I just thought about something today; when using monsters, different races really have far different amounts of evil (especially humanoids). It's not just that demons are one step worse than orcs, but I really play kobolds not much more evil than a group of xenophobic humans.
Orcs I portray as clearly chaotic evil, they pillage, rape and burn down towns because it's their way of life and anyone weak should be slaughtered. They are evil and twisted in nature, and while exceptions exist, they are exceptions and have to strive hard to not fall in to their urges. A neutral or good orc most certainly has a good wisdom score; those with bad will would soon succumb to their inner drive, while those with good wisdom (or in some cases intelligence, if rationalizing morals) might rise above that.
Goblinoids I also play evil; hobgoblins as always trying to conquer the world to instate their ultimate hobgoblin state; extremely xenophobical and racist and so on. Bugbears and goblins I play as sadistical bastards that take actual pleasure in hurting people because they like to cause suffering (while hobgoblins just enjoy the power and doesn't think anyone else has any right to live). They are evil by race, though their society plays a big role too.
Kobolds I play on the brink between neutral and evil. Normally, they mostly keep to themselves living underground in their caves, being very xenophobic but not going out of their way to hurt anyone. While hobgoblins are lawful as in "tyranical" I play kobolds much more as the lawful in "communal"; while the guy with the biggest stick rules and there is a strong hierarchy, kobolds care for other kobolds (though only family and friends) in a way that goblonoids don't. If other humanoids get close, they'll kill them without asking much questions and have no issue using the captives as food, but they don't go on massive raids like orcs. Neutral kobolds are quite common, and they are evil mostly because of their society more than their race. I'd have issues with good characters killing kobolds before seeing any indication that they're up to something bad (unlike orcs, which are okay to kill unless some really extreme circumstances).
Duergar I play as simply egocentric xenophobes that all are power hungry and greedy; dwarven traits gone too far. They have no issues torturing captives, striking deals with devils, or the like, and will do anything if payed decently, but they aren't really sadistical or take joy in killing; for them, murder just is, without being good or bad. It's just another means to increase power.
Drow I play mostly as seen in the forgotten realms novels about them; xenophobical, religious nuts, with as strong hierarchy on the surface but chaotic and lawless anywhere below there. Some sadistical, others not.
How do you use your evil humanoids? Similar to me, different, in what ways?
For me, evil is largely dependent on intelligence, with obvious exceptions to things like undead. It's hard for me to think Kobolds are evil, to me they seem more 'primal' than anything else.
In terms of humanoids, while I might give a greater proportion of evil for bugbears or orcs than humans or elves, I do not make them behave in any particular manner as a rule. They might be more menacing and barbaric, but that is based upon being primative and their societal mores.
Stereotypes are fine to an extent, but enough exceptions should be demonstrated so that the players don't start thinking 'It's a Kobold village? Kill em all.' by default.
For me, evil is largely dependent on intelligence, with obvious exceptions to things like undead. It's hard for me to think Kobolds are evil, to me they seem more 'primal' than anything else.
It's an interesting take, and something that should definately be considered, but note that the only evil humanoids that seem to have a wisdom or intelligence penalty are orcs and gnolls (which seem to have either -2 int or -2 cha). Kobolds aren't much stupider than humans (as humans has +1/3 to int on average) and no stupider than gnomes or halflings. The same is true for goblinoids. While their culture may be more primitive, there's primitive human cultures in golarion too (the shoanti for one)
In terms of humanoids, while I might give a greater proportion of evil for bugbears or orcs than humans or elves, I do not make them behave in any particular manner as a rule. They might be more menacing and barbaric, but that is based upon being primative and their societal mores.
Stereotypes are fine to an extent, but enough exceptions should be demonstrated so that the players don't start thinking 'It's a Kobold village? Kill em all.' by default.
I agree with that. When it comes to humanoids, there should be exceptions as they don't have the "magically evil" portion that dragons and fiends have. I still want the players to be fairly certain that orcs and bugbears are evil though, since the game can become too slow if they want to negotiate with every orc tribe they encounter. Killing babies is something good characters should always be wary of, though.
It depends from the campaing.
In one, orcs are savage, but with something noble, green dudes. The confilct with humans is not based on hatred but on misunderstandings and different values on a cultural basis. In the same campaign Hobgoblin are generally respected for their martial skill.
In anotehr campaing, Orcs and Goblins are unredeemably evil, follow an evil semideity and put their "colleagues" in LoTR ashame.
I generally use the former approach, because I want only outsiders reason by absolutes (and maybe be troublesome because of this even if their alignment is good).
I like a nice black and white, good vs. evil, game setting. Therefore, if the bestiary says a particular monsters alignment is Evil, than that's how I play it.
I run a game heavy with moral gray areas. Sometimes the right thing to do isn't always good and vice versa. When it comes to racial or societal alignments I treat what's listed as the "norm" and the "expected". As such it allows me to play with those expectations on a regular basis.
