I updated Al Kathos

[brilliantlight]

People seemed to wonder why I had so many females to males. It has to do with my version of Malbus who is a half satyr/ half succubus. Both sides of his heritage are lustful. In Greek myths satyrs are extremely lustful and succubi are the demonic personification of lust. He is cursed to fear women and thus his strong lust is countered by strong fear. He desires to get near them but whenever they do his phobia for women overcomes that and becomes sheer terror. His torment is a struggle between two powerful emotions: fear and lust. The large number of women is a taunt by the dark powers. There are a lot of women about but he can't get near them. That is what torments him. Other aspects of it that he hates his demonic mother and despises the lust within himself which all these women inspire in him. Lust is also a strong desire that interferes with his very disciplined ideals. He is a worshiper of a very martial devil after all. He wants to see himself as someone with a will of iron who can conquer an empire and rule with an iron fist not as a slave to his lust. So you have guilt (of being weak willed enough to be influenced by lust) mixed in there as well.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

For anyone wondering what this is about, fleshing out the domain of Al Kathos is part of The Hub project on Mistipedia, a crowd-sourced cluster.

brilliantlight, general brainstorming and discussion of the project and/or individual domains is fine here on the forum, but specific discussion about inidividual edits is better done on the talk page for the wiki entry:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Talk:Al_Kathos

While the general forum is certainly more visible, the talk page is more visible to the people who are invested in the particular discussion.

[brilliantlight]

For anyone wondering what this is about, fleshing out the domain of Al Kathos is part of The Hub project on Mistipedia, a crowd-sourced cluster.

brilliantlight, general brainstorming and discussion of the project and/or individual domains is fine here on the forum, but specific discussion about inidividual edits is better done on the talk page for the wiki entry:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Talk:Al_Kathos

While the general forum is certainly more visible, the talk page is more visible to the people who are invested in the particular discussion.

Point taken, sorry.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Point taken, sorry.

No worries....

[Bluebomber4evr]

Well you added the homebrew tags this time, at least. I still don't understand why you insert Greco-Roman tropes/myths into domains based on other cultures, though. Al-Kathos is supposed to be Arabian, and specifically pulled from the Zakhara region of Toril, aka the Al-Qadim "Arabian Adventures" subsetting of the Forgotten Realms.

Arabian folklore, both pre- and post-Islam, does not have demons. In their place are the Jinn, who can be either good or evil. Evil Jinn are called Ifrit. These are translated in D&D as genies, with Efreeti, their version of Ifrit as the "evil fire genies." Malbus would make far more sense an Efreet or half-Efreet, maybe even a fiendish Efreet.

It's your homebrew, so whatever floats your boat, I guess.

[brilliantlight]

Well you added the homebrew tags this time, at least. I still don't understand why you insert Greco-Roman tropes/myths into domains based on other cultures, though. Al-Kathos is supposed to be Arabian, and specifically pulled from the Zakhara region of Toril, aka the Al-Qadim "Arabian Adventures" subsetting of the Forgotten Realms.

Arabian folklore, both pre- and post-Islam, does not have demons. In their place are the Jinn, who can be either good or evil. Evil Jinn are called Ifrit. These are translated in D&D as genies, with Efreeti, their version of Ifrit as the "evil fire genies." Malbus would make far more sense an Efreet or half-Efreet, maybe even a fiendish Efreet.
It's your homebrew, so whatever floats your boat, I guess.

For one thing ram headed monster suggests satyrs not genies. Also most of North Africa WAS Roman before the birth of Islam. Look at a map of the Roman Empire and you will find most of North Africa as part of it. Islam is an Abrahamic religion so yes, it has both angels and demons.
The fact that the US has been referred to by the Iranian government as the "Great Satan" more than once should be a clue.

[Bluebomber4evr]

"Ram-headed" could be just about anything. Efreeti have horns, and the Al-Qadim setting has lots of special genies with unique appearances. Satyrs are inappropriate for an Arabian-inspired domain and they are not found in Zakhara, which is where this domain originated. Do yourself a favor and read the short story that debuted this domain, "The Judgment of Abd-al-Malmat" in Tales of Ravenloft, then read up on the Al-Qadim setting here: http://www.al-qadim.com/

Al-Kathos is based on Arabia, not North Africa, and the Romans never ruled Arabia.

And in Islam, Satan is believed to be an evil Jinn.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

MOD NOTE: Bluebomber, it's clear you have strong feelings and knowledge on this matter, but please be aware that some of your posts in this thread come off as belligerent. The Hub Project is meant to be collaborative, so pointing out potential improvements is fair game, but please tone down the the language that could be seen as personal attacks.

[Zilfer]

Simmer down.... comments getting a little on the verge of sounding insulting guys.

Edit: Darn it ron! You just ninja'd me.

[brilliantlight]

"Ram-headed" could be just about anything. Efreeti have horns, and the Al-Qadim setting has lots of special genies with unique appearances. Satyrs are inappropriate for an Arabian-inspired domain and they are not found in Zakhara, which is where this domain originated. Do yourself a favor and read the short story that debuted this domain, "The Judgment of Abd-al-Malmat" in Tales of Ravenloft, then read up on the Al-Qadim setting here: http://www.al-qadim.com/

Al-Kathos is based on Arabia, not North Africa, and the Romans never ruled Arabia.

And in Islam, Satan is believed to be an evil Jinn.

Like it or not 97%+ of the monsters in D&D are either completely made up or come from European mythos. The vast majority of the players come from European derived cultures and the vast majority of the monsters in it reflect that fact. Restrict the domain to purely Arabian monsters and what are you left with? Anything other than genies? In the Monster Manual you have to go all the way to Couatl (page 37 in mine) to find anything that isn't European derived or totally made up unless I missed one. After that you have to go all the way to Genie ( page 114 in mine) for the next one that isn't European derived or totally made up .

[Bluebomber4evr]

I'm not trying to be belligerent, honestly. I'm sorry if it came off that way, but honestly I'm a little baffled that I'm being interpreted that way -- I'm not attacking brilliantlight or calling him names, nor am I deliberately using harsh or insulting language. I'm trying to offer honest and constructive criticism. I firmly believe that people will not improve unless they are made aware of their mistakes and given ideas on how to correct those mistakes.

[brilliantlight]

I'm not trying to be belligerent, honestly. I'm sorry if it came off that way, but honestly I'm a little baffled that I'm being interpreted that way -- I'm not attacking brilliantlight or calling him names, nor am I deliberately using harsh or insulting language. I'm trying to offer honest and constructive criticism. I firmly believe that people will not improve unless they are made aware of their mistakes and given ideas on how to correct those mistakes.

Unless almost entirely restricted to genies you have few monsters to draw on. The company who made up D&D (TSR Hobbies) and the one that bought it (WOTC) are US based companies and most of the players are either American or European and both the rulebooks and the novels reflect that fact. Almost all the monsters are either totally made up or European derived. If it came out of Arabia and was most popular in the Middle East it would have reflected that fact.

[Bluebomber4evr]

"Ram-headed" could be just about anything. Efreeti have horns, and the Al-Qadim setting has lots of special genies with unique appearances. Satyrs are inappropriate for an Arabian-inspired domain and they are not found in Zakhara, which is where this domain originated. Do yourself a favor and read the short story that debuted this domain, "The Judgment of Abd-al-Malmat" in Tales of Ravenloft, then read up on the Al-Qadim setting here: http://www.al-qadim.com/

Al-Kathos is based on Arabia, not North Africa, and the Romans never ruled Arabia.

And in Islam, Satan is believed to be an evil Jinn.

Like it or not 97%+ of the monsters in D&D are either completely made up or come from European mythos. The vast majority of the players come from European derived cultures and the vast majority of the monsters in it reflect that fact. Restrict the domain to purely Arabian monsters and what are you left with? Anything other than genies?

There's a lot more non-Europen monsters in D&D than you are giving them credit for. Plus there's more to Arabian folklore than genies, too. For instance, that ghouls are based on Arabian myths? Even the name, "ghoul" is based on the Arabic word "ghul". Arabian folklore has all sorts of ghosts, too, not to mention superstitions based on cultures like the Egyptians and Mesopotamians.

And like I said in my last post, I'm genuinely trying to help here. I think you have the germ of a decent idea, but it would benefit if you looked a little more closely at the source material instead of relying on stuff you're already familiar with and already over-represented in D&D.

[brilliantlight]

"Ram-headed" could be just about anything. Efreeti have horns, and the Al-Qadim setting has lots of special genies with unique appearances. Satyrs are inappropriate for an Arabian-inspired domain and they are not found in Zakhara, which is where this domain originated. Do yourself a favor and read the short story that debuted this domain, "The Judgment of Abd-al-Malmat" in Tales of Ravenloft, then read up on the Al-Qadim setting here: http://www.al-qadim.com/

Al-Kathos is based on Arabia, not North Africa, and the Romans never ruled Arabia.

And in Islam, Satan is believed to be an evil Jinn.

Like it or not 97%+ of the monsters in D&D are either completely made up or come from European mythos. The vast majority of the players come from European derived cultures and the vast majority of the monsters in it reflect that fact. Restrict the domain to purely Arabian monsters and what are you left with? Anything other than genies?

There's a lot more non-Europen monsters in D&D than you are giving them credit for. Plus there's more to Arabian folklore than genies, too. For instance, that ghouls are based on Arabian myths? Even the name, "ghoul" is based on the Arabic word "ghul". Arabian folklore has all sorts of ghosts, too, not to mention superstitions based on cultures like the Egyptians and Mesopotamians.

And like I said in my last post, I'm genuinely trying to help here. I think you have the germ of a decent idea, but it would benefit if you looked a little more closely at the source material instead of relying on stuff you're already familiar with and already over-represented in D&D.

I'm sure Arab mythos has more than genies but the fact remains the vast majority of the D&D monsters are European derived or totally made up. Ghosts are common in virtually all human cultures I can think of. Death is the common lot of humanity after all. In a sense demons are too if you consider demons being basically otherworldly spirits of evil. Evil behavior is also common across all human cultures as well , sad to say.

Frankly I don't have the money to buy every rulebook out there. There are scores if not hundreds of them out there, you know . I did actually look through the MM and those were the pages. Two monsters in over 100 pages is around 2%. Denizens of Dread it has 4 of them in the first 100 pages are either not totally made up or Non-European. In short you have a very short list of non-European monsters to choose from, an even shorter one if you count just Arabic ones. You would have just one (ghoul) in Denizens of Dread in the first hundred pages and none in the first hundred pages of the MM. BTW I read the story in question, how else would I know that the DL of the Wounded City was an ex-slave?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I'm not trying to be belligerent, honestly. I'm sorry if it came off that way, but honestly I'm a little baffled that I'm being interpreted that way

These are the specific bits that (to me, at least) came off as unnecessarily harsh:

Well you added the homebrew tags this time, at least.

Satyrs are inappropriate...

Do yourself a favor...

I can't speak for Zilfer (and another member who contacted me privately) as to which parts hit them, but obviously something was bad enough that they spoke up about it.

The difference between contructive criticism ("here's how I think we can make these ideas fit the source better") and attack ("your ideas are wrong and no good") is all in the presentation sometimes. I don't know if brilliantlight took it the same way we did, but please just watch your tone.