Brothers and Sisters from near and far I come to you once more seeking your wisdom and answer to a question.
Given what has been written in the lore about the Laws of Mortality and the fact that every mortal soul is judged by Pharasma: how would a follower of the Laws of Mortality reconcile the fact that in the end they are still subject to the whims of a deity?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a player with a monk who follows the Laws of Mortality, she would just shrug and say, ‘arguing that we should give up our freedom from capricious gods now because we’re all going to be judged by them later hasn’t convinced me. Why should I give up my freedom now if the end result is going to be the same regardless of what I do?’
Thank you all! And Cori I will give the two mentioned books a read!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gods, too, are mortal if you hit them hard enough.
Gods, too, are mortal if you hit them hard enough.
Yeah, but how often do deities die?
Oh, wait...Makes me wonder how they feel about this process?
Or maybe their afterlife differs being as they're already part of the planes? Hmm.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, I don't worship any of the judges in my city. Someone having power and exerting it upon you does not make them worthy of worship or adoration. Frankly, I'd argue that the opposite is true.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is a special place in the Boneyard set aside for the souls of those who, like adherents to the Laws of Mortality, reject the gods' authority as a whole. It's basically going to sleep after death.
Pharasma's judgement is probably one of the major grievances of the Laws of Mortality because of how it impacts people in life. Even with the exception carved out, it's a massive cosmic interference by the gods in the actions of mortals, a thumb on the scales. Act a certain way, worship a certain god, do various deeds in life, and get some desired afterlife.
The Laws of Mortality don't deny the power of the gods, including Pharasma. That can't be helped, but the Laws of Mortality say that one shouldn't be swayed by that power and instead live one's own life.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
That would be respecting the laws of non-mortality though.
That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.
|
Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
Re: Duskwalkers
Pharasma does resurrect people. Just very occasionally.
Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.There is no need to bring back anything just leave the dead spirits in Rahadoum after all they did not consent to have their souls taken.
Eh at least their souls are not being stuck in a wall to scream for all eternity. Honestly being given the choice of being judged and going on or choosing not to and just sleeping in the boneyard until creation ends seems a pretty reasonable option. It is not like the people in rahadoum don't understands gods literally exist in that setting. They understand when they die something is going to happen and having the choice to simply have an eternal rest seems like no bad thing.
Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.There is no need to bring back anything just leave the dead spirits in Rahadoum after all they did not consent to have their souls taken.
That's just a function of the architecture running the universe and planes. Psychopomps aren't going out and hand-collecting all the souls. Once there is a decision to make, Pharasma makes the decision to respect their conviction.
She sometimes does send people home as a duskwalker. I always liked the ironic use of these guys. To keep the balance of life and death, Pharasma bends the rules a bit sometimes.
Well, specifically there are many examples in the setting of people who get reincarnated, and spirits that linger on (to guide their people, say) before being judged. Paizo will never drill down on "what makes a petitioner go back or linger" because this is also a game and you don't want players trying to optimize their character's deaths.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
She sometimes does send people home as a duskwalker. I always liked the ironic use of these guys. To keep the balance of life and death, Pharasma bends the rules a bit sometimes.Well, specifically there are many examples in the setting of people who get reincarnated, and spirits that linger on (to guide their people, say) before being judged. Paizo will never drill down on "what makes a petitioner to back or linger" because this is also a game and you don't want players trying to optimize their character's deaths.
Also from a narrative perspective having defined rules creates a whole can of worms.
That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
What do you think that actually means?
Someone dies, and so they should be retuned to life because they don't respect deities?Like I'm on board with the concept that the powerful beings frequently referred to as deities aren't really gods, just beings of much greater power than mortals, and that does not inherently make them worthy of worship. I'm even on board that that doesn't give them the authority to choose how a soul spends its afterlife.
But I'm not on board with that soul returning to life. "Allowing them to return home" is basically on the table according to previous posters (it's new info to me). You can either wait out eternity in a quite spot of the boneyard, or potentially allow yourself to be absorbed into the essence of one of the planes. That's about as "return home" as you get. The only other option as I see it is "soul is discorporated into the primal pieces/energy that powers the positive energy plane*". And if I recall correctly, that is what already happens with petitioners, they slowly meld into the plane they're on and return their essence back to the source.
