Fine-tuning Ancestries

Rysky wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It feels reasonable to say "your character's got to care about something" and then you can pick from various rules to live by. But I do think it's weird to use the same language for "what will cause a cleric to lose spellcasting entirely" and "what will cause your relatives to not invite you to Dwarf-Thanksgiving this year."

Oh yeah I don't have nay complaint with there being cultural do's/don't/what other people may think/etc for helping form a character.

My issue is squarely with reusing mechanical language from something else.

I don't think you're supposed to entirely abide by deity anathema especially since they get weird and impossible to adjudicate at times like don't insult a seemingly inanimate object.

That seems really easy to not do actually.

Sincerely? Not excited at all, in fact, quite the contrary, sad for having to go against the tide and despite the small talk of "everything is still valid, keep using it...", that sounds like a smile on my face and a blade of treason in hands. I found these edicts and anathemas very vague and poor, I hope it's just a small part of what's to come in the future. Although I look and see a gray cloud on the horizon... I really hate rain...

Like it's pretty clear that a Cleric *should* lose their powers from pissing off their God enough. If you're a Cleric of the God of books and record-keeping, and you burn down the library you're going to have some 'splaining to do.

But Gods are not wholly unreasonable and blind to context. If you're a cleric of Shelyn who works in decidedly impermanent art (ice sculpting, topiary, cake decorating, etc.) the nature of "allow art to be destroyed" is going to be very different than if you're someone who paints. Since, like, it's okay if people eat the cake at the end of the festivities.

I tend to avoid speculative conversations about new rules for various reasons, but I'm following this conversation because of my strong opinions about alignment and 1E traits. So with that lack of experience in mind... I'm wondering why nobody at Paizo isn't jumping in with clarifications about repeated questions or assumptions regarding things like "Do these edicts and anathema have mechanical impact?" and "Are these edicts and anathema optional?"

Is the answer that Paizo employees avoid speculative conversations about new rules? :)

It's probably just policy not to reveal more than is intended to be said. We're just a day away from a lot if Big Reveals at Paizocon, so it doesn't make sense to start hashing out details in a teaser blog post--and that answer assumes that there's anybody not swamped by the upcoming big event preparations to spare the time to make minor clarifications in what actually was and wasn't said in the original transmission.

Sincerely? Not excited at all, in fact, quite the contrary, sad for having to go against the tide and despite the small talk of "everything is still valid, keep using it...", that sounds like a smile on my face and a blade of treason in hands. I found these edicts and anathemas very vague and poor, I hope it's just a small part of what's to come in the future. Although I look and see a gray cloud on the horizon... I really hate rain...

I'm not sure how the cultural writeup above invalidates anything so far in P2.

I like edicts & anathemas as flavor, but will there be mechanical consequences for violating ancestral anathemas, like there are for clerics who violate their deity's anathema?

Reputation is a thing. :-)

I'm wondering why nobody at Paizo isn't jumping in with clarifications about repeated questions or assumptions regarding things like "Do these edicts and anathema have mechanical impact?" and "Are these edicts and anathema optional?"

Luis Loza did. Back here on page 1 of this thread.

Rather than "hunt your enemies", I'd say "do not suffer your enemies". IE, deal with them as you run into them, but don't make it your life's work to hunt them down wherever they may be. Reason: if that's your life's work, you don't have a life.

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Not really my cup of tea, particularly on an ancestry level, as the world is a large place and different regions should feel differently.

But to be frank, I am likely not the target audience and prone to ignore a lot of writeups like this when I build a character (ancestry is rarely a super relevant aspect for the characters I tend to play).

I mean the example they give shows it's set of guidelines because you know not every dwarf has a clan dagger.

And the reason a dwarf doesn't have a clan dagger is an obvious role playing — and possibly adventure — hook.

Nature vs. Nurture. If at birth you take someone out of his "native" culture, he will develop, probably, the edicts and anathema of the culture In which he is raised, or perhaps some mix of those and the edicts and anathema of his actual (sub) species.

A note on species: Earth is a bad example for Quenya (it means "the speakers") type species because the current dominant such entity has no rivals (so far as we know) with which to compare. On Norfressa (a creation from the mind of the Mad Wizard Weber) elves, dwarves, humans, and hradani are all sub-species of Homo sapiens -- they can all interbreed. On Golarion humans and elves and humans and orcs can interbreed. It is not known (at least to me) whether other (sub?) species of what I am here calling generically "Quenya", for example humans and dwarves, can do so.

IAC a dwarf raise amongst dwarves will have a certain set of "Edicts and Anathema", though not all dwarves will have exactly the same set (because part of this -- the "nurture" part -- is cultural). If instead the dwarf is raised among (to select a very unlikely and very unusual choice) orcs, he'll have a mostly different set, most of which will come from the orc culture he is raised in, but some of which will come from his dwarven birth -- that's the "nature" part.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. :-)

I most sincerely hope they put A LOT of caveat in the general description of an Ancestry's beliefs to show that those are mostly for NPCs and can be used by players as starting points to create their PC's beliefs if necessary.

What is given above does not do this enough IMO.

Previously, you had a text about the typical alignment of Dwarves being LN or LG. Those being fuzzy, especially for a new player, were good IMO: it opened for many different personalities that all fell somewhere in these alignments.

Now, we have very precise Dos and Don’ts that many players and GMs will stick to with zero deviation unless very clearly told otherwise.

Also I hope not all characters have to have Beliefs in Remastered. Lest we go back to the straightjacket people complained about in alignment threads, but with 2 free boosts in strength.

One thing worth considering is that the Cleric class currently reads

Quote:

If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, or if your alignment changes to one not allowed by your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity

But the Barbarian reads:

Quote:

Each instinct lists acts that are anathema to it. Whenever you perform such acts, you lose the instinct's abilities and any feats that list your instinct as a prerequisite

And the Champion reads:

Quote:

If you stray from your alignment or violate your code of conduct, you lose your focus pool and divine ally

Which seems to imply that if a Spirit Barbarian disrespects one Spirit, or a Liberator makes explicit a threat of violence against someone if they don't do what the Liberator wants then bam no more powers for a bit. But a Cleric can have little a anathema (as a treat).

This should probably be cleaned up a bit, as to whether violating an anathema is a big deal every time or only if it becomes a pattern. Like your Dwarf relatives aren't going to lose it if you don't feel like hunting evil today, or if you left your clan dagger in your storage right?

Note that anathemas are a pretty big point of balance for some Barbarian instincts such as Animal or Superstition.

Arachnofiend wrote:

The word popular is pretty key here IMO; I would assume that "hunt the enemies of your people" is a common edict for dwarves that are bad people. A heroic dwarf likely does not give this cultural norm much credence, or may choose to interpret it in a way that suits them, but do so and you may run the risk of being outcast for defending an outsider. That's not an uncommon tale for a budding adventurer.

Aggressively defending your own tribe against those who threaten it is not what *I* would describe as "evil" or "for bad people". It's a pretty neutral principle, really, in a way that can bring you into conflict with both good and evil people and institutions... and neutral institutions on the other side, of other people who are defending their tribe against you.

...but yeah, having young heroes who have good precepts that bring them into significant conflict with the neutral precepts of the communities they were raised in *is* a pretty classic starting tale.

You assumed the outsider in my example was an actual threat and not an easy scapegoat for the in-group to circle its wagons against! You'd make a pretty good dwarf, it seems.

Regardless of how people are lawyering the exact wording of the "hunt down the enemies of your people" line to argue its innocence, ultimately it seems several people got that same impression. We can probably agree that it's not unreasonable to have had that impression. And if we want Pathfinder to do better than its D&D roots, caring about the trepidation people have, especially in a climate of pretty extreme IRL xenophobia, is going to be part of doing better.

Regardless of how Paizo may have intended that line to be read, I think it has to exist alongside the fact that WH40k is popular and xenophobic or even racist dwarves are part of the popular conception of a dwarf. And people who are used to dwarves from other settings hating orcs and goblins and whatnot are likely to read that line and take that to mean that Pathfinder dwarves are the same way and tack on all this other baggage that maybe doesn't exist in Golorian lore but most people aren't going to go read enough lore to go find that out. I want there to be as few invitations for that kind of character to be made as possible.

As for edict and anathema, I do agree that the language there is quite strong for what are supposed to be creative prompts for a basic cultural outline - if there's people here thinking that they should have mechanics attached to them with some form of discipline for straying from those beliefs, I think that's a sign of people potentially misunderstanding the intent (not that I'm saying people here are misunderstanding, but that if the idea comes to mind so naturally then I expect some people are going to [i[assume[/i] there's penalties and go looking for them or quickly houserule penalties). Attaching mechanics would be a big mistake, because that's why True Neutral is annoyingly OP for being weak to no alignment types. We don't want people to feel compelled to minmax away interesting beliefs and motivations for the sake of charop.

