RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hence the idea I had above about how to rationalize this all with negative energy on its own being devoid of alignment (just dangerous, like fire to an ice creature), but when artificially combined with previously mortal remains (or really anything previously powered by positive energy), that admixture represents something evil by its creation (and perhaps why the sceaduinar as neutral beings purely comprised of negative energy view undead as an abomination, a sort of perverse mockery of their own inability to create in the same way that their positive counterparts are capable).
Beings purely empowered by negative energy would be untainted by evil, but the corruption of positive energy-based life by negative energy would be evil (similarly doing the same with positive energy to a negative-based creature -whatever that might be- would likewise exist as an evil corruption of its base nature).
so Negative energy is like radiation then? By itself it's dangerous, and maybe even useful (ala Nuclear Power Plants)but when you start infusing something with it, that becomes twisted into evil (like nuking someone can give them cancer).
Is that where you're going with it Todd? Just asking, since I don't like my major planes sentient. (minor planes maybe, Ravenloft Definately)
More random thoughts about undead paradigms;
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A problem that rears it’s ugly head when making arbitrary changes is that they trickle-down. If mindless undead seek out and destroy life, the question becomes, if they are mindless, how do they determine what is alive versus what is unliving? We know from the real world that an opossum can ‘feign dead’ with sufficient skill to fool a predator, which, in D&D terms, would have an Intelligence score of 2. An undead wouldn’t even have the *option* of figuring out that is a deception, meaning that a possum would be *guaranteed* to fool the undead. Indeed, a human child throwing a blanket over her head would likely also become utterly invisible to a rampaging horde of skeletons or zombies, since they have no capacity to comprehend that she’s still there, under the blanket. It’s not like they have infravision, or lifesight, or some other mystical property to detect living beings or life-forces, at least, not in this game.
A necromancer commanding those undead could *order* them to kill the child under the blanket, but otherwise, they’d just wander around, killing anything that *did* fit their limited comprehension of ‘living thing.’ Does this destruction of life extend to plant-life? Will a horde of skeletons ‘at liberty’ wander through the forest, chopping down trees, in an attempt to destroy all life, or do they only recognize animal life as ‘life?’ Do insects count? Will a batch of skeletons trapped in a crypt spend eternity chasing centipedes with murderous intent, or is it only warm-blooded prey? Maybe it’s only sentients they prey upon, hateful reminders of their living forms, and yet, how would that apply to undead fashioned from animals or monsters? Do they only hate living creatures of their own type? Is there some sort of order of priority, starting with creatures of their own type, and then other animals, and then bugs, and then plants? What does a creature fundementally incapable of...
Set, I think I love you. I've been grappling with the very basics of undead in my setting and I had something very sketchy set up but was despairing that it was so anemic. Your post just snuck up and put some putrid, rotting meat on dem shamblin' bones. Can I use the ideas you posted here? You will be credited fully.
That's no different than skinning a dear for a pair of gloves, When glue is made, it doesn't involve a corpse walking around un-naturally.On the horse, defiling a corpse is taboo in just about every culture that ever existed.You do know where glue comes from, right?
Sorry, I wanted to be done with commenting, but I just couldn't pass this up...
So, if I understand you, animating a corpse (like a deer or person) is evil. But skinning a corpse (like a deer or person) and wearing it's flesh isn't evil?
I don't buy it. Either way, you are using the corpse (or parts of it) as a tool.
Or is using the parts of an animal OK, but the parts of a person is a no-no?
How many people here are organ donors? What about cadavers for medical research? Doctors in the middle ages actually had to perform graverobbing and steal their corpses so that they could learn about human anatomy.
I'm sorry, but the whole "it's a dead body, so using it is evil." just doesn't fly.
Is that where you're going with it Todd? Just asking, since I don't like my major planes sentient. (minor planes maybe, Ravenloft Definately)
Sort of yes. I'm also more into providing options for framing the argument rather than a distinct 'here is how it is' (Planescape's lingering influence on me I guess).
I'll give a longer, detailed post on the issue later tonight, but I also need to pace myself and not give everyone a twelve page essay, partially in-character, on the positive/negative energy dynamic and the jyoti/sceaduinar dynamic that mirrors it along with a lot of speculative multiversal history regarding the energy planes, their relationship to souls beyond what is already in print, relationship to the gods (beyond what's already in print).
And of course my answers are totally optional till they're vetted by the Paizo bossman. ;)
And answers specific to Golarion may differ from that of core Pathfinder rules in some circumstances due to potential flavor differences, though often minor.
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I don't buy it. Either way, you are using the corpse (or parts of it) as a tool.Or is using the parts of an animal OK, but the parts of a person is a no-no?
How many people here are organ donors? What about cadavers for medical research? Doctors in the middle ages actually had to perform graverobbing and steal their corpses so that they could learn about human anatomy.
I'm sorry, but the whole "it's a dead body, so using it is evil." just doesn't fly.
I disagree and I'll state why -
When using parts to say - create a golem - you are animating it with an external force in the form of an elemental spirit. The dead parts are just that, parts. There may be societal reason why it’s bad; you stole Uncle Joe’s brain and put it in your golem bodyguard, etc. Could be a criminal act, or frowned up by society.When animating a dead body – via animate dead you are doing two things. You are using negative energy to partially animate/fuel the body and you are NOT providing a soul/spirit. The source of the energy is from the realm of entropy and decay and the action is an affront to the natural order of the universe - more so than creating a golem utilizing an elemental spirit.
So in the case of animating dead it isn't soley evil because you may have revived someone's aunt, or a hydra - you are actually committing and evil act by placing a source of energy into a vessel which it should never have been housed in.
So – breaking the natural order & rules of nature + using entropy to power a corpse > cultural norms on what is or is not an evil action.
I'll give a longer, detailed post on the issue later tonight, but I also need to pace myself and not give everyone a twelve page essay, partially in-character, on the positive/negative energy dynamic...
