Hermea as a Lawful Good community


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

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I am assuming that the write up in the Inner Sea Guide was done by an impartial author that wrote what he did based on what little information that he could come across. Because little or none of the information can be considered first hand, there isn't much there that can be considered completely true, though none of it can be said to be completely false either. I will be bending it a bit in my attempt to explain how it could be a Lawful Good community.

Mengkare:

We know only a few things about Mengkare, who is said to be a gold dragon of unspecified age. The artwork of him puts him at a size that would suggest Ancient, though Wyrm wouldn’t be out of the question and Great Wyrm is a possibility. I am going to assume that he is a Great Wyrm, mostly because this would give him the greatest time period to observe mankind, he would have the greatest magical abilities, and he would have more than enough of a treasure horde to fund his goals.

I am also assuming that he is Lawful Good. I will get into why he and the island nation are that alignment later.

Lastly, I am speculating that a dragon’s sense of morality and ethics is a bit different. Even though he is Lawful Good, his nature would make him protective of what he views as his to the point of overkill and possibly acting in a way we might see as non-good. However, keep in mind that as a dragon he has lived longer than any nation that has been around (and certainly longer than a couple of the gods). His understanding of the world is far different, and he follows different instincts than we do.

A dragon, even a good aligned one, is prideful and greedy. They have every reason to think of themselves as a higher and superior species, after all at their most powerful they can lay waste to cities with little trouble and with the exception of that rare high level adventuring party they have few powerful threats to fear. As for their greed, this could be a result of some evolution of their species where precious metals were used to attract mates or were needed as a bed for some biological reason. Certainly into modern times hording and being very protective of the wealth came from not just having to fight off other dragons but also a whole slew of other intelligent races.

We can’t hold Mengkare to the same standards as we do shorter lived humanoid races. Doing so is comparing apples to oranges. I am not saying it okay for him to enslave, murder, rape, or do other fundamentally evil acts, but he certainly can be given some leeway in the grey areas of morality and ethics.

Mengkare’s Goal:

Mengkare desires to see the human race evolve and transcend. He wants to see them reach their potential and become the great race he knows they can be. He has seen far too many instances where they have been close to moving the next step in that direction but had some war, catastrophe, or setback. Mostly, he has seen that mankind’s biggest stumbling block is themselves.

Because of that, he decided to create a small nation that he could keep control over and guide towards of the goal of advancing the human race. His goals cover several areas of advancement. First, he wants to help them advance physically. He wants to help them become stronger, faster, healthier, and more attractive. Second, he wants to advance their intelligence and abilities. Lastly, he desires to see them advance socially, not just in their ability to interact with others but to overcome their need and desire to fight and argue constantly.

How does he benefit from accomplishing these goals? He will be held up by humanity as the being that raised them up, respected by all and raised up to the status of a legend. He will have the loyalty of nations, and more than likely given gifts and great wealth for his accomplishments. In a sense, he will be a new god of humanity having done something that thus far only Aroden was able to accomplish. It is certain that he believes this, as it would be within his draconic nature to aspire to such heights.

Free Will?:

In order to accomplish the goal of advancing humanity in multiple areas Mengkare needs to be in control of all aspects of the project. There needs to be an isolated location that is easily defensible and difficult to reach. The people involved need to be hand picked and must be useful to the community. Most importantly, Mengkare must be able to lead and guide the whole project. The island of Hermea is perfect for a location and Mengkare has the time and resources to find and pick anyone he desires. It is the control that he needs that will be trickier.

The most controversial part of the whole experiment is the fact that there will need to be breeding control. Outside of that, there isn’t much that really stands out as being objectionable. However, there are ideas, philosophies, impulses, desires, addictions, and acts that could threaten to ruin everything if allowed into the population. On top of that, each generation will held to a higher set of standards. All this means that those entering into the population are going to have to follow the will of Mengkare if they desire to be citizens.

The biggest misconception is that the citizens give up their free will. This isn't true. The write up says that they cede all personal authority to Mengkare. It also explains that the people govern themselves while Mengkare only handles pressing and important issues. If the people were truly signing over their free will they wouldn’t be governing themselves but would have almost every decision made for them. What is actually happening here is that they are signing over their loyalty to Mengkare, Hermea, and the grand experiment. They are agreeing to follow all direction, laws, regulations, decisions, and decrees that are given. In return, they are going to be able to own land and property, seek happiness, live in peace, and advance the human race in body and mind.

Does that mean they are slaves? If so, then we are slaves to our own governments and religions. As citizens of our own nations, we give our will to the government. We agree to follow the laws and regulations set forth for us to follow and in return we are allowed to live free and happy. If those laws are broken, we may find that our freedom becomes limited and in rare cases even our lives become forfeit. With religion, we agree to follow the will of a god in exchange for blessings from heaven, or even a spot in heaven if we are obedient enough.

The people of Hermea would be slaves only if their fundamental rights were taken from them. However, there is no evidence that they are denied the right to property, life, or the pursuit of happiness. One may argue that the people are not allowed to leave the island, but the evidence in the write up suggests that they do it all the time in secret. Granted, it only mentions agents that go out searching for potential new citizens, but there is nothing suggesting that that is their only purpose for traveling abroad. The only time where liberty seems restricted is in mating, and even then there appears to be some freedom of choice.

Details of the Contract:

So what are the details of the contract? We simply do not know, as the write up only mentions signing over ones personal athority. I for one think the other details would be similar if not exactly like the following.

First, each citizen agrees to care for one another and put the grand goal above themselves. No one citizen is greater, more important, and better than everyone else, and thus one must put aside their pride. If someone is struggling in some way and you can help you must do so. If you need help you shouldn’t hide that from the others and should accept what is given.

Next, excess should be avoided. You only take what you need. If you find that you have more than what you need you give it to the community and it will be distributed to those that could use it. If no one needs it, it is either stored for the future or sold off. What is important here is that the citizens of the island own property, and so once it is given to them it is theirs. Only the excess becomes the property of the government, and only as long as it isn’t needed elsewhere. This also means that Hermea is completely independent and does not need to rely on anyone else for anything. If they do need something they can easily pay for it.

The citizens are not allowed to be idle. They are allowed down time, and can spend time playing or resting if they need it, but they must be actively engaged in a good cause. Essentially, each citizen is required to be productive and as independent as they are able to be. No one is spending day after day lounging on a cushion while being fed grapes. Each person is some form of expert in a particular field of study. There are farmers, craftsmen, smiths, philosophers, historians, artisans, martial artists, mages, and more all working day after day to advance themselves and those around them. Not only that, but it is expected that each person produce more than they need so that everyone can benefit from their work.

This is also important because an individual's role is based on their knowledge, ability, and talents. Those with more of each are given some form of governing power. Those with the most are directly under Mengkare in political power on the island, but even they have to respect those who have greater knowledge, ability, and talent they themselves lack.

Of course talents and ability are expected to be dedicated to whole of the community. Keeping them to yourself would be in violation of what was discussed above. This means not just giving anything in excess that you create with a craft, but teaching others and passing along your knowledge to as many as possible. For those who have a skill or expertise that doesn't produce something physical, like lawyers and philosophers, they are expected to do everything they can to work publicly and share all that they can of their work.

