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Introduced as the only matriarchal society in a setting, and portrayed as *invariably* chaotic, evil and / or crazy, could be seen by some as a subtle dig that a matriarchal society is incapable of being anything other than unnatural and wrong.Is this true?
Yeah, they were pretty much the only matriarchal culture when introduced, *back in Greyhawk.*
They've since traveled to other settings, in which that may not be the case, but that's not germane to what I was saying about where they were introduced, in Greyhawk.
IMO, Golarion (very much *not* the setting in which Drow were first introduced) stepped in the right direction by not making the Drow, which, in this setting (Golarion), are even *more* inescapably evil, indelibly 'stained' and explicitly corrupted by demons, a matriarchal man-hater society of eeeeviil.
[tangent to the tangent]
As for Golarion, which I didn't mention anyway, in that statement, while there are plenty of cases of women in charge (Queen Arbogail, Queen Galifrey), those aren't *matriarchal cultures.*
Even Irrisen, the best example on the planet, where the daughters (and not the sons!) of Baba Yaga are indeed exclusively in charge, but even that culture isn't specifically matriarchal (even if the government is), because women don't dominate the household or family unit or culture, and aren't, like Greyhawk / Realms Drow, considered superior to their menfolk, just because a very tiny subset of women (who aren't even part of the local culture, or members of the local ethnicities) run the country.
There might be matriarchal cultures on Golarion, such as trolls, IIRC, or those dinosaur-riding Amazons off the map somewhere, or in the greater universe outside of Golarion, such as the Lashunta, but that's not really relevant to Greyhawk.
[/tangent to the tangent]
Instead of saying that they were 'introduced in a setting' (which they were, being first introduced in Greyhawk), I should have said 'introduced in Greyhawk' right out, so that's poor communication on my part.
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Those are generally neutral. Also, pink-skinned. ;)
Gosh, the internet is not terribly useful when asked 'what color is a crow's skin.' Cue 10,000 links on crow's feet (and aging and wrinkles and skin creams) and Jim Crow laws...
Are tengu generally considered a 'good' race? The 'generic' Tengu Rogue 1 isn't really generic, he's a specific class, so his being Neutral doesn't *necessarily* mean that the entire race is predisposed towards neutrality...
Actually, I just noticed that Halflings are no longer a 'good' race!
That sort of information used to appear in the Monster Manual write ups of a race, where the generic dwarf, elf, etc. with no class levels would be listed as LG or CG. The core PC races are no longer in the Bestiaries, for the most part, and that information is in the core book, where Halflings in Golarion are usually N, instead of 'Lawful Good,' and Golarion Gnomes are usually NG, instead of 'Neutral to Lawful Good.'
Isn't Qadira matriarchal?
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Isn't Qadira matriarchal?
At least somewhat, although the rulers (and previous satraps mentioned as overseeing Osirion) seem to be dudes.
A man's inheritance passes on to his wife / daughters, and not his sons, but it's pretty clearly worded that it's the *man's* inheritance, which suggests that the wife / daughters weren't expected to be the head of household or business owner or to control finances or own property if they had a living father / husband (since they were expected to inherit it from a dude).
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Isn't Qadira matriarchal?At least somewhat, although the rulers (and previous satraps mentioned as overseeing Osirion) seem to be dudes.
A man's inheritance passes on to his wife / daughters, and not his sons, but it's pretty clearly worded that it's the *man's* inheritance, which suggests that the wife / daughters weren't expected to be the head of household or business owner or to control finances or own property if they had a living father / husband (since they were expected to inherit it from a dude).
That's matrilineal inheritance or kinship, rather than a matriarchy. There's a high caste warrior tribe in Kerala, India that uses a similar method (called Marumakkathayam among the Nair people). Family ties and inheritance through women, but men are in charge, at least overtly. Women are more important in this culture than the average in India, and are allowed to choose their partners (polyandry and temporary marriages used to happen among the Nairs), and in fact own the clan main houses (men live in smaller dwellings nearby or attached buildings). But their kings are men.
I meant Greyhawk, ya joik!
