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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.
Followers of laws of mortality do care about their souls:
According to those who follow the Laws of Mortality, religion represents a type of spiritual servitude, akin to trading one's eternal soul.I suppose what atheist want from afterlife would different from person to person i but all of them certianly want their souls outside any gods grasp incudlding Pharasma so no one should be able to touch their reamains but them. Graveyard also dont sound very nice since is basically just planar prison.
And since afterlife in Pathfinder is not about morality or justice it isn't amoral to evaide it by itself
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Pharasma is the most evil tyrant for *checks notes* managing the Byzantine and inevitable process of death.
I find it kind of silly to think that Rahadoum would necessarily hate Pharasma (or the psychopomps) for sorting the dead. One need not like or worship Pharasma to get a good afterlife and liking or worshipping her may not save you from a bad one, either. She didn't even invent the concept of death--that seems to have been the Bound Prince. At the end of the day, she's just the overworked bureaucrat managing the paperwork coming in the door.
Pharasma (and the psychopomps, again--can't forget them as it's been stated before the psychopomps indeed have multiple courts for managing souls with or without direct input from Big-P) sends souls to whichever plane most aligns with their behaviour on a philosophical level (this used to be specifically LG/CN/NE etc but now it's just not specific to those letters) and then if you worshipped a deity, you might get sent there instead--assuming that deity will take you. Considering the Laws of Mortality, this option would not be popular with Rahadoum, but that's fine because they were already set for being grouped with like-minded souls anyway.
Presumably Rahadoum has a government like most places. Do they also refuse to pay their taxes because Maldouni isn't worthy of worship? Alignment is dead, but Rahadoum was supposed to have been a fairly lawful society. Disdaining the gods and their worship doesn't mean one automatically desires to tear down the structures of the cosmos. Most Rahadoumi would never even resort to sticking around the Boneyard--atheists have the same range of afterlives as any other soul. It's only those that reject the entire metaphysical order and choose to wander the Graveyard of Souls.
I'm sure there may be some who reject the system by association with the god running it, but the reality is sooner or later souls need to go somewhere lets they transform into ghosts and haunt and harm the living and flood the universe.
Meanwhile, this isn't even getting into the River of Life--and mind you, Rahadoum actually seems like lowkey one of th perfect places to establish a following of the River of Life in the Inner Sea. They wouldn't necessarily love Sangpotshi for its ties to divine rights, but reincarnation is another alternative in the Great Beyond, and it would be cool if when we go the Rahadoum we find it's actually already pretty popular there--whether because it always has been, or because the teachings eventually made their way across Vudra and the country fell in love with a slightly more secular version of the philosophy.
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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
.... Is there any end in universe that would be a satisfying end? I mean any other plane would be fueling that plane's deities, you don't want to be feeding other outsiders related to a diety. Perhaps either immediate annihilation or just tossing them out of existence (which I'm not even sure is possible) but then that means they can never meet with loved ones who died before them or die after them. Perhaps reincarnation? It exists (somehow) but that's just another chance to dedicate themselves to another tyrannical diety. I don't think there IS a satisfying ending for followers of the Laws of Morality.
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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.
Yeah, but that's death and what happens after. "You can't avoid death" is a pretty big running theme in a good chunk of human literature and mythology for as long as those have been things. In Greek mythology, getting on Hades' good or bad side (or a god influential enough to call in favors with him) determined how your soul spent the afterlife. Egyptian mythology had the heart weighed against a feather. China had a celestial bureaucracy determining what happened to you after death.
"What happens after death?" "It depends on what you did on life." "Who decides that?" "The god whose job it is to do that." Definitely not culturally universal, but it's also not uncommon.
I guess I don't know what folks who really dislike Pharasma want for the setting, and is it something they think would still be as accessible or just a strong personal preference. Is it "no decrease in agency after death"? "Characters/people living forever is common"? "An entirely natural and automatic process without somebody calling the shots"? "Reincarnation should be the main thing"? "Death is just dying and that's it"?
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.
Oh, sure! It's a cool concept. But it is definitely one that really narrows the setting down and makes it harder to tell a lot of fantasy "classics" in. Pathfinder and Starfinder both have it as a region. The Underland series by Maxime J. Durand has underground societies that rely heavily on necromancy and are ruled by immortals, and the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir has a necromancy-based society with a handful of immortals running things. I don't know any where intelligent undead are common off-hand, though.
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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.
Followers of laws of mortality do care about their souls:
According to those who follow the Laws of Mortality, religion represents a type of spiritual servitude, akin to trading one's eternal soul.
I suppose what atheist want from afterlife would different from person to person i but all of them certianly want their souls outside any gods grasp incudlding Pharasma so no one should be able to touch their reamains but them. Graveyard also dont sound very nice since is basically just planar prison.
And since afterlife in Pathfinder is not about morality or justice it isn't amoral to evaide it by itself
I guess the problem with your view from my perspective is, Pharasma is just ensuring the cycle of souls happens.
99% of souls have a single fate, they fade into quintessence and return to Creation's Forge (positive energy plane) to be recycled into a new soul.
Pharasma's judgement affects the path the soul takes to get there, but generally petitioner's souls reside on the plane of their deity or that they were strongly aligned to. Over time, most souls bind with and become part of the plane, and then dissolve into quintessence.
