Laws of Mortality and Pharasma

[R3st8]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

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'm not arguing about this from a lore perspective, but from a design perspective. Creating gods or outsiders like Pharasma, the Mantis God, and axiomites to control player behavior is a design decision that I oppose. These characters were clearly created to enforce the will of the writer: 'I don't like undead? Here's Pharasma.' 'I don't like players seeking godhood? Here's the Mantis.' And so on—'I don't like [something else]? Here are the inevitables.

From a design perspective, I dislike how these characters force players to behave in certain ways by serving as counter-characters designed to punish them. This is why, in every game I GM, one of my first actions is to have all these characters mysteriously disappear because I'm opposed to this design choice.

[PossibleCabbage]

Gods are characters, and thus they're allowed to have preferences, even strong ones. But Gods don't have that much input on the material universe. Like sure, Pharasma hates undead and doesn't want you to become a vampire, but she's not in any position to do anything about it. It's not like Zon-Kuthon goes around turning off the lights, or Milani has been able to do away with oppressive government. You can destroy so much art and Shelyn can't do a thing about it.

The preferences of these deities exist to frame their role in stories, not to constrict player agency. If your GM is throwing Achaekek at you because you want to take the Test of the Starstone, that's a GM problem not a setting problem.

[moosher12]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

The preferences of these deities exist to frame their role in stories, not to constrict player agency. If your GM is throwing Achaekek at you because you want to take the Test of the Starstone, that's a GM problem not a setting problem.

Granted, there'd be a lot less corpses surrounding the starstone if it was without mythic challenge.

[moosher12]

Also Trip, I think you forgot the cold war situation that gods don't get to actually directly act near as much as they would like to. They can have their servants act in their interests, but they usually cannot act beyond that, as it tends to result in battles that are much more destructive than intended.

If Pharasma was that much of a hardbutt about reinforcing the no-undead rule, Tar Baphon would have ceased a long time ago, as would Geb. And, really any lich. Undead really would not be a thing. Because as much as Pharasma would like to, her hands are tied, especially as unholy forces would be willing to team up against her over it.

Now what I'm more curious is is what story led to Pharasma defiling your Cheerios. Because your hatred for her is so passionate it's frankly fascinating.

As for the boneyard it's frankly pretty cushy. Go to hell, you gotta work for Asmodeus. Go to heaven, you gotta work for the gods of the greater good. Most every aligned plane will expect you to abide by a certain creed once you enter. Boneyard is the only one that says you don't have to adhere to the will of another god for entry, nor will you be press-ganged to service as a psychopomp eventually for being in the boneyard. Seems as good a deal for an athiest as you can get. Heaven, Nirvana and Elysium are nice, but they come with expectations that might put Rahadoumi athiests off when their petitioners are eventually put to use in the very holy wars they despise.

[Powers128]

moosher12 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

The preferences of these deities exist to frame their role in stories, not to constrict player agency. If your GM is throwing Achaekek at you because you want to take the Test of the Starstone, that's a GM problem not a setting problem.

Granted, there'd be a lot less corpses surrounding the starstone if it was without mythic challenge.

Yeah I feel like the starstone kinda takes care of acharekek's job 99 percent of the time anyways if he cares at all about the starstone.

[Powers128]

You know, with our omens lost, and our prophecies broken, maybe certain sects of pharasmins have become desperate in their attempts at cosmic order.

A whispered half prophecy of the deaths of a party sounds like an awesome campaign with pharasmin extremists as the baddies.

[Claxon]

Trip.H wrote:

Claxon wrote:

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.

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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.

You can spin it negatively in whatever way you like.

If you want to take a negative view in it, I'm not going to try hard to convince you otherwise.

The cycle of souls keeps the universe running. You could argue that Pharasma failed when she created this instance of reality by having such a flaw, and she would probably agree with you. She did the best she could with what she had available to her at the time, I think.

In any event, that whole cycle of souls is why she gets upset when entities try to subvert it. Because they are accelerating the collapse of reality.

So yeah, I expect her to try to stop people from doing that. That's why she hates undead.

Also, she doesn't "lay claim" to every mortal soul. She ensures the souls continue on the journey that they normally should, as part of making sure everything continues existing. Pharasma is only one deity. Plenty of other deities and moralities lay claim to mortal souls besides her.

Ultimately, you can think and feel about whatever you like.

The other thing, as some other poster mentioned, gods don't get as directly involved as they would like to, because other gods typically oppose whatever they might do, and the potential of god on god violence doesn't end well, with huge ramifications to reality.

So yes, Pharasma might want to go and lead a crusade against undead. But there are several deities who would oppose her on it. It's kind of giant stalemate between deities, with them having to act using intermediaries, especially allied mortals to accomplish their goals.

[exequiel759]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

This is not "against player agency" it's a meta-commentary on how any story that predates the influence of Player Characters is entirely decided by the GM.

