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Anjay
2017-01-29, 01:05 AM
Hey, I am trying to figure out which god/goddess is safe to impersonate. I want to impersonate a god to trick its priests/worshipers to leaving offerings behind to prove their loyalty to their god. My character is a sorcerer and not religious but I need to know what god would not take offense to my actions and come to wreck me for it. Rather I want some gods that would actually be amused/enjoy my actions. Likely evil or chaotic gods/goddesses. Please let me know. Thanks.

Note: we are only using 3e Pathfinder core book gods.

Vitruviansquid
2017-01-29, 01:32 AM
Ask your GM.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-01-29, 01:40 AM
Presumably a god of thieves or trickery.

Lord Vukodlak
2017-01-29, 02:33 AM
Invent one, if this scam is going to work its going to be on superstitious idiots. Fisherman about head out to sea, tell them they must make an offering to appease the God of Krakens, for his recent offers have been lacking and he's become angry. In a Polytheism setting most people would make offerings to multiple gods they might have a favorite but over all the commonfolk would be making offerings to all the gods that effect there daily lives.

Alternatively pick a powerful evil god and give him a percentage. The only gods what won't care about you taking their offerings are the ones that don't take offerings. Kick pack 10% to the God of Tyranny and he'll probably be cool with that.

Anjay
2017-01-29, 02:35 AM
Ask your GM.

My gm said to figure it out before the next session so I am asking here

Anjay
2017-01-29, 02:39 AM
Presumably a god of thieves or trickery.

Except we are going with pathfinder 3e core book gods

Tavarokk
2017-01-29, 03:23 AM
No god is going to approve of screwing with their powerbase, and frankly, if you already have enough mojo to convincingly impersonate a Herald or one of the other well-known servants (don't even try to go for the actual god's avatar, if one of those appears and simply starts demanding stuff, anyone with any knowledge of the divine will cry bull****), you probably won't benefit much from the one-time offerings of a single community, even large and wealthy one, and it certainly won't be worth offending the Herald/Servant in question. Unless they happen to have a very specific item you're after or something, I suppose.

For that kind of con, it's better to start a cult of some kind of powerful outsider or spirit. Giving them a cut as has been mentioned is one option, or you could make one up and do all the heavy lifting personally with your magic. Or call up some devils and offload the legwork on them for a share of the proceeds, if you're confident enough in your bindings, wards and contracts.

Anjay
2017-01-29, 03:35 AM
The idea was mostly a burning bush and ventriloquism to impersonate a god to trick believers to leave gold behind

Tavarokk
2017-01-29, 03:48 AM
The idea was mostly a burning bush and ventriloquism to impersonate a god to trick believers to leave gold behind
Um. That's only going to work in a very low to no magic setting. Basically, you'd need to find a crowd in which not a single person has any ranks in spellcraft, arcana or religion and has never known anyone with arcane or divine spellcaster levels. Otherwise, odds are they'll disbelieve the setup outright, and even if not, they'll call a cleric to clarify.

Golarion, to which this pantheon belongs, is the kind of setting where when a god has specific instructions for their followers, they tend to either dispatch an outsider servant with a message or directly contact one of their more capable clerics through some form of communion.

Inevitability
2017-01-29, 04:33 AM
Try a dead god. The people you're swindling don't have much ranks in knowledge (religion) anyway, so they may not know the deity they're sacrificing to is dead.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-01-29, 06:59 AM
If your sorcerer doesn't have any ranks in Knowledge Religion, I'd say the best thing for you to do is ROLE-PLAY YOUR CHARACTER'S LACK OF KNOWLEDGE!
So instead of asking who the best god to impersonate is, you just roll one at random and try to get an awesome Bluff check, and live with the consequences of being an ignorant Sorcerer.
A good player and a good GM can take failure and make an awesome story out of it.

