Rahadoum - Not atheistic, but dystheistic


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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Voin_AFOL wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^If all real world politial and religious commentary is forbidden from the Campaign Setting forums, how are we supposed to compare worlds and world experiences?

Call me crazy, but I think it's possible for rational people to discuss religion and politics and keep it civil.

Up to a point.

And then we duel.

Like civilized gentlemen.

;P

No need for dueling like civilizaed gentlemen -- a blaster works just fine. :-)

Actually, no need for dueling. The discussions of religion and politics aren't necessarily that much worse than, for instance, the Rogue Hate discussions . . . wait, maybe that IS religion . . . .

But seriously, I'd have missed it if you couldn't post your experiences in the Soviet Union (which you don't have to be crazy to describe), even if it is substantially different from Rahadoum (different in style, yes, but after a point these differences get big enough to be important, like for instance, to anyone trying to combat the system).

And like I said (in part in the post that got deleted), I would even be on board with your intentions of overthrowing Rahadoum even if I think you are too optimistic about certain strategies, if we both got dumped into Golarion, even though I have self-acknowledged trouble responding properly to what you pointed out earlier about Golarion deities not working like Earth deities (which is a GOOD thing). That is, assuming that I could survive and remain free as a character of point buy in the range -3 to +6, with horrible optimization (probably get beat up by an average unoptimized Rogue if the Microbes Of Golarion(*) didn't get me first, before I could get enough time and experience to overcome the block against the divine carried over from Earth).

(*)Actually, interesting idea for a Pathfinder Campaign Setting supplement, although admittedly, being in my Earth profession a Modern Necromancer Life Science Researcher, I might be a bit biased about the marketability of such a thing.


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LazarX wrote:
We ARE a culture that holds violence as an accepted first solution for problem solving. And we're the most gun happy people on the planet

Oh really? Caught word of what's been happening in the Middle East or Africa or Mexico or South America or South-East Asia lately for a while now?

So let's cut the self-flagellating "Westerner guilt" delusions already. Today's America is pretty darn tame in comparison to places where actual wars of genocide rage on this very moment, where they drag people out of their houses and behead them in the streets.

The rate of all sorts of violent crime in the U.S. (murder, rape, etc) has actually been on a steady decline for a while now. The difference is with modern media and telecommunication you just hear more about the stuff that does happen.

The U.S.A. has has exactly 1 revolution in its history, and it was a resounding success that gave birth to a nation that has more-or-less increasingly made progress over the years.

We also had 1 major civil war (only one on a scale big enough to matter, anyway), and the cultural wounds from that healed remarkably quickly in comparison to similar event in other countries.

As a Representative Republic, we have elections. Now what is an election, in it's most basic form, but a regularly-scheduled, bloodless civil war where the party not currently in power has a chance to put their own person on the throne in office by ballot, rather than by bullet? It's even evident in the military terminology that the politicians ganked like "campaigning" or "filibuster".

I'm not saying this nation is perfect-shiny-Eagleland-of-Ultimate-flawlessness. I'm usually the first to criticize something here when I smell a foul.

But we're also not Omgz, like, the most horridable, violent people in the world, according to the authoritative treatise on this snarky bumper sticker I got at the place that sells Che t-shirts.

^ Stuff like that just resounds with ignorant self-indulgence, of people refusing to see things how they are, but rather how they want to see it. America is one of the most charitable nations in the world. Yes, we go to war, but we rebuild what we break - how many other countries can boast that? When natural disasters bury cities under rubble, it's Americans - civilian volunteers and military experts - that are among the first on the scene, saving lives and rebuilding infrastructure (the unvaccinated U.N. "peacekeepers" waltz in later to make things worse like the cholera outbreak they caused in Haiti).

Look, I don't wanna derail the thread topic, but as an immigrant to the States, as a naturalized American citizen, and a U.S Air Force veteran who served proudly and with honor, it really grinds my gears when people make these obnoxious blanket-statements about a nation that I believe in, the nation that I bled for.

