God hating clerics and inquisitors: Would it work?

[Xuldarinar]

Thought I'd toss this one out there and see what comes of it.



Clerics (and if Im not mistaken, also inquisitors) exist devoted to concepts rather than divine entities, something I am certain irks deities and demigods alike. What if what one was devoted to is a hatred of the gods?

1. Could such an individual get spells?

2. If they could, what domains/subdomains/inquisitions/ect. would be suitable to this concept?

[LTwerewolf]

Needs more than just "I hate gods." That's a dislike, not a belief system powerful enough to change reality. A much more interesting view would be "I hate the tyranny gods force upon mortals, enslaving them and giving them a life of ignorant servitude for those they believe themselves the elite."

[Xuldarinar]

Well, lets elaborate then. Something along the lines of;


"The gods. They prey upon the mortal races, presenting themselves as our creators, expecting us to do as they say and to feed them our reverence. They are no more deserving than the lowest fiend, or even you or I. They may have power, bit doesn't mean they are any different, let alone deserve our time and worship. The benevolent gods seldom lift a finger to aid those in need without some lip service, and most care little for our struggles. Its all about them, and their arguments. How many have died because two men praised different gods, or disagreed about the nature of one? If what we are told is true, how many have suffered for not walking the right path, or the decisions of one goddess? They should be exposed for what they are, starved of what they take from us if not slain out right. "

[BWR]

Yes or no, depending on the world you play in.
If gods are the only source of divine power, obviously it wouldn't work.
The Athar from Planescape are a group of anti-theists. While personal belief varies from 'do not consider gods to be gods' to 'hate gods', they are united in their disapproval of obviously flawed and disagreeable beings trying to lord it over the rest of us. In their case, belief that gods are not gods, or at least that there is something bigger and better beyond them that genuinely deserves worship, is sufficient to power their clerics.

Domains etc.: whatever you feel appropriate for the character and the setting. Probably something actively useful against agents of gods, like Destruction, but anything will do.
An anti-theist who wishes to turn religious people away from a god might go the hearts and minds route, choosing Healing and something equally beneficial to society, and go around helping people and making sure to point out how the gods are not helping and probably the cause of the problems.
Another might be an evil ******** in a world where the gods genuinely are the proper and good (for varying values) beings and so have Evil and other unpleasant domains.
Yet another might choose Trickery and Travel to help avoid the religious pursuers who hound them for their blasphemous ways.

[Dormammu]

I love this idea. You could go Greek style and get your spells from "Titans" instead.

"The current Gods are not the true Gods they are usrpers!"

[Xuldarinar]

Thank you BWR. That helps quite a bit.



And thats an interesting idea, Dormammu. Perhaps they revere the Thanatotic titans?




To zero in on something, for sake of an example; Lets say we have a cleric or inquisitor who hates Pharasma in particular. They have an ire for all the gods, and would want to see them all eliminated, but their ambition is to get rid of Pharasma and have the boneyard conquered so that the souls of the dead may choose their fate, not to be held to the decisions of a deity.

[Milo v3]

You cannot in Golarion. But otherwise, yes.

I've seen people play as clerics of atheism, and clerics of antitheism.

[Geddy2112]

Religious classes don't have to be devoted to any specific deity, or even like the divine beings as a whole. But that power has to come from somewhere- a druid is a divine caster, drawing from the power of nature itself.

Likewise, your clerics, inquisitors, and paladins won't be getting powers just from telling the gods to go piss off. But there are plenty of other things and ideas a divine caster can get power from, including godlike entities.

[nedz]

Isn't this the concept behind Ur Priest ?

[Xuldarinar]

Isn't this the concept behind Ur Priest ?

That is part of it, and a god hating cleric could be refluffed to steal their power instead of pray for it, but given ur-priests don't exist in pathfinder I thought it was worth discussing.

[Spore]

That is part of it, and a god hating cleric could be refluffed to steal their power instead of pray for it, but given ur-priests don't exist in pathfinder I thought it was worth discussing.

I always thought that is part of the oracle fluff. They shove their divine powers onto a target, along with a unremovable curse that forces the target to adjust their life accordingly. (Other interpretations is someone who stole their power from the gods and thus bearing a curse or someone as the envoy of a whole pantheon of gods who gains a curse in order to keep him or her in line).

Other than that I don't feel a cleric or inquisitor of that concept works. You can always use the classes and refluff them heavily but I for one would then use arcane or druidic spellcasting. (Granted the ultimate source of these kinds of magics are often connected to primordial gods or a major god of magic but at least they gave you their powers to be used as science rather than a gift). Scrap that, druidic doesn't fit the bill with its restrictions (Hunter and Ranger spellcasting would).

