Nah. D&D is not flavour-neutral, it just draws on a zillion distinct cultural influences, including Clerics that are vaguely Christian but cast Old Testament spells, Druids that are mostly Celtic, mummies that are Egyptian, treants which are Tolkieneque, and polearms that are pure Swiss autism. All these can coexist in one place in a normal D&D milieu while looking exactly like what they are based on.

Quote from: Tristan on January 31, 2025, 11:44:43 PMOh and liches have Spirit Jars not Phylacteries.

My guess is a lot of kids are calling them Horcruxes anyway.

Quote from: Zalman on February 01, 2025, 05:19:31 AMYeah, as a Jew I always found the use of the word jarringly incorrect, but never offensive.

What does offend me is some goy telling me that the word needs to be removed for my sake. Trust me, "some of that guy's best friends are Jewish."

Right now at WOTC HQ...

Golems will be removed next for your safety.  You're welcome.  *tosses purple side shaved hair back in arrogance*

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:17:32 AMRight now at WOTC HQ...

Golems will be removed next for your safety.  You're welcome.  *tosses purple side shaved hair back in arrogance*

No doubt Golems are on the chopping block, at least in name.

Any grounding in actual myth is appropriation!

Quote from: Zalman on February 01, 2025, 09:33:32 AM

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:17:32 AMRight now at WOTC HQ...

Golems will be removed next for your safety.  You're welcome.  *tosses purple side shaved hair back in arrogance*

No doubt Golems are on the chopping block, at least in name.

Any grounding in actual myth is appropriation!

That might be the best case scenario given what happened with the Sphinx with the 2025 MM.



*Insert Godfather "Look how they massacred my boy!" meme here*

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 01, 2025, 09:15:35 AM

Quote from: Tristan on January 31, 2025, 11:44:43 PMOh and liches have Spirit Jars not Phylacteries.

My guess is a lot of kids are calling them Horcruxes anyway.

Horcrux sounds cooler too, but I guess "soul jar" gets points for literal functionality.

I don't understand why they don't rename the lich too. It's also linguistic appropriation. The word is a real word in English meaning a regular old corpse. The monster should be renamed to Undead Wizard King or something.

Meanwhile, the name zombie is cultural appropriation from Voodoo. The zombie should be renamed to lich, matching the work of Clark Ashton Smith. Or perhaps animated corpse?

If they keep this up their won't be any conflict left. How does one play a Tea-Party RPG?.  I should not even ask that as their is probably a whole game for it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 01, 2025, 10:48:50 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 01, 2025, 09:15:35 AM

Quote from: Tristan on January 31, 2025, 11:44:43 PMOh and liches have Spirit Jars not Phylacteries.

My guess is a lot of kids are calling them Horcruxes anyway.

Horcrux sounds cooler too, but I guess "soul jar" gets points for literal functionality.

I don't understand why they don't rename the lich too. It's also linguistic appropriation. The word is a real word in English meaning a regular old corpse. The monster should be renamed to Undead Wizard King or something.

Meanwhile, the name zombie is cultural appropriation from Voodoo. The zombie should be renamed to lich, matching the work of Clark Ashton Smith.

I went with Wight (corporeal) and Wraith (incorporeal) for my setting. A wight mage or necromancer is your "Lich", a wight wrapped in diseased burial wrappings is a "Mummy," etc.

Similarly, a vampire is a wraith employing illusions and its spectral grip to appear mortal so it can hunt and consume the life force of its victims... which is why it can seemingly fly, dissolve into mist, doesn't appear in mirrors and is virtually invulnerable to conventional weapons.

Frankly, I think D&D suffers a lot in its mythos from having subdivided so many creatures to the point that a skeleton, zombie, ghoul, wight, mummy, etc. (or kobold, goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, orc, ogre, troll) are each their own entirely separate species.

I get making the mechanical distinction for building encounters, but a lot of things would be a lot more coherent if that's all the distinction was; mechanical. That in terms of fluff the "hobgoblin" is the default... basically an Unseelie elf... and goblins and bugbears and many other sundries are all just the same critter in the same way Andre the Giant and General Tom Thumb are both humans.

I'll fully admit to it just being my personal preference, but I think it's a good preference that aids world-building... a way to make a fantasy kitchen sink feel much less so.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 01, 2025, 02:39:46 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 01, 2025, 12:39:08 AMRight. And there has never been a generic stat block for "human". And as of 5E (2014), we also didn't have separate stat blocks for "elf", "dwarf", "halfling" and so on. Instead, we had stat blocks for different types of NPCs based on profession like "bandit", "cultist", "guard" - and it was noted that the GM could add racial traits to them.

https://archive.org/details/tsr02102mc1monstrouscompendium/page/n91/mode/2up

Ratman_tf, that's exactly what I'm saying. You linked to a Monstrous Compendium section that has six separate stat blocks for "Aborigines/Cavemen", "Adventurers"*, "Bandits/Brigands"*, "Barbarians/Nomads", "Berserkers/Dervishes", and "Farmers/Herders". (And the two starred ones have a lot of stats that are "variable" based on description.)

