| 1 | %% |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | %% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Do not uncomment them without expanding them to explain them properly. A trope name with no description has no context to be understood by. How does the trope apply? |
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| 6 | !![[center: [-Main Deities, [[Characters/PathfinderTianXiaDeities Tian Xia Deities]], [[Characters/PathfinderPantheons Racial and Cultural Pantheons]], [[Characters/PathfinderOuterGods Outer Gods]], [[Characters/PathfinderEmpyrealLords Empyreal Lords]], [[Characters/PathfinderFiendishDivinities Fiendish Divinities]], [[Characters/PathfinderGreatOldOnes Great Old Ones]], [[Characters/PathfinderOtherDeities Other Deities]] -]]] |
| 7 | |
| 8 | 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. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | [[Characters/{{Pathfinder}} Back to the main characters page]]. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | [[folder:Gods in General]] |
| 15 | * BeautyEqualsGoodness: 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. |
| 16 | * CelestialBureaucracy: 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. |
| 17 | * DivineConflict: 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 EnemyMine to battle and imprison him in mythic times. |
| 18 | * DivineIntervention: Rarely ''directly'' intervene, but they tend to make their will felt, even if it's just though dreams or the sending of agents. |
| 19 | * FantasyPantheon: 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. |
| 20 | * GiveMeASign: Each has different ways of showing their favor or annoyance to their worshippers, often in the form of something mildly pleasant or annoying happening. |
| 21 | * GodIsFlawed: None are omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. And they mostly have humanlike personalities, complete with quirks and foibles. |
| 22 | * GodKartingWithBeelzebub: Even some gods whose alignments are diametrically opposed may have dealings with each other. Particularly the case with Asmodeus, who always keeps his word. |
| 23 | * GodsHandsAreTied: 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. |
| 24 | * GodsNeedPrayerBadly: 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. |
| 25 | * HopelessBossFight: Some ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' editions, such as 3.5, actually statted out the gods, thus meaning they were in theory defeatable (and via the LordBritishPostulate, you can bet ''someone'' did it). In ''Pathfinder'', the rules for battling a deity are simple: you lose. |
| 26 | * PhysicalGod: 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. |
| 27 | * ReligionIsMagic: 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. |
| 28 | * StockGods: Gods of love, smithing, wine, war, death, and pretty much all the other classics can be found. |
| 29 | * TonightSomeoneDies: 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. |
| 30 | * YinYangClash: 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 EnemyMine and worked in tandem to imprison him. His escape could very well mean TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, as even if the others ''do'' stop him again, the collateral damage would be unfathomable. |
| 31 | [[/folder]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | !!Core Gods |
| 34 | [[folder:Abadar]] |
| 35 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abadar_2e.png]] |
| 36 | ->'''Master of the First Vault''' |
| 37 | ->'''God of cities, wealth, merchants, and law''' |
| 38 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulNeutral |
| 39 | |
| 40 | 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. |
| 41 | ---- |
| 42 | * AncientKeeper: 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. |
| 43 | * BerserkButton: Corruption in the court system, as it causes people to stop trusting their government and leads to chaos. |
| 44 | * ByTheBookCop: How his paladins and other good servants tend to come across. |
| 45 | * TheChessmaster: He plays for the long game even more so than the other gods. |
| 46 | * GodOfOrder: Most LawfulNeutral gods embody this trope to some degree (as do many of the LawfulGood and LawfulEvil 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 LawfulGood deities nor the selfish ulterior motives of LawfulEvil ones; to him, the growth of civilization for its own sake is the only goal that truly matters. |
| 47 | * HonestCorporateExecutive: Abadar is so honest, he is the one of the few non-good gods capable of recruiting paladins into his service. Normally, only LawfulGood 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. |
| 48 | * IGaveMyWord: 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. |
| 49 | * OrderVersusChaos: Even more than other lawful deities, like Asmodeus, Iomedae, or Irori, Abadar represents the rule of law and civilisation, and cannot stand chaos. |
| 50 | * RulesLawyer: 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. |
| 51 | * ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: This is the principle that Abadar operates on, and he expects his followers to do the same. In fact, the inversion of this trope -- ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney -- is his BerserkButton. |
| 52 | * UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: 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. |
| 53 | [[/folder]] |
| 54 | |
| 55 | [[folder:Arazni]] |
| 56 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arazni.png]] |
| 57 | ->'''The Unyielding''' |
| 58 | ->'''Goddess of the abused, dignity and unwilling undeath''' |
| 59 | ->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 60 | |
| 61 | 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. |
| 62 | ---- |
| 63 | * AffablyEvil: Grim and merciless, but she hasn't lost her ability to be polite or show kindness. |
| 64 | * AngelicTransformation: 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. |
| 65 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: 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. |
| 66 | * DarkIsNotEvil: 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 Hero}}es who understand [[IDidWhatIHadToDo what must be done to save others from her fate]]. |
| 67 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: 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. |
| 68 | * DesecratingTheDead: 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. |
| 69 | * {{Expy}}: She seems pretty obviously inspired by [[VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} 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. |
| 70 | * FallenAngel: 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. |
| 71 | * HeartTrauma: 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. |
| 72 | * IHatePastMe: She views her former angel self as having been a self-righteous idiot. |
| 73 | * MagicStaff: 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. |
| 74 | * MoralityPet: 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. |
| 75 | * MutualKill: 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. |
| 76 | * OurLichesAreDifferent: 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. |
| 77 | * PetTheDog: She saves the heroes in Tyrant's Grasp in large part because she's grown rather fond of them. |
| 78 | * PlatonicLifePartners: In life, Arazni was Aroden's adventuring companion and later his herald, [[WithFriendsLikeThese not that it kept him from (literally) leaving her to rot after Geb made her his undead slave]]. |
| 79 | * RedBaron: She was known as the Scarlet Crusader in life. |
| 80 | * RevengeBeforeReason: 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. |
| 81 | * StopWorshippingMe: 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 ''[[DarkIsNotEvil Chaotic Good]]''. |
| 82 | * WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: 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 [[FaceHeelTurn 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. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Asmodeus]] |
| 86 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/asmodeus_pathfinder.png]] |
| 87 | ->'''Prince of Darkness''' |
| 88 | ->'''God of tyranny, slavery, pride, and contracts''' |
| 89 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulEvil |
| 90 | |
| 91 | 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. |
| 92 | ---- |
| 93 | * AffablyEvil: 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. |
| 94 | * AmoralAttorney: He is the evil god of contracts. |
| 95 | * BigRedDevil: His most recognizable appearance, though some suspect that it is AFormYouAreComfortableWith. |
| 96 | * CainAndAbel: He apparently killed his brother and opposite number. |
| 97 | * CarryABigStick: His favored weapon is the light mace. |
| 98 | * CoolChair: His throne in Nessus. Seriously, open up the Book of the Damned and ''look'' at the thing. It's enormous. |
| 99 | * DealWithTheDevil: 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. |
| 100 | * DemonLordsAndArchdevils: 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. |
| 101 | * DevilButNoGod: Asmodeus had a brother and opposite number once. He killed him. |
| 102 | * DespotismJustifiesTheMeans: Many of his followers have this attitude. |