*ahem* No comment.
OKOK using entropy to power a corpse. I gotcha. So you're saying that negative energy is inherently evil and can only be used to do evil and Evil things. I disagree, but whatever.
I guess my problem is: Flesh Golem. Stitched together from a bunch of bodies. Animated BY ENSLAVING an elemental spirit and binding it to a disgusting parody of life. To create it requires you to cast Animate Dead which is an evil spell. Other than the flavor of elemental planes vs. negative energy plane, the process is rather similar and likely an evil act. No problem. Creating undead and creating a flesh golem are both evil acts. Flesh Golem is NEUTRAL where all undead are Evil. /boggle.
OKOK using entropy to power a corpse. I gotcha. So you're saying that negative energy is inherently evil and can only be used to do evil and Evil things. I disagree, but whatever.
I guess my problem is: Flesh Golem. Stitched together from a bunch of bodies. Animated BY ENSLAVING an elemental spirit and binding it to a disgusting parody of life. To create it requires you to cast Animate Dead which is an evil spell. Other than the flavor of elemental planes vs. negative energy plane, the process is rather similar and likely an evil act. No problem. Creating undead and creating a flesh golem are both evil acts. Flesh Golem is NEUTRAL where all undead are Evil. /boggle.
This has been asked and answered. Elementals are neutral - they have no inherent motivation towards or against life. Negative energy is the negation of life - it withers the living and fortifies the dead. A body animated by a motivationless elemental does as it is commanded, and if not commanded, does nothing. A body animated by Negative energy, if not commanded, seeks out life to negate it. There is no will or intellect behind this, simply the need to end life because it is living. I'd imagine that if there were no people around, they would most certainly attack trees and plants. They would probably be distracted by a swarm of gnats. But regardless - they would continue killing until there was nothing left to kill, in which case they would move on to seek out more to kill.
Square peg. Round hole.
Golems, as an idea, originate in Jewish / kabbalah folklore in Medieval Europe and earlier... not with Frankenstein. It's important to note that much of this involved Rabbinic rites, names of God, religious / instructive / community defensive purpose, etc.
So... needless to say, the original elements of the idea of a golem (clay originally, and by extension - flesh) don't effortlessly fit into the D&D cosmology and system, especially with regard to evil, animation, and the morality behind it: thus the residual damage caused by smashing this square peg idea into that round hole system.
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OKOK using entropy to power a corpse. I gotcha. So you're saying that negative energy is inherently evil and can only be used to do evil and Evil things. I disagree, but whatever.
Why do you disagree? Negative energy + applied to living things or corpses = evil. It isn't a hard formula to follow. As it has been already stated negative/positive energy on their own are not inherently evil But when they come into contact with living (or dead) things the consequences are usually pretty bad. As with everything there are varying degrees.
I guess my problem is: Flesh Golem. Stitched together from a bunch of bodies. Animated BY ENSLAVING an elemental spirit and binding it to a disgusting parody of life. To create it requires you to cast Animate Dead which is an evil spell. Other than the flavor of elemental planes vs. negative energy plane, the process is rather similar and likely an evil act. No problem. Creating undead and creating a flesh golem are both evil acts. Flesh Golem is NEUTRAL where all undead are Evil. /boggle.
Again, you are disregarding the source of power which is animating both.
Part of the problem with the argument is the "flesh" aspect of the FG. If you just called it a Golem vs a zombie there would be no issues, but since the Flesh Golem is made up of parts people automatically compare the two as the same. No one makes comparisons with stone golems and zombies - they are just two different creature types which are powered and made in a different fashion. It really just comes down to the material composition of the flesh golem vs other golem types.The act of making a flesh golem is evil, since you are using some evil necromantic magic. The power source and the control are different though - and even though they are partially spawned from an evil action they are ultimately not powered or infused with negative energy.
Zombies eat flesh and kill when in their down modes; flesh golems are more like robots and have no innate programming.
Zombies rot and decay unless the action is prevented (need intact corpse, different stages of corpse can only allow skeleton, etc) flesh golems do not - at least there is nothing in the printed literature which points to that. Some zombies may bring contagion - Flesh Golems have no disease/death component built into their construction.
Zombies are healed/boosted from negative energy, Flesh Golems by electricity (Frankenstein).
The hang up on the FG is that it's composed of parts of dead bodies vs. being made up of Iron, Clay or Wood. Once you get past that part they are just another type of construct and the similarities between them and the animated zombie ends. Still an evil act to make one, but doesn't produce an evil creature.
As the other people say the key of the theme is how you consider the planes of energy. If they are good and evil then the creatures animates with that energy are good and evil respectively. If they are neutral as the elemental planes, then a no inteligent undead will be neutral and the animate undead won't be a bad guys spell inherently evil, but the particularities of the setting/society can convert it casting evil.
OKOK using entropy to power a corpse. I gotcha. So you're saying that negative energy is inherently evil and can only be used to do evil and Evil things. I disagree, but whatever.
I guess my problem is: Flesh Golem. Stitched together from a bunch of bodies. Animated BY ENSLAVING an elemental spirit and binding it to a disgusting parody of life. To create it requires you to cast Animate Dead which is an evil spell. Other than the flavor of elemental planes vs. negative energy plane, the process is rather similar and likely an evil act. No problem. Creating undead and creating a flesh golem are both evil acts. Flesh Golem is NEUTRAL where all undead are Evil. /boggle.
This has been asked and answered. Elementals are neutral - they have no inherent motivation towards or against life. Negative energy is the negation of life - it withers the living and fortifies the dead. A body animated by a motivationless elemental does as it is commanded, and if not commanded, does nothing. A body animated by Negative energy, if not commanded, seeks out life to negate it. There is no will or intellect behind this, simply the need to end life because it is living. I'd imagine that if there were no people around, they would most certainly attack trees and plants. They would probably be distracted by a swarm of gnats. But regardless - they would continue killing until there was nothing left to kill, in which case they would move on to seek out more to kill.
