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So in a lot of the recent paladin/alignment threads, the (possibly inconsolable) differences between the paladin codes of Sarenrae and Torag have gotten a good bit of attention.
But has anyone actually seen this combination come up in play? Either in a long home game or incidentally in PFS? How did it pan out? And how was that conflict resolved? (any merciful followers of another faith vs any class taking a hardline approach to Torag's faith may apply here as well)
Got to thinking about this while gearing up for Wrath of the Righteous and realizing a big worry I had going into a campaign big on redemption themes was "Man, I hope there aren't any hardliner Toragites in the party..."
Wow, that sure sounded Eeyore-ish.
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I know that Sarenrae is big into the redemption business but where can I find the text passage regarding Torag's followers and their no-mercy-policy?
Faiths of Purity. It features the bits on the mercy taboo in the paladin codes section.
There's also the "scatter the families of my peoples' enemies" line that some interpreted as giving Torag paladins the allclear to commit genocide, but SKR's comments strongly imply that conclusion was NOT intended.
The conflict between Sarenrae and Torag's ideologies has been around since their featured articles at least.
(full disclosure, actually playing an Iomedean, but one with a focus on mercy/redemption)
(also playing alongside a Toragite character in another AP and get on well with him. He's a more moderate sorcerer, though)
500+ posts of human misery and misunderstanding incoming. But before it devolves into one more round of zealous crusading for the one and only definition of Paladindom, I have a question. I know that Sarenrae is big into the redemption business but where can I find the text passage regarding Torag's followers and their no-mercy-policy?
It's from one of the Faiths books, I think.
Here's a bit from Faiths of Purity, though not the one she's talking about:
...yet strangely this isn't enough to make you comfortable around followers of Sarenrae-you appreciate their devotion to the cause, yet you can't help but see their focus on forgiveness and veneration of the sun as weaknesses.
There's a bit specifically about Paladins somewhere I'll keep looking for though.
Edit: Ah, here. Under Paladin Codes.
My word is my bond. When I give my word formally, I defend my oath to my death. Traps lie in idle banter or thoughtless talk, and so I watch my tongue.
• I am at all times truthful, honorable, and forthright, but my allegiance is to my people. I will do what is necessary to serve them, including misleading others.
• I respect the forge, and never sully it with halfhearted work. My creations reflect the depth of my faith, and I will not allow flaws save in direst need.
• Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families. Yet even in the struggle against our enemies, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
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@Rynjin, yeah that's the one. Thanks!
Are all the follower of saranrae liek that? I thought the keleshite faction of the cult of sarenrae was less focus on "forgiveness".
That'd be the extremist Dawncult, which has been said to lean more neutral. The central church in Qadira is heading towards a schism between the nationalistic warmongers and peacemakers too, with James Jacobs hinting at infiltration and corruption being at play IIRC.
Can somebody post the code for sarenrae?
Here ya go:
-I will protect my allies with my life. They are my light
and my strength, as I am their light and their strength.
We rise together.-I will seek out and destroy the spawn of the Rough Beast. If I cannot defeat them, I will give my life trying. If my life would be wasted in the attempt, I will find allies. If any fall because of my inaction, their deaths lie upon my soul, and I will atone for each.
-I am fair to others. I expect nothing for myself but that which I need to survive.
-The best battle is a battle I win. If I die, I can no longer fight. I will fight fairly when the fight is fair, and I will strike quickly and without mercy when it is not.
-I will redeem the ignorant with my words and my actions. If they will not turn toward the light, I will redeem them by the sword.
-I will not abide evil, and will combat it with steel when words are not enough. I do not flinch from my faith, and do not fear embarrassment. My soul cannot be bought for all the stars in the sky.
-I will show the less fortunate the light of the Dawnflower. I will live my life as her mortal blade, shining with the light of truth.
-Each day is another step toward perfection. I will not turn back into the dark.
Conflicting codes? Sure. But not every conflict has to be absolute, nor do they have to be inevitable or irresolvable. I would not put either paladin's holiness at risk unless either were acting dishonorably in the exchange.