| 103 | * DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Although he sees it as UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans, Asmodeus is willing to sink to pretty extreme depths to create his vision of an ideal world -- one without TheEvilsOfFreeWill. |
| 104 | * EnlightenedSelfInterest: 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. |
| 105 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 106 | ** He helped to seal up the OmnicidalManiac 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. |
| 107 | ** 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. |
| 108 | ** 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. |
| 109 | ** He also refuses to have anything to do with Calistria as she is far too backstabbing to work with. |
| 110 | * EvilCounterpart: To Ihys. |
| 111 | * EvilLawyerJoke: With his emphasis on contracts and LawfulEvil, he's basically this trope personified. 1E's ''Dirty Tactics Toolbox'' even has a unique cleric archetype for his followers called an [[https://aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Cleric%20Asmodean%20Advocate 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. |
| 112 | * TheEvilsOfFreeWill: Asmodeus's motivation for trying to grind all creation under his LawfulEvil heel. Though, given what the other evil gods, as well as [[OmnicidalManiac Daemons]], [[AxCrazy Demons]], and [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Rovagug]], want to achieve, [[EvilVersusOblivion being ruled by Devils seems more safe and sane than being dominated by Demons or killed by Daemons or Rovagug]]. |
| 113 | * ExactWords: Very important to Asmodeus and anyone who wants to deal with him -- especially if dealing with him involves a deal. |
| 114 | * FallenAngel: 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''. |
| 115 | * GodOfEvil: One of several, and possibly the first one to be created. |
| 116 | * HeManWomanHater: 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). |
| 117 | %%* {{Hell}} |
| 118 | * HornedHumanoid: In art Asmodeus is frequently shown as a human with black horns. |
| 119 | * IGaveMyWord: Asmodeus always honours his bargains. |
| 120 | * InformedFlaw: He's supposed to be very misogynistic, but [[http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ptge?Hell-Devils-Archdevils-Whore-Queens-and-the Paizo has stated]] 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. |
| 121 | * LegionsOfHell: Rules over them as the greatest of the Archdevils. |
| 122 | * LoopholeAbuse: His favorite pastime is leading mortals and the like into making unbalanced contracts he or his followers can exploit. |
| 123 | %%* ManOfWealthAndTaste |
| 124 | * MenDontCry: He shed the first and last tear in his existence when he killed his brother Ihys. See also ManlyTears. |
| 125 | * MultipleChoicePast: In the Book of the Damned Asmodeus' origin has been given as either the EvilTwin of the LawfulGood 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 LawfulEvil, one of the oldest, but not the oldest, divinities.[[invoked]] |
| 126 | * MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours: If you want to deal with Asmodeus, you better have strong Rule Fu. |
| 127 | * TheOlderImmortal: 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. |
| 128 | * OmnicidalManiac: Many sages theorize that he's this, seeking to end all mortal life in the multiverse to get rid of [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill that pesky free will thing]]. |
| 129 | * OrderVsChaos: The nature of his conflict with [[LawfulGood Ihys]]. [[LawfulEvil Asmodeus]] [[CainAndAbel killed his brother for it]]. |
| 130 | ** Or rather, this is his spin on it in the Book of the Damned. According to the Windsong Testaments, Ihys was LawfulGood, and their conflict was more about lateral versus vertical resource distribution. |
| 131 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: 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, [[OmnicidalManiac Rovagug]]. |
| 132 | * {{Pride}}: God of it and victim of it. |
| 133 | * PublicDomainCharacter: Asmodeus is a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodeus Hebrew demon]] associated with lust. The ''Pathfinder'' version takes a page from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' by [[SatanicArchetype basing him heavily on Satan]] as well. |
| 134 | %%* RulesLawyer |
| 135 | * RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver: His favored colors are explicitly said to be red and black. |
| 136 | * SatanicArchetype: 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, [[CrystalDragonJesus the closest being to the Abrahamic God in the setting]], who he killed.) |
| 137 | * SlouchOfVillainy: The one picture of him in the [[AllThereInTheManual Book of the Damned]] depicts him doing this on his [[CoolChair absolutely massive throne]]. |
| 138 | * TrulySingleParent: He personally created Mephistopheles and considers himself his father. |
| 139 | * UnreliableNarrator: Whether or not Ihys even existed is a matter of debate, with Paizocommenting that Asmodeus may have made the whole thing up. |
| 140 | * VillainousValour: When he, along with Sarenrae, imprisoned Rovagug at tremendous risk to themselves. |
| 141 | * VisionaryVillain: 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. |
| 142 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: 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. |
| 143 | [[/folder]] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | [[folder:Calistria]] |
| 146 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/calistria.jpg]] |
| 147 | |
| 148 | ->'''The Savored Sting''' |
| 149 | ->'''Goddess of trickery, lust, and revenge''' |
| 150 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticNeutral |
| 151 | |
| 152 | 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. |
| 153 | ---- |
| 154 | * AlphaBitch: Pretty much the goddess of them. |
| 155 | * AxeCrazy: Not as much as Lamshtu or Rovagug, but she does seem to have a few screws loose. |
| 156 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: 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. |
| 157 | * DisproportionateRetribution: What makes her Chaotic Neutral and not ''Evil'' is that she [[DefiedTrope 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. |
| 158 | * GenderBender: Whenever the mood strikes her. |
| 159 | * ItsAllAboutMe: A truly selfish being, Calistria only looks out for herself, though not always to destructive extremes. |
| 160 | * {{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. |
| 161 | * ReallyGetsAround: 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. |
| 162 | * {{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. |
| 163 | * TrueLoveIsBoring: As a rule, Calistria has a low opinion of romantic relationships. She thinks that Shelyn is naive to believe in ThePowerOfLove, although she's still able to remain good friends with her, and demands that her followers avoid extended relationships. |
| 164 | * WhipOfDominance: Her favored weapon, and thus the weapon for her clergy. It's implied that, given the [[HighClassCallGirl standard occupation]] of much of her clergy, it sees lots of [[MundaneUtility out of combat use]]. |
| 165 | * WickedWasps: She identifies very strongly with wasps. |
| 166 | [[/folder]] |
| 167 | |
| 168 | [[folder:Cayden Cailean]] |
| 169 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cayden_cailean.png]] |
| 170 | ->'''The Drunken Hero''' |
| 171 | ->'''God of freedom, ale, wine, and bravery''' |
| 172 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticGood |
| 173 | |
| 174 | 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". |
| 175 | ---- |
| 176 | * TheAlcoholic: 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. |
| 177 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: 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. |
| 178 | * BoisterousBruiser: As in life, so in deification. |
| 179 | * BoozeBasedBuff: Can grant them to his followers. |
| 180 | * ChivalrousPervert: Has put the moves on almost all of the goddesses, from Desna through Calistria, but genuinely accepts when no means no. |
| 181 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: He was a mortal hero who passed the Test of the ''Starstone'' while completely hammered. |
| 182 | * TheDrifter: 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. |
| 183 | * EnsembleDarkhorse[[invoked]]: 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 [[PluckyComicRelief comedic sidekick]]. |
| 184 | * FriendToAllChildren: 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. |
| 185 | * FullNameBasis: 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. |
| 186 | * HeroesLoveDogs: 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 Dog}}s. |
| 187 | * InLoveWithLove: 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. |
| 188 | * MeaningfulName: Cailean is a Scottish name meaning "young dog", [[HeroesLoveDogs an animal that Cayden is very fond of.]] |
| 189 | * NoodleIncident: We have no idea how he managed to [[DeityOfHumanOrigin pass the Test of the Starstone]], [[WhatDidIDoLastNight 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. |
