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I have a player in my campaign who is aiming to become a Lantern Bearer. Since my players started at first level I only skimmed (yeah, I know, my own fault) the Lantern Bearer prestige class. Now that they have gained a few levels I've looked into the prestige class as well as it's backstory and I'm confused to say the least.
For those who don't know:
PCs are required to be neutral good to become a member of the Lantern Bearer organization. The goal of the Lantern Bearer organization, as stated on PathfinderWiki.com, is to
Suppress knowledge of the existence of the drow, and how they came into being, and also to eradicate all the Drow.
Suppress knowledge of the existence of the Drow? Ok. How they came into existence? Savvy. And also to eradicate all the Drow? Yeah that seems compWAIT, WHAT?
I guess what I'm not understanding is how a NG character can condone finding and eradicating an entire race of people. I get (sorta) that the Drow as a race are inherently evil due to their corrupt nature but as a whole not every individual Drow is evil.
So can someone please provide me an answer as to how a NG character can participate in genocide? Or is my confusion justifiable?
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I guess what I'm not understanding is how a NG character can condone finding and eradicating an entire race of people. I get (sorta) that the Drow as a race are inherently evil due to their corrupt nature but as a whole not every individual Drow is evil.
This is where your confusion is coming from; in Golarion, all drow are in fact evil. Without getting to spoilery for the Second Darkness AP, it's sort of hard to get into, but the assumptions are not the same as in 3.5.
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Good Drow are possible in Golarion...but none of them exist at the moment barring PCs, and even Neutral ones are vanishingly rare (I believe there's a whole one even mentioned). A Lantern Bearer who ran into such a thing (or baby Drow for that matter) would be in a bit of a moral dilemma...but as a rule their modus operandi is more about containment of the Drow underground and opposition to Drow plots than extermination, given their relatively small numbers as compared to the whole cities of Drow...so that kind of thing doesn't come up a lot, and the Prestige Class lacks a Code of Conduct requiring such extermination anyway.
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All drow are evil.
Actually, they aren't.
** spoiler omitted **
This is more evil than most anything attributed to the drow. Someone starts doing this, they're acting like daemons. And they are the most hated beings in the multiverse because of what they do. If you're doing something that has gotten angels, demons, and devils to work together to stop, you've crossed some critically serious lines.
Genocide is evil. Look at the fate of those who practice it: They become the worst of the common daemons. The worst of the worst.
Quick research question for the monster orphanage thread. :)
Generally speaking, would the Lantern Bearers' kill-the-drow standard apply to drow children and infants? Or would they secret them away for some purpose other than execution?
That depends entirely on the individual Lantern Bearer, really, whether that particular person was super-hard core (and not good) and felt that all drow are evil and must be slain, or if the Lantern Bearer thinks that a drow child raised outside of drow society has a chance to live a life worth living.
AKA: It also depends on the GM. "Good" drow are one of those game elements that folks either seem to love or hate. I'm not gonna make their choice for them.
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morality thread vs. that drow holding the +2 longsword that I want
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morality thread vs. that drow holding the +2 longsword that I want
Two possibilities come to mind:
a. Stab him right in the drizzt.
b. Disarm and RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
This reminds me of when I spent an hour trying to kill Drizzt in Baldur's Gate so I could steal his weapons. Yes, I reloaded multiple times.
This was before I even knew who Drizzt was. :D
morality thread vs. that drow holding the +2 longsword that I want
Two possibilities come to mind:
a. Stab him right in the drizzt.
b. Disarm and RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
You forgot the third option: disarm him and stab him in the drizzt with his own sword.
Actually, they aren't. ** spoiler omitted ** They're just rare.
Where is that again? I read that whole adventure path and I don't remember that particular character. Sorry I don't know how to do the "spoiler" tag...
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The requirement that a Lantern Bearer be good, considering the nature of their leadership (non-good), is funny.
Going with the theme of the organization, and how their methods are actually fairly effective
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Nice burn, right there. ;)
Where is that again? I read that whole adventure path and I don't remember that particular character. Sorry I don't know how to do the "spoiler" tag...Actually, they aren't. ** spoiler omitted ** They're just rare.
