Making evil communities without making them totally evil.

[Midnight_v]

I came in and read hyzmarca's Vashara. . .

I wanted to eradicate them, and erase all mention of them from the planes cause they're that fucking that evil.
...
I.. I applaud you.

[Eikre]

I came into this topic about writing evil but tolerable societies, and found one that stirred the fires of hate and genocide in my heart so greatly that I missed their whole fucking point and lost control of my ellipsis!

BRAVO~

[Stahlseele]

*snickers*
it is both good and sad that people like you don't write official stuff hyzmarca ^^

[Prak]

For cultural heroes death is more of a vacation than an end. Great generals and warriors will often be resurrected during times of war scientists and philosophers will be brought back so that they can impart their wisdom on a new generation. Some celebrities will be resurrected by individuals rather than the government. Ancient actors will sometimes be brought back to perform in a new play. Long-dead athletes may be revived to revitalize their own team. Whenever there is money involved to justify the expense, you can probably find someone willing to pay for the skills of a long-dead celebrity.

This just gives me the image of undead teachers in Vashar universities, and the Vashar version of "uplifting sports flick about a losing team" ending with "Well, fuck, we'll just go make Wayne Gretzky a vampire."

She is the one who crawled up the ass of a dragon bodily murder-fucked a dragon up the ass then made it her bitch with necromantic magic.

fix'd

as for the people that have had the genocidal centers of their hearts stirred by the descriptions.... er, I really want to play a Vasharan now...

edit: Specifically, I would play a descendant of Gaisha, who answers every attempt to intimidate her with "My ancestor once murder fucked a dragon and made it's corpse her bitch. Why the fuck should I be afraid of you? Servant! Get me my strap on!!!"

[fectin]

Is the soul gem a respite, or is it all torture-y in there too?

[Avoraciopoctules]

I came into this topic about writing evil but tolerable societies, and found one that stirred the fires of hate and genocide in my heart so greatly that I missed their whole fucking point and lost control of my ellipsis!

BRAVO~

Personally, it makes me want to play a wizard fond of convoluted practical jokes and get a bunch of incredibly weak monsters to start worshipping a bunch of Vashar celebrities as their new pantheon. Use arcane magic to make sure that some "miracles" happen, and then just wait for a bunch of the Vashar's own people to spontaneously ascend into being demideities.

Then point out how this blatantly highlights the big logical fallacy in their own mythology, which declares that all gods ever were specifically around at the dawn of time as a unified collective. Possibly follow up with a remix of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsVSBhSwJg that places a bunch of emphasis on the "so dumb" segment.

But then again, I do spend a bunch of D&D time looking for trollportunities, so it isn't entirely surprising that's my first instinct.

[hyzmarca]

Is the soul gem a respite, or is it all torture-y in there too?

Note that the actual torture is mostly in late childhood and early adolescence and it serves the two-fold purpose of both desensitizing the kid up to trivial discomforts and promoting community bonding through shared experience.

They're basically like real life pain-endurance rituals cranked up to 11. Considering that things like bullet ant gloves actually exist in real life, this shouldn't that shocking. The Vashar start early and take it up to a level that's only possible with magical healing, such that it's obviously child abuse, but it's generally limited to special occasions. They're rites of passage, not everyday things.

They also tend to taper off towards adulthood. Some groups (elite military units and such) have their own hazing rituals, and there are festivles that involve pain on certain holidays, but it isn't an every-day thing.

Being dead, of course, means not growing up, so ghost kids generally don't get to experience those rites of passage.

I came into this topic about writing evil but tolerable societies, and found one that stirred the fires of hate and genocide in my heart so greatly that I missed their whole fucking point and lost control of my ellipsis!

BRAVO~

Then point out how this blatantly highlights the big logical fallacy in their own mythology, which declares that all gods ever were specifically around at the dawn of time as a unified collective. Possibly follow up with a remix of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsVSBhSwJg that places a bunch of emphasis on the "so dumb" segment.

That interpretation requires an extreme stretch in logic. That you such things as groups with fluid membership and yet continuity of identity. One can say that the Israelis are dicks for blockading Palestine without assuming that every Israeli alive, dead, or yet to be born played an active part in that decision.

The gods, collectively, can be considered a nation. Like all nations they have their disagreements and political factions, but they're ultimately unified in protecting their national interests against potential threats, such as mortals getting uppity.

Note that a Vashar with a Divine Rank would almost certainly be ideologically compelled to compelled to spread that Divine Rank around, effectively elevating all of his people to demi-godhood with one ten-millionth of a divine rank each or something. And that's just fine, because the cultural narrative isn't just one of committing genocide against the gods, it's one of committing genocide against the gods, stealing their stuff, and spreading it around so that no one has to suffer anymore.

