Monstrous interspecies romance? In Golarion?

[QuietBrowser]

Something I've noticed while flicking through the four core bestiaries for Pathfinder alone is that quite a few monstrous races are depicted as depending on human(oid) partners from other species to propagate themselves. Harpies, hags, sirens, thriae, jorogumo - and those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Now, the books are also quite clear that generally, such races keep their monstrous status by the way they treat their partners - jorogumo, for example, borrow the motif of Ravenloft's Red Widow and use the sires of their offspring as food for said offspring once they hatch, for example. And Pathfinder in general is pretty strong on the "Always Chaotic Evil" thing.

But still, I found myself wondering: is it at all possible that, in Golarion, some monstrous races could actually fall in love with humans or humanoids? Not necessarily to the point of changing their alignment, but even if Love Redeems isn't necessarily true, Even Evil Has Loved Ones, as they say.

I mean, harpies might be Chaotic Evil as a race, but the Chaos part of that alignment is just as important as the Evil part.* Hags might be black-hearted, but that doesn't mean there isn't room in their hearts for some twisted sliver of love - hell, Planescape: Torment has Ravel Puzzlewell's sincere love for The Nameless One as an important backstory element, and I know a Dragon Magazine article included a magic item made from the head of a green hag who died after watching the evil human ranger she truly loved by murdered by her jealous sisters**.

And that's not getting into Pathfinder hints on the matter, such as Irabeth (Wrath of the Righteous) and Tsadok Goldtooth (Skull & Shackles), who were both born of loving human/orc couples, or the comment about Sirens dying of heartbreak from losing their human paramours in their bestiary entry, or Undrella (harpy, Legacy of Fire) and Greta (winter wolf, Reign of Winter), who are both romanceable *and* redeemable NPCs.

I guess what I'm asking is this:
#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non-monster, in the Pathfinder setting?

#2: Do you think such a character actually fits in the world that is Golarion?

#3: Have you ever made use of such a couple, or encountered such a couple, in your Pathfinder games?

* Which is, incidentally, why the writeup about it "being traditional" to eat the fathers of their daughters after being fertilized in the Classic Monsters splatbook never made sense to me; chaotic races are, by their very nature, not prone to such regularized behavior. A harpy could kill and eat their partner after sex, yes, but she'd do so on a whim. She'd be just as likely to figure on keeping him alive until she grows bored, especially if she thought he was a pretty good lay. And if some other harpy complains? She beats her up. That's Chaotic Evil in a nutshell: you do what *you* want to do, and to the Abyss with everyone else and what they think of it.

But then, on this chain of thought, I made a homebrew setting where harpies *used* to act like Golarion ones, except that the harpies who kept their lovers alive produced more daughters, who grew up healthier (the fathers would take special care of the chicks they fathered to convince their "spouses" to spare them and/or to gain them as allies), and eventually they became the dominant strain of the species. Classic Pathfinder-style man-eaters remain a fringe minority pushed to the backwater regions, whilst the "normal" harpy was a still-dangerous, but less hostile, Chaotic Neutral race that wasn't so opposed to civilization, even being a valid player race (using Strix stats, if one is curious).

** No, I can't remember the item name, the article (I think it was a Bazaar of the Bizarre, focused on either Hag items or Swamp items) or the issue number. I would love to find out. I dimly remember another item from the article being a cloak of swamp reeds and the like that had... some effect, I can't remember if it was Pass Without Trace or an Extradimensional Mansion type effect that only worked in swamp environments.

[Mikaze]

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non-monster, in the Pathfinder setting?

#2: Do you think such a character actually fits in the world that is Golarion?

#3: Have you ever made use of such a couple, or encountered such a couple, in your Pathfinder games?

Yes to all three, absolutely. People are people, no matter what they are, and all sorts of people are drawn to other sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.

My half-orc barbarian is the child of a consensual and loving union between an orc and a Shoanti. I honestly prefer that kind of origin as the norm for half-orcs. A naga/human NPC couple is going to be a complicating factor in an upcoming campaign.(and there's another in a Pathfinder novel!) That same campaign already has a harpy/catfolk couple built in as written. Also have a hobgoblin/human Molthruni NPC couple built into a Nirmathas/Molthrune adventure I hope to run some day. (and I don't even want to get into the dynamics going on in that isolated drow/svirfneblin/azruverda enclave I've got in the Crown of the World)

And hell, my first contribution to a commercial product was a race born from gnome/flumph unions. So I'm definitely an advocate. ;)

The alignments listed in the Bestiary are just the general norms, never a locked in fact for all individuals of that race beyond certain outsiders(and even then there are exceptions such as fallen angels and risen fiends). Personally, the game is much richer when other races are given a wide spectrum to pull from rather than "All X are Y".

