• This section is for roleplays only.
    ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.

    Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.

Dice TRIBUNAL - OOC

Main
Here
Characters
Here
Yeeeee here we go!

I'm pretty sure that there's the subtext that Meti is sympathetic to the plight of men in the city, right? With the bond she had with her father yet the utter lack of respect he got? ... or am I reading too much into it.
 
Yeeeee here we go!

I'm pretty sure that there's the subtext that Meti is sympathetic to the plight of men in the city, right? With the bond she had with her father yet the utter lack of respect he got? ... or am I reading too much into it.

I purposefully leave ambiguities like that in, so that people can bring their own interpretations to the character. On one table, at a convention, I actually had a player decide Meti was trans - and I loved that on a few levels; for the comfort and enjoyment of the player, for bringing a new dimension to Meti, and because it absolutely fits into the culture of the city.
 
Honestly I like the part of Prim's character is that she's barren. You don't see that too often and there's so many emotional opportunities for a character like that.
 
I purposefully leave ambiguities like that in, so that people can bring their own interpretations to the character. On one table, at a convention, I actually had a player decide Meti was trans - and I loved that on a few levels; for the comfort and enjoyment of the player, for bringing a new dimension to Meti, and because it absolutely fits into the culture of the city.

Oh, that's fantastic. Though that does make me curious about gender/sexual norms in Lama. Seems like there's rather strict gender norms within the stratified society. How are M/M and F/F relationships seen? Are they accepted as norma, and is one more taboo than the other? Sexual relationships outside of marriage don't seem like they're looked down upon since there's a goddess of sex and recreation.
 
Honestly I like the part of Prim's character is that she's barren. You don't see that too often and there's so many emotional opportunities for a character like that.

I felt it was important to try and capture a broad swathe of women's experiences in the characters, without being too definitive. Obviously I'm not equipped to really do them justice, but representation counts and I hope I've left room for people to impress on them without being exploitative or too reductive.

Oh, that's fantastic. Though that does make me curious about gender/sexual norms in Lama. Seems like there's rather strict gender norms within the stratified society. How are M/M and F/F relationships seen? Are they accepted as norma, and is one more taboo than the other? Sexual relationships outside of marriage don't seem like they're looked down upon since there's a goddess of sex and recreation.

Good questions. Radiant Pearl is probably the most strict place in Lama - the Wildlanders are less dogmatic, and Redcliffe has wholly rejected the norms of their former city.
M/M relationships are generally dismissed as... how to put it... Childish? They happen, of course, everyone knows that, but no one takes them seriously. They're generally ignored unless convenient as pretext to punish a man, or they interfere with succession, having children, or are seen to make a woman look bad.
F/F relationships are fairly common and tolerated, viewed as spiritually elevated (a bit, I suppose, like certain conceptions of MLM in accounts of ancient Greece) but not procreative. I think it might be fair to say there's a level of compulsory bisexuality for women in Radiant Pearl, especially priests. If anyone has a problem with it, they don't talk about it much.

Marriage in more of a religious rite than a legal one in Lama, It's like a way of declaring your favourite lover more than a solemn commitment. Some similar double-standards to the ones we might be familiar with apply - women with many lovers and a 'husband' are lauded, but might be mocked if their 'husband' sleeps with other women for not controlling him - or he might be considered the problem, led by his libido to disregard his lover. It's situational, informed by various prejudices and circumstance.

Cross-caste relationships would really be policed more heavily, but punished informally by shaming rather than legally.

This is all quite complicated and I want to stress I've been trying to ground it in research, presenting a culture with as messy an approach to sexual and gender norms as many of our own without making any moral judgements or defaulting to essentialism.
 
Does Ceda need to sleep after all these holy raves she's throwing? If her goddess doesn't bless that away and Chaundra calls meetings before 4 in the afternoon there may be blood.
 
Does Ceda need to sleep after all these holy raves she's throwing? If her goddess doesn't bless that away and Chaundra calls meetings before 4 in the afternoon there may be blood.

Ceda is very good at cat naps.
 
This is all quite complicated and I want to stress I've been trying to ground it in research, presenting a culture with as messy an approach to sexual and gender norms as many of our own without making any moral judgements or defaulting to essentialism.

I can tell. I love the depth and organic complexity of what you've written very much. (As someone who still has to deal with the caste system, some of the details ring real true, lol.) If a man from a lower caste ends up in a marriage with someone from a higher caste, do they take the caste of their partner, or do they keep theirs (while their children just take their mother's)?

I'm guessing that social shaming is worst when a man from a higher caste marries a woman from a lower, because then he's "wasted" since his children will be "worse off."
 
Aw, thank you so much.
I hope it doesn't ring too true - I was aiming for a materialist emergence rather than just lifting existing systems to exoticise part of the setting.

Men's castes do not change, and children inherit their mothers' caste.

More often the lower caste woman is praised when that happens, or alternatively the man is dismissed as never being worthy of his caste anyway. Depends on whose family stands to lose more respect.
 
I hope it doesn't ring too true - I was aiming for a materialist emergence rather than just lifting existing systems to exoticise part of the setting.

Oh no, it feels like a natural development of the setting you've built for sure. Not as an expy from ours slapped on to be cool, but as something both recognizable and separate. Fully meant it as a compliment. :D I've seen a few settings where authors try to do the whole ""flavor"" thing with no other thoughts added as to why, and those tend to ring real false.
 
I read it as a compliment! I am just not charitable to myself when I suspect some subconscious racism could have crept into my actions.
 
I read it as a compliment! I am just not charitable to myself when I suspect some subconscious racism could have crept into my actions.
I'm glad that you did read it as compliment. And I'm just one person who's not representative, etc. etc., standard disclaimer, but I for one am getting nothing but the best of vibes. 👍
 
So if a woman was to bare a child outside of marriage would that be seen as a bad thing? Or would the child still receive the blessings?
 
Small note - what you gave to your goddess is a holy mystery.
It's not quite taboo, but it is improper to discuss those sacrifices with anyone outside your temple, and in many cases a secret.
 
Even though it's blindingly obvious for some of us? i.e. my shadow. Though I suppose that could be some magic I cast on myself.
 
Even though it's blindingly obvious for some of us? i.e. my shadow. Though I suppose that could be some magic I cast on myself.

In those cases it's either an open secret - people know, or at least priests know, and it's not polite to acknowledge it - or it's mistaken for an application of power as you surmised.
 
It's not quite taboo, but it is improper to discuss those sacrifices with anyone outside your temple, and in many cases a secret.

Is it a secret between temples? Because in the character notes, Meti thinks it's a shame that Prim can't be the mother she was destined to be, and there's nothing visible about that. Or is it just a thing that the temples don't talk about between each other (and in only some cases is an actual secret)?
 
Is it a secret between temples? Because in the character notes, Meti thinks it's a shame that Prim can't be the mother she was destined to be, and there's nothing visible about that. Or is it just a thing that the temples don't talk about between each other (and in only some cases is an actual secret)?

I'd forgotten that detail. They don't talk about it, and in some cases it's an actual secret. Since the sacrifice is consistent, I'd say Meti learned that at some point from maybe a friend or lover who was a Rain Priest and overshared.
 
I'd forgotten that detail. They don't talk about it, and in some cases it's an actual secret. Since the sacrifice is consistent, I'd say Meti learned that at some point from maybe a friend or lover who was a Rain Priest and overshared.
That would make sense.
 
You could even use it as an excuse for Prim and Meti to already have a close friendship, something discussed privately
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top