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

People have been trying to beat the drum of "Torag is the LG god of genocide" for a long long time.

That alignment goes away does not make it any truer than before.

Some tried to use Ragathiel as the alternative, Sometimes I wonder why so many people want to see the Paladin fall.

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

I agree that the "good' and "evil" alignments have had some pretty problematic implications for a long time, such as the presentation of anti-assimilationist disability politics (ie, not seeking cures) as part of what makes Lamashtu "evil." But while I would definitely like Torag to actually face pushback, perhaps from his own followers, I don't want that to be in the form of one of the prompts players are given as a good idea to take for their PC. A bit like how slavers exist in Golarion so that the PC's have someone they can kill on sight without it being morally complicated, not to invite a PC to play as one.

Arachnofiend wrote:

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

People have been trying to beat the drum of "Torag is the LG god of genocide" for a long long time.

That alignment goes away does not make it any truer than before.

Torag got the G tag because he was written in a time when killing greenskins got you good boy points. There is already writing since then that recognizes the Quest for Sky was not as rosy of a destiny as originally portrayed, much like how we're allowed to like Rahadoum now.

I do think we need a better counter to Lamashtu. Lamashtu, to me, is the goddess of "get worse"--give in to the mental health spirals, don't take your medication, immerse yourself in negative body image talk and stop making any effort, etc. Any truths in her preachings are just bait, sympathetic ideas to make the more sinister messaging go down easier. Nualia isn't a villain because she didn't want to be pretty, she's a villain because she embarked down a path of deliberate self-destruction.

It might work better, though, if there was a deity who preached body neutrality and body acceptance, who discouraged the pressure to "cure" disabilities, that sort of thing. Someone directly opposed to Lamashtu who captures those truths in a more healthy way.

Or is there already a deity like that? I'm not super up-to-date on all the deities, and I'm pretty tired at the moment.

Arachnofiend wrote:

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

I agree that the "good' and "evil" alignments have had some pretty problematic implications for a long time, such as the presentation of anti-assimilationist disability politics (ie, not seeking cures) as part of what makes Lamashtu "evil." But while I would definitely like Torag to actually face pushback, perhaps from his own followers, I don't want that to be in the form of one of the prompts players are given as a good idea to take for their PC. A bit like how slavers exist in Golarion so that the PC's have someone they can kill on sight without it being morally complicated, not to invite a PC to play as one.

I dunno, maybe I'm the weird one for not seeing these as "prompts". They represent the beliefs of the average Joe Schmoe, the largely unexamined biases of people wrapped up in their own culture. I suppose I see the word popular as more of a pejorative than most.

The Raven Black wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

People have been trying to beat the drum of "Torag is the LG god of genocide" for a long long time.

That alignment goes away does not make it any truer than before.

Torag got the G tag because he was written in a time when killing greenskins got you good boy points. There is already writing since then that recognizes the Quest for Sky was not as rosy of a destiny as originally portrayed, much like how we're allowed to like Rahadoum now.

No. Again, Torag has never been the LG god of genocide. If you have facts that prove otherwise, I would be interested in discovering them.

I do think we need a better counter to Lamashtu. Lamashtu, to me, is the goddess of "get worse"--give in to the mental health spirals, don't take your medication, immerse yourself in negative body image talk and stop making any effort, etc. Any truths in her preachings are just bait, sympathetic ideas to make the more sinister messaging go down easier. Nualia isn't a villain because she didn't want to be pretty, she's a villain because she embarked down a path of deliberate self-destruction.

It might work better, though, if there was a deity who preached body neutrality and body acceptance, who discouraged the pressure to "cure" disabilities, that sort of thing. Someone directly opposed to Lamashtu who captures those truths in a more healthy way.

Or is there already a deity like that? I'm not super up-to-date on all the deities, and I'm pretty tired at the moment.

Disability justice includes quite a bit of antimedicalism, against the medical model of disability. The anti-cure angle of it resonates with me being an autistic dude that didn't have the best of experiences with the attempts to "fix" it. Mad pride's also a thing that's got a more complicated relationship with professionals than many assume.

Basically, the desire to not be reshaped in the Abled's image so that the Abled doesn't have to fear becoming Disabled. It forces a different perspective to addressing the "problem" of our existence, much how we had to raise a stink to get people to shut up about Autism Awareness (promoted by an organization that viewed aweareness as a means to a cure) and instead talk about Autism Acceptance (we're not going away, so accept that).

I dislike "unhealthy" here as I get accused of that when I talk about antimedicalism in the context of autism, this assumption that others know better than me by default because I'm not normal and they are, despite most autistic people knowing quite a bit more about ABA and its history than the general public. It rankles people as an attack on someone's autonomy by questioning their capacity to make decisions in their own best interest. I know that's not what you were getting at, but it's a very loaded term that you might be more familiar with in the context of body shaming people for being fat.

But this is actually one of the things I'm excited about with the removal of alignment, since it does open up the possibility of Lamashtu worshippers who are coming at it from that angle that aren't absolute a*%$$*&s. Get some gnolls who are really insistent about having ramps and shit instead of making the guy who just broke his leg use magic to climb the stairs. Or having other gods have stranger cults and sects that do very fundamentally different things with wildly diverging ideas of what their god wants.

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

Pathfinder doesn't shy away from that fact... but it was 8,000 years ago. Trying to make a grudge that's over twice as old as the Pyramids species-wide is absurd - we've seen that not be true across 2e so far. There isn't any animosity between the two Mwangi dwarf cultures and their Matanji orc neighbors. LO: Legends has the queen of Dongun Hold trying to make amends with Belkzen, while G&G has the two peoples enjoying a historic friendship on the continent of Arcadia.

This impression that every Dwarf is (or at least likely is) violent towards Orcs is exactly what I'm worried about, because it isn't canon. Baking it into the new core is a misstep.

Lamashtu's edicts and anathemas are a little iffy, is the thing. She's not anti-cure, she's explicitly anti-treatment--not just of disabilities, but mental illnesses. That one anathema, and not the alignment, is what really lies between her and getting sympathetic clerics. I do think she has a compelling side, but she's kind of a mess.

Also, to be clear, I'm coming at this as someone who also often feels a lot of pressure to get parts of her body "fixed" just to get by in our society. I don't want anyone to misread me here. I am not a "pro-medicalist" of any shade, tone or hue.

Arachnofiend wrote:

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

Pathfinder doesn't shy away from that fact... but it was 8,000 years ago. Trying to make a grudge that's over twice as old as the Pyramids species-wide is absurd - we've seen that not be true across 2e so far. There isn't any animosity between the two Mwangi dwarf cultures and their Matanji orc neighbors. LO: Legends has the queen of Dongun Hold trying to make amends with Belkzen, while G&G has the two peoples enjoying a historic friendship on the continent of Arcadia.

This impression that every Dwarf is (or at least likely is) violent towards Orcs is exactly what I'm worried about, because it isn't canon. Baking it into the new core is a misstep.

I specified the Inner Sea because I know the relations are different in other settings. Core is, as always, about the Inner Sea and the dedicated setting books exist for adventures taking place outside of those regions. Furthermore, Dongun Hold would have no need to "make amends" with Belkzen if that animosity did not persist to this day.

I would think that Arshea and Tsukiyo counter Lamashtu. Arshea is explicitly body positive, appearing towards people in their own form except in cases where the person's current body doesn't fit their mind and soul. Tsukiyo is all about treating mental illness as opposed to curing it (a continuous point of contention between him and Qi Zhong, who prefers the latter).

Lamashtu's edicts and anathemas are a little iffy, is the thing. She's not anti-cure, she's explicitly anti-treatment--not just of disabilities, but mental illnesses. That one anathema, and not the alignment, is what really lies between her and getting sympathetic clerics. I do think she has a compelling side, but she's kind of a mess.

Also, to be clear, I'm coming at this as someone who also often feels a lot of pressure to get parts of my body "fixed" just to get by in our society. I don't want anyone to misread me here.

A lot of my own development of autistic liberation theory is drawing from mad pride, so I'm fairly sympathetic to the anti-"treatment" angle as well - it's not as though ABA even currently promises a flat out cure. But regardless, the issue had always been that this thing was lumped in with a god that's otherwise a gigantic a+#$+!+, to act as an antagonist to the PC's whose followers are easily visually recognizable for being the wrong shape.

