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Pathfinder 2E Chaotic Clerics

A great example of "chaotic group" in the History is the fitna (civil war among Muslims) of Al-Andalus what caused the end of the Omeya dinasty and the division of Al-Andalus (Spanish land ruled by Muslims) in taifas (little Spanish Muslims kingdoms). Groups need a some common allegiance to face menace and rivale powers. Even the criminal groups may are "chaotic alligment" but they have got their own rules, and usually harder than state law. Do you know how is living in a failed stated from real world?

In the fiction annarchy is Guy Fawke kicking-ass the leader of Norsefire party, but in the crude real life annarchy is a Mexican family with firearms in their home because narcos could ring the door and say "I like your daughter, she has to have a shower because after (sex with) your wife she will be the next". Do you remember that episode of Simpsons with James Brown, "Bart's inner child" and the "do what you feel "festival?

In the worst crisis the selfish individualists can't survive alone, but cooperation, sacrifice, hard work and discipline are necessary. 'When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.'
 

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Farealmer3

Explorer
Chaotic gods don't give rules. They give axioms and guidelines and expect their followers to develop their own interpretations and wisdom to make their own decisions.

I don't mean this example to be controversial, but if the whole of a religion's laws were, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.", this would be chaotic because the axiom that is being followed makes the decision making process inherently personal and self-centered. You decide how you would like to be treated, and then that becomes your standard and point of reference. Pretty much all Chaotic Good deities are going to make the majority of following them some variation on that maxim.

Similar, "Harm no one; do as you will.", is a standard that sets up a self-centered (and thus chaotic) moral principle. Pretty much every Chaotic Neutral philosophy is going to boil down to having that as its central maxim, and everything else will be just advice on how to get what you want within that constraint.

The idea here is that instead of a detailed guide to how you should approach each scenario, the chaotic way is to just have some guiding principles that are open to personal interpretation. Chaotic deities are always much more likely to endorse some sort of 'moral relativism' and 'following the dictates of your conscious'. And they are also very unlikely to do more than advise rather than govern their cult, and very unlikely to establish a formal official hierarchy in their cult. Problems in the cult are probably expected to be resolved by some sort of consensus making, and if you can't come to a consensus then everyone should just agree to go their own way and do what they think is right. Note of course that in a Chaotic Evil cult, such consensus making could include killing off everyone that doesn't agree with your viewpoint, and that would be "Ok".
Interesting, I was wondering what you would say about this. Ever since seeing one of your earlier posts on alignment. But could a church really function under such guidelines? Or is it more you believe a chaotic god couldn't have a true organized church at all?
 

Celebrim

Legend
Interesting, I was wondering what you would say about this. Ever since seeing one of your earlier posts on alignment. But could a church really function under such guidelines? Or is it more you believe a chaotic god couldn't have a true organized church at all?

Thank you.

First, properly it's a cult - not a church. One wouldn't speak of the chaotic god having a true organized synagogue or a true organized mosque. It's not so much that it is insulting to call it a church, it's that calling it a church gets you in the wrong mindset for understanding it. D&D has long labored under the impression that the Catholic church is basically the archetype of every religion. It's highly unlikely any polytheistic cult would resemble the catholic church in any particular.

And yes, plenty of cults aren't organized. Heck, there are some Christian denominations that have no hierarchy, no oversight, no uniform theology, and so forth. Sometimes even no ordination.

And it's more that I believe a chaotic god wouldn't want an organized church. Consider the deities as reified philosophical principles. A mortal chaotic might want to rule over others, but an immortal chaotic at most just wants to get its way and sometimes not even that. If a deity has any connection to his followers at all, they have to follow his principles. You can't have followers as any deity if they aren't in your image. So a chaotic deities followers can't be hidebound rule-followers that are locked in a strict hierarchy. They have to be free spirits, individualistic, at least self-centered if not selfish, that is guided by their instincts and their conscious (or lack of it as the case may be). So just imagine every variation of what that is like, and you have a chaotic cult. There are a ton of things you can get done without central organization.
 

Celebrim

Legend
In the worst crisis the selfish individualists can't survive alone, but cooperation, sacrifice, hard work and discipline are necessary. 'When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.'

I'm not going to argue. I'm just going to note that fundamentally that is a in D&D terms an aligned position, and I don't think you can really give the alignment wheel it's due if you aren't capable of seeing everything from each view point equally. Most of the big problems with understanding how it all fits together come from approaching it with a bias and declaring, "This. This is the one that is right. This is the way one ought to live." You may even be right, but you can never produce a nuanced treatment of even this simplified model of human belief and culture if that's all you can see.
 

Farealmer3

Explorer
Thank you.