If your group wants to keep things black and white then all I can say is, you don't know what your missing. Nothing opens up the role-play like the moral gray.
For example, a group of adventurers comes across a caravan. There are three, obviously skilled "people" who lead the caravan with a couple of minions hanging off the beautiful female with a bow. Tied to a wheel is a prisoner. The party inquisitor determines that the guy on the wheel is chaotic evil while the three leaders are true neutral and the two minions are neutral good. Later on they discover that the three are rakshasas wearing rings that conceal their alignments. The party vanquishes the three and frees the two minions of their mental dominance.
What about the chaotic evil guy bound to the wheel? What if he's really diplomatic, well-spoken and polite? What if he ask to atone for the things he's done? Sense Motive isn't detect lie and anyone trying to sense motive will realize he desperately wants to survive, so he could mean it, or he could be just saying it to live.
What does the party do?
The answers to questions like these are why I role-play.
I also run my games with moral grey areas. I personally don't like moral absolutes and this reflects in my games. Even with creatures that are utterly evil (devils/demons/etc), I tend to place my players in situations where they have to choose which evil is less destructive than another.
My homebrew world is very diverse and has a lot of mixing between races, somewhere between Eberron and Sigil.
These are all very good points and valid ways to portray the monsters, but I am surprised no one has focused on the undead yet.
I know that most undead are listed as being evil, but I feel that more has to do with their nature. If your animating force is the very stuff of consumption and destruction, you tend to do be inclined to do things that consume and destroy. Nonsentient undead, which are mere puppets, can hardly be said to be truely evil, since the one giving the orders determines its actions. Sentient undead, on the other hand, whether they remember their past lives or not, can choose to fight their urges to destroy and consume, or to be consumed by them.
At least, that's my opinion on the subject.
When it comes to undead, my games generally assume their mere existence requires evil energy. Even a mindless, 1 HD skeleton is evil for the same reason a cursed sword is evil, the energy required to animate that undead is, itself, evil.
I got really specific about that once, and simply stated that all mindless undead count as worshipers of Hruga (my Orcus/Urgathoa demon god of undead clone), and that gods do derive some part of their power from how many worshipers they have. mindless undead are a specific "cheat" created by the chaotic evil Hruga as no sane being would worship him.
Players in that game got really anti-undead really fast, which was very cool.
|
In my games:
Mortal races are no more evil or good than humans. Some races have specific psychological and behavioral leanings, but none are inherently evil. Cultures can carry that baggage, but not genetics.
Genocide of a sapient mortal race is never justified.
Same generally applies to sapient monsters.
Undead are a case by case situation. Mindless undead are always a perversion of nature, even if no evil intent lies within them. Good undead exist, though their nature is cosmically unnatural. In my homebrew, one of the greatest bastions of good are actually a cabal of ghosts.
Even many fiends carry the potential for redemption, though it is incredibly rare.
Only soul-destroying types such as devourers and daemons are irredeemable and considered Kill On Sight worthy by the holiest of holies. Even with demons and devils they may hesitate and consider hopeful possibilities. There is no hesitation when dealing with daemons and their ilk.
I run my campaigns more akin to older editions of D&D. If it's mindless then it has no alignment so golems and definitely mindless undead are not evil. They added in a lot of that stupidity with the BoVD at the late 3.0/early 3.5 run of things. In 3.0, mindless undead were neutral.
Instead, if something is really evil, we got these really cool things called subtypes. So in my games a mindless lemure devil is Neutral with the Lawful and Evil subtypes. This method saves so much unneeded baggage.
For example, noble or good undead are not uncommon in fantasy stories. Even in 3E and in the Libris Mortis in 3.5 there are good-lich variants called Baelnorn or Arch-lichs. Paladins can become ghosts. Mummies might be serving as noble guardians (I believe in 1E or 2E mummies we LN or LG if memory serves).
Basically, anytime you deal in absolutes you are running into a lot of room for trouble. The only absolute is there are no absolutes, as they say. Or "only sith deal in absolutes" for you SW fans.
If I want something that is made out of heinous evil, evil so raw that it permeates your every fiber to the point even without the ability to make moral decisions you're tainted by evil? Evil subtype.
Same with other subtypes. A fallen angel might be morally evil, but will still have the Good subtype. I actually ran a game once where the BBEG was actually an angel of retribution that was sealed away for centuries because she was too zealous in her intolerance of evil and tended to cause more troubles than she fixed. The party accidentally released her from an ancient temple, which upon being freed she appeared before the party and said something along the lines of "Thank you noble heroes. You are obviously righteous spirits to have released me, and you have my gratitude. I go to do my work!" before vanishing. The priest in the temple runs into the room and panicks, "What have you done!?" he asks. The party ended up having to intervene against the angel several times in the campaign.
