Male dominance

[Veknironth]

Well, I'm going to do it. I tried, clumsily, to avoid it in a previous post but it seems people have opinions and this might be a good discussion. It also might end up in hurt feelings and a flame war.

The Palladium world, as written in books, is male dominated. It's almost exclusively patriarchal. Personally, I think this is because of the source material of authors who wrote in less...enlightened eras, and real world analogs with less equality. But should it be? Is/are there any internal reason(s) within the past of the Palladium World that would dictate that there are no female heads of state, heroes of note, or great leaders?

-Vek
"Spoiler alert, I don't think there are."

[Library Ogre]

Generally, no, especially as you consider the impact of a variety of species. There are some notable exceptions (the one that keeps coming to mind for me is the Eandroth, lead by post-fertility females, though they're a decidedly minor species).

[eliakon]

Well, I'm going to do it. I tried, clumsily, to avoid it in a previous post but it seems people have opinions and this might be a good discussion. It also might end up in hurt feelings and a flame war.

The Palladium world, as written in books, is male dominated. It's almost exclusively patriarchal. Personally, I think this is because of the source material of authors who wrote in less...enlightened eras, and real world analogs with less equality. But should it be? Is/are there any internal reason(s) within the past of the Palladium World that would dictate that there are no female heads of state, heroes of note, or great leaders?

-Vek
"Spoiler alert, I don't think there are."

My personal opinion?
Other than the reasons that existed in our world (physical labor issues, and the need for constant pregnancy due to child hood death, etc)
And those reasons could be overcome by the same way they were overcome in our world...
...by examples of women that were competent in their fields and that did manage to do things, and by times and places where the women were needed (WWII in our modern world, Bizantium in Palladium for example)
Which, IMHO would in the tens of thousands of years that palladium has been around mean that there should have been plenty of time to break down the gender barriers (of course this then raises the question of why there should be false racial stereotypes and ethnic prejudice but that is another can of worms)

Thus, I see no problem with ignoring the book material as written and making the society far more gender equal.

[Veknironth]

Well, I thought about this and I have another angle as well as my original one.

My original thought is more how the civilizations evolved. We really have no information on this. There were humans in the Yin-Sloth worshiping dragons and then there is the current society. There isn't a lot of discussion about stone or bronze age Palladium analogs. We have the "Human Barbarians" settling the Western Empire after the Elf Dwarf war, but we don't know anything about their culture or how it evolved into the current one. The Eastern Territories were settled by Western Empire people as well as Byzantium (I know, the Eoten were there first). The Timiro Kingdom is the 2nd oldest but we don't know much of anything about it. So, I guess we have to start with the Western settlers.

Of course, we don't know much about the Elf/Dwarf civilizations either. So, we don't know if these barbarians were learned and knew of the magicks of the Dwarves and Elves, if they patterned their society after those great empires, or if they rebelled against it. We don't know when religions appeared a lot of these societies and we don't know how they appeared. We do know there was the Age of Purification, and then the recovery of magic. However, we don't really know the order in which it returned.

So, I'm not wondering why a medieval society doesn't suddenly become egalitarian once you add magic and psionics. I'm wondering how the existence of these powers would affect the evolution of society and culture in ways different from our world.

So, here's the case for a male dominated society. Men are stronger, they don't have to nurse young, and they can do more of the physical tasks. In any disputes between men and women, it can devolve to violence and men have a distinct advantage. So, they have a physical dominance and are controlling the physical needs of a culture or society. They are the leaders of the societies. That allows them to make the rules, which they probably make to favor themselves, and it continues much like most of the societies we had here in our world. Women are seen as lesser, told they are lesser, and made to be lesser. As magic is rediscovered, it is integrated into the existing society, with men still firmly in control and using this new power to their benefit. Perhaps they don't think women are fit to use these powers, or they fear them using the power and upsetting their position in society, or any of many possible reasons. So, they keep the abilities out of women's hands as best they can. It continues until current day. Ditto for religion.

Here's a second case for male dominated societies. The Elves and Dwarves were that way, and they learned it from them. The reverse works as a case for a more egalitarian society.

A case against male domination. The Elves and Dwarves almost destroy the world. Learned magic is forgotten or forbidden. Men are stronger physically. However, magic and psionics aren't gone. Psionics are distributed evenly throughout the population. People with psionic abilities have a distinct advantage over their normal comrades. Mind Mage level psionicists have a huge advantage. They are going to be influencing people because they have these super abilities no one else has. They are better than just strong. They can do things like make fire, or take over people's brains, or all kinds of stuff. It's not really well understood, and there isn't a stigma against psionics.

The same thing happens with the unlearned magic. Warlocks should be just as prevalent as well as druids. I don't see a reason why there would be more men than women, or vice versa, becoming really powerful and important to societies. Again, I have no evidence or canon material that states warlock would arise before wizards. It just seems logical to me since the OCC doesn't mention Warlocks learning from a teacher. Witches would likewise just seem like powerful people. The early Western humans might or might not know how to recognize someone receiving power from a demonic entity. They just see someone who has power. So, people with these powers would be able to create physical security for their friends/family/tribe. The leaders of these societies aren't all men. Some might be, others might not. But men don't have a monopoly on leadership and influence and the concepts of women being lesser don't take hold. Magic is rediscovered and studied equally by men and women. Some jobs are still segregated by sex, like soldering, manual labor, etc. but the influence in society is roughly even.

Now, here's my second question. HOW is the Palladium world male dominated? Are women denied the right to own property? Can they inherit from their parents? Are they believed less in judicial hearings or arbitration? Are they considered silly, hysterical creatures whose place is in the home and who can't protect themselves? Is it considered a waste or improper for women to be educated? It's not really spelled out in the books. There are some examples, like Magic Guilds where it is spelled out, but it doesn't seem to be that pernicious. The main issue is that most of the NPC's are male, so it might give the false impression that the world is dominated by men. Or, maybe we (yeah that's right WE. I include myself in this) just project that onto the setting because it resembles the medieval world and we think that's how it is.

-Vek
"I have cast the board version of Impervious to Fire. Your flaming will not injure me!"

[Reagren Wright]

The ruler of Lopan is Empress Jeslynn. I hope when everyone gets to meet her, she will be the symbol what the two post
have been discussing and answer a lot of question as well. Furthermore, there are some women via for power in many of the
Palladium nations. Some in Western Empire (see sourcebook). The Queen of the Cyclops on Isle of the Cylcops (Adventure of
High Seas). Lady Cedess wants to remove her brother from the throne of Timiro (Rifter #63 for official material), and
Bizantium has some evil Priestess manipulating King Radean the IV (see sourcebook).

[Hell knight]

Well, I thought about this and I have another angle as well as my original one.

My original thought is more how the civilizations evolved. We really have no information on this. There were humans in the Yin-Sloth worshiping dragons and then there is the current society. There isn't a lot of discussion about stone or bronze age Palladium analogs. We have the "Human Barbarians" settling the Western Empire after the Elf Dwarf war, but we don't know anything about their culture or how it evolved into the current one. The Eastern Territories were settled by Western Empire people as well as Byzantium (I know, the Eoten were there first). The Timiro Kingdom is the 2nd oldest but we don't know much of anything about it. So, I guess we have to start with the Western settlers.

Of course, we don't know much about the Elf/Dwarf civilizations either. So, we don't know if these barbarians were learned and knew of the magicks of the Dwarves and Elves, if they patterned their society after those great empires, or if they rebelled against it. We don't know when religions appeared a lot of these societies and we don't know how they appeared. We do know there was the Age of Purification, and then the recovery of magic. However, we don't really know the order in which it returned.

So, I'm not wondering why a medieval society doesn't suddenly become egalitarian once you add magic and psionics. I'm wondering how the existence of these powers would affect the evolution of society and culture in ways different from our world.

So, here's the case for a male dominated society. Men are stronger, they don't have to nurse young, and they can do more of the physical tasks. In any disputes between men and women, it can devolve to violence and men have a distinct advantage. So, they have a physical dominance and are controlling the physical needs of a culture or society. They are the leaders of the societies. That allows them to make the rules, which they probably make to favor themselves, and it continues much like most of the societies we had here in our world. Women are seen as lesser, told they are lesser, and made to be lesser. As magic is rediscovered, it is integrated into the existing society, with men still firmly in control and using this new power to their benefit. Perhaps they don't think women are fit to use these powers, or they fear them using the power and upsetting their position in society, or any of many possible reasons. So, they keep the abilities out of women's hands as best they can. It continues until current day. Ditto for religion.

Here's a second case for male dominated societies. The Elves and Dwarves were that way, and they learned it from them. The reverse works as a case for a more egalitarian society.

A case against male domination. The Elves and Dwarves almost destroy the world. Learned magic is forgotten or forbidden. Men are stronger physically. However, magic and psionics aren't gone. Psionics are distributed evenly throughout the population. People with psionic abilities have a distinct advantage over their normal comrades. Mind Mage level psionicists have a huge advantage. They are going to be influencing people because they have these super abilities no one else has. They are better than just strong. They can do things like make fire, or take over people's brains, or all kinds of stuff. It's not really well understood, and there isn't a stigma against psionics.

