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But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.
They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.
She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.
Wait... the flowing of souls extends the life span of the current universe, and thusly I would assume, Pharasma's existence too. She's a hypocrite. She's using souls in this cycle to extend existence, and thus her own personal existence... much like a necromancer might.
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Wait... the flowing of souls extends the life span of the current universe, and thusly I would assume, Pharasma's existence too. She's a hypocrite. She's using souls in this cycle to extend existence, and thus her own personal existence... much like a necromancer might.But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.
They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.
She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.
You could argue that, but you could also argue that shortening it for everyone in existence is a pretty bad thing. You're trying to make an analogy for Pharasma with necromancy that really doesn't work, because while it happens to lengthen her time existing, it lengthens the time anyone at all gets to exists because that's simply how this universe works. Also, Pharasma could be killed. Who knows what consequences that would have, it would be crazy. But I think Pharasma would accept her death and not resort to necromancy, because she knows the consequences.
We also don't know what consequences it has for the next iteration of existence. We know a part of the current iteration of existence will be used as the key for the next existence. And that Pharasma knew from the moment it was created, that this existence had a flaw that would stop it from going on indefinitely. But she has prepared someone to create the next iteration and hopefully improved on the formula that was used to create this version.
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So if a necromancer's bloody sacrifices of lesser animals and rituals had a side effect of helping the local crops come in plentiful and robust, would you no loner consider what they did evil, again assuming this was done with void energy?
Furthermore, from her perspective, she is artificially extending her life by manipulating the flow of souls, this flies in the face of her stated concept of to everything a time to be born and a time to die.
(To be clear, this more of a devil's advocate thing I'm doing here, because I find this an interesting metaphysical and moral discussion, and presenting the arguments that I think Ethical necromancers would give for their activities)
If Pharasma is so justified in prolonging her own life, OUTSIDE the cycle of life and death, then why should we not be able to?
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So if a necromancer's bloody sacrifices of lesser animals and rituals had a side effect of helping the local crops come in plentiful and robust, would you no loner consider what they did evil, again assuming this was done with void energy?
Furthermore, from her perspective, she is artificially extending her life by manipulating the flow of souls, this flies in the face of her stated concept of to everything a time to be born and a time to die.
(To be clear, this more of a devil's advocate thing I'm doing here, because I find this an interesting metaphysical and moral discussion, and presenting the arguments that I think Ethical necromancers would give for their activities)
If Pharasma is so justified in prolonging her own life, OUTSIDE the cycle of life and death, then why should we not be able to?
Well, Pharasma is not extending only her own life. And she's not working outside the cycle of life and death either. The cycle of souls, which she is trying to keep going and is harmed by Necromancy, is what keeps this version of the universe from ending. Prophecy has broken, but prior to that it was "known" that when Pharasma judged the last soul besides heserlf, the watcher, the survivor, and Groetus would be there. Groetus will descend and consume everything remaining (including Pharasma), likely becoming the key to start the next instance of reality. The Watcher exists outside of reality. And the survivor is the chosen being that will use the key to start reality again. I do not believe Pharasma fears this. She has known it to be her destiny for all of existence.
But in any event, she's not working outside the cycle of souls, it's literally just how the cycle of souls work. And she's not doing the cycle of souls for herself, but so that everyone and everything can keep on existing. Even Undead will cease to be when this instance of the universe ends.
It should also be understood that Pharasma didn't intentionally create the cycle of souls as we understand it. But in the first moments of creation she knew how it functioned, and its flaws, and that it would eventually grind to a halt and this existence would end. It's actually very unclear how much control or influence Pharasma had on the creation of this version of existence, but it honestly seems like very little. It seems more likely that creator of the previous existence is the one who sets up the conditions to start the next existence.
To your first question, if blood sacrifices and rituals helped local crops (and didn't mess with the cycle of souls) I wouldn't personally consider it evil. You've simply described what many first nation and ancient peoples would do in the past. The use of Void energy doesn't really change this for me, although in the past when it was the Negative Energy plane which was aligned directly with Evil, including tags it would be pretty hard to say it wasn't Evil within the in universe setting.
