I think the most parsimonious answer to the "who killed aroden" question is asmodeus. Aroden was basically everything asmodeus pretends he is, the actual arbiter of pure law set to lead humanity to an eternal golden age. Asmodeus frames himself this way but we all know that he isn't purely lawful, but lawful evil, with his aroden-adjacent propaganda coming from where else but Cheliax. He was jealous because Aroden was beating him at his own game so he schemes a way to kill him and take his place. Edit: I think the pharasma connection just comes down to him being 1) lawful neutral and 2) dead. Kind of makes pharasma the obvious person to be able to summon whatever remnant of him still exists.
Long ago about 2022 I made a campaign concept that was centered around finding out what happened to Aroden and I even pitched it like a pathfinder module. Here is the pitch I used. Sadly never got around to doing this one. Lost Ages of Omens Past Description: The party is an average adventuring party of semi seasoned adventurers (around Level 8 to 10) who have recently heard a tale that Iomade the Goddess of Justice is calling for a select brave few to undertake a task for her. It will have rewards and perils the likes of which none have seen before nor since. She offers even unto them as a boon the ability to summon her in their greatest need 3 times on this journey and ONLY 3 times. Her task, it is rumored, is to find out what happened to her mentor and beloved master, the last Azlanti god Aroden. Uncover hidden truths, Weet out the false lies and bring to light his fate. This task is one so great that none have accepted or all those who have have seemingly gone missing. She is said to appear to those who seek her in one of her temples by performing the proper rights and only to those who TRULY seek to bring justice to the lost life that was her master Aroden. This adventure will entail delving into long lost dungeons, realms of Azlant, and passing from the mortal plane to those of the immortals and seeking out those who were around during the time of Arodens death at the beginning of lost omens. One could always tempt fate and ask the goddess of destiny and prophecy herself Pharasma but she seems all but tight lipped on his demise. So are you willing or even able to venture forth and follow a goddess's request? Go where even some of the bravest dared not enter? To bring Light to the Lies and Bring Truth to the world of why the age of Lost omens occurred? This is the Lost Ages of Omens Past Adventure. It plans to bring you all from level 8 to 20, the possibility of adding even mythic to the adventure path. It will have sections for leading armies, shoring up defenses and even building up small outposts all are optional however. The most basic of things as well such as delving into dungeons and venturing into the outer planes such as the nine hells, the abyss or even mount Celestia and going anywhere and everywhere to find the truth. You will also come across long lost artifacts of Azlant and use them to help you bring to light first days of the age of lost omens and the death of Aroden, god of all mankind! what do you guys think?
Man, I'd love to play that lol that sounds amazing. That makes Me want to do a series of campaign prompt videos, where I can just throw out some basic outlines for people to use
@blasto652 well, I will give that a shot then! I have had a few good campaign ideas and one shot ideas over the years, so I just need to find my notebook.. lol
Woah. Weird to know I was part of the first 150 subscribers. Your quality is that of a very established channel. Thanks again for another video! Looking forward to more great content!
I think one of my favorite facts about Aroden is theirs a Elf that’s still alive (I believe) that was one of his clerics when he was still alive. Keep up the content.
Dang I just realized I never added in that this all happened a bit over a 100 years ago in that video, so yea there's probably a few worshipers still around, I'll have to add that in and re-upload that tonight lol
I am playing a campaign in Golarion (Council of Thieves) where my character is a Monk who sees himself as a priest of Aroden, without Divine powers he clinged to the self perfection part of the dogma, who is trying to be something of a historian that wants to see the old glories of Cheliax return. My character believes with all his heart that Aroden's death is no accident nor that someone killed him, he believes that Aroden reincarnated himself in to a mortal, he still hasn't been born but he soon will rise to lead humanity to the promised age of Glory!
That's an awesome character concept. The Shard of lost divinity held by Pharasma could even be the godly powers of his while he reincarnates as a mortal!