The same thing happens with the unlearned magic. Warlocks should be just as prevalent as well as druids. I don't see a reason why there would be more men than women, or vice versa, becoming really powerful and important to societies. Again, I have no evidence or canon material that states warlock would arise before wizards. It just seems logical to me since the OCC doesn't mention Warlocks learning from a teacher. Witches would likewise just seem like powerful people. The early Western humans might or might not know how to recognize someone receiving power from a demonic entity. They just see someone who has power. So, people with these powers would be able to create physical security for their friends/family/tribe. The leaders of these societies aren't all men. Some might be, others might not. But men don't have a monopoly on leadership and influence and the concepts of women being lesser don't take hold. Magic is rediscovered and studied equally by men and women. Some jobs are still segregated by sex, like soldering, manual labor, etc. but the influence in society is roughly even.

Now, here's my second question. HOW is the Palladium world male dominated? Are women denied the right to own property? Can they inherit from their parents? Are they believed less in judicial hearings or arbitration? Are they considered silly, hysterical creatures whose place is in the home and who can't protect themselves? Is it considered a waste or improper for women to be educated? It's not really spelled out in the books. There are some examples, like Magic Guilds where it is spelled out, but it doesn't seem to be that pernicious. The main issue is that most of the NPC's are male, so it might give the false impression that the world is dominated by men. Or, maybe we (yeah that's right WE. I include myself in this) just project that onto the setting because it resembles the medieval world and we think that's how it is.

-Vek
"I have cast the board version of Impervious to Fire. Your flaming will not injure me!"

Actually as to your last part it depends on the location for example in Bizantium women can own land or a business or both , they got a lot of rites there.
In the eastern territory there is an all women knight hood in the eastern north sister hood of northern knights .

[Prysus]

Is/are there any internal reason(s) within the past of the Palladium World that would dictate that there are no female heads of state, heroes of note, or great leaders?

Greetings and Salutations. Women have been most of those things you list, per canon.

There's at least one female in the Defilers (great heroes) shown in the inside cover of the PF main book (as a quick off the top of my head). Reagren Wright just mentioned some good female leaders.

What little we have on the Land of the South Winds also suggests women can be in places of power/in charge. The entire nation is run by dukes and duchesses, with the gender neutral term being ducal, which means duchesses are common enough and women have enough influence to gain a gender neutral term instead of a male term being the default. Then there's a Ducal Parliament (again, gender neutral) and a "ruling triad of ducals" (again, gender neutral) who effectively run the country. If only males could be in charge, the gender neutral term would be meaningless. Note: This is all canon (other than my stating the importance of using a gender neutral term and its implications).

Bizantium however is a small kingdom way up north. Land of the South Winds is a poor kingdom way down south. There are various aspects from races, as Mark Hall pointed out above. I don't think anyone here is saying that women can't or haven't done these things, especially not Palladium. However, none of the above are really the major kingdoms and not as likely to influence some of the larger powers.

As for how things should be, well that's saying that there's only one way the world should've turned out and anything else is wrong. While I see how it could have turned out differently, I can also see possibilities for how things could have turned out just like it did (male dominated world, in general). Figuring out how things would be though is mostly guesswork, then filling in the rest with personal opinion to get a conclusion. I don't think there's going to be a right answer. I think I'll leave it at that for now. Farewell and safe journeys.

[Lukterran]

The reason societies evolved into patriarchies is just simple because of biology and how are two sexes where designed to reproduce and the effects of that from nature.

Once a mated pair procreate woman are designed to grow a baby for 9 months in the womb, give birth and nurture their babies. Thus they naturally would fall into the roles of staying at home and caregivers for the family. While men once they procreated would fall into of provider and protector for the family unit.

Everything else came from these basic biologic survival roles to propitiate the species. Societies eventually rose up and norms and mores created that reinforced this way of living.

There are always exceptions the deviate from that norm. However, biology basically would point any society into this direction unless the creatures procreated in some other fashion. I.E., Changlings.

But seriously Vek - This is the second time you have created post with the point of pushing this progressive BS. Really you should go do you virtue signaling someone else where it belongs, like a political website and leave it off the Palladium Fantasy forums.

Warning: Personal attack

[The Dark Elf]

Its prob just written that way cause it reflects how things are IRL. It just kinda springs to mind that way...

[eliakon]

I would also like to point out that there is no consensus in our world on what is the role of women.
The role of women in modern 20th century West (Europe, US, Canada) is not the only existence in the world.
Japan exists, Russia exists, India exists, China exists, Latin America exists, Africa Exists, the Middle East exists...
...and these places have different sex roles.
Which sort of suggests to me that there might not be a 'correct' way to handle sex roles. Or that maybe, just maybe, trying to push modern western values as the 'correct' ones is quit literally just as blind and quite likely just as bad.

There are courses of study on gender roles, taught by people who have gotten doctorates in the field... that, to me, suggests that it is not a simple open and shut "here is the right way to handle it, anything else is simply patriarchal repression and thus wrong"

[Veknironth]

Well, Luk, I made this particular post as a variation of the first one. The first one, I was wondering more why the world was presented that way. Was it on purpose or by accident? It quickly became more of a discussion of considering what would happen when you take a medieval world and interjecting magic and psionics into it. This is mainly because I didn't word my initial post clearly. Muddled, I believe was the word. That wasn't my intention so I made a second post.

This post I started thinking maybe the inclusion of magic and psionics would alter the way that a society would develop. I can't really post it somewhere else, because it's specific to this world. Then I realized there is a second part to the concept and that is whether the Palladium World is actually male dominated, based on the canon material. I'm not sure which is more interesting or debatable.

My premise is that the people who can provide physical security in a world would have influence over how the society evolved. You think it's all based on child raising. So, those are at least 2 different views on how a society would structure itself. Taking those as starting points, or guiding principals, we can try to imagine what would be different than how things evolved here in out world. Fantasy and Sci-Fi are (or is, if you consider them two sides of the same coin) the genres in which you can ask "what if?" and come up with the possibilities. It's supposed to allow us to use imagination.

All I'm asking is "what if". I just thought it was an interesting world building thought experiment, which is specific to the Palladium World. I figured it would spark some discussion, you know, on the discussion boards.

-Vek
"Discuss."

[Hotrod]

Well, I'm going to do it. I tried, clumsily, to avoid it in a previous post but it seems people have opinions and this might be a good discussion. It also might end up in hurt feelings and a flame war.

The Palladium world, as written in books, is male dominated. It's almost exclusively patriarchal. Personally, I think this is because of the source material of authors who wrote in less...enlightened eras, and real world analogs with less equality. But should it be? Is/are there any internal reason(s) within the past of the Palladium World that would dictate that there are no female heads of state, heroes of note, or great leaders?

-Vek
"Spoiler alert, I don't think there are."

I'll adjust my response from the other thread.

1. There are practical reproductive considerations you're neglecting.

Biologically, men are only essential for conception, whereas women are necessary for the full gestation and post-birth up to the age of weening, a process that can take a few years per child. Given the kind of infant and child mortality you see in a medieval society, each woman would need to average 4-6 kids to maintain a steady population; this means that most women in such societies would spend ~15 years or more biologically tending to kids in utero or by breastfeeding. As such, cultures that thrive in that kind of setting would tend to have women in lower-risk professions or simply focus on domestic needs and child-raising.

Sending pregnant women into battle is something no civilized country does in real life. In the low-tech setting of Palladium Fantasy, sending pregnant women or mothers of suckling infants and toddlers into battle would only be done as a last act of desperation against a foe that shows no quarter. While a few low-technology cultures in real life history had traditions of having young women of child-bearing age fight, these practices were not the norm in the predominant cultures of every continent of human habitation. While some might argue that this is because women's distribution of strength tends to be less than that of men, I think it's more a matter of protecting what matters most: the future of a people. If half the men die, the next generation can be just as large. If half the women die, so does half of the next generation plus all the babies who currently depend on many of those women.

tl;dr Women have the superpower of making babies. What's a Carpet of Adhesion next to that?

If there is sufficient medical magic to bring down that mortality rate, then it would make sense to have more women in higher-risk jobs. Even then, I doubt they would have anywhere near equal representation in such jobs, just as they do not have equal representation in high-risk jobs in our own world. Look up the most dangerous jobs in the country and try to find one in which men and women are equally represented. I doubt you'll find any. This brings me to my next point:


2. You won't see equality of representation even if you attain equality of opportunity.
Even if you reduce the biological requirements of child-rearing as much as we have today, men and women are going to have different distributions of interests and career choices. This has been true in every culture, both modern and historical, that I've ever heard of. I've heard different explanations for this. Some say this is due to subtle mechanisms of male dominance or patriarchal influence (I think this hypothesis is one of the sources for the term "microaggressions") that effectively destroy equality of outcome/representation. I've also heard people state that biology, hormones, and brain chemistry tend to drive differences in decision-making between men and women, both in an immediate situational sense and in long-term career and life choices. Personally, I think both ideas have merit, but the biological influence is effectively immutable, while the male dominance/patriarchy influence is highly dependent upon individual circumstances (family, local community, culture, et cetera). In either case, the effect is the same


3. Power and adventure in Palladium Fantasy are inherently risky, and women tend to choose safer jobs. Therefore you are likely to see many more powerful and adventuring men than women.