The whole "Aroden broke prophecy" as a whole is a meta-commentary on "now begins the era in which players have influence over the world". It is an elegant, in-universe way of telling players they can change stuff about the world even if the GM didn't intend it that way. That's what usually brings the most interesting stories IMO, because even if the GM has a plan for a PC nobody other than the player themselves know their character better.

It even leads to something that's interesting too; when PCs become NPCs after a campaign finishes do they lose their grip on destiny too? In a sense, yes, since the arbiter of fate (AKA the GM) is the one responsible of them after the campaign is over, but what implications does that have in-universe? I'm not searching for an answer here, but I find this to also be an interesting hook to re-introduce a past PC in a future campaign as an NPC as someone that, regardless of what they did in the past, they are now unable to make the changes they want and that they capable of before, leading to the new PCs to make those changes on their behalf or ignore it completely.

[Trip.H]

moosher12 wrote:

[] If Pharasma was that much of a hardbutt about reinforcing the no-undead rule, Tar Baphon would have ceased a long time ago, as would Geb. And, really any lich. Undead really would not be a thing. Because as much as Pharasma would like to, her hands are tied, especially as unholy forces would be willing to team up against her over it.

Back when Pharasma had full prophecy, knowing why she would choose to act or not act was nearly impossible. That kind of future-certain foresight means that Phar could be mathematically certain that letting one undead go would result in a net negative undead in the future. If Phar left Tar Baphon alone, it's quite possible that even something like the infamy and world-wide bad reputation he gave undead and undeath such bad publicity, that it reduced future forbidden dabblers to Phar's satisfaction. It's ludicrous to suggest that Phar "approves" or is incapable of killing him. If Phar has called her agents off Tar, then that's because she thinks it is in her best interest. If she has not called off the auto-kill-order, then we should expect Tar to need to constantly defend himself against pharasman attacks.

If a god tells you what a capital punishment is, you had best believe them.

With prophecy, Phar had the certainty to know if a smite-worthy actor's life/unlife would accidentally reduce the total "death-dodgers."
We have to presume that Phar still acts with the same motivations as always. She demands the status quo with her on top persist for as long as she's capable of forcing it to. If two of her rules are in conflict, she will always pick based on how she thinks it will affect her perpetual goals.

moosher12 wrote:

Now what I'm more curious is is what story led to Pharasma defiling your Cheerios. Because your hatred for her is so passionate it's frankly fascinating.

Eh, it's mostly her being a perfect combo of many eye-rolling tropes and serious writing/setting problems, with a dash of absurd cosmic injustice to really make the flavor pop.

I've never encountered a setting where humans, and all mortal life, was explicitly designed ex-nihilo in a laboratory so that others could eat our souls, and have said tyrant be relentlessly be excused, white-washed, and "justified" by the victims of their tyrannical system.

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The only change that would actually reduce the problematic issue of all mortals being less than slaves in the eyes of Pharasma would be if mortals could at will opt out.

We know that if you pluck a petitioner from the river, they will be disoriented for a while due to the water's amnesia (Valeros only needed a minute), but after that, the mortal is perfectly stable. They could hop on a planar skiff and go anywhere, even Golarion. At that point, they don't have a mundane body, and are physiologically an outsider, the same as any angel or their god made of soul-stuff.

It's only by Pharasma's command that these escapees, and any that would give others petitioners a choice by plucking them from the river, would be hunted and killed for daring to exist outside her system.

Any mortal with a traumatic death can lead to them flopping about and dislodging from the river, and any incident of mass-death can outright overflow and leave huge numbers of souls to wake up on the shores.

There's even the angle of non-sapient animals. Presumably, mortals cultivate much much more potent souls. Which means that the "argument" for the gods eating people instead of animals is a greed one, where animals are "not enough" to sustain the type of status quo they want.

I loved that pf had a setting with an active creator god that was unambiguously the biggest bad that was so entrenched and ingrained that it seemed impossible to improve things. Really did not expect that Phar would be seen as a "good guy" god until the topic came up online.

Again, if Phar actually cared about mortal suffering, she would stop feeding devils and demons. The only reason I know that she denies daemons is because they refuse to stop fishing from "her" river of souls. Meaning, she absolutely could choose to deny other evil realms.

Unlike the negative energy excuse for undead, I know of 0 "cosmic balance" argument that "requires" her to propagate evil around the universe. She could pick a "side" in such a comically obvious moral dilemma, but she does not. Knowingly choosing to enable evil because it benefits you is literally evil, rofl.

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Phar is wonderfully consistent, with these "inconsistencies" like Daemons all being incredibly informative exceptions that prove the rule. If you don't disrupt her claim to all souls, and obey her rules, she does not care. Eat a planet full of people, and she will not lift a finger.
The greater a threat to her power on top of the pyramid she considers a faction or person, the greater resources she allocates to killing it.

That's not "neutrality," that's the textbook definition of an amoral tyrant, lol.

(It's notable that of all factions she has permanent beef with, it's Daemons. She cannot end Daemons as a concept, because mortals "naturally" can wash ashore in Abaddon and nativeize to that plane. The Maelstrom being beef(?) #2 is similarly one of the only groups she theoretically cannot destroy.)

