Tristan Wadsworth's page

One of my professors specialised in classic mythology, and he told us that the original root 'mythos' simply meant story (or something similar) and didn't have the connotations of falsehood that is typically given it today. He tended to treat it as story, with no inherent connotations of falsehood or truth, and since then so have I. I have no problems with the term, but given its common usage, I understand those that do.

And as far as the common housecat is concerned, it really doesn't matter what they "think" they were put here for, they were specifically bred by humans to be domestic housepets. So, regardless of their "beliefs" they WERE "were 'created' for our pleasure".

Good point, but what about non-domesticate animals? Say, an animal that has largely evolved without any human interaction until recently? There's probably some penguin species that might be resticted to antarctica, and may have only experienced initial human contact very recently. I'm interested to see how this sort of argument plays out.

I would be willing to say that this isn't the case even remotely.

There is a difference between it occurring in small pockets without absolute horror from a small group, and having it lack general taboo status almost universally. There is a big difference there. You can look back thru history and most likely find documented incidences of incest, that doesn't mean incest isn't a fairly universal taboo regardless of where you go.

Go ask somebody you meet from India, Africa, Pacific Islands, South America, etc. about their views on cannibalism...go tell them their society openly engages and accepts cannibalism. Then get ready for either a very angry or very confused response.

Go travel around the world and find a place where a significant mass of people readily eat other people, and everybody is just dandy with that...then get back to me.

I suspect you and I are arguing different things. You infer that I believe that cannibalism is an accepted practice today, which I do not. I have stated that it existed in the past, among a number of social groups (the small groups argument doesn't hold up either, as the one case I am quite familiar with, the Maori of New Zealand, reached an approximate population of 100, 000, which is a substantially large number for a prehistoric island population).

An abhorrence towards cannibalism is not an innate, human response. Its purely cultural, learned through society. Therefore, your original argument that cannibalism is evil based on a false universal abhorrence is incorrect, as I orgiginally argued.

Like I said before, I did not say any contemporary populations practise cannibalism, and another poster stated that European influence is a major factor of this. I do however, live in a country with a previous history of cannibalism, and I know it is a touchy subject, as this country has a history of bad cultural relations. Statements like yours though, that espouse the evil of the practices of their ancestors, and insinuate that those ancestors, whose culture is highly treasured today, are also evil, is patronising, insensitive, and to me at least, racist. Views like yours do not help awkward cultural relations.

However, I assume your cultural background has led you to the conclusion that cannibalism is evil, and your view is universally correct, so I doubt I can convince you. I only ask that you be more sensitive to other cultures.

I would consider cannibalism evil at least from a human standpoint for two reasons.

One is that cannibalism is indeed a worldwide taboo, this isn't simply a western culture thing. Every culture sees cannibalism as morally abhorrent. There may be a few tribes in remote areas that have stories based on something weird like eating the heart of a dead enemy, but this taboo is actually fairly consistant taboo, just like incest to direct relatives is a worldwide taboo.

The second reason might be tied to the first, and that might be the fact there could be some kind of genetic reason you shouldn't. It seems that this behavior can lead to protean diseases like mad cow disease at least in mammals, so there might be a solid reason to find this an evil act.

Obviously you could justify it in another species by saying they simply do not function the same way, but there would certainly be a reason to consider cannibalism a universal taboo in your campaign setting.

I must completely disagree with this. You simply cannot make claims of a universal taboo for cannibalism. I'm no cannibalism scholar, but I know it was practiced on every continent at some point (barring Antarctica I suppose). Even a basic wikipedia search lists africa, north america, prehistoric europe, australia, new zealand, south america, india and sumatra. It was still practiced within the last two centuries by various cultural groups (not just individuals), and was only halted by european colonialism and the absorption and sometimes outright extermination of those groups.

You have to face the fact that a large proportion of cultural groups practiced cannibalism at some point in their history. A lack of cannibalism today can be directly linked with european colonialism, and a universal 'moral abhorrence' is simply not the case. To suggest so is highly ethnocentric.

