Pharasma (fah-RAZ-mah)

"The Lady of Graves", Pharasma is the goddess who shepherds Golarion's recently-departed souls to their final reward. Upon death, souls migrate via the River of Souls to Pharasma's Boneyard in the Outer Sphere, which sits atop an impossibly tall spire that pierces the Astral Plane.

Church of Pharasma

Worshipers

Many of Pharasma's worshipers are those closely aligned with either burgeoning life or terminating death. These include midwives, grave diggers, and morticians. Pregnant women often carry small medallions bearing her likeness to protect their child. Her followers dress in black for her ceremonies (no matter the local custom), with their clothes adorned with silver, and carry tiny vials of holy water. Her faith is most commonly practiced in Brevoy, Nex, Osirion, Qadira, the Shackles, Thuvia, Ustalav, and Varisia, and among the Mwangi, Shoanti, and half-orcs throughout the Inner Sea region. Pharasma is also the most popular deity among the strange, death-touched planar race known as the duskwalkers.

During the Age of Legend, before the death of prophecy, Pharasma was worshipped by those Azlanti who relied on this power. The ancient Pharasmins hated undead as much as modern ones do, and their famous squads of undead slayers were quick to investigate spellcasters seeking lichdom and responded when dangerous undead were discovered within the empire. Azlanti citizens knew danger was near when they saw Pharasma's grim priests.

Pharasma's faith has been spread to the Worldscape by champions abducted from Golarion, and has remained strong in the shadows for centuries. Pharasmins believe themselves already dead, and see the Worldscape as a final proving ground, where they could prove their courage or diminish their vices, before they proceed to the Boneyard and receive her judgement. Pharasma's religion was eventually banned in Shareen by Empress Camilla alongside all non-Issus faiths, its clerics exiled or burnt on pyres.

Worship in Tian Xia

Pharasma is also a popular deity on the distant continent of Tian Xia where she is known as the Mother of Souls. The name reflects her dual nature as both the giver and the taker of life. Her worship is most common in the Taldan colony of Amanadar, Dtang Ma, Goka, Shaguang, Shenmen, Shokuro, and Zi Ha.

Clergy

Her priests are typically clerics, diviners (although less so since the death of Aroden), and necromancers who choose not to create undead. Her followers view the undead with hatred and consider them a great abomination. Pharasmins view putting the undead to rest as a holy duty. The creation of undead is outlawed, and commanding undead rather than destroying them is deeply frowned upon as well.

Temples and shrines

The temples of Pharasma have the appearance of dark and ancient cathedrals, usually found close to a graveyard, although a single stone in an empty field or graveyard can just as well serve as a shrine. Underneath the buildings are catacombs filled with crypts of the dead, typically priests or affluent townsfolk. Being entombed in these catacombs is thought to bring favor from the Lady of Graves. For example, in the Osirian city of Sothis, the Necropolis of the Faithful extends out from the original grounds of the High Temple of Pharasma. In contrast to these you find the Serene Spiral, the high rising majestic temple of Pharasma in Lamasara.

The services held by worshipers include chanting and singing. They are typically considered a joyous occasion, and a celebration of the circle of life and death. Members of the clergy also keep records of a community's deaths and births.

Organizations

The Voices of the Spire is a militant wing of the Pharasmin priesthood devoted to the extermination of undead.

The Pharasmin Penitence is an extremist sect that views worldly pleasures as going against Pharasma's plans and actively seek out those whom they feel upset their beliefs by making life easier, for instance, arcane casters.

The Casarmetzes are church midwives who are so skilled at the procedures of childbirth that they are able to keep both mother and child alive in dire circumstances.

Divine Domains

Death, fate, healing, knowledge
Alternative: soul, time, vigil

Holy Books & Codes

Pharasma's holy book is called The Bones Land in a Spiral, written by a prophet long ago. Its predictions are so vague that no one is sure if they are accurate or if they have already happened. Other sections that were added later contain information on safe childbirth, the proper burial of bodies, performing auguries, and other such matters.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Tenets of Faith

Pharasma makes no decision on whether a death is just or not; she views all with a cold and uncaring attitude, and decides on which of the Outer Planes a soul will spend eternity. Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and prophecy: from the moment a creature is born, she sees what its ultimate fate will be, but reserves final judgement until that soul finally stands before her. As the goddess of death and rebirth, she abhors the undead and considers them a perversion.

