Didn't at least one of the Whore Queens of Hell hate men? I also recall Gyronna hating them enough to not let any man worship her.
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Didn't at least one of the Whore Queens of Hell hate men?
I think you're thinking of Ardat Lili:
The End of Innocence, Ardad Lili delights in manipulating men and exposing the dull-wittedness of that gender. Appearing as a healthy, plainly beautiful girl just waxing into womanhood, only her wings made of snake tails expose her diabolical nature. The expression that a boy is “made into a man” upon his first sexual encounter directly references the depredations of Ardad Lili and was once synonymous with the term “being made a fool of.”
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Pathfinder straight up has a Misogyny Demon Lord and Misogyny Devils. For a setting that's supposedly super gender-neutral you have a lot of stuff associating men with domination, violence and oppression, especially towards women.
I definitely agree, but I'd say that's balanced by Calistria's inclination to scheming and petty revenge, and Gyronna's outright psychopathy.
I wonder, now. Would there be a statistical adjustment for a female character being late-term pregnant?
The general vibe on Golarion is that a society that actively discriminates against its members, for whatever reason, often has something deeply wrong with it.Which is so we, in the 21st century, know who the good and bad guys are. Andoran = America (F**K YEAH), Cheliax = devil-worshiping Nazis whose national anthem may as well be "We're The Bad Guys."
There's a time and place for moral complexity and shades of gray as well. Maybe for all the Eagle Knights' bluster, Andoran could be hypocritical or even backwards in some ways, favoring some groups over others unfairly. Maybe Cheliax could have some kind of legislation preventing truly horrendous mistreatment of slaves, or could be helping out against the Worldwound in a "lesser of two evils" kind of way. It's doubtful this will make it into canon either way, but it's a possibility for DMs to run individually. And again, time and place, sometimes just plain old good guys vs. bad guys gets the job done where ambiguity would slow everything down, not everyone prefers Game of Thrones over LoTR or Harry Potter.
I really have no idea what point I was making originally, but all in all it's the brass at Paizo's decision what makes the cut for canon storylines, and individual DMs' discretion how to play that out (and personal responsibility not to start going Draco In Leather Pants/Ron The Death Eater to the point where the story stops engaging the players)
Falcon's Hollow said hello...
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How could you *possibly* come to the conclusion that Amiri's tribe were not only sexist, but demon-influenced since they didn't view Amiri as a suitable warrior?Isn't that part of where Amiri's angst comes from in her backstory? That because her tribe were hunter-gatherers that she wasn't expected to be a hunter or warrior due to her gender (as was and still is the case in societies that still practice it, where the "hunter" and "gatherer" roles aren't as strict as they're sometimes thought to be, but women who are or expected to become pregnant do less hunting for obvious reasons). If her Kellid tribe had just shrugged and gone "Yeah, sure, you can be a warrior" and her backstory remained the same ceteris paribus she would've pretty much been massacring her tribesmen for a frivolous reason which I'd say would put her alignment a solid step south of Chaotic Neutral.Amiri's tribe were hunter-gatherers, and were sexist. That's not necessarily cause and effect. Even on Earth, not all such societies have rigid gender roles. They could have been sexist because of influence from worshippers of Kostchtchie, a demon lord who hates women and who some groups in the area she's from are known to worship.
Well, they were obviously sexist.
To the Six Bears, a woman's role was simple—raise children, tend to the sick, and forge bonds with other tribes. Women were resources.
As for the demon-influence, that's just speculation, but it's not without support. Kostchtchie
Kostchtchie does have many human worshipers, particularly in the western reaches of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
Not all societies have rigid gender roles, but I sure as hell would expect a hunter-gatherer society built around surviving in one of the most hostile lands of Avistan to have very clear lines on what is expected of a person in their society.
Very clear lines of what is expected of a person is not the same thing as rigid gender roles. Her society was clearly at a disadvantage in not letting Amiri be the hunter and warrior she wanted to be. They were not doing this to survive, they were doing it because they were sexist and believed that women shouldn't be hunters or warriors. She wasn't well suited to being a broodmother.
Crystal is absolutely right, although I would argue Amiri massacring her tribe would be Chaotic Evil anyway, you're basically trying to excuse what could be seen as a complex bit of character development as "nu uh the demons did it."