It has not been answered to my satisfaction. The answer has been basically "cuz we say so". Undead are inherently evil because...they just are. Different energies, okay fine. Can we at least agree it is an utterly evil act to create a golem, since it enslaves an innocent creature?
Why can't I just use that different energy to animate corpses? If negative energy is just inherently icky, and anyone who does anything with it for even a second is irrevocably evil (and can't be played in a PFS game) then just animate corpses with elementals since that seems to be pretty okay in everyone's book.
My problem, and why I disagree with Auxmalous, is that to me good and evil isn't inherent in anything. Good/evil is a moral argument, and I strongly dislike the boolean nature of supernatural evil/good. If something is unable to make a moral choice, such as animals or viruses, are neutral by default.
I put this to you, if a zombie is evil only because when left with a lack of orders it tends to destroy living things, is it still evil if it never once in its unlife does so? If it is continually commanded not to harm anyone? If it is evil regardless of its own actions or intent then we have a double-standard for morality. Some things like undead are always evil even when they are not behaving that way or have never behaved that way. I believe Kender also falls under this category. It is righteous of me to slaughter all Kender at birth because, when left to their own devices they MAY perpetrate evil.
It just seems...dumb to me. Lacking of nuance and moral shades of grey, which is something that Paizo and specifically Golarian have been pretty good about.
Taking an opportunity of this popular thread, I would like to call out to Paizo for one thing:
Hire. Kevin Andrew Murphy. Now. Get him to write something. Please.
Anybody who can, back me up on this. We need some KAM in our Golarion. Badly. :)
Thank you, but no need to pressure Paizo. They're already on top of this.
You'll find my fiction in next month's Pathfinder, part 4 of the "Prodigal Sons" adventure path, continuing the adventures of Ollix and Phargas.
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It has not been answered to my satisfaction. The answer has been basically "cuz we say so". Undead are inherently evil because...they just are. Different energies, okay fine. Can we at least agree it is an utterly evil act to create a golem, since it enslaves an innocent creature?
Why can't I just use that different energy to animate corpses? If negative energy is just inherently icky, and anyone who does anything with it for even a second is irrevocably evil (and can't be played in a PFS game) then just animate corpses with elementals since that seems to be pretty okay in everyone's book.
I think you are looking for some for of justifications here to have a good pc use an evil spell. That isn't how it works though. Summoning and binding a Balor is an evil act, killing innocents is evil and animating dead - be it zombies or using the spell to create a Flesh Golem is evil.
My problem, and why I disagree with Auxmalous, is that to me good and evil isn't inherent in anything. Good/evil is a moral argument, and I strongly dislike the boolean nature of supernatural evil/good. If something is unable to make a moral choice, such as animals or viruses, are neutral by default.
I have to disagree with this. D&D cosmology is often about absolutes -planes are aligned with law, chaos, good and evil. With some planes mutating and even producing life (or undeath). So the facts of the game (not arguing the why of your point) do not support this. A plane doesn't even need to be fully aware and by its very nature and existence will be fused with evil, hate, torment or even goodwill and peace -depending on the neighborhood.
I put this to you, if a zombie is evil only because when left with a lack of orders it tends to destroy living things, is it still evil if it never once in its unlife does so? If it is continually commanded not to harm anyone? If it is evil regardless of its own actions or intent then we have a double-standard for morality. Some things like undead are always evil even when they are not behaving that way or have never behaved that way. I believe Kender also falls under this category. It is righteous of me to slaughter all Kender at birth because, when left to their own devices they MAY perpetrate evil.
Not going to get into the Kendar argument here - ultimately they have their own free will even if they were written out to be played as tools.
Getting to the controlled zombie point - I don't think it's solely evil due to its destructive nature, it's evil since you are using entropy and negative energy to power a corpse - 100% unnatural, anti-life vs. elemental.I think that there are plenty of contradictions about the nature of spells, evil actions, etc in D&D/PF. There probably should be a few more evil tags on how spells are used, and neutral summoned monsters being sacrificed to set off traps and so on.
Creating undead is evil since the act itself an affront to nature - it doesn't matter if the zombie is never used to kill innocent people. IMO (and I stress this is my opinion) a good DM will genie/monkeys paw the PCs intent to used the undead for good purposes. Sort of like getting a twisted wish from an efreet - he will always try to get the effect to harm you or someone you love or to seed some subtle evil by modifying the intent.
The good PC raises a zombie mob to defend his village. He is successful in repelling the invading orcs – until he sees the zombies devouring the fallen (but not dead) orcish soldiers, inducing both terror and acting out a mockery of consuming sustenance to exist.
That and the distinct possibility that one or two of the zombies may accidentally attack one of the innocent villagers. That’s the nature of undead – even with good intent the attempt to use dark power for a righteous cause on the cheap is always going to blow up in your face.
Anyway I think this argument at its base is just about players wanting a decent and powerful ability with none of the moral/ethical baggage. If PCs acted like bad guys their jobs and missions would be alot easier to pull off -they can torture and kill anyone they like, use any kind of power or broker deals with fiends just to get the job done - unfortunately at the end of the day they just wouldn't be good PCs.
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Set, I think I love you. I've been grappling with the very basics of undead in my setting and I had something very sketchy set up but was despairing that it was so anemic. Your post just snuck up and put some putrid, rotting meat on dem shamblin' bones. Can I use the ideas you posted here? You will be credited fully.
If I wrote it here, it's free to take and fold and spindle and mutilate to your hearts content. It's not like *I* invented the idea of a negative energy plane and undead, after all, so I'm already standing on the shoulders of giants.
