My take on negative energy and necromancy:
Negative and positive energy are opposite sides of the same coin. Everything in the universe, undead included, are powered by the exchange of these energies. Negative energy can be associated with death, decay, and entropy. Positive energy is associated with life, growth, and what would be described as 'energy' in modern physics. A lack of positive energy and a surplus of negative energy are basically the same, and vice versa. Either energy plane could be considered merely a sink for the other.
Positive energy, though itself neither good nor evil, is channeled by Good clerics because of its ability to heal and help others (helping others being a central theme of Good), and because it incidentally harms undead, who are almost invariably Evil. Negative energy, though itself neither good nor evil, is channeled by Evil clerics because of its ability to harm and punish others (selfishness and cruelty being central themes of Evil), and because it incidentally heals undead.
Everything in the universe requires positive energy to move. Including undead. More on that in a moment. If the universe ever came to be dominated with just one type of energy, the result would be the same: utter inaction. If the Energy planes are finite, which they may or may not be, the universe will eventually die when one or the other runs empty.
Natural processes and soulless beings, like constructs, simply exist. Theoretically enough negative energy make even a clockwork construct or a waterfall stop moving, but these things are generally unaffected by the quantities of positive or negative energy modelled by the rules.
Living creatures contain a larger amount of positive energy than their surroundings. That is why a plant is much more active than the dirt around it. Creatures with souls contain yet more positive energy. A soul is debatably a link to the positive energy plane. Living things create, grow, and reproduce (making the world more positive.) Positive energy heals the living by infusing them with vitality, vigor, and encouraging the growth needed to heal wounds. Negative energy harms the living by sapping energy, halting biology, and killing tissue. Because living beings have a choice of what they create or destroy
Dead, inert things lack positive energy. Enough positive energy can make them pseudo-living (Animate Objects, or a Ravid).
Undead creatures, however, defy the natural order. They contain the remains of a living soul, twisted to supply negative rather than positive energy. While, being devoid of positive energy, they should be dead, inert corpses, they move. Since they have no positive energy themselves, they must take it from their surroundings, deadening the area around them. An undead creature, by it's very existence, harms the living and the universe as a whole. Not because negative energy itself is evil, but because they exist only to drag the rest of the universe into death as well. This is one reason why undead will decay more slowly than an actual corpse: most decay is still caused by living organisms. Undead cannot grow or reproduce. Compared to the living, they are unable to adapt, slow to learn, and unable to create. They are a force for stagnation and decay. Being undead creates a malice toward (and frequently a hunger for) the living, partly out of envy for the vitality and potency of life, but also due to the undead's need to consume their life energies. Positive energy harms undead by filling their inner void and blunting the hunger and hate that serve as their motivating force. Negative energy heals undead by reinforcing the link of their unnatural, blackened soul to the material universe.
Necromancy is the magic of manipulating life force. Necromancy, while it certainly enables many evil acts, is not evil in itself any more than conjuration is. Cure spells used to be Necromancy in 2e. I believe other restorative magic was as well. For non-wizards, necromancy merely another school of magic. For wizards, however, the study of necromancy is the study of life itself! Wizards are also all academics, by necessity, for whom knowledge is power and vice verse. A Good necromancer might be the equivilent of a biological researcher, or a clinical physician (though Clerics make better medics that Wizards do, Clerics do not necessarily understand how their spells actually work.) An Evil necromancer, on the other hand, might simply be a sociopath who fews the dead as his playthings. If Necromancy were inherently Evil, most magical academies would refuse to teach it.
Animating undead is always evil, even when its 'for the greater good', because 1) The ends never justify the means, 2) Created undead are always Evil, so like conjuring a Demon, the spell is marked Evil, 3) Creating undead requires DEFILING A SOUL and preventing it from reaching its final rest. A body animated as a Flesh Golem is just that, flesh. A body animated as a Zombie, however, prevents even True Resurrection as effectively as Trap the Soul does. After that Zombie is destroyed, Resurrection will work again, but Raise Dead won't, because the soul has been damaged beyond it's ability to repair.
The desecration of a corpse is relative to both the corpse and the society surrounding it. There are many social norms for treating a dead body though our world...take that ritual out of time and place and you have the desecration of a corpse.
Just because an activity is a "social norm", that doesn't mean it isn't evil (at least in a campaign where absolute good and evil exist)! Otherwise, wouldn't that make the Abyss a non-evil place, if all evil activity there was the "social norm"?
Mindless undead are golems animated by negative energy. (Golems are animated by elemental spirits - which should be morally worse than just using negative energy because you bind and enslave a thinking being to animate the Golem, yet they're neutral). A Flesh Golem isn't distinguishable from a Zombie except by what animates it (elemental spirit vs. negative energy), something peasants aren't going to know or care about, and its Neutral. Zombies being evil is one of the silliest things in 3.5.
Wrong. There is evidence within the game rules that that is untrue.
