Ive never understood the need alot of players seem to have to make monsters Nice. You see it alot in regards to the Vampire threads. I always understood Vamprism worked something like this
Vlad sucks some mother of 4's blood turns her into a vampire
Woman wakes up eyes open, any morals she had ar emow gone and shed kill all 4 of her children without a second thought.
Im totally fine with this it fits how Vampire shave appeared in the majority of books and movies (recent stuff aside)
In the Case of Demons/Devils or Succubus Paladins my thoguths had always been that the reason no succubus paldins exist because in the rare itty bity percentage of Succubus that have ever (is the oposit of Fallen in this case risen?) if it happend i Fgured at that moment they just simply stopped being succubus.
But i dont see that rare example as the need people have for good werewolves (actually for some reason not alot of demand for these) or other bad guys.
I think it is the tzzirD syndrome.
We're VERY unlikely to do much with non-evil undead in Pathfinder at all, but if and when we do, and if and when we want something akin to a "good lich," it'll be a brand new template with a different name. Which is sort of what previous editions did with creatures like the archlich or the balenorn. We currently have no plans to do anything like this, but time can change all things.
Good to hear it. I loathe "positive energy undead". That's not how positive energy works!
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Forced symmetry isn't something I'm a fan of. It's okay if there's not a good version of a lich, just as it's okay there's not an evil version of an angel.
Glad to hear that someone else isn't a fan of forced symmetry either. Too much of it exists already in the game without anyone else trying to shove any more of it in.
Never understood, why liches have to be evil...maybe it's just a guy who wants to know so much, that he grew old and decided to abandon his life in order to know more.
I've always felt that someone would most likely become a lich because of some overwhelming obsession. Add to that out-existing any friends or family, and knowing most people have a short lifespan, you would become indifferent to them. Pursuing your goals regardless of the cost or total indifference to what happens to others is evil in its own way - people don't like to be treated as of no more value than cockroaches
Write-up for Undead Revisited:
The horrors of unlife stagger from their darkened graves in this wide-ranging 64-page resource for fans of the unquiet dead! Learn the secret pasts of the haunted spirits known as bodaks, discover the dark delicacies of devourers, test your arms against the deadly graveknight, or tempt the world?s most insidious arcane evil by going face-to-face with a treacherous lich! Undead Revisited provides tons of info and fresh new perspectives on 10 of the most vile undead in the Pathfinder world, including murderous morhgs, deadly nightshades, silent shadows, bone-chilling wights, the spectral dead (wraiths, specters, allips, and banshees) as well as the villainous ravener, otherwise known as an undead dragon!
So, it seems there will be a section on the Lich.
Edit: In addition, AP issue #33, part three of Kingmaker, had an Atrophied Lich - essentially, a much weaker version of a normal Lich.
Gah!!! don't tell him that, he's playing in may kingmaker game!!! *Sobs*
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Ive never understood the need alot of players seem to have to make monsters Nice. You see it alot in regards to the Vampire threads. I always understood Vamprism worked something like this
Vlad sucks some mother of 4's blood turns her into a vampire
Woman wakes up eyes open, any morals she had ar emow gone and shed kill all 4 of her children without a second thought.
Im totally fine with this it fits how Vampire shave appeared in the majority of books and movies (recent stuff aside)
Because we are playing in the time of Twilight and Buffy and Being Human. Dracula is still very influential on the genre due to his status as THE seminal vampire, but for the most part, the concept of the vampire as the irredeemable villain is passe and has been for quite some time. Anne Rice changed the entire world of vampire lore. Then White Wolf came along with the incredibly popular World of Darkness settings, which provided a rich and diverse moral and political schema for vampires, as well as other creatures of the night.
In the Case of Demons/Devils or Succubus Paladins my thoguths had always been that the reason no succubus paldins exist because in the rare itty bity percentage of Succubus that have ever (is the oposit of Fallen in this case risen?) if it happend i Fgured at that moment they just simply stopped being succubus.
Depends on whether you go with Judeo-Christian canon in which all of the demonic powers are still angels, despite being fallen, or whether you consider them to be their own true race. There is a really good series of books that just recently came out by Lauren Kate called "Fallen." The first two books, "Fallen" and "Torment" are already out, with a third scheduled for release this summer, and Disney has already negotiated movie rights. The basic gist is that the angels who rebeled with Lucifer split into three factions after the fall - the Angels (still fallen, but striving to be as true to their angelic nature as they can), the Demons (those still siding with Lucifer) and the Outcasts (those who left Lucifer's fold but refused to side with heaven). It's interesting the way they weave and unravel alliances with good and evil fallen angels sometimes at war, sometimes working together, and individuals sometimes changing sides, but always recognizing that the only difference between them is the choices they've made.
But i dont see that rare example as the need people have for good werewolves (actually for some reason not alot of demand for these) or other bad guys.