If you reject that option out of hatred for deities, your other options is to sit in the boneyard and wait for the same thing to happen. Or probably there is some sort of "go ahead and annihilate me now" option out there. Other options include having your soul be destroyed by outsiders or otherwise used up in some capacity. And a relatively rare option of your soul becoming an outsider, which Golarion atheist would probably hate as well.
Basically every option ends in oblivion, it's just the path the soul takes to get there.
So what flavor of oblivion does your atheist prefer?
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I don't think there IS a satisfying ending for followers of the Laws of Morality.
That's the secret, there's not a satisfying "end" for anyone.
Eventually everything will end into nothingness, with literally one Survivor and the key to start to the next reality.
Technically also the watcher who exists outside of reality.
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The asura and the Asura Rana sound like a much better fit for how some people view Pharasma. They want to destroy and corrupt everything that the gods had a hand in making, and used to be Lawful Evil being the former rulers of hell. They hate the gods and want them all to be destroyed. They adore corrupting and blaspheming against the gods and ruining and corrupting their works.
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I don't think there IS a satisfying ending for followers of the Laws of Morality.That's the secret, there's not a satisfying "end" for anyone.
Eventually everything will end into nothingness, with literally one Survivor and the key to start to the next reality.
Technically also the watcher who exists outside of reality.
Well you can at least die on your own terms instead of becoming pawn in divine conflict also outer gods(not only yog ) exist outside multiverse so (and some old ones as well i suppose )you can goto their plane if you want to avoid cycles entirely
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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
This feels like having strong feelings about which tree grows on your burial site. At some point you have to learn not to care about things you have no input on. I imagine a good part of "onboarding the recently deceased" is getting them to come to terms with this fact.
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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 mortalityThis feels like having strong feelings about which tree grows on your burial site. At some point you have to learn not to care about things you have no input on. I imagine a good part of "onboarding the recently deceased" is getting them to come to terms with this fact.
Well you do have some input on that to be fair since you can take your so in place where you soul dont directly benefit any side in great beyound
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Pharasma is the most evil tyrant for *checks notes* managing the Byzantine and inevitable process of death.
I find it kind of silly to think that Rahadoum would necessarily hate Pharasma (or the psychopomps) for sorting the dead. One need not like or worship Pharasma to get a good afterlife and liking or worshipping her may not save you from a bad one, either. She didn't even invent the concept of death--that seems to have been the Bound Prince. At the end of the day, she's just the overworked bureaucrat managing the paperwork coming in the door.
Pharasma (and the psychopomps, again--can't forget them as it's been stated before the psychopomps indeed have multiple courts for managing souls with or without direct input from Big-P) sends souls to whichever plane most aligns with their behaviour on a philosophical level (this used to be specifically LG/CN/NE etc but now it's just not specific to those letters) and then if you worshipped a deity, you might get sent there instead--assuming that deity will take you. Considering the Laws of Mortality, this option would not be popular with Rahadoum, but that's fine because they were already set for being grouped with like-minded souls anyway.
Presumably Rahadoum has a government like most places. Do they also refuse to pay their taxes because Maldouni isn't worthy of worship? Alignment is dead, but Rahadoum was supposed to have been a fairly lawful society. Disdaining the gods and their worship doesn't mean one automatically desires to tear down the structures of the cosmos. Most Rahadoumi would never even resort to sticking around the Boneyard--atheists have the same range of afterlives as any other soul. It's only those that reject the entire metaphysical order and choose to wander the Graveyard of Souls.
I'm sure there may be some who reject the system by association with the god running it, but the reality is sooner or later souls need to go somewhere lets they transform into ghosts and haunt and harm the living and flood the universe....
Rahadoum specfically reject god autority over mortals in any form including Pharasma judgment so that directlty put them in odds even if they dont aim towards rebeling against her
And Pharasma do directly hold grip on your soul since she can direcly block things like ressurection or clones body hop or even hold your souls from moving into other planes in some casesReincarnation is valuable option for some people and not for others and it also mantained by Pharasma so that isnt perfect option for her opposition either
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I mean, one can rage against the tyranny of gravity, or one can construct an airplane. The former doesn't help you do the latter.
Yes, Pharasma objects to Necromancy, but there are multiple Pharasma-approved methods for opting out of the whole cycle of souls:
- Become Mythic and achieve immortality that way.
- Achieve Apotheosis
- Get your soul diverted to the First World when you die, this nominally involves "worshiping one of the Eldest" but given the nature of the Eldest this can be transactional.
- Upload your soul into a construct like the ancient Jistkan Artificers.
etc.
The fact of the matter is that much like how airplanes need to land eventually, everything is also going to end someday, and the soul of everything from Rovagug to sea otters ends up in the river whose terminus is at the Boneyard. Most Rahadoumi atheists aren't extremely principled along the lines "no god should have any power over me" since if you think about it, (in the game world) Asmodeus does exist and he could show up and set you on fire any time he wanted to. Gods are more powerful than you, but so are dragons and kings and one doesn't worship those.
A really principled "Pharasma will never touch my soul" person could instead travel to the Void (formerly the Negative Energy Plane) and hurl themselves into a patch of nothingness. This doesn't accomplish anything, but the thought of doing it might make you feel better.