| 190 | * OrphanageOfLove: He has an interest in sponsoring orphanages, perhaps as a thank-you to the long-gone orphanage that raised him. |
| 191 | * PlatonicLifePartners: 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. |
| 192 | * WhatDidIDoLastNight: 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. |
| 193 | [[/folder]] |
| 194 | |
| 195 | [[folder:Desna]] |
| 196 | [[quoteright:600:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/35e3ba7f24f89a21e97922db1f938d25_3789682436_0.png]] |
| 197 | [[caption-width-right:600:some caption text]] |
| 198 | ->'''The Song of the Spheres''' |
| 199 | ->'''Goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck''' |
| 200 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticGood |
| 201 | |
| 202 | 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. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | 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. |
| 205 | ---- |
| 206 | * AnimalMotifs: 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. |
| 207 | * ArchEnemy: |
| 208 | ** Ghlaunder, whom she accidentally released into the world and with whom she's clashed multiple times over the ages. |
| 209 | ** 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. |
| 210 | * BecauseDestinySaysSo: 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. |
| 211 | * BenevolentAbomination: 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 [[BewareTheNiceOnes truly pisses her off]]. The Godsrain Prophecies state that her existence is what keeps Pathfinder safely LovecraftLite, as one of the malevolent {{Eldritch Abomination}}s she oversees managing to overcome her [[TheStarsAreGoingOut promptly causes every star to vanish from the night sky]]. |
| 212 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: The demon lord Aolar used to use the corpses of the recently dead to murder their loved ones ForTheEvulz. 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 ChaoticGood in the multiverse. |
| 213 | * BigCreepyCrawlies: Desna used to be an alien star moth thing before adopting her current form. |
| 214 | * CompositeCharacter: 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[[/note]]. 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 ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' -- 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)[[/note]]. 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''. |
| 215 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Her home is in the night sky. Doubly so for her LivingShadow, Black Butterfly. |
| 216 | * DreamWeaver: The goddess of dreams, and likes using them to communicate. |
| 217 | * AFormYouAreComfortableWith: 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. |
| 218 | * HotGod: When making a rare appearance to mortals, Desna appears as a beautiful woman with long dark hair and shining stars in her eyes. |
| 219 | * ImmortalityBisexuality: She's in relationships with (among others) Cayden Cailean (the father of her son Kurgess), Sarenrae and Shelyn. |
| 220 | * ImpossiblyCoolWeapon: Her favored weapon, the [[FuumaShuriken starknife]]. |
| 221 | * InnocentFanserviceGirl: 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. |
| 222 | * TheLostLenore: Not canonically, but the Godsrain Prophecies state she'd be one to her lovers if she ever died; in the BadFuture outlined by them, her demise promptly sends Cayden Cailean into a [[DrowningMySorrows depressed bender]], causes Shelyn to have a breakdown where [[TrueArtIsAngsty she only accepts mournful songs as truly beautiful]], and Sarenae [[SourOutsideSadInside builds a wall around her heart and dares Shelyn to try and climb it]]. |
| 223 | * MyGreatestFailure: She views accidentally releasing Ghlaunder from his cocoon out of curiosity as one, and has been seeking atonement for that since then. |
| 224 | * {{Polyamory}}: Desna, Sarenrae and Shelyn are in a polyamorous on-again, off-again relationship. |
| 225 | * PrettyButterflies: A good-aligned, gorgeous goddess associated with butterflies. |
| 226 | * SceneryCensor: 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. |
| 227 | * StarfishAliens: In her original form as an alien star moth creature. |
| 228 | * StarPower: She wields the power of stars as tools of prophecy and navigation, and occasionally for smiting the wicked. |
| 229 | * TakeUpMySword: She was gifted the travel domain by Curchanus as his final act before his killer Lamashtu could claim it. |
| 230 | * TimeAbyss: 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. |
| 231 | * TheUnfettered: 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, [[PayEvilUntoEvil 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 AscendedDemon by reaching through a priest the {{succubus}} was in the midst of [[OutWithABang seducing and devouring]] and [[ForcedToFeelEmpathy giving her a conscience]]. |
| 232 | [[/folder]] |
| 233 | |
| 234 | [[folder:Erastil]] |
| 235 | [[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stag.png]] |
| 236 | ->'''Old Deadeye'''\ |
| 237 | '''God of farming, hunting, trade, and family'''\ |
| 238 | '''Alignment:''' LawfulGood |
| 239 | |
| 240 | 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.\ |
| 241 | \ |
| 242 | 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 LawfulEvil stone giant deity Minderhal. |
| 243 | ---- |
| 244 | * {{Arcadia}}: He's the god of good-aligned, small idealised rural communities. |
| 245 | * {{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. |
| 246 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: He has some rather old-fashioned notions about [[MenAreTheExpendableGender men]] and [[StayInTheKitchen 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 [[HumanSacrifice old traditions]]. |
| 247 | * ElderlyImmortal: He's portrayed as a wizened old patriarch with a long beard and a love for the good old days. |
| 248 | * FertilityGod: He's Golarion's primary agriculture deity, also responsible for hunting, family, and rural communities. |
| 249 | * GoodOldWays: He's the primary god in many rural communities and dislikes Abadar's cities. |
| 250 | * GrandpaGod: When not adopting the form of an elk-headed archer, he usually appears as an older man of common birth. |
| 251 | * GrumpyOldMan: One of the forms he takes is an old man with a beard and he is described as being an old curmugeon. |
| 252 | * HappilyMarried: He and Jaidi, an equally ancient goddess of agriculture, have enjoyed a stable and loving marriage for millennia. |
| 253 | * HeroicNeutral: 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. |
| 254 | * HornedHumanoid: Has elk antlers in one of his forms. His angel servants, the stag archons, also have this look. |
| 255 | * TheOlderImmortal: Very much so. He's one of the first gods, and adopts that look. |
| 256 | * 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. |
| 257 | * ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Erastil is a trifle blunt, particularly with regards to the other gods. |
| 258 | * StayInTheKitchen: {{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 [[CelibateHero her disinterest in having a family]]) and Sarenrae, and is PlatonicLifePartners with Shelyn because he appreciates her support for marriage and families: they often take sightseeing trips through the multiverse together. |
| 259 | * WarGod: His favored weapon is the longbow, and he encourages martial training to protect one's community. He has a SoldierVsWarrior-style grudge against Gorum, whom he considers a brute and a bully. |
| 260 | [[/folder]] |
| 261 | |
| 262 | [[folder:Gorum]] |
| 263 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gorum.png]] |
| 264 | ->'''Our Lord in Iron''' |
| 265 | ->'''God of strength, battle, and weapons''' |
| 266 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticNeutral |
| 267 | |
| 268 | 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. |
| 269 | ---- |
| 270 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Gorum is basically a LighterAndSofter [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Kho]][[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 rne]]. Let's see. BloodKnight war god? Check. Represented as an armored figure? Check. Associated with metal, bloodlust, war, tactics, strength and rage? Double check. [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil Brought into the world by violence and will leave/die if violence stops]]? Triple check. Disdain for cowards, MightMakesRight mindset, indifference to anything that isn't related to fighting? Check to all of the above. |
| 271 | * AnimatedArmor: He usually appears as an empty suit of armor carrying a greatsword. An in-universe theory is that it's actually TwentyFourHourArmor 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. |
| 272 | * AsLongAsThereIsEvil: It's said that if all the people of Golarion ever stopped fighting, Gorum would rust and wither away. |
| 273 | * {{BFS}}: Usually pictured with one. His favored weapon is also the greatsword. |
| 274 | * BloodKnight: Along with 99% of his followers. Gorum does not care for the reasons why you fight, only that you do fight. |
| 275 | * BloodSplatteredWarrior: 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. |
| 276 | * TheBully: Gorum is known as a fickle, brutal deity that will take what he wants when he wants. |