*I believe positive energy plane is where souls come from, but I could be wrong on that.
The dissolution of all reality I think. Eventually anyways. The planes are made of soul stuff and without order to them, they'll fall to the maelstrom.
I believe that's pretty much the case. As best as we understand, the souls of mortals, more specifically their cycle through the planes keeps reality from collapsing on itself. Or at least we know after the last mortal soul is judged, reality will collapse in on itself.
My understanding is that soul/petitioners eventually discorporate and their essence moves back to the positive plane, where new souls are created. However, their is entropy. And slowly stuff is leaked into the maelstrom/nothingness.
I believe it's cannon that Pharasma knows this incarnation of reality is flawed and doomed, she knew it from the moment she created/crafted it. But she has trained a successor to start the next instance of reality.
Also from a narrative perspective having defined rules creates a whole can of worms.
It used to be that the diagetic justification for "Pharasma will let a petitioner hang around in the waiting room for ten thousand years" is because she was quasi-omniscient and knew whether or not some group of heroes would need to talk to (or resurrect) that individual ten thousand years from now. But now the Omens are Lost so she can't do that reliably, but since the whole system was used to that sort of thing happening for eons, there's not like a docket where we need to shuttle people into the courtroom at a good pace.
After all, since the resurrection ritual includes "if the target doesn't want to return, the ritual fails" you can let people face Pharasma's judgement at whatever pace they prefer.
Also from a narrative perspective having defined rules creates a whole can of worms.She sometimes does send people home as a duskwalker. I always liked the ironic use of these guys. To keep the balance of life and death, Pharasma bends the rules a bit sometimes.Well, specifically there are many examples in the setting of people who get reincarnated, and spirits that linger on (to guide their people, say) before being judged. Paizo will never drill down on "what makes a petitioner to back or linger" because this is also a game and you don't want players trying to optimize their character's deaths.
Yep. Paizo's drawing on lore from many Earth religions as well as fantasy tropes, and if examined with rigor the system's incongruities and outright contradictions would surface, with no benefit to the narrative. So one AP might lean into one facet that conflicts with another AP that conflicts with a third, with all being "true" as in they serve their AP's narratives. It'd be hard to get all devs to commit to one anyway, much less all audiences, so best to leave it a hodgepodge w/ practical interpretations GMs can pick and choose from while retaining a Golarion vibe.
I quite like the idea that judgement on only actually happens when the soul/petitioner is ready for it. Like yes there's a line...but your spot in line doesn't really mean anything, because people get called forward or told to wait all the time.
I quite like the idea that judgement on only actually happens when the soul/petitioner is ready for it. Like yes there's a line...but your spot in line doesn't really mean anything, because people get called forward or told to wait all the time.
I think I remember reading that a lot of Pharasma's underlings rule on some of the real clear cut cases too. So it's not like the system isn't set up to go real fast or real slow. There's probably technically a small amount of soulstuff in like "grass" so there's probably a team who just handles those cases really efficiently.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
That honestly seems way too contradictory to be canon.
There's no way that petitioners who don't like where they might end up are allowed to stay in the boneyard.
That single attempt at a white-washing adjacent "She's not that much of a cosmic tyrant you guys! You can sit there forever if you want!"
completely breaks the notion of unwilling afterlives, including by means of contracts made in life. It's also completely hollow if the petitioners are kept imprisoned inside the boneyard instead of being allowed to leave it for other planes.
Even without it contradicting what we know, it's very much a "it's not so bad, instead of being dragged, you get to tie yourself to the electric chair!" type defense.
.
A tiny remembered factoid about Apollyon contracts this "permission" completely. "His greatest creations have been diseases that corrupt the soul itself, ensuring that Pharasma sends his victims to Abaddon once they’ve succumbed."
Basically, he can taint the soul so that if were sent to an afterlife, it would harm/corrupt it instead of empowering it. Phar can't even keep them in the boneyard else she'd damage that, so she sends them to the one place she does not feed souls to empower, Abaddon.
.
As soon as Phar & co allow themselves exceptions to this "Petitioners can stay" rule to trump the person's agency, that means the petitioners will end up dragged into an afterlife with fewer and flimsier justifications, until in practice 0 petitioners are able to actually invoke this "I'd rather rot in the boneyard" case.