Quertus
2017-01-29, 08:53 AM
If your sorcerer doesn't have any ranks in Knowledge Religion, I'd say the best thing for you to do is ROLE-PLAY YOUR CHARACTER'S LACK OF KNOWLEDGE!
So instead of asking who the best god to impersonate is, you just roll one at random and try to get an awesome Bluff check, and live with the consequences of being an ignorant Sorcerer.
A good player and a good GM can take failure and make an awesome story out of it.

I'mma second this. If your character doesn't know, don't make any effort to get a better answer than your character would have.

Mastikator
2017-01-29, 09:11 AM
Just make one up, it doesn't have to make sense or be creative. You just have to sell it well.

Anjay
2017-01-29, 02:17 PM
I was going to have my character put some points into knowledge (religious) and with that knowledge of the gods, I would recite actual texts from their god, or i could transform myself and change my magical aura to mimic that of one of the outsider messengers. And, just to let you guys know, I am a Teifling

Bohandas
2017-01-29, 11:50 PM
The god's reaction might depend on if the god's PR is improved or worsened by the deception.

Anjay
2017-01-30, 12:18 AM
The god's reaction might depend on if the god's PR is improved or worsened by the deception.

Can you please elaborate more on this?

LibraryOgre
2017-01-30, 11:47 AM
I'd say a big part of this is "What gods are around". Since your goal is to take money from existing clergy, you're going to want one with a small following (larger following usually means higher level priests, who are harder to fool), while too small a following means no money.

Bohandas
2017-01-31, 12:09 AM
Can you please elaborate more on this?

For example there's a scene in the Discworld novel "Going Postal" where the protagonist uses a fake prophetic vision from a minor goddess to explain how he came to find a certain hidden cache of treasure (it was really a collection if ill gotten gains he himself had stashed away some time ago from his former profession as a thief and con artist), and this had the effect of making the goddess more famous and well regarded.

Stealth Marmot
2017-01-31, 02:26 PM
If your sorcerer doesn't have any ranks in Knowledge Religion, I'd say the best thing for you to do is ROLE-PLAY YOUR CHARACTER'S LACK OF KNOWLEDGE!
So instead of asking who the best god to impersonate is, you just roll one at random and try to get an awesome Bluff check, and live with the consequences of being an ignorant Sorcerer.
A good player and a good GM can take failure and make an awesome story out of it.

Oh gods the BEST stories begin with a roll that the player says "I have no idea what I am doing but apparently I do it REALLY well."

Jay R
2017-01-31, 02:33 PM
I can't imagine any god who wouldn't be upset at this. But I also don't think that's your biggest issue.

If it ever gets out, the followers or priests or high priest of the god will be far more upset.

Stealth Marmot
2017-01-31, 02:44 PM
I can't imagine any god who wouldn't be upset at this. But I also don't think that's your biggest issue.

If it ever gets out, the followers or priests or high priest of the god will be far more upset.

If I were a deity seeing this, and it went the way most D&D situations go with this, I would probably take a line from Patton Oswalt:

"I'm so pissed off right now but I kinda want to see where this goes."

LibraryOgre
2017-01-31, 03:57 PM
Oh gods the BEST stories begin with a roll that the player says "I have no idea what I am doing but apparently I do it REALLY well."

In a 4e game, my Feylock gnome never succeeded at a bluff check, except against other players.

At one point, we encountered a group of orcs. Our Half-orc, unsurprisingly, had little in the way of charisma, so I stepped forward and said "Don't worry... I speak orc." I turned to the orcs, shouted "ORC! ORC! ORC!", turned invisible, and moved several squares. The DM looked at me for a moment, then said... "Ok, roll initiative."

It was one of the greatest moments of my gaming life.

GungHo
2017-02-01, 10:14 AM
Except we are going with pathfinder 3e core book gods

Drunky McDrunkface probably wouldn't care.

I wouldn't do someone like Asmodeus, because he'd probably want to "reward" you for letting him take a vacation.

WbtE
2017-02-02, 04:48 AM
Use "the Unknown God", whose area of influence is unknown to the people of the region. Some historical peoples honoured unknown deities out of fear of being struck down for a lack of respect (ignorance is no defence!), so why not fantasy peoples?