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as you pointed out, Prophesy is broken, if it was every real in the first place.
Further you pointed out that the cycle of souls is a force beyond her that she is manipulating. and would eventually come to a stop to end the universe, so she artificially forces this to continue through the manipulation of the cycle of souls.
Also, I didn't say she was acting outside the cycle of souls, but outside the cycle of Life and Death, the gods can die. We've just had a rather vivid demonstration of that.
With Prophesy broken she is now just a witch manipulating souls to make sure a future she wants, and only that future comes to pass. Sounds like a necromancer to me.
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Pharasma isn't really manipulating the cycle of life and death, unless you consider "ensuring it functions as intended" to be manipulation...which is a take I guess.
To be honest, I've grown very tired of your devil's advocate and "in character" arguments because I'm looking at this objectively for what we know about the universe of Pathfinder.
The cycle of souls exists. When the last soul is judge, this version of reality ends. Necromancy removes souls from the cycle and hastens the end of reality.
If we assume that reality existing is a good thing, then anything which hastens the end of would be a bad thing. Personally, I view reality existing as a good thing, and I think most beings do, as that's where the exist and all the things they enjoy. You pretty much only get nihilist who look for the end of existence to argue otherwise.
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By manipulating the natural cycles of wood and decay, I maintain my house to artificially extend my life. That I actually against the mites tearing at the foundations is sign of my hypocrisy.
snarking
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People will argue that Pharasma is akin to a Necromancer and is evil/a hypocrite/vile and somehow not reckon Necromancers are the same for doing the same thing they're trying to argue Pharasma is doing but worse. A Necromancer is not trying to prolong the cosmos with their actions, they're vioalting souls to make corpse slaves to do their bidding and polluting their own souls to become undead horrors.
Why are you willing to give them a pass but demonize someone who is actively trying to make sure the slopped together system doesn't just collapse into a entropy-hastening free for all of soul-snatching, soul consuming and undeath profilerating chaos?
On a related note, no Pharasma did not lie about Prophecy being a thing, she may have had it in her portfolio but it was a real thing that existed beyond her and others interacted with. It wasn't her just making stuff up, unless one wants to argue that she did indeed make it all up and somehow lost the ability to just lie through her teeth after Aroden died?
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I would disagree, I think having existence is inherently better than having no existence.Far from being an axiom, this is the only serious question in the whole field of philosophy.
I wouldn't say it's the only serious questions, but it is the first question one must answer when critically questioning philosophical foundations. From this question, all other questions come into existence and become meaningful (because if nothing exist, there can be no other questions or meaning).
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It should also be understood that Pharasma didn't intentionally create the cycle of souls as we understand it. But in the first moments of creation she knew how it functioned, and its flaws, and that it would eventually grind to a halt and this existence would end.
I think it is a bit more complicated than this, because the current cycle of souls is an improvement by the deities of what they first wrought in the First World.
So, it seems Pharasma was one of the designers of the current version of the cycle as well as its caretaker.
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3 hours ago and not in this thread but very relevant IMO:
As for the notion of "stealing a soul from Pharasma," that's not how it works. Remember, Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and fate. She knows if it's a soul's fate to be resurrected (aka reborn) into life once or a thousand times or more or anywhere in between, and doesn't intervene at all, regardless of who's doing the resurrecting, and it doesn't bother her. She's beyond time, and she knows that eventually all things die. She's patient, but also merciful and doesn't begrudge those who seek methods to extend life beyond death via things like resurrection or Sun Orchid Elixirs or fountains of youth. The main exception here is undeath, because that method is actively destructive to the cycle of life and death in that it corrupts a soul and takes it OUT of the cycle, potentially forever, but even temporarily it's damaging. But when a soul of someone who created a lot of undead (or the soul of an undead creature themselves) finally moves on to the Boneyard, she doesn't hold grudges and lets those souls move on to the afterlife after judgment or be resurrected.
