Tropic of Evil, Part 4/5: False God
There’s something primal in the geek lizard brain. It’s composed of equal parts Return of the Jedi and Life of Brian (NSFW, language), and it’s all about gaining that sweet, sweet band of fanatical followers.
Those of you who have had the pleasure of adventuring in Creation know how fun a few dots in Cult can be. After all, it’s tough for an Exalted god-king to feel properly puissant without at least a village’s worth of peons making their daily prayers and offerings. And let me tell ya, getting all the way up to primary-deity-of-an-entire-nation levels of Cult is balm for the ‘ol ego. What with the festivals held in your name and multiple sacred cities founded in your honor, it’s not hard to understand why someone would want the job. Of course, by the time you hit that milestone, you could be forgiven for humming along with Miguel and Tulio. When you’re a god, everything from invasions to plagues to King Solomon style moral quandaries get laid at your feet. And that mess is tough to deal with even if you actually possess anime protagonist levels of power.
Antipaladin and company may be semi-competent adventurers, but they’re not exactly punching at the demigod weight class. You can expect their rule over that hapless tribe of lizardfolk to be both short and bloody. That’s because, if you do take the conman’s shortcut to divinity, the problems come thick and fast. You’ve got to quell the doubters. You’ve got to avoid all signs of weakness or injury. You have to perform miracles, invent excuses when you can’t, and keep up with the charade when you priests begin to question you concerning obscure points of dogma.
And so, for the sake of any would-be con artist gods out there, let’s talk about best practice. When you’re trying to pull off the biggest of the big lies and set yourself up as a living divinity, what are the dos and don’ts? Is there a minimum Bluff score? Do you need magic to wow the yokels, or can you get away with some well-placed parlor tricks? And if you’re a god-of-convenience rather than a long-term deity, how do you get rich and then get out before your worshipers catch wise? Tell us all about your own brushes with divine impersonation down in the comments!
ARE YOU A ROLL20 ADDICT? Are you tired of googling endlessly for the perfect tokens? Then have we got a Patreon tier for you! As a card-carrying Familiar, you’ll receive a weekly downloadable Roll20 Token to use in your own online games, as well as access to all of our previously posted Tokens. It’s like your own personal NPC codex!
In spite of his class and alignment, Antipaladin is not the worst choice out of his party for a living eidolon. (No, not eidolon as in the class feature!)
He really does have some morphic resemblance to a volcano with his fiery hair. And more importantly, he takes good care of his underlings and avoids Snidely Whiplash-levels of petty evil.
Unlike someone who shall go unnamed…
I think what Antipaladin is flexing on here is Vile Leadership (which is leadership for evil characters – it actively rewards you for having a bad reputation and for being a horrible boss to your minions).
https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Vile%20Leadership
In this case, showing mercy, indecisiveness or NOT punishing his minions is a bad thing for Antipaladin. Notably, Kobolds (at least in Golarion lore) only follow or worship creatures that are fearsome or monstrous already (ideally dragons, but they’re happy to be enslaved by other non-humanoids).
And don’t forget his slate-gray skin! Shame he doesn’t have the demeanor of a volcano god.
He could say he’s vegan, or lactose intolerant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqsZiV-4G-A
What? You mean the plot kind-of-sort-of makes sense? I’m very sorry. Won’t ever happen again.
It strikes me that ever since the weather died down Witch has really gotten into this little side-adventure. She seems to be enjoying herself.
Like she said herself, most of the usual opposition is absent.
Also, people here don’t know the Villain Adventurers, so they can lie and cheat as much as they like.
Evil Island won’t just rise from the depths by itself!
In my case, I didn’t intend to be worshipped as a god, it just kinda happened. I was in a new group playing 5e, and the dm had just started up a new game in a setting that was basically just warhammer fantasy with a few changes, so as you can imagine, it was rather deadly. This was especially true in the beginning of the game before people got used to it. It was so deadly in fact, that around 8-10 sessions in, 3 of the 5 players had had 2-4 characters die, 1 had 1 die just a couple sessions before, and then there was my bard, who through heavy optimization, and careful positioning, managed to still be alive since the beginning of the campaign. As such, one of the new characters decided that his guy was a massive fan boy of my bard, though more for all the destruction accidentally left in the wake of their party, primarily via other characters, than through the good aspects of him. As my character continued to survive, and in fact do consistently better once he got access to find greater steed, fanboyishness changed to worship. Eventually, he decided he to break off from the party and form a cult around my guy, and through a number of very good rolls, and a few instances in which my character seemed particularly divine due to doing stuff like riding into waves of enemies and taking them down with destructive wave and stuff, the cult started to grow massively. Unfortunately, the cult was kinda neutral leaning evil, as a sorta fuck you got mine thing but for a community instead of individuals, with me being worshipped as the new chaos god of order. While I did improve things somewhat by trying to talk with the guy, it was still likely not going to end up as anything too close to a good religion. Unfortunately, we never got to see how this would turn out, as the campaign fizzled due to some personal reasons with other party members, but just at the end we reached a point in which i might have actually started getting some god powers, as his character was making a good showing of convincing some incredibly powerful psychics, the slaan, that i was the avatar of a god, and the fight vs the next boss would have been his proof of that.