| 277 | * ColonelKilgore: Gorum enjoys war, not out of sadism, but because he sees it as a [[WarIsGlorious testing of one's true worth]]. Many of his followers fall into this trope as well. |
| 278 | * DarkIsNotEvil: It could be easily interpreted as such though, depending on how you see war. |
| 279 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Is on the receiving end of it, triggering the War of Immortals. |
| 280 | * DividedDeity: 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. |
| 281 | * TheDreaded: Not as much as [[OmnicidalManiac Rovagug]], but still. Gods fear the day Gorum will turn against them. |
| 282 | * ExtraOreDinary: Not by much, but Gorum places a special emphasis on metal. His clerics and druids can cast metal-related spells. |
| 283 | * FourStarBadass: He is also the god of tactics. |
| 284 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: 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. |
| 285 | -->"Thus the pledge is sealed, and thus you are welcome, forever with our thanks, come what may." |
| 286 | * KnowWhenToFoldEm: 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.) |
| 287 | * LargeAndInCharge: Gorum will always appear as the largest being, as a means to enforce dominance. |
| 288 | %%* MightMakesRight |
| 289 | * NobleDemon: 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. |
| 290 | * OddFriendship: 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. |
| 291 | * PlotTriggeringDeath: Gorum's death is the inciting event that begins the War of Immortals metaplot, which sees a shakeup to Golarion and the pantheon on a whole. In addition, his death is the source of the player characters Mythic Powers during the adventure. |
| 292 | * RedEyesTakeWarning: His only obvious physical trait is his glowing red eyes. |
| 293 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: 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. |
| 294 | * WarGod: Gorum represents war as a whole, for good and bad. |
| 295 | %%* WarIsGlorious: His cardinal belief. |
| 296 | %%* WarriorHeaven: Well, duh. |
| 297 | * WildCard: Gorum does not care about good or evil, or the motivations of the other gods, and therefore will fight for any side. |
| 298 | * WouldntHurtAChild: 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. |
| 299 | [[/folder]] |
| 300 | |
| 301 | [[folder:Gozreh]] |
| 302 | |
| 303 | ->'''The Wind and the Waves''' |
| 304 | ->'''God/goddess of nature, weather, and the sea''' |
| 305 | ->'''Alignment:''' TrueNeutral |
| 306 | |
| 307 | 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. |
| 308 | ---- |
| 309 | * GenderBender: 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. |
| 310 | * LordOfTheOcean: 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. |
| 311 | * MeaningfulName: According to ''Faiths and Philosophies'', his/her name is the last name of Creator/WernerHerzog in reverse, because his films often portray nature as a dangerous force to be reckoned with, something the editors wanted to emphasize. |
| 312 | * ProngsOfPoseidon: Gozreh's favored weapon is the trident, fitting their role as the fickle deity of seas and storms. |
| 313 | [[/folder]] |
| 314 | |
| 315 | [[folder:Iomedae]] |
| 316 | [[quoteright:347:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iomedae.png]] |
| 317 | ->'''The Inheritor''' |
| 318 | ->'''Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor''' |
| 319 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulGood |
| 320 | |
| 321 | 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. |
| 322 | ---- |
| 323 | * ActionGirl: A given as the Goddess of Justice. As a mortal she was a brave knight, who ascended to godhood. |
| 324 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: She's essentially a GenderFlipped version of Torm from ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': both are LawfulGood[[invoked]] deities of valor and duty in righteous causes who originated as mortals who were such good paladins that they became literal deities of paladinhood. |
| 325 | * AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: She was a mortal knight who ascended to godhood by passing the Test of the Starstone. |
| 326 | * BigBrotherMentor: To Milani the Everbloom. |
| 327 | * BigGood: 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. |
| 328 | * BoyishShortHair: Iomedae’s avatar appears as a short-haired swordswoman in gleaming armor and brandishing a longsword and shield. |
| 329 | * BreastPlate: A downplayed example. She's covered completely, but the armor on her chest is more form-fitting than it strictly needs to be. |
| 330 | * CelibateHero: [[FantasyCounterpartCulture 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 [[HeroicBastard her secret lovechild with Apsu]]. |
| 331 | * ChurchMilitant: She's served by several orders of militant knights and was once a member of such an order herself. |
| 332 | * CrystalDragonJesus: 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. |
| 333 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: 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. |
| 334 | * DidTheyOrDidntThey: 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. |
| 335 | * GoodIsNotDumb: Alone of the evil gods, she's willing to [[EnemyMine work with Asmodeus when their interests coincide]], but regards him with extreme caution nonetheless. |
| 336 | * GoodScarsEvilScars: She has two scars on her cheeks, under her eyes. She is one of the BigGood gods of Golarion. |
| 337 | * HeroesPreferSwords: The longsword is her weapon of choice. |
| 338 | * JeanneDArchetype: Right down to the haircut. |
| 339 | * KickTheDog: 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). |
| 340 | * KnightInShiningArmor: One of her followers' main motifs; Iomedae's faithful tend to gravitate towards lifestyles involving a lot of questing, honor and carefully polished armor. |
| 341 | * KnightTemplar: Some of her followers can veer into this, especially in the Worldwound/Mendev. |
| 342 | * LadyOfWar: The book ''Inner Sea Gods'' says she "is both fiercely martial and adamantly feminine." |
| 343 | * NeverAcceptedInHisHometown: As a human, Iomedae was Chelish by birth, but the CivilWar 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. |
| 344 | * ThePaladin: She was one as a human and maintains the attitude now, dedicating herself to the destruction of the Worldwound and other good causes. |
| 345 | * PoorCommunicationKills: {{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. |
| 346 | * RagsToRiches: 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. |
| 347 | * TakingUpTheMantle: She became the inheritor of Aroden's responsibilities and worshippers when her old patron disappeared. |
| 348 | * WarGod: 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. |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Irori]] |
| 352 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/irori.png]] |
| 353 | ->'''Master of Masters''' |
| 354 | ->'''God of history, knowledge, and self-perfection''' |
| 355 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulNeutral |
| 356 | |
| 357 | 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. |
| 358 | ---- |
| 359 | * AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: He achieved physical and mental perfection and was elevated to godhood, without taking the test of the Starstone. |
| 360 | * BareFistedMonk: The primary deity thereof. |
| 361 | * CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Ultimately leads to his becoming a god without the help of a major artifact. |
| 362 | * CrystalDragonJesus: Crystal Dragon Buddha, actually, but the trope still fits, as his followers are basically the ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' equivalent of a real-world religion. |
| 363 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: He was a mortal mystic who attained enlightenment and thereby ascended to godhood. |
| 364 | * GodOfKnowledge: 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. |
| 365 | * HealerGod: 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. |
| 366 | * SelfMadeMan: 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. |
| 367 | * ScrewTheRulesTheyreNotReal: There's a slight rivalry between Irorans and the [[DeityOfHumanOrigin 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." |
| 368 | * SupernaturalMartialArts: Part of his theme. Also marks him as one of only two Gods to have achieved divinity through solely non-magical means. |
| 369 | * UnPerson: 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. |
| 370 | [[/folder]] |
| 371 | |
| 372 | [[folder:Lamashtu]] |
| 373 | [[quoteright:784:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2oz7baqjwsza1.png]] |
| 374 | [[caption-width-right:784:some caption text]] |
| 375 | ->'''Mother of Monsters''' |
| 376 | ->'''Goddess of madness, monsters, and nightmares''' |
| 377 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 378 | |
| 379 | 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. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | 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. |
| 382 | ---- |
| 383 | * ArchEnemy: 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. |
| 384 | * AxCrazy: The goddess of vicious, id-driven behavior that isn't quite Rovagug's hate of everything. |