There's never been a stat block for plain "human". It depends on the type, because humans are too variable.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 01, 2025, 08:18:35 AMIt seems strange not to include the orc merely because it is now a playable race. Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, & halflings have always had a MM entry. Very strange and very stupid.

Exploderwizard, as of the 5E (2014) Monster Manual, they no longer had separate stat blocks and entries for "elf", "dwarf", and other demi-humans along with "human". Instead, they had an "NPC" section that had one stat block each for things like "soldier" and "wizard". A human wizard and an elf wizard used the same "wizard" stat block, rather than having one stat block for "human wizard" and a different stat block for "elf wizard".

It was always clear from the PC rules that an elf wizard and human wizard are very similar. This was acknowledging that to have variety of NPCs of different races without enormous page space.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 01, 2025, 12:11:03 AM

Quote from: Tristan on January 31, 2025, 11:44:43 PMOh and liches have Spirit Jars not Phylacteries.

To be fair on this one at least, unless it's literally two leather boxes containing parchment with Hebrew scripture and strapped to the forehead and left arm for morning prayers... Spirit Jar is probably a more accurate term given that in D&D since at least 3e the device could be practically anything and was rarely if ever actually carried by the Lich.

I think all the humanoid races should have their own entries though, just because they're playable doesn't make them universally allies. Look at how much we humans seem to love going at each other.

I'm just assuming in these times with this company, it was either to 1) avoid any mention of something Jewish so they wouldn't be seen as supporting Israel, or 2) considered it part of D&D's 'racist' past.

I know a person's first thought will be on the Torah meaning, but as a reliquary or protection amulet it does sort of work.  This is not a hill I choose to defend to the death tho. I was just pointing out another change in the book.

Re: humanoids, I get that, but if WOTC is trying to get new folks in who haven't played, they might not think to adjust the stats for different creatures. I'm hoping that there's at least advice to do so and perhaps examples.

With the change from using the term phylactery, did they also change the term for golems as well? If not, that feels like a strange oversight. I haven't purchased the book and haven't been able to find if that was another change while googling.

Quote from: RNGm on February 01, 2025, 09:41:33 AM

*Insert Godfather "Look how they massacred my boy!" meme here*

A rainbow cat with danger hair. Ok. I feel you, Godfather.

Quote from: MattfromTinder on February 01, 2025, 02:21:39 PMWith the change from using the term phylactery, did they also change the term for golems as well? If not, that feels like a strange oversight. I haven't purchased the book and haven't been able to find if that was another change while googling.

Did anybody ever complain about golem being used this way?

I couldn't resist doing a short video about all of this nonsense.
https://youtu.be/vj9kNnWqwlc?si=grPoUCn-4c5RtKhq

Perfectly predictable.  On one hand, I love it.  Anything that will kill WotC faster is objectively a good thing.

If this change had been made for a game-related reason, it would still be stupid, but not obnoxious.  But the reason behind this change is what makes it over-the-top obnoxious and vile.  And we don't have to guess at the reason; they've told us.

The idea that demi-humans in general should not be assigned a hard and fast alignments and should be treated as ordinary characters (because "muh good drow!", et al.) is a purely ideological one.  It has no history in the game (or outside of it).  There's no mechanical or balance problem that it solves.  WotC has done this because they see everything through the lens of their religion politics.  They feel that demi-humans like orcs are racial stand-ins (because they are not capable of seeing other humans through anything other than a racial lens, and therefore assert that no one else is capable of doing so, either).  So orcs must be exactly the same as every other demi-human (and human) race, lest WotC be accused of the racism that is actual within them.

Also, the people at WotC identify with evil.  I'm being dead serious.  They identify themselves with evil, but in a "good" way.  I guarantee that if you asked the average employee of WotC, they would be proud of rejecting Judeo-Christian norms and values.  These kinds of leftist danger-hairs are up front about their antipathy to Christian morality (lesbians and gays, abortion, trans grooming of kids, etc.).  On that quality alone, they would tend to view "evil" races as just misunderstood or with a valid culture (from alternate points of view), because that's how they place themselves into Western culture.  Any kind of absolute judgment is anathema to them (just like many of the leftists that post here).  So any kind of absolute is wrong when applied to orcs, or any other intelligent creature.

Granted, it's a stupid worldview.  But I have to give them credit for consistency, because that's usually not a hallmark of leftist though...