What happens when your god dies?

[Vrildaax]

I don't currently have any characters with a dead god, but what happens if you're playing a campaign and you're either a cleric or champion, or any other character with ties to the divine, and the god you worship dies?

Are you forced to remake your character? Does the GM just ignore that it happened? How do you handle it?

[NorrKnekten]

I dont think theres any real rules to handle that, but the setting itself does mention what happens, and the short of it is that the diety can no longer bestow their powers and blessings upon their followers.

Clerics of said god loses their spell-slots and magical features, same happens with champions as they to lose their magical class features.

In PFS we saw this happen with Gorum and characters with Gorum as a diety got a free rebuild. How a GM wants to handle that is up to them, if the dietys death isnt part of an ongoing campaign theres no real need to introduce it.

But if the death is part of the campaign as a previous campaign I ran quite a while ago I allowed the character to gradually move from worshipping the diety to instead follow a pantheon that diety used to be a party of.

A Gorum champion could begin worship of Sorrow's Sword or Gravelady's Guard.

And a Torag Cleric could take Stone's Blood as their pantheon with the idea the deities that stood the closest to their dead or missing patron diety are the most logical to devote themselves too.

[DMurnett]

I mean, for one, your group is never forced to incorporate any event that happens in the Pathfinder canon. The ending of the terror in Galt, the death of Gorum, hell, even Earthfall are as true as your GM decides they are. If your group doesn't have a reason or wish to play with the space a disruptive event creates, just... Ignore it.
That said I think it was Divine Mysteries that has a section on worshiping dead gods, and it provides a few ideas for how a dead god's power might remain available for worshippers. This lets you have your cake and eat it too!

[NorrKnekten]

One thing I especially enjoy from that Divine Mysteries section is the suggestion that another deity can 'take over' the missing deity's position when it comes to answering requests for power, But that this doesn't mean the PC is neccesarily aware of it.

[JiCi]

Apparently, it creates a new class :p

War of Immortals pg. 28 wrote:

As the war god died, his power rained through the many planes of creation, sparking conflict and instilling divine energy in those previously without it. Whether you were directly touched by this power, claimed it from an ancient being or artifact, or whether it awoke something long dormant in your lineage, a spark of the divine now blazes within your soul, granting you abilities, sacred weapons, and divine signifiers that reach into the realm previously reserved for gods and legends. How you wield these tools and grow your power is for you to decide—you may become a hero or you may turn to selfish ends, but one thing is certain: you intend to carve your epithet in history, immortalized in the memory of gods and mortals alike.

That's what they did XD

[SuperParkourio]

PFS ruleset mentions this.

Quote:

A number of deities died during 2024 as part of the War of Immortals event. Dead deities do not provide mechanical benefits. Any character using a character option that explicitly receives power from a deity who dies receives a free rebuild automatically, which does not expire.