Characters / Pathfinder Deities

Main Deities, Tian Xia Deities, Racial and Cultural Pantheons, Outer Gods, Empyreal Lords, Fiendish Divinities, Great Old Ones, Other Deities

The main deities of the setting, these gods are followed by extensive and widespread faiths, and they can be found worshipped under a variety of names by many different species and nations throughout the Inner Sea region — and often, with the exception of the youngest and most recently ascended deities, throughout Golarion as well.

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Gods in General

• Beauty Equals Goodness: The good gods are generally very attractive, save for Torag and Erastil, while none of the evil gods are conventionally attractive in any way. Well, maybe Norgorber is, no one actually knows what he looks like.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: In general each soul goes to Pharasma's realm for judgement after they die, then is sent along to whichever plane contains their deity or matches their alignment. Even gods who hate each other abide by this system, though some of the evil ones might also have less savory methods of gathering souls.
• Divine Conflict: Not all of them get along, and every god has at least a few they consider rivals or enemies (except Shelyn—even the evil gods of the pantheon can't hate her for long). All of them hate Rovagug, though, and collaborated in a massive Enemy Mine to battle and imprison him in mythic times.
• Divine Intervention: Rarely directly intervene, but they tend to make their will felt, even if it's just though dreams or the sending of agents.
• Fantasy Pantheon: The fictional divinities of Golarion, covering typical deific roles such as law, the hunt, good, evil, war, magic and patronage for specific species and nations.
• Give Me a Sign: Each has different ways of showing their favor or annoyance to their worshippers, often in the form of something mildly pleasant or annoying happening.
• God Is Flawed: None are omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. And they mostly have humanlike personalities, complete with quirks and foibles.
• God-Karting with Beelzebub: Even some gods whose alignments are diametrically opposed may have dealings with each other. Particularly the case with Asmodeus, who always keeps his word.
• God's Hands Are Tied: With the exception of Rovagug, who would trample all of creation if given half a chance, the gods keep direct intervention in the mortal realm minimal, to avoid conflicts with each other that would result in catastrophe. Their clerics, however, are free to enact their will on their behalf.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: You don't need worshippers to be a god (some beings have even become one by accident), but the most influential ones are those with the greatest number of worshippers. For one thing, you have servants carrying out your agenda throughout the multiverse. For another, when devout souls reach the end of their life cycle, their quintessence melds with their new home, which helps a god's realm resist erosion by the Maelstrom.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Some Dungeons & Dragons editions, such as 3.5, actually statted out the gods, thus meaning they were in theory defeatable (and via the Lord British Postulate, you can bet someone did it). In Pathfinder, the rules for battling a deity are simple: you lose.
• Physical God: Although the Outer Planes are only accessible via magic, they are physical places, and the gods do exist as material beings who can be interacted with.
• Religion is Magic: All gods can grant magic spells to their followers. Even some beings who aren't quite gods, but possess a spark of the divine such as demon lords or Great Old Ones, can do it.
• Stock Gods: Gods of love, smithing, wine, war, death, and pretty much all the other classics can be found.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: The War of Immortals metaplot is based around one of the core gods dying in some way, causing a massive shakeup in the pantheon and world as whole. As part of the build-up, the Godsrain Prophecies go in depth on the deities and what were to happen if they perished, while slowly building up to the reveal of whose death triggers the events of the AP. Six months before the event begins, the dead god was revealed to be Gorum.
• Yin-Yang Clash: A great deal of civilization was destroyed in the war with Rovagug, the one deity who doesn't avoid battling on the Universe. The other gods pulled an Enemy Mine and worked in tandem to imprison him. His escape could very well mean The End of the World as We Know It, as even if the others do stop him again, the collateral damage would be unfathomable.

Core Gods

Abadar

Master of the First Vault

God of cities, wealth, merchants, and law

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Abadar (pronounced AH-bah-dar), the god of cities, law, merchants, and wealth, is known to be a patient deity. Maintaining a strong neutral stance in his actions, he sets forth to expand civilization and order among the peoples of Golarion. An old and popular god, he is worshipped throughout Avistan, Garund and Tian Xia, and he was once worshipped in Azlant before its fall.

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• Ancient Keeper: Abadar is the Master of the First Vault, a storehouse in his realm of Axis where a perfect copy of every single object ever made is stored.
• Berserk Button: Corruption in the court system, as it causes people to stop trusting their government and leads to chaos.
• By-the-Book Cop: How his paladins and other good servants tend to come across.
• The Chessmaster: He plays for the long game even more so than the other gods.
• God of Order: Most Lawful Neutral gods embody this trope to some degree (as do many of the Lawful Good and Lawful Evil ones, for that matter), but Abadar is a particularly notable example. He is the patron god of civilization, law and cities, and promotes the growth of ordered civilization, the settlement of the wilderness, the taming of chaos and the ordering and structuring of preexisting communities. He does this with neither the moral focus of Lawful Good deities nor the selfish ulterior motives of Lawful Evil ones; to him, the growth of civilization for its own sake is the only goal that truly matters.
• Honest Corporate Executive: Abadar is so honest, he is the one of the few non-good gods capable of recruiting paladins into his service. Normally, only Lawful Good deities are capable of this. Abadar believes that everyone is entitled to a profit, but at the same time refuses to allow anybody to be ripped off; in fact his paladins are charged with ensuring that everyone has a fair playing field in trade and in law, and that any honest traveller can safely travel on any road.
• I Gave My Word: Honours the letter of his deal with Zon-Kuthon, allowing the evil deity to take his pick from among the items in his First Vault.
• Order Versus Chaos: Even more than other lawful deities, like Asmodeus, Iomedae, or Irori, Abadar represents the rule of law and civilisation, and cannot stand chaos.
• Rules Lawyer: Almost a good counterpoint to Asmodeus in this regard. Abadar prefers to honour the spirit of agreements as well as the word, but if people want to play it the other way, he's more than happy to cooperate.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: This is the principle that Abadar operates on, and he expects his followers to do the same. In fact, the inversion of this trope — Screw the Rules, I Have Money! — is his Berserk Button.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: A lighter example. He's perfectly willing to accept practices such as slavery as long as he believes it's for the greater good of the community. Though as Gods of Golarion clarifies, he doesn't approve of slavery, because it's far better for society as a whole if its laborers are paid, thus allowing them to participate in the economy and advance themselves. He's merely willing to tolerate it — and even then, only under the belief that eventually the practice will die off. He sent his herald Lawgiver to manifest in the city of Chesed on the eve of what would have been both a bloody slave revolt and a bloodier barbarian invasion. Lawgiver convinced the slaves to instead join in the defense of their city. The barbarians were defeated, the city saved, and slavery henceforth abolished. Abadar would probably consider this a perfect outcome.

Arazni

The Unyielding

Goddess of the abused, dignity and unwilling undeath

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Arazni was once Aroden's divine herald, but was slain by the Whispering Tyrant during the Shining Crusade, and revived as a lich by the necromancer Geb to serve as his queen. She would eventually escape Geb's control and help prevent the Whispering Tyrant from becoming a god, gaining a surge in followers with the fall of Lastwall, cementing her as a deity. As of the War of Immortals metaplot, she was ascended to a core deity.

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• Affably Evil: Grim and merciless, but she hasn't lost her ability to be polite or show kindness.
• Angelic Transformation: After her mortal death, Arazni was sent to Nirvana and became a tabellia angel, where her old friend Aroden found her and asked her to be his herald.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: She met her death when she fought the Whispering Tyrant, who humiliated her before torturing her to death and throwing her broken body into the ranks of her followers to demoralize them.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She is evil, but she actively refuses to let her church be a menace to the world; she even allows Chaotic Good clerics, seeing them as Pragmatic Heroes who understand what must be done to save others from her fate.
• Deity of Human Origin: She was born a mortal human woman, obtained a spark of divinity some time during her tenure as Aroden's herald, and kept it after being killed and forcibly dragged from the Great Beyond to be transformed into a lich.
• Desecrating the Dead: After the Knights of Ozem tried and failed to attack Geb, the necromancer stole and animated her as a trophy wife as an insult to his would-be vanquishers. Fittingly, one of her Anathema is creating unwilling undead, given she was made an undead against her will.
• Expy: She seems pretty obviously inspired by Sylvanas Windrunner, being a formerly heroic character who was turned undead against her will and now rules as an evil queen, but was still technically a slave until finally casting off Geb's control for good.
• Fallen Angel: She started as an astral deva, and was turned into an evil lich against her will. Since then, she's softened slightly to be more kind towards others.
• Heart Trauma: Four of her organs were removed and placed in funerary jars. They're currently in the hands of the Knights of Ozem, her one-time disciples, and she very much wants them back. Her heart can be found in Tyrant's Grasp, but she reluctantly declines taking it back, letting the heroes use it instead.
• I Hate Past Me: She views her former angel self as having been a self-righteous idiot.
• Magic Staff: She owns a unique staff of the magi that uses its wielders caster level for saves and allows mythic power to amp up its spells.
• Morality Pet: She comes to see the heroes in Tyrant's Grasp as this. She initially only saw them as a means to an end, but through scrying on the heroes, she comes to develop respect and even something akin to fondness for them, especially if she sees them do acts of good. Due to this, she's willing to give the heroes a chance to stop the Knights of Ozem from getting in her way of confronting the Whispering Tyrant, and secretly hopes they aren't caught in the battle and die alongside her. Despite their sacrifice in the end, Arazni comes to soften slightly after the events of the AP, and by 2e has allowed for good aligned people to work with her more, touched by the heroes sacrifice.
• Mutual Kill: In her battle against Tlochach, the Serpent of the Seven Hills, Arazni defeated the monster after a titanic struggle, but later succumbed to its venom. This act would be what turned her into an angel after she was judged for her deeds in life.
• Our Liches Are Different: Lichdom usually requires a unique process for each individual, but Geb was not only able to make Arazni into a lich sixty-seven years after she died but also managed to bring her soul back and bind it into her body.
• Pet the Dog: She saves the heroes in Tyrant's Grasp in large part because she's grown rather fond of them.
• Platonic Life-Partners: In life, Arazni was Aroden's adventuring companion and later his herald, not that it kept him from (literally) leaving her to rot after Geb made her his undead slave.
• Red Baron: She was known as the Scarlet Crusader in life.
• Revenge Before Reason: A big difference between Arazni and Calistria when it comes to revenge is that, while Calistria is about getting more or less an equal amount of revenge against someone who wronged you, Arazni firmly believes that someone should never forgive or forget when they are wronged. As such, Arazni's followers are encouraged to go further than simply getting payback, and to do everything possible against those who wronged them. For this reason, she has primarily evil and chaotic followers, with the only lawful followers being Lawful Neutral as of second edition.
• Stop Worshipping Me: Arazni actively despises the majority of her worshippers. Many still revere her in her aspect as the lich-queen of Geb, a role she was magically forced into and which she perceives as a profound and obscene violation. The rest, who took to worshipping her after she broke free from this role, she hates chiefly out of resentment at only coming to her now that she's powerful once more after ignoring her while she suffered, and because she despises the idea that what she has become is worthy of veneration. The very few followers she grudgingly accepts are others who were themselves betrayed, broken or otherwise stripped of their agency in the world, and who view her less as a figure to revere and more as someone whose ugly fate they share. This is reflected in how the permitted alignments for her clerics are Neutral Evil, Lawful, True, and Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Good.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She was originally a Paladin, but was killed horribly by the Whispering Tyrant. Later, Geb turned her into his undead lich slave out of spite, twisting her former self into an angry woman. Aroden never came to rescue her before his death, and, eventually, she became an evil demigod. Even after she escaped Geb and become independent, she's bitter and angry at her death and current fate, only mellowing out a bit.

