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I was reading through Abadar's description in Gods & Magic. I get that Abadar is supposed to be the embodiment of straight up law, but the description seems to indicate he's a pretty good bloke. It's all "he's anti-slavery, pro-social mobility, pro-spirit of the law in addition to letter of the law, his clergy charge for services aside from when it's directly related to the health and wellbeing of the community.
I was waiting for the shoe to drop, but it never did. I kind of expected him to have something about not minding corruption as long as it ultimately advances society or something, but it never came.
So what makes Abadar a lawful neutral dude instead of lawful good?
One his main goal is the expansion and growth of society and teaches that wealth and comfort are a way to achieve happiness. Neither of these things are good or evil. He cares about wealth and the health and expansion of city's and not much else.
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Abadarian Clerics are people who won't help a sick or wounded person who can't pay their rates. That's kind of the issue with making him good.
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Think of Abadar as the CEO of a huge corporation whose goal is "Make every city perfect and make the ones in charge rich." Then compare that to how a lot of corporation CEOs are not the nicest people, even when they're not obviously being evil they certainly don't have the best intentions for everyone.
Abadar is one of the deities I exported out of my homebrew—in that setting, his faith is equally likely to play the allies or the antagonists, depending on the nature of the campaign and the motives of the PCs. Any time you see a PC clashing against an authority figure in your game, think of the reason that the PC is clashing with them to be Abadar's influence.
Ironically, the god of law is one of the main causes of chaos.
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Is Abadar anti-slavery? I distinctly remember a PFS scenario I played a long time ago where you have to buy the freedom of a society member from an Abadar-worshipping slaver. I always thought of him as full on, naive libertarianism, where everyone is equally free to pursue power as they wish (which tends to conclude with the freedom to own slaves).
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Abadar is anti-slavery from the perspective that a free labor source is bad for the economy (when you pay your underclass, they can buy things after all) not from the basis that the notion of owning another sapient being is abhorrent.
This is canon in the Starfinder timeline, and I think his opinion on this shifted during the PF1 timeline.
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Is Abadar anti-slavery? I distinctly remember a PFS scenario I played a long time ago where you have to buy the freedom of a society member from an Abadar-worshipping slaver. I always thought of him as full on, naive libertarianism, where everyone is equally free to pursue power as they wish (which tends to conclude with the freedom to own slaves).
Abadar sees slavery as a disruptive practice that tends to cause turmoil in civilization and, as such, sees it in sort of the same light as thievery or assassinations—it's one of those industries that tends to prey upon civilization and rot it from within... but he also wants those who create civilizations to make their own laws. A worshiper of Abadar in a city where slavery is legal would either oppose it (if they were lawful good), support it while trying to make sure its practice follows the letter of the law and in a way that doesn't foment discord while not owning slaves of their own (if they were lawful neutral), or support it and likely have slaves of their own (if they were lawful evil).
You could absolutely have an Abadar-worshiping slaver, but that NPC needs to be lawful evil.
We published some non-evil slavers in 1st edition and that sent the wrong message out—that slavery wasn't evil. That's something we no longer want to do.
Abadar is certainly NOT naive. He knows more about how civilization and laws and all that work than any of us humans ever could. That's certainly not the case for his worshipers, and absolutely not the case for us writers who write about him, alas.
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Abadar is anti-slavery from the perspective that a free labor source is bad for the economy (when you pay your underclass, they can buy things after all) not from the basis that the notion of owning another sapient being is abhorrent.
This is canon in the Starfinder timeline, and I think his opinion on this shifted during the PF1 timeline.
What you're seeing there is Starfinder (and more recently 2nd edition Pathfinder) having the benefit of hindsight and better control over the lore of the deities than we did in the early days of 1st edition, where a fair amount of wrong crept into some of the deity lore around the time that we were building toward the 1st edition of the game and my attention was focused elsewhere rather than on being more personally involved in the presentation of deity lore around the year before and after 1st edition's launch. (Which includes the window where we published the first Gods & Magic book.)
His opinion didn't shift between editions so much as get changed by us. Abadar should never have been pro-slavery. His lawful evil worshipers are a different story, but even then, it's worth keeping in mind that Abadar and Abadar worshipers are different things.
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All right, well if that's the case then what makes Abadar Lawful Neutral. If he doesn't approve of slavery then why can slavers get spells from him?
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All right, well if that's the case then what makes Abadar Lawful Neutral. If he doesn't approve of slavery then why can slavers get spells from him?
