Good cleric’s tolerance for the undead


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ProfessorCirno wrote:
While negative energy isn't inherently evil, it IS inherently opposed to life, and binding undead causes a little more negative energy to make its way into the world. Even if good clerics aren't undead-specific, they still probably dislike undead as walking bags of anti-life.

I love the irony of this recurring comment in a world where I'm pretty sure most people in this conversation go from point A to point B by burning poison and expelling the refuse into the air.


A Man In Black wrote:


...that essay is horrible. Skeletons ping the evildar, so a skeleton who is carrying a bureau is carrying it evilly.

That's a pretty foolish conclusion to draw. It is not at all a necessary conclusion that something inherently evil in D&D does every thing in an evil manner. What you've got is a morally irrelevant act being done by something evil by its nature. That's all.

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Bill Dunn wrote:
That's a pretty foolish conclusion to draw. It is not at all a necessary conclusion that something inherently evil in D&D does every thing in an evil manner. What you've got is a morally irrelevant act being done by something evil by its nature. That's all.
BoVD essay of bad wrote:
Don’t study a philosophy book, just watch who gets hurt when the cleric casts holy smite. Those creatures are evil. The things they do, generally speaking, are evil acts.

Skeletons stand there until a wizard tells them to do something. Whatever it is they're doing is evil by definition, because skeletons are evil.

Golems stand there until a wizard tells them to do something. That's not evil, though, despite the fact that explicitly requires a sentient being to be enslaved to make a golem.

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* Ow.

This dilemma exists in RAW, but it's really easy to fix. Either make skeletons do something evil, or just rip off the evil tag. The game implications of either change are mechanically very narrow but thematically very interesting.

BoVD (and especially BoED) are terrible when it comes to describing good and evil. That essay blunders on the perfectly reasonable idea of there being two interpretations: mindless = tools and mindless = evil because of some added inherent evil quality. It doesn't acknowledge the problems with either interpretation nor offer any advice for resolving that dilemma, but it does blunder upon the base idea.

How reasonable people react to undead in the setting depends on whether people don't like necromancers because they're jerks who rob graves to keep from having to haul their own luggage, or if they're fundamentally acting to undermine life itself. Both of them are going to make necromancers unpopular, but it's the difference between being a jerk or being a villain.


Viletta Vadim wrote:

Madcap Storm King wrote:

Think about what happens if a more powerful cleric, who doesn't like you very much, comes in and bolsters the undead, then uses them to wage a campaign across your fair city. Every man that falls he can animate, since he didn't have to use any spells to create them.

These are practical and tactical concerns, not moral concerns.

To bring such a powerful force into the world, to be used for great destruction on either side, that is immoral.

To leave it on an easily cut rope over your own home is moronic.

To do both and provide a danger to your people is most certainly immoral.

A Man in Black wrote:
How reasonable people react to undead in the setting depends on whether people don't like necromancers because they're jerks who rob graves to keep from having to haul their own luggage, or if they're fundamentally acting to undermine life itself. Both of them are going to make necromancers unpopular, but it's the difference between being a jerk or being a villain.

Or it relates to the undead (especially zombies) coming directly from Uncanny Valley In other words unless these people were created from pods, they are going to run from the zombies, the skeletons, and the vampires with half their faces burnt off. People don't react to you well if you have a large wart on your face. How do you think they'll react if you've got pallid green skin, missing flesh, a shambling gait and the strong smell of rotting flesh about you?

I think "flip out" is a severe under reaction.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Quote:

To bring such a powerful force into the world, to be used for great destruction on either side, that is immoral.

To leave it on an easily cut rope over your own home is moronic.

To do both and provide a danger to your people is most certainly immoral.

Golems aren't evil. Fires aren't evil. Flasks of alchemist's fire aren't evil. Scrolls of Meteor Swarm aren't evil. All of these are mindless actors which can be trivially picked up by a malefactor and used to cause a lot more destruction than even a large number of skeletons. Skeletons are less fearsome or dangerous than an angry mob; zombies even less so.

The argument that "Undead are dangerous, and therefore evil" doesn't stand up to any sort of rigorous thinking. Especially if you own an automobile.

Madcap Storm King wrote:
Or it relates to the undead (especially zombies) coming directly from Uncanny Valley In other words unless these people were created from pods, they are going to run from the zombies, the skeletons, and the vampires with half their faces burnt off. People don't react to you well if you have a large wart on your face. How do you think they'll react if you've got pallid green skin, missing flesh, a shambling gait and the strong smell of rotting flesh about you?

...okay? Oozes are creepy and mindless but they're not evil, nor does being ugly even keep you from being on Team Good in any game. I don't know what point you're trying to make. Regardless of whether making zombies makes you a jerk or whether it damns you to Hell, nobody likes zombies.


A Man In Black wrote:
Quote:

To bring such a powerful force into the world, to be used for great destruction on either side, that is immoral.

To leave it on an easily cut rope over your own home is moronic.

To do both and provide a danger to your people is most certainly immoral.

Golems aren't evil. Fires aren't evil. Flasks of alchemist's fire aren't evil. Scrolls of Meteor Swarm aren't evil. All of these are mindless actors which can be trivially picked up by a malefactor and used to cause a lot more destruction than even a large number of skeletons. Skeletons are less fearsome or dangerous than an angry mob; zombies even less so.

The argument that "Undead are dangerous, and therefore evil" doesn't stand up to any sort of rigorous thinking. Especially if you own an automobile.

Yeah, because positioning bombs and guns outside a residential district isn't a bad idea. I was responding to her specific idea, not the overall tone of the thread. Her argument is that they are like a machine, and she suggested using them for warfare and defense. The fact that they are powered by negative energy is irrelevant, those ones are created for the action of killing. Whether killing is immoral or not depends on the situation. But whereas guns need soldiers to operate them, all those undead need is a powerful caster to control them. More akin to making angry animate longswords that only need to be told what to do by a high enough level fighter.

Madcap Storm King wrote:
Or it relates to the undead (especially zombies) coming directly from Uncanny Valley In other words unless these people were created from pods, they are going to run from the zombies, the skeletons, and the vampires with half their faces burnt off. People don't react to you well if you have a large wart on your face. How do you think they'll react if you've got pallid green skin, missing flesh, a shambling gait and the strong smell of rotting flesh about you?
...okay? Oozes are creepy and mindless but they're not evil, nor does being ugly even keep you from being on Team Good in any game. I don't know what point you're trying to make. Regardless of whether making zombies makes you a jerk or whether it damns you to Hell, nobody likes zombies.