[Avoraciopoctules]

That interpretation requires an extreme stretch in logic. That you such things as groups with fluid membership and yet continuity of identity. One can say that the Israelis are dicks for blockading Palestine without assuming that every Israeli alive, dead, or yet to be born played an active part in that decision.

The gods, collectively, can be considered a nation. Like all nations they have their disagreements and political factions, but they're ultimately unified in protecting their national interests against potential threats, such as mortals getting uppity.

Note that a Vashar with a Divine Rank would almost certainly be ideologically compelled to compelled to spread that Divine Rank around, effectively elevating all of his people to demi-godhood with one ten-millionth of a divine rank each or something. And that's just fine, because the cultural narrative isn't just one of committing genocide against the gods, it's one of committing genocide against the gods, stealing their stuff, and spreading it around so that no one has to suffer anymore.

Sorry, but I think we just have drastically different ways of interpreting the D&D base setting. My longest running campaign culminated with gods snapping up souls being a fairly benign fate. It meant that the souls weren't getting burned up as fuel by one of the more advanced nations in order to speed up production of magical devices. When there is seriously a hobgoblin empire raiding human villages so they can burn the inhabitants in magic ovens for crafting XP, I really can't see generalizing all suffering as the fault of the gods as plausible.

To go with your metaphor, the Vashar sound like they are saying we should blow up Israel and take all their shekels, the argument being that then we'll have world peace and be better off forever.

[hyzmarca]

You're welcome to your play you're interpretation in your campaign, that fine, but it's fairly well established that the gods are assholes, even the good ones. This is especially obvious in the Forgotten Realms (where the asshole gods screw things up all the time) but no less true in Greyhawk and other Great Wheel cosmologies.

There are really three big problems.

1)The Gods are utterly insane from any human perspective. This is true of the good ones as well as the bad. Their alignments and portfolios define their personalities to such a degree that often make irrational decisions that fuck over everyone.

2)They put divine politics and balance of power before mortal interests. The fact is that the good gods could just stop those hobgoblins from burning people. They don't. There are decent arguments about the greater good and the potential for war with the evil gods. But going back to issue ones, the Good and Evil gods war against each other all the time, and mortals are caught in the crossfire.

3)They eat their followers, even the good gods. This is pretty much true every edition. Devout petitioners get absorbed by the gods they worship. Those lose their individuality and their souls empower the gods. This is, practically, no different from being burned in an oven for crafting XP.

To go with your metaphor, the Vashar sound like they are saying we should blow up Israel and take all their shekels, the argument being that then we'll have world peace and be better off forever.

No, no. You've got it all wrong. The Vashar are saying that we should blow up everyone except ourselves and then there would be world peace. The Great Crusade ultimately promises the genocide of everything except the Vashar once they slay the gods and gain collective omnipotence. They do have the decency of accepting converts from other races and cultures without prejudice, but the ultimate goal is the total extermination of everything that isn't Vashar. And that's why they're evil.

There is a certain terrible logic to it, through. A single unified culture is less likely to war against itself.

[Avoraciopoctules]

To go with your metaphor, the Vashar sound like they are saying we should blow up Israel and take all their shekels, the argument being that then we'll have world peace and be better off forever.

No, no. You've got it all wrong. The Vashar are saying that we should blow up everyone except ourselves and then there would be world peace. The Great Crusade ultimately promises the genocide of everything except the Vashar once they slay the gods and gain collective omnipotence. They do have the decency of accepting converts from other races and cultures without prejudice, but the ultimate is the total extermination of everything that isn't Vashar. And that's why they're evil.

There is a certain terrible logic to it, through. A single unified culture is less likely to war against itself.

Aah, there we go. Thanks for taking the time to clarify, I wasn't paying as much attention that point as I should have. In that case, I withdraw my assertion that the Vashar position is blatantly nonsensical.

[Prak]

Necro'ing this thread purely to share an image that came to mind when I was talking about the Vashar on tumblr last night which perfectly sums up Vasharan culture-

[JonSetanta]

To comment on the previous page mention about cramming into dragonbutts:

Ah yes, the good ol DC 80 Escape Artist check.

Although, I did find PF1e Epic rules that were a tad disappointing. There are most likely spells that can do the same thing at non-epic levels.


elastic squeeze

(DC 80) - squeeze through a space as though you were 2 size categories smaller.


boneless squeeze

(DC 120) - squeeze through a space as though you were 3 size categories smaller.


aphasic squeeze

(DC 150) squeeze through solid objects or even a wall of force.