How to make a cultist of time

[SangoProduction]

Background: There is a grand, eldritch being that controls time. And... that's about all the information I have on them. Aside from being devastating when actually ticked off, which should be obvious.

So, to fit in with the game, I decided that I would play a cultist of this creature. Thing is, I've got no information to go off of, so I'm just making it up whole cloth.

"Time" as a theme for a belief system is not particularly informative, as one would imagine. But perhaps some of you guys have some idea for some principles such a cultist would have.

Quirks too. I do at least have the idea of pulling out, and ringing a titanium bell at the start of combat to dedicate the performance to the creature.

Hmm. Perhaps it would be a belief that abhors the wasting of time. That every moment must be spent doing something with meaning. And marking especially noteworthy moments in time with the bell as a way of saying that they are making use of the gift if time wisely.

[Beni-Kujaku]

"Time is limited. There is a giant clock that is ticking for all of us. Once every grain of sand has fallen, then the world will have died. Do not waste your time. Do not dally. You can enjoy yourself, but if you do, dedicate yourself entirely to it. Put your everything in each of your action, because not doing that is wasting time, and I, for one, know that we can't afford that."

"Time is inevitable. Nothing we do has any meaning, if time will crush everything into nothingness, leaving not even memories of what was. I'm doing what people would like me to because it diverts them from this truth, but deep down I know that any outcome is equally unimportant."

"Time is unknowable. Despite all our divination, the laws of Chaos mean that the future will never be accurately predicted. Despite all our historians and scholars, the vast majority of past knowledge has already been forgotten, never to be unearthed again. Focus on your present, and on certainties. Uncertainties are lies, the future is only a faint hope, and the past doesn't exist anymore. Never assume something, and act based on actual events only."

"Time is the canvas on which the world is painted. There is nothing more beautiful than learning of the past, and nothing more enlightening than getting a glimpse of the future. If I can revive a past instant of time through research and change the world to become more like a perfect future with this knowledge, then I will have accomplished my role in this present."

Choose any number.

[SangoProduction]

Neat phrases. Those feel like quotes from actual books, but I can't place where they would be from.

[daremetoidareyo]

When I think of a cultist worshipping time, I think of a person who has an irreversible tragedy at the hands of some entity (government, rich dude, etc) that wants a redo or chance to protect themselves or loved ones.

Theyre beseeching of the biggest power as a way to go to management

[mattie_p]

Making up the time cult whole cloth is better, anyway, than playing along with something already established.

Maybe there's a belief that time ends when all the mountains are eroded, so you'll go around lopping hills in half to hasten the end, and the inevitable rule of this eldritch being.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Neat phrases. Those feel like quotes from actual books, but I can't place where they would be from.

Thank you! They aren't from anywhere, as far as I know, I just came up with them on the spot, but I wanted to make them sound like somebody's philosophy that they reach after thinking about time for a long time, and what you said make me feel like I succeeded ^^

[Gruftzwerg]

We have the time domain and thus gods of time. Maybe you can find some info regarding the followers of those deities.

If you are looking for build options, there is the arcane prc Fatespinner which would be fitting. Maybe you can find some fluff there too for your cult.

[Doctor Despair]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635807-Back-to-the-Future-Making-a-Prophet-off-of-Divination

I made a build based on maximizing every method possible to read the future. Maybe that would be of use to you.

[SangoProduction]

We have the time domain and thus gods of time. Maybe you can find some info regarding the followers of those deities.

If you are looking for build options, there is the arcane prc Fatespinner which would be fitting. Maybe you can find some fluff there too for your cult.

Good point about the existing gods. And I should clarify: The character should be leaning, if not actually, Good. And in some way proselytizing.

The build is already set, and mechanically works fine.

[Psyren]

Yog-Sothoth is a Lovecraftian entity/Outer God of Time. In PF his alignment is CN, so you could be CG and still within one step. He is said to be able to see the past, present and future simultaneously, and he appears to be the father(?) or at least progenitor in some fashion of Cthulhu and Hastur.

[Vaern]

"Time" and "fate" could go hand in hand. Perhaps the god and, by extension, the cult are aware of some great or terrible future that must be either ensured or prevented at all cost. Perhaps you could go the Loki route and put the cult at war against possible timelines that may threaten the one they're in.
The cult may favor divinations that allow they to see into the past or future as well as things that alter speed such as Haste, Slow, Greater Haste [Time Stop], and Greater Slow [Temporal Stasis].