| 385 | * BastardBegetter: Her followers tend to be very promiscuous, with mothers often not knowing who their children's fathers are, and fathers being oblivious to how many children that they've fathered. |
| 386 | * BerserkButton: 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. |
| 387 | * BodyHorror: 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. |
| 388 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: No deity trusts Lamashtu. Not even the lesser deities, and certainly none of the demon lords. |
| 389 | * CompositeCharacter: Of several Demon Lords from ''D&D'' |
| 390 | ** 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 Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast). 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. |
| 391 | ** 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.[[/note]]. 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. |
| 392 | ** 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. |
| 393 | %%* CorruptTheCutie: Her objective regarding Shelyn. |
| 394 | * DemonLordsAndArchdevils: 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 ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'''s rough equivalent to Demogorgon from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. |
| 395 | * DualWielding: Always pictured with two kukris. |
| 396 | * EatsBabies: Or at least demands their sacrifice. |
| 397 | * EqualOpportunityEvil: 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. |
| 398 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: 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. |
| 399 | * EvilMatriarch: 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. |
| 400 | * EvilVersusEvil: 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 [[OmnicidalManiac extinguish all life]]. |
| 401 | * ExtremeOmnisexual: 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. |
| 402 | * EvilVirtues: 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 [[ThenLetMeBeEvil just retaliation]]. |
| 403 | * FertilityGod: A particulary dark version of the trope. |
| 404 | * FetusTerrible: Creating them is her forte. She is the Mother of Monsters, after all. Her worshippers seek to induce this in themselves. ''[[FateWorseThanDeath And in others]].'' Birth defects in children who aren't involved with her at all tend to be blamed on her, for this reason. |
| 405 | %%* GodOfEvil |
| 406 | * GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: 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. |
| 407 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: A pair of torn bat wings. |
| 408 | * HumanSacrifice: A good way to get her favor is to sacrifice particularly powerful or innocent humanoids to her. |
| 409 | * KillTheGod: 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. |
| 410 | * KukrisAreKool: Always pictured with two of them, one burning, one frozen. |
| 411 | * MakerOfMonsters: 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. |
| 412 | * MotherOfAThousandYoung: Lamashtu has given birth to more offspring than anyone can count, each more twisted and horrific than the last. |
| 413 | * NightmareWeaver: Nightmares are in her portfolio. |
| 414 | * NoCureForEvil: 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. |
| 415 | * ObviousPregnancy: Lamashtu is always depicted as being hugely pregnant. |
| 416 | * PowerBornOfMadness: Madness is one of her Domains. |
| 417 | * PublicDomainCharacter: She's based on a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamashtu Mesopotamian demon]]. |
| 418 | * SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset: She's often depicted wearing underwear made of skulls. |
| 419 | * ThenLetMeBeEvil: 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. |
| 420 | * ThirdEye: She has three eyes, a prominent enough trait that it appears in her holy symbol. |
| 421 | * YouKillItYouBoughtIt: She murdered the beast god Curchanus and stole his portfolio in order to ascend. |
| 422 | [[/folder]] |
| 423 | |
| 424 | [[folder:Nethys]] |
| 425 | [[quoteright:290:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nethys.jpg]] |
| 426 | ->'''The All-Seeing Eye''' |
| 427 | ->'''God of magic''' |
| 428 | ->'''Alignment:''' TrueNeutral |
| 429 | |
| 430 | 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. |
| 431 | ---- |
| 432 | * AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: In life, Nethys had unusually purple skin. |
| 433 | * TheArchmage: Nethys isn't the god of magic for nothing. |
| 434 | * BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil: He's torn by simultaneous urges to protect the world and destroy it. |
| 435 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: 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. |
| 436 | * EveryoneHasStandards: It is noted that Nethys does not support Rovagug or his followers, or tries to destroy Golarion. |
| 437 | * GodOfKnowledge: 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. |
| 438 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: 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. |
| 439 | * MadGod: He suffers from a split personality and borderline schizophrenia. |
| 440 | * TheManBehindTheMan: As a man, Nethys ruled Osirion in secret, using his vassal Azghaad as the "public" pharaoh. |
| 441 | * MoodSwinger: 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. |
| 442 | * ProudToBeAGeek: 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. |
| 443 | * SplitPersonality: He embodies both destructive and restorative magic and these two aspects war for control. |
| 444 | * TakingUpTheMantle: Nethys more or less took up the domain of magic from the deceased Azlanti god Amaznen, who sacrificed himself during Earthfall. |
| 445 | * TwoFaced: One side of his body is normal, the other is cracked and bleeding magic. |
| 446 | * WhiteHairBlackHeart: More insane than evil, but still. |
| 447 | * WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Oh boy did it ever. |
| 448 | [[/folder]] |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[folder:Norgorber]] |
| 451 | |
| 452 | ->'''The Reaper of Reputation''' |
| 453 | ->'''God of greed, secrets, poison, and murder''' |
| 454 | ->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 455 | |
| 456 | 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. |
| 457 | ---- |
| 458 | * AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: 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. |
| 459 | * AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: 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. |
| 460 | * AxCrazy: Bloodthirsty and brutally violent, Norgorber’s Father Skinsaw aspect is worshipped by only the most heartless killers. |
| 461 | * BlackCloak: He's typically depicted wearing a long dark cloak that completely obscures his face and body. |
| 462 | * CombatPragmatist: Unsurprisingly, the god of thieves, murder, and crime is a dirty fighter, and fully expects his followers to be as such. |
| 463 | * DarkIsEvil: The god of people who do their criminal trades at night, and an utterly amoral, highly greedy one. |
| 464 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: 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. |
| 465 | * TheDon: He is basically the god of organized crime. |
| 466 | * ElaborateUndergroundBase: Norgorber's divine realm is a network of sprawling tunnels and caverns beneath the city of Axis. |
| 467 | * TheFaceless: 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. |
| 468 | * ForScience: As Blackfingers, he oversees dangerous and unethical experimentation for the sake of knowledge alone. |
| 469 | * GodOfEvil: The god of truly malevolent criminals and murder, to be precise. |
| 470 | * AHeroToHisHometown: 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. |
| 471 | * {{Hobbits}}: [[MysteriousPast 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 TheSneakyGuy. |
| 472 | * InSeriesNickname: 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. |
| 473 | * InTheHood: Many of his depictions show him as having his face completely obscured by a hood. |
| 474 | * MasterPoisoner: As Blackfingers, he's the god of poisons and the creation thereof. |
| 475 | * MultipleChoicePast: InUniverse. 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. |
| 476 | * PhantomThief: He was one in life, one good enough to infiltrate the cathedral of the Starstone and become the patron god of thieves. |
| 477 | * ProfessionalKiller: Norgorber was an assassin, and counts many of them among his followers. |
| 478 | * SecretKeeper: He hoards secrets like a dragon hoards gold, and values them all the more the fewer other people know them. |
| 479 | * TheSpook: 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. |
| 480 | * TheUsualAdversaries: 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. |
| 481 | [[/folder]] |
| 482 | |
| 483 | [[folder:Pharasma]] |
| 484 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/377px_pharasma_4.jpg]] |
| 485 | ->'''Lady of Graves''' |
| 486 | ->'''Goddess of fate, death, prophecy, and rebirth''' |
| 487 | ->'''Alignment:''' TrueNeutral |
| 488 | |
| 489 | "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. |
| 490 | |
