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Okay, so I give this particular deity a hard time over being a stuck-up ethnocentric patronizing arrogant embodiment of that infuriating "elves are better/can't argue with elves" trope that really needs to be sucker-punched by Desna or Calistria or
...ahem.
So I give this particular deity a hard time, possibly because it's hard for me to see her beyond that one facet of her personality and behavior combined with her questionable alignment. Does anyone have a positive take on her?
Let's say there was a non-elven worshipper of her, for whatever reason. He or she is utterly devoted, and is practically a cleric except for the spellcasting because, well, she's one of those people(read: not an elf).
Would-be cleric is in front of a burning orphanage/art museum full of non-elven children and non-elven art. Would-be cleric is praying desperately for the divine aid needed to save them.
Would the allegedly CG Findeladlara step up to the plate or would she stand aside and let someone like Shelyn intervene in her place and continue to push her into irrelevance in modern Golarion?
What exactly does she do to earn that G in her alignment? Isn't picking and choosing who you would be willing to help more the mark of neutrality than anything else? Calistria comes across as more benign, if only because she's nearly all-accepting of anyone that wants to follow her, fickle though she may be.
Am I being to hard on her? Is there something I'm missing that could paint a different picture of her? Or is she pretty much the Namor of Golarion's pantheon: Team Good's token jerkass.
Desna and Calistria are alright though. Cal may not be good but she can be a total bro* according to Book of the Damned II.
*literally in her case
She probably dosnt agnoledge the human at all. But would tell Desna to go and give an apiphany and add aid :) as Desna is an elf, at least the last time I saw her anyway ;)
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Am I being to hard on her? Is there something I'm missing that could paint a different picture of her? Or is she pretty much the Namor of Golarion's pantheon: Team Good's token jerkass.
Great analogy.
No, you're not being too hard on her. Both her description in Elves of Golarion and Gods and Magic fail to paint her in a sympathetic light.
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From my reading of the (admittedly short) writeup of Findeladlara, she doesn't seem to be a race-hater, so much as a staunch traditionalist, who believes that these ways are the best ways (these ways being traditional elven ways, with any new innovative styles of art and architecture invented by dwarves, humans, etc. being completely uninteresting to her, since she's not the goddess of dwarven architecture, or human artwork).
While, traditionally, 'demihuman' and 'humanoid' races have not supported clerics of other races, in Gods & Magic, Findy is called out very specifically as not answering the prayers of others races, which suggests that other non-human specific dieties (such as the dwarven, giantish, goblin, halfling, and even perhaps draconic dieties) might accept clerics of other races, so she's certainly singled out as being more racially-exclusive than the average diety.
Perhaps if it were more explicit that she was a diety of *elven* art and architecture, her exclusivity would seem more appropriate and less prejudicial.
I guess there's also the question of whether someone can have a racial preference or engage in a race-limited practice or behavior and still be considered 'good.' Obviously, in the real world, we've got quite a few organizations that lend aid or support to people of specific ethnicities or racial types (such as the United Negro College Fund), without those organizations or their leaders being generally regarded as 'non-good' or 'racist.' The definition of racist, and when a race-limiting organization or racially-biased person goes beyond preferential into prejudicial is a point of contention with just about anyone willing to express an opinion on the topic. Everybody draws the line a different place, it seems, and I don't see Findy as crossing it.
She likes elven art and architecture better than anything created by other races. That really doesn't sound terribly malign. By intentionally limiting herself and hugely restricting her divine portfolio (especially considering that elves, and their architecture, are relevant on like .05% of the map), she's just ensuring her own decline into irrelevance.
Ketephys and Yuelral are way cooler anyway. Ketephys has a Trithereon sort of thing going on, and Yuelral might as well be the patron god of ioun stones. :)
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Imagine that you're hot-shit, a goddess of architecture, of art, of everything civilized in the world. Your people have reached out into the stars, and taken the beauty and culture of tens of thousands of years with them. You look around and, other than the Elves, you see in this world only savage, barbaric races, or the cowed slaves of monsters.