I had seriously hoped Paizo would have kicked the alignment stupidity to the curb and went back to the 3E "mind = morality" standpoint, 'cause it at least made more sense.
===================
Likewise, I tend to agree with Mikaze. Sociology makes for evil races, not genetics. In my campaign there are many different factions of races all throughout the world and virtually every species has at one time or another had to work together to survive (my campaign's world has been through about 2 apocalypses). There are racial enmities, cultural taboos, and wildly different ways of handling things.
For example, in one country the practice of necromancy or anything undeath-related is strictly forbidden and can get you similar charges to murder for animating the dead. This is due to religion and cultural taboos. Other places, it's merely creepy.
One country finds slavery perfectly fine, while another doesn't. One of the current campaign arcs right now in the story involves some intrigues that connect to a man who owns a slave-trade in a country where it's legal, and his dealings in a country where it's not.
For my online campaign which can be found here: Heroes of Alvena, I actually scrapped alignments for the most part. Players play their characters, and everyone is treated as Neutral for mechanical purposes. Clerics and Paladins can gain alignment subtypes. Aligned effects are 1/2 as effective against neutral creatures (so paladins can smite almost anybody, but they only get half their usual benefits).
These are all very good points and valid ways to portray the monsters, but I am surprised no one has focused on the undead yet.
I know that most undead are listed as being evil, but I feel that more has to do with their nature. If your animating force is the very stuff of consumption and destruction, you tend to do be inclined to do things that consume and destroy. Nonsentient undead, which are mere puppets, can hardly be said to be truely evil, since the one giving the orders determines its actions. Sentient undead, on the other hand, whether they remember their past lives or not, can choose to fight their urges to destroy and consume, or to be consumed by them.
At least, that's my opinion on the subject.
Negative energy isn't evil. It's plain to see since the vast majority of spells that use negative energy are specifically not evil. Undead, ironically, are the fastest way to create a utopian paradise that even that gold dragon would be impressed by.
Mindless/nonsentient undead are akin to cheap robots. You're taking materials that would go to waste, and putting them back to use. Undead as a cultural taboo is understandable, but like cannibalism isn't universal (some cannibal cultures eat their loved ones after they die for spiritual reasons).
Likewise, raising people from the dead should always be a GOOD with a capital G action since you're basically infusing a dead corpse with raw life energy (the exact opposite of animating undead). I blame bad writing in late 3E for this nonsensical nonsense about undead all being inherently evil.
There was also some commentary on the WotC website when the skeleton template was first introduced (they didn't have a 3.0 template) about the mindless undead being made evil just so paladins could smite them; and frankly, they went about it in the absolute laziest way possible (see my alignment subtype commentary in my previous post).
I explain (most) undead as being evil in my setting because of the legend that the evil god of the undead can see through their eyes and may take any active undead to be his avatar if he chooses. Mindless undead are not evil but they are conduits to evil.
On the other hand, there is a group of undead paladins that swore never to rest until that god was defeated forever, and they are empowered by his opposite.
I explain (most) undead as being evil in my setting because of the legend that the evil god of the undead can see through their eyes and may take any active undead to be his avatar if he chooses. Mindless undead are not evil but they are conduits to evil.
On the other hand, there is a group of undead paladins that swore never to rest until that god was defeated forever, and they are empowered by his opposite.
Nice. I like it. See, that's a great piece of campaign flavor. I don't think you should be required to change mechanics on such a basic level to have your way.
That's why I really just wished Paizo went 3E style alignments and alignment subtypes (and I hope they will for PF-2E a million years from now), because it's definitely the "cleanest" way to handle it in the rules while offering all of the same versatility and then some. You want pure evil? [subtype]
Heck, even undead that are usually evil - like ghouls - should probably have exceptions. If you're a ghoul 'cause you came back from the dead for being a really bad, horribly, nasty person (like in ghoul lore), it should be way different than if someone casts Create Undead and turns the party's Fighter into a ghoul. Most ghouls would be created the other way, so 99% of ghouls would be evil, just like orcs are usually CE.
EDIT: On a followup to my previous post, animating undead when looked at realistically has all the evils of casting enervation while working on a suit of leather armor. Why? Leather Armor = Making mindless something out of dead things. Enervation = Channeling negative energy. Neither are evil in D&D, so animating skeletons and zombies shouldn't be either.
My games also tend to be heavy on the gray areas, though I do enjoy truly evil villains from time to time.
I'm hesitant to paint entire humanoid races with a single alignment. There are tendencies, obviously, but I consider those to be largely about culture. What one culture considers a virtue, another may consider barbaric. Each race may have different subcultures, too, of course. I like to keep it complex.
I'm fond of the occasional use of good-aligned antagonists, who clash with the PCs over differences in methods, faith, or what have you.
