Who here misses the edginess of 3.5 Edition Golarion?

[Phillip Gastone]

Derp. I did mean 'not a good thing'

[Pnakotus Detsujin]

I would like to say i'm very glad we see a few wizards from then Magaambyan tradition helping out with the process of restoring Sarkoris.

To me, it shows maturity and an humanitarian sprint when - in a society of easy teleport - people for half the world away can come to assist in the recovery of a land the shall now easily exploit themselves.

I mean, i would have seen cheliax or Razmirian run there and try to grab as much land as possible, but we don't seem to get it. Correct me if i'm wrong.

[Phillip Gastone]

As for the convert or die thing, I must have missed that since I thought they were more 'I can give a chance for forgiveness, but if I ever catch you doing something like this again, I will end you.'

[James Jacobs]

Rysky wrote:

Also everyone’s avoiding the elephant in the room with writers seeing middle eastern themed religious folk and deciding to go “Ah so they’re jihadists. Got it.”

When that obviously was not supposed to be something even remotely associated with them and one of if not the biggest Big Good of the setting.

Thank you for pointing that out. Sarenrae was meant from her creation, back in 1990, to be the epitome of goodness. In my home-brew, she was the most powerful deity in the "good" category, after all, and was meant to be the classic save the world from demons/undead protector of all living things. When I transitioned her into Pathifnder and Golarion, a world that didn't categorize deities into the five alignment categories as in my world but instead presented a "core 20" pantheon, her role shifted from "boss good deity" a bit, but her nature didn't change.

The introduction of a sect of her worshipers that painted her faith as jihadists is gross, and it's at the core of what I find insulting and awful about the whole element. There's SO many other deities whose faith can sponsor this sort of thing, but setting up Sarenrae as "sponsoring" this sort of thing and casting that in the light of "Qadira and Taldor are at war", particularly in the late 2000s, is something that never should have happened. It sort of crept in through the back door in products that didn't have proper oversight, festered, and grew to a point where it became one of the most embarrassing failures of lore in Pathinfder I've ever had to deal with. I'm glad it's finally gone from the setting, but as I've mentioned in other threads, lore errors are weirdly difficult to expunge and point out as errors. Rules don't seem to have that problem, fortunately.

[CorvusMask]

Phillip Gastone wrote:

As for the convert or die thing, I must have missed that since I thought they were more 'I can give a chance for forgiveness, but if I ever catch you doing something like this again, I will end you.'

Yeah, no, Cult of Dawnflower twists Sarenrae's redemption teaching into "You redeem yourself by converting to our religion or die by sword!"

[Kasoh]

James Jacobs wrote:

It sort of crept in through the back door in products that didn't have proper oversight, festered, and grew to a point where it became one of the most embarrassing failures of lore in Pathfinder I've ever had to deal with. I'm glad it's finally gone from the setting, but as I've mentioned in other threads, lore errors are weirdly difficult to expunge and point out as errors. Rules don't seem to have that problem, fortunately.

I had known you didn't like it and considered it an error, but I misunderstood how serious an error it was considered. Sorry if I was insensitive to that.

Congrats on getting it fixed.

[Unicore]

It could be interesting to see a lawful good dwarven nation rise up and decide that the chaos and evil rife in the world are a result of people not accepting the supreme decency and honor of Torag and start acting imperialistically, beleiving that the only way that humans can really be entrusted to rule their own nations is if they accept the teachings of Torag and taking a stricter stance on the enforcement of righteous laws in their lands. It could make for an interesting Avistan AP to between Cheliax and this new rise in Dwarven imperialism, while facing a more destructive and powerful Chaotic threat.

[The Raven Black]

Whether Chaotic, Neutral or Lawful, Good will never oppress people though.

[Davor Firetusk]

I would strongly disagree, if you have the Good answers letting people do otherwise is just another way to let Evil happen. Without other values in place that basic proposition can form the basis of a potent argument. It was even a significant feature of the Dragonlance setting.

[James Jacobs]

Having an alignment system in place means that we as the content creators more or less have to interpret those actions for our NPCs, which gives them absolutes, which can clash against real-world ideologies in ways that can ruin the game for some people. Best we can do in our products is to assign alignments as WE interpret them, which means that our beliefs are codified in print for Golarion as absolutes. That can be awkward, especially when we introduce elements to the game without linking them to alignments, so that people can weaponize the rules to push their own agendas and create non-safe places for other players at the table while hiding behind our publications as implied "permission" to behave that way with their character.