[QuietBrowser]

From what few of your posts I have seen in my short time here, Mikaze, I rather expected that you would have a positive answer to my questions. I must confess I never expected you to actually post here, though.

As for your stance on half-orcs, I must confess a preference for that sort of mutual consensual origin myself. Honestly? I can't help but feel that Paizo sticks to emphasizing the "half-orcs are children of rape" thing more to emphasize their status as Darker & Edgier than D&D, for all their talk about it emphasizing the heroicness of the half-orc adventurer. In theory that may be true, in practice... can anyone name an important major Paizo-written half-orc who actually *was* a rape-brat? The only three I can immediately recall off the top of my head are Irimjka (whose earliest origins are "found as a mysteriously abandoned baby in a graveyard"), Irabeth Tirablade (orc father chose to give up his tribe and evil viewpoint because he fell in love with a human woman) and Tsadok Goldtooth (human father befriended orc mother while they were slaves together on a pirate ship, she helped him escape, they fell in love).

Anyway, to answer my own question, I obviously believe the first two questions deserve a "yes" answer. Ultimately, I think the idea adds a lot more to the setting, and offer a lot of potential for story-hooks and character concepts. It can be played for comedy or grotesquery, yes, but it can also be played for other things.

The reclusive spellcaster/librarin and his gynosphinx companion becomes instantly memorable when the subtle hints of them being a couple are recognized. Killing a Jadwiga warlock, only for his winter wolf ally to scream in heartbreak and go berserk at the sight of her lover's death adds a definite element to the encounter. The hag who lives in tenuous peace with the nearby village so long as her lover and their changeling daughter is left alone, the medusa terrorizing a village because she's in love with a local youth or maiden and demands they give him/her up to be her concubine, the thria queen sending the party to track down the renegade soldier who fell in love with and stole away her latest consort, the "kidnapped" prince who refuses to leave his siren lover...

But then, I'm more than slightly mad, so maybe these scenarios that keep popping up in my head really don't work and aren't meant to be.

[Sissyl]

I don't remember where it was from... but somewhere, there was a description of an adventure plot: A nearby medusa had kidnapped a young man from the village. So, the heroes go over there, and, finding him still alive, hit the young man with good old dispel magic, repeatedly, with no success. Turns out the medusa was the only nice, attractive girl that would give him the time of day...

[The black raven]

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non-monster, in the Pathfinder setting?

Yes, if they can actually feel love. Some species usually cannot (Oozes ?)

Quote:

#2: Do you think such a character actually fits in the world that is Golarion?

Absolutely yes. If you can have redeemed demons and good undead, however rare, you can have your own exception to the norm. Just remember that the vast majority of the species should follow the norm for it, otherwise it devalues the exception.

Quote:

#3: Have you ever made use of such a couple, or encountered such a couple, in your Pathfinder games?

Not that I remember. Does not matter though : it's your game ;-)

[Alleran]

The black raven wrote:

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non-monster, in the Pathfinder setting?

Yes, if they can actually feel love. Some species usually cannot (Oozes ?)

It should also be pointed out that one creature's form of "love" may be very different to that of another. I believe the entry for deities that deals with Shelyn and how the other deities "love" her is quite self-explanatory in that regard.

[Jeven]

When you see this sort of thing its almost always the "Beauty and the Beast" trope - horrifically ugly monstrous male gets hot normal chick.

The reverse with a gruesomely ugly woman (like a hag or female of some monstrous race) and a handsome man is always negative -- she is using magic to ensnare him or, much like a she-spider, will ultimately devour him. The monstrous females often have the ability to appear as beautiful maidens which is also a cheat.

I'm curious if Mikaze's listings of couples are all male-monster meets normal woman.

[Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal]

Jeven wrote:

I'm curious if Mikaze's listings of couples are all male-monster meets normal woman.

Nope.

[Mikaze]

Posting on the move and have more to say later, but:

Jeven wrote:

I'm curious if Mikaze's listings of couples are all male-monster meets normal woman.

Nope!

