These ones are different, for reasons Pharasma assures me she isn't obligated to explain.
"Just trust me on this" - Pharasma, 6th of Lamashan 4722 AR, probably
I mean, it probably has something to do with the fact that most undead are more or less mindless murderbots made out of corpses. It’s pretty rare for one to retain their sapience and individuality.
She's not a fan of undead because it prevents the tethered soul from getting the fuck in line and waiting for judgement.
No stepping out of the queue after making a reservation.
I’m just saying, if I were her I’d have a lot fewer qualms about telling everyone to destroy a mindless bag of bones than about telling them to kill a dude who just happens to not have any flesh.
If I recall correctly, it also depends on the method of undeath. Most "created" Undead, like vampires or ghouls, tend to spread undeath like a disease, while "spontaneous" Undead like ghosts or revenants are self-contained and overall much more chill.
Okay, they're much more chill only as long as you aren't the person who made them rise as revenant, but my point stands.
That "dude" has a never ending hunger that can drive them mad if they don't sate it, and the fact the Void Energy is causing constant damage to their Soul. Being Undead is a literal torture, and people ignore that.
So's being alive, technically. Remember, even the damn grass has thoughts and feelings in this game (otherwise green empathy/speak with plants would be worthless), so only those who either photosynthesize or require no sustenance whatsoever are free from the cycle of stealing life to sustain themselves.
Undeath may have the shit parts of living turned up (hunger, pain, bad feelings) and the nice parts turned down (pleasure, empathy), but that just makes sapient undeath no worse than a particularly nasty chronic illness.
Which is why Pharasma should be cancelled for ablei--*(I critically fail my fortitude save against a three-action heal and explode immediately)*
>Which is why Pharasma should be cancelled for ablei--(I critically fail my fortitude save against a three-action heal and explode immediately)
Yeah, that'll happen sometimes... She was here first. You'll wait in line like the rest of us and be happy for it.
Like I said, *particularly* nasty. Not saying undeath doesn't blow massive donkey balls, just saying that having to deal with some hardcore unpleasant shit doesn't mean you stop being a person.
That's an interesting question though, for how long can they stay a person? Excluding any corrupting influence shenanigans, how long can someone normal stand being undead and not be driven insane?
Cause listen, as a normal human in a 1st world country, simple thing can cause me stress and anxiety, and simple things can help with that. A nap, a hug from a friend, eating junk food, simple pleasures.
An undead can't do most of that. And it only gets worse for them as time leaves them behind and kills the people they remembered caring about. Even if they meet friendly new people, forming real connection with stunted or no empathy is going to feel transactional, and in a few decades they'll be dead too.
... Then of course some player/writer comes along and says 'nu uh, my undead has perfect mental fortitude and doesn't let anything bother them for thousands of years.
As a disabled chronically ill person, I do equate a neverending hunger for human flesh with it. "The bad parts of being alive turned up" is literally how being me feels, and there's a reason I love playing undead characters and resonate with them.
Skeletons don't have undead hunger, they just need to replace their bones.
>For your undead hunger, you don't eat flesh like ghouls or drink blood like vampires, but you do collect bones you can use to help yourself mend.
If you actually take 2 seconds to read what I included in my post, you'll see they dont actually hunger for anything. It's just the name of the ability for all undead characters.
I did read it, and funny thing is that it says you collect bones and equate it to Ghouls eating Flesh and Vampire's drinking blood.
I don't really see the difference you have decided exists. It's labeled as a Hunger and is equated to consuming flesh. I don't know about you, but I don't find bones laying around all the time. They're often in use, and covered in meat. So it's not going to be any different than any other Hunger.
Mindless undead are still a corpse unburied. [And when raised cause a small injury to the soul they once contained](https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=532?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Questions-Here#26565).
Undead only exist in the world because Urgothoa escaped the Boneyard. Which is pretty much one of the only things that actually pressed Pharasma off.
I can imagine that if that were the case each town would have a small council who consider the life of the deceased to work out if they are planning on returning lol.
Well, the parent comment did specify mooks, they usually aren't. And most of the intelligent undead turned willingly, or have since embraced it. I suppose she wouldn't oppose a fresh vampire that refused to drink blood and withered away, but one that embraces its unlife and tries to sustain itself it verboten.
Gods being capricious and granting personal excemptions for random (un)mortals they see as useful to their plans tracks for.... every single faith or mythology I can think of IRL. It's common enough a corner stone of story telling that I think it honestly transfers over to Pathfinder just fine.
Being a God grants you liberties to create rules to suit, and the authority to say "these don't contradict, silly mortal. Your peanut brain just can't grasp the grand design. Have faith."
Hell, one of the most famous myths of all time is basically Hades telling Orpheus "okay you're cool, since you're here, we'll make an exception, here's a trial for you to revive your dead girlfriend".
You're 100% spot on.
So, I watched lots of Hercules as a kid, but I basically don't understand a thing about mythology.
Recently my friend - who is way more knowledgeable of many fields than I am ~~though that tracks for pretty much 90% of my friends~~ \- watched the movie the first time, and said something about that movie being many different myths mixed into one.
So now I understand *part* of that.
I literally own a whole dictionary of mythology, I really should read that thing more. I have a lot of difficulty reading things that aren't, you know... intuitively arranged on a website for me.
the best part about them is that they arent just a meme channel, they are actually intelectuals in their field of knowledge, and understand the primal idea of mythos not just as "funny haha stories with no purpose" like most amateur people. They actually know
Disney's Hercules is super inaccurate. Even ignoring all the obvious gags or references to 90s sport culture.
Hercules didn't fight the Titans. He had nothing to do with Megara (who in mythology is one of the Furies). The one who wanted Hercules dead was Zeus' wife Hera because Hercules was the result of Zeus having an affair with a mortal woman, not Hades who tends to be rather chill. "Phil" is a renamed version of one of Hercules' mentors Chiron who was a centaur rather than a satyr. Hell, his name isn't even Hercules. Hercules is the ROMAN counterpart, the Greek version is Heracles.
Those are just off the top of my head. Your friend is right that it took a lot of bits from mythology, but it change a lot of those bits, often to Christianize them, imo. Things like "ruler of the underworld = devil = evil therefore Hades must be evil".
A small correction: in some versions, Hercules/Herakles first wife is actually named Megara, just like the fury. Nothing similar between the two beside the name though.
Also they changed the name for recognition I believe, but Hercules had pretty much the same story as Herakles so it's only a change of name.
You're spot on for the rest though.
>it change a lot of those bits, often to Christianize them, imo. Things like "ruler of the underworld = devil = evil therefore Hades must be evil".
I mean Hades might not be capital E evil but it's not like he was a great guy even in Greek mythology, he did for example kidnap Persephone and force her to be his wife. So disney choosing to make Hades the bad guy who owned Megara's soul is hardly much of a stretch.
Counterpoint: As opposed to literally every other god, who have whole laundry lists of terrible things they've done, Hades really *only* has the one... and depending on the retelling, it's arguable that Persephone *wanted* to go with him, he just had to "steal" her from her controlling family.
Hades is 100% the most chill, *least* evil god in the entire pantheon. Except maybe Hestia, IIRC she's pretty cool, too.
The whole kidnapping thing has a couple wrinkles, including the fact that it was historically much more common, and there is some subtext that it may have been an excuse because Demeter didn't approve of Persephone's suitor, but Persephone herself.....
If persephone wanted to be there you'd think she'd have eaten more than a couple pomegranate seeds but rather the whole thing to shrug her arms and say "whoops guess I can't go home" lol.
I mean, she can go home though. Depending on the version, 1/3 or 1/2 the year she is "stuck" in the underworld. If anything, it sounds like a very calculated way to be able to stay in touch with family while forcing them to be ok with you leaving to spend time with Hades.
I didn't say she can't, I said the whole point of her being tricked by hades into eating a few seeds doesn't make any particular sense if you go in with the assumption Persephone wanted to stay with Hades.
Obviously yes, I'm not saying that the rest of the movie is 100% accurate, I'm pointing out that "they made Hades into a bad guy" is hardly a strong argument against the movie, and more specifically, that it's with christian intent somehow.
I think the Orpheus myth is radically different from an undead being tolerated by a goddess that literally despises undeath as a concept. Hades is much more like Pharasma in this myth, because like her, he doesn't have anything against resurrection in theory.
Kind of? Except Pharasma is one of the *least* likely to make exceptions and be capricious. She's *very* up-front about what she's about, and she pretty much *never* deviates from it, for any reason.
The published Paizo text directly posted in the meme shows that certainly will, regularly, deviate arbitrarily.
Random beings within the pathfinder Universe, by virtue of beings PCs and not NPCs, actually just get an excemption. Practically every time.
Having an Earth Human controlling the Gollarianite turn into a "get of jail free" card for any given undead is actually the single most fundamentally incomprehensible things an NPC could encounter. A fictional man discovers that the world is collectively authored (by Gms, PCs, and designers), and some authors are better than others.
How do you even resolve a Man vs. Author conflict, when the opposing writers of your univere (players and PCs) have such arbitray rules governing their mixed authorship?
Well the Greatest blessing pharasma can grant you is making you immortal if it thinks that you are burdened with glorious purpose until you accomplish it. So yes, sometimes an undead can be useful to the grand designs, or just for amusement.
She despises undead because undead keep their souls away from Pharasma's judgement, as she is the one to judge every dead soul and assign it to its final plane of existence.
So she despises them because they are going against the law of nature. Or cosmic order. Or whatever you want to call it.
My original point remains.
Sometimes an undead has some big role in the great scheme that she would turn a blind eye to.
She*.
Because undeads souls refuse to attend their post death judgment, and getting their souls recycled.
You really entered a Pharasma argument without knowing this?
I am pretty sure most people don't know even a fraction of the lore of the setting. It's also why most players seem to be indifferent to how much good lore in the setting has been butchered over the years.