And typically these kind of statements come from States-born Middle-Americans who have never seen first-hand how bad it can get elsewhere.

Pointing out problems in your country so that they can be fixed is part of what patriotism is all about, but these hollow cliches of "fashionable guilt" aren't helping anything.

---

And now back to the topic.


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UnArcaneElection wrote:

No need for dueling like civilizaed gentlemen -- a blaster works just fine. :-)

Too clumsy and random. I prefer a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age...

UnArcaneElection wrote:


Actually, no need for dueling. The discussions of religion and politics aren't necessarily that much worse than, for instance, the Rogue Hate discussions . . . wait, maybe that IS religion . . . .

It donens't need to be religion or politics for people to get flame-warry about it. Even hobbies can be Serious Business.

UnArcaneElection wrote:


But seriously, I'd have missed it if you couldn't post your experiences in the Soviet Union (which you don't have to be crazy to describe), even if it is substantially different from Rahadoum (different in style, yes, but after a point these differences get big enough to be important, like for instance, to anyone trying to combat the system).

Thank you. I agree.

UnArcaneElection wrote:
And like I said (in part in the post that got deleted), I would even be on board with your intentions of overthrowing Rahadoum even if I think you are too optimistic about certain strategies, if we both got dumped into Golarion, even though I have self-acknowledged trouble responding properly to what you pointed out earlier about Golarion deities not working like Earth deities (which is a GOOD thing). That is, assuming that I could survive and remain free as a character of point buy in the range -3 to +6, with horrible optimization (probably get beat up by an average unoptimized Rogue

Assuming Golarion works on Pathfinder rules, we'd at least have the advantage of knowing how those rules work from a meta perspective.

UnArcaneElection wrote:

if the Microbes Of Golarion(*) didn't get me first, before I could get enough time and experience to overcome the block against the divine carried over from Earth).

(*)Actually, interesting idea for a Pathfinder Campaign Setting supplement, although admittedly, being in my Earth profession a Modern Necromancer Life Science Researcher, I might be a bit biased about the...

Although... what's to say we're not the ones carrying something that's harmless to us, but lethal to the inhabitants of Golarion? Say, our trip there isn't sponsored by Urgathoa Express, is it?

Shadow Lodge

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Voin_AFOL wrote:
Look, I don't wanna derail the thread topic, but as an immigrant to the States, as a naturalized American citizen, and a U.S Air Force veteran who served proudly and with honor, it really grinds my gears when people make these obnoxious blanket-statements about a nation that I believe in, the nation that I bled for.

First off, I just wanted to say thank you. Secondly, I get it.


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Voin_AFOL wrote:
LazarX wrote:
We ARE a culture that holds violence as an accepted first solution for problem solving. And we're the most gun happy people on the planet

Oh really? Caught word of what's been happening in the Middle East or Africa or Mexico or South America or South-East Asia lately for a while now?

So let's cut the self-flagellating "Westerner guilt" delusions already. Today's America is pretty darn tame in comparison to places where actual wars of genocide rage on this very moment, where they drag people out of their houses and behead them in the streets.

The rate of all sorts of violent crime in the U.S. (murder, rape, etc) has actually been on a steady decline for a while now. The difference is with modern media and telecommunication you just hear more about the stuff that does happen.

The U.S.A. has has exactly 1 revolution in its history, and it was a resounding success that gave birth to a nation that has more-or-less increasingly made progress over the years.

We also had 1 major civil war (only one on a scale big enough to matter, anyway), and the cultural wounds from that healed remarkably quickly in comparison to similar event in other countries.

I'm not interested in self-flagellating "Westerner guilt", but I'm also not interested in whitewashing our history or present.

If you think the wounds from the Civil War healed quickly - or have healed yet, for that matter - you're missing something. Read up a bit on the "Lost Cause" or the Klan or the ubiquitous Stars and Bars. We really are still dealing with it. And with the consequences of the slavery that led to it.

And while we don't have wars raging on our streets and violent crime is definitely down, we are still the most gun happy people on the planet (or in the close running at least). We seem to feel the need to have them at all times, even though violence is down.