Conflicting codes? Sure. But not every conflict has to be absolute, nor do they have to be inevitable or irresolvable. I would not put either paladin's holiness at risk unless either were acting dishonorably in the exchange.
Exactly. Two Paladins with conflicting codes wouldn't be any different from two other ordinary characters who disagree on a moral dilemma. So long as both are acting in accordance with their codes, there shouldn't be any major issue.
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Happy the thread has stayed awesome. :)
I ran Curse of the Crimson Throne for my then girlfriend and her friends.
We ran out of time (weeknight for a couple hours type game), and it was pretty much their introduction to any sort of tabletop gaming period.
They elected to make an all paladin party, and pretty much punched the AP in the face. It was great times throughout its duration.
The paladins were alike but also very different, and this was before the expansion PF books came out.
I am trying to think of ways to explain more without spoilers.
Some of my examples will not exactly apply as I was unaware at the time that the deities had to be LG, or the clarification on that had not come out. One of the two, I would have let it slide anyway.
The Paladins were of desna, seranrae, abadar, irori, and sheyln. Sorry no torag.
The neatest part of the all paladin group was seeing five people to gaming play out their paladins with no interference from gaming stereotypes, habits, etc.
The funniest part was when they sent their mounts after one group and the paladins stayed and fought the other group. On the fly running a fight with the PCs and a separate fight with horses was awesome and hilarious.
The horses totally crushed the second group. To add to that, I was not sure how to run the horses. They had asked how the ACs worked and I showed them a couple of levels before they got the companions. To my surprise, they had created individual sheets for the horses, named them, armed and armored them, etc. I was blown away, in a good way. I am used to "I send my horse to flank", not "I send my stallion Benevolence after them, he will do the job."
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Conflicting codes? Sure. But not every conflict has to be absolute, nor do they have to be inevitable or irresolvable. I would not put either paladin's holiness at risk unless either were acting dishonorably in the exchange.Exactly. Two Paladins with conflicting codes wouldn't be any different from two other ordinary characters who disagree on a moral dilemma. So long as both are acting in accordance with their codes, there shouldn't be any major issue.
I'm not so much wondering about it from a "which one falls" angle so much as "how do redemptive characters do what they seek to do with a Toragite around"? That is, what compromises have people seen in play, or what arguments were used to sway the Toragite to lay off the "take no prisoners" act?
Just wondering, since experience has proven what James Jacobs once said about the greatest obstacle to redemption attempts being other PCs.
I can't really see a potential conflict. The impression. I got is the no mercy policy is really about defending dwarven interests from agressors. If the party with the two paladins is in say a dwarf fortresss attacked by orcs the paladin of serenrae is really picking the wrong time to insist on mercy. On the other hand I'd their thoussnds if miles from any dwarven homed its andifferent matter. In the first case I'd expect the paladin of serenrae ro adjust her position due to situation. In the second the paladin of torags code to act honorably is going to likely let him give the serenrae paladin their way.
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Hey. I have a related question. A paladin of sarenrae I'd fighting with the group.
There is one evil fey. Since the fey is over numbered she decided to surrender. She drops her weapons and begs for mercy. The gunslinger turns comes up. He looks at the paladin asking for approval. The paladin looks to the ground giving no response. The gunslinger puts a bullet in the head of the fey.
Would you consider this a break of the code?
Let me know if you need more details on the situation.
Thanks in advance!
Hey. I have a related question. A paladin of sarenrae I'd fighting with the group.
There is one evil fey. Since the fey is over numbered she decided to surrender. She drops her weapons and begs for mercy. The gunslinger turns comes up. He looks at the paladin asking for approval. The paladin looks to the ground giving no response. The gunslinger puts a bullet in the head of the fey.