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3 hours ago and not in this thread but very relevant IMO:
As for the notion of "stealing a soul from Pharasma," that's not how it works. Remember, Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and fate. She knows if it's a soul's fate to be resurrected (aka reborn) into life once or a thousand times or more or anywhere in between, and doesn't intervene at all, regardless of who's doing the resurrecting, and it doesn't bother her. She's beyond time, and she knows that eventually all things die. She's patient, but also merciful and doesn't begrudge those who seek methods to extend life beyond death via things like resurrection or Sun Orchid Elixirs or fountains of youth. The main exception here is undeath, because that method is actively destructive to the cycle of life and death in that it corrupts a soul and takes it OUT of the cycle, potentially forever, but even temporarily it's damaging. But when a soul of someone who created a lot of undead (or the soul of an undead creature themselves) finally moves on to the Boneyard, she doesn't hold grudges and lets those souls move on to the afterlife after judgment or be resurrected.
Interesting, I had always assumed that "Pharasma knows when people will die so resurrection and artificial life-extension are beneath her notice" would necessarily also apply to undeath--"Pharasma knows when a ghoul will die, even though it's potentially perma-immortal" but this more or less suggests that (from a top-down, developer perspective) the existence of undead doesn't only damage the cosmos by keeping souls in the mortal Universe longer than they were supposed to.
Still fascinated to know how (and whether) this will be squared re: Necromancers potentially being a heroic PC option, soon! It would not surprise me at all if thralls occupied the same "too temporary to matter psuedo-undead" space as the Animate Dead spell, but I half wonder if it might not just be that when you burn fossil fuels animate the dead, there's no scenario where you're not causing some small harm to the environment on the long run and you'll have to live with that, if you ever learn about it, and maybe you'll have to try to perform your art as eco-friendly as possible by offsetting your void emissions.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.Plot Hook: Powerful good necromancer needs to kill more evil necromancers for his offset this year. He's willing to pay for your Credits.
He also has a lot of evil apprentices that the good necromancer will kill in due time.
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Offsetting your necromancy is easy! Just kill two or three rival necromancers.
If you turn a necromancer into your undead thrall, the number of necromancers stay the same. As they say.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
Like, in the modern US its incredibly impractical even if you wanted to, to avoid the direct and indirect use of fossil fuels without significant burden.
To the average person on Golarion, there's basically 0 burden or societal shift needed to avoid necromancy.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
Of course, the lack of a necro-industrial complex in Golarion is to remind us that it's a work of fiction where heroic adventurers and gods both take a meaningful stance against the proliferation of exploitative necromantic practices becoming the norm and catapulting society toward a high equilibrium state based on post-corporeal suffering =P
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Of course, the lack of a necro-industrial complex in Golarion is to remind us that it's a work of fiction where heroic adventurers and gods both take a meaningful stance against the proliferation of exploitative necromantic practices becoming the norm and catapulting society toward a high equilibrium state based on post-corporeal suffering =PBut yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.I think this is a pretty good analogy. With a key difference being that (aside from Geb) society isn't reliant on necromancy to keep society running/functioning.
This post gives me the big sad because it's too real.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.
OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
If I understand your question correctly, it's because outside of undead and cycle of souls Pharasma doesn't care about good or evil. She is not supporting either (outside of the whole undead thing).
So while I agree ensuring the cycle of souls continues and the universe continues are good actions, there is no dedication to good outside of that.
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But yeah, Pharasma's approach is a bit like preventing climate change and global warming, Necromancers are effectively burning fossil fuels in a funky cosmic way.OK, but I would classify this as 'good.' Why is fighting climate change neutral?
I think we've exhausted the topic.
Because Pharasma has zero problem with the authoritarian regimes winning. Nor with the democracies winning for that matter.
It is all less important to her than fighting climate change.
Hence Neutral and does not allow Unholy nor Holy because that struggle is just an unneeded distraction from the true duty.
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I think its also worth saying that fighting climate change in this context is pretty clearly a Good action endorsed by many holy deities (and opposed by several unholy ones), but Pharasma is not herself. Fighting climate change does not automatically make her Good, nor does that make fighting climate change Not Good.
Although, push the pursuit of making any metric go up/down singlemindedly enough and it can become an amoral or immoral action...
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I think a concept within Pathfinder is that worship can grant a being divine power, but worship isn't required to maintain divine power. And also the amount of worshippers doesn't translate to amount of divine power.