Pathfinder cosmology ... sucks

[CyberThread]

I don;t know just the world and they setting they pick. Just seems to lack a certain something or spice. I can't put my finger on it, it just seems ot ... maybe not suck but..... dismal .

[Snowbluff]

Everyone has weird names that I can't remember. They all sound the same to me.

I should just buy a notebook.

[Ravens_cry]

I don;t know just the world and they setting they pick. Just seems to lack a certain something or spice. I can't put my finger on it, it just seems ot ... maybe not suck but..... dismal .
I don't know. It does suffer a little from "We are SO mature" a little, and it has the tendnacy of an introductory world to try to be everything, but it has some features I like, like a Neutral death god. Also, some of the female gods are pretty badass, which is a nice change from a lot of worlds.
For a world that literally contains everything in the C'thulhu mythos but Big C himself, it's pretty undismal I'd say.

[Vhaidara]

Um, Neutral Death Goddess? Wee Jas anyone?

I actually hate PF cosmology, mostly because I love the gods from 3.5 (which I guess means Greyhawk).

My biggest issue is one that PF and 4e actually share: Asmodeus being a god. I vastly prefer him as "The biggest, baddest thing that ISN'T a god". Especially for anyone who's looked at the summary of the Pact Primeval.

[zimmerwald1915]

I don't know. It does suffer a little from "We are SO mature" a little, and it has the tendnacy of an introductory world to try to be everything, but it has some features I like, like a Neutral death god. Also, some of the female gods are pretty badass, which is a nice change from a lot of worlds.
For a world that literally contains everything in the C'thulhu mythos but Big C himself, it's pretty undismal I'd say.
Cthulhu was statted in Bestiary 4. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-ones/great-old-one-cthulhu) Also, Earth, and thus R'leyh, exist in the Pathfinder setting's material plane.

[torrasque666]

I dunno. I kind of like the Rough Beast concept. Something so damn terrifying that all the gods, even Asmodeous and all other Evil gods, will rally against. Isn't there some Elder Evil kinda like that in 3.5? Or was there anything like that at all?

[Vhaidara]

I dunno. I kind of like the Rough Beast concept. Something so damn terrifying that all the gods, even Asmodeous and all other Evil gods, will rally against. Isn't there some Elder Evil kinda like that in 3.5? Or was there anything like that at all?

All of the Elder Evils are explicitly immune to Gods. And they got an entire book. 12 or 13 of them, I think.

[torrasque666]

Hmm.... I guess its not the same with Elder Evils. The Rough Beast IS a god, but one so terrifying and archetypal of chaotic evil that even the other CE gods don't want him loose.

[ArqArturo]

I've been using my pantheon ever since 3.0, so there.

Then again, I don't GM much :/.

[Ravens_cry]

Cthulhu was statted in Bestiary 4. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-ones/great-old-one-cthulhu) Also, Earth, and thus R'leyh, exist in the Pathfinder setting's material plane.
Freaky. Duly noted.

Um, Neutral Death Goddess? Wee Jas anyone?

It's hardly her primary role, Nerull is your typical EVVIIILL death god.

[Snowbluff]

Only 36 HD, too. Level 18 I'm making a Cthulu Simulacrum to frak with my PF table.

[grarrrg]

Um, Neutral Death Goddess? Wee Jas anyone?

TRUE Neutral Death god.
Pharasma (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Pharasma)

I like to think she's TN not because she 'wants to be', but more just cause she doesn't care all that much.
Except when it comes to Undead. She doesn't like them very much.


There's also the drunkard that became a god because of a drunk bet...
He's fun.

[ArqArturo]

I don't know why the big fuzz on a neutral deity of death. Neutral deity of undeath, I can understand why would there be an issue, but death -as in, not alive- is impartial to alignment, so it makes sense, to me at least, that there is a goddess/god out there that regulates the flow of souls of the living and the dead.

[toapat]

I don't know. It does suffer a little from "We are SO mature" a little, and it has the tendnacy of an introductory world to try to be everything, but it has some features I like, like a Neutral death god. Also, some of the female gods are pretty badass, which is a nice change from a lot of worlds.

i think the real problem with Golarion is that its really landmark things we have either seen elsewhere, or are very much the "We're Mature, really." sort of stuff.

In faerun, the material really isnt any more mature either. its just that where as PF handles the mature issues with the composure and maturity of a 12 year old, Faerun lets you look and form your own opinions on the horrors and atrocities, with no concern over whether it is correct for Drow women to wear 3 square inches of clothing, none of which is in the locations you expect them to be when described as 3 square inches of clothing

[Callos_DeTerran]

I don't know. It does suffer a little from "We are SO mature" a little, and it has the tendnacy of an introductory world to try to be everything, but it has some features I like, like a Neutral death god. Also, some of the female gods are pretty badass, which is a nice change from a lot of worlds.
For a world that literally contains everything in the C'thulhu mythos but Big C himself, it's pretty undismal I'd say.

The fact it has a little bit of everything, a niche for so many genres of roleplaying is part of why I like Golarion and the Pathfinder Cosmology. Also, I really like the gods and thought I wouldn't like Asmodeus as a god but...well..they made it work! Also, Cayden Cailien because...just Cayden. He's the best ascended deity anywhere, for real.

[squiggit]

Hmm.... I guess its not the same with Elder Evils. The Rough Beast IS a god, but one so terrifying and archetypal of chaotic evil that even the other CE gods don't want him loose.

So.. Tharizdun?

[Ravens_cry]

The fact it has a little bit of everything, a niche for so many genres of roleplaying is part of why I like Golarion and the Pathfinder Cosmology. Also, I really like the gods and thought I wouldn't like Asmodeus as a god but...well..they made it work! Also, Cayden Cailien because...just Cayden. He's the best ascended deity anywhere, for real.
Each to their own, the result I find is a little unfocused. I do like the gods, yes. Another thing I like is that there's different planets, ripe for whole campaigns in their own right. :smallbiggrin:

[Squirrel_Dude]

TRUE Neutral Death god.
Pharasma (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Pharasma)

I like to think she's TN not because she 'wants to be', but more just cause she doesn't care all that much.
Except when it comes to Undead. She doesn't like them very much.


There's also the drunkard that became a god because of a drunk bet...
He's fun.Cayden may be my favorite god ever.

[Anlashok]

TRUE Neutral Death god.
Pharasma (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Pharasma)

I like to think she's TN not because she 'wants to be', but more just cause she doesn't care all that much.
Except when it comes to Undead. She doesn't like them very much.

Sounds like the Raven Queen.

[ArqArturo]

The fact it has a little bit of everything, a niche for so many genres of roleplaying is part of why I like Golarion and the Pathfinder Cosmology. Also, I really like the gods and thought I wouldn't like Asmodeus as a god but...well..they made it work! Also, Cayden Cailien because...just Cayden. He's the best ascended deity anywhere, for real.

We started calling Gorum Goku, mostly because the pronunciation of Gorum (in Spanish anyway) sounds a lot like the pronunciation of Goku (we do the accent on the 'ku' part, not the 'go' part).

So we had a cleric of Goku. She was awesome.

[Twilightwyrm]

The fact it has a little bit of everything, a niche for so many genres of roleplaying is part of why I like Golarion and the Pathfinder Cosmology. Also, I really like the gods and thought I wouldn't like Asmodeus as a god but...well..they made it work! Also, Cayden Cailien because...just Cayden. He's the best ascended deity anywhere, for real.

While it does have a bit of everything, and while from a strictly utilitarian standpoint this might be helpful for storytelling, I think this "little bit of everything" approach actually hurts more than it helps. By having a little bit of everything, nothing becomes special, and the internal consistency of setting in general, and the cosmology in particular, becomes a bit of an anachronistic mess. While you can have any particular kind of story, it's kind of like if you want to stick to a general theme you have to put the blinders on to ignore all the other crap that is happening just in the background. Want a high swinging pirate adventure? Sure, just ignore the empire of devil-worshiping nazis shuffling about back stage. Want to engage in a classic tale of Knightly valor in Taldor? Well hope none of the orc raiders you are fighting have blunderbusses, and by the way game of thrones is playing out right to the north of you. Hell, even if you get away from this main continent to the Tian Xia for a tale of spirits and honorable warriors you need to ignore the fact that any minute CTHULHU might jump out from behind the cosmological curtains saying abloogy-woogy-woo! Do you kind of see the issue here? It is perfect pasta sauce rule (that there is no perfect pasta sauce, only perfect pasta sauces). There is no perfect campaign setting, only perfect campaign settings. And the more you try to allow for everything, the more difficult you make it to have any given thing, at least without getting the random bits of everything else stopping by at all hours for a chat.

[123456789blaaa]

While it does have a bit of everything, and while from a strictly utilitarian standpoint this might be helpful for storytelling, I think this "little bit of everything" approach actually hurts more than it helps. By having a little bit of everything, nothing becomes special, and the internal consistency of setting in general, and the cosmology in particular, becomes a bit of an anachronistic mess. While you can have any particular kind of story, it's kind of like if you want to stick to a general theme you have to put the blinders on to ignore all the other crap that is happening just in the background. Want a high swinging pirate adventure? Sure, just ignore the empire of devil-worshiping nazis shuffling about back stage. Want to engage in a classic tale of Knightly valor in Taldor? Well hope none of the orc raiders you are fighting have blunderbusses, and by the way game of thrones is playing out right to the north of you. Hell, even if you get away from this main continent to the Tian Xia for a tale of spirits and honorable warriors you need to ignore the fact that any minute CTHULHU might jump out from behind the cosmological curtains saying abloogy-woogy-woo! Do you kind of see the issue here? It is perfect pasta sauce rule (that there is no perfect pasta sauce, only perfect pasta sauces). There is no perfect campaign setting, only perfect campaign settings. And the more you try to allow for everything, the more difficult you make it to have any given thing, at least without getting the random bits of everything else stopping by at all hours for a chat.

While this probably applies to most other games, I actually think DnD (and by extension, Pathfinder) is uniquely suited for it. The thing is, DnD was always a crazy, unrealistic mash up of widely different inspirations. I always felt that more tight settings for DnD were actually harmed by being made for that particular system and its innate fluff. DnD emulates itself, not any one source. If you want to play a game of knightly valour, I'd probably reccomend a different system specialized for that kind of thing. That way you won't have to ban and pidgeonhole a ton of things already in the DnD 3.5/Pathfinder system. It's a heck of a lot easier to manipulate fluff in a crunchy system after all (which is helped by how a lot of different elements in Golarion are segregated from each other instead of intertwined).

This is a part of the reason why Planescape is my favorite DnD setting.

[Talya]

I love the deities available to PCs in Pathfinder... and if you can't find what you're looking for in the standard cosmology, you'll find it in the Empyreal Lords or Devil/Demon Lords.

I love that they don't shy away from sexual portfolios, as well.

Golarion often strikes me as having the type of cosmology Greenwood would have written if he didn't have TSR/WotC-Hasbro telling him what wasn't appropriate. This is a good thing.

[Gemini476]

So.. Tharizdun?

Tharizdun in 4e, or Pandorym in 3E.

While several of the Elder Evils could work for that spot, Pandorym is the one that is imprisoned on the Material and will kill all gods once released. And destroy the multiverse, should he be blocked from returning to his plane parallel to reality.

My personal opinion on Golarion is that it's basically a less interesting Mystara, but that's just my opinion.

[Psyren]

I much prefer Sarenrae to Pelor as a "new cleric" option.

I like Nethys way more than Boccob and Mystra. Now we actually have a plausible reason why he doesn't simply take away the evil gods' magic, or solve all the big problems in the setting himself, other than idiocy or apathy that is.

I also really like Calistria and Desna. And finally, I like all three gods that beat the Starstone (Cayden, Iomedae and Norgorber), as well as how diametrically opposed they all are, implying that there are many different approaches to solving the test.

Apart from the gods - I much prefer terms like "Azata" to "Eladrin," "Agathion" to "Guardinal," "Protean" to "Slaadi," and I like that the Inevitables are actually the LN outsiders now as they are commonly mistaken to be. I also really love the creation of the TN Aeons. Pleromas are just plain scary and they work as both ally or enemy to the PCs.

*shrug* to each their own I guess.

[Hazuki]

Also, Cayden Cailien because...just Cayden. He's the best ascended deity anywhere, for real.


Cayden may be my favorite god ever.You mean the God who's basically a jock and just tries to **** the goddesses?

If you like sexist *******s, he's a great god. :smallannoyed:

[Oazard]

No love for Zyphus, the god of accidental deaths, who was so angry of his stupid death that he ascended? Or Groetus, which is literally the moon of Majora Mask! Yeah, Golarion's Gods are the best part of that cosmology. :smallbiggrin:


You mean the God who's basically a jock and just tries to **** the goddesses?

If you like sexist *******s, he's a great god. :smallannoyed:

He don't want to **** the goddesses. He serenades Shelyn and trysts with Calistria, but no more than that. :smallannoyed:

[Psyren]

As a matter of fact, it's rumored he took the test in order to gain a chance with Calistria, and she still won't give him the time of day (beyond flirting) even after he made it.

Zyphus' ascension was pretty hilarious, though he and his followers are evil gits.

[TiaC]

I wish the setting was a little more friendly to players having an impact. I think that it's made such that even a small city has a character in it who will be in the teens level-wise. Faerun has a similar problem of course, but it feels more organic to me. Like, Faerun got a bunch of high level NPCs through decades of growth, in Golarion they're just there. I could also do without the Mythos, as it is one of those things that takes over a story.*




I'd like to spell out a rule that I created for myself- never bring the following elements into an established storyline: The Cthulu Mythos, Giant Robots, and Time Travel.
Why? Because, if you do, then whatever it was about before, now it's about the Cthulu Mythos, or the Giant Robot, or Time Travel. No matter how you may try to marginalize them, the Mythos or the Robot or Time Travel will still overshadow everything else, and every plot and development will have to be viewed in regards how the element impacts on that plot or development.

[Hazuki]

He don't want to **** the goddesses. He serenades Shelyn and trysts with Calistria, but no more than that. :smallannoyed:
Actually, Calistria denied him. Which is part of what makes me like her.

Also, he does. He's tried to woo three Goddesses (Desna, Shelyn, and Calistria), which is more than enough examples that he's just trying to get his rocks off.

[Psyren]

Actually, Calistria denied him. Which is part of what makes me like her.

Also, he does. He's tried to woo three Goddesses (Desna, Shelyn, and Calistria), which is more than enough examples that he's just trying to get his rocks off.

Is flirting/serenading against the law now? :smallconfused: You're acting like he's cornered each of them in a dark alley.

[Hazuki]

No, but if I were a goddess, I wouldn't want some chauvinistic drunk trying to stick his **** in me.

[Snowbluff]

Sounds like the deity equivalent to a blond guy at a college campus with an acoustic guitar.

1/10 would not worship again.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Actually, Calistria denied him. Which is part of what makes me like her.

Also, he does. He's tried to woo three Goddesses (Desna, Shelyn, and Calistria), which is more than enough examples that he's just trying to get his rocks off.I thought it was Shelyn that denied him?


[link] (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Shelyn#Relationship_with_Other_Deities)
The relatively recently ascended god Cayden Cailean frequently attempts to win her over (and always fails), and has contributed greatly to her art and violin collections.

Well, I guess Calistria turned him down too.

[link] (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Calistria#Relationships)
One such tale claims Cayden Cailean's rise to divinity was the result of a failed attempt to win the attention of the Unquenchable Fire, who is said to have denied the sellsword's advances on the basis of his mortality.

Also, besides the crime of being overly flirtatious, he is a pretty good dude. If you're talking jocks you're also typically talking a douchy bully, and Cayden specifically opposes that kind of behavior. Honestly, he comes off more as a comedy relief character than anything, IMO.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

My take on Pathfinder fluff in comparison to DND is like Requiem in comparison to Masquerade. Masquerade and DND are meant to be fully developed settings to just plop your characters into and play, so there's a great emphasis and attention to detail on the lore.
Pathfinder is more like a Lego set, it's a pile of modular, unconnected elements that you can pick and choose and tweak around to suit the setting you want to set your campaign in. You can build after the instructions, but the game will be a lot more special if you decide for yourself how the pieces are supposed to fit together.

[JusticeZero]

Could be worse, they could have let Monte Cook loose on it. From the school of "campaign settings should be stacks of precariously placed explosives" his own AU was a disaster. Every possible conflict was carefully disarmed and rendered peaceful and non adventurous except for two possible issues, and both of those had long and explicit instructions and explanations about how those were both impossible and discouraged.

DIY cosmology works a lot better when it's designed so I can actually DIY the thing. Once it's defined and tied in, you sort've have to play it where it lies, so either make a vague frame or do something cool and memorable.

[Beowulf DW]

Actually, Calistria denied him. Which is part of what makes me like her.

Also, he does. He's tried to woo three Goddesses (Desna, Shelyn, and Calistria), which is more than enough examples that he's just trying to get his rocks off.

How exactly does that make him sexist? He's the Lucky Drunk. He's a bard that never stopped being a bard. At no point is it indicated that he disrespects the goddesses. It's in his nature to flirt with beautiful women, just as it's in Calistria's nature to sleep around with all and sundry and be a vindictive b**** after the break up.


Sounds like the deity equivalent to a blond guy at a college campus with an acoustic guitar.

1/10 would not worship again.

Read and be educated, my friend. (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Cayden_Cailean)

[ArqArturo]

Could be worse, they could have let Monte Cook loose on it. From the school of "campaign settings should be stacks of precariously placed explosives" his own AU was a disaster. Every possible conflict was carefully disarmed and rendered peaceful and non adventurous except for two possible issues, and both of those had long and explicit instructions and explanations about how those were both impossible and discouraged.