Y'know, it turns out the character I'm thinking of(Endless Night, page 13) is actually CE. But guess who isn't!
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Wouldn't a Drow that was not evil eventually: ** spoiler omitted **
IIRC James Jacobs said it wouldn't work like that.
Which is for the best really, as it avoids the recent FR ugliness of "you are redeemed! Now you're not black anymore!" Eugh. That and, hey, some people just want to play elves with black skin and white hair.
When the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana came out peert near every last one of my then group decided to be drow...man was that an overpowered race.
I just said it was not balanced...alluded to the sunshine burning out all the goodies they were drooling over...and left them with an increased infravision range [but only if they protected their eyes]...they kinda lost interest...
I still have one player who wants to run a male drow bard...guess the name?
The funny thing about the Lantern Bearer prestige class, to me, is that its powers pretty much turn elves into "good" drow.
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I rather like the idea of a setting with no good drow. When I ran Second Darkness, I changed Jhondron's alignment to NE and spiced things up a bit for him.
Death to the Drizzt Do'Urden clones.
I found that to remove Drizzt clones, you have two options.
A) All drow are evil. Period. Because of reasons.
B) Make drow like other races and have good drow and evil drow.
The first is what many gamers would do to keep things simple, but can be unfulfilling to someone that wishes to play a drow. Plus, at least verisimilitude-wise, you'd have to come up with a good reason why. With the latter, I feel it does a better job at making good drow feel less unique, and therefore removing the "special snowflake" aspect of playing a good drow. Because when everyone's special, then no one is :)
I've actually combined the two in the current game I'm running, which is a colonization game in a psuedo-Caribbean setting. The drow from the Old World tend to the evil alignments because of demon worship and society. But the drow they've encountered in the New World are different and, while there are still evil drow, there are also good drow that have played a large part of the religion in that new world. It's been interesting, with one person in the group that hates drow, one that loves drow, one that doesn't trust them, and one that doesn't care. Very interesting dynamic.
Man, there must have been deep trauma with those clones, the way people are having hissy fits while just mentioning them.
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I don't really care one way or the other, considering how many other clones I've seen people play. Conan clones, Gray Mouser clones, Gandalf clones... who cares as long as their having fun.
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Man, there must have been deep trauma with those clones, the way people are having hissy fits while just mentioning them.
I've not had the experience myself but from what I have heard...
Drizzt's can have a desire, verging on entitlement, to impose a certain type of heroic narrative on the adventure.
Drizz't is actually a friendly guy but is often played as the solitary loner, but with the added burden of expecting to be admired and respected.
Also, the suicidal nature of a poorly built TWF ranger trying to dominate the combat.
It sounds pretty bad but, like I said, this is all second-hand.
Stuff like that happens with tons of other non-clone characters, too. I've always seen the hate as another form of "RPG elitism", to be in with the cool crowd who hate the mainstream.
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Honestly, the backlash has been more annoying than the clones ever were. And it has been for a long time now. I know for damn certain that I see the former far more often than the latter. We're talking exponentially more. At least.
If one really can't imagine non-evil drow concepts that aren't Drizzt-clones, that's their problem.
Agreed with Mikaze. Me and my pals have been able to make non-evil Drow that aren't Drizz't clones with ease.
On that same train, we've been able to make evil Drow of many different bents and motivations as well.
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Personally, I like that the drow were evil to the last man (elf). I'm not advocating racism or genocide. I try to be a good person. But I personally found it refreshing that the setting allowed for a race of evil. Lots of people seem to think that that's a straitjacketing proposition, a race of automatically-evil creatures. But really, it's liberating; it adds more options, specifically the option to not have to justify being totally evil. Sometimes you just want to play a bad guy. Not Freudian excuse, just a really bad attitude. We all have those days, and sometimes less is more when it comes to RP.