You asked what their reaction would be to undead, I gave you a reason why no being with ancestors that got past the dodo reaction with their enemies would ever come to terms with having such a being in their day to day life without, at the very least, a set of strong iron bars between them.

I don't care about the alignment of the necromancers, I've played a lawful good one for crying out loud.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Madcap Storm King wrote:
But whereas guns need soldiers to operate them, all those undead need is a powerful caster to control them. More akin to making angry animate longswords that only need to be told what to do by a high enough level fighter.

Oooooooh, context fail on me! Okay, integrating undead into society discussion below.

Madcap Storm King wrote:
You asked what their reaction would be to undead, I gave you a reason why no being with ancestors that got past the dodo reaction with their enemies would ever come to terms with having such a being in their day to day life without, at the very least, a set of strong iron bars between them.

Gotcha.

Okay, Playing With Fire now assumed. Non-intelligent undead are mindless automatons, with or without pinging evil on the evildar.

Assuming you don't have any non-core intelligent-but-not-necessarily-people-eating-jerks undead in your game like Karrnathi undead, skeletons are largely hygenic (if they're clean) and come in non-humanoid forms. Nobody's going to want grandma's skeleton reanimated and ordered to pick up trash, but if Bill the drafthorse dies then the sight of seeing Bill's skeleton hauling a garbage cart is something that people can eventually get used to.

It doesn't disrupt society; skelehorses are less skittish and easier to maintain than real horses, although they lack horse sense. They're less likely to cause a significant amount of damage to anything (making a horse go crazy just requires a whip or a snake, whereas skelehorse needs magic), require less maintenance, and are roughly as fragile. Skeleton horses aren't even exceptionally creepy looking. It's the kind of thing kids wouldn't immediately run in terror from unless they were primed (with stories or whatnot) to already be scared of it, for example.

There's a ready source of raw materials, especially if you broaden things to all quadrupedal pack animals. Skelecattle can do the work of a skelehorse just fine, and assuming you don't cook the bones in soup or break them for marrow you can probably salvage enough skeletons in a largish city to have a decent herd of undead pack animals.

When it comes to war, they're cannon fodder nobody at all cares about. They're not smart or terribly effective in combat, but they're fearless and tough and that has its uses, especially as a mount. That they'd be stolen from you is even less of a concern than with live horses; live horses have bad will saves while skeleton horses have only a couple very specific abilities that can steal them away. Plus, live horses can be rustled, while skelehorses will resist anyone but their controller or designated masters until shattered into fragments.

In a Playing With Fire universe, there's no reason that a cleric of a god who specifically instructed his or her followers to destroy undead would have any great reason to object to skeleton pack animals unless it was on strictly practical grounds. (They do have some disadvantages, like being really dumb.) In fact, the followers of the God Of Hating Undead could even be disliked for opposing something so harmless and functional.

Now, in a Creeping Darkness game, you can have the same society, but the people are willfully disregarding how many children get "accidentally" trampled, and don't seem to question why the graveyard is full of zombies at night, and wonder why children are stillborn as mutated horrors, or some other Anathema To The Living effect of having skeleton horses running around. It's a seething cancer that is slowly corrupting the society. (Heroic luddites destroying the undead-horse-pulled "horseless carriages"; the villain is a necromantic Henry Ford. Now that's a story idea.)


A Man In Black wrote:


Madcap Storm King wrote:
You asked what their reaction would be to undead, I gave you a reason why no being with ancestors that got past the dodo reaction with their enemies would ever come to terms with having such a being in their day to day life without, at the very least, a set of strong iron bars between them.

Gotcha.

Okay, Playing With Fire now assumed. Non-intelligent undead are mindless automatons, with or without pinging evil on the evildar.

Assuming you don't have any non-core intelligent-but-not-necessarily-people-eating-jerks undead in your game like Karrnathi undead, skeletons are largely hygenic (if they're clean) and come in non-humanoid forms. Nobody's going to want grandma's skeleton reanimated and ordered to pick up trash, but if Bill the drafthorse dies then the sight of seeing Bill's skeleton hauling a garbage cart is something that people can eventually get used to.

It doesn't disrupt society; skelehorses are less skittish and easier to maintain than real horses, although they lack horse sense. They're less likely to cause a significant amount of damage to anything (making a horse go crazy just requires a whip or a snake, whereas skelehorse needs magic), require less maintenance, and are roughly as fragile. Skeleton horses aren't even exceptionally creepy looking. It's the kind of thing kids wouldn't immediately run in terror from unless they were primed (with stories or whatnot) to already be scared of it, for example.

That's taking it from a logical perspective. However, the human being is, if anything, completely illogical. Skeletons are actually far enough removed from uncanny valley that most people can look at them and not fly into a fearful or destructive rage as a defense mechanism. Some people might not be cool with it just on grounds of desecrating the dead, but with pack animals it's doubtful they would care that much.

The one problem I would have would be the fact that the undead's creator controls them. Not really good as a servant outside of homebrew. Unless you use the loophole command "Follow this guy's orders as though he were me", but I don't feel like thinking about that more than I just did.

A Man in Black wrote:
In a Playing With Fire universe, there's no reason that a cleric of a god who specifically instructed his or her followers to destroy undead would have any great reason to object to skeleton pack animals unless it was on strictly practical grounds. (They do have some disadvantages, like being really dumb.) In fact, the followers of the God Of Hating Undead could even be disliked for opposing something so harmless and functional.

But the concept of undead is against his religion, and therefore he doesn't need a reason aside from "My belief is that Undead are such and such," to smash the thing into tiny bits of calcium.

Plus people don't like hypocrites, and allowing the existence of useful, but still undead creatures could undermine the priest's point.

That and creating so many undead is expensive unless you're the one casting the spells. 25 gp per HD does add up pretty fast unless you're PCs.


Viletta Vadim wrote:
ProfessorCirno wrote:
While negative energy isn't inherently evil, it IS inherently opposed to life, and binding undead causes a little more negative energy to make its way into the world. Even if good clerics aren't undead-specific, they still probably dislike undead as walking bags of anti-life.
I love the irony of this recurring comment in a world where I'm pretty sure most people in this conversation go from point A to point B by burning poison and expelling the refuse into the air.

Depending on where you live, you get quiet a few dirty looks for that, and you aren't messing around with religion and life itself when you drive a car ;)

I'm one of life's pedestrians myself.


Viletta Vadim wrote:
Spacelard wrote:

Zombies and Skeletons are NE.

Creating evil is evil.
Good Cleric should take exception and stomp neutralish Wizard.

Creating evil is evil? Tell that to every mother of a cold-blooded murderer ever.