For one, I agree 100% with The Raven Black that a good character or faith or nation wouldn't oppress people, or at the very least wouldn't intentionally do so and upon realizing their mistake, would take action to correct that mistake.

This isn't a design philosophy that has always been in place in games that have alignments in them, and it's not a design philosophy that produces the exact same results when two different designers at different companies tackle the same topic.

I've long felt that alignment was a very valuable tool in RPG design, but today I think it's more trouble than it's worth and kind of wish we had a different method to quantify that sort of thing in-game. We don't, so instead we make sure to include content warnings as appropriate, and often remind our customers in print that player consent is very important in running your games. That includes having everyone at your table consenting to alignment interpretations.

(This train of thought is, for example, why Abadar, a god of "civilization," is lawful neutral and not lawful good.)

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Sigh wrote:

A.) How many of you _really_ found a good place for a Folca worshiper to be introduced in a way that fit the narrative and theming of your campaign?

No, but the discussion around removing Folca showed me that there exist players for whom having Folca worshippers to oppose would be an actively positive thing, so if a player in a group I was DMing were to express such a position in pre-campaign discussion, I would certainly wish to be open ot it.

[CorvusMask]

I do think that alignments has its own use even with internet people arguing about whether good characters are allowed to be villains x'D

Like, there is definitely difference in playing a game where there is no objective "alignment" vs one where you can say "yeah this guy is objectively evil". And I do think its valuable to have alignments as an option even if lot of people just want to get rid of them x'D

I don't know what is majority opinion on topic, but I certainly hope paizo won't get rid of them :'D

[PossibleCabbage]

Yeah, Zealots who are aligned with a deity or a cause that is itself good, but they themselves do harm in their zeal is probably a fine thing to have in a fictional world it's just that.

1) When these people almost entirely dwell in and around equatorial deserts and are coded middle eastern, we're treading on thin ice. That's not to say you can't justify it, but you really have to do the legwork here.

2) But it's not at all justified. "Convert or die" is as inappropriate for Sarenrae as it would be for Shelyn considering that a huge portion of Sarenrae's portfolio is about mercy and redemption. You could probably justify this for like Torag or Iomedae (and definitely like Ragathiel), but not Sarenrae at all. Of all the core gods, she's might be the one *most* upset by swordpoint conversions.

So you're left to conclude that the primary reason we had the zealots as Sarenrites and not Iomedeans is their skin color, which is absolutely a lore mistake that needs correcting.

[Evan Tarlton]

Pnakotus Detsujin wrote:

I would like to say i'm very glad we see a few wizards from then Magaambyan tradition helping out with the process of restoring Sarkoris.

To me, it shows maturity and an humanitarian sprint when - in a society of easy teleport - people for half the world away can come to assist in the recovery of a land the shall now easily exploit themselves.

I mean, i would have seen cheliax or Razmirian run there and try to grab as much land as possible, but we don't seem to get it. Correct me if i'm wrong.

In the long run, a land grab isn't that feasible for them. There are too many other players, whether as potential rivals or as Sarkoran allies. I have no doubt that the Church of Asmodeus would love to get it's hooks in, but direct support from Cheliax would be limited. After all, there's the short term problem to consider: Tar-Baphon is free. Handling that takes precedence. The Magaambya has more freedom to help the people of Sarkoris, because they are more removed from that threat, and I have no doubt that they're gearing up to help when the time comes to throw down with T-B. Dealing with Mythic evil is something they do.

[Unicore]

The Raven Black wrote:

Whether Chaotic, Neutral or Lawful, Good will never oppress people though.

A “Torag worshiping dwarf civilization rises up out of the mountains to benignly ‘colonize’ the humans who have clearly lost their way into devil worship, enabling the spread of undead armies, and letting their lands be overrun with armies of Orcs and Goblins,” doesn’t really feel like “the forces of good setting out to oppress people,” though. There have been many APs about the colonization of “wild lands,” and establishing new kingdoms.

It would be interesting to see an AP invert that without just having the colonial force be an obvious Evil threat that is to be smashed. I don’t think it would work to make them the ultimate big bad of the AP, but it could be fun to have an AP that navigates an adventure goal for the PCs that is happening within a setting of a Cold War/cultural war between two imperialistic nations.

[YawarFiesta]

I always thought that the Cult of Dawnflower was heretical, but established enough to have power.

