Maybe this is one of those situations, where the morality can't really be approached from real-world morality and we just have to say "if an evil spellcaster makes a golem it may well be an evil act, but if a good spellcaster makes a golem, they are imprisoning an evil elemental for punishment and it's a good act."
Only wanted to chime in on this one point, K. Enslaving evil is not generally considered a good act. If that isn't so, someone tell me so I can put in for free hobgoblin labor! We have a ton of them in the city pokey. ;)
Edit: That said, sometimes what is not 'good' necessarily can create a good result. If a stone golem can protect a town of good citizens from evil invaders, good comes from it, regardless of whether Flamey McWonderspark was unfairly shackled as battery or not.
Hmmm. What I was thinking was along the lines of fantasy literature, you know "For terrorizing this nation, I bind your soul to serve in this magic sword for 1 thousand years!"
Also don't we sometimes make criminals give something back to society? A shoplifter is unlikely to go and pick up rubbish beside the highway out of the goodness of their heart, but I don't think it's evil to sentence people to community service. That is essentially making them work against their will.
I hardly consider breaking a horse evil.
For all those on this thread that don't have them, I really have to recommend the Books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness. They give a pretty clear view on the official views of good and evil (and some of the stuff in the BoVD, like sacrifice rules, can be used to really up some of your BBEGs!). That said, I completely disagree with the example in the BoED about torturing an evil creature to find out information to stop a calamity that will kill hundreds or even thousands. Is it evil? Yes, but it's a far lesser evil than doing nothing and letting the innocents die. In game perspectives, choosing to torture the foe and save lives would probably earn admiration and any transgression could be erased by a simple atonement spell (if we're talking about a cleric or paladin or somesuch, which I think the example did). The later would merit such revulsion for the character that I have trouble of anyone ever being able to forgive. His pride and concern for his own purity led him to inaction, an inaction that resulted in a stain far more permanent than that of the path he chose not to take.
What does that have to do with golems, anyway? What am I even talking about?
Saern (somewhat confused by my own ramble)
Or people could simply trash the "it must be an elemental" and offer an alternative for good characters to imprison demons... an interesting twist would be that in order to do this they must hunt down and personally bind a demon on the prime material plane for use in the golem, thus making the "easy" moral answer harder to accomplish than the "easy" effort answer.
Or people could simply trash the "it must be an elemental" and offer an alternative for good characters to imprison demons... an interesting twist would be that in order to do this they must hunt down and personally bind a demon on the prime material plane for use in the golem, thus making the "easy" moral answer harder to accomplish than the "easy" effort answer.
Or your could just trash the need to imprison ANYTHING to make a golem and just have the creation process use "animate object" (or even "animate dead" for flesh golems). Then there are no more moral issues to deal with (except for the possible exception of flesh golems), unless it's "enslavement" to animate a carpet or a chair or a candlestick....
It also explains the complete lack of intelligence. Animated objects like carpets, chairs or candlesticks don't get Int scores either.
The berserk factor would come in as a compound error in the "programming" language. Golems are cooler than other animated objects, but they are trickier to make. So they occaisionally go on the fritz and start smashing all the candelsticks, chairs and characters.
I considered that alternative but came to these conclusions:
1) This thread is about the "morals" of golem building
2) That creeeps a little to close to robots for my liking, even if thats what they essentially are I like to have them a little more complex than magical electricity running through magical circutry
I considered that alternative but came to these conclusions:
1) This thread is about the "morals" of golem building
2) That creeeps a little to close to robots for my liking, even if thats what they essentially are I like to have them a little more complex than magical electricity running through magical circutry
Sorry for straying outside the guidelines of the thread. I apparently misunderstood the nature of the discussion.
How about this. Nimblewirghts are created by enslaved unwilling water elementals. They are also quite intelligent. So is the intelligence from the elemental or is a product of making the elemental into magical electricity running through magical circuitry.
If it from the elemental, why aren't these horribly solid nimblewrights perpetually bereserk trying to find a way to restore themselves to watery goodness?
If it is from magical electricty resulting from the lobotimzation of a water elemental is it moral to end the existence of the intelligent nimblewright to "recover" the elemental?