Asmodeus

Prince of Darkness

God of tyranny, slavery, pride, and contracts

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Asmodeus (pronounced as-MO-day-us) is the most powerful of the nine archdevils that inhabit Hell, and the only one of Hell's rulers to claim full divinity. It was he who is credited with the penning the contract of creation, within which his followers believe is hidden the means for their patron's eventual rise to supremacy.

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• Affably Evil: He puts this face forward, particularly when dealing with the good gods. Due to him being rather reliable and honest he is the only one of the evil gods the good gods deal with on a regular basis. Even Iomedae does this from time to time, although she treats him extremely carefully. This also extends to his worshippers. Even countries where worship of good gods is the official religion quietly accept them as they tend to be well-behaved.
• Amoral Attorney: He is the evil god of contracts.
• Big Red Devil: His most recognizable appearance, though some suspect that it is A Form You Are Comfortable With.
• Cain and Abel: He apparently killed his brother and opposite number.
• Carry a Big Stick: His favored weapon is the light mace.
• Cool Chair: His throne in Nessus. Seriously, open up the Book of the Damned and look at the thing. It's enormous.
• Deal with the Devil: He is the god of contracts, and loves making such deals with other beings — especially if it's the type of contract where one of the signatories obtains a secret advantage over the other. He doesn't make such deals with other gods however, making a point to keep those deals direct and honest.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: As the ruler of the entire plane of Hell, Asmodeus is both a god and an (one might say the) Archdevil. Indeed, one of his titles is The Archfiend.
• Devil, but No God: Asmodeus had a brother and opposite number once. He killed him.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Many of his followers have this attitude.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Although he sees it as Utopia Justifies the Means, Asmodeus is willing to sink to pretty extreme depths to create his vision of an ideal world — one without The Evils of Free Will.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: He keeps all of his deals with other gods direct and honest, for the simple reason that if he didn't, they wouldn't deal with him anymore, and that outweighs any short-term advantage he might gain from the contract.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He helped to seal up the Omnicidal Maniac Rovagug. In fact, he's the one who did the binding. Thanks to the Rovagug sealing he and his followers get along pretty well with Sarenrae, who was the god that held Rovagug at bay while Asmodeus prepared its prison.
  • He always makes a point to abide by agreements — he is the god of contracts after all. Just make sure you read the fine print, because he LOVES abusing loopholes.
  • In the past, Charon once created a torture machine meant to help improve the daemons' omnicidal crusade. Asmodeus, upon seeing the machine and how it worked, is stated to have been horrified and disgusted by how brutal it was.
  • He also refuses to have anything to do with Calistria as she is far too backstabbing to work with.
• Evil Counterpart: To Ihys.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: With his emphasis on contracts and Lawful Evil, he's basically this trope personified. 1E's Dirty Tactics Toolbox even has a unique cleric archetype for his followers called an Asmodean Advocate that is literally an evil lawyer: Asmodean advocates are required to use only the Trickery domain and get to use Profession (barrister) on skill checks in place of Bluff and Diplomacy.
• The Evils of Free Will: Asmodeus's motivation for trying to grind all creation under his Lawful Evil heel. Though, given what the other evil gods, as well as Daemons, Demons, and Rovagug, want to achieve, being ruled by Devils seems more safe and sane than being dominated by Demons or killed by Daemons or Rovagug.
• Exact Words: Very important to Asmodeus and anyone who wants to deal with him — especially if dealing with him involves a deal.
• Fallen Angel: Asmodeus' true background, before he became the Lord of Hell, was an angel empyreal lord, contrary to what he told Tabris in the Book of the Damned.
• God of Evil: One of several, and possibly the first one to be created.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Asmodeus is an unrepentant misogynist and refers to females as "the second gender". This is why there are no female archdevils (unlike in Hell's D&D counterpart). However, this did not stop the Queens of the Night from becoming the second-most powerful devils in Hell (after the archdevils).
• Horned Humanoid: In art Asmodeus is frequently shown as a human with black horns.
• I Gave My Word: Asmodeus always honours his bargains.
• Informed Flaw: He's supposed to be very misogynistic, but Word of God on the subject is that Asmodeus doesn't care about gender one way or another when it comes to mortals, only when it comes to immortal beings (gods, other outsiders) that chose to take a female form. Even then, he puts it aside in favor of pragmatism and won't turn away an ally based solely on her gender. Hence, his occasional alliances with Iomedae and Sarenrae; likewise, his refusal to work with Calistria or Lamashtu has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with him considering them untrustworthy. In the end, his misogyny apparently extends no further than his own court, and even then it's hinted that it may well be nothing more than a ploy.
• Legions of Hell: Rules over them as the greatest of the Archdevils.
• Loophole Abuse: His favorite pastime is leading mortals and the like into making unbalanced contracts he or his followers can exploit.
• Men Don't Cry: He shed the first and last tear in his existence when he killed his brother Ihys. See also Manly Tears.
• Multiple-Choice Past: In the Book of the Damned Asmodeus' origin has been given as either the Evil Twin of the Lawful Good god Ihys who killed him but allowed his dream of free will for mortals to stand, and created Hell as a bastion for perfect order; others pin him as a former angel empyreal lord of Heaven who fell and led his followers to take over Hell from the native velstracs and asuras. The Windsong Testaments put him as the origin of Lawful Evil, one of the oldest, but not the oldest, divinities.invoked
• My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: If you want to deal with Asmodeus, you better have strong Rule Fu.
• The Older Immortal: He's one of the oldest beings in the universe, and fond of reminding others of it. Unlike Erastil he doesn't look the part. The Book of the Damned, which uses Asmodeus as a source on himself, has him as among the first two, but according to the Windsong Testaments he was the sixth deity to enter the multiverse, after Pharasma, the Speakers of the Depths, Desna, Sarenrae and his beloved brother Ihys.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Many sages theorize that he's this, seeking to end all mortal life in the multiverse to get rid of that pesky free will thing.
• Order vs. Chaos: The nature of his conflict with Ihys. Asmodeus killed his brother for it.
  • Or rather, this is his spin on it in the Book of the Damned. According to the Windsong Testaments, Ihys was Lawful Good, and their conflict was more about lateral versus vertical resource distribution.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He enjoys tormenting Rovagug by dangling the key to his prison just out of reach. This would be bad were he not doing it to, you know, Rovagug.
• Pride: God of it and victim of it.
• Public Domain Character: Asmodeus is a Hebrew demon associated with lust. The Pathfinder version takes a page from Dungeons & Dragons by basing him heavily on Satan as well.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His favored colors are explicitly said to be red and black.
• Satanic Archetype: He provides the trope's main page image for a reason. For starters, he is the Prince of Darkness and ruler of Hell. Differs from previous D&D interpretations in that he is not a fallen angel, but has always been a god in his own right (and was the brother and coequal of Ihys, the closest being to the Abrahamic God in the setting, who he killed.)
• Slouch of Villainy: The one picture of him in the Book of the Damned depicts him doing this on his absolutely massive throne.
• Truly Single Parent: He personally created Mephistopheles and considers himself his father.
• Unreliable Narrator: Word of God is that whether or not Ihys even existed is a matter of debate, and that Asmodeus may have made the whole thing up.
• Villainous Valour: When he, along with Sarenrae, imprisoned Rovagug at tremendous risk to themselves.
• Visionary Villain: His ultimate goal is to bring perfect order, structure and safety to the universe, freeing it from the chaos and weakness he sees as its greatest threats. The issue, of course, is that his vision of order involves a great deal of tyranny and slavery and that he's willing to resort to very dubious means to bring his vision about.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: What's really scary about Asmodeus is that he truly believes in his cause and desires nothing but eternal peace and order... achieved through brutal suppression and tyranny.

Calistria

The Savored Sting

Goddess of trickery, lust, and revenge

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Calistria (pronounced kah-LISS-tree-ah) is the goddess of lust and revenge who takes on many faces and guises. She is held in especially high regard by elves, who often identify with her moods and changeable nature, but also her ability to move on once she has found satisfaction. A fondness for wasps has earned this vengeful deity the title the Savored Sting; such creatures live on after harming their enemies, a trait Calistria's followers hope to emulate when pursuing their goals.

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• Alpha Bitch: Pretty much the goddess of them.
• Axe-Crazy: Not as much as Lamshtu or Rovagug, but she does seem to have a few screws loose.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Will betray anybody if it gets her what she wants, to the point that she is one of three deities in the core pantheon that Asmodeus will have nothing to do with, because he doesn't trust her to uphold her end. The other two deities on that list? Lamashtu and Rovagug.
• Disproportionate Retribution: What makes her Chaotic Neutral and not Evil is that she categorically does not do this; revenge, to her, is about redressing specific wrongs, and so she feels her revenge should be about that slight and nothing more - an eye for an eye, not two eyes.
• Gender Bender: Whenever the mood strikes her.
• It's All About Me: A truly selfish being, Calistria only looks out for herself, though not always to destructive extremes.
• Lust: She embodies the purely sexual (and neutral) aspects of lust; Shelyn covers the more positive aspects of it, while demon lords like Nocticula cover the negative aspects.
• Really Gets Around: Has hooked up at one point of another with dozens of other deities of both genders. May even have scored with every single member of her clergy: part of the ritual to become a cleric of Calistria is to take some drugged wine, and select a masked partner to sleep with. Legend holds that if you remove the mask during the act, you'll find that you are laying with Calistria herself. That might just be a hallucination from the drugs, however.
• Revenge: A goddess of vengeance, Calistria never forgets a slight, and any who think she has forgiven will surely find it is only a matter of time before they are targeted by a long-term plot of revenge to lay them thoroughly low. Thankfully, it also stops there - once revenge is done with, then you are forgiven.
• True Love Is Boring: As a rule, Calistria has a low opinion of romantic relationships. She thinks that Shelyn is naive to believe in The Power of Love, although she's still able to remain good friends with her, and demands that her followers avoid extended relationships.
• Whip of Dominance: Her favored weapon, and thus the weapon for her clergy. It's implied that, given the standard occupation of much of her clergy, it sees lots of out of combat use.
• Wicked Wasps: She identifies very strongly with wasps.

Cayden Cailean

The Drunken Hero

God of freedom, ale, wine, and bravery

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Cayden Cailean (pronounced KAY-den KAY-lee-en) is one of the Ascended: those who achieved godhood by passing the Test of the Starstone. Because of the way in which he passed the Test, he is also known as the "Lucky Drunk", "Drunken Hero", or the "Accidental God".