This certainly isn't the worst place to live. Far from it. Far even from the worst country to play the role of sole superpower. But lets not close our eyes to the flaws or pretend any criticism is claiming we're the worst either.

Way the hell off topic again. If you want to go farther with this, we should take it to Off Topic.


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thejeff wrote:
If you think the wounds from the Civil War healed quickly - or have healed yet, for that matter - you're missing something. Read up a bit on the "Lost Cause" or the Klan or the ubiquitous Stars and Bars. We really are still dealing with it. And with the consequences of the slavery that led to it.

That's why I said "in comparison to similar event in other countries". But the occasional remnant spark-up of racial violence is not the same as in other countries where the actual war just rages on and on and on.

thejeff wrote:
And while we don't have wars raging on our streets and violent crime is definitely down, we are still the most gun happy people on the planet (or in the close running at least). We seem to feel the need to have them at all times, even though violence is down.

And? That's a person's right to make that choice - everyone has a right to defend themselves from violence. As long as they haven't wrongfully assaulted anyone, a gun owner has not done anything wrong.

And have you considered that maybe the endless sensational news coverage of how "Omgz, America's so violent, u guyz" has contributed to people not feeling safe walking down the street?

But no one can be truly "anti-gun" if they vote for "anti-gun" laws. If you, personally, don't care for firearms, that's fine. Just don't infringe on my right to own one and we'll get along great. If you don't like guns, don't buy one, if you don't like pot don't smoke it, if you don't like gay marriage, don't get one, etc. Live and let live, right?

But consider what happens when people vote in "anti-gun" legislation. They're deciding that their law-abiding neighbors (who have not shot anyone) should have their private property taken away by people from the government with guns. So you can't be "anti-gun" unless you're against guns for everybody. Otherwise a person voting that way is very "pro-gun", but only for the government.

And we all know the government is always 100% responsible and accountable with their gun use and never ever, pinkie-swear ever shoots anyone they're not supposed to, ever.
^ This message approved by the Ministry of Truth.

A government that can't trust citizens with guns should not be trusted with theirs. And as someone who is part ethnically Jewish, I will never support disarmament, for obvious reasons.

thejeff wrote:
But lets not close our eyes to the flaws or pretend any criticism is claiming we're the worst either.

Not closing my eyes or white-washing. But when we blow issues out of proportion or create problems where none exist, that takes time and effort away from the real, bigger problems.

But yes, you're right - too much off-topic drifts. If anyone wants to discuss this other stuff further, feel free to send me a p.m. or link me to an off-topic thread.

Cheers! :)

---

And now back to the topic.

So what does happen to Rahadoumians... Rahadoumites ...Rahadoumlanders...Rahadoumericans...Rahadoumi? in the afterlife?

Anybody know?

Admittedly, I have not yet had the time to read all the massive amount of setting lore for Golarion, especially where cosmology is concerned.


Voin_AFOL wrote:

And now back to the topic.

So what does happen to Rahadoumians... Rahadoumites ...Rahadoumlanders...Rahadoumericans...Rahadoumi? in the afterlife?

Anybody know?

Rahadoumi is correct, I believe.

Rahadoumi go on to the Boneyard just like everyone else.

Once they arrive, they tend follow 1 of 2 paths:

1) Be judged by Pharasma (or her agents), become petitioners, and move on to an alignment appropriate plane; or

2) Reject judgment and the Outer Planes, becoming dissident souls.

Dissident souls never become petitioners, and go the Graveyard of Souls to sleep for a relative eternity, guarded by the psychopomps.

(Over a vast period of time, the dissident souls become one with the Boneyard. Over an even vaster period time, the dissident souls break back away from the Boneyard and return to the positive energy plane for rebirth. But that's a trait that they share with petitioners.)


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I see. And are Rahadoumi aware of this fate that awaits them? Are they consenting to it?


