Pathfinder 2E Paizo drops use of the word phylactery

[TheSword]

It seems like Phylactery is already used for several other things beyond being a box for carrying passages from a real world religion. I totally understand that anti-semitism is a thing. I just don’t see how this change prevents or improves it.

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Phylactery (from Ancient Greek φυλακτήριον(phylakterion) 'protectant') originally referred to Tefillin, leather boxes containing Torah verses worn by some Jews when praying. It may also refer to:

Other religious or superstitious beliefs​

• An amulet or charm, worn for its supposed magical or supernatural power
• A speech scroll in medieval art, which contains or represents speech
• A reliquary, a case in which (Christian) relics were preserved
• Phylactery (Dungeons & Dragons), an object used to store a monster's soul to protect it from death as introduced by the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and now ubiquitous within fantasy fiction

​

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

And you'll note.....some versions are getting rid of the word barbarian.

Though in that case it's often because it doesn't fit and not because people find the word itself offensive or appropriative. (Though I could be wrong.)

 

[Parmandur]

They should just call it a reliquary since that what it holds - bit or relic of the lich.

Well, that just creates the same problem, doesn't it? Just as plenty of people today wear a phylactery as part of their religious practice, reliquaries are also an actively used part of several real world religious traditions.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Though in that case it's often because it doesn't fit and not because people find the word itself offensive or appropriative. (Though I could be wrong.)

There is some debate around it, but it's mixed in with how actually descriptive it is of what people are trying to play.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

And you'll note.....some versions are getting rid of the word barbarian. Merely because Paizo hasn't changed every word doesn't mean they shouldn't change any word.......progress can come in increments.

Well, maybe eventually such incremental changes will add up to something that doesn't feel arbitrary to me, but I think they'll have a product with a pretty moribund vocabulary by that point.

Though in that case it's often because it doesn't fit and not because people find the word itself offensive or appropriative. (Though I could be wrong.)

Yeah I think it more often has to do with not wanting to pigeonhole what characters you can make than with the class than anything else.

In any case for Greeks and Romans anti-barbarianism, frequently using their respective variations on the specific word barbarian, was basically the go-to focus for bigotry, frequently invoked to justify war, sacking of cities, mass enslavements, ethnic cleansing, and all the other lovely things ancients did to their enemies. And that word hasn't had a terribly positive post-classical history, it's just that subsequent cultures that have adopted it have not placed it as high in their priorities for where to direct their bigot-energies next to othering people over religion or race. From a presentist standpoint it seems pretty irrelevant, but if people had a longer view of history "barbarian" would be considered about as offensive as words come.

 

[GMMichael]

But they're not from one particular religion, and then co-opted to mean something else. . . Also: slippery slope fallacy.

XP for the slope warning, but I don't know how fallacious it is. The Christian community has already called foul on D&D, albeit 30+ years ago. It could happen again.

"Cleric" has Christian roots, and Christians tend to think one thing when they hear "god." Though "god" isn't from one particular religion, true.

Except this word was used for an evil thing exclusively. When the religious term is anything but.

Sure, but PF2 doesn't exactly use those terms wholesomely:

God: one of many deities, some evil, who grant magical power to mortals.
Cleric: someone who casts magic spells and bashes skulls in with a mace or morningstar.
Miracle: a magic spell used by a non-deity that can duplicate non-divine spells. Some of which aren't exactly holy...

They'd better make sure "mummies" aren't in the monster manual, while they're at it...

 

[Hussar]

Again, let's avoid the slippery slopes shall we? How much anti-ancient Egyptian racism is there in the world today? Talking about removing "mummies" is a bit disingenuous no?

Kudos to Paizo for this. I recently ran into this in a module I started running. It's Aztec inspired, so, sure, lots of Mesoamerican historical stuff in it. I'm not actually all that familiar with the material, so, I just sort of ran with it. However, I learned from a player that the main bad guy Black Tezcatlipoca - a Far Realms primordial imprisoned at the bottom of the temple that is trying to break free - is actually a real world religion god.

So, off to wikipedia I go and do a bit of education.

I come back and get out the magic typewriter and edit out all the references to Black Tezcatlipoca, because, frankly, using someone's real world deity, particularly a Mesoamerican one, really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hit up some random name generators, find one that does "Aztec Inspired", google search the name I pick, and poof, now I keep the adventure without the cultural appropriation.

It's really not that hard.

 

[Justice and Rule]

XP for the slope warning, but I don't know how fallacious it is. The Christian community has already called foul on D&D, albeit 30+ years ago. It could happen again.

"Cleric" has Christian roots, and Christians tend to think one thing when they hear "god." Though "god" isn't from one particular religion, true.

Yes, but it's generally neutral in modern parlance. Hell, I'd argue the term "cleric" is more often used for Muslim Imams than any Christian position at moment.

Sure, but PF2 doesn't exactly use those terms wholesomely:

God: one of many deities, some evil, who grant magical power to mortals.
Cleric: someone who casts magic spells and bashes skulls in with a mace or morningstar.
Miracle: a magic spell used by a non-deity that can duplicate non-divine spells. Some of which aren't exactly holy...

This misses two points. First, those terms are largely generalized and not specific to any religion. Secondly, you are showing varied usage, which doesn't exist for the term phlactery: it's specific to liches and absolutely an object of evil that PCs are meant to destroy.

It'd be like if there was a monster that is portrayed as almost universally evil, and they had a spellbook that was called always referred to as a "bible". While that's a way more generalized term than "phlactery", at the same time I can absolutely understand why that's probably a bad choice.

They'd better make sure "mummies" aren't in the monster manual, while they're at it...

Eh, probably not, given that they are modeled on ancient Egypt and that's a culture that hasn't existed for millenia and doesn't really map to any existing minority groups.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I prefer Soul Anchor, but yeah, good call here.

 

[Ace]

Its probably for the better since no one can pronounce phylactery anyway.