MindFl*yer98's page

A bloodrager using actual blood magic? I am sold.

I love the representation for us clueless gays! Can't wait to see what the other iconics have in store.

An interesting prophecy, the death of the apocalypse actually causes the apocalypse. The idea of Sarenrae being the one to unleash it is perfectly in character, Gormuz 2.0 but on a much grander scale.

Since this is the thread for wild ideas: Ancestral Paragon classes (or archetypes). Something like the class archetype in Battlezoo Dragons but blown wide open to a full class. Be the dwarfest dwarf that ever dwarfed, or whatever.

I love that! At this point, why not go even wilder, with monster classes? I loved the idea in Savage Species, but the actual implementation left a lot to be desired. It would be interesting to see a more modern take on it.

A class that specializes in using skills in combat. They could be kinda like the rogue, with multiple options for the key ability score based on the subclass. They get multiple class paths that give them those skill feats that can be used in combat for free and their class feats and features are all about buffing them, so they can be a solid foundation for combat rather than a nice ribbon to use every now and then. It could be called the "Savant" or something like that.

Me and my group just finished Curse, it will be fun to play this adventure with legacy characters of our original group, wheter they be followers, offsprings, disciples, or simply people we inspired in some way.

i know it is weird, but ancestor oracle, maybe with a fighter or some other martial archetype, might be the best option. You gain chaotic "boons" every time you fight but the gods are jelous, so you can't use them all at once. You are a divine character connected with death and the underworld, are charisma-based, have focus spells, and the divine list has plenty of buffs to increase your martial prowess.

I am not sure this is a valid character, but if i understood the interaction correctly this would be very fun. THis character uses the free archetype rules.

A human dhampir summoner with a plant eidolon and the sorcerer and reanimator archetype. The plant is a cruel and bloodthirsty nature spirit, a rose that wants to spread over the world and drink the blood of civilized being with their roots. The human freed them in a time of need and now is trying to reign in their worst impulses with little success.

Humans can unlock animate dead at level 5 with Adaptive adept, and the reanimator makes it an automatic signature spell, bypassing adaptive adept's restrictions. The undead in question would be more "unholy masses of vines moving a mockery of an humanoid body" than your classic undead, but that's just a reskin.

An aasimar summoner with an angel eidolon. he grew up as pampered as someone in the mana wastes can be, a living good omen of divinity in his village, which gave him an overinflated ego and no empathy whatsover.

Of course, when it came the time to actually plead with the celestial planes like everyone expected him to to there were some problems, but nothing that a little help from the lower planes could not solve.

So he gained a bound angel to serve his every whim. Some misadventures convinced him to move to the big city in Geb, where he started working for a powerful vampire as a torturer and enforcer.

Angels are, after all, amazing at beating people within an inch of their lives without killing them and every undead is at least unsettled by positive energy, and his abilities come without those pesky needs to follow divine edicts.

I second blave.

Just to cover everything: Vipersfan, when you talk about a player wanting a hippogriff mount do you meant that they want it as an Animal Companion or that they just want to use the lvl 2 creature as a normal mount?

If the latter, it would be easy even by lvl 2 given the right nature skill feats. I wouldn't allow fly though, since it's something which kicks in at higher levels, to properly match the game balance.

Just to give you some extra tips:

- By lvl 9 some orcs have access to the riding drakes, which are uncommon, flying, and mount.
- By lvl 13 all rare flying ancestries can get flying
- By lvl 17 all uncommon flying ancestries can get flying
- Armor Innovation inventor can get flying by lvl 14
- Summoner's eidolon can get limited flying by lvl 9, and permanent flying by lvl 14
- Champion's mount get flying by lvl 20 ( maximum trolling )
- Champion can get flying by lvl 18

I think this covers everything ( reason why, while you might concede a hippogriff as mount or AC, you shouldn't give a flying mount at early levels. And most important, the player has to "pay" for it, whether it's ancestry access or class perks + class feats ).

Drakes are not flying companions, they are just a fast land mount.

I'm with Alchemic_Genius on the need for a true CG science deity. The closest i could find was the Azlanti god of exploration and discovery,wich could fit a scientist in a way, but does not even have the knowledge domain. There is passion in science, wonder at unexpected phenomena, hope for the knloedge acquired to be used to build a better future and just a desire to "f$*# things up and see what happens". We need a god for that.
Not to mention, at least in some science, like biology, there is a strong chance component that cannot be eliminated, no matter how hard you try.

