Meta:Baphomet

Relationship to minotaurs

The Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project removes several associations between Baphomet and minotaurs, particularly Howl of the Wild in introducing minotaurs as a playable ancestry, and Divine Mysteries in describing Baphomet and redefining his deity stat block. These past associations were derived from Baphomet's usage in another game and allowed under a license that Pathfinder works abandoned with the move to the ORC License in the Remaster.

Changes to deemphasize this relationship between Baphomet and minotaurs were intentional and confirmed by Paizo staff members.¹² As a result, the following changes were made to Baphomet's Remastered stat block in Divine Mysteries 302–303 and Divine Mysteries Web Supplement 8 when compared to his legacy appearance in Lost Omens Gods & Magic:

His primary title is "Lord of the Labyrinth" instead of "Lord of Minotaurs".
His areas of concern include traitors and lack minotaurs.
His edicts include "unleash beasts to kill others" and lack "pace labyrinths".

Also, compared to his stat block in Book of the Damned:

His religious symbol changes from a brass minotaur head to a brass bull head.

Baphomet's description on Divine Mysteries 184 does not mention Lamashtu creating Baphomet or other minotaurs, its description of his blessings suggests he grants them primarily to wild animals who kill humanoids, and his cults' demographics on Golarion suggest that they include "human-dominated" secret societies; minotaurs are not mentioned in any of these aspects. -Oznogon (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

References

↑ "We're using Baphomet as a demon lord of prisons and beasts in Pathfinder Remastered, and also building in some element perhaps of tricking people into worshiping demons when they think they're worshiping something else. We're abandoning his "boss minotaur" element entirely, which also works well with how we're starting to present minotaurs as less monolithically evil and having their own culture that's not just "WORSHIP DEMON AND LIVE IN MAZE". We started doing this many years ago, as you note, in how we went closer to Baphomet's classical real-world appearance than as a big beefy minotaur." James Jacobs. (February 12, 2024). Comment on "OGL Demon Lords", Paizo Blog.
↑ "It's not that minotaurs are a D&D thing... it's that Baphomet as a demon lord of minotaurs is a D&D thing. The mythological Baphomet from real-world history has no association with minotaurs at all, and indeed that's the look we mostly went with for the Pathfinder version of him—as something more akin to a goat-headed person. Still, at the time, we were pretty deeply associated with OGL content, and so we chose to retain the minotaur link in Baphomet, an option we could do because the minotaur-associated verison of Baphomet was published in the Tome of Horrors as OGL content.

The remastered rules can't use any of that Tome of Horrors OGL content, any more than it can use official D&D stuff like owlbears or gelatinous cubes. And so the element of Baphomet being a demon lord of minotaurs is no longer an option for us.

But fortunately, we've built up a lot of lore about him associating with prisons and the corruption of crusaders and the like that we can shift away from minotaur themes and instead of having him be associated with mazes, have him associated with complex prisons and dungeons, and he pretty much remains unchanged in Pathfinder. Other than that his minions are no longer overwhelmingly minotaur-themed. (We'll likely need to adjust his holy symbol as well, come to think of it, to make it look more like a goat head than a bull head.)" James Jacobs. (May 8, 2024). Comment on "It's Adventure Time", Paizo Blog.

Unincorporated sources

Faiths of Corruption p 18 --Fleanetha (talk) 14:23, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Major article and Bestiary focus in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth p70ff. & 88f. --Fleanetha (talk) 23:29, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
Inner Sea Monster Codex pp. 45 --Fleanetha (talk) 10:20, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Divine Mysteries: Main 184 witch 296 ~~stat block 302–303~~ --Stejo (talk) 14:28, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

[1] "We're using Baphomet as a demon lord of prisons and beasts in Pathfinder Remastered, and also building in some element perhaps of tricking people into worshiping demons when they think they're worshiping something else. We're abandoning his "boss minotaur" element entirely, which also works well with how we're starting to present minotaurs as less monolithically evil and having their own culture that's not just "WORSHIP DEMON AND LIVE IN MAZE". We started doing this many years ago, as you note, in how we went closer to Baphomet's classical real-world appearance than as a big beefy minotaur." James Jacobs. (February 12, 2024). Comment on "OGL Demon Lords", Paizo Blog.

[2] "It's not that minotaurs are a D&D thing... it's that Baphomet as a demon lord of minotaurs is a D&D thing. The mythological Baphomet from real-world history has no association with minotaurs at all, and indeed that's the look we mostly went with for the Pathfinder version of him—as something more akin to a goat-headed person. Still, at the time, we were pretty deeply associated with OGL content, and so we chose to retain the minotaur link in Baphomet, an option we could do because the minotaur-associated verison of Baphomet was published in the Tome of Horrors as OGL content.

The remastered rules can't use any of that Tome of Horrors OGL content, any more than it can use official D&D stuff like owlbears or gelatinous cubes. And so the element of Baphomet being a demon lord of minotaurs is no longer an option for us.

But fortunately, we've built up a lot of lore about him associating with prisons and the corruption of crusaders and the like that we can shift away from minotaur themes and instead of having him be associated with mazes, have him associated with complex prisons and dungeons, and he pretty much remains unchanged in Pathfinder. Other than that his minions are no longer overwhelmingly minotaur-themed. (We'll likely need to adjust his holy symbol as well, come to think of it, to make it look more like a goat head than a bull head.)" James Jacobs. (May 8, 2024). Comment on "It's Adventure Time", Paizo Blog.

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