Paizo Iconics - Alahazra

I dislike this character more than most. The concept of the Oracle, which is what Alahazra is, is fine. I totally different and kind of mythic take, if you will, on the concept of the cleric. Where the cleric is heavily rooted in the Christian martial templar tradition, the oracle feels like ancient pagan priestess of Apollo at Delphi or something like that. Saddled with a curse that gives their class abilities a bit more flavor than most, the Oracle sounds interesting to play. I'm (slowly) going through an actual-play podcast of Carrion Crown, and one of the characters there is an oracle. It's a nice idea. In that case, the character plays not too unlike a cleric, but then again, I've only witnessed four levels of play so far, so who knows.

The Oracle is also the first uniquely Pathfinder class that wasn't just a slightly updated version of a D&D 3.5 class, and as such, it's an interesting concept there too. I actually like many of the new classes, and think that they did a good job creating them. But this backstory is a feminist grrlboss fantasy, and it's nasty. It doesn't help that Alahazra is from the militantly atheist nation of Rahadoum; possibly the worst country in the entire Golarion setting. As a teenager, she was bulled and cast out by her family, ironically for allegedly being religious (because apparently the iconic Oracle was the first oracle ever, and they thought she was a cleric) but now she wanders around northern Africa... her, Garund, highly respected, beautiful, and friends to all kinds of nobles and kings and all that crap. What a crock. That backstory is absurd.

Not on that, is she supposed to be an adventurer? Her outfit is more ridiculous than Padme's most ornate state dress. 

As normal, Wayne Reynolds did the artwork. As far as I know, there's only one, because this wave of iconics weren't revised, but he did feature her (and Seltyiel) on the cover for Ultimate Magic. And, of course, other artists have painted her. There's even one really dumb one where she's mopping the deck of a pirate ship in her ridiculous exotic princess dress and hat. 

Oh, well. Paizo is made up of idiot progressive mutants who live in Seattle. One shouldn't expect too much from them, even if they used to be able to produce pretty good products that were apolitical. Too much of it isn't, though. I think this bio was written by James Sutter who is one of the "newer" wave of younger, woker Paizonians.