My barbarian's parents - Male orc, female Shoanti
That upcoming Kaer Magan couple - Female naga, male human
That catfolk/harpy couple - Female catfolk, female harpy
That novel couple - Female naga, male human
That hobgoblin/human Molthruni couple - female hobgbolin, male human

And throwing in a small sample of other positive and loving couples from my games, Pathfinder and D&D material that I've seen here and elsewhere, and personal writan as well as including couples that go against the male/female=beast/beauty trope:

Female orc/male elf
Male human/male cecaelia
Genderless aasimar/female hunchbacked human
Male kobold paladin/female silver-dragon-blooded human sorceress
Male celestial-bloodline bishounen sorcerer/female wasting-curse leper-like oracle
Female goblin rogue/male human paladin
Female forlarren/male half-elf
Loving orc/human couples of all configurations
Female planetar/female kyton
Female protean/male Grant Morrison-expy
Female gnoll/male human (this one is not so healthy, but bears mentioning)
Male orc/male elf
Multiple female medusas/male or female other race
Female medusa/male human paladin
Male reformed bogeyman/female gnome witch
Female-identified silthilar swarm/Gender-fluid transhuman

Also, Valeros/Imrijka is best couple

[Mikaze]

Oh, and one male human/female thri-kreen.

Oh that Internet.

[Odraude]

There are stories in Japanese mythology of more positive relationships between men and jorogumos (as well as the rokurokubi). So, it is certainly possible for these creatures to have healthy relationships if the story calls for it. Also, Pathfinder specifically got rid of the "Always/Usually X alignment" so that it could open up more story possibilities.

[feytharn]

You might be interested in the Pathfinder Novel 'Pirate's Honor' featuring a Human / Naga couple as main protagonists and is an awesome book anyway.

[QuietBrowser]

Actually, Mikaze, there's two of those human man on female thri-kreen stories up now, that I know of. The famous one from /tg/ on the 1D4chan wiki, and a newer one on a website called SoFurry.

The only problem with a "safe" jorogumo/man relationship in Pathfinder, Odraude, is that Pathfinder Jorogumos differ from their mythological variants by having a parasitic reproduction system. Mythological jorogumos simply chose to eat humans or feed humans to their offspring; Pathfinder's ones reproduce by being inseminated, paralyzing the father, and then laying their eggs into the father's paralysed body, out of which the hatchlings will fatally eat their way upon hatching. Rather puts a kink in the relationship.

Not to say I couldn't see, say, a tragic Romeo & Juliet type scenario (the man is willing to die to father his lover's children, the jorogumo doesn't want to have children if it means killing her lover), or a murder-mystery type scenario where the jorogumo is instead killing other men and/or women to serve as broodhosts in place of her lover, but it's still a rather limited setup.

[Mosaic]

Was it Reign of Winter where there was a woodsman and his hollow-wooden-with-a-fox-tail-thing lover? If I remember correctly, they were perfectly happy.

[Odraude]

That is correct. Also Kaer Maga is a host of this, with a catfolk/harpy coupling in Shattered Star.

[Jeffrey Swank]

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non monster

Quietly sings to himself, "a tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast..."

[Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal]

zerzix wrote:

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non monster

Quietly sings to himself, "a tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast..."

Doesn't really count. The Beast never particularly thought of himself as a monster, he thought of himself as a man victimized.

[Landon Winkler]

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non-monster, in the Pathfinder setting?

Sure, as far as the monstrous humanoid is capable of falling in love at all.

QuietBrowser wrote:

#2: Do you think such a character actually fits in the world that is Golarion?

Absolutely. So much so that Paizo includes stuff like this.

This thread totally makes me want to read Pirate's Honor.

QuietBrowser wrote:

#3: Have you ever made use of such a couple, or encountered such a couple, in your Pathfinder games?

Outside of official material, we also had a whole family of half-orcs whose parentage was completely consensual. Their orcish mother preferred human men (both taste-wise and for political reasons) and, although she wasn't one for long-term relationships, she found plenty of men willing to get over the initial shock.

We also had a weird case of creepy inbred half-giants (based very loosely on a certain trap-happy family of half-ogres) whose matriarch got new blood for the family by trading her spellcasting abilities for families' unwanted children. The ethical implications there were snarled, but the adoptee they met seemed happy enough with her situation that the PCs decided not to worry about it.

That campaign also briefly touched on some drow/reskinned-aranea relationships, which were fairly positive. At least, they were way more positive than the drow/drow relationships. Can't say that about the drow/orc relationships, although that wasn't the orcs' faults.

Honestly, I think it's more interesting how we gloss over elf/human relationships.

Cheers!
Landon

[J. Chris Harris]

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

[Shadowborn]

J. Chris Harris wrote:

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

My albino, Mwangi, aberrant-bloodlined sorcerer did just that.

[Mystic_Snowfang]

Now I wanna see a guy and a female drider having a healthy relationship. Maybe a Drider who fled from the drow or something? And the dude is a total aracnophile.