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• The Alcoholic: Defied, despite being the God of alcohol. Cayden's followers are taught that drinking should be used in displays of camraderie and celebration. Abusing or wasting alcohol tends to be sacrilegious among his followers, with there being groups within his followers who focus on helping other followers who are struggling with their alcohol.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a sweet guy who is more than willing to help the downtrodden, but if you make him mad, expect a swift end. His followers are urged to veer into this mindset as well; be friendly, helpful, and nice, but don't be afraid to take action.
• Boisterous Bruiser: As in life, so in deification.
• Booze-Based Buff: Can grant them to his followers.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Has put the moves on almost all of the goddesses, from Desna through Calistria, but genuinely accepts when no means no.
• Deity of Human Origin: He was a mortal hero who passed the Test of the Starstone while completely hammered.
• The Drifter: He was one of these in life and his followers tend to be the same. It's said he tends to do this even after gaining divinity, with several accounts from some denizens of Elysium saying it's not uncommon to run into him and stop to have a drink with whoever's willing.
• Ensemble Dark Horseinvoked: He gained a surprising number of followers among the dwarves, who are known for caring little for any deities outside of the dwarven pantheon. Followers of Cayden and Torag complement each other nicely, as the former help the latter loosen up and enjoy life, while the latter keep the former moving in the right direction. According to human worshipers the two gods are drinking buddies; dwarven worshipers of Torag however paint Cayden as Torag's comedic sidekick.
• Friend to All Children: Downplayed, but still there. Cayden has a soft spot for orphans, particularly those orphaned by war or violence. Trying to hurt or exploit such children around Cayden's followers is a very bad idea.
• Full-Name Basis: He's unique among the gods for using his full name as his official title. Nobody but him remembers why, or what other Cayden he's trying to differentiate himself from.
• Heroes Love Dogs: So much so that after he ascended he made his mastiff Thunder immortal, and Thunder went on to be the progenitor of the cayhounds, an entire race of magical intelligent Heroic Dogs.
• In Love with Love: It's possible Cayden suffers from this, given his long string of passionate but brief love affairs. Or in a more literal sense, his habit of serenading Shelyn.
• Meaningful Name: Cailean is a Scottish name meaning "young dog", an animal that Cayden is very fond of.
• Noodle Incident: We have no idea how he managed to pass the Test of the Starstone, and neither does he. Him seemingly passing it but not recalling is such a mystery that the Godsrain Prophecies for 2e mentions the possibility he never even succeeded originally but rose to divinity later, an idea that Cayden worries about possibly having taken place.
• Orphanage of Love: He has an interest in sponsoring orphanages, perhaps as a thank-you to the long-gone orphanage that raised him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: As a mortal, he was this with, of all people, a prostitute named Thais. After her death, he promptly claimed her soul and made her his herald.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: One night, he got drunk. The next morning, he had become a god. He still doesn't know how it happened, to the point that part of him wonders if he truly passed or not.

Desna

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The Song of the Spheres

Goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Desna (pronounced DEZ-nuh) was one of the first deities, but while her peers burdened themselves with the task of creating Golarion, she spent her time building the heavens. She knew that there would be plenty of time for her and her followers to explore the many wonders of the world later. She's changed little since those earlier days, and she and her followers delight in exploring the world.

As a result of both her great age and her nature as the goddess of journeys and explorers, Desna's faith can be found in almost every corner of Golarion: her church is well established in Avistan, the Crown of the World and Tian Xia, and she was worshipped in ancient Azlant as well.

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• Animal Motifs: Moths and butterflies. Besides her butterfly wings, she's served by a species of gigantic space moths, her herald is a one such space moth the size of a dragon, and she herself used to to take the form of a gigantic mothlike creature made out of stars and light.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Ghlaunder, whom she accidentally released into the world and with whom she's clashed multiple times over the ages.
  • In a more one-sided inimical relationship, Desna hates Lamashtu for having murdered her mentor Curchanus and stolen his divinity, and seeks to avenge his death and reclaim his stolen domain over beasts. Lamashtu, on her end, sees Desna as beneath notice and has no interest in pursuing any real feud with her.
• Because Destiny Says So: Averted; even though she's a goddess of prophecy, she encourages her followers to use her foretellings as a starting point for choosing their own fates, rather than letting them constrain them.
• Benevolent Abomination: It's heavily implied that Desna was originally a Great Old One or something similar who developed empathy for other beings; she promptly shows her more eldritch side when something truly pisses her off. The Godsrain Prophecies state that her existence is what keeps Pathfinder safely Lovecraft Lite, as one of the malevolent Eldritch Abominations she oversees managing to overcome her promptly causes every star to vanish from the night sky.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The demon lord Aolar used to use the corpses of the recently dead to murder their loved ones For the Evulz. Doing that to one of Desna's priestesses proved a serious mistake: Desna killed Aolar outright. This willingness to do the right thing is also why the Windsong Testaments puts her as the third oldest deity, and the origin of Chaotic Good in the multiverse.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Desna used to be an alien star moth thing before adopting her current form.
• Composite Character: Desna resembles several moon goddesses from D&D. Her role as a lunar goddess worshipped by elves resembles both Sehanine Moonbow and Eilistraee (getting essentially elements of Eilistraee, Sarenrae didn't). Like Sehanine, Desna's areas of concern are the heavens, moon, stars, dreams and travellers; like Eilistraee she is connected to song, dance and freedom, both often appear nude, and both greatly regret a mistake from the past ^note Desna regrets releasing Ghlaunder, Eilistraee regrets being tricked into shooting her father with a poisoned arrow. Desna's arch-enemy is the goddess Lamashtu, like Lolth is of Sehanine and Eilistraee, in part for similar reasons. She also resembles the moon goddess Selûne from Forgotten Realms — aside from also both being connected to travellers (and, in the past, Selûne to dreams), both are the main deity worshipped by their world’s equivalent of the Romani people ^note Selûne is worshipped by Gurs (also even called Selûne's Children); Desna by Varisians (up to being often described as an Varisian goddess). Both Desna and Selûne are also among their settings oldest deities. It's also notable that Sehanine and Selune were stated to be aspects of each other in both 2nd and 4th editions of D&D.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her home is in the night sky. Doubly so for her Living Shadow, Black Butterfly.
• Dream Weaver: The goddess of dreams, and likes using them to communicate.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: It's implied that the form of an elven woman with butterfly wings that she's often depicted as in artwork isn't actually what Desna really looks like.
• Hot God: When making a rare appearance to mortals, Desna appears as a beautiful woman with long dark hair and shining stars in her eyes.
• Immortality Bisexuality: She's in relationships with (among others) Cayden Cailean (the father of her son Kurgess), Sarenrae and Shelyn.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Her favored weapon, the starknife.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Desna was originally an alien star-moth-creature-deity and only learned about humanity from her friend Curchanus. She's typically depicted as a nude elven woman and doesn't have any shame about her nudity because her humanoid form is just something she created so humanoids wouldn't run in terror when they saw her true form. She doesn't need clothes in the same way as someone with a lot of hair doesn't need a toupee.
• The Lost Lenore: Not canonically, but the Godsrain Prophecies state she'd be one to her lovers if she ever died; in the Bad Future outlined by them, her demise promptly sends Cayden Cailean into a depressed bender, causes Shelyn to have a breakdown where she only accepts mournful songs as truly beautiful, and Sarenae builds a wall around her heart and dares Shelyn to try and climb it.
• My Greatest Failure: She views accidentally releasing Ghlaunder from his cocoon out of curiosity as one, and has been seeking atonement for that since then.
• Polyamory: Desna, Sarenrae and Shelyn are in a polyamorous on-again, off-again relationship.
• Pretty Butterflies: A good-aligned, gorgeous goddess associated with butterflies.
• Scenery Censor: Desna is always depicted fully nude in artwork, which remains SFW due to strategic coverage by a swirling piece of fabric or a streak of light.
• Starfish Aliens: In her original form as an alien star moth creature.
• Star Power: She wields the power of stars as tools of prophecy and navigation, and occasionally for smiting the wicked.
• Take Up My Sword: She was gifted the travel domain by Curchanus as his final act before his killer Lamashtu could claim it.
• Time Abyss: Other than the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, Desna is the third eldest deity (after Pharasma and the Speakers of the Depths), and predates mortal life and the creation of the Material Plane.
• The Unfettered: Desna is known for thoroughly fulfilling the Chaotic side of her alignment, not just the Good: while benevolent, she has virtually no respect whatsoever for constraints or traditions and has earned a reputation as one of the most mercurial and unpredictable deities in the pantheon. She once nearly caused an interplanar war when she personally invaded the realm of the demon prince Aolar, killing her and razing her castle, in vengeance for having killed and possessed one of her priests to then kill the priest's loved ones. She also set Arueshalae from Wrath of the Righteous onto the path to becoming an Ascended Demon by reaching through a priest the succubus was in the midst of seducing and devouring and giving her a conscience.

Erastil

Old Deadeye
God of farming, hunting, trade, and family
Alignment: Lawful Good

Erastil (pronounced eh-RAS-til) is one of the oldest human gods still worshiped in the Inner Sea region. His religion dates back to before the Age of Darkness, when small farming communities and hunter-gatherers prayed to him for bountiful harvests and successful hunts. He leads his followers by example and good deeds rather than flowery rhetoric.

In ancient times, Erastil — under the name of Estig the Hunter — was one of the principal deities of the giants who ruled much of Avistan before being displaced by dwarves and humans. Even in the modern day, he still has a following under this aspect among the stone giants, and maintains a civil, if cool, relationship with the Lawful Evil stone giant deity Minderhal.

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• Arcadia: He's the god of good-aligned, small idealised rural communities.
• Cernunnos: He draws heavily from modern fantasy depictions of Cernunnos, from which he derives his stag-headed appearance, association with forests, community, hunting, and family, and marriage to a fertility goddess.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: He has some rather old-fashioned notions about men and women, to the point that many of his contemporaries feel he's a bit behind the times. Played with via his contemporary Fandarra, who even Erastil himself finds too bound to old traditions.
• Elderly Immortal: He's portrayed as a wizened old patriarch with a long beard and a love for the good old days.
• Fertility God: He's Golarion's primary agriculture deity, also responsible for hunting, family, and rural communities.
• Good Old Ways: He's the primary god in many rural communities and dislikes Abadar's cities.
• Grandpa God: When not adopting the form of an elk-headed archer, he usually appears as an older man of common birth.
• Grumpy Old Man: One of the forms he takes is an old man with a beard and he is described as being an old curmugeon.
• Happily Married: He and Jaidi, an equally ancient goddess of agriculture, have enjoyed a stable and loving marriage for millennia.
• Heroic Neutral: Erastil and his followers are all about community, and for the most part, are willing to leave everybody alone. If you screw with one of his communities, however, you will regret it.
• Horned Humanoid: Has elk antlers in one of his forms. His angel servants, the stag archons, also have this look.
• The Older Immortal: Very much so. He's one of the first gods, and adopts that look.
• Retcon: In Pathfinder's first edition, Erastil was bluntly portrayed as very conservative in this views on the world, relationships, and at times didn't even seem like he would want adventurers serving him, preferring that they just settle down, particularly if they were women. Second Edition's Gods & Magic supplement gives him a far more flattering portrayal. So long as you love, support, and contribute to your community, Erastil is just fine with unconventional families, is not stated to be sexist in the slightest, as well apparently being fine with adventurers who quest in order to defend or otherwise contribute to their hometowns.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Erastil is a trifle blunt, particularly with regards to the other gods.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Downplayed. Erastil has no problem with strong women, he just feels they should be married to equally strong partners and raise strong children with them. This goes both ways too: for instance he keeps trying to talk Cayden Cailean into settling down. He also has a rather grudging admiration for Iomedae (he likes her but is baffled by her disinterest in having a family) and Sarenrae, and is Platonic Life-Partners with Shelyn because he appreciates her support for marriage and families: they often take sightseeing trips through the multiverse together.
• War God: His favored weapon is the longbow, and he encourages martial training to protect one's community. He has a Soldier vs. Warrior-style grudge against Gorum, whom he considers a brute and a bully.