No code violation. To rule otherwise would be encouaging conflict within the party and would be pretty irresponsible on the part of the DM, unless the players have talked about it and everyone is ready for strife between the paladin and party. The way that I see it, plausible deniability and not being responsible for the actions of others is what gives paladins that little bit of wiggle room necessary to not become a completely disruptive class relative to the others in the party. It is probably against the spirit of the code and Sarenrae would not be too happy if a paladin did this all the time. There are metagame concerns here though, that the player of the paladin has to recognize that their class is potentially hugely disruptive to the fun at the table and make an effort to integrate smoothly. Kind of like paladins themselves are held to a higher standard of behavior, I have dealt with enough disruptive paladin characters (mostly in PFS. ) to hold the player of a paladin to a higher standard of not being disruptive.
The part about scattering their families, I just have to chalk that up to very terrible work on the part of Paizo's development for that part. It either needs vary major clarification, qualifiers, and expansion of what that part of the code really means or it has to involve some weird rationalizing for the paladin being told to do something that's not good and probably evil.
There is an implicit qualifier on that. I take "enemies of the dwarves" to really apply only to the classic foes of dwarves. Orcs, goblinoids and rarely either kobolds or giants. Dwarves literally have a racial feature called hatred which applies to those species and are absolutely genocidal about dealing with them. But remember that the existence of an absolute alignment system has the disturbing implication that genocide of an always evil race is a good thing. It means that paladins of Torag can be ruthless to those monstrous races which have already destroyed much of Dwarven civilization, not that they can slaughter every opponent in their path.
Thanks for the quick response. I agree with you in that the code has not been violated, although I'm afraid this becomes common practice, in which case I will have to refrain the paladin from some of his powers :D.
Although not making the kill himself, he's still "acting neutral" on behalf of the behavior of others.
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Multiple paladins of differing faiths can happily co-exist as long as none of them fall into religious extremism:
When you come across frightened non-combatants, the Toragite can just turn to the Sarenite and say, "What should we do? My faith's doctrine is lacking around prisoners of war."
Or, when the Hellknights say to them, "Paladins can't lie; are you paladins? Where are the escaping dwarven and halfling slaves?" The Toragite could step forward and say, "Have paladins been outlawed? Have you looked in the sewers, in case they escaped that way?"
Just last week, I wondered about the possibility of a Taldan cleric of Iomedae and a Qadiran cleric of Sarenrae getting along in the same group. Even if they both share the same alignment and at least one domain, they could either disagree over the relative importance of saints vs. angels, or agree over the shame of politicians encouraging good people to kill each other over minor differences and ignorance.
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The issue that's sure to arise (and I have seen this arise) is when the paladin of Torag is obligated to put the enemy down. Meanwhile, the paladin of Sarenrae is obligated to try and help them seek redemption if they don't seem irrevocably evil. Unfortunately, the paladin of Torag in question was my own Stonelord, and the enemy was one of the races covered under the dwarven hatred racial trait. Ultimately, the GM ruled that my paladin was not allowed to follow through with its oath to Torag due to the paladin of Sarenrae being willing to actually fight this out. I was then threatened with an alignment infraction or wanting to finish a downed (and very unrepentant) foe.
Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what does that even mean?
"...I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families..."
Chase them down so that way they are unable to stay settled together? Imprison them individually? Capture each one and release them individually into desolate areas? Cut them into little bits and sprinkle them over the countryside?
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Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what does that even mean?
"...I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families..."
Chase them down so that way they are unable to stay settled together? Imprison them individually? Capture each one and release them individually into desolate areas? Cut them into little bits and sprinkle them over the countryside?
From Torag? It means pretty much exactly what it sounds like it does. The implication is that his enemies receive no quarter. You fight hard, pushing until you've forced their numbers to scatter across the lands; never again to reunite and threaten the dwarven people. Some have taken this to mean genocide, but I imagine it's more like using slash and burn tactics, for example; punish them so severely that they lose all taste for battle. Put the fear of Torag in them--drive them back for good. Individually this would probably mean killing ones that actually stood before you, as Torag does not support the taking of prisoners or displays of mercy against the enemy.
From Torag? It means pretty much exactly what it sounds like it does. The implication is that his enemies receive no quarter. You fight hard, pushing until you've forced their numbers to scatter across the lands; never again to reunite and threaten the dwarven people. Individually this would mean killing them, as Torag does not support the taking of prisoners or displays of mercy against the enemy.Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what does that even mean?
