Haven't thought about the Isle of War since the waning days of 2nd ed. Could be interesting.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Anyone else interested in a conversion of this setting?
The setting would require that mindless undead (like the Charonti's sharanti (old-people zombies) be Neutral, rather than Evil, or else it's pretty obvious that the Charonti are the bad guys.
Into D&D 3.5, or into Pathfinder? Pathfinder's Channel Energy is going to play oddly in Jakandor.
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The setting would require that mindless undead (like the Charonti's sharanti (old-people zombies) be Neutral, rather than Evil, or else it's pretty obvious that the Charonti are the bad guys.
I never bought the premise that a mindless creature could be anything other than neutral. It would be the same as saying a computer is evil. They can only do what the person who made them tells them to.
So, a type of ooze native to the Abyss, a living, fluid, animate manifestation of suffering, violence, and hatred can't be evil? :)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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An excellent extreme example, Mr. Reynolds!
And there are probably philosophers in the campaign settings who would assert that Good and Evil have to be chosen. A thing without free will can't have an alignment because it can't make a moral choice. And a mindless ooze, even one made from horror and pain, can't choose to be Evil.
Their debate opponents argue that Good an Evil are manifest things, not choices. A holy sword is good-aligned, even if its unintelligent. The concept of "Good" means "of or beholden to the Upper Planes", with Law, Chaos, and Evil reflecting corresponding affiliations. A Tiefling paladinmight well be flagged by a "detect evil" spell.
And I imagine David on the same dais, smiling as the other two philosophers set the stage for his point. "But a skeleton is not an Abyssal Ooze. A skeleton is a creature, reanimated through the manipulation of the Negative Material Plane, an unaligned plane that does not radiate Evil, I should point out.
"Binding an elemental spirit into a golem doesn't produce Evil. Nor does a wizard who summons an unaligned animal and binds it as a familiar, or a sorcerer who conjures up an unseen servant, or a priest who calls and binds a creature from the negative or positive material planes. In each case, though, evil-aligned familiars would be Evil, and beneficent spirits bound into service would be Good-aligned.
"The animated skeleton of an efreeti ought to radiate Law and Evil. Perhaps a red dragon zombie, as well. But a lion? A corpse, fused with Negative Energy, is no more Evil than it is Chaotic."
The second opponent nods graciously towards David and replies, "Save for the fact that the necromantic spells are given only to the priests of the most terrible Evils. Orcus is the Demon Prince of Undeath. There is no heavenly analogue. In my lands, Norgerber is the god of the undead, and he is wholly Evil. No Good gods wish to challenge his command of the walking dead. So far as the power to tie those corpses to that Negative energy comes from the fiends of the Lower Planes, the result of those ties is Evil."
David shrugs. "Other campaign worlds might have other gods. I know that the people of Jakandor have certainly never heard of Norgerber. And your argument is persuasive only for priests and their spells. Skeletons animated by priests might be Evil, but those manufactured by mages might not."
David shrugs. "Other campaign worlds might have other gods. I know that the people of Jakandor have certainly never heard of Norgerber. And your argument is persuasive only for priests and their spells. Skeletons animated by priests might be Evil, but those manufactured by mages might not."
The arcane version of the animate dead spell has the [evil] descriptor.
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So, a type of ooze native to the Abyss, a living, fluid, animate manifestation of suffering, violence, and hatred can't be evil? :)
No more than a Terminator can be. However that doesn't prevent them from being cruel. However, good and evil are metaphysical terms that only have relevnce to sentient beings.
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David shrugs. "Other campaign worlds might have other gods. I know that the people of Jakandor have certainly never heard of Norgerber. And your argument is persuasive only for priests and their spells. Skeletons animated by priests might be Evil, but those manufactured by mages might not."The arcane version of the animate dead spell has the [evil] descriptor.
Just because the creation of mindless undead is an evil act doesn't make the end product evil. Both the Baelnorn in Forgotten Realms and the Deathless in Eberron give us the precident for non-evil undead, both intelligent and mindless.
baelnorn and Deathless are positive-energy undead, the exact opposite of necromantic undead, hence, Deathless, not undead :) Ditto the FR Archlich. Note that they are all basically of good, or a rare neutral alignment...not evil.
==Aelryinth
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baelnorn and Deathless are positive-energy undead, the exact opposite of necromantic undead, hence, Deathless, not undead :) Ditto the FR Archlich. Note that they are all basically of good, or a rare neutral alignment...not evil.
==Aelryinth
But the point is still that there is precident for non-evil undead analogsd in a setting.
Anyone else interested in a conversion of this setting?
Sure. It's a good setting and a very good idea at the time. And like another on the forums said, came out in the waning days of second edition.
I'd also like to see Tales from the Comet in third edition revised or Pathfinder format.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The arcane version of the animate dead spell has the [evil] descriptor.
Yeah, I know. But if we're going to adapt Jakandor to D&D 3.5 or to Pathfinder, we're going to have to either change the spirit of the setting, or else modify the base rulesystem. And if it should come to pass that removing the Evil descriptor from the arcane version --or all versions-- of animate dead is the most extreme rules change we'll need to perpetrate, I think we can call ourselves both wily and blessed.
Yup. :)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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David, I ran across this poor review of the first two Jakandor books, but it seems that the reviewer was bothered by a pedestrian AD&D mechanics execution of what he admits are cool ideas, and plodding text. Both of those complaints are aspects that a good 3.5 revision would virtually ignore.