As for the elemental spirit = cockroach with elemental template argument, I dunno if I but it. If the elemtental spirit has enough mental faculties to be unwilling, it probably has enough for you to be concerned about the morality of enslaving it. Being used to power a golem seems less like training a horse to draw a cart, or even to breaking a horse to let a person ride, and more like severing all higher brain functions, attaching it to a life support system and having it walk inside a wheel to power your mill. That seems as morally cupable as animating the horses dead body to do the same (and probably cheaper in the long run) and animating the dead is defined as evil in D&D.
And, if I may stray from the purity of the ethical considerations, why don't nimblewrights OR the MM golems require the caster to use a summon monster spell to acquire an elemental spirit?
I hardly consider breaking a horse evil.
For all those on this thread that don't have them, I really have to recommend the Books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness. They give a pretty clear view on the official views of good and evil (and some of the stuff in the BoVD, like sacrifice rules, can be used to really up some of your BBEGs!). That said, I completely disagree with the example in the BoED about torturing an evil creature to find out information to stop a calamity that will kill hundreds or even thousands. Is it evil? Yes, but it's a far lesser evil than doing nothing and letting the innocents die. In game perspectives, choosing to torture the foe and save lives would probably earn admiration and any transgression could be erased by a simple atonement spell (if we're talking about a cleric or paladin or somesuch, which I think the example did). The later would merit such revulsion for the character that I have trouble of anyone ever being able to forgive. His pride and concern for his own purity led him to inaction, an inaction that resulted in a stain far more permanent than that of the path he chose not to take.
What does that have to do with golems, anyway? What am I even talking about?
Saern (somewhat confused by my own ramble)
We're just talking here. Easy boy. Easy.
::feeds Saern a carrot and a sugar cube::
And, if I may stray from the purity of the ethical considerations, why don't nimblewrights OR the MM golems require the caster to use a summon monster spell to acquire an elemental spirit?
The truth, of course, is that golems aren't real. They're gnomes in metal suits, running around and trying to convince everyone that they are these "golem" things. It's all a lie. Damn gnomes...
I have been looking at this from the perspective between creating a golem and creating a zombie; what is the difference; creating a zombie is evil and most of the spells in L.M. are evil spells that enhance undead creation and whatnot; though I dont know many feats or spells to enhance a golem; this is the point I have been considering; both lack free will or and int score and can be used to combat good or evil and so on as we have all read in this thread; so what makes one evil and the other nuetral? Is there a good type creation that we have not yet considered? The game has absolutes of good and evil; we all see shades of good and evil wherein lies the problem.
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Is there a good type creation that we have not yet considered? The game has absolutes of good and evil; we all see shades of good and evil wherein lies the problem.
The Deathless creature type (found in Book of Exalted Deeds and the Eberron Campaign Setting) are kind of the "good" version of undead.
Not sure if that helps really.
Not to contribute to the drifting here, but the old, old 1st edition Lords of Darkness mentioned that part of what makes animating skelatons and zombies evil is the idea that, while the skelatons and zombies are not animated by the spirits of their previous inhabitants, the animation of their bodies causes the spirit of the dead to be restless, violating their afterlife. Not sure if this concept was ever brought forward in other products.
Is there a good type creation that we have not yet considered? The game has absolutes of good and evil; we all see shades of good and evil wherein lies the problem.The Deathless creature type (found in Book of Exalted Deeds and the Eberron Campaign Setting) are kind of the "good" version of undead.
Not sure if that helps really.
No! There will be NO "deathless" crap! The existence of good aligned ghosts is already evidence that undead can be of that very alignment and still powered by negative energy! Deathless bad! Deathless bad!
Undead are, however, typically evil. Other than those aforementioned ghosts, you'll be hard pressed to find one that isn't. There is a pretty heavy association with the powers of negative energy and evil, and the general perception that I pick up on in 3.5 edition is that animated dead are generally fueled by urges for destruction, hatred, etc. Even if they have no ability to learn, they still feel at least that much.
Golems are a trickier issue still. I've got no more ideas on the subject at the moment.
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No! There will be NO "deathless" crap! The existence of good aligned ghosts is already evidence that undead can be of that very alignment and still powered by negative energy! Deathless bad! Deathless bad!