Humbly,
Yawar

[Rysky]

Heretical is irrelevant, since they were still written in and given P1 used the one-step rule for worship and still getting powers (so glad that's gone) they still got powers from Sarenrae, and that's a big problem.

[TheWarriorPoet519]

TheWarriorPoet519 wrote:

No.

Dangit, I meant no, I don't miss it.

[FormerFiend]

Sigh wrote:

For me I'm just more of the opinion that edginess comes more often from the DM and less from the source material. Two different DMs could portray the same exact situation with wildly different levels of edge, and that's entirely dependent on their narration style.

Sure, you can argue things like the diminishing of creatures like Folca is a diminishing of the potential for edge within the framework of the entire series, but I would counter that by saying:
A.) How many of you _really_ found a good place for a Folca worshiper to be introduced in a way that fit the narrative and theming of your campaign? And
B.) There's nothing stopping you from still including someone who would otherwise be one of his followers, but just have the individual worship someone else or just leave him as a crazy bastard in general with no specific mention of his faith.

The only place where I'll specifically draw the line is the downplaying of the traditional values of Erastil, because you can still be Lawful Good and also exclusionary to other Lawful Good individuals if they don't fit within your specific framework of how people should act, especially if that framework deals with something as primal as survival in nature. The harsh reality is that even with magic certain walks of life just are less conducive to long term community survival than others in the wilds than in civilization.

For that matter there's nothing stopping anyone from using Folca if they want to regardless of what Paizo does or doesn't publish. James Jacobs isn't going to show up to someone's house & tell them they're doing it wrong & threaten them with legal action if they ignore Folca being dead or retconned out of existence or however 2e handled him. Paizo isn't Palladium, after all.

Going back to an earlier point of mine, it's my personal belief that tabletop rpg systems & settings should exist primarily, first and foremost, as toolboxes & sandboxes respectively, for we the customers to use to tell our own stories in the collaborative act of storying telling that is the interaction between dm & player. Their role as vessels for facilitating stories told by the writers & developers at Paizo should, again in my humble opinion, be viewed as a distant, distant second to that primary purpose.

We should all of us feel free to ignore, disregard, reexamine, recontextualize, reconfigure, & reimagine anything Paizo publishes or a developer posts on these forums as it pertains to world building, so long as it's done so within the agreement of our gaming groups, and is done with the intent of enhancing the story to the personal tastes & sensibilities of same.

Which is one of the reasons I find the complaint in the OP to be a bit hollow as all it amounts to is complaining about the burden of effort being shifted over to the player & DM. It's now on them to look at the info Paizo publishes, think about it critically, & if it doesn't live up to their definition of "edgy" or "mature" & whatever those words mean to them, either make the decision to ignore it or find an angle from which to make it fit that definition.

[Kasoh]

FormerFiend wrote:

Paizo isn't Palladium, after all.

Did that happen?

[thejeff]

FormerFiend wrote:

Going back to an earlier point of mine, it's my personal belief that tabletop rpg systems & settings should exist primarily, first and foremost, as toolboxes & sandboxes respectively, for we the customers to use to tell our own stories in the collaborative act of storying telling that is the interaction between dm & player. Their role as vessels for facilitating stories told by the writers & developers at Paizo should, again in my humble opinion, be viewed as a distant, distant second to that primary purpose.

We should all of us feel free to ignore, disregard, reexamine, recontextualize, reconfigure, & reimagine anything Paizo publishes or a developer posts on these forums as it pertains to world building, so long as it's done so within the agreement of our gaming groups, and is done with the intent of enhancing the story to the personal tastes & sensibilities of same.

Which is one of the reasons I find the complaint in the OP to be a bit hollow as all it amounts to is complaining about the burden of effort being shifted over to the player & DM. It's now on them to look at the info Paizo publishes, think about it critically, & if it doesn't live up to their definition of "edgy" or "mature" & whatever those words mean to them, either make the decision to ignore it or find an angle from which to make it fit that definition.

To an extent. Obviously, we're all free to change anything we want for our games, but a lot of Paizo's effort and product goes into both setting and especially adventures. Story is inherent to at least the latter. Maybe less so if they were publishing pure sandbox adventures, but that's never been much of a success for anyone.

[YawarFiesta]

Rysky wrote:

Heretical is irrelevant, since they were still written in and given P1 used the one-step rule for worship and still getting powers (so glad that's gone) they still got powers from Sarenrae, and that's a big problem.

I am pretty sure that those that do the convert-or-die are evil and therefore do not receive any special powers from Sarenrae and those that do have special powers received them from other sources.