Voin_AFOL wrote:

{. . .}

UnArcaneElection wrote:
And like I said (in part in the post that got deleted), I would even be on board with your intentions of overthrowing Rahadoum even if I think you are too optimistic about certain strategies, if we both got dumped into Golarion, even though I have self-acknowledged trouble responding properly to what you pointed out earlier about Golarion deities not working like Earth deities (which is a GOOD thing). That is, assuming that I could survive and remain free as a character of point buy in the range -3 to +6, with horrible optimization (probably get beat up by an average unoptimized Rogue
Assuming Golarion works on Pathfinder rules, we'd at least have the advantage of knowing how those rules work from a meta perspective.

I would be VERY surprised if intellectual elites (in places like Cheliax and Rahadoum, at least) had NOT already figured out all this stuff. Their incentive to do so is enormous; to accomplish such a goal, they probably have sub-agencies like CIA Psych Ops, with a decent chance of being more competent (having magic that actually works, in the case of Cheliax also including regular communion with Hell and the corresponding Infernal research program, would be a big help with this).

Voin_AFOL wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

if the Microbes Of Golarion(*) didn't get me first, before I could get enough time and experience to overcome the block against the divine carried over from Earth).

(*)Actually, interesting idea for a Pathfinder Campaign Setting supplement, although admittedly, being in my Earth profession a Modern Necromancer Life Science Researcher, I might be a bit biased about the marketability of such a thing.

Although... what's to say we're not the ones carrying something that's harmless to us, but lethal to the inhabitants of Golarion? Say, our trip there isn't sponsored by Urgathoa Express, is it?

It's possible, but Golarion seems to have its own set of fairly nasty diseases and Remove Disease that is less widely available but more technically advanced than our own medical technology, so I suspect that I would quickly end up as Urgathoa Happy Meal rather than Urgathoa Express.

However, in all this world comparison, we've forgotten the BIG elephant in the room in any plan to achieve regime change in Rahadoum: Cheliax. Cheliax already has a foothold in Rahadoum's territory (Kharijite), and is looking to take over the world, and has a tyranny even worse than that of Rahadoum. Any attempt to achieve regime change is likely to change the regime over to Cheliax, unless extreme safeguards are employed. Earth has partial analogs to this situation, but Cheliax is more well-developed than most of these, and so would be even harder to guard against. Be careful what you wish for . . . .


Seven Days to the Grave [PZO9008] (from PF07-12 Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path), page 58 has an interesting section about how disease outbreaks would interface with a magic/fantasy world like Golarion. It's worth a read if you've got access to it, but to hit the highlights, once it got bad enough, not even Remove Disease magics would be enough to really stem the tide of a massive plague. You gotta remember that even in the bigger cities, there are only gonna be a few casters w/ access to that spell, and even then a limited amount of times per day. Remove Disease is generally a 3rd-level spell (unless you're of the Restoration subdomain), so it takes a 5th-level caster to cast it. According to the Inner Sea World Guide [PZO9226], 5th level is the "upper rung" for the vast majority of the sentient population, because once toy get into levels 6-10, that's "a nation’s movers and shakers".

Using backwards compatibility to the 3.5 community generation for determining what level of NPCs live at what size settlements, the smallest settlement that can reliably (not from lucky die rolls) count on having clerics 5th level or higher in their midst is a Small City (just like in real life, typically a "leading professional in their field" will be drawn to areas where their services will be more in demand, rather than some 1-horse hamlet).

On a smaller scale (think: village w/ a fouled well), "Purify Food/Drink" cast by the local healer is stated in Seven Days to the Grave to probably pull a lot more mileage in terms of keeping people healthy.

Yes, they have magic in the fantasy worlds, but on the scale and power level that it matters for calamities like this, they have it in fairly limited quantities. And as the level of a character increases, the number of such characters tapers off.

In our world, we have the CDC and various sister agencies and affiliate programs around the globe that, while working with mundane science, have really clamped down on outbreaks in 1st and 2nd world nations, and made significant progress in eradicating contagions that have ravaged the 3rd world (Smallpox is one species driven into extinction we can be proud of). You remember the SARS scare, how that was supposed to be the "new plague" according to sensationalist lamestream media? Total body count: 774. Swine flu? 575,000.