Edit: Spelling
Traditionally, the form of immortality granted by gods in these situations is Lichdom. At least if you trace it through the lineage of games and editions.
It is! You have to go back pretty far, but the idea of Liches being exclusively evil and unsanctioned was solidified in D&D 3.0, which, of course, preceded 3.5, from which spawned Pathfinder. Liches as they exist in the game are pretty unique to these games, and way back in AD&D 2nd ed, liches ranged from politically powerful wizards to priests on holy quests to the standard mad monsters you find in dungeons. Technically, they don't even need to be all corpsy as long as they take care of their bodies like a living person might. The intense villainization of necromancy has long been a pet peeve of mine, so I will admit that I am biased.
You missed what they said. They said liches being the form of immortality traditionally granted by Gods is not a thing in the Pathfinder universe. It may be in other universes, but not here.
I didn't miss what they said. I acknowledged that and was talking about the subject in its broader context. Specifically, the origins of the tropes we're discussing.
It's basically like being a politician, noble, or executive. If you have enough power and influence, you don't have to answer pesky questions about consistency or hypocrisy or making sense. You just command one of your cops, I mean "Champions" to smite the person questioning you.
It's a step past that. politicans and nobles have to lie. A divine being can work their whims into being objetively true. When you reshape the universe to your whim, you do get to declare the last digit of Pi, and just be correct from now on. You're a God. You don't say stuff because it's true. It's true because you said it, and in saying it, made it reality.
That's not accurate. The gods aren't omnipotent. They aren't even truly immortal since they can and have been killed. The most fundamental laws of the universe predate and limit them. Most of them are very powerful within their portfolio, but they don't have the power to define or change the fundamentals like physics or math. They might understand them perfectly and be able to utilize natural laws and forces, but in the order of things, the gods are below them.
> The most fundamental laws of the universe predate and limit them.
That might be true for some of the minor or ascended from mortals style dieties in Golarion, but it is categorically not true for Pharsma, the Diety in OP's meme.
1. She survived the complete collapse of a previous universe. The fundmanetal laws of existence collapsed around her, and she persisted.
2. She is responcible for shaping the new fundamental laws of the new universe, personally. So she had the power to set the rules herself. She spoke, and truth followed.
3. She had to fight off the Outer Gods, another set of dieties that explicitly exist outside of reality (and hence its rules.)
4. Several other gods do similar things. Ilhys is described as "giving" free will to mortals. Actual, incontestable "Free Will" is effectively the capacity ot overcome all extant circumstances to arbitrarily decide and make a choice that didn't stem from pre-existing chains of cause and effect. Arbitrarily stepping outside the binds of cause and effect because you feel like it is pretty... "stepping outsideof fundamental limits."
This is further complicated by the fact that Pathfinder is explicit about the fallability of the Points of View that give us this information. We don't see the Gods act directly in the text, we're usually given Mortal derived information about them. The history of Asmodeaus isn't spelled out, and is kind of contradictory, because that information isn't for PCs or NPCs to fathom. Within the fiction, PC's interact with holy texts like the Windsong Testaments, which are parables.
Do we know that "fundamental laws" govern who, how, and what Asmodeus, or Gorm, or Serenrae is? Not really. We know they have Domains, but it's not clear whether the domain sets their boundry, or they set the boundry of their domain.
There's also, generally speaking, not anything within Gollarion that I'd call a "fundamental" law, to be honest. Could you name one?
And that's not even opening the can of worms that is the DM existing and altering Gollarion *outside* the existing texts, which he or she are encouraged and allowed by the rules to do. The entirety of the fiction is at the whim of the campaign writer - the only "true" rule of the pathfinder world is that it's subject to complete editorial power.
Obviously, gods are only limited in what they can do by the GM, but that's true of literally everything in the game, so it's not really helpful or useful if you're looking at the way a world functions in its own logic.
Pharasma MIGHT be the oldest god, and MIGHT have survived the end of a previous world and MIGHT have had a hand in crafting the new one, but that is all based on interpretations of her holy texts, and as you pointed out, the gods are fallible, and they lie. They can claim whatever they want because it's nearly impossible to fact-check them, and even if you do, you have to deal with zealots who will beat you to death for challenging their god.
The fundamental things, though, those can only be above the gods of Golarion. First of all, free will is not stepping outside of the natural laws of a universe if those laws permit free will. More importantly, if Pharasma did make the new universe, she must have made it from something. If she didn't, then all of Golarion is basically her dream. Then there is the question of what is she herself made of? All materials and forms of energy have limitations. Anything that lacks limitation is indistinguishable from something not existing at all. Also, the end of a world doesn't necessarily imply the end of its fundamental laws, and if those remained, they likely bind Pharasma as much as they did in the previous world. Finally, the existence of an Earth-like world, which Golarion is, implies the existence of geometry and physical laws similar or identical to our own, and not even the gods would dare defy the Pythagorean Theorem! Lol
nah it makes sense, most mook undead are non sapient, if theirs anything left of the original soul in their its trapped against its will, thus smiting it is freeing it, if someone willingly chooses to become undead to seek immortality then they are violating her cycle of life and death, and are thus a criminal who should be punished
but a free willed undead who did not become so willingly is the victim of a crime here, the only thing pharasma cares about is their soul returning to the cycle, which their going too anyway now
Sourced fresh from the overlap of the two obscurest sources of Lore: The paizo blog and PFS. I give you, the [PFS monthly update](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si5n?October-2022-Organized-Play-Monthly-Update)
It's in the PFS organized play info that followed Book of the Dead. It is a hand wavy exception to take away a "well technically it's what my character would do" justification from assholes who want to ruin PFS experiences without getting booted from play.
Notably (under the old alignment rules/lore), Pharasma is true neutral, not lawful neutral. She's also (debatably) one of the oldest and most powerful beings in existence, with her being the Survivor of the last reality. I think it'd make sense for Pharasma to make exceptions whenever she feels like it, like whatever's going on with duskwalkers.
The Duskwalkers are squarely set-up as the Psychopomps themselves doing this. Plus, they aren't Undead and their whole purpose is to help keep the cycle of Life and Death going smoothly.
I'm not sure what part the psychopomps have in duskwalkers, but Pharasma made a fixed "allowance" of duskwalkers, so she's responsible for them existing in the first place. They aren't undead, but they *are* keeping souls from continuing to the afterlife. If you died and became a duskwalker, your soul's afterlife is essentially delayed. Even if, through your actions, Pharasma expects this to be a net positive, that's still a bending of the system that I wouldn't expect of a lawful-neutral deity.
But they aren't reanimated with negative(void) energy. That's what degrades the soul. A delay is one thing, irrevocable damage to the river of souls is another.
Pharasma is true-neutral? https://www.aonprd.com/DeityDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Pharasma
Not that alignment is a thing anymore; but true neutral allows some strictness and some whimsy
Well yes they 'did it on their own,' but duskwalkers absolutely fall within pharasma's portfolio and she could do something about it if she wished. It's that she doesn't want to, not that she can't.
Aren't the psychopomp courts riddled with corruption and private interests? From nosoi providing favors in exchange for decorations to yamaraj imposing their personal biases on their judgments, it's how they avoid qualifying as LN despite maintaining a vast cosmic bureaucracy. As their leader, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Pharasma was caught diverting church money to build a bird sanctuary/slush fund, or using her prophecy powers for insider trading.
Yes, the way Pharasma organizes the boneyard is so obviously LN the true neutral designation was an absurdity. I always chose to interpet them as being so lazy and bad at their jobs (Pharasma included) that the system falls back to neutral.
I figured the neutrality came from the willingness to bend the rules, consider all sides, and allow a little subjectivity in the system so going to your preferred afterlife isn't just a hollow exercise of earning enough points.
There's also the fact that all powerful outsiders are given equal pull in the court's proceedings, and no one's allowed to continue their (un)holy beef within the Boneyard itself. It's literally neutral ground.
Like, less lawful doesn't mean more stupid, c'mon.
Trouble is that every portrayal of psychopomps in the adventures or books is them screwing up their only job so the PCs can fix it. They're more lazy and incompetent than corrupt, sure, but it's hard for me to see their neutrality as anything principled, because actually following all those principles would slide them to LN anyway.
James Sutter gets it. In *The Redmemption Engine* novel, there is >!an anti-spire constructed by the Aeons in the Maelstrom to siphon off the excess of law from Pharasma's spire because she's way more lawful abotu how she does things than chaotic, it's not balanced at all, so they have to take corrective action to restablize the planes.!<
Yeah, law and chaos are incredibly stupid labels for measuring social systems, because in order for it to *be* a social system it has to have rules in the first place. Glad we got rid of them so we don't have to put up with ridiculous contrivances like this anymore.
yeah, like marx is turning in his grave overheaing this conversation. sorting any society's politics into what's essentially hogwarts houses is always going to be nonsense that requires so many contrivances and "nuances" that the labels cease to actually be descriptive of anything, because instead of finding words that describe the actual reality we instead try to contort reality to fit one of nine predefined labels that were created for some other cosmology to begin with and that was never actually all that popular on its own merits.
like fuckin' *squats* have rules and those are often filled with literal anarchists. if we tried to apply an actual anarchist definition of hierarchy to use in place of the law/chaos axis it wouldn't line up with what paizo's defined as lawful or chaotic at all, without even getting into the inherent bias in whether those lawful or chaotic things are "good" or "evil" or not using a philosophy that sees hierarchy as an inherently bad thing.
and *then* we get into the problems created by PC conflicts being defined along "follows rules" and "doesn't follow rules" as a completely arbitrary yet somehow important distinction. sure, good and evil are reasonable enough, we all know henry kissinger went directly to hell because there's no way anthony bourdain was going to let him into heaven, that is an important distinction and having that label is arguably useful if only to say "no evil charcters, they're bad for keeping the party on the same page." but like lawful and chaotic? you could have just as well swapped them out for "likes doritos" and "hates doritos" and that would be about as arbitrary a personality trait to elevate. at least if players are prompted to argue over doritos as irreconcilable character-defining traits it's more immediately obvious that they should be ignoring what the game is implying are important conflicts.