Clergy of every religion in the game have a significant amount of leeway. It's why clerics don't have to perfectly match their deity's alignment.
It's best to not think too hard about why deities do or do not do certain things. You quickly going down a rabbit hole of gods micro-managing their followers.
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All right, well if that's the case then what makes Abadar Lawful Neutral. If he doesn't approve of slavery then why can slavers get spells from him?
Because in Pathfinder, you don't have to match your deity's alignment exactly. In Abadar's case, he allows all three lawful alignments from his worshipers, since all three lawful alignments are, in his eyes, equal interpretations of law.
"Lawful Neutral" in this case might be better interpreted as "Lawful." But that's not an allowable alignment in 2nd edition Pathfinder, so Lawful Neutral it is.
And as such, lawful evil clerics of Abadar are granted spells equally in measure as are his lawful good ones... but the VAST MAJORITY of his clerics are lawful neutral and are not slavers.
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This should be in the lore forum.
LO: Mwangi Expanse mentions that many Vidric people see Abadar and his clergy as complicit in the colonial regime they overthrew, which I thought was a nice touch.
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I always imagined Abadar would detest out-and-out slavery (a situation where workers are not compensated for their labor), but endorse indentured servitude (hopefully with minimal exploitation).
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Thank you James Jacobs for the deeper explanation of Abdar. It's really cool to hear it from the creator.
All right, well if that's the case then what makes Abadar Lawful Neutral.
The way that I conceptualize the whole alignment grid is less of what is done as why it is done. OR, it is not actions but the motivations behind them. Abdar being anti-slavery is not good because Abdar's motivation is law...
Abadar sees slavery as a disruptive practice that tends to cause turmoil in civilization and, as such, sees it in sort of the same light as thievery or assassinations—it's one of those industries that tends to prey upon civilization and rot it from within... but he also wants those who create civilizations to make their own laws.
In another example, Abdar is ani-banditry not for the often evil nature of it, but because it disrupts law and civilization.
Another conceptualization example would be in iRobot. The robot that saved the main character over the young girl because he had a higher statistical likelihood of surviving the rescue.
It can be difficult to conceptualize a being devoid of the innate things we consider as humans.
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Abadar is the the manifestation of the free market. Economists will sometimes say things like 'With rational actors...' and then every other person will go 'Humans aren't rational actors though.' Well, Abadar is a rational actor. He wants what's good for people because healthy people who are paid a fair wage engage in commerce. Cities are where markets congregate and etc.
But Abadar is about constant economic growth. Everything should be examined by its potential value and how to translate it into something that makes money, or helps people live a life where making money is possible. That brings him into conflict with Erastil, for sure, but also at the end of the day, Abadar is against a post scarcity economy.
Abadar is essentially an ethical corporation. If you would think that such a thing cannot exist, then you know why Abadar is Neutral.
So opinions are going to be divided. His followers will view Abadar as providing the most good for the most people, his opponents will decry him as entrenching parasites at the top and sucking the life out of society.
Pretty easy to justify him as Good, or Evil, or an unconcerned pragmatic Neutral. Depending on your relationship to economics.
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This should be in the lore forum.
LO: Mwangi Expanse mentions that many Vidric people see Abadar and his clergy as complicit in the colonial regime they overthrew, which I thought was a nice touch.
Everything I read about this book makes me wish a little more that the delay from the local place I've ordered it from ends soon! Excited to see all of this.
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I spoke with a friend about this and it made me think...
Why not allow beings like Abdar to have only one alignment (i.e. Lawful)? I think it would give a deeper subtext to the alignment system and the setting.
Why can't Angels be just Good? Axiomites Lawful? Proteans Chaotic? Daemons Evil? It is the essence of their being.
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I mean. That IS how it works.
Neutral in Pathfinder is basically lack of alignment <_< Abadar is lawful because he doesn't have alignment on good or evil axis hence why he is neutral on that matter. It's why animals and constructs have neutral alignment and why most abilities don't target neutral alignment
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This should be in the lore forum.
LO: Mwangi Expanse mentions that many Vidric people see Abadar and his clergy as complicit in the colonial regime they overthrew, which I thought was a nice touch.
Yeah see, that's the stuff. That's what I expect out of a "Lawful" deity
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I spoke with a friend about this and it made me think...
Why not allow beings like Abdar to have only one alignment (i.e. Lawful)? I think it would give a deeper subtext to the alignment system and the setting.
Why can't Angels be just Good? Axiomites Lawful? Proteans Chaotic? Daemons Evil? It is the essence of their being.
