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Skill Feats In Pathfinder 2
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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7749817" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>In Norse stories, heroes almost never turn to the æsir for help. They never pray. There are no priests in Norse culture. The vǫlur (shamans) are the only community spiritual leaders, and they engage the alfar and jǫtnar, and never the æsir.</p><p></p><p>It is misleading to translate the Norse term goð as ‘god’. They are simply the helpful nature spirits. The related Norse term guð was used instead to refer to the Christian ‘god’.</p><p></p><p>That said, the Norse divide the nature spirits between the helpful ones (alfar, æsir, and vanir) and the unhelpful ones (dvergar and jǫtnar). There are examples where Norse people call on the summer storm nature spirit to defend them against the deadly arctic storm nature spirits. Even the term goð, means something like ‘invoked one’, meaning this is a helpful kind of spirit that humans can call on, especially for good weather, fertile crops, and similar wellbeing of nature.</p><p></p><p>But the æsir also relate as spirits of social organization. For example, Þórr is an enforcer of oaths, and can be asked to witness a solemn oath between two humans. Indeed, the wife of Þórr is Sif, whose name means ‘in-law’, thus relating to the creation of new family members by means of a marital oath, rather than by means of blood relations.</p><p></p><p>In animism, being a hospitable neighbor is a sacred ideal. The Norse are friendly and share food with friendly spirits, and make shrewd relationships with unfriendly spirits. But the sense of vertical hierarchies and bureaucracies, slavery and lordship, command and worship − everything that characterizes polytheism, is absent from and alien to animism. </p><p></p><p>There are cases where a nature spirit befriends a human and does a kind thing for the human, or perhaps even guards over the family of the person. And a human might have a personal shrine in their home to honor a particular nature spirit. Even with annual celebrations, somewhat analogous to a birthday party in the modern world.</p><p></p><p>Notably, the æsir themselves depend on other friendly nature spirits − depend on the alfar for success, and depend on the vanir for fertility.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For the Norse poets, Óðinn is analogous to a Greek muse. Indeed, this nature spirit relates to all kinds of inspiration − poetry, song, memory, magical trances, berserkar rage, and similar. He is a muse, and because of this the court poet Skald flatter him beyond his cultural importance.</p><p></p><p>Generally speaking.</p><p>• In Norway, the summer storm Þórr is most prominent. Norway is fully animistic, like Saami.</p><p>• In Germany, the skydome muse Óðinn is most prominent. Germany is fully polytheistic, like Romans.</p><p>• In Sweden, the fertile winds Freyr is most prominent. Sweden is animistic but its aristocracy imported polytheism.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>All of this is to say, Pathfinder 2 gets it right when the *only* difference between a powerful individual and a less powerful individual, is level. Regardless of race.</p><p></p><p>There are some fairly minor æsir, and these can quantify as level 1 æsir, in the same way as there are level 1 humans and level 1 alfar.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 7749817, member: 58172"] In Norse stories, heroes almost never turn to the æsir for help. They never pray. There are no priests in Norse culture. The vǫlur (shamans) are the only community spiritual leaders, and they engage the alfar and jǫtnar, and never the æsir. It is misleading to translate the Norse term goð as ‘god’. They are simply the helpful nature spirits. The related Norse term guð was used instead to refer to the Christian ‘god’. That said, the Norse divide the nature spirits between the helpful ones (alfar, æsir, and vanir) and the unhelpful ones (dvergar and jǫtnar). There are examples where Norse people call on the summer storm nature spirit to defend them against the deadly arctic storm nature spirits. Even the term goð, means something like ‘invoked one’, meaning this is a helpful kind of spirit that humans can call on, especially for good weather, fertile crops, and similar wellbeing of nature. But the æsir also relate as spirits of social organization. For example, Þórr is an enforcer of oaths, and can be asked to witness a solemn oath between two humans. Indeed, the wife of Þórr is Sif, whose name means ‘in-law’, thus relating to the creation of new family members by means of a marital oath, rather than by means of blood relations. In animism, being a hospitable neighbor is a sacred ideal. The Norse are friendly and share food with friendly spirits, and make shrewd relationships with unfriendly spirits. But the sense of vertical hierarchies and bureaucracies, slavery and lordship, command and worship − everything that characterizes polytheism, is absent from and alien to animism. There are cases where a nature spirit befriends a human and does a kind thing for the human, or perhaps even guards over the family of the person. And a human might have a personal shrine in their home to honor a particular nature spirit. Even with annual celebrations, somewhat analogous to a birthday party in the modern world. Notably, the æsir themselves depend on other friendly nature spirits − depend on the alfar for success, and depend on the vanir for fertility. For the Norse poets, Óðinn is analogous to a Greek muse. Indeed, this nature spirit relates to all kinds of inspiration − poetry, song, memory, magical trances, berserkar rage, and similar. He is a muse, and because of this the court poet Skald flatter him beyond his cultural importance. Generally speaking. • In Norway, the summer storm Þórr is most prominent. Norway is fully animistic, like Saami. • In Germany, the skydome muse Óðinn is most prominent. Germany is fully polytheistic, like Romans. • In Sweden, the fertile winds Freyr is most prominent. Sweden is animistic but its aristocracy imported polytheism. All of this is to say, Pathfinder 2 gets it right when the *only* difference between a powerful individual and a less powerful individual, is level. Regardless of race. There are some fairly minor æsir, and these can quantify as level 1 æsir, in the same way as there are level 1 humans and level 1 alfar. [/QUOTE]
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