Everyone has equal claim to property, so long as there is a need of some sort and the property will be used by the owner in a way that could help everyone. While certain property might not have a direct impact on the community at large, such as furniture or clothing, anything that benefits someone will help them live a better life and thus help them to work to benefit everyone else. This guarantees that everyone lives equally well. You won’t find one person drinking from a gold cup while another sips from a wooden bowl because of selfish desires. However, you may still find that one home appears slightly richer than another because of artwork, space, or some other detail.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the person with the nicer things may have been in need of them more than the others. For example, the finely carved table with gold inlay really did replace the worst of the tables on the island, and the decision had nothing to do with the importance of whoever ended up owning it. Second, the person who owns it needs it for their craft. An artist, for example, may have more art in his home because he needs to study it for his next project. A historian certainly will have a larger library, and thus a larger home, than a farmer, while the farmer will own more land.

Lastly, everyone is subject to the decisions of those in power to make them, but no one person with the exception of Mengkare can govern every aspect of life on the island. While the government will be looked at later, it is enough here to say that because everyone is respected for their knowledge, talents, and abilities everyone has some measure of power. This means that big decisions can be made without bothering Mengkare or the council just under him in power. It is only when the contract is broken, new people need to be brought in, or a situation that affects the whole community that the Council of Enlightenment or Mengkare need to make decisions.

Benefits of Following the Contract:

There are several benefits to following the contract. The citizens are allowed to own property, they are free to go where they want so long as it doesn’t interfere with someone's privacy, they are allowed their own privacy, they can live in peace, and they are allowed to work and study how they like.

No doubt, the property they own is of great quality. After all, just about everything is made on the island itself by some of the finest craftsmen alive. The homes would be attractive, the furniture finely made, and the clothing rich in color and design. To an outsider everyone lives like a noble or king, as gold, silver, and precious stones would still be found in or on the possessions of the citizens. One may falsely assume this is because Hermea is greedy, but in reality it is a product of their constant work to improve their crafts and trades. To Mengkare and Hermea, what good is a carpenter who isn’t constantly trying to improve the beauty of their work as well as the quality?

This isn’t to say they have an excess of luxury, as that would contradict the laws against excess. The people understand that if something isn’t needed they shouldn’t own it, and certainly no one needs a bed made of gold and fit for six people. Jewelry would still be around, but in a conservative amount.

Punishment:

Breaking the contract and laws of Hermea would result in punishment. The type of punishment would be equal to the crime or transgression committed. Smaller crimes, like lying or petty theft, may only be punished by being reproved in public. Withholding excess could result in property being taken away or requests for needed property ignored for a time.

Certain behaviors will result in more serious punishments, as they could be a threat to Hermea’s goal. These punishments could be taking away someone’s citizenship on the island, banishment, or even execution. Losing your citizenship would mean losing property, the right to call upon the community for help, the ability to couple and mate with citizens of Hermea, as well as removal of other privledges. If someone is stripped of their citizenship but isn’t banished, they would be given a time period where they could work towards regaining it.

However, most often banishment would accompany the loss of citizenship. In that case, Hermea would buy back all of the property that the guilty doesn’t wish to take with them, giving them money to use elsewhere to start a new life. In more serious cases, the property would be bought at lower rates or just seized all together as part of the punishment, leaving the guilty with little or no money.

Executing the guilty would be left to only the most serious offenders. Murderers and serial rapists, for example, would be killed as humanly as possible. This is also done privately with only enough witnesses to confirm that it was done. Public executions could cause emotional and psychological issues, and serve little purpose in a society that rarely has such crimes anyway.

Because Mengkare and other powerful magic users would reside on the island, punishments could involve magic. Banishment, for example, could also come with erased or modified memories. To keep in line with idea of a Lawful Good society, the removed memories would only involve island defenses and other sensitive information. This would prevent anyone who was exiled from selling their knowledge or using it to get vengeance on the island. Memories could also be implanted, so that multiple exiles would give conflicting information about the island. A geas could be placed on people being punished as well, but only to discourage them from returning or using their knowledge of the island against the community. It is also possible that magic would be used in execution, killing someone instantly and with no pain.

Government:

When it comes to government there are three parts of it that are worth looking at in detail. These parts are Mengkare, the Council of Enlightenment, and the governing body that oversees mating. There are no doubt countless other governing bodies, councils, and people in power, as each citizen holds some power within their area of expertise and talent. These three are just most important and worthy of discussion.

Mengkare oversees little when it comes to anything that involves the day to day management of Hermea. This should be no surprise as he is a dragon, and such micromanaging is beneath him. He mainly over sees two key parts of his grand experiment. The first is who to invite to join Hermea as a citizen. The second is to oversee the tests of citizenship for those who grew up on the island. He also makes any big decisions that the council cannot agree upon or which he feels is above them.

It is important for him to be heavily involved in the decision on who will become a citizen for a couple of reasons. First, while this is all his idea and his project he can be somewhat more objective in his decisions than others. He is over a thousand years old, meaning he has a great deal of experience and knowledge he can use. He is also not interested in mating with any of the citizens himself, as doing so may end up causing some big problems. Lastly, he has access to great and powerful divination magic, possibly even artifacts, which he can use in making a choice. Of course, he doesn’t follow each potential citizen himself, and has a whole network at his disposal to help him. Certainly, he has the equivalent of geneticists who advise him on the best physical specimens to introduce to the population. So while he is heavily involved with the decision on who will be a citizen, he isn’t making it alone and without help.

The council that is just under him in power is made up of the oldest, most talented, most intelligent, and wisest citizens. They were put in charge of the daily running of Hermea by Mengkare but even then they are only covering issues that affect the majority of the population. I speculate that both the council and Mengkare are involved in choosing who will be in the council, and that the job lasts the remainder of their lives. Involving Mengkare in the decision process helps keep those lobbying for the job from being able to gain too much influence and ensures that only the type of people he approves of are given the job. Magic could also be used in the process, as powerful divination will help confirm a candidate’s sincerity and give some hint about if they will make good future decisions.

We know little about the Council of Enlightenment and what exactly they do. We know that they oversee the tests of the 16 year old natives, and no doubt have a big hand in deciding if they pass or not. We also know that they gather information and use it to council Mengkare. This wouldn’t be a hard thing for them to do, as the island is a sprawling meritocracy. Everyone has some measure of power, and function on a system of assignment and report, with detailed and relevant reports flowing up to the council. This would mean that the council is even more aware of how the island is doing than Mengkare. The council even receives reports on possible new recruits, meaning that they have some power in helping Mengkare decide who to allow.

It may be that they delegate most of the island’s management to others, giving council where it is needed and relying on reports to inform them on the progress. There is nothing in the write up that discusses a court system, but it is easy to speculate that the council, alongside Mengkare, act as the courts in serious matters such as heinous crimes and difficult disagreements among the citizens. Surely lawmaking is a study that some portion of the non-council citizens pursue, and if that is the case that is where the main court system would be.

The other group within the government of the island that is worth discussing here are the government officials that oversee mating and partnering. Citizens are apparently encouraged to pursue relationships on their own and are allowed to court those that they favor. Relationships are different here though, as part of the goal is to create a better physical specimen. As a result, relationships may not be monogamous and partnering may not be permanent. The government officials, in this case, would be concerned about two things. The first is the compatibility of the couple, emotionally, physically, and in personality. If a partnering is only based on attraction and there is no compatibility there could be problems in the future. This would explain why the courtship takes a long time, as each couple will not just want to find out if they are compatible with each other but will want to prove it to the officials. As for physical compatibility, the officials most likely have some understanding of genetics and have some method to study the genes and traits of each citizen. This should be possible with a magic society that can bend time and space.