"...I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families..."
Chase them down so that way they are unable to stay settled together? Imprison them individually? Capture each one and release them individually into desolate areas? Cut them into little bits and sprinkle them over the countryside?
Thank you. That's less cryptic to me.
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SKR has implied that that line is actually not condoning genocide, IIRC.
Destroying their culture, maybe. Butchering down to the last child, no.
Pretty much this, yeah. You don't so much annihilate them as you do crush them. Ultimately, destroying their way of life and capacity to do harm to the dwarven people is just as effective. It's a lot crueler than complete elimination if you think about it for a bit; Torag's rage is something to be wary of.
So killing them outright is wrong, but its okay to raze their village to the ground and break all of their stuff.
Destroying their culture, maybe. Butchering down to the last child, no.
So ethnic cleansing is ok, just not full blown genocide? The point is that there are lots of things that paladins do that is completely LG but that they would be invited to see the inside of the Hague for if they were on Earth.
Did SKR clarify what that part of Torag's code actually means then, because given the general bent of dwarves I'm not seeing much else that Torag could have meant by "...defeat them, scatter their families..."
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What's interesting is that this is a paladin thread, and Saint_Caleth already commented on how disruptive paladins can be, but our group is running into a very similar conflict in a party bereft of paladins. (Sorry, Mikaze, not trying to derail, just trying to expand the conversation beyond a simple, 'What happens...' scenario.)
I despise cruelty, both in real life and in roleplaying. I just have no stomach for it. So when my Second Darkness GM told us we were to, totally independently of each other, come up with character concepts, I started with a LG aasimar life oracle who followed the teachings of Sarenrae, and I gave her the Sacred Touch trait to reflect who she was.
So imagine my surprise when my fellow gamers, most of whom I'd been playing with for years, chose to play a Chaotic Neutral, "Any prisoner is a dead prisoner," approach to the game. Capture a thug who's been hired to rough you up? Slit his throat! Capture a wererat who's been told he has to attack you or his family will be killed? Slit his throat! A hired goon jumps off the boat to escape your wrath? Shoot him in the water and let the sharks do the rest!
The final straw came when they tied up of group of prisoners and fed them one by one to waiting sharks.
I just don't want to play in that kind of a game. That's my choice, and I'm OK with it. But there are three other players considering quitting because of it, so you're losing 4 of 9 of the party members because the other 5 want to play bloodthirsty bastards.
What's my point, and how does it relate to paladins of Sarenrae and Torag?
We should have discussed how the game was going to be run before we started. It's crashing and burning due to character conflicts because some of us believe in letting some prisoners live, or at least giving them a fair "trial" and a clean death.
So if you, as a GM, are starting a campaign with paladins of Sarenrae and Torag, you need to take them aside BEFORE THE CAMPAIGN EVEN BEGINS and talk with them about how they're going to resolve such conflicts. Do they want to roleplay them out in front of the party and decide on a case-by-case basis? Will the paladin of Sarenrae look the other way every time it's a goblin that's been captured? Will the paladin of Torag accept a redeemable goblin?
Lots of stuff needs to be discussed by players and their GM before the conflict ever arises.
And yes, Mikaze, I'm afraid that if you take players out of the picture and look at nothing but Torag and Sarenrae's teachings, paladins of the two gods would frequently be in direct conflict.
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Will the paladin of Torag accept a redeemable goblin?
The paladin of Torag can't accept it without repercussions. Redeemable and actually repentant are two different things, and they aren't going to instantly ping good or neutral because they might want redemption; they are still evil, and they still wronged the party--they are still an enemy of the dwarven people. Torag is to the fury of his dwarven people what Sarenrae is to the good word of redemption.
Now all this being said, it's not difficult to find middle ground between the two different codes of conduct. The subject could swear an oath to never again stand against the dwarven people, and I could see a paladin of Torag letting them live if they are indeed truthful (or a really good liar). Compromise is all but required regardless of group composition, and you'll never get anything but lots of OOC butthurt on both sides if people are unwilling to treat things as such.