I find it fascinating that not only can this be successfully white-washed in-universe, but that the players/fandom seem to also be susceptible to the same reputation-laundering when they participate in the setting.

[kaid]

Powers128 wrote:

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

I don't know that Groteus hates anybody. He knows in the end Pharasma will die and he will get to watch it happen. He doesn't need to do anything he is just there watching ants scurry around knowing that nothing the ants do really matters.

[PossibleCabbage]

moosher12 wrote:

Also Trip, I think you forgot the cold war situation that gods don't get to actually directly act near as much as they would like to. They can have their servants act in their interests, but they usually cannot act beyond that, as it tends to result in battles that are much more destructive than intended.

If Pharasma was that much of a hardbutt about reinforcing the no-undead rule, Tar Baphon would have ceased a long time ago, as would Geb. And, really any lich. Undead really would not be a thing. Because as much as Pharasma would like to, her hands are tied, especially as unholy forces would be willing to team up against her over it.

Yeah, the whole "Celestial detente" thing is interesting since it's unofficial (there's no "grand pact" agreed to by all the Gods), it's just a very successful ad hoc solution. Basically the problem is that when a deity intervenes directly, that provides an opportunity for all of that Deities enemies to respond in kind, but does not provoke all of that deities allies to respond to the enemy actions because they don't want to provoke even more enemies.

You reflect this in how the younger and less experienced Gods are much more directly interventionist than the older, established ones. Iomedae and Arazni are out there doing stuff, Pharasma and Asmodeus very much are not.

Pharasma's underlings who intervene are very much akin to Postal Inspectors. Almost everybody will never run afoul of them, you have to be doing something very specifically wrong to get their attention, and they are terrifying when they have you in their sights. We have canonical evidence that "unnaturally extending your own life" is not enough to bring down their full wrath, since the guy who invented the Sun Orchid Elixir made a deal with them (basically "if you limit production and don't share the formula, we won't object.")

[Claxon]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

We have canonical evidence that "unnaturally extending your own life" is not enough to bring down their full wrath, since the guy who invented the Sun Orchid Elixir made a deal with them (basically "if you limit production and don't share the formula, we won't object.")

And honestly, I view that as a compromise from the deity's side.

They're going in with a bit of a bluff "do this or else" but at the same time they're really just trying to minimize the damage the mortal might do and not wanting to invest a lot of resources into the action while also not getting the attention of other deities who might just want to mess with the first deity or might actually be interested in the specific topic.

Plenty of deities would probably be interested that could make their mortal allies effectively live forever. So having that would be useful and draw attention. But Pharasma saying "I won't go after you so long as you keep this a very small operation" lets other interested parties kind of have an option to get what they want without having to directly battle Pharasma's forces. To me it's very Cold War-esq with mostly everyone looking to avoid actual nuclear annihilation, because "hey, reality is where I keep my toys".

[Trip.H]

We also have direct evidence there are entire species of outsider doing nothing but pursuing and killing mortals for the "heinous crime" of extending their lives.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=538

Quote:

A marut is tasked with hunting mortals who cheat death by artificially extending their lifespans. This includes those who seek undeath, such as liches and vampires, but also includes those who use powerful magic to cling to their youth, use divination to discover and avoid an appointed death, or call too often on the power of resurrection. Once the marut has selected its target, the inevitable pursues its quarry without surcease or deviation until either it or the target is dead.

These guys are L15, with divination, plane shift, dispel magic, dimension door, etc. They are literally designed to be relentless and efficient hunter-killers that exist for the sake of this job.

As soon as a Marut finishes one kill, it will get a new target, and then hunt that one to the death.

If you don't willfully ignore things like this, the setting is very hostile to acts/desires that most PCs will have.

We don't know why Artokus is given a pass/still alive. Because of how prophecy works, he could have "been supposed to" discover the elixir and extend his own life. While the undead taboo is black and white, and knowable to outside observers, the issue with cheating "an appointed death" is that all other means of life extension can be god-planned or approved. No mortal has the means to know if they have cheated their death. Which also means that any clerics have to take kill orders from above on faith.

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It's also possible there is an explicit reason / deal that Artokus has made with Pharasmans. For all we know, Phar's agents use Artokus's elixir as a honey pot trap, following the elixirs to mortals who try to cheat death, and then they "make sure" that Artokus' *buyers* die at their appointed time.

We simply do not know.

Which is why none of the individual cases meaningfully conflict/dispel the core systemic problem here. The scale of Phar's view is so wide that entire planets of people get eaten on the regular.

The setting having a such blank check to "rightfully kill" any person for "outliving their appointed death" is completely nutso crazy with tyrannical implications.

IDK much on this topic, but the "cold war" about god influence on golarion seems to be an exception for that one planet due to Rovagug, which explicitly makes this systemic tyranny that much worse.

If there was no "ants living atop an atom bomb" complication for Pharasma, who knows how much worse things would be for mortals, and how many more Maruts would be stomping around, wrecking things and killing others who block their path to their set target.