[MMCJawa]

My personal preference is for it to be remarkably rare to non-existent, when it involves non 0 HD races. I just prefer when possible to give other species a more alien psychology, and part of that is simply not having mutual attraction between creatures of very different psychologies and mindsets.

[Judy Bauer]

Also in Skull & Shackles:

Spoiler:

Hurricane King Kerdack Bonefist's partner, Hyapatia, is a lamia—she's out to him and his first mate, but otherwise keeps her nature a secret. They are very much in love, and on their (NE/CE) date nights, they like to watch blood sports at Port Peril's arenas and host violent orgies.

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

zerzix wrote:

QuietBrowser wrote:

#1: Do you think it's possible that a monstrous humanoid could actually fall in love with a non monster

Quietly sings to himself, "a tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast..."

Doesn't really count. The Beast never particularly thought of himself as a monster, he thought of himself as a man victimized.

Also, Stockholm Syndrome isn't necessarily the same as love. Of course, that could also be a problem with some of these other pairings...

[Sissyl]

Judy Bauer wrote:

Also in Skull & Shackles:

** spoiler omitted **

Ah, sweet, sweet love. =)

[Seth Parsons]

Judy Bauer wrote:

Also in Skull & Shackles:

** spoiler omitted **

Truly a love the skalds can sing about!

[SAMAS]

Reign of Winter also explicitly gives you the suggesting of romancing a winter wolf in human form. And, as with Undrella (the Harpy from Legacy of Fire) mentioned before, it's also explicitly stated that you can even change their alignment.

Pathfinder's way of justifying Always Chaotic Evil is usually through having those creatures/races be primarily patronized by an evil deity or D(a)emon Lord/Archdevil. Changing them Good is usually doable if you can get rid of that.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

There are canon relationships between humans and nagas (where would Nagaji come from after all).

Kingmaker:

Irovetti's girlfriend is a naga.

[QuietBrowser]

I would like to point out that I am aware of Greta and Undrella - I mentioned them in my first post. I was asking if folks here think the idea of relationships between humanoids and monsters "fits the setting", since Pathfinder is the Darker & Edgier setting.

It's fairly obvious that the writers seem to think so, given the Adventure Path evidence that has been presented, I was just curious if anyone disagreed with it or agreed with it or simply didn't care either way.

I must say, I've been pleasantly surprised by the responses I've been getting here.

Also: Dudemeister? I thought Nagaji were descended from humans artificially transformed by naga, not literal human/naga crossbreeds?

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

QuietBrowser wrote:

I would like to point out that I am aware of Greta and Undrella - I mentioned them in my first post. I was asking if folks here think the idea of relationships between humanoids and monsters "fits the setting", since Pathfinder is the Darker & Edgier setting.

It's fairly obvious that the writers seem to think so, given the Adventure Path evidence that has been presented, I was just curious if anyone disagreed with it or agreed with it or simply didn't care either way.

I must say, I've been pleasantly surprised by the responses I've been getting here.

Also: Dudemeister? I thought Nagaji were descended from humans artificially transformed by naga, not literal human/naga crossbreeds?

You might be right, I never paid close attention to the nagaji (because Serpentfolk are my snake-mans of choice).

[Sovereign Wyrm]

Not a fan of this sort of thing in the least. I'm willing to allow for human and humanlike pairings (elf, dwarf...in extremis...orc) but these other things...it's too fairytale for me. I like my fantasy more along the lines of S&S or High Fantasy where that which is inhuman is more alien and less "humans with scales" or "humans with wings" or "humans with tentacles." If humans on Golarion are anything like humans on earth there are few things more repellent for most than the thought of having an intimate relationship with something that, to a human's mind, is more akin to an animal in form than a man. Elves have a beauty that many humans would idealize and some significantly smaller percentage I would think would be drawn to halflings, gnomes and dwarves. These still would fall within the boundaries of "exotic" human appearance in regards to attraction.

If something wildly magical like a dragon takes human shape and can, for some reason, find a hairless ape romantically/sexually appealing ok. My concern is with human(like) pairings with monstrous or alien types of beings that cannot change form. What would a human find appealing in, for example, a minotaur, outside of a friendship perhaps? It's the necessity of adding a sexual component that I can't wrap my head around in regards to any but the most fetishistic human wanting to mate with a cow headed creature.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Not a fan of this sort of thing in the least. I'm willing to allow for human and humanlike pairings (elf, dwarf...in extremis...orc) but these other things...it's too fairytale for me. I like my fantasy more along the lines of S&S or High Fantasy where that which is inhuman is more alien and less "humans with scales" or "humans with wings" or "humans with tentacles." If humans on Golarion are anything like humans on earth there are few things more repellent for most than the thought of having an intimate relationship with something that, to a human's mind, is more akin to an animal in form than a man.