I was once spitballing a chronomancer class which used a spell point system to create a variety of effects from a custom-made spell list, some of which bestowed paradox points depending on what they did. Paradox points would act like damage to their spell point pool, effectively decreasing their daily allotment until removed which could be done by "correcting" the effect of a previously cast spell. If the chronomancer's paradox points exceeded his maximum, he would be shunted into another timeline and effectively removed from the game until brought back, either by wish, miracle, or by the party repairing the paradoxes he left behind in the game's main timeline.

[Mordante]

"Black As Time"

Time is short... time is endless
Time is linear but also a relative factor that
Moves rather unnoticed from point a to b.
Time is a force not to be taken lightly....

Because time never forgets
Time heals nothing...
Time is a black hole that consumes energy,
Ambition and love...
Time is dangerous!
Time... quite frankly... doesn't give a ****!
And above all... time is black
It is your enemy!
Time is decline and decay... time is death!

It follow you everywhere you go until it inexorably
Leaves you behind
Time counts your every step... every year, month,
Week and minute... tick tock tick tock...
And when the reaper breathes you in the neck...
It is there... stealing the very limited precious
Shares of time that are left...

Slowly and almost unnoticed... second by second...
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock... it continues the countdown closer to
Your grave... until it finally stops!!

Time is black!!

She's the truth, o hail the queen
The universal binding seem
Life and death, every second
Kneel, thy majesty is present

Time will lead me to my grave
It never sleep...never saves
The queen of time rules, will see us fall

Time is black... black as the sun
Time is black... black as wine

Black as time
Black as time

[Telonius]

Time is not the fourth dimension, it's a property of the second. It's motion, it's sequence. Movement and change are impossible without it. Without time to get there, you'd only ever be here. Time is the Other, then Thing-Other-Than-Self that proves the I.

Time is heat. Without time, the tiniest particle that makes us up would be at absolute zero, since motion couldn't happen.

Time is change. Even the great gears of Mechanus need time to turn. But time isn't randomness. It proceeds in an orderly way, each cause with its effect. Time is the order in chaos, and the chaos in order.

[Akal Saris]

Here's a few time gods from D&D settings that might give you some ideas.

Forgotten Realms has an elven god of time, Labelas Enoreth. His duty is basically 'time cop' / 'historian'. During the Time of Troubles, he acted like an absolute prick to everybody because he was like 'none of you matter in the grand scheme anyways.'

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Labelas_Enoreth

Dragonlance has a demigod/avatar, Astinus, who sees all of history as it is occurring and records it in real-time in the Great Book at the library of the city of Palanthas. There is a legend that he is being trained by the god of neutrality for the day when he will go back in time to assume his duties, in a perpetual time loop.

[TinyMushroom]

Maybe your character doesn't worship out of adoration, but fear?

In Homestuck, a character called Lord English (who is a time-related eldritch horror himself) basically inserts himself into important events all throughout space and time. To diverge from his plan is basically to die, and the "travel back and kill him before he was born" strategy doesn't work either because that'd just cause a time paradox due to how important he is to the timeline.

One of the phrases used to describe him a lot is "How do you expect to outrun him, when he's already there?" a.k.a his domain of timespace is so absolute he already knows any plan you try to levvy against him.

On one of the planets under his control, he has a time-travelling servant specifically appear at key moments in history to lead the society to become a nightmarish dystopia. People come to regard that character as an omen of ill fortune even though she has no choice in the matter.

Maybe your character knows for a fact that in the future, this being will really be in the world, if he isn't here already. Like Roko's basilisk (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk), that being will then punish him for not helping to bring him about. Dependent on what kind of powers your character has, maybe he has the specific attention of this creature and disobeying will have severe consequences.

[mattie_p]

Maybe your character knows for a fact that in the future, this being will really be in the world, if he isn't here already. Like <snip>, that being will then punish him for not helping to bring him about. Dependent on what kind of powers your character has, maybe he has the specific attention of this creature and disobeying will have severe consequences.

I don't know that anyone should be posting links to potential cognitohazards all willy nilly around here.

[mabriss lethe]

I'm thinking Discworld's History Monks, specifically Lu-Tze.

Rule Nineteen: "Remember Never to Forget Rule One. And always ask yourself: How come it was created in the first place?"