You know, I don't really care if 'Good' and 'Evil' are objective metaphysical forces in Golarion-- that doesn't mean that they are objectively 'right' and 'wrong' in terms of any kind of functional sapient morality. They're just metaphysical forces, no different than Positive and Negative energy or the five Elemental forces.
If DrowVampyre wants to worship Calistria and murder a bunch of faithful, loving husbands and fathers in order to 'free' their oppressed wives and daughters... ain't none of us can say she's wrong for it. Calistria's just as much of a deity as Erastil is, ain't she? Calistria would approve of DrowVampyre's actions, wouldn't she?
Murder's what makes the world go around. After all, without murder wouldn't all of us be out of business?
Remember, having opposing views from a feminist means you don't deserve to exist.First of all, speaking as a fellow man, please do not say ignorant things like this. Feminism is the single greatest thing to happen to our backward, suffering society. Feminism paved the way for gay rights, it was the first movement en masse to question the patriarchy of the church (freethought groups have been around forever, but we've always been too small in number until the 21st century to affect real change), feminism for all of its vilification was the movement that allowed men to define our own roles.
In short, feminism is awesome. "Feminist" does not even necessarily mean female. When you conflate it as meaning a man-hating woman, you're doing a huge disservice to an important struggle against forces that would see not just women's rights, but the rights of men and gays and the poor and religious pluralism set back a century.
I am fairly sure it wasn't aimed at feminism in general rather mocking the narrow minded viewpoints of represented feminist here. Feminists have been depending on the openmindedness of people to gain equal rights, it would be nothing but short of disrespectful to close your mind to people that want to live life differently. In short I do not respect people that only preach ideals from an egocentric point of view.
Giving feminists permission to attack traditionalist's way of life isn't equality, giving people freedom to choose their path is, the other way is just rolereversal.
Not a cleric at all, if you want to actually keep her to a character I have any affinity for. I should note, however, that your party will almost certainly die if you were to do something like this - my characters also tend to have an "if it's my enemy there's no such thing as overkill" attitude, so, y'know...not so much for the setting up of level-appropriate challenges once you're on her radar. ^_-
And I never said anything about going around destroying towns, just the Erastilian churches and faith - I'd much prefer to undermine those so all his worshippers abandon him for more deserving deities.
I am fairly sure it wasn't aimed at feminism in general rather mocking the narrow minded viewpoints of represented feminist here. Feminists have been depending on the openmindedness of people to gain equal rights, it would be nothing but short of disrespectful to close your mind to people that want to live life differently. In short I do not respect people that only preach ideals from an egocentric point of view.
Giving feminists permission to attack traditionalist's way of life isn't equality, giving people freedom to choose their path is, the other way is just rolereversal.
Well, I don't respect people who consider misogyny, sexism, or whatever you want to call it a valid way of life, and the abolition of such (being that feminism is, once again, about equality for the sexes, not turning men into chattel or something) "role reversal", so I guess we'll just have to disrespect each other, hmm? But I'm willing to simply ignore you if you are likewise, instead of sniping at each other.
I think that DrowVampyre's character would make a terrific BBEG for a campaign.A Cleric of Urgathoa, (The Misandrist herself) moving about the land consuming small Erastil-aligned villages in fire and undeath?
Nothing so crass. An adherent of Desna or Milani would work better. She's completely sure that her stance is morally superior, but is not aware that her actions undermine it to the point where it's not supportable anymore.
@DrowVampyre: Your character will certainly be unplayable if she stirrs up trouble in every village the party comes through. That's why I said it would make a great adversary.
