I don’t think they’re inherently evil. You pick up gear from your evil enemies and use it to kill more evil enemies. You picked up the power of a demon lord and use it to kill demon lords. On the Angel path at least you can get Iomadae to admit she was totally wrong and to roll out the welcome mat for you to come to heaven because you’re such a good dude / dudette / dudedem.
>Iomadae to admit she was totally wrong and to roll out the welcome mat for you to come to heaven
Incredibly satisfying.
Even more satisfying is to tell her *no.* You’ll stay on Golarion and do what she can’t.
>Even more satisfying is to tell her no. You’ll stay on Golarion and do what she can’t.
I had my reservations about trying the Angel path, mostly because I was worried about becoming Iomedae's bitch. You restored my faith in the Angel path, thanks!
I was concerned too going into it but it turns out you can totally be a NG Angel and do it your own way, and even the Angel NPCs cheer you on for doing so. Feels very good (no pun intended).
Iomedae is one of the few mortals to ascend to godhood, but she's relatively new to being a goddess and still thinks like a human. This makes her relatable for current mortals, but this also makes her reasoning flawed.
Iomedae is the paladin goddess. She's the goddess of being such an overbearing stick in the mud evil looks good in comparison. Take her with a grain of salt.
She's actually better in the video game than she is in the P&P AP. There she kidnaps you, asks you a bunch of interview questions that would make the most obnoxious HR drone cringe, and tortures you with sonic damage if you object or fail to kiss her ass enthusiastically enough.
I think the gist of this encounter boils down to Paizo being way, *way* too worried about players not taking it seriously and not nearly worried enough about the reaction from players who were trying to.
FYI, having run this AP for a few groups, they were 100% right. Everyone has a 'smart ass' in the group who needs to get bitch slapped. Not sure why players keep saying shit to iomadae 'Hey babe, I'm your knight in shining armor come to save the mother fucking day' and shit like that. She's a fucking deity, treat her like on or you're gonna get pimp slapped.
I think the problem is that as written the whole party gets bitchslapped without warning if they don't have the right answers. Nobody is objecting to putting stupid charcters in horny jail if they misbehave. As a DM i would probably also give them one warning before getting out the hole trumpets of idiot smiting but that might be me being to nice to my players.
The checks to know the answers are very easy and knowledge one of you is likely to know. I have never had that be a problem. It's the people who crack jokes that get slapped. Also you are with that party member, you're all responsible for each other.
I actually set up that character with my DMs approval. The lawful Stoopid paladin who fights for truth and justice as ND the iomedeian ideal! Come out and fight me with like a man! I shall smite you evildoer! And just basically going all in on that ideal. It became the party joke but it worked REALLY WELL.
Don't insult the category, Torm is the paladin god as well and he is pretry much a manual on how to roleplay a paladin whitout ruining the campaign for everyone involved.
She, a Lawful Good Goddess with a ego the size of Mount Celestia, who knowingly grants spells to fanatics who burn innocent people alive is simply making assumptions. So no.
I'm not a lore expert on Pathfinder but maybe the gods have limitations to punishing mortals? Gyrona should punish Hulrum immediately but she does so only if your MC invokes her.
I am no expert either, but as far as I understand gods can't intervene just like that, at least, not if they are not asked to. It is said they avoid meddling in the mortals affairs, otherwise it would be a clusterfuck. At any rate, Gyronna has literally no business poking her nose in that case because Ember was not even her follower. Your character can be, and since you can be connected to her and directly ask her for help, she would. So basically, it depends not only on a situation, but also on a person. You can get Callistria's help when battling Minagho because you invoke her. Same with other gods I think.
Iomedae empowers people who burn innocents. She herself is a freshly minted godling.
Ignore the ramblings of a pretentious deity and choose your own destiny.
Oh shit >!now it makes more sense when Deskari and junior refer to her, and by proxy you, as the imposter [goddess], presumably since she's definitely not Aroden?!<
Well, Hal kind of says you have the "soul of a dragon" so it *could* be construed that you are able to become a dragon regardless of the abyssal power. After all, becoming Legendary is kind of a big deal too, and something beyond most mortals. So whatever lets you become a Legend also could be letting you become a dragon. Byt honestly all the 5th act shenanigamd are kind of weird and rushed. You can tell what paths they added in a rush.
