Editing Golarion (section)

==Trivia==
===Contradictory Tone===
One weird thing about Golarion is that, when Paizo was starting out, they decided to market themselves not only as the "true heirs to 3.5", but also as "the mature D&D company" - touching upon subject matter that the bigger, more public WotC couldn't or wouldn't dare.

Initially, as part of their blatant pulp-styled setting, that meant they went for a much more [[grimdark]] tone to their world. In a manner closer to D&D's [[Sword & Sorcery]] ancestors, the world of Golarion is really fucked up; [[ogre|ogres]] are depraved, sadistic, inbred cannibals right out of a hillbilly slasher film, [[Lamashtu|one of the main evil deities]] promotes miscarriage, mutation and bestiality, another main evil deity is [[Urgathoa|the goddess of lust, cannibalism, and necrophilia]], body horror runs rampant, slavery is <s>legal in many major countries</s> [https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6shvp&page=17?Paizo-Leadership-Team-Update#815 not allowed to be written about], one country is basically [[Nazi]] Germany controlled by [[Devil|devils]], the Gods of Good can be (and usually are) morally flawed...

But then, somewhere along the lines, they realized there was another audience also looking for "mature" D&D content. The social progressives crowd, who wanted a D&D world that more overtly tackled political matter. So, Paizo decided to fill their world with things to appeal to them. Ethnic minority pride? Well, how about the fact that not!Africa is the oldest, most unbroken seat of human civilization on the planet, was never conquered by any other human nation, and is even one of the original founders of magic amongst humanity. Sexual minority representation? Homosexuals and transgender people are everywhere amongst the NPCs and the game's iconic characters.

Now, this is not exactly a happy marriage. The progressive fanbase tends to look down on the pulp fanbase with sneers of disgust; witness the controversy over [[Erastil]] for one of the earliest examples of this. In return, the pulp fanbase scorns the progressives as gutless and wanting to "hugbox" the setting, until it becomes as bland and PC as D&D itself. Unfortunately for the pulp fans, it seems the progressive fanbase may have won; 2e has "moved on" with Golarion such as good-aligned goblins joining mainstream society, open rebellion in Cheliax, and a reforming Grand Princess on the throne of Taldor which may put some pretty major nails in Paizo's coffin, given that the pulp fanbase was the original foundation for their setting's success. <s>and Pathfinder 2e is going quite strong at the moment.</s> This statement did not age very well...  At the same time, there were plenty of voices even before the PC elements were introduced arguing that the "mature" content was just [[edgy]] for edge's sake, so who knows what the future will bring?  And it's not as if having racial diversity somehow inherently exists on a competing end of the spectrum from [[grimdark]], although nobody ever argued this was the case anyway.

That is, until 2023 when Paizo released their new "Remastered" OGL-less books.   In addition to removing alignment, law/chaos damage, and other 3.5e holdovers, the creators have declared that not only will they never be mentioning Drow again, but that in fact any mentions in prior books about Drow were just shit made up by a lying Pathfinder Lodge member and any Drow you may have allegedly met in prior adventures (such as Second Darkness or Abomination Vaults) were in fact disguised [[Serpentfolk|lizard people]].   Needless to say, this has resulted in massive amounts of [[skub]] and is in competition for the lamest-ass media retcon since Rise of Skywalker or Warcraft: Shadowlands.