So, let's say the rare lawful/neutral succubus, Falls-From-Grace, meets the rare true neutral incubus and they get married, settle down, the whole nine yards. Are you saying it would be wrong for them to have children? After all, any children they have would be made of pure evil made manifest.

That mother didn't and couldn't know that her babe would turn into a mass murderer so of course not. Your point about the succubus also falls flat as (as you yourself have pointed out in other threads) alignment can be a cultural conditioning so the offspring isn't necessarily going to be evil. As you say yourself that rare LN succubus/incubus pairing so the offspring is more than likly to be LN as well thanks to its upbringing. After that freewill kicks in and the little demon can pick and choose what it does.

A neutralish wizard who knows what he is creating is going to be evil is commiting an evil act. A skeleton or zombie has no freewill and therefore (in RAW) will always be NE.

The OP has stated that the Wiz in question wants the created undead to hold books, hold a beer, watch a door. Creating an evil undead creature using a spell with the evil descriptor because the character can't be bothered to get a beer himself (dunno how that would work if he wanted spirits!) can't be justified to a good cleric.

Liberty's Edge

Guys.

Guys, seriously, there is no debate here.

The answer is right there in the book.

The rules are quite clear on this.

A "skeleton" or "zombie" is always evil.
Likewise, the "animate dead" spell has the [evil] spell descriptor.

So creating them, controlling them, working with them, and using them are all Evil Acts.

period.

A Good Cleric should destroy the undead and punish the creator for "playing with fire". This is the ONLY valid answer to the original question, according to RAW.

Now, whether or not they should be evil acts, or count as evil beings, is a personal opinion. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to be wrong about an opinion. It depends on person, the character, and the setting. This is something that should be mentioned. It is NOT something that needs to be talked about for three pages without resolution. It's just a game people, so relax, answer the question according to the rules, and explain why you disagree with those rules.


A Man In Black wrote:
Golems aren't evil. Fires aren't evil. Flasks of alchemist's fire aren't evil. Scrolls of Meteor Swarm aren't evil. All of these are mindless actors which can be trivially picked up by a malefactor and used to cause a lot more destruction than even a large number of skeletons.

You're conflating two different definitions of "mindless", in my opinion -- the dictionary definition, and the specific D&D definition that described an animate creature that acts only on instinct or by following orders. By the dictionary definition, it's not possible to have something be mindless and evil, but by the D&D definition of "mindless", it's certainly possible to have a creature that acts on evil instincts. So golems are neutral because their instinct is to stand around doing nothing, and zombies are evil because their instinct is to go around killing people (according to the PFRPG Bestiary).

A Man In Black wrote:
Skeletons are less fearsome or dangerous than an angry mob; zombies even less so.

I'm not sure what your point is here; are you saying that a member of an angry mob who is performing evil acts isn't being evil?


BobChuck wrote:
The answer is right there in the book.

My point exactly. Now why VV and MiB are trying to push their houserules on undead is quite beyond me.

The cannon answer to the OP is the cleric should oppose the creation of undead if good aligned.

If the DM houserules the situation to be non-cannon, then the question is left entirely to the circumstances. In this case, the stance advocated by VV and MiB certainly can take center stage, and is probably the correct analysis to use (PWF vs CD).

If this is going to be a discussion on houserules for undead creation, shouldn't it be moved to the appropriate forum?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Mirror, Mirror wrote:


If this is going to be a discussion on houserules for undead creation, shouldn't it be moved to the appropriate forum?

Well, for one thing, people are talking about something that's as much a matter of the "flavor" and "story" of a given D20 world or campaign as it is about the rules, possibly moreso.

It's a setting detail, wrapped in a philosophical debate, bound up in personal preferences, glazed over the top by game rules.

Maybe I'm off base, but I think threads in the Rules Questions & houserules sub-board involve the nitty gritty of rules mechanics and interactions, rather than more open-ended matters like whether or not it's cool for undead to lack "the Evil" so a player can try out a necromancer PC or a PC who uses a bit of necromancy.

===

I think the big situation in this instance is that there's some some (darkly) shiny mechanics, and some seriously cool voodoo mojo in the necromancy section of the PF RPG toolbox; and some players want to use them. And they don't want to be the GM, creating villains only fit for the players to foil and smash.

I remember once being excited at the prospect of playing a Shadowdancer and getting cool shadow minions. When another player told me his character would have to kill them, because, you know, undead (even-if-not-really,) if I ever used them, it was... kinda dissapointing.

... personally, I'm inclined to suggest, if it interests the other player, and it isn't diometrically opposed to your whole character concept (since you obviously aren't playing Pastor Richten) to let it slide and see how it plays out.

Of course, I'd also suggest checking in with the GM... but then, I'd suggest the same thing to the GM.

Dark Archive

By RAW creating undead is an evil act. you could always make houserules in your game to make it not so. there are some fabulous examples of this being done in settings like Eberron where the elves in that setting make undead types called "deathless" that are decidedly not evil.

In most cases yes the good aligned cleric should have an issue with the undead. If you want to play it differently in your game, go for it!

Do what feels right if you don't like the rules as written. Its not going to break the game if you want to make the creation of undead an act that is not evil.

love,

malkav

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

So, what about Malconvokers, RAW ? Are they evil, because they summon evil creatures, and that's an evil act ?

Dark Archive

Gorbacz wrote:
So, what about Malconvokers, RAW ? Are they evil, because they summon evil creatures, and that's an evil act ?

I am sorry but what book are Malconvokers from? Not meant as a poke at your point I have just never heard of them.

love,

malkav

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I believe they were published in one of the Fiendish Codexes?

Edit: Ah, well that shows how much I paid attention to it...

Dark Archive

just looked up malconvoker. I would not call it evil unless the summons were used for evil purposes. The summon monster spell does not have the evil descriptor. your evil summons can't be taken from by a more buku malconvoker, your evil summons aren't created from the bodies of the good folks in town. If you die your evil summon goes back to where it came from. In short you aren't really CREATING evil IMO as a malconvoker, but rather forcing it to do your bidding.

While I would personally probably keep a good eye on it in a game I was running and I could see a good cleric taking issue with it, it does not appear to by RAW an evil act.

But just as you could houserule skeletons to not be evil I could easily see malconvokers being labeled evil, being exposed often to the presence of evil beings.

love,

malkav

edit: BTW omega the class is in complete scoundrel.