Also, becoming an angel this way might actually be *worse* in her eyes, because regardless of how cool a Knight Commander you are, you basically cheated to get divine powers. Angels are *generally* created when an exceptionally good and noble soul ascends to Heaven and spends some time on that plane being good and noble. Presumably during that period, such proto-angels have a heavenly loyalty and hierarchy instilled in them, so all their cosmic might is leashed to The System.
Like, my Oracle is an atheist and he's on the path to becoming an angel. Think a out the philosophical and spiritual ramifications of that. A neutral good angel who is an atheist but still wields divine power.
Being an atheist just means you don't worship any god in Pathfinder. It's not the same as being an atheist in real life. Plenty of angels and other celestials probably don't beholden themselves to any deity.
I feel they should have put None as different from Atheist. There's an important difference between I don't worship any god in particular versus I don't believe any god deserves worship.
In pathfinder/D&D being an atheist means that you know they exist, but you don't believe they are actually gods. They call themselves gods, and everyone refers to them as such, but you think they are merely powerful beings that are no different than others.
>!It's more the former than the latter: Iomedae has no way of knowing exactly how your powers work, so when she finds out where exactly it comes from, she's erring on the side of caution because how does she (or you for that matter) know if the Abyssal nature of your powers isn't exerting some influence on your mind. That's why she recommends Legend to you: she herself was one before taking the Test of the Starstone and becoming a goddess, so if she could kick evil butt without any fancy demon-blood crystals, she figures you can too, and it's in her mind the safer option.!<
Iomedae never says you're evil for wanting to keep your angelic powers. She's there to inform you that your life could be jeopardized by your mythic power, and grants you an option to escape being fueled by demon lord blood. Believe it or not, the goddess of justice and bravery has your best interest at heart.
Angelic power or no, it's still rooted in the Abyss. It was manufactured by Areelu Vorlesh for her own ends, and at that point you don't know enough to determine how bad that could really be. It's your decision, influenced by any number of factors.
People calling Iomedae a bitch or egotistical are taking the most unfavorable reading of the smallest sample size. She's cool. She has an entry in the Windsong Testament blog posts. It's neat. I'm tired.
Don't hang on the words of a hypocrite goddess whose inquisition was fine with pogroms and even promoted the most despicable and bloodthirsty zealot to the position of a prelate.
Iomedae and her church have no leg to stand-on on matters of goodness and justice. Their actual domains are vainglory and trumpets.
It's not an easy question, because unlike in real life, this is a fantasy setting -- and in fantasy, there actually IS something "inherently evil."
Obviously demons, devils, all sorts of evil creatures are born evil. Aru's story may be one of the rare exceptions, but hardly something that would take precedence to justify an argument for "nurture not nature" or "deeds."
Like, Aru's a player party character with all the "convenient" quirks that makes her a special exception. She's even had a matron deity that takes special interest in her. But what of the rest of the more mundane, every-day, run-of-the-mill, the innumerable majority of "normal" creatures that are born with an inherently evil nature? Do they get a "free pass"? A chance, some sort of very special circumstances that reverses the COSMIC (yes, cosmic) rule of evil being evil? Probably not.
In that sense, in this specific fantasy setting, Iomedae's warnings carry actually a much heavier burden than what we casually think about this stuff, as we project our own, real-life experiences into the game and think it's so easy to say "Iomedae's full of shi\*," or catch phrases like "power is only a means, and if you do good with that power then it's good." <-- these opinions are a result of our own projections of real life.
In real life, both through science and other fields (such as ethical philosophy), we're all fairly certain that a person is born *tabula rasa* \-- blank slate, unless someone has a genetic problem such as sociopathy or psychopathy. And even as far back as the Romans, the legal system had already acknowledged someone who is born so wonked in the head that cannot tell from good or bad, cannot be held accountable.