If I were to rip off your head and use it as a piece of a Flesh Golem, and a cleric later cast True Ressurection naming you, you could be restored to life. If I animate you as a Zombie, and the Cleric tried to bring tou back, it will always fail until the Zombie is destroyed. And Raise Dead won't work even then (only Resurrection or better.)That means that animating undead at the very least traps the soul of a creature, preventing it from going to its rightful afterlife. Trapping a soul for the selfish purpose of having an unliving slave sounds Evil to me.
I also think that uncontrolled Zombies are rather likely to try to kill people, rather than just stand around. I mean, it's a ZOMBIE!
(And I agree that Deathless are silly. A creature animated by positive energy is *alive*.)
Agreed.
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I also think that uncontrolled Zombies are rather likely to try to kill people, rather than just stand around. I mean, it's a ZOMBIE!
Which is certainly a DMs preregative, to have AD&D Zombies be brain-eaters or whatever, because he rather liked the George Romero movies, but the ones in the AD&D game are mindless. They can't be malicious anymore than a pebble can be kind-hearted.
The game has rules for Golems, animated by elementals, going into berserk states and being violent to all around them. But Skeletons and Zombies *don't* have such rules and don't go berserk and start attacking people, by the rules. Negative Energy animations are *less* 'evil' and destructive and 'life-hating' than elemental energy animations, by the rules!
I don't have any problem with making them life-hating and malicious and giving them an Int score of 1 or 2, and making the corresponding Positive Energy Plane a place of goodness, therefore denying evil Clerics the power to cast spells that channel [Good] Positive Energy, but I also recognize that I would feel compelled to create some way in which evil Clerics could restore damage, perhaps through necromantic spells that siphon / steal life-energy from other creatures and give it to themselves or their allies. Healing is too important a role in the game to restrict to only good characters, IMO, and if Negative Energy is inherently corruptive and [Evil], then Positive Energy must be [Good], barring some Lovecraftian universe where the planes are unbalanced in favor of evil and the forces of good are pretty much in retreat, if not long-dead.
Whichever choice is made, to have Negative Energy and it's effects be Neutral (much like being burned to death with elemental fire), to have Negative Enegy and it's effects be Evil and Positive Energy and it's effects be Good, or to play a 'fallen universe' where Negative Energy is evil and Positive Energy is neutral, it would require some rules changes.
The current setup is inconsistent, as the rules contradict each other.
Negative Energy is evil, except that it isn't. Creatures imbued with negative energy are evil, except when they are neutral Clerics or the Neutral *natives of the Negative Energy plane!* Good Clerics can Inflict Light Wounds on people all the live-long day, since bringing Negative Energy into the world is apparently harmless and non-evil, but if they use Deathwatch to save lives by rationing healing to those who are in greatest risk and not stablized, then they are [Evil] and risk alignment change. For that matter, if a good Cleric risks alignment change by casting [Evil] spells, regardless of intent, then, logically, he can just make up for it by casting [Good] spells, equally regardless of intent, even if he intends to 'game the system,' it doesn't matter *why* he casts an [Evil] spell, so it shouldn't matter either why he casts a [Good] spell, no matter how cheap, tawdry or evil his intent. If he Summons Celestial Badgers and has them attack an orphanage, that's a [Good] spell. If he Summons a Fiendish Wolf and has it save little Timmah, trapped down there in th well, that's [Evil] and he's gonna burn.
"Let's see, I cast Animate Dead to use the villagers ancestors to fight off the Goblins that were threatening them, and then Deathwatch to find out who needed immediate healing, saving pretty much everyone in the village, but that's seven levels of [Evil], so I have to cast seven Protection from Evils to balance that out with equal levels of [Good] spells, or Summon some Celestial Badgers or something..." The whole concept that [Evil] spells can magically 'turn you evil' requires that [Good] spells work identically and 'turn you good' and the whole idea is, IMO, lame beyond lame and cheapens the entire concept of alignment (which is pretty darn cheap anyway).
Good Clerics can also throw elemental fire (by Summoning Fire Elementals, for instance) all day long without risk of alignment change, despite the fact that Golems, made with elemental spirits, are prone to violent berserk rampages, while undead, made with negative energy, are prone to lying around like marionettes with their strings cut when not given specific commands.
The current game is totally schizo on this issue. 3.0 was more consistent, with it's neutral mindless Skeletons and Zombies and unaligned Negative and Positive Energy planes, but 3.5 has only gotten *less* consistent.
The reason I claim that mindless undead are prone to violence has to do with adventure design.
By RAW, a Golem will always obey its last orders and one person can command as many golems as he likes, so it makes sense that a Golem with guardian orders will obey them long after its controller is dead.
On the other hand, a Necromancer can control 4HD of undead per level (it might be 8HD/level in Pathfinder). That's a hard limit. Presumably, if the necromancer dies, their control breaks and 'mindless' undead lose their orders. (If the mindless ones don't lose their orders, then they'd hardly matter under the cap, since you could 'release' them after giving orders.) Zombies in ancient tombs and animated by spontaneous processes in adventures are usually opponents, not meat puppets that don't fight back. If a zombie doesn't move, it's not a zombie, it's a corpse.