This isn't to say that women always shy away from political power or ambition, but their paths to political power tend to be less physically risky. The widespread stigmas against magic users and powerful psychics in many parts of the setting, along with the inherent risks of some of these powers, will tend to intrigue people who like the thrill of danger and uncertainty. Such people are predominantly male.

I suspect most of us will agree with my reasoning up to this point. The proportions one might expect could vary depending on who you ask, but this reality is likely to endure absent some kind of compensating discrimination that aims to increase womens' representation or outright eliminate the presence of men in certain roles.

Here, our approaches are likely to split, because I don't see disproportional representation as "male dominance" or "patriarchy." I associate both of those terms with gender oppression, and oppression requires more than people choosing to do what they would do absent the oppression. It requires things like the use or threat of force or negative consequences inflicted upon people who don't comply by other people, and restrictions on liberties and rights. In that light, I'll make my final point:

4. I suspect that you're mis-characterizing both the Palladium Fantasy setting and American society in the early 1980's.

There are, in fact, female heads of state in Palladium, and there have been before. Lopan is ruled by an empress. There have been empresses of the Western Empire, such as Empress Zenerea (Western Empire, p9). Female Eandroth Rogues rule their society. One of Bizantium's shadow colonies (Seven Sisters, I think) was founded and run by ladies.

If you want to convince me of almost universal oppression of women throughout Palladium Fantasy, you should provide some references of actual oppression all over the setting to back it up. "I don't see women in charge enough," is insufficient for me, because inequalities of representation do not indicate inequalities of opportunity. Rather, try finding a lot of quotes saying things like "women are not allowed to XXX." or "women are not as good at XXX as men." If anything Palladium Fantasy has always been unrealistically egalitarian, in that women in-game have the exact same distributions of physical stats as men do, whereas men and women have different distributions of physical abilities like strength, speed, and endurance in real life. There are even a few cases in which the game writers have given women characters some in-game mechanics advantages (such as the Seven Sisters colony in Hinterlands, where ladies of the dominant family automatically get the Long Bow W.P., +1 to initiative, +1D4 to P.P., get +5 to all tracking/wilderness skills, and can select any wilderness skill, but men of the family do not).

Similarly, I'm unconvinced that we're somehow more enlightened than we were back in the early 1980s. You're stating that as a given without demonstrating some sort of widespread oppression, and you're lumping the game's writers in with that same epochal smear. Again, without some demonstration of past "un-enlightened" behavior that shows we're so much better than we were then, I don't see the basis for your position.

[Wōdwulf Seaxaning]

Vek, like Hotrod & others have pointed out there have been numerous female rulers all over the Palladium world, take Timiro for instance: Timiro, has had nine female rulers, two of which had very long reigns (Princess Surra the 1st, she ruled for 56 years & Queen Wilhemina the 1st who ruled for 83 years).

Your bias is strong, you said in your first post "Personally, I think this is because of the source material of authors who wrote in less...enlightened eras, and real world analogs with less equality." Less enlightened eras! Really? Why are you playing Palladium Fantasy or at least in its misogynistic male dominated default setting? Create your own setting where either women dominate men or everyone lives in some egalitarian utopia.

Gender roles evolved for biological reasons just like Hotrod & others have said; yes Kev & others could toss out the source material that was written in "less enlightened eras" & created a Utopian setting; but that didn't happen. Likely, it was because they were young men inspired by classic fantasy, myths & medieval history, so that informed their writing. It informs my creativity too, I do happen to include females in positions of power & strength in my writings and settings; usually in defiance of the cultural norms of their societies - thus making them more heroic. But I am not going to ignore reality, biology or history to create a Utopian gender neutral setting... nor would I play in one, let alone read stories pushing such Utopian worlds.

[Library Ogre]

And, again, we get back to non-physical power impacting this.

You know what makes pregnancy and youth a lot safer? Magic and psychic powers to halt injury and cure disease. A single psychic healer can pretty much eliminate most of these problems... psychic diagnosis, psychic surgery, healing touch, etc. It's not going to stop every problematic pregnancy, and it's not going to get rid of every fatal disease, but it's going to significantly reduce infant mortality and mothers dying in childbirth. And since, in a village of 60, you're going to likely have about 4-5 people with psychic healing powers (25% of the population is psychic; roughly 1 in 3 have healing powers... maybe down to 1 in 4, if we assume sensitives are the most common), you wind up with a substantially healthier population with a lower infant mortality rate, before you even start including priests, warlocks, and professional psychics

And, of course, who holds the power? Sure, pregnant women and children aren't front-line fighters, but that's not necessary when you're dealing with a magical culture, is it? Who is more effective in war, Tim with the really big sword, or Sue, who is 6 months pregnant and a 4th level summoner? And who remains useful after the combat... Tim with the really big sword slash across his belly, or Sue, who is sixth months pregnant and has friends who are literal angels? And when you reduce the threat of infant mortality, you get women who are less pressured to become mothers... "I don't need to have kids; my sister Rhonda has 13 kids (and has almost no chance of dying due to that, since there's a psychic healer and a priest in town who can safely and swiftly remove the children from her womb, and them magically heal any damage her body DID take in carrying the child)" and CAN do other things with their lives. It's similar to the impact the pill had in the modern world... once women could choose not to have children, or when to have children, they started going out and doing a lot more. And even low-level Earth Warlocks (or priests allowed access to Earth Warlock magic) can greatly increase the productivity of farms with a spell of minimal cost (assuming 7 day weeks and 5 week months, a single, 2nd level earth warlock can double the production of about 10 acres; that becomes more than 34 acres at 3rd level, and only goes up from there).

We're starting to see this grow, now. Women are having children later because they can choose when to have children, and later is less risky than it once was. More women are eschewing children altogether, because the survival of the species isn't at stake on their wombs. And we're coming out of a culture where they were prevented from doing such things... it's only been 70 years since women were able to permanently join the US military, but they've been serving in a variety of roles for centuries. The cultures of Palladium wouldn't necessarily be coming out of such places, because their technological base (magic) is far different... lower infant mortality would be the norm for thousands of years because of the existence and relative acceptance of priests, warlocks, and psi-healers.

[Hotrod]

Mark, you make some very good points; I think they're generally consistent with mine. There would likely be a lower infant mortality from many causes, and this would lead to women having more freedom to choose non-child-raising and higher-risk professions. That doesn't mean that they necessarily will make those choices in the same proportions as men, and I would argue that they wouldn't because they don't in real life. I also wonder about the degree of reduction we'd see in infant, child, and maternal mortality. As I said in my earlier post, this comes down to a question of proportions and interpretation.

If 1/4 people have psionics, and 1/3 of those psionics focus on healing, and maybe 1/3 of those are actually useful for healing other people (purification, diagnosis, surgery, lust for life, healing touch, increased healing), then maybe 1/36 people have some healing power that can help other people who get hurt and/or people at risk of bleeding out, 1 in a few hundred have most or all of them from major psionics, and 1 in an indeterminate number have them as a master psionic. It seems reasonable that there would be enough people with healing psionics and magic to bring down infant and child mortality from childbirth, accidents, poisoning, and surgically correctable conditions down to a debatable degree in anything larger than a small hamlet of a few dozen people. Is that the whole picture, though?

Infectious disease was the #1 killer up until the 20th century and remains a huge cause of death even today. It's worth noting that healing psionics and most magics can't actually cure disease directly. The Attack Disease power is borderline useless. Deaden Pain can treat one symptom for a while, but a pain-killer isn't a cure. There's little that can be done for the sick. There are no vaccines in Palladium Fantasy, nor are there antibiotics, so disease and infection would remain major killers, unless you house-rule that Psychic Purification is effective against infection (the description doesn't support that, but you could make an argument that many bacterial infections kill through toxins).

tl;dr Healing magic and psionics are focused on wounds, not viruses/bacteria.

There is one significant factor we are both ignoring when it comes to infant and child mortality: a world with many more violent threats than our own. Palladium Fantasy's world is rife with supernatural predators which do not hesitate to kill babies and children out of pure instinct, evil jerk mages who might use toddlers as expendable P.P.E. batteries in a ritual, demons and deevils who would kill kids for the lulz, and other sentient species who would kill kids to eliminate future competition, as well as plenty of natural predators who aren't nearly as rare or as shy as those of our modern world. Most of these threats are over the Palladium Fantasy world.

Even worse, when major powers and governments go to war, children and pregnant women tend to die a lot. Even if they're not directly targeted (and sometimes, they are), food becomes scarce, parents get killed, crippled, or captured/enslaved, and basic structures that orphaned kids depend on disappear. Most of the known world's nation-states are on the precipice of war. Timiro is on the verge of a massive slave revolt, the Western Empire is gearing up for a major civil war while hordes in the Old Kingdom prepare to assault its eastern provinces, the Disputed Zone is a powder keg ready to explode into war between the Eastern Territory and the Wolfen Empire, Nimro is gearing up to expand and conquer, the Iceborn are launching raids on the far north, and Bizantium is in a cold war with its own Shadow Colonies, who perpetually clash with the Kiridin tribes, who perpetually clash with each other.

