The Templar Variations

 It's amazing having the time and focus to work on my games again. It almost feels like a luxury.

Oh! Wait. That... that is a luxury.

Nevermind.

Anyway, one of the projects that's been on hold is my Templar class.

The Godless Priest

For those who don't know, the Templar was a pseudo-priest introduced in the Dark Sun world that gained power from dedication to a Sorceror King (rulers of the few city states scattered throughout the land).

The original 2nd Edition Templar class picked spells from the Cleric list and had fewer spell slots per day. Most of their "power" other than spells was of a political variety, which was great for RP heavy campaigns, but not for hack and slash style play. Effectively, the Templar was a weak priest until high level.

There was no official 3rd Edition Dark Sun product and the third party offerings were weird if you're kind and straight up racist bullshit if you're not. 2nd Edition was bad enough (all these desert dwellling white folks trying to free the slaves), but the 3rd Edition.. Slave Scent anyone? 

Well, the Templar there was even more RP/NPC focused with a power set that can in no way be viewed as anything other than Evil. It wasn't a good look.

4E brought Dark Sun back, but by this point the Templar had been demoted to a character Theme. This provided a few extra "thematic" powers the character had available when they wished. This did make the character more useful in combat and meant that anyone could be a Templar, irrespective of class. This was a nice addition.

The 4E theme only added powers up to 10th level, so the player would not be bound to their Sorceror King and could focus on whatever they wanted to beyond that point. With Epic Desitinies to focus on, the theme didn't have to be a defining part of the character.

Modern World Interpretations

5E has shook things up again. Despite the recent Apocalyptic Subclasses Unearthed Arcana, there are unlikely to be any plans to introduce a Dark Sun world to 5E as we've seen it before. This is possibly because the community as a whole doesn't seem to have an appetite for the themes introduced in the Dark Sun setting. Slavery, tyranny, the oppression of social class, these are not part of the modern game.

Somehow, as an outsider, this feels very similar to the US Administration removing references to slavery, inequality, and black people from Government websites and from education programs. It smacks of a bad case of whitewashing.

The old narrative, prompted primarily by the artwork, did carry a heavy "white saviour" mentality. That's problematic enough. But is it also problematic to ignore the theme of slavery entirely in our roleplaying games? Or should we be facing up to our place in history?

The Templar represents something we see often in history. Oppressors put systems in place to ensure the hegemony and sometimes even the oppressed will join that system in the hope of affording themselves protection. We shouldn't look away from that, but neither should we celebrate it.

I'll continue to develop my Templar, but I will unapologetically make it as a tool of oppression and the players can decide how they sit with that. Let them tell on themselves.