You know, at first glance, I hadn't expected to enjoy this thread so much! xP
So I've just had an interesting notion for an AP - Temple of the Dead Gods, or something similar. It would center largely around various cults/orders of long-lost deities - in particular, Curchanus and Thron. Oh, and I suppose Aroden would be unavoidable. Curchanus and Thron, though, are wild, and that would be a large part of the theme of the thing. Temple of the Wild Gods, maybe? Hrm. Anyroad, I figure Lamashtu and Erastil would be most threatened by any attempts to restore these old wild gods - perhaps to the point of joining forces? Or at least of not interfering with one another. Maybe we'll discover that Erastil has actually benefited from this alliance in the past, that he was the one who felled Curchanus to begin with? All 'for the good of the people,' of course. That wild aspect isn't conducive to home and hearth, after all.
Ooh, and on that note, I suppose Erastil views sex as a necessary discomfort, useful only for breeding. I think a bawdy Paladin of Calistria would be a wonderfully flavorful character, and much more interesting than those bloody Iomedan paladins.
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This is building to one of those cliche movie moments, where the Anti-Erastil is standing over the defeated remnants of Erastil's champions, and just as she is reveling in her victory, she is struck from behind by one of the champion's wives. As she turns to deal with the new threat, she sees all the women from the local community bearing cudgels, sickles, hoes, and other assorted make-shift weapons. Anti-Erastil backs away, parrying the first clumsy attacks.
Anti-Erastil: "What are you doing?"
Woman: "Defending our families from a monster!"
Anti-Erastil: "You fools! I'm trying to free you from narrow-minded oppression!"
Woman: "So are we!"
Ooh, and on that note, I suppose Erastil views sex as a necessary discomfort, useful only for breeding. I think a bawdy Paladin of Calistria would be a wonderfully flavorful character, and much more interesting than those bloody Iomedan paladins.
Calistria cannot have Paladins. Unless you're one of the ones who disregards that aspect. In that case have at it.
Why can't she? She's a deity; paladins champion deities.
All deities, even the ones in our actual world - whether real or not - represent a particular set of values. Logically, any deity can be championed by any individual who seeks to uphold those values. Historically, paladins were by no means 'lawful good,' if you could even offer me a satisfactory definition of 'good.' They've been pigeonholed by this crazy pseudo-traditionalism, though. Shame, really - it's a very rich area, conceptually.
[Edit] - On an unrelated note, I'm loving this absurdly expanding characterization of DV, aren't you? 'I wouldn't help the fool if he were in trouble,' has turned into a bloody rampage of raping and pillaging across the land, slaughter of all male creatures - everywhere - and oppressively long-winded speeches to all females. Whew! What a fantasical feminazi stereotype! And I said she was overzealous? I stand corrected.
Why can't she? She's a deity; paladins champion deities.
All deities, even the ones in our actual world - whether real or not - represent a particular set of values. Logically, any deity can be championed by any individual who seeks to uphold those values. Historically, paladins were by no means 'lawful good,' if you could even offer me a satisfactory definition of 'good.' They've been pigeonholed by this crazy pseudo-traditionalism, though. Shame, really - it's a very rich area, conceptually.
Paladins are specifically Lawful Good, but as I said if you change that aspect have at it.
Nothing so crass. An adherent of Desna or Milani would work better. She's completely sure that her stance is morally superior, but is not aware that her actions undermine it to the point where it's not supportable anymore.
@DrowVampyre: Your character will certainly be unplayable if she stirrs up trouble in every village the party comes through. That's why I said it would make a great adversary.
Oh, she certainly could be, if I were playing the sort that openly goes around causing trouble. I tend to do things more subtly than that, but hey, if I'm giving inspiration for an NPC, go for it. ^_-
As for the characterization of "not supportable anymore", all I'll say there is that change for the better is very seldom had while playing nice. As with pretty much any sort of revolution, it happens at swordpoint (gunpoint/wandpoint/etc.) or not at all, or so dreadfully slowly that many more people will suffer for it. And even that isn't likely to happen when the one fuelling the problem is immortal and worshipped as a literal god.