Because we chose not to.
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I think Pathfinder's take on "Neutral" is not necessarily "interested in maintaining the balance between opposing forces" so much as "unconcerned with those opposing forces." A lot of the promninent Neutral deities seem like they're primarily concerned with a thing which is not intrinsically good/evil or lawful/chaotic. Like Abadar is not interested in balancing the Lawful Good with the Lawful Evil in a Lawful society. Either being dominant in a locality is fine with him, as long as the society remains lawful.
Which probably means that LN/TN/CN Champions are probably going to be devoted to a specific philosophy rather than "tenets of neutrality."
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Because we chose not to.I spoke with a friend about this and it made me think...
Why not allow beings like Abdar to have only one alignment (i.e. Lawful)? I think it would give a deeper subtext to the alignment system and the setting.
Why can't Angels be just Good? Axiomites Lawful? Proteans Chaotic? Daemons Evil? It is the essence of their being.
Fair enough.
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Being anti-slavery and so on also doesn't mean that you are good - it is just the bare minimum to not be evil.
Being Neutral doesn't mean you are 50% good and 50% evil, it means you aren't evil but aren't good either. Many of the things that qualify you as evil are so reprehensible that if you do them 50% of the time, doing good things the other 50% of the time doesn't cancel them out and make you neutral.
A champion for justice who saves lives and helps people 29 days out of the month, but on the 30th day of each month tortures orphans isn't good or neutral, they are evil.
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I think Pathfinder's take on "Neutral" is not necessarily "interested in maintaining the balance between opposing forces" so much as "unconcerned with those opposing forces." A lot of the promninent Neutral deities seem like they're primarily concerned with a thing which is not intrinsically good/evil or lawful/chaotic. Like Abadar is not interested in balancing the Lawful Good with the Lawful Evil in a Lawful society. Either being dominant in a locality is fine with him, as long as the society remains lawful.
Which probably means that LN/TN/CN Champions are probably going to be devoted to a specific philosophy rather than "tenets of neutrality."
Neutral being unaligned has largely been my interpretation as well, yeah. Pharasma doesn't care if you die peacefully in old age or get stabbed in a back alley, so long as you die. Nethys doesn't care if you create a shield to protect a city or a cataclysmic evocation capable of penetrating it, so long as you used magic to do so.
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Alignment is more of broad philosophical position for Gods, while I see it almost like a series of habits or instincts for mortal folk.
For Cosmic Beings:
Law is increasingly the philosophical ideal that there is a correct, and pretty specific way for the universe to be.
Neutrality on that axis represents taking the universe as it is, rather than trying to make it be a certain way, perhaps.
While Chaos would be the idea that actually it is any stagnation that is incorrect, that the way for the universe to be, is to have no particular way for too long.
So it makes sense to me that Pharasma is nuetral, but accepts lawful worshippers who keep the one aspect she sees as needing stability (the River of Souls) in order, while people challenging unchanging structures deliberately just can't vibe with where she draws her few hard lines.
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I think it's been covered but the reason Abadar is anti-slavery, pro-social mobility, etc is because he is a god of society and trade. He doesn't really care about individuals, but about the health of cities & societies as a whole.
Abadar believes slavery to undermine trade and healthy societies. He is pro social mobility because he believes it generate more trade because you have an empowered class of people to buy things, and perhaps because without social mobility those on the lowest rung might generate no economic value or turn to crime and degrade economic value.
Abadar isn't the kind of god who would set up job training centers for the poor because he cares about their individual well being or because it's the right thing to do. He would do it because he thinks those individuals are a drain on society if they're not doing productive work, and believes that their is a return on investment that will generate more economic activity by training them than it costs to do so.
If I can be forgiven some thread drift, I have a question for the great dinosaur. I was running War for the Crown (converted) and one of the PCs was paladin of Abadar. When we hit book 2, I realized there was a lot of lying and skull duggery in that game. Seemed dicey for any paladin, and seemed particularly egregious to Abadar.
We wound up rebuilding the character as a fighter with the blessed one archetype who just happens to worship Abadar to side step the issue. Do you think that was the right call? Or would supporting the "rightful" heir to bring stability to the land be enough to excuse stealing and lying by virtue of the edict/tenant priority system?
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If I can be forgiven some thread drift, I have a question for the great dinosaur. I was running War for the Crown (converted) and one of the PCs was paladin of Abadar. When we hit book 2, I realized there was a lot of lying and skull duggery in that game. Seemed dicey for any paladin, and seemed particularly egregious to Abadar.