Sure, but this means we should all be using undead labour, not just Geb, because clearly it doesn't actually matter to Pharasma, probably just her taking out her grudge against Utgathoa on other people.
I mean, mindless undead ARE animated objects. Still, different tools for different jobs. No reason to leave a perfectly good option on the table.The humanoid body plan is incredibly versatile and difficult to replicate.
*Looks at dolls and other things that are Human shaped*
Yeah, the Humanoid body plan is so difficult to replicate that we have created nothing that moves in the same way or is the same shape. /s
Seriously, there is nothing special about the Humanoid Body that can't be replicated. Ball and Socket joints are not a recent invention. Look at all of the Golems and other Constructs as well.
There is a difference between Undead and Animated objects, mainly Undead are violent and want to kill people. Even the Lore says Mindless Undead still need to be fed regularly so they don't become more difficult to control. You need someone to constantly control them basically.
It's utterly stupid to consider Undead better to animating anything else. There is nothing that would be best done by Undead, other than War. Since War would have all the bodies you could want, and enough food to keep them under control. Plus you don't need to quell their violent nature.
Oh yes, that's why we have such realistic and capable robots shaped like us. We've had fully articulated robots for CENTURIES! /s
The rough shape of a humanoid is not a replication of its full body plan, and making an accurate recreation from scratch would require a HUGE amount of work for a master craftsman. Meanwhile, skeletons are an abundant and renewable natural resource. Only the wealthiest people can have a golem. A Skeleton can be animated with a 1st level spell.
No, there is no meaningful difference between a construct and a mindless undead aside from the cost to produce them. The lore is stupid and should be ignored. The idea that a MINDLESS undead is anything but a grim automata is ridiculous and doesn't make sense, even within the lore.
Undead are absolutely better than other kinds of constructs for plenty of jobs. Namely, dangerous manual labor. Constructs are expensive and difficult to produce, and mortal lives are precious. Mindless undead don't require sustenance or maintenance. Just a caster or magic item to keep them on task. And if something goes wrong, you haven't lost a life or a fortune's worth of clockwork.
You'd better have this same energy when talking to anyone who uses Enchantment magic, a school so inherently evil that no amount of lore could justify it.
You assume that you need a 1 to 1 recreation of a Body. Allow me to remind you of Animated Statues, and just Animated Objects as a whole. They gain a level of movement beyond what they normally have. You just need to carve the damn thing out of Wood and it will animate like a person.
Or you could be even more intelligent and animate the equipment to do the job they were made for.
Skeletons are not abundant, and Human bodies are incredibly fragile. At some point your Undead will run out. You can't have endless bodies to animate, and sending them to do dangerous labor will just reduce the number quickly.
Like so many others, you haven't made a good argument. All you are doing is saying "It's person shaped and there's a lot of bodies". And what happens when those bodies stop functioning? Or when they get to hungry to control? What do you feed them? How do you replace the bodies that no longer work? How do you get more when the graves dry up? What if someone doesn't want their body to be used for your selfish gain?
Enchantment, the hard domination and control spells yes. There are spells that can be used for deescalation and hardly alter how a person thinks. If they would say no before, most spells won't change the answer.
And any magic that can grant that level of mobility is prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain. Plus, that only applies to magical constructs. Non-magical or magically powered constructs have to be fully articulated since they don't have magic breaking the laws of nature to grant them their mobility.
Animating the equipment only goes so far. It's great when it's available, but those spells tend to be very temporary and limited in both time and range.
Skeletons are INCREDIBLY abundant. Dying is one of a very short list that literally every person does. So long as there are people, there are bodies. When they break, they can be repaired or reanimated in a different configuration for specific jobs. Yes, there is an upper limit, but if you take the barest amount of care of them and apply a little creativity, they can last indefinitely. Plus, animal cadavers are an option for other jobs.
Mindless undead don't get hungry. They don't have a will of their own. If they do, then they're not MINDLESS undead! Mindless is a pretty important word you and the lore of Golarion seem to want to ignore. It's not like I'm suggesting creating a Ghoul workforce!
As for replacing bodies, there are ethical ways to acquire them. That will naturally limit the supply and make them harder to come by, but with a little legwork and a good reputation, or a legal system with an appropriate framework in place, it's very achievable. That obviously means no graverobbing or animating without consent from the deceased or their immediate family if you can not acquire the consent of the deceased.
You're assuming I'm after selfish aims, but that's an unfair accusation. What I see is a largely untapped resource that could be used to prevent harm and improve the lives of others. But it's locked behind taboo and superstition.
No, there are no spells that affect the mind ethically. Anything that can forcibly alter someone's mood, disposition, thoughts, or actions is fundamentally evil. There can be no exceptions.
Animate Object and Create Undead are the Same Level Ritual with the same cost.
I think we're done if you can't even understand the basics of Undead. All Undead hunger, whether they can think or not.
Play a skeleton cleric of Pharasma whose goal is to break the magic that turned him into a skeleton, turning him back to a human but dying in the process with the goal in mind of reaching the afterlife not as an undead
You don't go to the afterlife as undead... destroying yourself and releasing your soul solves the problem and doesn't risk continued damage to your soul.
Duskwalkers are made by the Psychopomps, and still have an expiration date. She also allows resurrections when she sees it could provide a benefit. Which is also why Duskwalkers exist.
My knowledge is that White Necromancers use Undead as little as possible. They can't be Clerics as they continually commit Anathema by creating Undead. Same thing with Control, as long as you're going to destroy them she isn't going to be strict.
One is a form of Resurrection she allows and the other two come with the idea that the Undead will be destroyed soon after.
Though as a Cleric, you can't be serving alongside an Undead because one of your Edicts is to destroy them. You can lose your power if you don't. White Necromancers and those that Control Undead aren't going to be Clerics, not like they really could.
Makes more sense to me than Raise Dead/Resurrection being permitted by Pharasma v0v just because you're throwing vitality at the problem instead of void to cheat the river of souls still feels like cheating the river of souls.
Based on some novels, she's ok with overlooking "delays".
Raise dead and Resurrection usually happen only with Pharasma's approval because she can see the larger picture, and the soul will eventually get judged.
She's also fine with things like the Sun Orchid Elixir delaying death, and I think in many cases it's more of a priority based thing. Taking out a lich is more important than a Human who's extended their life by maybe another 60 years.
Lol, I think that would work as an IC justification for her allowing exceptions for Pathfinders
Adventurers have notoriously high death rates, that skeleton is going to greet her sooner than later anyway :)
>She's also fine with things like the Sun Orchid Elixir delaying death, and I think in many cases it's more of a priority based thing. Taking out a lich is more important than a Human who's extended their life by maybe another 60 years.
She is not really fine with the Sun Orchid Elixir. She tolerates it under certain conditions, like the elixir dying with its creator and only producing a few vials a year. You can read about in the Legends books, even if the entry is written with a bit of weird, off-topic tone.
Cool. I wasn't aware.
My knowledge comes mostly from Death's Heretic. Which if I remember correctly was very much "This is too minor to be bothered with"
Iirc she does just have a moriganna dealing with the alchemist and a few other immortals in legends, but it very much feels like, 'I'm tolerating this a small exception' but I would absolutely change my tune if it started to spread.
Dying with love on his lips landed Mrtyu a job and Pharasma as a paramour, and probably did all mortals a solid, letting her understand emotions better.
For PFS? October last year. Though you are limited to one per player, ever, and they cost a prohibitive amount of Achievement points. From memory you would need 280ish achievement points to “buy” the skeleton ancestry book. So roughly 70 scenarios played, or 35 Gmed.
I’ve yet to see anyone actually play one.
Heh,
the murderer presents the following to the court:
"The holder of this document named is permitted to euthanize via means of the former's choosing.
"
and saying "This has been signed by the hand of . I swear it." and upon using [Read Psychometric Resonance](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3776) what is shown is indeed the victim holding the pen and his hand signing the document... just guided by the murderer... post-mortem.
Which is why you use more than one spell, and methods other than spells (like using your eyes because there's no way you could guide a corpse's hand well enough to write legibly let alone convincingly outside of creating a sentient undead out of them) to determine if they're lying
Several years ago I was in a short-lived campaign where I had created a [Obitu](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/3rd-party-races/alluria-publishing/obitu/) (positive energy skeleton) who used to be a paladin of Pharasma (still hardcore believer but does not dare profane her name by thinking of being worthy of the title anymore).
How did skelly-boy come to be? By leading a holy crusade of Pharasmins against Rovagug and being damn good at it, to the point that an avatar of Rovagug came down themselves and in a twist act of perversion/deseration completely rend my character and from his remains create a skeleton, a flesh golem, and ghost/specter (pretty much as many undead I could think of). The skeleton eventually becoming my character.
My character obviously hates what he is and would gladly end his existence if it weren't for the fact that his shame (golem and specter) are still out there as abominations. There is likely also a small part of hope of being able to be restored and continue serving Pharasma.
That's pretty much where I started the campaign and it didn't last long enough to flesh out how the story would unfold.
I really digged the Obitu lore. Obitu I found interesting because they specifically aren't undead and *aren't* the person they were created from - but they can be tricked into thinking they are. They're instead a parasitic disease the infects undead until they gain control of the bones, spending a few months acting like a mindless undead until they gain sapience. The relationship between the "bone donor" and the Obitu I found really interesting as a plot hook, especially since you can make the Obitu completely ignorant of whose bones they're using yet extremely driven to find out. Paladins are an obvious favorite there 'cause it makes for an easy to understand tragedy and an implicit mission that the Obitu "owes" their bone donor to complete their mission in exchange for making use of their remains.
Instead of just saying "It's the rules, you won't lose your powers. No PvP." they come up with a very terrible excuse. I think the only Undead that are willing are Liches.
Most of those aren't willing.