| 491 | 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. |
| 492 | |
| 493 | 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. |
| 494 | ---- |
| 495 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: In general behavior she's a GenderFlip of Kelemvor from ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', as a neutral judge of the dead and supervisor of the multiverse's version of Purgatory, and slayer of the undead. |
| 496 | * ArchEnemy: |
| 497 | ** Urgathoa. Pharasma sees the undead as an affront to the natural order of life and death, so it only follows that their goddess and [[PatientZero ancestor]] (who herself is said to be an escapee from the Boneyard) is not in Pharasma's good books. |
| 498 | ** On a larger scale, the [[EldritchAbomination mysterious entities referred to as Those Who Remain]], which she has opposed since before the other gods ever existed. |
| 499 | ** She's also opposed to Abaddon and the daemons, to the point where she actually allows demons and devils to poach souls that would be destined for that realm. She doesn't specifically care about good or evil, but she opposes the destruction of the universe. |
| 500 | * BarrierMaiden: {{Downplayed}}. She is the original creator of TheWallAroundTheWorld that keeps Those Who Remain from interfering with it, though it is self-sustaining. |
| 501 | * BerserkButton: 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. |
| 502 | * CelestialBureaucracy: The lines in her realm, the Boneyard, could put even the waiting room from ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' to shame: it can take a soul generations in real-time to get through the sorting process. |
| 503 | * CoolChair: 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! |
| 504 | * DarkIsNotEvil: She looks as grim and alien as a GodOfTheDead 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. |
| 505 | * DeathByDespair: Defied. The [[https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sii0 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 [[InsaneTrollLogic a bit suspicious]] when you realize the Godsrain Prophecies were made literally after the [[ThreadOfProphecySevered 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. |
| 506 | * DontFearTheReaper: 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 TheGrimReaper, she has no problem with you being resurrected (it wasn't ''really'' your time yet). Just don't be undead. [[BerserkButton Ever]]. |
| 507 | * GodCouple: 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. |
| 508 | * GodOfTheDead: The TrueNeutral[[invoked]] 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 CelestialBureaucracy where souls wait to receive her judgement before going on to their designated afterlife. She rules over the {{psychopomp}}s, 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 [[BirthDeathJuxtaposition birth]], ruling over both the beginning and end of mortal lives, and is worshipped by midwives as much as by undertakers and undead-hunters. |
| 509 | * HoistByHerOwnPetard: 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 TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. She is aware of this and is grooming the psychopomp usher Atropos to take up her mantle in the next existence. |
| 510 | * JudgementOfTheDead: 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. |
| 511 | * TheMaker: According to ''Concordance of Rivals'', she is the true creator of the multiverse, the structure of which she engineered to keep out [[EldritchAbomination Those Who Remain]]. |
| 512 | * MysticalWhiteHair: It doesn't even look like it's completely affected by gravity. |
| 513 | * TheOlderImmortal: The oldest of all deities (excluding those of the Elder Mythos), predating the existence of the Great Beyond itself: [[spoiler:she is the SoleSurvivor of the previous version of the multiverse and is grooming one of her daughters, the psychopomp usher Atropos, to replace her in the next]]. |
| 514 | * PoorCommunicationKills: 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. |
| 515 | * TeamSwitzerland: 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. |
| 516 | * TimeAbyss: Pharasma is the oldest being in the Great Beyond, being the SoleSurvivor of the previous multiverse. |
| 517 | * TrueNeutral: InUniverse. 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 TheUndead. As the oldest deity in the multiverse, her morality is the center, which sort of makes her TrueNeutral by default. |
| 518 | [[/folder]] |
| 519 | |
| 520 | [[folder:Rovagug]] |
| 521 | [[quoteright:550:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/latest_1439855723.jpg]] |
| 522 | [[caption-width-right:550:some caption text]] |
| 523 | ->'''The Rough Beast''' |
| 524 | ->'''God of wrath, disasters, and destruction''' |
| 525 | ->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 526 | |
| 527 | 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. |
| 528 | ---- |
| 529 | * AnimalisticAbomination: He's incredibly reminiscent of a centipede, albeit an absolutely enormous one. |
| 530 | * ApocalypseHow: He seeks to set off a Class Z and destroy the entire multiverse. |
| 531 | * ArchEnemy: Of the gods and existence itself, but especially of Sarenrae, who imprisoned him. |
| 532 | * BadBoss: 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. |
| 533 | * TheBadGuyWins: Of a sort. In the final end foreseen by Tabris, as recorded in ''Concordance of Rivals'', [[spoiler: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 [[EvilIsNotAToy 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. |
| 534 | * BigCreepyCrawlies: He's commonly depicted as a large monster with traits of spiders, centipedes, and worms. |
| 535 | * CharmPerson: 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. |
| 536 | * TheCorrupter: 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. |
| 537 | * DemonLordsAndArchdevils: Rovagug is an ascended qlippoth lord, making him the most powerful fiendish god in existence. |
| 538 | * DestroyerDeity: 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. |
| 539 | * TheDreaded: He is, bar none, the most feared entity in the multiverse. |
| 540 | * EldritchAbomination: 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. |
| 541 | * EvilVersusOblivion: The OmnicidalManiac Rovagug counted among his enemies fellow evil deities Asmodeus and Dahak. |
| 542 | * {{Expy}}: He is essentially Paizo's answer to [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Tharizdun]], who is also an EldritchAbomination who seeks to destroy all of reality and was sealed away by an alliance of both the good and evil gods. |
| 543 | * FightingAShadow: Rovagug's spawn are so powerful that almost none have been permanently defeated, and yet they're still nothing to the god itself. |
| 544 | * ForcedToWatch: This is how he "loves" Shelyn; he wishes to place her in his eye and make her watch as he destroys everything. |
| 545 | * GodOfEvil: The worst in the pantheon, he literally represents the end of all existence. |
| 546 | * TheGodsMustBeLazy: Sealing Rovagug took the cooperation of every single deity in the pantheon, [[GodsHandsAreTied which makes sense]], but they haven't done much to fight the Spawn emerging from the holes in his prison. |
| 547 | * GreaterScopeVillain: The biggest threat to the setting as a whole, though he really isn't up to much plotting. |
| 548 | * HeroKiller: Slew countless other deities during the war against him. |
| 549 | * IllegalReligion: Cults to Rovagug are banned by nearly every civilisation, and for good reason. |
| 550 | * ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Rovagug is impaled upon Dou-Bral's Star Towers within the Dead Vault, although they have been crumbling since Dou-Bral became Zon-Kuthon. |
| 551 | * ItCanThink: 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 [[BizarreAlienPsychology qlippoth]] origins. However, there are the occasional hints that there's an intelligent mind under all that hunger and hate. |
| 552 | * TheJuggernaut: Rovagug is this from the perspective of the other gods. It was deemed too costly to kill him, and it took an elaborate plan and trap to seal him. The Godsrain Prophecy makes it clear that, even in the event that the gods rally all the new deities that came into existence after he was sealed, the cost of killing Rovagug would be a PyrrhicVictory that would devastate the material plane so much while leaving many deities dead in the end, that it isn't worth it. |
| 553 | * {{Kaiju}}: All of his offspring, including the infamous Tarrasque. Rovagug himself appears as an impossibly huge insect/arachnid/reptile monstrosity. |
| 554 | * KillTheGod: 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. [[spoiler: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]]. This is also why, even many years later, it is seen as too costly to try and kill him, as he would just slay many of the newer deities even if they all worked together. |
| 555 | * MisanthropeSupreme: Again, lots of his followers. Most are drawn to him because they despise living and other people so much, they would prefer to see it wiped out. |
| 556 | * MysteriousPast: 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. |
| 557 | * OmnicidalManiac: Wants the end of everything, universe and all. A major cause of {{Enemy Mine}}s 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. |
