Pathfinder 2E Chaotic Clerics

[Celebrim]

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

I only present the silver rede as a simple but familiar axiomatic moral system that has the attribute of passivity with respect to others. Like the 'Golden Rule', in the real world it might be part of a much larger system of thought instead of more or less the whole of it, and what is coming along side it might change the implementation.

I think that different CN philosophies might disagree over this point and still be more like each other than they would be like something else. Some CN's might hold that of course one had to see to the health and well-being of the self, since it was ultimately the self that had value. These philosophies might advocate against suicide for example. Other CN's might argue that ultimately, what was right and good was freedom and that this must include the freedom to do harm to oneself (or what someone else considered harm to you), and these philosophies might consider suicide an innate personal right, to be exercised at the discretion of the individual. No one could tell someone else whether their life was worth living; they'd have to decide that for themselves. If you really strongly start believing that your choices have to increase the health of the self, then you are very quickly going to start edging into CG territory, because it quickly becomes a moral imperative that if you must treat yourself well, that you should also extend this treatment to others - not merely acting so as to not harm them, but to also actively encourage their health as well. And as soon as you do that, you become the sort of 'moral busybody' that a chaotic neutral considers one of the first steps toward error.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Where they may differ depends on their definition of “harm”. Those who see suicide as a personal and universal right typically do not agree that it is harm, merely cessation.


Of course, if you don’t get your suicide attempt right the first time, things get murky...

 

[Farealmer3]

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.

But couldn't CE deities that offer "easy" power be popular simply 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.

Chaotics attracting fervent worship?

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 extend correctly label the works of evil as evil - they no 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.

Indeed it was this argument you made in other threads that got my interest in how you see things in D&D. That and your slaadi lord write-ups. I definitely agree alignment has been poorly handled in D&D. Which is unfortunate considering it's reliance on it.

Feel free to research lions further.

I actually knew exactly where you were going as soon as you said lion. I have watched a lot of nature programs in my time.

 

[Lanefan]

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

Some indeed, sadly; but not all.

 

[Staffan]

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.

Another option is that of "divine extortion". That is, "I am the god of the Storm! Pay homage to me and I may see fit to send my storms elsewhere, or don't and suffer my wrath!"

 

[Celebrim]

Another option is that of "divine extortion". That is, "I am the god of the Storm! Pay homage to me and I may see fit to send my storms elsewhere, or don't and suffer my wrath!"

True, you can have authentic worship of a deity be entirely propitiation. The homebrew deity Nuati, god of storms, is most often (but not always) worshiped and invoked in this manner. Nauti is worshipped favorably in climates that depend on monsoons and other tropical storms. He's also a male fertility god. But even so, the vast majority of his worshippers simply fear him and beg off his wrath.

Virtually the entire real Aztec pantheon was worshiped in this manner - we must continually send up human sacrifices lest the gods destroy us.

I've mentioned elsewhere that in polytheism as it was actually practiced, you would have temples with idols to gods of destruction, where the priests daily invoked spells of defeat to keep the deity at bay. In the Egyptian practice, this was very typical, but even in Greece the Spartans kept Ares bound in dishonorable chains, to prevent him from symbolically leaving Sparta and going to help their enemies.

 

[Staffan]

I've mentioned elsewhere that in polytheism as it was actually practiced, you would have temples with idols to gods of destruction, where the priests daily invoked spells of defeat to keep the deity at bay. In the Egyptian practice, this was very typical, but even in Greece the Spartans kept Ares bound in dishonorable chains, to prevent him from symbolically leaving Sparta and going to help their enemies.

Yeah, that's a thing that's been bugging me about D&D religion: it's usually this weird competitive henotheistic thing rather than proper polytheism.

 

[Farealmer3]

True, you can have authentic worship of a deity be entirely propitiation. The homebrew deity Nuati, god of storms, is most often (but not always) worshiped and invoked in this manner. Nauti is worshipped favorably in climates that depend on monsoons and other tropical storms. He's also a male fertility god. But even so, the vast majority of his worshippers simply fear him and beg off his wrath.

Virtually the entire real Aztec pantheon was worshiped in this manner - we must continually send up human sacrifices lest the gods destroy us.

I've mentioned elsewhere that in polytheism as it was actually practiced, you would have temples with idols to gods of destruction, where the priests daily invoked spells of defeat to keep the deity at bay. In the Egyptian practice, this was very typical, but even in Greece the Spartans kept Ares bound in dishonorable chains, to prevent him from symbolically leaving Sparta and going to help their enemies.

Is Nuati one of yours? From what I've gathered your homebrew has multiple deities. Do you handle them in a polytheistic way? I know you have a champion class similar to paladins. How do those influence any polytheistic worship?

 

[Celebrim]

Is Nuati one of yours? From what I've gathered your homebrew has multiple deities. Do you handle them in a polytheistic way? I know you have a champion class similar to paladins. How do those influence any polytheistic worship?

Nuati is one of mine.

There is a difference between who this works in my head and how it works in practice, largely because most of the time the players don't have any interest in the religious life of the community and because religious festivals usually only serve as a circumstance or color for some more adventurous event.

But my NPCs for the most part are not followers of a single deity, and each city tends to have its own religious calendar with regular religious festivities that the whole community takes part of. Also, many deities are worshipped together with their divine familial relations, often as married partners. For example, Jord the god of leisure activities is one of the most popular deities, but he's almost always worshipped together with his less popular spouse Sesstra the goddess of labor. Together, they are viewed by the public very much the way moderns might view some beloved sitcom, the sort of opposites attract leading to combinations of marital bliss and marital acrimony that many find relatable. Likewise, Aratos and Anwen are separately the divines of smithing and the hearth, but together they are the deities of marriage and domesticity. It's normal and expected the priests of one will be married off to the priestesses of the other and their temples are generally joined.

If you walk into the house of a typical NPC they have a shrine with a hierarchy of deities that they worship which are associated with their family. This might descend from a national patron, such as Aravar in Amalteen, important family or city deities like Amaya, through the different deities that define that person professionally or historically - perhaps Sesstra if they are a tailor, Nauti if they are sailors, or Lado if they are a brickmason - all the way down to the icons of important ancestors and perhaps household spirits that the family has a relationship with. What you will typically see is that this slice of the divine isn't necessarily allied with each other philosophically or with the worshiper, and that difference between the worshiper and the divine target of worship defines the relationship.

Basically what I try to avoid is this idea that everyone has a single patron and that's who the person worships. I do that in part by making the deities fairly narrow, so that no one deity can actually represent a significant slice of a person's life.

Champions are supposed to be the living embodiment of the deities. They are in effect living idols, representing the deity in the world, and in religious festivals they are expected to play that role, standing in to a large extent for the deity as his personal ambassador or seneschal or even taking possession of his or her champion and speaking through their body. Of course, it may take some time for the community to actually recognize that they have a champion in their midst, particularly if their is no cleric in the community that can identify the signs or the champion isn't yet comfortable claiming the title.

 

[Farealmer3]

Champions are supposed to be the living embodiment of the deities. They are in effect living idols, representing the deity in the world, and in religious festivals they are expected to play that role, standing in to a large extent for the deity as his personal ambassador or seneschal or even taking possession of his or her champion and speaking through their body. Of course, it may take some time for the community to actually recognize that they have a champion in their midst, particularly if their is no cleric in the community that can identify the signs or the champion isn't yet comfortable claiming the title.

I know your a history buff. Is there historical precedence for champions in polytheism or is it just so you could have a paladin niche? And how is the class distinct from a melee spec'ed cleric?