Also, remember the Pit of Gormuz, people flocked to that place by misinterpreting Saranrae's warnings and were corrupted by the influence of Rovagug. I would presume that something similar happens with Cult of the Dawnflower.

IRL, people have done atrocities in the name of the greater good and done a variety of mental gymnastics to justify to themselves and their biases as something done for the greater good. It is not that hard to see a bunch of "misguided" individuals doing the same.

Humbly,
Yawar

[PossibleCabbage]

One of the best things about anathema is that it lets deities lock out (from directly receiving power from the deity) those whose actions and creed are directly contrary to that deity.

Not just Sarenrae, but there were weird edge cases with the one-step rule, most notably non-Good followers of Sarenrae (but also like non-Evil followers of Asmodeus.)

[Davor Firetusk]

However the onestep rule well represented the inconsistent way in which people tend to interact with religion. Which is to say generally in practice people pick and choose tenants of a their faith of choice that appeal or resonate more. In a related way I've generally found the way Golarion tends to see a fair number of heresies across different faiths and alignments really interesting world building.

[thejeff]

Davor Firetusk wrote:

However the onestep rule well represented the inconsistent way in which people tend to interact with religion. Which is to say generally in practice people pick and choose tenants of a their faith of choice that appeal or resonate more. In a related way I've generally found the way Golarion tends to see a fair number of heresies across different faiths and alignments really interesting world building.

People in the real world do, but in the real world deities don't regularly grant miraculous powers to their followers, so perhaps not surprising they don't want to do so for those not closely aligned?

Regular, non-powered worshippers can follow whoever they like of course.

[PossibleCabbage]

Yeah, "I attend services for [whomever]" is open to anyone of any alignment (notably in canonical sources Varian Jerggare is a Desna worshipper, but he attends and pays lip service to the Asmodean rites he's expected to as a noble of Cheliax). It's just that your deity is not going to give you the power to heal or harm or raise the dead or whatever if you're not a true believer who follows the party line.

[Davor Firetusk]

Those are solid points, and I'm generally not one who prefers a whole lot of real world in my games. However in so far as we have only 1 example of sapient behavior to draw on it seems a general feature of sapient creatures. Bigger counterpoint though deities on Golarion are supposed to be relatively passive. And routinely cutting off followers for variant beliefs could get into sticky territory.

[Kasoh]

Davor Firetusk wrote:

Those are solid points, and I'm generally not one who prefers a whole lot of real world in my games. However in so far as we have only 1 example of sapient behavior to draw on it seems a general feature of sapient creatures. Bigger counterpoint though deities on Golarion are supposed to be relatively passive. And routinely cutting off followers for variant beliefs could get into sticky territory.

There's a few places where variant beliefs get toyed with in interesting ways.

First, I just want to mention that Ghozra worship gets corrupted by cults at least twice (Extinction Curse and in Carrion Crown). I don't know if the religion is more susceptible to it because of Ghozra's multi form aspect but that's there.

Iomedae's church essentially had to disavow an entire sect when the Glorious Reclamation went off on its own to liberate Cheliax. That was more political because none of the Glorious Reclamation lost their powers and their actions were within Iomedae's purview, I believe. (I haven't done a close reading of Hell's Vengeance though.)

The Redeemer Queen's cult did not receive spells from Noticula until she changed alignment I think which was problematic for the cult as they would get attacked by orthodox Noticula worshipers.

Occasionally you'll see points where dieties get worshipped in odd ways. There's a Pharasma/Desna combo you see off and on again (once in Mummy's Mask I think and another in Ruins of Azlant?)

[FormerFiend]

Kasoh wrote:

FormerFiend wrote:

Paizo isn't Palladium, after all.

Did that happen?

I was being hyperbolic for effect but Kevin Siembieda, the owner & for the most part solo dev of Palladium Books, is known to throw absolute fits whenever someone uses his systems for purposes he doesn't like; mainly in terms of using the mechanics of one of his systems - say, RIFTS - to play in a different setting, like Shadowrun or Forgotten Realms or whatever, because he's somehow under the impression that players doing so opens him up to some sort of legal liability.

[Sigh]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

2) But it's not at all justified. "Convert or die" is as inappropriate for Sarenrae as it would be for Shelyn considering that a huge portion of Sarenrae's portfolio is about mercy and redemption.

I'm reminded of the Antagonist Paladin mini-arc in the Kingmaker video game, canon or not to the official lore that's a good example I think of even a Shelynite going too far in their faith to the point where it can become fanatical and dangerous.