[PossibleCabbage]

IIRC, the specific thing about the Sun-Orchid elixir is not that it makes you immortal, but that it undoes the effects of aging. So if you win the auction, you might buy yourself another 80 years of life, but then in 80 years you need to either accept death or somehow get your hands on more.

That's why "limiting production" is something that does work for Pharasma's people since obviously they don't object to steps mortals take to prolong their lives, a psychopomp isn't going to come hassle you because you're eating healthy and getting plenty of exercise after all.

[Pronate11]

Trip.H wrote:

We also have direct evidence there are entire species of outsider doing nothing but pursuing and killing mortals for the "heinous crime" of extending their lives.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=538

Quote:

A marut is tasked with hunting mortals who cheat death by artificially extending their lifespans. This includes those who seek undeath, such as liches and vampires, but also includes those who use powerful magic to cling to their youth, use divination to discover and avoid an appointed death, or call too often on the power of resurrection. Once the marut has selected its target, the inevitable pursues its quarry without surcease or deviation until either it or the target is dead.

These guys are L15, with divination, plane shift, dispel magic, dimension door, etc. They are literally designed to be relentless and efficient hunter-killers that exist for the sake of this job.

As soon as a Marut finishes one kill, it will get a new target, and then hunt that one to the death.

And they don't seem to be connected to Pharasma. Someone else doing things that Pharasma did not ask for is not a criticism of Pharasma, but of the Aeons.

[PossibleCabbage]

Pronate11 wrote:

And they don't seem to be connected to Pharasma. Someone else doing things that Pharasma did not ask for is not a criticism of Pharasma, but of the Aeons.

Yeah, Inevitables are machines native to Axis who fight an endless war against the forces of the Maelstrom. They are the mirror to Proteans in that they are the "big guns" of each side. If there's an inevitable specifically obsessed with something, it's probably because a Protean once did something to make that thing not work how it's supposed to.

None of this has anything to do with Pharasma. Artokus's caseworker is a Morrigna, which is the kind of Psychopomp you would encounter as an actual living human. The majority of the scarier ones are posted along the River of Souls to make sure nothing is dipping into it in order to harvest souls for their own purposes.

[Agonarchy]

Real mythology is generally deeply unsatisfying from a humanist or similar ethical standpoint, so it's only natural for RPGs to represent the same. This is one of the reasons removing alignment is extremely valuable - it prevents the game rules from contradicting what the text says, and opens up a lot more natural conflicts. A truly just universe is unlikely to need heroes who defy even the gods.

[PossibleCabbage]

"Monitor" is the grouping term for neutral outsiders, it's analogous to "Angel" and "Fiend" in that way. An Inevitable has as much to do with a Psychopomp as a Succubus has to do with a Phistophilus or a Hound Archon has to do with a Passion Azata.

I don't see how "Psychopomps generally don't get involved, but might on a case to case basis" suggests anything nefarious. The bestiary entries for various creatures generally phrase the thing in terms of "how it might come into conflict with the PCs." Like the entry for "Grizzly Bear" is not an accurate portrayal of how bears act in the wild, since bears very much do not go around looking for fights!

[Pronate11]

Trip.H wrote:

Monitor trait wrote:

Creatures that hail from or have a strong connection to Axis, the Boneyard, or the Maelstrom are called monitors. Monitors can survive the basic environmental effects of planes in the Outer Sphere.

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Psychopomp Allies wrote:

The mandate of marut inevitables is similar to that of psychopomps. Generally, the practical psychopomps are content to let an unyielding marut complete its mission and swoop in afterward to ensure the work has been done, but occasionally, they may work together.

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This is exactly the kind of willful blindness I'm talking about. For whatever reason, when it comes to Pharasma, people will somehow completely ignore the text in front of them if it makes her order look bad, lol.

You did read that most just let them be, and only occasionally help, presumably in classes like undeath and not in cases that pharasma is fine with. Also, the psychopomps have autonomy, and do not inherently reflect the will of pharasma. Also why did you bring up the definition of monitor? I would not blame asmodius for something a daemon does, even though they are both fiends.

Edit, as I did not see your edit. Extending your life is not thwarting death. She like literally lets resurrection magic work. Per the spells themselves, she can just stop them if she wants, but they clearly work most of the time.

[Claxon]

Guys, just let Trip.H have his view of the Golariverse, and we have ours. In all likelihood we all have inconsistency that we've noticed that bother us.

It's not worthwhile in my estimate to keep trying to convince someone about this topic.

Trying to convince someone who is a gnostic theist/atheiest to the opposite position isn't something that has a good track record of working, and this is similar (if much less real).

[Trip.H]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

"Monitor" is the grouping term for neutral outsiders, it's analogous to "Angel" and "Fiend" in that way. An Inevitable has as much to do with a Psychopomp as a Succubus has to do with a Phistophilus or a Hound Archon has to do with a Passion Azata.