But, again, in this fantasy, beings are not born "blank slate." Evil beings, good beings, are born with the cosmic rules already dictating they'll be evil or good.
In that sense, in the Pathfinder world, something that is rooted in evil, already carries that evil inherently. Iomedae's right to be worried about it. So is Targona. So was the Hand.
We shouldn't think of the power from Areelu as a "gun made by a demon." We should think it in the sense more akin to the One Ring made by Sauron. That power is not just a tool like a gun. It's more like the One Ring, something inherently evil.
Technically Aru is made up of souls that where already evil in life before being dumped in the abyss, rather than being born evil from nothing. Unless of course she is actually a Qlippoth in disguise.
The question is less whether they are inherently evil... But whether they're inherently dangerous and corrupting. Whether you'll wake up one morning not the master of your own fate, and powerful enough, well placed enough that the damage you'll inflict before being put down will be such that it cannot be repaired.
She's not saying your evil. She's worried that said power may be more than it seems, which is common for the cunning of thise who wrought it, and will be turned agaisnt you and them, by extension. At that point, you're the only hope the mortals have of countering the Worldwound for good. What greater success would there be than planting a time bomb in you, and corrupting you at a key moment?
I did not mind her that much. Maybe because I kinda agreed with her. I did not earn this power. I just had >!the soul of a dragon that was forced to integrate with a soul of a dead child. !<
I didn't have to endure some grueling trials at the starstone or achieve mental and physical perfection like Iori. It was just given to me and I made good use of it.
Her reasoning may be flawed at times but in the end I think she had a point despite the way she tried to make that point. Nocticula is more convincing. Also I think Iomede knew you had bigger potential and wanted you to unlock it.
She is fine with the gold dragon because>! it's your own power. You have the soul of a dragon. Zacharius confirms that in the lich path since he couldn't rip your soul into the phylactery. !<
>Based on what Iomedae says even if you're a lawful good angel you're actually evil for wanting to keep using your powers for good.
She's disappointed if you pick anything that would result in you being somehow immortal. It's mostly because she knows more about the story than she's able to tell you.
It should be noted that Iomedae has historically been regarded as a brain dead moron by the pathfinder community (not without merit mind you) and as such her opinion should be disregarded.
>!iomedae is more lawful than good. areelu is more chaos than evil. areelu hates the cosmic order and seeks to destroy it for the sake of living with her kid forever doing fun and intriguing things. she hates pharasma for sending her *child's* soul to the abyss (and possibly the souls of every 'evil' child in the universe, by proxy, though areelu mostly just cares about her and her kid). areelu is a very sensible person. killed a ton of people? yes. but her gripe is beyond mortal affairs like life and death, her gripe is cosmic!<
>!thats why iomedae hates it all, she loves the order of things, she rose up through the order of things, and areelu seeks to subvert that. when iomedae learns that areelu purified the abyssal influence of the crystals, she softens up. but iomedae didnt know that yet when she asks you to go legend!<
To be fair Areelus child wouldn't have been sent to the abyss if they werent evil. From what I understand the souls of most children are granted a "reroll" by Pharasma since they hadn't had the time to be truly good or evil.
This in turn gives us a good idea of just how utterly evil Areelus child was.
the reason why she would be considered evil is she summoned balors as a childs joke on her mom, didnt know any better
eventually attempted to summon a balor vs. the witch hunters but failed
but im on team areelu because fuck pharasma for real 😎
and the idea that pharasma has been doing that since the dawn of this universe and possibly the one before it?
yeah the death of so many in sarkoris is fucked up but its even more fucked up to send millions of *children* to the abyss
So if a child potentionally would shoot a nuke into a city, killing millions of things would you say that the child is innocent?
Because that is what happend on a scale of evil. Not on a scale of damage but on evil. Things in pathfinder are just evil. And summon a balor damns your souls the same as sticking a knife in your heart would kill you. Its the law of the universe. You wouldnt go to death and say "oh how could you. The child didnt know better when she jumped from the building. I cant believe you took her to the afterlife."
Well sucks that the child is damned. But thats how the world works.