The other matter that they are concerned with is childcare. It would be very important to know who will be caring for the children and how they will be doing it. If the relationships are not monogamous, there would still need to be a limit to number of partners one person could have. The fewer the better, as each citizen will be expected to care for their own children and give support to their partners. If someone had too many partners, their ability to support them and their children could become impossible and cause problems with the community as a whole. Fewer partners also goes back to law on no excess, and as a result it may be rare for someone to have more than two or three partners.

Breeding:

With the goal of creating a human with better physical traits we can often imagine people being bred like livestock with an overlord having complete strangers mate just for the sake of mating and producing children. This wouldn’t have to be the case, and in a Lawful Good Hermea it is doubtful that is how things are done. In fact, because there isn’t a time limit on when the goal needs to be achieved any breeding system the island has would be light and not nearly as restrictive as one might think.

If there was some understanding of genetics, and there is no reason to think there isn't, then there would be an understanding of dominant and recessive genes, genetic diseases, and the need to constantly introduce new genes to the pool. If the understanding and tools were powerful enough, Mengkare could have already screened each person for genetic diseases and undesirable traits, ensuring that his population more than likely wouldn’t have to worry about them appearing in their offspring.

If this screening was done ahead of time the officials in charge of approving partnering and mating would only have to deny a few cases due to genetic reasons. Even then, because there are mundane and magical methods of birth control and Hermea probably has at least a few orphans, relationships could still be approved. After all, relationships are about more than just producing children.

Hermea wouldn’t have to regulate breeding as strictly as one might think so long as the population as filled with those who had desirable traits and enough new citizens were entering that population. There may be a few cases where a couple is introduced with the hope of them breeding and reproducing certain attributes, but because the project is a long term one this isn’t all that necessary. The only problem the officials have to keep an eye on would be any new genetic diseases or undesirable mutations, but those could kept out of the population by simply declaring any who have them as unfit to be a citizen once they reach the age of 16.

To be clear, Mengkare isn't interested in brown versus blonde hair, eye color, or skin color. He would be interested in overall health, intelligence, height, and strength. Natural attractiveness would be part of the goal but not necessarily high on the priority list.

Becoming a Citizen:

There are two ways to become a citizen. You either are invited to join or you were born on Hermea and passed the tests of citizenship. In both cases you are judged and your worthiness is determined by looking at several traits. Accepting an invitation or passing the tests will grant you citizenship.

In both cases there are certain traits and attributes that are looked at to determine if you are worthy. The write up doesn’t give much information on what is required, but it does suggest that the qualifications are strict. I believe the bulk of the qualifications involve alignment, knowledge, skills, physical attributes, and willingness.

The bulk of the citizens are no doubt Lawful Good and Neutral Good, though a rare few Lawful Neutral and True Neutral could be found there. No Chaotic or Evil alignments would be on the island, and both of those would make it difficult for someone to qualify in other areas. Knowledge and skill would have to be at levels where they could at the very least be productive in the community and contribute to overall goal of Hermea. Physical attributes would mostly involve determining if they carry any genetic risk for disease or unwanted attributes, which one could do if they were able to obtain a sample of hair, skin, blood, or nails.

Out of everything it is willingness that is the most important of the qualifications. If someone isn’t willing to participate in anyway, even if it is simple an unwillingness to share their knowledge or skill, they wouldn’t be of any use. Everyone needs to be focused on the goal and community at large, and must be willing to follow the contract, share all that they have, and be productive in every way they can.

If someone doesn’t qualify they are denied permission to become a citizen. For those are outsiders this doesn’t impact them all that much. They typically already have a life and do not need to change that. For those who were born on the island this means leaving home. In this case, their family and anyone else on Hermea that wishes to help them would give them equipment, money, tools, and anything else that they could carry and use. They would then be allowed to leave the island and asked to never return. While exile might seem harsh, this is to ensure that everyone on the island is working towards the goal. What the exiles were given before the test will help them greatly in starting a new life, which is knowledge, skills, and abilities that few schools and universities would have been able to provide. In fact, they may discover and be surprised to learn that not everyone in the outside world has had such an opportunity as they have had. The possessions and gold given to them would also be enough to allow them to do what they wish with their life and they could certainly settle down somewhere with a peaceful and happy life.

Those who are given invitations are followed for a long time by undercover agents of Mengkare and the Hermea. These agents are citizens themselves, and live away from the island for months or years at a time. They wouldn’t just follow potential candidates during this time, but they would also work to learn and improve themselves. When they return to the island they would share their discoveries and new knowledge with rest of the population and in this case they are almost bringing in something better than a new citizen.

While there may be a dedicated organization of undercover agents, it would also benefit Hermea to train all citizens wishing to leave the island in covert action. It benefits Hermea to allow citizens to travel abroad for study and gathering of special resources, and it also benefits the island for their citizens to travel incognito. If those traveling abroad were doing so openly they would be hassled by prejudice, offers, bribes, requests, and more. Those that want to be citizens could end up hounding them, while those that oppose Hermea might attack or harm them. They may also be offered bribes to leave Hermea and sell any secrets they know. These traveling agents would be able to study, research, and look for potential recruits in peace if they didn't reveal their origin. It would be those agent in the dedicated organization that would determine worthiness, and because they do end up revealing themselves it is them that are better known by the world.

Once someone becomes a citizen they are celebrated by the entire population of Hermea, given gifts, and given their own home to live in. They have some say as to what type of property they will be needing for their particular area of expertise. Once settled, they find that life is very different and that expectations are higher then they thought.

Defenses:

Hermea is defended in two ways. The first is with physical defenses along the boarders. The second is with subterfuge and deceit. By using both forms, Mengkare discourages raiders and illegal immigrants.

The physical defenses would cover high walls around the city of Promise, regular patrols along the boarders, magical defenses, and systems put in place to provide early warning. It helps that the community is close enough at strangers are noticeable quickly. Hermea has every reason to have such defenses, as it doesn't just keep out non-citizens but also prevents local pirates from making raids.

The subterfuge and deceit would be just as important. There are parties interested in ruining the grand experiment and causing harm to Hermea. There is also the problem of undesirables attempting to become citizens and constantly attempting to gain access to the island. Creating false information, such as rumors of rebellion and burned bodies, could keep those people way, or at least direct their efforts to actions Hermea can more easily deal with.

Stories of burned bodies on the shores could be encouraged to keep pirates, unwanted people, and saboteurs away for example. Leaving the stories open allows the imagination of outsiders to fill in details, furthering the rumors and false information.

Will It Succeed?:

More than likely not. While the island nation has been around for over a 150 years and should have about seven generations, eventually there will be problems and expectations that the island will not be able to meet. Space will become an issue that will need to be addressed, either by creating or conquering more. The island has only a few square miles, and some of that needs to be farmland used to feed the population.

The biggest problem is that expectations and requirements will grow too high to meet. This could harm the population as candidates are turned away and denied in greater numbers. Eventually Mengkare will realize that his experiment will be working still too slow for him, and that while there was progress it wasn't nearly enough for him.

I think their downfall will be from a loss of faith. Humans are notoriously short sighted and eventually the citizens of the island will have a hard time seeing the progress that has been made. In time, they will start to feel that the endeavor is pointless and not worth continuing to pursue. If enough of the citizens start to believe this they will try to change how things are done or leave altogether and Mengkare will be forced to either abandon his goals or start over.

