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Over the years, races ending in a gender specific ending have typically been replaced with "folk" instead:
lizardmen => lizardfolk
mermaids => merfolk
ratmen => ratfolk
So shouldn't the gillmen be called the gillfolk these days?
Disclaimer: My company will be producing Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Gillmen (or Gillfolk, if decided otherwise) later this year.
But they are descendants of humans, I guess I think it's okay.
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Ceres, are you suggesting they should be known as hufolk?
Ceres, are you suggesting they should be known as hufolk?
I like the idea, but sadly it misses the point.
But humankind tends to be a bit, well, man-centric and Gillmen, with their descendance from said (maybe even archaic) humans could have very well taken those sentiments with them.However, I also think Gillfolk sounds good as well. Guess I just wanted to say I'm okay with Gillmen, for the record and such.
Maybe the aboleths just prefer to be served by male humans. You got a problem with that?
But, I recall a previous instance where you expressed frustration over customers asking/complaining about the title of your products. Annoying as it may be, it is quite possible that a book about Gillfolk may be met with some of the same complaints as a book about River Nations.
One of the reasons why I am asking.
Or one of my old college professors? (Although, apparently he's a provost now, too.)
I think as long as you pay homage to "Creature From the Black Lagoon" in your product cover, you're set.
To be honest, I was aiming more for "Innsmouth look."
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Not necessarily strictly related to the question you asked, but a tangentially related subject: Sometimes I think the effort to sanitize and make things PC can go too far. I recently downloaded a FATE setting called "Behind the Walls". It's set in a prison in 1959, during the aftermath of a war between Russia and the USA. It has the following sidebar:
This is a story about a prison and the people inside. Great care has been taken to avoid the overused and more negative tropes of prison - sexual assault, violence, and such — and while this story features men, it is entirely adaptable to include issues of gender or orientation. This is also a story set in a fictionalized 1951. We’ve done our best to eliminate segregation and racism from this text. No characters presented here have to be white, nor do they have to be racist or phobic. Please be respectful of your fellow players, whoever they might be.
It just lost the feeling of actually being a prison, at least to me. I think something like this should include those negative aspects. The sidebar shouldn't be explaining why the work was sanitized, it should be explaining that the authors don't actually feel that these beliefs are true.
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Honest advice?
Drop the term that YOU feel comfortable with, and let the rest sort itself out.
No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.
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So shouldn't the gillmen be called the gillfolk these days?
Disclaimer: My company will be producing Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Gillmen (or Gillfolk, if decided otherwise) later this year.
If they reproduce like humans and the core races, I vote for gillfolk over gillmen. I say that because they've been experimented on and selectively bred by the aboleth, so they may be an actual race of gillmen who reproduce from clone tanks or parthenogenesis. Or they are actual fertile true hermaphrodites (not just intersexed humans), either sequential (protandrous and protogyny) or simultaneous. Just because they may look externally-male or externally-female to surface-dwellers doesn't mean they actually are. Or maybe when they were spotted, they were just in "kemmer."
Heck, have you seen the (Earth) male models androgynous enough to model women's clothing?
If you do name them "gillfolk" and Paizo keeps theirs named "gillmen", then you don't have to worry about divergences in abilities or canon.
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Gelman?
Thus, more proof Regis is a Veiled Master.
No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.
*snorts a laugh* ain't that the truth.
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No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.*snorts a laugh* ain't that the truth.
A dilemma so old that Aesop wrote a fable about it.
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I find the names gillfolk and gillmen equally offensive as it discriminates against those without gills.
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No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.*snorts a laugh* ain't that the truth.
I am offended that you find this amusing! ;)
Gillfolk makes them sound like a people. Gillmen sounds like a term for humans who have been surgically altered, or like a slightly racist term used to describe the race by others.
Contributor
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No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.*snorts a laugh* ain't that the truth.I am offended that you find this amusing! ;)
Gillfolk makes them sound like a people. Gillmen sounds like a term for humans who have been surgically altered, or like a slightly racist term used to describe the race by others.