DIY cosmology works a lot better when it's designed so I can actually DIY the thing. Once it's defined and tied in, you sort've have to play it where it lies, so either make a vague frame or do something cool and memorable.

Or, could've been Matt Ward.

[Raven777]

It has the Moon (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Groetus) from Majora's Mask (http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/232/9/4/majora__s_mask___skull_kid_and_moon_by_tx_slade_xt-d5bu2d1.jpg). And these beautiful things (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/5/55/Numerian_mecha_scorpion.jpg). What more can we ask?

[Beowulf DW]

It has the Moon (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Groetus) from Majora's Mask (http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/232/9/4/majora__s_mask___skull_kid_and_moon_by_tx_slade_xt-d5bu2d1.jpg). And these beautiful things (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/5/55/Numerian_mecha_scorpion.jpg). What more can we ask?

Numeria: Conan vs the Magic Robots From Space.

[Slithery D]

Speaking of cosmology, the last episode of the Mummy's Mask AP (http://paizo.com/products/btpy97av?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-84-Pyramid-of-the-Sky-Pharaoh) has an excellent article on how afterlife and the progression of souls works in Golarion.

Gives more input about athiest/agnostic fates, the cosmic significance of souls and Outsiders, why you can true resurrect someone even after they should have been judged and quite possibly destroyed or turned into an Outsider by now, etc.

[zimmerwald1915]

Numeria: Conan vs the Magic Robots From Space.
Coming August 2014!

Oh wait...

[Anlashok]

Scratching my head a bit at this "He flirts with women therefore he's a sexist pigmonsterdemon" bit

Also scratching my head at some of the comments. Seems like people like Golarion for the exact same reasons we're supposed to hate FR.


Gives more input about athiest/agnostic fates
Did they change it or do atheists still get imprisoned for eternity in an endless graveyard of souls?


Or, could've been Matt Ward.

Trigger warning man!

[Jormengand]

Scratching my head a bit at this "He flirts with women therefore he's a sexist pigmonsterdemon" bit

I think the point is that he flirts with women who have already told him "No" about fifty times, which is just a little bit creepy and not very respectful of women.

[Vhaidara]

I think the point is that he flirts with women who have already told him "No" about fifty times, which is just a little bit creepy and not very respectful of women.

I'm pretty sure that's a job requirement for him.

Also, 10/10, still better than Zeus

[Jormengand]

I'm pretty sure that's a job requirement for him.

If being creepy is part of your job, get a new one.

[mephnick]

Huh, I figured most of the people here would relate to the God of Getting Shot Down

[Beowulf DW]

I think the point is that he flirts with women who have already told him "No" about fifty times, which is just a little bit creepy and not very respectful of women.

Let's be clear here. These are goddesses we're talking about. Ancient beings of incredible power. If they really wanted him gone, they would have smote him by now. As is, they probably think he's kind of cute in a dopy way, and they probably like being hit on by a man that is thousands of years younger than they are.:smalltongue:

[Squirrel_Dude]

Or, could've been Matt Ward."Why are there Ultramarines in Golarion?"

[Beowulf DW]

"Why are there Ultramarines in Golarion?"

So that's who came up with the Hellknights.

[Jormengand]

Let's be clear here. These are goddesses we're talking about. Ancient beings of incredible power. If they really wanted him gone, they would have smote him by now. As is, they probably think he's kind of cute in a dopy way, and they probably like being hit on by a man that is thousands of years younger than they are.:smalltongue:

Or maybe they're just not jerks?

"This guy is hitting on me, so I'm just going to throw fire and lightning at him until he goes away. That's perfectly valid, right?"

[Slithery D]

Did they change it or do atheists still get imprisoned for eternity in an endless graveyard of souls?

This version has "animists, polytheists, agnostics, and others who don't worship specific divinities" sent to the plane most appropriate to their alignment/philosophies. That's a change for agnostics vs. what was in Champions of Balance.

"Dissident" souls who "go beyond mere atheism or impiety" and engage in a "deliberate rejection of the metaphysical order" are indeed still send to "find crypts and crevices on Pharasma's Spire where they might eternally brood on the failings of reality. Many mortal philosophies teach that all atheist souls meet this end, but in truth, atheists and alatrists who seek to pass on can experience the full range of afterlives just as adherents of any other belief system do."

So you can't be condemned or even really "imprisoned" to that fate, you have to choose it by opting out of the whole cycle. Probably because you're pissed that no one is guaranteed a truly eternal soul.

Overall, the cycle of souls in this book is that leaking energy from the Positive Energy Plane becomes ensouled on the Prime Material, you die, you become a petitioner, after a very long time you eventually either merge with the plane (which absorbs your experiences and enriches the philosophy/subconscious knowledge of the plane) or convert to an Outsider, which will eventually be killed and absorbed into the plane.

But even the planes are constantly being eroded by the Maelstrom, stripping away some of that accumulated soul knowledge/experience, which is then churned around to the Antipode, an opposite to the Boneyard, which feeds that stripped, reset energy back into the Positive Energy Plane to start the cycle all over. So over the course of eternity there's a chance your soul stuff gets zeroed out and absolutely nothing of your mortal experience remains.

Choosing the full on atheist dissident path doesn't really exempt you, after long enough your tired soul merges with the Boneyard. But until then you don't have to pretend that being a building block of an aligned plane or feedstock for Outsider armies is actually meaningful in the longest of terms and you can throw a hissy fit over having been born into the system.

[Kudaku]

I love the deities available to PCs in Pathfinder... and if you can't find what you're looking for in the standard cosmology, you'll find it in the Empyreal Lords or Devil/Demon Lords.

I love that they don't shy away from sexual portfolios, as well.

Golarion often strikes me as having the type of cosmology Greenwood would have written if he didn't have TSR/WotC-Hasbro telling him what wasn't appropriate. This is a good thing.

Sexual portfolios is not the only potentially dangerous topic they've worked with either. I often find that the paizo deities are at their best (or worst, depending on the alignment) when the writers dare to stray away from the vanilla portrayal of pantheons. Deities (or more accurately Daemon Harbingers) like Folca and Osolmyr are incredibly cool both for being incredibly risky territory and also for daring to be different than the standard "evil god" stuff.

Hell, I've only ever read two sentences about Folca and he still gives me nightmares.

[Twilightwyrm]

While this probably applies to most other games, I actually think DnD (and by extension, Pathfinder) is uniquely suited for it. The thing is, DnD was always a crazy, unrealistic mash up of widely different inspirations. I always felt that more tight settings for DnD were actually harmed by being made for that particular system and its innate fluff. DnD emulates itself, not any one source. If you want to play a game of knightly valour, I'd probably recommend a different system specialized for that kind of thing. That way you won't have to ban and pidgeonhole a ton of things already in the DnD 3.5/Pathfinder system. It's a heck of a lot easier to manipulate fluff in a crunchy system after all (which is helped by how a lot of different elements in Golarion are segregated from each other instead of intertwined).

This is a part of the reason why Planescape is my favorite DnD setting.

Except in Planescape there are definitive boundaries. Sure, wildly different realities exist, and it is entirely possible to have a prototypical heavenly host against demonic hoard play out with the understanding that all the lovecraftian madness of the Far Realm exists in the same setting, but these things are given space and room to operate and exist on their own, by virtue of literally existing in different realities. In Golarion, with the exception of the Asiatic setting mentioned, all these things exist on the same continent, often with not even a kingdom separating them. There is no room for these different inspirations to operate on their own, within their own boundaries. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Golarion (and indeed, it has several thins I quite enjoy) but by virtue of trying to include all of these thing in the one official setting, everything spills over into everything else. D&D didn't have this problem so much because, besides some of the cosmological stuff, the "standard" D&D setting was fairly undefined (mostly by virtue of acknowledging neither Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk as the "default" setting), and thus the campaign world could be morphed to fit whatever was necessary for it. If you did not want something to exist, it was not hard to simply not include it. With Golarion...well you could, but it is more difficult to excise something that is already established to exist (because you then need to justify how everything else now works around its absence) than never include something that was only ever an option. Yes, D&D 3.5's "standard" setting could easily be an crazy unrealistic mash-up of everything, and maybe that's the way you've always played it, but it is not well defined enough that it has to be that. Pigeonholing is actually a fairly appropriate analogy, considering one might thing of a "standard" D&D setting as a blank slate with a whole bunch of potential "legislation" you can pass or reject or pigeonhole or tie up indefinitely in the rule committee as your discretion. With Golarion specifically, all that legislation is already passed, and you have to actually go through the process of repealing crap, and redefine how the remaining laws interact with one another, etc. etc. (It is necessary to separate Pathfinder from Golarion, as "Pathfinder" as a system can totally be played in this "blank slate" kind of manner)

[Beowulf DW]

Or maybe they're just not jerks?

"This guy is hitting on me, so I'm just going to throw fire and lightning at him until he goes away. That's perfectly valid, right?"

If they found him as creepy as you seem to think, yes, I would imagine they would have made their displeasure known. If they asked him to stop, he would. He stands against oppression, after all.

The more I think about this, the more it seems like they're stringing him along. Which doesn't exactly say much about their character, now does it?

[zimmerwald1915]

I'm pretty sure that's a job requirement for him.
Pretty much this. The Great Beyond usually stays more or less the same, and gods, even ascended gods, don't really change on noticeable human timescales. Maybe Cayden will back off in a few billion years when the Burning Mother becomes a red giant, swallows Golarion, and the gods need to find a new Cage for the Rough Beast. Til then, it's his (and everyone else's) misfortune that he ascended a creep.

[Coidzor]

Hmm? The Cosmology? Isn't it just Great Wheel with the serial numbers filed off?

I suppose they had to substitute in something else instead of the Outlands, since they can't really have The Spire and Sigil...


I dunno. I kind of like the Rough Beast concept. Something so damn terrifying that all the gods, even Asmodeous and all other Evil gods, will rally against. Isn't there some Elder Evil kinda like that in 3.5? Or was there anything like that at all?

Tharizdun, I believe. Who seems to be much more threatening than Rovagug.



"Why are there Ultramarines in Golarion?"So that's who came up with the Hellknights.

*shudder* I knew there was a reason I disliked those.


Numeria: Conan vs the Magic Robots From Space.

Worse, they made a thinly veiled Conan Expy and then made him the king and addicted to heroin, of all things. :smallconfused:


No, but if I were a goddess, I wouldn't want some chauvinistic drunk trying to stick his **** in me.

Y'know, I suppose that may explain a thing or two about Zeus and Hera, come to think of it.


As a matter of fact, it's rumored he took the test in order to gain a chance with Calistria, and she still won't give him the time of day (beyond flirting) even after he made it.

Well, that cheapens the "godhood on a drunken dare" aspect. Pity. I'm just going to reject that rumor until it's substantiated and then probably just sigh and facepalm at Paizo at such time if they decide to go that way and can't pull it off.


You mean the God who's basically a jock and just tries to **** the goddesses?

If you like sexist *******s, he's a great god. :smallannoyed:

Err... Isn't he an adventurer-***-deity of beer and heroism? Fair bit of difference between that and a jock. Heroing does have several chapters devoted to sex and romance, so it'd be going against his portfolio to not at least make some effort to find out if gods can have sex with one another.

The prostitute with a heart of gold as his Herald seems much more problematic, at least on its surface, than that he's attempted to get some deities to lift their skirts for him. And that's more of an awkward writer problem than that the character itself is sexist issue.

[Millennium]

I think the point is that he flirts with women who have already told him "No" about fifty times, which is just a little bit creepy and not very respectful of women.
Except that we don't have any indication that this happened. Even the thing about Calistria turning him down in life is a rumor at most.

Indeed, if we look at the goddesses he pursues, there's evidence of a pattern. As the closest thing that exists to a god of flirtation, I'd bet good money that he has hit on every single goddess in the pantheon at least once; indeed, he may be flat-out bound to do so as part of his cosmic purpose. Yet he does not have to continue to pursue the whole pantheon, as evidenced by the fact that he doesn't. The three he continues to pursue, in fact, are the three most noted for their caprice and whimsy. All three of them are older and stronger, and have considerably more important portfolios: simply put, they are greater gods than he is, with everything that goes with that.

Calistria warrants special mention, because her own portfolio takes her beyond even these other two. It could be argued that some women feel like they cannot rebuff those who continue pursuit, but spurning unwanted advances is every bit as much a part of Calistria's portfolio as welcoming desired ones is. It is already extraordinarily difficult to argue that Shelyn and Desna would feel incapable of turning Cayden Cailean down, but in Calistria's case that argument is outright impossible: she is, in a very literal sense, the goddess of doing exactly that.

In other words, Cayden Cailean is not interested in pursuing those who have already shown that they are not interested. We can see this in the fact that though he is the god of flirts, he does not flirt with the whole pantheon: the only reasonable way to interpret that is that the others have long since told them to go away, and he has given up on them, just as a decent man should. The ones he continues to flirt with are his sometimes flings: the ones who, now and then, accept his advances, and do so for their own reasons. He does not continue to pursue those who are genuinely and completely uninterested, nor does he pressure those who cannot resist, the way a standard creeper does.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I think the point is that he flirts with women who have already told him "No" about fifty times, which is just a little bit creepy and not very respectful of women.It's a bit creepy, but I'm not seeing the "disrespectful of women" part. It might be disrespectful of their personal wishes (and it can easily be interpreted that way, especially with Shelyn), but I'm not sure it's evidence that he has a dim view of the other gender.

The interpretation that Cayden could be acting like a kind of ******* certainly isn't wrong, though. I disagree with it, but I can see the breadcrumb trail.

[Malimar]

My main problem with the Pathfinder pantheon is the same as my main problem with almost every other RPG cosmology: there isn't a major god of agriculture&fertility (or wasn't, last I checked). Which really is just a reflection of the broader fact that all such pantheons are designed with adventurers in mind, not with the goal of being realistic or being relevant to the worlds they're designed for in any way.

[Kudaku]

My main problem with the Pathfinder pantheon is the same as my main problem with almost every other RPG cosmology: there isn't a major god of agriculture&fertility (or wasn't, last I checked). Which really is just a reflection of the broader fact that all such pantheons are designed with adventurers in mind, not with the goal of being realistic or being relevant to the worlds they're designed for in any way.

Erastil covers Agriculture as well as community and hunting. I'd say Pharasma covers fertility as "birth", The Midwife is actually a common nickname for Pharasma. Both are core deities and part of the "big 20". Outside of the "big 20" I can probably name three or four more fertility deities with a little digging, and probably more than a few agriculture deities.

[zimmerwald1915]

My main problem with the Pathfinder pantheon is the same as my main problem with almost every other RPG cosmology: there isn't a major god of agriculture&fertility (or wasn't, last I checked). Which really is just a reflection of the broader fact that all such pantheons are designed with adventurers in mind, not with the goal of being realistic or being relevant to the worlds they're designed for in any way.
That would be Erastil (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Erastil). One of the "core twenty," he's described as "the god of bountiful harvests," has the farming portfolio and the Plant domain, and is worshiped by farmers.

Oh, and in case anyone wants to bring it up, his misogyny has been retconned away as of Inner Sea Gods.

EDIT: ninja'd. The one time I need to check a cite...

[Twilightwyrm]

My main problem with the Pathfinder pantheon is the same as my main problem with almost every other RPG cosmology: there isn't a major god of agriculture&fertility (or wasn't, last I checked). Which really is just a reflection of the broader fact that all such pantheons are designed with adventurers in mind, not with the goal of being realistic or being relevant to the worlds they're designed for in any way.

Erastil and Fandarra respectivly might want a word with you on those counts.

EDIT: Dang ninjas...

[Coidzor]

That would be Erastil (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Erastil). One of the "core twenty," he's described as "the god of bountiful harvests," has the farming portfolio and the Plant domain, and is worshiped by farmers.

Oh, and in case anyone wants to bring it up, his misogyny has been retconned away as of Inner Sea Gods.

EDIT: ninja'd. The one time I need to check a cite...

What Erastilian misogyny? :smallconfused:

Rather random that he condemns his suicides to Avernus specifically, though. Both in that it's there as a one line graf and also because it's Avernus, the first layer that he sends them to. I guess they really had to reach for a way to have non-LE souls end up in Hell in their cosmology? :smallconfused:

[Kudaku]

The original Erastil article had an (unintentionally) raspy tone towards women - it focused a bit too much on his idea of the "traditional family" - he did indeed come across as a bit sexist. Paizo has stated repeatedly that that's the article was unfortunate and misrepresented Erastil, and retconned him in the Inner Sea Gods hardcover.

After reading someone describe Cayden as "creepy" (something I have a hard time understanding personally) I did a little bit of reading up on Cayden Cailean and the female deities. Here's what I found in the Inner Sea Gods:


(Cayden) is on good terms with Desna, Sarenrae, and especially Shelyn (whom he delights in serenading).

(Cayden Cailean) occasionally trysts with Calistria but remains wary of her; on more than one bitter occasion, the beautiful goddess of lust has gotten the best of him(...)

Cayden Cailean (...) amuses (Shelyn) with his heartfelt and often inebriated attempts to woo her, but most believe her love for the god of freedom to be that of a patient older sister.

Iomedae is on good terms with (...) Cayden Cailean (...) holding common interests with (him).

Iomedae has little patience for what she sees as Cayden’s poor discipline and shirking of responsibility.

Recently, Cayden Cailean has made attempts to woo Desna, a flirtation she finds endearing.

(Sarenrae) is warm and welcoming toward all nonevil deities.

The only deity I couldn't find any specific details on is Sarenrae, whose "relation with other religions" article is written in a very general language and never mentions Cayden by name.

My impression of Cayden is basically as the charming but at times inappropriate guy who makes good-natured flirty remarks when he's in the company of beautiful women, but he certainly wouldn't continue to make advances (joking or serious) if he thought they were genuinely unwanted or making the recipient feel uncomfortable.