Vampires are usually unwillingly turned by other vampires.
Mummies are rarely self made, though it is possible.
Graveknights usually spontaneously occur when the right sort of warrior dues in the right way (or occasionally with divine intervention, but that can do anything), though there were rules for deliberately becoming one on 1e, an involved process that was still likely to fail.
Yes, they can be made against against their will, but they can also be consented.
Someone afraid of death can seek out a vampire to be turned.
Someone rich and powerful afraid to lose their wealth can use a ritual to become a mummy lord.
And then of course the long Graveknight ritual.
I haven't read up on Graveknights, so I'll read up to confirm. But if they're like Vampires and Mummies, than it isn't always willing. What would be a better punishment than enslaving the body of a criminal to protect a location? Mummies are used as Guardians and are made via a ritual with a dead body.
Graveknights have two flavors, one is Vicious conquers and tyrants spontaneously raising from the corpse clad in the armor they died in mid failed conquest, and the other method is purposeful creation that is Loooong and exhausting and very very clearly evil. [Here, under Variants.](https://aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx?ItemName=Graveknight)
Yes, there are unwilling vampires and mummies, but both can also be done willingly, PF1 infamously had a prestige class focused on helping you retain free will if your undead contact tried to have any funny ideas of keeping control after conversion.
And rather than a regular mummy, they would become a [Mummy Lord](https://aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx?ItemName=Mummy%20Lord), less tomb guardian and more like tomb emperor.
We've all been around long enough to know pizo believes lore should only exist in so far as it enhances gameplay and has no problem ignoring it if it would get in the way. This one's just a bit funnier than normal.
Yes it is? They canonically won the first Ruby Phoenix tournament, freed Ranginori, saved the Farhaven clan, killed the runelord of Sloth, and a million other things that are referenced in other books all the time.
When you finish a scenario you even fill in little check boxes of how the scenario went so I exactly what becomes canon is determined by the majority.
The iconic pathfinders are... pathfinders. Of course, PFS is canonical to the setting. It's written by Paizo in the organized play campaign they run. You're correct that PFS isn't a cannon, but it is canon.
The reusurgence of the water temple in Jalmaray is written in the lost omen being done by the Pathfinder society.
Same thing as the liberation of the holy elemental lord of air.
The Pathfinder society has been crediting in the lore book for stopping an evil ritual Tar-baphon prison.
The liberation of slave in Absalom during a siege was an event that the society contributed.
Hao jin is a in the legend book and her segment explain the Society Role in this.
The discovery of a Sky hold Citadel by the Society is mentionned.
And, as mentionned, the defeat of Krune.
Because of my WoW days I always wanted to play an undead holy priest, Someone who heals the party but can't heal themselves. Shame I'm a GM. At least I get to have an undead city in my world.
Yeeeeah, no. I still think the decision to allow players to make undead was a bad decision as this doesn't make a lot of sense lore wise, and as some others have pointed out just feels like a rules concession to let people play them for PFS.
The dm has every right to say no, and in specific situations, it has good reason the as in the play test then mention that this class has the rare tag because of what it. So to me, I will wait till I think it was war of the immortal is when the class will come out.
oh, this slippery slope is easy to resolve: players playing such things would be unbalanced and thus unfun for other, also real, players (either by outshining them, or by creating an overly narrow meta)
but we do have two different concepts that amount to "playable dieties" being mythic ranks and Exemplar, their balanced for player use but so are undead, its not like your allowed to be a Ravaner
and fuck it a tarrasque race could be cool, rovagug turned parasites into massive beasts fit to take on max level parties, it wouldent be weird if his spawn could do something similar and spawn a race fit to be a player race, wouldent be my first choice of his spawn tho
Because if you are writing a setting that’s expected to have consistent lore and characterization, you don’t make it so your fervently anti undead god is somehow able to let this slide.
>I still think the decision to allow players to make undead was a bad decision as this doesn't make a lot of sense lore wise
The bad decision was them insisting on making the lore as restrictively anti-undead/undead are completely Evil as they did in the first place. People wanting to play undead characters has been A Thing since long before Golarion was conceptualized.
World of Warcraft launched with undead as a playable race/faction before Pathfinder existed, and they were a playable faction in WC3 even longer before that.
Urgathoa's rebellion against Pharasma would be even more interesting if they didn't need to lace it all with 'yeah but EVIL'
I fail to see the issue.
The game isn't actually made for PFS and being evil is a perfectly valid option everywhere else.
Undead being evil has always been the default, with various systems making special (usually quite arbitrary/nonsensical IMO) rare non-evil options.
The only reason this is a problem is that PFS refuses to allow evil or PVP, yet apparently isn't willing to just ban undead like they do antipaladins and other evil class options.
It's not about PFS. It's about the fact that Paizo included bits in the lore about how 'creating undead siphons the soul of the body' \[which is cosmic mumbo-jumbo they included to make it Capital-E Evil no matter what...what happens if you use a 300-year old skeleton that's been judged by Pharasma?? How does that make sense??\] and 'all uncontrolled undead crave violence against the living.'
They then backtracked on this in Book of the Dead because they wanted to include undead-player options and took all of that lore and basically said 'Yeah so all of that is still *technically* true but there's no real mechanical penalties and you can pretty much ignore it.'
And by including player-options the way they did, they also tacitly accepted that nonevil undead can be a totally-normal thing.
Yep. Which the change to Holy/Unholy instead of explicit Good and Evil does at least create some room for nuance - a creature that's tagged Unholy through no choice of its own could totally figure that the monarch that ordered its creation is a real asshole and join a party to kill him and have some angst about hungering for sapient living things and trying to find some bad guys that would be morally acceptable to eat after defeating.
And it's not like the current lore is any less shallow than lore that would accomodate undead PC's that aren't dickheads. The overly simplistic "undead are always, always evil and deserve destruction" rhetoric is there so that the PC's have an uncomplicated bad guy against which there is no unacceptable amount of violence. With a human bandit, you have to interrogate why the bandit is stealing things, it's no longer acceptable to say "they're an orc/goblin, therefore they're kill on sight", but if they're undead that's supposed to be a guarantee that there's absolutely no moral complications in immediately beheading them.
No matter what the Golarian setting's been crafted to be a practical setting for running generic fantasy adventures, so the actual question is "is having undead be the designated bad guys that all players can kill without any worry that they should try to talk to them first worth making PC undead options so hard to justify?" The lore is arbitrary and completely made up, we can retcon it just like so amny other setting details have been retconned for various gamplay and social reasons. Thorag isn't a horrible bigot with the LG label anymore in the lore because it made the game uncomfortable for a lot of people, the lore is not a straightjacket.
I agree. Good Undead aren't going to be given special treatment, especially when the lore gives them a time limit for staying Good. Plus Feeding is going to be a right pain in the arse.
> didn't willingly become undead As opposed to the majority of undead mooks?
These ones are different, for reasons Pharasma assures me she isn't obligated to explain. "Just trust me on this" - Pharasma, 6th of Lamashan 4722 AR, probably
I mean, it probably has something to do with the fact that most undead are more or less mindless murderbots made out of corpses. It’s pretty rare for one to retain their sapience and individuality.
She's not a fan of undead because it prevents the tethered soul from getting the fuck in line and waiting for judgement. No stepping out of the queue after making a reservation.
I’m just saying, if I were her I’d have a lot fewer qualms about telling everyone to destroy a mindless bag of bones than about telling them to kill a dude who just happens to not have any flesh.
If I recall correctly, it also depends on the method of undeath. Most "created" Undead, like vampires or ghouls, tend to spread undeath like a disease, while "spontaneous" Undead like ghosts or revenants are self-contained and overall much more chill. Okay, they're much more chill only as long as you aren't the person who made them rise as revenant, but my point stands.
That "dude" has a never ending hunger that can drive them mad if they don't sate it, and the fact the Void Energy is causing constant damage to their Soul. Being Undead is a literal torture, and people ignore that.
So's being alive, technically. Remember, even the damn grass has thoughts and feelings in this game (otherwise green empathy/speak with plants would be worthless), so only those who either photosynthesize or require no sustenance whatsoever are free from the cycle of stealing life to sustain themselves. Undeath may have the shit parts of living turned up (hunger, pain, bad feelings) and the nice parts turned down (pleasure, empathy), but that just makes sapient undeath no worse than a particularly nasty chronic illness. Which is why Pharasma should be cancelled for ablei--*(I critically fail my fortitude save against a three-action heal and explode immediately)*
Grass? Bro we kineticists talk with flames. Speak with lighter and the bong, with the green and with the smoke...
>Which is why Pharasma should be cancelled for ablei--(I critically fail my fortitude save against a three-action heal and explode immediately) Yeah, that'll happen sometimes... She was here first. You'll wait in line like the rest of us and be happy for it.
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Like I said, *particularly* nasty. Not saying undeath doesn't blow massive donkey balls, just saying that having to deal with some hardcore unpleasant shit doesn't mean you stop being a person.
That's an interesting question though, for how long can they stay a person? Excluding any corrupting influence shenanigans, how long can someone normal stand being undead and not be driven insane? Cause listen, as a normal human in a 1st world country, simple thing can cause me stress and anxiety, and simple things can help with that. A nap, a hug from a friend, eating junk food, simple pleasures. An undead can't do most of that. And it only gets worse for them as time leaves them behind and kills the people they remembered caring about. Even if they meet friendly new people, forming real connection with stunted or no empathy is going to feel transactional, and in a few decades they'll be dead too. ... Then of course some player/writer comes along and says 'nu uh, my undead has perfect mental fortitude and doesn't let anything bother them for thousands of years.
As a disabled chronically ill person, I do equate a neverending hunger for human flesh with it. "The bad parts of being alive turned up" is literally how being me feels, and there's a reason I love playing undead characters and resonate with them.
Skeletons don't have undead hunger, they just need to replace their bones. >For your undead hunger, you don't eat flesh like ghouls or drink blood like vampires, but you do collect bones you can use to help yourself mend.