My games also tend to be heavy on the gray areas, though I do enjoy truly evil villains from time to time.
I'm hesitant to paint entire humanoid races with a single alignment. There are tendencies, obviously, but I consider those to be largely about culture. What one culture considers a virtue, another may consider barbaric. Each race may have different subcultures, too, of course. I like to keep it complex.
I'm fond of the occasional use of good-aligned antagonists, who clash with the PCs over differences in methods, faith, or what have you.
Agreed. I actually introduced a variation of Paladins for my online campaign. Instead of being a Paladin of an alignment, you can instead be a paladin of an organization or faction (such as a kingdom), and smite evil becomes smite enemy. You gain no benefit vs allies of your faction, half benefit against those unaffiliated, and righteous (or not) butt-kicking against your faction's enemies.
Likewise, there are three major cultures of orcs in my campaign. One of them is very shamanistic and big into astrology and druidism, while another is more of a barbarian culture. The last are affiliated with demons and demonology to an extreme, and are violent, cruel, and bloodthirsty.
That being said, just because you run something realistically or with a lot of gray areas doesn't mean you don't have compelling heroes and villains. Quite the opposite in fact. I find the less emphasis put on alignment, the more players pay attention to the persona behind the character.
|
|
On the other hand, there is a group of undead paladins that swore never to rest until that god was defeated forever, and they are empowered by his opposite.
I'm curious to hear more about this opposite now. :)
Come to think of it, the most vile, evil villains I've run have all been player race humanoids, most often human.
|
|
Wondering if it's like this for anyone else here:
Thinking on it some more, I think a big part of my rejection of Always Chaotic Evil for mortal races is a burning hatred for tropes like "beauty equals goodness" and a being's right to life being measured by how "human" it is. I've never been able to roll with those concepts comfortably.
Part of why I'm such a fervent advocate for non-evil orcs, I guess.
I'm curious to hear more about this opposite now. :)
** spoiler omitted **[/letmetellyouaboutmyhomebrew]
Come to think of it, the most vile, evil villains I've run have all been player race humanoids, most often human.
That sounds a lot like the pre-Christian death deities in Europe and thereabouts. Classic stuff.
As for mine, this opposite is a LG paladin god (Ennan of the Frozen Tomb). He was a mortal that led the last remnants of the living in a final crusade against the Dread Host (undead from a parallel world) and struck down the archlich that led them, dying at the same moment. The rest of his knights fought until they died, until all of them lay dead in the undead stronghold in the frozen north.
Now, in my setting there are two (sort of three) kinds of gods. There are exemplar spirits, which are ideals and concepts coalesced from superstitious beliefs, loves and fears. They come from the astral plane which is largely governed by the thoughts and dreams of mortals (not that they know it most of the time). The second type is ascended mortals. Acts of incredible accomplishment in their field can, upon death, elevate them to godhood. They are much more focused and personal than the exemplar spirits, if less potent overall. The ascension is always a world-changing event, and each ascendant makes a mark on the world in some way such as causing a cataclysm, creating a major artifact or anything else of similar significance as appropriate to them.
This is what happened to Ennan. The remaining liches took him and his knights and attempted to animate them. This effort was partly successful, as the bodies were animated. Unfortunately for the liches, the knights were filled with positive energy and not negative, instead empowered by Ennan ascending right there and then. A wave of light spread out over the world, destroying the animating force of every undead but those few knights standing with him. As his soul left his body in the ice to be in the heavens, they swore an oath never to rest until no undead could ever threaten the world again.
|
|
I'm curious to hear more about this opposite now. :)
** spoiler omitted **[/letmetellyouaboutmyhomebrew]
Come to think of it, the most vile, evil villains I've run have all been player race humanoids, most often human.
That sounds a lot like the pre-Christian death deities in Europe and thereabouts. Classic stuff.
** spoiler omitted **...
Nice. :D Both the divinity set-up and the Ennan lore.
I really dig the imagery that can spin out of that. Deathless crypt guardians, mummies, etc. keeping watch over necropolises, smiting necromancers, ever-vigilant. Corpse crusades, coming and going with the night, purging undead infestations and leaving in the shadows with not a word of thanks...
RPG Superstar 2013
|
I think of alignment as a guide, then I choose personalities. I think a more-self-aware-than-average kobold might be just kind of primal and neutral, but I think the mold is selfish, petty, and willing to work very hard to remove "obstacles" from their goals. Those traits in a human are commonly considered evil. So I then put them into the kobold's frame fo reference: petty and evil, with low cunning but tons of motivation. I think that makes them as evil as anything else.