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Well you can at least die on your own terms instead of becoming pawn in divine conflict also outer gods(not only yog ) exist outside multiverse so (and some old ones as well i suppose )you can goto their plane if you want to avoid cycles entirelyI don't think there IS a satisfying ending for followers of the Laws of Morality.That's the secret, there's not a satisfying "end" for anyone.
Eventually everything will end into nothingness, with literally one Survivor and the key to start to the next reality.
Technically also the watcher who exists outside of reality.
If I recall correctly it was clarified that most of the outer gods don't exist outside reality, only the Watcher who is presumed to be Yog-Sothoth. The others exist in the "vast nothingness of space between solar systems". But I could definitely be wrong on that.
In any event, I think "dying and turning into quintessence is an option". I guess you would just argue that the petitioner shouldn't have to go stand in front of Pharasma or her servitors to do so. And honestly, I don't know that we know that you need to. If a soul is so determined, they might just be able to dissolve themself. Or maybe go to the Void/Negative energy plane. Or go to the Maelstrom.
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It’s also a significant theme to explore the opposite, such as the peaches of immortality, ambrosia, the fountain of youth, the golden apples, the herb of Gilgamesh, the philosopher's stone, and the Holy Grail. My question is: why does that specific element have to be realistic? The entire game contains absurdities, so why not make death absurd as well? The choice to base the world on death and a cycle of souls was a design decision that I honestly don’t appreciate. It feels akin to creating a universe that operates on the cries of infant orphans, surely there were better options.
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.Yeah, but that's death and what happens after. "You can't avoid death" is a pretty big running theme in a good chunk of human literature and mythology for as long as those have been things. In Greek mythology, getting on Hades' good or bad side (or a god influential enough to call in favors with him) determined how your soul spent the afterlife. Egyptian mythology had the heart weighed against a feather. China had a celestial bureaucracy determining what happened to you after death.
"What happens after death?" "It depends on what you did on life." "Who decides that?" "The god whose job it is to do that." Definitely not culturally universal, but it's also not uncommon.
Sure, but heaven tried to kill Sun Wukong for stealing the peaches of immortality, and one of his other forms of immortality included a whole section on "surviving the three acts of divine retribution that will strike you down for trying this". The Epic of Gilgamesh is all about coming to terms with death, not avoiding it. They're all rare, special things, often reserved by a few gatekeepers.
There are options that might be happier for the characters in the world, but trivializing or removing death on a broad scale isn't usually better for the narrative for most people playing the game. It makes a more alien world, and is more akin to playing mythic, gods, or something like that. Giving a reason for death to still exist in a world with magic means that motivations and large parts of society remain relatable to people, similar to having a setting where money is used, or in which there is conflict.
Not to say you can't make that deliberate choice in a setting, but it either involves a lot of overhaul to how things work or making the focus be on whatever special group has immortality instead of the short-lived mortals (e.g. Exalted).
Honestly, I don't think it's something that conflicts with the PF2 rules themselves, and I've seen at least a few people who don't want death to be a big player in their fantasy setting, so you could ORC or Infinite something and see how it goes.
Well, I appreciate the explanation, even if it's not one that I really "get". I'll give it a rest on my end; it's perfectly fair to have one's preferences about these things.
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One assumes that, since they've had eons to work this out, the employees of the Boneyard have developed a system of onboarding the recently deceased that is a humane and kind as can be managed in this sort of situation. If someone is an ardent misotheist they might be better served by talking to a caseworker whose power over the shade is more akin to a monarch over a subject, then they can discuss where they would like to go a la "your actions in life suggest you would be best suited to Elysium, but if you would like to stay here we can accommodate you;'it is possible you qualify for reincarnation, would you like me to check?"
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It really sounds like people just want to become Asuras and rage against the gods and support in the utter corruption and destruction of all the creations of the gods.
Also if they hate the gods so much, I presume that you are making a special rahadoumi calander that doesn't use the same months? after all the months are named after gods.
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Yeah, as I said before I get not wanting to worship or be involved with the gods.
But the people in the thread railing against Pharasma feel like they're railing against the fact that death exist, including death of the soul, and the cycle of souls in general.
It's not clear exactly what path souls would take without Pharasma and her servitors, but I think the end result would be the same, which is the dissolution of the soul into quintessence.
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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.
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.
That is not true. I would be very interested to see where your claim that she ‘invented the concept of mortals’ comes from. My understanding is that the First World was the original experiment by many of the gods - not just Pharasma - and the concept of souls and primessence (is that the correct term?) was created when the gods realized they needed a balance to the chaos of the Maelstrom and the growing demonic plane. The First World was the experiment that made them come to this understanding. Giving mortals the choice to decide where they would end up was a compromise between all the gods.
Once again, Trip.H, I’d be interested to see where you’re getting that information because I might need to rethink my multi-planar campaign if you have information that I’m missing about the Golarion setting.
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That is not true. I would be very interested to see where your claim that she ‘invented the concept of mortals’ comes from. My understanding is that the First World was the original experiment by many of the gods - not just Pharasma - and the concept of souls and primessence (is that the correct term?) was created when the gods realized they needed a balance to the chaos of the Maelstrom and the growing demonic plane. The First World was the experiment that made them come to this understanding. Giving mortals the choice to decide where they would end up was a compromise between all the gods.