We wound up rebuilding the character as a fighter with the blessed one archetype who just happens to worship Abadar to side step the issue. Do you think that was the right call? Or would supporting the "rightful" heir to bring stability to the land be enough to excuse stealing and lying by virtue of the edict/tenant priority system?
I do think that was the right call. Sometimes, a player builds a character that just isn't right for a campaign and/or isn't a great fit with the other players, and if that player is getting frustrated and the game's suffering, letting that player rebuild the character is the absolute right call.
An even better call would have been to know that the campaign was gonna have a lot non-paladin themes and to tell the player who wanted to play a paladin that the choice wasn't appropriate for this campaign and to work with them to start with a less restrictive choice.
Paladins have always been the most disruptive class option in a game in my experience. Incoming wall of text spoilered below...
THE GM of the paladin has to walk a razor's edge on enforcing potential alignment drift without making the player of the character lose interest, while simultaneously trying to juggle plot points in the adventure so that they don't become uplayable for that character, and...
THE OTHER PLAYERS in the group have to be paitent and understanding, but invariably it seems like there's at least one other player who becomes more invested in seeing the paladin fall or concern trolling situations in an attempt to be disruptive or to have fun at the player's expense, which results in more party disruption, and...
THE PLAYER of the paladin has to worry about the above, but also staying true to their character's goals and beliefs, while also doing their best to interpret their version of "lawful good" in a way that coordinates with the other players, the GM, and the adventure itself.
It's always baffled me. Clerics should have the same sort of issues that paladins face, since they're arguably even MORE tied in to their deity's lore and beliefs, but they generally don't. Probably because for so many years, the game hasn't codified cleric codes of belief nearly as well or as restrictively as they do paladins, so that disruptive players or uncool GMs see those codes not as things for a paladin to adhere to, but tools that they can use to try to ruin that player's experience.
For 2nd edition, we've pushed hard to loosen those restrictions and provide more guidelines for how paladins are played. We also make sure to give advice in our adventure path player's guides as to when a paladin might be a bad choice, thematically. But more so than most other characters, the PARTY needs to be on board with there being a paladin in the group, while the player of the paladin needs to be patient and understanding about the fact that they may be adventuring with PCs who aren't into law or good or both.
Thanks James. Yeah, IIRC the player's guide mentions Lawful characters might need to hold their nose occasionally, but doesn't really mention Paladins specifically.
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Thanks James. Yeah, IIRC the player's guide mentions Lawful characters might need to hold their nose occasionally, but doesn't really mention Paladins specifically.
That's on us, alas—we should have been more specific in calling out that paladins aren't the best choice for the campaign, but often we err a bit too much on the side of timidity when it comes to admitting that an entire character class isn't right for a game.
Expanding paladins out into the champion class in 2nd edition is a deliberate effort to minimize those complications, in the same way providing a huge wealth of deities to choose from gives players more options in picking a good thematic match for a campaign. But whereas deities are limitless—we can create as many of them as we want and even play with unusual combinations such as a good deity of death or an evil deity of healing, there's only 9 alignments and they don't really have a lot of wiggle room—since every single gamer has their own take on what is and isn't right for those alignments.
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This might become easier once Champions of the remaining 3 alignments come out.
Abadar might be opposed to slavery but he is also an ally of Asmodeus, the biggest promoter of slavery on Golarion.
I'm not sure how effective trying to free slaves through legal means is when you're dealing with the laws of Hell.
Neutral champions are tricky. Since like "Champion of Civilization", "Champion of Nature", and "Champion of Freedom" are all pretty sensible things to have. But like Magdh (LN) is not really an advocate of Civilization, Neither Nethys nor Brigh (TN) are not really advocates of nature, and Groetus (CN) doesn't seem to have anything to do with freedom.
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Neutral champions are tricky. Since like "Champion of Civilization", "Champion of Nature", and "Champion of Freedom" are all pretty sensible things to have. But like Magdh (LN) is not really an advocate of Civilization, Neither Nethys nor Brigh (TN) are not really advocates of nature, and Groetus (CN) doesn't seem to have anything to do with freedom.
This problem seems to already exist with the current causes, though. You can have Redeemers of Nethys and Desecrators of Achaekek. Leaving it for the player to explain how their cause and god interact seems to be fine to me.
Even if Kurgess doesn't have any particular focus on redeeming people, a players interpretation and focus on certain aspects of the god can explain why a redeemer would follow them.