Even if none of these conflicts happen, or if they don't lead to a lot of death/suffering, much if not most of the Palladium Fantasy world works under feudal systems, and such systems tend to have feuds between local and regional nobles and their followers vying for power. Such feuds can be expected to turn violent. If they follow the pattern of such disputes during Europe's middle ages, pillaging the vulnerable will be the norm.

tl;dr even without disease, it's not a safe time to be a kid in the Palladium Fantasy world. It probably hasn't been for many thousands of years.

Whether these factors are enough to drive infant mortality back up as high as the historical middle ages is debatable, but it seems certain that kids in Palladium Fantasy as written would probably die to violence and disease a lot more often than they do in any modern real-life western society.

[eliakon]

Spoiler:

Mark, you make some very good points; I think they're generally consistent with mine. There would likely be a lower infant mortality from many causes, and this would lead to women having more freedom to choose non-child-raising and higher-risk professions. That doesn't mean that they necessarily will make those choices in the same proportions as men, and I would argue that they wouldn't because they don't in real life. I also wonder about the degree of reduction we'd see in infant, child, and maternal mortality. As I said in my earlier post, this comes down to a question of proportions and interpretation.

If 1/4 people have psionics, and 1/3 of those psionics focus on healing, and maybe 1/3 of those are actually useful for healing other people (purification, diagnosis, surgery, lust for life, healing touch, increased healing), then maybe 1/36 people have some healing power that can help other people who get hurt and/or people at risk of bleeding out, 1 in a few hundred have most or all of them from major psionics, and 1 in an indeterminate number have them as a master psionic. It seems reasonable that there would be enough people with healing psionics and magic to bring down infant and child mortality from childbirth, accidents, poisoning, and surgically correctable conditions down to a debatable degree in anything larger than a small hamlet of a few dozen people. Is that the whole picture, though?

Infectious disease was the #1 killer up until the 20th century and remains a huge cause of death even today. It's worth noting that healing psionics and most magics can't actually cure disease directly. The Attack Disease power is borderline useless. Deaden Pain can treat one symptom for a while, but a pain-killer isn't a cure. There's little that can be done for the sick. There are no vaccines in Palladium Fantasy, nor are there antibiotics, so disease and infection would remain major killers, unless you house-rule that Psychic Purification is effective against infection (the description doesn't support that, but you could make an argument that many bacterial infections kill through toxins).

tl;dr Healing magic and psionics are focused on wounds, not viruses/bacteria.

There is one significant factor we are both ignoring when it comes to infant and child mortality: a world with many more violent threats than our own. Palladium Fantasy's world is rife with supernatural predators which do not hesitate to kill babies and children out of pure instinct, evil jerk mages who might use toddlers as expendable P.P.E. batteries in a ritual, demons and deevils who would kill kids for the lulz, and other sentient species who would kill kids to eliminate future competition, as well as plenty of natural predators who aren't nearly as rare or as shy as those of our modern world. Most of these threats are over the Palladium Fantasy world.

Even worse, when major powers and governments go to war, children and pregnant women tend to die a lot. Even if they're not directly targeted (and sometimes, they are), food becomes scarce, parents get killed, crippled, or captured/enslaved, and basic structures that orphaned kids depend on disappear. Most of the known world's nation-states are on the precipice of war. Timiro is on the verge of a massive slave revolt, the Western Empire is gearing up for a major civil war while hordes in the Old Kingdom prepare to assault its eastern provinces, the Disputed Zone is a powder keg ready to explode into war between the Eastern Territory and the Wolfen Empire, Nimro is gearing up to expand and conquer, the Iceborn are launching raids on the far north, and Bizantium is in a cold war with its own Shadow Colonies, who perpetually clash with the Kiridin tribes, who perpetually clash with each other.

Even if none of these conflicts happen, or if they don't lead to a lot of death/suffering, much if not most of the Palladium Fantasy world works under feudal systems, and such systems tend to have feuds between local and regional nobles and their followers vying for power. Such feuds can be expected to turn violent. If they follow the pattern of such disputes during Europe's middle ages, pillaging the vulnerable will be the norm.

tl;dr even without disease, it's not a safe time to be a kid in the Palladium Fantasy world. It probably hasn't been for many thousands of years.

Whether these factors are enough to drive infant mortality back up as high as the historical middle ages is debatable, but it seems certain that kids in Palladium Fantasy as written would probably die to violence and disease a lot more often than they do in any modern real-life western society.

I can't really imagine why it wouldn't drive it up to those levels
We have the same problems, plus all the ones that those people only imagined were problems. And have few if any better solutions.
There are, as far as I know three canon PF spells that can be used to fight disease
Level 4 invocation Cure Minor Disorders can relieve the symptoms of a minor disease such as a headache, or a minor fever. This wont cure the disease but can help.
Level 6 Cure Disease will cure any bacteria caused disease for 15 PPE.
Level 6 Fire Warlock spell can restore a person dying of a disease and bring them back from the brink of death.

If you do not pick the spell Cure Minor Disorders at level one, you need to either pay 20,000GP to buy it from an alchemist (ouch!), earn it from a guild, convert a scroll (with all the risks that entails), or wait until level 4 (which if you are not adventuring can take a while)

Cure Disease can only be learned buy buying it for 35,000gp, being taught it, conversion, or by becoming level 6

Priests can pray for a Prayer of Intervention to cast Cure Disease on a patient.

There is no psionic power to cure disease, the best is one that lets you halve the duration and effects of a disease if the psi is willing to suffer the other half of the disease for a duration.

It doesn't sound to me like there is any reason to assume there is a massive difference in disease rates. Especially since there are magical ways of causing diseases and magical diseases as well.

[Library Ogre]

I would say there is, even without that, 10% less disease in Palladium than in our world, simply due to priests and their blessings... and that's without the prayer of intervention. Throw in Attack Disease (cutting in half the lethality of a disease, with a psychic being able to handle 6+ people a day... especially as, with Bio-Regeneration, they are able to cure themselves of any disease), druidic phoenix healing, the 6th level spell Cure Illness, and, arguably, Limited Invulnerability....

There's a lot there that can cure disease, including a spell designed to do exactly that.

[eliakon]

I would say there is, even without that, 10% less disease in Palladium than in our world, simply due to priests and their blessings... and that's without the prayer of intervention.

Priests Blessing is +1 to save on a d20 roll, that's 5%

Throw in Attack Disease (cutting in half the lethality of a disease, with a psychic being able to handle 6+ people a day... especially as, with Bio-Regeneration, they are able to cure themselves of any disease),

They are not going to be curing 6+ people a day if they have to suffer the effects of each cure for 1d4 hours. Note it says "exhibits the symptoms and penalties" not "catches the disease" so you cant use curse disease on them.

druidic phoenix healing,

Yes, a seventh level druid, in one of the few areas that supports druids can do this with the sacrifice of a medium to large animal.

the 6th level spell Cure Illness,

Which as I pointed out costs 35,000gp per caster to teach...(talk about expensive medical schools)

and, arguably, Limited Invulnerability....

I see no argument what so ever for the claim that this would cure a disease. It may make you immune to catching a disease while your protected but it wont cure a disease you have.
BUT lets say for the sake of discussion that the GM in a wild fit of generosity allows the most liberal interpretation possible and lets the spell cure any condition when cast on a person instead of just making them impervious to further damage from said conditions.
That still makes it a rare seventh level spell that costs 50,000 GP

There's a lot there that can cure disease, including a spell designed to do exactly that.

Yes, a spell that costs 35,000 to learn...and still wont work on viral diseases Such as influenza, Mumps, Measles, Rubella, Polio, Smallpox... you know the great killers of history?

So 5% bonus to save vs Disease from your priests.
If you have a level 7 druid around and a spare animal you can get healed.
If you have a psi-healer willing to suffer for you then you can halve the duration.
If you have 35,000 gold and a mage then you can cure bacterial diseases.

That still doesn't sound like it is going to do much for child hood mortality.
Especially since
1) the major childhood killer diseases are not curable by the spell, meaning that you need to resort to either a seventh level druid with a blood sacrifice or divine intervention
2) all the added dangers as were pointed out the list of problems that were never an issue in our world goes on and on (goblins, patches of green mold, demons, undead, evil wizards, lycanthropy, evil farie folk, bugbears, dragons... )

Add in the fact that virtually every part of the world is either at war, just coming out of war, or looking at a war and the pressures to increase the population will be huge. Seriously, if your facing wars for survival then you tend to want more children around not fewer.

[Hotrod]

I would say there is, even without that, 10% less disease in Palladium than in our world, simply due to priests and their blessings... and that's without the prayer of intervention. Throw in Attack Disease (cutting in half the lethality of a disease, with a psychic being able to handle 6+ people a day... especially as, with Bio-Regeneration, they are able to cure themselves of any disease), druidic phoenix healing, the 6th level spell Cure Illness, and, arguably, Limited Invulnerability....

There's a lot there that can cure disease, including a spell designed to do exactly that.

Attack Disease's description states that "This power does not work against magic diseases and curses, as well as lethal and chronic diseases like cancers, tuberculosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, ebola, and similar." (bolds added for emphasis)

Ergo, it's handy for taking care of someone with the sniffles or the flu, but if it's something that can kill you, it's useless. I think it's highly debatable whether it would have any effect on the mortality rate. Would it work on dysentery? Pneumonia? Leprosy? Measles? Typhoid? Gangrene? If a disease would normally kill weaker or younger people, but not older people, would it work? There's a lot of interpretation here.