I (playing a paladin) once had a spat with a barbarian who wanted to save some troglodyte children after we were ambushed underground and dispatched the parents. I sought to smitify them, and the player consdiered that an evil act. My thinking wasn't that they were just kids of evil parents - something about troglodytes is evil. We can't keep them, we killed their parents, they'll eat us in our sleep = they die. The other player thought they could grow up nontroglodytes. So there's two ways to see that: they are evil because they grow up that way, or something in their makeup pins their society below the moral mark just like it pins them underground.
I have a hard time seeing a kobold roleplayed as sophisticated, selfless, forward-thinking, etc. It's wither unatural or no fnu to me. So I guess I side with the 'something in their monster DNA makes them evil' explanation.
Nice. :D Both the divinity set-up and the Ennan lore.
I really dig the imagery that can spin out of that. Deathless crypt guardians, mummies, etc. keeping watch over necropolises, smiting necromancers, ever-vigilant. Corpse crusades, coming and going with the night, purging undead infestations and leaving in the shadows with not a word of thanks...
Thanks. :)
This also had a side-effect of causing a revolution in a vampire-dominated pseudo-Mayan/Aztec culture on another continent. The high priests were vampires that demanded human sacrifice daily, and would induct the most loyal and skilled followers into their number by cutting out their hearts and replacing them with chunks of obsidian, then sealing the wound with vampire blood.
All the vampires died that day. The people rose up and in a terrifying fury, fell to chaos as they fought over the prize corpses for their blood, seeking to claim their power. A new order of vampires arose.
I haven't detailed this part out too much, but I plan to write vampires that are vulnerable to obsidian and shapeshift into jungle animals like black jaguars instead of wolves.
Random idea that came to my mind:
If kobolds were the only intelligent humanoid species, they'd range lawful good to lawful neutral. However, they view mammalian species as animals. In fact, not just animals, but weird, alien, "wrong", animals (much like many people view snakes and lizards). And the intelligent ones are dangerous. So they think no more of killing, say, a human child than most RL people think of crushing a rattlesnake egg.
Which works out to evil, because they are murdering sapients out of hand, often in lingering, painful ways. The fact they they don't see the six-year-old being slow-cooked on the spit as a person but a rather unpleasant animal doesn't change the fact they happily killed and cooked him; the moral axis of the universe is objective, not kobold-relative.
The best kobolds, the ones that are actively good with respect to other kobolds and even other reptilian intelligences, can manage neutral interaction with mammalian humanoids by suppressing their instincts with great effort. They're lawful neutral. If they didn't have the kobold revulsion to mammals, they could achieve goodness . . . but only the very, very rarest can manage it. Even ones raised by good-aligned humans will have a hard time being any better than neutral; mammals just seem so wrong.
And this is why kobolds live in a primitive state in hidden places. Their native intelligence and their skills with mining and mechanisms (traps) would allow them to form large, complex, developed societies. But the mammalian intelligences outnumber them. A kobold kingdom would necessarily and inevitably be at war with the elves, dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, and the rest, because the casual atrocities the kobolds would commit would force war.
Consider the case of a head of the kobold community getting a complaint from the nearby halfling town that a couple of kobolds burned a halfling toddler to death. He'd nod and agree that it was inappropriate behavior, and the kobolds involved should be punished . . . just as if they'd gone over and stolen a chicken owned by the halflings. "But hand them over to be executed? That would be preposterous! It was just a mammal! We want to live in peace with you halflings, but executions? That's ridiculous! We can't murder a couple of kobolds just to keep the peace with animals!"
|
|
Random idea that came to my mind:*snip*
This put me in mind of a kobold in an akubra hat, sneaking into a human village: Ridiculousness ahead...
"Crikey! I'm goin' right into a nest of humans! Most kobolds think humans a disgusting bloodthirsty monsters. But that's only because they possess a basic protective instinct of their lairs and young. Oh wait there's one right now!" *sneaks over to a human hanging up their washing*.
"Notice how they hang their outer shells to dry after cleaning them. Humans are fastidious about cleanliness, removing all the good bacteria that builds up from spending weeks without a bath. I'm going to see if I can jump on his back and stab him in the kidney before he notices me. If I can the tribe will be eating well tonight. Remember you've got to respect humans, but there's no need to fear them."
Most monsters in my game have a tendency towards evil, without strictly speaking being ALWAYS evil. If gnomes, elves, dwarves and humans can all make a choice on their alignment so can monsters. That said a lot of monstrous races have social, religious, political or historical reasons for turning to evil. Evil can make a good survival mechanism in a world of competing resources.
Kobolds for example are vicious little b**tards that heavily trap their homes and lairs. Eating humanoids is no different to them than eating animals: If it's stupid enough to fall into their trap, it's stupid enough to be food. A rare good or neutral kobold would probably see the advantage of forging an alliance with a bigger race - why get wiped out for the sake of some food. It would take a few generations before you ended up with an entire tribe of non-evil kobolds.