Sorry! I couldn't tell what you meant. My bad! :)
IMO, Golarion (very much *not* the setting in which Drow were first introduced) stepped in the right direction by not making the Drow, which, in this setting (Golarion), are even *more* inescapably evil, indelibly 'stained' and explicitly corrupted by demons, a matriarchal man-hater society of eeeeviil.
I'm sorry, man, but would you clarify? I'm... really not understanding this sentence.
[tangent to the tangent]
As for Golarion, which I didn't mention anyway, in that statement, while there are plenty of cases of women in charge (Queen Arbogail, Queen Galifrey), those aren't *matriarchal cultures.*
That's fine. I wasn't really sure. Thus the question!
Even Irrisen, the best example on the planet, where the daughters (and not the sons!) of Baba Yaga are indeed exclusively in charge, but even that culture isn't specifically matriarchal (even if the government is), because women don't dominate the household or family unit or culture, and aren't, like Greyhawk / Realms Drow, considered superior to their menfolk, just because a very tiny subset of women (who aren't even part of the local culture, or members of the local ethnicities) run the country.
I... find this an overly fine distinction, I think. I might be missing something, but it reads to me as if you're saying, "The women are in charge, but they're not really in charge, because they're only in charge of the government." which seems pretty strictly matriarchal in my view - especially as it's all about females inheriting power from other females who are in charge because they're female. The fact that they're all a family line doesn't make it non-matriarchal.
As a for-instance, the Kingship of England was (before certain queens stepped in and altered the culture) largely considered patriarchal due to the expectation that it would passed from father to son, even though it's a single family line. The same thing is happening in Irresen.
I also may be missing something from Reign of Winter (no spoilers, please!) or some other published literature, but how, exactly, are the women born if they're not of the local ethnicity? Do they import their matin' males from the Great Beyond or what?
I grant they're not necessarily representative of the commoner culture, but I find it hard to dominate their local households. And does it note that females are not dominant in the local culture of Irresen? I'm genuinely curious.
And would the menfolk have to inherently be considered inferior to be a matriarchal culture? If so, why? Wouldn't it, under that auspice, be impossible to find a non-evil culture?
If so, that strikes me as a strange double-standard - there are a number of instances where Patriarchal culture is institutionalized, not because one gender is considered inferior, but because it is considered different.
There might be matriarchal cultures on Golarion, such as trolls, IIRC, or those dinosaur-riding Amazons off the map somewhere, or in the greater universe outside of Golarion, such as the Lashunta, but that's not really relevant to Greyhawk.
[/tangent to the tangent]
I'd love to hear more about the Trolls, the Amazon culture you meant.
And my apologies again: I didn't know you meant Greyhawk! I wasn't trying to refute you on those grounds. :)
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IMO, Golarion (very much *not* the setting in which Drow were first introduced) stepped in the right direction by not making the Drow, which, in this setting (Golarion), are even *more* inescapably evil, indelibly 'stained' and explicitly corrupted by demons, a matriarchal man-hater society of eeeeviil.I'm sorry, man, but would you clarify? I'm... really not understanding this sentence.
What I mean here, is that, in Golarion, Drow aren't just 'Greyhawk evil' and are well beyond 'Forgotten Realms evil' (since the FR Drow have their own good goddess of redemption!), but are indelibly evil, explicitly corrupted by demons (and / or Rovagug) and, at least in some cases, did terrible things to earn that distinction and weren't just 'born that way.'
If Golarion Drow were also matriarchal, it would seem an even worse backhanded women-in-charge-is-cats-and-dogs-sleeping-together-unnatural message than it seemed in Greyhawk, since Golarion Drow are even more explicitly corrupt and evil and 'wrong.' Generally, irredeemably so.
And so, any unfortunate association linked to them (skin color, gender roles) runs the risk of being tainted with that 'incurably terriblybadnogood evil, wrong and unnatural' tag.
It's a good thing, IMO, that the gender stuff was dropped in Golarion, mostly, and that the Drow of Golarion aren't as gender-role-locked as they are in some other settings.