Trust me, there's plenty of demand for good werewolves, thanks to the aforementioned World of Darkness settings (which often influence D&D campaigns), and more recently the Twilight films.
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However, just because I wouldn't like to see any lich at my Christmas table doesn't mean every single one of them is plotting something horrible at the moment, or that he ever will.
Urgathoa is my go-to example for this sort of thing. The goddess herself is described as seeing no one as her enemy, and even to be a bit perplexed by the vitriol and hate flung her way by Pharasma and Sarenrae, who she really doesn't have any particular dislike for.
She's a self-centered sort of evil, focused on serving her own hungers, and not interested in subverting nations (like Asmodeus), crushing hopes and wills (like Zon-Kuthon), destroying the world (like Rovagug), etc., etc. She seems willfully self-excusing, putting her hand up at the thought that others have any just or righteous reason to seek her destruction, as if *they* were somehow the unreasonable hate-filled evil people, and she were just a poor girl, cruelly maligned for not marching obediently to her final unitary and unsolicited judgement at the hands of mean old Pharasma.
It's quite the martyr act she puts on. :)
And yet, her *followers* are the bad-guys behind half of the terrible stuff going on in Golarion, whether it be in Falcon's Hollow or Korvosa. She's passively evil, because she's chosen to flip Pharasma the bird and step out of line and not just smile and accept her death like a good little automaton. Her followers are *actively* evil, creating plagues to glorify her name and doing all sorts of wickedness that has no real objective value other than for the evil lulz of it, since they aren't actually benefitting in any way from their labors.
There's the evil, 'cause they're selfish and lack compassion' figures like Urgathoa (which is the same sort of evil that is easy to overlook, since it's what television tells us is the American Dream, to live a life of excess and indulgence as one of the young, pretty and rich, and turn your head to avoid eye contact with the homeless veteran who lost a leg fighting for your right to party), and then there's the crazy sort of evil that just scurries around doing things like starting plagues, with some sort of chart in their evil lair that says '1. start plague, 2. ???, 3. profit!'
I'm okay with that sort of range. It's interesting to me that one can be evil without any sort of inclination towards doing evil. Lazy evil. The evil that sits on a couch while the Asmodeans are out there enslaving people and contracting for souls and torturing and whatever, and says, 'Wow, that looks like a lot of work.' but also doesn't get up off of the couch and stop them.
Golarion has good gods with powerful sexist (Erastil) and racist (Findeladlara) aspects, so it makes sense that there would be evil dieties (and individuals) who have traits or beliefs or behaviors that we would consider 'good', despite them having an 'E' on their character sheet.
Ultimately, the alignment seems to mostly serve a mechanical use in the game system anyway, as one can summon a hound archon to attack a nunnery or a dretch to run into a burning building and rescue a trapped child, and the intent is irrelevant, only the fact that you summoned an angel [Good] or a demon [Evil]. It's all there in black and white, and many players prefer it that way.
As long as it's mostly meaningless, save as a rules mechanic for the adjudication of what spells clerics can cast and who pings to what detect spell (or takes damage from unholy blight or order's wrath spells), it's probably easier to just wave and say, 'Fine, all liches detect as evil, even if this one has never done anything evil in his existence, and stuck around to finish some spell research into new ways of using magic to enhance the quality of life of people in his city.'
It also is appropriately bleak that evil is so much more powerful than good. One can 'turn evil' by casting the wrong spells, but nobody ever seems terribly worried about accidentally 'turning good' by casting protection from evil too many times.
Similarly, an infusion of negative energy can turn something evil. Positive energy lacks any such power. Even though every living person is suffused with positive energy, they can be as evil as Karzoug or Queen Illeosa or Asmodeus himself. Positive energy is helpless to stop those it animates from being evil.
Trees, mindlessly standing around doing nothing, feeding off of the positive energy of the sun, don't default to good, while a skeleton, mindlessly sitting around doing nothing, suffused with negative energy, is automatically evil, despite not *wanting* to be evil, not *choosing* to do evil, and, if ordered to stand around, never performing a single evil act.
'Evil,' and 'good,' therefore, are philosophically and morally meaningless, save as mechanical conveniences, in the game, which only serve to confuse matters if associated with real-world concepts of morality or values or empathy or selfishness.
Alignment, by the rules of the game and the guidelines suggested, requires no volition, no choice, neither malevolence, nor compassion, nor the performing of any deeds or holding of any beliefs or values related to 'good' or 'evil.' It's like skin color, or a certain disabilities, something you are born with, that might impact your rights in society, but doesn't necessarily say anything about what sort of person you are, just serve as justification for people who call themselves the opposite alignment to kill you and take your stuff.
Might as well just call it 'Alliance' and 'Horde' or 'Shirts' and 'Skins.'
Some stuff: "don't really have free will"
The book doesn't say that!