Goblins are ruled entirely by their Id. When they're hungry, bored, angry, tired or whatever they turn to random acts of crazy violence to solve the problem. If violence isn't solving the problem, then they probably feel they aren't using enough of it. In my game:
Hobgoblins to me are born soldiers and conquerors. They are the Spartans of the monster world, their men are men, their women are men and their children? You can bet your ass they're men. The defence of the Nation is everything to the hobgoblin mentality, whether the Nation is ruled by Hobgoblins or some other master matters little. Once they have sworn allegiance to a cause they'll fight to the death to protect it. So long as the cause works for them too. They believe in maximizing their morale advantage by committing war-time atrocities (crush the enemy, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their womens, maybe salt the earth while you're at it). Genocide doesn't bother them, because a completely destroyed species can't come back for vengeance. A neutral or good hobgoblin, is one that sees the value of alliances with those outside of the Nation. One who has learned to question the order.In my games
Bugbears great, hulking, serial killer, terrorists. Bugbears don't live in tribes so much as cells. They have little interest in ruling anything, just scaring and killing any competition out of their territory. Have no doubt, the only thing a Bugbear enjoys is killing. He wants to kill you right now, and your family, and whatever else. Bugbears are the least likely to have good or neutral members. A good or neutral member of the Bugbear race would likely be murdered by its own parents. In my games
Gnolls, are based very much on Hyena hierarchies in real life. Matriarchal hunter/scavengers they roam the plains looking for easy prey for the pickings. It's a very successful strategy, picking off the weakest members of a caravan train for loot and meat. A good or neutral Gnoll would probably have realised that the best scavenging happens in the cities. Civilization tends to frown on evil behaviour and thus that behaviour would have changed in turn. In my games
I have a necromancer who is Lawful Neutral and tries to gain permission from the deceased or their family in order to use their bodies as unintelligent undead. He pays the family rent for the body, and pays for the costs of reburial. He makes up his costs in treasures that he and his undead minions recover. My kingmaker players aren't sure what to make of him (but they definitely don't trust him, except for one who crushes on him). Suffice to say he was raised in Geb and is currently a Pathfinder.
I've generally considered the creation of zombies/skeletons/non intelligent undead to be a grey area, going all the way back to 1st edition.
Tyr, for instance, a Lawful Good deity, allowed the creation of such by his clerics under the following circumstances:
1) he'd grant no more than one animate dead spell to any given cleric of his at a time
2) he'd allow the animation of fairly freshly killed foemen who were righteously killed as long as they went from undead back to regular dead in a reasonable amount of time---he viewed this as allowing the defeated to expiate some of their offenses in a very limited way.
3) He'd allow animation of the dead as a judicial punishment in some circumstances (for instance, a man who murdered a woman's husband in cold blood and left her w/o means of support might be executed and animated, condemned to turn a grain grinding wheel or some similar mindless task for the support of the widow thereafter, kind of like an involunatary dead contract from the dustmen from Planescape)
4) In extreme circumstances, he'd allow the animation of people who'd consented to such before death to do something like 'defend your descendants'
Building large numbers of undead was considered corruptive and frowned upon.
Exactly. In the older editions, animating the dead was something that most clerics could do. It's actually something of a staple spell in Baldur's Gate I and II as one of the better clerical spells, for example. It wasn't that it was evil, but it was to be respected. Older editions noted that animating the dead was something you did with good reason.
Here's a hypothetical situation, but one that actually happened in a 3E game I was in. A farmer's ox he used to plow his fields was old and decrepit, and she (the ox) up and died of old age. The country had been suffering a drought for the past few years so the common folk were hurting pretty bad as far as money went. Without the ox to plow their fields, the farmer and his family were gonna starve.
Enter the altruistic necromancer. In 3E it noted that mindless undead follow the last orders they are given if released from their master's control (this is why you find undead guarding old tombs for ages). So she (the necromancer) is traveling with the adventurers past the farm and asks what is wrong, and upon hearing it scares the farmer spit-less by raising his oxen as a zombie ox. She explains to him that the ox will never tire, never need to eat, and never need to sleep, and will carry heavier loads than it did before. She then commands the oxen to obey the farmer and his heirs, and then released it from her control.
She went on about her business and the farmer and his family were given the greatest gift a farmer could have.
I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
|
|
I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
I could just imagine a human Paladin slaughtering elves for XP.
"Don't worry folks, they don't have souls!"
I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
Even if you don't have evil as in putting the EVIL stamp on the forehead of characters (an alignment system) you can still talk about societal and racial trends for the different groups in respect to evil (without capital e). I rarely use the alignment system myself in-game, but it can be useful when discussing things like this out of the game.
