| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Kurgess, the god of strength and video games (well, competition, close enough) has his sacred animal listed as a horse. But Kurgess as a mortal died saving a bunch of people from being eaten by raptors during a chariot race.
(Taldor has some weird sports.)
I propose the most important thing PF2 can do is make Kurgess's sacred animal be a raptor, and then include a paladin-appropriate raptor mount.
Do you have any setting/mechanic intersections you want to see tweaked?
Was it a chariot race? I remember it being like the Running of Bulls style, just release raptors into the streets.
At any rate, I agree.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, the event was detailed in a couple different books, but only got a line or two each time. I think it shows up in the Campaign Setting book, and then Inner Sea Faiths, and maybe a couple mentions elsewhere. I read a lot about it because my party (four paladins!) adventure in Taldor, and they met a paladin of Kurgess training for the race.
In one place it's the Raptor Run, which implies a running of the bulls, but in another place it's the Raptor Race. And Kurgess in one version explicitly 'crashed his chariot into a trap to give others a chance to escape the raptors.'
So the version I ended up using is a race that has sections of the city blocked off, and people spectating from bleachers or rooftops. It starts with them releasing 13 raptors in the streets, and you run from them (but these days the raptors are trained just to knock people down, not kill them), and after a half-mile route you reach the Oppara arena, where chariots await.
You mount up on a chariot, and then need to run down the raptors and wrangle them back to a corral, located at the city's Lion Gate. You need at least one raptor to count as 'completing the race,' and every raptor you bring in after the first shaves a minute off from your time, so some people just go for speed.
My in-universe explanation from the whole event is that centuries ago some Taldan monarch received a bunch of raptors as a gift from a Mwangi king, and didn't know what to do with them, but then the peasants started revolting, so he let them loose in the streets, and after that cowed the revolt, he had to send knights in on chariots to round the raptors up. He liked it so much he decided it'd be an annual thing, Purge-style.
Kurgess competed in it a few years later with the intention of preventing anyone from getting hurt, and the monarch didn't appreciate the holier-than-thou guy making him look bad, so tried to rig barricades to fall across the road and trap Kurgess and onlookers in a killing field. Kurgess realized it, and spurred his chariot to get underneath a barrier as it fell, leaving a gap open for innocents to escape.
Though he was battered from the impact, he still managed to grapple the alpha of the raptor pack, to keep it from following people through the gap. While being disemboweled, he waited for the last bystander to escape, then shattered his own chariot so the horses could escape, which dropped the barricade fully. It cut off his own escape, but kept the raptors from following anyone else.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
"You know those animals that I died trying to save innocent people from being horribly torn apart by? They're great. Stamp of approval. Raise them, take care of them, all that jazz."
I'm really not following the reasoning for those being his sacred animal. If he'd been drawn and quartered, I would expect his sacred animal to be anything but a horse. Having his paladins ride around on Peasant Slaughterer Jr. just sounds out of character.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Exactly. Sure, cool story, but the raptors don't exemplify the sporting protagonist of strength, they are just carnivorous predator used as hazard in the questionable event. The raptors never win the event, even if they feast on some of the failed contestants. The horse is racer just as it's rider Kurgess is, the horse's strength is one with his, horse's strength is in fact how we measure machine "strength" in real world (horse power). That is the best sacred animal mascot for god of strength, sport, striving to win.
Does remind me, Paizo should really try to do something decent with CHARIOTS. Spiked wheel bash FTW!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now, Chris Pratt's sacred animal? Sure, that I can see.
In my version he basically redeemed the raptors. They were being used in bloodsport, but he saved people and caused Taldor to switch to a nonlethal version of the event.
"You know those animals that I died trying to save innocent people from being horribly torn apart by? They're great. Stamp of approval. Raise them, take care of them, all that jazz."Stranger things have happened.
Christians are really pretty pro-crosses. They wear them as jewelry, they build cathedrals with them as the layout, they carve them into giant monuments, they print them on their national flags and banners, etc...
One might easily forget that the Cross (they even capitalize it in English) was the method of execution of their founder. If Jesus had been hanged we might have loop shaped architecture all over Europe.
Pretty majorly a different situation there...
|
Pretty majorly a different situation there..."You know those animals that I died trying to save innocent people from being horribly torn apart by? They're great. Stamp of approval. Raise them, take care of them, all that jazz."Stranger things have happened.
Christians are really pretty pro-crosses. They wear them as jewelry, they build cathedrals with them as the layout, they carve them into giant monuments, they print them on their national flags and banners, etc...
One might easily forget that the Cross (they even capitalize it in English) was the method of execution of their founder. If Jesus had been hanged we might have loop shaped architecture all over Europe.
I don't know that it is that big a difference... Actually pretty apt to be honest.
However, I think it's best to leave the real world religion out of the forums, since I've seen how quickly it can devolve since neither side is likely to see the other's as a valid argument.
I've been there before, lets just leave it out of this, whether or not the comparison works. There's nothing people hate more than others denigrating their core beliefs, whatever they may be.
The OP doesn’t just want raptors used as a symbol, but raised and ridden. Raptors will still kill and eat innocent civilians if they get loose, barring some very good handle animal or grapple checks.
I feel like his sacred animal being a horse is saying, “No, use these, like a society that cares about its citizenry not getting eaten.”
I'd expect him to have an Exterminatus order on raptors and other carnosaurs, tbh.
The Cross is different because, at least to Christians, the Cross was a good thing. In fact, it was the goal. Raptors aren't.
I'd expect him to have an Exterminatus order on raptors and other carnosaurs, tbh.
I doubt Kurgess blames the raptors for what they used for; a raptor is just an animal that attacks and eats on instinct, the blame lies with the people who used those natural instincts for cruel purposes.