You turn your eyes from a single world in the glittering diamond necklace that is Elvendom for an eyeblink, less than a handful of generations of worshipers, and when you look back, the entire planet is covered by the descendants of those races that were scarcely better than APES the last time you looked. And their buildings are hideous, blocky eyesores that are built to a template that never considers the important things - tradition, the surroundings, the aesthetic milieu in which this building must harmonize with all the buildings around it. Their art is representational at best, and clearly derives from the scrawls they were making with blood and feces on cave walls when you looked away.
And do they have the DECENCY to venerate the entire Elven pantheon, the deities of a race that conquered the heavens? No, hate sex and frou-frou dreams are apparently all that these chattering, filthy mayflies consider worth taking from their betters.
You might be stand-offish too.
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I think a lot of this is self-fulfilling prophecy: Findeladlara is the goddess of elven art and architecture and never answers the prayers of non-elves. Exactly how many non-elves are going to worship her if informed of this fact beforehand? And of the few that do, exactly how many lay worshippers are going to be able to attract her attention anyway, assuming the GM does some random die roll rather than assessing the urgency and has the gods notice 100% of the time if circumstances are dire enough?
First off, let's assume that the would-be cleric is in front of the burning museum of half-orc primitive statuary and combined half-orc orphanage. (Buy a statue! Get a half-orc orphan as a gift-with-purchase!) What exactly is the worshipper praying for? That the ugly museum filled with ugly non-elven art and ugly non-elven babies would not burn because...all life is precious? Because, even if their art is crap and their babies have tusks and unibrows, they've got sort of the right idea about at least honoring art (even if they're horrible at it) and given 10,000 years, maybe they might evolve into something approaching elven aesthetics?
I think, even if the prayer got to her, Findeladlara would be wondering "Why was this addressed to me?" She'd probably forward it on to a more appropriate god or goddess. I mean, hey, Cayden Cailean. Look! A burning orphanage! Hey Shelyn, you actually like half-orc folk art, right? Look! Burning museum!
Getting the same prayer from a non-elf? Even more confusing, but still inappropriate. But being Good means you'd likely pass it on to other Good gods and expect them to return the favor. One expects Shelyn, as Goddess of Beauty, has some overlap and tells Findeladlara when there's elven art or architecture in need of help, especially if Shelyn is too busy to tend to it.
What you need to get to really test things out with Findeladlara is a case which tests her principles and interests. Let's say you've got a half-orc orphan from the aforementioned orphanage. As happenstance has it, he's adopted by a kindly old elven couple, an architect and an artist respectively, both devout worshippers of Findeladlara, and they adopted the half-orc for the same reason that senior citizens whose children have left the next adopt dogs--they expect they're all going to die of old age at the same time, so it wouldn't be the cruelty of letting an elven child be orphaned all over again. They also consider the half-orc to be like a bull dog in the so-ugly-he's-cute category, and while they would never think of getting a slave, the half-orc orphans were being sold--ahem, 'gift-with-purchased'--as being ideal servants to have around the house with broad strong backs and all the other patronizing stuff.
So, these patronizing old elven retirees raise their orc "son" and teach him everything they know, and are surprised and delighted to find that "Little Tusky" actually has artistic talent. Yes, he's ugly, ungraceful, with green skin and those ridiculous tusks, but he paints lovely watercolors, understands the rules of elven architectural harmony, and dutifully memorizes all the lore and learning about lost elven techniques the artist and the architect have rediscovered in the course of their lifetime, as well as new refinements in keeping with ancient elven tradition which are only known in their little elven artist's commune. The other elven artists in the commune treat Tusky like an exceptionally clever trained monkey or awakened ape, but they also teach him some of their secrets because it's the best way to suck up to the revered masters who are his parents.