| 558 | * SealedEvilInACan: Courtesy of a joint effort by Sarenrae and Asmodeus, with the world itself as the padlock on the can. |
| 559 | * StrawNihilist: A lot of his followers fall under this. |
| 560 | * TailorMadePrison: 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. |
| 561 | * TimeAbyss: 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 ChaoticEvil. Sort of. |
| 562 | * TrulySingleParent: His Spawn are his children, of which he is the only parent. |
| 563 | %%* {{Wrath}} |
| 564 | [[/folder]] |
| 565 | |
| 566 | [[folder:Sarenrae]] |
| 567 | [[quoteright:342:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sarenrae.png]] |
| 568 | ->'''The Dawnflower''' |
| 569 | ->'''Goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing''' |
| 570 | ->'''Alignment:''' NeutralGood |
| 571 | |
| 572 | 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. |
| 573 | |
| 574 | 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. |
| 575 | |
| 576 | 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. |
| 577 | ---- |
| 578 | * ActionGirl: Among others, she's a goddess of swordfighting. |
| 579 | * AllLovingHero: She loves everybody. Even the evil gods (except maybe Rovagug). She is the inheritor of Ihys's mission to safeguard mortals' free will. |
| 580 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Sarenrae, a sun goddess of swordfighting and redemption, is considered by her creator to be his take on Eilistraee, a ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' moon goddess of swordfighting and redemption (and more specifically [[TokenHeroicOrc 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. |
| 581 | %%* {{Archenemy}}: Of Rovagug. |
| 582 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: She may be the most forgiving god in the pantheon, but push her and her followers too far... |
| 583 | * BigGood: 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 NeutralGood being in the multiverse. |
| 584 | * CelestialParagonsAndArchangels: 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. |
| 585 | * CombatPragmatist: She demands that her paladins fight fairly ''in a fair fight''. She demands that they ''win'' an unfair fight. |
| 586 | * CouncilOfAngels: Being an empyreal lord herself, many of her current servants and allies are her fellow empyreal lords and their servants. |
| 587 | * EnemyMine: 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. |
| 588 | * FlamingHair: Her hair appears to be made of flowing tongues of golden fire. |
| 589 | %%* FlamingSword |
| 590 | * GodKartingWithBeelzebub: She has a surprisingly congenial relationship with Asmodeus rooted in their mutual opposition to Rovagug, albeit for [[AllLovingHero different]] [[EvilVersusOblivion reasons]]. |
| 591 | * GodOfFire: 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. |
| 592 | * GodOfLight: She's the goddess of healing and the sun. She is one of the setting's main [[GodOfGood 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. |
| 593 | * GoodIsNotSoft: 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 TrueNeutral 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. |
| 594 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: 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. |
| 595 | * HealerGod: 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. |
| 596 | %%* KillItWithFire |
| 597 | * KnightTemplar: 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 TheMessiah among oppressed people under the rule of TheEmpire 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. |
| 598 | * MyGreatestFailure: She immensely regrets having created the Pit of Gormuz in a fit of wrath, letting Rovagug let loose his spawn upon Golarion. |
| 599 | * NavelDeepNeckline: Sarenrae's outfit features a deep cleavage extending down to her belly. |
| 600 | * PlayingWithFire: She's strongly linked with fire and flames: she has a persistent association with [[ThePhoenix phoenixes]] -- in fact, Keleshite myth credits her with the creation of the first phoenix flock -- and she grants the Fire domain to her worshippers. |
| 601 | * {{Polyamory}}: Desna, Sarenrae and Shelyn are in a polyamorous on-again, off-again relationship. |
| 602 | * ThePowerOfTheSun: She represents the good aspects of the sun. |
| 603 | * TechnicalPacifist: She encourages her followers to try to redeem their foes rather than kill them, though she's understanding if that isn't possible. |
| 604 | * WingedHumanoid: She takes the appearance of an angelic woman with great white wings. |
| 605 | [[/folder]] |
| 606 | |
| 607 | [[folder:Shelyn]] |
| 608 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shelyn.jpg]] |
| 609 | |
| 610 | ->'''The Eternal Rose'''\ |
| 611 | '''Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music''' |
| 612 | ->'''Alignment:''' NeutralGood |
| 613 | |
| 614 | 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. |
| 615 | ---- |
| 616 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: She's essentially [[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms Sune]] as a brunette, right down to being a LoveGoddess who can sponsor paladins. |
| 617 | * AllLovingHero: 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. |
| 618 | * CainAndAbel: 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. |
| 619 | * EvenTheGirlsWantHer: ''All'' the gods love Shelyn, even the evil, mad, or monstrous ones -- although not necessarily in a way she's comfortable with. |
| 620 | * TheFourLoves: 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. |
| 621 | * FriendToAllLivingThings: Reciprocated. By definition, all living things are a friend to her. |
| 622 | * GoodBadGirl: 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. |
| 623 | * HotGod: {{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. |
| 624 | * IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: With Zon-Kuthon. There is ''some'' indication that Dou-Bral is still in there, as Zon-Kuthon refuses to harm Shelyn. |
| 625 | * IncorruptiblePurePureness: 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. |
| 626 | * LoveGoddess: 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). |
| 627 | * LoveRedeems: She certainly believes so. |
| 628 | * MoralityPet: Despite being enemies with her brother ever since he came back from his journey an AxCrazy HumanoidAbomination, she’s the only being in existence that he will not harm. |
| 629 | * NiceGirl: By far the nicest member of the entire pantheon. Her only outright enemy is [[GodOfEvil Rovagug]]. |
| 630 | * OddFriendship: 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. |
| 631 | * {{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. |
| 632 | %%* ThePowerOfLove |
| 633 | * {{Stripperiffic}}: Being the goddess of love, she tends to prefer revealing clothing. |
| 634 | * TechnicalPacifist: 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. |
| 635 | * UnholyHolySword: The glaive used to be her half-brother Dou-Bral's favoured weapon; when he [[CameBackWrong returned from the void]] as Zon-Kuthon, he had corrupted it into the [[SoulJar Whisperer of Souls]]. Shelyn took it back during their initial fight, and is now trying to release the souls imprisoned within it. |
| 636 | [[/folder]] |
| 637 | |
| 638 | [[folder:Torag]] |
| 639 | [[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/torag.png]] |
| 640 | ->'''Father of Creation''' |
| 641 | ->'''God of the forge, protection, and strategy''' |
| 642 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulGood |
| 643 | |
| 644 | 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. |
| 645 | ---- |
| 646 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: To ''D&D''[='=]s Moradin. The dwarven creation myth in the two works are near-identical, with the only difference being the names. |
| 647 | * TheBlacksmith: 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. |
| 648 | * EthnicGod: Although he's sometimes worshipped by other species, Torag is first and foremost the patron god of the dwarven race. |
| 649 | * GoodIsNotNice: He tends to be quite a bit more harsh than the other good gods. |
| 650 | * HappilyMarried: To Folgrit, the dwarven goddess of motherhood, wives, and children. |
| 651 | * OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: He's their god, and is himself every inch the archetypal fantasy dwarf -- stout, honorable, skilled at forge- and metalwork, and a proud warrior. |
| 652 | * OddFriendship: 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. |
| 653 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: Torag does not forgive evildoers; this is one of the reasons why he and Sarenrae do not get along. |
| 654 | * TheStrategist: One of his foremost domains is strategy, valuing defense and the ability to keep one's community safe. |
| 655 | * TopGod: Torag is the leader of the dwarven pantheon (except Droskar), which consists of his siblings, wife and children. |
| 656 | * WarGod: As god of strategy, war is definitely part of his portfolio. |
| 657 | [[/folder]] |
| 658 | |
| 659 | [[folder:Urgathoa]] |
| 660 | [[quoteright:600:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ac19d6c09c5941bb0abc36d31bd2f51c_598812514.jpg]] |
