After reading the Adventurer's Guide I've been thinking about making a character with that Background. But in the Prestige Class it breifly mentiones Queen Ileosa's doctrine of racial purity. I had seen nothing about that in the Gray Maidens write up, nor when I looked up Queen Ileosa, only that Gray Maidens had to be female and Ileosa didn't care who had to die to extend her personal power.
So would Gray Maidens only be human ( or at least human passing like changlings or skinchangers) or could they have been drafted from any race?
I was under the impression that racial purity was a pretty common idea in Cheliax, so them bring restricted to just humans doesn't surprise me, but I can't actually find anything besides the prestige class that suggests it.
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It's true that it's never made explicit; e.g., "all Gray Maidens were ethnically-Chelaxian human women". (See below for the known exceptions.) In addition, I wrote most of my Adventurer's Guide sections just before the release of the new hardcover, which added a few things to what we knew. The assumption originates with these passages:
Even before she gained control of Korvosa after her husband’s death, Queen Ileosa was looking to a future where she ruled a city scoured clean of those she deemed undesirable: Varisians, Shoanti, and especially those of the lowest class.
...
Ileosa wanted a city in her own image, and in order for this to come to pass, those of Varisian descent, Shoanti blood, or simply the poor luck to be among Korvosa’s lowest class had to go.
So there's pretty obviously a racial element there. However, there are at least two non-Chelaxian Gray Maidens: Tisharue, the elven warden, and Vavana, the Vudrani enchantress. Both are obviously a cut above the normal soldier, though, suggesting that merit can play a part as well.
My assumption is that non-Chelaxian/non-human Maidens were certainly among the ranks, if rare enough to be noteworthy. They still would have had to meet Ileosa's other requirements, including the subjective measure of "beauty". (Of course, as events went on and Ileosa's attention turned to her deeper plots, the Maiden leaders would have probably started handling recruitment, possibly leading to altered standards. I could see Kordaitra or Tisharue hiring for strength and skill over beauty, on the basis that everyone looks the same in the armor.)
In the end? You're a player character. Feel free to stand out. Perhaps this could drive storytelling - what about your character made her join (or be forcibly recruited) into Ileosa's enforcers? How does her race or ethnicity shape her opinion of events?
Hopefully this helps shed some light on the process. ^_^
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As for the Erinyes Company, they're certainly not going to split hairs about this at all. Any woman who passes their trials and takes their oath is in.