Kasoh wrote:

The Redeemer Queen's cult did not receive spells from Noticula until she changed alignment I think which was problematic for the cult as they would get attacked by orthodox Noticula worshipers.

As an aside, are we going to get an official statblock for a CN version of the Succubi that followed Nocticula into being redeemed? I vaguely recall that at least some of her following came with her, and the remnants scattered elsewhere, and it's been shown from other creature's bestiary entries that a large group of Outsiders shifting to a new alignment en masse tends to morph them into a new form befitting that new alignment.

[YawarFiesta]

In regards to Erastil, while defenitely not a fan, I don't see him as mysogynist.

Yes he says that women should stay at home taking care of the kids, but also says that men should only be farmers or local tradesmen and settle down. Basically, everyone should settle down and live in a small rural community, even other gods.

Also, there is a big difference "you must" and "you should". The former is a command, the later is a suggestion.

Humbly,
Yawar

[Rysky]

When a gods tells you to do it, it's not a suggestion.

[Davor Firetusk]

Actually it is a suggestion since Golarion's deities are very limited on any kind of direct interference.

[YawarFiesta]

He is a paternalistic deity, not a mob boss. He is kinda insufferable, like parents pressuring you to settle down and have children because that is what they believe to be better for you.

Humbly,
Yawar

[thejeff]

YawarFiesta wrote:

In regards to Erastil, while defenitely not a fan, I don't see him as mysogynist.

Yes he says that women [b]should[\b] stay at home taking care of the kids, but also says that men [b]should[\b] only be farmers or local tradesmen and settle down. Basically, everyone should settle down and live in a small rural community, even other gods.

Even in a small rural community, women could farm or be tradespeople and men could stay home taking care of the kids. Framing it as these are women's roles and these are men's roles is misogynistic.

The other big problem with Erastil's portrayal was that he's supposed to be the god of tradition and the old ways of doing things and the gender roles come out of that - except that's an Earthly viewpoint on traditional gender roles that isn't actually part of Golarion's history.

[CorvusMask]

Yeah contrary to popular belief, cultural beliefs and traditions aren't actually universal and tend to vary on culture <_<

[Deserk]

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Also, I have never seen the Cult of the Dawnflower in the light James Jacobs described, that is to say being essentially "jihadist-like", or having this "convert or die" mentality as others seem to describe, and I certainly don't appreciate such allusions. Could anyone please cite whichever books explicitly speaks of the Cult in this manner?

I actually found it quite interesting idea to have a militant and belligerent faction of an otherwise good faith, and personally I would like to see more cults like it within other good faiths in Golarion, i.e. with Iomedae, or Torag in the way a previous poster spoke about. Cults that dances on the edges of being dogmatically acceptable, because it would stop all of the faiths from being so one-dimensional and uniform. And it would make all adherents have to stop and think about what makes a person a proper follower of this or that god, like we have to struggle with in the RW. It especially makes sense for gods that have a major following in the Golarion like Sarenrae to have many cults and sects. And what makes it more interesting is that it would invite the possibility of religious strife within the same faith, which can be a interesting thing to play around with (i.e. traditional Sarenrae-worshippers and the C. of the Dawnflower competing for influence).

[The Raven Black]

Erastil is Good, so he will never allow his worship to be consistently used as an excuse to do Evil, for example oppressing people because of their gender.

[Ixal]

The Raven Black wrote:

Erastil is Good, so he will never allow his worship to be consistently used as an excuse to do Evil, for example oppressing people because of their gender.

Sounds more like a law/chaos issue to me. Good and evil would only come in effect for how to treat violations.

Labeling everything good or evil based on modern sensibilities will only lead that every good faith or state looking like a unrealistic utopia indistinguishable from each other while everything which looks even remotely like a historic faith or state will be labeled as evil.

[thejeff]

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

[Ixal]

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

The question is though, would the setting be better with such mistakes or not?

[Tarik Blackhands]

Ixal wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

The question is though, would the setting be better with such mistakes or not?

Depends who you ask. I personally found it comical that the second most granola bar chewing Good deity behind Shelyn was granting divine power to a sect of sword point conversion loons and just kind of eternally rolling with it. "Oh sure, I don't like what they're doing and they're THIS close to me giving them a stern talking to"

It has the same energy as that whole Asmodean Paladin thing from a while back.

