Pathfinder Deities - Aroden, Earthfall, & the Starstone

[@ChronoHarvester]

I really like your personal theory for Aroden's death. The changes to Fate don't just happen on accident, it SHOULD require the deliberate focus of someone powerful to succeed at that sort of change.

[@ChronoHarvester]

Also? Couldn't the Eye of Abednego be a figurative butterfly, disrupting the present and future with each gust of wind and drop of rain? A continual force with a literal "oppose fate" effect acting against a still-active, entropy-like Fate effect?

[@carlborneke8641]

Your personal theory about what happened to Aroden is exactly the same as what we say at my table. I think it’s a beautiful and fitting story for Aroden.

[@TheLocalDisasterTourGuide]

Excellent video! My personal table's answer for Aroden's disappearance: As Aroden was preparing to return, he realized that the Algolthu were once again plotting agaist him. A great ritual he was secretly directing through his church was corrupted, but Aroden couldnt determine which aspect was corrupted. Aroden committed a form of magical suicide to shut down the ritual & hide the means to complete the ritual. Unfortunately, factions within the (now dying) church of Aroden were essentially blinded to the corruption & refused to believe that their work wss evil... though "maybe that other faction over there was trying corrupt our ritual." This hastened the death of the church & led to several secret factions waging war to "finish Aroden's work." I ran a campaign where my players would have a chance to discover all of this, try to figure out the corrupted element of the ritual, and possibly even complete the ritual (with a chance of reversing Aroden's death). It... did not go well. LOL! Long story cut short. The corruption was not rooted out. Aroden was not raised from the dead. And my table's version of Golarion suffered through a terrible decade long event known as "The Curse of Wandering."

[@Podfinder]

Love that solution to the Aroden mystery. This is why I hope we never get a solid answer on how he died. It's just too much creative fun to speculate.

[@karathomas9169]

2:44 “The straw that broke the fish-wizards back” hahaha 😂

[@chrismoore8177]

Running an Aasimar/Nephilim Fighter w/ Phoenix Sorc AT who has the backstory of being part of the celestial guard that belonged to Aroden at the time of his death. Somehow the character's memory was wiped, and he's reborn into the body of baby until he's able to grow and ascend to his true angelic form once again...at that time learning more about what happened to Aroden at the moment of his death. Hope the DM will be able to work it into the current campaign, and cant wait for the Dead God's Hand AP. Great content also, keep up the awesome lore dumps!

[@Podfinder]

Cool character idea. Aroden's lore makes for such a good backdrop for character arcs.

[@confusedTurtle_]

One of my favorite characters I play heavily follows the delusional "Aroden will return" mindset. She's a venerable Chelish loyalist and devout Arodenite from Westcrown (a city very rich in culture and landmarks dedicated to Aroden on account of it being his original destination to Cheliax which I was hoping got at least a namedrop in this video, but no matter) in the Hell's Vengeance AP who's fighting for her country against the Iomedaen crusaders as she believes the crusade has lost all sight and memory of his purpose to become ruler of Cheliax before ruling over all of humanity. The chaos of the Glorious Reclamation reminds her too much of what she learned about the rebellion in her country in 4606 when Aroden disappeared, and believes that if Iomedae were to take his place as ruler of her nation then humanity, she would claim it herself without the need for this rebellion. On top of that, the uprising began over an Iomedaean relic, not a relic of Aroden, held not by the Chelish government directly but by the Order of the Godclaw who themselves were founded by an ex-Arodenite. Then you get into Hellknight history which begins with an Arodenite renouncing his faith and appealing to King Gaspodar near the end of Aroden's life to form the Hellknights, but that's beyond the scope here. The conflict within the country gets all the more interesting when you get into the mindset of a character who honestly believes the Chelish throne still belongs to Aroden. While most characters might take sadistic joy or furious vengeance in playing the Evil campaign where you stop the Iomedaeans, deep down this Arodenite feels sorrow for needing to fight the forces that hold her god's herald's banner. She thinks things didn't need to end up this way, both on the small scale of the Glorious Reclamation and rebellion in her country, and the larger scale of the disappearance of her god before her time as well as the glorious fate they were promised over a century prior that was replaced with suffering, chaos, and decline. All of that being said, I thought this was a very well organized video on Aroden's history. I have a few more of your videos in other tabs, queued up and ready to be watched.