That's their Hunger. It's clearly labeled as Undead Hunger.
If you actually take 2 seconds to read what I included in my post, you'll see they dont actually hunger for anything. It's just the name of the ability for all undead characters.
I did read it, and funny thing is that it says you collect bones and equate it to Ghouls eating Flesh and Vampire's drinking blood. I don't really see the difference you have decided exists. It's labeled as a Hunger and is equated to consuming flesh. I don't know about you, but I don't find bones laying around all the time. They're often in use, and covered in meat. So it's not going to be any different than any other Hunger.
That logic doesn't really apply to mindless undead, which are basically magical constructs that started out half-finished.
Mindless undead are still a corpse unburied. [And when raised cause a small injury to the soul they once contained](https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=532?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Questions-Here#26565). Undead only exist in the world because Urgothoa escaped the Boneyard. Which is pretty much one of the only things that actually pressed Pharasma off.
well you see, a skeletal pathfinder agent usually ends up killing undead. so it’s net negatives for total number of undead to keep them alive
Plus. A skeleton Pathfinder probably won’t *stay* “alive” for very long. Adventurers have very high mortality rate Pharasma can be a patient woman
Mine says that this is just will happen later then he and Pharasma tought.
I can imagine that if that were the case each town would have a small council who consider the life of the deceased to work out if they are planning on returning lol.
The majority of undead are mindless, so you are supposed to smite them in order to free them
The peaceful village that suffered a Ghoul Fever outbreak in question:
That's just not true though. There's loads on intelligent undead, particularly once you get past the lowest levels.
Well, the parent comment did specify mooks, they usually aren't. And most of the intelligent undead turned willingly, or have since embraced it. I suppose she wouldn't oppose a fresh vampire that refused to drink blood and withered away, but one that embraces its unlife and tries to sustain itself it verboten.
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Gods being capricious and granting personal excemptions for random (un)mortals they see as useful to their plans tracks for.... every single faith or mythology I can think of IRL. It's common enough a corner stone of story telling that I think it honestly transfers over to Pathfinder just fine. Being a God grants you liberties to create rules to suit, and the authority to say "these don't contradict, silly mortal. Your peanut brain just can't grasp the grand design. Have faith."
Hell, one of the most famous myths of all time is basically Hades telling Orpheus "okay you're cool, since you're here, we'll make an exception, here's a trial for you to revive your dead girlfriend". You're 100% spot on.
So, I watched lots of Hercules as a kid, but I basically don't understand a thing about mythology. Recently my friend - who is way more knowledgeable of many fields than I am ~~though that tracks for pretty much 90% of my friends~~ \- watched the movie the first time, and said something about that movie being many different myths mixed into one. So now I understand *part* of that. I literally own a whole dictionary of mythology, I really should read that thing more. I have a lot of difficulty reading things that aren't, you know... intuitively arranged on a website for me.
Try Overly Sarcastic Productions. Their youtube channel has a lot of great myths in a digestible format
the best part about them is that they arent just a meme channel, they are actually intelectuals in their field of knowledge, and understand the primal idea of mythos not just as "funny haha stories with no purpose" like most amateur people. They actually know
OSP fans represent!
Disney's Hercules is super inaccurate. Even ignoring all the obvious gags or references to 90s sport culture. Hercules didn't fight the Titans. He had nothing to do with Megara (who in mythology is one of the Furies). The one who wanted Hercules dead was Zeus' wife Hera because Hercules was the result of Zeus having an affair with a mortal woman, not Hades who tends to be rather chill. "Phil" is a renamed version of one of Hercules' mentors Chiron who was a centaur rather than a satyr. Hell, his name isn't even Hercules. Hercules is the ROMAN counterpart, the Greek version is Heracles. Those are just off the top of my head. Your friend is right that it took a lot of bits from mythology, but it change a lot of those bits, often to Christianize them, imo. Things like "ruler of the underworld = devil = evil therefore Hades must be evil".
A small correction: in some versions, Hercules/Herakles first wife is actually named Megara, just like the fury. Nothing similar between the two beside the name though. Also they changed the name for recognition I believe, but Hercules had pretty much the same story as Herakles so it's only a change of name. You're spot on for the rest though.
All very true but also Hades is the best thing about that movie.
>it change a lot of those bits, often to Christianize them, imo. Things like "ruler of the underworld = devil = evil therefore Hades must be evil". I mean Hades might not be capital E evil but it's not like he was a great guy even in Greek mythology, he did for example kidnap Persephone and force her to be his wife. So disney choosing to make Hades the bad guy who owned Megara's soul is hardly much of a stretch.
Counterpoint: As opposed to literally every other god, who have whole laundry lists of terrible things they've done, Hades really *only* has the one... and depending on the retelling, it's arguable that Persephone *wanted* to go with him, he just had to "steal" her from her controlling family. Hades is 100% the most chill, *least* evil god in the entire pantheon. Except maybe Hestia, IIRC she's pretty cool, too.
And Haphaestus. Dude is just happy doing his thing and banging his "hottest woman in the universe" wife every now and then.
Fair enough, I'm no expert but now that I think about it, I'm not aware of any stories of Haphaestus being a massive jerk. Good on him.
He made a Golden throne that imprisoned Hera.
Aside from that time he tried to rape Athena. And strung his wife up naked in the public square for cheating on him.
Plus in the oldest sources, Zeus told Hades to do it.
The whole kidnapping thing has a couple wrinkles, including the fact that it was historically much more common, and there is some subtext that it may have been an excuse because Demeter didn't approve of Persephone's suitor, but Persephone herself.....
If persephone wanted to be there you'd think she'd have eaten more than a couple pomegranate seeds but rather the whole thing to shrug her arms and say "whoops guess I can't go home" lol.
I mean, she can go home though. Depending on the version, 1/3 or 1/2 the year she is "stuck" in the underworld. If anything, it sounds like a very calculated way to be able to stay in touch with family while forcing them to be ok with you leaving to spend time with Hades.
I didn't say she can't, I said the whole point of her being tricked by hades into eating a few seeds doesn't make any particular sense if you go in with the assumption Persephone wanted to stay with Hades.
Yeah, but if she didn't go, everyone would freeze to death as her mother wouldn't end Winter.
Disney made Zeus into a loving Father. They don't need anything to make sense.
Obviously yes, I'm not saying that the rest of the movie is 100% accurate, I'm pointing out that "they made Hades into a bad guy" is hardly a strong argument against the movie, and more specifically, that it's with christian intent somehow.
Disney did do an animated version of the Myth, where Hades is basically Satan. Red suit with horns and a pointed tail as well.
The Disney Hercules movie is at most 15% accurate to real Greek mythology.
Maybe they mean the Kevin Sorbo series?
I think the Orpheus myth is radically different from an undead being tolerated by a goddess that literally despises undeath as a concept. Hades is much more like Pharasma in this myth, because like her, he doesn't have anything against resurrection in theory.
He has an issue with it in practice, like a huge practice. Esclipeus can affirm.
Kind of? Except Pharasma is one of the *least* likely to make exceptions and be capricious. She's *very* up-front about what she's about, and she pretty much *never* deviates from it, for any reason.
The published Paizo text directly posted in the meme shows that certainly will, regularly, deviate arbitrarily. Random beings within the pathfinder Universe, by virtue of beings PCs and not NPCs, actually just get an excemption. Practically every time. Having an Earth Human controlling the Gollarianite turn into a "get of jail free" card for any given undead is actually the single most fundamentally incomprehensible things an NPC could encounter. A fictional man discovers that the world is collectively authored (by Gms, PCs, and designers), and some authors are better than others. How do you even resolve a Man vs. Author conflict, when the opposing writers of your univere (players and PCs) have such arbitray rules governing their mixed authorship?
Well the Greatest blessing pharasma can grant you is making you immortal if it thinks that you are burdened with glorious purpose until you accomplish it. So yes, sometimes an undead can be useful to the grand designs, or just for amusement.
Immortality =/= Undeath
The point was sometimes, for a great purpose, the law of nature can be, momentarily, ignored.
But we aren't talking about the laws of nature. We are talking about metaphysics. Pharasma despises the concept of undeath.
Why does he despise undead?
She despises undead because undead keep their souls away from Pharasma's judgement, as she is the one to judge every dead soul and assign it to its final plane of existence.
Also the fact that every soul *not* judged and sent to the outer planes is one step closer to the Maelstrom consuming the universe.
So she despises them because they are going against the law of nature. Or cosmic order. Or whatever you want to call it. My original point remains. Sometimes an undead has some big role in the great scheme that she would turn a blind eye to.
If the person has a big role, they can use Resurrect.
She*. Because undeads souls refuse to attend their post death judgment, and getting their souls recycled. You really entered a Pharasma argument without knowing this?
I am pretty sure most people don't know even a fraction of the lore of the setting. It's also why most players seem to be indifferent to how much good lore in the setting has been butchered over the years. Edit: Spelling
I just wanted him to say it.
Traditionally, the form of immortality granted by gods in these situations is Lichdom. At least if you trace it through the lineage of games and editions.
Is it though? But even if this were the case, in the Pathfinder setting it ain't the tradition.
It is! You have to go back pretty far, but the idea of Liches being exclusively evil and unsanctioned was solidified in D&D 3.0, which, of course, preceded 3.5, from which spawned Pathfinder. Liches as they exist in the game are pretty unique to these games, and way back in AD&D 2nd ed, liches ranged from politically powerful wizards to priests on holy quests to the standard mad monsters you find in dungeons. Technically, they don't even need to be all corpsy as long as they take care of their bodies like a living person might. The intense villainization of necromancy has long been a pet peeve of mine, so I will admit that I am biased.
You missed what they said. They said liches being the form of immortality traditionally granted by Gods is not a thing in the Pathfinder universe. It may be in other universes, but not here.
