Goblins and Possible Retcons(?) in 2e

[Michael Sayre]

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I feel that calling 2e goblins a retcon ignores a lot of 1e material. If you go from core books to core books with no other context, it is a drastic change. But in between, there is a decade of refinement.

Through comics, fiction, adventures, supplements, Society scenarios, and more, goblins showed different faces.

The 2e status quo makes much more sense when considering the full scope of the 1e evolution.

Very much this. Calling something a retcon means that it was retroactively changed when the reality has been a gradual but continual evolution happening across the setting since even before there was a Pathfinder Core Rulebook.

The very first published nonevil goblin in Golarion appeared in "Dark Markets: A Guide to Katapesh" (published in March of 2009) in the form of Krebble-Jeggle, a CN goblin who ran his own casino. In our first adventure path written for the Pathfinder rules set, Council of Thieves, we had a LN goblin who guarded the basement of a hellknight enclave.

There have been canon non-evil goblins in Golarion longer than Pathfinder has been a standalone game. They're all over the place, from Katapesh to Irrisen to Iobaria to the Shackles. There are also canonically evil goblins who still figure out a way to work as part of larger society, which shows up in the IDW comics.

There's a significant difference between a living world that grows and changes over time, and a retconned world that changes the past to present a new face. (And retcons aren't necessarily bad anyways, some things just need to be fixed. This just doesn't happen to be one of them.)

[Arachnofiend]

The change to Asmodeus's alignment allowances does make some sense... I feel the change to Sarenrae is a much bigger issue, frankly. The Cult of the Dawnflower was a huge factor in PF1's expression of the setting (to the point that one of the iconics was a former member) And turning around to say they aren't REAL followers of Sarenrae in PF2 is... suspect.

[James Jacobs]

Rysky wrote:

I wouldn’t consider “stereotyped religious middle eastern group as jihadists” as an “expression” of the setting, or something that is a loss for being dealt away with.

Even in P1 they were considered heretical, and Zadim was a Slayer, not a divine caster. An assassin working for a cult isn’t that far out there, and even that’s assuming they don’t change much with his story if he’s brought back.

In fact, that representation was a gross, unfortunate, and embarrassing error that slithered into print and that we took FAR too long correcting.

[Arachnofiend]

The Cult must be worse than I remember given that I recall them as an extension of Qadira's imperialist agenda. I can certainly see the desire to pull away from modern historical comparisons. If it is a retcon then that's a fair reason to retcon.

I still think that trying too hard to keep the Good deities unblemished is it's own problem, though. I could make similar arguments about Torag or Erastil if Sarenrae evokes too many real world issues.

[Perpdepog]

Michael Sayre wrote:

The very first published nonevil goblin in Golarion appeared in "Dark Markets: A Guide to Katapesh" (published in March of 2009) in the form of Krebble-Jeggle, a CN goblin who ran his own casino. In our first adventure path written for the Pathfinder rules set, Council of Thieves, we had a LN goblin who guarded the basement of a hellknight enclave.

Now I can't get the image of a goblin in Hellknight plate out of my head. They'd likely be a Razortooth Goblin, three and a half feet of fangs, spiky metal, and solid NOPE.

[Staffan Johansson]

James Jacobs wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Is Lissala still around? I know that whether she is or not doesn't actually matter, at least for the purposes of her possible faithful, but I thought I read somewhere that she was gone, or dead, or something like that, but then read somewhere else that her worship was alive and well.

She absolutely still is. She was sort of in the "Gone" mode for many centuries, but ever since Rise of the Runelords took place in the timeline, her faith and presence in the setting has been returning.

And having that faith be more active in an "off the map" part of the world is a cool way to show that she was never really gone — just gone from the Inner Sea Region for the gap between Thassilon and the Age of Lost Omens.

Plus, she apparently was still being worshiped by a bunch of off-world Azlanti, to the point where she in the future appears to be the main patron goddess of their Evil Space Empire.

[James Jacobs]

Arachnofiend wrote:

The Cult must be worse than I remember given that I recall them as an extension of Qadira's imperialist agenda. I can certainly see the desire to pull away from modern historical comparisons. If it is a retcon then that's a fair reason to retcon.

I still think that trying too hard to keep the Good deities unblemished is it's own problem, though. I could make similar arguments about Torag or Erastil if Sarenrae evokes too many real world issues.

There's plenty of blemishes for Good deities. Sarenrae, for example, made one of the most egregious errors in the events that led up to the creation of the Pit of Gormuz, just off the top of my head for an example there. Desna is way too quick to act without thinking things through. Shelyn has a blind-eye toward the atrocities of her brother Zon-Kuthon. Iomedae's faithful have been overly zealous in the Worldwound crusades and, arguably, in their actions in the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path. We've got PLENTY of examples of good deities not being perfect without making their stories racist or implying that what they're doing is right for their alignment.