Gorum

Our Lord in Iron

God of strength, battle, and weapons

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Gorum (pronounced GOR-um) is a god of battle above all other pursuits; it is said that he would rust away into nothingness if there is ever a time with no more conflicts to be fought. Known as Our Lord in Iron, his faithful believe he is present in every iron weapon of war that is forged, and he has a large following among the half-orcs.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: Gorum is basically a Lighter and Softer Khorne. Let's see. Blood Knight war god? Check. Represented as an armored figure? Check. Associated with metal, bloodlust, war, tactics, strength and rage? Double check. Brought into the world by violence and will leave/die if violence stops? Triple check. Disdain for cowards, Might Makes Right mindset, indifference to anything that isn't related to fighting? Check to all of the above.
• Animated Armor: He usually appears as an empty suit of armor carrying a greatsword. An in-universe theory is that it's actually 24-Hour Armor to conceal that he's a half-orc, but it's mostly just half-orcs who say this. A picture of his corpse shows nothing underneath, but he still bleeds.
• As Long as There Is Evil: It's said that if all the people of Golarion ever stopped fighting, Gorum would rust and wither away.
• BFS: Usually pictured with one. His favored weapon is also the greatsword.
• Blood Knight: Along with 99% of his followers. Gorum does not care for the reasons why you fight, only that you do fight.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Gorum shows his favor with this. Mind you, the blood isn't coming from the person he favors or their enemies, but rather their weapons and armor.
• The Bully: Gorum is known as a fickle, brutal deity that will take what he wants when he wants.
• Colonel Kilgore: Gorum enjoys war, not out of sadism, but because he sees it as a testing of one's true worth. Many of his followers fall into this trope as well.
• Dark Is Not Evil: It could be easily interpreted as such though, depending on how you see war.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Is on the receiving end of it, triggering the War of Immortals.
• Divided Deity: Gorum's death leads to the Godsrain, a literal shower of his blood, armour and divine essence that falls upon every world where he had worshippers, leaving war and mythic power in its wake.
• The Dreaded: Not as much as Rovagug, but still. Gods fear the day Gorum will turn against them.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Not by much, but Gorum places a special emphasis on metal. His clerics and druids can cast metal-related spells.
• Four-Star Badass: He is also the god of tactics.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite most of the gods disliking him, they all want him as an ally because they recognize he's just that strong. To drive the point home, despite having considerably more evil followers than good followers, Gorum is allowed to keep his domain in Elysium, the chaotic good plane, presumably as part of a defense pact with the local azatas.
  "Thus the pledge is sealed, and thus you are welcome, forever with our thanks, come what may."
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Despite what one might expect, Gorum recognizes the difference between cowardice and strategic withdrawal, and doesn't expect his followers to continue fighting against impossible odds and throw their lives away needlessly. If they can escape to fight another day he is cool with that. (If they escape to never fight again, however, they are seen as cowards.)
• Large and in Charge: Gorum will always appear as the largest being, as a means to enforce dominance.
• Noble Demon: Gorum is the God of War, not killing — as such, he abides by his own code (proving that even a chaotic god has lines he won't cross). Killing civilians, those who generally can't defend themselves, and surrendered fighters is a coward's act, and if there's one thing Gorum doesn't like, it's a coward.
• Odd Friendship: Gorum and Asmodeus, and consequently their respective churches, are on unusually good terms for a hardcore chaotic deity and a hardcore lawful deity, and despite their wildly different ideologies Asmodeus' clergy is always willing to arm Gorum's with the best equipment. They make some of the most useful pawns in a war, and Gorumites don't care that they're being used so long as they get a good fight.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His only obvious physical trait is his glowing red eyes.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One theory goes that if the people of Golarion were to ever cease fighting, Gorum will leave Golarion in disgust, only to come back once people start fighting again.
• War God: Gorum represents war as a whole, for good and bad.
• Wild Card: Gorum does not care about good or evil, or the motivations of the other gods, and therefore will fight for any side.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Gorum strongly frowns on the killing of noncombatants, including women, children, and the elderly, considering it the work of murderers, not warriors. However, if any of the above picks up a weapon and joins the battle, they become fair game.

Gozreh

The Wind and the Waves

God/goddess of nature, weather, and the sea

Alignment: True Neutral

Gozreh (pronounced GOHZ-ray) is a dualistic deity of nature, a god of the storm and sky and also a goddess of the wave and surf. Gozreh is worshipped in almost every corner of Golarion, and maintains large following among the cloud and storm giants. Born of the ocean's fury and the wind's wrath, Gozreh is a fickle deity.

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• Gender Bender: Gozreh has two aspects. The female one is seen at sea or over water, while the male one is seen in the sky or over land.
• Lord of the Ocean: Gozreh takes this role in his female incarnation as the goddess of the sea (as opposed to her male incarnation as the god of the sky); as the ruler of the seas, she's depicted as a woman with sea-green hair whose lower body is a pillar of roiling water. Her role as the god of the air and of storms also ties into this, making Gozreh the god of the seas in one incarnation and of winds and storms in the other; as a result, they are worshipped by most people who make their living in or on the water, especially fishermen, merchants and sailors. The trident being their favored weapon further cements Gozreh's thematic ties to Poseidon.
• Meaningful Name: According to Faiths and Philosophies, his/her name is the last name of Werner Herzog in reverse, because his films often portray nature as a dangerous force to be reckoned with, something the editors wanted to emphasize.
• Prongs of Poseidon: Gozreh's favored weapon is the trident, fitting their role as the fickle deity of seas and storms.

Iomedae

The Inheritor

Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor

Alignment: Lawful Good

Iomedae (pronounced ahy-OH-meh-day) is the goddess of righteous valor, justice, and honor. Having served as Aroden's herald, she inherited many of the Last Azlanti's followers upon his death, and continues to espouse the ideas of honor and righteousness in the defense of good and the battle against evil.

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• Action Girl: A given as the Goddess of Justice. As a mortal she was a brave knight, who ascended to godhood.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: She's essentially a Gender Flipped version of Torm from Forgotten Realms: both are Lawful Goodinvoked deities of valor and duty in righteous causes who originated as mortals who were such good paladins that they became literal deities of paladinhood.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: She was a mortal knight who ascended to godhood by passing the Test of the Starstone.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Milani the Everbloom.
• Big Good: In Wrath of the Righteous, she is the players' main patron and provides a good deal of the impetus in their crusade against the Abyss.
• Boyish Short Hair: Iomedae’s avatar appears as a short-haired swordswoman in gleaming armor and brandishing a longsword and shield.
• Breast Plate: A downplayed example. She's covered completely, but the armor on her chest is more form-fitting than it strictly needs to be.
• Celibate Hero: In keeping with the Fantasy Medieval Catholicism motif of her church. She's an ally of Erastil, but at a personal level he's somewhat baffled by her apparent disinterest in having a family. Also downplayed given the persistent rumors that the gold dragon Peace Through Vigilance is her secret lovechild with Apsu.
• Church Militant: She's served by several orders of militant knights and was once a member of such an order herself.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Her faith seems based loosely on Roman Catholicism. Her divine realm even resembles a huge cathedral. She's also the primary divine backer of the Mendevian Crusades (featured most prominently in the Wrath of the Righteous AP): even the former Queen of Mendev is one of her paladins.
• Deity of Human Origin: She was originally a mortal paladin and a worshipper of Aroden before she took and passed the Test of the Starstone, becoming a demigoddess. When Aroden vanished, she became a full goddess herself.
• Did They or Didn't They?: There are rumors that Peace Through Vigilance, a young celestial gold dragon who has sworn himself to her service, is her child by Apsu the Waybringer. The fact that Peace Through Vigilance refers to her as "Mother Iomedae" doesn't help.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Alone of the evil gods, she's willing to work with Asmodeus when their interests coincide, but regards him with extreme caution nonetheless.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has two scars on her cheeks, under her eyes. She is one of the Big Good gods of Golarion.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The longsword is her weapon of choice.
• Jeanne d'Archétype: Right down to the haircut.
• Kick the Dog: In Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, she has the heroes abducted so she can grill them for information about her Herald (while blasting them with sonic damage each time they give a wrong answer, or even say something she doesn't like).
• Knight in Shining Armor: One of her followers' main motifs; Iomedae's faithful tend to gravitate towards lifestyles involving a lot of questing, honor and carefully polished armor.
• Knight Templar: Some of her followers can veer into this, especially in the Worldwound/Mendev.
• Lady of War: The book Inner Sea Gods says she "is both fiercely martial and adamantly feminine."
• Never Accepted in His Hometown: As a human, Iomedae was Chelish by birth, but the Civil War that ensued from Aroden's death saw the Church of Asmodeus become Cheliax's state religion due to its alliance with the winning House of Thrune. The Church of Iomedae was at best tolerated there even prior to Queen Abrogail II's ascension, and that was before a paladin-led army invaded them.
• The Paladin: She was one as a human and maintains the attitude now, dedicating herself to the destruction of the Worldwound and other good causes.
• Poor Communication Kills: Downplayed. She nurses a grudge against Pharasma for not saying anything to warn the pantheon of Aroden's impending demise, which has led to sporadic fighting between their churches in the past.
• Rags to Riches: A divine example. She started out as a mortal paladin of Arazni, the herald of Aroden. Then, when Arazni died, she became a paladin of Aroden. After acing the Starstone test, she took Arazni's place as Aroden's herald. Finally, when Aroden died, she took over his position.
• Taking Up the Mantle: She became the inheritor of Aroden's responsibilities and worshippers when her old patron disappeared.
• War God: Her portfolio, combined with her militaristic nature, often causes people to view her as such in-universe, despite her refusal to accept the title; she is typically associated with just wars and the necessity of fighting when all else fails.

Irori

Master of Masters

God of history, knowledge, and self-perfection

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Irori (pronounced ih-ROHR-ee) is the god of enlightenment, self-perfection, knowledge, healing, and inner strength. His followers claim that he was once a mortal who achieved absolute physical and mental perfection and thus attained divinity of his own volition. He is one of the core gods of, if not the most powerful deity of, the Vudrani pantheon, but he's worshipped throughout Tian Xia under the name of Iro-Shu and he has an increasing following in the Inner Sea region as well. He is also one of the few humanoid gods to have developed much of a following among chromatic dragons, as a cult to him exists among the relentlessly self-disciplined and perfectionist green dragons.