And I thought we agreed not to use the 'l' word? :)
Anyway I think this argument at its base is just about players wanting a decent and powerful ability with none of the moral/ethical baggage. If PCs acted like bad guys their jobs and missions would be alot easier to pull off -they can torture and kill anyone they like, use any kind of power or broker deals with fiends just to get the job done - unfortunately at the end of the day they just wouldn't be good PCs.
I can only speak for myself, but this is very much not so. It's more about examining the granularity of morality in the D&D universe. I had an idea in my game for a small city state that bordered with lands populated by orc and goblin hordes which often made aggressive incursions onto their land. The populace was small, but had a sizable militia. All members of the militia pledged to fight beyond the veil of death, and thus their bodies would be reanimated to fight off the orcs. I know, its my game its my world I can do whatever I want, but I want to do this precisely because it showcases a corner case of moral ambiguity. I like moral ambiguity. I like that good guys have to do questionable things now and again for the greater good, even if it makes them feel dirty to do so. PF being ruled as it is leaves no room for such an interesting scenario, as that kingdom would be wholly evil the first time they animated a single corpse.
Furthermore, I have no qualms about playing an evil character though I usually play neutral onces because of my open disdain for simultaneously limiting and ambiguous alignment system. You don't have to be "good" to be a hero.
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I'm far from convinced by the claims that animating the dead is evil because it is "unnatural". If being unnatural was evil, then pretty much all magic would be evil.
And on another note, it seems that a lot of people in this thread are acting under the assumption that a single evil act will change your alignment, good and neutral characters can and do commit evil acts, only by continuously acting evil will their alignment be affected. Similarly, an evil character won't immediately become good if he decides that he is going to save a drowning child he happens upon. But this isn't really a topic for this thread.
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I can only speak for myself, but this is very much not so. It's more about examining the granularity of morality in the D&D universe. I had an idea in my game for a small city state that bordered with lands populated by orc and goblin hordes which often made aggressive incursions onto their land. The populace was small, but had a sizable militia. All members of the militia pledged to fight beyond the veil of death, and thus their bodies would be reanimated to fight off the orcs. I know, its my game its my world I can do whatever I want, but I want to do this precisely because it showcases a corner case of moral ambiguity. I like moral ambiguity. I like that good guys have to do questionable things now and again for the greater good, even if it makes them feel dirty to do so. PF being ruled as it is leaves no room for such an interesting scenario, as that kingdom would be wholly evil the first time they animated a single corpse.
Furthermore, I have no qualms about playing an evil character though I usually play neutral onces because of my open disdain for simultaneously limiting and ambiguous alignment system. You don't have to be "good" to be a hero.
There is nothing wrong with any of this IMO, a very cool concept.
I don't think that a single or even multiple justified castings of animate dead would slide a PC irrevocably to the side of evil. I do think that continued questionable actions and tactics may eventually shift a person, party or whole a society towards evil. The great and applicable quote from Nietzsche which works here -
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
That is the moral tightrope our society has had to walk with regard to war, treatment of minorities (all types), persecution, slavery. I don't think that the ends justify the means, because if you trade in your humanity and moral right you have already lost, something has died.
Don't reanimate it.
Anyway I think all of this leads to a greater argument about alignment, what degrees of evil can be tolerated or allowed for the greater good? Does doing questionable things eventually lead to a slide to evil? Can this be done in small steps, can it be atoned for, how much is too much, etc. I don't think the alignment system as setup can really accommodate for this.
Cool concept for a society - I could see them possibly summoning fiends to also get the job done, or at least there would be a small vocal minority suggesting it while the rest would be contemplating what it would mean for them if they went down this road.
I'm fascinated that this thread has gone on for so long, frankly.
I think the application of some sincere, non-gamist empathetic reasoning (as I mention in my first and unanswered post) would resolve so much, IMO.
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Anyway I think this argument at its base is just about players wanting a decent and powerful ability with none of the moral/ethical baggage.
If the game wasn't lopsided in favor of good abilities (and classes) being both more powerful and easier to attain than evil abilities (and classes), that might be true.
A Necromancer is a sad example of a 'powerful' character compared to a Conjuror, or a Transmuter, or an Illusionist.
A Paladin is flat out better than a Blackguard, and you don't have to *earn* Paladin status. You can walk off your pappy's farm and sign up at the temple, without even taking a level in Commoner first, while the Blackguard, for *less power,* has to actually accomplish some stuff, like a BAB +5, a few specific combat feats and securing a recommendation from an evil outsider.
If the necromancy school and the use of negative energy is inherently 'wrong,' why is it a PC option? Why not go the route Monte Cook went in Arcana Unearthed and have 'the Dark' be an NPC only option? Any class option or spell that is labelled 'off-limits' should be in the DMG or NPC guide, not in the core rulebook for players to look at, and then be told they can't touch, because it's 'unclean.' Those pages could have been used for something useful, like new divination or abjuration spells ('cause those two schools are pretty dire), and the Undead bloodline replaced with something else, and the Death domain replaced with something else, and the Inflict line of spells replaced with a 'holy light-smite' series of spells.
But no, the rules for necromancy and negative energy use are 'an abomination' and 'defilement' and 'desecration,' and yet right there in the core rules, stinking up the place, kinda like a dead body. (One that is occasionally re-animated by discussions like these, then left to lie there, decrepit and unwanted, an unwelcome remnant of earlier times, despite it's presence in the rule book, after we tire of the topic.)
We could still use undead as monsters, without rules for PCs making them, just as we still, after four editions and 30-something years, have owlbears as monsters, despite still not having rules for how that mad wizard made them all those years ago.
Making up arbitrary rulings for why PCs can't use certain things in the core rulebook, even if it requires one to contradict other rulings in those same rules (such as negative energy spells like inflict *not* being evil, and desecrating graves to make a flesh golem out of people's families isn't evil, and enslaving sentient elemental beings into eternal slavery in a rotting pile of bodies isn't evil), is just making the game smaller and less morally complex and compelling and mature.
