Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Mercurius]

So why do you think the historical druids were animists?

As I said, many/most ancient religious traditions had some degree of animism. Druids are rather mysterious, with accounts varying from a few ancient sources, Medievalism, Romanticism, New Age authors, and "neo-druids." It may be the authentic tradition changed over time, but my sense is that they carried a piece of what Aldous Huxley called the "perennial philosophy" from some forgotten civilization. I personally like the idea that they were from Atlantis, but who knows.

Animism is somewhat problematic as a concept, because it is a scholarly (anthropological) term, which isn't the same as a lived understanding.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Quoting @Doug McCrae who says this better than I do

This post, from page 7 upthread, gives my fullest account of the core rules 5e shaman.

Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

"Too often" is a pretty wild stretch when describing an incredibly rare thing that basically never happens. I encounter it on a weekly basis in Oregon.

www.enworld.org

It also answers @Voadam's point about the neutrality of stone giants, lizardfolk, and quaggoths - all of them have the wrong alignment by the 5e PHB definition. Even if we accept their alignments, stone giants and lizardfolk have very strange belief systems that permit actions we'd consider to be immoral. The shamanic religious practices of lizardfolk and quaggoths also involve immoral actions - devouring and sacrificing sentient beings, and the ritual slaughter of a failed leader followed by cannibalism.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The 5e Volo’s Guide to Monsters introduces the shamans of two more "savage" races.

Kobold (lawful evil, INT 8 in the MM) shamans are "very rare" as kobolds "depend on arcane magic rather than divine".

Orc (chaotic evil, INT 7 in the MM) shamans serve their god of disease, Yurtrus. Chapter 1 Monster Lore (pg 84):

Yurtrus is often depicted as consumed by rot and covered in oozing pustules, utterly repulsive except for his hands, which are pure white and free of any blemish… The followers of Yurtrus are allowed to dwell on the fringes of the tribe, but are looked upon with distaste and unease... Shamans who heed the telepathic whispers of Yurtrus walk the perilous line between the living and the dead, and gain uncanny powers from doing so... These shamans, known as White Hands, cover their hands in white ash or wear pale gloves made of elf skin to symbolize their connection to the power of Yurtrus. The necromancy practiced by the shamans of Yurtrus is a force considered taboo by orcs, which makes them both revered and feared by the rest of the tribe.​

It’s hard to imagine a more negative portrayal of shamanism than this. "Uncanny powers", gloves made out of the skin of sentient beings, "necromancy", "feared by… the tribe" – straight out of the early 20th century pulp tradition.

The section on orcs in Chapter 3 Bestiary repeats most of the information above but employs different phrasing. "Shaman" is not used, being replaced by "priest". "Orc priests that oversee the line between life and death are known by the others in the tribe as hands of Yurtrus." (pg 185) Perhaps the work of two different writers?

 

[jasper]

So Doug, Hussar, and others in the thread have prove Shamans are a generic game term. Shamans are generally not a pc class but can occasionally be the druid class. Shamans spell list is up to the individual dm. DMs are ask to read the flavor text of the monster race and decide which spells the shaman can cast.

 

[Hussar]

So Doug and others have prove Shamans are a generic game term which means not generally a pc class but can cast spells.

Sorry, having a little trouble parsing that. Can you clean up the grammar a bit because I'm not really sure what this says.

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It's funny though. If WotC had just quietly replaced the word "shaman" in the books with "druid", no one would have noticed, it wouldn't have been a problem, and it would have resolved all of this.

Sorry, but, we don't have to worry about cultural appropriation from dead people. The copyright on culture expires when the culture does. So, using druid is pretty much perfectly fine, since, well, there aren't any druids anymore. Yes, there are modern people who are trying to recreate druidic beliefs, I'm sure. But, again, they have no more right to the culture than anyone else.

You'd think we were advocating massive changes. 9 words. Out of all the books in 5e, 9 words need to be changed. And, that's apparently a problem. Good grief.

 

[Sadras]

Sorry, but, we don't have to worry about cultural appropriation from dead people. The copyright on culture expires when the culture does. So, using druid is pretty much perfectly fine, since, well, there aren't any druids anymore.

The Samurai says hello

 

[Fenris-77]

The Samurai says hello

The Celts as a culture, are dead, last time I checked the Japanese were not.

 

[Aldarc]

The Celts as a culture, are dead, last time I checked the Japanese were not.

At least the Pre-Christian/Roman Celtic culture.

 

[Fenris-77]

At least the Pre-Christian/Roman Celtic culture.

Yeah, that's what I meant. A bunch of modern cultures have renewed their felt connections to that ancient culture, but that's a markedly different thing.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

The Celts as a culture, are dead, last time I checked the Japanese were not.

Weird. In my home town, We learned Gaelic in high school and have pretty deep Celtic traditions. That said, it was a Christian - Scottish colony so much of the religious aspects of the culture had already been changed.

Edit: my point being that some might take exception to that.