I'm mostly going off how people (I thought better of you, Kaiya) are defending the baby-eating as a 3e thing, so somebody must have imported this legacy code into 3e with some level of official stamp of approval, and it really doesn't seem like Minton or Vance's style.
And Exalted condemns this as awful by describing in detail exactly what chattel slavery entails, what markets you can buy and sell slaves at, what the process of slavery often requires and what kind of people that do this: The Guild and the Realm are the two premier purveyors of that particular vice. The thing about this is that the Realm is, almost per definition Not Good for the rest of Creation because it is literally an Empire and the other is a vicious trading syndicate that surely takes cards from with the playbooks of the Dutch and British East India Companies in addition to literally selling people to the Fair Folk. When I play Realm Dragon-Blooded, I do so with the understanding that I am benefiting from and taking part in a greater system of oppression, standing on top of the world with a boot down its throat. This is easy to rationalize, "I can't do anything anyways", "It's too big for me to change", "I want to change it from the inside", "Despite it's faults, I still think it is a net good to Creation". If you want Raksi to eat babies and be a nigh-unambiguous villain who practices a vice that is very hard to rationalize, go ahead my dude, I don't necessarily mind, I just want it to be clear that this very much makes her an enemy to rail against; a mad old beast or rabid monster, squatting in a wonder-city of the First Age. That's not inherently bad, but if you want her to be a bit more nuanced, it probably is.
I know, but people were defending it as A 3e Thing, so the idea that Raksi is still a baby-eating monster must've come from somewhere. I assume it's Some Shit H&H said somewhere.
Wait, wait, wait.
How about you save the judgement? I'm not gonna apologize for wanting ancient baby eating Witch-Queens in my mythic fantasy.
Your concept of what a 'human' is capable of is sorely lacking. Expand your horizons and you will see that there is no limit to human evil.
Here.
Like I said before, I don't have strong feelings on the matter of a character eating babies in a game, especially if they don't consider themselves to be a member of the same species or view mortals as being beneath them.
It's not my point of contention, I have far more than that, I just wanted to make this very explicit because I don't really feel you can make a nuanced or interesting character that starts from a position of "ALSO SHE EATS BABIES".
Well that sounds significantly less stupid and pointlessly edgy than the impression I got. It sounds like something that she could just as easily decide to not do as she could to do it, and is a deliberate and calculated move she reserves for official meetings with fellow Exalts or equally important guests. Further down in the thread, he even says that Raksi "has use for being feared, as well as for being hated."
*looks back through discussion*
Sigh. I mean, that's not quite as bad as this discussion made out, but it's still fundamentally exactly the thing ('this person eats babies at the negotiating table, purely to get a rise out of her debating opponents') I've been arguing is tacky, edgelord trying-too-hard writing. I wish Vance had left it at "but I think odds are you've heard rumors." and leaned hard on that angle. I'm really surprised he's saying this at all, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's abiding by some behind-closed-doors discussions with H&H about what material to grandfather in, but even if that's the case, it's still just a different flavour of bad.