[zimmerwald1915]

What Erastilian misogyny? :smallconfused:
Exactly :smallwink:

For a serious answer, see Kudaku's post above.

[Coidzor]

The original Erastil article had an (unintentionally) raspy tone towards women - it focused a bit too much on his idea of the "traditional family" - he did indeed come across as a bit sexist. Paizo has stated repeatedly that that's the article was unfortunate and misrepresented Erastil, and retconned him in the Inner Sea Gods hardcover.

That does seem rather at odds with his desire to have all humanoids throw off the shackles of civilization and live as anarchic communities of hunters, gatherers, and farmers, aye. Misogyny seeming to be a development of civilization past his threshold of tolerance from what I recall.

Although, honestly, I can't quite figure out the right terms to describe his ideal community as a god of community that dislikes civilization past the level of the individual community. :smallconfused:

I suppose he might be OK with some form of city-state if they had some sufficiently "primitive" form of government...


After reading someone describe Cayden as "creepy" (something I have a hard time understanding personally) I did a little bit of reading up on Cayden Cailean and the female deities. Here's what I found in the Inner Sea Gods:

The only deity I couldn't find any specific details on is Sarenrae, whose "relation with other religions" article is written in a very general language and never mentions Cayden by name.

My impression of Cayden is basically as the charming but at times inappropriate guy who makes good-natured flirty remarks when he's in the company of beautiful women, but he certainly wouldn't continue to make advances (joking or serious) if he thought they were genuinely unwanted or making the recipient feel uncomfortable.

Huh. That's downright tame. :smallconfused:

Sarenrae is the Goddess of sticking flaming scimitars in things, right?

I just figured he was a good-natured whatever it is that's a step up from murderhobo myself.

[Snowbluff]

Read and be educated, my friend. (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Cayden_Cailean)

What is this? This is so bad. Nothing about this guy is appealing. We have some random drunk who pulls some stunt and becomes a god? He spends time leaving thinks unfinished because it "violates his principals?" What a punk! I was right about the dude with guitar thing. This is the guy who comes to work drunk off his, and tells you he can't work during his hours that he said he was available for because "it's like my sabbath man." And Paizo made him a deity. :l

[Metahuman1]

Actually, Calistria denied him. Which is part of what makes me like her.

Also, he does. He's tried to woo three Goddesses (Desna, Shelyn, and Calistria), which is more than enough examples that he's just trying to get his rocks off.

Your not big on Nordic or Greek/Roman Mythology, are you?

It's a thing with Gods to go around trying to get there rocks off a lot. With Goddesses, magic beings and Mortals. Hell, at least he's not married and doing it behind his wifes back.

[Vhaidara]

Your not big on Nordic or Greek/Roman Mythology, are you?

It's a thing with Gods to go around trying to get there rocks off a lot. With Goddesses, magic beings and Mortals. Hell, at least he's not married and doing it behind his wifes back.

And at least when they say "no" he doesn't go for it anyways. He just keeps trying to get lucky. Consensually.

As I said, 10/10, better than Zeus.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm glad PF has Pharasma, there really SHOULD always be a neutral (or lawful neutral, with death being the ultimate "cosmic law" to enforce on all mortals) greater god(dess) of death, who opposes all those who try to cheat/escape/corrupt/destroy the life-and-death cycle. Which necessarily means being very strongly opposed to the undead. The evil undead-loving god should not be the arbiter of mortality, that's just flipping stupid.


What is this? This is so bad. Nothing about this guy is appealing. We have some random drunk who pulls some stunt and becomes a god? He spends time leaving thinks unfinished because it "violates his principals?" What a punk! I was right about the dude with guitar thing. This is the guy who comes to work drunk off his, and tells you he can't work during his hours that he said he was available for because "it's like my sabbath man." And Paizo made him a deity. :l

Yup. I don't know why so many people love him so much, he's easily my least favorite PF deity. I don't think he's sexist or anything, just a drunk frat boy *******. Which is...quite enough to dislike him.

[malonkey1]

I'm glad PF has Pharasma, there really SHOULD always be a neutral (or lawful neutral, with death being the ultimate "cosmic law" to enforce on all mortals) greater god(dess) of death, who opposes all those who try to cheat/escape/corrupt/destroy the life-and-death cycle. Which necessarily means being very strongly opposed to the undead. The evil undead-loving god should not be the arbiter of mortality, that's just flipping stupid.[quote]

That's actually part of why I like Forgotten Realms and Kelemvor. I actually played a Necromancer (in the traditional sense of speaking to the dead, as opposed to raising zombies). Plus, Mask of the Betrayer was pretty awesome.

[quote]Yup. I don't know why so many people love him so much, he's easily my least favorite PF deity. I don't think he's sexist or anything, just a drunk frat boy *******. Which is...quite enough to dislike him.

Can't speak to that. Honestly not very familiar with Golarion.

[Metahuman1]

And at least when they say "no" he doesn't go for it anyways. He just keeps trying to get lucky. Consensually.

As I said, 10/10, better than Zeus.

Which I'm fine with.


As to the rest, as many of these people exist, is it really surprising they got there own deity?

Particularly form a company that does an organized play adventure about rescuing the prince and once you get the prince the GM's are directed to "Troll the Players with him for the rest of the game." I'm not even kidding, this was my Pathfinder Society session a month or so ago at a Con.

[Anlashok]

People like him because they consider him a symbol of freedom and standing fast against the darkness. Opposing tyranny and oppression without being as 'stick-up-the-ass" as traditional good gods (Tyr or Helm or Lathandar or Iomedae etc.). Plus "god of booze" is always a pretty popular archetype.

Doesn't help that most of the reasons people are claiming he's a bad deity are literally made up on the spot. I'm personally not much of a fan of him but that doesn't need to invent reasons to hate him.

I'm not a fan of Nerull either and I'm not gonna go around complaining about how Nerull is an awful deity because he roots for the Packers and wears those stupid cheese wedge hats.

[toapat]

Yup. I don't know why so many people love him so much, he's easily my least favorite PF deity. I don't think he's sexist or anything, just a drunk frat boy *******. Which is...quite enough to dislike him.

i think i got 2/3rd of the way through the PF Core rulebook one day because it was the only thing to do in the car. Caiden's fun begins and ends in the book.

"Ascended to godhood on a drunken bet" is amusing, but as far as anything else? i cant remember anything from that book besides the paladin mostly because of the realization how stupid the paladin in that is.

[grarrrg]

I'm not a fan of Nerull either and I'm not gonna go around complaining about how Nerull is an awful deity because he roots for the Packers and wears those stupid cheese wedge hats.

You sir, you just made "the list".
*makes the "eyes watching you" gesture*

[Zanos]

People like him because they consider him a symbol of freedom and standing fast against the darkness. Opposing tyranny and oppression without being as 'stick-up-the-ass" as traditional good gods (Tyr or Helm or Lathandar or Iomedae etc.). Plus "god of booze" is always a pretty popular archetype.

Doesn't help that most of the reasons people are claiming he's a bad deity are literally made up on the spot. I'm personally not much of a fan of him but that doesn't need to invent reasons to hate him.

I'm not a fan of Nerull either and I'm not gonna go around complaining about how Nerull is an awful deity because he roots for the Packers and wears those stupid cheese wedge hats.
The professionally offended will always find something to be angry about.

[LordErebus12]

I personally find the Pathfinder Core 20 deities to be simply divine. :smallbiggrin:

My favorite two are:

Zon-Kuthon, who was in no doubt in my mind, the designer's tip of the hat to Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Their alterations of Kyton, which were formally devils in 3.X, which now fit into that perfect Cenobite role without having to be actual baatezu.

and

Desna, who single-handily lit up the Dark Tapestry with stars, creating the night sky from nothing but the cold, unforgiving void.

Special mentions:

Rovagug, the most powerful Qlippoth, who required quite a large prison...

Urgathoa, the first undead. She has perhaps the best (and most gruesome) picture, in my opinion (the naked, skinned skeleton one).

Iomedae, for mainly not being Palor, while still being a strong role model for young girls growing up on Golarion...

[Beowulf DW]

What is this? This is so bad. Nothing about this guy is appealing. We have some random drunk who pulls some stunt and becomes a god? He spends time leaving thinks unfinished because it "violates his principals?" What a punk! I was right about the dude with guitar thing. This is the guy who comes to work drunk off his, and tells you he can't work during his hours that he said he was available for because "it's like my sabbath man." And Paizo made him a deity. :l

The link's not broken is it?


Despite the church's promotion of drink, the faithful draw a line between drinking for merriment and drinking to excess. The latter is seen as the abuse of one of the deity's favored things, and as such is frowned upon. Similarly, although the faithful of Cayden Cailean are known to actively seek out danger and adventure, they recognize the need to withdraw when a situation turns sour. Stupidity does not equal bravery, and bravery should never be sought at the bottom of a keg.


The church also sponsors a large number of orphanages, and it's not uncommon for children from such locations to take the surname Cailean when they leave.



https://warosu.org/data/tg/img/0275/02/1380568935536.jpg

http://37.media.tumblr.com/7c2e0db298912d034d9b368ab68dff7b/tumblr_my9w1d6UDu1r3ccluo1_400.jpg

[Renegade Paladin]

i think i got 2/3rd of the way through the PF Core rulebook one day because it was the only thing to do in the car. Caiden's fun begins and ends in the book.

"Ascended to godhood on a drunken bet" is amusing, but as far as anything else? i cant remember anything from that book besides the paladin mostly because of the realization how stupid the paladin in that is.
The core rulebook doesn't say a thing about him apart from listing his portfolio and domains. :smallconfused: And what do you think is wrong with the Pathfinder paladin?

[123456789blaaa]

I'm glad PF has Pharasma, there really SHOULD always be a neutral (or lawful neutral, with death being the ultimate "cosmic law" to enforce on all mortals) greater god(dess) of death, who opposes all those who try to cheat/escape/corrupt/destroy the life-and-death cycle. Which necessarily means being very strongly opposed to the undead. The evil undead-loving god should not be the arbiter of mortality, that's just flipping stupid.

Why? I'm not speaking for its execution in published materials but this seems like a perfectly workable concept. For example, 4E had Orcus (the Demon Prince of the Undead) attempting to wrestle the Raven Queens (TN Goddess of death) portfolio and dominion over the souls of the dead. This would give him servants in everyone who would ever die as well as a ton of other advantages. That seems perfectly sensible and would continue to be so if he had succeeded.


Yup. I don't know why so many people love him so much, he's easily my least favorite PF deity. I don't think he's sexist or anything, just a drunk frat boy *******. Which is...quite enough to dislike him.

Do "drunk frat boy *******" regularly expend significant effort promoting freedom and bravery and liberation from evil? Cayden is CG, not CN. He sincerely helps people and refused to compromise his principles when he was a mortal (and also now that he's a god). His followers regularly risk their lives fighting against evildoers and I'd bet a fortune that Cayden would do so as well if he weren't bound by godly restrictions. He's also just a genuinely friendly guy (god).

I'm not saying you have to love or even like him but saying he's a "drunk frat boy *******" is doing him an unfair disservice in my opinion.

[Vhaidara]

And what do you think is wrong with the Pathfinder paladin?

Probably the "Smite over Time" thing.


Why? I'm not speaking for its execution in published materials but this seems like a perfectly workable concept. For example, 4E had Orcus (the Demon Prince of the Undead) attempting to wrestle the Raven Queens (TN Goddess of death) portfolio and dominion over the souls of the dead. This would give him servants in everyone who would ever die as well as a ton of other advantages. That seems perfectly sensible and would continue to be so if he had succeeded.

I think the point is that the contest can be there, but straight up having the primary god of death (not the undead, but of death) be biased is the problem. Raven Queen, Pharasma, Wee Jas, Hades (we all know he's only Evil in Disney), Kelemvor, and Anubis are all examples of properly done Death gods

[squiggit]

I think I'm the only person ever who likes Nerull.


Raven Queen...are all examples of properly done Death gods
She's envious and petty and primarily does what she does out of spite and desperation than anything else. She hates the undead not because undead are anathema or anything but because she's deeply jealous and covetous over anyone else who dares claim a single soul (after all, HER undead are perfectly cool). Hell, she seems TN mostly because she's too busy desperately trying to claim every single soul for herself to do anything overtly evil (and even then I'm not entirely convinced she deserves that tag).

[Psyren]

I'm pretty sure that's a job requirement for him.

Also, 10/10, still better than Zeus

By a mile.


Huh, I figured most of the people here would relate to the God of Getting Shot Down

Ha! :smallbiggrin:
Or maybe they're just not jerks?

"This guy is hitting on me, so I'm just going to throw fire and lightning at him until he goes away. That's perfectly valid, right?"

Well, if you're Andrea Dworkin over there then it might seem so :smalltongue:



Yup. I don't know why so many people love him so much, he's easily my least favorite PF deity. I don't think he's sexist or anything, just a drunk frat boy *******. Which is...quite enough to dislike him.

For the record, he's far from my favorite too. I just don't see what the big crime is with flirting.

Irori is my personal favorite, followed by Nethys - two ascended mortals who Don't Need Your Stinking Starstone.

[Marlowe]

Sexual portfolios is not the only potentially dangerous topic they've worked with either. I often find that the paizo deities are at their best (or worst, depending on the alignment) when the writers dare to stray away from the vanilla portrayal of pantheons. Deities (or more accurately Daemon Harbingers) like Folca and Osolmyr are incredibly cool both for being incredibly risky territory and also for daring to be different than the standard "evil god" stuff.

Hell, I've only ever read two sentences about Folca and he still gives me nightmares.

**Looks up this "Folca"**

**Reflects that two sentences is about all there seems to be.**

So; "God/Patron of paedophiliac serial killers". I can see people must have been falling over themselves for that position. Seems more like a tasteless joke than anything I'd describe as "incredibly cool" or "daring" however.

[Vhaidara]

She's envious and petty and primarily does what she does out of spite and desperation than anything else. She hates the undead not because undead are anathema or anything but because she's deeply jealous and covetous over anyone else who dares claim a single soul (after all, HER undead are perfectly cool). Hell, she seems TN mostly because she's too busy desperately trying to claim every single soul for herself to do anything overtly evil (and even then I'm not entirely convinced she deserves that tag).

Okay, scratch her out. I only knew the basics (TN, Death, Secrets), so I figured it was like a hybridization of Vecna and Wee Jas.

[Marlowe]

a hybridization of Vecna and Wee Jas.

We do not talk about attempts to "hybridize" Vecna and Wee Jas.

Especially as the former would never shut up about it.

[...]

I think I'm the only person ever who likes Nerull.
-snip-


You would be wrong on that. I prefer to think of Nerull as the god of DEATH, as in, the god of killing things in insane cult rituals.

[123456789blaaa]

Probably the "Smite over Time" thing.



I think the point is that the contest can be there, but straight up having the primary god of death (not the undead, but of death) be biased is the problem. Raven Queen, Pharasma, Wee Jas, Hades (we all know he's only Evil in Disney), Kelemvor, and Anubis are all examples of properly done Death gods

That's what I'm talking about though. I don't see the problem with having a biased death god. The concept could be executed badly but I don't see what's inherently wrong with it.

[Vhaidara]

That's what I'm talking about though. I don't see the problem with having a biased death god. The concept could be executed badly but I don't see what's inherently wrong with it.

Because it promotes the stereotype that Death == Evil, which is extremely unpopular around here, given that it is the gate to respective afterlives, which, for good people, are good. If the gatekeeper is Evil, then how do Good souls get to the Good afterlife?

[Psyren]

More to the point, why wouldn't an evil deity of death be motivated to kill people before they can atone, or minimize their suffering?

[squiggit]

More to the point, why wouldn't an evil deity of death be motivated to kill people before they can atone, or minimize their suffering?

They are. Both Orcus and Nerull encourages their followers to kill and destroy in their name.

[...]

Because it promotes the stereotype that Death == Evil, which is extremely unpopular around here, given that it is the gate to respective afterlives, which, for good people, are good. If the gatekeeper is Evil, then how do Good souls get to the Good afterlife?

Actually, the god of death, but not dead people, would most likely be evil because of his relationship with deadly painful death.

[Psyren]

They are. Both Orcus and Nerull encourages their followers to kill and destroy in their name.

Right, but that's the point - many people are turned off by that and so prefer more neutral death gods like Wee Jas, Pharasma and Kelemvor - the sort of folks that preach that death is simply a natural part of life.

[123456789blaaa]

Because it promotes the stereotype that Death == Evil, which is extremely unpopular around here, given that it is the gate to respective afterlives, which, for good people, are good. If the gatekeeper is Evil, then how do Good souls get to the Good afterlife?

Assuming the gatekeeper isn't forced to do anything, they wouldn't. To take the Orcus example, most souls would end up being either fuel or his slaves had he suceeded in his goal. This definately wouldn't be a model I'd use for most settings but it doesn't seem stupid in and of itself.

[Vhaidara]

Assuming the gatekeeper isn't forced to do anything, they wouldn't. To take the Orcus example, most souls would end up being either fuel or his slaves had he suceeded in his goal. This definately wouldn't be a model I'd use for most settings but it doesn't seem stupid in and of itself.

Except then you have to explain why the good gods are still worshiped when their power is crippled by not receiving governance of the souls of their followers.

Basically, it becomes "Be Evil and be rewarded in Hell, or be Good and be damned to suffer in Hell"

Might work for a hardcore apocalyptic setting, but outside of that it just doesn't function properly.

[TiaC]

There's also the issue that if the arbiter of mortality is pro-undead, well, he's not doing a very good job, is he?

[The Oni]

For the record, he's far from my favorite too. I just don't see what the big crime is with flirting.


Also, it's important to consider perspective. Assuming that Cayden Cailean doesn't want to abuse his station and dally with mortal women all the time (hardly an equitable relationship!) he does have a *very* small dating pool.

[Craft (Cheese)]

What is this? This is so bad. Nothing about this guy is appealing. We have some random drunk who pulls some stunt and becomes a god? He spends time leaving thinks unfinished because it "violates his principals?" What a punk! I was right about the dude with guitar thing. This is the guy who comes to work drunk off his, and tells you he can't work during his hours that he said he was available for because "it's like my sabbath man." And Paizo made him a deity. :l

The good thing is unlike, say, Pharasma or Iomedae, you can kill off Cayden without impacting the world all that much. And you can invent any story you like as to how it happened! Mine is that the night he got black-out drunk and took the dare to attempt the test of starstone, he passed by Reginald Cuftbert and laughed at his fabulous pink bonnet. Reginald stuffed a lit stick of dynamite in Cayden's pants, killing him instantly with the explosion. He then proceeded to murder all the witnesses with his bare hands, stole Cayden's clothes off of his back, put them on (right there in the street), drank 14 bottles of whiskey, and finally bunny hopped off into the sunset. Later that day, he would single-handedly depopulate the multiverse of gnomes.

[Silus]

Numeria: Conan vs the Magic Robots From Space.

I took that for my homebrew setting and ran with it all the way to the Fallout end of the spectrum >.> Apparently people think it's pretty neat >.>

Anyway, contributing to the thread, I particularly like the sheer amount of options the players are given in terms of who they want to worship (or not). You've got proper Gods, high powered angels, demons, devil, the Four Horsemen, Fey "Gods", false gods, fallen gods, dead gods, quasi-gods, and things better left unknowable. Or you could just say "Screw this" and make an Atheist and, you know, not get nailed up to a wall of souls for all eternity.

[Kudaku]

**Looks up this "Folca"**

**Reflects that two sentences is about all there seems to be.**

So; "God/Patron of paedophiliac serial killers". I can see people must have been falling over themselves for that position. Seems more like a tasteless joke than anything I'd describe as "incredibly cool" or "daring" however.

That's cool! I understand that Folca makes you uncomfortable, and I certainly wouldn't consider him a deity for everyone. :smallsmile:

Much like Call of Cthulhu or some of the riskier material from 3.5's Book of Vile Darkness, I'd only ever use Folca in a campaign where I knew the players could handle his particular brand of horror. What I find daring is that Paizo doesn't shy away from things like Folca even though they can (and in your case, did) make people uncomfortable. Did you also check the other harbinger I mentioned, Osolmyr? Or Ajids, Corosbel, Jacarkas, Zaigasnar or Arlachramas? These are all all-but-unknown harbingers and easy to ignore if you don't want to use them in your campaign. However they all touch on controversial topics that are perhaps more relevant to our present-day world than the fairly abstracted Hextor the God of Tyranny or Rovagug the Destroyer, and so hit a bit closer to home. More than any other evil deity I've ever seen written in an RPG, Harbingers reflect the evils of Man. That's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but I for one find that it's much easier to get immersed in a scenario where you're fighting a threat that you can relate to.

Consider Folca's favored weapon, his symbol, his sacred animal (the black stork), his sacred colors, and his domains. The way I see him, Folca not so much the god of "paedophiliac serial killers" as he is the God of Families inverted - he is the daemon harbinger that steals children away and destroys families in the process. In British, Irish and Scandinavian culture that ties into a series of myths and legends about changelings, trolls and fey that goes back to well before the viking era. He plays on the primal fear of losing your loved ones, and is one of the most despicable deities ever written for Golarion. All of that is conveyed in the one entry he gets in the Inner Sea Gods deity appendix. You might not agree, but I for one think that's both impressive writing and pretty damn cool. :smallsmile:

The reason Folca only has two lines about him is that daemon harbingers have only appeared in two books, and in both cases the vast majority of them only made the appendix. To the best of my knowledge, Harbingers have yet to be explored in their own book.

I recently included a cult of Folca-worshipping hags replacing children with changelings in a Rise of the Runelords campaign, and I've never seen my players more fired up to stop the bad guys in an adventure path that otherwise takes the long view and has somewhat abstract villains. While I certainly respect your opinion and right to decide that Folca doesn't work for you, I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss him. He can and does work well in other games. :smallsmile:

[Marlowe]

The good thing is unlike, say, Pharasma or Iomedae, you can kill off Cayden without impacting the world all that much. And you can invent any story you like as to how it happened! Mine is that the night he got black-out drunk and took the dare to attempt the test of starstone, he passed by Reginald Cuftbert and laughed at his fabulous pink bonnet. Reginald stuffed a lit stick of dynamite in Cayden's pants, killing him instantly with the explosion. He then proceeded to murder all the witnesses with his bare hands, stole Cayden's clothes off of his back, put them on (right there in the street), drank 14 bottles of whiskey, and finally bunny hopped off into the sunset. Later that day, he would single-handedly depopulate the multiverse of gnomes.

I hail my new god, and thank him for his mercy.

[Renegade Paladin]

Probably the "Smite over Time" thing.
Oh, the thing that makes it actually halfway effective? Okay, then.

[Kudaku]

That does seem rather at odds with his desire to have all humanoids throw off the shackles of civilization and live as anarchic communities of hunters, gatherers, and farmers, aye. Misogyny seeming to be a development of civilization past his threshold of tolerance from what I recall.

Although, honestly, I can't quite figure out the right terms to describe his ideal community as a god of community that dislikes civilization past the level of the individual community. :smallconfused:

I suppose he might be OK with some form of city-state if they had some sufficiently "primitive" form of government...

I kind of see Erastil as the stage between Gozreh, who's basically "untouched wilderness" and Abadar, who's basically "sprawling civilization". He's the god of rural communities and villages. Nirmathas strikes me as the kind of kingdom Erastil would approve of.

The original article on Erastil was in the second book of Kingmaker. I quicky skimmed over it just now and there certainly are some statements that are troubling. I can definitely see why they retconned him and I'm glad they did - the old depiction of Erastil is very much at odds with the gender-neutral feel of Golarion at large.


Sarenrae is the Goddess of sticking flaming scimitars in things, right?

And healing, the sun, honesty, temperance, patience and redemption. The flaming scimitar bit is mostly for when they refuse to be redeemed :smallwink:

[Marlowe]

That's cool! I understand that Folca makes you uncomfortable, and I certainly wouldn't consider him a deity for everyone. :smallsmile:


I didn't say he made me uncomfortable. I said he seemed like a tasteless joke.

Really. Sweets. Stork. Lust Domain?

[Kudaku]

I didn't say he made me uncomfortable. I said he seemed like a tasteless joke.

Really. Sweets. Stork. Lust Domain?

Clearly you have no interest in actually discussing daemon harbingers or Folca, so I'll just let the topic drop.

[toapat]

I hail my new god, and thank him for his mercy.

Watch this (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDVe86ov90uXCZSmEKgbjw) then

[Beowulf DW]

Or you could just say "Screw this" and make an Atheist and, you know, not get nailed up to a wall of souls for all eternity.

There's actually a country on Golarion composed of atheists, and this has affected their outlook a bit. Because Pharasma is responsible for the judgement of all souls upon death, they know that they'll eventually have to face her and explain why they so disrespected powerful beings they know for a fact exist.

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's actually a country on Golarion composed of atheists, and this has affected their outlook a bit. Because Pharasma is responsible for the judgement of all souls upon death, they know that they'll eventually have to face her and explain why they so disrespected powerful beings they know for a fact exist.

I don't see why Pharasma should care. You're saying she judges atheists more harshly than those that follow the undead-loving god? That makes no sense... Don't recall his name because "big evil deity that has the hots for walking corpses" are all basically the same anyway. :smalltongue: (And for her duties, she shouldn't even be seeking to screw over those followers, ideally)

[Psyren]

She inters them in the Boneyard and they don't have to be around any other gods but her. Seems like a win to me.

They also keep the Majora Moon thing away so bonus points.

[Craft (Cheese)]

A skilled storyteller absolutely could do something interesting with Folca: But I don't think Paizo has. Pretty much the only information on him is the list of his interests, domains, and favored weapon. I mean, I can do that too!

Name: Alethor
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Interests: Sapient Toaster Ovens, Patent Infringement
Domains: Artifice, Chaos, Magic, Psionics, Trickery
Subdomains: Construct, Divine, Noetics, Protean, Thievery
Favored Weapon: Scimitar

[toapat]

Favored Weapon: "not a Scimitar"

I noticed a mistake with your joke block

[Kudaku]

A skilled storyteller absolutely could do something interesting with Folca: But I don't think Paizo has. Pretty much the only information on him is the list of his interests, domains, and favored weapon.

This I agree on - I'd love to see a book that explores the daemon harbingers in more detail. They popped up in the book of the damned, but the harbingers were very much a sideshow to the four horsemen.

[Eldan]

Honestly, I don't really see anything in here that wasn't in D&D already. Some of the gods might be new, but if you dig around in On Hallowed Ground a bit (which explicitely states that all Earth mythologies exist on the planes and stat up dozens of real world gods), you should find one that covers just about anything. Atheists? Plenty, of the angry misotheist (Athar) and philosophical variety. Neutral death gods? Dozens. Magitech? Pretty much every setting actually, I think.

Is there anything actually new in the Golarion cosmology or is it really just a remix?

[toapat]

Is there anything actually new in the Golarion cosmology or is it really just a remix?

Sloppy remix. The newest thing really are their take on ogres and i think everyone tries to bleach that out of their minds

[Psyren]

Is there anything actually new in the Golarion cosmology or is it really just a remix?

Not sure what you mean - "There is nothing new under the sun," after all. Remixes are all that any setting has, especially "kitchen-sink" settings like Golarion and Eberron that have to be broad enough for you to fit in anything you liked from a prior edition or setting.

[lord_khaine]

And at least when they say "no" he doesn't go for it anyways. He just keeps trying to get lucky. Consensually.

As I said, 10/10, better than Zeus.

And i do think its a shinning testament to his character that he does for womans who actually can slap him down, instead of mortals who would be in a bit of a disadvantage there.

So yeah, 10/10, prefered pick for deity if i would ever visit PF :smallbiggrin:

[Coidzor]

I kind of see Erastil as the stage between Gozreh, who's basically "untouched wilderness" and Abadar, who's basically "sprawling civilization". He's the god of rural communities and villages. Nirmathas strikes me as the kind of kingdom Erastil would approve of.

The original article on Erastil was in the second book of Kingmaker. I quicky skimmed over it just now and there certainly are some statements that are troubling. I can definitely see why they retconned him and I'm glad they did - the old depiction of Erastil is very much at odds with the gender-neutral feel of Golarion at large.

Hmm, I suppose that fits. I agree with you about Nirmathas from what I recollect of the place. And you can even probably get some kind of tension to show the sometimes uneasy symbiosis between the urban and the rural, too...

Ahh... Makes sense he'd be in that one, I suppose. Sorta weird they'd go that direction when they'd started out with a bunch of gender-neutrality and even some LGBTQness. Though I suppose I don't recall the timeline on the latter all that closely.


And healing, the sun, honesty, temperance, patience and redemption. The flaming scimitar bit is mostly for when they refuse to be redeemed :smallwink:

Or are Taldan and don't want to be conquered by foreigners for some reason. XD


edit: Hmm... Is it Pharasma's Boneyard that replaced the Outlands? :smallconfused:


Sloppy remix. The newest thing really are their take on ogres and i think everyone tries to bleach that out of their minds

I thought their facepalm-worthy, argument-causing take on goblins was more notable. I hadn't even heard about the ogre stuff, I don't think anyway... :smallconfused:


There's actually a country on Golarion composed of atheists, and this has affected their outlook a bit. Because Pharasma is responsible for the judgement of all souls upon death, they know that they'll eventually have to face her and explain why they so disrespected powerful beings they know for a fact exist.

I think that's already right there on the tin with them having been torn apart by religiously motivated wars encouraged by the deities in question, so they kicked them out because they were doing nothing but causing death and destruction.

So, ah, she knows. XD

[Craft (Cheese)]

I like Nethys way more than Boccob and Mystra. Now we actually have a plausible reason why he doesn't simply take away the evil gods' magic, or solve all the big problems in the setting himself, other than idiocy or apathy that is.

I'd say he falls under the "idiocy" category.


While you can have any particular kind of story, it's kind of like if you want to stick to a general theme you have to put the blinders on to ignore all the other crap that is happening just in the background. Want a high swinging pirate adventure? Sure, just ignore the empire of devil-worshiping nazis shuffling about back stage. Want to engage in a classic tale of Knightly valor in Taldor? Well hope none of the orc raiders you are fighting have blunderbusses, and by the way game of thrones is playing out right to the north of you.

I'd say that this is actually the point: It's true that it makes things very silly if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, having a group of cyborg orc zombies show up in your pirate adventure can be awesome.

[Silus]

I'd say that this is actually the point: It's true that it makes things very silly if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, having a group of cyborg orc zombies show up in your pirate adventure can be awesome.

Cyborg orc zombies on the back of devil horses wielding blunderbusses.

[ArqArturo]

I'd say that this is actually the point: It's true that it makes things very silly if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, having a group of cyborg orc zombies show up in your pirate adventure can be awesome.

Cyborg orc zombies, in my GoT game?.

Sure, why the nine hells not.

[Malimar]

Erastil covers Agriculture as well as community and hunting. I'd say Pharasma covers fertility as "birth", The Midwife is actually a common nickname for Pharasma. Both are core deities and part of the "big 20". Outside of the "big 20" I can probably name three or four more fertility deities with a little digging, and probably more than a few agriculture deities.

That would be Erastil (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Erastil). One of the "core twenty," he's described as "the god of bountiful harvests," has the farming portfolio and the Plant domain, and is worshiped by farmers.

Erastil and Fandarra respectivly might want a word with you on those counts.

Erastil is focused primarily on hunting, with farming as more of an afterthought. And his "hates civilization" business is rather at odds with any claims to being a real agriculture god. He's got a decent claim to being the god of, like, primitive subsistence farmers, I guess? But he's not the kind of god a proper farming civilization would get into.

The closest thing to what I'd call a major fertility deity in Golarion is actually Lamashtu. And, in fairness to the Golarion pantheon, attaching most of the fertility stuff to a chaotic evil deity is actually an interesting twist, probably the one thing about the pantheon I find least boring. (I like this idea so much that I ripped it off -- combining it with Greek Echidna and Greyhawk Tiamat -- for my house pantheon's CE deity.)

Anyhow, I suppose it isn't so bad or unrealistic that the common people need to pick from the buffet table of gods, worshipping Erastil for his harvest portfolio, Shelyn/Lamashtu/Pharasma for various aspects of producing a family, Iomedae when the orcs come a-knockin', and so on. It's not to my taste (but many of the strange choices of real-life pantheons are also not to my taste, so my complaint isn't necessarily entirely about realism).


Having dulled the point of my examples, though, my broader point -- that most RPG pantheons, with Golarion not being an exception, are built around the needs of adventurers, not the needs of the actual populations that would have produced them -- still stands.

[Craft (Cheese)]

The closest thing to what I'd call a major fertility deity in Golarion is actually Lamashtu. And, in fairness to the Golarion pantheon, attaching most of the fertility stuff to a chaotic evil deity is actually an interesting twist, probably the one thing about the pantheon I find least boring.

Unfortunately, the real reason the closest thing Golarion has to a major fertility deity is Chaotic Evil is because there are apparently writers at Paizo who view pregnancy and birth as some kind of body horror. To quote one particularly disturbing example:

The hobgoblins worship their “goddess” Munasukaru in this shrine. The statue depicts the ja noi oni in all her glory, but the hobgoblins have embellished her image. The statue stands on a bed of nails and has four demonic heads—one smiling, one angry, one eating, and one screaming. The statue is obscenely pregnant, with multiple teats sagging over her swollen belly, and is shown giving birth to monstrous creatures, some humanoid with demonic goblinoid features, others wormlike with human faces—Munasukaru’s children. A DC 15 Knowledge (planes) check identifies the statue and the humanoids as ja noi oni, while a DC 19 Knowledge (dungeoneering) check recognizes the human-headed worm creatures as spirit nagas. A set of stairs along the east wall lead up to area C6.

[Eonas]

I don't know. It does suffer a little from "We are SO mature" a little, and it has the tendnacy of an introductory world to try to be everything, but it has some features I like, like a Neutral death god. Also, some of the female gods are pretty badass, which is a nice change from a lot of worlds.
For a world that literally contains everything in the C'thulhu mythos but Big C himself, it's pretty undismal I'd say.

Seriously? The hound of tindalos? Nyarlathotep? Ithaqua? Dagon? Neat!

[Psyren]

I'd say he falls under the "idiocy" category.

I disagree - there's a big difference between being mad (or partially mad) and just being dumb or listless. With Boccob or Mystra, there's really no other explanation but incompetence if the bad guys do something magically without them knowing. Nethys however, with his superpowered evil side, has plenty of plausible reasons to support or oppose any faction in any conflict as best befits the plot.

In other words, it adds actual tension when you want to raise the stakes, because the god of magic itself is generally the most powerful player in any setting, and if there's a truly world-shattering event at hand I'd rather "crazy" be the key factor preventing any deus ex machina than "stupid."

[Coidzor]

What is this? This is so bad. Nothing about this guy is appealing. We have some random drunk who pulls some stunt and becomes a god? He spends time leaving thinks unfinished because it "violates his principals?" What a punk! I was right about the dude with guitar thing. This is the guy who comes to work drunk off his, and tells you he can't work during his hours that he said he was available for because "it's like my sabbath man." And Paizo made him a deity. :l

He's basically the love-child of Dionysus and Trithereon from Greyhawk. :smallconfused: Or like a Good Thor or Kord. He drinks and fights. Granted, a Rapier is a bit of a silly weapon for someone wearing chainmail, but, well, he probably wasn't exactly optimized or he'd be a deity of Munchkinry or Power or some fancified way of putting it as well.