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• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: He achieved physical and mental perfection and was elevated to godhood, without taking the test of the Starstone.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The primary deity thereof.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Ultimately leads to his becoming a god without the help of a major artifact.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Crystal Dragon Buddha, actually, but the trope still fits, as his followers are basically the Pathfinder equivalent of a real-world religion.
• Deity of Human Origin: He was a mortal mystic who attained enlightenment and thereby ascended to godhood.
• God of Knowledge: He is is the god of history, knowledge, and enlightenment. He has been known to edit particularly offensive mortals out of the historical record altogether.
• Healer God: While primarily a god of knowledge and enlightenment, he's also associated with healing and grants his worshippers the Healing domain and the Restoration subdomain.
• Self-Made Man: He achieved divinity through self-perfection, and views those who ascended via the Test of the Starstone (like Iomedae, Norgorber, and Cayden Cailean) as having cheated, except Aroden, whom he actually respected a lot. The reason he looks down on the other Ascended is that they copied Aroden's method of attaining godhood, and he feels everyone should find their own path.
• Screw the Rules, They're Not Real!: There's a slight rivalry between Irorans and the deities of mortal origin who ascended via the Starstone: Irorans believe in achieving divinity through Buddhist-style enlightenment and think Cayden, Iomedae, and Norgorber cheated by taking the test of the Starstone (copying Aroden's method). The other deities' attitude to the question boils down to, "Whatever, man."
• Supernatural Martial Arts: Part of his theme. Also marks him as one of only two Gods to have achieved divinity through solely non-magical means.
• Un-person: As he's the god of history, he can enforce a metaphysical version of this on mortals who sufficiently raise his ire by editing the memories of everyone even tangentially connected to the target to make everyone forget that they ever existed. If he's angered further, he extends this to causing written and pictorial records to be edited to omit any mention of or information on the luckless mortal as well.

Lamashtu

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Mother of Monsters

Goddess of madness, monsters, and nightmares

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Lamashtu (pronounced lah-MAHSH-too) is the mother and patroness of many misshapen and malformed creatures that crawl, slither, or flap on, above, or below the surface of Golarion. Her unholy symbol is a three-eyed jackal head, which may be represented in many ways, and her sacred animal is the jackal.

Lamashtu's worship can be found wherever barbarians, outcasts and monsters live, from the frozen north of Avistan and the jungles of Garund to the highest peaks of Tian Xia and the abysses of the Darklands.

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• Arch-Enemy: Her former lover, the demon lord Pazuzu, who envies her ascension. While Lamashtu is now far, far more powerful than her ex, Pazuzu is both saner and smarter than she is, making him a chronic threat to her rule.
• Ax-Crazy: The goddess of vicious, id-driven behavior that isn't quite Rovagug's hate of everything.
• Berserk Button: The fact that the Demon race, and thus herself, owe their existence to the whims of the Daemons enrages her even more than Pazuzu's slights. When she first learned this truth, she was so furious that she waged a decades long war against the Horsemen and even after that ended, she created the Vavakia Demons specifically to spite them.
• Body Horror: She and her followers revel in turning the beautiful into horrible monstrosities. In fact, waking up with a sudden deformity is considered a blessing bestowed by Lamashtu.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: No deity trusts Lamashtu. Not even the lesser deities, and certainly none of the demon lords.
• Composite Character: Of several Demon Lords from D&D
  • Lamashtu is considered to be the official replacement of D&D's Demogorgon, both being the big boss demons of each setting (note that there's a demon princess named Lamashtu in D&D and a demon lord named Demogorgon in Pathfinder as well, but both are obscure and unimportant; Paizo was allowed to reuse their names because they came from real world mythology and thus are not owned by Wizards of the Coast). If Demogorgon's depiction as a two-headed tentacled monster had been open content (as opposed to being Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property), Paizo would have made him instead of Lamashtu into the god of monsters, madness, demons and the like.
  • She also has shades of Lolth, as one of the few demons who ascended to full godhood, and both having the title of the Demon Queen. Lolth was actually noted to be probably the strongest Demon Lord ^note  she was in multiple editions suggested to outright stated to more powerful than Demogorgon, for example.. It's also mentioned that she's one of the more popular deities among the drow, and the only true god really worshipped by them. In terms of backstory, like Lolth, Lamashtu is enemies with (a) moon goddess(es) worshipped by elves (Sehanine Moonbow and Eilistraee for Lolth; Desna for Lamashtu), over her attempt to kill a god close to the moon goddess(es) (Corellon Larethian with Lolth; Curchanus with Lamashtu) – the difference being Lamashtu was successful. Both also became mutual arch-enemies with their ex-lovers — Lamashtu with Pazuzu, Lolth with Corellon.
  • Another Demon Lord she resembles is Pale Night. Both are called the Mother of Demons, and are both involved in birth/creation of monstrous, evil creatures. Most notably, both are described as the mother/progenitor of the Lamia race. Like Pale Night, Lamashtu is also involved with the Demon Lord Baphomet. It's also curious that the 3rd party sourcebook, Immortals Handbook, equates Lolth with Pale Night, under the name Lilith.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: She started out as one of the Abyss' oldest and most powerful demon lords before ascending to full godhood. As both a god and a demon lord, Lamashtu holds the title of "Queen of Demons", making her Pathfinder's rough equivalent to Demogorgon from Dungeons & Dragons.
• Dual Wielding: Always pictured with two kukris.
• Eats Babies: Or at least demands their sacrifice.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: A strong believer in this - deformities in her point of view are blessings, so she is always happy to be a dark guardian of those blamed for things they can't help.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It's been noted that in her own way Lamashtu remains fond of her son/ex-lover Baphomet and will at times intervene in Abyssal conflicts on his behalf.
• Evil Matriarch: Lamashtu reigns as the Queen of Demons and creator of heinous beasts. Her children, either burst from her body or sculpted from her monstrous mind, serve as pinnacles of might among her followers.
• Evil Versus Evil: With Pazuzu, Nocticula, Urgathoa, Rovagug, and any other being whom she sees as a potential rival. She also declared war on the entirety of Abaddon in the past and successfully captured and killed two Horsemen, and the grudges from that campaign still linger; Lamashtu is not popular with the Four Horsemen. Of course, the fact Lamashtu's portfolio includes corrupt births, meaning she encourages her faithful to have lots of children, would make them enemies anyway, since the daemons want to extinguish all life.
• Extreme Omnisexual: If any species on Golarion is capable of intercourse, odds are Lamashtu has mated with one of them, and produced a new hideous species to boot.
• Evil Virtues: Make no mistake, she is a goddess of exiles and the deformed as well as madness and hate - she openly prizes empathy, compassion for the weak, and just retaliation.
• Fertility God: A particulary dark version of the trope.
• Fetus Terrible: Creating them is her forte. She is the Mother of Monsters, after all. Her worshippers seek to induce this in themselves. And in others. Birth defects in children who aren't involved with her at all tend to be blamed on her, for this reason.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Lamashtu is the most powerful demon lord and considers herself queen of demons; in turn, most demon lords (with the most notable exceptions of Pazuzu and Nocticula) acknowledge her as their boss.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: A pair of torn bat wings.
• Human Sacrifice: A good way to get her favor is to sacrifice particularly powerful or innocent humanoids to her.
• Kill the God: Before Lamashtu became a deity, she and her lover, Pazuzu, lured the god Curchanus to the Abyss and murdered him. Lamashtu delivered the killing blow, and as a result, was able to ascend. Pazuzu now wants to do this to her.
• Kukris Are Kool: Always pictured with two of them, one burning, one frozen.
• Maker of Monsters: She sees the creation of new and horrific creatures as an end in and of itself. She's believed to be responsible for the creation of numerous monster species, including gnolls, chimeras, vavakia demons and the immense sea monsters know as Mothers of Oblivion — there's a good reason why she's called the Mother of Monsters.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Lamashtu has given birth to more offspring than anyone can count, each more twisted and horrific than the last.
• Nightmare Weaver: Nightmares are in her portfolio.
• No Cure for Evil: Averted. As the The Mother of Monsters, Lamashtu is one of the few evil deities in Second Edition that can have a healing font for her clerics.
• Obvious Pregnancy: Lamashtu is always depicted as being hugely pregnant.
• Power Born of Madness: Madness is one of her Domains.
• Public Domain Character: She's based on a Mesopotamian demon.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: She's often depicted wearing underwear made of skulls.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: The goddess of this viewpoint; to start worshipping Lamashtu is to accept that you will never be accepted by conventional society or loved, so fuck it, might as well become something they fear and find commonality among other angry misanthropes like yourself.
• Third Eye: She has three eyes, a prominent enough trait that it appears in her holy symbol.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: She murdered the beast god Curchanus and stole his portfolio in order to ascend.

Nethys

The All-Seeing Eye

God of magic

Alignment: True Neutral

Nethys (pronounced NETH-uhs) is a Garundi god who holds magic above all things. He gained enough power to witness all things, and this both fueled his divinity and shattered his mind. He is a god of magic, torn between destroying the world with one hand and saving it with the other.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: In life, Nethys had unusually purple skin.
• The Archmage: Nethys isn't the god of magic for nothing.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: He's torn by simultaneous urges to protect the world and destroy it.
• Deity of Human Origin: Nethys was the first Golarian mortal to ascend to godhood (that we know of). In his mortal life, he was the power behind the first pharaoh of Osirion. Even in life, though, he appears to have been something more than human, as he had violet skin and solid gold eyes.
• Everyone Has Standards: It is noted that Nethys does not support Rovagug or his followers, or tries to destroy Golarion.
• God of Knowledge: He is the god of magic. He achieved divinity and lost his mind when he tried to comprehend all the secrets of the universe, and in the modern day holds magic, its study, its practice, and its expansion above all other concerns.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Having sought to unlock all of the secrets and potential held within the planes and beyond, Nethys shattered his own mind from the sheer overload of knowledge to which he was exposed.
• Mad God: He suffers from a split personality and borderline schizophrenia.
• The Man Behind the Man: As a man, Nethys ruled Osirion in secret, using his vassal Azghaad as the "public" pharaoh.
• Mood-Swinger: As his destructive and restorative aspects war his mood fluctuates. A common depiction of him is causing severe damage with magic only to repair it a moment later.
• Proud to Be a Geek: His followers are basically magic geeks, and his churches magic conventions. They look down on anyone who doesn't know magic, even to the point of only grudgingly admitting divine casters.
• Split Personality: He embodies both destructive and restorative magic and these two aspects war for control.
• Taking Up the Mantle: Nethys more or less took up the domain of magic from the deceased Azlanti god Amaznen, who sacrificed himself during Earthfall.
• Two-Faced: One side of his body is normal, the other is cracked and bleeding magic.
• White Hair, Black Heart: More insane than evil, but still.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Oh boy did it ever.

Norgorber

The Reaper of Reputation

God of greed, secrets, poison, and murder

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Norgorber (pronounced NOR-gore-ber) is known as a Taldan deity of thievery and assassination, as well as a keeper of secrets. He is known in four primary aspects, which attract specific types of followers: as the Reaper of Reputation, he is a god of spies and secrets; as Blackfingers, he's the patron of alchemists and poisoners; as the Grey Master, he's the god of thieves; and as Father Skinsaw, he's the lord of murderers and serial killers. He remains an enigma to most, and his true motives are unknown. Many of his own followers remain ignorant of his plans and designs. Norgorber is the only evil god amongst the Ascended.