Sheds some more light on the discussion we had the other week, huh? Looks like I've got a little developer weight in my corner now.
I've always been the proponent of the 'taint' of negative energy. In Golarion the Shadow Plane is tainted by the hatred of an evil god. It gains its own sentience and lashes out at the living creatures that it mocks, while the pure entropy of the negative energy plane seethes jealously at the center.
The plane is explicitly evil. Hence, the bestiary, which is written very much for Golarion, has undead as evil.
If your home campaign has a setting where there was no evil god imprisoned on the plane and it didn't gain it's own malevolent intelligence, return unintelligent undead to the Neutral category, and make other undead creatures 'Usually really butt-crunchingly evil' instead of 'any evil'.
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Just for sort of a comical interlude, I have an NPC named Wednesday that shows up from time to time who was a was a cleric of Pharasma, got slain by a cairn wight and lost her memory of her former life, took three levels of Emancipated Spawn, regained her memory and previous class levels and remains dedicated to the service of Pharasma. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem, because Pharasma is adamant about not allowing undead among her clergy, so my little cairn wight cleric of Pharasma (ex-cleric, far as Pharasma is concerned; but current cleric, as far as Wednesday is concerned) is on a mission to prove to Pharasma that her circumstances don't make her any less loyal. She's actually been offered the chance at resurrection, but she's refused, 'cuz she's on a MISSION! She's the undead Little Engine that Could! And she's taken to converting other undead who don't want to be "bad," so now she's started up her own little church and cult of Pharasma-worshipping undead, much to the consternation of Pharasma, who doesn't want them; and to the equal chagrin of Urgathoa, who DOES want them! They exist in the game more for comic relief than anything else, but they do occasionally come in handy.
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the open embrace of negative energy into your body are things that will infuse you with such a degree of evil
Just quoting this bit so that I can mark it for the FAQ.
In Golarion, negative energy, and therefore, the negative energy plane, and spells that use negative energy, or anything powered by or suffused with negative energy, is evil. No exceptions. Word of god. Negative energy makes you evil, 'cause it is evil.
This should be errated for Great Beyond and for the core rules (inflict X wounds spells, for instance, should bear the [Evil] tag).
Whether or not positive energy / the positive energy plane / a cure X wounds spell is therefore good, would be up to you, obviously. On the one hand, it would make sense. On the other hand, it would require some cumbersome changes (such as removing cure X wounds spells from the lists of any evil clerics in adventures, since they wouldn't be able to cast them).
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The only thing I don't understand is Vampires. I get the whole, "Vampires are undead and undead are evil." But they don't choose to be vampires all the time, they can be victims. Granted, after being turned they are under the control of the other Vampire, but there may be etremely rare circumstances where they never commit an evil act under the control of another vampire. No where in Pathfinder does it say that they need to feed to live either. I just don't get why a being with free will, even though undead, would be automatically evil when they have done nothing evil.
Ive never understood the need alot of players seem to have to make monsters Nice. You see it alot in regards to the Vampire threads. I always understood Vamprism worked something like this
Vlad sucks some mother of 4's blood turns her into a vampire
Woman wakes up eyes open, any morals she had ar emow gone and shed kill all 4 of her children without a second thought.
Im totally fine with this it fits how Vampire shave appeared in the majority of books and movies (recent stuff aside)
Because we are playing in the time of Twilight and Buffy and Being Human. Dracula is still very influential on the genre due to his status as THE seminal vampire, but for the most part, the concept of the vampire as the irredeemable villain is passe and has been for quite some time. Anne Rice changed the entire world of vampire lore. Then White Wolf came along with the incredibly popular World of Darkness settings, which provided a rich and diverse moral and political schema for vampires, as well as other creatures of the night.
Vampire the Masquerade defines vampires for me in a way that not even good old Dracula can. Creatures given choice, but driven by terrible appetites, fears and passion, into monsterousness are just plain more interesting that the "One! One evil act! Two! Two evil acts! Three! Three evil acts! Mwah-ah-ah-ah!!!!!!" all vampires are "EVIL!" approach.
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The only thing I don't understand is Vampires.
Undead = negative energy = evil. Pretty much the official rule.
Lycanthropes are a sticky wicket, 'though. A LG peasant gets bitten by a werewolf, and turns into a half man (LG) half wolf (N) creature that is Chaotic Evil?
A LE cleric of Asmodeus gets bitten by a werebear and turns into a half man (LE) half bear (N) creature that is Chaotic Good? (Makes sense, in that last example, that he would do everything in his power to never change back, for fear of backsliding into Lawful Evil-ness!)
In Golarion, the werewolf thing at least makes sense because the 'goddess' of werewolves is a demon lord. Werebears, boars, rats and tigers, not so much...
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In D&D terms, most of Vampire: Masquerade vampires are so Evil that they make an average Orc rapist barbarian look like a misunderstood Neutral redneck.