Other than that you still need clerics (at least someone talking about you) and worshipers in order to amass divine essence. There's much potential here. The character having a cleric class believing in this guy's power get their spells shoved upon them. They are the slave of their god. They are not wielding their god's powers but rather their god wielding them like a weapon.

Praying would be forbidden, silent awe is the modus operandi for his followers. Maybe appreciation of the deific principle will be shown through generous offerings instead of religious behaviour (remember, gold = souls = power in D&D). I could imagine some kind of divine merchant on the fringes of Hell and Heaven alike.

[Eisfalken]

Just to throw this out there, I wanted to offer that one need not necessarily make it "we hate the gods". The ancient Greeks had several very interesting schools of thought on the subject of theology and/or divinity, and you can set it up almost identical in D&D. Same with certain schools of Buddahism and Taoism.

Instead of a church, each cleric is trained in a certain school of philosophy that emphasizes similar domains. For example, one school may stress that the path to enlightenment/divinity is through the growth and strength of society as a whole; it would have domains like Healing, Protection, Strength, Community, etc. Another school says that in order to understand all that is, you must shatter the illusions of the material world and see it for what it is; it might emphasize Destruction, Death, Knowledge, and Law. You could come up with a dozen schools pretty easily there, and then some off-shoots that aren't as popular in certain remote places.

In this case, an ur-priest could still be considered a kind of heretic, someone who selfishly steals the power that should only come from discipline and devotion to an ideal, basically taking something that they are seen to have no right to.

Inquisitors might exist to eradicate the worship of non-divine beings like devils, demons, etc. You might even create a special background for your inquisitors: they originally were formed to hunt out and stop violations of religion, such as how the Lords of the Nine Hells and the Demon Princes of the Abyss establish cults to worship them and provide them some power from that worship. Some inquisitors, like the philosopher-clerics, have taken an unfortunate twist in their mandate: they see any worship of any being that is not an actual deity to be a violation of the cosmic order caused by Asmodeus... even if the cult worships the Celestial Paragons (BOED), causing them to act against even good-aligned folk. Now wherever they go, they are feared and sometimes despised, having slain both demon worshippers and those that offer servitude to celestial beings. This gives you the luxury of complex politics: some rulers may be devotees of the "kill everything that worships wrong" philosophy, others might be blackmailed or extorted into letting inquisitors do as they wish, while some inquisitors secretly worship actual gods and hate the "false path" guys killing good folks for no reason.

Anyway, that should work for some ideas.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I've been working on a similar idea for a nation in a campaign setting that vilifies the concept of immortality; gods just happen to be their main offender. The Mortal Imperium, as I call it, does have a faith, however. Their clerics and inquisitors (oh so many inquisitors) either gain power from the collective faith in the 'spirit of the Imperium', or from an exceptionally powerful idol. While this is Pathfinder, in this setting a divine caster can get benefits from a non-god; in fact, all faiths are as such, since all the true gods descended, perished, or were banished previously. So it's not so much that they hate gods, they just distrust them immensely.

[Psyren]

In Golarion, the answer is unfortunately no. ISWG:


A philosophy takes as its central tenet not the teachings of a deity, but the insights of a train of thought. In most cases, a philosophy is created by a mortal, and while philosophies often persist long after the founder’s death, the founder is not, in fact, a deity. Followers of philosophical ways of thought can be (and usually are) of varied classes. Clerics who follow a philosophy must select a patron deity among the philosophy’s associated religions (they gain no additional benefits from adherence to a philosophy).

There are countless philosophies to choose from on Golarion. Some of them are simple concepts, such as atheism (the “gods” may be real but not divine, and therefore not worthy of blind devotion and worship), pantheism (veneration of all the deities as warranted by the situation at hand), and agnosticism (no mortal can say what is divine and what isn’t—the workings of the divine are fundamentally unknowable by mortals). Others are so fantastically complex that very few creatures count themselves as followers, and fewer still claim to fully understand them.

It's worth pointing out though that this restriction only applies to Clerics. Other divine classes can go patronless and still get powers:


False gods and dead gods cannot grant spells to clerics, but other divine spellcasting classes (such as druids or oracles) who gain their power from other sources, rather than directly from the gods, can serve these forces as champions or cultists.

Obviously if you're not in Golarion then the standard cleric entry applies and "deityless" is perfectly allowed.

[(Un)Inspired]

Hatred and Worship are in no way antithetical; not in the English language nor in any rule I've ever seen published for pathfinder.

