enchantment and filled with lust", and also because he wouldn't have felt as redundant as Shorshen is next to Nocticula and Arazni. Also because her reason for not being evil anymore feel more slothfull than anything else.
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I feel Arazni becoming kinder (at least enough to be attractive to players (and worshippers) as a patron deity) might be supposed to be a result of the PCs' actions in Tyrant's Grasp.
Which would be awesome.
Now, I think she has absolutely zero thing to do with redemption. I do not think she mourns the innocents she hurt when she was an evil undead.
She is a survivor but that does not magically turns her into a nice person.
And I agree that her approach to revenge is far more direct than the trickery of Calistria.
Somehow, this reminds me of that guy in Full Metal Jacket whose eulogy for his fallen comrades is "Better you than me".
I am beginning to like Arazni as a goddess thanks to this thread and now wonder what kind of worshipper I could play one day.
Thank you to every poster for this
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The other reason Arazni is important is that she offers a third point of view on Undeath.
Urgathoa's position of "become undead, and do whatever you want" obviously isn't scalable.
Pharasma's position of "see undead, destroy undead" obviously isn't nuanced.
Arazni offers a third path of "well, here you are, some people would call you a monster but you deserve to exist and you deserve dignity, but those things are contingent on how you conduct yourself."
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I am beginning to like Arazni as a goddess thanks to this thread and now wonder what kind of worshipper I could play one day.
Building on both this and the info that she is one of the deities Gorumites turn too after their Lord in Iron's death, I think she might actually make a fitting deity for my very old concept of a self-centered Gorumite bent on endlessly proving himself worthy through fighting and enduring no matter what.