The latter is just kind of "what else could I do, that's how they brought me up", the former ones usually reach the point when it goes "Did I just boil the blood of everybody in the nightclub? Really? But those were mortals, why do we even care?".
Just for sort of a comical interlude, I have an NPC named Wednesday that shows up from time to time who was a was a cleric of Pharasma, got slain by a cairn wight and lost her memory of her former life, took three levels of Emancipated Spawn, regained her memory and previous class levels and remains dedicated to the service of Pharasma. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem, because Pharasma is adamant about not allowing undead among her clergy, so my little cairn wight cleric of Pharasma (ex-cleric, far as Pharasma is concerned; but current cleric, as far as Wednesday is concerned) is on a mission to prove to Pharasma that her circumstances don't make her any less loyal. She's actually been offered the chance at resurrection, but she's refused, 'cuz she's on a MISSION! She's the undead Little Engine that Could! And she's taken to converting other undead who don't want to be "bad," so now she's started up her own little church and cult of Pharasma-worshipping undead, much to the consternation of Pharasma, who doesn't want them; and to the equal chagrin of Urgathoa, who DOES want them! They exist in the game more for comic relief than anything else, but they do occasionally come in handy.
This seems interesting. :)
In D&D terms, most of Vampire: Masquerade vampires are so Evil that they make an average Orc rapist barbarian look like a misunderstood Neutral redneck.
The latter is just kind of "what else could I do, that's how they brought me up", the former ones usually reach the point when it goes "Did I just boil the blood of everybody in the nightclub? Really? But those were mortals, why do we even care?".
Yeah low humanity elders and those monsters on paths of enlightenment, where so abjectly evil that they do make those orcs look like fluffy kittens.
But the game isn't about them. The core thrust of the game was always, the battle to maintain your humanity in the face of your own inner demons and a society almost designed to make you into monsters, that the battle is the most challenging thing you'll ever have to do. That theme did get diluted with time, and there are a lot of people who just played the game as blood sucking super heroes, but any game has its fair share of people who don't play it as intended.
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but any game has its fair share of people who don't play it as intended.
True that. Werewolf the Apocalypse suffered terribly from a wonderfully nuanced and rich spiritual storyline hijacked by a playerbase that seemed almost entirely interested in how many times they could do seventeen agg in a round by combining Razor Claw (or a glaive) and the expenditure of Rage.
I was pumped to play that game, after reading the book, but meeting the local players soured my enthusiasm considerably.
Still, that goes back to the negative energy / evil thing. Given a choice between moral complexity and rich storytelling and character-driven drama and difficult choices versus black and white 'shut and and kill stuff', shut up and kill stuff is gonna win every time.
X = evil, always. Therefore it's 'good' to kill the baby ones. The easy choice and the convenient choice is probably the morally right one.
X = evil, always. Therefore it's 'good' to kill the baby ones. The easy choice and the convenient choice is probably the morally right one.
Undead are evil. Therefore, it stands to reason that you should go out of your way to kill people before they can become undead!
I need to play a paladin sometime. ;)
but any game has its fair share of people who don't play it as intended.True that. Werewolf the Apocalypse suffered terribly from a wonderfully nuanced and rich spiritual storyline hijacked by a playerbase that seemed almost entirely interested in how many times they could do seventeen agg in a round by combining Razor Claw (or a glaive) and the expenditure of Rage.
I was pumped to play that game, after reading the book, but meeting the local players soured my enthusiasm considerably.
Still, that goes back to the negative energy / evil thing. Given a choice between moral complexity and rich storytelling and character-driven drama and difficult choices versus black and white 'shut and and kill stuff', shut up and kill stuff is gonna win every time.
X = evil, always. Therefore it's 'good' to kill the baby ones. The easy choice and the convenient choice is probably the morally right one.
So what? Give into mediocrity? Whilst this might seem over simplistic, we need to fight this and resist it! I'd rather published shot for the stars, than aimed for the middle ground. But thats just me.
(sort of)NSFW:Roleplaying, like hip-hop, is art
Just for sort of a comical interlude, I have an NPC named Wednesday that shows up from time to time who was a was a cleric of Pharasma, got slain by a cairn wight and lost her memory of her former life, took three levels of Emancipated Spawn, regained her memory and previous class levels and remains dedicated to the service of Pharasma. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem, because Pharasma is adamant about not allowing undead among her clergy, so my little cairn wight cleric of Pharasma (ex-cleric, far as Pharasma is concerned; but current cleric, as far as Wednesday is concerned) is on a mission to prove to Pharasma that her circumstances don't make her any less loyal. She's actually been offered the chance at resurrection, but she's refused, 'cuz she's on a MISSION! She's the undead Little Engine that Could! And she's taken to converting other undead who don't want to be "bad," so now she's started up her own little church and cult of Pharasma-worshipping undead, much to the consternation of Pharasma, who doesn't want them; and to the equal chagrin of Urgathoa, who DOES want them! They exist in the game more for comic relief than anything else, but they do occasionally come in handy.