As I've said before. Make negative energy evil. Be consistent. Make positive energy inherently good, and make sure that all healing spells are unavailable to evil clerics, because they are inherently good, bringing good energy into the world.
You could even go one step further. If negative energy taints anything it inhabits into evil, positive energy should have a similar taint, and turn every living creature on the planet at least somewhat good, no matter if they are malicious fey or mindless insects or trees or drow evils worshipping demon lords. So long as the power of raw goodness is flowing through them, they *can't* be evil, as the energies that sustain their lives are at odds with evil.
It might work similarly to how ancient cultures believed that illness was a sign of moral decay. A person's innate goodness would be at war with their wicked thoughts and desires, and their body would become ravaged by this internal conflict, as the inherently good-aligned positive energy is weakened, leaving them susceptible to disease.
It could be an interesting game world, one where negative energy made stuff evil, and positive energy made stuff good.
The alternative, a setting where negative energy is evil, and positive energy remains un-aligned, is, well, unique, in that such a setting might be quite Lovecraftian, where the only gods and forces in the setting either don't care about humanity or actively seek it's destruction, and there are no 'good' dieties or 'upper' planes, only an endless hungering darkness dominating all, and an inevitable emptiness waiting to devour any fragile spark of life that is born to such a dying world.
Personally... I'd feel the same as if she were dead and someone came along and used her organs for transplantation.
You're seriously equating an act that sustains life in the living with raising the rotting dead to do one's bidding (for ill or good)?
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You know, he didn't say he would be okay with them using her organs for transplantation. Some people don't like putting only half of their loved ones in the ground after all.
Edit: For the record, seeing that he confirmed his feelings on it, I agree. I might have that moment of 'whoa, weird' but I wouldn't find it a vile act.
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Personally... I'd feel the same as if she were dead and someone came along and used her organs for transplantation.You're seriously equating an act that sustains life in the living with raising the rotting dead to do one's bidding (for ill or good)?
Yep, in both cases it's the body being used as a tool; it's the person I care about, not the body. Of course, I can understand how people might feel differently.
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I'd be creeped out by seeing a relative's body used in that way (just as, I imagine, the young woman who found her aunts body on the autopsy table during her first year of med school felt), but, ultimately, this is a straw man, since I doubt that the people who killed the hydra really care what it's neices and nephews think of it's body being animated afterwards.
Animating human(oid) corpses is kinda pointless (barring certain outsiders, or, like war trolls or something), other than for the sheer cackling evil of it.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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One of the tensions between the Knorr barbarians and the Charonti exiles was the Charoni belief that the living deserved to enjoy the slave labor of the reanimated dead. Animate Dead was the routine spell to use on intact corpses. The superstitious Knorr were appalled.
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Yes, Mirror Mirror. If the text announced that using a spatula to clean eggs off a pot was inheirently evil, there'd be a lot of questions, even though it might be a rule, and the intent of the designers. (Or, more particularly, of the 3.5 designers, where the Pathfinder designers decided to preserve continuity in this case.)
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I'm far from convinced by the claims that animating the dead is evil because it is "unnatural". If being unnatural was evil, then pretty much all magic would be evil.
What I said was "it's evil since you are using entropy and negative energy to power a corpse - 100% unnatural, anti-life vs. elemental."
And on another note, it seems that a lot of people in this thread are acting under the assumption that a single evil act will change your alignment, good and neutral characters can and do commit evil acts, only by continuously acting evil will their alignment be affected. Similarly, an evil character won't immediately become good if he decides that he is going to save a drowning child he happens upon. But this isn't really a topic for this thread.
I don't think anyone here has stated here that a single use of an evil spell or item would cause the pc to instantaneously to become evil.
Also I like your saving the drowning child example - reminds of an episode a of "The Shield" where Vic Mackey just committed some heinous act in an earlier - while walking through to an apartment complex to pound someone else's head in he sees a kid drowning in a pool and saves him. Does it make him a good guy after all the evil he has already committed? No, it just shows that evil can do good things, it just isn't reasonable to rely on it to do so without corrupting all those around it.
My contention is that animating the dead is an immoral act. It's not good, neutral, or evil. But desecrating human remains certainly isn't moral in my book. It's something that the average person should find skin-crawling to contemplate.
Playing with dead things is also considered quite creepy. (Reference Dahmer's childhood and the backgrounds of many other serial killers).
Exactly when does the White Necromancer animating the dead willy-nilly as tools start to see every living thing as a potential tool or raw materials? Make no mistake, it will happen. The blase, amoral use of mortal remains can lead to this train of thought. (I see it here in this thread, albeit only in a fantastical sense.)
Totally not canon, but use if you like.
From the writings of Xegirus Malikar, Book 9 - Cycle 12:
I glanced down at the creature held in stasis. Since I first entered the Void and drawn my city in tow, more than a dozen of them had attacked me directly or sought to destroy the drifting remains of my home. I'd destroyed them all with little trouble, and for the timebeing they seemed to largely ignore me. But they were intelligent, and though they'd fought like fiends from the Abyss, they never registered as evil, and any sense of malice from them was dwarfed by another pair of emotions entirely: agony and pity.
Like the glittering snowflake structures their kind created within the depths of their native plane, now and perhaps forever after my adopted home, this creature -a scaeduinar as they refer to themselves- was a thing of alien beauty. Shifting and faceted, skewed depending on the angle of vision, like a vaguely humanoid raven of crystal and smoke, it was beautiful even if its touch dissolved the essence of matter into nothingness.
It winced as I approached and I noticed it tremble, then shiver and then hurl itself against the walls of force that made its cage. A lesser being might have simply assumed a level of homicidal rage, but no. No there was something else.
"Why?" The question was blunt and thrust directly into its mind.