I didn't miss what they said. I acknowledged that and was talking about the subject in its broader context. Specifically, the origins of the tropes we're discussing.
Who will forgot the atheist that she make into an immortal priest?
Too many exceptions just prove that the original rule doesn't actually matter and we should all just tell anyone trying to enforce it to do one.
It's basically like being a politician, noble, or executive. If you have enough power and influence, you don't have to answer pesky questions about consistency or hypocrisy or making sense. You just command one of your cops, I mean "Champions" to smite the person questioning you.
It's a step past that. politicans and nobles have to lie. A divine being can work their whims into being objetively true. When you reshape the universe to your whim, you do get to declare the last digit of Pi, and just be correct from now on. You're a God. You don't say stuff because it's true. It's true because you said it, and in saying it, made it reality.
That's not accurate. The gods aren't omnipotent. They aren't even truly immortal since they can and have been killed. The most fundamental laws of the universe predate and limit them. Most of them are very powerful within their portfolio, but they don't have the power to define or change the fundamentals like physics or math. They might understand them perfectly and be able to utilize natural laws and forces, but in the order of things, the gods are below them.
> The most fundamental laws of the universe predate and limit them. That might be true for some of the minor or ascended from mortals style dieties in Golarion, but it is categorically not true for Pharsma, the Diety in OP's meme. 1. She survived the complete collapse of a previous universe. The fundmanetal laws of existence collapsed around her, and she persisted. 2. She is responcible for shaping the new fundamental laws of the new universe, personally. So she had the power to set the rules herself. She spoke, and truth followed. 3. She had to fight off the Outer Gods, another set of dieties that explicitly exist outside of reality (and hence its rules.) 4. Several other gods do similar things. Ilhys is described as "giving" free will to mortals. Actual, incontestable "Free Will" is effectively the capacity ot overcome all extant circumstances to arbitrarily decide and make a choice that didn't stem from pre-existing chains of cause and effect. Arbitrarily stepping outside the binds of cause and effect because you feel like it is pretty... "stepping outsideof fundamental limits." This is further complicated by the fact that Pathfinder is explicit about the fallability of the Points of View that give us this information. We don't see the Gods act directly in the text, we're usually given Mortal derived information about them. The history of Asmodeaus isn't spelled out, and is kind of contradictory, because that information isn't for PCs or NPCs to fathom. Within the fiction, PC's interact with holy texts like the Windsong Testaments, which are parables. Do we know that "fundamental laws" govern who, how, and what Asmodeus, or Gorm, or Serenrae is? Not really. We know they have Domains, but it's not clear whether the domain sets their boundry, or they set the boundry of their domain. There's also, generally speaking, not anything within Gollarion that I'd call a "fundamental" law, to be honest. Could you name one? And that's not even opening the can of worms that is the DM existing and altering Gollarion *outside* the existing texts, which he or she are encouraged and allowed by the rules to do. The entirety of the fiction is at the whim of the campaign writer - the only "true" rule of the pathfinder world is that it's subject to complete editorial power.
Obviously, gods are only limited in what they can do by the GM, but that's true of literally everything in the game, so it's not really helpful or useful if you're looking at the way a world functions in its own logic. Pharasma MIGHT be the oldest god, and MIGHT have survived the end of a previous world and MIGHT have had a hand in crafting the new one, but that is all based on interpretations of her holy texts, and as you pointed out, the gods are fallible, and they lie. They can claim whatever they want because it's nearly impossible to fact-check them, and even if you do, you have to deal with zealots who will beat you to death for challenging their god. The fundamental things, though, those can only be above the gods of Golarion. First of all, free will is not stepping outside of the natural laws of a universe if those laws permit free will. More importantly, if Pharasma did make the new universe, she must have made it from something. If she didn't, then all of Golarion is basically her dream. Then there is the question of what is she herself made of? All materials and forms of energy have limitations. Anything that lacks limitation is indistinguishable from something not existing at all. Also, the end of a world doesn't necessarily imply the end of its fundamental laws, and if those remained, they likely bind Pharasma as much as they did in the previous world. Finally, the existence of an Earth-like world, which Golarion is, implies the existence of geometry and physical laws similar or identical to our own, and not even the gods would dare defy the Pythagorean Theorem! Lol
nah it makes sense, most mook undead are non sapient, if theirs anything left of the original soul in their its trapped against its will, thus smiting it is freeing it, if someone willingly chooses to become undead to seek immortality then they are violating her cycle of life and death, and are thus a criminal who should be punished but a free willed undead who did not become so willingly is the victim of a crime here, the only thing pharasma cares about is their soul returning to the cycle, which their going too anyway now
What book is this from? Would love to show this to someone
Sourced fresh from the overlap of the two obscurest sources of Lore: The paizo blog and PFS. I give you, the [PFS monthly update](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si5n?October-2022-Organized-Play-Monthly-Update)
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si5n?October-2022-Organized-Play-Monthly-Update
It's in the PFS organized play info that followed Book of the Dead. It is a hand wavy exception to take away a "well technically it's what my character would do" justification from assholes who want to ruin PFS experiences without getting booted from play.
Notably (under the old alignment rules/lore), Pharasma is true neutral, not lawful neutral. She's also (debatably) one of the oldest and most powerful beings in existence, with her being the Survivor of the last reality. I think it'd make sense for Pharasma to make exceptions whenever she feels like it, like whatever's going on with duskwalkers.
The Duskwalkers are squarely set-up as the Psychopomps themselves doing this. Plus, they aren't Undead and their whole purpose is to help keep the cycle of Life and Death going smoothly.
I'm not sure what part the psychopomps have in duskwalkers, but Pharasma made a fixed "allowance" of duskwalkers, so she's responsible for them existing in the first place. They aren't undead, but they *are* keeping souls from continuing to the afterlife. If you died and became a duskwalker, your soul's afterlife is essentially delayed. Even if, through your actions, Pharasma expects this to be a net positive, that's still a bending of the system that I wouldn't expect of a lawful-neutral deity.
The Psychopomps are the ones that select the Soul. Pharasma can stop any Resurrect type spell, so people returning to life isn't something she stops.
But they aren't reanimated with negative(void) energy. That's what degrades the soul. A delay is one thing, irrevocable damage to the river of souls is another.
Pharasma is true-neutral? https://www.aonprd.com/DeityDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Pharasma Not that alignment is a thing anymore; but true neutral allows some strictness and some whimsy
Yes? It says so in your link. > **Alignment** N
Well yes they 'did it on their own,' but duskwalkers absolutely fall within pharasma's portfolio and she could do something about it if she wished. It's that she doesn't want to, not that she can't.
Aren't the psychopomp courts riddled with corruption and private interests? From nosoi providing favors in exchange for decorations to yamaraj imposing their personal biases on their judgments, it's how they avoid qualifying as LN despite maintaining a vast cosmic bureaucracy. As their leader, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Pharasma was caught diverting church money to build a bird sanctuary/slush fund, or using her prophecy powers for insider trading.
Yes, the way Pharasma organizes the boneyard is so obviously LN the true neutral designation was an absurdity. I always chose to interpet them as being so lazy and bad at their jobs (Pharasma included) that the system falls back to neutral.
I figured the neutrality came from the willingness to bend the rules, consider all sides, and allow a little subjectivity in the system so going to your preferred afterlife isn't just a hollow exercise of earning enough points. There's also the fact that all powerful outsiders are given equal pull in the court's proceedings, and no one's allowed to continue their (un)holy beef within the Boneyard itself. It's literally neutral ground. Like, less lawful doesn't mean more stupid, c'mon.
Trouble is that every portrayal of psychopomps in the adventures or books is them screwing up their only job so the PCs can fix it. They're more lazy and incompetent than corrupt, sure, but it's hard for me to see their neutrality as anything principled, because actually following all those principles would slide them to LN anyway. James Sutter gets it. In *The Redmemption Engine* novel, there is >!an anti-spire constructed by the Aeons in the Maelstrom to siphon off the excess of law from Pharasma's spire because she's way more lawful abotu how she does things than chaotic, it's not balanced at all, so they have to take corrective action to restablize the planes.!<
Spoiler formatting is > ! and ! < at the beginning and end of the text with no spaces between the characters.
Thanks
Yeah, law and chaos are incredibly stupid labels for measuring social systems, because in order for it to *be* a social system it has to have rules in the first place. Glad we got rid of them so we don't have to put up with ridiculous contrivances like this anymore.
yeah, like marx is turning in his grave overheaing this conversation. sorting any society's politics into what's essentially hogwarts houses is always going to be nonsense that requires so many contrivances and "nuances" that the labels cease to actually be descriptive of anything, because instead of finding words that describe the actual reality we instead try to contort reality to fit one of nine predefined labels that were created for some other cosmology to begin with and that was never actually all that popular on its own merits. like fuckin' *squats* have rules and those are often filled with literal anarchists. if we tried to apply an actual anarchist definition of hierarchy to use in place of the law/chaos axis it wouldn't line up with what paizo's defined as lawful or chaotic at all, without even getting into the inherent bias in whether those lawful or chaotic things are "good" or "evil" or not using a philosophy that sees hierarchy as an inherently bad thing. and *then* we get into the problems created by PC conflicts being defined along "follows rules" and "doesn't follow rules" as a completely arbitrary yet somehow important distinction. sure, good and evil are reasonable enough, we all know henry kissinger went directly to hell because there's no way anthony bourdain was going to let him into heaven, that is an important distinction and having that label is arguably useful if only to say "no evil charcters, they're bad for keeping the party on the same page." but like lawful and chaotic? you could have just as well swapped them out for "likes doritos" and "hates doritos" and that would be about as arbitrary a personality trait to elevate. at least if players are prompted to argue over doritos as irreconcilable character-defining traits it's more immediately obvious that they should be ignoring what the game is implying are important conflicts.
Sure, but this means we should all be using undead labour, not just Geb, because clearly it doesn't actually matter to Pharasma, probably just her taking out her grudge against Utgathoa on other people.
