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I think a lot of the growth on not having icky gods has come from watching the interplay of players with the material and seeing how completely incompatible a Greek or Roman style “flawed gods” mythology is with an absolute alignment system. In a world where good exists absolutely, there needs to be 0 mental gymnastics that a typical reader needs to jump through to understand why a gods alignment is what it is.
Historicized explanations for what some cultures might consider good vs others has no place in a world that (in system) is not a product of social construction, but extremely powerful magical forces who never have to wrestle with moral philosophy.
Yes, as players, we know that the world of Golarion is going to reflect our own social construction of morality. And as a fantasy world it makes a lot of sense to err on the side of simplicity and of respect for as diverse a swath of players as you want the game to reach out to, when you are already asking them to make such a radical leap of logic as to say, “in this world good and evil are empirically definable and universal.”
It is perfectly fine to alter your setting, although I would recommend getting rid of alignment all together if you are going to try to change the role of the gods in universe to something more like a Greek or Roman pantheon.
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Could Eristil have been written to be a god of community and agriculture that is a little xenophobic and misogynistic? Of course. That is not exactly a very ground breaking or innovative approach, but it is a direction that the developers may have one time considered, and some may have liked more than others.
But it has a boat load of problems to it as far as constraining misogyny and xenophobia to ethical categories that were not incompatible with absolute unquestionable goodness. Writers and players started to run with themes that felt counter to company wide goals and the consequences of saying “let’s not do that” we’re relatively minor in comparison to doubling down on that. Especially as it is really easy to add those elements back in if they are really necessary to the localized stories you want to tell in a home group. Most people don’t struggle with suspending their disbelief around magical gods not needing to invent oppressive social structures to explain forces that they fully understand and control.
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Sorry, but i think this post is getting a bit off topic.
To me, "edginess" its not related towards how gods of the setting preach something, but how this reflect the society. The fact that a mysoginistic belief system such as diabolist has got a sorcerous queen at its top proves to me that divine dogma is generally less impactful on everyday lives than people's actions and ambition in Golarion.
I mean, in Pf2 we got a Dwarf High King (regent, overlady?) that's thinking how to MAKE PEACE WITH THE ORCS, following the dictated of one of their first mythical ruler, which - from what i get - is against a part of the "divine mandate" for their species/culture.
Yet, she's thinking about it, and no archon's popping down to say "Lady, just kill the greyskins. They're Rovagug's progeny"
Moreover, is /or should/ a god be envisioned inside a specific culture?
Should their "belief system" be viewed as separated and distinct, in their pure forms, from how those are adapted into a particular society?
Problem is, having so many deities in PF, it's normal to have different interpretations of their dogmas, since - and this should be remembered - gods do not think as humans or elves, and their dogmas represent always an "endgame" that looks beyond the lives of every single worshipper.
We all know Desna is a CB lovecraftian elder goddess, but we like to think of her as a naked fairy because that's a dreamlike, not threatening image of Azathoth's little butterfly. We know her white elf visage was gifted to the Kellids, and carried by the varisians into the shared imagination of the empire of Taldor. As such, even her stories and her doctrines were inherited and interpreted from that culture, and are not "hers" until they diverge too much from the image she crafted.
Moving on the topic of culture, i would like to take the Mongrelfolk as example, for I can see way they are not considered a "people": they have no culture, cause they are generally a (recent?) offshoot of humanity that somehow "pops up" in certain urban settings.
Yet, they are sometimes presented as an underground offshoot of azlant, and as such they should have an incredible culture, since they can mate with "EVERYTHING" down there.
Maybe the lack of content about mongrelfolk is, trurly, one of the edgiest things in golarion: they should be the most unique culture of them all, without racism or diffidence, and yet ... we ignore them.
Indeed. My Mongrelfolk/Washing Machine Paladin is an awesome character!
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Sorry, but i think this post is getting a bit off topic.
To me, "edginess" its not related towards how gods of the setting preach something, but how this reflect the society. The fact that a mysoginistic belief system such as diabolist has got a sorcerous queen at its top proves to me that divine dogma is generally less impactful on everyday lives than people's actions and ambition in Golarion.