If Pharasma created anything, it was the notion that there are eight outer planes, since at the insantiation of this universe she stood at 5 on the Number Pad and looked in the in the other eight directions. If she had looked up or down there might have been more planes, but this happened in an instant. Everything after that has been making the best out of the situation they found themselves in.
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I mean, one can rage against the tyranny of gravity, or one can construct an airplane. The former doesn't help you do the latter.
Yes, Pharasma objects to Necromancy, but there are multiple Pharasma-approved methods for opting out of the whole cycle of souls:
- Become Mythic and achieve immortality that way.
- Achieve Apotheosis
- Get your soul diverted to the First World when you die, this nominally involves "worshiping one of the Eldest" but given the nature of the Eldest this can be transactional.
- Upload your soul into a construct like the ancient Jistkan Artificers.
etc.The fact of the matter is that much like how airplanes need to land eventually, everything is also going to end someday, and the soul of everything from Rovagug to sea otters ends up in the river whose terminus is at the Boneyard. Most Rahadoumi atheists aren't extremely principled along the lines "no god should have any power over me" since if you think about it, (in the game world) Asmodeus does exist and he could show up and set you on fire any time he wanted to. Gods are more powerful than you, but so are dragons and kings and one doesn't worship those.
A really principled "Pharasma will never touch my soul" person could instead travel to the Void (formerly the Negative Energy Plane) and hurl themselves into a patch of nothingness. This doesn't accomplish anything, but the thought of doing it might make you feel better.
- Become Mythic and achieve immortality that way.
- Achieve ApotheosisWell that seems to like conquering you rigth for immortality its more based on force rather then a legitimacy
-Upload your soul into a construct like the ancient Jistkan Artificers.
would that be evantually shut down like in case of clone spell? if it isnt then why shut down clone spell in first place?
becoming fay seems to be best option here since it allow you preserve most your individuality and remain independent from gods overall
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It's almost as if you are railing against the mere idea that death might not be inevitable in a game. Why do we need to go out of our way to bring fatalism into a fictional world? Why add things like 'clone' and 'raise dead' just to have a deity shut it down?
I mean, I guess that's your prerogative but that is the setting.
Golarion was originally the creation of James Jacobs out of his homebrew. Golarion as published is not exactly everything James' homebrew world is, as others have had impact and provided detail and direction in aspects of and he has not directly overseen every detail.
But ultimately, someone needed to create a cosmology for the universe and this is the one that was chosen.
To me your question is about the same as asking "why do we have to die" in real life. There's not an answer, that's just how things are.
As for clone and raise dead, those things still largely work. Very occasionally a deity might get involved and stop something from happening. But that is very much a rare situation. Hell, it Pharasma couldn't/didn't stop Tar-Baphon from becoming a lich, it clearly illustrates that gods cannot or will not do anything and everything just because we think want to. There were likely repercussions that Pharasma could not ignore that stopped her from grabbing Tar-Baphon's soul and stopping his ascension to lichdom.
In general there are reasons why deities don't interfere in the world of mortals as much as they would like, including stopping clones or reincarnation from working.
But the possibility for divine interference is left open, mostly because it happening rarely makes for an interesting story and it allows GMs to say "I've had enough of this, it doesn't work".
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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.Yeah, but that's death and what happens after. "You can't avoid death" is a pretty big running theme in a good chunk of human literature and mythology for as long as those have been things. In Greek mythology, getting on Hades' good or bad side (or a god influential enough to call in favors with him) determined how your soul spent the afterlife. Egyptian mythology had the heart weighed against a feather. China had a celestial bureaucracy determining what happened to you after death.
"What happens after death?" "It depends on what you did on life." "Who decides that?" "The god whose job it is to do that." Definitely not culturally universal, but it's also not uncommon.
If I recall correctly it was clarified that most of the outer gods don't exist outside reality, only the Watcher who is presumed to be Yog-Sothoth. The others exist in the "vast nothingness of space between solar systems". But I could definitely be wrong on that.
In any event, I think "dying and turning into quintessence is an option". I guess you would just argue that the petitioner shouldn't have to go stand in front of Pharasma or her servitors to do so. And honestly, I don't know that we know that you need to. If a soul is so determined, they might just be able to dissolve themself. Or maybe go to the Void/Negative energy plane. Or go to the Maelstrom.
They predate Pharasma and Great Beyond:
According to many scholars (including Tabris, who calls them Those Who Remain in the Concordance of Rivals),5 the Outer Gods are so ancient that they predate the Great Beyond and Pharasma, and thus the concept of mortality itself. Many Pharasmins consider this to be blasphemous, but the truth may not be something they can accept
And they can fight her on equal footing since Nhimbaloth forced her into draw
So it safe to say that they are above cycles
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I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?
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I know some people are bringing up that even if you're a petitioner, you'll eventually return to quintessence, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the process of going from outsider to quintessence was exceptionally long, like in the realm of multiple millennia, a cosmic scale lifetime.
The problem is when you become petitioner you already lost most of your memories and personality traits and when you become full outsider all those are completly gone and your essecne is used to create new being
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I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?
Faerûnian pantheon and their wall of faithless there was even addon in neverwinter nights 2 that was fully dedicated to that specific issue
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Also how much of this information about quintessence and merging with the plane is even known by the people in Golarion?