You know, at first glance, I hadn't expected to enjoy this thread so much! xP
So I've just had an interesting notion for an AP - Temple of the Dead Gods, or something similar. It would center largely around various cults/orders of long-lost deities - in particular, Curchanus and Thron. Oh, and I suppose Aroden would be unavoidable. Curchanus and Thron, though, are wild, and that would be a large part of the theme of the thing. Temple of the Wild Gods, maybe? Hrm. Anyroad, I figure Lamashtu and Erastil would be most threatened by any attempts to restore these old wild gods - perhaps to the point of joining forces? Or at least of not interfering with one another. Maybe we'll discover that Erastil has actually benefited from this alliance in the past, that he was the one who felled Curchanus to begin with? All 'for the good of the people,' of course. That wild aspect isn't conducive to home and hearth, after all.
Ooh, and on that note, I suppose Erastil views sex as a necessary discomfort, useful only for breeding. I think a bawdy Paladin of Calistria would be a wonderfully flavorful character, and much more interesting than those bloody Iomedan paladins.
Ooh, that sounds like it could be a lot of fun, actually. Sort of a "bring the wild back to civilization" thing, on one hand, and a chance to really explore the dead gods in a lot more detail. I like! ^_^
And if I ever manage to play a paladin, I'm so doing that Paladin of Calistria thing. Technically, I think any deity can have paladins, since they don't have the alignment restriction like clerics do of being within 1 step (yes, they have to be lawful good, but every deity, or at least most of them, has worshippers that are more than 1 step away). But I could only ever play a pally under a very specific sort of GM, so...yeah. Inquisitor of Calistria, however... ^_-
On an unrelated note, I'm loving this absurdly expanding characterization of DV, aren't you? 'I wouldn't help the fool if he were in trouble,' has turned into a bloody rampage of raping and pillaging across the land, slaughter of all male creatures - everywhere - and oppressively long-winded speeches to all females. Whew! What a fantasical feminazi stereotype! And I said she was overzealous? I stand corrected.
Mmhmm. Apparently I have a throne made up of the skulls of every man I've ever come across or something. <_< To be fair, I could have been clearer on certain points. "Seeing his church burn" and such seems to have been taken to mean "gleefully skipping through town in broad daylight tossing torches into the church", as opposed to working sneakily to perhaps occasionally literally burn a church, but more often to undermine his faith (his "church", as an entity rather than a physical location), allow any harm that's coming to befall both physical church and church-entity (but not the random townsfolk - the idea is to make them want to put their faith in someone else, with a bit of nudging as needed), and, eventually, see said faith disappear forever, either because all of his worshippers have turned away, or because someone else decided he was ripe for the killing and did so to take over his divine sphere (faith destroyed completely, ie "burned").
As for the characterization of "not supportable anymore", all I'll say there is that change for the better is very seldom had while playing nice. As with pretty much any sort of revolution, it happens at swordpoint (gunpoint/wandpoint/etc.) or not at all, or so dreadfully slowly that many more people will suffer for it. And even that isn't likely to happen when the one fuelling the problem is immortal and worshipped as a literal god.
As history shows, revolutions rarely change anything for the better (from the top of my head, I can think of only two-and-a-half examples where it did, and one of them was non-violent).
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I think that the element of Erastil having somewhat misogynistic attitude toward women was an error.
Erastil is our lawful good god of the family, among other things. The idea that our most widespread lawful good deity in the setting would think that half of every family (the mothers and daughters) is somehow less important than the other half is ridiculous, and that's an element of the deity's ethos that I'm going to ret-con as soon as I can. You'll note, for example, that his entry in the Inner Sea World Guide doesn't mention anything at all about the idea that women are less important than men.This element ranks with the idea of "paladins of Asmodeus" as one of the few development mis-steps we've had with our deities.
So again, from another thread, I said how much this made me sad. I can understand WHY JJ wants to ret-con Erastil, but I can't say that I agree with it. Maybe I just take a different tack on Erastil's particular foibles than others, but I consider his inclusion of a dated or backwards teaching as interesting and provocative (in a good way) on a number of different levels.