If something wildly magical like a dragon takes human shape and can, for some reason, find a hairless ape romantically/sexually appealing ok..but I have to ask why? What would a human find appealing in, for example, a minotaur, outside of a friendship perhaps? It's the necessity of adding a sexual component that I can't wrap my head around in regards to any but the most fetishistic human wanting to mate with a cow headed creature.

Cross-species pairings listed as canonical in Golarion ARE quite rare.

But that said, mythology, fairy tale and fantasy all are replete with examples of people falling in love with non-humanoids (or non-humanoids falling in love with humans).

Also, female minotaurs have HUGE... udders, so that's something.

[Sovereign Wyrm]

If there is a fairytale sensibility I can better wrap my brain around it. It seems, not too fantastic, but too whimsical for me. But, if it's very rare, that makes it more believable.

I get the whole, "Hey, love transcends gender and species" vibe of Golarion, it's cool but some pairings, if one even for a moment looks at it in terms of "yeah that human likes to have intercourse with a snake creature" it seems a bit too whimsical for my games. One can see all sentient species as "people" without wanting to knock boots with every creature capable of sexual reproduction.

Well, with the minotaur thing...as least Furries can find actual animal-folks to...interact with. And there's the huge utters....mmmm....udders.

[Deadmanwalking]

QuietBrowser wrote:

I would like to point out that I am aware of Greta and Undrella - I mentioned them in my first post. I was asking if folks here think the idea of relationships between humanoids and monsters "fits the setting", since Pathfinder is the Darker & Edgier setting.

I don't know if Pathfinder is darker and edgier per se...it seems much more old school in the style of Conan, Elric, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser...which has an element of darkness, but isn't exactly darker per se, IMO. 'Grittier' would be the way I'd describe it as compared to something like Forgotten Realms (though definitely not 'low fantasy').

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Not a fan of this sort of thing in the least. I'm willing to allow for human and humanlike pairings (elf, dwarf...in extremis...orc) but these other things...it's too fairytale for me. I like my fantasy more along the lines of S&S or High Fantasy where that which is inhuman is more alien and less "humans with scales" or "humans with wings" or "humans with tentacles." If humans on Golarion are anything like humans on earth there are few things more repellent for most than the thought of having an intimate relationship with something that, to a human's mind, is more akin to an animal in form than a man.

This is some serious bullshit. Spend some time on the internet and you'll see that, frankly a lot of people are into that, at least in theory.

Additionally, more people than have it as an interest might be able to muster some interest if the creature in question was a real person who they fell in love with. Some wouldn't, but it wouldn't be unheard of.

And finally, a lot of the creatures that have been discussed are shapechangers. Do you really care if the beautiful woman (or handsome man) you love happens to be able to turn into a snake or a spider, or whatever? I wouldn't.

And even for those who can't do that naturally, there's a spell for that. Indeed, Alter Self is only level 2 and works fine for that purpose...and is used to enable a Naga to become physically human for sex (among other purposes) in at least one published product.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

If something wildly magical like a dragon takes human shape and can, for some reason, find a hairless ape romantically/sexually appealing ok..but I have to ask why? What would a human find appealing in, for example, a minotaur, outside of a friendship perhaps? It's the necessity of adding a sexual component that I can't wrap my head around in regards to any but the most fetishistic human wanting to mate with a cow headed creature.

Love? I mean, love is a thing and can overcome all sorts of physical incompatabilities.

And what's wrong with having such a sexual fetish? Some people certainly have them, and as long as all the creatures involved are sapient consenting adults...why not?

[Sissyl]

Female minotaurs would have A huge udder, not huge udderS. It would be on her tummy.

[Sovereign Wyrm]

Quote:

This is some serious b%%~!~@@. Spend some time on the internet and you'll see that, frankly a lot of people are into that, at least in theory.

Additionally, more people than have it as an interest might be able to muster some interest if the creature in question was a real person who they fell in love with. Some wouldn't, but it wouldn't be unheard of.

And finally, a lot of the creatures that have been discussed are shapechangers. Do you really care if the beautiful woman (or handsome man) you love happens to be able to turn into a snake or a spider, or whatever? I wouldn't.

A lot of people "on the internet" are into a lot of things, but I would argue that what one finds on the internet in regards to a great many things is still not normative. The internet simply allows obscure groups and subcultures to interact with relative ease. In the physical world, folks who have a borderline bestiality fetish are still very, very few and far between.