Now compare that to the regular ol' flu, that claims around 500,000 lives yearly as the virus mutates (get your flu shots, don't listen to the anti-vaccers - they'll be dead soon enough).

Of course, these are modern numbers. Compare the era before we had really gotten modern medicine organized, and you see the Spanish Flu having killed up to an estimated 50 million people between 1918-1919 (about one-third of the planet's population at the time), riding in on the squalor and bloodshed of WWI. Considering that even at the turn of the 20th century, our medicine was more advanced than tree bark and leeches, this arguably makes it more lethal than the infamous Bubonic Plague that scourged medieval Europe (although "Black Death" sounds a hell of a lot more metal!).

---

Doesn't the lore state Cheliax to be in decline?

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

decline is something that happens until it stops.


With respect to an outbreak of a major plague, it probably depends a lot on where it happens, just like on Earth. If it happens in Andoran, Five Kings Mountains, or Kyonin, the nation as a whole probably organizes resources to stop it. If it happens again in Korvosa after the local heroes have left, they're probably in trouble because they're too small. If it happens in Cheliax, they probably use it as an excuse to round up dissidents, and if it appears to be a national threat, they probably nuke Hellfire Sanitize the quarantine area. In Irrisen, the response is probably similar but using ice instead of fire (although depending upon the nature of the disease organism, this potentially leaves a frozen reservoir of viable disease organisms that could be reactivated later). In Rahadoum . . . I got the impression from reading earlier in this thread that they have a current plague problem ongoing. In the nations surrounding the Worldwound, they're probably in trouble due to poverty and compromised organization (even in Mendev once you get out of the major cities), but they're in trouble anyway, because the Worldwound doesn't need Earth expatriates to make trouble; a plague brought from Earth would probably be just another plague to them. And of course, in Geb, you probably become just another laboratory specimen (in the Bioweapons Division if you've got something nasty enough) or a Happy Meal, depending upon who gets you first.

With respect to the decline of Cheliax, I get the impression from reading about it (mostly on pathfinderwiki.com, but also from following PbPs of Council of Thieves and Skull & Shackles, although admittedly with the latter having been heavily rewritten) that it declined a lot during and for a while after the Chelish Civil War, but it is pretty much done declining (in a military and political sense, not in a moral sense) and looking to get back its former territories, plus any others it can snag, and is building up the means to do so. Everyone who lives nearby has to worry about Cheliax, especially some place like Rahadoum that is beset by both desertification and a plague.

Grand Lodge

Chris Lambertz wrote:
Removed a couple posts and a reminder: let's keep the real world political and religious commentary out of the Campaign Setting forums.

I'm gonna keep this short, because it's been threadjacked enough, but I really just have to vent a little frustration at this response. And I know it won't change anyone's mind, or bring it back, and it's Paizo's board to do with as they see fit - but this has been gnawing at the back of my mind for a little bit.

There was already a TON of real world political/religious commentary in this thread. (Heck almost every post after this was a discussion of the American political climate!) But you, Paizo, invited that when you used a real-world term (inaccurately) to describe something in a fictional setting. Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam make no sense in the world of Golarion - so you don't stamp the name on some Golarion-specific religion that embodies its worst stereotypes.

If you don't want 'real world' religious discussions about your campaign setting, then don't use a real world term. Or at the very least if you have to use a term with real world corollaries, A) use the correct one, and B) really consider what the implications are when you use it.

I guess you could argue the censorship was because the posts were getting too 'heated', but I feel like if you changed some of the variables here my post and the following responses wouldn't have been erased. I can point to several much more heated exchanges about gender or sexuality that not only weren't deleted, but the Devs even joined in.

Shadow Lodge

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I just want to say that Golarion does officially have links to at least a fantasy version of the real world. In the Mummy's Mask AP, there are hints that Ancient Osirion came from Egypt, including the Egyptian pantheon.