The level 6 spell Cure Illness gives a muddled description. It cures the flu, but can't cure the common cold (both of which are generally viral). It cures common ailments, but not the common cold, cancer, or lung disease (pneumonia is a big killer and has been throughout history).

The level 6 spell Flame of Life rekindles life, but it doesn't state outright that it cures the person, only that it repairs the damage killing the person. It might give the character an extra chance to save vs the disease that's killing him or her, or it might cure the person; it's a matter of interpretation.

That said, the magical solutions Eliakon presented would be quite a boon to most communities that have wizards or fire warlocks with the right spell knowledge. As for priests, they can bless a person, giving them +1 to save vs disease (5-10% better chance of resisting it, depending on other bonuses), they can try for a prayer of intervention (20-90% chance to cast the cure disease spell, or a 9-98% chance of creating a scroll). I haven't played much with priests, but if they're allowed to do that every 15 seconds like they are with prayers, then holy cow (pun intended) I had no idea that priests were such powerhouses in 2nd Edition (and WOW, they blow the Healer O.C.C. out of its own water!). Priests of Light would be the healers to go to when your kid gets sick with "common ailments."

I'll partly concede on the mortality of disease; most decent-sized cities will likely have a wizard, mystic, fire warlock, or priest, so it seems reasonable that many diseases could be treated, though the effectiveness of such treatments seems to be open to a lot of interpretation, and there's also the factor that Palladium Fantasy's germs may not be as much of a threat as they are on real-life Earth.

Health care gets complicated fast when you start tumbling down the rabbit hole of this tangent. I like some complication and ambiguity in my RPGs, and if you want to interpret disease in Palladium Fantasy as less prevalent than in real life, that seems like a reasonable interpretation. I would come down more on the side of greater disease mortality, as it brings in more opportunities for adventure hooks and drama.

The point on the elevated threats of violence from predators and war remains.

[Library Ogre]

I would say there is, even without that, 10% less disease in Palladium than in our world, simply due to priests and their blessings... and that's without the prayer of intervention.

Priests Blessing is +1 to save on a d20 roll, that's 5%

And blessing food is another 5%

Throw in Attack Disease (cutting in half the lethality of a disease, with a psychic being able to handle 6+ people a day... especially as, with Bio-Regeneration, they are able to cure themselves of any disease),

They are not going to be curing 6+ people a day if they have to suffer the effects of each cure for 1d4 hours. Note it says "exhibits the symptoms and penalties" not "catches the disease" so you cant use curse disease on them.

A day is 24 hours long. Assuming they cannot Attack another Disease while suffering from the first (something not supported by the text) means that they will, if they work for a full 24 hours, be able to cure 6 diseases in a day by concentrating for a few minutes (1d4+1 if they want to include bio-regeneration to, themselves, be cured of any disease contracted), then taking a 4 hour nap. With meditation, they can actually maintain a rate of about 8 per day without decreasing their ISP (since they would be able to take a 3 hour meditation break, which would be the equivalent of a 6 hour sleep, and regain the 18 ISP necessary to do this).

the 6th level spell Cure Illness,

Which as I pointed out costs 35,000gp per caster to teach...(talk about expensive medical schools)

35,000gp is not terribly much by Palladium Fantasy standards and, again, you assume someone is selling it, rather than teaching it to someone as part of an extended apprenticeship (i.e. a wizard who cares for the people of a town passing it on to others who need it). And, of course, if you really want the spell, you can get it, on average, with a single successful casting of enchanted cauldron (2d6 spells averages to 7 spells, which makes it likely you'll get at least 1 6th level spell). There's a chance of mental illness from that, of course, but, well, you then have a magical cure for illness, don't you?

and, arguably, Limited Invulnerability....

I see no argument what so ever for the claim that this would cure a disease. It may make you immune to catching a disease while your protected but it wont cure a disease you have.

You are impervious to disease, which would, arguably, eliminate it from your system.

There's a lot there that can cure disease, including a spell designed to do exactly that.

Yes, a spell that costs 35,000 to learn...and still wont work on viral diseases Such as influenza, Mumps, Measles, Rubella, Polio, Smallpox... you know the great killers of history?

You are reading a different spell than I am.

Cure Illness
Range: Touch or three feet (0.9 m).
Duration: Instant cure
Saving Throw: None; standard if the person resists treatment.
P.P.E.: Fifteen
A potent magic that can cure ordinary disease and illness, such as fever, flu, and other common ailments. The magic cannot cure cancer, lung disease, the common cold, wounds, broken bones or internal damage to organs. Nor can it cure magically induced sicknesses or disorders.

A virally induced disease (flu) is specifically mentioned as something the spell will cure; I don't know where you get that it won't work on viral diseases.

So 5% bonus to save vs Disease from your priests.

False, or, rather, incomplete.

If you have a level 7 druid around and a spare animal you can get healed.

True.

If you have a psi-healer willing to suffer for you then you can halve the duration.

True. And, of course, many Psi-Healers (the PCC) are going to be willing to do it. And might do it a second time, once they've recovered, to halve the duration again, until you're in Zeno's Paradox land as to how long your disease is going to last.

If you have 35,000 gold and a mage then you can cure bacterial diseases.

Largely false, as demonstrated.

That still doesn't sound like it is going to do much for child hood mortality.
Especially since
1) the major childhood killer diseases are not curable by the spell, meaning that you need to resort to either a seventh level druid with a blood sacrifice or divine intervention
2) all the added dangers as were pointed out the list of problems that were never an issue in our world goes on and on (goblins, patches of green mold, demons, undead, evil wizards, lycanthropy, evil farie folk, bugbears, dragons... )

Add in the fact that virtually every part of the world is either at war, just coming out of war, or looking at a war and the pressures to increase the population will be huge. Seriously, if your facing wars for survival then you tend to want more children around not fewer.

The Black Death killed like 25% of the world's population. The expansion of the Mongol Empire killed about 10% of the world a century before. This doesn't include all the other wars going on at the time, nor include things like death in childbirth, starvation, and all the other fun things Earth of the 13th and 14th century got to enjoy. One of the most common causes of death in battle wasn't wounds... it was infections allowed by wounds. Infections which can be properly diagnosed with a psionic power, and completely cured by spell, psionic, or priestly power.

There was a lot of death in the 13th and 14th centuries. Lots of ways to die, many of which can be kept at bay by relatively accessible and available powers. Rampaging fae, lycanthropes, or other sources of pressure are a factor, but how common is a lycanthrope, compared to **** yourself to death due to an uncontrolled disease that no one knows how to cure because they think it was caused by pixies, when it was actually caused by impure drinking water? Something ELSE that is relatively easy to overcome, AND can be accurately diagnosed by psychic powers. How common are evil faeries compared to getting stabbed in the stomach, then dying of a raging fever because packing the wound with salt and manure didn't drive out the evil spirits that aren't there? How often do you think there are dragon depredations compared to grave after grave of children who died the year they were born because someone got the flu? What's the difference between dying on an orcish sword and a human one?

[Hotrod]

Kudos, Mark and Eliakon. You've hijacked this thread and cruised over to an interesting topic which has made me re-examine one of my favorite fantasy worlds in a new light. I'm not inclined to take sides on the issue of higher vs lower disease mortality in Palladium Fantasy; the fact that the canon could support either interpretation allows the GM a greater degree of flexibility. I've occasionally wondered what it might be like to have some adventures in which the characters are focused on healing and medical issues. The game isn't designed for that, but there could be some interesting storytelling/dramatic situations. Most real-life medical training involves a significant amount of both tabletop and live action roleplay.

[kiralon]

You are impervious to disease, which would, arguably, eliminate it from your system.

The disease wouldn't be able to interact with you, so would that force it out of your body. Diseases can exist out of the body for different durations so if the disease can't effect your body it doesn't mean its automatically removed, and then could possibly still effect you again if the immunity wears off before the disease dies.
or another way
If you have something that makes you immune to poison, then drink poison does it stop the liquid from flowing down your throat or does it just not effect you. What happens if the immunity wears off before the poison does.

[eliakon]

I would say there is, even without that, 10% less disease in Palladium than in our world, simply due to priests and their blessings... and that's without the prayer of intervention.

Priests Blessing is +1 to save on a d20 roll, that's 5%

And blessing food is another 5%

No, the FOOD is +1 to save. It does not grant the eater a +1 to save.
"The food is +1 to save vs. spoiling magic and disease/decay."

Throw in Attack Disease (cutting in half the lethality of a disease, with a psychic being able to handle 6+ people a day... especially as, with Bio-Regeneration, they are able to cure themselves of any disease),

They are not going to be curing 6+ people a day if they have to suffer the effects of each cure for 1d4 hours. Note it says "exhibits the symptoms and penalties" not "catches the disease" so you cant use curse disease on them.

A day is 24 hours long. Assuming they cannot Attack another Disease while suffering from the first (something not supported by the text) means that they will, if they work for a full 24 hours, be able to cure 6 diseases in a day by concentrating for a few minutes (1d4+1 if they want to include bio-regeneration to, themselves, be cured of any disease contracted), then taking a 4 hour nap. With meditation, they can actually maintain a rate of about 8 per day without decreasing their ISP (since they would be able to take a 3 hour meditation break, which would be the equivalent of a 6 hour sleep, and regain the 18 ISP necessary to do this).

