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So I am curious. Aroden has been described as the god of Humanity. But what I am curious is did this include all of humanity, was his church as the church of humanity everywhere. Ie did he have churches in Arcadia, Garund, Casmeron, Tian Xia, and so on? or was he only the god of the humans of the inner sea, so just for garundi, keleshites, taldans, kellids, varisians, etc but not the people of Casmeron, arcadia, tian xia, etc? or did he proclaim himself the god of humanity when the majority of humans were like "nah thats just another lie. He isn't the god of humanity. we don't know who the man is."
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Aroden was a colossal screw-up, but I don't think he discriminated along the lines of "some kinds of human are better than other kinds of human." Like Arazni was his herald and she was from Arcadia (Xopatl to be specific.)
Like the man himself was Azlanti, so he probably thought he personally was better than everybody he met, which was kind of true because of the whole "apotheosis" thing.
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They knew him in Arcadia, but I'm not sure if we've ever heard of his cult taking root there beyond Arazni traveling at his side.
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Before Aroden was a god, he was a legendary blacksmith who, when asked by the emperor to choose his successor to give the magic sword he forged, decided none of the candidates were worthy and kept the sword for himself. I feel like it would be perfectly in-character for him similarly to name himself "God of Humanity" without bothering to consult how other humans felt about this.
While it was common in Azlant to have a certain imperial chauvinism toward other races and other ethnicities (in Xin's day, the idea that either elves or Shoanti could possibly have anything to teach Azlant about magic was regarded as laughable), I wouldn't expect Aroden to harbour any overt racism toward other human ethnicities. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if on some level he regarded himself as simply superior to most others he met, whether he drew that unconscious bias from his ethnicity, nationality, or status as the Last Azlanti aka the "First Humans"
I think he would happily accept any member of humanity who came to worship him, and he regarded all of humanity as under his protection, but considering what we know of his activities and where he spent most of his time, it seems like he might have had a few nations favourite above others.
Or to put it another way, I suspect it goes a little like this:
- In Taldor (et al) and Absalom he was "Aroden, the Living God, who used to regularly drop in with divine acts of favour"
- In the Inner Sea he was "Aroden, the Last Azlanti, god of humanity"
- In Arcadia he was "Aroden, that dude who hung out with Arazni the hero" (and unbeknownst to anyone, killed our sacred tree)
- In Tian Xia he was "Aroden who?"
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IIRC, there are also hints that Aroden is the true identity of the legendary Ninshaburrian hero-king Namzaruum, "the Sword," whose return the surviving Ninshaburrians still hopefully await.
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So basically Aroden was being arrogant when he proclaimed himself as the god of humanity when most didn't see him as the god of humanity?
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So basically Aroden was being arrogant when he proclaimed himself as the god of humanity when most didn't see him as the god of humanity?Aroden actually declared himself as the god of humanity??
This is the first time I'm hearing that.
Well then if he didn't declare it, then did the humans of tian-xia or casmeron, or Arcadia, of southern Garund, etc all accept him as the God of Humanity during his time.
If he was the god of all humans then shouldn't he have had churches and influence throughout the world wherever humans were being their patron god, similar how torag is the patron god of Dwarves?
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AFAIK, he's a complete nobody in Tian Xia. No mention of him at all in the Tian Xia book.
In Arcadia he's probably a bit more known but also his worship is not prominent there.
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As far as I know, the only places he was worshipped openly were the Shining Kingdoms, Absalom and Old Cheliax. There's no hint that Aroden was ever worshipped in Northern Garund as far as I know, in the Mwangi Expanse, or to the north where the Taldan empire didn't reach, or outside of Avistan except perhaps as Namzaruum. He's considered fairly obscure in Arcadia, a vague figure connected to the Kumaru Tree and the reason Arazni left her homeland.
Given the themes of Aroden's life and death, I wouldn't be surprised of "god of humanity" wasn't an accurate description, but a statement of intent, whether by himself or his human worshippers. Look at the three regions he's most connected to - the Shining Kingdoms, the Taldan imperial heartland founded by Azlanti survivors; Absalom, raised by Aroden's search for the Starstone, which had its own imperialist phase that came back to bite it; and Cheliax, which has historically tried to style itself as the natural successors of Azlant, was meant to be Aroden's empire on Earth. All built on different views of the Azlanti legacy. Aroden might not have seen himself as specifically the god of Azlanti humans and their descendants, both hereditary and cultural, but it seems to me that's how he would have been seen by his own worshippers, bringing the light of Azlanti culture to all of humanity (whether they wanted it or not).
I suppose it all depends on Aroden's definition of "humanity," and he's not around anymore to say.
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Sorry, that should read "empire on Golarion."
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My take is that Aroden's focus was on improving the place of humanity in the world. It's not a statement that Aroden was worshipped by all humans (which we know isn't true). His primary worshippers would be in the Inner Sea where his acts as a mortal before his ascension would be known.
He was a god of humanity, in the way that Gorum was a god of war. It was the thing they cared about.
Cultures far enough likely simply continued worshipping those they had for a long time.
Azlanti were superior as Humans. All the other Humans get a +2 to one Ability Score. Azlanti Humans get a +2 to all six Ability Scores. Just so everyone understands,... this is a game. It's not actually real life.
This is no longer true as of 2e. Azlanti are just regular humans now.
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Yes, how will the lore survive without the gameplay canonicity of a biologically superior master race, represented in mechanics that simply don't mean the same thing anymore.
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I mean, the main reason that Azlanti are just regular-degular humans now is that there's a bunch of them in space, they escaped Earthfall through portals. They haven't really been inherently special since Starfinder 1e (they just very much act like it.)
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Yes, how will the lore survive without the gameplay canonicity of a biologically superior master race, represented in mechanics that simply don't mean the same thing anymore.
the mechanical bonus was just a straight up bait for an argument between a DM and a player who really wanted the free bonuses.
DM: "Jake, that sure does sound like a fun gnome barbarian... he'll be a great fit in our campaign... Bob, who are you playing..."
Bob: "My guy was frozen in ice for 10,000 years, but he's been thawed out now, and since he's Azlanti, he gets +2 on all ability scores. Says so right here in the World Guide."
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Yes, how will the lore survive without the gameplay canonicity of a biologically superior master race, represented in mechanics that simply don't mean the same thing anymore.the mechanical bonus was just a straight up bait for an argument between a DM and a player who really wanted the free bonuses.
DM: "Jake, that sure does sound like a fun gnome barbarian... he'll be a great fit in our campaign... Bob, who are you playing..."
Bob: "My guy was frozen in ice for 10,000 years, but he's been thawed out now, and since he's Azlanti, he gets +2 on all ability scores. Says so right here in the World Guide."
DM: Sorry Bob, you can't play Azlanti but you could still play another human ethnicity that was frozen in ice for 10,000.
Is how that conversation should go.
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Yes, how will the lore survive without the gameplay canonicity of a biologically superior master race, represented in mechanics that simply don't mean the same thing anymore.the mechanical bonus was just a straight up bait for an argument between a DM and a player who really wanted the free bonuses.
DM: "Jake, that sure does sound like a fun gnome barbarian... he'll be a great fit in our campaign... Bob, who are you playing..."
Bob: "My guy was frozen in ice for 10,000 years, but he's been thawed out now, and since he's Azlanti, he gets +2 on all ability scores. Says so right here in the World Guide."
DM: Sorry Bob, you can't play Azlanti but you could still play another human ethnicity that was frozen in ice for 10,000.
Is how that conversation should go.
Pretty much.
I think it was just one of those things that had unintended negative consequences. Like, it's kinda cool that a DM might say... well... the PCs encounter Azlanti time travelers or something and they are just... better than they should be. But DMs can do that stuff anyway.
Putting the mechnanic in there was just a cause for friction as certain players try to maximize their PCs.
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Azlanti were superior as Humans. All the other Humans get a +2 to one Ability Score. Azlanti Humans get a +2 to all six Ability Scores. Just so everyone understands,... this is a game. It's not actually real life.This is no longer true as of 2e. Azlanti are just regular humans now.
I think even in 1e it was pretty much retcon'd so that Azlantis weren't actually superior to humanity and that was just old Azlanti & Taldane propaganda. It's just that they never actually went out and wrote an explicit erratum going "Actually, they follow the normal boosts" because that's just not how Paizo does lore changes usually.
Even if the Azlanti were (or at least could be) statistically different to modern humans, making a different mechanical "race" for them felt like the wrong way. It seems like it would be better as a template that a DM could slap on top of an NPC for, say, +2 CR, maybe the Advanced simple template? But I suppose you could do something with 2e Archetypes, like the Thassilonian Runelord archetype. But rather than representing racial superiority, a hypothetical Azlanti archetype should simply represent the effects of the Arcane Majykks and whatever physical augmentation the Azlanti had available that has been lost to time. Not that the Azlanti are likely to come up on Golarion very often, unless Aroden had a vault full of temporally frozen Azlanti supersoldiers somewhere.
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It's almost always a better story if the 'superior race' is in fact really just arrogant but otherwise average. Considerably truer to life. There's a handful of stories I'd be interested in telling that maybe include a 'biologically superior race' but they all mostly involved seriously interrogating what the kind of people who view themselves that way think it entitles them to and how even if their claims were true it still does not justify their actions. The ancient Azlanti deserve to be average humans with egos so large they've started pulling smaller egos into stable orbits around them.
In a way, Aroden really is the perfect Azlanti. He rode his arrogance and entitlement all the way to godhood and then fumbled it so badly that it screwed up things for just about everyone else.
I think the concept of levels, especially in PF2, is a larger marker of superiority than stat boosts. A level 2 person performs similarly to a level 1 person w/ +1 (+2 in PF1) in some stats; +1 across the board in all trained activities vs. +1 in the activities based off stats the other person didn't boost, maybe an extra skill or language.
And w/ PF2's NPC build mindset where one's spectrum of performance is based only on level, that's even more true.
So to determine whether Azlanti are superior one would have to look at the levels of their commoners in one sense and exemplars in another. And I'm unsure they outperform the folk in combat zones, much less Hermea.
And then there's who's better at Deception, Diplomacy, & Intimidation to spread such views (true or not). Maybe even Perform to craft tales that implant such notions wherever troubadours travel.
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Funnily enough in my first 3.0 campaign I featured a superior race*: Hobgoblins. The lowest level Hobgoblin the PCs encountered was 6th because weaker ones were kept protected back in their home country (plus I could use Goblins for their underlings). Most players had realized this from fighting a few, so by the time a large Hobgoblin patrol confronted them near their border the mid-low level PCs/players were quite diplomatic...except one player locked into old norms. He argued the party could take them, they're "just Hobgoblins". And I guess they (an ostensibly Good party) should kill them for their rudeness? *sigh* Yeah...no. That player and I parted ways later in that campaign.
* Two superior races actually, as I had an Azlanti-like fallen race manipulating behind the scenes, all very high level, but few in number, having used stasis (et al) to survive their version of Earthfall. (Great minds? Or maybe that Jacobs & I attended university together? I don't think we met though. Hmm.)
I think the concept of levels, especially in PF2, is a larger marker of superiority than stat boosts. A level 2 person performs similarly to a level 1 person w/ +1 (+2 in PF1) in some stats; +1 across the board in all trained activities vs. +1 in the activities based off stats the other person didn't boost, maybe an extra skill or language.
And w/ PF2's NPC build mindset where one's spectrum of performance is based only on level, that's even more true.So to determine whether Azlanti are superior one would have to look at the levels of their commoners in one sense and exemplars in another. And I'm unsure they outperform the folk in combat zones, much less Hermea.
Your post point out one of the issues with full blooded Azlanti, The +2 to all stats was one thing, but all the stated ones were 20-25 PB and Level 15-20 in PC classes which did make them feel even more broken.