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I personally love it when authors tell me, "Hey, remember that thing I told you was true, and it's held true all this time, and shaped your view? Yeah, well... I was lying to you. It's not that at all. This is what's actually true*."
*
A world I know every truth and detail about, a world with no more surprises, is a dead world to me.
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I personally love it when authors tell me, "Hey, remember that thing I told you was true, and it's held true all this time, and shaped your view? Yeah, well... I was lying to you. It's not that at all. This is what's actually true*."
*
A world I know every truth and detail about, a world with no more surprises, is a dead world to me.
Not to put words/intent into your mouth, but I think that comes off a bit harsh. Really, the existing Paizo published lore on lashunta hasn't been voluminous, and the details on their society less so. I like to see it is as we've been getting info on par with DC 10 to DC 13 Knowledge checks up until now. That's still at the "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." level. That we the players/GMs, and now the PCs, are just now starting to get a more nuanced and deeper view doesn't mean we were being lied to or deliberately mislead. It's just the difference between the information imparted from an encyclopedia article or 1 hour nature program on apes and the information potentially imparted from Jane Goodall about apes.
Pretty sure that this counts as a Korasha.
That's just a bearded human with a weird tiara stapled to his forehead. It doesn't even have the same color palette.
@Ouachitonian- Actually it's more space fantasy.
Science doesn't care about how a society views an issue.
Indeed. Science has no capacity to care at all. But it does influence and shape societies, opening (and closing) possible forms of that society.
I heartily recommend the body of literature on technological determinism for a take on how science and technology shape society, though it tends to be fairly negative, and a lot of people reject it out of hand because it de-emphasizes personal choice.
No, no. I mean that exactly as I said it. I wholeheartedly believe creators should be allowed the freedom to deceive their audience.
I do not believe James Sutter did that in the case of the Lashunta. As he himself said, this is clearly a case of a creator looking back on past work and saying, "I can do that better." But I still enjoy when creative types are allowed to be creative without being shackled by what they've already established.
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There probably is a race with significant sexual dimorphism, they just aren't one of the core races. We might see them in the Alien Archive, or one of the adventure paths. Just because something doesn't exist in the CRB doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the universe.
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I personally love it when authors tell me, "Hey, remember that thing I told you was true, and it's held true all this time, and shaped your view? Yeah, well... I was lying to you. It's not that at all. This is what's actually true*."
*
A world I know every truth and detail about, a world with no more surprises, is a dead world to me.
"Hey, Luke, remember that thing I told you was true, and it's held true all this time, and shaped your view? Yeah, well... I was lying to you. It's not that at all. This is what's actually true..." -- Obi-wan Kenobi
Personally, I like it - also, thanks to James for clueing me into the North/South Korea thing: I just started digging into that after what you wrote, and that is freakin' fascinating! i had never heard this before!
I have been planning out an NPC that would actually work out best as a female korasha lashunta. She is supposed to be a genius who lacks common sense (wisdom penalty) and social skills (lack of charisma bonus). The strength bonus that "male" lashunta get in Pathfinder does not hurt the concept at all.
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Through their works, Paizo tells stories that echo their set of values and beliefs. As those change, so do the works
This an argument that I've seen, explicitly or implicitly, a few times in this thread. It's interesting for a couple of reasons:
First, because it seems to expose a lack of viewpoint diversity among Paizo staffers. Seems like that might be a good thing to have when designing an inclusive universe with all sorts of species and cultural variance.
More importantly, though, is how selectively it's applied. Most nations of Pathfinder aren't modern secular liberal democracies, but no one seems to think that this is because the nations echo the values and beliefs of their writers (or maybe they do, and most Paizo writers are monarchists?) Some of the gods of Pathfinder have absolutely reprehensible beliefs, expectations from their worshippers, etc. No one thinks that Norgorber or Lamashtu or even Erastil necessarily reflects the beliefs and values of the writers (to say nothing of more minor divine beings, who are at times even more disturbing). So why does alien biology have to reflect the beliefs and values of the writers? It seems to me that aliens should be, well, alien. As it stands, these "aliens" looks different, and have different game mechanics, but they've got a remarkably uniform, and remarkably human, streak to much of their underlying biology and value structure. It reminds me of Star Trek's "rubber forehead aliens", where we're expected to believe that aliens all over the galaxy just so happen to look like humans with difference skin tone and minor facial prosthetics.
Is...Is this still a game about killing dragons.
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Is...Is this still a game about killing dragons.
Yes. But it's about killing dragons with LASERS!
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One is though - something that isn't just implausible, but actually impossible with medieval level communication technology. It's quite clear (perhaps more so to a non-American) that the inclusion of Andoran in the campaign setting reflects the American values of the writers.
Good thing this mostly rennaissance era at earliest world has a lot of magic and supernatural critters around. I mean cheap steel swords and almost never infected wounds? Absurd!
Developer, Starfinder Team
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Not really surprising, since they all live in the same place, and have similar educational backgrounds - a university/college level education is a basic requirement.
While that has been listed in job listings for developers, in no way does that mean our educational backgrounds are similar.
We have lots of different degrees, some people who got development jobs without going through the job posting process, people who got degrees in Europe, and so on.
Heck, I am a self-declared conservative college dropout who barely graduated High School (I was technically half a credit shy, and had to talk my way into a degree) who lived in central Oklahoma for all but 4 of the past 47 years. I have a different social and educational background than a native PNW-er.
Now we DO value diversity, and in no way am I saying their aren't some aspects of the writers and developers and editors lives where we have more similarities than differences.
But I do not see our educational backgrounds as a significant one of those areas.
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True, i'm not saying it couldn't exist in a world where a wizard did it, only that it is a fairly major deviation from pseudo-medieval that says a lot about the writers' values.
Given that we're still running on a Constitution written in 1789, I have to admit I am curious as to what technological advances you're thinking of.
Going in a slightly different direction, there's a new preview out now for another of Starfinder's planets: