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Hi Folks.
I'm reading the Gods and Magic book, and trying to create the basic of a creation myth for my campaing. I've also done a large work establishing the elven society, taking into account the race (from PF) and the usual alignment (Chaotic Good), witch lend me thinking about a socialist-like community.
After thinking in the aligment theme, I started thinking about the deities alignment, and there I stoped at Erastil's alignment. Why is that deity LG? No strong hierarchy, nor centralized church, no laws etched in stone, etc.
I think that cultural alignment is an evolution, from the initial chaos, to the megacities order. Barbarism is matched with chaos, and civilization is matched with law.
So, to me, the one of the first human deities could not be lawful, despite his community domain. A lot of races form simple communities and are not lawful.
Why is Erastil lawful? Would not be more Neutral or Chaotic?
Haderak
He is not god of law but very much a god of order and traditions. He thinks things should be done certain ways, he is the god of families and communities both or which take order and rules. A strong foundation makes a strong home after all.
He is a very lawful god when you think about it.
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He is not god of law but very much a god of order and traditions.
I don't think so. I think he is a god of survival, the initial struggle for the life of one community. There must be some rules to survive, but it must be adaptable, and that is something that not fit with lawful religions, where the things must be donde in the right time, in the right form. Erastil do what it needs to do to ensure the survival of his followers. He dont need strict rituals and holy books containing all the standards.
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He is not god of law but very much a god of order and traditions.
I don't think so. I think he is a god of survival, the initial struggle for the life of one community. There must be some rules to survive, but it must be adaptable, and that is something that not fit with lawful religions, where the things must be donde in the right time, in the right form. Erastil do what it needs to do to ensure the survival of his followers. He dont need strict rituals and holy books containing all the standards.
That's your definition of Lawful. It does not appear to be Seeker's, or Paizo's, definition. Ritual is not necessarily the be all and end all of Lawful.
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Why is he LG? Look at traditional societies. Survival in small groups before the modern technical revolutions is based on the group. Order and cohesion keep the group together and functioning, and thus the majority alive. As the god of community, farming, and hunting, he fits traditional societies which promote the good of the group over the good of the individual.
That's your definition of Lawful. It does not appear to be Seeker's, or Paizo's, definition. Ritual is not necessarily the be all and end all of Lawful.He is not god of law but very much a god of order and traditions.
I don't think so. I think he is a god of survival, the initial struggle for the life of one community. There must be some rules to survive, but it must be adaptable, and that is something that not fit with lawful religions, where the things must be donde in the right time, in the right form. Erastil do what it needs to do to ensure the survival of his followers. He dont need strict rituals and holy books containing all the standards.
It there something in G&M that downplays "strict rituals and holy books" for Erastil? If so, that probably has more to do with the writers' romantic ideas about the noble savage than it does actual traditional societies. I wouldn't play that up to much.
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I disagree,haderak. He is all about traditions and order. He is not the god of survival or beasts, but families , farmers, communities and trade.
And you need to look at how set in his ways and stubborn he is, he is not a god of change, he does not change with the times, he does not adapt to new ways. He knows his way has always worked and always will work.
You are looking at him as a nature god, a wilderness god and he simply is not such a god. He is a god of civilization, just as Adabar. However he does not focus on cities and such but the simple life of hunting and farming and families.
Good point, SOS. He's not to be confused with Gozreh or the Green Faith.
Good point, SOS. He's not to be confused with Gozreh or the Green Faith.
People see the elk head, bow and hunting and think nature god. Which is not what he is at all, he is just a very old and primal god, but not one of nature.
Lawful and Chaotic alignments can be roughly analogized to the White and Red colors in Magic. Lawful/White is highly concerned with community and tradition, compared to Chaotic/Red, which favors individualism, freedom, and new ways of doing things.
Community and tradition are what Erastil is all about. He fosters communities who tame the wilderness and bring it under control, based on their commitments and responsibilities to each other.
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Indeed, piping up here as someone with a background in Anthropology, it's always bugged me that "primitive" societies get automatically labeled as Chaotic, when studying them actually reveals that communities and groups that are cut off from the greater breadth of a wider economic base, and that have to fend for themselves, tend to be FAR more rigid and unbending in their traditions and ways of doing things then larger civilizations wherein widespread comfort and security allow for the things that encourage individuality to develop.
Free-thinking and individualism (which very much lean more Chaos then Law) are luxuries that come to be as a result of a more prosperous society. The "further back" you get, the more concerned with tradition and group-cohesion societies become, as those traditions are the ritualized forms of the necessities of survival.
If anything Chaotic alignments become much more common as society advances. Further back, and they're much less tolerated. Break with the herd and you not only likely die, but could get everyone else killed, too.
Erastil being Lawful Good makes a lot of sense, and for one, I'm glad to see a nature god with a LG alignment for once, as Nature itself is a functioning system that does have its own rules and regulations.
::Fistbumps the TheWP::
::Fistbumps the TheWP::
::Fistbumps back, complete with explosions::
Improptu flagdance in support of the above!
I think Erastil is extremely lawful. One can easily imagine him saying to Abadar, "What's with these newfangled law books and this 'writing' thing? You've been talking to that Asmodeus fella, haven't ya? He's sneaky. I don't trust 'im, and neither should you. Oral tradition was good enough for us back in the day and you don't need any fancier 'contract' than a handshake."
TWP, you made a good and much overlooked point. Well said sir.