| 661 | [[caption-width-right:600:some caption text]] |
| 662 | ->'''The Pallid Princess''' |
| 663 | ->'''Goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath''' |
| 664 | ->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 665 | |
| 666 | 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. |
| 667 | ---- |
| 668 | * BodyHorror: Not only does she herself appear half-rotted, but her priestesses sometimes come back as a particularly {{squick}}y sort of undead. |
| 669 | * BarrierMaiden: The [[https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6siik?The-Godsrain-Prophecies-Part-Four Godsrain Prophecies]] suggests this is why the other gods have not tried killing her. As evil as Urgathoa is, she's effectively a RestrainingBolt 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 ZombieApocalypse the world could never recover from. |
| 670 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: Born a mortal, Urgathoa became a goddess when she escaped Pharasma's Boneyard, being the first ever to literally cheat death. |
| 671 | * DemBones: She's an attractive woman from the waist up, but below that she's nothing but a bloodstained skeleton. |
| 672 | * EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: She has dark hair and pale skin, which is fitting for a goddess of undeath. |
| 673 | * EnemiesWithDeath: Her philosophy and desire to spread undead makes her hated by Pharasma, the judger of souls. |
| 674 | * EscapedFromHell: Her mythology states that she escaped from the Boneyard while awaiting Pharasma's judgement, unwilling to give up the pleasures of life. |
| 675 | * EvilSorcerer: A lot of evil necromancers (including Tar-Baphon) are her followers. |
| 676 | * {{Expy}}: Of the Norse goddess Hel, at least physically. Personality-wise, she's very different, but her areas of concern do make the WarGod Gorum oppose her, as dying of cardiac arrest during sex due to drinking coffee and having a smoke and [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies long pork pies]] for breakfast everyday isn't what would be considered an honorable death. |
| 677 | * FamilyValuesVillain: Yes, really. See UnholyMatrimony. Her priests and followers are forbidden to divorce, though murdering the other party and reanimating them as an undead slave is fine. (And possibly [[{{Squick}} just one more way to spice things up in the bedroom]].) |
| 678 | * FanDisservice: 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. |
| 679 | * GodOfEvil: One of many, though, unlike some evil deities, her worship has ''some'' positive aspects. |
| 680 | * HandOrObjectUnderwear: She covers her breasts with an arm in her official artwork. |
| 681 | * TheHedonist: She became the first undead because she couldn't face giving up the pleasures of living. |
| 682 | * ImAHumanitarian: She savors human flesh and encourages cannibalism among her worshipers. |
| 683 | * ILoveTheDead: 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. |
| 684 | * MermaidProblem: 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. |
| 685 | * ParentalSubstitute: Seems to see herself as a sort of mentor/mother figure to Zyphus, demigod of meaningless, accidental death. |
| 686 | * PatientZero: Sort of. She's the first undead creature to ever exist, and possibly the origin of all disease. |
| 687 | %%* {{Plaguemaster}} |
| 688 | * TheRival: To Calistria, a fellow sex god. The two amicably compete for the same general pool of followers. |
| 689 | * SinisterScythe: Her favored weapon is a scythe, and her clergy often uses them in combat. |
| 690 | * TheUndead: She was the very first undead creature. |
| 691 | * UnholyMatrimony: 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. |
| 692 | * VillainousGlutton: She wants to regain the sensations she enjoyed as a living mortal, so she's devoted herself to depraved acts of gluttony. |
| 693 | * WalkingWasteland: "Her return to the mortal world is said to be the origin of disease." |
| 694 | * WarGod: Downplayed, but she does have the War and Strength domains. |
| 695 | [[/folder]] |
| 696 | |
| 697 | [[folder:Zon-Kuthon]] |
| 698 | [[quoteright:474:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/th_3848111264.jpg]] |
| 699 | [[caption-width-right:474:some caption text]] |
| 700 | ->'''The Midnight Lord''' |
| 701 | ->'''God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss''' |
| 702 | ->'''Alignment:''' LawfulEvil |
| 703 | |
| 704 | 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. |
| 705 | ---- |
| 706 | * AndIMustScream: To his worshippers, being reduced to a mutilated torso is an ''honour''. |
| 707 | * AxeCrazy: 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. |
| 708 | * BeyondRedemption: Played with, in that [[AlasPoorVillain 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 [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone utterly horrified]] by what he is and has done [[IgnoredEpiphany he tries to flee back into his old persona]], but finds [[SubvertedTrope he can't]]. As a result, the new Dou-Bral resembles a DarkIsNotEvil version of Zon-Kuthon rather than his old self, still being the [[BrokenBird partly god of loss and despair]], completely [[JourneyToFindOneself at a loss with what to do with himself and searching for meaning]], and with ''very'' ambivalent feelings towards Shelyn. |
| 709 | * BodyHorror: Whatever is responsible for his current state messed him up horrendously before letting him go. |
| 710 | %%* BondageIsBad |
| 711 | * BreakTheCutie: He used to be the NeutralGood god of love and beauty. Then ''something'' had its way with him. |
| 712 | * CainAndAbel: Zon-Kuthon and his sister are enemies, but he refuses to hurt her. |
| 713 | * CameBackWrong: 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. |
| 714 | * CaptainErsatz: Of the Cenobites from ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}''. |
| 715 | * CastingAShadow: God of Darkness; can grant this power to many of his followers. |
| 716 | * ColdBloodedTorture: A part of his portfolio, most notably inflicted on his own father. |
| 717 | * CosmicHorror: He's heavily implied to have run into one which would be responsible for his current madness. |
| 718 | * DarkIsEvil: Zon-Kuthon is a god of darkness and loss, granting his clerics access to the darkness domain. |
| 719 | * DealWithTheDevil: With himself as the devil, he made one with the Nidalese horselords after Earthfall, protecting them from the calamity in exchange for eternal servitude. |
| 720 | * DemonLordsAndArchdevils: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. 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. |
| 721 | * DespairEventHorizon: |
| 722 | ** He's the God of Loss, and many of his followers have crossed it. It's heavily implied that he has crossed it himself. |
| 723 | ** The Godsrain Prophecies state this is the true reason he is BeyondRedemption; if Shelyn were to ever turn him back into Dou-Bral, he would [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone 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 DePower. |
| 724 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The only god he will never seek to harm is his sister, Shelyn. |
| 725 | * ExactWords: 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 [[ApocalypseHow Age of Darkness]], it technically happened ''much'' sooner. |
| 726 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[EldritchAbomination Whatever Zon-Kuthon found]] in his journey throughout the multiverse drove him completely insane. |
| 727 | * GodOfDarkness: He's the god of darkness and the most powerful being on the Netherworld. |
| 728 | * GodOfEvil: 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. |
| 729 | * GoodIsBadAndBadIsGood: To Zon-Kuthon, beauty is mutilation, love is misery, music is screams, and creation is torture. |
| 730 | * GreaterScopeVillain: A played up example in ''Curse of the Crimson Throne'', considering that [[DarkMessiah Kazavon]] is his champion and is the general GreaterScopeVillain of the adventure path. |
| 731 | * GreenEyedMonster: 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. |
| 732 | * HumanoidAbomination: 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 EldritchAbomination. |
| 733 | * MadGod: A possible explanation for his behaviour. |
| 734 | * MalevolentMutilation: He's done it to himself ''and'' others, and his followers follow suit. |
| 735 | %%* NightmareFetishist |
| 736 | * SealedEvilInACan: 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. |
| 737 | %%* TheOlderImmortal: [[spoiler: Zon-Kuthon was a god in the previous incarnation of the multiverse, making him at least as old as Pharasma. Unlike Pharasma, he died when his multiverse collapsed, but he had a plan in the form of a "back-up drive" that he cast out beyond the Outer Sphere. Come the modern multiverse, the quintessence that made up his being was formed into the being of Dou-Bral, who was eventually lured beyond the Outer Sphere and overwritten with his previous incarnation, allowing Zon-Kuthon to be born anew]]. |
| 738 | * TooKinkyToTorture: All of his followers. |
| 739 | * UsedToBeASweetKid: Zon-Kuthon was originally Dou-Bral, who shared the portfolio of beauty with Shelyn. |
| 740 | [[/folder]] |
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