I mean, in Pf2 we got a Dwarf High King (regent, overlady?) that's thinking how to MAKE PEACE WITH THE ORCS, following the dictated of one of their first mythical ruler, which - from what i get - is against a part of the "divine mandate" for their species/culture.
Yet, she's thinking about it, and no archon's popping down to say "Lady, just kill the greyskins. They're Rovagug's progeny"Moreover, is /or should/ a god be envisioned inside a specific culture?
Should their "belief system" be viewed as separated and distinct, in their pure forms, from how those are adapted into a particular society?Problem is, having so many deities in PF, it's normal to have different interpretations of their dogmas, since - and this should be remembered - gods do not think as humans or elves, and their dogmas represent always an "endgame" that looks beyond the lives of every single worshipper.
We all know Desna is a CB lovecraftian elder goddess, but we like to think of her as a naked fairy because that's a dreamlike, not threatening image of Azathoth's little butterfly. We know her white elf visage was gifted to the Kellids, and carried by the varisians into the shared imagination of the empire of Taldor. As such, even her stories and her doctrines were inherited and interpreted from that culture, and are not "hers" until they diverge too much from the image she crafted
Hell as not been portrayed as misogynistic in many IRL years, in part because of the contradiction you pointed out. It makes very little sense for Cheliax, whose founder and current ruler are both women, to have modeled itself on a misogynistic society, so that lore was changed/retconned/downplayed.
Furthermore, while there is bad blood between at least some dwarves and Belkzen orcs, the dwarves have was no divine mandate to kill orcs and no archons encourage that end. Finally, while Desna as an Outer God is a popular fan theory, it's not actually true, per James Jacobs here.
Outer Gods and Great Old Ones exist apart from the cycle, yes, but Desna is neither. She's ancient and wasn't human shaped at the start, but she's not an Outer God or a Great Old One. That's mostly a (very amusing but inaccurate) theory is all.
In any event, the Windsong Testament entry I wrote a few weeks back locks in her as being one of the first 8 deities in this iteration, so that by definition means she's not older than that.
"Mongrelfolk" are probably just a kind of fleshwarp now, right?
"Mongrelfolk" are probably just a kind of fleshwarp now, right?
I dunno. I believe there is a distinction between the "classic" Mongrelfolk that live in Nar-Voth, and have a culture - i don't know if it was ever explored - and the "freak" mongrelfolk that sometimes pop un under cities because ... reasons?
I would really like to see this explored in other media. I look forward to Wrath of the Righteous also for that.
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Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.
Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.
Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.
Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.
Can't comment on the former, but as Calistria is CN, something like that isn't utterly beyond her church's bounds, I wouldn't think.
Creative Director
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The deities of Pathfinder are not infalliable; they can make mistakes and learn from them. In fact, for several of them, having them make mistakes and learn from them is baked right into their mythologies, such as Desna accidentally releasing Ghlaunder, or Sarenrae's overly violent reaction that created the Pit of Gormuz, etc.
These mistakes are often taught by the respective churches as lessons for the faithful.
A deity making a mistake in their mythology and using that as a parable or to show that a deity is not infallible, though, is an entirely different thing than a writer of a deity article making a mistake when writing that article.
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Which might make for interesting times when the church covers up such oopsies because they want people to believe the deities are perfect.
"Who told you Sarenrae and Asmodeus are secret lovers? HERESY! *BLAMBLAMBLAM*
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Which might make for interesting times when the church covers up such oopsies because they want people to believe the deities are perfect.
What a strange retcon of the setting. Amnesia for all the clergy and faithful, and re-writing of all the sacred teaching texts.
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Which might make for interesting times when the church covers up such oopsies because they want people to believe the deities are perfect.What a strange retcon of the setting. Amnesia for all the clergy and faithful, and re-writing of all the sacred teaching texts.