That said i also think that the "laws of nature" are inherently lawful, because they are attempts to impose order on the world, to find predictability where there was none before. The primordial inevitables ensure that the planets follow their orbit, the proteans send the odd meteor or two to shake things up and nature includes both.

Good try antipaladin, good try. Tell Baphomet we are not interested *smites*

Giant wasp (come on, we can turn into a wasp but not have one for our Calistrians? Really Paizo?)
Giant cricket/grasshopper/cicada (a song-based support ability would be quite original)
Giant frog/toad (a classic, i played a character with 1 on my PF1 game and it was amazing)
Sauropod (maybe could be a reskinned elephant, but i would prefer something unique)
Giant spider (do i need to explain)
Deer/antelope ( a fast support companion that is not a mount)
Griffinfly (for that prehistoric feel)
Chalicothere (because they deserve to be more widely known)

Giant wasp (come on, we can turn into a wasp but not have one for our Calistrians? Really Paizo?)
Giant cricket/grasshopper/cicada (a song-based support ability would be quite original)
Giant frog/toad (a classic, i played a character with 1 on my PF1 game and it was amazing)
Sauropod (maybe could be a reskinned elephant, but i would prefer something unique)
Giant spider (do i need to explain)
Deer/antelope ( a fast support companion that is not a mount)
Griffinfly (for that prehistoric feel)
Chalicothere (because they deserve to be more widely known)

I wanted to add something about the whole "chaos-entropy" connection. There is a canonical primal Inevitable, Kerkamoth, that has entropy and stillness as his areas of influence. He represents the status of maximum entropy in the physical sense, and inevitables in general seem to be very connected to physics as a science, as expressions of the natural laws of reality.

Proteans, on the other hand, seem to draw more on the "chaos as primordial soup" interpretation, which fits with their more artistic and metaphorical view of reality.

Hard science is precise,exact, not open to interpretations, so scientific entropy falls under the Inevitables. More mythological intepretations of chaos as a place of endless potential fall under the proteans.

As to why they are more antagonistic than their LN counterparts, i believe it is because while both of them are utterly alien, and world ruled by them would probably impossible to live in, LN outsiders at least respect the existence of life forms as part of the natural order. They may not like it, but if the rules say "leave humans alone unless they do x, y and z" they will leave the majority of us alone. Proteans on the other hand, do not follow any rule at all by definition, so they are free to spread their version of reality. And their version is not something humans can survive in.

I hope so, i loved the shirren in Starfinder, so i hope they will create something similar for Pathifinder. Maybe they could start with the formians?

I would like to point out that there is an argument for neutrality in the second case. "Indifference" is pretty much the defining characteristic of neutral alignments in Pathfinder and i can absolutely see a N or CN pc refusing to feed the man and keeping their neutral status. And if there is a law against feeding the homeless, the LN can join the "fun" too. Which is another example of why the morality system in Pathfinder is unfit for reality, as everybody here would call that action "evil"

Galt. A country in constant chaos, turmoil and anarchy which really ought not be able to sustain itself.

It is also a pretty big area and I feel it would be more interesting seeing it break a part into numerous states. It could be a good place for monstrous races to gather and form their own petty kingdoms. I do really feel Avistan could use more frontier lands like Varisia.

Wouldn't the River Kingdoms fit that fantays better?

As a person who thinks that "alignment" is one of the worst ideas ever put on paper: The moral system of Pathfinder has only a passing resemblance with the moral system of reality. Neutrality exixsts, just for starters. The fact that it is possible, for a human being, being neutral when it comes to good and evil is already an incredible departure from reality. In Pathfinder Desmond Tutu (rip) is wrong and the Norimberga defense might just save you from the flames of Hell and get your soul to the much more enjoyable mechanisms of Axis.
And that's without even counting the supposed examplars of neutrality, like Imot, who commit genocides on the regular without becoming evil for some reason.
Or the CN proteans, who will screw you over in horrible and twisted ways because it is funny to them but somehow don't count as evil.

Good and Evil themselves are apparently much more flexible. There is a LG Empyreal lord of executions and another of nobility. In Pathfinder aristocracy can have an ACTUAL mandate of heaven. I believe it does in Holomog. Evil is at least consistent, i can't think of an evil being in pathfinder that would be good by modern standards.