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• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: His realm in Axis, Duskfathom, takes the form of an immense system of sewers and hollow chambers that lies underneath the streets of the planar city, embodying the manner in which sewers and thieves' underworlds hide beneath mortal settlements.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The only evil god to have done so; all that is known of his past is that he was a mortal from the city of Vyre who passed the Starstone test. His followers go to great lengths to hide knowledge of his life before godhood.
• Ax-Crazy: Bloodthirsty and brutally violent, Norgorber’s Father Skinsaw aspect is worshipped by only the most heartless killers.
• Black Cloak: He's typically depicted wearing a long dark cloak that completely obscures his face and body.
• Combat Pragmatist: Unsurprisingly, the god of thieves, murder, and crime is a dirty fighter, and fully expects his followers to be as such.
• Dark Is Evil: The god of people who do their criminal trades at night, and an utterly amoral, highly greedy one.
• Deity of Human Origin: He has the distinction of having been the first mortal after Aroden to pass the Test of the Starstone. Fittingly for the god of secrets, no one knows who or what he was before ascension, apart from him being from Vyre, and possibly a halfling.
• The Don: He is basically the god of organized crime.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Norgorber's divine realm is a network of sprawling tunnels and caverns beneath the city of Axis.
• The Faceless: When he is depicted, his face is always shown as partly or completely obscured, either by a hood or a mask or by him being portrayed as invisible or incorporeal. He actively enforces this, striking anyone attempting to depict his face — even when these portrayals would be entirely fruits of the artist's imagination — with increasingly erratic motor control of their hands until they desist.
• For Science!: As Blackfingers, he oversees dangerous and unethical experimentation for the sake of knowledge alone.
• God of Evil: The god of truly malevolent criminals and murder, to be precise.
• A Hero to His Hometown: Norgorber's birthplace, the city of Vyre, is one of his major centers of worship. Of course, almost no one outside of his church is aware that he grew up there.
• Hobbits: As far as can be inferred, and knowing he is from Vyre with a large halfling population, and how his faithful recruit strongly from halfling communities, there's strong implications he was a halfling before he passed the Test of the Starstone, having fully embraced his people's reputation as The Sneaky Guy.
• In-Series Nickname: Spies and politicians call him the Reaper of Reputation; thieves' guilds call him the Gray Master; alchemists, herbalists, and assassins call him Blackfingers; madmen, murderers, and maniacs call him Father Skinsaw.
• In the Hood: Many of his depictions show him as having his face completely obscured by a hood.
• Master Poisoner: As Blackfingers, he's the god of poisons and the creation thereof.
• Multiple-Choice Past: In-Universe. No-one knows who Norgorber used to be before he passed the Test of the Starstone or what his motives were for seeking divinity, leading to a lot of speculation and little to no hard proof of anything. Norgorber and his clergy go to great lengths to ensure that things stay this way.
• Phantom Thief: He was one in life, one good enough to infiltrate the cathedral of the Starstone and become the patron god of thieves.
• Professional Killer: Norgorber was an assassin, and counts many of them among his followers.
• Secret-Keeper: He hoards secrets like a dragon hoards gold, and values them all the more the fewer other people know them.
• The Spook: Almost nothing is known about Norgorber's mortal life before he ascended. Some sages believe that if Norgorber's true nature were discovered, he would be undone.
• The Usual Adversaries: His faith is a frequent opponent in Adventure Paths, as he is the god of a bunch of things that lend themselves well to intrigue; political corruption, amoral science, crime, and murder.

Pharasma

Lady of Graves

Goddess of fate, death, prophecy, and rebirth

Alignment: True Neutral

"The Lady of Graves", Pharasma (pronounced fah-RAZ-mah) is the goddess who shepherds Golarion's recently-departed souls to their final reward. Upon death, souls migrate via the River of Souls to Pharasma's Boneyard in the Outer Sphere, which sits atop an impossibly tall spire that pierces the Astral Plane.

Pharasma makes no decision on whether a death is just or not; she views all with a cold and uncaring attitude, and decides on which of the Outer Planes a soul will spend eternity. Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and prophecy: from the moment a creature is born, she sees what its ultimate fate will be, but reserves final judgement until that soul finally stands before her. As the goddess of death and rebirth, she abhors the undead and considers them a perversion.

Pharasma's immense age and universal control over the souls of the departed mean that she is known and respected throughout the Universe. On Golarion, her church is particularly well-established in Tian Xia, where she is known as the Mother of Souls, and of course in the Inner Sea region.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: In general behavior she's a Gender Flip of Kelemvor from Forgotten Realms, as a neutral judge of the dead and supervisor of the multiverse's version of Purgatory, and slayer of the undead.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Urgathoa. Pharasma sees the undead as an affront to the natural order of life and death, so it only follows that their goddess and ancestor (who herself is said to be an escapee from the Boneyard) is not in Pharasma's good books.
  • On a larger scale, the mysterious entities referred to as Those Who Remain, which she has opposed since before the other gods ever existed.
• Barrier Maiden: Downplayed. She is the original creator of The Wall Around the World that keeps Those Who Remain from interfering with it, though it is self-sustaining.
• Berserk Button: Undead, for both her and her faithful. This is true to such an extent that her followers get their own variant of the Death domain, with the undeath-related spells removed.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: The lines in her realm, the Boneyard, could put even the waiting room from Beetlejuice to shame: it can take a soul generations in real-time to get through the sorting process.
• Cool Chair: To date, only one illustration (shown above) has depicted her not sitting on her intimidating dark throne, and in one image it's shown that it can fly!
• Dark Is Not Evil: She looks as grim and alien as a God of the Dead should be, but she's an extremely fair-minded and merciful judge; about the only thing that biases her against someone is undeath, which pretty much is a massive glitch in the cycle of life she maintains.
• Death by Despair: Defied. The Godsrain Prophecies state that this will be her end, unable to adapt to a world without hard limits on fate in the Age of Lost Omens and simply fading away, feeling unneeded...which gets a bit suspicious when you realize the Godsrain Prophecies were made literally after the Lost Omens began, and in fact it's made explicit out of universe that she is not doomed anytime soon - she finds true free will a little frightening, but also intriguing enough to keep her judgements going without much interruption.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Pretty reasonable overall, gets along with nearly all the other gods, her church has a reputation for being good mediators and avoiding conflict, and even though she's The Grim Reaper, she has no problem with you being resurrected (it wasn't really your time yet). Just don't be undead. Ever.
• God Couple: The psychopomp usher Mrtyu was once a soldier who became the first mortal to die with love on his lips. Pharasma found this intriguing and wooed his soul in the Boneyard; he has been called Death's Consort ever since, and their longtime love affair has helped her to better understand mortal emotions.
• God of the Dead: The True Neutralinvoked judge of the dead. She appears as a stately gray-skinned lady with white hair that doesn't quite obey gravity, despises the undead for being abominations, and runs the Celestial Bureaucracy where souls wait to receive her judgement before going on to their designated afterlife. She rules over the psychopomps, who rove the planes as her agents in safeguarding the passage of souls and battling those who would prey upon them, and charges her followers with watching over the dead on the Universe as well as battling the undead. Interestingly, besides being the goddess of death, she's also the goddess of birth, ruling over both the beginning and end of mortal lives, and is worshipped by midwives as much as by undertakers and undead-hunters.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Though Pharasma engineered the multiverse to keep Those Who Remain out of it, she made one fatal mistake: her own spire keeps growing and will one day breach the barrier she herself made, causing The End of the World as We Know It. She is aware of this and is grooming the psychopomp usher Atropos to take up her mantle in the next existence.
• Judgement of the Dead: Pharasma judges each newly dead soul and ensures it is sent to the proper plane for its afterlife, according to its alignment and mortal deeds. Although she can see all possible fates and knows the fate of each individual, free will and choice can alter a soul's final destination, and she places great weight on the individual's actions and personal choices.
• The Maker: According to Concordance of Rivals, she is the true creator of the multiverse, the structure of which she engineered to keep out Those Who Remain.
• Mystical White Hair: It doesn't even look like it's completely affected by gravity.
• The Older Immortal: The oldest of all deities (excluding those of the Elder Mythos), predating the existence of the Great Beyond itself: she is the Sole Survivor of the previous version of the multiverse and is grooming one of her daughters, the psychopomp usher Atropos, to replace her in the next.
• Poor Communication Kills: It's widely believed she foresaw the death of Aroden, but didn't say anything. Iomedae, Aroden's former herald and successor, has a mild grudge against her for this and there was sporadic fighting between their churches in the early days of the Age of Lost Omens as a consequence.
• Team Switzerland: Her realm is this on a Metaphysical level to the point that Angels, Devils, and Demons all work side by side to protect the River of Souls. Each one of the Outer Planes has a court, or embassy in modern terms, in her realm to help souls reach their final destination and to facilitate travel. The only exception is the Neutral Evil Plane of Abaddon, as they're not allowed in her realm due to their actions.
• Time Abyss: Word of James Jacobs is that Pharasma is the oldest being in the Great Beyond, being the Sole Survivor of the previous multiverse.
• True Neutral: In-Universe. Pharasma is the even-handed judge of the dead who treats all who come before her with equanimity. The only thing that truly arouses her anger is The Undead. As the oldest deity in the multiverse, her morality is the center, which sort of makes her True Neutral by default.

Rovagug

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The Rough Beast

God of wrath, disasters, and destruction

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Imprisoned since the Age of Creation, the god Rovagug (pronounced ROH-vah-gug) seeks only to destroy creation and the other gods. Believed to be imprisoned in a state of torpor somewhere deep within Golarion, his increasingly restless stirrings are taken by many to be the cause of volcanic activity and earthquakes.

