D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[QuentinGeorge]

Which should be fine now too. I don’t need a statblock that is meant to represent a whole people, I need a statblock that represent an adversary.

I’m not interested in having a universal orc entry in the MM as a monolithic people, I want an orc raider entry, and an orc champion, and an orc warlord, and other nasties that a orcish civilisation may throw at my adventurers. Settings can then decide whether these orcs in the MM are accurate representatives of the local civilisation, a religious or political branch of extremists, or pariahs living on the fringe of their own society.

Honestly, I’m ready to move away from alignment altogether. I already have in my games for a while, but the more I think of it, the more I feel this artifact is hurting and restraining the game more than it enriches it.

That would've been great. But WoTC decided no orcs at all.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The word isn't anti-semitic. It's just a Greek word meaning amulet--but the description for the past few editions has been similar to the Jewish tefflin, which is also known as a phylactery. They're trying to divorce it from that assumption and emphasize that the lich can keep their souls in anything.

Has it really? I can't think of any phylactery illustrated to look like a tefillin.

To me that seem to me more alluding to Sauron and his relationship with the one ring. (ie, the "amulet" definition)

 

[billd91]

Perhaps consider the text about lich phyalacteries in 3e:
“The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.”

While they say that other forms are possible, describing the most common form in terms that sound an awful lot like tefflin raises eyebrows. So, yeah, best to avoid any further links in that direction…

 

[Umbran]

Keep in mind they didn’t really make that connection to the Jewish Tefillin till the 2000s (pretty sure about that, could be wrong)

Well, WotC only bought TSR in 1997, and then published 3e in 2000. Kind of hard for them to act on the connection before then.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Perhaps consider the text about lich phyalacteries in 3e:
“The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.”

While they say that other forms are possible, describing the most common form in terms that sound an awful lot like tefflin raises eyebrows. So, yeah, best to avoid any further links in that direction…

Hmmm, ok, I've got to confess I've never read the 3E description. Is that the first time it appears? It doesn't seem to match any actual named phylacteries that appeared over the years.

EDIT: I found this post which says they didn't start to resemble tefflins until 3E, but the change may have been presaged by Van Richten's Guide to the Lich. So looks like some author started conflating them late in 2E, and that got carried over. Can't blame this one on Gygax...

EDIT2: Checking Van Richten's guide, it calls it a "usually a box-shaped amulet", (but not always) but doesn't say anything about paper inside.... looks like that bit got added in 3E.

So it seems to problem isn't the name, but how they suddenly changed to a very specific thing in 3E.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

3E was pretty shameless in its appropriation of (sometimes outmoded) religious terminology, and often its reassignment. The material accessories of religions (recast as magic items) are no different: hence we have phylacteries (in their particular form, derived from tefilin), chasubles, vajras etc. etc.

While I can understand that an argument might be made that phylactery (i.e. amulet) is an innocuous term, the explicit description of it linking it to tefilin is a bit dodgy - although no more so than third eyes, vajras or whatever.

Its appearance in GMatthew 23 - which seems to have been written for a Greek-speaking Jewish audience - might be argued to originate from a "Christian" perspective, although at the time when GMatthew was committed to writing, terms like "Jewish," "Christian," "Pagan," "Gnostic" etc. were harder to pin down - as these various traditions evolved, they defined themselves (or were defined) in contradistinction to one another.

I have no idea whether phylactery was in common use in 1st-2nd Century Samaria/Judea by Hellenized Jews to apply to tefilin; the GMatthew reference might be intentionally disparaging.

On balance, I think avoiding inclusion of terms and items associated with real-world modern religious practices is understandable, but it's not an easy needle to thread.

D&D is a giant kitchen sink of cultural appropriation.

 

[billd91]

So it seems to problem isn't the name, but how they suddenly changed to a very specific thing in 3E.

No, the name is still problematic as well. What phylacteries can you point to in media or publications (outside of D&D) that aren’t tefflin?

 

[QuentinGeorge]

No, the name is still problematic as well. What phylacteries can you point to in media or publications (outside of D&D) that aren’t tefflin?

I can't speak for the US, but in my own country "phylactery" is an archaic word for amulet. I never even realized it had a Jewish meaning until relatively recently,

 

[Chaltab]

3E was pretty shameless in its appropriation of (sometimes outmoded) religious terminology, and often its reassignment. The material accessories of religions (recast as magic items) are no different: hence we have phylacteries (in their particular form, derived from tefilin), chasubles, vajras etc. etc.

Isn't 3E also the edition that gave us a celestial paragon called Pistis Sophia, who was a giant blue winged woman with no clothing.

 

[pemerton]

1e Lords of Darkness discussed the phylactery as soul object in-depth.

That's a very late AD&D book (1988). I'd not even heard of it until now!