No, I'm saying that it's possible in Golarion lore to develop an in-world explanation for Amiri's tribe being sexist when many of them are not by linking them to another part of golarion lore that fits. It's not canon, but it's something a GM could use as an explanation for why this tribe is so much more sexist than other tribes, if that's how the GM wanted her campaign to be.
Life isn't black and white, jerks can have reasons for their behavior just as heroes can be dicks without cause. Amiri had a good reason for leaving the tribe just as the tribe had a good reason for enforcing their values on her.
Her tribe did not have a good reason for enforcing their values. When she proved she could hunt and fight as well as a man, it would have been beneficial to the tribe, unless they were extremely low on women who could have children, and had a surplus of capable hunters, to encourage her to be a hunter. A capable hunter could provide food to allow far more children to survive than she would be able to birth herself.
Her tribe had an ideological commitment to male supremacy and female subjugation. They acted in accordance with this. Whether it was related to worship of a demon lord or was entirely the result of human social factors doesn't really make a difference.
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Magic is indeed a great equalizer, but the problem with magic is both genders are equally represented as having magical inclinations, and magic in Golarion isn't as common as magic in, say, Eberron.Magic's a hell of an equalizer.
Golarion's a world where some 5'0" twerp that weighs 100 pounds soaking wet could kill
GodzillaKing Mogaru with her bare hands."Traditional gender roles" (a.k.a., I'm naturally bigger and stronger than you, so do what I say or get hurt) goes out the window when either gender's fully capable of suplexing ogres.
And that's just the pure martials. "Traditional gender roles" gets thrown out the window even harder the moment stuff like smite and ki and domain powers and spells get involved.
I'd expect Amiri's tribe to NOT go "you're a woman, you must do ____," I'd expect them to go "you're built like a brick s@~~ house, how about you do ____."
The general vibe on Golarion is that a society that actively discriminates against its members, for whatever reason, often has something deeply wrong with it.
Again, see being able to kill Godzilla with your bare hands.
Physics in the Pathfinder universe don't work quite the way they do here.
In the Pathfinder universe, men and women are equally adept at both magic and physical combat. There's no physical (or magical) advantages from gender.
Another way to put it - in the Golarion universe, women are just a strong as men, and men are just as agile as women.
Slight side note, for a world where women have magic and men are powerless, check out the novel by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey (concept and basic outline by him, but he didn't have time to write it so he just gave the publisher the idea and told them to offer it to another author that might enjoy it, and they gave it to Mercedes Lackey) If I Pay Thee Not in Gold
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For GMs looking for a way to describe trans man characters in their games without having to have a character step right out and say "I am transgender," here are some ques or suggestions:
- The character might be someone a PC knew when they were both children. This might start as a nagging feeling that they've met this man before but can't understand why, or the character may straight-up say "We were kids together, remember X?" This is probably one of the few scenarios where announcing a character is trans won't feel forced.
- Unless the character is extremely wealthy, they likely can't afford an elixir or belt to change themselves, and relies on herbal or alchemical concoctions to feel more comfortable with themselves. PCs might notice their traveling companion or friend using a strange alchemical brew each day, or he might ask them to journey into a dangerous area to recover reagents he needs to make more.
- If a character is wealthy, he might hire the PCs to locate an elixir or belt for him, or to persuade a high-level but conservative caster to craft him one.
- If the character is especially poor and can't afford even herbal or alchemical assistance, he may look significantly younger than he claims to be and be very sensitive about the fact.
- The NPC may decide to have a baby, being noticeably pregnant for several months, or feeding afterwards.
Again, these are all suggestions for ways the PCs might notice or interact with an NPC's trans status. It's also possible for an NPC to be transgender as an element of their backstory that slightly influences their modern attitudes (ie: he might think have strong feelings about some stereotypically masculine/feminine traditions or expectations), but the PCs never directly know. The entirety of a transgender character's life doesn't revolve around just being trans, after all.
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Keep the conversation about the original topic and civil, or we're done here.
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Didn't at least one of the Whore Queens of Hell hate men?I think you're thinking of Ardat Lili:
The End of Innocence, Ardad Lili delights in manipulating men and exposing the dull-wittedness of that gender. Appearing as a healthy, plainly beautiful girl just waxing into womanhood, only her wings made of snake tails expose her diabolical nature. The expression that a boy is “made into a man” upon his first sexual encounter directly references the depredations of Ardad Lili and was once synonymous with the term “being made a fool of.”