But with alignment not being a hardcoded thing, I like the possibility of the same god having sects that could be described as good or evil based on what aspects they're clinging to and how they're rationalizing it. Before with allowed follower alignments, it was more of a range of acceptable behavior that the deity would tolerate, but now it could be more like three sides having utterly irreconcilable differences over the same god.

We are not talking about autism in that context, since autism is not a mental illness. Sorry, that's a sticking point for me. I feel like I'm being misconstrued. I'm autistic myself. I don't need treatment for my autism, but I sure do need treatment for my BPD and bipolar, because those are things that will actively cause me pain if I ignore them. Mental illness is a more specific term than "disability".

Otherwise, I agree with you! I'd love to see Lamashtu's anathemas and edicts reworded slightly, really.

We are not talking about autism, since autism is not a mental illness. Sorry, that's a sticking point for me. I'm autistic.

As am I, and it is not a mental illness. However, I do think we share a lot of interests with the mad pride movement over the basic demands for autonomy and consent in care, which is why I felt a need to bring up those arguments from the mad pride movement. I don't want to throw comrades under the bus, so I feel obligated to mention that so that people who are critical of mental illness treatment are not presented as inherently bad or unhealthy for doing so. The only good horror set in a psych ward is the horror of what that treatment was and not the patients themselves, after all.

To bring us back to the thread's topic, though, since I mostly brought that up just to agree with someone else, I'd rather be safe than sorry with the things put in front of players as prompts. One of three or so lines being readable in a bad way as a player's introduction to what PC dwarves are about starts the ancestry off on the wrong foot.

Having recently started reading LO : Impossible Lands, it occurred to me that recent Ancestries often have a No typical alignment/ All alignments possible in their description of typical alignment. Even the Kashrishi who otherwise give off a very strong Lawful vibe to me.

With the caveat I mentioned above, I can see the (typical not compulsory) Belief being quite useful for a clear and concise description of what a standard member of the Ancestry tends to respect.

But with alignment not being a hardcoded thing, I like the possibility of the same god having sects that could be described as good or evil based on what aspects they're clinging to and how they're rationalizing it. Before with allowed follower alignments, it was more of a range of acceptable behavior that the deity would tolerate, but now it could be more like three sides having utterly irreconcilable differences over the same god.

TBT I love these kind of premices that allow for non-monolithic faiths. The Arcanis setting had those thanks to deities not having an alignment even though their followers had one. And I also liked it in the Book of the Righteous, which presented different groups in a given faith that had differing views reflecting their different alignments.

But I think Golarion does not work like this usually. Good and Evil mean A LOT to the deities that have this component.

keftiu wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't shy away from that fact... but it was 8,000 years ago. Trying to make a grudge that's over twice as old as the Pyramids species-wide is absurd - we've seen that not be true across 2e so far. There isn't any animosity between the two Mwangi dwarf cultures and their Matanji orc neighbors. LO: Legends has the queen of Dongun Hold trying to make amends with Belkzen, while G&G has the two peoples enjoying a historic friendship on the continent of Arcadia.

This impression that every Dwarf is (or at least likely is) violent towards Orcs is exactly what I'm worried about, because it isn't canon. Baking it into the new core is a misstep.

I specified the Inner Sea because I know the relations are different in other settings. Core is, as always, about the Inner Sea and the dedicated setting books exist for adventures taking place outside of those regions. Furthermore, Dongun Hold would have no need to "make amends" with Belkzen if that animosity did not persist to this day.

The Mwangi Expanse is part of the Inner Sea. We've also heard nothing about problems between the Kulenett dwarves of the Impossible Lands and any Orcs, likewise part of the Inner Sea.

Avistan is not more core than the Garundi bits of the main setting.

I feel a lot of people are making assumptions on how the Edicts/Anathemas system is going to work. I'm thinking it will be something along the lines of during character creation you can add any Edicts/Anathemas you wish, including none at all. These can help a GM understand your character's motivations easily or help you flesh out your character. All completely optional. To help facilitate this, Ancestries list some common Edicts/Anathemas for said Ancestry. These are intentionally vague so that they can apply broadly to the Ancestry. You could add "hunt the enemies of your people" exactly as written to your character's Edicts/Anathemas or use that as a jumping off point and add "hunt the necromantic cult that stole your ancestor's remains" because that fits your character.