EDIT: The lack of a control cap is likely why Golems cost so much more than an undead of the same HD or CR.
Furthermore, just because something is mindless doesn't mean it takes no action without orders. Vermin are mindless, for instance. A controlled undead is a puppet and an automaton. An uncontrolled zombie reverts to its (un)natural state, which I promise is far more malevolent than a Giant Spider.
EDIT: Deathwatch being Evil is stupid. I agree. A lot of Necromancy [Evil] spells could probably lose the descriptor. I hate that Conjuration (Healing) has become a dodge to put 'good' necromancy spells that aren't actually Good. Necromancy, and the energy types, are neutral. Undead on the other hand, are almost always evil. Ghosts are about the only undead type that make sense of other alignments.
But it's not that Clerics risk alignment change by casting spells with Evil (or Good, or Lawful...) descriptors. They literally can't prepare them in the first space or cast them from scrolls. A Cleric/Wizard might risk alignment change by casting Animate Dead as a Wizard, but he can't cast it at all as a cleric. A Good Cleric can't summon fiendish creatures at all.
The current game is totally schizo on this issue. 3.0 was more consistent, with it's neutral mindless Skeletons and Zombies and unaligned Negative and Positive Energy planes, but 3.5 has only gotten *less* consistent.
It's only schizo if you think that Animate Dead is evil because (and only because) it uses negative energy. In my campaign, using negative energy isn't necessarily evil (cf. Enervation or Inflict Light Wounds), but animating a corpse is evil in itself; whether it uses negative energy is beside the point. The same goes for Desecrate -- it's not evil because it uses negative energy, it's just plain evil to begin with.
There are real inconsistencies though, IMO. Like an evil cleric of a sun god can't get any benefit from the Sun domain power (in 3.5).
I also think that uncontrolled Zombies are rather likely to try to kill people, rather than just stand around. I mean, it's a ZOMBIE!
LOL.
Are you saying Zombies get BORED? :D
I just picture them standing around -
Zombie #1: "This mindless shuffling around is all well and good, but I was thinking that maybe we could try something else for awhile?"
Zombie #2: "How about we chase some living people around?"
Zombie #3: "Whatever for?"
Zombie #2: "I don't know... just for kicks. Maybe we should mumble "Brains!' as we stagger toward them, just for laughs..."
Zombie #1: "That would be friggin awsome! They'll crap in their pants! lets do it"!"
Zombie #3: "Okay... I'm in... BRAINSssss!"
Are you saying Zombies get BORED? :D
I was just saying that a Zombie hates the living as much as any other undead, and that's what ir reverts to if uncontrolled. I like your version too, though.
Thanks.
I wasn't making fun or anything - the weirdest things spark my imagination sometimes. :D
Wrong. There is evidence within the game rules that that is untrue.
If I were to rip off your head and use it as a piece of a Flesh Golem, and a cleric later cast True Ressurection naming you, you could be restored to life. If I animate you as a Zombie, and the Cleric tried to bring tou back, it will always fail until the Zombie is destroyed. And Raise Dead won't work even then (only Resurrection or better.)
That means that animating undead at the very least traps the soul of a creature, preventing it from going to its rightful afterlife. Trapping a soul for the selfish purpose of having an unliving slave sounds Evil to me.I also think that uncontrolled Zombies are rather likely to try to kill people, rather than just stand around. I mean, it's a ZOMBIE!
Well, there here's a few to think on.
1) It doesn't "trap the soul" within the body at least, because the soul goes to the outer planes. It just cannot be returned to life while its body is an undead.2) There's nothing to stop a soul from returning to a suitable body (via a clone spell, for example), while their true body is animated. For example, if your character was killed, and animated, you can't be raised because your body isn't available (it's currently a CREATURE), and tearing off parts of said body would be parts of that creature, not you. However, your soul can return to your cloned body. No imprisonment.
3) In fact, clone could provide a suitable "Corpse" to cast animate undead on as well, and perhaps create undead as well (which would be odd, I'd imagine).
- On uncontrolled undead.
4) In 3.0, the animate dead spell had a sentence that said any uncontrolled undead follow the last order the received before being released, which quite adequately explains all the undead who just hang around in various tombs and dungeons guarding stuff, which don't wander out of said tomb. "Kill anyone not bearing this symbol who enter here." would be a perfectly viable final order to give to undead to guard your lair before you release them. You couldn't give them further orders without command undead or something similar.
That line was removed in 3.5, either as an oversight, or intentionally, since the spell was rewritten, to include a costly material component, increase the HD you could control. Perhaps they thought it prevented players from trying to abuse the "final order" feature of the spell (which never was a problem in any games I ever involved in or heard of).
Instead it only says they become uncontrolled. However this is what the 3.5 SRD says about skeletons, which would apply to their being uncontrolled as well.