Pretty much what I was trying to say, but I do love "OOC butthurt". Nice turn of phrase!
And yeah, we're starting to lose group members because there's a core group of 3 people where we asked, "Are you going to be like this all campaign? Can you think of a single situation, ever, where you're not just going to slit the throats of all the captives?" and their response was, "No. This is how we like to play. Deal with it."
So we are at the point where some of us are ready to do so by letting them play with themselves.
EDIT: And since I've been thinking about it, and Mikaze always seems endlessly fascinated by such social commentary, I thought I'd point out the group make-up:
- 4 are parents with young kids who also have high-stress jobs. 3 of the 4 are the "kill them all, we won't play any other way" group, and the fourth would prefer to kill them all, but is willing to compromise. What does this say about parenting? :-P (And that explains why we game with them. It's the only social contact we have with them and the only game they get, so we're willing to make concessions for them.)
- 2 (and the GM) are parents with older (9+) kids, all of whom prefer merciful roleplaying. Apparently as your kids get older, you get mellower.
- 1 has no kids, falls into the 'merciful' camp, but so far has managed to look the other way at all the cruelty, though he admits it's getting tiresome
- The last two are the kids (9 and 12). The 9-year-old already quit because the group was "too mean". The 12-year-old loved to be "the mean one" in the group, but once he saw he was hopelessly outclassed by the adults, he quit too.
ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the original post, and I'm sorry for side tracking, but I've read much of Mikaze's stuff and I think he'd find this interesting. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mikaze!
No code violation. To rule otherwise would be encouaging conflict within the party and would be pretty irresponsible on the part of the DM, unless the players have talked about it and everyone is ready for strife between the paladin and party. The way that I see it, plausible deniability and not being responsible for the actions of others is what gives paladins that little bit of wiggle room necessary to not become a completely disruptive class relative to the others in the party. It is probably against the spirit of the code and Sarenrae would not be too happy if a paladin did this all the time. There are metagame concerns here though, that the player of the paladin has to recognize that their class is potentially hugely disruptive to the fun at the table and make an effort to integrate smoothly. Kind of like paladins themselves are held to a higher standard of behavior, I have dealt with enough disruptive paladin characters (mostly in PFS. ) to hold the player of a paladin to a higher standard of not being disruptive.Hey. I have a related question. A paladin of sarenrae I'd fighting with the group.
There is one evil fey. Since the fey is over numbered she decided to surrender. She drops her weapons and begs for mercy. The gunslinger turns comes up. He looks at the paladin asking for approval. The paladin looks to the ground giving no response. The gunslinger puts a bullet in the head of the fey.
Oh man, I just shouldn't do paladin threads. I really shouldn't but I can't help myself.
But I'm afraid most of all that is just wrong.
1. The paladin is supposed to be disruptive. If the group cannot work with the paladin's limitations, the paladin shouldn't be in the party. Otherwise, you're neutering the paladin and giving away the class' powers for free - the code of conduct is part of the balance for how the class works. If the paladin's code ruins the party's fun, the paladin should not be in that party.
2. Sure looks like a code violation to me. I may be a brontosaurus-class traditionalist but summary execution of prisoners that have freely and honestly surrendered is Evil. It would be one thing if the gunslinger had acted without consent or outside the paladin's awareness but the paladin tacitly approved the action. I'd hardly call myself an expert on Saranrae's faith, but if you believe in redemption, you must give creatures a chance to receive it. A surrendering creature is at least a candidate for redemption and should at least be spoken to before being killed. Killing a creature that surrenders perhaps only because the paladin of Saranrae was there strikes me as not only dishonorable but a betrayal of Saranrae's core values. Please immediately proceed to your nearest high level priest for Atonement. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
3. More important than my opinion about the code - the DM, the paladin player and even the rest of the group would be well served to establish the "rules" before such situations arise. That's the right way to keep the paladin's "disruption" to a minimum. Can the paladin lie? Can prisoners be killed? Under what circumstances? How should the paladin react if the party members stray or violate? It should almost never be a surprise between the DM and paladin or the paladin and other group members what the expectations are. Anyone that traveled with the paladin for hours, days or weeks would be well aware of her values.