I don't see anything in that wiki article about leaving things unfinished because it violates his principles, though. :smallconfused:

I see pieces that could explain why he hasn't yet gotten killed by Asmodeus because he knows he can't take Asmodeus in a fair fight and wouldn't even get the opportunity to have a fair fight, I suppose. So he and his followers are working their way up the hierarchy, as it were. As adventuring types are wont to do.


"Ascended to godhood on a drunken bet" is amusing, but as far as anything else? i cant remember anything from that book besides the paladin mostly because of the realization how stupid the paladin in that is.

There's a story about a dumb Paladin of Cayden Cailean in the PFCRB? :smallconfused:


Later that day, he would single-handedly depopulate the multiverse of gnomes.

What a selfish... well... Reginald. Some of us like killing gnomes too, y'know. :smalltongue:


Consider Folca's favored weapon, his symbol, his sacred animal (the black stork), his sacred colors, and his domains. The way I see him, Folca not so much the god of "paedophiliac serial killers" as he is the God of Families inverted - he is the daemon harbinger that steals children away and destroys families in the process. In British, Irish and Scandinavian culture that ties into a series of myths and legends about changelings, trolls and fey that goes back to well before the viking era. He plays on the primal fear of losing your loved ones, and is one of the most despicable deities ever written for Golarion. All of that is conveyed in the one entry he gets in the Inner Sea Gods deity appendix. You might not agree, but I for one think that's both impressive writing and pretty damn cool. :smallsmile:

I'm all for rushing to rescue kidnapped children from being sacrificed to an Archfiend. That's just good clean D&D fun.

The whole paedophilia angle seems like it would just... distract from and detract from things, though.

Evils beyond Ye Olde Saturday Morning Baninites Blasting Off Again is generally good though, I suppose. Tricky to balance being different with not going into squick for squick's sake, though. Or getting into triggery subjects that don't really add much for the hassle they present.


I took that for my homebrew setting and ran with it all the way to the Fallout end of the spectrum >.> Apparently people think it's pretty neat >.>

Anyway, contributing to the thread, I particularly like the sheer amount of options the players are given in terms of who they want to worship (or not). You've got proper Gods, high powered angels, demons, devil, the Four Horsemen, Fey "Gods", false gods, fallen gods, dead gods, quasi-gods, and things better left unknowable. Or you could just say "Screw this" and make an Atheist and, you know, not get nailed up to a wall of souls for all eternity.

Neat! :smallsmile:

A variety is always good, especially for being prepared to deal with various levels of divinities and similar powers.


Cyborg orc zombies on the back of devil horses wielding blunderbusses.

Good clean fun! :smallbiggrin:


Having dulled the point of my examples, though, my broader point -- that most RPG pantheons, with Golarion not being an exception, are built around the needs of adventurers, not the needs of the actual populations that would have produced them -- still stands.

True. That's largely driven by the concerns of the medium, I suspect. Though I do wonder how the vote up a setting experiments have done with that over in Homebrew > World-Building.

There's probably ways to justify the influence of having a higher population of Adventuring/Villainous types as worshippers leading to more power for a deity, though...

Unfortunately, the real reason the closest thing Golarion has to a major fertility deity is Chaotic Evil is because there are apparently writers at Paizo who view pregnancy and birth as some kind of body horror. To quote one particularly disturbing example:

Unfortunate.

[georgie_leech]

Unfortunately, the real reason the closest thing Golarion has to a major fertility deity is Chaotic Evil is because there are apparently writers at Paizo who view pregnancy and birth as some kind of body horror. To quote one particularly disturbing example:

The hobgoblins worship their “goddess” Munasukaru in this shrine. The statue depicts the ja noi oni in all her glory, but the hobgoblins have embellished her image. The statue stands on a bed of nails and has four demonic heads—one smiling, one angry, one eating, and one screaming. The statue is obscenely pregnant, with multiple teats sagging over her swollen belly, and is shown giving birth to monstrous creatures, some humanoid with demonic goblinoid features, others wormlike with human faces—Munasukaru’s children. A DC 15 Knowledge (planes) check identifies the statue and the humanoids as ja noi oni, while a DC 19 Knowledge (dungeoneering) check recognizes the human-headed worm creatures as spirit nagas. A set of stairs along the east wall lead up to area C6.

I dunno, as any player of Dragon Age (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/10/dao_100909image2.jpg) can attest, it's possible for something to be "obscenely pregnant" without claiming that every pregnancy is that way. For non-players, this is one of those things that can't be unseen, so tread carefully.

[Vhaidara]

I dunno, as any player of Dragon Age (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/10/dao_100909image2.jpg) can attest, it's possible for something to be "obscenely pregnant" without claiming that every pregnancy is that way.

As a Dragon Age player, I second this without even opening the link. I know exactly what it is, and I have no desire to look upon it again.

[123456789blaaa]

Except then you have to explain why the good gods are still worshiped when their power is crippled by not receiving governance of the souls of their followers.

Basically, it becomes "Be Evil and be rewarded in Hell, or be Good and be damned to suffer in Hell"

Might work for a hardcore apocalyptic setting, but outside of that it just doesn't function properly.

Why only the Good gods? :smallconfused: Unless the death god is inclined to share his power, all the gods other than him would be crippled. I suspect there'd be an alliance. The gods individually might be far weaker than him but together, it's perfectly plausible for people to still choose not to worship the death god.

It would be a significant change from the published camaign settings but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.


There's also the issue that if the arbiter of mortality is pro-undead, well, he's not doing a very good job, is he?

Depends on what the job of "arbiter of mortality" entails in that campaign setting. It wouldn't neccecarily be an issue for anyone other than the Lawful death gods either.


Honestly, I don't really see anything in here that wasn't in D&D already. Some of the gods might be new, but if you dig around in On Hallowed Ground a bit (which explicitely states that all Earth mythologies exist on the planes and stat up dozens of real world gods), you should find one that covers just about anything. Atheists? Plenty, of the angry misotheist (Athar) and philosophical variety. Neutral death gods? Dozens. Magitech? Pretty much every setting actually, I think.

Is there anything actually new in the Golarion cosmology or is it really just a remix?

I see the Golarion cosmology as more of a semi-continuation of the best parts of 3.5 fluff than a totally seperate setting. You could easily do Golarion as a crystal sphere in the far future of current Planescape canon. There's nothing really "new" but its all mixed up and given a tremendous burst of colour and flavor. I love the NE Exemplar race based on the Four Horsemen they created to replace the Yugoloths with for example. Fantasy fiction with stuff derived from the Four Horsemen aren't exactly rare but the way the writers did it and integrated it into the setting is something I think is great.

Also, Shemeska is working on some of the books.


Unfortunately, the real reason the closest thing Golarion has to a major fertility deity is Chaotic Evil is because there are apparently writers at Paizo who view pregnancy and birth as some kind of body horror. To quote one particularly disturbing example:

The hobgoblins worship their “goddess” Munasukaru in this shrine. The statue depicts the ja noi oni in all her glory, but the hobgoblins have embellished her image. The statue stands on a bed of nails and has four demonic heads—one smiling, one angry, one eating, and one screaming. The statue is obscenely pregnant, with multiple teats sagging over her swollen belly, and is shown giving birth to monstrous creatures, some humanoid with demonic goblinoid features, others wormlike with human faces—Munasukaru’s children. A DC 15 Knowledge (planes) check identifies the statue and the humanoids as ja noi oni, while a DC 19 Knowledge (dungeoneering) check recognizes the human-headed worm creatures as spirit nagas. A set of stairs along the east wall lead up to area C6.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Pregnancy and birth is an extremely fertile ground for horror. I quote:


You would think that there would be a lot of feminine body horror already, wouldn't you? I mean, having a female reproductive system means that you have an organ in your body that regularly prepares itself to be host to a parasitic, unformed human by filling with blood. After a month, it contracts repeatedly and pushes that blood and tissue out through your genitals so that it doesn't rot inside you.

Unless you become pregnant. If that happens, the parasitic life inside you rearranges everything in your body. Your respiratory and circulatory systems are rewired to compensate for the extra strain. Your skin changes color and your palms redden. Your spine is realigned. Your organs change in size and shape and are crushed up against your bones. Your brain is washed in hormones that can change your personality in subtle ways. And you *feel* it. You're in pain that comes and goes. Sometimes you can't breathe. Sometimes you're hot, or freezing, or exhausted, and you don't know why. You only know it's happening because of the changes inside you.

Eventually your abdomen swells, large enough that people start to guess at the size and number of creatures swimming inside it. Then they start to move. You can feel them beating their thin-skinned, half formed limbs against the inside of your body. If someone puts their hand against your stomach, they can feel it too.

Tell me that's not the stuff of a parasite-based creepypasta. And that's not even touching the actual birth.

And it's not like they're kicking an already stigmatized subject. Pregnancy and birth in humans and some other species have been regarded as wonderful, happy things for a very long time (if they don't go wrong) which is why there are so many Good fertility gods. Taking something that's not associated with horror and making it horrifying is a great tactic for horror writers.

And there are still Good fertility dieties in Golarion anyways.

[lord_khaine]

I found that part to be one of the most intense, horrorfying and brilliant parts of Dragon Age.

[Vhaidara]

I see the Golarion cosmology as more of a semi-continuation of the best parts of 3.5 fluff than a totally seperate setting. You could easily do Golarion as a crystal sphere in the far future of current Planescape canon. There's nothing really "new" but its all mixed up and given a tremendous burst of colour and flavor.

Isn't the entire point of Planescape that every universe exists in it somewhere?

[Psyren]

Why did I click that link? :smalleek:

Ahem...

Gozreh and Erastil deal with farming and fertility too, so the claim that Lamashtu is the only deity with that focus is just false.

[squiggit]

You could easily do Golarion as a crystal sphere in the far future of current Planescape canon
I don't think you could. Too many players would whine about how there's no real reason to have the Forgotten Realms twice.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I disagree - there's a big difference between being mad (or partially mad) and just being dumb or listless. With Boccob or Mystra, there's really no other explanation but incompetence if the bad guys do something magically without them knowing. Nethys however, with his superpowered evil side, has plenty of plausible reasons to support or oppose any faction in any conflict as best befits the plot.

In other words, it adds actual tension when you want to raise the stakes, because the god of magic itself is generally the most powerful player in any setting, and if there's a truly world-shattering event at hand I'd rather "crazy" be the key factor preventing any deus ex machina than "stupid."

Two points.

First, Nethys is not Mystra: He doesn't actually have *control* over the flow of magic in the setting. He couldn't deny magic to the bad guys even if he wanted to. Sure he could show up and kick major ass, but so could literally any other deity in the setting.

Second, Nethys's "Hmm I think I'll blow up a planet today for no reason because I'm craaaaazay!!" is different from Boccob's "Ho hum, some spellcaster is threatening to destroy the multiverse, who cares" and Mystra's "My only narrative purpose is to enable the existence of ultra-sues and to die when a new edition comes around", but chaotic stupid is still a type of stupid.

[georgie_leech]

Why did I click that link? :smalleek:

Ahem...

Gozreh and Erastil deal with farming and fertility too, so the claim that Lamashtu is the only deity with that focus is just false.

Heh, sorry, I suppose I should put a warning of some sort on the post.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Pregnancy and birth is an extremely fertile ground for horror. I quote:



And it's not like they're kicking an already stigmatized subject. Pregnancy and birth in humans and some other species have been regarded as wonderful, happy things for a very long time (if they don't go wrong) which is why there are so many Good fertility gods. Taking something that's not associated with horror and making it horrifying is a great tactic for horror writers.

And there are still Good fertility dieties in Golarion anyways.

It's hard to illustrate a negative, but the problem isn't that they use pregnancy and birth as body horror, it's that pregnancy and birth are only used as body horror. There's not one case in any of the PF books I've ever read (and except for the society modules I've read most of them), not one, where the subjects are treated in a mundane or even positive respect: Either the mother is some monstrosity designed to gross the PC's out, or the mother is normal and the baby is some sort of monster that the PC's have to kill (and usually rips its way out of the mother Alien-style to gross out the PC's). When the subject is treated in this way with such consistency, it makes me seriously start to wonder if someone at Paizo has some issues.

[Kudaku]

Hmm, I suppose that fits. I agree with you about Nirmathas from what I recollect of the place. And you can even probably get some kind of tension to show the sometimes uneasy symbiosis between the urban and the rural, too...

Ahh... Makes sense he'd be in that one, I suppose. Sorta weird they'd go that direction when they'd started out with a bunch of gender-neutrality and even some LGBTQness. Though I suppose I don't recall the timeline on the latter all that closely.

Paizo have actually been really good about continuing to build up the LGBTQ-friendliness post-release as well. To name one example among many, the shaman iconic started her background story as transgender and later transitioned to the gender she identified as. It's a pleasantly upbeat take on the theme (http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lgcn?Meet-the-Iconics-Shardra-Geltl) if you'd care to read it. :smallsmile:


Erastil is focused primarily on hunting, with farming as more of an afterthought. And his "hates civilization" business is rather at odds with any claims to being a real agriculture god. He's got a decent claim to being the god of, like, primitive subsistence farmers, I guess? But he's not the kind of god a proper farming civilization would get into.

In that case I'm not quite sure what you're looking for? Both Erastil and Gozreh (who I always mix up with Gorum because of the names) list farmers as worshippers and are heavily invested in farming: Erastil in organized communal farming and Gozreh in the more natural "sow where ye stand"-type of farming. If you go outside of the "core 20" there are also numerous farming deities. My favorite is probably Halcamora, the Lady of Ripe Bounty.

[Psyren]

First, Nethys is not Mystra: He doesn't actually have *control* over the flow of magic in the setting. He couldn't deny magic to the bad guys even if he wanted to. Sure he could show up and kick major ass, but so could literally any other deity in the setting.

I didn't say anything about him "denying magic to the bad guys." But the fact that all the deities save Rovagug do come to him for magical help (ISG 106) proves he provides something to them that they cannot generate on their own.



Second, Nethys's "Hmm I think I'll blow up a planet today for no reason because I'm craaaaazay!!" is different from Boccob's "Ho hum, some spellcaster is threatening to destroy the multiverse, who cares" and Mystra's "My only narrative purpose is to enable the existence of ultra-sues and to die when a new edition comes around", but chaotic stupid is still a type of stupid.

Again, all I can see from this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Nethys' nature. He never destroys anything without remaking, restoring or replacing it in some way. He isn't merely wanton destruction - that's Rovagug - he is change, and that is fundamentally what magic itself is when you get right down to it.

[georgie_leech]

It's hard to illustrate a negative, but the problem isn't that they use pregnancy and birth as body horror, it's that pregnancy and birth are only used as body horror. There's not one case in any of the PF books I've ever read (and except for the society modules I've read most of them), not one, where the subjects are treated in a mundane or even positive respect: Either the mother is some monstrosity designed to gross the PC's out, or the mother is normal and the baby is some sort of monster that the PC's have to kill (and usually rips its way out of the mother Alien-style to gross out the PC's). When the subject is treated in this way with such consistency, it makes me seriously start to wonder if someone at Paizo has some issues.

Probably because Pathfinder is fundamentally a game about adventuring, and "Mother has a completely ordinary pregnancy and nothing bad happens" isn't much of an adventure. It's hard to include themes of pregnancy or childbirth in a way that is both tasteful and exciting (or doesn't distract from the main plot if included as a side note), so it sticks with the exciting because it makes for a more exciting time. Not to say that it can't be done, but it's hard to do so, especially when you consider that most writers in the game industry are male and will never have direct experience with the subject, beyond possibly being present at the time.

[Coidzor]

Two points.

First, Nethys is not Mystra: He doesn't actually have *control* over the flow of magic in the setting. He couldn't deny magic to the bad guys even if he wanted to. Sure he could show up and kick major ass, but so could literally any other deity in the setting.

Second, Nethys's "Hmm I think I'll blow up a planet today for no reason because I'm craaaaazay!!" is different from Boccob's "Ho hum, some spellcaster is threatening to destroy the multiverse, who cares"

Indeed, that's pretty much just Mystra's Bailiwick. Maybe Shar's too, to a very limited extent. Boccob's just the Ur-Wizard, ascended to divinity and no longer really caring for matters in the multiverse at large. Nethys seems more of the Ur-Wizard if Wizard is connected with going a bit batty at best to stark raving nutters at worst.

It does tend to get sorted out by Adventurers without Boccob having to raise a finger, after all.


Isn't the entire point of Planescape that every universe exists in it somewhere?

IIRC, you can already account for it by having different planes the same way you can already account for Eberron in Planescape, as it's mostly a matter of alternate planar cosmology.


I dunno, as any player of Dragon Age (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/10/dao_100909image2.jpg) can attest, it's possible for something to be "obscenely pregnant" without claiming that every pregnancy is that way. For non-players, this is one of those things that can't be unseen, so tread carefully.

I mean, I roughly know what that is, but it still doesn't look pregnant. It mostly looks like old graphics and melting lard. :smallconfused:

All this talk of Pregnancy bodyhorror reminds me of this old thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323220-Creepiness-in-the-Daelkyr-Half-Blood-race) about Dalekyr Half-Bloods. :smallamused:

[JusticeZero]

Sure, but you still need those boring dieties, even if only for the sake of the people building concepts "from humble origins". You know, like the guys with Profession (Farming) and a Trident +1..

[Coidzor]

Sure, but you still need those boring dieties, even if only for the sake of the people building concepts "from humble origins". You know, like the guys with Profession (Farming) and a Trident +1..