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, mindless automatons that obey the orders of their evil masters.
A skeleton is seldom garbed in anything more than the rotting remnants of any clothing or armor it was wearing when slain. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. Because of this limitation, its instructions must always be simple. A skeleton attacks until destroyed.
Lines highlighted to draw attention. Under the 3.5 rules, unless the skeletons act "because DM says so", skeletons don't do ANYTHING even when uncontrolled. Which is why I wish they kept the animate dead explanation from 3.0, since it made more sense and automatically explained far more about them. Incidentally, skeletons were mindless in 3.0 and were also *bing* Neutral.
Interestingly, the 3.5 SRD actually has far less to say on zombie behavior, and just says "animated through dark sinister magic...because of their utter lack of intelligence, instructions given to zombies must be very simple".
Though I doubt I could find proof of it again, back at late 3.0, and early 3.5, I read something about the revision on the WotC site, and it suggested they made the mindless undead evil so the paladin's "smite evil" ability would work on them. Poor solution, IMO.
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Just goes to show another good reason why some of these things should be modified. I'll post up a full list of changes I recommend to the 3.5 system regarding the whole subject, including revisions to spells such as animate dead, desecrate, consecrate, hallow, unhallow, and so forth. I'll have it up on the boards shortly.
Peace out, Game on.
- EDIT: Oh yeah, and enslaving an elemental which actually HAS an intelligence and soul in a golem is probably not good either, but you don't need to be [Evil] to do it, and it's not even considered an evil act by the rules, and that IS slavery and cruel (it even says "unwilling" elemental spirit).
Huh. I was unaware that Clone could bring back a creature who was currently undead. That ought to stir up a debate between science (arcane magic) and religion (divine magic). But sticking to divine spells, the idea that Raise Dead simply fails because the body isn't yours anymore, it's the zombie's, is interesting. Resurrection will fail even if the body part you're using was removed before animation, though, unless the undead is destroyed. True resurrection will also fail, despite the fact that it doesn't require a body at all. That strongly implies that making an Undead has something to do with the soul of the creature.
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True resurrection will also fail, despite the fact that it doesn't require a body at all. That strongly implies that making an Undead has something to do with the soul of the creature.
Maybe the negative energy infusing the corpse somehow cockblocks the positive energy that is attempting to forge a connection to draw the persons spirit from wherever it ended up. These two energy types don't seem to 'play well together.'
I wonder what happens if a bunch of people cast ressurection on various parts of a dismembered person. Who gets the soul? Is it split into lots of little souls? Does the one who finished first get it? Does the highest level caster get it?
It's like the Catholic twin dilemna, since it's canon that souls are issued at the exact moment of conception, and twins start out as a single egg that doesn't divide into two seperate clusters for several hours. Is the little soul ripped in half, or are souls indivisible and the twins only have one soul between them, or is one of the twins an 'evil twin,' soulless and prone to tricking his brothers girlfriends into sleeping with him and getting credit cards in his name? It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate the Jesuits, and probably also explains why so many monastaries make their own wine. :)
Maybe the negative energy infusing the corpse somehow cockblocks the positive energy that is attempting to forge a connection to draw the persons spirit from wherever it ended up. These two energy types don't seem to 'play well together.'
Interesting idea. Perhaps the cockblocking (as you put it) is due to corrupting the link between body and soul. Is it Evil to prevent someone from being resurrected?
*lightbulb* Alternate theory: Animation as undead blocks the soul from going to the afterlife. Raise Dead and its friends, being divine spells, look in the afterlife for your soul. Clone, on the other hand, being non-divine, simply creates a vessel for a matching soul to fill, can find the soul in the material world. Blocking a soul from the afterlife is still evil, but not AS evil as corrupting the soul itself (like I had previously assumed.) This also solves the dilemma of casting Animate Dead on an inert Clone or a corpse that had been True Res'ed elsewhere.
Both theories mess with my idea that all creatures need some type of soul to function (even if Undead had backwards souls), but Undead as being literally soulless works too.
I wonder what happens if a bunch of people cast ressurection on various parts of a dismembered person. Who gets the soul? Is it split into lots of little souls? Does the one who finished first get it? Does the highest level caster get it?
I've always assumed whoever finishes first, because by then the person is resurrected and the other spells have nothing to do.
It's like the Catholic twin dilemna, since it's canon that souls are issued at the exact moment of conception, and twins start out as a single egg that doesn't divide into two seperate clusters for several hours. Is the little soul ripped in half, or are souls indivisible and the twins only have one soul between them, or is one of the twins an 'evil twin,' soulless and prone to tricking his brothers girlfriends into sleeping with him and getting credit cards in his name? It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate the Jesuits, and probably also explains why so many monastaries make their own wine. :)
Well, given the nature of Identical twins, they tend to have reverse handedness. Clearly, the left handed (sinister) one is the soulless, evil one. Fraternal twins have separate conceptions and present no dilemma.