4. Straying back into my opinion, the paladin has her abilities to serve as an exemplar of virtue. Might doesn't make right. Right makes Might. The Ends don't justify the Means. The Means are the Ends. If a paladin wouldn't be proud to have every detail shared with with everyone one she knows, loves and serves including her diety, it should never happen. Ever.
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Destroying their culture, maybe. Butchering down to the last child, no.So ethnic cleansing is ok, just not full blown genocide? The point is that there are lots of things that paladins do that is completely LG but that they would be invited to see the inside of the Hague for if they were on Earth.
Did SKR clarify what that part of Torag's code actually means then, because given the general bent of dwarves I'm not seeing much else that Torag could have meant by "...defeat them, scatter their families..."
Not that I recall.
To be honest, given the terrible situation we wind up stuck with when entire races are written as having irredeemable and unsalvagable cultures, destroying that culture still comes out ahead as a lesser evil than genocide. I don't like it(and that's another reason I disliked Orcs of Golarion), but that's what we keep getting stuck with so we wind up having to work with it.
I do know that if ethnic cleansing/genocide got pushed as the "right" thing to do in a campaign, that's my cue to bail.
** spoiler omitted **
That is interesting. I don't know if I'd read too much into it given that it's a limited set, but a wider poll along these lines could possibly be quite illuminating.
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Just wondering, since experience has proven what James Jacobs once said about the greatest obstacle to redemption attempts being other PCs.Or Paladins in general... :)
I'd put that blame on the minority of paladins rather than the majority.
Whatever the case, my original question is pretty moot at this point, at least for me. Our Wrath of the Righteous party has taken shape since then and everyone is awesome and on the same page about the kind of campaign we want. Two paladins of Iomedae(tiefling and aasimar), one tiefling cleric of Iomedae, one Desnan Mendevian/Nexian wizard/witch, and a Sarkori Green Faith barbarian. No Toragites. Everyone's on board for redemption themes.
@#$% yes.
Any chance of a campaign journal or the like? It sounds like it'd be an unorthodox take on the AP, could be interesting :)
Sounds like a great group, have fun!
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Any chance of a campaign journal or the like? It sounds like it'd be an unorthodox take on the AP, could be interesting :)
Sounds like a great group, have fun!
Already planned! :D It kinda picks up some threads from the campaign journal for a cancelled Kingmaker campaign, but reading that one won't be necessary to follow the WotR one.
First post should be late this month or early March. Really excited about this group. :)
Excellent! I'll keep an eye out :)
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If he's picking fights with enemies not that are not attacking his homeland, the Toraq code does not apply.So paladins of torag are only paladins of torag in their house?
I was under the impression paladin's didn't get to pick when their code applies to them, that they were obligated by their code at all times
The code applies to invaders of the homeland, not fights a Torag Paladin picks by leaving home to adventure elsewhere. A strict reading of the code would imply that Paladins of Torag are breaking it by adventuring.
Torag's code is designed to defend the Dwarven homelands. He doesn't CARE about anywhere else. Orcs besiging an elven or Human city? Than it's up to you to decide where your priorities are.
The code can just as easily be read to imply that any enemy of the dwarves should be dealt with swiftly, harshly, and with extreme prejudice no matter where you encounter them.
1. The paladin is supposed to be disruptive. If the group cannot work with the paladin's limitations, the paladin shouldn't be in the party. Otherwise, you're neutering the paladin and giving away the class' powers for free - the code of conduct is part of the balance for how the class works. If the paladin's code ruins the party's fun, the paladin should not be in that
...
While this might be the case from a strict in-world logic perspective, there are times when that has to break in a metagame way to hold together the conceit that all the characters have to work together, since they represent the players who are playing together. Writing the paladin off as intended to disrupt parties is really irresponsible as a DM because it basically gives the player of a paladin carte blanche to be a dick to everyone else.
If you feel this way about paladins, and you are not necessarily wrong, they should not be an allowed PC class in your games, otherwise you are just asking for all the butthurt that was mentioned earlier upthread.