The second reason is also questionable. Taboos of cannibalism may be related to genetic diseases, but we lack direct evidence of this. The one case of TSE's in humans I am aware of is kuru, though others may enlighten me, and this is a very recent case (1950s) and wasn't stopped by cultural changes within the group affected, but by outside influence from the Australian government.

In my opinion it's evil, perhaps justified by that society, but still evil. Also, medical science has shown that it causes a disease similiar to mad cow disease (at least when the brain is eaten). Mad cow disease is caused from serving cows beef products (at leasts that what I've been told).

Yes it does. But that makes it a bad idea, not evil. Otherwise other possibly disease causing natural occurences such as sunlight, sex, and eating food could be considered evil. I imagine that the view of cannibalism as evil is more the result of concern for personal remains, the soul, and correct cultural behaviour, rather than recent scientific studies..

I think thefishcometh raises an interesting point with the idea of cultural constructs. In a game world, we have game terminology "Evil" and cultural construct "evil". Posters here have argued both that cannibalism is game terms Evil and Not Evil. I'd say Not Evil, but this obviously varies by GM. Certainly modern western society, based strongly on christian ideals, largely views real-life cannibalism as "evil".

The real question this raises is what acts are universally considered game terms "Evil"? Conjuring a devil and selling your grandmother's soul to it (for eternal torture and torment etc etc) is probably "Evil" but in Golarian's Cheliax or FR's Thay, it's common practice, and probably not considered culturally "evil" (though across the way, it might be). What do you reckon?

Tristan Wadsworth wrote:

It terms of making them more realistic AKA deadlier, what about upping the damage die one. Light crossbows do 1d10, and heavy do 1d12. Reload times are still a pain without feats, but it would make them more worrysome at low levels. Its still less painful than a greataxe right? Too much?

Not too much from a balance perspective. I actually think crossbows are something that need a complete redo, but I figure an actual change to the item itself be too much for backwards compatibility.

Yes, BC was my concern too, but in comparison to other changes, like skill points or the domain system, I don't think changing damage dice is such a big deal, and doesn't require a considerable reworking of stat blocks. I'm still in support of more crossbow feats though.

Honestly, one of by big gripes with the D&D system has always been that crossbows suck, very very heavily (requiring an extra feat and STILL being less good than a bow), making archery the standard attack form of the day. Historically, we all know how untrue this is. A crossbow was much deadlier than a bow, not just easier to use.

It terms of making them more realistic AKA deadlier, what about upping the damage die one. Light crossbows do 1d10, and heavy do 1d12. Reload times are still a pain without feats, but it would make them more worrysome at low levels. Its still less painful than a greataxe right? Too much?

Here's the deal with "Australia," which is the unmapped mystery continent of Sarusan, from the Campaign Setting:

Sarusan
The smallest of these, Sarusan, lies far from trade winds in the trackless sea and thus remains unknown to most modern cultures, half-recalled in oral traditions or hidden away in the lost literature of dead civilizations. What few records remain speak of a land out of phase with time, where immense mammals long extinct or completely unknown in the civilized world are said to thrive in vast deserts, fabulous jungles, and verdant plains. The black-skinned reed boat cultures of the Wandering Isles, a sprawling archipelago that appears different with each attempt to map it, are believed to be descended from the human inhabitants of Sarusan, but no modern expedition to this lost continent has ever successfully returned to tell the land’s tenacious secrets.

The idea is that this continent is in a constant sort of "dreamtime" that defies measurement and to some extent description. It is sort of the Land that Time Forgot mixed with Fantasy Island mixed with the dream sequences of "the First" from the last couple seasons of Buffy mixed with elements of Polynesian tribal cultures mixed with sword and sorcery.

There is something primal and mystical about the land that ensures it will _never_ be mapped, and adventures there become more difficult to remember in the years that follow.

First Post Ever. I'm...hesitant about any New Zealand themed campaign stuff. As a New Zealander, and a budding archaeologist, I'm just not keen on it. Maori culture and New Zealand prehistory is so rich, but has been much maligned and still suffers from considerable misunderstandings among the public. I think a Pacific themed campaign setting would be cool, but using Maori aspects would just be likely to offend and misinform.

Off topic, I know. Sorry