I stated that I could wrap my brain around romance between human and those who can take human form. I would just wonder why such a creature would find humans sexually attractive. I didn't say there was anything wrong with a fetish, I just think that such pairings would be very, very, very rare. That is unless monster/inhuman fetishists are common in Golarion.

Love? Really? I love my cat, but even if my cat started chatting with me like Puss n' Boots I'm not going to want a sexual relationship with him...1.) he's male and 2.) he's a cat....HE'S A TALKING CAT. Love is one thing, but the desire to be physically intimate with an individual is another often unrelated thing. I think it's a mistake to conflate the ability to love someone with the desire to have sex with someone. I could imagine loving a female gnoll as a dear friend but I wouldn't have sex with a even the sexiest gnoll female because the idea of such an encounter is unappealing...because she's a hyena person...with "hyena" being the operative word. She's a furry animal-person. Kissing is out of the question unless one thinks it arousing to kiss their family dog.

By the same token, I don't believe our sexy female gnoll would want to have sex with furless, unspotted, primate me. It just makes sense.

Again, there is nothing wrong with fetishes, but that is what we are talking about here...it's fetishistic to desire sexual congress with a "person" that bears an obvious combination of human and animal characteristics. That's not "wrong" but it would be, in any believable setting....very, very rare.

[Sovereign Wyrm]

Sissyl wrote:

Female minotaurs would have A huge udder, not huge udderS. It would be on her tummy.

Thanks for the correction. That would be an embarrassing mistake to make in minotaur circles. ;-)

[Seth Parsons]

My take: It happens. Like it or not, it does, though it is quite rare.

That said, I was recently informed that the succubus companion in WotR is romance-able. Gonna roll an Aasimar Cleric of Desna to shift her alignment, you know what I mean?

Spoiler:

No, really, I have no clue <.< XD

[Deadmanwalking]

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

A lot of people "on the internet" are into a lot of things, but I would argue that what one finds on the internet in regards to a great many things is still not normative. The internet simply allows obscure groups and subcultures to interact with relative ease. In the physical world, folks who have a borderline bestiality fetish are still very, very few and far between.

Eh. I've known a furry or two in real life who admitted to it (and likely more who didn't), and a lot of people whose sexual habits varied quite a bit from their stated preferences based on getting along with someone in particular. People, as a whole, are more flexible than you're giving them credit for.

And it's not like these are actually that common, as relationships go. They're rather uncommon, actually...but they do happen.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

I stated that I could wrap my brain around romance between human and those who can take human form. I would just wonder why such a creature would find humans sexually attractive.

Well, a lot of them mate with humans for procreation...so they're pretty clearly as wired to think human men are attractive as human women are. Also a lot of the basics of physical attraction are biological, so shapechangers are likely to be attracted somewhat to attractive members of the species whose form they are in.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

I didn't say there was anything wrong with a fetish, I just think that such pairings would be very, very, very rare. That is unless monster/inhuman fetishists are common in Golarion.

I don't think we know how many people have a particular fetish. But let's assume an interest in 'monsters' is relegated to as few as one in 1000 people. That's still one guy even in a medium sized town like Sandpoint. More in larger cities. It's not like this kind of couple is the norm or anything...it's just something that's been known to happen.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Love? Really? I love my cat, but even if my cat started chatting with me like Puss n' Boots I'm not going to want a sexual relationship with him...1.) he's male and 2.) he's a cat....HE'S A TALKING CAT.

The vast majority of the creatures being talked about are significantly more humanoid than a cat. Also, and I repeat, shape-changing magic's available to everyone who can pay...

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Love is one thing, but the desire to be physically intimate with an individual is another often unrelated thing.

I think it's a mistake to conflate the ability to love someone with the desire to have sex with someone.

I was referring to romantic love specifically. Which it's very possible to have with someone who is not your normal physical type. The more divergent they are the harder this is to some extent...but only to some extent.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

I could imagine loving a female gnoll as a dear friend but I wouldn't have sex with a even the sexiest gnoll female because the idea of such an encounter is unappealing...because she's a hyena person...with "hyena" being the operative word. She's a furry animal-person.

Never assume your own sexual proclivities are universal. Or even normal. That's a dangerous idea, and untrue more often than most people would like to admit or be willing to believe. Almost everyone diverges significantly from the hypothetical norm in some fashion.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Kissing is out of the question unless one thinks it arousing to kiss their family dog.

