Teifling

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I'm sure if you were to have a conversation with Asmodeus, he would tell you there is no greed, only wealth. I'm sure he'd say there is no lust, only fertility. There is no wrath, only righteous anger. That there is no sin, only virtue.

Lissala's seven virtues are nothing more than sugar coated synonyms of the seven deadly sins. Is it that hard to imagine that evil recognizes the importance of subtlety or deception? That some of the greatest evils are those that pretend to be good? Yes, the runelords became more openly decadent and violent in their worship of Lissala, but Lissala never abandoned them or censored her followers for "warping" her teachings. Most gods would unleash holy fire on followers who twisted legitimate virtues into sins, but Lissala continued to support the runelords. Perhaps Lissala represents the "banality of evil". That her devotion to Law made her blind to the clear viciousness or oppressive nature of her teachings? But more likely, Lissala is aware of her own wickedness, but saw such evil as necessary to maintain order.

To surmise, what did Lissala do that was evil? She was the active patron to an evil faith, an evil group of despot wizards, and an evil nation for centuries. What did Lissala promote that was evil? The enslavement of several races, the runelords themselves, the Empire of Thassilon, sin magic, the construction of the Sihedron, and general lawful evilness.

Is she the cackling billboard sign of evil that Zon-Kuthon is? No. But she is evil. The kind of evil that slowly corrupts empires. The kind of evil that makes good man weaker. She is the embodiment of "absolute power corrupts absolutely".


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It depends on how one defines "evil". For my campaigns, the concept of evil is defined as selfishness:
-Chaotic evil is reckless self-indulgence (The Joker: "Some men just WANT to watch the world burn).
-Neutral evil is pure egotism (Charles Augustus Magnussen: "I'm not a villain, I have no evil plan. I'm a businessman acquiring assets).
-Lawful evil is tyrannical self-interest. (Sauron: One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the darkness bind them).

The whole belief system surrounding Lissala promotes a tyrannical manipulation of magic. It birthed the runelords and sin magic. The question shouldn't be "what exactly is it she does that' evil" because she doesn't need to do anything. Her faith encourages its followers to give into their megalomania, to pursue their own power and subjugate all around them, and to indulge in their most wicked desires. She enables men to become devils. She rewards discipline but encourages despots. That's the definition of Lawful Evil.


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The Dominion sacrifice millions into black holes as part of their "Banquet" ritual.

Black holes are portals within the Dark Tapestry to the Negative Energy Plane, also known as the Void.

"What you think of as life is a great deception. The faithful have already been claimed, taken, and saved. You are ours".
-Eternity's Doorstep.

The Negative Energy Plane is also the "metaphysical" core of the Shadow Plane.

If you'd indulge me in repeating myself from nearly two years ago,
"It was purely by chance that Dou-Bral noticed the faint glimmer of a star (perhaps the epic flash of the Earthfall through the window of a Black Hole?) and escaped the endless prison...Yet, to him, it was sign of his victory. The void could not consume him. He had won. He had been rewarded. He had come to understand truth and now he was ready to share it with the world. The void must be challenged. Nihilism must be crushed. Existence must endure. Life is pain."

The Dominion gets the body. The Kyton gets the soul. Both stand against the Void, which swallows all life whole.

It's good to be home...


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I don't allow multi-classing in any of my campaigns. If a rogue meets a wizard and decides that he wants to be one, he goes to college. Seven years later, he is a 1st level wizard. But in those seven years, he's nearly forgotten everything about being a rogue and must find new adventuring party. Wizard wants to be a paladin, she goes to a monastery. Barbarian considering becoming a bard? Bardic University. Ranger feeling the call of a the barbarian? Spend a few years with a horde of reavers. Essentially, you want a new class, start over. My players complained at first, but eventually agreed it is more fulfilling to play one awesome class to its fullness rather than a mosaic of everyone. The jack of all trades is the master of nothing.


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Conan raged all the time. He would recklessly charge headlong into fights using renewed or untapped strength. I think our conception of rage is warps by the Hulk or other "mindless rager" archetypes. Rage does not make you stupid. It has no mechanical effect on your mental stats other than you can't use INT based skills while raging, i.e. reckless.

In "The God in the Bowl" Conan displays all the signs of rage while fighting the snake god. At the sight of his dying companion, he screams, activates his rage (free action), and charges into the room which the god is hiding. The others warn him against attacking, but he recklessly ignores them (penalty to AC). He was injured from a previous fight, but his anger has renewed his strength and constitution (bonus to STR and CON/ temporary hit points). The god tries to hypnotize him, he overcomes it (bonus to Will).

Yes, he's not the Hulk when he rages, grunting or speaking in broken English. But, really, no barbarian (save the True Primitive or the Wild Rager archetypes, and even they don't suffer penalties to mental stats) should be played that way. I don't know how it started (probably 3E with their Half-Orc Iconic Barbarian and their illiterate ability), but Barbarians aren't mindless juggernauts. They're Conan.


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In my campaign, I have these two Forces. Preservation, which is the balance of all components, and Perversion, which is the discord within each component. Both are representations of Neutrality.

The Nature of Preservation and Perversion:
Preservation is the Neutrality of Balance. The neutrality that states good, evil, law, and chaos are each equally important and must coexist. It is the neutrality we understand and sometimes ascribe to.

Perversion is the Alien Neutrality. The unknowable and obvious, erratic yet calculated, selfish but selfless neutrality. The Neutrality of Contradiction.

The Multiverse is known as the Wheel of Preservation, because each element exists in ignorant harmony and support the whole. Preservation is why the forces of Law have never destroyed the forces of Chaos. Preservation is why evil and good can meet as allies from time to time. It is the bound that unites all beings. Preservation is the eight spokes and the center.

Perversion is a jealous force. Perversion is why Law believes it is superior to Chaos, rather than its equal. Perversion is why good and evil plot endlessly against one another, knowing that any ultimate victory achieved would destroy everything. Perversion is the rust corroding the bounds of life. Perversion does not want good or evil. Perversion does not want chaos or law. Those are the elements of Preservation. Perversion twists these things, warps them into mockeries, makes them perverse blasphemies in line with the philosophy of perversion. Perversion is a hateful, loving, destructive, nurturing single force.

I use perversion as the Neutral alignment of the Far Plane, the Outer Gods, and the aberrations. Lovecraft never described Cthulhu or Azathoth as evil, but as uncaring and alien, yet they pose the greatest threat to life. Thus it is this alien neutrality that is my campaigns ultimate antagonist. Perversion is beyond any notion of evil. Perversion why two paladins can fight one another over different interpretations of the same belief. It is madness. Unknowable, alien, indescribable being. Perversion corrupts simply to corrupt. Its sole drive is to supplant Preservation and have a universe of its own. It twists beings into Aberrations and tries to expand further into the Multiverse. The parallels between my Perversion and the Dominion are surprising.


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Space-Aboleths on the other hand...
What is the Dark Tapestry if not the blackest, deepest, and most ancient of oceans?


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I know Zon-Kuthon has no affiliation with the Dominion as far as his origins are concerned but what about Zon-Kuthon and the Kyton (sorry to be tangential)?

There appears to be a clear connection between the two, though never stated.

In my campaign, theologians debate these topics. Did Zon-Kuthon create the Kyton in his imagine? Were the Kyton divine beings loyal to Dou-Bral prior to his transformation and were corrupted by his prescience? Or did Dou-Bral find them at the edge of existence and was corrupted by their dark workings?

Personally, I've always thought Zon-Kuthon was the Kyton's greatest convert. He is beholden to them, yet they are not his master. Rather they see themselves as equals, linked by their common philosophy of pain, sorrow, and bleak enlightenment.

As to Zon-Kuthon's connection to the Dominion, perhaps their is one through the Kyton?

Let us say the assume that the Dark Tapestry is just what it claims to be. The nothingness between stars. Let us also assume that the edge of the universe functions the same in both worlds, and the further to the edge you travel, the great the distance between stars. Eventually, there is just nothingness. A void of light, sound, sensation, and matter. The Dark Tapestry.

Now imagine the hopelessness one would feel staring into that endless all-consuming nothingness. The nothingness, you would eventually imagine, is so much greater than the substance of the universe. The universe is finite, surrounded by an infinite absence. Thus, the universe must be insignificant in comparison to the void. A figment or light in a reality or darkness. It would eventually break anyone's spirit.

From Serenity: "They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothin', and that's what they became."

Now, how did nothing turn Dou-Bral into Zon-Kuthon? Each deity represents an ideal, which they hold higher than themselves. Asmodeus esteems tyranny, Dou-Bral esteems beauty, so on. Just as mortals search for proofs to justify their faith, so to did the gods search the cosmos for evidence of these ideals. Dou-Bral sent his divine servants out to the farthest reaches of the universe to find true beauty. Eons later, the Kyton returned. They claimed that true beauty was born in pain. That one would understand beauty only in the moment that they experience true pain. Beauty was a selfish expression of meaning to temporarily dull the pointlessness of existence. They claimed they had gleamed this knowledge from the gods in the blackness between stars. Uncaring gods. Massive eternal gods. All-powerful gods. Gods of nothing. Horrified, enraged, and curious, Dou-Bral traveled himself into the Dark Tapestry, looking for these uncaring gods who twisted his servants. Countless centuries passed as Dou-Bral trekked deeper into oblivion. Finally, he realized the Kyton had simply gone mad. There was nothing out there. No truths. No beauty. No gods. Just oblivion. A vacuum absorbing all sensation and crushing it into nothing. Dou-Bral turned back, only to realize he had lost himself in the nothingness. He was alone. Frustration turned to fear. The nothingness was so massive, how could he hope to find the universe within it? He was lost and made utterly insignificant by the massiveness of the void. Then, it clicked. He was no different than the universe itself. It, like him, was a mere droplet in the ocean of black. Yet, why? Here was the truth. And what a beautiful truth it was, though he was not yet ready to understand. There were no gods in the Dark Tapestry, the Dark Tapestry was the god the Kyton rambled on about. Not a god though, something greater. An ideal. No, more than that. It was the reality behind the ideals which he has searched for. Life was alien to the void, and the void foreign to life. The two were in conflict. Though existence could be made meaningless by the void, experience allowed life to defy annihilation. Only vivid sensation could alleviate the numb oblivion. "Existence is such only to challenge the nothingness." This was the first truth. Isolated from everything, Dou-Bral tried to generate experiences. His mind had long forgotten the colors, smells, tastes, or sounds of others. But even in the grips of nothingness, he had himself. He talked and sang to himself. He smelled his flesh. He stared into his hands. But eventually, those sensations dulled and lost meaning. He screams. Gnash his teeth. Bit at himself. Clawed his flesh. Drew patterns with his blood across his lips. Each time the void returned, Dou-Bral ravaged himself further, enjoying the brief respite from nothingness a little more than the time before. "We are alone in oblivion, and we endure only through selfish experience." This was the second truth. Tearing at himself, Dou-Bral turned forever inward to endured the bleakness. He focused on the anger, the sorrow, and the grief of his existence. His physical, emotional, and spiritual pain gave him strength. He would not succumb to the void. Pain overcame the void. The void had no feeling. It could never understand pain. It was powerless against his pain. This was the final truth. "Pain was the most powerful force of all. Pain is a blessing. Through pain, we endure."

It was by chance that Dou-Bral noticed the faith glimmer of a star and escaped the endless prison of the Dark Tapestry. Yet, to him, it was sign of his victory. The void could not consume him. He had won. He had been rewarded. He had come to understand truth and now he was ready to share it with the world. The void must be challenged. Nihilism must be crushed. Existence must endure. Life is pain. Thus, Dou-Bral was gone, and Zon-Kuthon was born.

The Kyton, without Dou-Bral guidance, abandoned their station and former master, choosing to migrate along the lower planes refining and teaching their twisted philosophy. Zon-Kuthon cares little about their independence, for what use are servants when we are all alone? He needs nor craves no servants, only fellow comrades in truth. In this way, Zon-Kuthon views the Kyton as allies, though loss allies at best. And those Kyton who encounter their former master simply smile, proud in the knowledge that their guidance has converted a god to the true path.

Then what is the Dominion of the Black and who are the gods the follow?

As foolish mortals seek the truth in the darkness between stars just as the Kyton and Dou-Bral had before, they too fall victim to its crushing madness. They give the void divine purpose and prophetic goals. They give it traits and characteristics befitting its assumed power. They call it Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and Azathoth. They describe it in abstracts as colours out of space, swirling bubbling masses, writhing black tentacles, eldritch aeons, or cyclopean geometry. But it is merely their tiny mind's trying to grapple with infinite nothing. They are broken body, mind, and soul by it. They are one of the Dominion of the Black. And their psychotic devotion to these non-existent gods is so strong it can generate divine magic, tapping into and simultaneously feeding the same well of faith that the Kyton and Zon-Kuthon unwittingly share.

Friedrich Nietzsche "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

There is nothing out there at the edge of existence. No power. No truth. No gods. No meaning. Just nothingness between stars. But that nothingness is so vast, so all-consuming, that those who confront it must contend it to be the greatest force encountered. It is only what we give it. Some call it The Uncaring God. Some call it the Philosophy of Pain. Some call it The Truth of All Things. All know it as The Dark Tapestry.


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Shallowsoul, I had a BB Magus at my table, and I allowed the Arcane Pool to remain at 1/2 level + INT rather than the reduced 1/3 level + INT. To compensate, I increased the Blackblade's Ego by 5 and changed the alignment rule to be they must be one step away from the wielder's alignment. The BB Magus was N and his blackblade was NE. The change increased Ego contests, but allowed for a slightly more powerful BB than before, which we all considered a fair trade.


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I have heard on several threads that the Monk class was the most broken or most flawed. Why do people think that? What makes the monk broken, if it is at all? Is this just an opinion or is there something wrong with the class's design?


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Hookshot would be epic.


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Detect Magic wrote:
Vindicator wrote:
A summoner/ alchemist hybrid with elements of the old 3.5 artificer. Something akin to a warcaster from Warmachines. With a warjack that grows more powerful as you level. That would be cool.
Not to threadjack, but you might want to take a look at the arcane mechanik I designed (IK-inspired, summoner-based).

Reading though it, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks!


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I want there to be some greater distinctions between arcane and divine magic for my campaign. What would be some good ways of doing that?