Even if you don't have evil as in putting the EVIL stamp on the forehead of characters (an alignment system) you can still talk about societal and racial trends for the different groups in respect to evil (without capital e). I rarely use the alignment system myself in-game, but it can be useful when discussing things like this out of the game.I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
How about this then:
I don't have any races of evil mindless mauraders. Not a single one.
|
|
Even if you don't have evil as in putting the EVIL stamp on the forehead of characters (an alignment system) you can still talk about societal and racial trends for the different groups in respect to evil (without capital e). I rarely use the alignment system myself in-game, but it can be useful when discussing things like this out of the game.I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
How about this then:
I don't have any races of evil mindless mauraders. Not a single one.
So what do you do when your players want to play humans?
HIYO!
I prefer to use alignment for cultures rather than races. Thus one group of goblins might be more a Neutral group of blue collar city workers and another be down right demon worshiping EVIL. Even in those cases you might come across an exception to the norm.
Outsiders tend to be more clearly aligned, but what exactly they define as "Good" and "Evil" may not be. One Devil might consider backing an egalitarian democratic movement to be evil, while and angel might thingk wipping out an entire species of intelligent, and benign, beings to be in the ultimate best interest of the planet its charged to protect and thus be both Lawful and Good.
*snip*
Fair enough. Tyr sounds like an OK fellow.
So consider this one as well. This is something I actually had in a game a while back as part of an adventure series, and added as a permanent population center/kingdom in my campaign.
A lich (mind you, even in 3.5, not all liches were evil). This was was more lawful-neutral you might say. She decided to erect a city far from populated lands, to be a utopia. In many ways this is similar to the gold dragon in Golarion who wanted to make the "perfect city" out of perfect people (which is something of a breeding experiment)...
However, she wanted to make the perfect civilization. She went about it from an economical standpoint. She erected a population center that was 1/2 necropolis, 1/2 free city. She created x/day magic items of animate dead and had adepts (1st level civilian spellcasters) use them to animate undead. Each employed adept had about 20 HD worth of undead under their control, and they offered schooling to become an adept. The undead plowed fields, collected crops, and even functioned as town militia and filled the majority of their army (which was to defend them from outside antagonists).
Due to the way the economics were set up, the lich provided endless labor that required no money past a basic initial investment, and people had very, very low taxes to deal with. With all the bottom-rung society jobs (like ditch-digging, porting, etc) preformed by the undead, the living people of the civilization were encouraged to go to school and advance themselves in knowledge, culture, and so forth.
People who committed heinous crimes like rape and murder would be tried, and if found guilty would be executed, and subsequently animated and put back into the workforce.
The civilizations biggest problem was in fact people from other societies whose religious beliefs and traditions clashed with the concepts of the populations.
They had 'spirits' which were distinguished from souls pretty much only in the difficulty of raising them from the dead (things with spirits burned lots of charges on the rod of resurrection, for instance), and also if I recall in the severity of the punishment/reward they got in their afterlife. Things with spirits reincarnated automatically after a while if I recall.I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
I'm pretty sure elves and half-orcs could not be resurrected, period. I'd have to dig it up, there was a question about it in Dragon.
Check the 1st edition DMG, rod of resurrection.I'm pretty sure elves and half-orcs could not be resurrected, period. I'd have to dig it up, there was a question about it in Dragon.They had 'spirits' which were distinguished from souls pretty much only in the difficulty of raising them from the dead (things with spirits burned lots of charges on the rod of resurrection, for instance), and also if I recall in the severity of the punishment/reward they got in their afterlife. Things with spirits reincarnated automatically after a while if I recall.I don't. Alignment is a crutch. Creatures have their own drives and motivations. Some are selfish and sadistic, no doubt, but nothing is born as "evil."
Incidentally, in at least 1e, orcs literally did not have souls. Neither did elves, for that matter.
http://jgrimbert.free.fr/add2/advice/?mots=half-orc
Check out the first two. I admittingly do not have a 1e DMG ;p
Ashiel,
Tyr's the Norse god of Justice, Law, and War. He's also managed to slip his way into the Forgotten Realms and a few other settings. Yes, he's definitely an OK guy and he's been one of the more popular deities in many of the games I've run.
On your lich example. In 1st edition, liches could be neutral, and some were (a major NPC in my game was in fact, a dual classed cleric/mage lich who generally used illusions, oil of timelessness, and the like to hide the fact that he was 'dead' from most observers). Tyr wouldn't encourage his clergy to do anything like that, but he'd be very unlikely to call for a 'holy war' against such a city---he'd probably not permit construction of x/day magic items of animate dead by his clergy either, because of the implied extensive use of such. But he's a lawful good deity. Somebody like Wee Jas might like that idea very much as an experiment. Tyr's priesthood never really had any huge issue with that of Wee Jas, which had (LG/LN/LE) clergy, even within the same party.
Nice. I knew Tyr was an actual god in real life beliefs, but I didn't know how that translated into D&D, 'cause I honestly didn't read a whole lot about him in most of the Forgotten Realms materials (though he was like the go-to god in NWN).