[thejeff]

Ixal wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

The question is though, would the setting be better with such mistakes or not?

There's a difference between "I liked this and wish they'd left it that way" and "That was printed, so they should leave it canon even if it was an error."

[Kasoh]

Ixal wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

The question is though, would the setting be better with such mistakes or not?

The opinion of the Creative Director appears to be, no it is not better. Since that is the person making the decision that appears to be that.

From a publishing standpoint, I think the Cult of the Dawnflower is interesting because it lasted a while and got rules support. There is at least one prestige class that ties directly into them. (Dawnflower Dissident.)

The way that content and lore appeared every now and again with updates and clarifications on what was going on made me think that this was an intentional long game by the company. We have since been corrected on that notion.

I've been trying to think of an analogy and I guess its like if someone wrote Superman in Justice League in a way to directly contradict what was happening in Action Comics. Someone made a mistake and the editorial team has to find a solution.

[CorvusMask]

Bit too tired to try to find exact source since they are scattered, but one example I can think of is Occult Realms' icon article where Earthbound Reliquary (NG Idol's) article is basically all about how "main church of Sarenrae" wants to destroy it because its teachings are heretical.

Now granted, that one talks about the "greater church of Sarenrae" rather than Cult of Dawnflower but it does seem to make same mistake of assuming Sarenrae's church is much more dogmatic that it should be and that they would be all too willing to destroy NG magical item and break up the cult surrounding it that is focused on helping people :p

[NECR0G1ANT]

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

The Cult of the Dawnflower did not get retcon’d out of existence. Their situation was resolved in-universe.

p. 42-3 of Lost Omens Gods & Magic wrote:

Preachers often publicly cite the text in passionate sermons when condemning cruelty and corruption, giving the faithful a reputation as fiery zealots. In places like Qadira, this puts many of her followers in conflict with those in power who allow or even support evils like slavery—in recent times, she has stripped her blessings from those among the faith who condoned such evils, though after the Dawnflower’s temper cooled, she has publicly offered redemption to disgraced faithful who are willing to repent.

So the faction of Sarenrites that condoned militancy and slavery are disbanded, but they are part of the setting lore. As for nuance, there’s more potential for story with various factions in Qadiran society pulling different ways. The Sarenrite Church, the satrap, his wife, the vizier are all pulling in different directions. Plenty of potential intrigue there.

[James Jacobs]

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

Correct. The original author of Sarenrae is me, remember. I've been building her story up in a fantasy setting since the late 1980s. If anything, the lack of respect to the past authors is exactly what the Cult of the Dawnflower was doing, and in part why it bothered me so much.

It also came into print during an era of Pathfinder where we did NOT have anyone in a position of being responsible for setting lore. I was pretty much just working on Adventure Paths and that's about it when this unintentional and regrettable element got into print.

I've been trying to "errata it and move on" for over a decade. It's not working yet, obviously, since it keeps getting referenced in threads as being canon. Which returns to why I'm so frustrated with our lack of a proper and viable method of correcting lore errors in print. Best I could do was to "resolve it in-game" as best as possible. For many years I wanted to do it as an Adventure Path so that we could have spent six months showing how it was an error, but that never got to be.

[Rysky]

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence.

F$@! em. When you f%~! up or worse intentionally put something vile in that goes against the canonicty of the setting no you don’t get a pass nor is your say absolute. “It’s in print you’re not allowed to change it”, they don’t have absolute control over the setting so no.

Edit: ninjaed by James so that made me realize and add that by leaving that stuff unchanged you are being disrespectful to the creator and writer himself, James Jacobs. He says that’s not what Sarenrae represents. His words on the matter hold a lot more weight than what some other writer wrote in error, especially given what’s being discussed.

Deserk wrote:

Also, I have never seen the Cult of the Dawnflower in the light James Jacobs described, that is to say being essentially "jihadist-like", or having this "convert or die" mentality as others seem to describe, and I certainly don't appreciate such allusions.

That’s pretty much their only depiction.[/quote=Deserk]Heretics and dissent still exist, it’s that they were still receiving power from the goddess of good that was an issue. That’s an endorsement.

Deserk wrote:

And it would make all adherents have to stop and think about what makes a person a proper follower of this or that god, like we have to struggle with in the RW.

That still occurs, absolutely nothing prevents that from occurring. People can still fall in various ways, if anything being “easier” to fall makes this introspection even more pronounced, not less.

Also as opposed to real life in Golarion you can plane shift or literally ask your deity or their agents about stuff.