"Sorry, but you swore that you'd kill all demons over your mug one night. That was a binding oath to enlist you in the holy war."
.
I mean, we are talking about Pharasma here. A god that kept a prophecy on every mortal so that she could hunt down any that so much as outlived the death that was "supposed" to happen.
.
A more full-featured contradiction is with the entire Spiral of Bones comic (that I think is still on Humble Bundle). The whole plot hinges on an iconic being forced into an afterlife trial with no time to delay to so much as learn how to effectively advocate for himself. If he were allowed to stay in the Boneyard by his own will, the whole comic would have been different.
I quite like the idea that judgement on only actually happens when the soul/petitioner is ready for it. Like yes there's a line...but your spot in line doesn't really mean anything, because people get called forward or told to wait all the time.I think I remember reading that a lot of Pharasma's underlings rule on some of the real clear cut cases too. So it's not like the system isn't set up to go real fast or real slow. There's probably technically a small amount of soulstuff in like "grass" so there's probably a team who just handles those cases really efficiently.
That is a hilarious concept to me, but I love it. Like there's a probably a little soul juice in everything, but anything that isn't sentient probably has it's own division that cover stuff like trees, plants, rocks, etc. There's probably a division for things we would call sentient but possibly lacking sapience (think insects and animals, although animals is a spectrum for sapience). And then you have division for more sapient creature, but not quite humanoid level. And then a huge division to cover the quagmire of humanoid level sapient creatures and all their issues.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
That honestly seems way too contradictory to be canon.
There's no way that petitioners who don't like where they might end up are allowed to stay in the boneyard.
That single attempt at a white-washing adjacent "She's not that much of a cosmic tyrant you guys! You can sit there forever if you want!"
completely breaks the notion of unwilling afterlives, including by means of contracts made in life. It's also completely hollow if the petitioners are kept imprisoned inside the boneyard instead of being allowed to leave it for other planes.
Even without it contradicting what we know, it's very much a "it's not so bad, instead of being dragged, you get to tie yourself to the electric chair!" type defense.
.
A tiny remembered factoid about Apollyon contracts this "permission" completely. "His greatest creations have been diseases that corrupt the soul itself, ensuring that Pharasma sends his victims to Abaddon once they’ve succumbed."
Basically, he can taint the soul so that if were sent to an afterlife, it would harm/corrupt it instead of empowering it. Phar can't even keep them in the boneyard else she'd damage that, so she sends them to the one place she does not feed souls to empower, Abaddon.
.
As soon as Phar & co have exceptions to this "Petitioners can stay if choose" rule, that means the petitioners will end up forced against their will into an afterlife with fewer and fewer justifications, until in practice 0 petitioners are able to actually invoke the "I'd rather rot in the boneyard" case.
"Sorry, but you once swore that you'd kill all demons over your mug one night....
I think you've taken the statement out of context.
I don't think it was meant as "everyone gets to choose". I think it means people who were devout followers of a philosophy like the Morality of Man would be offered choices.
I don't think it's a scenario where you could, during your mortal life pledge loyalty to dark and evil gods, and do unspeakable evil in their name, in then in the last minutes of your life recant and say you seen the light with no real moral or philosophical change happening to you. I think Pharasma is able to see through people's BS to see their real soul/morality/philsophy. That's why shes the judge. The guy who realizes he's afterlife is literally Hell doesn't get to recant that just because he realized he's about to die and experience a very unpleasant new reality.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So the tyrannical ruler who lays claim to literally every mortal soul, and who will violently and lethally attack fleeing petitioners, is the same entity responsible for setting the determination as to what counts as "devoted enough" to the Laws of Mortality to be granted the completely hollow privilege of rotting in her prison.
Gotcha.
Yup, in that case, it earns Phar's system a total of zero "is just" points.
.
Again, I think that bizarre attempt to downplay Phar's tyranny both has no real "teeth" to the "gracious allowance" the rule would provide, while causing waaay too many problems/contradictions with the existing lore to actually function/exist in the Boneyard we know.
Don't want your soul to go to the abyss after all that impulsive cannibalism? Just spurn the help of the gods and commit all those heinous acts of violence yourself! Who knew avoiding damnation was that easy, wow.
|
Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.
