Deities of Pathfinder’s Golarion for D&D 5th Edition
Last week on the Campaign Trail I looked at running Pathfinder’s Golarion as a campaign setting for D&D 5th edition. The Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook provides listings of deities for running your game in the multiverse worlds and also provides pantheons of antiquity. This can be a big help since creating a religion for your world can be lots of work. This week I’m busy reading Out of the Abyss for my review, but I thought some info on Golarion’s gods would be a good follow-up to last week’s Golarion setting article.
Pathfinder has provided super detailed materials on the gods of Golarion and their followers. If you’re looking to visit Golarion in a D&D 5th edition game or just looking for ideas to create your own pantheon, hopefully this will help get you started.
Campaign Setting Overview | Deities of Golarion for D&D 5th Edition
Where to Find Golarion’s Deities
Pathfinder has provided heaps of background for the deities of their Golarion campaign setting. These books or the website links below are a great place to start.
- Inner Sea Gods
This book has information for “nearly 300 deities from across the Inner Sea region and beyond.” It also provides “everything you need to know about the gods and their followers, temples, adventurers, holy days, otherworldly realms, divine minions, and more” for the most powerful deities of the setting. - Gods amd Magic
This 64 page book provides details for the core twenty deities of the setting and details on over 40 additional deities. - Core Rulebook
This book outlines the core 20 deities in the Classes > Cleric section. It’s also a must have for anyone who wants to play Pathfinder. If you’re one of the many with this book on your shelf, crack it open and check out page 43. - D20PFSRD – Domains & Subdomains
A complete listing of cleric domains from Paizo and other 3rd party publishers - Pathfinder Wiki: Religion
Information regarding the deities themselves, their churches, their pantheons and their followers.
The First Gods of Golarion
Like many fantasy pantheons, the dawn of mortal life begins with the gods at war. The first gods battled one of their own, Rovagug, to stop him from destroying all of creation. Many minor gods died in these battles, but Rovagug was eventually imprisoned. The gods who survived, returned to their homes in the Great Beyond to hide, nurse their wounds, start families or even split themselves into multiple beings. Overall, the gods adopted a policy of non-intervention, leaving the mortal world to the mortals, with the exception of granting spells to followers. Over time mortals even ascended to become gods and challenge the first gods.
A Pantheon for a Golarion Campaign
Golarion plays host to a large pantheon of deities, ranging from the all-powerful greater deities to the minor gods and demigods, who are mostly powerful extraplanar creatures.
- The list below is for only the 20 most common deities of Golarion, generally associated with the Inner Sea region. There’s more pantheons to support the Dragon Empires, Osirian and other regions or racial specific pantheons.
- Pathfinder has way more domains than D&D 5th edition, so assigning domains to each god is far from an exact science. I do like the D&D simple approach of having fewer domains, but it might have been good to have one or two more. For each god I looked at their portfolio more than their assigned domains when I was suggesting domains for D&D 5th edition.
- Pathfinder provides its rules under the Open Game License, but the gods themselves (and the Golarion Campaign Setting) are not under that license, so my listing here only maps domains and doesn’t provide a ton of additional details about the gods (such as centers of worship, sacred colors and animals, symbol, favored weapon). To really understand the pantheon you’ll need to consult a Pathfinder book like the Gods and Magic or one of the wiki community sites.
| Deity | Alignment | Pathfinder Domains | D&D 5e Domains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abadar God of wealth and civilization |
LN | Earth, Law, Nobility, Protection, Travel | Knowledge, Light |
| Asmodeus God of tyranny, slavery, pride, and contracts |
LE | Evil, Fire, Law, Magic, Trickery | Knowledge, Trickery |
| Calistria Goddess of trickery, lust, and revenge |
CN | Chaos, Charm, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery | Knowledge, Trickery |
| Cayden Cailean God of freedom, ale, wine, and bravery |
CG | Chaos, Charm, Good, Strength, Travel | Knowledge, War |
| Desna Goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck |
CG | Chaos, Good, Liberation, Luck, Travel | Knowledge, Trickery |
| Erastil God of farming, hunting, trade, and family |
LG | Animal, Community, Good, Law, Plant | Life, Nature |
| Gorum God of strength, battle, and weapons |
CN | Chaos, Destruction, Glory, Strength, War | Tempest, War |
| Gozreh Deity of nature, weather, and the sea |
N | Air, Animal, Plant, Water, Weather | Nature, Tempest |
| Iomedae Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor |
LG | Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War | Light, War |
| Irori God of history, knowledge, and self-perfection |
LN | Healing, Knowledge, Law, Rune, Strength | Life, Knowledge |
| Lamashtu Goddess of madness, monsters, and nightmares |
CE | Chaos, Evil, Madness, Strength, Trickery | Tempest, Trickery |
| Nethys God of magic |
N | Destruction, Knowledge, Magic, Protection, Rune | Knowledge |
| Norgorber God of greed, secrets, poison, and murder |
NE | Charm, Death, Evil, Knowledge, Trickery | Death, Trickery |
| Pharasma Goddess of fate, death, prophecy, and birth |
N | Death, Healing, Knowledge, Repose, Water | Death, Life, Knowledge |
| Rovagug God of wrath, disaster, and destruction |
CE | Chaos, Destruction, Evil, War, Weather | Tempest, War |
| Sarenrae Goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing |
NG | Fire, Glory, Good, Healing, Sun | Life, Light |
| Shelyn Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music |
NG | Air, Charm, Good, Luck, Protection | Life, Light |
| Torag God of the forge, protection, and strategy |
LG | Artifice, Earth, Good, Law, Protection | Knowledge |
| Urgathoa Goddess of gluttony, disease, and undeath |
NE | Death, Evil, Magic, Strength, War | Death, Knowledge |
| Zon-Kuthon God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss |
LE | Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Law | Knowledge, Tempest |
Make sure to also check out:
- Try Pathfinder’s Golarion for Your Next Campaign Setting
- Deities of the Nentir Vale for D&D 5th Edition
- My own detailed pantheon I created in the PHB style for my Seas of Vodari campaign in World Building Part 3: Religion with Golarion’s deity Besmara
Photo is from cover of Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods and Magic.
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