It looked up at me and its answer was unexpected.
"Why? Why did you invade our home? Why did you, all of you, creatures of spirit and matter invade this place? It hurts us. It causes us pain. Your kind were never meant to be here. You disrupt this place and it reacts, we react like you would to a ravenous insect burrowing into your flesh."
"My kind?" I asked.
It snarled, and I noticed its claws set into its own substance, bleeding streams of black mist.
"The so-called living. Beings of element and soul, children born and infused with the fruit of our enemies. You are innocent, unlike them. But this is not your place. You hurt us. Please. Please go away."
For the briefest moment I read the creature's mind for a more emotional translation of its 'enemy'. The creature was calm in voice, but its mind screamed with outrage, invictive, and a lingering sorrow. JyotiThievesDeceiversStolenthefireofthecreators.
"I'm not exactly living you should be aware."
The sense of pity returned to its features. "I am well aware of that. The pain the living cause us is not of their knowing, not of their fault, most of them. But you, the undead, not only do you cause us pain because of your origins, but you have become a disease, a virus that wraps itself in the stuff of the Void, coils it tight around itself and perverts it for its own use. You cause us pain, and for each of you that exists, we are diminished. For each of you that is made, one of our kind dies stillborn. We did not create you wretch, you simply feed upon us and we are condemned through all the planes for something that we never did, something that we too hate."
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I don't think anyone here has stated here that a single use of an evil spell or item would cause the pc to instantaneously to become evil.
Also I like your saving the drowning child example - reminds of an episode a of "The Shield" where Vic Mackey just committed some heinous act in an earlier - while walking through to an apartment complex to pound someone else's head in he sees a kid drowning in a pool and saves him. Does it make him a good guy after all the evil he has already committed? No, it just shows that evil can do good things, it just isn't reasonable to rely on it to do so without corrupting all those around it.
Not explicitly, but it's been mentioned a few times that good characters can't animate the dead.
I think it also demonstrates that the alignment system isn't really designed to be particularly realistic or detailed, how exactly do you tell the difference between an evil creature that performs good acts, and a good creature that performs evil acts. Is it simply a matter of magnitude?
What I said was "it's evil since you are using entropy and negative energy to power a corpse - 100% unnatural, anti-life vs. elemental."
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding you, are you saying that it's the anti-life part of the statement, rather than the unnatural, that makes it evil?
It has not been answered to my satisfaction. The answer has been basically "cuz we say so". Undead are inherently evil because...they just are. Different energies, okay fine. Can we at least agree it is an utterly evil act to create a golem, since it enslaves an innocent creature?
Only if we agree beforehand that slavery is utterly evil (as opposed to morally grey, because there are many forms of slavery) and also define elemental spirits as "innocent."
After all, if you contracted with a savvy elemental spirit for a period of indentured servitude with them animating your golem as your servant with your payment being, oh, say, passage to the material plane (the City of Brass was too hot for them or something) it's kind of hard to find strong objections to that.
Why can't I just use that different energy to animate corpses? If negative energy is just inherently icky, and anyone who does anything with it for even a second is irrevocably evil (and can't be played in a PFS game) then just animate corpses with elementals since that seems to be pretty okay in everyone's book.
You could, but then you'd be creating flesh golems and that's more expensive.
Flesh golems are also better than zombies in that they move faster and don't break whenever fanatics wave religious kitsch in their general direction.
My problem, and why I disagree with Auxmalous, is that to me good and evil isn't inherent in anything. Good/evil is a moral argument, and I strongly dislike the boolean nature of supernatural evil/good. If something is unable to make a moral choice, such as animals or viruses, are neutral by default.
I think the trouble here is that the Good/Evil dichotomy is metaphysically chained to the Life/Unlife dichotomy but is separate from the Fire/Water and Air/Earth ones, or even Acid/Base.
If you decide that Bleach=Good then it logically follows that Lye=Evil. They even put red devils on the lye boxes to let you know its evil, and everyone knows that angels wear very white linen so Heaven must be filled with bleach.
I put this to you, if a zombie is evil only because when left with a lack of orders it tends to destroy living things, is it still evil if it never once in its unlife does so? If it is continually commanded not to harm anyone? If it is evil regardless of its own actions or intent then we have a double-standard for morality. Some things like undead are always evil even when they are not behaving that way or have never behaved that way. I believe Kender also falls under this category. It is righteous of me to slaughter all Kender at birth because, when left to their own devices they MAY perpetrate evil.
Is killing living things evil? If so, then undead are evil. So is poison. Ditto swords. Evil-evil-evil. If not, then these things are neutral and its merely a matter of how they're used.
Is stealing evil? Is cutesyness evil? If so, then Kender are doubly evil. So are magpies and packrats. Evil-evil-evil. If not, then they're not evil, just annoying.
It just seems...dumb to me. Lacking of nuance and moral shades of grey, which is something that Paizo and specifically Golarian have been pretty good about.
Moral shades of grey are generally the elephant in the room in high fantasy. You're not supposed to talk about them.
Poison is the weapon of cowards and women and villains and all sorts of things disapproved of in medieval high fantasy. Strip that out and decide it's okay and you've rolled forward to WWI and someone's decided that mustard gas is a valid tactic.
Strip out the undead cooties and troubles with uncontrolled skeletons going off to kill everyone and have necromancers as commonplace and socially acceptable as butchers and you radically change the world. Every inn instead of having a spit boy or turnspit dog or sniveling goblin skullery maid forced to turn the Sunday joint will instead have a treadmill cage holding a small skeleton endlessly running in circles. Instead of mills being set next to mill streams or areas with good wind to run windmills, everyone will put them next to graveyards, and the biggest crime (assuming that theft gets kept in the "evil" column) will be zombie rustling.