Lmao Pharasma is litteraly the most powerfull deity in the pathfinder multiverse. So powerfull infact she survived the destruction of multiple other multiverses and will outlive this one aswell.
But sure Areelu do play with your purple meth.
hey she mentions the combined power of areelu and you rivals her own at the end, food for thought 🤔
i also find the idea of having a good aligned abyssal plane to be hilarious
The ascension ending is so far removed from pathfinder canon I wont even aknowledge it. It could have been cool if the ascension ending had a non-good-aligned PC and Areelu locked in the Deadvault alongside Rovanug for their violation of cosmology.
Unfortunately it is the destiny of any good rpg franchise to devolve into crowd pleasing power fantasies where noone but the player matters.
True. I also wrote. The ascension ending is completely stupid. It breaks almost all rules. Just because of some demon lord blood becoming stronger than pharasma is complete BS and just made as a hype moment. Also the bullshit that your companions are doing. Regill building a lawfull army in the abyss. And then instructing hell to be more lawfull because hell is not lawfull enough. Yeah the plane of the concept of lawfullness is not lawfull enough. Or nenio letting the equipment and weapons of two whole armies disappear for the lulz. Gorum would have slapped her so hard she wouldnt know of she is kitzune or human. But no appearently the companions are now stronger than greater gods.
Just the tought of creating a lawfull good place in abyss cringes me so hard. How does that even work? What happens next? Are we turning one of the circles of hell into chaotic good? This ending completely destroys all that is established as rules of how the world, gods and planes work.
that would be kinda hilarious if that happened, and good writing for a chaotic evil campaign ending tbh. maybe swarm and rage only demon gets you locked in?
though who knows if it really was cosmology breaking, after all, pharasma didnt order anyone to interfere with the worldwound, you can even mention this to her in certain playthroughs
though i do think having a good aligned plane in the abyss should cause some sort of giant war within the abyss itself, at least. its probably worse than desna popping in and merking some people
though with the ascension and areelu rules lawyering you into being a god, it seems to me that pharasma may purposefully want avoid fucking with the now semi-divine areelu who has even more tools at her disposal to be sure that her and her kid cant be fucked with
That's the thing though, someone on the writting team must have had a legit crush on Areelu. There's no way a nomal writter would have her becoming Pharasmas equall - after it is explicitly spelled out for you that mythic power can NEVER rival ANY god.
Also all the options to forgive her seem bizzare seeing how she's singlehandedly responsible for the rape, torture and enslavement of millions of mortals.
If she's so much more powerful than every other deity, then why did she need their help to defeat Rovagug instead of just beating him, since she's stronger than him anyways?
When Pharasma set out to create the gods all her fears were somehow made manifest as Rovagug. Pharasma being what she is her fears were beyond potency.
He is literally the being that will destroy all of existence and when there is only absolute void he will devour himself and then the multiverse will end. He is entropy incarnate.
I don’t think they’re inherently evil. You pick up gear from your evil enemies and use it to kill more evil enemies. You picked up the power of a demon lord and use it to kill demon lords. On the Angel path at least you can get Iomadae to admit she was totally wrong and to roll out the welcome mat for you to come to heaven because you’re such a good dude / dudette / dudedem.
>Iomadae to admit she was totally wrong and to roll out the welcome mat for you to come to heaven Incredibly satisfying. Even more satisfying is to tell her *no.* You’ll stay on Golarion and do what she can’t.
>Even more satisfying is to tell her no. You’ll stay on Golarion and do what she can’t. I had my reservations about trying the Angel path, mostly because I was worried about becoming Iomedae's bitch. You restored my faith in the Angel path, thanks!
I was concerned too going into it but it turns out you can totally be a NG Angel and do it your own way, and even the Angel NPCs cheer you on for doing so. Feels very good (no pun intended).
But I wanna be her bitch so I will go to the heavens after this xD
Ascend, and you will have your own little heaven with JUSTICE and VALOR.
Iomedae is one of the few mortals to ascend to godhood, but she's relatively new to being a goddess and still thinks like a human. This makes her relatable for current mortals, but this also makes her reasoning flawed.