[@Podfinder]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. And thanks for talking about your character in Hell's Vengeance. It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into her inner thoughts and motivations, and I bet she's a fun and interesting character to play. I love hearing all the ways players find to interact with the lore of Golarion.

[@beastrelmhd5312]

I love the different ideas I've seen here. One idea I toyed with for why Aroden didn't return was that: Maybe he foresaw the future and knew he had to die. It was fated to be so and he ensured it would happen. That would certainly explain why he became such a distant and forlorn God. Maybe some conversation he had with Pharasma, the death of Fate a consequence. But maybe some worse calamity had happened otherwise, and the death of fate was the better "worst outcome". Another idea is that it IS the age of glory, but its just not what people expected from an age of glory. Maybe something like fate being unbound and the mortals of the world can shape their own fate.

[@Frank-xn3gv]

I really like your content! thank you!

[@Podfinder]

Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for watching.

[@tonyh7267]

This is my theory. A good bit of lore for Aroden was his fight against Deskari in the lands of Sarkoris that would later become the Worldwound. While still mortal he fought against the cults that would eventually be found out as Deskari's. Once Aroden became a god Deskari knew he wouldn't be able to continue his plot for Golarian until Aroden was dealt with. He 'hired' Nocticula the Lord of assassins to kill Aroden. She nearly succeeded but stayed her own hand at the final stroke because she had her own plans. Aroden and Nocticula made a deal and he allowed himself to be killed and his soul captured by Nocticula for 100 years. This lines up with the Adventure Path: Wrath of the Righteous. After those 100 years Aroden is returned to mortal form to return to the fight and take part in the story of that campaign. Growing in power as a Wizard combined with the Mythic rules he fights against the challenges in the worldwound and eventually closing the rift to Deskari's realm. Once done with that Aroden would return to the Starstone and re-ascend to godhood and complete the prophecy. Nocticula has plans of her own to ascend being a god and made the deal with Aroden to show she can be reasonable when dealing with other deities so the rest of the pantheon wouldn't protest a succubus demon assassin becoming a god. All this is perfectly in line with established lore

[@Podfinder]

I like that. Cool idea for some deity-level intrigue. I'm curious how your theory will evolve with the upcoming War of Immortals event.

[@Reddotzebra]

So if your headcanon is true, he eventually realized that he'd committed all three acts that he considers anathema? Stealing the orbs, thus basically removing them as cultural artifacts and destroying a civilization at the same time, and then destroying fate itself, thus actively avoiding everyone's fate. Or maybe what he figured out was that breaking the shackles of fate WAS his destiny?

[@theprinceofawesomeness]

i love your intepritation of Arodens death, i just believe he died fighting of an unknown force as a last heroic act

[@klausernstthalheim9642]

My theory Aroden was also the eternal emperor, so he made even more enemies than he imagined and basically assassinated from an unlikey corner, when its guard were down.....and the place was most likely at the eye when he sailed with its fleet.

[@Grayves_X]

It's definitely just that Aroden is a bum and hidden himself away like the hero in Megamind

[@Podfinder]

I'll admit, I do like this idea.

[@yaelz6043]

Fuck ups all round, start to finish. This is why Golarion can't have nice things.

[@ankitk236]

Aroden, God of Human Edict: Be human Anathema: Be non-human

[@IchimaruGin19877]

Accidental racism ?!?!?!?!?

[@ankitk236]

@@IchimaruGin19877 NEVER its intentional AF.

[@Belderone42]

So aroden is some kind of version of Emperor from 40k?

[@Grayves_X]

I'm very new yo Pathfinder lore, but from what I've seen about War of Immortals is that when a god dies they create god rain which is what creates magic? So if Aroden died, why didn't this happen? Maybe it's got to be a specific situation to create the god rain? I haven't been able to gather all the information on it

[@Podfinder]

It seems like a specific situation leads to a Godsrain-style event. Other gods have died without causing one, such as Acavna and Amaznen during Earthfall.