Nothing like weighing in late to a long thread :) Personally I see positive and negative energy as neutral. Creating undead on the other hand, is evil. Even skeletons. Skeleton's are mindless according to the MM. Fine. They are also NE, again according to the MM. And yes, I've heard the Paladin smiting thing as a game mechanic reason. In the description of skeletons it says they obey the orders of their evil masters. Necromancers, in short. Creation of undead is a crime against the natural order / life. It's evil, no matter who does it or why. I always figured the alignment of skeletons is a residual from the magic that created them. Evil, in short. FRPGs are worlds of absolute moral values, not modern situational ethics. Besides, let's face it, messing with someone's body after they're dead is... wrong. And icky. And, in the ultimate tribute to the Medieval mindset... the book says it's evil. QED, it's (skeletons and their masters) evil :D
Except their masters don't have to be evil, in fact they can serve their neutral or even good masters (since wizards and sorcerers can cast the spell without caring about the [Evil] descriptor), and the only thing that makes it evil is because the spell has the [Evil] descriptor, and the skeletons have a moral alignment of Evil (despite being mindless). In fact, the skeletons are affected by smite evil for the same reason most orcs are, but not because of some innate evil like the [Evil] subtype.
This is the very reason I say they messed up this whole topic in 3.5 when they revised 3.0. They "fixed" it with a very poor mechanic, and there is no clear reason why animate dead is evil beyond it having an [Evil] descriptor. Interestingly, there are other ways to turn undead than with the animate dead spell, which the raise spells don't don't work on.
On a side note, just to show how easy it is to misinterpret any given piece of this puzzle; I was reading the raising spells because of this very topic, and upon reading through them, I realized it could also mean you can't "raise" a character turned into an undead (that is bringing a wight back to "life" from its undead state). Not saying that's actually what it intends, but it just goes to show it doesn't explain anything well enough in my opinion.
:(
Peace out, Game on.
Except their masters don't have to be evil, in fact they can serve their neutral or even good masters (since wizards and sorcerers can cast the spell without caring about the [Evil] descriptor), and the only thing that makes it evil is because the spell has the [Evil] descriptor, and the skeletons have a moral alignment of Evil (despite being mindless).
:(
Peace out, Game on.
So, good and neutral people can do evil. No surprise. The layers of the Abyss and the Nine Hells are full of good people who started doing evil things and ended up being evil... that's the point. The act is evil. To do it is to become evil. It's one of those things that Demons and Devils probably try to convince people to do: "It can't be evil if it's done for a good cause". The road to Hell is, as they say, paved with good intentions.
Mind you, I'm not so sure I buy it from a real world perspective, but morality in a fantasy world tends to be more absolute. Unless you want to erase the boundaries between good and evil, light and darkness, the nice place and h-e-double hockey sticks :)
*edit* Personally, this type of "fall" into evil is one of the things that can make a villain understandable, even allow you to empathize with them. It's part of the pathos of evil. It's what made Prince Gaynor the Damned a tragic figure in Michael Moorcock's stories... the best, and perhaps most evil, villains were once good. Same thing in Roger Zelazny's Dilvish the Damned stories. His enemy, Jelerak, had been a white wizard. He fell into dark ways and, as one of the characters says, "those are the worst". The corruption of good is one of the main goals of evil. And it's why my Lawful Church has a Grand Inquisition...
*edit 2* Damn it! I typed Jele... he who should not be named's name. Too damn late to edit it. I can practically hear the demon's wings beating over head... have to get the old wand out... er, later. Busy time. :)
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On a side note, just to show how easy it is to misinterpret any given piece of this puzzle; I was reading the raising spells because of this very topic, and upon reading through them, I realized it could also mean you can't "raise" a character turned into an undead (that is bringing a wight back to "life" from its undead state). Not saying that's actually what it intends, but it just goes to show it doesn't explain anything well enough in my opinion.
It was an actual tactic back in 1st / 2nd Ed to use Raise Dead as an attack spell to turn Liches and Vampires back into very annoyed humans.
"You meddling fool! Do you have any idea how much I paid to become a Lich! How long it took?"
"Do you have any idea how *old* you are right now?"
"Oh fiddlesticks..." [crumbles to dust, having exceeded his Maximum Age by about 250 years]
I know back in 3.0, I had a player try that trick on a lich. That didn't fly, and the cleric was soon sitting on the ground in a coma. :P
But yeah, I'd say even more so now that I believe that's what the wording is supposed to imply, not that you can't revive a undead guy, but that you can't REVIVE an undead guy. lol
This is the very reason I say they messed up this whole topic in 3.5 when they revised 3.0. They "fixed" it with a very poor mechanic, and there is no clear reason why animate dead is evil beyond it having an [Evil] descriptor.
Well, it's been a morally dubious act even in previous editions. From the AD&D PHB:
"The act of animating dead is not basically a good one, and it must be used with careful consideration and good reason by clerics of good alignment."
However, morally dubious /= Evil.