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becoming fay seems to be best option here since it allow you preserve most your individuality and remain independent from gods overall
This is actually the opposite impression that I get from the description of souls that become fey (or fae). I could be misremembering, but typically once a soul lands on the First World it transforms into a typical example of a random fey creature. Fey are supposed to have free will, sure, but further going off the fact that fey who die on the FW similarly transform, often not retaining much similarity of personality, I think going to the First World means embracing the logical extremes of the notion that there is no permanent, unchanging state of the self.
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It's almost as if you are railing against the mere idea that death might not be inevitable in a game. Why do we need to go out of our way to bring fatalism into a fictional world? Why add things like 'clone' and 'raise dead' just to have a deity shut it down?I mean, I guess that's your prerogative but that is the setting.
Golarion was originally the creation of James Jacobs out of his homebrew. Golarion as published is not exactly everything James' homebrew world is, as others have had impact and provided detail and direction in aspects of and he has not directly overseen every detail.
But ultimately, someone needed to create a cosmology for the universe and this is the one that was chosen.
To me your question is about the same as asking "why do we have to die" in real life. There's not an answer, that's just how things are.
As for clone and raise dead, those things still largely work. Very occasionally a deity might get involved and stop something from happening. But that is very much a rare situation. Hell, it Pharasma couldn't/didn't stop Tar-Baphon from becoming a lich, it clearly illustrates that gods cannot or will not do anything and everything just because we think want to. There were likely repercussions that Pharasma could not ignore that stopped her from grabbing Tar-Baphon's soul and stopping his ascension to lichdom.
In general there are reasons why deities don't interfere in the world of mortals as much as they would like, including stopping clones or reincarnation from working.
But the possibility for divine interference is left open, mostly because it happening rarely makes for an interesting story and it allows GMs to say "I've had enough of this, it doesn't work".
Clone and ressurection are abillities that directly said to be under Pharasma full control in game rules she can block them at any time she wants
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becoming fay seems to be best option here since it allow you preserve most your individuality and remain independent from gods overallThis is actually the opposite impression that I get from the description of souls that become fey (or fae). I could be misremembering, but typically once a soul lands on the First World it transforms into a typical example of a random fey creature. Fey are supposed to have free will, sure, but further going off the fact that fey who die on the FW similarly transform, often not retaining much similarity of personality, I think going to the First World means embracing the logical extremes of the notion that there is no permanent, unchanging state of the self.
Assigned to the First World in Pharasma's judgment immediately reincarnate as a type of fey whose behavior aligns with the soul's mortal personality Such souls retain more of their mortal memories than shades of other planes but not enough to recall their mortal lives
Seems that your full pesonality and part of your memories still remains so its better deal than becoming shade| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Incidentally on the topic of eldritch entities, many of them exist inside the Universe, and I've always had the impression that they got that way by just being there in the inter-universal medium when the Universe formed around them, so plausibly there are even more out there beyond the Beyond.
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I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?Faerûnian pantheon and their wall of faithless there was even addon in neverwinter nights 2 that was fully dedicated to that specific issue
Thing is, the Wall is canon (and so stupid). I'm talking about just straight up making up fake things to be mad about.
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-Upload your soul into a construct like the ancient Jistkan Artificers.
would that be evantually shut down like in case of clone spell? if it isnt then why shut down clone spell in first place?
Most likely not, since you can play one of these. So there are still Jistkan Artificers running around it's just that most of them broke (hence rare ancestry) and a lot of them had extended periods of isolation that sort of broke their personalities.
Pharasma has no beef with steps people take to prolong their lives (except undeath) since some amount of that is to be expected. If you upload your soul into a machine, the machine can still die- I mean, Golarion is eventually going to blow up and Rovagug is going to get out. Good luck surviving that.
And the problem with becoming a Fae, of course, is that as a native to the First World you are subject to being completely changed and remade by any more powerful Fae that has that idea appeal to them, and the Lantern King has a cruel sense of humor. So you're basically trading "one tyrant" for "a bunch of pettier tyrants."
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-Upload your soul into a construct like the ancient Jistkan Artificers.
would that be evantually shut down like in case of clone spell? if it isnt then why shut down clone spell in first place?Most likely not, since you can play one of these. So there are still Jistkan Artificers running around it's just that most of them broke (hence rare ancestry) and a lot of them had extended periods of isolation that sort of broke their personalities.
Pharasma has no beef with steps people take to prolong their lives (except undeath) since some amount of that is to be expected. If you upload your soul into a machine, the machine can still die- I mean, Golarion is eventually going to blow up and Rovagug is going to get out. Good luck surviving that.
And the problem with becoming a Fae, of course, is that as a native to the First World you are subject to being completely changed and remade by any more powerful Fae that has that idea appeal to them, and the Lantern King has a cruel sense of humor. So you're basically trading "one tyrant" for "a bunch of pettier tyrants."
So what is her problem with clone then since it basically same thing(only diffrence is body)?
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Clone and ressurection are abillities that directly said to be under Pharasma full control in game rules she can block them at any time she wantsIt's almost as if you are railing against the mere idea that death might not be inevitable in a game. Why do we need to go out of our way to bring fatalism into a fictional world? Why add things like 'clone' and 'raise dead' just to have a deity shut it down?I mean, I guess that's your prerogative but that is the setting.