Liberty's Edge

Malkav,
I'm pretty sure that in 3.5 if you are summoning an evil creature (or good/lawful/chaotic for that matter) the spell for that casting at least has the same tags. Don't have my books with me atm.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Sorry mate, but according to 3.5 PHB

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I'm not as much trying to point out obvious self-contradiction in the RAW official WotC material (duh, like it wasn't already full of them), but more the dumbness of "Evil acts make you Evil" default RAW D&D "morality".

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:

Sorry mate, but according to 3.5 PHB

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

Lol what if he had a friendly cleric cast Intervention, err I mean Atonement? "Yeah, Steve, I know you're trying to kick the succubus summoning habit, but this the 3rd week in a row I've had to talk to you..."


Gorbacz wrote:
So, what about Malconvokers, RAW ? Are they evil, because they summon evil creatures, and that's an evil act ?

Do they use Summon Monster?

PRD wrote:
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type.

This would make a summon monster spell summoning something with the evil subtype an evil spell, not a good or neutral spell. Same with Planar Binding, btw. This is why good clerics cannot summon evil outsiders. A good cleric should still oppose the use of such magic, though the malconvoker himself may or may not be evil (actually casting the spells has no effect on character alignment).

However, this may not hold true for that particular class, and as I do not have it with me, I cannot check.


Gorbacz wrote:
So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I don't think continually casting a spell with the evil descriptor will actually change your alignment to evil.

Besides, since the OP was about a good cleric opposing such acts, I would say the answer remains the same for the malconvoker.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Tessius wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:

Sorry mate, but according to 3.5 PHB

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

Lol what if he had a friendly cleric cast Intervention, err I mean Atonement? "Yeah, Steve, I know you're trying to kick the succubus summoning habit, but this the 3rd week in a row I've had to talk to you..."

Sure, RAW it would work, but it only underlines my point :) Great idea BTW, I have a Binder player in my game who might be interested in such "consueling" :D


A Man In Black wrote:


Golems stand there until a wizard tells them to do something. That's not evil, though, despite the fact that explicitly requires a sentient being to be enslaved to make a golem.

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* Ow.

I'm not sure that the elemental spirits in golems are explicitly enslaved. They're explicitly BOUND, yes, but that's not the same thing as enslavement. A large portion of the cost of golem manufacture could be the sacrifice of items to get the spirit to acquiesce to animating a statue indefinitely. This seems little different than using Planar Binding to summon and then bribe an outsider with magic items into doing something for you. I guess it really depends on the mentality of elementals (esp. Earth Elementals). Do they hate being bound into Golems, or do they agree to it if appeased with the proper rituals?

Of course, some golems 'break free' and go berserk, so it could be argued that they don't like it. The real reason they do so is more about folklore (jewish golems and Frankenstein's Monster) than mechanical sense, but their berserk tendencies could just reflect less complete (i.e. shoddy) golem making techniques ("Whoops! The golem's stuck on KILL!")

But yeah, IF golem manufacture involves slavery, and enslaving sentient beings is inherently evil, then golem manufacture is an evil act (rather than just an insanely expensive one). I'm in the "elementals are bribed into becoming golems" camp - elementals are sufficiently alien in mindset that I can see them not minding.

Dark Archive

Gorbacz wrote:

Sorry mate, but according to 3.5 PHB

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I'm not as much trying to point out obvious self-contradiction in the RAW official WotC material (duh, like it wasn't already full of them), but more the dumbness of "Evil acts make you Evil" default RAW D&D "morality".

I would have to look at the full prestige class. What I was able to pull on the interwebs was a detailed summary. I would lean towards the malconvoker either being intended as a prime example of exception based design or the class just being poorly conceived and designed. (which IMO happened a lot towards the end of 3.5 in official splats)

But I will bow out of the conversation about the malconvoker as I don't own complete scoundrel and can't really offer anything else on it aside what I drew from what I read.

But you are correct by the rules, if they are summoning evil creatures then yes they would become evil over time and each summoning would be considered an evil act by the core rules. This is of course unless the prestige class has some type of exception listed in its texts that states that those summonings are not in fact evil acts (the exception).

Maybe if someone could post the ability from the class that specifies that they summon evil creatures we could have a closer look at the text. Otherwise I would just be guessing.

love,

malkav

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mirror, Mirror wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I don't think continually casting a spell with the evil descriptor will actually change your alignment to evil.

Besides, since the OP was about a good cleric opposing such acts, I would say the answer remains the same for the malconvoker.

I've cracked the BoVD open on the Evil Acts chapter. It lists "casting evil spells" as an evil act. It does state that a charcter might "get away" with a few evil spells in his/her career if they are cast not for evil goals. But the Malconvokers are built around conjuring evil beings and using them for good goals.

Again, I'm just pointing out how hard do the 3.5 wotc morality rules fall on their face.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Grant you, my previously presented opinion depends on trusting the player of the wizard not to be obnoxiously immature, a jerk, etc.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Unrestricted Conjuration: For the purpose only of casting conjuration spells, you can ignore any restrictions that forbid you from casting spells of certain alignments. In addition, regular use of conjuration spells with the evil descriptor does not threaten your alignment. For example, a good cleric who becomes a malconvoker could cast summon monster I to summon a fiendish raven (whose alignment gives the spell the evil descriptor). The cleric could not cast death knell, though, which has the evil descriptor but is not of the conjuration school.

Liberty's Edge

TriOmegaZero wrote:
Unrestricted Conjuration: For the purpose only of casting conjuration spells, you can ignore any restrictions that forbid you from casting spells of certain alignments. In addition, regular use of conjuration spells with the evil descriptor does not threaten your alignment. For example, a good cleric who becomes a malconvoker could cast summon monster I to summon a fiendish raven (whose alignment gives the spell the evil descriptor). The cleric could not cast death knell, though, which has the evil descriptor but is not of the conjuration school.

This just made me remember something. My roommate had a 1st(?) edition hardcover of Dragonlance Adventures (think that was the title). It had a segmented bar for tracking the different good or evil acts a character performed over time and past a certain number it would change alignments. I don't know how many optional rules might be in the APG but it might be cool if something similar was in there as an optional system.

Dark Archive

Another interesting thing to think about is that cleric spells with the evil descriptor require an Unholy symbol to cast. which takes them squarely out of the realms of good deities and there ilk.

While animate dead itself does not require a focus, it should be on the clerics list as well as the wizards. I would not think a cleric who knows that this spell is unholy in nature would suddenly think its cool and somehow not unholy if the wizard did it instead.

(not to try and take the conversation away from the malconvoker, I just can't add anything to that debate until I see the PRC text)

love,

malkav


Gorbacz wrote:
I've cracked the BoVD open on the Evil Acts chapter. It lists "casting evil spells" as an evil act. It does state that a charcter might "get away" with a few evil spells in his/her career if they are cast not for evil goals. But the Malconvokers are built around conjuring evil beings and using them for good goals.