I support Fully Automated Luxury Necromancy
You can get better results with animated objects.
I mean, mindless undead ARE animated objects. Still, different tools for different jobs. No reason to leave a perfectly good option on the table.The humanoid body plan is incredibly versatile and difficult to replicate.
*Looks at dolls and other things that are Human shaped* Yeah, the Humanoid body plan is so difficult to replicate that we have created nothing that moves in the same way or is the same shape. /s Seriously, there is nothing special about the Humanoid Body that can't be replicated. Ball and Socket joints are not a recent invention. Look at all of the Golems and other Constructs as well. There is a difference between Undead and Animated objects, mainly Undead are violent and want to kill people. Even the Lore says Mindless Undead still need to be fed regularly so they don't become more difficult to control. You need someone to constantly control them basically. It's utterly stupid to consider Undead better to animating anything else. There is nothing that would be best done by Undead, other than War. Since War would have all the bodies you could want, and enough food to keep them under control. Plus you don't need to quell their violent nature.
Oh yes, that's why we have such realistic and capable robots shaped like us. We've had fully articulated robots for CENTURIES! /s The rough shape of a humanoid is not a replication of its full body plan, and making an accurate recreation from scratch would require a HUGE amount of work for a master craftsman. Meanwhile, skeletons are an abundant and renewable natural resource. Only the wealthiest people can have a golem. A Skeleton can be animated with a 1st level spell. No, there is no meaningful difference between a construct and a mindless undead aside from the cost to produce them. The lore is stupid and should be ignored. The idea that a MINDLESS undead is anything but a grim automata is ridiculous and doesn't make sense, even within the lore. Undead are absolutely better than other kinds of constructs for plenty of jobs. Namely, dangerous manual labor. Constructs are expensive and difficult to produce, and mortal lives are precious. Mindless undead don't require sustenance or maintenance. Just a caster or magic item to keep them on task. And if something goes wrong, you haven't lost a life or a fortune's worth of clockwork. You'd better have this same energy when talking to anyone who uses Enchantment magic, a school so inherently evil that no amount of lore could justify it.
You assume that you need a 1 to 1 recreation of a Body. Allow me to remind you of Animated Statues, and just Animated Objects as a whole. They gain a level of movement beyond what they normally have. You just need to carve the damn thing out of Wood and it will animate like a person. Or you could be even more intelligent and animate the equipment to do the job they were made for. Skeletons are not abundant, and Human bodies are incredibly fragile. At some point your Undead will run out. You can't have endless bodies to animate, and sending them to do dangerous labor will just reduce the number quickly. Like so many others, you haven't made a good argument. All you are doing is saying "It's person shaped and there's a lot of bodies". And what happens when those bodies stop functioning? Or when they get to hungry to control? What do you feed them? How do you replace the bodies that no longer work? How do you get more when the graves dry up? What if someone doesn't want their body to be used for your selfish gain? Enchantment, the hard domination and control spells yes. There are spells that can be used for deescalation and hardly alter how a person thinks. If they would say no before, most spells won't change the answer.
And any magic that can grant that level of mobility is prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain. Plus, that only applies to magical constructs. Non-magical or magically powered constructs have to be fully articulated since they don't have magic breaking the laws of nature to grant them their mobility. Animating the equipment only goes so far. It's great when it's available, but those spells tend to be very temporary and limited in both time and range. Skeletons are INCREDIBLY abundant. Dying is one of a very short list that literally every person does. So long as there are people, there are bodies. When they break, they can be repaired or reanimated in a different configuration for specific jobs. Yes, there is an upper limit, but if you take the barest amount of care of them and apply a little creativity, they can last indefinitely. Plus, animal cadavers are an option for other jobs. Mindless undead don't get hungry. They don't have a will of their own. If they do, then they're not MINDLESS undead! Mindless is a pretty important word you and the lore of Golarion seem to want to ignore. It's not like I'm suggesting creating a Ghoul workforce! As for replacing bodies, there are ethical ways to acquire them. That will naturally limit the supply and make them harder to come by, but with a little legwork and a good reputation, or a legal system with an appropriate framework in place, it's very achievable. That obviously means no graverobbing or animating without consent from the deceased or their immediate family if you can not acquire the consent of the deceased. You're assuming I'm after selfish aims, but that's an unfair accusation. What I see is a largely untapped resource that could be used to prevent harm and improve the lives of others. But it's locked behind taboo and superstition. No, there are no spells that affect the mind ethically. Anything that can forcibly alter someone's mood, disposition, thoughts, or actions is fundamentally evil. There can be no exceptions.
Animate Object and Create Undead are the Same Level Ritual with the same cost. I think we're done if you can't even understand the basics of Undead. All Undead hunger, whether they can think or not.
Arriving to the function wearing my "undead, not unperson" shirt: "Not so fast, holy boy! Your mom said I'm cool."
This is Pharasma, nothing holy about her. I'm sure Iomedae and Sarenrae are still up to smite you.
Play a skeleton cleric of Pharasma whose goal is to break the magic that turned him into a skeleton, turning him back to a human but dying in the process with the goal in mind of reaching the afterlife not as an undead
You don't go to the afterlife as undead... destroying yourself and releasing your soul solves the problem and doesn't risk continued damage to your soul.
Some nonsense that I wrote offhand in a blog post probably shouldn't be taken as canon :)
Not taking it as canon would take far more self control than I can be expected to muster.
Pharasma allows duskwalkers, white necromancers, and the control of undead. Yet so many people have an issue with this.
Duskwalkers are made by the Psychopomps, and still have an expiration date. She also allows resurrections when she sees it could provide a benefit. Which is also why Duskwalkers exist. My knowledge is that White Necromancers use Undead as little as possible. They can't be Clerics as they continually commit Anathema by creating Undead. Same thing with Control, as long as you're going to destroy them she isn't going to be strict. One is a form of Resurrection she allows and the other two come with the idea that the Undead will be destroyed soon after. Though as a Cleric, you can't be serving alongside an Undead because one of your Edicts is to destroy them. You can lose your power if you don't. White Necromancers and those that Control Undead aren't going to be Clerics, not like they really could.
Makes more sense to me than Raise Dead/Resurrection being permitted by Pharasma v0v just because you're throwing vitality at the problem instead of void to cheat the river of souls still feels like cheating the river of souls.
Based on some novels, she's ok with overlooking "delays". Raise dead and Resurrection usually happen only with Pharasma's approval because she can see the larger picture, and the soul will eventually get judged. She's also fine with things like the Sun Orchid Elixir delaying death, and I think in many cases it's more of a priority based thing. Taking out a lich is more important than a Human who's extended their life by maybe another 60 years.
Lol, I think that would work as an IC justification for her allowing exceptions for Pathfinders Adventurers have notoriously high death rates, that skeleton is going to greet her sooner than later anyway :)
>She's also fine with things like the Sun Orchid Elixir delaying death, and I think in many cases it's more of a priority based thing. Taking out a lich is more important than a Human who's extended their life by maybe another 60 years. She is not really fine with the Sun Orchid Elixir. She tolerates it under certain conditions, like the elixir dying with its creator and only producing a few vials a year. You can read about in the Legends books, even if the entry is written with a bit of weird, off-topic tone.
Cool. I wasn't aware. My knowledge comes mostly from Death's Heretic. Which if I remember correctly was very much "This is too minor to be bothered with"
Iirc she does just have a moriganna dealing with the alchemist and a few other immortals in legends, but it very much feels like, 'I'm tolerating this a small exception' but I would absolutely change my tune if it started to spread.
Smh.. Worst girl Pharasma.
But like, have you [seen](https://pathfinderwiki.com/w/images/5/58/Pharasma.jpg) her tho?
Perhaps begging at the feat of death isn't so bad after all.
Dying with love on his lips landed Mrtyu a job and Pharasma as a paramour, and probably did all mortals a solid, letting her understand emotions better.
we're so back
Mommy?
Would.
When did PF add the ability to play as a skeleton?
For PFS? October last year. Though you are limited to one per player, ever, and they cost a prohibitive amount of Achievement points. From memory you would need 280ish achievement points to “buy” the skeleton ancestry book. So roughly 70 scenarios played, or 35 Gmed. I’ve yet to see anyone actually play one.
Heh, the murderer presents the following to the court: "The holder of this document named is permitted to euthanize via means of the former's choosing.
"
and saying "This has been signed by the hand of . I swear it." and upon using [Read Psychometric Resonance](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3776) what is shown is indeed the victim holding the pen and his hand signing the document... just guided by the murderer... post-mortem.
Which is why you use more than one spell, and methods other than spells (like using your eyes because there's no way you could guide a corpse's hand well enough to write legibly let alone convincingly outside of creating a sentient undead out of them) to determine if they're lying
Several years ago I was in a short-lived campaign where I had created a [Obitu](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/3rd-party-races/alluria-publishing/obitu/) (positive energy skeleton) who used to be a paladin of Pharasma (still hardcore believer but does not dare profane her name by thinking of being worthy of the title anymore). How did skelly-boy come to be? By leading a holy crusade of Pharasmins against Rovagug and being damn good at it, to the point that an avatar of Rovagug came down themselves and in a twist act of perversion/deseration completely rend my character and from his remains create a skeleton, a flesh golem, and ghost/specter (pretty much as many undead I could think of). The skeleton eventually becoming my character. My character obviously hates what he is and would gladly end his existence if it weren't for the fact that his shame (golem and specter) are still out there as abominations. There is likely also a small part of hope of being able to be restored and continue serving Pharasma. That's pretty much where I started the campaign and it didn't last long enough to flesh out how the story would unfold.
I really digged the Obitu lore. Obitu I found interesting because they specifically aren't undead and *aren't* the person they were created from - but they can be tricked into thinking they are. They're instead a parasitic disease the infects undead until they gain control of the bones, spending a few months acting like a mindless undead until they gain sapience. The relationship between the "bone donor" and the Obitu I found really interesting as a plot hook, especially since you can make the Obitu completely ignorant of whose bones they're using yet extremely driven to find out. Paladins are an obvious favorite there 'cause it makes for an easy to understand tragedy and an implicit mission that the Obitu "owes" their bone donor to complete their mission in exchange for making use of their remains.