Tusky obviously doesn't have a perfectly happy life, especially when he's told how awful, savage and cruel real orcs are (thus further damaging his self-esteem) but channels his emotions into his art, making it better, up until the day that the real orcs invade, half-orcs among them, and they slaughter the entire Findeladlara-worshipping artists' commune, including Tusky's adoptive parents, then carry off Tusky who they see as the house slave and is thus both war-booty and an orc (or at least half-orc) to be rescued from the hated elves. They also burn the village to the ground, as well as lifetimes of elven art.
The orcs put Tusky through various orcish challenges to see if they can make a "real orc" out of him. They can't, and so tie him up and leave him bound while they go off to make the preparations to sacrifice him to Rovugug.
At this point, Tusky starts making heartfelt prayer's to Findeladlara, begging her to rescue him, because if he dies all the knowledge of art and architecture of the entire artist's commune dies with him. It should also be noted that Findeladlara has a whole Greek chorus of the souls of devout worshippers around her who are particularly upset by being killed and even more upset about their life's work, which they thought they would be leaving to future generations of elves, is instead nothing but ash, and the only one left who can recite their stories and poems, paint pictures with techniques they rediscovered, build beautiful buildings with their understanding of elven architectural proportions, is Tusky, who's about to die.
Also, it should be noted, Pharasma tends to be a real bureaucrat. When she asks "Which god do you worship?" and gets an honest answer, unless there's a major alignment discrepancy, she will generally send a soul on to that god immediately, so if Findeladlara doesn't deal with the living Tusky's prayer now, she's going to have to deal with dead Tusky's soul in a few minutes.
What this scenario means is that Findeladlara is going to have to figure out what her priorities are. Is she the goddess of traditional elven arts and architecture, or is she the goddess of elven pride and elves uber alles?
Having Tusky being the repository of his village's art and knowledge is like having a lost poem of Shakespeare transcribed onto greasy butcher paper with a broken crayon--it's an unfitting vessel for something so beautiful and lofty, but if it's what you've got to work with, it's what you've got to work with, and you can always transcribe it into something more beautiful and fitting later.
Given this sort of scenario, I think the proper interpretation is that Findeladlara "has never answered a non-elven prayer--yet." This is the time she'd break with that history, because the needs of elven art and architecture demand it. And, if she can steal a page from Shelyn, goddess of beauty, just as there is outer beauty and inner beauty, and inner beauty is better, just so must there be outer elfiness and inner elfiness. Tusky, though he has the body of an ugly and aesthetically displeasing half-orc, has the soul of an artist and moreover than that elf. And if anyone calls Findeladlara of violating her reputation and answering prayers from anyone besides elves, she would inform them that she only answers prayers from elven souls, and her only looking at the faces of her worhippers and not their souls would be as silly as Shelyn only answering the prayers of pretty people.
Findeladlara would probably blame an ugly reincarnation mix-up or some malicious mischief from Lamashtu, or could pull out the "ineffability" card and claim that it was her divine plan all along to have an elven soul incarnated as a half-orc so that Tusky could save the knowledge and artistry of the devout elven commune when the orc invasion came--and given that Pharasma is the only one who can call BS on this convenient revelation, she'd probably get away with it.
She would also probably submit paperwork with Pharasma saying any time Tusky is Reincarnated or Forced Reincarnated, he comes back as an elf, and not only that but a classically proportioned elf, and she would then bore Pharasma with reams of description of what this is.
Now comes the question of whether this is CG enough or not. I'd say it is, especially since we've got a mercurial goddess who's the final arbiter of what she considers "traditional elven art and architecture" and thus should reasonably also be able to the final arbiter of what she considers "elf" too.
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Imagine that you're hot-s*@@, a goddess of architecture, of art, of everything civilized in the world. Your people have reached out into the stars, and taken the beauty and culture of tens of thousands of years with them. You look around and, other than the Elves, you see in this world only savage, barbaric races, or the cowed slaves of monsters.