It fits in with the idea of an aging, dated, stodgy, and paternalistic all-father. It provides a fault among the celestial choir that is in keeping with the warty bits of other all-fathers like Odin and Zeus. It hearkens back to classical stereo-tropes of the damsel in distress and other less-than-perfectly-PC foundations of fantasy literature which have drawn many of us to the game. It provides a point of inter-party friction without necessarily being so combative as to threaten to derail a game, and a chance for role play perspectives and character growths as some of their chauvinistic beliefs are challenged by strong, capable, independent people of all genders and sexualities.
On a larger level, it also demonstrates that good is not necessarily any more monolithic than is evil. It can demonstrate that different people can have different ideas of what is good, and how to achieve it. It allows for subtle variances in the philosophy of the clergy and adherents of a particular faith that are reflected in our own world.
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Responding from the other thread:
So the god of the mythical American Frontier?
Other than that, tribal societies tended to be more egalitarian and less misogynistic than European civilization at least. As did earlier more "barbaric" European cultures.And whatever the men thought of it, the women often provided as much or more than the men. Especially in hunter/gatherer societies.
And with access to magic, even low level magic, both birth rates (there have to be easy to access birth control charms) and child mortality rates drop drastically. Women don't have to spend their whole lives pregnant and taking care of young children in hopes of a few surviving. I'm not talking needing more than a village priest, hedge witch or tribal shaman type here. A couple of 1st or 0 level spells...
Do you have any specific examples of these "barbaric" cultures that were more egalitarian?
And your argument about access to magic affecting birth control rates and child mortality assumes two things- first, that you're right (which I don't think I can concede, given that I've never seen the condom cantrip, nor the first level spell that can cure a disease or cause crops to grow when the weather doesn't cooperate), and second it assumes a village priest. Which comes from a village. Which is not a given in a frontier setting.
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I assume there's no birth control cantrip because the game just doesn't get into that. A simple cure light wounds heals cuts before they can get infected, which was a serious threat. Epidemic disease was more of a civilized problem. Famine is an issue, but not a constant one.
And yes, if you're assuming a couple of families settling in the wilderness, then you won't have a priest. But that's rare. And Erastil is a god of community. Of tribes and farming villages, not just of individuals.
And the frontier setting tends to be an aberration. It doesn't last long. If it's safe enough for individual settlers to move in, more follow...
Your point about Erastil being a God of community is well taken, and the process by which frontiers transform into villages and then into communities is a constant, if gradual one.
Famine. Disease. Accident. Infection. Privation. Flood. Predators. Nature is absolutely full of things that kill people off. Children are especially vulnerable to many of these. CLW is not the end-all be all. I don't know that it knits bones correctly. I don't think it can restore sight or reduce a fever. And it requires a timely application, which can't be guaranteed in a rural setting. The presence of low level spells cantrips doesn't diminish the threat to survival posed by harsh frontier living. Even in areas with access to modern medicine, rural areas have a higher instance of child mortality and lower life expectancy.
The communities, cultures, and tribes you pointed to all had "more freedom" for their females, but concentrated the power and authority in the hands of the males. Women may have had special roles, may have enjoyed great respect, but still lacked authority. Men dominated tribal councils ranging from the Cherokee to the Celtic.
More egalitarian patriarchies are still patriarchic. Which is to say that there's nothing in Erastil's creed or background that leads me to believe he favors a more restrictive or coercive patriarchy over one where women are held in higher regard or given more say while still maintaining the ultimate authority in the hands of males.
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From the other thread:
I think you're confusing "patriarchy" with "patriarch," Beckett. One is an evil and oppressive system that promotes inequality between the genders, and the other is a man in a position of authority, who can -- as can all humans -- be wise or foolish as he skews as an individual.And what makes a 'patriarchy' inherently evil? Any more than a matriachy/I don't recall saying that a matriarchy would be good, anywhere. :-)
Determining whether people should be allowed to hold positions of power based on something as arbitrary and meaningless as XX chromosomes vs XY chromosomes is wrong. End of story.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i8wy&page=50?Homosexuality-in-Golarion#249 4
Why is patriarchy so much more objectionable than monarchy, oligarchy, or any other 'archy' that exists in Golarion predicated on the idea of hereditary (that is to say, genetic) transfer of power?
