What is Arazni's Point?

[keftiu]

I like her as a Core 20 deity because "I went through something horrible but refused to die" is a pretty common player character backstory. That, the more-nuanced position on undead, and her Arcadian ties are all big positives for me.

[Mammoth Daddy]

Are we allowed to vaguely refer to real life politics here? Because with all big global and US-related stuff happening over the past year and past two weeks, I also see something personal in the elevation of Arazni to full Core-20 status.

Role-playing is often used as both a means for both escape and (counterintuitively) finding resolution for real-life hardship and trauma. Few of these Paizo gods have been so degraded as Arazni. Even fewer have managed to pave a way of resolving said degradation without resorting to normative (often Christian) assumptions about forgiveness, closure, and acceptance of what was done.

With everything that’s been happening, may or about to happen, I know I could personally use a construct like Arazni, the Survivor.

[zimmerwald1915]

Scarablob wrote:

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

It might be, but Sorshen has notably not stopped being the autocrat of a country; she's just more enlightened about it.

[Perpdepog]

The Raven Black wrote:

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.

Honestly, it's probably at least partly that humanity that makes it harder to accept Sorshen's redemption arc. Like, at the end of the day, liches and demon lords aren't real. They're narrative devices that we can stretch faces over and ascribe motives to, and that informs how we think about them. We don't know any, personally.

It's pretty easy to imagine humans who do bad stuff, though, and equally easy to think of people we probably haven't got any interest in forgiving, too. I see Sorshen existing more in that space, a space that's made all the harder to imagine her out of because of the associations of her sin, and all the implications it entails.
I'm personally pretty ambivalent on Sorshen, but can totally see why she'd be the redemed villain who sticks in someone's craw the most.

Benjamin Tait wrote:

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.

This is something that bugs me a bit as well, though we do have other redemption stories; they just don't get as much time in the spotlight, or are in other media. The Black Prince comes to mind, for example, and there is also a great example in The Redemption Engine, a Pathfinder Tales novel I can't recommend enough.

[The Raven Black]

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

Are we allowed to vaguely refer to real life politics here? Because with all big global and US-related stuff happening over the past year and past two weeks, I also see something personal in the elevation of Arazni to full Core-20 status.

Role-playing is often used as both a means for both escape and (counterintuitively) finding resolution for real-life hardship and trauma. Few of these Paizo gods have been so degraded as Arazni. Even fewer have managed to pave a way of resolving said degradation without resorting to normative (often Christian) assumptions about forgiveness, closure, and acceptance of what was done.

With everything that’s been happening, may or about to happen, I know I could personally use a construct like Arazni, the Survivor.

RL Politics are banned on the Paizo boards

Since 2018 IIRC.

[Set]

What intrigued me about Arazni originally was that, A) she was described as a mummy, in a genre that, historically, tends to be lich-centric (Vecna, Asberdies, Acerak, Szass Tam, etc.), and B) she was described as a wizard *who had an order of knights devoted to her.*

I loved the idea that she might combine some sort of warrior/wizard esthetic, perhaps being a magus herself, and that her knightly followers included a number of militant mages, magi and / or fighters with a smidge of spellcasting ability. (Or perhaps even just fighters who are trained to work alongside mages, and get bonuses when they have buff spells cast on them, or to avoid damage from allied mages area attack spells? Sort of specialized to fight optimally alongside wizards.)

But that's not really where she went, 'patron goddess of magi,' or 'war wizards,' and I've been less interested in her since. That's certainly not a criticism of the direction Paizo has taken, and, as has already been said in this thread, Paizo has a *ton* of deities I love, and even for the themes of 'undead redemption,' there's an Empyreal Lord, Ashava, who rings that bell for me.

As for patrons of 'warrior-wizards' or 'battle-mages,' it feels like Amaznen and Acavna hit that sweet spot for me, and in PF 1, at least, they still had some influence, even after their deaths, with the Archetype inspired by them for spellcasting fighters.

[James Jacobs]

Set wrote:

What intrigued me about Arazni originally was that, A) she was described as a mummy, in a genre that, historically, tends to be lich-centric (Vecna, Asberdies, Acerak, Szass Tam, etc.), and B) she was described as a wizard *who had an order of knights devoted to her.*

This was a lore error introduced into a book much later after Arazni's first introduction in book 2 of Rise of the Runelords, where she and Socorro were depicted in stained-glass windows in the observatory of Foxglove Manor as Golarion's second- and third-named liches (after Tar-Baphon).

Since then, the distinction between her being a mummy and lich remained a bit entangled, but she has always been intended to be a lich until more recent events saw her escape that fate.

[CorvusMask]

I'm kinda annoyed whenever people say that Sorshen is "redeemed", she turned from CE to CN, she never became a "good person".