Well, I never paid much attention to the BoVD. It both failed to explore true evil and elevated petty evils and neutral acts to undeserved heights (depths?).

Anyway, PF core rules are silent on the subject, but it really goes beyond the scope of the argument. Whether the CASTER becomes evil is immaterial to whether the GOOD CLERIC will object. We all know a Paladin would, and it is logical that a good cleric would as well, and on the same principles.

And not so much a "you are becoming evil by doing that" as a "there are powers in which you should not dabble".


malkav666 wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:

Sorry mate, but according to 3.5 PHB

When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type.

So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I'm not as much trying to point out obvious self-contradiction in the RAW official WotC material (duh, like it wasn't already full of them), but more the dumbness of "Evil acts make you Evil" default RAW D&D "morality".

I would have to look at the full prestige class. What I was able to pull on the interwebs was a detailed summary. I would lean towards the malconvoker either being intended as a prime example of exception based design or the class just being poorly conceived and designed. (which IMO happened a lot towards the end of 3.5 in official splats)

But I will bow out of the conversation about the malconvoker as I don't own complete scoundrel and can't really offer anything else on it aside what I drew from what I read.

But you are correct by the rules, if they are summoning evil creatures then yes they would become evil over time and each summoning would be considered an evil act by the core rules. This is of course unless the prestige class has some type of exception listed in its texts that states that those summonings are not in fact evil acts (the exception).

Maybe if someone could post the ability from the class that specifies that they summon evil creatures we could have a closer look at the text. Otherwise I would just be guessing.

love,

malkav

The malconvoker is an explicit exception, even so it's poor design, the theory is the malconvoker turns evil against evil and doing so manages to not necesarily become evil.

"Unrestricted Conjuration: For the purpose only of
casting conjuration spells, you can ignore any restrictions
that forbid you from casting spells of certain alignments.
In addition, regular use of conjuration spells with the evil
descriptor does not threaten to change your alignment.
For example, a good cleric who becomes a malconvoker
could cast summon monster I to summon a fiendish raven
(whose alignment gives the spell the evil descriptor). The
cleric could not cast death knell, though, which has the evil
descriptor but is not of the conjuration school."

In the fluff text it is told they are set upon the path by a mysterious tome, written in celestial, that tempts them to explore the darker side of conjuration since the forces of good are limited and the armies of the lower planes endless. It is hinted that the author of the tome might have a far more sinister motive.

I'd say the book is penned by a devil / fallen angel to corrupt mortals in some manner. Even though the casters might infact not turn evil they are still in danger of losing their soul to hell after they die.


malkav666 wrote:
While animate dead itself does not require a focus, it should be on the clerics list as well as the wizards. I would not think a cleric who knows that this spell is unholy in nature would suddenly think its cool and somehow not unholy if the wizard did it instead.

Or, more in-game, "My goddess does not allow that of me, why should I allow that of you?"

Dark Archive

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

Or, more in-game, "My goddess does not allow that of me, why should I allow that of you?"

Close But I think the clerics (if it was my cleric :) ) in game response would be something closer to

"The one true faith teaches that crating abominations against life is a terrible crime and is thusly forbidden, so be warned that that you proceed with this act that you will become an enemy of the church and I will be forced to act as an agent of God's will and put an end to it, and perhaps you if you become lost to the causes of darkness."

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:
Mirror, Mirror wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
So, it's evil acts. And evil acts make you evil. And the class has non-evil prerequisite. So, are all Malconvokers doomed to become Evil down the road ?

I don't think continually casting a spell with the evil descriptor will actually change your alignment to evil.

Besides, since the OP was about a good cleric opposing such acts, I would say the answer remains the same for the malconvoker.

I've cracked the BoVD open on the Evil Acts chapter. It lists "casting evil spells" as an evil act. It does state that a character might "get away" with a few evil spells in his/her career if they are cast not for evil goals. But the Malconvokers are built around conjuring evil beings and using them for good goals.

Again, I'm just pointing out how hard do the 3.5 wotc morality rules fall on their face.

Now, now, that's not fair.

Pretty much all the books published after Complete Warrior are just flat out god-awful.

The first batch is extremely poorly edited and make no sense. Complete Divine is the best example here, but there's about an eight-month stretch of all extremely badly written works.

Then there's the power creep. It starts with some stuff that's a little overpowered, but at least not painful to read, which is where Complete Arcane falls.

Then things get worse, with the Complete Adventurer, Tome of Battle, Players Handbook 2, and others. For instance, there's a class in Complete Adventurer that lets a Rogue/Druid continue to get (almost) full spellcasting, full wildshape, and full sneak attack.

Finally, as 3.5 is starting to wind down, there's a second set of Complete books, which are even worse. By that I mean: the power creep has continued and the (lack of) editing problems have returned. The Complete Scoundrel is in this second group, and the Malconvoker is a perfect example of why the later days of 3.5 were so very bad.

It's the class, not the game.

Alignment is pretty straight-forward, honestly. It's somewhat restrictive, yes, and if its properly enforced then the classic "Chaotic Neutral" party killer shouldn't be possible, but having it lets us play heroes instead of grave-robbers. It's an important distinction and valuable tool.

For more information on how it's actually supposed to work, check of the Book of Vile Darkness, which was written by Monte Cook (you know, one of the three guys who created 3rd edition, along with Skip Williams and a third guy who hasn't been that active).

Also see the Book of Exalted Deeds, which review the good aspects.

Finally, check out a third-party book published in the early day of 3rd edition: "Evil", by Alderac Entertainment Group. I suggest heading to drivethruRPG or similar and getting the PDF that way.


Madcap Storm King wrote:

To bring such a powerful force into the world, to be used for great destruction on either side, that is immoral.

To leave it on an easily cut rope over your own home is moronic.

To do both and provide a danger to your people is most certainly immoral.

...

This thread is so ridiculously mired in hypocrisy and double standards as to be absurd. Do you even think about the implications of your arguments? By the whole, 'Well what if the zombies go out of control? That's dangerous. It must therefore be evil,' argument, a priest of Moradin who makes a +5 Axe of Slashiness is performing an evil act because someone might kill whoever the priest gives it to and then take the axe to do evil.

Madcap Storm King wrote:

Or it relates to the undead (especially zombies) coming directly from Uncanny Valley In other words unless these people were created from pods, they are going to run from the zombies, the skeletons, and the vampires with half their faces burnt off. People don't react to you well if you have a large wart on your face. How do you think they'll react if you've got pallid green skin, missing flesh, a shambling gait and the strong smell of rotting flesh about you?