It's all well and good if you want drow to be more sympathetic, with at least some capacity for redemption. But I prefer to preserve some degree of acceptable target syndrome. That's just how I like my fantasy. People don't seem to question the rampant slaughter of orcs in LotR. Nor do they seem to disagree with the Pathfinder goblins, who are hilarious but very much Always Neutral Evil. That's one thing I love so much about them.
The issue hinges on the nature of philosophical concepts such as good and evil. In the real world, these are immaterial considerations, highly nuanced and horrendously vague. But in Pathfinder, Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, these are fundamental properties of the universe. They're as real as fire, water, earth and air. If you're Evil, you're made of evil. You can't change that any more than an earth elemental can be made of air. It seems that this gets glossed over for denizens of the Material Plane, but that's because mortals aren't made of evil. Mortals are fundamentally malleable. So why are red dragons always chaotic evil? Why are goblins always neutral evil? Do they have to be? Those are questions for you to answer for yourself. The developers have given us their take on what makes drow Always Evil. I, for one, am content to let Evil be evil. It's just more fun for me that way. Evil gives the drow their racial identity. Because, without Evil, what are drow? They're elves with black skin and white hair. It's like the difference between Garundi and Avistani; cosmetic and cultural, but ultimately just another flavor of human. And I want more from drow than just chocolate elves. More like a gingersnap cookie. The kind that hurts just a little bit, makes you want another bite. An Evil cookie, if you will.
You can still have them have an evil culture without being inherently evil. I don't like the idea of something having free will but unable to be nice at all.
Well that has some unfortunate implications.
Yeah, I find the concept of "inherently evil" to be very poor storytelling, too, unless it is an outsider. And even there exist some corner cases, if not we wouldn't get redeemed fiends or fallen celestials. Free will is a very important factor to life.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Re: DeDrowing someone.
I feel that what makes elves drow is like cancer. Essentially something triggered the first transmutations in some of the elves who didn't run. Even if a drow is able to survive their society and become good, or even neutral, like the person who beat cancer, it leaves its mark, and they have to be watchful for remission.
So just like Scott Hamilton's a testicle short from cancer, a drow isn't going to 'recover into elfishness'.*
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Yeah, I find the concept of "inherently evil" to be very poor storytelling, too, unless it is an outsider. And even there exist some corner cases, if not we wouldn't get redeemed fiends or fallen celestials. Free will is a very important factor to life.
Note, the fact that all drow that you fight are "inherently evil" does not mean all drow are, just all drow who live into puberty.
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I was going to say something, but then i realized i was confusing the process of becoming a Lich with being a drow. (/disappointed)
From my quick wiki searches, there seems to be nothing shameful about being a Drow, evil gods will do and touch anything they want.
If their is a spoiler wiki, i wouldn't mind reading more.
Honestly, the backlash has been more annoying than the clones ever were. And it has been for a long time now. I know for damn certain that I see the former far more often than the latter. We're talking exponentially more. At least.
If one really can't imagine non-evil drow concepts that aren't Drizzt-clones, that's their problem.
And then there are those of us who have never actually heard of this "Drizzt" and are really, really confused.
It's totally possible for two people to have the exact same character concept independently. I'd go so far as to say it's fairly common when you have the same cultural background and shared mythic tapestry.
Besides, drow are elves who get darkvision. That's probably a bigger factor in people wanting to play drow that this "Drizzt" thing, what/whoever that is.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Yeah, I find the concept of "inherently evil" to be very poor storytelling, too, unless it is an outsider. And even there exist some corner cases, if not we wouldn't get redeemed fiends or fallen celestials. Free will is a very important factor to life.
If you're Calvinist, humans are an inherently evil race. :D
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well they do seem to be really really mad about Drow and given their goal seems to be eradication, would that not make them more like Red Lantern Bearers?
"Mersiel of Golarion, you have great rage within you. Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps."
Yeah, I find the concept of "inherently evil" to be very poor storytelling, too, unless it is an outsider. And even there exist some corner cases, if not we wouldn't get redeemed fiends or fallen celestials. Free will is a very important factor to life.If you're Calvinist, humans are an inherently evil race. :D
So in a Calvinist campaign world, the Human alignment is Usually Any Evil or Always Evil?