Torag Redeemed?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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Silver Crusade

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!

Just saw this pointed out in another thread and double checked my copy of Inner Sea Gods and, wow, it's true:

Torag's paladin code no longer calls for his followers to scatter families and non-combatants associated with those that take up arms against them.

Whoever made this change: THANK YOU. That goes a long way towards making Torag easier to accept as good-aligned. :)

Now my half-orc PC is going to have to be a bit less resentful of him...


Yeah....that line kinda made me go: "Dwarf? Definately" "Good?...Errrrm, no"


First Erastil, now Torag!


I bet someone will complain about this change, even though it was called for.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

<pages Beckett>


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Icyshadow wrote:
I bet someone will complain about this change, even though it was called for.

Darn it, Torag, you done wimped out! What's next? Hugging your enemy like those soft Sarenrae "Everyone deserves a chance at forgiveness" types? Might as well shave the beards off and hug a tree!!

(Something like that? :))


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Icyshadow wrote:
I bet someone will complain about this change, even though it was called for.

Challenge Accepted.

I actually liked the fact that all the LG deities were not squeaky clean. I guess we can just keep ironing out all of the wrinkles until they are all the same...

Nothing bland about that.


I can argue that! Is it good to allow your enemies to regroup against you so they can slaughter more of your people? History shows this is the most likely scenario when you allow your enemies to survive. The fact we are in a world with goblins, orcs and ogres, I suspect this would be even more true!

Without going into the politics of it too much, there are numerous real life examples of a people allowing an enemy to survive led to massive deaths of there people, and in a few cases an entire populaces extermination. That sounds bad, real bad.

I consider protecting oneself and then ones family as the highest moral priority....so yeah, I never saw it as not good, I actually consider it the highest good.

And now I need to go find new deities for my Torag worshipers. Thanks Paizo for ruining something else for me this month!


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I suspect that Torag's code got reworded in order to deal with people reading it and thinking, "Oh, if I follow this guy it's okay to be a mindless butcher."

And I seriously doubt that was the intent. The modifications leave less room for active misinterpretation.

It's totally possible to "scatter their families" without engaging in murdering civilians. General Sherman managed it just fine. But we apparently had too many players who couldn't wrap their heads around that.


Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "Scatter" and "Slaughter"

Shadow Lodge

Gorbacz wrote:
<pages Beckett>

Nothing to contribute. Sounds fine by me.


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Taking responsibility for those families and incorporating them into your own culture would be the more good aligned thing to do.


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They give their families a chance to be reborn into something... more dwarfish


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Helikon wrote:
They give their families a chance to be reborn into something... more dwarfish

Rampant body hair for everyone!


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Alex Smith 908 wrote:
Taking responsibility for those families and incorporating them into your own culture would be the more good aligned thing to do.

In a culture that embraces multiplicity and change. Sure. But, what if Dwarves pride themselves on things like clan and tradition?

There shouldn't be only one right way to do things "Good"...

Silver Crusade

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The Crusader wrote:
Icyshadow wrote:
I bet someone will complain about this change, even though it was called for.

Challenge Accepted.

I actually liked the fact that all the LG deities were not squeaky clean. I guess we can just keep ironing out all of the wrinkles until they are all the same...

Nothing bland about that.

Except this isn't making them all the same.

It's making Torag actually Good.

There is nothing bland about that unless one buys into the wrongheaded conceit that the only way things can be interesting or have depth is to grimdark them up.

Is long past burnt out on Good being portrayed as "good in name only" in this genre. Like by twenty or so years.

Silver Crusade

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So let's see, now it's:

Iomedae = A**%~@& Good

Caiden Cailean = Bro Good

Desna = Easily Distracted Good

Erastil =OCD Good

Sarenrae = Motherly Good

Sheyln = Too Good For Her Own Good

Torag = Grumpy Good


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The way I have been thinking it is like what Warner Brothers have been doing with Bugs Bunny and company. Long ago they did racist jokes(Such as blackface, slant eyed chinese and japanese and other stuff) This was and is bad, so they decided to stop doing that, which is very good. They also went back and edited the old cartoons to remove the racist stuff, which is sorta iffy because I believe it should remain as something.' that can be pointed at a s'We did this and it is wrong so we arn't going to do it anymore.' They have also been editing out cartoon violence like anvils on heads, setting themselves on fire/exploding and even getting drugged/drunk. That is really going over board.

So why not have Erastil is have his 'Women should stay home and care for the family. Men, take care of your wives.' attitude still? Or at least have something where he evolves past it but his worshipers are still having the old attitudes?

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What's wrong with Good being about murderkilling those who aren't Good? Ragathiel says nothing!


"At dawn, the cultist of Ragathiel drags one of the screaming orc children to the edge of camp. Suddenly, the cries cease. Walking back to the fire, the tiefling confronts him. What the hell was that? Giving the matter some thought, he replies A power up."

@Rysky, I think Erastil is more curmudgeonly good.

Silver Crusade

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Lloyd Jackson wrote:

"At dawn, the cultist of Ragathiel drags one of the screaming orc children to the edge of camp. Suddenly, the cries cease. Walking back to the fire, the tiefling confronts him. What the hell was that? Giving the matter some thought, he replies A power up."

@Rysky, I think Erastil is more curmudgeonly good.

Probably, but I can see his insistence on tradition being a form of OCD.

Erastil: "What!?!?! The Village Elder has to eat the ceremonial hog on the eve of the winter's solstice! It has always been so!"

Elder: "But I'm a vege-"

Erastil: "No! It is tradition!"

Elder:"But..."

Erastil: "TRADITION!"