[keftiu]

If you want antagonistic Sarenites in the setting, I would look to their political jockeying to be the primary faith across Northern Garund; I’m all but certain Kelesh rule tried to export her faith into Osirion when it was conquered, and we all know how Rahadoumi history went.

[James Jacobs]

That's the thing. Of all the good deities in the core list, Sarenrae is the one who should be LEAST likely to have an antagonistic presence. She's the goddess of healing, honesty, and redemption, three things that are as about "un-antagonistic" as you can get. The whole point of her faith is that they're good, without being distracted by law or chaos. There's plenty of other deities out there who make for great antagonists, but unless one's talking about an evil campaign, in my eye, Sarenrae should be the LEAST likely to be presented in an antagonist role.

To further explore that... of all the core deities, Rovagug is the opposite of that—he's the deity LEAST likely to be presented as an ally. Which is part of the whole thematic role these two deities play in the core pantheon—they're kind of exact opposites to each other in a lot of ways, stemming all the way back to Sarenrae being the one who struck the final blow that put Rovagug into the Dead Vault.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like if you want antagonists in northern Garund you're better off having them be politically motivated than religiously motivated. Like you can be imperialist, acquisitive, xenophobic, etc. but those traits in service to "the goddess of redemption" make no sense.

[keftiu]

I come from an Eberron background, where there are plenty of evil people in ostensibly “Good” churches, and there are variant sects that revere more neutral or sometimes even Good versions of Evil deities - so this is all certainly an adjustment! But that’s also a setting where the gods never intervene and may not exist.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think there is some sort of disconnect between "Good" as the elemental part of 3 of the outer planes, and "good" as people use in natural language to talk about outcomes that are desired, sure. But you can trust that gods are going to be about their portfolio. So while Shelyn is "Good" and her brother is "Evil" even if the former might make mistakes and the latter might do the right thing occasionally, one is still going to be about Love, and Art, and Beauty and the other is going to be about Pain, Envy, Darkness, and Loss.

So the thing about Asmodeus is that while sure, he's the god of contracts, he's also very much the god of slavery and oppression and you can't just scrape the pepperoni off the pizza here (there's some under the cheese and the pepperoni grease has gotten everywhere).

[AnimatedPaper]

keftiu wrote:

I come from an Eberron background, where there are plenty of evil people in ostensibly “Good” churches, and there are variant sects that revere more neutral or sometimes even Good versions of Evil deities - so this is all certainly an adjustment! But that’s also a setting where the gods never intervene and may not exist.

Yeah Eberron is markedly different than most DND and descendent settings in that regard. To an extent, I prefer that format, even advocated that champions not be alignment gated but with their codes that just adhere to left as is, leaving the player to figure out how to reconcile their LE alignment with their CG code.

[Heki Lightbringer]

Things does not have to be "realistic" to be "believable" and "immersive".

[Temperans]

Yep all you need is willing suspension of disbelief, a good hook/story, and avoiding things that are too jarring for that suspension. Where that lies is different for everyone.

But most people do agree, things at least should be consistent.

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P.S. In case anyone misunderstood. In my previous posts I was not saying horrible things are good. But that sometimes they are needed to set the needed tone. Ex: Really hard to make a villain when the villain is a good person that does nothing wrong. (Unless your playing an evil campaign or something).

[thejeff]

Temperans wrote:

Yep all you need is willing suspension of disbelief, a good hook/story, and avoiding things that are too jarring for that suspension. Where that lies is different for everyone.

But most people do agree, things at least should be consistent.

****************

P.S. In case anyone misunderstood. In my previous posts I was not saying horrible things are good. But that sometimes they are needed to set the needed tone. Ex: Really hard to make a villain when the villain is a good person that does nothing wrong. (Unless your playing an evil campaign or something).

But it's also not needed to have a backdrop of "this kind of evil is normal and accepted" to have a good story.

And there are places in Golarion to set those kinds of stories anyway. It's just not the default everywhere and it isn't considered "good" within the metagame rules definitions of good and evil. They don't want it to be the default everywhere or even most places because then every character, every story, has to deal with those things. If "realistic" racism, sexism and homophobia are the defaults, then any character who's going adventuring will have to deal with over coming that. Which isn't always what you want.

[Heather F]

Thank you for keeping your arguments civil, but I still had to remove quite a bit of content that just isn't appropriate for our forums. Feel free to continue the conversation through private messages as I am now locking this thread.