Hi,
so, in the new Tian Xia World Guide it says that most Jorōgumo worship Lamashtu as Grandmother Nightmare. However looking at her edicts the first one says "bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden", which seems to pose a problem with the way they treat the lower classes (which seems to be everyone but them), or does she just not care because all monsters are her "children"?
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Hi,
so, in the new Tian Xia World Guide it says that most Jorōgumo worship Lamashtu as Grandmother Nightmare. However looking at her edicts the first one says "bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden", which seems to pose a problem with the way they treat the lower classes (which seems to be everyone but them), or does she just not care because all monsters are her "children"?
To fall under this edict of Lamashtu's, one must be both outcast and downtrodden, not either outcast or downtrodden. One with a place in the dominant social order, however low-status, is not outcast. Accordingly, a Lamashtan can oppress low-status people as badly as they please within society - but must work to empower outlaws, pirates, and beasts as against society.
Even simpler answer, Lamashtu is an evil goddess by pretty much all objective metrics, why is it so shocking her edicts would be hypocritical?
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Even simpler answer, Lamashtu is an evil goddess by pretty much all objective metrics, why is it so shocking her edicts would be hypocritical?
I don't really feel good with handwaving "Well my god is actually a hypocrite, so I don't need to follow their Edicts"...
To fall under this edict of Lamashtu's, one must be both outcast and downtrodden, not either outcast or downtrodden. One with a place in the dominant social order, however low-status, is not outcast. Accordingly, a Lamashtan can oppress low-status people as badly as they please within society - but must work to empower outlaws, pirates, and beasts as against society.
While english is not my first language I just don't think it reads that way?
Real reason is probably that the designers just didn't remember her edicts that closely or thought it wasn't that important.
In world I could see her making an exception on the downtrodden part of that edict, since they're also used to breed monsters and such...
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The Jorogumo have raised up the outcast, downtrodden, and monstrous in Shenmen - themselves, and all manner of undead. They would argue that the playable Ancestries oppress them across the rest of the world; only in Shenmen are those roles reversed.
Down with the tyranny of the living and the beautiful!
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The Jorogumo have raised up the outcast, downtrodden, and monstrous in Shenmen - themselves, and all manner of undead. They would argue that the playable Ancestries oppress them across the rest of the world; only in Shenmen are those roles reversed.
Down with the tyranny of the living and the beautiful!
I actually like this take a lot!
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To fall under this edict of Lamashtu's, one must be both outcast and downtrodden, not either outcast or downtrodden. One with a place in the dominant social order, however low-status, is not outcast. Accordingly, a Lamashtan can oppress low-status people as badly as they please within society - but must work to empower outlaws, pirates, and beasts as against society.While english is not my first language I just don't think it reads that way?
An important canon of interpretation is not to read in such a way as to produce an absurd result. We see avowed and confirmed Lamashtans oppressing low-status people in a society from a position of high status; therefore, that must be acceptable within the bounds of the edict; therefore, the edict in stating "outcasts and the downtrodden" must mean "outcasts who are also downtrodden," not "either the downtrodden whether they are outcast or not or outcasts whether they are downtrodden or not," regardless of whether that is the most semantically natural read of the text.
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... therefore, that must be acceptable within the bounds of the edict; therefore, the edict in stating "outcasts and the downtrodden" must mean "outcasts who are also downtrodden," not "either the downtrodden whether they are outcast or not or outcasts whether they are downtrodden or not," regardless of whether that is the most semantically natural read of the text.
I disagree. I view the edicts and anathema as an enforceable summary of the god's philosphy. When Lamashtu appears in my campaigns, she embraces the monstrous and wants society to fall apart into a tooth-and-claw struggle. She is not a god for legalistic subtle wordings.
My interpretation is that the followers of Lamashtu empower the outcasts and downtrodden because it gives the downtrodden a chance to fight for a higher position. Lamashtu loves a good fight, especially when the monsters could win.