To be honest, I always got the impression that this is where the term "gillmen" originates. As noted earlier, I call them Low Azlanti - because that seems like the name they would more likely use for themselves.
This is all a misunderstanding. The species takes its name from Stan Gillman, an accountant who survived the Earthfall and went on to amortize the remainder of the Azlanti Empire. His own term for his offspring was "gefiltekinder."
SCIENCE!
Along the lines of the previous reply, I once played a gillman named Jerica Gellman - she was a foundling in Sandpoint and did not know of her ancestry when the campaign started. Here's her character intro.
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To be honest, I always got the impression that this is where the term "gillmen" originates. As noted earlier, I call them Low Azlanti - because that seems like the name they would more likely use for themselves.No matter what term you use, Gillmen or Gillfolk, SOMEONE will take offense. Either you'll be seen as regressive or you'll be seen as sanitizing. There's no appeasing everyone.*snorts a laugh* ain't that the truth.I am offended that you find this amusing! ;)
Gillfolk makes them sound like a people. Gillmen sounds like a term for humans who have been surgically altered, or like a slightly racist term used to describe the race by others.
Actually, that's spot on with Golarion lore. They refer to themselves as Low Azlanti, others refer to them as Gillmen.
Personally, if you have to choose between Gillmen and Gillfolk, I prefer Gillmen. Gillfolk makes them sound closer related to Merfolk, while Gillmen makes them sound closer related to Humans. Being adapted from humans and in no way related to merfolk, Gillmen seems more sound.
I still don't get why the term Gillmen should offend anyone. I mean, really?
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I still don't get why the term Gillmen should offend anyone. I mean, really?
I don't think anyone (here) is offended... just confused. Lizardmen became lizardfolk, mermaids became merfolk, but gillmen are gillmen. Out of place, a little. :)
I like gillmen over gillfolk, though - it flows better and has more old-school flavor.
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I don't mean anyone on that board here is offended, but it was mentioned here and there that people COULD be offended.
I'm with you, however, I like the term Gillmen more. Even though the Gillmen girl (?) I once played refered to herself as Low Azlanti. Which somehow seemed odd as well.
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I don't mean anyone on that board here is offended, but it was mentioned here and there that people COULD be offended.
I'm with you, however, I like the term Gillmen more. Even though the Gillmen girl (?) I once played refered to herself as Low Azlanti. Which somehow seemed odd as well.
Sounds like a TV show... Gillmen Girls, Saturdays at 8.
I really want to play an Eldritch Delver based on the ARG art (especially now that Unchained is here). Maybe in Mummy's Mask. Yes, in the desert. :)
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Given that this is a supplement for the Pathfinder RPG, I think it's probably best to follow the terminology that Paizo established. That way, any SJW rage should more appropriately be directed at them instead of you.
Plus, it's a bit easier for other people to tell exactly what you mean. No "WTF is a gillfolk? Is that like a gillmen?"
I think as long as you pay homage to "Creature From the Black Lagoon" in your product cover, you're set.Over the years, races ending in a gender specific ending have typically been replaced with "folk" instead:
lizardmen => lizardfolk
mermaids => merfolk
ratmen => ratfolkSo shouldn't the gillmen be called the gillfolk these days?
Disclaimer: My company will be producing Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Gillmen (or Gillfolk, if decided otherwise) later this year.
Gillmen aren't the Creature, they're Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. IMPERIOUS REX!
Publisher, Chief Creative Officer
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Gillmen is the trope name derived from the B Movies they first swam out of.
Yes, Paizo is progressive-minded, but sometimes they set that aside for the Law of Pulp. They don't need a run a progressive crusade in every Bestiary entry.
As the guy who "invented" the gillmen: this.
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To be honest, I always got the impression that this is where the term "gillmen" originates. As noted earlier, I call them Low Azlanti - because that seems like the name they would more likely use for themselves.
