Talk:Empyreal lord

Unknown empyreal lords

The list of unknown empyreal lords that have been broken out are mentioned only in a non-canonical sidebar of a Pathfinder First Edition Bestiary volume. Despite not being mentioned in any canon works, including those that list the names of all notable empyreal lords, their wiki articles have all been redirected to this article for navigational purposes as a compromised alternative to deletion, as discussed with User:Fleanetha on Discord:

I think a slightly softer option might be better here than a full deletion though. Anyone reading about one of those deities and coming to the wiki to find more information but finding nothing is not helped. Worse, they may get an urge to recreate the page. Instead, if they find a page clearly showing the deity is non-canon with an explanation why, that’s helpful. We have the non-canon badge to apply to the page. We really should delete the names from the god portal and from navboxes for sure, so they are only located by specific searches. - Fleanetha, #pf-wiki-talk on the PathfinderWiki Discord, 12:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

There are several empyreal lords in the "known" list from this Bestiary sidebar who've been mentioned only once in 15 years of Pathfinder canon works—they're canon by PathfinderWiki policy by even the barest existence of their name in a canon work.

I truly want to stress here that for the "unknown" list I could not find a single reference to any of those empyreal lords in any of the approximately 1,500 Pathfinder canon documents that I can access, spanning every published work of all Pathfinder product lines as well as nearly every released Pathfinder Society and Pathfinder Adventure Card Game scenario.

If I'm in error on any of these, if they appear in a low-tier licensed work I don't have access to, or if a work after the point in time when I write this mentions them, then move the empyreal lord back to the "known" list, revert the edits on their articles converting them to redirects, and add and cite the canon sources for them.

Otherwise, the "unknown" list consists of those who appear to fail to clear the lowest possible bar of inclusion on PathfinderWiki, and if so they are an exception to both the canon policy's written rules and intent. -Oznogon (talk) 18:53, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

For the article as it existed prior to this change, see revision 450671. -Oznogon (talk) 19:06, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Paizo staff clarifications and context on these Bestiary lists:

• James Jacobs in 2013: "the Bestiaries are world-neutral, and so we generally don't include demigods in those books unless those demigods are also mythological ... an increasing percentage of (empyreal lords) are made up by us for Golarion, so we decided to make names up for them in the Bestiary; these guys don't have roles to play in Golarion, yet."
• Adam Daigle in 2014: "those entries in the Bestiaries for azatas, archons, and agathions are in setting neutral books, so not all of those empyreal lords are necessarily in Golarion."

-Oznogon (talk) 20:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC)