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A lot of things in the remaster were renamed due to the OGL situation. The Horsemen of Apocalypse are clearly figures from mythology meaning that there isn't a legal reason to change the name. But the rename happened at around the same time as a lot of other renames. Why the rename?
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This one's probably because not all of the Riders were men, so it didn't really make sense to call them Horsemen... doubly so if they already knew the mythic destiny was going to be coming out.
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I mean Szuriel is a she and Charon is likely genderless,so "HorseMEN" has always been a misnomer.
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Also means they aren't stuck riding horses.
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Removing them from being a direct real-world "thing" and into something that's clearly just heavily inspired would be my guess. Alongside a lot of the osiran gods getting canned I would imagine Paizo might be trying to shift away from that sort of thing where possible. (Asmoedeus and Lamastshu not withstanding)
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Also, familiarity lessens the wonder.
Four horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Yawn. Just studied those elsewhere.
Apocalypse Riders?
WTH are those!?
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Also, familiarity lessens the wonder.
Four horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Yawn. Just studied those elsewhere.Apocalypse Riders?
WTH are those!?
Interesting. I have precisely the opposite reaction.
Apocalypse Riders?
Eh. Just something made up by the writers.
Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Wait, I've heard of those!
I definitely do not mean to disparage the writers or their creations! Just, to me, the familiarity gives something to immediately latch on to and associate with.
Interesting.
They were known as Riders of the Apocalypse or Four Riders of the Apocalypse in the War of Immortals, with Apocalypse Rider being the mythic path / general term for mortals pledging themselves to ending life and getting a mount from Abaddon.
And in Divine Mysteries they are known as Apocalypse Riders.
A lot of things in the remaster were renamed due to the OGL situation. The Horsemen of Apocalypse are clearly figures from mythology meaning that there isn't a legal reason to change the name. But the rename happened at around the same time as a lot of other renames. Why the rename?
Well probably chose that because the riders are may not be men nor are they necessarily riding horses. This way it opens up options without really changing the motif that much.
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Heh, heh, heh...
Pestilence Rider of the Apocalypse with a giant botfly mount...
Because It's The End Of The World!
"Apocalypse Riders" and "Riders of the Apocalypse" are close enough to synonymous that people in the diagesis would use them interchangeably, probably preferring the former form for the singular and the latter for the plural.
There's also likely to be debate to be had about whether or not a skeletal equine that can unnaturally age you with its gaze really counts as a "horse."
They renamed golems to "also avoid religious references".
I assume it's the same here...
Golems got a rename? That totally went over my radar.
Golems got a rename? That totally went over my radar.
They've just been folded into general constructs, rather than there being a special category of magic-immune things. The mechanics have also been made less caster-hatey.
Golems got a rename? That totally went over my radar.
Iron Golem - Iron Warden
Clay Golem - Clay EffigyFlesh Golem - Charnel Creation
Stone Golem - Stone Bulwark
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Apocalypse Riders are also what I get for my insurance to cover zombies, alien invasions, and rapture.
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They renamed golems to "also avoid religious references".
I assume it's the same here...
Frankly I'm a little frustrated by that one. Why do other cultures get all sorts of creatures and stories represented in Golarion but not Jewish culture?* They could've just brought them more in line with the actual folklore rather than removing the name entirely.
* Heck, it does feel weird to me that while there are parallels with all sorts of cultures and religions from real life there's no Jewish analogue at all on Golarion. Like we have religions loosely themed on Christianity and Islam, at least in aesthetics, so why not Judaism?
(And yes there are creatures vaguely inspired by Jewish apocrypha, but almost all of them are things that are carried over into Christian or Muslim stories as well)
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There can still be a Golem in Pathfinder, it's just that Golems going forward are going to hew closer to the folklore of like "The Golem of Prague" rather than "a generic type of magic robot."
Like a Golem in PF2 should be primarily made of rock or mud and dedicated towards the protection of a community. Rather than "whatever a wizard was able to make into a construct". You get different names for your "made of blood, guards your treasure" automatons.
It's like how we're okay with "phylactery" applying to something like a tefillin but we don't really like the idea of it applying to "where one of the most evil creatures around keeps their soul."