First, properly it's a cult - not a church. One wouldn't speak of the chaotic god having a true organized synagogue or a true organized mosque. It's not so much that it is insulting to call it a church, it's that calling it a church gets you in the wrong mindset for understanding it. D&D has long labored under the impression that the Catholic church is basically the archetype of every religion. It's highly unlikely any polytheistic cult would resemble the catholic church in any particular.

And yes, plenty of cults aren't organized. Heck, there are some Christian denominations that have no hierarchy, no oversight, no uniform theology, and so forth. Sometimes even no ordination.

And it's more that I believe a chaotic god wouldn't want an organized church. Consider the deities as reified philosophical principles. A mortal chaotic might want to rule over others, but an immortal chaotic at most just wants to get its way and sometimes not even that. If a deity has any connection to his followers at all, they have to follow his principles. You can't have followers as any deity if they aren't in your image. So a chaotic deities followers can't be hidebound rule-followers that are locked in a strict hierarchy. They have to be free spirits, individualistic, at least self-centered if not selfish, that is guided by their instincts and their conscious (or lack of it as the case may be). So just imagine every variation of what that is like, and you have a chaotic cult. There are a ton of things you can get done without central organization.
How would these differences manifest in good or evil chaotic deities? Also how do you feel about the standard portrayal of drow society?
 

My house rule is adding allegiance, and spells with key aligment can hurt enemies with same aligment but different allegiance(religion, country, race, tribe, guild..), for example a drow cleric againts a shaman orc. I also allow allegiance with opposite aligment, let's imagine an example a chaotic character with law allegiance like the cops from the teleserie "the shield" (2002-2008, by FX). Other example would be a xenophobe dwarf with allegiance race and kingdom. His behavior would be CE but for his compatriots, then he would be like LG.

A chaotic deity would be, or very attuned to Nature and/or primal forces, or only honorable behavior with folk with the same allegiance.
 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
Similar, "Harm no one; do as you will.", is a standard that sets up a self-centered (and thus chaotic) moral principle. Pretty much every Chaotic Neutral philosophy is going to boil down to having that as its central maxim, and everything else will be just advice on how to get what you want within that constraint.
Keep in mind, though, that this principle comes with a serious rider: you have to take personal responsibility for what you do.

There's no confessional to unburden your sins, no higher-authority forgiveness, no absolution, no atonement; nothing. If you do it you own it, now and forever.

It's amazing how many people skip over this bit when analyzing 'as it harm none, do as ye will'.

Lan-"blessed be"-efan
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
Keep in mind, though, that this principle comes with a serious rider: you have to take personal responsibility for what you do.

There's no confessional to unburden your sins, no higher-authority forgiveness, no absolution, no atonement; nothing. If you do it you own it, now and forever.

It's amazing how many people skip over this bit when analyzing 'as it harm none, do as ye will'.

Lan-"blessed be"-efan

Some might also gloss over the idea that the set of “none” also includes “self”...
 

Celebrim

Legend
How would these differences manifest in good or evil chaotic deities?

Well, good believes that whatever meaning can be found in life is to encourage health, success, happiness, growth, prosperity and so forth in yourself and in others - what Gygax put succinctly as "weal". Evil on the contrary believes that value is only found in destruction, negation, and tearing things down. In the terms of Chaotic Good versus Chaotic Evil it's literally the differences between a being wanting to enter into an intimate friendship with you, and the difference in a being that doesn't see you as another "self" at all and only sees you as food or other property to be used to its ends.

The primary motivation of most Chaotic Evil deities can be described as 'hunger' in one form or the other. They want and that's it, and the cult may acquire some power by providing for those wants. I personally feel that NE and CE are fairly hard things to worship in truth, and that most of those cults would be relatively rare and most of their worshipers transitory in a sense - they attract the desperate and depraved. Sincerity doesn't really exist in CE philosophy, so the idea of sincere worshipers is fairly alien to it. Probably some of the most widespread (and frightening) CE cults would be the parasitic ones where the god has basically subsumed the identity of all of his/her/its followers. Cults were everyone is a lycanthrope and the real god is the curse/disease/manifestation for example. Nurgle from the Warhammer world is a fairly well done example of this. On the extreme end of the spectrum, some Chaotic Evil deities might not have any relationship with their cult at all. They might arguably not even realize it exists. They might be incapable of realizing - like the blind god Azathoth of H.P. Lovecraft - that anything other than themselves actually exists.

Chaotic good cults on the other hand are built around friendships and other close relationships. There will be a lot of emphasis on disciple/mentor relationships. The relationship of the deity to the cult will be precisely this, and its highly likely the deity will walk among his/her followers (usually but not always in disguise). Clerics will be trained individually by no formal process, and there may be few or no actual physical intuitions associated with the cult unless the deities particular philosophy encourages the need for a facility. For example, the popular chaotic good deity Jord from my homebrew has his followers build and operate gymnasiums, and so all Jord temples are also gymnasiums and gymnasiums are a sacred space to him. Other chaotic good deities tend to prefer to only worship in sacred spaces in the natural world, or they may be encouraged to see everywhere as a sacred space and discouraged from building temples for that reason.