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• Animalistic Abomination: He's incredibly reminiscent of a centipede, albeit an absolutely enormous one.
• Apocalypse How: He seeks to set off a Class Z and destroy the entire multiverse.
• Arch-Enemy: Of the gods and existence itself, but especially of Sarenrae, who imprisoned him.
• Bad Boss: Rovagug will destroy his own minions the moment he does not need them anymore. In fairness to him, he didn't ask for their help in the first place.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Of a sort. In the final end foreseen by Tabris, as recorded in Concordance of Rivals, Rovagug is released from the Dead Vault by a desperate god hoping he will prove a match for the cosmic destruction of the multiverse. He promptly devours the remnants of reality, then consumes himself when there's nothing else left. Technically he obtained his goal of destroying all of reality even if he didn't get to consume it himself, though it's anyone's guess whether he actually cares about the means. Whether this will actually occur remains up in the air seeing as this was foreseen before Aroden's death, and thus the collapse of prophecy.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: He's commonly depicted as a large monster with traits of spiders, centipedes, and worms.
• Charm Person: The Vast Scar, left behind by Rovagug when he clawed his way from Yad Iagnoth out of the Abyss, is strangely hypnotic, leading some scholars to speculate that Sarenrae didn't make the stroke that opened the Pit of Gormuz in her own volition.
• The Corrupter: To the city of Gormuz. It was originally a settlement of worshippers of Sarenrae that grew over the seal of his prison, but his presence slowly corrupted its people and turned them evil. In the end, Sarenrae herself had to destroy it after the city's people murdered the herald she had sent there.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Rovagug is an ascended qlippoth lord, making him the most powerful fiendish god in existence.
• Destroyer Deity: Rovagug cares only about destruction and bringing an end to all things. His sole commandment is to destroy, and his followers need no instruction in how to accomplish that.
• The Dreaded: He is, bar none, the most feared entity in the multiverse.
• Eldritch Abomination: Rovagug crawled into existence from somewhere at the edge of reality with plans to destroy it... or so the story goes. This is reinforced given his status as a qlippoth lord from the Abyss.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: The Omnicidal Maniac Rovagug counted among his enemies fellow evil deities Asmodeus and Dahak.
• Expy: He is essentially Paizo's answer to Tharizdun, who is also an Eldritch Abomination who seeks to destroy all of reality and was sealed away by an alliance of both the good and evil gods.
• Fighting a Shadow: Rovagug's spawn are so powerful that almost none have been permanently defeated, and yet they're still nothing to the god itself.
• Forced to Watch: This is how he "loves" Shelyn; he wishes to place her in his eye and make her watch as he destroys everything.
• God of Evil: The worst in the pantheon, he literally represents the end of all existence.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Sealing Rovagug took the cooperation of every single deity in the pantheon, which makes sense, but they haven't done much to fight the Spawn emerging from the holes in his prison.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The biggest threat to the setting as a whole, though he really isn't up to much plotting.
• Hero Killer: Slew countless other deities during the war against him.
• Illegal Religion: Cults to Rovagug are banned by nearly every civilisation, and for good reason.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Rovagug is impaled upon Dou-Bral's Star Towers within the Dead Vault, although they have been crumbling since Dou-Bral became Zon-Kuthon.
• It Can Think: Rovagug is traditionally portrayed as little more than a wild animal that happens to have a lot of raw power to back up his rampages, an interpretation backed by his qlippoth origins. However, there are the occasional hints that there's an intelligent mind under all that hunger and hate.
• The Juggernaut: Rovagug is this from the perspective of the other gods.
• Kaiju: All of his offspring, including the infamous Tarrasque. Rovagug himself appears as an impossibly huge insect/arachnid/reptile monstrosity.
• Kill the God: Slew numerous other deities and seeks the destruction of the entire cosmos, gods included. Rovagug himself seems immune to this — the aforementioned destruction of the universe may well be the only way for him to die. Though even this is played with: in the final end foreseen by Tabris, he dies when he consumes himself at a point in which he is the sole remaining thing in existence, leaving it up in the air whether multiversal annihilation would have finished the job if he hadn't done it himself.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Again, lots of his followers.
• Mysterious Past: No one is sure where Rovagug came from, or why he wants to annihilate all existence. It has been confirmed that he's a deific qlippoth. The Windsong Testaments puts him as the first qlippoth, already divine even then, but even so he's different than the other first divinities. He was the last to come into being of those first, but given that the divinity that became Rovagug walked off the spiral of creation, it's unclear if he was always Rovagug, corrupted by something outside, joined with it, or if Pharasma's fear of that space was what took hold of him.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Wants the end of everything, universe and all. A major cause of Enemy Mines among the other gods. Given his status as a qlippoth lord, we can infer that he actually has a reason for this: the qlippoth want to destroy that pesky 'reality' so they can go back to festering in the nice quiet hole called the Abyss.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Courtesy of a joint effort by Sarenrae and Asmodeus, with the world itself as the padlock on the can.
• Straw Nihilist: A lot of his followers fall under this.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Rovagug's prison, the Dead Vault, was forged by Torag and Gorum, protected with wards against escape by Pharasma, pierced with Dou-Bral's Star Towers to impale Rovagug and prevent him from hearing prayers, and locked with a key fashioned by Asmodeus.
• Time Abyss: Rovagug's attempt to destroy Golarion took place even before the rise of the aboleth civilization. He was ancient even then, having already travelled to and destroyed countless worlds before setting his sights on Golarion. The Windsong Testaments puts him as the last of the first deities to come into being, the origin of Chaotic Evil. Sort of.
• Truly Single Parent: His Spawn are his children, of which he is the only parent.

Sarenrae

The Dawnflower

Goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing

Alignment: Neutral Good

Known to her faithful as the Dawnflower, the Healing Flame, and the Everlight, Sarenrae (pronounced SAER-en-ray) is a goddess who teaches temperance and patience in all things. Compassion and peace are her greatest virtues, and if enemies of the faith can be redeemed, they should be.

Yet there are those who have no interest in redemption, who glory in slaughter and death. From the remorseless evil of the undead and fiends, to the cruelties born in the hearts of mortals, Sarenrae's doctrines preach swift justice delivered by the scimitar's edge. To this end, she expects her faithful to be skilled at swordplay, both as a form of martial art promoting centering of mind and body, and so that when they do enter battle, their foes do not suffer any longer than necessary.

Sarenrae is the patron goddess of the Empire of Kelesh, which eventually spread her faith throughout the Inner Sea region. She was one of the gods who fought against and imprisoned Rovagug, holding the Rough Beast at bay while Asmodeus fashioned its prison.

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• Action Girl: Among others, she's a goddess of swordfighting.
• All-Loving Hero: She loves everybody. Even the evil gods (except maybe Rovagug). She is the inheritor of Ihys's mission to safeguard mortals' free will.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Sarenrae, a sun goddess of swordfighting and redemption, is considered by her creator to be his take on Eilistraee, a Forgotten Realms moon goddess of swordfighting and redemption (and more specifically Token Heroic Drow), minus Eilistraee's sensual and chaos aspects (which are represented by Desna and Ashava instead). She also has similarities to Lathander, another sun deity who oversees healing and redemption.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She may be the most forgiving god in the pantheon, but push her and her followers too far...
• Big Good: The leader of the good-aligned gods, and one of the most powerful forces for good in the setting. The Windsong Testaments even pins her as the original Neutral Good being in the multiverse.
• Celestial Paragons and Archangels: Sarenrae is the most powerful empyreal lord, the only one who is a full-fledged deity instead of a demigod. These days she's taken on much of Ihys' portfolio and is the empyreal lord in the same way that Asmodeus is the archdevil.
• Combat Pragmatist: She demands that her paladins fight fairly in a fair fight. She demands that they win an unfair fight.
• Council of Angels: Being an empyreal lord herself, many of her current servants and allies are her fellow empyreal lords and their servants.
• Enemy Mine: With Asmodeus during the war with Rovagug. She threw Rovagug into the rift, while Asmodeus sealed him up. In the modern day, however, and after ages and ages of unrepentant evil on his part, Asmodeus is one of the few beings (alongside Rovagug, ironically enough) that she considers utterly irredeemable.
• Flaming Hair: Her hair appears to be made of flowing tongues of golden fire.
• God-Karting with Beelzebub: She has a surprisingly congenial relationship with Asmodeus rooted in their mutual opposition to Rovagug, albeit for different reasons.
• God of Fire: In the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, Sarenrae is more commonly known as Sister Cinder, goddess of the hearth, whose fire is key to survival for the Realm's followings. In this role, Sarenrae is, quite literally, life. Those without her blessings die.
• God of Light: She's the goddess of healing and the sun. She is one of the setting's main Gods of Good, as she is strongly associated with protection, mercy, and redemption, and is the primary deity and patron of the great empire of Kelesh.
• Good Is Not Soft: One of the kindest beings in the multiverse, but she has a militant side. Consider what she did to Rovagug. She also has a whole sect of True Neutral worshipers (the Cult of the Dawnflower) who focus on her warlike side to almost complete exclusion of her merciful aspect. They will offer anyone exactly one chance to surrender and are merciless if that offer is refused. Of course, she has distanced herself from them in recent years.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Sarenrae has the classic white angelic wings, well-matched to her benevolent and loving nature and her role as one of the most prominent heavenly deities.
• Healer God: While primarily a solar goddess, she is also associated with healing through her focus on mercy and aiding the suffering, and grants her worshippers the Healing domain and the Resurrection and Restoration subdomains.
• Knight Templar: Some of her followers, especially in the south, fell into this. They attempted to suppress or murder followers of other deities in the lands they conquered, like Osirion, and in one case actively tried to prevent the birth of The Messiah among oppressed people under the rule of The Empire that worships her. In the transition to 2E, Sarenrae cast off her neutral clerics and stopped suffering slavery, so this isn't as much of a problem.
• My Greatest Failure: She immensely regrets having created the Pit of Gormuz in a fit of wrath, letting Rovagug let loose his spawn upon Golarion.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Sarenrae's outfit features a deep cleavage extending down to her belly.
• Playing with Fire: She's strongly linked with fire and flames: she has a persistent association with phoenixes — in fact, Keleshite myth credits her with the creation of the first phoenix flock — and she grants the Fire domain to her worshippers.
• Polyamory: Desna, Sarenrae and Shelyn are in a polyamorous on-again, off-again relationship.
• The Power of the Sun: She represents the good aspects of the sun.
• Technical Pacifist: She encourages her followers to try to redeem their foes rather than kill them, though she's understanding if that isn't possible.
• Winged Humanoid: She takes the appearance of an angelic woman with great white wings.

Shelyn

The Eternal Rose
Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music

Alignment: Neutral Good

Shelyn (pronounced SHEHL-ihn) is the goddess of art, beauty, love, and music, and the half-sister of Zon-Kuthon. She started life as a relatively minor deity of beauty, art, and music, but with the destruction of her mother Thron, the former goddess of love, Shelyn gained her mother's portfolio. Shelyn continues to focus on beauty and the related areas of art and music, and has expanded upon her mother's relatively narrow view of love to include all forms of the emotion. In Golarion, she's worshipped throughout Avistan and Tian Xia, and maintains a following among the storm giants.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: She's essentially Sune as a brunette, right down to being a Love Goddess who can sponsor paladins.
• All-Loving Hero: Ever moreso than Sarenrae. Shelyn believes everyone is worth saving, and her paladin code requires that all enemies be given the chance to redeem themselves.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Zon-Kuthon's Cain. In a twist, neither one of them wants to hurt the other, and Zon-Kuthon forbids his followers from making war on hers.
• Even the Girls Want Her: All the gods love Shelyn, even the evil, mad, or monstrous ones — although not necessarily in a way she's comfortable with.
• The Four Loves: Shelyn rules all of these, though she splits Eros with Calistria, who handles the more physical side of things while Shelyn focuses on romance, moonlit walks, and reciting poetry beneath your lover's window at 3 AM in your pyjamas.
• Friend to All Living Things: Reciprocated. By definition, all living things are a friend to her.
• Good Bad Girl: She's had almost as many affairs as Calistria, but even Erastil, who represents families, likes her because she also supports marriage and family, which he views as strengthening communities.
• Hot God: Discussed: artists depict her physical proportions depending on the regional standards for beauty. She's most commonly depicted in Avistan as a young, curvy brunette.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: With Zon-Kuthon. There is some indication that Dou-Bral is still in there, as Zon-Kuthon refuses to harm Shelyn.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Quite possibly. During her fight with Zon-Kuthon, she realized that his glaive was whispering to him, decided that was the source of his evil, and wrested it away from him. He didn't return to normal, but did stop fighting and refuse to harm her from then on. She keeps the glaive as her own weapon, convinced it holds the key to her brother's madness, and despite its constant whispering to her, she has never been corrupted by it herself.
• Love Goddess: A more rarified version than usual: she focuses more on the emotion of love itself, rather than the physical action of sex (which is Calistria's department).
• Love Redeems: She certainly believes so.
• Morality Pet: Despite being enemies with her brother ever since he came back from his journey an Ax-Crazy Humanoid Abomination, she’s the only being in existence that he will not harm.
• Nice Girl: By far the nicest member of the entire pantheon. Her only outright enemy is Rovagug.
• Odd Friendship: With Erastil, god of hunters and farmers. He appreciates her support for families and the two often take sightseeing trips through the multiverse together: being a nature god, he knows how to find spots of hidden natural beauty.
• Polyamory: Desna, Sarenrae and Shelyn are in a polyamorous on-again, off-again relationship. Her church is also stated to be fine with polygamy if all participants consent.
• Stripperiffic: Being the goddess of love, she tends to prefer revealing clothing.
• Technical Pacifist: She encourages her followers to try to redeem their foes rather than kill them, though for a different reason than Sarenrae: killing a person subtracts from the world's beauty because a dead person cannot create new art and add beauty to the world.
• Unholy Holy Sword: The glaive used to be her half-brother Dou-Bral's favoured weapon; when he returned from the void as Zon-Kuthon, he had corrupted it into the Whisperer of Souls. Shelyn took it back during their initial fight, and is now trying to release the souls imprisoned within it.