Golarion was originally the creation of James Jacobs out of his homebrew. Golarion as published is not exactly everything James' homebrew world is, as others have had impact and provided detail and direction in aspects of and he has not directly overseen every detail.
But ultimately, someone needed to create a cosmology for the universe and this is the one that was chosen.
To me your question is about the same as asking "why do we have to die" in real life. There's not an answer, that's just how things are.
As for clone and raise dead, those things still largely work. Very occasionally a deity might get involved and stop something from happening. But that is very much a rare situation. Hell, it Pharasma couldn't/didn't stop Tar-Baphon from becoming a lich, it clearly illustrates that gods cannot or will not do anything and everything just because we think want to. There were likely repercussions that Pharasma could not ignore that stopped her from grabbing Tar-Baphon's soul and stopping his ascension to lichdom.
In general there are reasons why deities don't interfere in the world of mortals as much as they would like, including stopping clones or reincarnation from working.
But the possibility for divine interference is left open, mostly because it happening rarely makes for an interesting story and it allows GMs to say "I've had enough of this, it doesn't work".
And?
In general she doesn't.
To me this is akin to being upset that the President has the nuclear launch codes, and could theoretically decide to launch them and end the world in Mutually Assured Destruction.
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Yeah, Pharasma is pretty professional about things. Be a loyal worshipper of Urgathoa, and despite the fact Pharasma hates her, she'll still send you to Urgathoa's realm.
Urgathoa is pretty weird case since she basically source of undeath and maybe even diseases and she somehow was able to directly escape Pharasma judgement while being mortal and then became god but we pretty much know nothing on why and how that happened and why Pharasma allow her to do all of that in first place
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I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?
If I recall correctly kelemvor who is their arbiter of the dead also has similar issues. Worse because instead of go find a nice place in the bone yard to sleep option for staunch atheists they stick them in a wall to scream for all eternity.
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I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?If I recall correctly kelemvor who is their arbiter of the dead also has similar issues. Worse because instead of go find a nice place in the bone yard to sleep option for staunch atheists they stick them in a wall to scream for all eternity.
It mostly Myrkul(who created it first place) and AO(who forced kelemvor to keep it )fault rather then Kelemvor own
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Thing is, the Wall is canon (and so stupid). I'm talking about just straight up making up fake things to be mad about.I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?Faerûnian pantheon and their wall of faithless there was even addon in neverwinter nights 2 that was fully dedicated to that specific issue
Arent 5e removed it from canon?
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Decided to take a step back and think on what data points I think were most relevant to my ~abnormal opinion, and list them w/ minimal opining. All shoved inside a spoiler for sake of thread readability. Apologies for disrupting the flow as the timing of this is going to be off.
As I just read Spiral of Bones via the comic humble bundle, that's the freshest thing on my mind, and it's a rare depiction of the actual process. I'm including bonus "neat" data points that are revealed by the comic but are not directly relevant to get them out there on the search-indexed net.
* Phar (& other gods) created mortals, with the invention of the mundane/material realm being key to this new concept. The cycle of souls itself is her invention. It was discovered that making little "souls" from positive energy, and planting them into vessels made of "mundane" matter instead of soul-stuff would cause the soul-half to grow over the creature's lifetime of experiences. Resulting in net-positive soul energy (iirc character level is cannon as this rough soul-size metric. It's "why" things like resurrection become more difficult w/ level). Unlike mortals who get to grow in soul via XP, afaik outsiders are in a 0 sum system. In order to gain more soulstuff they need to eat/acquire that soulstuff from somewhere else.
* If an outsider is connected to a plane, they can be fed that way. Idk if that's via some osmosis link, or if angels get handed chunks to eat. Idk if outsiders need any amount of sustenance to maintain themselves, or if they only need to eat to heal and grow.
* All fiends (and presumably all outsiders) can ingest/pop a mortal's soulgem. This only immediately siphons/eats a little soul for 1 min of Fast Healing, and the mortal soul is sent to the fiend's home plane, but is recoverable/intact. Cacodaemon
* Upon death, a mortal's unique mundane+soul dual nature is broken. A petitioner is the term for these former-mortals who are 100% soul stuff. Wherever they get stuck, many, many mortals do not reach the Boneyard after death. Petitioners are stable and capable of expressing their agency. It is the waters of the river that induce amnesia upon contact, like being anesthetized for surgery. Once they are out of the waters, they can remember themselves.
* Petitioners are outsiders. Not all soul-body outsiders are nativized/bound to a specific plane. I don't know of any "hard line" of too much change that ends the possibility of resurrection and re-joining with the mundane body. It seems to be a fuzzy line where if too much time/change happens as a petitioner, they loose that label, and can no longer regain their mortality.
* I can find no cosmological "need" for petitioners to be forced into judgment and assignment to a plane. Planes do erode in proportion to their "proximity" to the maelstrom, and it seems that the more "consistent" / "cohesive" the plane's living outsiders and dead-turned plane-stuff are, the better that plane resists chaotic maelstrom erosion. This is why getting souls to the "correct" afterlife matters to Phar, as dissonant souls will either not help much, or might outright weaken instead of strengthen a plane. Yet I can find no reason these planes "need" to exist. Needing more mortal souls to outpace the erosion presupposes the plane itself "must" exist.