A follow-up thought on this passage:
This is from Book of the Damned 1: Princes of Darkness, a sourcebook as old as Council of Thieves*. It's very possible that it would be written differently today, as Paizo's writers and staff have grown more conscious of the way certain issues are received.
*(It's old enough to remember that ephialtes kytons exist!)
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Didn't at least one of the Whore Queens of Hell hate men?I think you're thinking of Ardat Lili:
The End of Innocence, Ardad Lili delights in manipulating men and exposing the dull-wittedness of that gender. Appearing as a healthy, plainly beautiful girl just waxing into womanhood, only her wings made of snake tails expose her diabolical nature. The expression that a boy is “made into a man” upon his first sexual encounter directly references the depredations of Ardad Lili and was once synonymous with the term “being made a fool of.”
A follow-up thought on this passage:
This is from Book of the Damned 1: Princes of Darkness, a sourcebook as old as Council of Thieves*. It's very possible that it would be written differently today, as Paizo's writers and staff have grown more conscious of the way certain issues are received.
*(It's old enough to remember that ephialtes kytons exist!)
I rather suspect most if not all of the Whore Queens hate men at some level and are Not-Like-Other-Women/Just-One-Of-The-Boys toward other women. These are not nice people, after all.
I also suspect that the "made into a man"/"made a fool of" conflation was an attempt to suggest circumstances in which a boy/young man's loss of virginity had the same connotations of loss and shame and moral failure that are applied to girls' "deflowering"s, assuming they're outside approved parameters (and echoed, if subtly, even within those parameters), in highly patriarchal cultures. That is, to have a devil who makes the "loss" of virginity for men be perceived as an actual loss, rather than simply a threshold crossed.
But yeah, I think we'd probably phrase things a bit differently if we were publishing it today. (If it had come across my desk, I would have changed the "exposing the dull-wittedness of that gender" to "making that gender appear dull-witted," at least.)
I'd also sort of like to see a near-demigod have deeper and more nefarious plans than just humiliating men (in my head-canon, at least, her goals are more wide-reaching, like encouraging hostility between men and women, reducing the human population, making sex be seen as something shameful, etc.), because just making dudes look stupid for kicks and giggles seems sort of mild, or at least petty, for a high-ranking evil being. :-)
It's interesting: I feel like we are to the point, now at least, where we've started to normalize the idea of female leadership enough that we can have a female character who has accomplished something that in other circumstances would make her a hero (coming out on top of a misogynist organization, forcing even her misogynist boss to acknowledge her competence and general badassery) embodying the dark mirror of that (because it's Hell and she's evil, instead of reform, she just uses her position to abuse other people--she is, in essence, embodying the difference between vengeance and justice, and is someone who pulls the ladder up after her) without it coming across as a statement about The Way Women Are.
I don't feel like we're there yet on a lot of other marginalized groups.
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Magic is indeed a great equalizer, but the problem with magic is both genders are equally represented as having magical inclinations, and magic in Golarion isn't as common as magic in, say, Eberron.Magic's a hell of an equalizer.
Golarion's a world where some 5'0" twerp that weighs 100 pounds soaking wet could kill
GodzillaKing Mogaru with her bare hands."Traditional gender roles" (a.k.a., I'm naturally bigger and stronger than you, so do what I say or get hurt) goes out the window when either gender's fully capable of suplexing ogres.
And that's just the pure martials. "Traditional gender roles" gets thrown out the window even harder the moment stuff like smite and ki and domain powers and spells get involved.
I'd expect Amiri's tribe to NOT go "you're a woman, you must do ____," I'd expect them to go "you're built like a brick s@~~ house, how about you do ____."
The general vibe on Golarion is that a society that actively discriminates against its members, for whatever reason, often has something deeply wrong with it.
Again, see being able to kill Godzilla with your bare hands.
Physics in the Pathfinder universe don't work quite the way they do here.
In the Pathfinder universe, men and women are equally adept at both magic and physical combat. There's no physical (or magical) advantages from gender.
Another way to put it - in the Golarion universe, women are just a strong as men, and men are just as agile as women.
As a woman, I feel the need to point out that even if I can benchpress a horse and bind five devils to do the same with my powers, I am still the one carrying a child, giving birth to it and needing/wanting recuperation (albeit magically aided, most likely).
Competence is not the only reason why a woman might choose not to do something, or be not able to. You might be a marvelous ranger, a great shot with deadly aim. But you're seven months pregnant, you do not wish to go into war or explore that devil infested cave because your child might be exposed to the evil energies.