Then, should you select a class such as cleric you add the deity's Edicts/Anathemas to your list. Should you violate those specific Anathemas you lose powers.

After character creation I see no reason the Edicts/Anathemas list couldn't have new ones added or existing ones removed as your character grows. Although Edicts/Anathemas added by class couldn't be dropped unless the source also dropped them.

tldr; I think the Edicts/Anathemas system will be more like a personal list of roleplaying guidelines and some classes add them and only those added have to be followed or you lose powers.

I think there might be an archetype or some other system that grants benefits to any character that pledges to follow certain Edicts/Anathemas. And if they do not respect these, bye bye benefits.

*gazes at the West Marches, nary a dragon in sight*

But this is actually one of the things I'm excited about with the removal of alignment, since it does open up the possibility of Lamashtu worshippers who are coming at it from that angle that aren't absolute a+!++#@s. Get some gnolls who are really insistent about having ramps and shit instead of making the guy who just broke his leg use magic to climb the stairs. Or having other gods have stranger cults and sects that do very fundamentally different things with wildly diverging ideas of what their god wants.

...and I suddenly find that I am also excited about this thing.

I'm also interested to see what kind of an overall shift we're likely to see in divinities who already had their Beliefs be somewhat disjoint from their stated alignment.

It's gonna be really good for deities like Arazni, that's for sure.

It's gonna be really good for deities like Arazni, that's for sure.

It's going to be interesting for Arazni.

Like, one of the weird things about Arazni right now is how her worshippers have this weird divide to them. Having the alignment graph be baked into deity descriptions at a fundamental level makes that really obvious in a mechanical way - and it is an expression of a fundamental tension in the deity. Taking things to Beliefs... are they going to keep that fundamental tension mechanically supported in some fashion, or let it fade?

I'm pretty excited that the options may be really opening up for lawfully-minded characters with a focus on freedom. "Truly opposing slavery is just for chaotics" never sat well with me. It's like if you had to be Lawful to take the Community domain.

I'm pretty excited that the options may be really opening up for lawfully-minded characters with a focus on freedom. "Truly opposing slavery is just for chaotics" never sat well with me. It's like if you had to be Lawful to take the Community domain.

Anti-slavery was not a chaotic thing (its why CG Champion having a freedom theme was weird). Chaotic characters however are much more flashy about their opposition to that, and their methods to stop it. A lawful character will work through the system to slowly change the laws to remove it, which can easily get slowed down and/undermined by other actors: Say for example some chaotic characters making a mess of things at the wrong time.

My point is that the mechanics did not agree with you, as per the Champion.

(I don't fully agree on your read on a lawful abolitionist's methods always being "by the book", but that's an alignment debate, and we've had enough of those to last us seven lifetimes.)

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

YES!

Precisely. The setting being more and more sanitized as things go on is actively detrimental to the setting being interesting and engaging at all and as real modern human/earth moralism creeps into it things are increasingly at risk of everything other than actual explicitly evil beings and just straight-up bad dudes being watered down articles that say very little except about how various areas/regions/peoples are good or worthy of praise without ever even touching on things that make folks uncomfortable. For an example of this look at how "neutral-washed" Blood Lords is and the nation of Geb has become. The only reason the good nations of the setting haven't nuked that place from orbit are: 1) They don't have the firepower & 2) It's not economically feasible, much like how we Westerners haven't toppled the unjust system we live under as everything we are accustomed to hinges upon the faith based economic capitalist system that keeps grunts grunting and the poors poor.

Let fantasy species, nations, ancestries, and cultures have their flaws, not everything and everyone in the setting has to have their cultural norms grounded in what the "target demographic" thinks is right/just/okay.

My point is that the mechanics did not agree with you, as per the Champion.

(I don't fully agree on your read on a lawful abolitionist's methods always being "by the book", but that's an alignment debate, and we've had enough of those to last us seven lifetimes.)

That champion being themed around that was always a mistake in my opinion.

Arachnofiend wrote:

...The Inner Sea is a setting where dwarves hate orcs. The whole reason Belkzen is populated by orcs is because they were running away from a Torag-inspired genocide.

Like I dunno about you but I think it's a good thing that we can have the more unpleasant facts about some of these gods and cultures without having to snake around the word Good slapped on them.

YES!