Why is it that Erastil's views are "wrong. End of story." but we can have neutral or even good kingdoms?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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From my post
Put me also in the "Erastil is not a Misogynist" camp.
From a Lawful (and low magic) way, the role of women as the civilizing influence while men are the hunter/gatherers makes sense. Now clearly magic can change that, but I don't see create milk or induce lactation on the cantrip/low level spell list. That's not misogyny, that's biology.
Now for the good aspect of it would be that you don't force a woman into the 'barefoot and pregnant' role, anymore than you force the man into the bread winner role. I can picture an Erastil who prefers the woman to be the one to maintain the house, while the man goes out and earns the food/gold to maintain the house. But he doesn't enforce those roles. Erastil isn't going to send a celestial templated stag to trample the woman hunter, nor is he going to burn down the house of Mr. Mom. He will be pissed if the house is unclean, the kids aren't fed, and they're on foodstamps.
Edit: Fixed tags.
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@the Jeff,
Actually a patriarchy doesn't automatically mean that the role of all women is limited. It means that they won't be king/emporer/lord. It *doesn't* preclude them from power by other means. (power behind the throne comes to mind, as does power through influence, guilds, etc.
The 'limits' on female PCs are the same for the limits on male PCs in a patriarchy. Either way, it's going to require a campaign, or GM fiat, to put a PC on the throne.
As to 'not having strong class limitations...' Have you been to Taldor recently?
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Why is patriarchy so much more objectionable than monarchy, oligarchy, or any other 'archy' that exists in Golarion predicated on the idea of hereditary (that is to say, genetic) transfer of power?Why is it that Erastil's views are "wrong. End of story." but we can have neutral or even good kingdoms?
Perhaps because patriarchy (to some degree, depending on how extreme) oppresses half the population, while hereditary monarchies only really determine who sits at the very top?
So rather than 50% of the population being oppressed, it's ~95-99.9% of the population being denied rights?
Are you sure this advances your position?
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What dismays me most about the Erastil debate is that it's just more ammunition that good alignments are inherently fragile. It doesn't matter what Erastil does to help people, protect them, he's got a significant wart on his character and that can't be good.
And that's why I thought having a sexist LG god was a gutsy move. It said, in no uncertain terms, that good isn't perfect. Good can have foibles. Good can have backward attitudes and still be good. It challenged the notion that good is fragile.
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I agree Bill,
We can have evil characters who love, and care for people, and they're still evil.
But give one good deity a 'backwards' attitude, (and amusingly as others have pointed out, with no evidence of this attitude ever existing to be backwards to begin with) and suddenly he can't be good.
New idea. Erastil isn't backwards! He's the future, man! He's a bold innovator giving new directions!
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I haven't read through all the recent spat of replies (read through this thread before it was revived)
Personally...for a rural god...I actually think Patriarchy makes LESS sense than for other dieties. I think people have this idea that in the Middle age or earlier, women did the housework and men made the living, but that has more to do with the 1950's than the 1350's. In reality, men and women labored next to one another in the same fields to get the harvest in. There simply was to much field work for women to stay home and clean house. I think you really only start getting sex-based differences in labor as head up the social ladder. And for the most part, Erastil probably is not popular amongst the merchant and noble classes, who have interests that probably align more towards Abadar.
I still imagine that Erastil is the grumpy granddad to the Gods, despairing of all those new gadgets that lighten farmwork, or complaining that people are just not faithful to the land like they were million years ago. And certainly he is not going to be a romantic god with liberal views towards relationships...basically marry young and grow a family, and stay faithful to your family.
But I don't think he needs to be telling women to get in the kitchen and make him a pie, so to speak. And honestly I don't think those are the elements that Pathfinder has been playing up.