I am VERY leery of the idea that a psychic is going to simply stack the effects and penalties of having several diseases on themselves at once, let alone the idea that any but the most aultristicly sacrificial would take on six+ diseases at once.

the 6th level spell Cure Illness,

Which as I pointed out costs 35,000gp per caster to teach...(talk about expensive medical schools)

35,000gp is not terribly much by Palladium Fantasy standards and, again, you assume someone is selling it, rather than teaching it to someone as part of an extended apprenticeship (i.e. a wizard who cares for the people of a town passing it on to others who need it).

It is a vast amount of money if your not an adventurer out there getting tons of money in adventures.
And since the guilds (which are the source of apprenticships in the palladium world) are explicitly said to tightly regulate the distribution of spells, then yes I think it IS unlikely that we should assume that it means "all spells except this one level 6 spell are regulated'

And, of course, if you really want the spell, you can get it, on average, with a single successful casting of enchanted cauldron (2d6 spells averages to 7 spells, which makes it likely you'll get at least 1 6th level spell). There's a chance of mental illness from that, of course, but, well, you then have a magical cure for illness, don't you?

I would point out that Enchanted Cauldron is "among the most disgusting and dangerous methods of gaining spell knowledge" and "many wizards (over 70%) never use it"
If you DO use it you have a 87% chance of getting an insanity, which is permeant.
The only cure for insanity in Palladium is the Super Psionic power of Cure Insanity, which is either temporary, or requires 2d6 Base ISP

and, arguably, Limited Invulnerability....

I see no argument what so ever for the claim that this would cure a disease. It may make you immune to catching a disease while your protected but it wont cure a disease you have.

You are impervious to disease, which would, arguably, eliminate it from your system.

That is the most absurd stance I have ever heard. Temporary imperviousness to something does not mean retroactive curing of it. Just like walking into a AMC doesn't instantly break all curses, it just puts them on 'pause'.

There's a lot there that can cure disease, including a spell designed to do exactly that.

Yes, a spell that costs 35,000 to learn...and still wont work on viral diseases Such as influenza, Mumps, Measles, Rubella, Polio, Smallpox... you know the great killers of history?

You are reading a different spell than I am.

Cure Illness
Range: Touch or three feet (0.9 m).
Duration: Instant cure
Saving Throw: None; standard if the person resists treatment.
P.P.E.: Fifteen
A potent magic that can cure ordinary disease and illness, such as fever, flu, and other common ailments. The magic cannot cure cancer, lung disease, the common cold, wounds, broken bones or internal damage to organs. Nor can it cure magically induced sicknesses or disorders.

A virally induced disease (flu) is specifically mentioned as something the spell will cure; I don't know where you get that it won't work on viral diseases.

I read the rifts version which clarifies what it means when it says "ordinary disease". Which is important because it says it both cures flu but can not cure the common cold...

So 5% bonus to save vs Disease from your priests.

False, or, rather, incomplete.

No, it is correct. Food provides no bonus.

If you have a level 7 druid around and a spare animal you can get healed.

True.

Which, based on the books is going to be fairly rare and expensive.

If you have a psi-healer willing to suffer for you then you can halve the duration.

True. And, of course, many Psi-Healers (the PCC) are going to be willing to do it. And might do it a second time, once they've recovered, to halve the duration again, until you're in Zeno's Paradox land as to how long your disease is going to last.

There is nothing in the book to suggest that you can halve the disease a second time.
NOR is there the slightest hint in the books that suggest that psi-healers are going to have some selfless desire to run around and saddle themselves with multiple illnesses for people.

If you have 35,000 gold and a mage then you can cure bacterial diseases.

Largely false, as demonstrated.

Or true, depending on what the spell can actually cure. As written in the PF book it cant cure anything since it contradicts itself in its own text!

That still doesn't sound like it is going to do much for child hood mortality.
Especially since
1) the major childhood killer diseases are not curable by the spell, meaning that you need to resort to either a seventh level druid with a blood sacrifice or divine intervention
2) all the added dangers as were pointed out the list of problems that were never an issue in our world goes on and on (goblins, patches of green mold, demons, undead, evil wizards, lycanthropy, evil farie folk, bugbears, dragons... )

Add in the fact that virtually every part of the world is either at war, just coming out of war, or looking at a war and the pressures to increase the population will be huge. Seriously, if your facing wars for survival then you tend to want more children around not fewer.

The Black Death killed like 25% of the world's population. The expansion of the Mongol Empire killed about 10% of the world a century before. This doesn't include all the other wars going on at the time, nor include things like death in childbirth, starvation, and all the other fun things Earth of the 13th and 14th century got to enjoy. One of the most common causes of death in battle wasn't wounds... it was infections allowed by wounds. Infections which can be properly diagnosed with a psionic power, and completely cured by spell, psionic, or priestly power.

Again false.
Only cure disease can cure infections.
Period
Psioncs can do nothing (save make a non-fatal disease take half as long)
Priests can do nothing (with out direct divine intervention)
Which takes me right back to "one of the most common causes of death is something that they don't have a handle on"
A spell that is not widely spread (unless the GM houserules a change to the setting) is not going to have a widespread impact on the setting.
Nor are fairly high level for NPC druids... because again they are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.

There was a lot of death in the 13th and 14th centuries. Lots of ways to die, many of which can be kept at bay by relatively accessible and available powers. Rampaging fae, lycanthropes, or other sources of pressure are a factor, but how common is a lycanthrope, compared to **** yourself to death due to an uncontrolled disease that no one knows how to cure because they think it was caused by pixies, when it was actually caused by impure drinking water? Something ELSE that is relatively easy to overcome, AND can be accurately diagnosed by psychic powers. How common are evil faeries compared to getting stabbed in the stomach, then dying of a raging fever because packing the wound with salt and manure didn't drive out the evil spirits that aren't there? How often do you think there are dragon depredations compared to grave after grave of children who died the year they were born because someone got the flu? What's the difference between dying on an orcish sword and a human one?

Well first off
There is no psychic power in the world that can diagnose impure water.
While you can use Psychic Purification to cure a person of poison... you need to know they have been poisoned. Which in the case of many impurities may be to late already (lead in the drinking water for instance...)

And my point is that the powers have done practically nothing to make disease go down, AND they have all the threats of our middle ages AND all the threats of their world.
The idea that this would mean that they have LESS death is... counter intuitive.

[Library Ogre]

Kudos, Mark and Eliakon. You've hijacked this thread and cruised over to an interesting topic which has made me re-examine one of my favorite fantasy worlds in a new light. I'm not inclined to take sides on the issue of higher vs lower disease mortality in Palladium Fantasy; the fact that the canon could support either interpretation allows the GM a greater degree of flexibility. I've occasionally wondered what it might be like to have some adventures in which the characters are focused on healing and medical issues. The game isn't designed for that, but there could be some interesting storytelling/dramatic situations. Most real-life medical training involves a significant amount of both tabletop and live action roleplay.

Access to quick and accurate health care is a big issue in determining the relative position of women in society... when women are able to control their reproductive health, and less likely to die in childbirth, you see a larger influx of women in positions of power... those who might have been inclined to go there earlier, but were prevented by pregnancy and the caring for children, or death or infirmity caused by a dangerous pregnancy, are more likely to engage in society's power struggles. Even removing the disease discussion, you get a lot of mileage out of Psychic Surgery and Psychic Diagnosis (or Deaden Pain and Healing Touch) as far as women being healthy and engaged members of society.

[Hotrod]

Access to quick and accurate health care is a big issue in determining the relative position of women in society... when women are able to control their reproductive health, and less likely to die in childbirth, you see a larger influx of women in positions of power... those who might have been inclined to go there earlier, but were prevented by pregnancy and the caring for children, or death or infirmity caused by a dangerous pregnancy, are more likely to engage in society's power struggles. Even removing the disease discussion, you get a lot of mileage out of Psychic Surgery and Psychic Diagnosis (or Deaden Pain and Healing Touch) as far as women being healthy and engaged members of society.

That opens up another can of worms: birth control and abortion. I don't recall seeing either addressed anywhere in the published canon, so it's a matter of pure speculation about what their place is in Palladium Fantasy. That could be relevant for plots involving a noble family's succession of power, the lady victims of ogre kidnappings, and slave owners' management of their chattel.

And since real-world debates on these subjects can be found all over the interwebs, I'd like to pose this setting-specific ethical issue: is it ok to kill the ogre product of an ogre rape in utero? Post-birth? Could an ogre offspring of a human woman be considered family? What should one do with the offspring? That could make for an interesting character origin story in and of itself.

[Library Ogre]

Access to quick and accurate health care is a big issue in determining the relative position of women in society... when women are able to control their reproductive health, and less likely to die in childbirth, you see a larger influx of women in positions of power... those who might have been inclined to go there earlier, but were prevented by pregnancy and the caring for children, or death or infirmity caused by a dangerous pregnancy, are more likely to engage in society's power struggles. Even removing the disease discussion, you get a lot of mileage out of Psychic Surgery and Psychic Diagnosis (or Deaden Pain and Healing Touch) as far as women being healthy and engaged members of society.