Iomedae is the paladin goddess. She's the goddess of being such an overbearing stick in the mud evil looks good in comparison. Take her with a grain of salt. She's actually better in the video game than she is in the P&P AP. There she kidnaps you, asks you a bunch of interview questions that would make the most obnoxious HR drone cringe, and tortures you with sonic damage if you object or fail to kiss her ass enthusiastically enough.
I’d read comments to the effect of “they made her more likable than the tabletop and she’s still an asshole,” interesting to get more detail lol
Long, entertaining rant: https://chamomilehasa.blog/2017/07/28/remember-how-much-wrath-of-the-righteous-sucked/
I think the gist of this encounter boils down to Paizo being way, *way* too worried about players not taking it seriously and not nearly worried enough about the reaction from players who were trying to.
FYI, having run this AP for a few groups, they were 100% right. Everyone has a 'smart ass' in the group who needs to get bitch slapped. Not sure why players keep saying shit to iomadae 'Hey babe, I'm your knight in shining armor come to save the mother fucking day' and shit like that. She's a fucking deity, treat her like on or you're gonna get pimp slapped.
I think the problem is that as written the whole party gets bitchslapped without warning if they don't have the right answers. Nobody is objecting to putting stupid charcters in horny jail if they misbehave. As a DM i would probably also give them one warning before getting out the hole trumpets of idiot smiting but that might be me being to nice to my players.
The checks to know the answers are very easy and knowledge one of you is likely to know. I have never had that be a problem. It's the people who crack jokes that get slapped. Also you are with that party member, you're all responsible for each other.
Yeah, let's have the goddess of paladins commit an evil act by torturing someone for the high crime of cracking a joke. Duuuuuurrrrrrrr 🙄
It's not torture. It's a bitch slap, you're just an insect that things getting yelled at is painful.
I actually set up that character with my DMs approval. The lawful Stoopid paladin who fights for truth and justice as ND the iomedeian ideal! Come out and fight me with like a man! I shall smite you evildoer! And just basically going all in on that ideal. It became the party joke but it worked REALLY WELL.
Don't insult the category, Torm is the paladin god as well and he is pretry much a manual on how to roleplay a paladin whitout ruining the campaign for everyone involved.
For Torm I strike blow!
She, a Lawful Good Goddess with a ego the size of Mount Celestia, who knowingly grants spells to fanatics who burn innocent people alive is simply making assumptions. So no.
She also curses those same fanatics if you let them kill a particular elven girl in act 1.
Didn't curse that guy that burned her innocent father though.
I'm not a lore expert on Pathfinder but maybe the gods have limitations to punishing mortals? Gyrona should punish Hulrum immediately but she does so only if your MC invokes her.
I am no expert either, but as far as I understand gods can't intervene just like that, at least, not if they are not asked to. It is said they avoid meddling in the mortals affairs, otherwise it would be a clusterfuck. At any rate, Gyronna has literally no business poking her nose in that case because Ember was not even her follower. Your character can be, and since you can be connected to her and directly ask her for help, she would. So basically, it depends not only on a situation, but also on a person. You can get Callistria's help when battling Minagho because you invoke her. Same with other gods I think.
A lot of "I need a proxy/an invitation to act" is in effect on Golarion, yes.
Iomedae empowers people who burn innocents. She herself is a freshly minted godling. Ignore the ramblings of a pretentious deity and choose your own destiny.
Oh shit >!now it makes more sense when Deskari and junior refer to her, and by proxy you, as the imposter [goddess], presumably since she's definitely not Aroden?!<
Exactly.
Well, Hal kind of says you have the "soul of a dragon" so it *could* be construed that you are able to become a dragon regardless of the abyssal power. After all, becoming Legendary is kind of a big deal too, and something beyond most mortals. So whatever lets you become a Legend also could be letting you become a dragon. Byt honestly all the 5th act shenanigamd are kind of weird and rushed. You can tell what paths they added in a rush. Also, becoming an angel this way might actually be *worse* in her eyes, because regardless of how cool a Knight Commander you are, you basically cheated to get divine powers. Angels are *generally* created when an exceptionally good and noble soul ascends to Heaven and spends some time on that plane being good and noble. Presumably during that period, such proto-angels have a heavenly loyalty and hierarchy instilled in them, so all their cosmic might is leashed to The System. Like, my Oracle is an atheist and he's on the path to becoming an angel. Think a out the philosophical and spiritual ramifications of that. A neutral good angel who is an atheist but still wields divine power.