A character is free to pick any god they'd like to worship and they're fulling allowed to simultaneously hate that god. I don't think this is quite what you're looking for OP, but its worth noting.

The only way a cleric can lose their cleric powers by grossly violating the code of conduct required by their god. I don't see many codes of conducts for gods in Golarion that directly state their clerics aren't allow to hate the gods.

[Psyren]

Hating the (other) gods is pretty much required to follow Rovagug, so there's that.

There are also other entities that grant spells, like the GOOs, Archdevils, Eldest, Elemental Lords etc. But you still have to venerate something above the rest as a Golarion cleric.

[(Un)Inspired]

Hating the (other) gods is pretty much required to follow Rovagug, so there's that.

There are also other entities that grant spells, like the GOOs, Archdevils, Eldest, Elemental Lords etc. But you still have to venerate something above the rest as a Golarion cleric.

You can still hate something as you venerate it.

[johnbragg]

Thought I'd toss this one out there and see what comes of it.



Clerics (and if Im not mistaken, also inquisitors) exist devoted to concepts rather than divine entities, something I am certain irks deities and demigods alike. What if what one was devoted to is a hatred of the gods?

1. Could such an individual get spells?

2. If they could, what domains/subdomains/inquisitions/ect. would be suitable to this concept?

To be devoted enough to hating the gods to earn spells and cleric status, I think you have to have a pretty good reason for hating the gods, and a reason that is at least somewhat widely shared.

If you're designing your setting, you could plant the idea, widely if quietly held, that the gods are hogging all the immortality from the humans, doling out dribs and drabs of healing and support to selfishly keep their own power. Helps a lot if sages confirm that, in fact, that is how gods in your setting work.

So you've got a large set of pissed-off upper class types who are mad that aging and mortality are a thing. Soon enough somebody starts up a Cult of the Martyred Prometheus or the equivalent, and it takes off, dedicated to the idea that immortality (and/or your basic heaven-on-earth) would be freely available if only the gods (and their quisling lackey clerics) were cast down and destroyed. (Original cult could well be started by demons/devils/evil clerics/lich-kings/evil dragons stirring the pot, but it grows beyond their control--or does it?)

[Zaydos]

I don't really have much to add, BWR already hit the nail on the head, and you might want to look into the Athar from Planescape if you were going that route. It'll of course depend upon setting (doesn't work in Golarion or FR, and home campaigns will vary wildly).

For your more specific example, well don't know Golarion well enough (except apparently anti-god cleric doesn't work there) to really say, but if you could get the concept cleared by your DM I'd say the character seems to have an intense feeling as to the inherent right of liberty of all souls, maybe some sort of liberty/freedom based domains.

Also I saw the name of this thread and thought immediately of you, Xuldarinar.

[Seto]

I remembered a thread talking about a Paladin of Heresy, thought this might be relevant, searched for it... then I found it and realized it you also started it :smallbiggrin:

[Xuldarinar]

I remembered a thread talking about a Paladin of Heresy, thought this might be relevant, searched for it... then I found it and realized it you also started it :smallbiggrin:

Well, it is just the sort of thing I come up with. I think of perhaps unconventional character concepts, be they slightly or vastly off, toss them out there and see what discussion comes of it. I tried one on a redeemer and that went nowhere. Though... to blend notions, here is one and to build on things;


A god hating individual, this person opposes Pharasma. One thing they do to try to prove the system of sorting souls is wrong, false, broken even... is to try to redeem those condemned to the lower planes, proving they went to the wrong place.

[Felyndiira]

In Golarion, the answer is unfortunately no.

If you are okay with following the lead of someone else who shares in your character's maltheism, it is possible to follow someone who achieved mythic T9+ and have that person grant cleric spells in the place of a god or powerful outsider.

You just have to make up a mythic character that dislikes Gods, doesn't want to be called a God himself/herself, but is still okay with granting other people divine power for whatever reasons.

[Xuldarinar]

If you are okay with following the lead of someone else who shares in your character's maltheism, it is possible to follow someone who achieved mythic T9+ and have that person grant cleric spells in the place of a god or powerful outsider.

You just have to make up a mythic character that dislikes Gods, doesn't want to be called a God himself/herself, but is still okay with granting other people divine power for whatever reasons.

You wonderful person you. Thank you for bringing that up, I had almost completely forgotten about mythic.

[Milo v3]

Just noticed the mention of inquisitors in the title, yeah. Those guys can do this without any issue. They don't have to worship a god in golarion, their can be inquisitors of any belief structure even anti-theistic ones.