If a Good cleric had a sufficiently good reason to animate a corpse (something which should probably be left to DM adjudication), he should be allowed to, unless his deity is one of those who tends to fly into a frothing rage at the mere mention of undeath.
Except their masters don't have to be evil, in fact they can serve their neutral or even good masters (since wizards and sorcerers can cast the spell without caring about the [Evil] descriptor), and the only thing that makes it evil is because the spell has the [Evil] descriptor, and the skeletons have a moral alignment of Evil (despite being mindless). In fact, the skeletons are affected by smite evil for the same reason most orcs are, but not because of some innate evil like the [Evil] subtype.
The Evil subtype shouldn't be used for things that are not listed as 'Always X Evil'. A redeemed (or penitent) demon is interesting, as is a fallen angel, and it serves them to have crisscrossed alignments and subtypes, but giving it to a Neutral creature is functionally the same as simply making their alignment Neural Evil. Detection spells turn out the same way. Smiting and Alignment-based spells turn out the same way. Except then they'd be able to overcome DR/Evil, I guess. The subtype should be reserved for creatures actually made out of evil.
Also, while a good wizard can cast Animate Dead (or summon demons), those are still evil acts. If you do them all the time, guess what, you're evil. Road to hell, as others have said.
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The Evil subtype shouldn't be used for things that are not listed as 'Always X Evil'. A redeemed (or penitent) demon is interesting, as is a fallen angel, and it serves them to have crisscrossed alignments and subtypes, but giving it to a Neutral creature is functionally the same as simply making their alignment Neutral Evil. Detection spells turn out the same way. Smiting and Alignment-based spells turn out the same way. Except then they'd be able to overcome DR/Evil, I guess. The subtype should be reserved for creatures actually made out of evil.
This has all sorts of story potential. I don't use the 'always' alignment *except* for celestials, fiends, etc. as they are assumed to be 'made out of evil.' And even then, a celestial *can* 'fall' and a demon can be 'redeemed.' It's just a heck of a lot harder for them than it would be for a Red Dragon to be Lawful Good, as the outsider has their moral / ethical basis as a fundamental part of their 'biology.' They have to not just choose to be good or evil, they have to be accepted by some higher power (for a fiend being redeemed) and their base nature transformed (or rejected by a higher power / seduced by a lower power, for an angel 'falling').
Also, while a good wizard can cast Animate Dead (or summon demons), those are still evil acts. If you do them all the time, guess what, you're evil. Road to hell, as others have said.
Which does beg the question, are [Good] or [Lawful] or [Chaotic] spells equally transformative? If I cast Summon Monster I (fiendish wolf) a hundred times, I turn evil, regardless of whether or not I'm using the wolf to save children from wells. If I cast Summon Monster I (celestial eagle) a hundred times, does the [Good] descriptor of the spell force me to become good? If I summon Chaos Beasts, do I turn Chaotic, and if I summon Formians, do I turn Lawful? Is changing alignment *really* that easy, that mechanical and reductionistic that intent *doesn't matter at all?*
Does a Neutral Cleric of Obad-Hai who Turns Undead too often become a Neutral Good Cleric of Obad-Hai, automatically, no matter how hard he attempts to maintain the balance, and does a Lawful Neutral Cleric of Wee Jas who uses her Rebuke Undead power to channel negative energy automatically become Lawful Evil as the years go by?
Is that what alignment is meant to be in D&D, a series of checkboxes, like the Humanity score of a Vampire character, that is marked off mechanically as certain actions are performed until the character becomes a different person?
IMO, that sort of thinking cheapens the whole concept of alignment, and leads to threads about whether Batman is Lawful Good, that make the baby Pelor cry.
Also, while a good wizard can cast Animate Dead (or summon demons), those are still evil acts. If you do them all the time, guess what, you're evil. Road to hell, as others have said.Which does beg the question, are [Good] or [Lawful] or [Chaotic] spells equally transformative? If I cast Summon Monster I (fiendish wolf) a hundred times, I turn evil, regardless of whether or not I'm using the wolf to save children from wells. If I cast Summon Monster I (celestial eagle) a hundred times, does the [Good] descriptor of the spell force me to become good? If I summon Chaos Beasts, do I turn Chaotic, and if I summon Formians, do I turn Lawful?
I would say that if you mixed and matched good- and evil-aligned spells without particularly worrying about it, that would make you trend towards neutral.
If you were a neutral character who never cast any evil-aligned spells but who called on assistance from good-aligned outsiders frequently, that would make you lean a bit towards good. (Obviously you would like hanging out with the "good guys" more than the "bad guys", anyways.)
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Not The Last Word:
I've always considered that mindless undead are evil because of their ultimate origin: Orcus. Anything that a Greater Demon Lord --or perhaps a powerful evil deity in your campaign-- invents and invests his own power into, is Evil, regardless of any benign or moral-neutral uses that mortals may set them to.
If Anthraxas were a Greater Demon Lord who'd invented and continued to power Summon Sheep spells, then that spell would be Evil-aligned.