* Cities like (the no gods allowed) Basrakal prove that outsiders of all kinds can coexist with mortals and live in a stable place rather close to the maelstrom. I can find 0 "need" for planes like Elysium to exist, I can find no reason to suspect the fabric of reality would be threatened if the most famous planes eroded and shrunk.
* There are an unknowable number of tiny little planes that should have the same "need" as the big 8. Yet, the only way mortals can end up there is by direct link to a god who lays claim to their soul at Phar's court, or indirectly after they were first sent to another plane. Pharasma chooses for there to only be 8 portals. It is implied that she chooses this setup so that there is a single destination for each type of alignment, to maximize the size of each categorization. Yet, the Daemon exception throws a wrench into the notion that this setup is more than Phar's arbitrary whim, as that empty court has not been replaced by a different N-Evil destination. If the "one destination per type" actually mattered somehow, the empty court would have been replaced.
* If no god claims a soul, and the mortal's soul does not have enough "ethos" to match with one of the 8 portals, that petitioner is stuck in the boneyard. (Even if they want to leave for another plane) I can find no "mechanical" justification why forcing the mortals who are explicitly discarded and unused by this system are still forced to remain in the boneyard. There are plenty of social/memetic reasons. If being deemed unsuitable for the big 8 was a way to be excused and leave the boneyard, then other mortals might act differently in life to seek that outcome. But, that is only a memetic danger if being allowed to leave is a forcefully repressed desire of petitioners in the first place. If staying the Boneyard was done willingly, then there would be no need to prevent escape.
* As featured in the Spiral of Bones comic, the default is for petitioners to be forced into Phar's courts for immediate judgment. Petitioners have near 0 agency in this system. All the planes / parties that think they have a claim to the soul will argue about it in court. Even maruts can participate and attempt to claim-then-obliterate the petitioner when their only claim is the evasion of the soul cycle justifies this outcome due to potential spread of cycle-evasion knowledge. The petitioner's will / desire is irrelevant to the proceedings. Direct slavery/ownership of a petitioner's life/soul is approved by Pharasma if one can justify the claim, such as via devil contract.
* In the comic, Valeros explicitly attempted to delay the proceedings, and achieved a 5 min delay. He used it to kidnap his nosoi, and only then learned that the court was judging someone named Zeladar the Animator and not him. Later, while the devil and angel tussled and occupied the judge, he had roughly 20 seconds to gain more info from his nosoi. During that time he was able to think of a way around the mistaken soul-identity issue. As he guessed, another mortal was able to recognize and identify him as Valeros, and not the soul up for judgement.
* As a fresh petitioner, completely out of his element and improvising, Valeros (and not someone like Ezren) was able to mount a better legal defense than his provided advocate. This evidence was recognized by the judge as enough to provoke mistrial or serious delay for investigation. However, the devil got the evidence thrown out by technicality, as the recent life & death of the witness mortal was outside the chronological jurisdiction of the mistaken identity. (the mistaken ID was too old for the witness evidence to be relevant). Note that this rule means that there is no evidential way Valeros could defend himself, as all other forms of affirmative proof of his ID as Valeros would also get thrown out for the same reason.
* It is possible to "retrieve" a soul from its planar destination and put it somewhere else. This was the token possibility said in consolation by the judge, and would take years, if it happened at all. Note that this was a mistaken ID issue, and even if some mortal went to the boneyard explicitly looking for Valeros or record of him, they would find nothing. The exculpatory evidence containing his name was stricken from the record.
* It is possible for a mortal who sold their soul to a contract devil to *not* be handed to them by Phar's court, even when the contract itself is rock-solid. While the angel was sardonically labeled "optimist" by the non-voice narration, the basis beneath their specific argument appears valid in court; the soul's "morally questionable" acts were done under coercion of their superiors, and the devil contract for power was made because of that duress to escape those coercive circumstances. Once free of them to act on their own, the person "saved thousands of lives through sound, compassionate leadership." No idea how many good deeds it takes to nullify a contract, nor how much coercion similarly weakness a contract, but the premise seems valid in Phar's court.
* The nosoi appears to be lying, and let slip a contradiction. They claim all the court-involved outsiders perceive only Zeladar, and that Valeros' self-perception is different due to his recent death: "that's why you don't think you're naked right now." but when Valeros used the mug he keeps strapped to his gear to surprise and capture the Nosoi, attention is called to the detail by the Nosoi exclaiming: "Have you ever washed this cup? It's disgusting!" It seems the nosoi could perceive him the whole time, but instead focused on encouraging Valeros to "win" the trial to get to Nirvana, and to stop weakening his case by insisting on the identity issue.
* After the evidence is thrown out, Valeros convinces his nosoi to aid him offscreen to break the rules and escape back to his body in Golarion. A question dodge from the nosoi makes it clear that they are not allowed to do that even in the precise circumstance, and the nosoi is choosing to prioritize their duty to get their "client" to where "he's supposed to be" over the rules that bind them. It is unknown what the Nosoi's punishment would be for this act had Valeros not returned to the Boneyard with Zeladar (unplanned).
