Talk:Champion

Paizo's use of names

The impression that I get from PFWiki articles I've seen is that the Wiki often reconciles renames by continuing to mention both names like "empyreans, also called aasimars," and "Some champions of justice may be known as paladins." Would that be intuitive, so that the champion article can document the existence of the legacy canon names in the context of their relation to remaster canon? --Descriptivist (talk) 13:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

For example, my above proposal could be reflected in the Champion article with an implementation something like this, including a rewording of the canon-change footnote:

Each champion is devoted to a cause.

• Champions of desecration, sometimes called desecrators, live to spread unholy influence, subvert all that is pure or holy, and sway people away from ideals of kindness and heroism.
• Champions of grandeur live to inspire others by being shining examples of the Upper Planes' holy virtues and celestial beauty, and are sworn enemies of fiends and other unholy forces.
• Champions of iniquity, sometimes called antipaladins, relentlessly destroy all that offends or opposes them, revel in dishonesty and treachery, and never hold themselves to any laws but those of their unholy deities.
• Champions of justice are honor-bound to uphold the law and never take advantage of others. Some virtuous champions of justice may be described as paladins.
• Champions of liberation root out tyranny, fight for the freedom of all, and are sworn to respect the choices that others make over their own lives. Some heroic champions of liberation may be described as liberators.
• Champions of obedience enforce societal hierarchies, topple or seize control of undeserving authorities, and refuse to let an inferior lead them or hold power over them. Some self-serving champions of obedience may be described as tyrants.
• Champions of redemption, sometimes called redeeemers, show compassion to people from all walks of life, lead evildoers to the path of good and holiness, and never commit the anathema of killing a sapient enemy without first offering them a chance for redemption.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.

-Descriptivist (talk) 04:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If an official and citeable source has canonized these connections, I would consider approving this proposal. However, I don't know of and can't find an official source which clearly and specifically associates those Remastered causes with those labels in the proposed manner, so I am opposed to this proposal. -Oznogon (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've opened policy proposals on Project:Scope of the project, Project:No crunch, and Project:Point of view that would eliminate the policies relevant to my opposition. If those proposals are accepted, I would approve this proposal and retract my proposal below. -Oznogon (talk) 01:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Due to the mechanical edition- and revision-specific conflicts that now complicate all champion labels, I instead propose that the labels which warrant content on the wiki instead be described in a manner that follows our primary guiding policies: an in-universe point-of-view within the scope of the project that avoids mechanical definitions.

• For relevant labels, create new, canon-focused, edition-agnostic articles that describe labels with canon content and their application from an in-universe point of view. For example, the article at paladin would refer to the term's use in canon sources independently of its mechanical definition. This would allow the inclusion of characters using the term in fiction, where all mechanics are irrelevant, and in Remastered works, where the mechanical definition of the term is irrelevant.

Relevant details on existing articles, such as paladin and antipaladin, could be copied or moved to these crunch-free articles.

Some labels might not warrant wiki content if official sources use them solely to reference mechanical player-character options. For example, I can't find a champion-related canon non-mechanical reference to "desecrator"; only the unrelated rakshasa immortal Zabha the Desecrator uses the term.

• Move existing articles for those labels that are focused on mechanical definitions, such as paladin and antipaladin, to new titles that denote their reliance on edition-specific mechanics, such as paladin (class). This continues the trend of shuttling legacy and edition-specific content into articles where it can be contained and referenced without directly conflicting with current usage.
• Add disambiguation links from the new articles about the labels to disambiguation pages that refer to articles focused on mechanical definitions, such as paladin (disambiguation) linking to paladin (class) and the legacy champion cause. Disambiguation pages are navigational tools, and as such are not bound to an in-universe point of view and can better contextualize the mechanical distinctions.
• Link the new articles about labels to external content containing the mechanical details inappropriate for inclusion on PathfinderWiki, such as Archives of Nethys.
• Categorize them in a manner relevant to mechanics across editions and revisions. As navigational tools, categories are not bound to an in-universe point of view and can facilitate article discovery through shared mechanical properties.
• Redirect the labels that lack sufficient canon context to related mechanically focused articles, or to disambiguation pages such as desecrator (disambiguation) where usage might be ambiguous.
• If useful, also add redirects specific to mechanical causes, such as paladin (cause), that point to champion. Categorize these redirects appropriately to associate them with champion class mechanics.

A recent and pertinent example of the labels being used in Remastered works without mechanical associations to the player-character champion class are the NPC Knights of Lastwall paladins following Kestrel Windstrike on The Resurrection Flood 14, who are all referred to as paladins, soldiers, companions, Sarenites, Iomedeans, and Knights of Lastwall, but among them only Kestrel is referred to as a champion. Page 28 explicitly states that all unnamed NPCs in that chapter are mechanically irrelevant even as NPCs and do not warrant statistics, but from an in-universe point of view they canonically remain paladins nonetheless.

This proposal allows characters and subjects that are relevant to those labels to be associated with them on the wiki in a canon context independently of any mechanical definitions, edition, or revision—particularly paladins in mechanically irrelevant fiction, and NPCs, the most relevant classification of subject to this discussion, which by 2E's mechanical definition are also not restricted to player-character mechanics. -Oznogon (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Meta:Champion

We have not cited a Paizo source stating that "those uses are generic in nature". In Divine Mysteries, these twenty sidebars are all about the specific topic of the champion class's mechanical causes; Irori's champion sidebar describes his champions of justice as "paladins", and the sentences surrounding Gozreh's quoted sentence name "the cause of liberation" and "the cause of justice" because they are referring to those mechanical causes. The quoted sentence uses the words "redeemer's cause" because it intends to refer to some mechanical cause, like how lore elsewhere in the book makes similar in-setting claims about named mystery and patron mechanics, contextualized by canon.

The quoted sentence may or may not be an oversight. --Descriptivist (talk) 04:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I didn't raise the quote from Divine Mysteries referring to the legacy "redeemer's cause" on the Meta page to open any debate on it. Sorry for any confusion. I removed the presumption from Meta, where it wasn't appropriate.

As with all legacy content, barring an official clarification it's impossible to cite sources for tacit omissions of deprecated content. Without confirmation that a usage is in error, the remaining assumption is that it is intentional and therefore not a mechanical reference. If there's confirmation whether it is or isn't used in error, that confirmation can be cited on Meta or in mainspace as necessary. -Oznogon (talk) 01:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)