I think "flip out" is a severe under reaction.

Yes, zombies are ugly. They are creepy. They are smelly. I've met plenty of folks who meet the same criteria. That doesn't make 'em evil.

Madcap Storm King wrote:
Yeah, because positioning bombs and guns outside a residential district isn't a bad idea. I was responding to her specific idea, not the overall tone of the thread. Her argument is that they are like a machine, and she suggested using them for warfare and defense. The fact that they are powered by negative energy is irrelevant, those ones are created for the action of killing. Whether killing is immoral or not depends on the situation. But whereas guns need soldiers to operate them, all those undead need is a powerful caster to control them. More akin to making angry animate longswords that only need to be told what to do by a high enough level fighter.

...

You are aware that you just called the zombie horde safer than the machine gun. After all, any random soldier can pick up your own machine gun and go to town. The zombies have the additional failsafe in that only certain people with certain abilities can take control of them.

And do note, the logic has to stand on its own merits. The logic you used to counter that specific scenario, when taken on its own merits, calls the priest of Moradin evil for making an axe. Bad logic is bad logic.

Spacelard wrote:

That mother didn't and couldn't know that her babe would turn into a mass murderer so of course not. Your point about the succubus also falls flat as (as you yourself have pointed out in other threads) alignment can be a cultural conditioning so the offspring isn't necessarily going to be evil. As you say yourself that rare LN succubus/incubus pairing so the offspring is more than likly to be LN as well thanks to its upbringing. After that freewill kicks in and the little demon can pick and choose what it does.

A neutralish wizard who knows what he is creating is going to be evil is commiting an evil act. A skeleton or zombie has no freewill and therefore (in RAW) will always be NE.

Except the child of Falls-From-Grace will be [Evil]. This is unavoidable. Unchangeable. No matter what happens, the child will be physically wrought from pure [Evil]. And that child will be every bit as much Always Chaotic Evil as any zombie is Always Neutral Evil.

And do mind that just because someone is evil doesn't mean they must be destroyed or kept out of the world or whatever. Let us say we have a group of 'heroes.' Tu'mini'pos'tro'phes the Swift, proud elven ranger. Hammer McBeardington, noble high priest of the dwarven peoples. Tim the Wise, great and generous sage. Bart the Bastard, the irrefutably evil complete and utter ass who's only on the mission because he enjoys inserting big, sharp pieces of metal into green people.

But here's the thing. Bart is a law-abiding citizen, he's fighting in defense the realm (even though he's doing it for impure reasons), and he's fighting quite well in defense of the realm.

Now, Bart dies, bludgeoned by an orc. Everyone in the party knows Bart is a complete ass and that he detects as being quite evil (6th-level evil Fighter). However, he's a member of the team, he's an ally, he's a strong warrior. Tim might even consider him something of a friend, in spite of everything.

Now, if Hammer decides to cast Raise Dead on Bart, he knows he's bringing more evil into the world. Would it be an evil act for Hammer to bring Bart back? Of course not. The guy may be a bloodthirsty a+@!%@! who enjoys his job way too much, but the guy stays in line.

The notion that all evil must be destroyed and good must be compelled to destroy evil wherever possible is, itself, a tremendously evil attitude. Just because something is evil does not mean that it is evil to bring it into the world, nor that it should automatically be destroyed.

BobChuck wrote:

The rules are quite clear on this.

A "skeleton" or "zombie" is always evil.
Likewise, the "animate dead" spell has the [evil] spell descriptor.

So creating them, controlling them, working with them, and using them are all Evil Acts.

period.

Except it isn't clear. What does the [Evil] descriptor mean? Well, looking at the rules, all it says is that good gods can't grant the spell. Okay, but just because Tyr doesn't have access to a spell doesn't make use of that spell automatically evil; after all, the guy can't grant most Wizard spells, either.

Looking at the [Evil] subtype on monsters, the [Evil] tag has zero bearing on morality, and is merely a substance that governs spell interactions. [Evil] doesn't necessarily have to be evil.

Likewise, just because the zombies are evil doesn't make their creation a necessarily evil act any more than resurrecting Bart the Bastard would be an evil act.

So, the use of the spells themselves are not necessarily an evil act (and nothing in the rules says that it is), and the bringing of the creatures themselves into the world is not necessarily an evil act (and nothing in the rules says that it is), so I'd say the entire process is not necessarily an evil act.

BobChuck wrote:
A Good Cleric should destroy the undead and punish the creator for "playing with fire". This is the ONLY valid answer to the original question, according to RAW.

And this definitely doesn't have anything to do with anything in the rules anywhere. Good Clerics aren't compelled to stomp out everything evil everywhere. In fact, at times, stomping out evil can run counter to some of the good gods' agendas.

Clerics are not required at any point to be one-dimensional cardboard cutouts with a single unified moral code that applies to every Cleric with alignment X.

Mirror, Mirror wrote:
My point exactly. Now why VV and MiB are trying to push their houserules on undead is quite beyond me.

I'm still talking within the rules. And do note, the rules actively conflict with themselves and aren't half as cut-and-dry as you make them out to be.

Gorbacz wrote:
Again, I'm just pointing out how hard do the 3.5 wotc morality rules fall on their face.

Whilst I'm pointing out that the self-contradictions within the rules are so massive and glaring that the answer, by RAW, is a resounding, "Not necessarily.

Mirror, Mirror wrote:
Or, more in-game, "My goddess does not allow that of me, why should I allow that of you?"

Because, "All Good Clerics must be Stupid/Good pricks," is a bad interpretation of the rules.


Yep TriOmega points out the reason why the Malconvoker gets to skirt around the summoning evil creatures [evil] descriptor so that it is okay for that PrC.

Golem creation is not evil because in general forcing something to do your bidding (charm or dominate effects) or binding something's soul/spirit (magic jar or soul bind, etc) isn't an explicitly [evil] spell. Now if you bind someone's soul as a malicious act or with the intent to do evil with it then it's probably an implicitly evil
act. Possess people enough to do evil deeds and you are probably going to take a hit on your alignment.

It's the same reason why threats and coercion such as the use of the intimidate skill aren't perceived as explicitly evil acts, even though polite company generally frown upon such acts. Rather certain acts are situationally evil/good/lawful/chaotic/neutral. Using threats of physical violence (intimidate) to get the gang leader to back down rather than go through the town watch is probably a good and chaotic action. Using intimidate to convince the shopkeeper that he needs to pay you money every week or his store might be firebombed is probably an evil action.

