Can anyone tell me what happend to the Taldor law of whos permitted to grow beards in this AP?
Currently running this campaign with a PC who wants to repeal the beard laws. As far as I can tell the beard laws are still in place at the time of the AP, meaning that only members of the nobility are allowed to grow beards. At least there's nothing in the text which says anything otherwise.
I read through WftC multiple times. I don't recall any mention of a beard law at all, I assume that's weird background info from the Taldor book?
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Drat, there goes the market for black-market beards! Made of genuine Llama wool!
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I think the Ordnance of Beards is a wonderfully weird piece of in-setting lore and I'm not keen to lose it.
My solution, b/c it's not in force by the time of WftC, is that it has transitioned from being an actual law into being an unevenly-enforced custom that mostly benefits the expanded barber profession that sprung up to enforce it. There is a particularly solid reason in my case to do this in WftC because Stavian III has toyed with reinstating the policies of the Great Purge.
I can't remember, now, b/c I've lived with this so long, whether that last is part of my homebrew or part of the core material. In my campaign -- and I think this might have inspired someone from my pre-campaign studies and gotten imported into my campaign -- the reason this happens is that the Sarenite clergy failed to revive Prince Carrius after his death (on account of his soul not wishing to return). I think that might just be a my-campaign thing. But having anti-Sarenite oppression in the picture does add a bit more spice to the whole question, and I've certainly gotten some in-adventure mileage out of it.
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I think the Ordnance of Beards is a wonderfully weird piece of in-setting lore and I'm not keen to lose it.
My solution, b/c it's not in force by the time of WftC, is that it has transitioned from being an actual law into being an unevenly-enforced custom that mostly benefits the expanded barber profession that sprung up to enforce it. There is a particularly solid reason in my case to do this in WftC because Stavian III has toyed with reinstating the policies of the Great Purge.
I can't remember, now, b/c I've lived with this so long, whether that last is part of my homebrew or part of the core material. In my campaign -- and I think this might have inspired someone from my pre-campaign studies and gotten imported into my campaign -- the reason this happens is that the Sarenite clergy failed to revive Prince Carrius after his death (on account of his soul not wishing to return). I think that might just be a my-campaign thing. But having anti-Sarenite oppression in the picture does add a bit more spice to the whole question, and I've certainly gotten some in-adventure mileage out of it.
It occurs to me that the connection between the beard law and the question of Sarenite oppression isn't totally clear, and might also be a my-campaign thing. In my mind, the Ordnance of Beards is connected with the Great Purge b/c Sarenite clergy also wore beards (I think of them by analogy with the habits and aesthetic of Muslim clergy to some extent), and so the Ordnance was designed to deprive them of this right and to reserve that particular symbol of wisdom and authority for the nobility. Its impact on the general commoners of the realm was almost incidental to this purpose.
This is almost definitely a my-campaign thing, now that I'm thinking about it. But... well, I think it holds together. More or less. :)
Considering Stavian himself has a beard I'm not sure how far you could stretch the ban and make it something anybody would take seriously.
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Considering Stavian himself has a beard I'm not sure how far you could stretch the ban and make it something anybody would take seriously.
Well, Stavian having a beard would fit, since the original law was supposed to forbid commoners from wearing beards: not the nobility or royalty. But certainly, a lot of the distinction would seem to have faded by the time of WftC, where most of the nobles we meet don't wear beards and calling commoners the "unbearded" could seem, perhaps, closer to a fossil term.
Human societies can get awfully weird about hair, though, facial and otherwise, which is what makes Taldor's old-timey beard law such an interesting setting touch. Present-day Tajikistan only allows clean-shaven men to apply for passports, for example, because the government associates beards with radicalism. Enver Hoxha in Albania had a strictly-enforced ban on both long hair and beards for men. Laws regulating hairstyles and facial hair are historically not that uncommon.