I... want... in...
My dhampyr necromancer just recently got his phonecall from the Whispering Way saying "Hey... so uhhh... we noticed you're not -undead- yet... and um.... well..." after having guzzled a boatload of Urgathoa's blood. The necrotic lady has decided that makes him (as a disaffected, driven grey necromancer) a personal pet project, and won't leave him alone, going so far as to dream-visit him and claim him as her own despite any protests to the contrary. He's been considering outright devoting himself to Pharasma just to spite the filth-glutton whore-mother of the undead, but now this Vampire thing has been put on the table that he reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wants. (The original focus of his necromancy has always been to explore his own tainted bloodline and realize his full potential...)
How better to reconcile the spiteful worship of Pharasma to reject Urgathoa than to do it with a bunch of other like-minded undead? ^.^
Just for sort of a comical interlude, I have an NPC named Wednesday that shows up from time to time who was a was a cleric of Pharasma, got slain by a cairn wight and lost her memory of her former life, took three levels of Emancipated Spawn, regained her memory and previous class levels and remains dedicated to the service of Pharasma. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem, because Pharasma is adamant about not allowing undead among her clergy, so my little cairn wight cleric of Pharasma (ex-cleric, far as Pharasma is concerned; but current cleric, as far as Wednesday is concerned) is on a mission to prove to Pharasma that her circumstances don't make her any less loyal. She's actually been offered the chance at resurrection, but she's refused, 'cuz she's on a MISSION! She's the undead Little Engine that Could! And she's taken to converting other undead who don't want to be "bad," so now she's started up her own little church and cult of Pharasma-worshipping undead, much to the consternation of Pharasma, who doesn't want them; and to the equal chagrin of Urgathoa, who DOES want them! They exist in the game more for comic relief than anything else, but they do occasionally come in handy.
I... want... in...
My dhampyr necromancer just recently received his coded message from the Whispering Way "Hey... so um... we noticed you're not undead yet... so... um... how about you and I... you know... spawn..." After having just before the level up at the end of the module guzzled down a gut full of Urgathoa's blood, the mother of the undead has decided that he belongs to her, and has dream-visioned him to let him know, that despite any protests to the contrary, that he's her toy.
He's considering joining the worship of Pharasma out of spite, but with the undead thing coming his way the only way to spitefully worship another godess is to join up with a group of likeminded undead to mock and abuse the connoisseur-of-filth...
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So what? Give into mediocrity?
Mediocrity is what the peoples want. Evil is evil because it's evil, and doesn't require choice or intent or action. Good is good because it's good, and doesn't require choice or intent or action. 'Hero' doesn't mean anything other than PC, and certainly doesn't require any 'heroism.'
That's the way of the future, Paladins who are 'good' because they wrote G on their character sheet, but don't have to have a speck of compassion or charitableness or mercy in their hearts, or be shining bastions of anything other than their own decision to call themselves good and follow some fussy rules, regardless of intent or action or beliefs. Racists can be good. Sexists can be good. *Genocide* can be good.
The less that alignment is argued to *stand for something,* the more this sort of 'evil cause it's full of seething neutrality' creep goes on, and the less meaningful alignment becomes as it's supporters work so hard to strip it of any moral significance, the sooner we can have a game that doesn't include it. [That was a terrible sentence. Grammar cops are already pounding on my door...]
I'm growing bored with arguing for a more nuanced interpretation, where a character might have to actually *earn* the right to call oneself good, or actually *choose* to be evil.
I should probably be cheering everytime someone defends a 'casting this spell to cause great harm and suffering to innocents might turn you good because it's [Good]' or 'evil despite being mindless and lacking malice or volition' rule. It's just another load-bearing support yanked away from the teetering facade of a structure that is alignment.
This new 'good without trying' or 'evil by default' is like the ceremony kids get these days for graduating 3rd grade or being the racehorse who finished dead last, but still gets credit for 'showing.'
'Congratulations, you haven't completely failed. Let's celebrate this terribly unimpressive accomplishment!'
Insert highbrow literary Harrison Bergeron reference here, or lower-brow but trendier pop-culture reference to the Incredibles. :)
Nice to find some one who hates alignment almost as much as I do.
What would you replace it with? personality trait tags? Aligance to specific gods? Or would you entirely remove morality systems from the game?
I think the bigger question is whether Pharasma has amnesty for undead.
So you've got the miller's wife, who led an immaculate if insipid life for twenty years as a lay worshipper of Erastil (and we won't even get into the question of whether you can count as a "worshipper" when you're a baby or toddler) until the night of her wedding when the local vampire lord thought he'd be Scottish and do that "first night" thing with the bride and turned her into a vampire, and she spends the next three hundred years as a Dracula's bride knock off, running around eating children and all the rest until some adventurer jams a stake into her.
So what does Pharasma look at? Twenty years (and we're being generous) as an Erastil worshipper or three hundred years as one of Urgathoa's cheerleaders? Did she have a choice about being undead? Heck, did she have a choice about worshipping Erastil? She could have been raised in such a podunk little valley that missionaries for other gods never got it out there, and it may even have been the first she heard of Urgathoa was when the adventurer called her "Spawn of Urgathoa!" and jammed a stake in her.
This is the sort of thing that Pharasma has to deal with.
Then consider the lich who willfully flipped her the bird, but passively, becoming undead to spend his next thousand years doing magical research because he's a devout worshipper of Nethys or at least a fellow traveler and he never saw an arcane ritual that he didn't want to try. For that sort of person, if you find out how to become a lich, the only thing that might give you pause is dithering over how to build the kewlest phylactery, because you wouldn't want to show up at the lich convention and have some lame phylactery like everyone else, would you?
So what does Pharasma do with the lich's soul? Send it to Nethys because they're cut from the same cloth and would get along famously? Send it to Urgathoa because he was technically undead but mostly because he would annoy her?
Then there's the next lich who swore some vow to whatever that he would not rest until whatever it was got done and then it finally was. Yippee. Whatever. At this point he decided he'd overstayed his appointed hour with Pharasma too long and thus smashed his phylactery.
Does Pharasma give him tardy penalties and a thousand years of detention for being late for death? Or does she just blow it off as not worth her bother and process the paperwork now because frankly, as the goddess of prophecy, she should know beforehand who's going to become undead and also when they're going to finally have the second death as well. Appointed hour? This is your appointed hour. It may be a thousand years after you turned into a lich, but trust me, I knew when your soul was going to show up here.
While I don't envy Pharasma's job, if you're a GM, you have to take it on when you decide the metaphysics for your particular interpretation of the world.
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If I were a Lich. I'd find a Holy Avenger. Corrupt it just enough to use it as Phylactery, but otherwise allow it be used as advertised. Then put it in my 'hoard'. On the off chance I get defeated or stolen from, I will always come back and be able to find those little maggots who dared trifle with me. And keep a back up incase: 1. They figure it out and try to destroy it (oh, but what fun to watch them squirm in that decision). 2. They loose it someon meaner than me.
Creative Director
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the open embrace of negative energy into your body are things that will infuse you with such a degree of evilJust quoting this bit so that I can mark it for the FAQ.
In Golarion, negative energy, and therefore, the negative energy plane, and spells that use negative energy, or anything powered by or suffused with negative energy, is evil. No exceptions. Word of god. Negative energy makes you evil, 'cause it is evil.
This should be errated for Great Beyond and for the core rules (inflict X wounds spells, for instance, should bear the [Evil] tag).
Whether or not positive energy / the positive energy plane / a cure X wounds spell is therefore good, would be up to you, obviously. On the one hand, it would make sense. On the other hand, it would require some cumbersome changes (such as removing cure X wounds spells from the lists of any evil clerics in adventures, since they wouldn't be able to cast them).
No. It's not that simple, alas. And my choice of words that "infusing yourself with negative energy is infusing yourself with evil" was poor. It's more like "the act of turning yourself undead is evil," and that's it.
Negative energy is not itself evil. No more so than poison itself or fire itself is evil. Unlike Hell or the Abyss, the plane itself has no underlying organizing evil. Most spells that utilize negative energy effects do not even have the Evil descriptor (just as spells that utilize positive energy don't have the Good descriptor). The ONLY negative energy using spells that have the Evil descriptor are ones that actually create undead, and they have the Evil descriptor because creating undead is an evil act, NOT because the spell uses negative energy. (This said, I bet someone finds an exception to the rule I'll have to explain and justify.)
But there's not many ways you can use negative energy for good, since all it does is snuff out positive energy—aka: Life.
Planes that are infused with alignments are pretty much limited to the outer planes, and the negative energy plane is an inner plane.
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As for lycanthropes: You can ABSOLUTELY have a non-evil or even a good werewolf. Lycanthropy no longer changes your alignment.
THAT SAID. I much MUCH prefer evil werewolves, so most werewolves you'll see in print in Paizo adventures will be evil (or maybe at the most chaotic neutral) as well. There will be exceptions. I'm pretty sure the upcoming "Broken Moon" in the Carrion Crown AP has some non evil werewolves, for example.
Lycanthropes are a sticky wicket, 'though. A LG peasant gets bitten by a werewolf, and turns into a half man (LG) half wolf (N) creature that is Chaotic Evil?
Go read the Lycanthropes entry please. It specifically states that alignment is not set by the disease.
As a quick note, the 'Good' elven liches of the FR setting, 'Baelnorn' if I remember right, were indeed POSITIVE energy 'liches' which is why they stayed 'good'. The process and power source was different enough that it did not inherently corrupt the mind/soul of the one doing it in that setting.
I for one, like that Mr. Jacobs is keeping the lich a traditional Evil in Golarion and the majority of PF. Too many 'evil good guys' have popped up in gaming in the last 15 years, so much so that folks are fogetting how to make and play interesting GOOD good guys.
The ONLY negative energy using spells that have the Evil descriptor are ones that actually create undead, and they have the Evil descriptor because creating undead is an evil act, NOT because the spell uses negative energy.
Out of idle curiosity, then why is creating undead an irredeemable evil act?
I get intelligent undead, maybe, because that messes with the soul and where you were supposed to end up. But mindless undead, that's just messing with some useless biological material that no one will miss (except maybe a few maggots, and they might not even notice the host turning mobile).
I mean, sure, stealing someone's loved one and turning them into your personal minesweeper might be disrespectful, but that's an entirely different matter. And your subjects could even be entirely voluntary.
I for one, like that Mr. Jacobs is keeping the lich a traditional Evil in Golarion and the majority of PF. Too many 'evil good guys' have popped up in gaming in the last 15 years, so much so that folks are fogetting how to make and play interesting GOOD good guys.
Thank you. There is nothing inherently "mediocre" (as someone put it) in playing alignments, or in playing a game with a few absolutes regarding alignments. Mediocrity is in HOW you play ANY setting, not the setting itself. Players who want to mindlessly hack and slash their way through every encounter are going to find a way to do so regardless of thehteme of the glame. Don't believe me? Just read the section "On Getting Gothic" in Chapter 5 of The Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming. Good roll players will find ways to be good, not mediocre, even with the apparent "handicap" of facing some creatures they know are evil by definition. As for the accusation that such concepts are "passe", well, that's just a pretentious word used to put down anything that isn't trendy enough.
Pulling a little from a separate thread here...
Planar binding takes the descriptor of the alignment of a creature you call. Calling nobile djinni makes it a good spell (forcing good creatures to provide you a service is good?) And calling efreeti makes it an evil spell.
Even if you're calling evil efreeti to abuse their wishes then kill them, its evil. While calling good noble djinni to abuse their wishes and then kill them, is good.
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The ONLY negative energy using spells that have the Evil descriptor are ones that actually create undead, and they have the Evil descriptor because creating undead is an evil act, NOT because the spell uses negative energy.Out of idle curiosity, then why is creating undead an irredeemable evil act?
I get intelligent undead, maybe, because that messes with the soul and where you were supposed to end up. But mindless undead, that's just messing with some useless biological material that no one will miss (except maybe a few maggots, and they might not even notice the host turning mobile).
I mean, sure, stealing someone's loved one and turning them into your personal minesweeper might be disrespectful, but that's an entirely different matter. And your subjects could even be entirely voluntary.
Because when you turn someone undead, they can't be resurrected. It's a perversion of someone into something else. It's a combination of brainwashing, unnecessary surgical modification, slavery, and cruelty. Undeath is a mockery of life AND death. It's playing God. It's torture. It encourages the creation of more undead (since so many undead create spawn). It encourages cruelty (since all undead are evil, and thus spread evil). For starters.
Out of idle curiosity, then why is creating undead an irredeemable evil act?
The way I've always seen it, the answer is because undeath is neither life nor death, it's a mockery of death and an imitaiton of life. Going back to Tolkien, he talked about how the evil races -- Orcs, Trolls, etc. -- were made, first by Morgoth and then by Sauron, as a mockery of the Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Ents. I see undead in the same way, especially those that are created by reanimating the dead, and those that choose undeath for themselves.
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Pulling a little from a separate thread here...
Planar binding takes the descriptor of the alignment of a creature you call. Calling nobile djinni makes it a good spell (forcing good creatures to provide you a service is good?) And calling efreeti makes it an evil spell.
Even if you're calling evil efreeti to abuse their wishes then kill them, its evil. While calling good noble djinni to abuse their wishes and then kill them, is good.
That's a weird way to look at it, but yeah. That's the way it works.
That's a weird way to look at it, but yeah. That's the way it works.Pulling a little from a separate thread here...
Planar binding takes the descriptor of the alignment of a creature you call. Calling nobile djinni makes it a good spell (forcing good creatures to provide you a service is good?) And calling efreeti makes it an evil spell.
Even if you're calling evil efreeti to abuse their wishes then kill them, its evil. While calling good noble djinni to abuse their wishes and then kill them, is good.
What you do with them after they arrive are separate acts from the spell itself.
Because when you turn someone undead, they can't be resurrected.