Sure, this doesn't mean that ALL cultures incorporate this in some limiting fashion. But simply because women have the exact same ability to perform.. It doesn't erase gender roles off the board, it gives more leeway and variety of approach.
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As a woman, I feel the need to point out that even if I can benchpress a horse and bind five devils to do the same with my powers, I am still the one carrying a child, giving birth to it and needing/wanting recuperation (albeit magically aided, most likely).
Competence is not the only reason why a woman might choose not to do something, or be not able to. You might be a marvelous ranger, a great shot with deadly aim. But you're seven months pregnant, you do not wish to go into war or explore that devil infested cave because your child might be exposed to the evil energies.
Sure, this doesn't mean that ALL cultures incorporate this in some limiting fashion. But simply because women have the exact same ability to perform.. It doesn't erase gender roles off the board, it gives more leeway and variety of approach.
Luckily, people with uteri don't have to spend all their time being seven months pregnant, and many women only choose to do it once or twice, or even not at all. A single dad raising a toddler would likewise probably take some time off adventuring to make sure his kid wasn't exposed to demon energy or ghoul fever.
And again, this have nothing to do with trans men and representation.
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As a woman, I feel the need to point out that even if I can benchpress a horse and bind five devils to do the same with my powers, I am still the one carrying a child, giving birth to it and needing/wanting recuperation (albeit magically aided, most likely).
Competence is not the only reason why a woman might choose not to do something, or be not able to. You might be a marvelous ranger, a great shot with deadly aim. But you're seven months pregnant, you do not wish to go into war or explore that devil infested cave because your child might be exposed to the evil energies.
Sure, this doesn't mean that ALL cultures incorporate this in some limiting fashion. But simply because women have the exact same ability to perform.. It doesn't erase gender roles off the board, it gives more leeway and variety of approach.Luckily, people with uteri don't have to spend all their time being seven months pregnant, and many women only choose to do it once or twice, or even not at all. A single dad raising a toddler would likewise probably take some time off adventuring to make sure his kid wasn't exposed to demon energy or ghoul fever.
And again, this have nothing to do with trans men and representation.
I thought we were talking about the average hum-drum population of a kingdom, the ones that generally carve out how gender roles and cultural norms develop, not the miniscule percentage of people who decide to become murderhobos.
And from what I learned in Anthropology, people living in economies that thrive on having an extra pair of hands on the farm typically produce a LOT of hands, which translates into having large families. I mean seriously, just take a look at Africa, they have large families because children are *cheap*, and start paying off the moment they can look after the goats.
They also have large families because, when you get old, who is going to look after you? Much of Africa lacks the type of highly developed social...
That is also my view. More over, I don't believe that this necessarily leads to oppressive gender paradigm, when it comes either to women, transgenders or queer people of any inclination. A "high virility = good" society could just as well be matriarchal (oppressively so or not), painting women as the lifegivers, and men as secondary when it comes to it.
Even in a system that does actually espouse what we consider the old conservative beliefs of women needing to stay put, in a setting like Golarion, that could have a widely different meaning. For example, a village of traditionalist Erastil worshipers could have a booming church based on highly skilled women as healers and priests, tending the farms, the sick and the needy while fully embracing the gender norm of devoting themselves to family and community.
And Crystal, I brought this up because the perception of gender and what it means to be a specific gender in a specific society was being discussed, especially in regards of physical capability meaning perfect equality in all regards. I do believe that the views of the community or the family would be of great importance while discussing how a trans person could feel and move in it. I do agree that a PC or any adventurer almost by definition is at least somewhat outside the norm, but we all carry a part of our roots and upbringing, whether to embrace or to rebel against it as we move in life.
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I don't see what any of this has to do with trans men and their representation in Golarion. I feel we're getting off topic again.
Yeah, more info on trans men and how to run/roleplay them would be way more interesting and probably a great help to everyone who is not a trans men, while at the same time spreading understanding and information.
One of the best NPC's in the game is trans.
Miss Feathers.
/boom.
Frankly I am shocked and dismayed Miss Feathers has not left her former trade to become the VC of Kaer Maga. It wouldn't be the first time she'd summoned some curious pathfinders to her chambers...
This thread is inspiring me to make a trans-man character.
Annnddd a follower of Arshea. (Maybe or maybe not on the same character)