That opens up another can of worms: birth control and abortion. I don't recall seeing either addressed anywhere in the published canon, so it's a matter of pure speculation about what their place is in Palladium Fantasy. That could be relevant for plots involving a noble family's succession of power, the lady victims of ogre kidnappings, and slave owners' management of their chattel.

And since real-world debates on these subjects can be found all over the interwebs, I'd like to pose this setting-specific ethical issue: is it ok to kill the ogre product of an ogre rape in utero? Post-birth? Could an ogre offspring of a human woman be considered family? What should one do with the offspring? That could make for an interesting character origin story in and of itself.

Given the existence of Psychic Surgery (in addition to the more mundane forms of birth control practiced for millennia), I think you'd have a fair market for it, regardless of what the various cultures openly thought about it. In terms of slavery, I think you'd see a degree of it, possibly with the aid of something like the Cell Reader power from After the Bomb (or even more basic... Clairvoyance and other means of foretelling the future), especially for valued slaves.

Ogres get to be a tricky part. I suspect there'd be a pretty wide cultural acceptance for aborting ogre fetuses among humans, and a large part of society rejecting any ogres that were born to human mothers back in civilization. Exposure death is a thing that happens, but we also don't know what baby ogres look like... can you tell it's going to be an ogre when it's born? Or is born human-looking, only expanding in size when it hits puberty or the like? That would be a significant difference. I once had a character who assumed the second... he was raised a human (a knight, no less), but grew to his full size after his youth. You might have some that embrace their giant kin, but I think it would be pretty rare.

[kiralon]

From what I understood of psychic powers (and play like this) and when the people who find out what they are they tend to be pariah's and nobody wants to know or touch or be touched by them. Mind mages die at birth from lack of balance if its second ed, I rarely even use them as enemies as they can pretty much gank anything with ease.

many normal folk fear them as bewitched, inhuman monsters
or frightening mutants. These people fear what they don't understand
so they shun, chase away, or even attack characters with psychic
abilities. Likewise, even in communities, like those in Bizantium, the
Western Empire and Timiro, where magic and psionics are considered
to be commonplace, psychics are often accused or suspected of mind
control and other forms of mental manipulation

So im not sure how much a psi healer would be liked, and whether they would be utilised to stop disease and the like.
Healers in first ed were way better. The poor tended to adore them.

[Prysus]

[snip] ...but we also don't know what baby ogres look like... can you tell it's going to be an ogre when it's born? Or is born human-looking, only expanding in size when it hits puberty or the like? That would be a significant difference. I once had a character who assumed the second... he was raised a human (a knight, no less), but grew to his full size after his youth. You might have some that embrace their giant kin, but I think it would be pretty rare.

Greetings and Salutations. Even if you ignore the size difference, you'd have to get passed the "wicked canine teeth and sharp claws" and the "warm grey to tan" skin complexion. Grey skin would be a bit of a giveaway I think, but tan ... meh, depending on what Palladium means by tan. Claws may not be too pronounced at birth. They're probably born without teeth, so the fangs won't be a give away until they start teething. Note: I'm not quite sure how noticeable their "thick hide" would be.

I'd say Ogres born of human mothers have a year at best before they're found out (though I'm skeptical of even that much), unless the mother keeps her child hidden from everyone (like the evil twin chained up in the attic or cellar). Though this did give me the random idea that Timiro's ogre slaves aren't captured Ogres, but a bunch of humans having wild indiscretions and the children that ensue keep up the slave force (probably not realistic, but I find it amusing all the same).

As for abortions of Ogre babies (I suppose this part is more for Hotrod's question) ...

From what I can tell, Ogre/Human relations are how Ogres keep their numbers up (the Ogre female infertility would make this difficult otherwise). So Ogres would of course, embrace them (which is why they "kidnap and hold captive human females for breeding purposes"). Most human communities would view them as monsters, so I doubt most humans would even consider it a moral issue. That monster will eat its mother and rape its sisters! Some may just take the child into slavery (that's the "humane" thing to do after all). I don't see most civilizations thinking of it as a moral question though, as they are inhuman monsters (that's at least my take).

Abortion of a human child to a human mother on the other hand ... I'm not even going there. Farewell and safe journeys.

[kiralon]

Access to quick and accurate health care is a big issue in determining the relative position of women in society... when women are able to control their reproductive health, and less likely to die in childbirth, you see a larger influx of women in positions of power... those who might have been inclined to go there earlier, but were prevented by pregnancy and the caring for children, or death or infirmity caused by a dangerous pregnancy, are more likely to engage in society's power struggles. Even removing the disease discussion, you get a lot of mileage out of Psychic Surgery and Psychic Diagnosis (or Deaden Pain and Healing Touch) as far as women being healthy and engaged members of society.

That opens up another can of worms: birth control and abortion. I don't recall seeing either addressed anywhere in the published canon, so it's a matter of pure speculation about what their place is in Palladium Fantasy. That could be relevant for plots involving a noble family's succession of power, the lady victims of ogre kidnappings, and slave owners' management of their chattel.

And since real-world debates on these subjects can be found all over the interwebs, I'd like to pose this setting-specific ethical issue: is it ok to kill the ogre product of an ogre rape in utero? Post-birth? Could an ogre offspring of a human woman be considered family? What should one do with the offspring? That could make for an interesting character origin story in and of itself.

From what I can tell of Timorese society they look upon ogres and orcs as monsters and animals, which dehumanises them, which then makes it ok to do anything you like to them by society. Individuals would have their preferences of course, but there would less of an effect from that. If you have to put down a monster you have to put down a monster. I do believe the wolfen would have a different idea about the whole thing.
https://youtu.be/Te1UE29oitE?t=56

[Axelmania]

Is/are there any internal reason(s) within the past of the Palladium World that would dictate that there are no female heads of state, heroes of note, or great leaders?

Part of the problem there is the lack of statistical differences based on gender between most races. Aside from the Eandroth I can't actually remember a species with sexual dimorphism in their stats, even though this would be a realistic thing to include.

Culturewise, women are higher-value for reproduction than men (ie 1 men 10 women can produce 10 babies, 10 men 1 women can only produce 1 baby, if there are lives lost) so cultures will be less likely to put them in dangerous situations like battle, and battle is often where leader's are picked, in dangerous time (ie George Washington).

Even if kings / mayors are not personally batting, that tendency could still influence cultural perceptions.

[Jack Burton]

My 10 year-old daughter plays Heroes Unlimited with me and a few other guys using Discord. Her character is a Psionic hero and to help her out, I typed brief descriptions of her powers. It's like a reference guide so she knows what she can do with the powers she has. When I typed the sheet for her, I changed the descriptions of the powers from using words like "him", "his", and "he", so that it reads "them", "their", and "his or her".

Philosophy, physiology, history, politics, economics, religion, Palladium lore, and anthropology aside, I look at it this way.... How would my daughter feel if she realized every sentence in those books was written for a guy? Probably pretty crummy. I love RPGing with my kids because of the way their imaginations go into overdrive when we play. I'm going to do my best as a dad to make my daughters feel as welcome at the table as their brother is, because they are!

And NO, I'm not bashing the books or Palladium.... it would just be nice for the writing styles to be a bit more inclusive for females. I'm glad this topic has generated some discussion!

[Soldier of Od]

My 10 year-old daughter plays Heroes Unlimited with me and a few other guys using Discord. Her character is a Psionic hero and to help her out, I typed brief descriptions of her powers. It's like a reference guide so she knows what she can do with the powers she has. When I typed the sheet for her, I changed the descriptions of the powers from using words like "him", "his", and "he", so that it reads "them", "their", and "his or her".

Philosophy, physiology, history, politics, economics, religion, Palladium lore, and anthropology aside, I look at it this way.... How would my daughter feel if she realized every sentence in those books was written for a guy? Probably pretty crummy. I love RPGing with my kids because of the way their imaginations go into overdrive when we play. I'm going to do my best as a dad to make my daughters feel as welcome at the table as their brother is, because they are!

And NO, I'm not bashing the books or Palladium.... it would just be nice for the writing styles to be a bit more inclusive for females. I'm glad this topic has generated some discussion!

I recently submitted a new home-brewed O.C.C. to the Rifter. After I had finished I noticed I had used male pronouns a lot of the time and so I went back over the article, replacing them all with "them", "their", and "his or her", just as you have above. I think it's time.

[Hendrik]

Hiya,

I agree, it is (high) time. Equality is still not truly achieved and, as inclusion, a conditio sine qua non.

AIM: text should be clear and easily legible
The question, when it turns to language use, for me is how to achieve that without making texts harder to comprehend or more stilted. I do not like the use of "his or her" or, even worse (in terms of language use) switching between pronouns from paragraph to paragraph. The latter makes texts nigh unintelligible.

SUGGESTION 1: one gender to include the other
England had an Interpretation Act 1978, I do not know if it is still in force, where it was defined in section 6 that "the male gender includes the female gender" and vice versa. It clarified that you could use either pronoun (he or she), foregoing the "need" to switch from paragraph to paragraph for example, without excluding the respective other sex. Language is a convention. Why not have such a simple convention.