Good point. I'll buy that one as evidence that 'something' naughty happens to sever you from the world of the living, even if the necromancer is just messing around with zombies.
Granted, I always understood it to mean you can't be raised /while/ being undead. But either way, the point stands.
Because when you turn someone undead, they can't be resurrected.Good point. I'll buy that one as evidence that 'something' naughty happens to sever you from the world of the living, even if the necromancer is just messing around with zombies.
Granted, I always understood it to mean you can't be raised /while/ being undead. But either way, the point stands.
They can be, just not until the undead is destroyed. Resurrection: "You can resurrect someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed."
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Go read the Lycanthropes entry please. It specifically states that alignment is not set by the disease.Lycanthropes are a sticky wicket, 'though. A LG peasant gets bitten by a werewolf, and turns into a half man (LG) half wolf (N) creature that is Chaotic Evil?
Dude, you got ninja'd by a dinosaur...
Go read the Lycanthropes entry please. It specifically states that alignment is not set by the disease.Lycanthropes are a sticky wicket, 'though. A LG peasant gets bitten by a werewolf, and turns into a half man (LG) half wolf (N) creature that is Chaotic Evil?
Dude, you got ninja'd by a dinosaur...
Yeah, to be fair it is an epic dinosaur though... awakened with levels in ninja? I don't feel bad about that!
It encourages cruelty (since all undead are evil, and thus spread evil). For starters.
If this argument needed anything, it was circular logic.
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Sometimes the arguments for defining evil get a little murky, because the game doesn't make a distinction between evil (small "e," as a violation of social mores) and Evil (big "e," as a violation against the mind, body [a still useful body, anyway] or soul). An act that goes against social mores and values but only indirectly comprises the mind or soul (through offending their beliefs) could be deemed evil in the social sense, and creation of mindless undead that doesn't hinder the journey of the soul to the afterlife would qualify as that sort of lesser evil, but still evil, because you're showing a total disregard and disrespect for the fundamental beliefs and values of a people, especially the families and loved ones of the deceased. An act that directly imposes upon the mind, body or soul of a being, such as creating intelligent undead that cannot pass to the afterlife, is a greater act of Evil on a cosmological level. In that sense, I could even see an argument for such spells as Dominate or Suggestion being viewed as evil acts, especially if they are being done against the will of the target (as opposed to more benign uses, such as giving someone the willpower to do something they are irrationally afraid to do).
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This thread reminds me of the old 2e setting "Jakandor" for the "Odyssey" line of sourcebooks. Where (in a nutshell) there were two groups of peoples, one where "barbarians", the other were "civilized". The gist was that the two were constantly at war with one another for their beliefs. The more civilized of the two wanted to rebuild their fallen empire, and used zombies as slaves. It was viewed as a privilege to be "raised" in such a way after death, so that the person could continue to serve the greater purpose...
The "barbarians" however, viewed this practice and the use of magic in general, as a sacrilege and an abomination to their way of life...
Neither group was inherently evil, but the two groups viewed one another as such...
It was an interesting setting. It was a shame that it didn't have any further support...
Because when you turn someone undead, they can't be resurrected. It's a perversion of someone into something else. It's a combination of brainwashing, unnecessary surgical modification, slavery, and cruelty. Undeath is a mockery of life AND death. It's playing God. It's torture. It encourages the creation of more undead (since so many undead create spawn). It encourages cruelty (since all undead are evil, and thus spread evil). For starters.The ONLY negative energy using spells that have the Evil descriptor are ones that actually create undead, and they have the Evil descriptor because creating undead is an evil act, NOT because the spell uses negative energy.Out of idle curiosity, then why is creating undead an irredeemable evil act?
I get intelligent undead, maybe, because that messes with the soul and where you were supposed to end up. But mindless undead, that's just messing with some useless biological material that no one will miss (except maybe a few maggots, and they might not even notice the host turning mobile).
I mean, sure, stealing someone's loved one and turning them into your personal minesweeper might be disrespectful, but that's an entirely different matter. And your subjects could even be entirely voluntary.
So if you create body doubles of yourself via the Clone spell and then animate the spare flesh with Animate Dead, how many of these still apply?
Seems a lot more moral than hiring some poor lookalike to catch the assassin's crossbow bolt for you.
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Actually in my book, the creation of even mindless undead, save maybe skeletons, prevents the soul from progression to it's afterlife. The soul is essentially locked in as a helpless witness to everything it's body does in undeath, it's essence used to animate the creature, but it's will totally locked out of it.
I can see that if the Animate Dead spell were cast fairly soon after the creature's death. But it becomes problematic when it is cast on a long-dead corpse whose soul finished its transition many years ago. That opens a whole new can of worms - does the soul, now safely away in its happy afterlife, become aware of what is happening to the body it abandoned to the worms long ago? Is the soul ripped out of its afterlife and back to the material or ethereal plane to be close to its old body?