You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.
Re: Duskwalkers
Pharasma does resurrect people. Just very occasionally.
Yeah, and the resurrected Rahadoumi's reaction is, at least in the one textual example we have, genuine horror and disgust.
Don't want your soul to go to the abyss after all that impulsive cannibalism? Just spurn the help of the gods and commit all those heinous acts of violence yourself! Who knew avoiding damnation was that easy, wow.
The thing that I think you're really missing is that in Pathfinder there's no continuity of identity or memory after your soul-stuff gets sent off to another plane. You don't go to Hell to be tortured, you just become some of the quintessence out of which Hell is built, and there's no really a "you" in any meaningful sense anymore. You're not a soul that devils will torture so much as "you're part of the available material from which everything in hell, including Devils, is made out of." There might be a Devil someday down the line that's made out of essence that was once part of you, but that Devil is not you.
Like the point of mortal life in the cosmos is to sort the energy that pours out of creation's forge and use it to reinforce the outer planes against the maelstrom's influence to render everything into undifferentiated potentiality. Pharasma's less "a Tyrant that sends you to some eternal punishment" and more "in charge of managing the Universe's wastewater." Things die, their soul-stuff will float down the river of souls to the reservoir at the Boneyard, where she processes it and sends it off to where it belongs, or at least where it can do some good/less harm.
Black holes are also fundamentally tied to the laws of reality, dreadfully powerful, and their influence is physically unavoidable but they have the good taste to not demand worship and obeisance from mortals.
|
|
Don't want your soul to go to the abyss after all that impulsive cannibalism? Just spurn the help of the gods and commit all those heinous acts of violence yourself! Who knew avoiding damnation was that easy, wow.The thing that I think you're really missing is that in Pathfinder there's no continuity of identity or memory after your soul-stuff gets sent off to another plane. You don't go to Hell to be tortured, you just become some of the quintessence out of which Hell is built, and there's no really a "you" in any meaningful sense anymore. You're not a soul that devils will torture so much as "you're part of the available material from which everything in hell, including Devils, is made out of." There might be a Devil someday down the line that's made out of essence that was once part of you, but that Devil is not you.
Like the point of mortal life in the cosmos is to sort the energy that pours out of creation's forge and use it to reinforce the outer planes against the maelstrom's influence to render everything into undifferentiated potentiality. Pharasma's less "a Tyrant that sends you to some eternal punishment" and more "in charge of managing the Universe's wastewater." Things die, their soul-stuff will float down the river of souls to the reservoir at the Boneyard, where she processes it and sends it off to where it belongs, or at least where it can do some good/less harm.
I'm pretty sure Hell still does a lot of torturing of petitioners. That's how devils are created. Petitioners still exist as "individuals" at least for a while before their essence is absorbed into their plane. From what I understand that's how it is for the rest of the planes too. In places like Elysium, you can choose to retain much of your original identity too I believe.
I'm pretty sure Hell still does a lot of torturing of petitioners. That's how devils are created. Petitioners still exist as "individuals" at least for a while before their essence is absorbed into their plane. From what I understand that's how it is for the rest of the planes too. In places like Elysium, you can choose to retain much of your original identity too I believe.
It's my understanding that individuals who get tortured in Hell in the afterlife are those who end up there because Hell has a contractual claim on them, which is a different process than going through Pharasma's judgment.
It's been a while since I read Planar Adventures (my copy moved to a different state) but my recollection is that only truly exceptional souls maintain any "sense-of-self" after judgement. Some souls will become building-blocks that will eventually become some kind of outsider, who might have visions of a past life, but they don't necessarily feel any commonality with that person.
|
|
I'm pretty sure Hell still does a lot of torturing of petitioners. That's how devils are created. Petitioners still exist as "individuals" at least for a while before their essence is absorbed into their plane. From what I understand that's how it is for the rest of the planes too. In places like Elysium, you can choose to retain much of your original identity too I believe.It's my understanding that individuals who get tortured in Hell in the afterlife are those who end up there because Hell has a contractual claim on them, which is a different process than going through Pharasma's judgment.
It's been a while since I read Planar Adventures (my copy moved to a different state) but my recollection is that only truly exceptional souls maintain any "sense-of-self" after judgement. Some souls will become building-blocks that will eventually become some kind of outsider, who might have visions of a past life, but they don't necessarily feel any commonality with that person.