The table I sit at is playing with the reincarnation Aroden as a mortal. All of us PCs, except one, are planar touched in some way. The character and campaign concept was long dead and forgotten gods reincarnated into PCs and certain NPCs who are searching for Aroden for different reasons, but being born to mortal lives can’t remember it. They only know that they are different, so the early part of the campaign has been cherry picked APs that fit the character arcs as some of us know them and exploring the geography until we reached Absolom, I run the Absolom arc for the table and we just started that series of adventures.
It would definitely make sense if due to the extremely varied nature of how he acted (and what his soul may have been altered to, after being a mystic THAT ancient who then ascended to godhood) that even the goddess of final judgements might have some difficulty slotting him neatly into any one fated afterlife. Maybe some other deity/being(s) had separated or broken his divinity and killed his remaining human essence, leaving Pharasma scratching her head while she just decided to keep the one part that can't be sorted out like a traditional mortal. Hell, maybe there is still just a very long court case ongoing to decide what to do with his remnants xD
I liked the hook ideas. We are doing a search for Aroden. He was reincarnated as a mortal. The Age of lost omens leads into the age of glory. Part of the prophecy as we wrote it for our table was Phasama released long dead and forgotten divinities back into the world as mortals in preparation for Aroden’s return but none remember who they once were. Our table is a group of forever GMs who take turns running different arcs. We all know the basic premise of the campaign and adjust the arcs to fit where it goes based on table/player choices as our characters rediscover who they once were and long lost “enemies and friends” reappear in the world. The idea that some former divine enemies and Allies switching rolls on the paths of redemption and fall play into the intrigue. Some PCs and NPCs have already started to gather a following in game through game play. One NPC for certain, that was CE in divinity, is currently CG and an Allie of the party at the moment.
Does the image shown around 3:00 of the planes exist for the public to see? It's probably one of the better ones depicting current planar geography that I'm aware of.
pin.it/3bjUsBK I found it on pinterest of all places off a Google image search, but for the life of me I can't find it's source. It's one of the very few non-paizo photos I've used but it was to good an image to pass up.
@@SirVertigo It's from a reddit user. Here is a Link to the original as well as a high-res version www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/8bofk9/map_to_the_planes_revised/
@@GloomyGhost13 You have scary good timing. I am sitting at my desk, working on a video about the planes, and literally just clicked on that photo to reuse it, and boom, here you are with a source and a higher quality version? You are a witch, a witch I say!
Thanks for the video! Am I the only person who pronounces deity, day-it-ee? Seems like everyone says it dee-it-ee. Haha, can't wait for the next video.
I think James Jacobs in an interview mentioned that Aroden had, 'Become that powerful'. I.e., I think they just hand waved it away (until the Starstone that is). Would still be worth exploring for them I think. Love these videos!
Become that powerful to do what exactly? I've tried to keep on top of lore info from different interviews or shows they do like pathfinder Fridays but there's so much out there that isn't well documented that proves pretty easy to miss lol
Oh no worries lol. And to be honest, I may be misremembering. But it was in reference as to why he was still alive all this time before the starstone. I believe they just hand waved it by saying, "He reached Mythic Path Tier."
@@Jason-ji8ql ah the immortality, yea the most I could find was through unknown means he became immortal. I think they left it vague just to leave it open for future development lol
This is great content. I played a long time ago with a group in a Wheel of Time RPg game. When I tried to run a Pathfinder game, they didn’t connect to the setting compared to a dozen plus book series. These videos are exactly what I would provide to them if we gave it another go.
I’ve been playing Pathfinder for over 10 years, and I learned a lot from this video about Aroden’s background, which I did not know. Thank you for the informative and detailed video.
While lore this level is interesting (and good job with the summary) player characters should never, ever be powerful enough to interact with or effect the actions of Gods or Demigods. It is not viable as an adventure (players might want it to be, but it’s not).
I was kind of under the impresion Aroden was killed by the Whispering Tyrant, since well Tar'Baphon died again around the same time and this is backed by both the Carrion Crown and Tyrant's Grasp AP in the first with the Whispering Way looking for a method to resurrect the lich and the second with him coming back.
Problem with that is that Tar-Baphon isn't strong enough to have a snowball's chance in hell at killing one of the major gods of the setting, and if he'd done it you can bet he'd be bragging about it constantly as soon as he was able to.