I’d like to leave this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/8x05a3/humanity_as_the_ants_eldritch_beings/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body . It’s less “regular dude fakes being a god” and more “compared to his worshippers regular dude really is an all powerful eldritch abomination” but it still seems on theme. Also, provided that you meet the alignment prerequisites, I think Witch has the right idea here. Think about it: the less miracles you are asked to perform, the less chances the locals have to realize that you’re a fraud. Therefore it pays to disincentivize them from making too many requests of you. And what better way to do so then by demanding each petition to be filled in triplicate (and please remember to both write down your info AND bubble it out) and accompanied by a heart of a virgin?
See also the movie “Willard”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_(1971_film)
We never got worshipped as a god, but we did kind of take down one. Sort of. She was an ancient red dragon that was trapped in a private demiplane, but she could control the conditions inside it. The only way in or out was a door in a wizard’s mansion. We were on a scavenger hunt and were supposed to sweet talk the dragon into giving us a scale from just inside the entrance. But we mis-understood and went fully inside the demiplane and some of us got captured. We got put into a prison run by the dragon’s enslaved kobolds that worshipped her. We ended up having to rescue not only ourselves but the kobolds as well since the dragon would have taken her anger on them. We lied to them and said that the dragon was planning on leaving the demiplane and that they had to hurry to ensure they didn’t get left behind to freeze.
The moral of the story is….. never assume your players are seeing and understanding what is obvious to you. They will end up turning a low-level scavenger hunt into a prison/demiplane escape involving trudging through extreme temperatures of both ends of the scale, finding rare plants to turn into a psychotropic drug, stealthing through a dragon lair, and making an ancient red dragon permanently stoned.
Come to think of it, there was a time when a character of mine was semi-worshipped.
It was a homebrewed WoD game. Our characters were humans who were mutating into demons due to a lot of rigmarole around a child born equal parts human, angel and demon.
We made a mistake in protecting the child, causing its human part to die… and we fell unconscious.
When we woke from hibernation, we were in a Bad Future. Humanity was barely eking by in little hamlets, under constant attacks from demons. The divine was a dim memory, and the village we arrived at had a miserable little church more to remember better times than from faith. There was a permanent cloud cover, which made farming an uphill task every day.
We came to realize this Bad Future, the approaching extinction of all life on Earth, was all our fault.
My character, who had started out as a cynical private detrctive (but was first to realize what we were changing into), had a kind of breakdown. He went into the church, kneeled before the altar and begged for a sign that not all was lost, that things could still be turned around. He acknowledged his responsibility for the Bad Future, offered to pay any price necessary.
And the cloud cover above the village broke.
Embarrassibgly, the villagers thought my demon detective (we had magic that prevented them from recognizing us as demons) was a holy man, a priest of grest virtue. Until the village was wiped out, my character kept trying to make them worship the divibe, rather than himself, but the tricky bit was that he had brought them hope. He’d become a symbol.
The village’s extinction came as a painful blow.
Discovering we could go back in time, once we found the special child and convinced him we could all be forgiven and make things right, was a profound relief.
After listening to a bunch of Dollop podcast episodes (which focus on American History and all the amusing and usually also horrible events of it), I think the best bet to acquire artificial divinity (or simply become incredibly rich / keep the rich in power) is to simply do what all the con artists, dictators and terrible capitalists of the world did:
Have your target audience be daft and gullible (i.e. American Pioneers). Bonus points if you control the media or main methods of information transfer.
Heap an immense amount of lies about your competence or abilities, until it becomes fact. The best lies are those that say what the other person wants to hear.
Never let anyone write down or witness your actual truth unless they’re on your side already (usually by being implicated and forced to work lest they follow your own fall). Never write anything down yourself either (if you must, use code only you can interpret).
Employ parlor tricks, actors or disguise skills to fake things from simple scrutiny (e.g. make a spot of land seem like it’s full of diamonds by planting diamonds in advance when investors visit).
Have the media or accomplices parrot your lies so they become legitimate on a wide scale.
Always, ALWAYS, blame someone else for anything that goes wrong. Ideally, the minorities, other races, the downtrodden… Utilize any hostilities, stereotypes or horrible habits of the locals you can.
