Paizo iconics - Valeros

I liked the idea of iconics, which Paizo has been doing since before their game came out. Heck, Wizards of the Coast kinda sorta did it too with the 3e iconics. Sadly, those iconics were never explored too well... I say as I recall that there were actually novels written about at least some of them, although I've never read them. Other than that, though—their exploits, their biographies, etc.—I don't know much about them. The Paizo iconics, on the other hand, are fairly well defined with detailed biographies written in blog posts, and some degree of discussion about their interconnectedness even. I wonder if some of the iconics were actual PCs that the staff had?

Anyway, Valeros is the most iconic of the iconics, in my opinion, because he's a fighter, the most iconic class. He's also the one on the cover of the very first adventure, "Burnt Offerings", and he seems to appear the most, or at least considerably more than most, in the art. Unlike many, who have a weird fish out of water approach, Valeros is also a local of the northern shore of the inner sea, being of Taldan descent, and coming from a small faming village in what is now Andoran. Fighters tend to be the kind of "jocks" of the D&D world, and as D&D has been taken over largely by resentful math nerds and entitled theater kids, jocks are often given short shrift, made fun of, and deliberately humiliated and treated as if they are stupid or hapless or both. Valeros, at least according to his initial biography, was none of those things, coming across in many respects like a archetypical Sigma. But as his biography developed, he—sadly—picked up some stupid, simpy stuff here and there. Heck, it happened to better men than him. I still recommend avoiding No Time to Die altogether. James Bond as a tired old hack getting upstaged by ridiculous empowered grrlbosses and dying while crying and holding a manky old teddy bear named Dou Dou. Yes, in French, which is even worse, that sounds like doo-doo. 

So it's a bit sad to me to see how Valeros has been treated by Paizo after a strong start. He was treated even worse in the radio plays, where Merisiel constantly seems to mock him and get the better of him in kind of unlikeable verbal repartee—even though 1st level statblocks, as shown in "Burnt Offerings" have Meris with an intelligence of 8 and Valeros with one of 13. Harsk and Ezren also often complain about Valeros—not so much his character and personality, although I think that they're trying to pass it off as if that's what it is, but the fact that he's a caricaturish high school jock and they're the smug, superior science nerds.

It's really sad when you can understand exactly what motivates a writer so transparently. Gammas, however, are not known for their ability to let go of imagined slights and resentment, so 40+ year old gammas still obsessing about what happened (or didn't happen) in high school is pretty on brand for them, I'm afraid. I have no idea what my own personal social ranking would be, but I do find that literary gammas are as annoying as real life ones, and literary settings and characters that glorify gamma self-delusion are painful to read. Sigmas tend to be the characters that I admire and empathize with the most. Which is one of the reasons I really like Rafael Sabatini's characters. Although a bit simpy by today's standards, by the standards of 100+ years ago, when he wrote, that was seen as gallantry and loyalty for the most part, so it's a bit more workable. In fact, if Peter Blood and Andre-Louis Moreau were as likely to write off everyone who irritated them for a moment as I tend to be, that would correctly be seen as a vice, not a virtue. Some grace and patience for the minor flaws in otherwise good people is not exactly simpy, except by today's wretched standards of behavior, of course. 

And Valeros, at least in his initial bio, comes across as kind of Sigma-like too. He does what's right, even if it's not necessarily what's best. He's super competent at what he does, and does what he wants to do. Because it's D&D, he's part of a group, but not necessarily long-term, and he's wandered in and out of his basic adventuring party, depending on the campaign. 

Sigh. I can't help but think that Paizo and Pathfinder Legends did Valeros kind of dirty.

Above is the original Valeros portrait, by the inestimable Wayne Reynolds. There is a higher res version on Paizo's blog, I think, but it's been down for a few days, so I got that off the Pathfinder wiki. Below is the Second Edition revision of his portrait. I don't know why changing editions made him need to look different, but about half a dozen or so of the iconic characters got minor facelifts. Maybe it's because he switched from sword & dagger to sword & board with the new rules?