Grand Lodge

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


Torag = Grumpy Good

So when the movie gets made, he's played by John Hurt, and his signature slogan will be "No More." ?


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Personally I would prefer if full deities lacked alignment. Mostly because I kind of like flawed deities, and alignment kind of forces "good" gods to be good in every which way.


I prefer flawed deities personally but I can take the change or leave it.

Now we just need Iomedae to actually be lawful good and we are set. :)


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Rysky wrote:
Lloyd Jackson wrote:

"At dawn, the cultist of Ragathiel drags one of the screaming orc children to the edge of camp. Suddenly, the cries cease. Walking back to the fire, the tiefling confronts him. What the hell was that? Giving the matter some thought, he replies A power up."

@Rysky, I think Erastil is more curmudgeonly good.

Probably, but I can see his insistence on tradition being a form of OCD.

Erastil: "What!?!?! The Village Elder has to eat the ceremonial hog on the eve of the winter's solstice! It has always been so!"

Elder: "But I'm a vege-"

Erastil: "No! It is tradition!"

Elder:"But..."

Erastil: "TRADITION!"

Not gonna lie, I read that, and started picturing Erastil playing the lead in Fiddler on the Roof. Which actually kinda fits his character


Torag having once condoned genocide in the past and been horrified at the results, similar to Sarenrae wiping out that whole city of Rovagug worshipers, would be fine. It could also be permissible if sometime in the past he ordered it through his clerics because the alternative was dwarven extinction. It being an official repeated part of his doctrine however is something that really would require a non-good alignment.


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Rysky wrote:


Erastil: "TRADITION!"

TRADITION!

Shadow Lodge

DM Beckett wrote:


:P

Just in case it isn't clear through internet/lack of body language ":P" was the most important tone of that post. Not Mikaze sucks/is stupid/badwrongfun/etc. . .


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I find the concept of doctrine for a god changing over time interesting because it tells me that gods, like people, can and do develop over time. (They're not static beings.) I like the idea of fallible gods in RPGs that can change over time- make mistakes and even learn from them. (Or conversely, turn evil from good like Dou Bral-> Zon-Kuthon.) A god may be good today, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was always like that. (This is how I explain the events of a certain controversial 3.5 module.)


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Lloyd Jackson wrote:

"At dawn, the cultist of Ragathiel drags one of the screaming orc children to the edge of camp. Suddenly, the cries cease. Walking back to the fire, the tiefling confronts him. What the hell was that? Giving the matter some thought, he replies A power up."

One wonders if this is actually the case for Ragathiel followers (I know its a joke, but just wondering all the same). Sure, the boon requires you to kill an evil-doer (doer, not thinker), but most followers of Ragathiel are chivalrous knights, Lawful Good chivalrous knights at that.

They probably are reasonably pleasant and polite individuals that have trained their entire lives to KILL THINGS. Much like members of special forces I would imagine.

I figure either they act as executioners as part of their Obedience in times of peace or during war, well the opportunities there for practicing the Obedience are probably daily.

prototype00

Shadow Lodge

It was kind of a mess in that book. The authors mentioned that they where having a lot of trouble creating unique Obediences for the different Empyreal Lords, and Ragathiel's should probably be something a little different. The original idea was that one wasn't expected to get their new spells daily, but didn't think that if you fail to complete an hour long Obedience daily, you loose all powers. Then look at other's and you see some of them are stupidly trivial, (one you have to have sexy, but if you can't do that, you have to sex yourself, and if you can't do that, you can just think about sex for an hour and be fine vs I have to daily go find and then torture an evil doer for an hour, leading to their death). Not only does it not really fit him at all, it's extremely impractical, leading to this joke and the other that totally against their own faith's tenets, followers of Ragathiel just hoard a bunch of evil doers so they can murder them 1 person at a time.

Contributor

Of course you could just play Wrath of the Righteous. Not only is he a good flavor fit, but mechanically a champion of faith warpriest of Ragathiel would be amazing for that adventure.


To be fair, worshippers of Ragathiel are probably not hanging out in peaceful cities. They are at the forefront of wars against darkness, and bad guys killed in the line of duty count towards their obedience.


prototype00 wrote:
Lloyd Jackson wrote:

"At dawn, the cultist of Ragathiel drags one of the screaming orc children to the edge of camp. Suddenly, the cries cease. Walking back to the fire, the tiefling confronts him. What the hell was that? Giving the matter some thought, he replies A power up."

One wonders if this is actually the case for Ragathiel followers (I know its a joke, but just wondering all the same). Sure, the boon requires you to kill an evil-doer (doer, not thinker), but most followers of Ragathiel are chivalrous knights, Lawful Good chivalrous knights at that.

They probably are reasonably pleasant and polite individuals that have trained their entire lives to KILL THINGS. Much like members of special forces I would imagine.

I figure either they act as executioners as part of their Obedience in times of peace or during war, well the opportunities there for practicing the Obedience are probably daily.

prototype00

Ragathiel Obedience

The above, patrick's post particularly, nicely summarizes the sources on his obedience. Gist of it, you can do it as a ritual sacrifice, but simply meditating/practicing/etc for an hour then killing an evil-doer in combat works fine too. Executioner is mentioned as a likely place to find them, though that's more Damerrich's domain. Wouldn't be surprised if there is some overlap between their worshipers. There's some discussion of how Ragathiel is not the being you worship if you intend to a live a peaceful life, also, don't expect to perform the obedience everyday.

I've thought his obedience combined with mystery cultist would be a great way to simulate the retired-guy who suddenly becomes bad-ass when someone attacks his village. After the first kill, full abilities restored.

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