Talk:Harlequin/Conflicts

Name, alignment, ancestry, and gender

In both Guide to Absalom 22–24 and Absalom, City of Lost Omens 120, 317, etc., the guildmaster of the Forthright (Forthright Men in Guide) is named the Harlequin. In Black Markets 9, the guildmaster is named the Jester.

In both Black Markets and City of Lost Omens, the guildmaster is an 11th level bard. Guide does not indicate class or level.

In Black Markets, the Jester is a lawful neutral male halfling. In City of Lost Omens, the Harlequin is a chaotic neutral nonbinary human.

Guide predates Black Markets, which predates City of Lost Omens. Guide is a Pathfinder Campaign Setting product, Black Markets a Pathfinder Player Companion product, and City of Lost Omens a Pathfinder Lost Omens product.

While PathfinderWiki's canon policy suggests that editors assume no conflict where possible, there is no canon indication in Black Markets that there had been any change in guildmaster since Guide, and there is no mention of the Jester or a change of power in City of Lost Omens.

Since Absalom is a higher-tier source than Black Markets and Guide an equal-tier source, this is thus assumed to be not only a conflict but also a potential error. Otherwise, there was briefly a different Forthright guildmaster of a different gender and ancestry for an unspecified period of time, and the change in leadership would be tenuously depicted solely as a name, alignment, and ancestry in a micro-statblock line in a settlement stat block of a lower-tier publication.

Barring an official clarification, the wiki prefers information from the most recent, comprehensive, and highest-tier source of City of Lost Omens and redirects The Jester to Harlequin. -Oznogon (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

(Noting as an aside that the reference to a possible guildmaster or alias named the Jester is also retained in Forthright as a compromise in lieu of a separate article that would lack enough information to stand alone.) -Oznogon (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2024 (UTC)