I don't see how "Psychopomps generally don't get involved, but might on a case to case basis" suggests anything nefarious. The bestiary entries for various creatures generally phrase the thing in terms of "how it might come into conflict with the PCs." Like the entry for "Grizzly Bear" is not an accurate portrayal of how bears act in the wild, since bears very much do not go around looking for fights!

A sticky problem with setting up a god to be a systemic tyrant is that they become entangled in the acts of their supplicants.

Phar has devils and angles alike policing the river to repel any who would approach / interfere with it.

Psychopomps ~"generally being content to follow behind a Marut" demonstrates that this is their normal relationship. The more rare and more direct collaboration is not the main focus there. Psychopomps being directly aware of and capitalizing on the acts of these killing machines still does reflect upon how Pharasma chooses to run things.

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Like, if the jackbooted thugs wore the colors of a private company, instead of those of the native country, we'd still put blame upon the ruling government in control, lol.

Phar directly oversees the allocation of the souls needed to sustain those planes of existence, and to manufacture those Maruts in the first place.

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And this whole Marut digression is irrelevant to the obvious fact that Phar still considers the "outlive your supposed death" as completely forbidden.

However well she's able to enforce that rule, nor the particular details about its enforcers, are relevant to if the rule exists or not.

As far as we know, it was 100% there, I've not seen any reason to think it has been rescinded just because it has become harder to enforce.

[PossibleCabbage]

But here's the thing: In the "Age of Lost Omens" absolutely nobody has a "supposed death." It says right in the Artokus entry in LO:Legends:

Quote:

“So, you’ve called us here to see if my boss has strayed out of line?” The meerkat’s tail twitched.

“Something like that. We like to check in once every century or so. At one point, we knew when all this would end.”
Artokus sighed. “Then prophecy broke, and so did my known terms of service.”
“An oversimplification, but yes,” the morrigna said. “You could even live forever.”

So anybody whose job used to be "go out and kill people who are living beyond their prescribed expiration date" has to find new work since nobody has one of those anymore.

[exequiel759]

The only real "inconsistency" I have with Pharasma is that she appears to accept that daemons eat souls which should likely have a similar effect to someone's soul to becoming an undead. I personally take it as that when a daemon eats a soul, it effectively forces that soul into reincarnating as a daemon and not that the soul simply disappears. Probably this is the intention, but unless I missed something I didn't get that impression so I find weird that Pharasma thinks its okay when she's so against playing the souls of the people.

Otherwise, I think Trip.H has a very literal interpretation of what Pharasma is when in reality most of what Pharasma is (and most of the supernatural and divine aspects in PF too) a vehicle to create an interesting story for a bunch of dudes that come together to throw some dice and eat doritos. Even if the inconsistency I pointed out earlier with Pharasma was intended I wouldn't really have a problem with it since, even in our world, deities have tons of inconsistencies too. If you want to point out something as "inconsistent" because you can't understand why it acts like that, then you also have to point out we are talking about supreme divine beings here that even when they have forms that could resemble that of humans they are still beings beyond mortal understanding, so whatever hidden agenda they may have to allow or disallow something is also on the table.

[PossibleCabbage]

exequiel759 wrote:

The only real "inconsistency" I have with Pharasma is that she appears to accept that daemons eat souls which should likely have a similar effect to someone's soul to becoming an undead. I personally take it as that when a daemon eats a soul, it effectively forces that soul into reincarnating as a daemon and not that the soul simply disappears. Probably this is the intention, but unless I missed something I didn't get that impression so I find weird that Pharasma thinks its okay when she's so against playing the souls of the people.

I think the thing about Pharasma sending souls to Abaddon, the Outer Rifts, and the Maelstrom (all of which have a somewhat corrosive effect on the Universe) is that she's simply choosing to send that particular energy contained within the soul to a place where it's going to do the least damage.

If you think of Pharasma's job as essentially "waste management" her job is to sort the recycleables, from the biodegradeables, from the regular garbage, from the medical waste, from the toxic waste, from the nuclear waste. It's a bad idea to put toxic waste in your compost pile, after all. You do the least damage with the really toxic or dangerous kinds of energy if you quarantine it on the plane where there's a lot of it already.

[moosher12]

Trip.H wrote:

We also have direct evidence there are entire species of outsider doing nothing but pursuing and killing mortals for the "heinous crime" of extending their lives.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=538

I will note that Maruts are Aeons, not psychopomps. They do not work under Pharasma. They work under the Monad.

Trip.H wrote:

Monitor trait wrote:

Creatures that hail from or have a strong connection to Axis, the Boneyard, or the Maelstrom are called monitors. Monitors can survive the basic environmental effects of planes in the Outer Sphere.

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Psychopomp Allies wrote:

The mandate of marut inevitables is similar to that of psychopomps. Generally, the practical psychopomps are content to let an unyielding marut complete its mission and swoop in afterward to ensure the work has been done, but occasionally, they may work together.

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This is exactly the kind of willful blindness I'm talking about. For whatever reason, when it comes to Pharasma, people will somehow completely ignore the text in front of them if it makes her order look bad, lol.