The other possibility that I see is that Hermea grows too prideful and let's their guard down just enough. Maybe it is with the council and the tests, and someone deviously sabotages the nation from the inside. Maybe it is in defenses and they become vulnerable to attack. Possibly they don't prepare themselves for a disaster and end up being ruined by a catastrophe, natural or otherwise.


That's a very good overview. Of course someone can be Lawful Good but also terribly misguided. Philosophers dream up ideal, perfect societies but when someone tries to implement them they face immense problems because the ideas often run contrary to human nature.
A community of lawful good people are still human, and prone to petty jealousies, rivalries, excessive pride and divisive factionalism.

Mengkare comes across as something of a Plato who imagines an ideal society in his Republic. His construct though was horribly flawed because it ignores or runs rough-shod over basic human nature and so in practice would have to have been extremely coercive.

I like the whole concept of a failing utopia, and good versus good conflicts. Mengkare's lawful good police state has many interesting roleplaying possibilities.

The Exchange

Communist dictator that controls his subjects love lives. You are damn right he should be judged EXACTLY as a human doing the same thing. race is not excuse.

Silver Crusade

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I will make a note. When I read the Inner Sea World guide and came to this guy, what I immediately thought of was 'Asmodeus.'

The devil has the ability to achieve a pleasing shape, has 'removal of free will' as one of his core guiding tenants, and he (like the dragon) have a propensity to burn things.

Also /contracts/.

Lets not forget the caste-building 'we're better then they' hierarchial thing he's building into the minds of his subjects.

The Inner Sphere World guide also states that rejects from the country seem to mysteriously show up fried.

I don't trust that lizard. I don't even trust him to be a lizard.

Liberty's Edge

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See, I wonder if we have a Superman thing going on here. Mengkare sees what he wants to see, hears what he wants to hear. I have long wondered how much of the shady doings in Hermea he actually knows about, and how much he knows but choose to ignore for the "Good of the Cause". It would definitely add another wrinkle to the LG-LN argument. Is someone, or a group of someones, doing all of the dirty work for Mengkare so he doesn't have to dirty his paws. What if they went to far, what if they stooped to doing things that Mengkare wouldn't approve of but in their eyes it's for the greater good and they don't need to tell Mengkare about them? And as Superman, what if Mengkare knows whats going on but turns a blind eye to it?

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

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I'll just quote G. K. Chesterton, because he sums up my thoughts on Hermea quite well:

"The one objection to scientific marriage [i.e. selective breeding] which is worthy of final attention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed on unthinkable slaves and cowards. I do not know whether the scientific marriage-mongers are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. [H. G.] Wells says) in saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy men. I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong and healthy men would be to smash the medical supervision."


I think part of Mengkare's view may be that if everyone is good breeding stock, it doesn't much matter how mates are chosen. He may also have developed spells that "look ahead" and see, or perhaps influence, fertility and health of offspring.

I do like the "good but misguided" bit, though. Just because he's intelligent, wise, and experienced doesn't mean he can't be a bloody fool. It just means that he will have dealt with all the obvious, easy objections to his schemes, probably quite persuasively. Te real flaw will be rather deeper, in the foundations of the scheme itself.

My other thought is that Mengkare is, after all, a dragon, and maybe his real hoard is planned to be Beautiful People rather than gold or gems or scrolls or magic...

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Thank you for the replies.

This is a "What If" post, and I actually plan on doing another explaining what it would be like if Mengkare was Lawful Evil.

However, I feel the evidence given in the write-up suggests that he and Hermea are Good aligned.

@Jeven
I agree that he may have been a bit misguided and misunderstanding of human nature and condition. I don't think it is fair to call it a police state. Even though there are rigid controls on the people, it is the people that are regulating themselves, and even then the regulations are not unreasonable. It is close, but I don't believe it is the same thing.

@Andrew R
This isn't communism. There would be many differences, but the biggest is that the citizens own their property. In communism, there is no real right to own property. You may have a house and possessions, but if the government wants them they take them and don't need to pay you for them. In Hermea, once you own property, like a home, jewelry, tools, furniture, and so on, it is yours and the government has no right to seize it unless you have committed a serious crime.

There are plenty of other differences, but we can examine them at another time.

@Spook
What Hermea would be like if Mengkare was evil, or Asmodeus, is for another discussion. In this "what if" scenario he is Lawful Good. I also think you need to look at that write up again. There is contradictory information in it on purpose, but read it carefully and you will find that it talks about exile multiple times and burning once. When it is brought up it is done in a clever way to put just enough doubt in ones mind. In my "what if" Mengkare is evil those burned bodies are still not undesirables, as that would be far too stupid and messy. What good does it do to leave burned bodies where people can find them? Burned pirates makes perfect sense in every case, as not only would that cause a little misinformation for the rest of the world but it would scare away pirates.

@Mike Silva
That is actually one big possibility. Mengkare is a dragon after all, which to me means that he wants the result and wants to feel like he is in control but doesn't want to do any actual ruling. He does just enough to justify his high position and spends the rest of his time dragon napping. Plus even if he used divination magic to try and keep only Lawful Good people on the Council of Enlightenment there are still ways for someone get around those precautions and infiltrate it. In the 150 years and roughly 7 generations this has gone on, it is possible that leaders have started to become corrupted. That pride angle I talked about falls in line with that.

@RainyDayNinja
While I agree to a point and accept that the mating regulations may end up being something Hermea revolts agianst, I don't think we have exactly the same thing. If the entire island is already full of "good breeding stock" then why regulate pairing and mating tightly? The officials in charge would only have to ensure that any undesirable recessive genes wouldn't be showing up when it came to actual breeding, and as tonyz points out there may be magic and magic items for that.

I think the pairing regulation is for another reason that I thought of this morning. Mengkare no doubt made a list of all the things that could ruin the peace of a community. Incompatible relationships certainly would be on that list and so in an attempt to prevent them he would come up with the officials that would not only ensure that future generations are physically better, but would also help ensure that relationships are compatible. In a way, he is forcing people to use eHarmony.

@tonyz
Agree and agree.

I actually see Mengkare using every bit of his personal treasure hoard to establish the island nation. He would do this genuinely thinking and claiming it was to show that he is willing to follow the same laws he established. However, being a dragon he subconsciously thinks of and treats Hermea as his treasure. I am sure he knows exactly how many people are on the island and has to fight coveting potential recruits and growing dangerously protective when he has to let someone leave the island. Doubly so when there is an exile. If there were burned bodies of exiles found on the beach it would be because he slipped up and acted rashly, which I don't see a Metallic Dragon doing. Their self control is amazing, even if they are prideful and covetous of treasure. I do see him spotting some pirates coming ashore and blasting them to ashed without a thought just because they have the intention of looting his hoard.

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CalebTGordan wrote:


@Andrew R
This isn't communism. There would be many differences, but the biggest is that the citizens own their property. In communism, there is no real right to own property. You may have a house and possessions, but if the government wants them they take them and don't need to pay you for them. In Hermea, once you own property, like a home, jewelry, tools, furniture, and so on, it is yours and the government has no right to seize it unless you have committed a serious crime.

Right up until the second the dragon decides to toss you off the island. then your house is no longer yours, your possessions that you cannot take gone. You live there at IT'S leisure, and are gone when you are told.