Ayep, yesterday there was a graveyard filled with prime corpses to make useful skeletons or zombies and today it's been picked clean! Them damn zombie rustlers! Oh please, Mr. Paladin! Help me get my zombies back or the bank will foreclose the mortgage on my graveyard!
Admittedly it doesn't have to be an either/or. You can have undead not be evil, just dangerous, and keep the world free of skeleton ranches and zombie pony rides by just having it be socially unacceptable and culturally taboo. But that's generally a choice you need to make for your personal games.
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Anyway I think this argument at its base is just about players wanting a decent and powerful ability with none of the moral/ethical baggage.If the game wasn't lopsided in favor of good abilities (and classes) being both more powerful and easier to attain than evil abilities (and classes), that might be true.
A Necromancer is a sad example of a 'powerful' character compared to a Conjuror, or a Transmuter, or an Illusionist.
A Paladin is flat out better than a Blackguard, and you don't have to *earn* Paladin status. You can walk off your pappy's farm and sign up at the temple, without even taking a level in Commoner first, while the Blackguard, for *less power,* has to actually accomplish some stuff, like a BAB +5, a few specific combat feats and securing a recommendation from an evil outsider.
Playing evil is always more powerful since you almost have all options on how you want to act. If there is a mechanical bias towards evil I would guess the reason is that the game was designed to played (mostly) by good or neutral PCs. It's just as biased towards being human centric vs. say having all the details and social perspective of making up orc, dragon and demon PCs. It’s really from a practical sales point of view, if there was a market for evil modules and pc types you would probably see more rules on playing monsters, evil prcs designed to be used by PCs and not the DM, etc. maybe even see some more balance and less bias too.
When it comes to evil there may be some power restrictions due to (lack of) design, but evil characters have 100% freedom to act and do what they like. Sometimes that is more powerful than being able to cast cure moderate wounds.
If the necromancy school and the use of negative energy is inherently 'wrong,' why is it a PC option? Why not go the route Monte Cook went in Arcana Unearthed and have 'the Dark' be an NPC only option? Any class option or spell that is labelled 'off-limits' should be in the DMG or NPC guide, not in the core rulebook for players to look at, and then be told they can't touch, because it's 'unclean.' Those pages could have been used for something useful, like new divination or abjuration spells ('cause those two schools are pretty dire), and the Undead bloodline replaced with something else, and the Death domain replaced with something else, and the Inflict line of spells replaced with a 'holy light-smite' series of spells.
Set, as far as I can tell no one has said this in the thread. No one has said it was wrong, they have just said it was evil. As in Evil, Good, Law, Chaos -the various detail alignments in the game. No one is advocating 4eing it up and removing the rules for building undead or playing evil characters and handing that authority solely to the DM.
But no, the rules for necromancy and negative energy use are 'an abomination' and 'defilement' and 'desecration,' and yet right there in the core rules, stinking up the place, kinda like a dead body. (One that is occasionally re-animated by discussions like these, then left to lie there, decrepit and unwanted, an unwelcome remnant of earlier times, despite it's presence in the rule book, after we tire of the topic.)
Lol, they are a defilement... and using Gate+Balor adds the evil descriptor to the Gate spell. Doesn't mean they need to be ripped out of the rules since I'm sure there will be PCs who both animate the dead and summon Balors and it won't cause the game to implode....well, maybe with the Balors but that goes towards exploiting summoned creatures powers/break the game and another argument.
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding you, are you saying that it's the anti-life part of the statement, rather than the unnatural, that makes it evil?
Both. Bringing forth an unnatural creature that is also destructive and fueled by negative (ant-life) energy.
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really interesting stuff.
If all of this were to be the case, I'd be convinced that the act of creating the undead was an evil one. But I still don't believe that a creature can be considered evil (or good for that matter,) unless it has the capacity to choose it's own actions.
Also, under the assumption this were canon, would all long-term utilization of negative energy similarly 'diminish' the scaeduinar?
really interesting stuff.If all of this were to be the case, I'd be convinced that the act of creating the undead was an evil one. But I still don't believe that a creature can be considered evil (or good for that matter,) unless it has the capacity to choose it's own actions.
Also, under the assumption this were canon, would all long-term utilization of negative energy similarly 'diminish' the scaeduinar?
+1
This is the heart of my argument. Even assuming that desecrating corpses is immoral (evil), the creation itself has no capacity for moral understanding and cannot be evil.KAM has a really good example. If the "evil" energy is not actually tied to any moral viewpoint, then it is an arbitrary distinction. If I say that turnips are inherently evil by pure DM mandate, I'd expect my players to question why.
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KAM has a really good example. If the "evil" energy is not actually tied to any moral viewpoint, then it is an arbitrary distinction. If I say that turnips are inherently evil by pure DM mandate, I'd expect my players to question why.
Well then you need to get rid of evil and good aligned planes. No Heaven and no Hell. Also get rid of cursed places - a place should not take on human characteristics such as being cursed.
D&D has always been about absolutes, be it concerning Law, Chaos, Good, Evil or Neutrality. These are not the same as Fire, Earth, Water or Air.
I don't agree with the following comment -
Is killing living things evil? If so, then undead are evil. So is poison. Ditto swords. Evil-evil-evil. If not, then these things are neutral and its merely a matter of how they're used.
You cannot ascribe the same traits of a negatively infused reanimated corpse – which is both unnatural and a force of entropy - with an inanimate item with the potential or design to do harm. Just doesn't equate.
Zombies are not just another tool on par with poison, guns, nerve gas, etc. Maybe if all those inanimate objects had a will of their own, or were infused with negative or evil energy then it would be a different story, but they are not the same. They are not made the same way; they are not driven by entropic force with an innate (not design but on an atomic level) desire to kill, inflict suffering and terrorize life.
I have to bow out of this because I think both sides have already made up their minds on how things should work.
Anyway, good discussion.