These agents do only a single task, hunt mortals for living too long. They are direct allies / subjects who obey Pharasma's rules. Half the trouble with systemic oppression is that a jackboot on the ground does not need to take direct orders from the tyrant in order to be a cog in that system.

Phar feeds Axis souls, and Axis follows her rules, acting in ways that benefit Phar. It's like pretending that native Indian law agents during the time of British rule were not a part of the empire's oppression because they were "a different organization."

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If I gotta throw another, yet more unavoidable example in front of yall, how about the Morrigna creature, which is a Mointor + Psychopomp:

Quote:

Bounty hunters and investigators, morrignas seek out creatures who thwart death or interfere with the natural flow of souls. Morrignas dress in flowing spider silk and wear masks reminiscent of webs, as they consider patient and watchful spiders to be their spiritual kin.

Okay, so in what way are proteans serving Pharasma? As clearly all monitors seem to serve pharasma then.

[Tactical Drongo]

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

[Claxon]

Tactical Drongo wrote:

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

That's my basic take as well.

Outside of ordering her faithful to destroy all the Undead, she takes a pretty neutral and hands off approach to most things.

But like I said earlier, Trip.H seems set on viewing her as a tyrant, and I don't want to waste my energy on trying to convince them otherwise.

But seeing a lot of the lore the other people offered in contrast to that was pretty cool.

[PossibleCabbage]

Claxon wrote:

Outside of ordering her faithful to destroy all the Undead, she takes a pretty neutral and hands off approach to most things.

My take is that she's genuinely too busy to take a personal interest in most things (remember in Pathfinder the Gods have a Universal purview- Pharasma handles everything that dies anywhere in the Universe, much like how Sarenrae is every Sun), she just has a relatively competent organization that keeps tabs on things. Her main project these days is likely getting an answer from one of the Outer Gods about whether the Seal going missing is a thing that they've ever seen before.

[R3st8]

Tactical Drongo wrote:

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

The issue isn't just Pharasma herself, but what she represents. She's essentially the Pathfinder equivalent of D&D's Wall of the Faithless, a feature so blatantly biased that it was thankfully removed in later editions. Just as the Wall was a thinly veiled attempt to punish atheist players (reflecting its origins in a more Christian-dominated era), Pharasma and the surrounding lore are clearly intended to shut down any discussion about the moral complexities of necromancy. She's a divine "I win" button designed to silence any necromancer who dares to suggest that raising the dead isn't automatically an act of evil. For players who enjoyed the morally gray necromancy of earlier editions, Pharasma is a slap in the face.

[Pronate11]

R3st8 wrote:

Tactical Drongo wrote:

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

The issue isn't just Pharasma herself, but what she represents. She's essentially the Pathfinder equivalent of D&D's Wall of the Faithless, a feature so blatantly biased that it was thankfully removed in later editions. Just as the Wall was a thinly veiled attempt to punish atheist players (reflecting its origins in a more Christian-dominated era), Pharasma and the surrounding lore are clearly intended to shut down any discussion about the moral complexities of necromancy. She's a divine "I win" button designed to silence any necromancer who dares to suggest that raising the dead isn't automatically an act of evil. For players who enjoyed the morally gray necromancy of earlier editions, Pharasma is a slap in the face.

I mean, with the removal of mechanical alignment, it is now still morally gray. You are causing the end of the universe, but how much are you personally doing? If you can feed your kingdom with an undead workforce at the cost of causing the apocalypse to happen 100,000,000,000 years from now instead of 100,000,000,001, isn't that worth it? Whats more important, a small drop in the bucket with the universe at stake, or monumental good only done in a small area?

[PossibleCabbage]

Despite Pharasma's dislike about necromancy and the undead, she's allowed a remarkable number of necromancers and undead to go about their business. If she wanted to play "whack-a-skeleton" there's a whole planet of undead out there in the same solar system as Golarion. She doesn't even treat necromancers or former undead differently when their souls do end up in her court. If Urgathoa herself shuffles off the immortal coil, her judgement would be as quiet and professional as Aroden's was.

Necromancy being inherently evil has nothing to do with Pharasma, it has to do with "you are deliberately choosing to accelerate the destruction of the universe for selfish reasons." It's not really different from any other harmful act done for selfish reasons in that way. The harm for any particular act might be minimal, but it's still evil.

The interesting moral quandary RE Pharasma and the Undead is along the Arazni/Pharasma axis, a la "I ended up Undead through no choice of my own, why should I be asked to hasten my non-existence?"

[Agonarchy]

Pharasma was not "Good" and alignments no longer exist in the game, so there is no hard determination that Pharasma's established structure is good and just. She is comparable to Marvel's Galactus, with a role to play in whatever's going on but quite capable if being the villain in the story, even if they're generally doing what they think has to be done.

The universe Galorian exists in is not inherently just or good, and gods are not immune from making bad choices. Pharasma may be trying to do her best with a bad situation, but she's not Good, so her interests don't need to extend beyond keeping things working well enough to fulfil what she feels is her role.