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But unless you committed a heinous crime, like rape or a vile murder, you are compensated for any property you can't take with you. Yes, you can only live on the island if he allows it and you have to leave if you are exiled or choose to remove yourself from the community, but that and breeding with the population are the only rights he can legally take away.

Also, the council is just as responsible for deciding to exile people as Mengkare is. Even then, the write up states that they do what they can to work with the individual to avoid such a punishment. I imagine only those citizens who have committed unforgivable crimes, who are unrepentant, or who are constant offenders would actually be exiled. Of course those who are 16 and who have not passed the tests are exiled, but they wouldn't have been considered citizen and they would have little or no valuable possessions. Like I said about those cases, the community actually gives them all that they can carry and use to set up a new life elsewhere.

In short, the Hermea in my example buys back everything and gives the exiled a chance at a comfortable life elsewhere.

What communist nation would actually pay you for any property you can't take with you after exiling you?

Silver Crusade

Yeah, but 'I want to leave the island' is also a heinous crime.

You also need to abandon your free will to the central planning of the dragon. He decides what you eat, who you love, where you live, and he's trying to control how you think.

You belong to him. Any money you have is an illusion of genuine value as he just lets you have it, and he likely sets the prices and determines who gets what.

A guy in Hermea can't just buy a sandwich. He has to eat what the dragon thinks he should eat. His work belongs to where the dragon thinks it belongs.

Its communism, or at least centralized planning.

The dragon's a social engineer. Don't trust social engineers.

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Spook205 wrote:

Yeah, but 'I want to leave the island' is also a heinous crime.

You also need to abandon your free will to the central planning of the dragon. He decides what you eat, who you love, where you live, and he's trying to control how you think.

You belong to him. Any money you have is an illusion of genuine value as he just lets you have it, and he likely sets the prices and determines who gets what.

A guy in Hermea can't just buy a sandwich. He has to eat what the dragon thinks he should eat. His work belongs to where the dragon thinks it belongs.

Its communism, or at least centralized planning.

The dragon's a social engineer. Don't trust social engineers.

Did you even read what I wrote in the original post?

First, only once does it say that they actually sign over all free will, which is right after it states that he allows them to have, "as much free will as he feels they can handle- after all, he's picked the best and the brightest, and believes they ought to be allowed to follow their passions towards greatness."

In the section where they actually talk about the contract it says, "personal authority" and not "free will." They are actually just agreeing to live by the laws of the nation. You, yourself, give up your own personal authority to whatever nation you are a citizen of, agreeing to abide by their laws and defer to the wisdom and judgement of the courts and lawmakers. This is the same thing but with a contract. It is actually redundant that they have to sign anything.

I feel things are totally confused when in another section it says that he actually lets them govern themselves, only stepping in when there is a great need or he has to hand pick new people.

How can you sign over your free will to someone who allows you to govern yourself? I put to you that such would be impossible. On the other hand, you can sign a contract that states that you agree to follow him as a leader, respect his decisions, and honor his lawmaking.

He decides none of the things you suggest he decides in the scenario I presented above. In fact, it would be beneath him to even try to decide what you ate.

Also, I didn't make it clear, but there isn't a money system on Hermea. If you need something you ask for it and it is given to you. No one buys anything on Hermea. The only time money would be used would be to buy trade goods from merchants, and there would be a council or organization that would do that for the island as a whole.

He also doesn't decide who gets what. The section on the city of Promise clearly states that the citizens regulate themselves in that matter.

No one tells them what to study, how to work, what to eat, what to wear, or who to pursue friendships with. They decide those things. So long as they are productive, sharing with the community, and caring for everyone around them, they don't have to worry about anyone stepping in to tell them how to act. Even then, the council tries to work with you to prevent any sort of problems.

Mengkare certainly set up the system, but he is relying on the people to keep it running.

I will agree though that he in someway looks at everything on the island as his, but he has to follow the laws established as well or else he risks ruining everything.

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Guys, let me make one thing clear.

This is about What If Hermea Rreally Was Lawful Good? I plan on doing one later on What If Hermea Really Was Lawful Evil.

If you think it is evil and want support that argument then please wait until I do that post.

If you want ask questions about what I wrote, support it, or take something that I wrote and explain why that would not be Good, go ahead. If you want to take something and tell me I am wrong but here is how it could be fixed, even better.

I want discussion here on how Hermea could be Lawful Good and what it would look like, how it would work, and how it would fail.


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From the Ask Sutter thread: 6. What is Mengkare's age category? The circa 2008 Campaign Setting says he's an "Old" dragon.

Sutter: 6. I don't think we've updated that in print since the Pathfinder RPG update, so I won't say, but I believe he's *quite* old and powerful...

So no great wyrm. But may possibly have advanced to Very Old now, which is CR 19. Access to True Seeing and Geas/Quest. 6th level casting if very old, else only 5th-level. So by no means artifact-level awesomeness. He's a nice capstone for a high level adventure/AP, but can be overshadowed by mortal NPCs in a specialized area. Especially spellcasting.

I started worldbuilding Hermea's capitol and the island and there could (and imho should) easily be some NPC players on his level (I.e. CL 13-17+). So it's not so easy and clear cut as many think, even with this small a nation. Maybe Mengkare is LG, the state is N as listed in the 3.5 CS, and the city is LN. Chaotic elements are hidden in the Jungle but also present in all of the society. (And not only societies ejects. What natives were there on the isle before M settled there?)

Also after reading the old Dragons Revisited I wonder if Mengkare acts as mentor to any silver dragons as gold dragons are said to and if yes who they are. Also what do the other Golds think of his experiment? The humble Great Gold Wyrm from the capital of Nidal lives not too far away.


Isn't Hermea listed as True Neutral in most works?

I do know this is a what if thread, but I just want to compare...


Yep the nation is TN in the campaign setting. Which says something about the reality deviating from the intent.

I see the capital as LN aligned, so here at least the lawful part of M's vision remains intact in its execution. With the capital holding most of the inhabitants we could assume for the same of this thread that it is LG. but the nation is bigger than the capital alone....

I also added a couple of smaller rural settlements of LN and once even LE.

For me Chaos is represented in the island by the old natives (a powerful CN or CG nature fey and other nature/jungle type monsters opposing the civilization theme of Hermea) with CN/CG Druidic faith becoming part of / involved in the resistance movement. Which also fits nicely with religion being outlawed.

The what if IMO is if Mengkare is LG or LN but it is quite another thing as the nations alignment.


CalebTGordan wrote:

Guys, let me make one thing clear.

This is about What If Hermea Rreally Was Lawful Good? I plan on doing one later on What If Hermea Really Was Lawful Evil.

If you think it is evil and want support that argument then please wait until I do that post.

If you want ask questions about what I wrote, support it, or take something that I wrote and explain why that would not be Good, go ahead. If you want to take something and tell me I am wrong but here is how it could be fixed, even better.

I want discussion here on how Hermea could be Lawful Good and what it would look like, how it would work, and how it would fail.

Do you mean the nation, the city or maybe only the leader Mengkare himself?

The nation was always listed as TN, the dragons alignment is what is heavily discussed...


Considering dragons rarely move from their given alignment, I'd also wager that Mengkare is Lawful Good.