Sure, so did Nocticula, but Nocticula stopped being a demon lord in process aka she managed to change her inherently evil nature to not evil. So I can excuse her a slack to spend her retirement as artist patron holding garden parties in Elysium and inspiring bohemian artists everywhere instead of becoming CG goody-two-shoes.(that would have been really out of character for her)

Sorshen on otherhand stopped being evil because 1) she had enough time to introspection that she got bored of hedonism and evil behavior 2) she had enough time to observe that evil rulers tend to get killed by heroes like some kind of grand story.

She is very self serving where she is charming and pleasant, but she has no intention to face atonement, justice or give up her power or authority. So she fits for CN really well. She is basically something like Meandor from Age of Wonder who over course of games mellows out and allies with good guys while refusing to never fully lose his original dark lord status.

Arazni in contrast stopped being undead and then remained evil due to spite towards everyone she had grudge towards from terrible things that happened to her, but started to have grudging respect for some good guys. Maybe she would over time drift to more neutral territory, but she started out as herald of LN and with alignment removed we will never know what her alignment right now "would be", but it doesn't matter, because she doesn't need to lose her edge and mellow out yet. Maybe she will eventually, but for now she has place as kind of morally ambiguous hero who you aren't sure if she really counts as hero or not.

[Scarablob]

CorvusMask wrote:

Maybe she would over time drift to more neutral territory, but she started out as herald of LN and with alignment removed we will never know what her alignment right now "would be", but it doesn't matter, because she doesn't need to lose her edge and mellow out yet.

We know that war of the immortal was already planned before the start of the OGL debacle and Paizo had to rush to remaster 2e, so it's likely they already had a plan for what alignment she would be after becoming part of the core 20. So maybe one of the developer can tell us wether she was planned to stay NE or shift in alignment when she became part of the core 20?

With the caveat of course that this was an early plan that may have shifted, and which isn't cannon to the current setting anyway since aligment aren't a part of the game anymore.

[Seventh Seal]

From his first post/reply in this thread:

James Jacobs wrote:

...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...<snip>

Note: Emphasis (bold) mine.

My read on this is that Arazni was intended to shift to CN (and thereby rounding up the alignment spread of the core 20).
[ooc](Of course, this may be reading into it too much, so...)

All this said, her alignment (actual or intended) is rather moot in the Remaster.

[Scarablob]

Wait, english isn't my birth language so I may be misreading it, but I thought that "keep the vacancy occupied" meant "keep it vacant/empty". I though he was saying that she filled gorum spot in the core 20, but still left a vacancy in the CN alignment since she wasn't CN herself (and that they left the CN spot empty to purposefully "leave a void" where gorum was).

But if you're right, then yes, it mean that they intended to make her CN. Which do kinda make the comparison with Nocticula and Soren even more apt since they both also switched from evil to "not quite redeemed" chaotic neutral. But since alignment aren't part of the game anymore anyway, I guess all that really matter is how she's presented in the divine mystery book, and how she'll act if she make an appearance in future AP or stories.

[Luis Loza]

The plan was absolutely to shift her alignment to CN as part of her inclusion among the core 20. She already allowed some good followers during her NE time earlier in the edition, which was already hinting a drift away from the evil brought about due to her undead connection. The CN shift would have been a continuation of that theme.

[Animism]

@Scarablob

According to the Parental Unit (they don't speak in contractions when in teacher mode...):

"If a vacancy becomes occupied, then there is no longer any vacancy: it is now full. If it becomes unoccupied, i.e. empty, then there will be a vacancy again."

Language is hard...

[James Jacobs]

From the office of pedantry:

My comment was trying to say that Gorum's death left a CN vacancy. Putting a CN Arazni into that vacancy occupies that vacancy so it no longer is a vacancy.

[Mammoth Daddy]

I don’t see Arazni as being evil. There have been no innocents targeted by her since her release from Geb’s enslavement.

Sorshen however has no excuse in my mind. Just because she avoids atrocity now doesn’t mean she has atoned for the evil she willfully chose for hundreds of years prior to Earthfall. Arazni was an undead puppet that still bore intellect and a soul. Sorshen was a tyrant who did what she did to maintain her own authority, immortality, and intemperance.

I got nothing against lust per se (it’s not a sin in my worldview) but she maintained said lust via her own subjects’ servitude, death and constant subjection to violence. Her character furthermore hasn’t much changed, and you bet she’d continue on in a world absent of heroes.

The work of ending the runelords’ reign remains unfinished.

[Elric200]

James do Gods still have alignments since Player character do not? It seems to me that gods are beyond alignments. Good and evil yes ut the rest no.

[PossibleCabbage]

The notion of "good" and "evil" that exists in Pathfinder is mostly diagetic these days.

Like people on Golarion can point to Urgathoa and say "she condones cannibalism and the spreading of disease, she is evil." People can point to Desna and say "she encourages travelers to help each other out, and for everyone to keep the routes safe and free, she's good." Then you can point at Gozreh and say "the wind and the waves don't really care about people or outcomes, they just are, so they're neither good nor evil."