"Low" Azlanti? That, madam, is classist. We prefer Submarine Azlanti, or Below-Sea-Level Azlanti.
Below sea level is pretty low though.
Fun fact: in the English language around 1000 years ago "man" was the gender neutral term for what today is called a human being. The specific terms for the gender were "wer" and "wif". That's why today you have cases where man and human are used interchangably and fantasy races referred to as [insert hat here]-men.
Not arguing that ancient language justifies anything, just that this is the explanation.
I didn't think there was an English language 1000 years ago. :-)
Edit: Then again, that makes "werewolf" sexist, doesn't it?
I didn't think there was an English language 1000 years ago. :-)
Sure there was. It just wasn't anything any modern English speaker would comprehend without serious study. Like the Charter of Cnut from 1020:
Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice. And ic cyðe eow, þæt ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage.
Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu and þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghwær godes lof upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan wolde.
Nu ne wandode ic na minum sceattum, þa hwile þe eow unfrið on handa stod: nu ic mid godes fultume þæt totwæmde mid minum scattum.
Þa cydde man me, þæt us mara hearm to fundode, þonne us wel licode: and þa for ic me sylf mid þam mannum þe me mid foron into Denmearcon, þe eow mæst hearm of com: and þæt hæbbe mid godes fultume forene forfangen, þæt eow næfre heonon forð þanon nan unfrið to ne cymð, þa hwile þe ge me rihtlice healdað and min lif byð.
I didn't think there was an English language 1000 years ago. :-)
Edit: Then again, that makes "werewolf" sexist, doesn't it?
Yes, werewolf literally means Man-wolf (as in the modern use to describe a male)
I think gillmen and gillfolk are both great, but get at different flavors, just like lizardmen and lizardfolk get at different things.
Using the ___(men) suffix speaks to the vague and adversarial nature of their origins, ala the original incarnations of both lizardmen and gillmen being aquatic creatures that emerge from the depths to harass humans. Thinking about female lizard/gillmen, kids, how they reproduce, family structure, etc. isn't necessary, or perhaps even at all useful for the purposes of gameplay. They are just creatures to interact with strictly on this one type of level. I'd say a non-adversarial example is the mermaids referenced as well - a race of mermaids is there to fit a certain type of interaction. It basically just encapsulates a time when there were different feelings about violence against female creatures as well as significantly lower female representation (in all parts of the game, but specifically amongst monster races as well).
Making them ___(folk) changes the flavor through the connotations associated with it. It automatically implies gender variation, and from that family structure, societal/cultural considerations, etc. A book concerned with what -race name- settlements and buildings look like, or how they interact with each other versus with outsiders, imo would warrant a particular designation because it is taking that race out of the standard role used for it thus-far and putting it in a new one.
I like both designations, but I try pretty hard to use them differently. If I am DMing a character that holds adversarial views towards that race, I'll use the ___(men) term. If I am trying to present them as a race that stands on their own, I use the ___(folk) term. For gill-whatevers, since it is already a term stated in lore that they do not identify with, I actually think it more appropriate to use "gillmen"; in fact, the more I think about it, the all-male skum (another product of aboleths, right?) and lack of sexual dimorphism may have reasonably contributed to any Golarion creature failing to realize the gender-differences in the creatures they're fighting.
Well... I wouldn't like to be called either 'gillman' or 'member of the gillfolk'. Since I have more aspects than these gills. It's like calling halflings 'shorties' (or: 'halflings'), elves 'pointy ears' or orcs 'greenskins'*, reducing an entire people to one obvious feature.
* Technically, they can have other skin colors, but this doesn't have to be known by the average local person. Or this fact could be ignored by them.
So, if you want to be totally politically correct, there are A LOT of terms to avoid respective rephrase. And if you overdo it, you will just annoy other people - like you would have with using deprecative terms.
I agree 'gillfolk' is a slightly better term though.