Holidays

In Absalom Reckoning, the third month—"Pharast"—is named in honor of the Lady of Graves. Pharasma's followers celebrate the Day of Bones on the 5th of Pharast, and in nations where the Lady of Graves is a prominent deity, her priests take part in the Procession of Unforgotten Souls in the weeks leading up to the harvest feast.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Pharasma is most often depicted as an ashen-skinned Garundi woman with white eyes. She wears a dark, hooded, robe-like dress and holds an hourglass filled with red sand. She is alternatively depicted as a mad prophet, a reaper of the dead, or a midwife, depending on her current role.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

According to the Concordance of Rivals, Pharasma is the oldest being in creation, the sole Survivor of the previous multiverse's destruction. She was responsible for shaping the new reality in its earliest days and shielding it from Those Who Remain, who have always lived outside the multiverse. According to the Windsong Testaments, she appeared alone in this new reality and, through the use of the Seal, willed most of existence into being, including the Outer Sphere, numerous planes and the eight earliest gods. Along with Yog-Sothoth, she became one of the two anchors of creation, and between Pharasma and Yog-Sothoth, the Age of Creation began with the birth of the Great Beyond.

Pharasma is counted among one of the original gods that opposed Rovagug. She magically imbued the Dead Vault with potent wards against escape, to serve as Rovagug's prison. Sometime after, Urgathoa's escape from the Boneyard and return to the Material Plane brought undead and disease to the world.

Pharasma was a part, albeit minor, of the Thassilonian pantheon, acting as the goddess of death. During the tumultuous exodus of Azlanti refugees after Earthfall, Pharasmin priests oversaw funerals that consecrated the lands and prevented the dead from rising as undead.

The death of Aroden, the first of the ascended gods, at the end of the Age of Enthronement, was extremely unexpected. His death was not prophesied, and once he died, most of the other prophecies in the world started to go awry as well. Many of Pharasma's priests have lost their faith or have gone mad as a result, but those who remain, are finding that Pharasma's hold over prophecy is becoming less important, while her domain over death, birth, and fate, are growing stronger. It is a time of change for Pharasma and her faith. Some legends say that Pharasma knew the death of Aroden was approaching, but chose not to tell her followers for reasons unknown.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Pharasma remains neutral in almost all aspects towards other deities. Iomedae still bears a slight grudge against her for not revealing Aroden's impending death, and fights broke out between the clergy of Pharasma and Aroden shortly after the latter's death for similar reasons. Urgathoa and her followers are the closest she has to an enemy. The god of accidental death, Zyphus has a fierce rivalry with the Lady of Graves, but it is not altogether clear if this feeling is mutual. Pharasma also has a mysterious connection to the minor god of the end times, Groetus, for he hangs in the sky above her Boneyard as a gibbous moon. Pharasma's clergy often worked with those of Aesocar, especially those who delivered Azlanti babies.

The psychopomp usher Atropos is Pharasma's youngest daughter, and many psychopomps whisper that she is training Atropos to succeed her when the multiverse ends.

Servants

Pharasma employs a number of immortal beings as servants. Among them are the psychopomps†, who are created from souls whose lives did not pull them toward good or evil, structure or chaos. They serve Pharasma in the Boneyard as advisors, judges, caretakers, explorers, guides, guards, and even soldiers when needed. Her divine servitor race are the ahmuuth psychopomps, humanoid creatures that battle undead and help lost souls find their final reward.

Unique servants

• Birthed-in-Sorrow - This servant of Pharasma is a linnorm-like creature who possesses clerical powers, and uses them to fight the undead.
• Echo of Lost Divinity - This minion is a spectral warrior bedecked in expensive Azlanti dress. It bears an uncanny similarity to known renderings of Aroden, and only appeared in Pharasma's service at the beginning of the Age of Lost Omens.
• Endless Gravestone - This servant appears to be an animated, wheel-like being composed of rock.
• Steward of the Skein - armoured

Alignment

Neutral

Realm

Pharasma's Palace

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Lady of Graves
Lady of Mysteries
Mother of Souls
Gray Lady
The Survivor
Azlanti period: The Spiral of Fate

Ruled Locations

• Pharasma's Palace

Adjective
Pharasmin
Areas of Concern
Birth
Death
Fate
Prophecy
Rebirth
Worshipers 
Midwives, pregnant women, morticians
Edicts 
Strive to understand ancient prophecies, destroy undead, lay bodies to rest
Anathema 
Create undead, desecrate a corpse, rob a tomb
Favoured Weapon 
Dagger
Symbol 
Spiralling comet
Sacred Animal 
Whippoorwill
Sacred Colours 
Blue, white