Pathfinder cosmology ... sucks

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

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

[Marlowe]

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

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 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. (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

[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

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?

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...

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.