Precisely. The setting being more and more sanitized as things go on is actively detrimental to the setting being interesting and engaging at all and as real modern human/earth moralism creeps into it things are increasingly at risk of everything other than actual explicitly evil beings and just straight-up bad dudes being watered down articles that say very little except about how various areas/regions/peoples are good or worthy of praise without ever even touching on things that make folks uncomfortable. For an example of this look at how "neutral-washed" Blood Lords is and the nation of Geb has become. The only reason the good nations of the setting haven't nuked that place from orbit are: 1) They don't have the firepower & 2) It's not economically feasible, much like how we Westerners haven't toppled the unjust system we live under as everything we are accustomed to hinges upon the faith based economic capitalist system that keeps grunts grunting and the poors poor.

Let fantasy species, nations, ancestries, and cultures have their flaws, not everything and everyone in the setting has to have their cultural norms grounded in what the "target demographic" thinks is right/just/okay.

They do not though.

These are grounded, like everything in the setting, in what Paizo thinks is fun to write about and to play. And Paizo's interests and opinions can change with time. I call it improving oneself.

Like I feel what one person might call the "neutral washing" of Geb, I would call "care and attention put towards making sure that Geb is a society that works."

Like it's clear that if you dig deep on "why it works" you come across untold horrors, but it's a fundamentally bureaucratic society where corruption is more or less normal except for the fact that it's tinged by "that ghouls government official *could* find justifications to disappear (and eat) you if you really got him mad."

If Geb were a society where vampires were just pulling people off the street and snacking on them in an alley, Geb wouldn't really be a society that works. Day-to-day life has to more or less function for most people in order for Geb to feel plausible as one of the more stable societies in the Inner Sea region.

Real care was put into making Geb's evil more banal.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

My point is that the mechanics did not agree with you, as per the Champion.

(I don't fully agree on your read on a lawful abolitionist's methods always being "by the book", but that's an alignment debate, and we've had enough of those to last us seven lifetimes.)

That champion being themed around that was always a mistake in my opinion.

It was a *vast* improvement over it's spiritual predecessor from the previous edition.

Which may say some uncomfortable things about direction to a subset of the community, but the improvement via removal of that vestigial OGL subcomponent is a necessary surgery, imo.

Whether the implantation of this new ancestral bias will follow the same course remains to be seen.

tldr; I think the Edicts/Anathemas system will be more like a personal list of roleplaying guidelines and some classes add them and only those added have to be followed or you lose powers.

And this is not any different than what you can do now. Instead of using a two letter alignment code 'LG' then following a god that is 'LG' friendly (and worrying that that code is copyright competitor) then following their edicts/anathema even though you are not a class that requires that, it just lists some suggested edicts/anethema for RP a class A,B or C.

It literally is not any different than the existing 'you might...' 'others probably...' already given for A & C, which exists solely for copy/paste together into an RP guideline. Where is the outrage over that?

Currently a dwarf using the existing RP guidelines....

Dwarves are slow to trust those outside their kin, but this wariness is not without reason. Dwarves have a long history of forced exile from ancestral holds and struggles against the depredations of savage foes, especially giants, goblinoids, orcs, and the horrors that dwell deep below the surface. While trust from a dwarf is hard-won, once gained it is as strong as iron.

If you want to play a character who is as hard as nails, a stubborn and unrelenting adventurer, with a mix of rugged toughness and deep wisdom—or at least dogged conviction—you should play a dwarf.
You might...

Strive to uphold your personal honor, no matter the situation.
Appreciate quality craftsmanship in all forms and insist upon it for all your gear.
Do not waver or back down once you’ve set your mind to something.

others probably...

See as stubborn, though whether they see this as an asset or a detriment changes from one person to the next.
Assume an expert in matters related to stonework, mining, precious metals, and gems.
Recognize the deep connection you have with your family, heritage, and friends.

So what if they rewrite this into edict/anethema so it can be combined with your gods list and class list? This is much todo over what amounts to a grammar change.

Personally, I'm all for nuanced evil. Geb isn't a bunch of mustache-twirlers, it's an unbelievably, indescribably messed-up society whose most reprehensible traits are nearly impossible to disentangle from the lives and unlives of people with complex motivations, drives and needs. That's a much more compelling challenge for an adventuring party, because instead of being something to Nuke From Orbit, it's something they're forced to navigate and survive within.