You turn your eyes from a single world in the glittering diamond necklace that is Elvendom for an eyeblink, less than a handful of generations of worshipers, and when you look back, the entire planet is covered by the descendants of those races that were scarcely better than APES the last time you looked. And their buildings are hideous, blocky eyesores that are built to a template that never considers the important things - tradition, the surroundings, the aesthetic milieu in which this building must harmonize with all the buildings around it. Their art is representational at best, and clearly derives from the scrawls they were making with blood and feces on cave walls when you looked away.
And do they have the DECENCY to venerate the entire Elven pantheon, the deities of a race that conquered the heavens? No, hate sex and frou-frou dreams are apparently all that these chattering, filthy mayflies consider worth taking from their betters.
You might be stand-offish too.
Yup. Total Namor.
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... a rousing good tale.
Kevin,
This was a great little storytelling workout here and actually cast Findeladlara in a much more sympathetic light. I especially appreciated the touches about Pharasma as a celestial bureaucrat and Findeladlara's insistence on the half-orc's reincarnation and her "reveal" that it was all part of her divine plan. Bravo.
All good points, yup yup :)
No problem.
I think that having the elven goddess of art and architecture is a lot like having the dwarven god of smithcraft and the halfling goddess of cooking--all of these races set great cultural store by particular artforms but also by the racial style of these particular artforms. Yes, it's racial pride, but racial pride of a good sort, as this is a gift they're offering to the rest of the world.
Yes, there are instances where racial pride may get in the way of judging true art, but you'd think that the gods of not just particular artforms but particular racial styles of those artforms would be judging the artwork first, and if a half-elf somehow won the beer-tasting competition for brewing the best dwarven bock as judged by the priests of the dwarven god of brewing? There might be a bunch of dwarves wanted to smack the half-elf, but the dwarven god of brewing would be pissed at the dwarves, who were obviously slacking off, because a half-elf brewed the best dwarven bock this year and you can't argue with quality.
Now, the half-elf might be like Tusky, raised by dwarves and so forth. Or he could just have been raised in an elven community or a human community and gotten really tired of stereotypes about him being expected to make elven wine or half-elven wine instead of beer, and while learning about where the best beer was brewed, he studied a lot, decided the dwarven style was best, and worked his ass off to master it, probably using a lot ancient techniques the modern dwarven brewers were too cheap or lazy to do.
What about the Halfling God of Cheffs, Emril Tallfellow or whatever ;)
Immagine Elven Beer? Its a sparkling pale ale with a hint of elderberry and a touch of lavender ;)
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Imagine Elven Beer? Its a sparkling pale ale with a hint of elderberry and a touch of lavender ;)
Dwarves have a Con bonus, and Elves have a Con penalty. I'd imagine that elven beer would have to be pretty darn weak to avoid knocking the notorious light-weights over. :)
That might even explain why there are occasionally half-elves with elven mothers and human fathers. Elven beer-goggles are powerful things...
I can see the Dwarves of the Linnorm Kings getting ahold of the Half Elf... he brings in Elven tea... and he adds it to the Brew... the new bears caption is- "Thursty... Thor's Tea" For the 11% Beer with some tea flavor :)
Thats why they drink Elderberry Wine, wich in them days was elderflowers soaked in sugarwater :)
Mind regular beer is only 5%, :) we drink 7%-12% in Canada and Scandinavia :)
Thats why they drink Elderberry Wine, wich in them days was elderflowers soaked in sugarwater :)
Actually, two different things. But I've made elderflower wine and it has a good kick to it if you ferment it right.
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I think this line from Elves of Golarion is important to understanding the CG nature of Findeladlara as well:
Elven faith is more pantheistic than that of many races, and while a particular elf might favor one deity over another, all are acknowledged and respected. Even elf clerics worship this way and may select their domains from different elven deities, including those of Desna, Calistria, and Nethys.
An elf is going to pray to these different deities when the time is right, and a burning building is not the right time to pray to Fineladlara.
It's like fetching the god of cats to help you to build a castle...
Now, see, I have never had an alcohaulic version of Elderberry drink :) Everyone that makes it that I know, soaks the flowers in sugarwater :) But hey, ya learn something :)