Basically any attempt to track pathfinder morality with reasonable modern morality is doomed to fail. Which is why i ignore aligment wherever possible and give my players freedom to define their alignment as they see fit.

Outsiders can and do petition the Boneyard for particular souls, and i see no reason why this character could not be escorted to Elysium by the azata themselves after they die, retaining their personality and memory.Also, an Azata would never put duty above their passion and for an immortal being, a mortal's life, even if they are long-lived like an elf, will pass by in the blink of an eye. You can easily give them an happily ever after, from the character's perspective at least.

One of my first character concepts was actually from Nex, a goblin Mage/Alchemist that started working in Oenopion ooze pits, stealing bits of knowledge here and there from the snotty mages that tought him their inferior and making alchemical and arcane experiments with the dangerous slimes he worked with. When he finally meaged to create a familiar he realized that enough is enough and ran away, with dreams of becoming powerful enough to be feared by the same mages that once treated him like dirt.

I will never tire of Her Infernal Majestrix, Queen Abrogail II of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune. She is such a fun villain, it's always interesting to see where her schemes will take her.

Belimarius is also a very interesting charachter. She is a fish out of temporal waters, but unlike Sorshen she wants to bring back the glory days of the Empire. I simply love villains who can suffer a major setback, stare a better way in the face and just say "NO" to redemption. She has the potential of becoming one of the most threatening villains of the Inner sea, and her relationship with Sorshen is something i want to see explored more. They are so different, and yet they can uderstand each other better than anyone alive.

An excellent story, as always. Chess as metaphor may be overdone, but chess as a secret code is an interesting twist on it.

Bachuan is one of the places i couldn't ever call "boring", because it has so much potential, but it needs some massive rewriting before i feel confortable doing anything there.

Realm of the Mammouth Lords is my favourite place in all of Golarion, i simply love prehistoric fantasy and i can't wait to see what thy will do with it in the next AP.

Numeria and Sarkoris are close seconds. Mixing high tech and barbarian fantasy is a strong aesthetic and you can do amanzingly pulpy things with it. Sarkoris has a very strong "reconstruction after the disaster" thing going on that i like, and there is a lot of interesting space to explore with the god-caller culture.

Lastly, even if it not really a region, i love the Vaults of Orv. I am a fan of the "worlds within the worlds" theme, and it has so much potential to create unique charchters and setting, making something truly alien.

Honorable mention: Rahadoum. It has the potential to be extremely interesting, but at the moment it suffers from its age and a general lack of direction. If it gets a 2e write up it might become my favourite region, but as it stands it does need some work before it can truly shine.

I really dislike complaint threads :p Like even if they don't devolve into negativity or debating, I think it kinda sucks to vomit negativity on developer's countries they likely worked hard on. (like yeah they could take it as feedback for future development, but this isn't constructive criticism thread)

I wanto to point out that this thread is not meant to criticize the skill of the writers. They created an excellent sandbox to play in, with enough tools to satisfy everyone. I only created this thread to see which themes were considered "not interesting" by the majority of players in the forum. And this has been interesting, i never expected for Numeria to be mentioned so often for example, since i find it one of the best parts of Golarion. I am sorry i did not make it clearer in the OP.

Does Eberron have positive energy undead from other races ?
At least the Eloi were food for the Morlocks.

Other races can become positive energy undead (Deathless), Aerenal Elves just have a whole culture around it. Also, while is not 100% canon, in a book made by the setting creator we are told that the promise of a non-elven undying councilor is a tool used by the sea elves to keep other acquatic races, like the locathath in line.

The ultimate "i have just the thing" character. My group always plays with free archetypes, so i am going to do a Thaumaturge/Talisman master/Scroll trickster merchant character. He has accumulated a veritable trove of useful and less useful stuff over the years, but he knows that adventure is the only way to get the truly powerful objects. He wants to make the family business truly soar, even if he has to risk his life for it.

Gisher wrote:

Berhagen wrote:

Revenge is never good at the very least. And it is also never lawful.

As to whether it can be good... "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

Cathartic, yes. Good? Inigo was such a good swordsman that the Six Fingered Man had no chance of winning. It wasn't a duel, just a prolonged execution. And he toyed with him before he killed him too. Great television, but "Cool motive, still murder."

Can an execution be good? Pathfinder's alignment system does not usually ding people for killing evil people, but that depends on the table you're playing at.