This is factually untrue. As is demonstrated by both furries as a whole (who are generally not into bestiality) and demisexual people, who are only attracted to those people (which is a category generally requiring sapience) they already know and like, regardless of physical appearance. Both groups would find a sufficiently charming Gnoll attractive while having no interest in the dog.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

By the same token, I don't believe our sexy female gnoll would want to have sex with furless, unspotted, primate me. It just makes sense.

Depends on the Gnoll.

Sovereign Wyrm wrote:

Again, there is nothing wrong with fetishes, but that is what we are talking about here...it's fetishistic to desire sexual congress with a "person" that bears an obvious combination of human and animal characteristics. That's not "wrong" but it would be, in any believable setting....very, very rare.

Conflating all relationships between any two people to fetishistic is a bad and potentially offensive policy. Not all people involved with, say, someone overweight, or with tattoos, have a fetish for or even prefer that particular attribute in a partner. Some even actively dislike it, but are, y'know, in love. Why would species be any different?

[Deadmanwalking]

Sissyl wrote:

Female minotaurs would have A huge udder, not huge udderS. It would be on her tummy.

Huh? Why? They're basically humans with bull heads. While most illustrations are male their nipples appear to be located where human nipples are, making this conclusion weird.

Or, assuming you are joking: Ha ha.

[Sovereign Wyrm]

Quote:

Conflating all relationships between any two people to fetishistic is a bad and potentially offensive policy. Not all people involved with, say, someone overweight, or with tattoos, have a fetish for or even prefer that particular attribute in a partner. Some even actively dislike it, but are, y'know, in love. Why would species be any different?

I'm not conflating all such outside of the broadest normative parameter involvements as fetishistic, I am conflating human with catperson, harpy, minotaur, talking gorilla, lizard-person, etc. as fetishistic or odd as all hell (odd as in wildly irregular or strange). An overweight, tattooed, and pierced human is still human...and (to be honest)some human on human love is fetishistic as well. Some outside the norm physical relationships wouldn't, in my estimation, not raise too many eyebrows (in a fantasy setting). Relationships such as human/elf, human/dwarf, human/Halfling relationships(ie. humans with pointy ears or little and/or stout humans) might not be overwhelmingly common, but they would not be terribly rare in a world where humans and such beings mingled freely. I can certainly imagine wanting to hook up with an elf girl....the aesthetics are largely human or even idealized human.

However, I would argue that all, for example, human/lizardfolk or human/harpy couplings are inherently, if not fetishistic, wholly bizarre as we are looking at something that is wildly outside the parameters of anything related to (even by the broadest standards) normative human aesthetic/sexual attraction.

I'm not saying it's "right" or "wrong" as I don't believe such things are the purview of moral judgments. I'm looking at it from a verisimilitude standpoint....nothing more. I think that "grittier" settings will have less of this sort of thing as they are inherently less whimsical/fairytale than settings full of talking animal-people and human "whatever" crossbreeds. In grittier settings, humans are more like real humans (ie. judgmental) and such pairings would be massively frowned upon. I'm not saying it's "right" I'm saying it's believable knowing human nature to be what it is.

[Jeven]

J. Chris Harris wrote:

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

That was really a joke though. She was a hideously ugly, smelly creature with rotting buck teeth and so on, who flirted with the male pc's. They could flirt back to manipulate her but that was about it. She wasn't presented as a serious romance option.

[Alleran]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

There are canon relationships between humans and nagas (where would Nagaji come from after all).

** spoiler omitted **

RE: The spoiler, wasn't his girlfriend/mistress that bard from Daggermark?

Or am I remembering the AP wrong? It's been quite some time since I looked at it.

[Mikaze]

Xenophilia vs xenophobia thread?

Jeven wrote:

J. Chris Harris wrote:

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

That was really a joke though. She was a hideously ugly, smelly creature with rotting buck teeth and so on, who flirted with the male pc's. They could flirt back to manipulate her but that was about it. She wasn't presented as a serious romance option.

Play results and her portrayal later in the AP say otherwise.

Also, can't recall that description being used for Undrella.

[Sissyl]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Sissyl wrote:

Female minotaurs would have A huge udder, not huge udderS. It would be on her tummy.

Huh? Why? They're basically humans with bull heads. While most illustrations are male their nipples appear to be located where human nipples are, making this conclusion weird.

Or, assuming you are joking: Ha ha.

Could be worse. Could be the animated farm movie from a few years back that had the bull with an udder.

