Erisana Liaomei's page

What if I said "My character IS a drow. From Menzoberranzan. Yes, that Menzoberranzan on Abeir-Toril. (or a Night Elf from Azeroth. Or some other Dark Elf from some other world.) You see, I hitched a ride from Space Squid from that planet to this fine one. I like Golarion. I'm going to stay here." Of course I'm not a Golarion drow... mechanics-wise I'm just a regular elf for Golarion but with a peculiar appearance. Who are you to say the Lantern Bearers should have caught up with me before now when I say they didn't?

Honestly, I would veto that backstory a million times harder than I would someone who wanted to play an actual drow. It just comes off as saying that you don't think the canonical Golarion is good enough for your character. If you don't want your character to be a part of the Pathfinder setting, then don't play Pathfinder. Play a game set in the Forgotten Realms, or World of Warcraft, or whatever it is you actually want to play. But don't come into a game of Pathfinder and try to turn it into something it isn't. It's not just disrespectful to the creators of the setting; it's disrespectful to everyone else who sat down expecting to actually play Pathfinder.

Look, I'm not going to criticize you for wanting to combine two things you love, or playing a character inspired by another series. Arturia, my highest level PFS character, is based on an anime character. But I didn't just import the character wholesale and go around claiming my character is totally King Arthur - I researched the Pathfinder setting and adapted her in a way that allowed her to retain the basic character traits I wanted to emulate while still feeling like a natural part of the setting.

It also doesn't expect players or GMs to be familiar with the material you're referencing.

Finally, I'd say the best way to deal with a character who wants to look like a drow without actually being a drow would be to just ignore it. "Sure, fine, your character looks however you want them to look. The NPCs are just going to see your character as a perfectly normal looking (half-)elf." I never picture my kitsune as being a full-out anthro fox; even in her true form, I see her as just having the ears and tail. But I don't try and force everyone to identify her as a strange kitsune sub-variant; I just accept that there's going to be a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.

On the other hand, if the character is going to go around claiming they're an interdimensional traveler, I'd just have the NPCs quietly decide they were insane.

extinct_fizz wrote:

However... The representation of female iconics seems to be pretty well done. You have women in armor (that is very specifically not boobplate) in the Paladin and Cleric.

Seelah is pretty clearly wearing boobplate. The iconic cleric does however avoid boobplate.

That is not boobplate. Plate armor is designed to be worn long-term, and so therefore needs to be something you can wear all day without getting sore. And that means that it needs to conform to the wearer's body shape. If Seelah's armor didn't fit her figure, then it would put too much pressure on her and be uncomfortable to wear. It also needs to be fairly fitted so that it provides adequate support, a lack of which would cause soreness. A single "shelf" would probably be sufficient, but I can see the artists rejecting the uniboob look from an aesthetic standpoint, and frankly, what she's wearing isn't that far away.

This is boobplate.

Personally I would like to see a more Ezren-aged female Iconic - maybe a Granny Weatherwax type for the shaman or something? On the other hand, Iconics are supposed to be at the start of their career, and it's not that likely that someone that age would just be starting out; Ezren's kind of an exception.

I really hope the iconic Brawler is Sajni. That would be awesome.

Arshea is the Empyreal Lord of love and beauty, and is androgynous-gendered. While it's not mentioned in his portfolio, Cayden Cailean grants the Love and Lust domains, as does Kofusachi, whose description mentions that he's taken numerous gods and goddesses as lovers. On the evil side, there's Socothbenoth, the demon lord of "perversion, pride, and taboos," who splits the lust-as-sin aspect with his sister Nocticula.

Overall, the deities who possess the Charm domain are pretty evenly split gender-wise. There are fourteen in total, with six (Bolka, Calistria, Nalinivati, Shelyn, and the Green Mother) being explicitly female, seven (Belial, Cayden Cailean, Droskar, Kofusachi, Norgorber, Socothbenoth, and the Lantern King) being explicitly male, and one (Arshea) being explicitly androgynous. That's actually slightly more male deities. Droskar and Norgorber seem more focused on the manipulative aspect of Charm than the Love/Lust ones, so they might not count, but that's still only one more female than male.