Actually, Wee Jass is one of my favorite deities. I have a 3rd level Paladin of Wee Jass right now, who I've played in a few games with from time to time. She's not your average Paladin. In fact, she doesn't really even call herself a Paladin (the official term she uses is "fool with unrealistic ideals"). She's been an absolute blast to play. It's fun having a Paladin who reveres magic and death, especially since she has ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) as well as (Religion) and Spellcraft, so she often talks like a mage to her peers.
The absolute best scene was near the end of the first adventure she was in. It was absolutely priceless. Basically the GM introduces her as investigating the possible presence of a dangerous cult (by dangerous, we're talking sacrificial murders and such) and she's wandering around this place looking at this writings on the wall of an underground tunnel with her torch. So apparently the entrance she came in at collapsed, and so she's looking for a way out.
The rest of the adventure begins as the entire party fall through the upper-crust over the tunnel she's in, creating a new exit and also stumbling onto my Paladin. Before there's time to introduce ourselves, a monster (I think it was a grick, if memory serves) emerges from down the tunnel - attracted by the noise. A fight breaks out. So my character who's wearing fairly simple armor, carrying a glaive, fighting with a sling, a pair of gauntlets (crushing and bladed) dives into the front lines with the other guys, drawing her glaive. "Friend or foe?" - "Friend?" - "Go!" kind of thing.
She then proceeded to pull a wand of bless (I purchased a few used wands based on cost per charge) and uses it on the party, and then upon identifying the grick, repeated with magic weapon an another party member's weapon, allowing them to easily defeat the creature. Finally, I ended up using Lay on Hands to heal a few of the party members. Having apparently run into a dead end on my investigation into a murderous cult, my character decides to thank them by helping them with what they were doing (looking for some dungeon).
The party encounters are really tough enemy who's also quite evil, which she notices with her detect evil active when she's not doing anything else. So fairly early into the fight, the party's getting beaten down so she declares a smite evil against the foe. Mind you, she has still yet to note herself as a Paladin.
So after this brutal fight, with many injuries and being beaten up. She sits down on a nearby rock, takes a drink of water from her canteen, and says "Ok, that's all I got for today. I'm heading back to town, find an inn, maybe get ****ed, and go to bed."
At that point, another player goes "What kind of a PALADIN are you!?". Mind you, she has not said she was a Paladin. He just knew what she was from her character sheet/abilities, but at no point did the word, title, or even her mannerisms suggest traditional Knight & Shining type. She didn't even seem outwardly religious except for the occasional comment about the "Blessings of the Witch Goddess".
So she goes "Uhh...I guess you could call me that, if you want to. I'm just a fool with unrealistic ideals...that will probably get me killed one day."
It was priceless. ^_^
Even if you don't have evil as in putting the EVIL stamp on the forehead of characters (an alignment system) you can still talk about societal and racial trends for the different groups in respect to evil (without capital e). I rarely use the alignment system myself in-game, but it can be useful when discussing things like this out of the game.But doesn't that weaken the non-use of alignment by half-proving its existence?
Not to me, because it's the same way I do in real life. I don't subscribe to any kind of objective morality and do think that we as a human society sets the rules for what is right and wrong. Still, I call chiquita an evil company when they pay paramilitary groups in colombia to kill union activists.
Also I don't get the ideas of saying that monsters are simply reacting in a logical fashion, but because the universe is objective that means they're just stuck on the path to evil: So basically the universe is just sadistic?
Could you rephrase that? I simply didn't understand what you meant there.
Ashiel,
Can't say I've ever seen a paladin of Wee Jas. She's got some lawful good clergy though so it follows that she's almost certainly got them though. I have seen though (LONG time ago---2nd edition with a handbook or two) a mage/cleric/assasin of Wee Jas, covering all the bases of magic and death rather comprehensively.
Nice. The mage/cleric/asssasin sounds fun. I had a player play something similar in a 3.5 game once (it was actually mage/cleric/rogue/ranger/assassin, 14 total levels).
In the case of the Wee Jass Paladin, I realized that Wee Jass was a totally legit goddess for a Paladin (based on alignment) and I started thinking "what would a paladin of the witch goddess be like?", and so when I finally made my Paladin, she was very open-minded, good, very devout but in a very subtle way. She respected and admired spellcasters, learned about magic, and had a great sweet-spot for undead.
My plans are to actually have her take Craft Wondrous Item and become a lich sometime around level 15 (when she meets the 11th caster level requirement), which would basically make her the iconic holy warrior of the goddess of death and magic. Even if you're playing in a game where doing something like that would make you fall (say your GM is trying to be hard to get along with), one atonement spell from a Wee Jass priest or priestess and BAM, back to fighting evil as an undead-knight.
Unlife is goooood. ^.^