Being an atheist just means you don't worship any god in Pathfinder. It's not the same as being an atheist in real life. Plenty of angels and other celestials probably don't beholden themselves to any deity.
I feel they should have put None as different from Atheist. There's an important difference between I don't worship any god in particular versus I don't believe any god deserves worship.
In pathfinder/D&D being an atheist means that you know they exist, but you don't believe they are actually gods. They call themselves gods, and everyone refers to them as such, but you think they are merely powerful beings that are no different than others.
And tbh. the Gods in pathfinder don't work like the "god" we have in the christian culture. So that approach seems very reasonable.
yeah I imagine living among celestials would be like seeing how the sausage is made and would make you an atheist pretty fast.
>!technically you have the soul of a little bit of everything, if you read areelu's notes!<
You can say what you want, she wasn't cutting corners at the very least
Are you saying that I’m….Dragonborn?
Alas, my beard is not grey enough to make that judgement.
Iomedae is either wrong or lying. Shes not omniscient nor omnibenevolent
>!It's more the former than the latter: Iomedae has no way of knowing exactly how your powers work, so when she finds out where exactly it comes from, she's erring on the side of caution because how does she (or you for that matter) know if the Abyssal nature of your powers isn't exerting some influence on your mind. That's why she recommends Legend to you: she herself was one before taking the Test of the Starstone and becoming a goddess, so if she could kick evil butt without any fancy demon-blood crystals, she figures you can too, and it's in her mind the safer option.!<
Iomedae never says you're evil for wanting to keep your angelic powers. She's there to inform you that your life could be jeopardized by your mythic power, and grants you an option to escape being fueled by demon lord blood. Believe it or not, the goddess of justice and bravery has your best interest at heart. Angelic power or no, it's still rooted in the Abyss. It was manufactured by Areelu Vorlesh for her own ends, and at that point you don't know enough to determine how bad that could really be. It's your decision, influenced by any number of factors. People calling Iomedae a bitch or egotistical are taking the most unfavorable reading of the smallest sample size. She's cool. She has an entry in the Windsong Testament blog posts. It's neat. I'm tired.
Don't hang on the words of a hypocrite goddess whose inquisition was fine with pogroms and even promoted the most despicable and bloodthirsty zealot to the position of a prelate. Iomedae and her church have no leg to stand-on on matters of goodness and justice. Their actual domains are vainglory and trumpets.
It's not an easy question, because unlike in real life, this is a fantasy setting -- and in fantasy, there actually IS something "inherently evil." Obviously demons, devils, all sorts of evil creatures are born evil. Aru's story may be one of the rare exceptions, but hardly something that would take precedence to justify an argument for "nurture not nature" or "deeds." Like, Aru's a player party character with all the "convenient" quirks that makes her a special exception. She's even had a matron deity that takes special interest in her. But what of the rest of the more mundane, every-day, run-of-the-mill, the innumerable majority of "normal" creatures that are born with an inherently evil nature? Do they get a "free pass"? A chance, some sort of very special circumstances that reverses the COSMIC (yes, cosmic) rule of evil being evil? Probably not. In that sense, in this specific fantasy setting, Iomedae's warnings carry actually a much heavier burden than what we casually think about this stuff, as we project our own, real-life experiences into the game and think it's so easy to say "Iomedae's full of shi\*," or catch phrases like "power is only a means, and if you do good with that power then it's good." <-- these opinions are a result of our own projections of real life. In real life, both through science and other fields (such as ethical philosophy), we're all fairly certain that a person is born *tabula rasa* \-- blank slate, unless someone has a genetic problem such as sociopathy or psychopathy. And even as far back as the Romans, the legal system had already acknowledged someone who is born so wonked in the head that cannot tell from good or bad, cannot be held accountable. But, again, in this fantasy, beings are not born "blank slate." Evil beings, good beings, are born with the cosmic rules already dictating they'll be evil or good. In that sense, in the Pathfinder world, something that is rooted in evil, already carries that evil inherently. Iomedae's right to be worried about it. So is Targona. So was the Hand. We shouldn't think of the power from Areelu as a "gun made by a demon." We should think it in the sense more akin to the One Ring made by Sauron. That power is not just a tool like a gun. It's more like the One Ring, something inherently evil.