I wasn't trying to say that it was a good (as opposed to "bad") idea or "creation", but simply that it existed.
There was a 2nd edition series with "Jakandor -- Isle of Destiny" or some-such. Anyway, a big part of that 3 part series deals with the entire race/society uses their departed family members as undead. From their point of view, it is really a waste of resources to bury a body that could be used for a lot of good in the afterlife -- everything from manual labor to guardians. So when a person dies of old age or whatever, they have a big ceremony and usher in a new zombie for the family. I also think that that was during a time in 2nd edition where either all/most unintelligent undead were either neutral or took on their creator's alignment.
No! There will be NO "deathless" crap! The existence of good aligned ghosts is already evidence that undead can be of that very alignment and still powered by negative energy! Deathless bad! Deathless bad!I wasn't trying to say that it was a good (as opposed to "bad") idea or "creation", but simply that it existed.
There was a 2nd edition series with "Jakandor -- Isle of Destiny" or some-such. Anyway, a big part of that 3 part series deals with the entire race/society uses their departed family members as undead. From their point of view, it is really a waste of resources to bury a body that could be used for a lot of good in the afterlife -- everything from manual labor to guardians. So when a person dies of old age or whatever, they have a big ceremony and usher in a new zombie for the family. I also think that that was during a time in 2nd edition where either all/most unintelligent undead were either neutral or took on their creator's alignment.
It may be evil, but it definitely seems efficient. Maybe the state should take the dead bodies and animate them for public works projects? If you can pay the death tax, you get to keep the body. Money and/or cheap labor.... Gotta love it.
I can't for the life of me remember where I got the idea from (though I know it wasn't mine so i'm not trying to take the credit) but in one campaign we had a group called the corn kings that sold their services to coastal minotaurs and made their occasional raids into a entire full scale invasion. How? well the corn kings were a group of necromancers who created undead to work all your in fields and perform all the menial labour in your entire society. They were efficient, worked day and night and required no breaks and food or anything like that. What that did was free up an entire generation to raid and pillage. The whole adventure was finding out why the minotaurs raid increased tenfold and how to stop it (by taking out the corn kings)...it was a lot of fun lol.
Anyways I just wanted to share, I apologize for derailing the thread and not having anything useful to add to the discussion.
Be safe all.
As an interesting aside (and an attempt to segue back into golem-land), you can make 400 zombies for the same price as 1 flesh goem. Assuming you can get the corpses for free.
Making a flesh golem may be evil, but, it seems the lesser evil of the two.
But, man oh man, the things one can do with 400 zombies....
This is off topic, but in one asian society a dead person is considered "alive" untill the signs are right for burial. They take this custom so far as to take grandma/grandpa meals and dress the corpse up to take out occassionally. Note: this is a real world society (forget wich specific country)
an interesting take in d&d would be to animate "grandma" untill the signs are right whereupon they are cleansed with healing spells and the now inanimate corpse is then laid to rest.
Hmm. Casts true res on this thread
My view of this topic is that you could bind a flow or nexus of elemental energy that isn't sentient to power the thing. Sort of like a modern nuclear reactor where the fuel isn't sentient and simply gives off energy. Remember, the bind an unwilling elemental is flavour text and the spells could be said to describe binding an elemental crystal or element infused ore as much as a creature. You could allow negotiations for a willing elemental, which might actually be willing to work harder than an unwilling one. How you would choose to represent that in game mechanics is up to you. Saern as to the deathless, yes I know you dislike the concept but how about this flavouring to it. As more negative energy is infused into the unliving it also slowly alters the world around slowly driving the life from the land and (if using Eberron) creates a stronger connection to Mabar, even forming weak but persistent manifest zones to that horrid plane. Infusing positive energy strengthens life maintaining a strong bond to the positive energy plane or Irian etc and maintaining the vitality of life. Also good lichs and ghosts and mummies and other intelligent non-ability-damaging or draining energy-draining or disease carrying undead can be converted to deathless, driving the foul taint of negative energy that slowly threatens their souls and sanity. Just some possible rationales (mummy rot would be altered/eliminanted by the conversion, at DM's discretion)