"You might have heard the tale of The King's New Clothes. Where a little boy said 'The King has no clothes!" which made the king run back to his palace in shame. But what really happened is that the boy's father shut up his son before they got thrown into the dungeon! Because while The King might of had no clothes, The King's Men had sharp pointy swords."
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One of the things I like about Anathema in PF2 is that it sets limit on how wrong not only an individual but also an organization like a church can be about what their god wants.
Like Erastil can tolerate "everybody must cover their head when outdoors" even though it's unrelated to what he cares about but when you try to institute the patriarchy in his name you run a real risk of violating "put yourself ahead of your community".
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Personal thoughts on Erastil;
So, personally I just don't find Erastil to be an interesting god/character, whether you include the patriarchal/misogynistic elements of him or not. Like, either way he's just kinda boring to me. He works well enough as a piece of world building; ie, a god for the common man, the every day farmers of the world to worship rather than one that appeals to more of an adventurer's world view. Like, ultimately that role isn't supposed to be interesting, it's just something that needs to be there.
I do think that representing Erastil as a good but repressive force - whatever form that repression takes, be it patriarchy or just a general conservatism without a gendered element to it, can be interesting if framed as Erastil representing an outdated view of what it means to be good in universe. You can do some commentary on the changing of time & cultural norms with that kind of thing.
You can also use it as a starting point for character arcs & growth. For the sake of arguments you keep Erastil with the sexism, a generally good natured & altruistic adventurer with backwards & outdated thoughts about women stimming from an upbringing in an Erastilian community that he needs to learn are wrong & over come is a tried & true character arc, as is a woman breaking away from her repressive Erastilian family to become an adventurer & the potential for reconciliation requiring her to recognize that they were acting out of love & concern for her while also requiring them to recognize that while they had the best of intentions in wanting to marry their daughter off & keep her in the care of a good, strong man, they were wrong to do so. You know, the old, accepting that toxic people sometimes do toxic things out of the best of intentions, with the key element of they need to confront their own problematic beliefs & try and move passed them.
Those are just some rather trite & cliched examples of what you could do but the key element being that having something like Erastil there, representing a well meaning but regressive & oppressive force influencing these people's lives, allows you to tell that story(within the context of Golarion as a world) without malice. Using him to signify that that these people are fundamentally good but flawed & despite their good intentions are complicit in perpetuating a system of repression, and explore how even people with good intentions can fall into doing that.
Of course I recognize that many people who do suffer under the very much real life systemic patriarchy might not want to deal with that nonsense in their escapist fantasy, fully sympathize with that, & think it should be an optional thing. I think that Erastil, despite being one of the core 20, is honestly a minor enough part of the setting - to the point that I occasionally forget he exists - that one should be free to ignore these elements if one doesn't want to deal with them.
But having an element that allows for exploring those kind of stories if one desires isn't a bad thing, in my opinion.
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Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.
Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.
Never heard of that one, would be kinda weird since isn't sex explicitly one of things Urgathoa is unable to enjoy due to being undead? O_o
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That's the thing, Erastil is a god of GOOD, by having that in setting with his doctrine you're not representing an "interesting" flaw, you're positing that as Good.
It is most certainly not, and is in direct conflict with a being made of Good.
You can have a Good deity have flaws, you can't have a Good deity be Evil, there's a difference.
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Dunno if I mentioned it here yet, but I admittedly wouldn't have minded original Erastil as much if he was Lawful Neutral.
Like it still would be like "Ugh, all jerk players are going to pick this as option (despite it stating he doesn't like adventurers) in order to make other players in party uncomfortable", but my bigger issue was stating that you can somehow be good aligned and treat women as lesser beings :P
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Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.
Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.
See, I'm personally of the opinion that it's much more adorable if the Precious Thing Shelyn stole was Urgathoa's HEART and my favorite Hel-ish deity can find LOVE.
Because honestly, if ANYONE could find a way to melt Urgathoa's heart, it's the goddess of love.
<3
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I want to say something funny, possibly even provocative.
I believe that, if we have to see a god dogma inside the society in which it develops, then Erastil ... tecnically "invented" this philosophy of the patriarchal society.