Arazni not being evil anymore mostly points to how she's not especially kind, she doesn't actually want to promote bad outcomes for anybody who doesn't have it coming.

[Set]

James Jacobs wrote:

Set wrote:

What intrigued me about Arazni originally was that, A) she was described as a mummy, in a genre that, historically, tends to be lich-centric (Vecna, Asberdies, Acerak, Szass Tam, etc.), and B) she was described as a wizard *who had an order of knights devoted to her.*

This was a lore error introduced into a book much later after Arazni's first introduction in book 2 of Rise of the Runelords, where she and Socorro were depicted in stained-glass windows in the observatory of Foxglove Manor as Golarion's second- and third-named liches (after Tar-Baphon).

Since then, the distinction between her being a mummy and lich remained a bit entangled, but she has always been intended to be a lich until more recent events saw her escape that fate.

Cool, Rise of the Runelords happens to be the one AP I don't have (yet), so I missed out on that!

I liked the mummy idea because, among other reasons, it just flowed for me that an Osironi necromancer would make a mummy queen, instead of a lich.

But lich is also cool. No reason for Tar-Baphon to be the only one! (And I do like the notion that there's not just one-size-fits-all 'drink this potion made from vampire and werewolf bits and die' formula for lichdom, that different liches come to that state through unique catalysts, sort of like becoming Mythic.)

[James Jacobs]

Elric200 wrote:

James do Gods still have alignments since Player character do not? It seems to me that gods are beyond alignments. Good and evil yes ut the rest no.

The use of alignments here was to speak in OGL terms about the plans for Arazni, which were put in place before we had to scramble to do the remaster.

In the remastered game, the gods don't have alignments. Nothing does. That's OGL stuff we don't use anymore. But the concepts of good and evil and chaos and law and neutrality still exist.

[Arkat]

James Jacobs wrote:

But the concepts of good and evil and chaos and law and neutrality still exist.

But PCs and NPCs no longer identify with these concepts or at least they're no longer expressed on their character sheets/stat blocks?

This is probably the biggest reason I will never play PF2 Remastered.

Changing the OGL Alignment system in some ways so as to no longer fall under it is one thing, but doing away with Alignment altogether went too far in my opinion.

Having only five Alignments (Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral) in Pathfinder would have been better than having no alignments. Heck, just having Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral alignments or just having Good, Evil, and Neutral alignments would have been better.

I know this is all too late for the Remastered Edition, but I hope to see a change back to at least an altered alignment system being included in further editions of the game.

I realize much of this alignment issue was probably already covered a couple of years ago, but I wasn't really participating on the Paizo forums then and I just needed to vent my displeasure at the alignment changes for the Remastered edition.

Sorry if my post was not germane to this thread.

[The Raven Black]

Arkat wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

But the concepts of good and evil and chaos and law and neutrality still exist.

But PCs and NPCs no longer identify with these concepts or at least they're no longer expressed on their character sheets/stat blocks?

This is probably the biggest reason I will never play PF2 Remastered.

Changing the OGL Alignment system in some ways so as to no longer fall under it is one thing, but doing away with Alignment altogether went too far in my opinion.

Having only five Alignments (Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral) in Pathfinder would have been better than having no alignments. Heck, just having Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral alignments or just having Good, Evil, and Neutral alignments would have been better.

Actually we have a version of the last in Holy, Unholy and not sanctified.

[PossibleCabbage]

One of the reasons that PCs (creatures, gods, etc.) do not have alignment is that one is the summation of all of their actions, beliefs, history, etc. Every person on Golarion has committed a variety of good acts, evil acts, and mostly acts that are neither. The complete accounting of "whether or not that makes them a good/bad person" is not done in real time, it's done at the end when Pharasma judges you.

Like "you've picked sides in the cosmic battle" is represented by Holy/Unholy sanctification. Stuff you deeply believe is represented by Edicts and Anathema. But "whether you're good or not" is no longer something you write on your character sheet, in part because the individual is not the person who chooses "I am good."

[Cori Marie]

Just because there's no mechanical rule for it, doesn't mean that can't impact how your character identifies. Good and evil, chaos and order are all still very much things that influence character motives and personalities.

[Miraklu]

I am sure we will find ways to argue over alignments even if the alignments got removed.

On a more serious note, Arazni definitly fits the CN section of the Alignment. But to not even go deep into what that means, it is a strong contrast to her past. Lawful good or Lawful neutral, she has been essentially completly broken. Whatever she was before, is gone. She has been killed, remade, repurposed and is now free.

That I do get behind, my complaint was more on how excessive it seemed and how I lacked details explaining why certain things happend. I do have now a bit more clues to explain certain parts so the critic on my front has lessend, now it is more of an observation.

But Arazni definitly has taken a journey from Mortal, to Herald, to Dead, to Undead, to Deity.