In Reign of Winter there is the whole but about Russia. And finally in Artifacts and Legends, a Campaign Setting book, we have the very neutered Saint Cuthberts Mace. So it is not at all true that Judaism, Islam, or Christianity should/do not exist in the setting.

And while there is a degree of bias amongst the devs, and notably when it comes to sexuality, gender, and atheism, I would have to say that this seems to at least have been a step in the right direction by some of the comments that had been removed.

Grand Lodge

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DM Beckett wrote:
I just want to say that Golarion does officially have links to at least a fantasy version of the real world. In the Mummy's Mask AP, there are hints that Ancient Osirion came from Egypt, including the Egyptian pantheon.

True, but you cannot really compare old pantheons to modern day religions. Greek/Norse/Egyptian mythology today are treated as literature and folklore, not like the actual current beliefs of millions of people.

Quote:
In Reign of Winter there is the whole but about Russia. And finally in Artifacts and Legends, a Campaign Setting book, we have the very neutered Saint Cuthberts Mace. So it is not at all true that Judaism, Islam, or Christianity should/do not exist in the setting.

That's not quite accurate. There are things inspired by Christian - and Hindu and Muslim and Jewish - mythology, but what's not included is a group of people who are designated as Christians that believe in the death and resurrection of a man named Jesus. Just like there are no followers of the prophet Muhammad called Muslims or reincarnations of the Dalai Lama or anything of the sort.

The influence is there, but the religions themselves are not. Just like the stat block St Cuthbert's Mace nowhere mentions the church or Christianity. The mace was inspired by the story of St Cuthbert, but can as easily be something else.

As for what exists on earth, if I recall I don't believe the Reign of Winter AP ever delved into the religions here or anything about Russia's political climate.

Which is wise. You shouldn't pack such loaded things into an RPG where they will more than likely be mishandled.

Quote:
And while there is a degree of bias amongst the devs, and notably when it comes to sexuality, gender, and atheism, I would have to say that this seems to at least have been a step in the right direction by some of the comments that had been removed.

We can agree to disagree on that. Like I said, I feel like it wasn't any more heated than a lot of the posts (particularly on gender or sexuality) have gotten.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Soooo... Christianity is LG (except for bloody Protestant heathens, who are NE), Judaism is LN, Islam is CE? Oh, wait, bringing real world religions into D&D actually *is* a terribad idea, I forgot.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
EntrerisShadow wrote:
As for what exists on earth, if I recall I don't believe the Reign of Winter AP ever delved into the religions here or anything about Russia's political climate.

didn't read Reign of Winter, but from my understanding it does take place in Russia during the 1917 Revolution, and it does feature Rasputin, who, IRL, was an Orthodox mystic.

So... these things are in the Pathfinder Universe, even if there's no commentary about them.

That being said MAGIC, DRAGONS, ELVES. It's a game. People who take it too seriously, or get into a huff about a particular adventure writer's perspectives should re-assess their priorities.

Grand Lodge

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Gorbacz wrote:
Soooo... Christianity is LG (except for bloody Protestant heathens, who are NE), Judaism is LN, Islam is CE? Oh, wait, bringing real world religions into D&D actually *is* a terribad idea, I forgot.

Er, yes? We're in total agreement - taking actual real world religious philosophies and slapping a D&D alignment on them isn't really a great idea.

Although I think I've stated it elsewhere, my biggest issue with Rahadoum isn't what terms they decide to call it - the biggest is that it just doesn't make any damn sense whatsoever to me. I keep trying to wrap my head around how it would work, and I just can't.

A misotheistic society just makes no sense in the world of Golarion. And I know the back story and the explanation, but seriously, REALLY break it down and there's no way to justify it without committing to colossal stupidity or insanity. Unless you pared the options way back, it's always going to strike me as kind of stupid that a whole nation decided there wasn't a single redeemable god in the whole bunch. You would think at least Irori might squeak in, but no.

Also I don't know if you can call a nation "LN" when its main government enforcement agency's description reads like an excerpt from 1984.