In a polytheistic society, there is certainly no reason why you can't worship broadly, but I suspect chaotic neutral deities will attract some of the most widespread and fervent worship.

Also how do you feel about the standard portrayal of drow society?

I feel it's complete bollocks, and Salvatore and others have just made it worse. The typical portrayal of drow society is that it is a quasi-fascist, strictly hierarchal, meritocracy with rigorous exams and strict control over drow society collectively. Yes, some nod is made to the idea that they are fighting with each other and contesting with each other, but a close reading of say the culture supposedly pervading the Nine Hells reveals no distinction between it and the culture supposedly pervading the Abyss and Drow culture in particular.

I generally feel that the writers of D&D, especially those post Gygax (although Gygax is not blameless), have had a very poor understanding of what is meant by good and evil and great difficulty explaining it. They can to some extent correctly label the works of evil as evil - they know that theft, murder, and so forth are evil. But the closest that they can come to why those things are evil is that they are 'selfish'. The result is that the three evil alignments are basically indistinguishable. The treatment of LG and CG have scarcely been better, depending on what the particular biases the writer has had with respect to what good looks like.

For my game, I model Drow society in my head very much after the social order of lions - which is one of the ugliest social structures you will find amongst any social society of any animal. As chaotics, gone are these large, highly organized cities with a shared top-down culture that typify drow culture in its normal conception. Chaotic evil cultures are violent anarchies - they can't support that sort of organized structure. Instead, in drow society land belongs to matriarchies that consist of close relatives. These females band together for mutual protection and build small keeps or fortresses to dominate valuable resources in the underdark. Males children are discarded prior to puberty, and females brought up as part of the band. Males must find and win acceptance in the nomadic male gangs that roam the margins of female territory. Many are in fact killed outright. Male bands are in a particularly precarious position. Food resources are scarce so small bands do better than larger bands. However, small bands can be easily killed by larger male bands. Recruits therefore need to be able to pull their own weight and at the same time not threaten the existing hierarchy - many bands dissolve in violent murderous conflicts. The goal of all male gangs is to grow strong enough to successfully assault and conquer a female fortress. The survivors of this can claim breeding rights from the uncooperative females, and kill any young males and non-breeding age females that they find. All breeding occurs through acts of violence. Male bands attempt to defend these breeding "rights" as long as possible - after all, the females are now pregnant with their genetic heritage. The real deepest horror of all of this is the same as it is in lion culture. Females will fight viciously to defend the offspring of prior male bands, because it is also their offspring, but as soon as those children are dead they are basically forced to consent to the perpetual violence including what is inflicted on them. I don't go any further in describing this process because its pretty darn revolting and degrading. Feel free to research lions further.

Anyway, the players ideas about what to expect from drow constitute the myths of my world. And further, while the drow if they ever emerged would in fact be very dangerous, it wouldn't be because they are organized. A plague doesn't require organization to be dangerous.
 
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Celebrim

Legend
Keep in mind, though, that this principle comes with a serious rider: you have to take personal responsibility for what you do.

There's no confessional to unburden your sins, no higher-authority forgiveness, no absolution, no atonement; nothing. If you do it you own it, now and forever.

It's amazing how many people skip over this bit when analyzing 'as it harm none, do as ye will'.

Lan-"blessed be"-efan

You could certainly choose to believe that under a CN philosophy, and most CN would shrug and say, "Whatever floats your boat." But I'd argue that such a person's view point had been 'tainted' by contact with non-CN philosophies. While all you say is true, it's just a personal viewpoint. Nothing in CN philosophy would prevent you from engaging in acts of self-forgiveness, self-absolution, and self-atonement. And because everyone is basically just accountable to themselves, no CN can tell any other CN that their acts and their absolution are insufficient. They can withhold forgiveness, but they have no right to stop someone else from forgiving themselves, because if they did that would imply that there was some externally reviewable standard that everyone could be held up to, and that would in fact be a universal moral law. So while sure, an individual CN could decide that they own what they did, and another CN could decide to hold them responsible for what they did, nothing requires or can require the CN to act in a particular way or adhere to your standards of how they should have behaved. If some CN shrugs and says, "Eh. I got over it. I learned to forgive myself.", what higher authority can you appeal to?

I think in practice you are only going to find accountability among CN's where they value what they get from a relationship enough that they are willing to make concessions to win back that approval. Individual CN's might develop their own personal code of conduct that said, "When I do this, I'll own my mistake in this particular way.", but you could never say to another CN as a CN my way is better than yours, because that would imply that there was some universal standard everyone should adopt.
 

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