Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

Rystil Arden · Dec 21, 2005

Plane Sailing said:
Indeed, considering Eros, Pan, possibly even Baal (and Ishtar?) the Caananite gods which had formalised temple prostitution... Plenty of historical beliefs to choose from to model gods of lust.

Cheers

Catal Huyuk's goddess (~6500 BC): name unknown, female

Sumerian (~2000 BC): Inanna, female

Babylonian (~1750 BC): Ishtar, female

Phoenician/Canaanite (~1200 BC): Astarte (an Ishtar clone) and Anath, sometimes combined to form Atargatis, all female

But we do have some males later--

Greek: Aphrodite (love/beauty, female), Eros the Protogonos (ancient deity of love and natural procreation, male), Eros the younger(god of love and inducing love, male), Himeros (god of sexual desire, male), Pothos (god of passionate longing, male)

Norse: Freya, female

Celtic: Morrigan (magic, lust, war, female), Aonghus (sensual love, male), Aine (Irish--love, fertility, passionate rites in spring, female)

Egyptian: Hathor (love, fertility, female), Bast (sensual pleasure, female, and hey, she's FR's goddess of pleasure too!)

Voodoo: Erzuli (Fertility, Love, Sex, Beauty, and somehow Virginity too, female)

Aztec: Ichpuchtli (lust, pleasure, female), Xochiquetzal (fertility, love, sensual pleasure, sex, female), Chalchiuhtlicue (love, beauty, female), Eueucoyotl (fertility, sex, male), Tlazolteotl (sex, licentiousness, female)

Mayan: Backlum Chaam (sex, particularly male sexuality, male), Ix Chel (sex, female), Xtabay (seduction, female)

The Sigil · Dec 21, 2005

Canis said:
I could probably write up a LG god or goddess of fertility in a moment. It would almost certainly require virile males to do their "job" as regularly as possible (though perhaps seasonally, thanks to inherited rules from ancient times).

I'm not certain there every WERE gods specifically of lust. It's too narrow a concept, I think. Love, yes, but Love generally included lust in non-Christian cultures, without it being a problem (Although, I suppose one could make a case that several deities of "Love" were really sex/fertility gods that were "romanced up" by Christian historians hundreds of years later). There were also plenty of hysteria/debauchery-deities that included lust, yes, but they weren't specifically dedicated to it, and included many other appetites along with it.

The Occidental religions mostly threw all that stuff out in favor of heavy-duty wife-protection. But you see lots of that in all severely patriarchal social systems, across primates.

Fertility != Lust.

As to the point that there may not have been gods of lust due to the concept being too narrow, I think that's an interesting one to explore.

Also, not saying that historically, all deific incarnations of lust were female, it just seems that every time the topic comes up in modern RPG circles, the default seems to be Lust = female.

--The Sigil

Rystil Arden · Dec 21, 2005

The Sigil said:
Fertility != Lust.

As to the point that there may not have been gods of lust due to the concept being too narrow, I think that's an interesting one to explore.

Also, not saying that historically, all deific incarnations of lust were female, it just seems that every time the topic comes up in modern RPG circles, the default seems to be Lust = female.

--The Sigil

The narrowness didn't really stop them--see above

I left out deities that were fertility and not lust, since Aztecs (for instance), have a whole bunch of those.

Voadam · Dec 21, 2005

Wasn't Pan (and Satyrs) a male god of lust and Nature? And Priapus from Roman times was also a lust one IIRC.

Rystil Arden · Dec 21, 2005

Voadam said:
Wasn't Pan (and Satyrs) a male god of lust and Nature? And Priapus from Roman times was also a lust one IIRC.

Pan was the god of shepherds, hunting, and rustic music, not lust. Priapus (who was Greek as well, though also identified with the similarly 'endowed' Egyptian god Min in some works and findings that I saw in archaeological museums in Turkey) was a very lusty fellow, known for his lust for the Nymph Lotis that almost led to a successful rape but was discovered and thwarted due to a donkey braying, but he was a god of the fertility of vegetable crops (His statue was set-up in vegetable plots to promote garden fertility but doubled as a "scarecrow" to keep away birds). All the male Greek gods were lusty at some time or another, but that does not make them gods of lust

Shazman · Dec 21, 2005

This guy might work as a paladin of SUne Firehair in the Forgotten Realms, but even that is pushing it. He might make a good holy liberator or palading of freedom (variant chaotic good paladin. I guess the answer is no, because if this guy is lawful good then I'm a 10th level half-orc barbarian.

Kahuna Burger · Dec 21, 2005

Plane Sailing said:
Kahuna Burger, I suggest you graciously accept Fighter1's apology and move back to discussions more directly related to the thread.

Normally, I would consider it better to let contention drop than come back to it, but if Mod-dom would prefer not to let the issue linger,

certainly I thank Fighter1 for clarifying his comments, and I'm sorry if my initial reaction was too snarky.

Fighter1 · Dec 22, 2005

The Sigil said:
(And to further run on a tangent, why is it always a *Goddess* of Lust? Why not a *God* of Lust?

Is it our own social norms which have "straight" men somewhat approving of female bi-/homosexuality ... but still a bit put off by male bi-/homosexuality, thus making the ultimate incarnation of Lust a bisexual female (but NOT a male) in their minds?)

--The Sigil

You perhaps have hit it on the nose. However also consider something simpler; most folks who watch, read or play fantasy/medieval/ancient worlds types of things tend to be mostly male. As such; would one wish to see a male god on the screen or in a book or Aphrodite barely clad?

With that - I would think the 2nd for the majority; simply given that the majority is heterosexual. Thus I don’t think that it is a complicated as you indicated; it is simply that the majority, when thinking about “sex” or “lust” would picture a female; as that is what they desire within those two contexts. If you toss in “vitality” “creating male offspring” or a similar concept (that to heterosexuals apply to males more so than females) to that mix most would think of male I would think; however it would take away that “lust/sex” feeling the person would have felt were the divine one female.

The things you point out I think are valid; but perhaps do not apply here. Anyone publishing anything these days would market to the majority most of the time (except special interest; of which gaming is not as the companies actively seek to grow economicly).

Fighter1 · Dec 22, 2005

Kahuna Burger said:
Normally, I would consider it better to let contention drop than come back to it, but if Mod-dom would prefer not to let the issue linger, certainly I thank Fighter1 for clarifying his comments, and I'm sorry if my initial reaction was too snarky.

No probglem on my end - I don't know what "snarky" is (but it is a cool sounding word) - but I aplologized as I was more concerned with having offended someone unintentionally than the tone of any statements. I seem to have forgotten that when certain subjects come up one should not be so "clinical/analytical" about the statements they make.

BTW can I use "snarky" myself?

krunchyfrogg · Dec 22, 2005

Hey, howcome nobody else took a stab at his stats?

Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

Would you allow this paladin character in your game?

Yes

No

Undecided

Rystil Arden

First Post

The Sigil

Mr. 3000 (Words per post)

Rystil Arden

First Post

Voadam

Legend

Rystil Arden

First Post

Shazman

Banned

Kahuna Burger

First Post

Fighter1

Explorer

Fighter1

Explorer

krunchyfrogg

Explorer

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