Pathfinder roleplaying game adds another trans woman to canon

Sonnorae – by Crystal Frasier

Paizo’s Pathfinder roleplaying game continues to harness the imaginations of its many writers to fantastic effect. Back in July, Paizo released a new, updated “Harrow” card deck accessory for the game. Harrow is basically tarot but transposed to the fictional fantasy setting of Golarion, with unique art, symbolism, lore, and rules. The divination deck is a thing of beauty and one of the most imaginative accessories appended to any roleplaying game that I’ve seen in a while. Kyle Hunter’s artwork is breathtaking and haunting, with touches of Kafka and Dali, a Gothic mixture of the morbid and the absurd.

But of special interest was the recent revelation about an interesting addition to the lore. Sonnorae, the ancient mystic who created the Harrow deck, happened to be a trans woman. Author and artist Crystal Frasier, who has left her mark on the collaboratively-designed world of Harrow lore by writing an adventure pack around the game within a game, explained the history behind Harrow’s enigmatic creatrix:

“Since she’s come up a few times in the past several days, Sonnorae has been on my mind. She’s my favorite addition to the Golarion canon: The last descendant the Rae clan, a Varisian family dedicated to preserving knowledge and folklore in the post-apocalyptic hellhole that was the Age of Darkness. After several generations in that harsh climate, braving dangerous Thassilonian ruins and creatures roaming the eternal night, the clan dwindled to Sonnorae: a transgender woman unable to bear children and continue her legacy and unwilling to share her family burden with outsiders. Instead she used forgotten rune magic to cleave off a sliver of the realm of dreams and bind it into her Harrow deck, which she could use as a pocket dimension to store all her family’s accumulated lore forever.

Sonnorae vanished mysteriously thousands of years ago, but her actions still affect modern Golarion: her experiment

A sample of the cards, taken by a brilliant, professional photographer and not by your humble correspondent. Definitely not on top of her bedspread. (Click to enlarge)

accidentally registered the Rae clan Harrow deck as the cosmic archetype, and over time all other Harrow decks warp to mimic her own.”

Harrow, which features prominently in the Pathfinder universe as a popular form of divination whose magic actually works, is now canonically the legacy of a trans woman who gave birth to a universe that long survived her own death. It’s an interesting take on the often sore issue of infertility among trans women, and I think this is a beautiful way of not only confronting it openly, but weaving fantasy gold from it in the process. It touches a sadness and profundity that lies in the experience of many trans women—loath as I am to be personal about such things in my writing, I would be lying if I did not confess to a small measure of melancholy at my inability to bear children. But it is an experience that merits consideration, and Frasier has done so with an artful sensitivity that lends a little more richness and human frailty to an already remarkably unique, creative roleplay supplement.

Related:
A song of faith and sexual fire: How roleplaying game religions work as moral tools
Shattering the sexual skyhook: A review of Numenera’s Love and Sex in the Ninth World
Not buying sexism: How inclusive games show hope for gaming culture

Katherine Cross is a contributor to Feministing.