I have not yet purchased and read Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide, so I don't know the details of the Jorōgumo. I remember them from PF1 as aristocratic ladies with spider legs from their back who can pretend human form. I assume that in the Tian Xia World Guide they are aristocrats who abuse the lower classes. The orderliness of a society with upper and lower classes is not Lamashtu's ideal, but if the lower classes have an opportunity to strike back, then she would be fine with that situation. Lamashtu reveals in corruption, too, and an evil aristocracy will be corrupt.
The Jorōgumo would not say, "Grandmother Nightmare says that I can oppress you." Instead, they would say, "I oppress you because you are weak. If you want something, then grow strong and fight for it with ferocity as Grandmother Nightmare commanded. Furthermore, if you would first destroy my rival among the Jorōgumo, I will aid you in gaining strength."
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AFAIK they don't actually get divine magic from Lamashtu. They could just have a victim complex and interpret her edicts in a way that validates them.
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If it's alright to quote from the new book:
Known as Grandmother Nightmare, Lamashtu commands numerous worshippers in Shenmen. There, devout jorogumo whisper her universal aphorism — “The three-eyed gaze sees you”—to humanoid prey incubating their eggs, ensuring that these victims are aware that their sacrifice ensures the growth of Lamashtu’s brood.
So it does seem to be a "monsters (like jorogumo) rule, mortal Ancestries drool" interpretation of Lamashtan doctrine.
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So there are a few things that make this make perfect sense
1: The interpretation of the Jorogumo would clearly be "we are oppressed and hunted every where else, we are the outcast and down trodden, even if here we have power"
2: Who's to say they are actually drawing divine power from Lamashtu, it is entirely possible (and sadly common) for religious leaders all over the world to hypocritically use their scripture to justify horrific actions.
3: These gods are not infallible, so it could be that Lamashtu herself favors monstrous kind over all humanoids, regardless of "outcast and downtrodden" status.
Creative Director
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Lamashtu is a demon queen and not a nice lady; while alignment is gone, that doesn't change that fact. Her worshipers' edict to bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden isn't really the same as "Fight for justice and save the oppressed." As mentioned upthread, the people of Shenmen who are the subjects of the jorogumo aren't outcasts on the large (they're legitimate members of that nation's society), and while they're fearful, they're not universally downtrodden. Many in Shenmen appreciate the "protection" the fearful reputation of the jorogumo and how it helps to protect the nation from other dangers, and there's certainly a fair amount of citizens of Shenmen who aren't nice folks themselves.
In my headcanon, the leaders of Shenmen who worship Lamashtu/Grandmother Spider would interpret the edict to bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden by grooming and manipulating and tempting citizens in Shenmen into serving their demonic goddess by being cruel and scary and awful with promises of wealth and political power and favors and more. Then those empowered cruel "middle-management" folks could do the same to others in their settlements, in a sort of awful kind of "pyramid scheme" perhaps. There'll always be a lowest of the low in a society like this, but the constant temptation given out by those in charge would and should be a constant lure to the people of Shenmen to turn traitor against their fellow citizens in hopes of gaining that promised power.
Lamashtu isn't a benevolent goddess. But by giving her edicts and anathemas that don't paint her as a mustache-twirling evil cliche, we make her more interesting and, in fact, enable the possibility for nuanced and subtle stories on the true nature of evil, something that was tougher to pull off in the OGL game since someone could just read a stat block and see the "E" in their traits.
Lamashtu isn't a benevolent goddess. But by giving her edicts and anathemas that don't paint her as a mustache-twirling evil cliche, we make her more interesting and, in fact, enable the possibility for nuanced and subtle stories on the true nature of evil, something that was tougher to pull off in the OGL game since someone could just read a stat block and see the "E" in their traits.