(And yeah, I'd be more interested in helping with a 3.5 conversion rather than Pathfinder.)
I think the alternate Barbarian totem powers from Unearthed Arcana are an obvious choice for the Knorr lodges. If we add Druids, Rangers and Rogues, and Scouts (Complete Adventurer), Spirit Shamans (Complete Divine) and Dragon Shamans (Players Handbook II), I think we have enough character options to provide a robust playing experience for all-Knorr parties.
I'd also like to see Tales from the Comet in third edition revised or Pathfinder format.
[threadjack]
I was flipping through an old Dragon magazine over the weekend and I saw a comment on this. For the life of me, I don't recall ever seeing this before and I still have a cache of old 1ed & 2ed box sets packed away in the house. Anyone has a informational link to the setting? This would be a good thing to draw ideas from aside from ETTBP module for Numeria.
[/threadjack]
So, a type of ooze native to the Abyss, a living, fluid, animate manifestation of suffering, violence, and hatred can't be evil? :)
I think you have to remember the evil that permeates the Abyss. The morality of an entity is often a reflection of its origin.
You build an ooze in the Abyss it is made of ambient evil...
You build an ooze in Disneyland..
wait, maybe that's a bad example. :)
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Has anyone else had any new experiences with this and bringing it into PFRPG?
I'd love to plug Jakandor into Golarion somewhere, but as stated above some rules on spells and their alignment would definitely need to change.
Although maybe new "clean-burning" variants of animate dead could be workable too...
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Jakandor!?!? Now THAT is a blast from the past - thnx for posting! *Rushes off into attic with torch and three days trail rations* If I'm not back in three days, I haven't found my copies yet :D
@Urisen: I found very little on other forums usually just a quick discussion, nothing solid about the setting...You could look at Dragonstar if you're really desperate :)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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There were some goofy mechanics in the set, but overall I thought the Jakondor books were a lot of fun and had tons of great ideas. I ran a 7-year FR campaign with massive revisions to classes and stuff, and during one of the revisions I added a lot of Jakondor ideas to the mix.
As far as the undead go... just make the constructs. Animated objects. It could even fit the flavor text for "rending the dead" if you consider the soul-shard (or whatever they called the little control item for the "zombie") just a minor magic item that is keyed to a creature. That way the rending of the dead spirit becomes flavor text and magic item creation (which does NOT need to have the [evil] descriptor) rather than true animating of the dead. It also removes the limitation on number of undead you create and control, since they are feat-crafted constructs rather than spell-animated walking dead.
Just a thought.
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If animate dead doesn't tamper with spirits, there's really no reason it has to be limited to corpses. Infusing the same energy into a dead *tree* should be no more or less do-able than using it to animate a dead pony.
While many cultures would frown on animating their own dead, and some the dead of their enemies, and some even the corpses of horses and oxen, only the most irrationally terrified of negative energy would be opposed to the animation of stick-figures and 'scarecrows' that are non-evil, obedient and not sacrilegious (save perhaps to the goddess of the harvest or the god of trees, but, since having them shuffle around doing chores is no more or less destructive than burning them for firewood or building bridges out of them or feeding them to cows, even that might not be a guaranteed reaction).
Since necromancy is all about shuffling life-force around, it's also possible, if rarely explored in any way other than healing someone by damaging oneself, (or, vice-versa, through vampiric touch), to use one's own life-energy to animate unliving materials.
Craft up an ushabti or effigy of oneself from river clay, or wood, or whatever, cut your finger and give some of your 'life-force' to the construct and have it follow you around and do chores for the rest of the day. The higher level you are, the more 'oomph' you can get out of that life-donation (bigger animations, more use of your own skills through them, a sensory link, etc.), or the more individual effigies you can animate at one time without fainting from the Con damage.
Since the life-energy would remain in the construct, the animator would remain down X number of Con points while his effigies are doing stuff, rendering him vulnerable. (And, in fine adventure seed / plot hook fashion, the more of his effigies you destroy en route to the BBEG, the haler he grows, as his 'loaned out' life-energies return to him. If you can attack him *without* engaging his effigies, all that life-energy is out, he's down X number of Con points, and he's totally screwed, as he can only Dismiss one effigy at a time to regain Con, and won't likely have time to restore himself to full potency before the barbarian's axe exposes his brains to the light of day.)
And then there's animals. Even in the worst of cases, where necromancers can't manipulate their own life-energies, or use negative energy to cure disease (by killing microorganisms) or protect grain silos from rats and mildew and bugs (by suffusing the silo with a charge of negative energy that kills anything with less a hit point) or sterilize food for transport (just as we microwave radiation the crap out of meat today), they can still limit themselves willingly to animating the skeletons of oxen and workhorses, and set them to work turning millstones and hauling goods and doing all sorts of menial labor.
There are a ton of options available without making some sweeping societal generalization like 'people in land X are totally cool with being made into zombies after they die.'
But, IMO, people dive right for the obnoxious arguments about grandmothers and what not.
As if any necromancer with a brain in his head pulls out onyx for anything less than a hydra. :)
Dude deserves to deal with pissed-off peasants and pitchforks, if he's that much of a loser. Show a little pride in your work, like Victor von Frankenstein did, and don't animate just any old dead body you find. Make a masterpiece. Lift your arms to the lightning-lit sky and shout "My creation! It's alive!" with pride!
Onyx doesn't grow on trees, after all.