Shut down (via murder, corruption or slandering) anyone daring to oppose/question you directly with your power, but make sure they don’t end up martyr in the process.
Know when to leave/abandon the scam. Even a master con artist will eventually make mistakes or weave a web of lies they can’t control anymore, so have an exit strategy when the house of cards comes tumbling down.
If you want Golarion/Pathfinder-lore relevant tips on how to become a fake divinity or establish your own Scientology cult, look no futher than Razmir, ‘Thee Living God’.
He’s a Wizard who one day announced to a kingdom that he was a God and demanded worship. When they refused, he nearly demolished the town with a magical cataclysm, forcing them to surrender.
From there, he established absolute rulership and ensured everyone followed his ‘faith’. His ‘clerics’ would use parlor tricks or arcane-magic-disguised-as-divine to pretend his divinity was real, whilst he himself was a powerful wizard, more than capable of faking divine power with arcane magic. His reign is one of intimidation and magical brainwashing, turning skeptics into fanatical followers (or just killing them off).
The only hiccup to his rule is that he’s not yet figured out how to become immortal / divine yet (which is the ultimate goal of this divine scheme), so he has to hide his face behind a mask at all time.
There’s a bunch of spells, archetypes and other things related to his nation of Razmiran in various splatbooks – most notably the ‘False Priest / Razmiran Priest’ archetype for sorcerers.
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Razmiran
There’s also the Test of the Starstone. In my group’s ongoing Rise of the Runelords game, one of the players wants his character to go take it after the campaign’s over due to his divine ambitions. Everyone agrees it would be hilarious if the hunter’s animal companion ascended instead.
Makes the ranger regret every time they sent the animal companion into a trap or ambush to divert attention, or every time it died and would be rezzed back. Killing its parents so they can justify adopting it.
“Who’s the pet now, bitch?”
Not this one. The character values his animal companion at least as much as his humanoid ones…which isn’t actually all that much, but he does a lot better than the stereotype.
But you know, it’s still a god with an Intelligence score of 2.
Monkey Island shenanigans intensify. Antipaladin really IS a villain-ish Guybrush Threepwood, isn’t he?
You know, I can’t actually recall if we’ve ever seen Antipaladin do something explicitly evil (token evil actions like kidnapping a princess don’t count). Could it be he’s living a lie? Could he one day fall from his evil patron’s grace and quit the whole evil deal, or if he’s in too deep/invested/damned already for that to work?
Yeah, I had a cult in one Exalted game… my oh-so-shiny Zenith got his hooks into the Cult of the Illuminated, courtesy of a gold-faction Sidereal who really should have been far more cautious in her oversight of a dangerously-charismatic young visionary.
Never got to do much with them before the game ended though…
I know I’ve mentioned this before, so I’ll summarize: Things were going great for one character’s ifrit character in terms of getting worshiped. Then he tried to teach the goblins moderation and fire safety. Remember, societies don’t get remade in a day. Preach too far out their comfort zone and you’ll be remembered as a trickster archetype at best.
Also, remember that there are representatives of actual divine authority out there. The group’s tiefling diplomancer once presented himself as an incarnation of an enemy orc shaman’s death spirit. It was definitely enough to send the rank and file running for their lives, but the shaman’s spirit animal knew he was full of it.
Do:
Pick up some spellcasting. Illusions and healing are especially useful.
Use Bible-talk and odd metaphors. Your subjects will expect you to be a bit grandiose.
Make like Xerxes in 300 and be a merciful god. Spare anyone who willingly accepts your reign even if they were initially your enemy. If they don’t, then…
SLAY THE INFIDELS! PUT THEM ALL TO THE SWORD AFTER BURNING THEIR HOUSES WITH THEIR WIVES AND BRATS IN THEM!!!
…ahem.
Don’t:
Allow them to believe things that might screw you over unless correcting it could compromise the whole scheme.
Believe your own lies. Remember, thou art mortal, to dust you shall return, blah blah blah.
Be too tyrannical. Even if they don’t come to hate you, the afterlife might not be so kind…
Attract the attention of real divinities. Certainly don’t challenge them.
“Virgin olive oil! The volcano god’s priestess demands sacrifices of virgin olive oil for his kebabs!”
Hopefully the kobolds have a guy like this on hand to sort things out: https://youtu.be/09uqTPh5Z3Q?t=56
Best case scenario, they bring both virgins and virgin oil, and from there a brand new patreon-exclusive strip is born!
Worst case, Witch gets to use that cauldron for ‘creative culinary endeavors’.
I have so many questions aboot the practical issues of fire-hair. Would it burn the wooden chair he’s leaning against? The bindings on his bone-crown? Would the bones react however bones do to fire? (I’m not familiar) Does it light pillows on fire at night? Can he not wear a helmet do to the coif burning? Does he accidentally burn down taverns with flammable doorways?