Even Irrisen, the best example on the planet, where the daughters (and not the sons!) of Baba Yaga are indeed exclusively in charge, but even that culture isn't specifically matriarchal (even if the government is), because women don't dominate the household or family unit or culture, and aren't, like Greyhawk / Realms Drow, considered superior to their menfolk, just because a very tiny subset of women (who aren't even part of the local culture, or members of the local ethnicities) run the country.I... find this an overly fine distinction, I think. I might be missing something, but it reads to me as if you're saying, "The women are in charge, but they're not really in charge, because they're only in charge of the government." which seems pretty strictly matriarchal in my view - especially as it's all about females inheriting power from other females who are in charge because they're female. The fact that they're all a family line doesn't make it non-matriarchal.
For me, the distinction is that the *country* doesn't seem to be matriarchal. 99.99% of the people in Irrisen *aren't* Baba Yaga's daughters, and the nation's culture doesn't do the matriarchy thing.
Baba Yaga only brings daughters to take over the reins of leadership, but that really means jack and squat to every other woman in Irrisen. Their lives aren't any better for it. Their roles in the household or status in the family or position in the eyes of the law or odds of getting eaten by a troll or winter wolf aren't any different than those of the men around them. The snows fall impartially on them all, and the crows watch on.
Irrisen, IMO, is about as 'matriarchal' as Cheliax, another evil nation that seems to have women holding the reins of power in most cases, and yet, that doesn't 'trickle down' to affect (or improve) the lives or positions of women who *aren't* the head of the church of Asmodeus, or sitting on the throne in Ergoran or Korvosa or whatever.
Tengus not enough for you Mikaze?Those are generally neutral. Also, pink-skinned. ;)I can honestly say I'd never considered tengus descended from flamingos until right now.
I had thought more about heron-folk, but flamingo-folk could be interesting too.
Would you want them introduced like the Dark Elves of the Elder Scrolls series? Dark ashen skin tones, but still just as capable of good or evil as anyone else, even if they tend to be a dour lot?
(That and giant mushroom and insect carapace architecture. Golarion needs more awesome fantasy architecture like that.)
The one thing I do like about Golarion's drow is that they became that way out of a free choice as well as outside corrupting influences. That serves to remind us that any society of our own could warp itself to evil--and do it willingly. Why? They are the same elves as the surface ones from Sovyrian. Different directions, different reasonable choices, different results.
(I should have talked about the gods when I had the chance, earlier... I felt that the people who passed the Test of the Starstone passed it for reasons other than wanting to become a god. Iomedae did it out of a sense of duty, and became the god of duty. Cayden Cailen did in on a drunken lark, and became the god of drunken larks. As for Norgorber... my headcanon is that he was an assassin hired to kill some champion. The champion went in to take the Test, and so Norgorber followed inside and did the deed. So, Norgorber took the Test to assassinate, and became god of assassins. None of them specifically took the test because they wanted to become a god.)
What I mean here, is that, in Golarion, Drow aren't just 'Greyhawk evil' and are well beyond 'Forgotten Realms evil' (since the FR Drow have their own good goddess of redemption!), but are indelibly evil, explicitly corrupted by demons (and / or Rovagug) and, at least in some cases, did terrible things to earn that distinction and weren't just 'born that way.'
If Golarion Drow were also matriarchal, it would seem an even worse backhanded women-in-charge-is-cats-and-dogs-sleeping-together-unnatural message than it seemed in Greyhawk, since Golarion Drow are even more explicitly corrupt and evil and 'wrong.' Generally, irredeemably so.
Well, the Drow are a matriarchal society, but they are not to represent all matriarchal societies.
They also seem to have non-human skin tones - purple-black to gray-black - so equating them with human races seems strange. That's a bit like saying grimlocks are an insult to Scandinavians because they are pale-skinned.
This was always my impression of drow (and grimlocks and similar creatures, for that matter), regardless of the setting, though I wasn't around for the earliest of art which, as I understand it, had rather racist undertones.
Anyway, Set, the drow still seem matriarchal. In fact, it's in their entry that since the preponderance of drow nobles are female, the society is matriarchal in nature.