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The concept of death being inherently evil reminds me of the Legend of the Seeker series. Even when the good guys kill bad guys, they are strengthening the power of 'anti-life,' which craves the destruction of all living things, trapping them in a no-win scenario, of sorts, as fighting evil just makes it stronger.
If negative energy = evil, then positive energy = good.
*Any* death, even the butchering of animals for food, or cutting down trees for lumber, is decreasing the amount of goodness in the world, and increasing the power of death / anti-life / negative energy, by changing the balance in favor of evil.
Somewhat perversely, a wizard who transforms himself into a lich, and never needs eat living flesh again, may have brought enough negative energy into the world to animate his dead body, but will have balanced that out with his reduced need to kill things to survive within a matter of days, perhaps, making his act, in the long-term, a net 'win' for good.
(Of course, a Ring of Sustenance would be even easier to acquire and *doesn't* require bringing any negative energy into the world, so it's a much better solution to the problem of adding to entropy by destroying life to survive!)
I kinda love that the notion of negative energy = evil ends up inevitably leading to ahimsa as the only 'good' choice.
That's a cultural thing, not a moral thing. And doesn't fall under alignment's definition of Evil either way.actually, the word is 'abject' and describes any instance where a living being is confronted with potential mortality. Corpses, and human body parts are very abject (and are moreso when moving) This is from where we get phrases like 'abject terror'
almost universally, we have massive tabboo regarding the dead, and this springs from the abject. the very few cultures that are a little more blaise regarding the dead are strongly ritualised in nature. so universally, deadbody parts are considered horrific.
Batts
Um, that's not the meaning of "abject" that I know. From what I understand, "abject" means "utter, low, hopeless, dispirited and miserable" so you can also have phrases like "abject poverty" and "abject cowardice."
And the degree to which dead bits of people are horrific varies from culture to culture and age to age. Walk into some churches in Europe and you'll see the bling-encrusted bones of saints on display. And in Tibet, they use skulls to make teapots.
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/a bject.html
this may expand your definitions of the word.
Batts
Zombies are not just another tool on par with poison, guns, nerve gas, etc. Maybe if all those inanimate objects had a will of their own, or were infused with negative or evil energy then it would be a different story, but they are not the same. They are not made the same way; they are not driven by entropic force with an innate (not design but on an atomic level) desire to kill, inflict suffering and terrorize life.
I think this is the crux of the problem and what everyone is arguing over: the desire to kill, the desire to inflict suffering and the desire to terrorize are three separate things and they are separate things which are often at odds.
Let's say we've got a skeleton, a "mindless" skeleton straight out of the SRD, and we've dispensed with all the distractions like cuckoo clocks and turnips and buckets of shrimp. It's got only one potential victim, and let's make this easy and pathetic: It's the little lame boy from the end of the Pied Piper story, the one who didn't get spirited away by the piper because he moved too slow. In other words, easy meat for any monster.
Now, what does the skeleton do with the lame kid? Is it's first priority terror? Does it wait behind a tombstone so it can jump out and scare him? Does it chase him slowly like a bad action sequence from Scooby Doo, wondering why the kid doesn't move faster? If he goes too slow, does it "trip" to scatter its bones to give him a false sense of escape only to dash that by catching up to him, and when it finally does catch him, does it hug him in a hideous mockery of motherly affection, straighten his hair with its bony fingers, then drag him into a crypt where it forces him to lie down in a waiting sarcophagus while it gestures for him to be silent and covers him up with the slab, all the while feeding on his delicious delicious terror?
Or does it want suffering instead? Does it catch the kid as fast as it can, then break his other leg, the one that isn't lame, then his nose, then his fingers, then rub grave dirt into any available wound it can make with its bony claws so as to prolong his delectable agony?
Or is it just attracted like a dead moth to the bright burning flame of his life, and does it simply attack and claw and smash him against the ground as quickly as possible until that flame of life is snuffed out?
These are three different things, three perfectly valid motivations for monsters, but you can't dodge and say "That's up for the DM to decide" without also granting the DM the ability to decide something else: that an uncontrolled skeleton will lie inert until commanded or attacked, that an uncontrolled zombie hooker retains phantom memories of her life (cf. "Speak With Dead") and without any other direction will wander back to her old red light district, stand under her customary lamp post, beckon "enticingly" to prospective johns, and if anyone too drunk to notice that the hooker is a zombie wanders up, probably sleepwalk through a few other actions best left undescribed.
I should also note that according to many popular mythologies, death spirits exist to release dying individuals from their suffering and are thus considered a type of angel. If you tie Death inexorably to Evil, it makes this sort of mythological creature impossible to model.
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/definit ions/abject.html
this may expand your definitions of the word.
Batts
Interesting, but I think the term "abject horror" predates this essay so I'll go with the dictionary definitions in this sense.
Still doesn't expand on why creating undead is Evil according to D&D. Culturally taboo, sure, but not Evil.
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/a bject.htmlthis may expand your definitions of the word.
Batts
It does however expand on why poo is culturally taboo as well. So if you were to have, say, a copromancer, would he detect as evil, dealing as he does with the black melancholy humour? Would his spells Animate Cow Pie or Wall of Feces gain the Evil descriptor? I mean, if Cleanliness is next to Godliness, then the copromancer is the next thing to the dark lord himself.
And an animated cowpie is certainly horrible and unnatural and likely to spook the horses, and while it mindless, it is nonetheless compelled to find white sheets to stain and punchbowls to fling itself into. And a paladin, as a paragon of purity and goodness, should be able to smite the animate cowpie because purity is the same thing as goodness, at least if you follow the same logic that says Death=Evil.
I merely point out that death = horrific, and the only reason to animate the dead rather than, say, a wooden object is the intention to inflict horror or to be horrific.(that and the wooden object requires a 6th level spell slot and isn't permanent but sufficently talented wizards won't be worried).
Batts