Baseline D&D separates out the situationally evil action from the always evil action via the [Evil] descriptor.


Gorbacz wrote:


I've cracked the BoVD open on the Evil Acts chapter. It lists "casting evil spells" as an evil act. It does state that a charcter might "get away" with a few evil spells in his/her career if they are cast not for evil goals. But the Malconvokers are built around conjuring evil beings and using them for good goals.

Again, I'm just pointing out how hard do the 3.5 wotc morality rules fall on their face.

As other people have pointed out, the malconvoker has an explicit exemption from alignment drift into evil because of casting evil summon spells.

But it's important to note, that single evil acts do not make a character evil. It's the general behavior pattern that you should consider. Does he engage in actively promoting the causes of good but use an evil summoning spell every once in a while? Then his good alignment isn't really in jeopardy. Is he constantly promoting good but constantly using evil spells to do it? Probably worth putting his alignment as neutral.


Viletta Vadim wrote:
Cannibalism is a spectacular example.

And summoning undead isn't "spectacular!?!

Viletta Vadim wrote:
There's absolutely, positively nothing wrong with cannibalism in and of itself. It's a taboo in our society, certainly, but that does not make one who practices cannibalism inherently evil. Simply distasteful in our eyes. Perhaps even evil in our eyes, but that has no bearing in the absolute truth of that individual.

Wasn't the original statement from you that I quoted that society and culture have no bearing on what is right and wrong? So which is it? If it's taboo in our society, didn't our society have some bearing on that opinion?

Viletta Vadim wrote:
As for suicide bombing? Believe it or not, American society quite condones suicide bombing as heroic and valorous. It's simply of a different flavor. After all, in every naval and sci fi story where you've ever heard the words, "Ramming speed!" the plan amounts to a last-ditch suicide bombing.

Ramming an enemy vessel in a military engagement cannot be compared to walking into a market and blowing yourself up, killing civilians. EVER.

And I'm sorry to say this, because I try to stay civil, but if you believe they are the same, you are dead wrong. I've been there, and if you care to chat about it offline, I can explain the difference in graphic detail.

Viletta Vadim wrote:
And now, you have the flip side of the coin, where just because a society accepts something, that doesn't necessarily make it right. That which is wrong is wrong. That which is right is right. It doesn't matter where you go, what culture you're in, or any of that, what is truly good and right and just does not change.

So you missed my point entirely, and in a rush to show your moral absolutism, you crossed your own statements. Who decides what is right and wrong? You? Me? The society where we live? The religion we practice? The Native American example was used to show that we as a nation thought it was right to move those people AT THAT TIME. Now of course, we don't hold to that opinion, showing the concept of right and wrong can change over time.

Once again, I would urge to not place what you believe is right, based on your 21st century views, on what others believe. History is full of examples of changing values of right and wrong.

One more thing to chew on: there are some who believe the very nature of roleplaying games make them evil, and those who play them evil by default.

Sorry everyone, off the soapbox, back behind the screen...


VV Wrote: Except the child of Falls-From-Grace will be [Evil]. This is unavoidable. Unchangeable. No matter what happens, the child will be physically wrought from pure [Evil]. And that child will be every bit as much Always Chaotic Evil as any zombie is Always Neutral Evil.

Why?
Why does the child have to be evil? Parents aren't?
Is it so it supports your argument?


Viletta Vadim wrote:
Because, "All Good Clerics must be Stupid/Good pricks," is a bad interpretation of the rules.

You are a good aligned cleric. That means you:

PRD wrote:

...protect innocent life...

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Someone you know is creating undead (violation of "respect for life" and an evil act). Do you:

a) Let them be
b) Decide for their own sake to intervene ("make personal sacrifices to help others")

Saying that you will not abide the creation of undead is neither "Stupid" nor being a "prick". OTOH, insisting that anothers interpretation of their alignment is being "Stupid/Good pricks" IS actually being a prick.

Congradulations, you WIN!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Good to see we're chasing our tails about alignments now.


Spacelard wrote:

VV Wrote: Except the child of Falls-From-Grace will be [Evil]. This is unavoidable. Unchangeable. No matter what happens, the child will be physically wrought from pure [Evil]. And that child will be every bit as much Always Chaotic Evil as any zombie is Always Neutral Evil.

I also missed the book detailing demon reproduction and alignment transferral. Can we get a source?

Dark Archive

No its just one or two posters chasing tails, there is actually an undercurrent of real discussion going on, you just have to scroll past the voluminous walls of "my opinion is fact" to get the conversation held between them.

love,

malkav

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I didn't realize any of the arguments weren't 'my opinion is fact'. :P

Liberty's Edge

Viletta Vadim

I honestly need to ask this question, so forgive me if this is offensive:

Have you actually checked the Animate Dead spell and monster entries for Skeleton and Zombie?

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not trying to attack or insult you. But after reading your post I need to ask.

Because, according to the Rules As Written, both the spell and the undead created by it are inherently evil.

Why is an excellent topic for debate. Whether or not they should be is an excellent topic for debate. But the fact of the matter is they are, and always have been.

Even in Ebberon, where it was possible to play a Paladin devoted to a religion run by a half-dragon lich, they were still inherently evil.

You seem to be insisting that this is not the case.


Viletta Vadim wrote:

Blackerose wrote:

In any kind of realistic game world even an undead hedgehog should cause the local towns folk to be horrified and go for their pitchforks and torches. As players we tend to forget what the CHARACTERS should see in the undead, and how truly unusual and horrific the act of raiseing them is. It should be viewed as something only the twisted and mentally ill would do..hence the long time view of necromancers as ugly, twisted people that become more socially and physically damaged as time goes on. While that is not a game rule (your necro may have an 18 Cha, and be mayor of the town), the folklore that necromancers are based on has this view, and thats why necromancers are great big baddies.

Why?

Why should they be horrified? Why would it be unusual? What makes it so horrific? Why would only a madman think to pour some petrol in a perfectly usable engine?
Blackerose wrote:

Not only is raiseing the dead the apex of unnatural, any good and most neutral gods would see it as desecrating the body, even if it was the body of a foe. Only the most callous of neutral gods would grant the spell, because the act is evil by its nature.

"Unnatural" is the most pathetic of all possible moral arguments. Every human act is unnatural. The clothes you're wearing are unnatural. The computer you're typing at is unnatural. Polyester is unnatural. "Unnatural" carries absolutely zero moral weight.

