Irori
| Irori | ||
|---|---|---|
| Blue Hand | ||
| Alignment | Lawful Neutral | |
| Divine Rank | God | |
| Pantheon | Golarion | |
| Portfolio | History, Knowledge, Self-Perfection | |
| Domains | Healing (Medicine, Restoration Subdomain), Knowledge (Education, Memory, Thought Subdomain), Law (Inevitable Subdomain), Rune (Language Subdomain), Strength (Competition, Fist, Resolve, Self-Realization Subdomain) | |
| Home Plane | Axis | |
| Worshippers | Monks, Dwarves | |
| Favoured Weapon | Unarmed | |
Irori, the Master of Masters is essentially the god of all monks in the same way that Nethys is considered the god of wizards. Similarly, both are also one of five (himself, his nephew Gruhastha, Nethys, Kurgess and Milani) documented cases of a mortal having ascended to divinity without using the Starstone or another deity's "help" (the four horsemen are a long series of mortals killing the previous one and inheriting the position, some heralds are/were demigods in their own right), though how Irori did it has been undescribed - presumably, he was such an exemplary monk that he just transcended his own mortal frailty while in the middle of the world's longest a meditation session. He also considers those who used the Starstone to become gods (Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber) to have cheated, since they basically just copied what Aroden did when they should’ve discovered their own unique paths to divinity. He has a nephew, Gruhastha, who wrote a book so perfect it became a god and merged with him.
His main focus is on the perpetual quest for perfection, inspiring his believers to constantly better themselves all aspects of life and society like a holy self-help book of kickass. This outlook similarly reaches into his dealings with the other gods. He personally falls more on the Lawful Good side of the spectrum, as he tends to have friendly relations with the good-aligned deities, minor philosophical hangups omitted. His only legit enemy is Asmodeus, destroyer of other people's shit, while his drill instructor-like nature and refusal to let her have a taste of that delicious physical perfection irritates Urgathoa to no end.
Followers
The main reason people pick Irori as a patron deity is because you can now have a cleric or paladin who can punch people now... though that punch won't be as good as a traditional monk's, whom also flock to him for obvious reasons. Unlike most faiths, where the end goal is elevating their gods, followers of Irori tend to focus more upon their enlightenment and self-perfection.
Thanks to the splatbook "Paths of Prestige", there is a Prestige Class that merges together paladins (or anyone with Smite Evil) and monks (Who have Still Mind). This class essentially lets you continue the monk's class progression while also progressing smite (on top of making it effective on any chaotic being) and has the added bonus of some skill improvements. Eventually a single class version of this build was printed as the Iroran Paladin archetype.