I mean, both Thassilon and Azlant were - for what i get - beyond this ideas. I mean, humanity greatest historical figure was at that point the mythic warrior Savith, a lady that was able to unite the barbarian azlants and behead a god.
To me, in the age of Darkness, with all the destruction and the skies covered in dust ... Erastil "coded as a dogma" this viewpoint to ensure the humanoid races would survive, by having their cultures - which, in those centuries, were falling into barbarism - to preserve the females by having them not expose themselves to battle. To balance this, it forced the males to take more risks and view themselves as more "expendable", and therefore "heroic", to ensure the survival of society.
Problem is, after that era of darkness passed, and the world become less dangerous, the culture - images, expectations, shared believes outside the faithful - it had created lasted and further developed/degenerated into what is now.
What do you think about this?
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Honestly, in a world of high magic, I don't understand why there isn't a deity of fertility that can just allow anyone to cary a child to term when they want to, regardless of gender or marital status, making pregnancy truly a choice in world and removing all the disgusting historical justifications for misogyny, heterosexism and rape culture. I know that would be a massive shift in game lore, but maybe it could be a future in-game-world development to just happen and put a lot of these debates to rest.
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Wouldn't that need some biological changes? One could carry a kid even if they don't have a birth channel but that would require either strong magic or surgery.
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I think magic could suffice. Like I said, it would be a lore shift, but it is a fantasy world. Why not just have a deity anyone can pray to to conceive and carry a child they want? Wouldn’t a lot of people in world be looking into how to make this a reality anyway?
Bes is always a good choice for a good fertility god.
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Lots of gods could serve as fertility gods like that, really. Lamashtu stands as a clear example of that, with her divine gift literally giving the worshipper the ability to "disgorge a servitor monster from their body" regardless of gender or anything else. Among the less horrible and demonic gods, though, I could easily see Erastil being willing to give his followers children as long as they're able to raise them in a safe and loving but appropriately rugged environment.
That's not even to mention the massive amounts of highly specialized demigods that are out there, especially empyreal lords.
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Or other ways to have kids other then carrying them. Legends have babies popping out of peaches, flowers, trees. Heck, Athena popped out of Zeus head full grown ( when they say kids can be headaches, they aren't kidding.)
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Erastil is likely responsible for *paternalism" - in that people who are powerful or able look out for the best interests of those less powerful in the manner that a parent would look after their children. This can be good or bad, and fits Erastil's notion of the community being paramount- i.e. if someone can't defend themselves the community should defend them.
But Patriarchy is sort of the corruption of this to serve the individual who wields power, rather than the people they are supposed to be looking out for. Putting yourself ahead at the expense of the community is literally anathema to Erastil.
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I think magic could suffice. Like I said, it would be a lore shift, but it is a fantasy world. Why not just have a deity anyone can pray to to conceive and carry a child they want? Wouldn’t a lot of people in world be looking into how to make this a reality anyway?
Because if you start adding things like that on the lore, you start deviating from fantasy and start becoming speculative fiction; humans stop being humans and start to become some sort of sentient humanoid alien creature; and magic stop being something fantastic and becomes mundane.
Humbly,
Yawar
Part of the esthetic of Golarion that appeals to me is having a pulp/themepark version of different settings.
For me, Golarion is a wonderful campaing setting because it is Golarion, not despite being Golarion.
Humbly,
Yawar
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This is just a semantic nitpick, not a response to your argument, but fantasy is considered a form of speculative fiction. They're not two separate things.
I can play as a shapeless mudman (Mudsoul Fleshwarp) that can create alchemical creatures. We're beyond the pale. Let everyone get pregnant.
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Do you expect everybody to be an spellcaster? Do you expect apples to fall upward? No? Then there is a level of mundane in the setting which you are expected to asume.
For example, there is a gender transitioning elixir is something expensive so people still use (al)chemical alternatives; there is an elixir of youth, but the supply is so limited that people can be expected to die of old age; there is teleportation magic, but is so limited and rare that people still use ships and caravans for trade.
Humbly,
Yawar