Dammerich says "yes", he is the Empyreal lord of executions. As for the "alignment of revenge" debate i would also agree that, as an action, it can never be good and probably never lawful. That does not mean that LG charachters can't pursue it. Revenge is always a deeply personal and self-concerned action. It can't be good becuse it is ultimately selfish, even when it has an overall good effect on the world. This is what separates it from extra-judicial justice. And the fact that it is so personal makes it not-lawful. Law is standardized, impersonal, emotionless. It can give you the right of revenge, but it unconcerned with your emotions. And revenge is all about emotion, about personal satisfaction. Law sets limits to preserve the commmunity, revenge does not care at all about the community.

Happy holidays to everyone! Today i wanted to know the hivemind opinion about something i tought about recently.

Golarion has been described as a kitchen-sink kind of setting. This has some pretty big advantages for a TTRPG world. No matter what you like, from the gothic horror of Ustalav to the swashbuckling adventures of the Shackles, there is probably one place on Golarion that is just made to tell those kind of stories.

Unfortunately, this also means that there is at least one place on Golarion that was made for stories that do not interest you at all. The one place that is so boring, you could not imagine having an fun adventure in. The one place that you skip over in the lore books, the one that could be erased by Golarion entirely and you would not even notice.

For me, for example, that place is Brevoy. "Noble houses who are good with swords" does not hold my interest at all, especially when compared with its much more epic neighbours. I just can't imagine an adventure there that could not be made more interesting by moving it elsewhere, or even just creating a Brevic character that would be fun to play.

So, what's YOUR least favourite place in Golarion? As always, keep it civil and remember that your thrash may be someone else's treasure.

Finally, i can't wait to see this!

Yes, yes, and yes. The mix of hostile nature, strong tightly knit communities and mysterious eldritch horror has a very strong appeal to me. I don't think it could carry an entire book, byt maybe it could be part of a Frostburn equivalent, together with Irrisen, the Land of the mammouth lords and the Land of the Linnorm Kings.

Getting real tired of explaining how “the dark-skinned matriarchal elves are the ones it’s kosher to kill on sight and the light-skinned ones without a matriarchy are goodies” is bad. The drow are heinous - and more than that, they’re someone else’s 50 year-old IP.

Pathfinder should aspire to both not be that problematic and not be that lazy.

I generally find that the more Pathfinder lets go of its old D&D roots, the better it becomes.

The lack of hype has me a little worried too, The Realm of the Mammouth Lords is my favourite region in the setting and i have waited years for an AP that finally takes us there. I hope they do it justice and they give it the attention it deserves. But maybe they are just waiting for Strenght of Thousands to end and i am just paranoid.

The character creation system. Honestly when i first saw it, in the playtest, i tought it was a complicated, confusing, bloated mess.Then i got the hang of it and now i appreciate how incredibly streamlined it actually is. I can make a new character in minutes and have it ready to go and actually be good. Sure, i may not have the freedom to min-max as much anymore, but i don't miss it, especially when the upside is so great.

The thing about cultural relativism is that much like how my individual right to ball my fist and wave my arms around ends at the point where I am punching people in the face(i.e. I should not do that), a culture's intrasubjective notions of ethics has to end at the point where you are affecting people who are not part of your culture.

Specifically things like "the international slave trade" or "systematic enslavement of a specific ethnic group" are cross-cultural, so we can't consider those things permissible.

Or people in your own culture that do not share those ideas. "Gay people should not have children" is a pretty popular cultural stance in my country, but i would still classify it as "bad".

Returning to the actual topic at hand, Cintra's sidebar suggestion is great! Transparency is always appreciated and giving a clear out-of game explanation of a retcon is probably the best way out when the writers find themselves in thorny situations. Which have happened in the past and will happen again, given Pathfinder's long history.

I imagine the Pure Legion takes a pretty dim view of witches. We as players and GMs know there is a difference between worshiping or venerating a deity or pantheon, and entering a pact or agreement or even reluctant service to a patron, but that's mostly because the books tell us this is so, and are even a little fuzzy on that point for the purposes of allowing players to tailor their character how they'd like.

The Pure Legion hasn't got access to those books, and I imagine that, to a lot of them without sufficient magical training, a witch looks like a cleric who prays to a cat, rather than a distinct kind of spellcaster. To be honest there are also very likely to be members to whom that distinction doesn't matter, even though they are aware of it.