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There can still be a Golem in Pathfinder, it's just that Golems going forward are going to hew closer to the folklore of like "The Golem of Prague" rather than "a generic type of magic robot."
Like a Golem in PF2 should be primarily made of rock or mud and dedicated towards the protection of a community. Rather than "whatever a wizard was able to make into a construct". You get different names for your "made of blood, guards your treasure" automatons.
It's like how we're okay with "phylactery" applying to something like a tefillin but we don't really like the idea of it applying to "where one of the most evil creatures around keeps their soul."
I agree with all of that, but I'm not aware of any plans for folklorically-accurate golems in the game, which is why I'm disappointed. As it is the most prominent creature from Jewish sources in the game besides nephilim (which are reskinned wholecloth from tieflings and aasimar, and I don't have an issue with that but it doesn't represent our culture), are the Qlippoth, which aren't really connected to the actual folkloric creatures aside from being fiends, and Asmodeus who is also just the Christian Lucifer with a different name (and ironically opposed to the qlippoth).
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I mean, nephilim isn't exactly accurate to religion either since they aren't giants or half-giants. I'm also not an expert on the kabbalah or jewish mysticism but qlipoth aren't creatures but more like embodiments of concepts that are usually associated with evil stuff in contrast to the sefirah (which AFAIK don't have a Pathfinder equivalent) who embody positive concepts and are the emanations from god.
This kinda made me realize most of the name changes were made to Abrahamic-based things in the Remaster. Obviously it isn't exclusive to them, but most of the stuff that would have an equivalent in some real-life myth or religion that happens to be Abrahamic-inspired received name changes it seems. I feel this is likely because most of the people playing the game would be from one of the major Abrahamic religions so it would be a little insensitive to put it alongside other stuff that is clearly being referenced as something merely mythological and not something that could actually exist.
This is probably the reason why I'm thinking Paizo is likely going to avoid Earth in future content or APs too besides stuff like Stasian technology.
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They renamed golems to "also avoid religious references".
I assume it's the same here...
Frankly I'm a little frustrated by that one. Why do other cultures get all sorts of creatures and stories represented in Golarion but not Jewish culture?* They could've just brought them more in line with the actual folklore rather than removing the name entirely.
* Heck, it does feel weird to me that while there are parallels with all sorts of cultures and religions from real life there's no Jewish analogue at all on Golarion. Like we have religions loosely themed on Christianity and Islam, at least in aesthetics, so why not Judaism?
(And yes there are creatures vaguely inspired by Jewish apocrypha, but almost all of them are things that are carried over into Christian or Muslim stories as well)
Honestly, I think a lot of that is down to the core inspirations of the pulpy fantasy and weird fiction that led to DnD and then later pathfinder. A number of foundational authors in those genres happened to be white supremacists/proto-nazis (Lovecraft,Bulwer-Letton, and such) and in a number of incredibly influential cases based the fantasy settings of their novels on their personal visions of an alternate hyperborean white pagan(ish) europe ‘de-judaized’ of almost all jewish cultural influence. which in this case also happened to include christianity, due to the way it (as well as a handful of other imperial religions) were founded on appropriated jewish texts and customs.
You can still see some of the legacy of this weird dynamic in DnD’s oft-remarked on oddly ‘christian-feeling’ polytheism. something that pathfinder has been doing a great job of expanding past by including more genuinely representative animistic and polytheistic practice while also maintaining the consistency of their setting and what both the folks at paizo and others love about it. (would never tell anyone to get rid of Desna and the bunch over all this, love those goobers, great charcters)
But regardless, it has still lead to a lot of reflexive racism (including antisemitism) seeping into a lot of early fantasy and weird fiction, the early tabletop games and settings inspired by them, and the hobby around them that folks have slowly been trying to course correct on for quite a while.
Notice how the only real elements of jewish culture that generally exist in ‘DnD style fantasy’ are monsters, treasure, or scraps of decontextualized kabbalic imagery. Things like renaming a lichs’ soul cage so it doesn’t use the greek word for a sacred jewish ritual object and making it so players don’t fight a creature, named after a folktale about being an (admittedly imperfect) divinely imbued guardian against the violence of more than couple thousand years worth of blood libel, in nearly every adventure path, go a long way.
So it especially makes sense that, like a lot of other peoples and cultures that haven’t gotten proper or respectful representation in fantasy settings over the decades, there aren’t many respectful human ‘jewish cultural analogues’ in pulp fantasy settings, tabletop or otherwise.
I will say, whenever James Jacobs, or Luis Loza, or whoever at paizo inevitably gets to bring a more respectful version of golems back to paizo (I mean the golem’s got it after all) that they also find a respectful cultural home for them befitting their culture of origin.
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I agree with all of that, but I'm not aware of any plans for folklorically-accurate golems in the game, which is why I'm disappointed.
I strongly suspect Nex's Quantium Golems (who tirelessly circumnavigate the city they're named for in order to protect the city) will remain Golems. We're likely to see more things going on in the impossible lands in the next couple years of release, so we will probably see.
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If the term "golem" had to be dropped in order to be used for the actual Jewish creature, why didn't Paizo come up with another name to categorize them?
Spell Construct? Magiconstruct? Magimaton?
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If the term "golem" had to be dropped in order to be used for the actual Jewish creature, why didn't Paizo come up with another name to categorize them?
Spell Construct? Magiconstruct? Magimaton?
"Anti-magic constructs" was mostly a useful category to warn caster players not to waste spells and warn GMs that blasters would be sitting out on the fight.
With the change to make the creatures just use resistances, there isn't really a point to categorizing them separately. "A construct made out of something and that has high resistances" describes... most constructs.
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Do they need to? Constructs themselves are already almost all magical. New golem replacements don't seem needing additional categorization.If the term "golem" had to be dropped in order to be used for the actual Jewish creature, why didn't Paizo come up with another name to categorize them?
Spell Construct? Magiconstruct? Magimaton?
Well, for old folks like me, I'm just used to see all Golems under one creature family, so splitting them apart feels... awkward ^^;
I mean...
Iron Golem - Iron Warden
Clay Golem - Clay Effigy
Flesh Golem - Charnel Creation
Stone Golem - Stone Bulwark
There's your name, alongside Guardian, Sentinel, Colossus and Gigant :p
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There was really no a priori reason to identify your Frankenstein's Monster analogue with your Magic-Robot in the first place though.
Having golem be a category of construct was weird, since a lot of automatons weren't in in for entirely arbitrary reasons (i.e. "Golem Anti-Magic is very strong and we don't want it on this creature.") It's cleaner this way, but like any change it's just something to get used to. But now we don't have to wonder, at least, whether this magically animated pipe organ, say, is a Golem or just what it says on the box.
Mounted personage of the end times.
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This kinda made me realize most of the name changes were made to Abrahamic-based things in the Remaster. Obviously it isn't exclusive to them, but most of the stuff that would have an equivalent in some real-life myth or religion that happens to be Abrahamic-inspired received name changes it seems. I feel this is likely because most of the people playing the game would be from one of the major Abrahamic religions so it would be a little insensitive to put it alongside other stuff that is clearly being referenced as something merely mythological and not something that could actually exist.
We have changing sensitivities, but we also have changing reference points.
What I mean is that in 1960, some 60% of Americans attended a church regularly. Many more irregularly. So when D&D gets published in the 70s, all but a tiny percentage of the country were very familiar with Judeo-Christian references. Just saying "demon" or "devil" was enough to set an expectation. You didn't have to educate people as to what they were. Abrahamic names - and creatures based to a greater or lesser degree on preconceptions of those names - were a way of bringing a bit of familiarity to a strange world.
Nowadays we are exposed to a much wider variety of influences growing up, and have instant access to information if we encounter something we don't know. Fantasy RPGs, computer games, movies, and shows have given a much broader introduction to worldwide culture. Relatedly; the church-going percentage has dramatically declined, meaning that those references aren't as universal as they used to be.
Beyond references to angels, demons, & devils, did you study the mythological creatures of Abrahamic lore in church? I can't recall any such sermons among the thousands I've heard (and not much on even those three types unless featured in a Bible story or while visiting a Charismatic church). Which is a shame since I would've loved learning about monstrous serpents, multi-headed dragons, and many-eyed or many-faced divine emissaries. (Many often lumped in with angels, but technically not so in the Bible.)
Which is to say I don't think churchgoers are very familiar with references outside of those most everyone else is familiar with, those that have seeped into pop culture. Heck, surveys show churchgoers poorly know their own church's doctrine, Mormons being the exceptions, and Jews scoring well whether or not they attend synagogue. And Gygax dove much deeper than priests do (and developed some iconic creations from random plastic monsters they had lying around, so wasn't exactly beholden to what resonated with cultural norms). Fun fact: exorcisms were rare before the movie brought them into pop culture, about the time D&D originated.
Trouble is balancing cultural sensitivities, right?
D&D 2nd ed changed the names of Abrahamic creatures, likely to appease the Satanic Panic folk. Meanwhile PF2's Wendigo has drawn flak decades after the Wendigo entered pop culture (Marvel 1973) and despite approval from others who share that culture.
Anyway, I think it's more about accuracy since the RPG concept strayed so far from its origins. I think perhaps the Clay Golem should've remained, but the new names are more evocative IMO (and help skirt legal issues). And note there have been mechanical automatons in myth since Ancient Greece besides those powered by magic, souls, or whatnot.
Kinda rambling way to say that I prefer Paizo renaming of secondary myths, as IMO it makes Golarion's cultural lore that much richer to be divorced from Earth's. (The primary ones like elves, dragons, etc. kinda have to remain, I'd reckon.)
ETA: Went on a walk, had some thoughts, mainly that I do want lesser known creatures to keep their original names, and remain authentic to their origins, i.e. how some have bizarre habits or weaknesses. Can't say that most golems or the Apocalypse Riders do that, so yeah, change those, leave room in case the original ever does warrant a place (not that I imagine a Book of Revelation-based AP!).
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What I mean is that in 1960, some 60% of Americans attended a church regularly. Many more irregularly. So when D&D gets published in the 70s, all but a tiny percentage of the country were very familiar with Judeo-Christian references. Just saying "demon" or "devil" was enough to set an expectation. You didn't have to educate people as to what they were. Abrahamic names - and creatures based to a greater or lesser degree on preconceptions of those names - were a way of bringing a bit of familiarity to a strange world.
** spoiler omitted **
I don't think it's particularly correct to frame golems as part of some kind shared "Judeo-Christian" cultural heritage. It's main point of origin is a 16th century story that is very specifically about the centuries long precariousness of Jewish ghetto life across Europe and West Asia. In fact, Christians are only involved in the story insofar as they were the ones orchestrating a pogrom.
The idea wasn't widely known outside of the jewish community until well after that, when Marry Shelly used it as inspiration for Frankenstein and popularized the concept. Which is how the concept eventually entered into the zeitgeist of science fiction/fantasy all leading pretty directly to it's use in DnD and from there everywhere else.
For reasons like this "Judeo-Christian" has come to be seen as both inaccurate and, as far as Jews are concerned, pretty disrespectful and supercessionist. While there is some distant shared lineage in the sense that Christianity was founded on Roman interpretations of Jewish texts and the writings of a Jewish messianic cult during the Roman occupation of Judea, they were always distinct cultural traditions and have only gotten more distant in the intervening 2000 years.
Even where the cultures do seem to overlap, Jewish and Christian conceptions of those elements are often wildly different to the point illegibility. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Hell, being sorted in an afterlife by your spiritual allegiance, The Devil, humanoid angels with the capability of free will and thus to rebel, all of these concepts are entirely and pretty exclusively christian. The Golem, Dybbuk, Kabbalah, etc are not only exclusively Jewish in origin, but originate so far after the beginnings of Christianity as to render even the argument of shared cultural custody moot.
It is ok to just say Christian when you mean Christian.
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No, I do mean “Judeo-Christian.” It’s a reference to the cultural touchstones our society had in earlier decades, not any kind of appropriation. My first sentence was the main point.
We have changing sensitivities, but we also have changing reference points.
It’s not just sensitivities.
That’s not as true anymore. Both because of changing sensibilities and because not as many people have those touchstones.
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It's weird to lump Jewish people in with Christians on something that Jewish people had almost nothing to do with, this just seems to me like a way to smuggle in more legitimacy than you would have if it was just from a single group. I know that people consistently overestimate the size of minority groups, but something like the 3.5% of the U.S. population has been Jewish in like every decade since the 40s. A thing a lot of Christians assume is that Judaism basically stopped when the "Old Testament" was finished, instead of realizing that it was a living tradition that just continued in parallel for literal millennia.
The thing one needs to be careful with when adapting myths and stories from different culture is "acting like you own them" (literal "appropriation.") Like there's a meaningful difference between using a Wendigo in a story about how unbridled avarice leads to bad ends and you should absolutely, under no conditions, eat your neighbors during lean times than to use it in something because you like the spooky skeletal deer thing aesthetic. If you don't care about how the original culture conceived of or used the story or the things in it, you can honestly just call it something else (like how it's an "Iron Warden" now.)
I genuinely think that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were renamed Apocalypse Riders is more likely due to:
- They are not all men
- They do not necessarily ride horses.
- Those things they ride probably shouldn't be considered horses.
than any sort of "people don't read Revelations enough these days."
Honestly, that’s what seems most likely to me too.
Also, with War of the Immortals shaking up the deific/planar part of the setting, I think changing the name might give more of an opportunity to flesh out the lore for the apocalypse riders by expanding the roster outside the scope of the big 4 as more and more daemons take advantage of the chaos like szuriel is doing.
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90% of America was not 'either Christian or Jewish' in 1974. That makes it sound like it was about half of each, but Christians made up roughly 80% of the population and Jews weren't even 2%. Jews are not an appendage of Christianity, we're our own faith and culture. Politicians don't talk about the Torah - they talk about the Old Testament. For almost everyone, those are Christian references, with Jewish people as an afterthought. That's why many don't like 'Judeo-Christian.' Because it is just 'Christian, but we want to pretend we speak for Jewish people too.'
And of course, the term also serves to other Islam as a religion with a similar heritage. Like, Abrahamic is perhaps not a *sufficient* term to describe Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but it's still a much more useful term than "judeo Christian".
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While it might be useful for an academic grouping while trying to explain the development of world religion as a whole, I think “abrahamic” often runs into the exact same pitfalls as “judeo-christian”, especially within this particular conversation.
Loving the quality of this discourse. Yeah, I have never heard Judeo-Christian used by a Jewish person outside of pundits, and my Jewish friends have given reasons both visceral and historical to dislike the phrase and its false, manipulate underpinnings. At the time Belafon is referencing and for millennia before, Jews & Christians were quite divided (as were Christian denominations for that matter). So the claim to unity irks many.
Might as well say Greco-Christian because of the volume of Platonic thought that shaped Christianity, Paul through Augustine & beyond. And Roman morality, Zoroastrian cosmology, etc. But those using the phrase seem more to be saying "not just our religion!" more than referencing much in the development of their religion & philosophy. And then there are Shapiro & Prager, pundits who use it (and "Western") as if conservative politics reflect some shared feature when the opposition also has a Christian majority, and a majority of Jewish voters.
And yeah, boxgirlprestige, I should usually avoid "Abrahamic", as they don't even interpret Abraham the same. (Spellcheck also doesn't like it.) Dang this nuance gets difficult.
That said, it's tricky to adapt myths from active religions, some who would not call such creatures myth! Xena caused some complaints about this. And the original Thor movie had protests from anti-pagans, so not even their myths, but too real for them to accept being portrayed as heroic. But as others have pointed out, there are enough in-game reasons to change the name of both the Riders & golems to be more accurate.
I would have gone with "Riders of the Apocalyspe" myself but Apocalypse Riders makes sense still.
I would have gone with "Riders of the Apocalyspe" myself but Apocalypse Riders makes sense still.
Apocalypse Riders is definitely more accurate, since there isn't any "the" about apocalypses in Pathfinder. Trelmarixian already ended the world of his mortal life already, for instance.
Agreed on what sounds better, of course.
Even if the actual diagetic name were "Riders of the Apocalypse" someone would probably still prefer "Apocalypse Rider" for the singular.
Like "Szuriel is an Apocalypse Rider" scans better than "Szuriel is one of the Riders of the Apocalypse."