Yeah eventually souls will meld into the essence of their plane but there's a process to it. Like heaven has you climb a mountain and even after that, it's a while before petitioners are chosen to become Archons. The "self" is lost over time. Faster in some places, slower in others. Hell might just be very quickly. Ordered evil and tyranny tend to be the ideological enemy of free will and individualism whereas in Elysium, those metaphysical concepts are the very foundations of the plane so it makes sense for their petitioners to embody them.
So the tyrannical ruler who lays claim to literally every mortal soul, and who will violently and lethally attack fleeing petitioners, is the same entity responsible for setting the determination as to what counts as "devoted enough" to the Laws of Mortality to be granted the completely hollow privilege of rotting in her prison.
Gotcha.
Yup, in that case, it earns Phar's system a total of zero "is just" points.
.
Again, I think that bizarre attempt to downplay Phar's tyranny both has no real "teeth" to the "gracious allowance" the rule would provide, while causing waaay too many problems/contradictions with the existing lore to actually function/exist in the Boneyard we know.
Don't want your soul to go to the abyss after all that impulsive cannibalism? Just spurn the help of the gods and commit all those heinous acts of violence yourself! Who knew avoiding damnation was that easy, wow.
Guess I should have included the disclaimer after all.
"Not that it could be used as a get-out-of-judgement-free card, since having a greater dedication to something like committing heinous acts of violence would still end up the basis for judgement".
Black holes are also fundamentally tied to the laws of reality, dreadfully powerful, and their influence is physically unavoidable but they have the good taste to not demand worship and obeisance from mortals.I think one of the new gods that were added post Godsrain is a sentient black hole lol
There's always a black sheep in the family... wait.
There's no sense in which the universe only exists because Pharasma manages it. It's just that she was there first, and set up the system to head off the catastrophe that undid the last universe she came from. It's because of this that every other God views her as a trustworthy neutral arbiter.
If she shuffled off this immortal coil, the system would still run pretty well, it's just that you'd get other Gods trying to bully her successor in ways that nobody bothers to try on Pharasma. Like if Asmodeus and Abadar disagree on the destination of a soul, they will defer to Pharasma's judgement and the dispute will end peacefully, a thing that wouldn't necessarily happen with a less tenured judge renowned for her impartiality.
|
|
I think there's some gods who don't see her as an ally. I imagine someone like Groteus hates her guts quite a lot, although it's hard to pin down his goals exactly. If he wants existence to end, it makes sense for him to be aligned against Pharasma.
Maybe rovugug and the aforementioned sentient black hole too. Anyone who advocates for the complete destruction of all things.
I don't recall if there exists deities within the maelstrom but those guys too
As far as I know, Pharasma literally invented the concept of mortals (and mundane, non-soul matter itself) to eat/use their souls, which is why the fae of the first world getting to ~reincarnate on the spot, and *not* getting sucked into the river of souls upon death was seen as a failure.
Yes, the ongoing status quo could continue without Pharasma for a while, but the entire recognizable universe is built upon planes and gods using the net-positive energy harvest of mortal soul-growth. Without Pharasma and her invention of "mortals as fuel", whatever *would* be there without her, it would be completely alien and unrecognizable.
And the only factions that don't bend the knee to her are the Daemons and maybe the Maelstrom. Devils and even Demons obey her commandments in exchange for being fed mortal souls.
Pharasma very much indisputably rules the universe as a singular tyrant to a degree I have never seen in another fictional setting. It's honestly impressive that it holds up that well without sounding implausible/ridiculous. She just has that much leverage over all the outsiders who are stuck in a forever arms race.
If one side decides to do the right thing and give mortals more agency, that could reduce their soul intake and they'll fall behind the rising demon tide, etc.
Where does this "Groetus hates Pharasma" idea come from? Groetus literally works for Pharasma- he's part of her org chart. His job is literally "sweep up and turn off the lights for this universe once the Survivor leaves to make the next one."
Nobody in the Maelstrom has any reason to hate Pharasma, because Pharasma's whole system is an acknowledgement that the Maelstrom has won, it's just a matter of time until their victory is complete.
Rovagug hating you is just proof that you exist.