If they see them pray to a patron, sure, but if they just...chat with it? It might not even be remarkable. Withes occupy this interesting space where the entities that give them power might be gods or demigods, but their powers are very much non-divine in nature (most of the time) and indipendent from their personal faith. They might not even be aware of who their patron is. There are a number of ways they could make them interact with the Pure Legion, and i definitely expect some diffences of opinion within the order.Which i believe would be a very interesting space to explore.

And I am forever going to turn my nose up at the real-world pantheon being there.

Strong agree here. It just feels like a huge missed opportunity. Osirion is one of the oldest cultures in Golarion. They must have developed some pretty unique views on the gods, their nature and their relationships. One of my favourite parts of the Mwangi expanse book was that it finally gave us more details on regional and cultural variations of familiar gods. It's something i really hope is kept and expanded in future books.

Also i want to see more about Rahadoum. Now that Paizo has finally clarified and explained the nature of magic in Golarion Rahadoum is ready for an update.

I am especially interested to see the new roles and power primal and occult casters are gaining in the Nation. Rahadoum has to rely on them to fill the gap and this opens up all sorts of possible plotlines. How does this sudden change influences old druidic faiths in the area? How do they deal with the fact that some of their members may still worship nature deities, despite their magic being primal? Do they use this opportunity to seize more political power or do they try to retreat from the sudden interest of the state apparatus in them?

The role of occult casters has also not been explored up until now, but it could be even more interesting. Now that only occult casters can deal with spirits how does this change the role of bards in the region? And what about witches? Is there an increase in the number of pacts with mysterious patrons? And how does the Pure Legion see non-divine witches in general?
So many interesting questions to answer.

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

that Is not acceptable.

What tools do you normally use when reality is not acceptable to you? Will they work in this situation?

Usually, when a company declares some long term project and they have some channels dedicated to receive customer's feedback, It helps to give that feedback. That's half the reason these forum exists. The other half Is the fun of talking about the game with other fans, like we are doing now.

I literally always thought Katapesh's thing was "pure free markets, pure capitalism", and never even heard that it had a notable enslavement problem until these debates started.

So, like. Just focus it back on that? It's more interesting, anyways.

"Come to Katapesh, the place where everything Is on sale. If you desire something, no matter how dangerous or exotic you can find It here...except people for some reason".

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

Veradux21 wrote:

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

because they have also shown a lot of improvement over the years, their most recents products are a blast and some, like the Mwangi one, fixed some poor narrative choices of the past in an excellent manner. If this trend continues i can't see why they should not be able to handle slavery appropriately. They have the skill to handle anything else so why not that?

Ironic that there are complaints that the concerns about slavery are stifling the artistic vision of the creatives, now the concern gets turned right around when the creatives decide that they agree with that direction.

I'm not sure why this is still an active argument. Not only did Erik Mona say what they're planning to do, that he agreed with the perspective of the freelancer, but the freelancer wrote back thanking him for his response!

So the better question is why are the folks who are so adamant about slavery in their setting unwilling to let the creative team decide whether or not to include slavery in the setting?

Quoting myself here: "Every DM is a creative story teller, its up to you to decide what you do at your table. Even if you're in the wrong about what you present." If the writers are trusted because they're professionals and they've been "showing improvement" as you put it trust that the team at Paizo are going to do fine, and that the decisions they make are the correct ones for the setting. Otherwise stop griping and write your own setting.

Time to move on folks. ✌️

Because they decided to leave some pretty important threads hanging to avoid grappling with the issues they cause. This Is the core of the issue, they took an easy way out for them that leaves anyone want a better exploration of those themes unsatisfied. It shifts the effort from them to the customers and that Is not acceptable.

You mean... running the game, being a creative...

You're right, why even bother with setting books at all? What Is the purpose of these things called "AP"? GMs have to do worldbuilding and creative writing anyway. It's a wonder why Paizo even tries to put such useless products on the market. Also no one on these forums has ever complained about having to fill in any gaps, which Is why the most popular products have plenty.

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

because they have also shown a lot of improvement over the years, their most recents products are a blast and some, like the Mwangi one, fixed some poor narrative choices of the past in an excellent manner. If this trend continues i can't see why they should not be able to handle slavery appropriately. They have the skill to handle anything else so why not that?

Ironic that there are complaints that the concerns about slavery are stifling the artistic vision of the creatives, now the concern gets turned right around when the creatives decide that they agree with that direction.