In particular, clerics who pray for spells that have anything to do with undead --other than blasting them apart-- must in some way acknowledge Orcus' creations in their petitions, and that is itself gives power to the Demon Lord.
It's not the casting that's [Evil]. The [Evil] happened when the cleric prayed that morning.
See? With a little bit of effort, we can justify anything.
This has all sorts of story potential. I don't use the 'always' alignment *except* for celestials, fiends, etc. as they are assumed to be 'made out of evil.' And even then, a celestial *can* 'fall' and a demon can be 'redeemed.' It's just a heck of a lot harder for them than it would be for a Red Dragon to be Lawful Good, as the outsider has their moral / ethical basis as a fundamental part of their 'biology.' They have to not just choose to be good or evil, they have to be accepted by some higher power (for a fiend being redeemed) and their base nature transformed (or rejected by a higher power / seduced by a lower power, for an angel 'falling').
I wasn't trying to say that Outsiders can't change alignment (you're right, it makes for great stories), I was just saying that's the only case where showing up on both Detect Good and Detect Evil makes sense.
Which does beg the question, are [Good] or [Lawful] or [Chaotic] spells equally transformative? If I cast Summon Monster I (fiendish wolf) a hundred times, I turn evil, regardless of whether or not I'm using the wolf to save children from wells. If I cast Summon Monster I (celestial eagle) a hundred times, does the [Good] descriptor of the spell force me to become good? If I summon Chaos Beasts, do I turn Chaotic, and if I summon Formians, do I turn Lawful? Is changing alignment *really* that easy, that mechanical and reductionistic that intent *doesn't matter at all?*
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They are equally transformative. I don't think it's a matter of checkboxes, though. In the case of Animate Dead, I still think it's a fundamentally selfish and evil act to bind the dead to your will. Doing it once to save a town might be defensible, but if you make a habit of it after realize how much easier it was than fighting personally, that's how the temptation of evil works.
Summoning creatures is a bit more interesting, because you have the choice to summon various types of creature. If you're summoning a fiendish wolf to save children, you have to wonder why you didn't summon a celestial dog instead. Is it the rush of power? Do you like how intimidating it looks? One also has to wonder as to the wisdom of summoning a snarling fiend to rescue children, when control over summoned creatures is not exactly fine-grained. I do also think the magical feedback from the spell can subtly affect the caster's personality. So if you make a habit of summoning Formians, for example, over time you may start to see the world the way they do, which over time might change your alignment. If you don't like the change (i.e. you were chaotic to start with), you might hate what the magic is doing to you, and stop summoning Formians. A caster who summons a lot of devils will find themselves thinking like one so on.
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While I am fine with Negative/Positive energy being neutral.
I don't see most undead being neutral.
The inner planes are mostly (for lack of better term) No God's land. They are the basically an area of stored up material that goes to make up the material planes. There maybe worshipers there of divine beings, but most server only more powerful elementals who are godlike, but not actual gods.
The act of animating a dead body IMHO is what makes the undead creature evil. Negative energy is just one ingredient in the process.
Water is not evil but if I force a kitten into it with no hope of breathing air, I have performed evil.
The act is what taints the creature. How exactly is not clear. (Certainly not in RAW.)
While I do have my arguments against alignment, I also see the strengths. When i run a game with alignments, the Gods are the arbiters of alignment. It was an agreement agreed to long ago, if not direct by them, perhaps tacitly and know all the gods agree that such an act is by thier definition "evil".
JRM, that's certainly a good take on it. Isn't that how Vampires worked in the Buffyverse? That they were really diluted demon spirits?
How do you account for the idea that Raise Dead can't raise a person even after being destroyed as undead? That is, die, animate as zombie, smash zombie until it stops moving, raise dead still doesn't work.
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Well my take on why raise dead wouldent work after the actual undead has been destroyed would be that the body would still be overloaded with the negative energy that animated it in the first place. This would mean you would need an over whelming output of positive energy to cleanse the negative energy and make it habitable again.
Well my terori about rising a soul in a undead is that the gods won't let the souls get rised in a contaniner full of negative energy since the amount a zombie or other undead contians could damage or destryge the soul, and my opingein about undeads is evil is that animating a corpe is not evil since is just a corpe and not a soul, but if you create a wriaght out of a soul you are defenly making and vile act.
P.S. This is my first post on the board.
- Kree'Jy
P.S. This is my first post on the board.
- Kree'Jy
Welcome! Lilith will probably be by shortly with cookies.
This is my first post on the board.
YAY! Welcome! Have cookies! *gives Kree'Jy some cookies*
Thanx for the cookies gonna save them for tommorrow :)
Golems? Actually, D&D is inconsistent about them. I don't know what was mentioned in previous editions but the 3.5 Monster Manual says unwilling earth spirits. Yet Libris Mortis (or was it BOVD, or both?) says willing elemental spirits by way of differentiation from undead. Personally, I've no problem ruling that constructs don't need any spirit for purposes of animation.