[moosher12]

In Starfinder books, it's even said that Pharasmins give Eox a pass because going on a planet-wide crusade is more trouble than its worth.

Also, until the new Secrets of Magic replacement says otherwise, it was well established that being powered by negative energy actually does make you develop a disdain for the living, not too how unlike a normal human naturally disdains bugs. And it is always a conscious effort to maintain classical humanity toward the living, that is bound to eventually slip away after several thousand years of seeing mortals rise and fall. Like, you can hold your humanity as an undead for years, centuries, even millennia, but it's usually not a matter of if you will lose that spark of humanity, but when. All a good willpower does is delay it.

There are of course, good liches that do great things. Geb was a pretty cool guy at times. But eventually they will start to see people less as peers and more as flock, and eventually just as assets.

[R3st8]

Agonarchy wrote:

Pharasma was not "Good" and alignments no longer exist in the game, so there is no hard determination that Pharasma's established structure is good and just. She is comparable to Marvel's Galactus, with a role to play in whatever's going on but quite capable if being the villain in the story, even if they're generally doing what they think has to be done.

The universe Galorian exists in is not inherently just or good, and gods are not immune from making bad choices. Pharasma may be trying to do her best with a bad situation, but she's not Good, so her interests don't need to extend beyond keeping things working well enough to fulfil what she feels is her role.

I will praise that choice, alignment was always a bad system and the game will be better without it, no system will ever be able to fit all of the complexities of morality into 9 squares.

[PossibleCabbage]

moosher12 wrote:

Also, until the new Secrets of Magic replacement says otherwise, it was well established that being powered by negative energy actually does make you develop a disdain for the living, not too how unlike a normal human naturally disdains bugs. And it is always a conscious effort to maintain classical humanity toward the living, that is bound to eventually slip away after several thousand years of seeing mortals rise and fall. Like, you can hold your humanity as an undead for years, centuries, even millennia, but it's usually not a matter of if you will lose that spark of humanity, but when. All a good willpower does is delay it.

As I understand it running something designed to run on vital energy with void energy simply causes problems akin to pouring frying oil into the gas tank of an automobile- it technically can power an internal combustion engine, but you are going to cause problems by doing this.

LO: Book of the Dead provides additional clarity on this, as a knock-on-effect of "powering the machine with the wrong energy" every form of undead has an "undead hunger" specific to its form that initially surfaces as a craving, but if not sated somehow will overrule one's rational faculties. So a vampire who cannot sate their urge to drink vital blood will find themselves driven to tackle and completely drain the first person they meet, which likely has social consequences.

[QuidEst]

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power and/or the living population outcompeted by undying tireless undead, etc. if those are things that are possibilities in the setting. Sure, you can make a pretty cool setting if you don't (see: Geb, Eox), but it's one that's hard to tell a lot of stories in.

Pharasma is a big part of where those load-bearing setting elements are hung. If it weren't her, it would still be something else. I don't particularly like Pharasma, but I can definitely see why she exists as she is.

[R3st8]

QuidEst wrote:

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

[PossibleCabbage]

R3st8 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

Mostly hands off. Like if you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much Abadar sucks, he's not going to smite you or send an underling to smite you by proxy. If you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much the local authorities suck, you're likely to get arrested. In terms of the actual stories we tell when we play these games, literal intervention by an actual god should be exceptionally rare, but Terrestrial authorities will tell the PCs to do (or not do) things all the time. You can burn down the entire art museum and Shelyn is not going to show up (but the cops most likely will.)

What QuidEst is saying gets to how a fantasy world should be as recognizable as possible to the people who play the game. It would be hard to have anything resembling a normal social order if all of the leaders in government and industry are thousand-year-old vampires who are opposed to change. Blood Lords really tries to dig down on how ossified Geb society is since many of the various civil powers are deeply entrenched by virtue of "not aging, because undead." This should be a flavor available to players and GMs who want to play around in that sandbox, but generally "change" should be an option available in other places.

[QuidEst]

R3st8 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

Set pieces, mainly. I'm using "running things" to mean a more day-to-day making decisions for countries, passing laws, ordering armies around, and so on, rather than in a more esoteric sense of keeping the universe operating or laying out edicts and anathemas for their followers. Gods tend to be outside the scope of direct conflict in games, while having all the worldly leaders operating on the level of Geb and Baba Yaga wouldn't really leave room for something like Kingmaker.

I guess if you can't help seeing the gods as being at least as involved as the countries' rulers, then yeah, it's the same issue. But the standoff between Urgathoa and Pharasma, or whatever other reason applies, means that Geb still exists and PCs can become or create undead without divine punishment destroying them.

[R3st8]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

R3st8 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

Mostly hands off. Like if you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much Abadar sucks, he's not going to smite you or send an underling to smite you by proxy. If you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much the local authorities suck, you're likely to get arrested. In terms of the actual stories we tell when we play these games, literal intervention by an actual god should be exceptionally rare, but Terrestrial authorities will tell the PCs to do (or not do) things all the time. You can burn down the entire art museum and Shelyn is not going to show up (but the cops most likely will.)