I'm not sure why this is still an active argument. Not only did Erik Mona say what they're planning to do, that he agreed with the perspective of the freelancer, but the freelancer wrote back thanking him for his response!

So the better question is why are the folks who are so adamant about slavery in their setting unwilling to let the creative team decide whether or not to include slavery in the setting?

Quoting myself here: "Every DM is a creative story teller, its up to you to decide what you do at your table. Even if you're in the wrong about what you present." If the writers are trusted because they're professionals and they've been "showing improvement" as you put it trust that the team at Paizo are going to do fine, and that the decisions they make are the correct ones for the setting. Otherwise stop griping and write your own setting.

Time to move on folks. ✌️

Because they decided to leave some pretty important threads hanging to avoid grappling with the issues they cause. This Is the core of the issue, they took an easy way out for them that leaves anyone want a better exploration of those themes unsatisfied. It shifts the effort from them to the customers and that Is not acceptable.

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

Ian G wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

I think pretty much everyone realizes that Paizo not covering the topic doesn't meant that you can't cover it in your own game.

I'd like to assume at least that people upset about it are more upset about the "we won't see abolition being completed in universe through several books" aspect?

My anger is coming from my lack of time and ability to write a good adventure, and my desire to have an adventure about torching Cheliax and freeing every slave while playing Legally Distinct From General Grant or Legally Distinct From Harriet Tubman.

This. Setting and Adventure books exist because Paizo writers are better at writing and worldbuilding than most of their clients. It's why they are payed. So when they say "We won't cover this aspect of the world we created anymore, tie up the loose threads yourself" it feel like a cheat. I can write my own headcanons about the Golden Road region, inclusive of slavery, but i would much prefer having this done by a professional writer team who is actually good at it.

Except they haven't been good at stuff about slavery from the start. Why do we have to insist they give themselves another chance to screw it?

because they have also shown a lot of improvement over the years, their most recents products are a blast and some, like the Mwangi one, fixed some poor narrative choices of the past in an excellent manner. If this trend continues i can't see why they should not be able to handle slavery appropriately. They have the skill to handle anything else so why not that?

CorvusMask wrote:

I think pretty much everyone realizes that Paizo not covering the topic doesn't meant that you can't cover it in your own game.

I'd like to assume at least that people upset about it are more upset about the "we won't see abolition being completed in universe through several books" aspect?

My anger is coming from my lack of time and ability to write a good adventure, and my desire to have an adventure about torching Cheliax and freeing every slave while playing Legally Distinct From General Grant or Legally Distinct From Harriet Tubman.

This. Setting and Adventure books exist because Paizo writers are better at writing and worldbuilding than most of their clients. It's why they are payed. So when they say "We won't cover this aspect of the world we created anymore, tie up the loose threads yourself" it feel like a cheat. I can write my own headcanons about the Golden Road region, inclusive of slavery, but i would much prefer having this done by a professional writer team who is actually good at it.

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

Tarksun is especially interesting. He is a LE Asura Rana, with the liberation domain in 1E and both the freedom and revolution subdomains. His areas of concern are Anger, Dreams and the shattering of bonds. He is the perfect demigod to worship for a REALLY angry slave. I find the idea of a LE abolitionist incredibly interesting, and could give rise to some excellent characters and stories.

...so basically Moash from the Stormlight Archive?

I'm sorry, i have not read the stormlight archives, so i have no idea who that is. When i read that my mind went to the slave antagonist of The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith.

cross-ideological-lines friendships,

Should one of the devils in question be named Crowley?

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

i usually just eliminate alignment from my games

^^^^^THIS^^^^^

There are VERY few things i think that That Other Game does better than Pf, but the decision to remove the mechanics of allignment is a major one.

This is the problem with calling your cosmic polarities Good and Evil rather than, say, Celestial and Fiendish; rather many people get the impression they have to map onto good and evil as understood by characters, or as accepted by players, and it is problematic if they don't. Personally I find it makes for a more interesting character development possibilities in games where good and Good, or evil and Evil, do not necessarily match exactly; I want to see genuinely good characters grapple with Infernal Healing (to pick a hopefully non-sensitive because purely fictional example) being both a good act from a humanist perspective and an Evil one by cosmic fiat.

That is a really good hook, i never tought about it this way. i usually just eliminate allignement from my games when possible, but this is giving me ideas.