So you are saying..if you took a feudal based town, and walked into it with a couple of zombies, they would just keep right on doing their serf thing without batting an eyelash? Even in a world where they accepted magic and monsters as "real", your average townsperson would almost never come in contact with such things, and what they did know, especially of the undead, would be that they were horrors. If your game has people hanging about town leading zombie caravans, great for you, but I think its safe to say that your typical village, based on real world examples would not take kindly to having undead shambling about.
As far as the unnatural..again look at the time and the framework. You have druids running about, gods of nature, and not a pair of polyester slacks in sight. Undead by their very nature are unnatural, which is why animals react badly to them. Its not so much a moral argument, as yet another reason that most people would view them as evil or to be destroyed.
A zombie to a PLAYER may be just a means to an end...a zombie to a CHARACTER is not a tool, weapon, or engine..it is the animated body of someone..and a walking reminder of death, to say the least.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Not my words, but relevant to the discussion at hand.

The Morality of Necromancy: Black and Gray
The rules of D&D attempt to be all things to all people, and unfortunately that just isn’t possible if you’re trying to make a system of objective morality. By trying to cater to two very different play styles as regards to the moral quandaries of the use of negative energy, the game ends up catering to neither – and this has been the cause of a great many arguments for which there actually are no possible resolutions. Ultimately therefore, it falls to every DM to determine whether in their game the powers of Necromancy are inherently evil, or merely extremely dangerous. That’s a choice which must be made, and has far reaching implications throughout the game. That’s an awful lot of work, and most DMs honestly just don’t care enough to be bothered with it, and I understand. Fortunately, we have collated those changes for you right here:

Moral Option 1: The Crawling Darkness
Many DMs will choose to have Negative Energy in general, and undead in particular, be inherently Evil. So much so that we can capitalize it: Evil. And say it again for emphasis: Evil. That means that when you cast a negative energy wave you are physically unleashing Evil onto the world. When you animate a corpse, you are creating a being whose singular purpose is to make moral choices which are objectionable on every level.

That’s a big commitment. It means that anyone using Inflict Wounds is an awful person, at least while they are doing it. The Plane of Negative Energy is in this model the source of all Evil, more so than the Abyss or Hell. It’s Evil without an opinion, immorality in its purest most undiluted form.

Moral Option 2: Playing with Fire
Many DMs will choose to have Negative Energy be a base physical property of the magical universe that the D&D characters live in – like extremes of Cold or Fire it is inimical to life, and it is ultimately no more mysterious than that. An animate skeleton is more disgusting and frightening to the average man than is a stone golem, but it’s actually a less despicable act in the grand scheme of things because a golem requires the enslavement of an elemental spirit and a skeleton has no spirit at all.

The Plane of Negative Energy in this model is precisely the same as all the other elemental planes: a dangerous environment that an unprotected human has no business going to.

Implications
It’s not actually enough to simply make a sweeping generalization about the morality of Negative Energy and leave it at that. Like a butterfly flapping its wings, such changes will eventually cause Godzilla to destroy Tokyo. Or something like that, I stopped math at Calculus.

Creatures
Some monsters have been written up with the (incorrect) assumption that either “The Crawling Darkness” or “Playing With Fire” was the general rule. Others have been written in such a fashion that is actually incompatible with any possible interpretation of morality in D&D.

Revenants
If Negative Energy is inherently Evil, Revenants are Lawful Evil. They are undead who live only to kill and survive on hatred and the desire for vengeance. While they are victims and their actions are understandable, the Justice of their actions makes them Lawful, but they are still Evil and can be treated accordingly.
With the Playing with Fire option, there is no change to the Revenant. All is fair in avenging your own death, and they are the unliving emissaries of the Balance in its pure form.

Skeletons
If Negative Energy is inherently Evil, Skeletons must be as well. That means that they actually do Evil things.
An uncontrolled skeleton will find the nearest source of life and start ripping it to pieces. A skeleton does not need to be commanded to attack, but to stop tearing up your vegetable garden (assuming even that it had not already found a more vigorous source of life such as the family dog). A commanded skeleton is a vicious, unthinking killer on a chain – not an inert construct awaiting commands.

If Negative Energy isn’t Evil by itself, neither are skeletons. As described they aren’t moral agents. That means that they don’t have an alignment other than Neutral. Like a viper or a scorpion, though they do things that a paladin wouldn’t necessarily condone (such as use poison for the snake or move around after death for the skeleton), they aren’t gifted with the ability to make moral choices and default to the same Neutrality of the animated cabinet. Ordering a skeleton around could be Good, Evil, or Neutral depending on whether you are telling it to save children from a burning house, throw bloated corpses into the town well, or just carry your swag out of your basement.

Vampires
Vampires are the rockstars of the undead world, but also the most affected by the gulf between Playing With Fire and Crawling Darkness Necromancy. Either vampires are tragically cursed Euro-trash with nice outfits or they are blood hungry princes of death . . . heck, sometimes they are depicted as both, as in the case of the patron saint of D&D vampires, Strahd Von Zarovich. Unlike most undead, vampires are morally affected by negative energy in a perversely contrary fashion; Zombies are evil if (and only if) negative energy makes zombies evil, but the opposite is true of the vampire.

If Negative energy is a hungry and malevolent force that hungers for the light of the living, the vampire is a tragic figure compelled by dark desires he cannot control. He can even just be Good, but that’s not going to stop him from taking a nip from the farmer’s daughter. If negative energy is an objective force, then being a vampire is actually an evil act since you don’t have to eat babies for eternal life . . . you’re just a jerk.

Zombies
Like Skeletons, Zombies must hunger for the flesh of the living or have no moral indictments. Either they sit and wait for their chance to devour your liver or they are Neutral. The Monster Manual version cannot stand. A zombie in the fields is either a figure of horror or comedy.

Spells

Animate Dead
If Negative Energy isn’t Evil, this spell isn’t either. Zombies and Skeletons are the only possible creations of this spell, so the alignment tag is contingent on Negative Energy itself being a moral choice. Interestingly, create undead and create greater undead stay [Evil] even if animate dead doesn’t. Regardless of the moral inclinations of negative energy in general, Ghouls and shadows are just not nice people – they are a disease that exists for no purpose but to consume the living. So those [Evil] tags are on no matter what skeletons do with their free time.

Create Undead
While animate dead may or may not be evil depending upon your setup, create undead and create greater undead is an [Evil] spell regardless of the morality version you use. It creates evil creatures that unlive for nothing but to slay innocents, so it gets the Evil tag for the same reason that planar binding gets the [Evil] tag if it is used to call a Demon – it’s bringing irredeemable evil into the world – the moral implications of the negative energy used are irrelevant.

Source document.

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