“That’s because, if you do take the conman’s shortcut to divinity, the problems come thick and fast. You’ve got to quell the doubters. You’ve got to avoid all signs of weakness or injury. You have to perform miracles, invent excuses when you can’t, and keep up with the charade when you priests begin to question you concerning obscure points of dogma.” 😀
Would be you so kind to go to the River Kingdoms and repeat that in Razmir face? Oh, and please make sure someone take some photos 😛
This is an interesting topic, how to be a god without-being-one, but a better one is how to convince people you truly are a god even-when-you-are-one. In Noragami, Yato, the protagonist, is a god, a fairly minor one but still a god. He gets jobs by putting his cellphone in walls, bathrooms and graffiti. That he doesn’t even got a temple for people to go pray to him is actually a plot point. Almost as big as him being a god of calamity wanting to become a god of fortune. That he almost work as a god of delivery, as in pizzas not evil, doesn’t help him. So there is something a little humorous on people believing more on an sketchy con-man than in a true, but unimpressive, god 😀
A 20-charisma, iron-willed vengeance paladin in my campaign successfully set himself up as the leader of a death-cult on the simple principle that crazed, gullible and credulous people are selected for by the very nature of the group and there’s a regular turn-over due to suicidal zealotry that means that nobody ever really reaches a full understanding of what’s going on. He let his cult handle “unworthy” foes, which gave him a built-in excuse to be wounded by “worthy” ones, and he could generally nova those to maintain the image of ultimate power. This worked brilliantly, until the cult was hijacked by another player who understood how to manipulate crazed fanatics better than he did.
The few benefits of being on kaiju island: The local ‘chicken’ might be capable of killing and/or eating you, but they’re great BBQ!
Damn I need to watch “Skull Island.” I somehow missed that one….
It’s tough to be a god
But if you get the people’s nod
Count your blessings, keep them sweet is my advice
Be nirvana, be salvation
Be all things to all men
Butter up your congregation
Every Sunday score a ten
The alternative is dire
Simply frying pan to fire
So sign on two new gods for paradise, paradise!
Also, I am all for Witch being the Chel to Antipaladin’s Tulio, Of you know what I mean wink.
It’s a good thing The Handbook of Erotic Fantasy is a thing. Otherwise these ideas would have nowhere to go but my own pervy head.
Make a mystery cult! As members of the faith progress deeper and deeper into the occult mysteries you have prepared for them, they get closer and closer to the Cosmic Truth of your divinity (that it’s all a big con, spoiler warning). But, and that’s the clever thing, progressing through the mysteries demands a significant investment on their part (money money money; plus some hard-to-pass tests) as well as give them a significant reward (power over lower-ranked members, and dividends from other applicants trying to progress. So when they do finally get to the ultimate reveal (again: that it’s all a con), they’re in too deep to leave, and instead become your accomplices.
If it worked for L. Ron Hubbard, it can work for your characters!
I think this might be on the list somewhere….
https://theglen.livejournal.com/16735.html
Pull a “sci-fi traveler stranded on low tech world” and dazzle them with your items. Also, the best way to PRENTEND to be like a god is to level up to the point where you basically ARE one. Which is somewhere in the level 13+ range.
I remember reading that some of the Age of Enlightenment explorers had to feign near-sightedness when native populations pointed out targets.
“There’s a bird in that tree! Shoot it for us with your god-weapon!”
“What? Where? I can’t make it out. Let’s get within my short range increment first.”
They didn’t want to let on that their guns weren’t perfect kill-from-afar weapons.
Also, I’ve found that most anime protags actually are not that strong– honestly, the worst shit comes from the lns, and also anime, in how it all stems from the stupid NLFs (no limit fallacies) that certain fanatics throw out at people (ie a ton of stupid isekai and unfortunately in some cases Exalted as well).
Plus, in any case, the average PF/3.X characters certainly are very powerful on their own.
I have always been itching for a chance to get a high level campaign where Derrik Darkluster GENTleman Adventurer can get a chance to really leverage the Inspiring Leader feat.
Just 10 minutes of talking and he can add “level+charisma” of temp HP to 6 friendly creatures. This can be done any number of times as long as said creatures have gotten a short rest since the last batch.
Obviously this was likely intended to only be used on party members, but I really look forward to the opportunity to have a small band of villagers trying to defend their town, and have them literally go from 4HP to 4x-7x that amount (and as long as they don’t die outright and fall back, they can short rest and be inspired again in just 10 minutes per 6, so 36 villagers every hour, or every 10 minutes there can be 78-156 extra HP on the board)
Admittedly, his goal is to be recognized more as a hero than a god, but in eyes of those who have been inspired, the difference might be moot.