Pathfinder: What domains might a Chaotic Good sun god have?

[MonkeySage]

The God of the Sun and patron of the elves. His palace in Elysium is a temple where his followers can drink and party, as well as train for the time when his evil brother eventually conquers the Abyss and launches the apocalypse.

However, I'm having trouble deciding what his domains should be. He himself was created as an angel, and he's one of the more militant champions of free will.

Currently, I have his domains as Chaos, Good, Liberation, Sun, and Strength.

[LudicSavant]

The God of the Sun and patron of the elves. His palace in Elysium is a temple where his followers can drink and party, as well as train for the time when his evil brother eventually conquers the Abyss and launches the apocalypse.

However, I'm having trouble deciding what his domains should be. He himself was created as an angel, and he's one of the more militant champions of free will.

Currently, I have his domains as Chaos, Good, Liberation, Sun, and Strength.

You should probably explain what you mean by free will. It's one of those troublesome terms that has a lot of different and highly incompatible meanings in different philosophies, so it doesn't really tell anyone anything about what this guy is actually a militant champion of without clarification.

[MonkeySage]

Freedom in general in this case- basically, his brother is Ruler of Hell, and early on came to the conclusion that the only way mortals will ever behave is if they're subjected to strict rule and the threat of harsh punishment. The Sun God rejects this idea entirely, concluding that good people don't need laws and wicked people will find ways around them or break them outright. He rejects slavery more fervently than any of his brothers or sisters, and was one of the few that didn't sign his evil brother's contract (My setting's equivalent of the Pact Primeval).

[brian 333]

Nothing is more regular and predictable than the sun, which to me implies Lawfulness. However, you have decreed otherwise, so:

Farming is a Lawful venture, requiring forethought, planning, and a long history of traditional practices. Your Sun worshippers do not farm. (Perhaps the sun's husband does that and they are in a forced marriage?) Instead, your Sun worshippers are hunter/gatherers who revel in the open fields and woodlands. They harvest what is ripe and move on.

Building a roof is sacriligious because it hides the worshipper from the god. Similarly, caves and grottos are off limits for homes. Tents which allow sunlight through but block rain are okay. Thus your sun worshippers are nomadic.

Birds are Sun worshippers, and you can often see them lining up with their wings spread to catch her rays in the morning. Thus, soaring birds, particularly vultures, are sacred. The living often place their dead on platforms or other exposed places to be seen and recovered by the Sun's special agents. (This is a real world belief, considered natural and beautiful by its practicioners.)

Most undead and many monsters hate or are harmed by Sunlight.

The Sun can see all that goes on wherever its light falls.

So, domains:
Fertility in nature as opposed to farms. (Plant)
Wandering folk. (Travel)
Natural death. (Death as opposed to undeath.)
Scrying, Prognostication, and Forecasting, (Divinition)
Carrion Birds, Hawks, and Eagles

[redwizard007]

Nothing is more regular and predictable than the sun, which to me implies Lawfulness. However, you have decreed otherwise, so:

This was EXACTLY my initial reaction, and I feel it may be something that you should address early in the development process.

Some quick musings that you might want to sample:

The sun may be incredibly regular in it's travels, but what if instead of making it a flaming chariot, we make the sun a beacon that the god flung into the sky to lead his chosen people out of bondage? That could tie in to the nomadic suggestion that Brian made as well as fitting the role of liberator.

Actually, all of Brian's suggestions are pretty amazing. I would take a second to point out that all of those suggestions fit the early or developmental period for the specific culture we are building. If this is later in the timeline than the culture has probably developed further and some of the taboos against solid structures may have been lifted. I would still expect large sunlit spaces. Probably skylights and open courtyards.

As to additional Domains, how many are you shooting for?

[MonkeySage]

The reason that I chose to make Elyon the Sun god was based mostly on precedent from another sun god that appears in ancient and classical mythology. Elyon loves music and poetry, stories, etc.

Many of his worshippers are bards who pray to him for inspiration. Architects too, he's inspired gorgeous architectural works among the elves. And last, like the deity I based him on, he too has been known to inspire prophecy in those who are especially attuned.

He's not big on strict rules, or anything. He's a younger brother, to both the God of Valor and the Ruler of Hell. He finds the former to be way too stuffy and "righteous", he finds the latter to be both stuffy and ruthless. He'll team up with the God of Valor, though, because at least he's got compassion.

Some of his worshippers are nomadic, though quite a few of them are metropolitan. Actually, he was the one who originally led the first elves out of this setting's "Feywild" and into the material plane. This would have been thousands of years ago in setting.

As a greater deity he would have possibly several domains: Maybe round 4, not including his alignment domains.

[Rynjin]

Well, given this is Pathfinder you have the first two locked down: Chaos and Good Domains. Deities always give their Alignment Domains.

Sun Domain is another obvious which you already have.

The other two are presumably where you're having issues. Liberation is a good fit since you said freeing slaves was a big thing.

That leaves you 4/5 strong choices (full deities in Pathfinder have 5 Domains and as many sub-Domains as are appropriate) in your opening post. The big one I'd dispute is Strength; it doesn't really fit your flavor as much as the others.

I'd put forward Community as the final Domain, since that is the classic one for racial gods (Erastil and Aroden have it, for example). It fits with him being a god of elves, and a god opposed to letting his brother harm his family with his misguided view of the "greater good".

Sub-Domains get a bit trickier. Revelry fits very well with you stating his temple in Elysium to be a place of merriment. Freedom is another easy one. Revelation fits for his enabling of seers, along with Light and Day since Sun is his primary dominion.

The iffiest ones would be Family and Redemption, based on how much you want to play up the "God of elves" thing and his relationship with his brother (fully adversarial or thinking if he could just get him to see the light) repsectively.

To sum up, I'd give him:

Chaos (Revelry)
Good (Redemption, MAYBE)
Liberation (Freedom)
Sun (Revelation, Light, Day)
Community (Family, MAYBE)