D&D General The Rakshasa and Genie Problem

[Hexmage-EN]

Well, the latest season of Critical Role got accused of cultural appropriation for setting the campaign in that part of the setting…

My understanding is that Critical Role was criticized for that when that part of the setting was featured in the first Campaign and people were expecting the same thing for the new Campaign, but hardly anything so far has really sold the setting as non-European inspired in Campaign 3 other than there being a jungle surrounding the city and the local guards riding simurghs.

As far as Call of the Netherdeep is concerned a WotC writer named Makenzie de Armas worked on it and says that she drew on her own heritage while writing for it.

 

[Voranzovin]

Perfectly cromulent. I just prefer the 4e cosmology, where stuff like that is how deities and their servants work--aka angels, and the fallen angels known as devils. Kill a deity, and you don't totally destroy that concept, but you radically weaken it in existence. Kill Asmodeus and you'd make tyranny itself weaker, accelerating the demise of corrupt regimes and potentially triggering an age of freedom and self-determination. Kill Tiamat and you'd weaken the forces of greed and vengeance, leading to an overall kinder, gentler, more generous world, at least for a time. Deities may die but the concepts they embody live on. To quote a certain knight of a frigid land, "Dreams worth fighting for don't die so easily."

But, again: perfectly cromulent. Devils and demons as embodiments of the ills of the world is well-attested in myth, legend, and creed alike.

Absolutely--that's pretty much what I was describing. If you destroyed Asmodeus, you might usher in a golden age of liberty. Maybe it would last for a hundred years, but it wouldn't last forever. The concept of tyranny can never be truly destroyed. It would still matter a lot to all the people who would otherwise have lived under repressive regimes during that time though!

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Perfectly cromulent. I just prefer the 4e cosmology, where stuff like that is how deities and their servants work--aka angels, and the fallen angels known as devils. Kill a deity, and you don't totally destroy that concept, but you radically weaken it in existence. Kill Asmodeus and you'd make tyranny itself weaker, accelerating the demise of corrupt regimes and potentially triggering an age of freedom and self-determination. Kill Tiamat and you'd weaken the forces of greed and vengeance, leading to an overall kinder, gentler, more generous world, at least for a time. Deities may die but the concepts they embody live on. To quote a certain knight of a frigid land, "Dreams worth fighting for don't die so easily."

I don't know if 4E invented that concept, but I will say when I read the ending of the Scales of War adventure path I found the fall out of destroying Tiamat in her own lair very inspiring. Killing the goddess of greed didn't just destroy a powerful mastermind, but actually made mortals less greedy and more charitable (while also opening up the possibility of some other being taking over as the god of greed eventually).

Bahamut regards you kindly with his platinum eyes. “When you killed Tiamat, you didn’t just defeat a god. You defeated the very wellspring of greed and envy. This doesn’t mean the end of money, but gold coins are now merely a medium of exchange. No one wants gold coins or other riches for their own sake. That’s why Magister Tulm gives away his extra wealth: He can no longer fathom a reason to keep it. It’s not strictly out of the goodness of his heart, but because he no longer has the concept of greed."