Gray Maidens: Who can enter?

[John Lynch 106]

Over the years Paizo have worked to become more and more inclusive. Whether it meant ignoring a single deity writeup in a single AP that Paizo felt was inappropriate (and may have contradicted earlier lore) to including characters of all sorts of different sexualities (and non-sexualities) and including characters of all sorts of genders as well.

Gray Maidens are an organisation that were (I believe) created early on in Golarion's published history when less political correct things were included. Given Paizo's continued efforts to be more politically correct and inclusive, I would expect this means that the Gray Maidens need to be revisited to make them more inclusive. Specifically: how do the gray maidens feel about transgender members? Would they allow a woman born into a man's body to join the order? What about an existing Gray Maiden who realised she should actually have been a man all along. Would they exile an existing member if that member changed her gender?

How would people here cover this in their own home games? And how do you think it should be included in the future setting material?

I personally run very politically incorrect games so I'd more likely double down on how the existing gray maidens operate. But I'm curious how other people think it should be handled in both home games and future supplements.

[Isabelle Lee]

Standard Disclaimer: I am not a Paizo staff member. My word only carries weight as the contributor who wrote the current Gray Maiden content in the Adventurer's Guide, nothing more.

Given that one of the Gray Maidens presented in the Adventurer's Guide is a trans woman (assigned male at birth, transitioned), they're definitely fine with trans women. Trans women are women, after all.

Regarding the present groups: the Scarlet Rose would certainly help a Gray Maiden transition away from female, should such be necessary. Such a person might not call themselves a "Gray Maiden" anymore, for personal reasons, but at the very least, would still be a "former Gray Maiden". And while the original Gray Maidens were all identified as female at time of conscription, that doesn't preclude trans women being part of the group at the time, nor trans men from being present but not "out".

The Erinyes Company, by contrast, would likely take a more dim view of members transitioning away from female. They're a lot more insistent about the whole female-only thing, especially with the Queens of the Night backing them up. Again, though, trans women are just as welcome as cis women.

Hopefully this offers some interesting insights into the situation. ^_^

[John Lynch 106]

Ha! Should have known Paizo would be all over this. Well done! Good job on thinking things through and keeping the concept intact while also addressing some sensitive issues in a really careful manber.

[Malk_Content]

I've no problems with the Gray Maidens being a women (all inclusive) organisation with a Prestige Archetype. I've no problem, really, with that being the only Prestige Archetype in the playtest (although I do consider it weird to block out 50% or so of characters from the only Prestige Archetype in the book, I feel that won't do well for actually getting the concept playtested, and is different from the niche Pirate problem as there are other normal archetypes than Pirate and even though not everyone would want to be a Pirate every character COULD be one.) The problem I have is locking a core character concept (the heavy armour expert) between to restriction based options (Alignment Paladins, Gender Grey Maidens.)

Of course I don't want them to remove the Grey Maidens, that would be hypocritical of me. I would like however at some point before the Playtest runs its course they release a pdf with at least one non character gender restricted option. I don't think it is sexist or not inclusive or anything like that to have the Grey Maidens. I just think having only that is a bizarre choice for something you want to have play tested as it is necessarily restricting the sample size of character who can even think about testing it and also makes the bizzare situation of, if you want to test the most indomitable non-paladin armour user you have to make a gender choice to do so.

EDIT: Sorry John! Just followed your link from the other thread and thought this was part of the playtest forum. Just realized it isn't, which kinda makes my post a bit of a non-sequitur.

[Dragonborn3]

If it wasn't for the fact similar posts(probably MUCH WORSE in their tone/wording) were killed(the dev's choice of word) in the Playtest threads it likely would be in the playtest threads.

It seems talking about the problems of a product in the threads related to the product(in a polite and non-aggressive way) are a wasted effort at best. Granted this is likely because of toxic posters and not Paizo's unwillingness to discuss the issues.

Now, on to this thread. I agree it's weird that only one prestige archetype is in the playtest. It is even weirder that it's such a niche one only some characters will even be able to use. It's LG Paladins only all over again.

My first thought was 'just play a trans character' and that seems... well, the concept is okay. However when mechanics define concept instead of the other way around it feels weird. That might just be me though.

[Malk_Content]

The idea of playing a trans or female character just for mechanical benefits seems to really diminish the idea of those choices as well. I think that part of a characters identity should mean something (not saying it means the same things to all characters) but if its just ticking a box so you can get a feat that seems like an anti-win for inclusion.

[UnArcaneElection]

Just had a thought: How thorough are the Gray Maidens in inspecting applicants? Does a man have to turn into a transgender woman to make it in, or is being a sufficiently artful transvestite good enough?

[Isabelle Lee]

Setting aside terminology Discourse for the moment:

You'd pretty much need some level of actual transition (or magical disguise) to join Ileosa's Maidens, simply
because their recruitment and indoctrination methods are so invasive. The Scarlet Rose are more open-minded, though anyone who felt the need to approach under false pretenses would probably be received with either mild suspicion or gentle curiosity (as a lot of real-world trans women go through complicated and often messy processes en route to becoming aware of their true gender). And may Pharasma have mercy on anyone pretending to be a woman to infiltrate the Erinyes Company, because the sanguine angels won't show a single flicker of it.

[Yakman]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Just had a thought: How thorough are the Gray Maidens in inspecting applicants? Does a man have to turn into a transgender woman to make it in, or is being a sufficiently artful transvestite good enough?

I'd imagine they'd be doing horrifying things to their recruits, and it'd be about as invasive as you can imagine.

[Yakman]

Yeah... thinking about this some more, I'd guess that if the Grey Maidens were to find any sort of fella, however he identified, trying to get into their ranks, they'd probably do something really nasty to his parts and then throw them out in the street to die, or do the nasty stuff to his parts in public and have everyone see them die.

The Grey Maidens are cruel villains who serve a tyrannical queen. Make them cruel. Make them villainous.

[UnArcaneElection]

On second thought, I suppose that if you did manage to get in by disguise, things might get really uncomfortable when you put the armor on, or if you had magical means of dealing with that, then when you got hit with a high level Dispel or an Antimagic Field while you had the armor on . . . .