As far as Irresen goes, I can see what you're saying. To me, it feels "off", though. Whereas I see Cheliax as a Queendom by way of Tradition, I see Irresen as an explicitly calling out certain females as inherently superior to all - very much so like the drow culture. I mean, they're noted as female here, and the entry on Irrisen in the PFWiki, it notes,
The people of Irrisen generally come trace their heritage to one of two sources. Either they are descended from the Ulfen that were enslaved by Baba Yaga or they are distantly descended from one of Irrisen's previous queens. Regardless of their heritage the people adore the White Witches though no one know whether this is genuine adoration or simply a result of Irrisen citizens fear of the terrifying witches. This adoration is put to the test when the changing of queens is imminent as before the arrival of Baba Yaga three knights; the white rider, the red rider and the black rider roam Irrisen assessing the loyalty of Baba Yaga's subjects. Those they find to be truly loyal are awarded with boons while cursing or completely destroying those they find to be disloyal. The people of Irrisen are generally quite isolated from the rest of Golarion as few traders ever visit Irrisen and just as few resident muster the courage to attempt to leave. They generally spend their days tending what few crops will grow in the harsh conditions.[4][2]
... which, to me, seems to indicate that they've at least partially internalized the whole thing. When I created my own home brewed town, I - without reallty attempting to - naturally created a matriarchal setting that was contrary to the ancient Ulfan traditions of the Land of the Linnorm Kings that Irresen was once a part of.
That said, I can see your take on it, too. It's interesting, and I'm wondering how much of either of our takes are simply a reflection of our own internal assumptions as opposed to the original intent.
But anyhoo, this is pretty off-topic by now, although an interesting one. We should start a new thread if we want to continue (which I'd be interested in doing, if you are).
I do understand that they were always supposed to be followers of Lolth - that was never in question. I recall reading an article (complete with images) recently that recounts and explains the unfortunate implications.
The point isn't that drow are a bad creation and people should feel bad, but that they can certainly be understood to be racist, intentionally or otherwise.
However, through all of my personal exposure, I've never taken it that way. This conversation has been had several times, though. There's lots of comprehensible opinions on all sides. :)
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... but that's another thread. :D
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...Even Irrisen, the best example on the planet, where the daughters (and not the sons!) of Baba Yaga are indeed exclusively in charge, but even that culture isn't specifically matriarchal (even if the government is), because women don't dominate the household or family unit or culture, and aren't, like Greyhawk / Realms Drow, considered superior to their menfolk, just because a very tiny subset of women (who aren't even part of the local culture, or members of the local ethnicities) run the country.
Among the proletariat Ulfen majority slave population, sure the matriarchy culture does not appreciably trickle down that we see the way it does top to bottom for Lolth-drow societies.
But the matriarchal cultural power seems to be strong throughout the whole population of Jadwigga. The leaders of most every city and town are Jaddwiga women. The white witches are on top everywhere in Irrisen that there are humans.
That's only Baba Yaga's descendants, but this is 1400 years of the families propogating and every 100 years a new branch daughter comes in with usually two or so generations of her daughter witches with her to take over the kingdom's (queendom's?) administration. I expect the number of Jadwigga is quite high.
Actually the more I think about it, the drow cities were based on huge numbers of non-drow slaves and I have no idea whether the bugbear servant women lorded it over the males, so that is a lot like the Irrisen Jadwigga and the Ulfen serfs.
Those are generally neutral. Also, pink-skinned. ;)
Well their beaks, arms and legs range from orange to black depending on the depiction.
All this aboleth talk made me think: what about an Azlantians Revisited book? Fill it full of stuff on the original Azlanti as well as their descendants: the gillmen, dark folk, morlocks, grimlocks, and mongrelmen.
Oooh...Azlantians Revisited...shut up and take my money!
Currently? That I don't have enough money to buy everything coming up in the next year and I'll have to sell a kidney to be able to go to PaizoCon =P But otherwise not enough APs that I'm interested in running any time soon =(
I've already complained enough in other threads and I dread being too repetitive.