Shouldn't that be Profession (Lighthouse Keeper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MixXnzefsBA))? :smallamused:

Edit: Though you can't forget about Perform: Singing and Perform: Bearding. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE8C1WWixgc)

[malonkey1]

Shouldn't that be Profession (Lighthouse Keeper)? :smallamused:

I assumed it would be Profession[Painting Model] (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Grant_Wood_-_American_Gothic_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/640px-Grant_Wood_-_American_Gothic_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

[JusticeZero]

Shouldn't that be Profession (Lighthouse Keeper)? :smallamused:
Think "American Gothic". I've seen a number of people make characters who were as rustic and peasantish as possible in origin, using farm tools or the like and picking the most agricultural and mundane of deities.

[Coidzor]

Think "American Gothic". I've seen a number of people make characters who were as rustic and peasantish as possible in origin, using farm tools or the like and picking the most agricultural and mundane of deities.

I suppose it is High Time that Joe Wood in Golarion was done.

[Raven777]

The professionally offended will always find something to be angry about.

Stealing that for a signature.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Probably because Pathfinder is fundamentally a game about adventuring, and "Mother has a completely ordinary pregnancy and nothing bad happens" isn't much of an adventure. It's hard to include themes of pregnancy or childbirth in a way that is both tasteful and exciting (or doesn't distract from the main plot if included as a side note), so it sticks with the exciting because it makes for a more exciting time. Not to say that it can't be done, but it's hard to do so, especially when you consider that most writers in the game industry are male and will never have direct experience with the subject, beyond possibly being present at the time.

There are numerous opportunities: Many adventure paths and modules feature detailed, vulnerable NPCs that the players are supposed to protect. For some reason, these groups never include pregnant women or young children (<10), even though they are normally regarded as the most in need of protection in dangerous situations.

You could say they don't want to run the risk of offending people should the players fail and the DM has to describe the women and children getting killed, but they don't seem to have a problem with making the DM describe gratuitous rape and gore (see: anything involving ogres), and these groups more often than not include an 18-ish nubile girl with a high charisma score who might be willing to sleep with a PC who saves her wink wink nudge nudge.

[Raven777]

I think (I may be wrong, I played neither version) that the Hook Mountains Ogres from Rise of the Runelords have been majorly toned down from their 3.5 version when the Adventure Path was converted to PF.

[toapat]

There's a story about a dumb Paladin of Cayden Cailean in the PFCRB? :smallconfused:

no, Pathfinder's design of paladin is nonsense. Sure divine bond is better then just not having the horse but the horse is better. A thick stack of auras makes me feel like their paladins are like the Dungeonmaster in Dwarf Fortress, who wears a thick stack of cloaks to the exclusion of all other clothing because he wants to. It feels arbitrary and unjustified as opposed to a carefully designed mechanic inspired by World of Warcraft.

[Slithery D]

The closest thing to what I'd call a major fertility deity in Golarion is actually Lamashtu. And, in fairness to the Golarion pantheon, attaching most of the fertility stuff to a chaotic evil deity is actually an interesting twist, probably the one thing about the pantheon I find least boring. (I like this idea so much that I ripped it off -- combining it with Greek Echidna and Greyhawk Tiamat -- for my house pantheon's CE deity.)


While not fertility per se, Pharasma's portfolio includes birth, so close enough. The detail stuff on the gods and the novels flesh out that each church has three high priests, one for birth, death, and fate/prophecy. The death one is usually the most important, especially since Aroden's death and the fluffed failure of prophecy thing, but birth isn't a sideline for her and Lamashtu isn't the only option here and probably not the major one for human-like races.

Edit: Here you see (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Pharasma) worshippers: "midwives, pregnant women, morticians."

[Psyren]

no, Pathfinder's design of paladin is nonsense. Sure divine bond is better then just not having the horse but the horse is better.

Not always - if you're in a campaign with a lot of dungeons or urban environments then a horse can be a liability compared to the weapon. Something as simple as needing to climb a ladder or rope, or leave your animals outside to go see the king can make a horse a more challenging class feature than not.

Also, this reaction itself is weird to me. "Choice is bad?"

[toapat]

Also, this reaction itself is weird to me. "Choice is bad?"

Divine bond is superior then not having access to the horse but the horse is vastly more powerful by an order of magnitude

[Raven777]

Psyren is right. Though the horse companion is great, especially for an archer Paladin thanks to how powerful mounted archery is (move and full attack at range), its use in constrained environments where I'd say 90% of actual adventuring happens is pretty limited. Even with small characters on medium mounts, encountering tight corridors, cramped stairs or ladders leaves you on foot and without a bond pretty darn fast.

[Psyren]

Divine bond is superior then not having access to the horse but the horse is vastly more powerful by an order of magnitude

Again, not always, but you have the option to choose the horse unless you are using an archetype that locks you into one option.

(And even then you might be better off - for example, Sacred Servant gives up the horse, but it gives you (Greater) Planar Ally instead, which can potentially get you an even better companion like a Planetar.)

[toapat]

Psyren is right. Though the horse companion is great, especially for an archer Paladin thanks to how powerful mounted archery is (move and full attack at range), its use in constrained environments where I'd say 90% of actual adventuring happens is pretty limited. Even with small characters on medium mounts, encountering tight corridors, cramped stairs or ladders leaves you on foot and without a bond pretty darn fast.

not having access to the horse means when the horse would get stuck because its a small space. not lacking the horse entirely.

[Coidzor]

There are numerous opportunities: Many adventure paths and modules feature detailed, vulnerable NPCs that the players are supposed to protect. For some reason, these groups never include pregnant women or young children (<10), even though they are normally regarded as the most in need of protection in dangerous situations.

Which is funny, considering the famous example of the Lord of the Flies-feral goblin children as a throwaway surprise morality test in Rise of the Runelords. :smallconfused:


You could say they don't want to run the risk of offending people should the players fail and the DM has to describe the women and children getting killed,

I don't see why you would, really, since if the PCs fail it's a TPK and the scene fades to black as they start to discuss whether they're going to abandon the AP or re-start it at an earlier portion with new characters or what.


but they don't seem to have a problem with making the DM describe gratuitous rape and gore (see: anything involving ogres),

Wat. Did someone get carried away when they found out about the origin of Half-Ogres in Arcanum? :smallconfused: :smallyuk:


and these groups more often than not include an 18-ish nubile girl with a high charisma score who might be willing to sleep with a PC who saves her wink wink nudge nudge.

Well, that's just sort of disappointing. :smallconfused:


Stealing that for a signature.

It does suit your current avatar.

[Psyren]

not having access to the horse means when the horse would get stuck because its a small space. not lacking the horse entirely.

What's the difference? Either way you have a class feature that isn't helping you in a dangerous situation.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the PF cosmology either.

[Coidzor]

What's the difference? Either way you have a class feature that isn't helping you in a dangerous situation.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the PF cosmology either.

Hmm... The Horse is still a completely normal animal despite being described as what should be, by all rights, a Magical Beast if not an Outsider, right?

[zimmerwald1915]

There are numerous opportunities: Many adventure paths and modules feature detailed, vulnerable NPCs that the players are supposed to protect. For some reason, these groups never include pregnant women or young children (<10), even though they are normally regarded as the most in need of protection in dangerous situations.
Edge of Anarchy and The Shackled Hut (the latter multiple times) feature the PCs needing to rescue or protect children. One of those children, Orm (age 5), is detailed enough to have a name and a backstory, though, being a child, most of that backstory concerns his relationship with his mother and sister. There's also an edge case in The Shackled Hut where the PCs have to protect a young faun (who has a name), his human mother (ditto), and her very young (unnamed) children from the bad crowd he's fallen in with. Oh, and in Rasputin Must Die! the PCs get to escort a 12-year-old boy (actually a dragon in disguise) and a 14-year-old girl (undisguised, though amnesiac) around a Siberian prison camp in the middle of the Russian Civil War, hopefully without getting them shot.

Maiden, Mother, Crone features two hags that both disguise themselves a pregnant women in need of protection (which is problematic, I'll grant you, but hardly pregnancy-as-body horror; they appear as perfectly healthy pregnant women at first, and stop appearing pregnant when they transform). It also features one pregnant woman who is quite capable of protecting herself, thank you very much, but with whom the PCs are strongly encouraged to make an alliance.

[Psyren]

Hmm... The Horse is still a completely normal animal despite being described as what should be, by all rights, a Magical Beast if not an Outsider, right?

It's an animal until 11th level but I wouldn't call it "completely normal" - even before that point it is much smarter than others of its kind. Of course, even being able to write a sonnet won't help Mr. Ed climb a rope.

[Larkas]

As a Dragon Age player, I second this without even opening the link. I know exactly what it is, and I have no desire to look upon it again.

That makes us two :smalleek:

[Beowulf DW]

That makes us two :smalleek:

Three here. That entire section was horrifying.

[Coidzor]

It's an animal until 11th level but I wouldn't call it "completely normal" - even before that point it is much smarter than others of its kind. Of course, even being able to write a sonnet won't help Mr. Ed climb a rope.

Yeah, but that's just something they get from the bond with the Pally. So it's still cosmologically problematic that they're from the upper planes and still mundane animals underneath it all. Granted, if they started out as Outsiders, then the whole Paladin's Horse is smarter than the Paladin thing would be a matter of course even without dumping Int thanks to those sweet, sweet skill points.

[Psyren]

Yeah, but that's just something they get from the bond with the Pally. So it's still cosmologically problematic that they're from the upper planes and still mundane animals underneath it all.

I don't think it's that big a deal, there are plenty of regular animals in the upper planes. Elysium for instance is packed with them. Many are templated but not all.

In addition, the PF Paladin entry at least merely says you "gain the service of" this animal - it says nothing about where it comes from. You can summon it to your side later on, but even if it does return to the upper planes when dismissed or slain, that doesn't mean it was born there initially.


Granted, if they started out as Outsiders, then the whole Paladin's Horse is smarter than the Paladin thing would be a matter of course even without dumping Int thanks to those sweet, sweet skill points.

I don't know about 3.5, but in PF they're never Outsiders. They start as Animals and later become Magical Beasts (and then only for specific purposes.) The Celestial template doesn't change their type.

[Coidzor]

I don't think it's that big a deal, there are plenty of regular animals in the upper planes. Elysium for instance is packed with them. Many are templated but not all.

In addition, the PF Paladin entry at least merely says you "gain the service of" this animal - it says nothing about where it comes from. You can summon it to your side later on, but even if it does return to the upper planes when dismissed or slain, that doesn't mean it was born there initially.

*shrug* It's the only way that the Paladin's Mount interacts with the cosmology of the setting, so it at least makes the discussion somewhat tangentially relevant to the thread rather than basically completely irrelevant.

Which while still weird is much less problematic than having a creature from the upper planes that isn't even a Celestial creature being sent to Paladins. XD In 3.5 one must imagine that they have to take pains to go wrangle up some non-Celestial horses on the upper planes just to fob them off on Pallys. In PF, they apparently wrote in huge numbers of mundane animals in the upper planes to sidestep that point... :smallconfused:

Unless there's actually a good reason for all of those untemplated animals to be ****ting on the streets paved with gold in the upper planes?


I don't know about 3.5, but in PF they're never Outsiders. They start as Animals and later become Magical Beasts (and then only for specific purposes.) The Celestial template doesn't change their type.

You should. Also, that has nothing to do with what I said, as I did not *say* they became Outsiders, I was merely observing that the skill points of an Outsider HD would compound an existing observed issue. Celestial Creature does change type by default in 3.5, and it's anyone's guess, without authorial rationale, whether they dropped the type change due to the simple vs. complex template schema.

[Marlowe]

A skilled storyteller absolutely could do something interesting with Folca: But I don't think Paizo has. Pretty much the only information on him is the list of his interests, domains, and favored weapon. I mean, I can do that too!

Name: Alethor
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Interests: Sapient Toaster Ovens, Patent Infringement
Domains: Artifice, Chaos, Magic, Psionics, Trickery
Subdomains: Construct, Divine, Noetics, Protean, Thievery
Favored Weapon: Scimitar

This is really why I'm completely uninterested in the topic. Sorry Kudaku.

While it might be "cool" and "daring" or "edgy" to create a figure redolent of adult fear and real-life paranoia, they haven't really done that. Instead they've flirted with the idea of doing so, chickened out, and left a few lines stuck in the back of a sourcebook for a bit of surprise creepy shock value.

As others have mentioned, it's kind of a "We're mature! Honest!" mindset. In this case it's more "Yes, really! We really, really thought about doing something disturbing! For all of five minutes! We didn't actually do it, but we really, really, really honest and for true thought about being mature for a bit!"

And as for the other one you mentioned, my first reaction was "Oh dear god not ANOTHER stupid set of flagellation jokes in a fantasy game." And the second was "Oh. A patron of self-hating depressives. Bet this ones cultists are a menace to society. So what do the PCs do? Interrupt a group mope? Hurt their feelings with harsh language? Steal their Joy Division albums? Recommend a councilor and call social services on their parents?"

In short if the writers want me to care about such figures in any way they need to do more with them.

[Raven777]

I'm pretty sure these tidbits and stingers are hooks for a DM to expand upon. As far as I understand campaign settings as a toolbox, it's not Paizo's job to expand and explain every secret cult, ancient conspiracy and sleeping abomination.

And anyone who thinks Osolmyr ain't got potential to be terrifying never had to mess with Zon-Kuthon's cult or venture into the Kyton's Jangling City while these guys were ran Hellraiser (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/Hellraiser)/Event Horizon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/EVENTHORIZON) style.

[JusticeZero]

The issue is that every bit of definition in the source whittles away at the GM's ability to improvise things in. Thus, it is best to either leave gaping holes and merely point out where the holes are so that the GM has free reign to fill them, or actually go forward and boldly make something genuinely interesting. If you choose the middle path, you are saddling the GM with poorly made and vague content that is just well enough defined to make it hard to work around. Make a road or make a palace, not just a field full of rubble.

[Marlowe]

I'm pretty sure these tidbits and stingers are hooks for a DM to expand upon. As far as I understand campaign settings as a toolbox, it's not Paizo's job to expand and explain every secret cult, ancient conspiracy and sleeping abomination.

I'm pretty sure that detailing their setting IS pretty much a big part of Paizo's job. That's the sort of thing that sells books.

[Psyren]

Which while still weird is much less problematic than having a creature from the upper planes that isn't even a Celestial creature being sent to Paladins. XD In 3.5 one must imagine that they have to take pains to go wrangle up some non-Celestial horses on the upper planes just to fob them off on Pallys. In PF, they apparently wrote in huge numbers of mundane animals in the upper planes to sidestep that point... :smallconfused:

Unless there's actually a good reason for all of those untemplated animals to be ****ting on the streets paved with gold in the upper planes?


"Streets paved with gold" sounds like Celestia to me - I doubt they'd do that in Arborea/Elysium or Nirvana, which are wild woodlands and rolling meadows respectively. At the very least, they wouldn't be likely to do so underneath herds of wild horses :smalltongue:

Besides - again, you're the one assuming they come "from the upper planes" when that isn't stated anywhere that I can see. Whichever force grants a paladin their powers could easily send an angel/archon off to find a regular horse on the Prime, give it your name and number and send it off to find you, even helpfully dropping it off a couple of miles distant right as you gain 5th level.


You should.

Er... I should what?


Also, that has nothing to do with what I said, as I did not *say* they became Outsiders, I was merely observing that the skill points of an Outsider HD would compound an existing observed issue. Celestial Creature does change type by default in 3.5, and it's anyone's guess, without authorial rationale, whether they dropped the type change due to the simple vs. complex template schema.

Well, not always (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/celestialCreature.htm) in 3.5 - animals and vermin change, but other types (like humanoid and plant) don't.

In any case, it's moot - as their type does not change until 11th level and their Int is set at 6 at least until then, it's unlikely they'd be smarter than their master unless he really tanked his Int stat.


The issue is that every bit of definition in the source whittles away at the GM's ability to improvise things in. Thus, it is best to either leave gaping holes and merely point out where the holes are so that the GM has free reign to fill them, or actually go forward and boldly make something genuinely interesting. If you choose the middle path, you are saddling the GM with poorly made and vague content that is just well enough defined to make it hard to work around. Make a road or make a palace, not just a field full of rubble.

Getting back to topic - yes, I can agree with this. I think where most people are at loggerheads is deciding whether a given empty space is a gaping hole or a foundation/empty lot.

[Coidzor]

And as for the other one you mentioned, my first reaction was "Oh dear god not ANOTHER stupid set of flagellation jokes in a fantasy game." And the second was "Oh. A patron of self-hating depressives. Bet this ones cultists are a menace to society. So what do the PCs do? Interrupt a group mope? Hurt their feelings with harsh language? Steal their Joy Division albums? Recommend a councilor and call social services on their parents?"

An adventure where the PCs have to refrain from murdering mopey teens because it would finish an unspeakable ritual and instead help them get help for their crippling depression might be interesting... maybe...? :smallconfused:

[Kudaku]

This is really why I'm completely uninterested in the topic. Sorry Kudaku.

I really don't mind you having a different opinion from me, I respect your right to disagree. :smallsmile: My annoyance was more related to how you replied to a long and detailed post by quoting the first sentence, correct a minor misunderstanding, and didn't bother replying to the rest of the post despite it having several questions directed at you. I got the distinct impression that you simply didn't bother reading past the first line.


And as for the other one you mentioned, my first reaction was "Oh dear god not ANOTHER stupid set of flagellation jokes in a fantasy game." And the second was "Oh. A patron of self-hating depressives. Bet this ones cultists are a menace to society. So what do the PCs do? Interrupt a group mope? Hurt their feelings with harsh language? Steal their Joy Division albums? Recommend a councilor and call social services on their parents?"