The problem with the idea that their apathy is their neutrality is that they aren't apathetic. If they were apathetic, it wouldn't be enshrined into law or protected by these states if they were just "neutral" or "apathetic" about it. These nations systemically allow and uphold it. Doing nothing would mean doing nothing, but they've done a thing. If they were really neutral and the Bellflowers rolled up and sprung a bunch of slaves, they'd just shrug. That would be apathy. However, they enforce it violently. Which isn't apathy or neutrality. It's picking the side of owning a sentient being with the threat of violence and that side is evil.

Cosmic neutral entities, to know knowledge, don't typically start from a structural basis of "it's okay to own mortals". They're disconnected from it because mortals are bugs and they can't be bothered. Nation-states are made of people and are bothered when someone starts prodding about why owning people is okay.. That is not neutral.

Apathy does not mean "Doing nothing", it means "Feeling nothing".

That is were the difference between CN and LN comes in. In the Shackles if your slaves kill you and free themselves no one cares, they are free. Same with Numeria, if you can't keep the slaves from escaping you are just not strong enough to have them.On the other hand, if someone is strong enough to enslave you, tough luck.

LN on the other hand keep the law because it is the law. The law allowing slavery may have been pushed by evil individuals, but once it is law, unless good people find a way to lawfully eliminate it, it is going to stay because it is law. THe slaves will be punished if they escape because the law says so, regardless of the feelings of the judge (which may not have any on the matter, because to him this part of the job). LN societies see the commerce of slaves like the commerce of zucchini. Just another part of the market. On the other hand there are rules on how and why you can be made a slave (see Osirion)

Again, on Earth, you have to pick a side. There is no neutrality. In Golarion, the universal, objective rules of morality say that a third way exists. The Theletos (Thelethoi?) literally fight to protect slavery sometimes, and they are N in 1e, LN in 2e

The thing I noticed reading the different lore books over the years for Golarion compared to other settings is that it just kinda...sticks slavery in places and tags it as part of several lawful neutral societies. Someone mentioned the practices of the dark elves in Warhammer but that's treated as a reason to oppose them. Slavery is commonplace in 40k, but there's no "good guys" in 40k and its just another signifier that "yup, everything is a crapsack".

Golarion has a bunch of nations that just do slavery and its treated as being fine and at least one PFS scenario where you're expected to go and just negotiate with slavers rather than anything to oppose their activities. Given how Paizo works hard in other areas to knock down some of the sketchy tropes born from the genre, its always felt like slavery's portrayal boarders on someone's special interest inclusion.

I don't think slavery can't be portrayed or used as a plot element. I think treating it as a recurring element in non-evil societies is a lack of creative writing. Golarion is knock-off Earth and they just copypasted slavery into their corollaries and treated it as something the setting handles with indifference.

I may be in the minority here, but i do not see a problem with neutral societies condoning slavery. Mostly because it is shown, times and times again in many lore and monster manual books that "Neutral" can mean "does a lot of terrible s**t but is not mean about it". One of the aforementioned terrible s**ts is looking at evil and doing nothing. With all due respect to Desmond Tutu, in the world of Golarion he is wrong. Cosmologically wrong. Neutrality in the face of oppression does not make you evil, it makes you neutral. There are many beings made of pure Law,Neutrality or Chaos that spend their entire immortal existence watching oppression and doing nothing, and not a molecule of Evil enters their bodies. And that's without looking at the genocides they carry out on the regular, while still mantaining their perfect neutrality (looking at you Imot and Fulgatis). So a society that is not dependant on slavery, that does not specifically target people to be slaves, but is just apathetic towards it? Where slaves are just another item on the market? Perfectly neutral according to the working definitions of allignments. The very existence of neutrality is probably the most egregious example of disconnect between real world morality and Pathfinder's alignment system.

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It is worth considering why "slavery" comes up much more frequently in discussions about Golarion than discussions about similar fantasy settings.

Then consider "this isn't really desirable" and then do something about it.

I believe this is simply due to the audience. Paizo forums skew heavily left compared to most places on the internet, so there is more scrutiny on Golarion than on the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. Or, if we move a little further, the still very popular world of Warhammer.

It’s worth saying that it’s an audience they’ve cultivated with some intentionality. Paizo has deliberately branded themselves as “the progressive D&D” in the last few years.

Which is why here i can read a discussion about slavery without wanting to rip my eyeballs off after the first page. Things are good here. Especially when put in perspective with the rest of the TTRPG world.