Torag

Father of Creation

God of the forge, protection, and strategy

Alignment: Lawful Good

Torag (pronounced TORR-awg) is a stoic and serious god who values honor, planning, and well-made steel. He is an often distant deity, lending magical power to his clerics, but leaving his followers to make their own way through life, knowing that this will make them strong and determined.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: To D&D's Moradin. The dwarven creation myth in the two works are near-identical, with the only difference being the names.
• The Blacksmith: He's a god of forging and crafting, and is particularly focused on the shaping of metal. He's a tremendously skilled smith himself, and has crafted numerous wondrous items and weapon.
• Ethnic God: Although he's sometimes worshipped by other species, Torag is first and foremost the patron god of the dwarven race.
• Good Is Not Nice: He tends to be quite a bit more harsh than the other good gods.
• Happily Married: To Folgrit, the dwarven goddess of motherhood, wives, and children.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: He's their god, and is himself every inch the archetypal fantasy dwarf — stout, honorable, skilled at forge- and metalwork, and a proud warrior.
• Odd Friendship: With Nivi Rhombodazzle, the Gnomish god of wanderers and artists. While Torag doesn't appreciate what he sees as her flighty nature, he knows they're both on the side of good and generally thinks she's a decent sort.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Torag does not forgive evildoers; this is one of the reasons why he and Sarenrae do not get along.
• The Strategist: One of his foremost domains is strategy, valuing defense and the ability to keep one's community safe.
• Top God: Torag is the leader of the dwarven pantheon (except Droskar), which consists of his siblings, wife and children.
• War God: As god of strategy, war is definitely part of his portfolio.

Urgathoa

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The Pallid Princess

Goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Urgathoa (pronounced oor-gah-THO-ah) is the Varisian goddess of physical excess, disease, and the undead. She is mostly worshiped by dark necromancers, the undead, and those wishing to become undead. Sometimes those who live gluttonous lifestyles make supplication to her, as do those suffering from a serious illness.

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• Body Horror: Not only does she herself appear half-rotted, but her priestesses sometimes come back as a particularly squicky sort of undead.
• Barrier Maiden: The Godsrain Prophecies suggests this is why the other gods have not tried killing her. As evil as Urgathoa is, she's effectively a Restraining Bolt on undead and necromancy, so her dying would throw the Universe into chaos. Were she to die, some undead would be destroyed, but many would still run amok, and the dead would potentially rise uncontrollably. The prophecy paints her death as leading to a Zombie Apocalypse the world could never recover from.
• Deity of Human Origin: Born a mortal, Urgathoa became a goddess when she escaped Pharasma's Boneyard, being the first ever to literally cheat death.
• Dem Bones: She's an attractive woman from the waist up, but below that she's nothing but a bloodstained skeleton.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She has dark hair and pale skin, which is fitting for a goddess of undeath.
• Enemies with Death: Her philosophy and desire to spread undead makes her hated by Pharasma, the judger of souls.
• Escaped from Hell: Her mythology states that she escaped from the Boneyard while awaiting Pharasma's judgement, unwilling to give up the pleasures of life.
• Evil Sorcerer: A lot of evil necromancers (including Tar-Baphon) are her followers.
• Expy: Of the Norse goddess Hel, at least physically. Personality-wise, she's very different, but her areas of concern do make the War God Gorum oppose her, as dying of cardiac arrest during sex due to drinking coffee and having a smoke and long pork pies for breakfast everyday isn't what would be considered an honorable death.
• Family-Values Villain: Yes, really. See Unholy Matrimony. Her priests and followers are forbidden to divorce, though murdering the other party and reanimating them as an undead slave is fine. (And possibly just one more way to spice things up in the bedroom.)
• Fan Disservice: A gore-covered, shirtless skeleton who happens to still have enough flesh on her head and upper chest to let her keep her face and breasts.
• God of Evil: One of many, though, unlike some evil deities, her worship has some positive aspects.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: She covers her breasts with an arm in her official artwork.
• The Hedonist: She became the first undead because she couldn't face giving up the pleasures of living.
• I'm a Humanitarian: She savors human flesh and encourages cannibalism among her worshipers.
• I Love the Dead: Sex with the undead is not beyond her worshipers. In fact, sentient undead are encouraged to turn their significant others into undead themselves so as to extend their time together.
• Mermaid Problem: Addressed, being a goddess of all kinds of indulgence whose body is partly bones. Somewhat horribly, the loss of the lower half of her body and attendant... organs is part of what made her even worse after becoming a god: since she can no longer indulge in that particular kind of carnal pleasure, she found others of a much worse nature.
• Parental Substitute: Seems to see herself as a sort of mentor/mother figure to Zyphus, demigod of meaningless, accidental death.
• Patient Zero: Sort of. She's the first undead creature to ever exist, and possibly the origin of all disease.
• The Rival: To Calistria, a fellow sex god. The two amicably compete for the same general pool of followers.
• Sinister Scythe: Her favored weapon is a scythe, and her clergy often uses them in combat.
• The Undead: She was the very first undead creature.
• Unholy Matrimony: Had a rather happy relationship with her equally-depraved husband while alive. As such, she's actually a big fan of marriage, believing fully that a shared pleasure is doubled.
• Villainous Glutton: She wants to regain the sensations she enjoyed as a living mortal, so she's devoted herself to depraved acts of gluttony.
• Walking Wasteland: "Her return to the mortal world is said to be the origin of disease."
• War God: Downplayed, but she does have the War and Strength domains.

Zon-Kuthon

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The Midnight Lord

God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss

Alignment: Lawful Evil

The deity Zon-Kuthon (pronounced ZONN-koo-THON) possesses one of the most twisted and evil minds in the Great Beyond. His position as god of pain is well earned, and he has been the root of countless tortures, murders, and worse throughout time.

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• And I Must Scream: To his worshippers, being reduced to a mutilated torso is an honour.
• Axe-Crazy: He’s completely insane, possesses a proclivity for torture and murder, and is a danger to everyone around him. His followers share their patron’s psychotic tastes and spend their time torturing and killing others when they’re not mutilating each other.
• Beyond Redemption: Played with, in that this is potrayed as a reason to pity him - the Godsrain Prophecies show a potential future in which Shelyn cures her brother's madness, causing his old conscience to return...and he is so utterly horrified by what he is and has done he tries to flee back into his old persona, but finds he can't. As a result, the new Dou-Bral resembles a Dark Is Not Evil version of Zon-Kuthon rather than his old self, still being the partly god of loss and despair, completely at a loss with what to do with himself and searching for meaning, and with very ambivalent feelings towards Shelyn.
• Body Horror: Whatever is responsible for his current state messed him up horrendously before letting him go.
• Break the Cutie: He used to be the Neutral Good god of love and beauty. Then something had its way with him.
• Cain and Abel: Zon-Kuthon and his sister are enemies, but he refuses to hurt her.
• Came Back Wrong: Dou-Bral went to explore the cosmos, but found something which ensured that he didn’t return in the same condition as when he left.
• Captain Ersatz: Of the Cenobites from Hellraiser.
• Casting a Shadow: God of Darkness; can grant this power to many of his followers.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: A part of his portfolio, most notably inflicted on his own father.
• Cosmic Horror: He's heavily implied to have run into one which would be responsible for his current madness.
• Dark Is Evil: Zon-Kuthon is a god of darkness and loss, granting his clerics access to the darkness domain.
• Deal with the Devil: With himself as the devil, he made one with the Nidalese horselords after Earthfall, protecting them from the calamity in exchange for eternal servitude.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Downplayed. While Zon-Kuthon has no shared origins with the velstracs, the simple, if entirely coincidental, similarity between his sphere and their interests leads many velstracs to abandon their demagogues and pledge service to Zon-Kuthon.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • He's the God of Loss, and many of his followers have crossed it. It's heavily implied that he has crossed it himself.
  • The Godsrain Prophecies state this is the true reason he is Beyond Redemption; if Shelyn were to ever turn him back into Dou-Bral, he would promptly turn nearly catatonic from horror at the realization of everything he did as Zon-Kuthon and become a depressed shell of himself, albeit a well-meaning one who undergoes a voluntary De-power.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The only god he will never seek to harm is his sister, Shelyn.
• Exact Words: Abadar convinced Zon-Kuthon to stay in exile on the Netherworld until the sun vanished from the sky, in exchange for an item from the First Vault. This was supposed be when the sun burned out billions of years from then, but due to the Age of Darkness, it technically happened much sooner.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Whatever Zon-Kuthon found in his journey throughout the multiverse drove him completely insane.
• God of Darkness: He's the god of darkness and the most powerful being on the Netherworld.
• God of Evil: Of all the main deities he specifically revels in pain and suffering. While other evil gods do cause misery and torture it's usually to further a cause or the results of their actions. To Zon-Kuthon pain is the end goal.
• Good Is Bad And Bad Is Good: To Zon-Kuthon, beauty is mutilation, love is misery, music is screams, and creation is torture.
• Greater-Scope Villain: A played up example in Curse of the Crimson Throne, considering that Kazavon is his champion and is the general Greater-Scope Villain of the adventure path.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Envy is a part of his portfolio, and is what originally spurred him to exile himself to the Outer Planes—he couldn't stand always being second best to his sister.
• Humanoid Abomination: More or less treated this way. His form may be comprehensible, but his mind is not. Some suspect that he may be possessed by a more traditional Eldritch Abomination.
• Mad God: A possible explanation for his behaviour.
• Malevolent Mutilation: He's done it to himself and others, and his followers follow suit.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Abadar once convinced Zon-Kuthon to stay in the prison of Xovaikain for as long as the sun hung in the sky in exchange for an item of his choosing from the First Vault. This imprisonment was over far sooner than it was supposed to, due to Earthfall which plunged Golarion into darkness.
• Too Kinky to Torture: All of his followers.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Zon-Kuthon was originally Dou-Bral, who shared the portfolio of beauty with Shelyn.

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