The gods of Golarion have been fun to roleplay in my Pathfinder games. When I retired my character to take over my wife's Rise of the Runelords campaign, my wife's new character was a dimension-traveling lyrakien who was an emissary of Desna supposedly on vacation on Golarion. Secretly, Desna sent her to nudge the party into good decisions. Lamashtu's cultists were villains in that campaign, but Lamashtu herself came across as the god who accepted lamia for the cursed monsters they were rather than a god who wanted to exploit lamia. The lamia were cruel and brutal on their own.
My Ironfang Invasion campaign threw a weird twist on Lamashtu. The style of the campaign required that warcamp leader Repral, a hobgoblin hunter in Assault of Longshadow, talk with the party, so I rebuilt her as a cleric of Lamashtu who loved monsters. The source material said, "Repral, the camp’s overseer, grew up in the Darklands deep below Molthune. She has an unnatural kinship with strange and terrible beasts, forged in her long period of survival in a monstrous realm." She was a compassionate cleric of Lamashtu, caring more that her warbeasts survive than that the Ironfang Legion wins, but seeing the necessity that warbeasts fight a war. The campaign benefited from including a few enemies whom the party could sympathize with.
And in the end, Lamashtu personally reined in Hadregash, a minor god of dominance and slavery, because the hobgoblins' desire for more slaves was getting out of hand. To quote How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion? comment #59,
When the avatar of Hadregash dropped unconscious and dying, an avatar of Lamashtu appeared. That avatar had no stats, because the party could not defeat her. Lamashtu told them that Hadregash would be out of circulation for a while, until he gave up that slavery notion. Lamashtu wants a tooth-and-claw world in which horrendous monsters fight for dominance and survival. Slaveholding is not a fight. It is deliberately keeping another creature too weak to fight. Lamashtu was pleased that the party had treated two clerics of Lamashtu with respect and had taken down Hadregash for his flaws, but she would handle him at this point.
Honey asked Lamashtu if she could eat Hadregash. Lamashtu slit the throat of the avatar herself and offered the body to Honey.
The fledgling god Gold-Flame Honeysuckle (Granddaughter Vine) had a bloodthirsty streak that Lamashtu liked, but their philosophies were too different to be allies.
This thread rekindled a question I had in the past, how would Spider Entothropes interact with Jorogumo?
This thread rekindled a question I had in the past, how would Spider Entothropes interact with Jorogumo?
Probably the same as ratfolk and wererats, or kitsune and werefoxes--on a case by case basis. An ysoki doesn't inherently have any connection between a person who can shapeshift into a rat, and even their hybrid form would probably look uncanny an alien to them. Perhaps not unlike how strange an ysoki were ape might look to a human.
Jorogumo and werespiders are not inherently related beyond being shapeshifters, some of whose forms bear some superficial similarities. My guess is that it would depend upon whether werespiders as a whole tend to have a particular temperament, and whether that behaviour is useful or noisome to a particular culture of jorogumo. Other than that, it depends on the individuals and how their cultures (if any) interact, which I suppose brings you back to the original question, but now with less reason to assume jorogumo have a special relationship with werespiders.
This thread rekindled a question I had in the past, how would Spider Entothropes interact with Jorogumo?Probably the same as ratfolk and wererats, or kitsune and werefoxes--on a case by case basis. An ysoki doesn't inherently have any connection between a person who can shapeshift into a rat, and even their hybrid form would probably look uncanny an alien to them. Perhaps not unlike how strange an ysoki were ape might look to a human.
Jorogumo and werespiders are not inherently related beyond being shapeshifters, some of whose forms bear some superficial similarities. My guess is that it would depend upon whether werespiders as a whole tend to have a particular temperament, and whether that behaviour is useful or noisome to a particular culture of jorogumo. Other than that, it depends on the individuals and how their cultures (if any) interact, which I suppose brings you back to the original question, but now with less reason to assume jorogumo have a special relationship with werespiders.
Most of those make sense, yet Werespiders and Jorogumo have a few things in common like the ability to turn into spider (both have a human and spider form) and spider empathy, it's these similarities that make me wonder about their possible interactions.