I think you're missing the forest for the trees with Osolmyr. Osolmyr isn't just the deity of flagellation, he's also the God of self-denial and and repression. If you can't see any potential in the deity of "conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show" I really don't know what to tell you.

Honest to God, no hyperbole, I have no idea what you're talking about after that. Apart from Folca, I named six different daemon harbingers. I'll list their portfolios below.

Osolmyr: Flagellation, Repression, Self-Denial
Corosbel: Failed martyrdom, False Worship, Ritual Death
Jacarkas: Hobbling, Lobotomizing, Slavery
Zaigasnar: Body Modification, Destructive Vanity, Pins
Arlachramas: Dehumanization, Disposal, Euthanasia
Ajids: Mutilation, Skinning, Trophy Taking

Could you point to the daemon in the lineup you feel is "the patron of self-hating depressives"?

[Renegade Paladin]

I think (I may be wrong, I played neither version) that the Hook Mountains Ogres from Rise of the Runelords have been majorly toned down from their 3.5 version when the Adventure Path was converted to PF.
I'm running the PF conversion of Rise of the Runelords right now, and if that's true they must have been truly terrifying, because they're bad. They'll make entertaining villains, but if this is toned down I don't think I want to see the original. :smalleek:

no, Pathfinder's design of paladin is nonsense. Sure divine bond is better then just not having the horse but the horse is better. A thick stack of auras makes me feel like their paladins are like the Dungeonmaster in Dwarf Fortress, who wears a thick stack of cloaks to the exclusion of all other clothing because he wants to. It feels arbitrary and unjustified as opposed to a carefully designed mechanic inspired by World of Warcraft.
Divine Bond is how you get the horse. It's one of two options. The weapon bond is there for paladins who aren't riding around on open plains all the time - I plan to take the weapon bond on my Pathfinder Society paladin at 5th level, for instance, because he's a greatsword-wielder anyway and spends the vast majority of adventuring time underground, inside, and aboard ships. As for the rest, no, it doesn't feel like that at all; they get more abilities as they level and what the heck else would you give them?

Divine bond is superior then not having access to the horse but the horse is vastly more powerful by an order of magnitude
So... take the horse? I mean, it isn't like they took it away or anything. :smallconfused: Druids, rangers, and wizards have options to take instead of an animal companion or familiar too; does that make their designs nonsense?

I'm getting the feeling that the problem here is that you didn't read the whole ability. It says you can have a weapon spirit or take a bonded mount with the same rules as a druid companion. They didn't lose the horse. At all.

[malonkey1]

I actually don't mind the Weapon Bond. what bugs me is that they have Smite Evil, but what it does is not a "smite", or a single powerful blow. It's more like a "mark", calling out an enemy for bringin' the pain over time.

[Marlowe]

Honestly at this point it looks like they just drew up a table of squickly stuff and rolled dice to see who got what.

I love Corospel: "failed martyrdom" ("I tried to give my life for cause...but I missed and shot a squirrel"). And "False Worship". So a follower of Corospel would be worshipping the concept of "false worship"...except the worship isn't false, because the guy being worshipped actually exists. Maybe the worshipper is only pretending to worship him? This could get very meta. No wonder "ritual death" is involved. Corospel's probably sick of getting trolled. Or maybe Corospel ceases to exist as soon as he does get a worshipper?

Anyway.


I really don't mind you having a different opinion from me, I respect your right to disagree. My annoyance was more related to how you replied to a long and detailed post by quoting the first sentence, correct a minor misunderstanding, and didn't bother replying to the rest of the post despite it having several questions directed at you. I got the distinct impression that you simply didn't bother reading past the first line. You misrepresented what I'd written and reinterpreted it as implicitly supporting your premise. To wit that these barely-there thumbnails of minor fiendish nuisances are somehow "disturbing".

They're not "disturbing". They are barely even a thing. And I don't like being misrepresented.

While I'm happy you're enthusiastic about this sort of thing, you are correct in assuming I don't have any interest in discussing this pack of Garbage Pail Kids cards. I will ask you what you think is so "cool" about taking a folklore role traditionally taken by the fey and giving it to a demon instead.


Could you point to the daemon in the lineup you feel is "the patron of self-hating depressives"?

I believe I made this quite clear.

[Raven777]

And I believe that I made clear that the patron of flagellation, repression and self denial could be played pretty (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/EVENTHORIZON) scary (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Hellraiser). That's what great about stubs. It leaves room for everyone's imagination to make things way worse than they are (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier). It leaves room for the DM to expand.

[Kudaku]

You misrepresented what I'd written and reinterpreted it as implicitly supporting your premise. To wit that these barely-there thumbnails of minor fiendish nuisances are somehow "disturbing". They're not "disturbing". They are barely even a thing. And I don't like being misrepresented.

While I might have misinterpreted you, I don't believe I misrepresented anything. What you said was that you saw Fulca being a "tasteless joke". Seeing as it's a deity that kidnaps children, I took that to mean that you thought it was in bad taste or off-putting - by extension, that it made you uncomfortable. If I was mistaken about that, I apologize.


While I'm happy you're enthusiastic about this sort of thing, you are correct in assuming I don't have any interest in discussing this pack of Garbage Pail Kids cards. I will ask you what you think is so "cool" about taking a folklore role traditionally taken by the fey and giving it to a demon instead.
Daemon, not demon. There is a rather big difference between the two. And I enjoy it because while fey might traditionally do these things, they do it for entirely different reasons than daemons do. If you read more into the daemon lore this would become clear.


Rant on Corospel

Like several other posters have already noted, the harbinger descriptions are nubs - They will likely be expanded on in the future, but in the meantime they are whatever the GM chooses to do with them. I've already given an example of how I see Fulca, and Raven has posted an interesting take on Osolmyr. If the best thing you can come up with when looking on Corosbel is to turn him into an emo cult of squirrel killers... Well, let's just say you shouldn't quit your day job and pursue a career as a fantasy writer just yet. A daemon that focuses on making the devoted waver in their faith or point out the ultimate irrelevance of martyrdom has tons of potential.

[Marlowe]

And I believe that I made clear that the patron of flagellation, repression and self denial could be played pretty (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/EVENTHORIZON) scary (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Hellraiser). That's what great about stubs. It leaves room for everyone's imagination to make things way worse than they are (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier). It leaves room for the DM to expand.

Event Horizon. Hilarious film. I loved the way nobody in IASA could recognize Latin even though the captain of the expedition was known to speak it. And that nobody in the crew of spacemen could understand dumbed-down wormhole theory. And that "let's split up" was apparently the crew's motto. It's like an educational video on what not to do when exploring an unknown location.

First watched it with my gfs 10-year son. I wouldn't have let him if I'd known anything about it at the time. He remarked later "That was OK. A bit boring. The guy on fire was cool."

Don't see what on earth or hell it's got to do with repression or self-denial though. Or what the Jangling city of Chain Devils has to do with any of this. In fact, beyond the common theme of bondage imagery, I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Now you:


Like several other posters have already noted, the harbinger descriptions are nubs - They will likely be expanded on in the future, but in the meantime they are whatever the GM chooses to do with them. I've already given an example of how I see Fulca, and Raven has posted an interesting take on Osolmyr. If the best thing you can come up with when looking on Corosbel is to turn him into an emo cult of squirrel killers... Well, let's just say you shouldn't quit your day job and pursue a career as a fantasy writer just yet. A daemon that focuses on making the devoted waver in their faith or point out the ultimate irrelevance of martyrdom has tons of potential.

I don't think you really deal with people having differing opinions from yourself quite as well as you think you do.

I told you I wasn't interested. But you keeping talking at me. I'll wrap it up.

This is not a debate as to what has potential or doesn't. This is about whether something is "incredibly cool", "daring" or "disturbing" as it is written. These are all very subjective terms. You're not going to change someone's opinion about something by lecturing them and insulting their creativity. Or; and I know you didn't do this yourself, by comparing things to old horror movies that can't scare a grade-schooler.

Finally:

A daemon that focuses on making the devoted waver in their faith or point out the ultimate irrelevance of martyrdom has tons of potential. Of course it does. It is the oldest pattern of demonic (note I don't care about the spelling. I'm not talking about in-game distinctions) behavior in folklore. What it isn't is remotely new.

[Silus]

Event Horizon. Hilarious film.

*Watches video of the former crew committing unspeakable acts*
*Calmly turns off the video*
"...We're leaving."

:smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

What it isn't is remotely new.

*points to Ecclesiastical quote a page or two back*

[Craft (Cheese)]

Edge of Anarchy and The Shackled Hut (the latter multiple times) feature the PCs needing to rescue or protect children. One of those children, Orm (age 5), is detailed enough to have a name and a backstory, though, being a child, most of that backstory concerns his relationship with his mother and sister. There's also an edge case in The Shackled Hut where the PCs have to protect a young faun (who has a name), his human mother (ditto), and her very young (unnamed) children from the bad crowd he's fallen in with. Oh, and in Rasputin Must Die! the PCs get to escort a 12-year-old boy (actually a dragon in disguise) and a 14-year-old girl (undisguised, though amnesiac) around a Siberian prison camp in the middle of the Russian Civil War, hopefully without getting them shot.

Maiden, Mother, Crone features two hags that both disguise themselves a pregnant women in need of protection (which is problematic, I'll grant you, but hardly pregnancy-as-body horror; they appear as perfectly healthy pregnant women at first, and stop appearing pregnant when they transform). It also features one pregnant woman who is quite capable of protecting herself, thank you very much, but with whom the PCs are strongly encouraged to make an alliance.

I suppose I stand corrected: Strange that I don't remember the case from Edge of Anarchy, but I got pretty sick of Reign of Winter early in and stopped reading it.

[ArqArturo]

Wait... Event horizon Asa prequel to 40k?.

Heresy.

[Zanos]

Stealing that for a signature.
Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. :smallsmile:

Indeed, that's pretty much just Mystra's Bailiwick. Maybe Shar's too, to a very limited extent. Boccob's just the Ur-Wizard, ascended to divinity and no longer really caring for matters in the multiverse at large. Nethys seems more of the Ur-Wizard if Wizard is connected with going a bit batty at best to stark raving nutters at worst.
As I recall 3.5 Mystra was a human wizard named midnight, and did try to give favorable treatment to good arcanists but promptly got the smackdown from Ao for not fulfilling the duties of her station.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

As I recall 3.5 Mystra was a human wizard named midnight, and did try to give favorable treatment to good arcanists but promptly got the smackdown from Ao for not fulfilling the duties of her station.

Yep, same with Kelemvor judging the virtuous dead less harshly than the cowardly dead. It's not in their job descriptions to be nice, much as some people (in and out of game) think they should go around fixing problems.

I like to think of it as the difference between forum mods and system administrators: it's Mystra the Mod's job to police the rules, ban spammers, scrub illegal posts, and all that kind of stuff, but Mystra the Sysadmin doesn't care what people are posting as long as the server is up.

[Craft (Cheese)]

As I recall 3.5 Mystra was a human wizard named midnight, and did try to give favorable treatment to good arcanists but promptly got the smackdown from Ao for not fulfilling the duties of her station.

Ao: The real BBEG of any Faerun campaign!

[Renegade Paladin]

I actually don't mind the Weapon Bond. what bugs me is that they have Smite Evil, but what it does is not a "smite", or a single powerful blow. It's more like a "mark", calling out an enemy for bringin' the pain over time.
Let me tell you what it was like playing a paladin in 3.5. You'd get all geared up to smite the bad guy, turn it on, take your swing... and the die comes up 2. And it's gone. You're now useless.

Even if it didn't, if you hit, big deal - if you hit something worth using the smite on in the first place, it probably isn't dead, and you would now be better off being a fighter for the rest of the combat.

Also, nothing in the definition of "smite," the English verb, says you can only do it once. :smalltongue:

[Snowbluff]

They could have done 101 things to fix it and keep it a "smite." Like make it an "on attack" ability or make it give a penalty equal to your Cha mod on attacks and AC.

Not to mention that you are equally "useless" against non-evil foes. :l

[Coidzor]

Ao: The real BBEG of any Faerun campaign!

Which brings us to our next question: Does Paizo have a stand-in for either the company or Jason Buhlman or whoever initially came up with Golarion in-setting?

[Zanos]

Ao: The real BBEG of any Faerun campaign!
I really don't see how Ao making God's actually do their jobs and respect their portfolios makes Ao evil.

Mystra's job is to safeguard and support arcane magic. Not allowing a very large percentage of creatures access to that force directly contradicts the responsibilities of her station, unless someone was actively using arcane magic to permanently damage the weave on a large scale.

[Renegade Paladin]

They could have done 101 things to fix it and keep it a "smite."
Yeah, and one of them is the thing they did.

Not to mention that you are equally "useless" against non-evil foes. :l
If it isn't evil, you should be talking to it. And you can find out by burning a move action. :smalltongue: Fighting inconvenient neutral people isn't the paladin's job. It's something he might on rare occasion be forced to do, but the Cosmic Forces of Good™ aren't under much obligation to help him do it.

[Psyren]

Yeah, and one of them is the thing they did.

If it isn't evil, you should be talking to it. And you can find out by burning a move action. :smalltongue: Fighting inconvenient neutral people isn't the paladin's job. It's something he might on rare occasion be forced to do, but the Cosmic Forces of Good™ aren't under much obligation to help him do it.

+1 to both counts.

Now granted, it would be nice if you could use your smite if, say, a feverish tiger or angry elemental attacked you, but part of being a paladin is knowing how to handle yourself without one too.

[Anlashok]

what bugs me is that they have Smite Evil, but what it does is not a "smite", or a single powerful blowQUOTE]
Personally I like it. For all the blubbering about "it's a MARK not a SMITE"... one slightly stronger than normal attack 5 times a day isn't particularly evocative of "smiting" either. Being able to lay down a holy sanction on the target and let the smiting commence is much, much, much better than burning all your holy juice on a single full attack and still failing to drop the enemy.
[QUOTE=Snowbluff;17922376]
Not to mention that you are equally "useless" against non-evil foes. :l

Eh, not really, being able to completely strip an enemy of all DR regardless of alignment can be pretty cool.

[Kudaku]

I have to say I'm very fond of the Pathfinder Paladin, I think it turned out the best out of any of the core classes. :smallsmile:

[Coidzor]

"Streets paved with gold" sounds like Celestia to me - I doubt they'd do that in Arborea/Elysium or Nirvana, which are wild woodlands and rolling meadows respectively. At the very least, they wouldn't be likely to do so underneath herds of wild horses :smalltongue:

Besides - again, you're the one assuming they come "from the upper planes" when that isn't stated anywhere that I can see. Whichever force grants a paladin their powers could easily send an angel/archon off to find a regular horse on the Prime, give it your name and number and send it off to find you, even helpfully dropping it off a couple of miles distant right as you gain 5th level.

Sort of a catch-all for the upper planes, sorry. It's... weird to have massive herds of completely normal horses running around the Outer Planes, though, even though they can technically survive most of them, as long as the inhabitants don't cull them.

Err, I meant, them not being from the upper planes in the first place makes them not having anything to mechanically reflect that makes sense, then. Having a horse partially comprised out of "elemental" Good and not having that make some difference from a horse made out of normal meat, OTOH, just rubs me the wrong way, cosmologically speaking. Though I suppose kidnapping normal horses from the prime material plane to store in the upper planes when the Paladins aren't using them is also kind of a headscratcher, as is having massive amounts of horses made out of meat just running around in the afterlife.


Er... I should what?

Know that it's a mundane-ish horse in 3.5 too. Which it is without a feat or ACF. Though some people houserule it or forget that it's a mundaneish horse and make it a Celestial Horse and houserule it without realizing they're houseruling.


Well, not always (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/celestialCreature.htm) in 3.5 - animals and vermin change, but other types (like humanoid and plant) don't.

:smalltongue: Well, I was talking bout horses, aye.


In any case, it's moot - as their type does not change until 11th level and their Int is set at 6 at least until then, it's unlikely they'd be smarter than their master unless he really tanked his Int stat.

I suppose so. xD


Getting back to topic - yes, I can agree with this. I think where most people are at loggerheads is deciding whether a given empty space is a gaping hole or a foundation/empty lot.

Quite. I typically prefer a moderate amount of information which naturally leads to suggestions about what sorts of things to fill into the blanks unless it's something major where it's mostly the ultimate cause(and I do like having some suggested potential or rumored causes generally) and resolution that are of most interest for the campaign/PCs.

[squiggit]

I have to say I'm very fond of the Pathfinder Paladin, I think it turned out the best out of any of the core classes. :smallsmile:

I'd say that'd be the Bard. Though granted 3.5 Bard was already doing great.

Though overall (cuz it's not CRB) I think Paizo's best conversion was their Favored Soul. By a long shot.

[Kudaku]

I'd say that'd be the Bard. Though granted 3.5 Bard was already doing great.

Though overall (cuz it's not CRB) I think Paizo's best conversion was their Favored Soul. By a long shot.

I was thinking along the lines of "most improved in the transition". That said, both the bard and the oracle are fantastic!

[squiggit]

I was thinking along the lines of "most improved in the transition". That said, both the bard and the oracle are fantastic!

Yeah. Same tier for the latter, but I don't think anyone would argue that the FS wasn't a mess of boring and lame, so the Oracle still gets my vote for being so much niftier in terms of mechanics.