Yakman wrote:
EntrerisShadow wrote:
As for what exists on earth, if I recall I don't believe the Reign of Winter AP ever delved into the religions here or anything about Russia's political climate.

didn't read Reign of Winter, but from my understanding it does take place in Russia during the 1917 Revolution, and it does feature Rasputin, who, IRL, was an Orthodox mystic.

So... these things are in the Pathfinder Universe, even if there's no commentary about them.

I really do not understand why people won't make the distinction between having things that are inspired by something and outright including them. Like I literally just went over this in the response you're quoting --- they have things inspired by Christianity, but they do not include actual Christianity. Jesus? Never mentioned. The Bible? Doesn't come up.

Quote:
That being said MAGIC, DRAGONS, ELVES. It's a game. People who take it too seriously, or get into a huff about a particular adventure writer's perspectives should re-assess their priorities.

I don't think that's a great attitude, and one I really hope Paizo would never subscribe to. Pardon if I'm misunderstanding, but it kind of sounds like you're saying if they did include Christianity and Islam and slapped "LG" on one and "LN/LE" on another you would say, "Eh, no big deal - people really shouldn't get in a huff over these kinds of things. It's a game after all and that's just the adventure writer's perspective."


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@ EntrerisShadow - probably because trying to directly address Christianity itself in a Pathfinder product would've provoked an extremely toxic response.

Both from the people angry that it's "wrong" and from people angry that it was attempted at all.

I don't expect Paizo to try to address the divinities of any widespread living religion, really.

There's no way it doesn't end in tears.

I was debating for a bit posting the take I'm actually going with for my mythic Reign of Winter after-campaign game, but I don't think actually posting it would end well.

Of course, Golarionverse Earth has a great number of problems with it, though at least in the Golarionverse I can blame part of it on Kostchtchie and Cthulhu instead of entirely upon humans being incredibly horrible.

Grand Lodge

Zhangar wrote:

@ EntrerisShadow - probably because trying to directly address Christianity itself in a Pathfinder product would've provoked an extremely toxic response.

Both from the people angry that it's "wrong" and from people angry that it was attempted at all.

I feel like maybe I'm not making my point correctly here? Because I have said from the start that they shouldn't include real world religions. I actually said that pretty flatly in my last post. The argument is whether having things influenced by religious lore that don't call it out by name is the same as having that religion in the game - and I say no.


Ah.

Well, including inactive real world religions is a D&D tradition. Hell, you can open up the 5E Player's Handbook and find the Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse pantheons.

If anything, I'm kind of surprised the Egyptian pantheon's the only one that Paizo's directly dealt with.

(Though Sun Wukong is part of the Tian Xia pantheon, and a number of traditional Japanese deities are present there under different names...)

Edit: Though I believe James Jacobs has stated that Shizuru and Amaterasu are not the same entity.

Shadow Lodge

EntrerisShadow wrote:
Zhangar wrote:

@ EntrerisShadow - probably because trying to directly address Christianity itself in a Pathfinder product would've provoked an extremely toxic response.

Both from the people angry that it's "wrong" and from people angry that it was attempted at all.

I feel like maybe I'm not making my point correctly here? Because I have said from the start that they shouldn't include real world religions. I actually said that pretty flatly in my last post. The argument is whether having things influenced by religious lore that don't call it out by name is the same as having that religion in the game - and I say no.

But the issue is that the DID include real world religions by introducing the (real world) Egyptian (and Egyptians) in Mummy's Mask, and also making it pretty clear that there are some pretty clear links/portals/connections to a fantasy earth IN CANON.

It really begs the question then why earth hasn't had a lot more influence on Golarion, and while I can understand Paizo not wanting to include Christianity or Islam, (I wouldn't trust them to do it justice either and the only alternative would be to basically say their entire political agenda is wrong), why wouldn't there be some Moses-era Jews turning staffs to snakes or hitting rocks and making water.

Leads to "group A" is okay, but "Group B". . . mentality.