CalebTGordan wrote:
While I agree to a point and accept that the mating regulations may end up being something Hermea revolts agianst, I don't think we have exactly the same thing. If the entire island is already full of "good breeding stock" then why regulate pairing and mating tightly? The officials in charge would only have to ensure that any undesirable recessive genes wouldn't be showing up when it came to actual breeding, and as tonyz points out there may be magic and magic items for that.

In practice it seems to be just arranged marriages at most, which was a common thing in most real world cultures. The European aristocracy did that for millenia and few rebelled against it. Marriages for many were political - cementing family alliances.

Although Mengkare's system sounds a bit like the selective breeding of the philosopher-class in Plato's utopian Republic. Plato's version was even more extreme though since the infants were snatched away at birth and placed anonymously in a communal child-rearing facility. At least Mengkare doesn't go that far and seemingly leaves families intact.

I'm not quite sure how to read one part of the description of Hermea. What sort of people are exiled from the island? Is it based purely on alignment (troublemakers who can't be reformed), or does it tilt towards to the darker side of eugenics (sending away the weak, deformed, people of lower intelligence, etc.)? That would certainly change my view of the island.


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I'm guessing that it means both. If you don't qualify physically or mentally or spiritually, then you're sent away from the community.

Another way to think of it is that nobody inherits a shot at Hemea. No one gets in just because their parents did. Everyone has to qualify on their own. (This is, I think, where Mengkare's experiment is most likely to fail -- dragons are fine with raising their offspring and sending them off into the world to sink or swim. Humans, maybe not so much. A look at, say, the history of New England's Puritans might prove enlightening.)

I'm thinking of Mengkare and the Council, good version, as something like the haut in Bujold's Cetaganda. They want to improve things, to make a better human, but they dont necessarily know exactly what it will look like. So they concentrate strengths, look for unexpected random improvements -- one reason they have agents out in the world -- and monitor what's going on to see if they can do better. It's still very much a work in progress, and a participatory scheme, not just a dragon breeding humans for qualities only he likes.

Mengkare realizes that, at some point, the Council will be enlightened enough to overrule him. He doesn't think it's happened yet (not after only six generations), but he's willing to listen and argue with them, not just overrule them arbitrarily.

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What I was going off of was the entry in the Inner Sea Guide hardbound. The only listing of alignment is for the Steaming Sea and that is listed at CN. Because Hermea is a bit isolated from the remaining area it felt like to me that there was no alignment listing for the island nation.

I was not aware that it was given an alignment listing elsewhere, and I suspect that a listing of Neutral is a compromise between Sutter and Jacobs who debate back and forth on the morality of the experiment.

The what if is for the nation and Mengkare.

I actually see no problem with the island nation being neutral and functioning in a similar manner to what I wrote up. In a neutral aligned Hermea, I would see things focus away from the community slightly to favor the experiment more. For example, there would be more arranged marriages than non-arranged, and most of those would be set up by officials counseling with parents. Additionally, if people were not working on something that a council thought would help the experiment they would probably be pressured to change what they worked on. I could see Mengkare accepting the changes after being advised by the current Council of Enlightenment that it would be necessary if they wanted to meet the stricter standards.

There would also be a noticeable portion of the population that had nicer things simply because they are better politicians and know how much excess they can get away with. That would just be a result of the system being around for a very long time, relaxed regulations, and pride.

I have no problem speculating that the modern Hermea and city of Promise has recently shifted to a more Neutral alignment because of a break down in the system. It was bound to happen sometime and would be the start of the end for the experiment.

For the sake of the discussion, the dragon and island nation were both Lawful Good until recently. That way we line up with official canon on the matter.

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Thanael wrote:


For me Chaos is represented in the island by the old natives (a powerful CN or CG nature fey and other nature/jungle type monsters opposing the civilization theme of Hermea) with CN/CG Druidic faith becoming part of / involved in the resistance movement. Which also fits nicely with religion being outlawed.

The island only has a few square miles, so there is little room for any chaotic elements to stay hidden, especially for 150 years. I like the ideas you put into your own world building, but I just don't think they would be possible. Maybe there are some disfranchised citizens who have some misunderstood grudge who are slowing building a resistance based on some false ideas.

I totally forgot to tackle why religion wouldn't be allowed.

Here are my thoughts on it. Mengkare looked at all the reason man fights and what is often the source of contention. Religion would be top of the list, so he bans organized religion and proselytizing. I think this would be a mistake in the long run, especially because he would have to invite people of all faiths and wouldn't be able to select just atheists.


One of the first things I learned in Biology lab is life finds its own way. Just because we were breeding white mice didn't prevent throwbacks. Assuming M is as far above us as we to the mice (debatable) then given the complexity of running a nation would still trivialize the lab with a maximum of 100 mice. Remember, the people don't live in plastic boxes with the inability to eat sleep etc at their own pace. I guess the closest RW would be 'Nanny' Bloomberg in NYC, and half the ciy has begun to ignore his Papal Bulls.

The Exchange

So the rest of us know is any o this Golarion cannon or is it all your idea of how it would work?


The old book stated Hermea is True Neutral, but that info is outdated.

Recent and updated info has not given Hermea an alignment, only the sea around it.

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Andrew R wrote:
So the rest of us know is any o this Golarion cannon or is it all your idea of how it would work?

My own ideas inspired by canon.

Just like how the Witchmarket discussion I started is people's ideas inspired by canon.

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Bwang wrote:
One of the first things I learned in Biology lab is life finds its own way. Just because we were breeding white mice didn't prevent throwbacks. Assuming M is as far above us as we to the mice (debatable) then given the complexity of running a nation would still trivialize the lab with a maximum of 100 mice. Remember, the people don't live in plastic boxes with the inability to eat sleep etc at their own pace. I guess the closest RW would be 'Nanny' Bloomberg in NYC, and half the ciy has begun to ignore his Papal Bulls.

Yeah, I failed Biology once and got a C- the second time. I can't imagine how it would really work out, or how much of a failure or success it would be. I don't even if I got my information right with what I presented.


Strangely, that's how I finally 'got' statistics!

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I hear you need special medications for that.


CalebTGordan wrote:
Thanael wrote:


For me Chaos is represented in the island by the old natives (a powerful CN or CG nature fey and other nature/jungle type monsters opposing the civilization theme of Hermea) with CN/CG Druidic faith becoming part of / involved in the resistance movement. Which also fits nicely with religion being outlawed.

The island only has a few square miles, so there is little room for any chaotic elements to stay hidden, especially for 150 years. I like the ideas you put into your own world building, but I just don't think they would be possible. Maybe there are some disfranchised citizens who have some misunderstood grudge who are slowing building a resistance based on some false ideas.

Well the resistance is hinted at in it's description. And also the forests/jungle parts to the island, so there are bound to be a few native monsters. And some monsters are very good at hiding. Maybe underground or high up in a mountain. Or just in the uninhabitable jungle parts.

From the Wiki: Some foreign sailors perceive an undercurrent of fear beneath the citizens’ apparent contentment. There are even tales of rebels opposed to Mengkare’s rule hiding out in the forests at the far side of the island.

Quote:


I totally forgot to tackle why religion wouldn't be allowed.

Here are my thoughts on it. Mengkare looked at all the reason man fights and what is often the source of contention. Religion would be top of the list, so he bans organized religion and proselytizing. I think this would be a mistake in the long run, especially because he would have to invite people of all faiths and wouldn't be able to select just atheists.