Constructs are a bit more of a grab-bag. Golems are animated by Earth spirits. If we need a basis for comparison, the ones that Berserk have unwilling spirits, the others have semi-willing or willing spirits. Brass Men are animated by Fire Spirits. Homonculi are animated by a fragment of its creator's soul, akin to the bit of essence traded with a familiar. Clockwork constructs can have any manner of animating force, from shadow essence (Automatons in the MM2), to elemental fires, to a simple wound spring (with no actual life force at all), to something resembling a real soul (nimblewrights). Animated objects are simply overloaded with positive energy until they start moving.
Which is fine. But, as mentioned above, I do think that if one is going to stay with the "binding an unwilling spirit" into permanent slavery method, then creation of that particular construct should be an evil act and freeing the spirit from bondage (aka destroying said golem) should be a good act.
That's open for debate. Creating a Flesh Golem is an evil act: It requires casting Animate Dead, and the text specifically makes a reference to this fact. Creating a Clay Golem, by RAW isn't evil.
One might argue that creating a Golem is no worse than using Planar Binding to get an Earth Elemental servant. Elementals and Outsiders, by their nature, are prone to this type of binding. It might simply be part of their existence. Wheras with Undead, you are either twisting the soul and preventing it from going to the afterlife, or summoning some sort of fiendish essence to fill the vessel.
A wizard could turn human corpses into Medium-sized Animated Objects and going by the rules it's not an evil act. They're also more effective combatants than zombies, although more difficult to make.
Animate Objects is a Cleric spell, but yes, your point remains true.
(It totally should be a wizard spell, though. Clerics of myth rarely animated the footstool to do their bidding. Wizards did.)
A wizard could turn human corpses into Medium-sized Animated Objects and going by the rules it's not an evil act. They're also more effective combatants than zombies, although more difficult to make.Animate Objects is a Cleric spell, but yes, your point remains true.
(It totally should be a wizard spell, though. Clerics of myth rarely animated the footstool to do their bidding. Wizards did.)
One practical problem I forsee with "animated object" pseudo undead... what's going to hold that body together? Decaying corpses aren't all that resilient. Things fall off. Also, the spells list of materials that can be animated doesn't include decaying flesh per se. It does include leather, but then leather is tougher than decaying flesh. *sigh* Although I can hear people plotting to cure the hides of dead bodies (or embalm the living) even as I write this... which, when you think about it is a good definition of "evil".
Gentle Repose on a regular basis should do it.
Thing is, it'd be easier to just animate a scarecrow or something.
If you're animating dead bodies, you're doing it because it's easier than the elaborate workarounds of Animate Objects or construct creation. Taking the 'Easy way out' at the expense of someone else's soul and quickening the eventual end of the universe is Evil.
The problem with the argument is that both sides are right.
Undead are evil and undead and nasty and morally unfavorable.
And undead are just so much biological waste, free to be used by whoever.
The difference between the two is largely a matter of culture. Some cultures even today carry about the bones/corpses of their deceased famiy members- yearly if not more so- giving celebrations and such to them, and regularly talking to and seeking their advice.
Other cultures eat their dead, and don't much think about it otherwise. Which is right? Which is "good"?
It's perception.
In our "modern" society, most people would consider the raising of corpses to be a vile act. To violate the sanctity of the dead in such a manner would be deeply frowned upon- and is in fact a criminal act.
Myself, I'm afraid that the reason the rules are as they are has more to do with that, than any actual ingame reason. To make the game more appealing, to make it more "mom friendly", and less disturbing, they made undead evil and the crafting of them also evil.
It isn't so much an issue of "the cosmology changed to make them evil" as it is, "they need to be evil, so lets change the cosmology".
While I would love to see it changed back, I have little hope that Paizo will redo the entire necromancy school, some of the undead, and quite a few spells (and their schools) in order to accomplish it.
-S
The problem with the argument is that both sides are right.
Undead are evil and undead and nasty and morally unfavorable.
And undead are just so much biological waste, free to be used by whoever.
The difference between the two is largely a matter of culture. Some cultures even today carry about the bones/corpses of their deceased famiy members- yearly if not more so- giving celebrations and such to them, and regularly talking to and seeking their advice.
Other cultures eat their dead, and don't much think about it otherwise. Which is right? Which is "good"?
It's perception.
The problem with this is that D&D has concepts of absolute good and absolute evil. For instance, demons are demonstrably Evil; they show up as Evil to Detect Evil spells, a Commune spell will answer "yes" to the question "Are demons Evil?", etc. The rules don't say anything about perception or cultural mores.
Similarly, you can verify whether creating undead is Evil in a fairly straightforward manner (using Commune, a Phylactery of Faithfulness, asking a Good deity to grant the spell Animate Dead, etc.).
In the real world, I agree with you 100%; I'm a moral relativist myself. But it's silly to apply the same principles to the D&D rules. Naturally, a DM is allowed to make whatever kind of campaign he likes, including one where alignment doesn't exist at all.