Ya know I had a long laid out response to Beckett, but I think there is basically zero ways I can answer it without potentially aggravating some readers, because there is no way of reconciling real world current beliefs about a higher power with Golarion cosmology and Pathfinder rules. And that is probably pretty much all the reason that needs to exist for why Paizo is silent on real world extant religions.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

It's ok MMCJawa, I'll take a shot :)

Key word here is extant - "real world Egyptian religion" is pretty much dead. I realise that out there there might be a person or two worshipping Osiris and Ra ... but their number pales in comparison to the amount of folks who treat Old Testament quite seriously. And given that a non-insgnificant amount of said Old Testament folks dwell where 80% of Paizo's sales go ... there's a sound reason for not getting the printed material near some questions. Such as "Is Yahweh LN or LG?", "What's the favoured weapon of Jesus Christ: longsword or unarmed strike?" or "I have a transgendered goth loli tentacle bloodline Sorceress worshipping Moses, what happens when I summon a devil?".

Of course, people will still come to the table saying they want to play a Paladin of Holy Mary and DMs will have to handle that, but as long as there's no explicit mention in the source material, it's all headcanon home-brew zone.

And don't worry, Paizo isn't singling out Christianity here, I believe each and every *living* religion will be walked around very carefully for the reasons above.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Considering that Abrahamic religions have "One true god" thing going on... If they did include that in D&D or Pathfinder, wouldn't they basically have to say its false since there are other gods in the setting? :P So yeah, less offensive to avoid mentioning them.


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Yeah, avoiding any living religions has been the policy since WotC took over TSR.

The 1E Dieties and Demigods and 2E Legends and Lore cheerfully covered the Native American, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindu pantheons. The 1E book even statted the gods.

The 3E Deities and Demigods book, which also statted out gods (and provided rules for playing as gods) does not.

I remember being surprised at not finding them, though in hindsight the exclusion makes sense to me.

4E has a very specific pantheon and avoids most of the the "real world" deities altogether (although Kord, who I think was new for 4E, is pretty blatantly Thor).

As I mentioned above, the 5E Player's Handbook has the Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse deities.

Paizo's been using real world mythology for various outsider lords, but they stayed away from outright using a real world pantheon until Mummy's Mask.

I'm guessing we'll see another real world pantheon when it happens to mesh well with an AP. (Like we might see the Greek pantheon if there's ever an Iblydos AP).

I haven't read Giantslayer, so I don't know if it contains any shout-outs to the Norse pantheon beyond any magic items based on the Norse pantheon.


Gorbacz wrote:

It's ok MMCJawa, I'll take a shot :)

Key word here is extant - "real world Egyptian religion" is pretty much dead. I realise that out there there might be a person or two worshipping Osiris and Ra ... but their number pales in comparison to the amount of folks who treat Old Testament quite seriously. And given that a non-insgnificant amount of said Old Testament folks dwell where 80% of Paizo's sales go ... there's a sound reason for not getting the printed material near some questions. Such as "Is Yahweh LN or LG?", "What's the favoured weapon of Jesus Christ: longsword or unarmed strike?" or "I have a transgendered goth loli tentacle bloodline Sorceress worshipping Moses, what happens when I summon a devil?".

Of course, people will still come to the table saying they want to play a Paladin of Holy Mary and DMs will have to handle that, but as long as there's no explicit mention in the source material, it's all headcanon home-brew zone.

And don't worry, Paizo isn't singling out Christianity here, I believe each and every *living* religion will be walked around very carefully for the reasons above.

Indeed. And even within a single extant religion, you can get wild interpretations of scripture, so even if they did want to stay faithful to one interpretation, they would probably annoy/tick off people with slightly varying beliefs.

Dark Archive

I seem to recall in reiggn of winter a none magic item that although not specificly called out is suppsed to be a part of the true cross (Admitadly not confiremd as either real or fake)

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Voin_AFOL wrote:
I see. And are Rahadoumi aware of this fate that awaits them? Are they consenting to it?

The hero in "Death's Heretic" visits that place in the novel, and says that he actually looks forward to it... and dreads that Pharasma will never release him so that he can have his peace.

Given that most petitioners lose their personal identity, is thier fate really their much better?

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