This ban also carries the consequence that magical healing is really hard to come by. I also imagine that a few Hermeans might develop oracle abilities.

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I was going off what is in the Inner Sea Guide, which is way more reliable than the Wiki. In fact, I am a little concerned about that wiki entry. The actual paragraph where the rebels are mentioned seems to say to me that life is as wonderful as the stories say, no matter what a few mistaken sailors say about it. However, the genius of the paragraph is that it leaves much open and puts just enough doubt out there.

For me, I believe it would be difficult for the sailors who trade with Hermea to know anything, rebellion or otherwise, because they are limited to a small, well protected, and highly regulated harbor with a high wall that blocks it from the rest of the island. Cut off from knowing what is on the other side of the walls they would do as sailors do and tell stories of what they think is happening, and in time some of those circulate enough that no one knows where they came from.

Mengkare would benefit from not just allowing but encouraging such stories. If there are enemies of Hermea, they may attempt to find out how to find those fictional rebel forces and help them. Once they do, Mengkare and his network of agents have a chance of figuring out who they are. Espionage is worthy of study after all.

I still doubt the rebels in the forest angle though. The island on the map appears to be just over two miles long and about a mile and a half at its widest. Forestry has to be something that Hermea is interested in, especially if they want to avoid relying on trade to bring in firewood. The two common fuels to heat a home are firewood and oil, and firewood is easier to come by. A good practice would be to go through the forest and find what could be used of the sick and fallen first and clearing those out. Because the forest would be only a few acres this wouldn't take long at all and give the foresters a really good idea of what is in there. Once cleared, healthy trees would have to be cut down and replaced with new plantings. Hopefully the trees are fast growing and renewable, and that there is someone with access to druid spells to help the process.

Senior Editor/Fiction Editor

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Spook205 wrote:


I don't trust that lizard. I don't even trust him to be a lizard.

Even out of context, I enjoy this line. :)

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I think Hermea makes a very nice LG community. Remember, good needs not be pleasant for everyone. Think about it as the ultimate gated community. A refuge for people who prefer not to deal with the "unwashed masses", and who would gladly give up some freedoms to live among their own kind.

IIRC, no one is forced to settle on Hermea, and youths may choose to leave the island as well. Sure, once you go in, you're committed. Just like in marriage, or initiation into a church, or even mystery cults.

I think the darker elements are there precisely to open up the option for a fraud. To help groups who see the restrictions and long to liberate the oppressed. On the other hand, there is ample material for those groups who see the experiment as a harsh utopia which may challenge their moralities, but is worth preserving.

Oh, and agreed to the forest rebels being a "GoldsteinsBrootherhood". :-) Makes sense to have the Hermeans lure out internal dissenters and external troublemakers alike.

Silver Crusade

James Sutter wrote:
Spook205 wrote:


I don't trust that lizard. I don't even trust him to be a lizard.
Even out of context, I enjoy this line. :)

I'm glad my (justifiable) paranoia of dragons amused you. :D

TerraNova wrote:
IIRC, no one is forced to settle on Hermea, and youths may choose to leave the island as well. Sure, once you go in, you're committed. Just like in marriage, or initiation into a church, or even mystery cults.

This ties in with my belief its Asmodean. Its that 'you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave' thing. I know Caleb's said its the wrong thread, but I really, really don't see Hermea as being really Lawful Good. The description basically says he's breeding people like horses, this shows there's a certain lack of respect towards the value of a person which doesn't mesh too well with the good outlook.

Ironically, I could see it working as a /Chaotic Good/ country.

Assuming that Mengkare was acting like God Emperor Leto II from God Emperor of Dune and his whole schtick was teaching people to /avoid/ seemingly beneficient dictators who quash their free will.

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Spook205 wrote:


This ties in with my belief its Asmodean. Its that 'you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave' thing. I know Caleb's said its the wrong thread, but I really, really don't see Hermea as being really Lawful Good. The description basically says he's breeding people like horses, this shows there's a certain lack of respect towards the value of a person which doesn't mesh too well with the good outlook.

There is a mention of a long and involved courtship process, with some government oversight. Does that sound to you like having a mare send out to be studded? Not to me. More akin to having a meddling grandmother present who tries to steer the "young ones" towards a good match. Which, honestly, is something very lawful, and if not good itself, not evil.

For Hermea to be LG, not every single aspect of it must be a shining paragon of both virtues. This aspect is L(g-) ;-)


CalebTGordan wrote:
The island only has a few square miles, so there is little room for any chaotic elements to stay hidden, especially for 150 years.

Where do you get this info on the island's size from? On my maps it seems to be a lot larger: almost. 50 x 50 miles.

I just recently aquired the ISWG, and there is now a neighbour island named Two Tree Island. Anybody got any info on that one?


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Andrew R wrote:
CalebTGordan wrote:


@Andrew R
This isn't communism. There would be many differences, but the biggest is that the citizens own their property. In communism, there is no real right to own property. You may have a house and possessions, but if the government wants them they take them and don't need to pay you for them. In Hermea, once you own property, like a home, jewelry, tools, furniture, and so on, it is yours and the government has no right to seize it unless you have committed a serious crime.

Right up until the second the dragon decides to toss you off the island. then your house is no longer yours, your possessions that you cannot take gone. You live there at IT'S leisure, and are gone when you are told.

That isn't communism, its a straight out dictatorial monarchy.

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Thanael wrote:
CalebTGordan wrote:
The island only has a few square miles, so there is little room for any chaotic elements to stay hidden, especially for 150 years.

Where do you get this info on the island's size from? On my maps it seems to be a lot larger: almost. 50 x 50 miles.

I just recently aquired the ISWG, and there is now a neighbour island named Two Tree Island. Anybody got any info on that one?

I need to apologize. I read the map in the Inner Sea World Guide wrong. I thought that each of the marks on the key were a mile. They are actually about 35-40 miles. You are right, the island is large enough to have a sizable forest.

Sorry about that.

And no, I haven't found any info on that Two Tree Island.

Liberty's Edge

Still waiting on the Mengkare = Lawful Evil thread.

It is difficult to put an informed post on this thread without the other view :-(


dot.

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Darn it, that slipped by me. Sorry, some life stuff got me distracted. I did promise that, so I will go ahead and aim to post tht by the end of the week.


What a great read. Thanks!

I also find it really funny that despite the fact that you mentioned several times that this is a "what if" people are still trying to tell you that Hermea is evil and/or asking you if this is meant to be official or a "what if".

Anyway, I can actually utilize some of this in the development of Harathia as well (our lawful good country in Kingmaker), though it would have different controls (harder to control immigration, for example), and very different goals (Minharath, the King, is extremely religious and also firmly believes in a beatific paradise on Golarion - he magically and matrimonially blends willing citizens with celestial and fey beings all the time, and infuses them with hints of law). Add that to the fact that he's working on working with the River Kingdoms as a whole instead of against them (he's uninterested in a war), means that there are a number of elements here that won't quite fit, but are useful as baseline elements for diverting from for our situation, too.

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This thread compels me to make mention of the movie "Gattaca", one of the more thought provoking SF movies of the modern day.


LazarX wrote:
This thread compels me to make mention of the movie "Gattaca", one of the more thought provoking SF movies of the modern day.

It was, actually, quite good.

EDIT: to be clear, the parallels are imperfect, at best. But yeah, there is certainly something to be said for checking out that movie in light of this discussion.