What QuidEst is saying gets to how a fantasy world should be as recognizable as possible to the people who play the game. It would be hard to have anything resembling a normal social order if all of the leaders in government and industry are thousand-year-old vampires who are opposed to change. Blood Lords really tries to dig down on how ossified Geb society is since many of the various civil powers are deeply entrenched by virtue of "not aging, because undead." This should be a flavor available to players and GMs who want to play around in that sandbox, but generally "change" should be an option available in other places.

The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma.

But to address your point about the world being ruled by immortals, I think we might be getting closer to that world than you realize. That said, I would absolutely love to play in a world full of undead; I have even been thinking of writing one myself. It's sad how this theme is so underexplored.

[PossibleCabbage]

R3st8 wrote:

The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma.

I'm just not sure why atheists are all that concerned with the fate of their souls. Like even the most ardent member of the Pure Legion understands that when they die, it's someone's responsibility to dispose of their mortal remains, and likewise it's someone's responsibility to dispose of their less tangible remains. That second duty falls to Pharasma. You can either choose to accept her judgement, or just wait out eternity in a quiet, peaceful place. What is it an atheist would want from the afterlife other than the second part?

The afterlife in Pathfinder is neither a reward nor a punishment, it's basically just recycling. The story of the person who had memories and identity ended when they died- upon their soul's transit through the afterlife whatever comes out the other end will have neither that person's memories nor their identity.

[exequiel759]

R3st8 wrote:

The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma.

Pretty sure ultimately you can decide your own afterlife. When alignment was a thing, it was your actions what effectively decided your afterlife, but without alignment is not like that disappeared, just the mechanics. I'm also pretty sure there's a 1e book that explains that if your character has a strong tie or preference for a particular outer plane it would be sent there regardless (like a LG follower of Abadar is most likely going to Axis than Heaven).

As I said before, I feel there's some people that are thinking this as if Pharasma was a real person that exist when Pharasma is nothing more a narrative tool to do a "I will kill you BBEG and you'll suffer in Hell for eternity" or "In my last breath I want to tell my comrades we'll see each other in Heaven someday". The only thing that Pharasma is adamant about is undead. Everything else is certainly debatable and, as some people pointed out already, even the undead thing is debatable too.

[Castilliano]

An eternity becomes an eventual hell, quicker so if one's just waiting. Optional annihilation should be an option too, at least at some point, at least for the conscious mind. Then donate the essence to some cause, sans deities if possible. Is there a cosmic Doctors Without Borders? Or deity that recognizes deity-worship is problematic?

[PossibleCabbage]

Castilliano wrote:

An eternity becomes an eventual hell, quicker so if one's just waiting. Optional annihilation should be an option too, at least at some point, at least for the conscious mind. Then donate the essence to some cause, sans deities if possible. Is there a cosmic Doctors Without Borders? Or deity that recognizes deity-worship is problematic?

Planar adventures describes the graveyard that those who refuse judgement or those who cannot be judged for whatever reason as a peaceful spot where eventually all but the very strongest of wills eventually just go to sleep in their grave and merge with the foundation of the boneyard. That's like "oblivion, but you have a grace period to meet new people and say your goodbyes if you want" which seems like as nice an end as any. People could even visit you there, but eventually you're going to run out of things to care about and you'll peacefully fade away.

[Vasyazx]

Castilliano wrote:

An eternity becomes an eventual hell, quicker so if one's just waiting. Optional annihilation should be an option too, at least at some point, at least for the conscious mind. Then donate the essence to some cause, sans deities if possible. Is there a cosmic Doctors Without Borders? Or deity that recognizes deity-worship is problematic?

That claim is dubious at best due plenty number of beings in pathfinder universe that seem rather okay with existence for very long time(undead, various mages spritis ,demigods e.t.c) since the beginning of time(various gods and planr entities ) or even before that(outer gods and Pharasma herself) .On the other hand followers of Laws of Mortality would certainly not want to donate their essence to further case of any gods since that would be against main point of their convictions

[Vasyazx]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

An eternity becomes an eventual hell, quicker so if one's just waiting. Optional annihilation should be an option too, at least at some point, at least for the conscious mind. Then donate the essence to some cause, sans deities if possible. Is there a cosmic Doctors Without Borders? Or deity that recognizes deity-worship is problematic?

Planar adventures describes the graveyard that those who refuse judgement or those who cannot be judged for whatever reason as a peaceful spot where eventually all but the very strongest of wills eventually just go to sleep in their grave and merge with the foundation of the boneyard. That's like "oblivion, but you have a grace period to meet new people and say your goodbyes if you want" which seems like as nice an end as any. People could even visit you there, but eventually you're going to run out of things to care about and you'll peacefully fade away.

Well house always win so even if you reject the game your essence still be used to futher one of gods agenda in these case you become building material for top god personal plane that doesn't sound as satisfying end for follower of laws of mortality