[Mikaze]

QuietBrowser wrote:

As for your stance on half-orcs, I must confess a preference for that sort of mutual consensual origin myself. Honestly? I can't help but feel that Paizo sticks to emphasizing the "half-orcs are children of rape" thing more to emphasize their status as Darker & Edgier than D&D, for all their talk about it emphasizing the heroicness of the half-orc adventurer. In theory that may be true, in practice... can anyone name an important major Paizo-written half-orc who actually *was* a rape-brat? The only three I can immediately recall off the top of my head are Irimjka (whose earliest origins are "found as a mysteriously abandoned baby in a graveyard"), Irabeth Tirablade (orc father chose to give up his tribe and evil viewpoint because he fell in love with a human woman) and Tsadok Goldtooth (human father befriended orc mother while they were slaves together on a pirate ship, she helped him escape, they fell in love).

Did have more to say about this:

I absolutely prefer the consensual origin for a lot of reasons. Besides strongly preferring orcs as having the same moral range as humans(though favoring chaotic) and disliking the Always Chaotic Evil trope for a host of other reasons(that don't belong in this thread), I'm really not a fan of an entire player race being pushed towards that origin. There's also something to be said for being able to have an actual culture to pull from on the orc side to give half-orcs some more flavor to pull from rather than just pulling from their human parent's. As is, when I wanted to play my half-orc barbarian, I had to make up an entire culture from scratch and find a place to put it and have a GM open to that much player-side worldbuilding. I was really fortunate to have such a GM. And before anyone says that having a half-orc not ashamed of being one or having happier origins undermines the point of the player race:

1. A player race should never be so narrowly focused, especially on that.

2. Being born from a consensual union does not mean a half-orc doesn't have to deal with discrimination. At some points and places, it can actually be worse.

The presence of those NPCs with positive backstories makes it even more frustrating that there's so little material and support offered to players along those lines. While it was a much better player companion than Orcs of Golarion, Bastards of Golarion still wound up being a bit of a let down in that area by being less the half-orc/half-elf sourcebook and more the "tragic unhappy PC" book(the "darker and edgier" complaint again). Some space dedicated to "consensual loving unions known to happen here" would have been greatly appreciated.

Because seriously, if anyone can figure out what orcs(cragkin or vanilla) could best enable that sort of origin with Shoanti humans(ie: The richly developed culture that would have been perfect for non-evil orcs), I'd buy that book in a heartbeat.

(not really comfortable with the term "rape-brat", for some of the same reasons I don't like rape being pushed as the go-to origin for half-orcs; people shouldn't be stigmatized for the circumstances of their birth)

[Mikaze]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

QuietBrowser wrote:

I would like to point out that I am aware of Greta and Undrella - I mentioned them in my first post. I was asking if folks here think the idea of relationships between humanoids and monsters "fits the setting", since Pathfinder is the Darker & Edgier setting.

It's fairly obvious that the writers seem to think so, given the Adventure Path evidence that has been presented, I was just curious if anyone disagreed with it or agreed with it or simply didn't care either way.

I must say, I've been pleasantly surprised by the responses I've been getting here.

Also: Dudemeister? I thought Nagaji were descended from humans artificially transformed by naga, not literal human/naga crossbreeds?

You might be right, I never paid close attention to the nagaji (because Serpentfolk are my snake-mans of choice).

Actually, you're both right, IIRC. :)

I believe the nagaji do have the altered-humans origin, but the nagaji race was also recommended by James Sutter for naga/human offspring. I like the possibility of "armed naga" offspring as well, but nagaji does do in a pinch.

[Sharumander - Eidolon]

Jeven wrote:

J. Chris Harris wrote:

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

That was really a joke though. She was a hideously ugly, smelly creature with rotting buck teeth and so on, who flirted with the male pc's. They could flirt back to manipulate her but that was about it. She wasn't presented as a serious romance option.

WATCH YOUR TONGUE YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MY WIFE!

[Jeven]

Mikaze wrote:

Jeven wrote:

J. Chris Harris wrote:

In the Legacy of Fire AP you can pursue a relationship with a harpy.

That was really a joke though. She was a hideously ugly, smelly creature with rotting buck teeth and so on, who flirted with the male pc's. They could flirt back to manipulate her but that was about it. She wasn't presented as a serious romance option.

Play results and her portrayal later in the AP say otherwise.

Also, can't recall that description being used for Undrella.

Here's a refresher.

"Undrella believes herself to be a stunning beauty, and is shocked that someone might find her unattractive"
"she says with her crooked-toothed grin"
"she says batting her crusty eyelids"
"she traces the cheek of her favorite PC with a talon-like fingernail, getting close to seductively smell his scent"

At the end of the book she is listed as a contact in the section Crime and not in the section Romance if you have allied with her.

[Sharumander - Eidolon]

She is my saucy wife, and I will not have her name besmirched!