* Systemic oppression is differentiated and identified as oppression resultant from unjust systems that create harmful outcomes, especially when the outcomes differ for different kinds of people. It as a concept is infamous for its ability to have good moral people participate in harming others, because they are "just following the rules." It is easiest to spot when the unjust action / outcome of a system is narrowly avoided by the actions of individuals *subverting* that system and changing the outcome outside it, often at personal risk. It is common for "high oppression" systems to have issues where all involved are aware of a systemic flaw/injustice, yet pretend it is not there in an "emperor has no clothes" manner, such as knowing the criminally accused is innocent/guilty when receiving the opposite judgement in court. If, instead of fighting the unjust/untrue determination, the genuinely helpful folk themselves engage in under-handed subversion of the system, you know the system is plain fvcked. ("I know you didn't do it, but the system will find you guilty; you should plead guilty now to get a lesser punishment instead of failing to prove your innocence"). It is notoriously difficult to fix/uproot these issues because the surface level rule/outcome is a distraction that is immune to critique/reform; the underlying "why" the rule is practiced has to be dug up, targeted, and replaced or removed. ("fun" fact. 98% of usa federal and 97% of texas criminal convicts were never proven guilty in a court of law! "Innocent until proven guilty" is the exception (aka societal lie) that's only true for the 2 or 3% of accused that had their day in court and were judged to be guilty. (our lawyers bar association begs us to fix this))
* I can find no reason why the pathfinder cosmos requires mortals to be forced into an afterlife without their consent. I speculate that a majority of mortals could have the basics on why it's so important explained, and then willingly choose the afterlife most harmonious/appropriate. If Phar refuses to make it consensual because too many would choose to not participate and thereby disrupt the status quo, that only proves that the status quo is systemically unjust, requiring the forced exploitation/identity death of mortals to perpetuate. Instead of reforming the system to increase willing participation, systems of control and coercion are built and reinforced so that fewer mortals escape the process of transformative conformity and typically identity death. Or, if the mortal is too neutral, they are forced to spend a vast amount of time trapped and wasting away in the boneyard, until they fall apart / are absorbed due to inactivity (think about how brief one's life is compared to how long this would take). And now think about what kind of mortal would not have pledged to a god, and not have acted in a way to sufficiently color their soul with an ethos. (It's the youngest; every new day in one's life is another chance to change or be changed.)
I still find it hilarious that mortal-mortal slavery was so "yikes" that it was hastily written to be illegal in every golarion land, but they forgot that one's immortal soul can be enslaved super easily, and that Pharasma's court endorses and enforces such contracts. Whoopsie. Little Joe, son of Farmer Frank, may not need to worry as much about getting shackled and sold for labor, but his mother can still trade his soul to a devil for magic powers, and he'll go straight to hell.
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It mostly Myrkul(who created it first place) and AO(who forced kelemvor to keep it )fault rather then Kelemvor ownI'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?If I recall correctly kelemvor who is their arbiter of the dead also has similar issues. Worse because instead of go find a nice place in the bone yard to sleep option for staunch atheists they stick them in a wall to scream for all eternity.
I still remember a lot of forum threads hating on kelemvor for not getting rid of it anyway. Still in a universe where actual gods exist it is not super shocking that such beings are crappy to puny mortals unwilling to worship them. At least pharasma is generally a pretty neutral arbiter in the forgotten realms the people with that domain before kelemvor were actively malicious.
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where do you take it from that pharasma endorses such contracts?
She does maybe not care in particular about them - because that only makes your soul take another route to oblivion
In the end, the stream of souls continues unburdened
The difference is that (lets go with the devil magic powers) whoever did sell their soul ends up as asmodeus pawn or fuel for a while, after which everything continues as it would have anyway
Pharasma doesnt forbid those contracts because they have little to no influence on the penultimate outcome
But it is hard to imagine that she endorses them
(I mean, I could see why she would do it, if the soul goes straight to hell she doesn't have to deal with it)
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where do you take it from that pharasma endorses such contracts?
She does maybe not care in particular about them - because that only makes your soul take another route to oblivion
In the end, the stream of souls continues unburdenedThe difference is that (lets go with the devil magic powers) whoever did sell their soul ends up as asmodeus pawn or fuel for a while, after which everything continues as it would have anyway
Pharasma doesnt forbid those contracts because they have little to no influence on the penultimate outcome
But it is hard to imagine that she endorses them
(I mean, I could see why she would do it, if the soul goes straight to hell she doesn't have to deal with it)
She considers soul contracts valid reason to claim the soul, even when the ethos of the mortal does not match the plane. (I'm guessing this is why souls start their time in hell being tortured, great way to make people super evil) Her direct agents hand these mortals to devils and gods for promises made by mortals during their life. That's what it means to officially endorse something like that. If she did not endorse slavery, all those contracts would be considered invalid in her court and ignored.
Note that this entire notion of respecting contracts over matching soul ethos does absolutely throw the true importance of ethos matching into question. If souls can be made to align after they arrive, that invalidates a whole lot of the supposed "need" for the current system's methods.
We also know thanks to Belcora, that one can promise the soul of another to a devil in exchange for ___. Anyone with physical control of another person (like their child) could literally hand that person to the devil, claim the reward, and end the contract.
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I wonder if James Jacobs or another staff could help clear up any of your issues or concerns regarding Pharasma?