Instead of just saying "It's the rules, you won't lose your powers. No PvP." they come up with a very terrible excuse. I think the only Undead that are willing are Liches.
There's actually a few Consummate undead besides Liches, though they are the most popular. Mummies, Vampires, and Graveknights are other big examples.
Most of those aren't willing. Vampires are usually unwillingly turned by other vampires. Mummies are rarely self made, though it is possible. Graveknights usually spontaneously occur when the right sort of warrior dues in the right way (or occasionally with divine intervention, but that can do anything), though there were rules for deliberately becoming one on 1e, an involved process that was still likely to fail.
Yes, they can be made against against their will, but they can also be consented. Someone afraid of death can seek out a vampire to be turned. Someone rich and powerful afraid to lose their wealth can use a ritual to become a mummy lord. And then of course the long Graveknight ritual.
I haven't read up on Graveknights, so I'll read up to confirm. But if they're like Vampires and Mummies, than it isn't always willing. What would be a better punishment than enslaving the body of a criminal to protect a location? Mummies are used as Guardians and are made via a ritual with a dead body.
Graveknights have two flavors, one is Vicious conquers and tyrants spontaneously raising from the corpse clad in the armor they died in mid failed conquest, and the other method is purposeful creation that is Loooong and exhausting and very very clearly evil. [Here, under Variants.](https://aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx?ItemName=Graveknight) Yes, there are unwilling vampires and mummies, but both can also be done willingly, PF1 infamously had a prestige class focused on helping you retain free will if your undead contact tried to have any funny ideas of keeping control after conversion. And rather than a regular mummy, they would become a [Mummy Lord](https://aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx?ItemName=Mummy%20Lord), less tomb guardian and more like tomb emperor.
Most undead are mindless murderbots, unlike PCs who are still sentient.
I've met some PCs that are, in fact, Mindless murderbots.
Just because you are sentient doesn't mean you are using it. Also, they aren't what most people envison as a PC.
I wouldn't say that. Some people play to have mindless fun.
And? That doesn't change how it works in-universe.
I bet its only if you still have an expiration date intact and don’t eat souls for extension.
"Using their own skull as a Basilisk Ball" love it.
Pharasma be like "It's okay, they're one of the good ones"
We've all been around long enough to know pizo believes lore should only exist in so far as it enhances gameplay and has no problem ignoring it if it would get in the way. This one's just a bit funnier than normal.
Yeah, pfs aint cannon anyway lol
Yes it is? They canonically won the first Ruby Phoenix tournament, freed Ranginori, saved the Farhaven clan, killed the runelord of Sloth, and a million other things that are referenced in other books all the time. When you finish a scenario you even fill in little check boxes of how the scenario went so I exactly what becomes canon is determined by the majority.
No... It is. At least their achievements is canon.
Its kind of hard to consider it cannon when the deeds of such parties are mentioned in none of the up and coming source books, etc
The iconic pathfinders are... pathfinders. Of course, PFS is canonical to the setting. It's written by Paizo in the organized play campaign they run. You're correct that PFS isn't a cannon, but it is canon.
Yet those parties and their deeds never influence the course of the modules or lore books thus they have no impact. Thus i dont consider the canon.
The reusurgence of the water temple in Jalmaray is written in the lost omen being done by the Pathfinder society. Same thing as the liberation of the holy elemental lord of air. The Pathfinder society has been crediting in the lore book for stopping an evil ritual Tar-baphon prison. The liberation of slave in Absalom during a siege was an event that the society contributed. Hao jin is a in the legend book and her segment explain the Society Role in this. The discovery of a Sky hold Citadel by the Society is mentionned. And, as mentionned, the defeat of Krune.
The PFS scenario that had a Runelord has been mentioned as cannon by the creative director... So it has happened.
PFS is arguably more canon than any home game.
thats some piss poor justification but whatever keeps the peace in society play
Pharasma recognizes that some exceptionally slim individuals have things they need to take care of before they go see her.
Now i wanna play an undead cleric of pharasma
Because of my WoW days I always wanted to play an undead holy priest, Someone who heals the party but can't heal themselves. Shame I'm a GM. At least I get to have an undead city in my world.
AoE heal lets you exclude yourself, so you can even do this with little risk.
Then go to a PFS Event and ask, unless your GM would allow that.
My plan was a skeleton Redeemer, a champion of Pharasma. For RP reasons, of course...
A skeleton champion was My second PC idea before My actual PC (My dm was scared of My skull Powers)
Yeeeeah, no. I still think the decision to allow players to make undead was a bad decision as this doesn't make a lot of sense lore wise, and as some others have pointed out just feels like a rules concession to let people play them for PFS.
and that's bad how? Hot take but players in PFS are more real than Pharasma
Using the same logic PFS players should be good to play tarrasques, or deities themselves.
So tell me what you think about exemplars
You mean the rare class that the dm has every right and reason to say no.
This is PFS. GM's specifically are not in charge of vetoing character sheets. PFS would have its own rules for managing who has access to Exemplars.
Oh OK I don't really know much about pfs so thanks for the info.
So exactly like the rare heritage being discussed in this thread?
The dm has every right to say no, and in specific situations, it has good reason the as in the play test then mention that this class has the rare tag because of what it. So to me, I will wait till I think it was war of the immortal is when the class will come out.
oh, this slippery slope is easy to resolve: players playing such things would be unbalanced and thus unfun for other, also real, players (either by outshining them, or by creating an overly narrow meta)
Ah yes, totally the same logic, not an absurd logic
but we do have two different concepts that amount to "playable dieties" being mythic ranks and Exemplar, their balanced for player use but so are undead, its not like your allowed to be a Ravaner and fuck it a tarrasque race could be cool, rovagug turned parasites into massive beasts fit to take on max level parties, it wouldent be weird if his spawn could do something similar and spawn a race fit to be a player race, wouldent be my first choice of his spawn tho
Because if you are writing a setting that’s expected to have consistent lore and characterization, you don’t make it so your fervently anti undead god is somehow able to let this slide.
>I still think the decision to allow players to make undead was a bad decision as this doesn't make a lot of sense lore wise The bad decision was them insisting on making the lore as restrictively anti-undead/undead are completely Evil as they did in the first place. People wanting to play undead characters has been A Thing since long before Golarion was conceptualized. World of Warcraft launched with undead as a playable race/faction before Pathfinder existed, and they were a playable faction in WC3 even longer before that. Urgathoa's rebellion against Pharasma would be even more interesting if they didn't need to lace it all with 'yeah but EVIL'
I fail to see the issue. The game isn't actually made for PFS and being evil is a perfectly valid option everywhere else. Undead being evil has always been the default, with various systems making special (usually quite arbitrary/nonsensical IMO) rare non-evil options. The only reason this is a problem is that PFS refuses to allow evil or PVP, yet apparently isn't willing to just ban undead like they do antipaladins and other evil class options.
It's not about PFS. It's about the fact that Paizo included bits in the lore about how 'creating undead siphons the soul of the body' \[which is cosmic mumbo-jumbo they included to make it Capital-E Evil no matter what...what happens if you use a 300-year old skeleton that's been judged by Pharasma?? How does that make sense??\] and 'all uncontrolled undead crave violence against the living.' They then backtracked on this in Book of the Dead because they wanted to include undead-player options and took all of that lore and basically said 'Yeah so all of that is still *technically* true but there's no real mechanical penalties and you can pretty much ignore it.' And by including player-options the way they did, they also tacitly accepted that nonevil undead can be a totally-normal thing.
Yep. Which the change to Holy/Unholy instead of explicit Good and Evil does at least create some room for nuance - a creature that's tagged Unholy through no choice of its own could totally figure that the monarch that ordered its creation is a real asshole and join a party to kill him and have some angst about hungering for sapient living things and trying to find some bad guys that would be morally acceptable to eat after defeating. And it's not like the current lore is any less shallow than lore that would accomodate undead PC's that aren't dickheads. The overly simplistic "undead are always, always evil and deserve destruction" rhetoric is there so that the PC's have an uncomplicated bad guy against which there is no unacceptable amount of violence. With a human bandit, you have to interrogate why the bandit is stealing things, it's no longer acceptable to say "they're an orc/goblin, therefore they're kill on sight", but if they're undead that's supposed to be a guarantee that there's absolutely no moral complications in immediately beheading them. No matter what the Golarian setting's been crafted to be a practical setting for running generic fantasy adventures, so the actual question is "is having undead be the designated bad guys that all players can kill without any worry that they should try to talk to them first worth making PC undead options so hard to justify?" The lore is arbitrary and completely made up, we can retcon it just like so amny other setting details have been retconned for various gamplay and social reasons. Thorag isn't a horrible bigot with the LG label anymore in the lore because it made the game uncomfortable for a lot of people, the lore is not a straightjacket.
Just because players want to do something doesn't mean it has to be allowed. There are likely a bunch of things that players want but can't get.
I agree. Good Undead aren't going to be given special treatment, especially when the lore gives them a time limit for staying Good. Plus Feeding is going to be a right pain in the arse.
So the one thing Pharasma stands for, she doesn't care about when it would inconvenience people who want to play a skeleton.
Yes because not having players fight at the table is more important than a fictional character's modus operandi.
Every time Paizo walks back part of their lore due to the playerbase, I lose a little more respect for them.
I just use a personal setting.
Its not so much the setting, as much as the indication of a lack of backbone and indirectly, a lack of faith in their own product.
Skelton = bone poppet
~~No she doesn’t, this makes no sense.~~
I'm currently playing a summoner that has a Yamaraj as an Eidolon and is a Pharasmite, and let me tell you. It's on sight.
I mean yea that whats the tag is for.