Category talk:Ancestries and heritages

Definition

I think we should define what makes a "race." While it currently looks like a pretty good list, I think we should set some guidelines for what belongs in this category and what doesn't. My thought on it is that if something's CR in the MM or Bestiary is defined by class level, or if the entry has a "XXX as Characters" section then it is a race. If this information is not present, I would define it as a monster. Any class levels added in these situations are based on the monster rules, not LA rules. -- Yoda8myhead 16:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Possibly another category for "monsterous races" for those races that get class levels added on a regular basis? Cpt kirstov 16:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I was at first confused to see orcs and goblins in this category, in Pathfinder/D&D terms race is mostly assumed to mean playable races, we could have a civilised race/wild race divide, but maybe just have the main races as Races, and other races as Races (other),
Or Races (playable)/Races (monstrous).--Vagrant-Poet 14:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetization

Can anyone work out what has happened to the alphabetic ordering on this category page please? The categories at the top are all nicely correct, but then have a look at the bottom of the page under 'Pages in category "Races"'. For example, I can see Faultspawn under 'B' and a whole load of stuff under 'I'. A random check shows the pages are formatted correctly. --Fleanetha 09:30, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Problem sorted thanks to Yoda8myhead; see Category talk:Shackles/Regions. There may be other book citations similarly crafted however as Blood of Fiends had same error.--Fleanetha 11:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Move to ancestries (RESOLVED)

Replacing Category:Races with Category:Ancestries on every article would require a bot search/replace run plus additional cleanup. -Oznogon (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Moved to Category:Ancestries and heritages. -Oznogon (talk) 02:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Missing ancestries and heritages

There are several articles that seem like they belong to this category, but aren't. I'm unsure whether that's because of canon reasons that I'm unaware of, or if they're simply uncategorized by mistake. For example, geniekin are categorized under ancestries and heritages, but genies are not. Gray elves are in this category too, but Forlorn are not. While some ancestries like elves have several elven ethnicities in this category, none of the human ethnicities are. Should I be adding such articles to this category, or am I misunderstanding what belongs here? --Rexert (talk) 22:38, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

You're mostly missing context, which the tendency for wiki discussions to happen anywhere but discussion pages doesn't help.

There was another discussion on this, probably in the deleted on-wiki Forums, in which the consensus was that the article formerly known as Races of Golarion and its related category (then Category:Races) and navbox should contain only character options explicitly designed and stated for that purpose, and (apparently) creatures that were frequently assigned class levels.

Races that were either explicitly non-playable or required the use of a system like the Advanced Race Guide Race Builder were thus not "races". That decision was in response to my adding a bunch of non-playable classifications of sapient beings with cultures and societies to this category when it was still called Category:Races.

Category:People was created in response to be a parent category not limited to playable options. The "Category:... by people" categories (i.e. Category:Inhabitants by people) were repurposed from Category:Inhabitants by race to intentionally not be limited by ancestry, or else a few hundred categories would've needed subjective revision.

Category:Inhabitants and Category:People still need a lot of work to populate them. Good luck!

The current structure of Category:Ancestries and heritages also contains many categories that haven't been touched or critically examined since 1E. Human ethnicities are all in Category:Human, which is already here, but obviously not all ancestries' heritages, ethnicities, or other similar groupings follow that same pattern.

Two bonus rounds:

• Paizo's best definition of "ethnicity" is essentially that it's arbitrary.

“

When discussing human ethnicities on Golarion, it is important to note that what is called an ethnic group is to some extent an arbitrary label—a person may call themself Lyrune-Quah, Shoanti, Varisian, or Avistani, all with equal truth. As in the real world, humanity on Golarion is a broad continuum of life, not a collection of neatly organized groups.

— Character Guide 6

”

So categorizing them will probably also never result in a collection of neatly organized groups.

• Player Core 41 asserts that "a heritage is not the same as a culture or ethnicity", and the only human heritages it provides are "skilled" and "versatile". So arguably ethnicities don't belong in Category:Ancestries and heritages.

For a fun predecessor to my proposal to eliminate Project talk:No crunch, also see my failed merge proposal for Ancestries of Golarion. -Oznogon (talk) 03:59, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

This topic appears to be highly convoluted and controversial, with several separate categories that use debatable or arbitrary classifications. Attempting to accurately categorize articles belonging to ancestries, inhabitants and people might be a waste of effort, but I suppose I'll give it a try sometime.

Just to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong:

• Category:Ancestries and heritages should only contain playable character options with mechanical definitions in any Pathfinder edition.
• Category:Inhabitants should contain all sapient creature articles that are not playable character options, regardless of their planet or plane of origin.
• Category:Inhabitants by people should contain all categories of inhabitants from both playable and unplayable sapient ancestries.

--Rexert (talk) 11:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

That categorization sounds about right to me, though I can't be the sole arbiter of it.

The two top-level categories to consider are People and Creatures, with the former being sapient and the latter not.

• Category:People is a container category for Category:Inhabitants, Category:Ancestries and heritages, and Category:Iconics, plus other major categories' "... by people" subcategories.
• Category:Creatures is a container category for all of the "Creatures by ..." subcategories and other nebulous creature-related categories (Category:Mounts, generic Category:Fungi).
• The two aren't exclusive; Some articles and categories might be in both categories thanks to mechanics, canon events, or other exceptions. Individual awakened animals were once creatures but are now people. Ileosa Arabasti and Barzillai Thrune start as people and eventually become creatures. It's inevitable and okay; best to raise a discussion before trying to change those.
• Note that deities are over in the major category of Category:Religion, and aren't in Inhabitants or Creatures by default, but also there are also lots of exceptions (ascended, hero-gods, former archdevils, that one god who's also a mortal lion, etc.)

Oznogon (talk) 16:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)