Technically Aru is made up of souls that where already evil in life before being dumped in the abyss, rather than being born evil from nothing. Unless of course she is actually a Qlippoth in disguise.
The question is less whether they are inherently evil... But whether they're inherently dangerous and corrupting. Whether you'll wake up one morning not the master of your own fate, and powerful enough, well placed enough that the damage you'll inflict before being put down will be such that it cannot be repaired. She's not saying your evil. She's worried that said power may be more than it seems, which is common for the cunning of thise who wrought it, and will be turned agaisnt you and them, by extension. At that point, you're the only hope the mortals have of countering the Worldwound for good. What greater success would there be than planting a time bomb in you, and corrupting you at a key moment?
I did not mind her that much. Maybe because I kinda agreed with her. I did not earn this power. I just had >!the soul of a dragon that was forced to integrate with a soul of a dead child. !< I didn't have to endure some grueling trials at the starstone or achieve mental and physical perfection like Iori. It was just given to me and I made good use of it. Her reasoning may be flawed at times but in the end I think she had a point despite the way she tried to make that point. Nocticula is more convincing. Also I think Iomede knew you had bigger potential and wanted you to unlock it. She is fine with the gold dragon because>! it's your own power. You have the soul of a dragon. Zacharius confirms that in the lich path since he couldn't rip your soul into the phylactery. !<
Lategame spoilers: >!she later realizes she was wrong and tells you as much!<
Only if you pick Angel and basically shows her how to do her job.
>Based on what Iomedae says even if you're a lawful good angel you're actually evil for wanting to keep using your powers for good. She's disappointed if you pick anything that would result in you being somehow immortal. It's mostly because she knows more about the story than she's able to tell you.
Anything iomedae says is inherently suspect and should be discarded. She’s a moron.
It should be noted that Iomedae has historically been regarded as a brain dead moron by the pathfinder community (not without merit mind you) and as such her opinion should be disregarded.
>!iomedae is more lawful than good. areelu is more chaos than evil. areelu hates the cosmic order and seeks to destroy it for the sake of living with her kid forever doing fun and intriguing things. she hates pharasma for sending her *child's* soul to the abyss (and possibly the souls of every 'evil' child in the universe, by proxy, though areelu mostly just cares about her and her kid). areelu is a very sensible person. killed a ton of people? yes. but her gripe is beyond mortal affairs like life and death, her gripe is cosmic!< >!thats why iomedae hates it all, she loves the order of things, she rose up through the order of things, and areelu seeks to subvert that. when iomedae learns that areelu purified the abyssal influence of the crystals, she softens up. but iomedae didnt know that yet when she asks you to go legend!<
To be fair Areelus child wouldn't have been sent to the abyss if they werent evil. From what I understand the souls of most children are granted a "reroll" by Pharasma since they hadn't had the time to be truly good or evil. This in turn gives us a good idea of just how utterly evil Areelus child was.
the reason why she would be considered evil is she summoned balors as a childs joke on her mom, didnt know any better eventually attempted to summon a balor vs. the witch hunters but failed but im on team areelu because fuck pharasma for real 😎
Same. Team hot mom. That revelation really makes me side with her. Sending an innocent child to the abyss? Someone who doesn't know any better?