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My thoughts on the notion of a LG Mengkare/Hermea.

Mengkare has *superhuman* intelligence and wisdom, and a Diplomacy modifier starting around +20 and possibly as high as +36, assuming he's just a bog standard gold dragon, and doesn't use an 'elite array' or some sort of better-than-completely-average stat generation. It's pretty much inconceivable that he could be stupidly wrong about something. (Smartly wrong? Yes. But such a bumbling incompetent that he can hit a human with a 24d10 breath weapon and leave a recognizable corpse behind, and do so in such an unsubtle manner that people are talking about it all over the Inner Sea, when he has *dozens* of much less obvious ways to get rid of dissidents? No. That's literally ridiculous.) If there's any truth at all to the existence of burned bodies on the shore, they are planted there deliberately. Perhaps by folk who want to discredit Mengkare (who, among other things, has restricted the power of churches in Hermea, and you can look to Rahadoum to see how churches react to being kicked out of nations), or overzealous fans of Mengkare who want to weed out the 'inferior' and make it look like Mengkare is doing it (a burning hands spell *will* leave a charred body behind), or people being people and killing each other for the many and varied reasons will come up with to kill one another, and trying to 'burn the evidence' and (intentionally or not) spread rumors that Mengkare is behind their murders, or, most intriguingly, Mengkare himself is deliberately poisoning his own reputation, because, being strongly moral and superhumanly intelligent and wise, he's come to the conclusion that for his 'Great Experiment' to succeed, humanity must ascend itself, and not be dragged into a better place by a dragon.

For his plan to ultimately succeed, his human countrymen have to overthrow the dragon, and make their own better society, and so he plants 'evidence' that he has some sinister agenda and must be overthrown, having sown the very necessary seeds for his own obsolescence. (Being LG, the 'charred corpses' are created using polymorph magic from felled trees. He's not sure he could 'pull' enough damage from his breath weapon to actually leave a corpse behind anyway...)

Even if Mengkare was whatever levels of evil, insane and really, really stupid and incompetent it would require to have ship's captains all over the Inner Sea blabbing about his 'burning up dissidents,' Dragons of Golarion is pretty darn clear that gold dragons *scrupulously* police their own for signs of 'tarnishing' and falling into non-good behaviors. It's not like the existence of Hermea is exactly a secret, so, if random sailors know about this, then you can sure that every gold dragon in the Inner Sea *also* know about this, and the fact that the island of Hermea isn't littered with the bones of gold dragons who've come to 'chat' with Mengkare indicates that his gold dragon peers don't believe the rumors that he's some sort of mustachio-twirling commie uber-racist. Not only does Mengkare believe that he's LG, but *other gold dragons agree.*

IMO, Mengkare is *not* dumber than a wyvern, and using his superhuman intelligence, wisdom and diplomacy, could spend 10 minutes talking to an individual who hasn't made the grade and is being sent away, and convince them to devote their lives to working as one of his agents, sailing from port to port and touring the Inner Sea, serving as a recruiter. He doesn't even have to cast a spell, let alone use his breath weapon. Rather than a 'charred corpse,' he ends up with an enthusiastic and loyal recruiter, who may in fact be *honored* to be able to contribute to the Great Experiment in this fashion (and, since they aren't going to join the breeding pool, are also told that they can have a 'friend in every port,' if ya know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

To make Mengkare not-good, or his agenda sinister, you have to change multiple setting assumptions, and I see no need to warp the setting because of some thoughtless kneejerk association of 'genetics' with 'Hitler.'

The only quibble I see as having merit is that, no matter how good Mengkare is (or isn't) or how 'good' the execution of his Great Experiment, the *premise* is that a stronger, smarter, healthier, prettier class of human will be in any way morally or ethically 'better.' Thassilon, composed of 'superior' Azlanti-blooded folk, begs to differ.

Pairing off genetically optimal folk may ultimately prove less important than raising them under a strong moral and ethical system of guidance and governance, which, from what I've read, doesn't seem to be as strongly emphasized in Hermea. That would be, IMO, more important for the long-term success of the Great Experiment. Strong moral foundations and a sound education in ethics.

The decision to exclude faiths from the island could be seen as a sign of wisdom (encouraging his people to develop their own internal moral guidance, rather than subscribing to the carrot-and-stick inherently selfish 'morality' of those who fear eternal punishment and covet 72 virgins in paradise) or as ultimately short-sighted (since encouraging the worship of Erastil or Torag or Iomedae could help a morally-crippled species to at least pretend to be LG, by accepting an externally based morality tied to rewards and punishments, like something you'd use to train a rat).

It might be an interesting compromise to allow churches to LG gods, but only to allow someone who is already embracing a lawful and good lifestyle to attend church, so that they are instead following a faith that already supports their chosen morality, and aren't just mouthing the words so that they can get the free bennies (or avoid the pit).

Of the LG gods, Torag and Erastil seem the most compatible.

Erastil already is associated with the community and farming and 'family roles,' all of which are copacetic with the individual's wishes being less important than the health of the community (cue arranged marriages and shotgun weddings), and anyone who grew up on a farm is already going to be completely aware of the concept of selective breeding for superior stock. (Not that huge percentages of people aren't attracted to pretty people, so, as long as the nasty word 'eugenics' doesn't crop up, it's pretty much what we're doing anyway...)

Torag, as a god of craftsmanship, might also be at least passingly comfortable with the thought of people (and communities) being patiently and with great deliberation 'forged' and tempered into something stronger. Torag, on the other hand, might also be a proponent of the occasional 'impurity' such as an aasimar being added to the blend. Strong steel is forged from 'pure iron' being mixed with coal, after all.

Iomedae, from my understanding, might find the whole idea vaguely offensive. The Last Azlanti was her mentor, and he, and his people (pretty much as a race), are dead. The time for the 'superior man' might be over, in her eyes. It's time for the Inheritors to seize their place on the world stage.

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Expertly put Set. There were several points that I hadn't thought of that I really like.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Set wrote:

My thoughts on the notion of a LG Mengkare/Hermea.

Mengkare has *superhuman* intelligence and wisdom, and a Diplomacy modifier starting around +20 and possibly as high as +36, assuming he's just a bog standard gold dragon, and doesn't use an 'elite array' or some sort of better-than-completely-average stat generation. It's pretty much inconceivable that he could be stupidly wrong about something. (Smartly wrong? Yes. But such a bumbling incompetent that he can hit a human with a 24d10 breath weapon and leave a recognizable corpse behind, and do so in such an unsubtle manner that people are talking about it all over the Inner Sea, when he has *dozens* of much less obvious ways to get rid of dissidents? No. That's literally ridiculous.) If there's any truth at all to the existence of burned bodies on the shore, they are planted there deliberately.

Keep in mind that it's mistakes made by people (and dragons) who aren't incredibly perfect, and right ALL THE TIME that are a major engine in driving stories. Even Einsteins can find themselves painted into a corner because of a belief or theory that's just patently WRONG. Even geniuses have their off days, (or bouts where their insanity, or black robot arms get away from them at times). It's typically how heroes get roped into such things. When villains get defeated because their obession into forcing people into giving things, when they might have gotten them simply by asking nicely.

There's also too much reading of game mechanics into story actions. There ARE things that you can overlook even with a stratospheric intelligence, and requests that will give you a flat NO, no matter how much of a diplomacy modifier you have to throw around.

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