[StreamOfTheSky]

My one big problem with the PF paladin (well, the other is that the code of conduct is still HORRIBLE and ripe for DM abuse on the player) is that they just plain suck against the iconic "evil hordes," like a whole lot of undead, for instance. Smite Evil is as many swings as it takes, but only on one foe. The AoE aura of justice lets everyone....wail on one dude. The litany spells to dish out the hurt...single target again. And not only is channel energy utter crap for hurting undead (d6 per TWO levels, with the save that every undead freaking rocks at for half still), it costs twice as much for the paladin as it does the cleric to use it. That's just horrible. (And only useful vs. specifically undead hordes, too)

I really wish Smite Evil got some option where on top of the normal use, you instead can choose to make one smite per foe (you choose to use it before attacking), up to a limit of your paladin level in total smites and...I guess a time limit or "foes within x ft radius of you when activated" restriction so you couldn't "carry over" the same daily smite use to future fights or something....

[Socksy]

Or maybe they're just not jerks?

"This guy is hitting on me, so I'm just going to throw fire and lightning at him until he goes away. That's perfectly valid, right?"

Or perhaps they didn't want to get locked into Schroedinger's attack roll, where an unstoppable, always accurate force targets an unbreakable object which can dodge anything. F***ing unstatted deities... :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallmad:


Okay, scratch her out. I only knew the basics (TN, Death, Secrets), so I figured it was like a hybridization of Vecna and Wee Jas.

She is (at least, in the weeks and weeks of filler with no real campaign start in sight which I played in). Then again, the DM was terrible and I only kept playing because I was dating him at the time.


I don't see why Pharasma should care. You're saying she judges atheists more harshly than those that follow the undead-loving god? That makes no sense... Don't recall his name because "big evil deity that has the hots for walking corpses" are all basically the same anyway. :smalltongue: (And for her duties, she shouldn't even be seeking to screw over those followers, ideally)

Urgathoa is the goddess you're thinking of (I think).
And as far as I'm aware, she hates them equally, they all get sent to the boneyard forever.
Way to punish a player for their choice of deity. "Nope, the ressurection fails, your soul is trapped in the Boneyard."

[Slithery D]

[Athiests]
Way to punish a player for their choice of deity. "Nope, the ressurection fails, your soul is trapped in the Boneyard."

There's never been an rule that does that, and as of the latest fluff on how death/souls works (article in Mummy's Mask Adventure Path #6), that's explicitly not what she does. No resurrections are affected by the eventual state of your soul were you not to be raised.

[Psyren]

My one big problem with the PF paladin (well, the other is that the code of conduct is still HORRIBLE and ripe for DM abuse on the player) is that they just plain suck against the iconic "evil hordes," like a whole lot of undead, for instance. Smite Evil is as many swings as it takes, but only on one foe. The AoE aura of justice lets everyone....wail on one dude. The litany spells to dish out the hurt...single target again. And not only is channel energy utter crap for hurting undead (d6 per TWO levels, with the save that every undead freaking rocks at for half still), it costs twice as much for the paladin as it does the cleric to use it. That's just horrible. (And only useful vs. specifically undead hordes, too)

I really wish Smite Evil got some option where on top of the normal use, you instead can choose to make one smite per foe (you choose to use it before attacking), up to a limit of your paladin level in total smites and...I guess a time limit or "foes within x ft radius of you when activated" restriction so you couldn't "carry over" the same daily smite use to future fights or something....

When you parse it out it's really not a big deal though. If it's a multitude of lesser foes, they are likely too weak individually for smite to be necessary; if it's a handful of not-so-weak foes, you can use smite to burn one down quickly so that the remainder are easily taken care of; and of course if it's one or two big foes smite shines there. So in all cases this smite is either pulling its weight or unnecessary.

(And if it's a horde of strong foes - well, you're probably dead anyway.)

[Beowulf DW]

Which brings us to our next question: Does Paizo have a stand-in for either the company or Jason Buhlman or whoever initially came up with Golarion in-setting?

Much like the real world, there seem to be conflicting accounts over which gods are the oldest. One (admittedly small) following believes in Tiamat/Bahamut stand-ins.

The one that's more popular (both in the setting and apparently with the writers) is that Asmodeus and his brother Ihys created the universe, and then Ihys went behind Asmodeus' back and gave mortals free will. Asmodeus yelled at Ihys, and Ihys thought that maybe he was wrong, until his lieutenant, Sarenrae (current Big Good of the setting; still an Empyreal Lord at the time) convinced him that it was right for mortals not to be automatons. This triggered a war, which ended with Asmodeus killing Ihys after acting like he just wanted to talk, and then withdrawing because he knew that he couldn't defeat the now determined and empowered Sarenrae. Asmodeus created Hell as a place of perfect order, and as a promise of what he would try to do to the Material plane.

Interestingly, the hellfire in Hell wasn't Asmodeus' doing. It was damage caused by another god's attack. Apparently, Hell was kind of pleasant-looking before that.

[Clistenes]

Hmm.... I guess its not the same with Elder Evils. The Rough Beast IS a god, but one so terrifying and archetypal of chaotic evil that even the other CE gods don't want him loose.

Rovagug is pretty much Pathfinder's version of Tharidzum.

[toapat]

My one big problem with the PF paladin (well, the other is that the code of conduct is still HORRIBLE and ripe for DM abuse on the player) is that they just plain suck against the iconic "evil hordes," like a whole lot of undead, for instance. Smite Evil is as many swings as it takes, but only on one foe. The AoE aura of justice lets everyone....wail on one dude. The litany spells to dish out the hurt...single target again. And not only is channel energy utter crap for hurting undead (d6 per TWO levels, with the save that every undead freaking rocks at for half still), it costs twice as much for the paladin as it does the cleric to use it. That's just horrible. (And only useful vs. specifically undead hordes, too)

I really wish Smite Evil got some option where on top of the normal use, you instead can choose to make one smite per foe (you choose to use it before attacking), up to a limit of your paladin level in total smites and...I guess a time limit or "foes within x ft radius of you when activated" restriction so you couldn't "carry over" the same daily smite use to future fights or something....

Honestly someone should work out how to convert D3's crusader into a pnp class. Not jarian though. her work is effective, but forgets to abstract the class.

[LordErebus12]

Rovagug is pretty much Pathfinder's version of Tharidzum.

Yeah, but that is like saying a loaf of bread is the same as a biscuit because they were both baked in the oven.

Rovagug is imprisoned in the world itself.
Tharidzum is in the Demiplane of Imprisonment, hidden somewhere in the depths of the Ethereal Plane.

Tharizdun apparently originated in the Far Realm or possibly in a previous universe, depending on the source material.
Rovagug was one of the oldest and powerful of quippoth, evil outsiders from the Abyss. They existed before souls even existed.

Their imprisonment is similar, I suppose. Be it by the Deities of Golarion or the unnamed Great Powers.

[Psyren]

Rovagug is the Snarl :smalltongue:

[Anlashok]

Yeah, but that is like saying a loaf of bread is the same as a biscuit because they were both baked in the oven.
Sure. If it looks like a biscuit, is made like a biscuit, and tastes like a biscuit...

[Psyren]

Sure. If it looks like a biscuit, is made like a biscuit, and tastes like a biscuit...

Wait, wait, I know this one... It's a duck!

[ArqArturo]

Sure. If it looks like a biscuit, is made like a biscuit, and tastes like a biscuit...

It's actually moldy bread :/.

[Alleran]

Interestingly, the hellfire in Hell wasn't Asmodeus' doing. It was damage caused by another god's attack. Apparently, Hell was kind of pleasant-looking before that.
*looks at Sarenrae*
*looks at the occasions when she's lost her temper and the usual fallout*

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Sarenrae, to be honest. For a goddess of redemption, she has a nasty temper when that slow-burning fuse finally pops.

That being said, it was Dahak (evil dragon-god) who did it according to the dragons.

[Raven777]

Speaking of Paladins, Pathfinder has Hellknights! Of particular note, the Order of the Godclaw (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Godclaw) has Paladins of Iomedae and Inquisitors of Asmodeus working together for the Greater Good Law.

[Beowulf DW]

*looks at Sarenrae*
*looks at the occasions when she's lost her temper and the usual fallout*

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Sarenrae, to be honest. For a goddess of redemption, she has a nasty temper when that slow-burning fuse finally pops.

That being said, it was Dahak (evil dragon-god) who did it according to the dragons.

True, she did put the fires of the sun at the center of Golarion as an everlasting torment for the Rough Beast. She certainly lives up to the idea that "good is not nice," when it's clear that words won't work at all. That or maybe she's a living lesson about what happens when you do not-nice things to formerly nice people?

[Alleran]

Speaking of Paladins, Pathfinder has Hellknights! Of particular note, the Order of the Godclaw (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Godclaw) has Paladins of Iomedae and Inquisitors of Asmodeus working together for the Greater Good Law.
Read Iomedae's portrayal in Wrath of the Righteous? The way she acted in that she felt like Miko, except in some ways worse.


True, she did put the fires of the sun at the center of Golarion as an everlasting torment for the Rough Beast. She certainly lives up to the idea that "good is not nice," when it's clear that words won't work at all. That or maybe she's a living lesson about what happens when you do not-nice things to formerly nice people?
I was actually thinking about how she finally reacted when she blew a fuse at Gormuz "back in the day" for killing her Herald. Descending from the heavens, personally smiting the city with her flaming scimitar and turning it into a wasteland with the Pit of Gormuz that the Spawn use to reach the surface. Granted, she didn't exactly mean to go quite that far with the destruction and consequences, but still.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Read Iomedae's portrayal in Wrath of the Righteous? The way she acted in that she felt like Miko, except in some ways worse.

I'd just blame that on the obscenely bad writing in the later sections of that AP: Not once, but twice the DM is instructed to introduce an invincible, omnipotent NPC and use them to troll the players. At least it's in-character for a demon lord "ally" to do this (but railroading the PCs to go beg for her help is unforgivable), but using Iomedae for it just makes the writer look like an *******.

[Alleran]

I'd just blame that on the obscenely bad writing in the later sections of that AP: Not once, but twice the DM is instructed to introduce an invincible, omnipotent NPC and use them to troll the players.
Nocticula? She's hardly omnipotent. Aggravating, absolutely, but not invincible. By the time the player characters meet her, I wouldn't put it past them to have moderately decent odds of killing her.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Nocticula? She's hardly omnipotent. Aggravating, absolutely, but not invincible. By the time the player characters meet her, I wouldn't put it past them to have moderately decent odds of killing her.

Clarification: Intended invincible, omnipotent NPC. My test characters killed her in two rounds, but it's clear that the PCs aren't supposed to be able to touch her (notice how, unlike Deskari and Baphomet, the writer gives no indication on what should happen if the PCs challenge her and win).

[Alleran]

Clarification: Intended invincible, omnipotent NPC. My test characters killed her in two rounds, but it's clear that the PCs aren't supposed to be able to touch her (notice how, unlike Deskari and Baphomet, the writer gives no indication on what should happen if the PCs challenge her and win).
Ah. That makes a bit more sense - I took the "not supposed to be able to kill her" to be more a factor of using her as an ally, since she also appears in Book 6 (where any of the PCs could easily one-round her) and the aid she gives to the PCs is noted as having a follow-up then.

What were the test characters you used, out of interest?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Ah. That makes a bit more sense - I took the "not supposed to be able to kill her" to be more a factor of using her as an ally, since she also appears in Book 6 (where any of the PCs could easily one-round her) and the aid she gives to the PCs is noted as having a follow-up then.

What were the test characters you used, out of interest?

Transmuter wizard, Superstitious Barbarian (specced for pouncing), Cleric of Desna (a skillmonkey primarily but also a pretty capable Clericzilla), and a Saurian Druid (because Dinosaurs). The transmuter won initiative and dazed her with a Dazing Spell (DC 47 or thereabouts), then the Barb, Cleric, and Druid ripped her to shreds (regeneration 30 doesn't cut it when you've got 3 people doing 100+ damage *per attack* on you). She never even got to act. That's how most of the bossfights in that AP went tbh, just about nobody has immunity to daze and their saves don't scale fast enough to keep up with all the boosts to DC a mythic spellcaster who specializes in save-or-lose can get, so you can use the same stupid trick over and over to trivialize everything.

[Beowulf DW]

Transmuter wizard, Superstitious Barbarian (specced for pouncing), Cleric of Desna (a skillmonkey primarily but also a pretty capable Clericzilla), and a Saurian Druid (because Dinosaurs). The transmuter won initiative and dazed her with a Dazing Spell (DC 47 or thereabouts), then the Barb, Cleric, and Druid ripped her to shreds (regeneration 30 doesn't cut it when you've got 3 people doing 100+ damage *per attack* on you). She never even got to act. That's how most of the bossfights in that AP went tbh, just about nobody has immunity to daze and their saves don't scale fast enough to keep up with all the boosts to DC a mythic spellcaster who specializes in save-or-lose can get, so you can use the same stupid trick over and over to trivialize everything.

It's somewhat comforting to know that Paizo still hasn't quite come to grips with how powerful some characters can be relative to their adventure paths. It can allow us to compensate for the aforementioned crappy writing.:smallbiggrin:

[Squirrel_Dude]

It's somewhat comforting to know that Paizo still hasn't quite come to grips with how powerful some characters can be relative to their adventure paths. It can allow us to compensate for the aforementioned crappy writing.:smallbiggrin:Well, the issue is that their game has an optimization ceiling that I'd argue is a bit harder to hit but lower than 3.5's (because 3.5's ceiling was infinite power), and they can't really plan for that level of minmaxing. New players have to be able to get through APs, too.


It would probably help if their game wasn't overly complicated with giant feat chains, FAQs that are errata but only sometimes, that they don't always use identical language for identical effects, and that (apparently) some rules like Sacred Geometry, because they are published in a smaller supplement, aren't always looked over by the design team.

*sigh* Sometimes I wonder if it would make more sense to call Paizo an adventure path company than a game publisher. Similar to how Games Workshop is really miniatures company and not a game company.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I actually agree; AP's shouldn't be designed under the assumption that the PC's are as highly optimized as my test characters were. Still though, they shouldn't assume that they aren't. WotR isn't even the worst example I know of; That would have to be Second Darkness. I swear, Alicavniss Vonnarc is The Illusive Man 2.0.

[Beowulf DW]

I actually agree; AP's shouldn't be designed under the assumption that the PC's are as highly optimized as my test characters were. Still though, they shouldn't assume that they aren't. WotR isn't even the worst example I know of; That would have to be Second Darkness. I swear, Alicavniss Vonnarc is The Illusive Man 2.0.

Oh, I agree, but I think that a few side bars with suggestions for when the PCs decide they've had enough of an allegedly important character might nice. A friend of mine once DMed an adventure path wherein the PCs killed an important NPC about 6 levels before they should have. Suddenly the AP had to be put on hold because that was the only NPC that could point them onwards and my friend had to come up with a way to continue the bread crumb trail.

[Coidzor]

^: Suggestions about what to do with plot-critical NPCs and redundancies for murderhoboing are good, aye. As are suggestions for how to ramp up the power level or scale it down as necessary.

And a base point that's ideally supposed to be challenging without insurmountable things like confronting low level characters with incorporeal threats that they can't avoid or flee from.


Read Iomedae's portrayal in Wrath of the Righteous? The way she acted in that she felt like Miko, except in some ways worse.

I was actually thinking about how she finally reacted when she blew a fuse at Gormuz "back in the day" for killing her Herald. Descending from the heavens, personally smiting the city with her flaming scimitar and turning it into a wasteland with the Pit of Gormuz that the Spawn use to reach the surface. Granted, she didn't exactly mean to go quite that far with the destruction and consequences, but still.

I guess they're going for a sorta Kiplingesque "The Female of the Species (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/hum100/female.html)is More ****ing Insane than (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-wIvsZBFhQ) the Male? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_of_the_Species_(Kipling_poem))" :smallconfused:

[Tanuki Tales]

Only on page 6 (so catching up), but as to "Failed Martyrdom", I feel like that explains the tragedy of Miko Miyazaki to a T. Maybe even "False Worship" as well, if you take that meaning as venerating a deity/deities/pantheon but in the wrong way.

[Todd Stewart]

Huh, I'm really not sure how I missed this thread in the first place.

Suffice to say I wrote the cosmology sections in the Inner Sea World Guide (and the 3.5 PFCS before that), the 'Great Beyond' cosmology sourcebook, and the third of the 'Book of the Damned' series. Most of my freelancing for Paizo has been on planar related material, and I've had a hand in a lot of the cosmology. I find it very much non-sucky, and in many ways a giant love letter to 2e Planescape, but that's just my opinion. :)

That being said, at least as far as material that I've worked on, I can certainly field any questions relating to the Pathfinder cosmology.

[123456789blaaa]

Huh, I'm really not sure how I missed this thread in the first place.

Suffice to say I wrote the cosmology sections in the Inner Sea World Guide (and the 3.5 PFCS before that), the 'Great Beyond' cosmology sourcebook, and the third of the 'Book of the Damned' series. Most of my freelancing for Paizo has been on planar related material, and I've had a hand in a lot of the cosmology. I find it very much non-sucky, and in many ways a giant love letter to 2e Planescape, but that's just my opinion. :)

That being said, at least as far as material that I've worked on, I can certainly field any questions relating to the Pathfinder cosmology.

You appear to be committing Thread Necromancy. The last time this thread was posted in before your post was August 13.

Afro started up the fifth of his planar questions thread series (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372289-afroakuma-s-Planar-And-Other-Oddities-Questions-Thread-5!)some time ago. Why not hop on over there? I have a bunch of Golarion fluff questions I can't really ask right now since Afro doesn't do Pathfinder.

[Vaynor]

You appear to be committing Thread Necromancy. The last time this thread was posted in before your post was August 13.

Afro started up the fifth of his planar questions thread series (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372289-afroakuma-s-Planar-And-Other-Oddities-Questions-Thread-5!)some time ago. Why not hop on over there? I have a bunch of Golarion fluff questions I can't really ask right now since Afro doesn't do Pathfinder.

The Red Towel: Indeed. Thread locked.