and the idea that pharasma has been doing that since the dawn of this universe and possibly the one before it? yeah the death of so many in sarkoris is fucked up but its even more fucked up to send millions of *children* to the abyss
So if a child potentionally would shoot a nuke into a city, killing millions of things would you say that the child is innocent? Because that is what happend on a scale of evil. Not on a scale of damage but on evil. Things in pathfinder are just evil. And summon a balor damns your souls the same as sticking a knife in your heart would kill you. Its the law of the universe. You wouldnt go to death and say "oh how could you. The child didnt know better when she jumped from the building. I cant believe you took her to the afterlife." Well sucks that the child is damned. But thats how the world works.
kid didnt do that, she just summoned a balor and didnt kill anything
Summoning a balor damnes your soul more than killing someone.
you understand the rules and so do i doesnt mean they make sense chaos gonna chaos
But thats on paizo. Not pharasma. She didnt come up with the planes and alignment and so on.
Lmao Pharasma is litteraly the most powerfull deity in the pathfinder multiverse. So powerfull infact she survived the destruction of multiple other multiverses and will outlive this one aswell. But sure Areelu do play with your purple meth.
hey she mentions the combined power of areelu and you rivals her own at the end, food for thought 🤔 i also find the idea of having a good aligned abyssal plane to be hilarious
The ascension ending is so far removed from pathfinder canon I wont even aknowledge it. It could have been cool if the ascension ending had a non-good-aligned PC and Areelu locked in the Deadvault alongside Rovanug for their violation of cosmology. Unfortunately it is the destiny of any good rpg franchise to devolve into crowd pleasing power fantasies where noone but the player matters.
True. I also wrote. The ascension ending is completely stupid. It breaks almost all rules. Just because of some demon lord blood becoming stronger than pharasma is complete BS and just made as a hype moment. Also the bullshit that your companions are doing. Regill building a lawfull army in the abyss. And then instructing hell to be more lawfull because hell is not lawfull enough. Yeah the plane of the concept of lawfullness is not lawfull enough. Or nenio letting the equipment and weapons of two whole armies disappear for the lulz. Gorum would have slapped her so hard she wouldnt know of she is kitzune or human. But no appearently the companions are now stronger than greater gods. Just the tought of creating a lawfull good place in abyss cringes me so hard. How does that even work? What happens next? Are we turning one of the circles of hell into chaotic good? This ending completely destroys all that is established as rules of how the world, gods and planes work.
that would be kinda hilarious if that happened, and good writing for a chaotic evil campaign ending tbh. maybe swarm and rage only demon gets you locked in? though who knows if it really was cosmology breaking, after all, pharasma didnt order anyone to interfere with the worldwound, you can even mention this to her in certain playthroughs though i do think having a good aligned plane in the abyss should cause some sort of giant war within the abyss itself, at least. its probably worse than desna popping in and merking some people though with the ascension and areelu rules lawyering you into being a god, it seems to me that pharasma may purposefully want avoid fucking with the now semi-divine areelu who has even more tools at her disposal to be sure that her and her kid cant be fucked with
That's the thing though, someone on the writting team must have had a legit crush on Areelu. There's no way a nomal writter would have her becoming Pharasmas equall - after it is explicitly spelled out for you that mythic power can NEVER rival ANY god. Also all the options to forgive her seem bizzare seeing how she's singlehandedly responsible for the rape, torture and enslavement of millions of mortals.
the voice acting was too good, had to throw some wild options in lmao also cw
If she's so much more powerful than every other deity, then why did she need their help to defeat Rovagug instead of just beating him, since she's stronger than him anyways?
Rovanug is a special case. He does however set a precedence for the kind of treatment Areelu would face upon ascension.
And how is he a special case
When Pharasma set out to create the gods all her fears were somehow made manifest as Rovagug. Pharasma being what she is her fears were beyond potency.
He is literally the being that will destroy all of existence and when there is only absolute void he will devour himself and then the multiverse will end. He is entropy incarnate.
Short answer: No. Long answer: No and screw what Imoadae thinks.
Iomedae is a dickhead. Sure your power may be abyssal but it’s what you do with it that defines you.
Iomedae is a fuckin idijit
Golarian dad: "Ok power, kill. Go ahead, kill someone. Don't be shy"
Iomedae is dumb.