Even though I do not think that proper use of language or grammar can possibly be sexist, I know words have power and thus understand the impulse to use language to further the aim of equality, but I would suggest to either use "she" or "he" consequently throughout a text where both genders are meant and perhaps, in a publication, add a disclaimer to say that one includes the other.

SUGGESTION 2: create a new neutral pronoun
In German the use of the word "man" is more frequent than its English equivalent "one" and not considered haughty, for example, but that only helps partially. A real alternative would be to create a new neutral pronoun or to use "it".

HOW IT CAN BE EVEN MORE AWKWARD THAN IN ENGLISH
In German the worthy quest for equality is even accompanied by a worse use of language. When a group of students is addressed, for example, instead of writing "dear students" - student is the male as well as the neutral term - it is now said "dear students and studentesses" sometimes written "student/esses" and then followed by "he/she" all through the text. I understand the idea, of course, and I applaud the fervour, but it is a clear D in expression in German and horrible to read.

Now, English often is crisper than German. It does not know female forms for professions but treats them as being neutral, thankfully. I hope there will be a simple and crisp solution for the "he/she"-issue as well.

REAL ISSUE: meaning & education
I raise my daughters to believe that they can do anything they want if they truly apply themselves and if they excel on the necessary requirements. They are not weaker or stronger because they are female. They are stronger when they apply themselves and fight for what they want. None of my daughters will accept that a profession is closed to them because of their gender, nor should they accept that. They are not less human because of their sex and I raise them to not stand for inequality of anyone else either. I do not think they will misunderstand the neutral use of the word "he" or be bothered by it or think that a "student" must be male.

Kindest regards
Hendrik

[Hotrod]

My 10 year-old daughter plays Heroes Unlimited with me and a few other guys using Discord. Her character is a Psionic hero and to help her out, I typed brief descriptions of her powers. It's like a reference guide so she knows what she can do with the powers she has. When I typed the sheet for her, I changed the descriptions of the powers from using words like "him", "his", and "he", so that it reads "them", "their", and "his or her".

Philosophy, physiology, history, politics, economics, religion, Palladium lore, and anthropology aside, I look at it this way.... How would my daughter feel if she realized every sentence in those books was written for a guy? Probably pretty crummy. I love RPGing with my kids because of the way their imaginations go into overdrive when we play. I'm going to do my best as a dad to make my daughters feel as welcome at the table as their brother is, because they are!

And NO, I'm not bashing the books or Palladium.... it would just be nice for the writing styles to be a bit more inclusive for females. I'm glad this topic has generated some discussion!

There are no gender-neutral singular pronouns in English, and many people default to one or the other in certain contexts. As a father of girls, I prefer to discuss this with my daughters than try to shield them from it, as they will certainly encounter this sort of writing throughout their lives. I respect your efforts to help your daughter feel included, and in fact, your effort intrigues me.

You seem to be conflating descriptions of character powers with descriptions of the people playing those characters, and you seem to be assuming that your daughter will make that same conflation. There's nothing wrong with playing self-insertion characters; it can be a fun way of exploring what it might be like if you had X power. It seems odd, though, to assume that all, or even most characters are essentially in-universe clones of their players.

If I were your GM, I would encourage you and your daughter to try playing characters who are wildly different from yourselves. I'm a guy, and I've played female characters; in fact, there are people who frequent this board who saw me roleplay an elf priestess who saved the day via some outrageous flirting with an ambitious baron, which I acted out with Kevin himself at the last Open House. I've played a lecherous bearman, an arrogant young noble determined to nobly sacrifice himself, a diabolical mutant condor, and (my favorite) a Scathach Druid with a severe speech disorder. Playing out the motives and quirks of these characters makes a play session interesting both in terms of the challenges of an adventure and the back and forth of what essentially amounts to improvisational theater.

[Jack Burton]

My 10 year-old daughter plays Heroes Unlimited with me and a few other guys using Discord. Her character is a Psionic hero and to help her out, I typed brief descriptions of her powers. It's like a reference guide so she knows what she can do with the powers she has. When I typed the sheet for her, I changed the descriptions of the powers from using words like "him", "his", and "he", so that it reads "them", "their", and "his or her".

Philosophy, physiology, history, politics, economics, religion, Palladium lore, and anthropology aside, I look at it this way.... How would my daughter feel if she realized every sentence in those books was written for a guy? Probably pretty crummy. I love RPGing with my kids because of the way their imaginations go into overdrive when we play. I'm going to do my best as a dad to make my daughters feel as welcome at the table as their brother is, because they are!

And NO, I'm not bashing the books or Palladium.... it would just be nice for the writing styles to be a bit more inclusive for females. I'm glad this topic has generated some discussion!

There are no gender-neutral singular pronouns in English, and many people default to one or the other in certain contexts. As a father of girls, I prefer to discuss this with my daughters than try to shield them from it, as they will certainly encounter this sort of writing throughout their lives. I respect your efforts to help your daughter feel included, and in fact, your effort intrigues me.

You seem to be conflating descriptions of character powers with descriptions of the people playing those characters, and you seem to be assuming that your daughter will make that same conflation. There's nothing wrong with playing self-insertion characters; it can be a fun way of exploring what it might be like if you had X power. It seems odd, though, to assume that all, or even most characters are essentially in-universe clones of their players.

Yes, you are correct about the lack of a unisex singular pronoun in the English language. I had to bend the rules by using gender-neutral plural ones. While not grammatically correct, nowadays it is an accepted written and linguistic practice. Language always changes. For example, many who read this (myself included) NEVER use the word "whom", and that's OK.

You are also right about having discussions to explain what children may encounter in life, but when I'm the one doing the writing (or copying, in this case), I didn't feel the need to copy the text verbatim in what I felt was a needless reinforcement of "it's a man's world, so deal with it." It needed a slight modification, so I gave it one.

I also know my daughter. Pigs will fly before she plays a male character, at least at her age. That's not an indictment against her, she's just a 10 year old kid living vicariously through her character. Perhaps when her comfort level with role playing increases, she'll want to play a male character.

I do want to thank you, Hotrod, for encouraging me to talk to her about things of the nature we're discussing that she may encounter in books. She's off school today, so I think that makes for a great opportunity. Game on, my friend!

[Jack Burton]

Had the chat. Went very, very well. Turns out it was a non-issue. Thanks again, Hotrod!

[Hotrod]

Had the chat. Went very, very well. Turns out it was a non-issue. Thanks again, Hotrod!

Glad to hear it! Game on!

[eliakon]

On the topic of medicine I may have found (with the proper GM interpretation) a possible way for a "healthcare" system to be set up, that is slightly more plausible then teaching every wizard cure disease and which will actually work on lethal illnesses.

In theory, it would be possible to create a (probably rather large so as to allow stretchers) Power Circle: Healing that is left unsealed and active.
A trusted medic/medics is taught the command phrase (likely the priest, or psychic healers, or herbalists or who ever is the local medical personal anyway)
This is where the GM comes in. In theory those save bonuses are pointless since the chances of a person being in a circle at the moment they contract the disease are almost nil. But if this allows a second save at +3...

When a sick patient needs healing they are brought into the circle, which is then activated granting them a +3 save vs disease.
If you first feed them some blessed food (most likely broth or weak wine so it can be given to even the sickest patient even if unconscious) that could be kept in the 'hospital' just for this purpose that would grant another +1.
If possible they may even have an Amulet of Protection from Sickness (in the larger more wealthy places) which offers another +3 to normal diseases and a whopping +6 to magical ones
They would then get to re-roll their save at some thing between +3 to +10!

It's expensive, and it's not perfect and you still might not make it against the worst diseases that offer penalties, or if your constitution is weak, or if your saves have already been affected by the disease itself... but it is far, far better than nothing and when the choice is between having your child die of measles and take a chance that they might be cured... I think anyone will that the chance that offers even the slightest chance of hope.

Of course this requires a bit of change to the setting.
BUT the change is rather minimal, and is one that could be done easily. Alchemists and Summoners are willing to sell their services so you could buy the circles, and a Summoner or Wizard who ran into legal problems might be able to avoid other punishments by making circles or amulets for hospitals and aid-stations.

[Library Ogre]

There are no gender-neutral singular pronouns in English,

They.

Practically, I find it simplest in examples to, whenever possible, has male and female interacting, to allow the easy use of pronouns... if the example is Aaron and Bob, then I can't use pronounds without confusion; if it's Erin and Bob, she and he are relatively clear for most English speakers.

[eliakon]

There are no gender-neutral singular pronouns in English,

They.

Practically, I find it simplest in examples to, whenever possible, has male and female interacting, to allow the easy use of pronouns... if the example is Aaron and Bob, then I can't use pronounds without confusion; if it's Erin and Bob, she and he are relatively clear for most English speakers.

A term that is still not an accepted use and that is still being debated as to if it is correct or not is not "A gender-neutral singular pronoun in English"
It is a gender-neutral-plural-pronoun in English that even though it is debatably not grammatically correct (the issue is still being debated at the expert level) might also the singular pronoun... but might not be as the issue is far from settled and there are other competing terms out there that are also prospects for the currently lacking but desired grammatically correct term.

There is a wee bit of difference between the two yes?