This is inspired by the discussion had here.
I see a lot of mention of the undead not supposing to be evil, but there are a few things you have to remember in a world like DnD, where the status of the soul are verifiable and CONCRETE.
1) Planar Absolutes have obvious and far reaching consequences when paired with the ability to detect those Absolutes. Even a redeemed Devil has the (Evil) subtype. There is no escaping these absolutes, and even the redeemed Devil still has the urge to do Evil, they simply choose not to.
2) Planar Influence, as in the first point, cannot be sidestepped by simple free will, and it can be argued that native outsiders DO NOT HAVE free will; They are forced to enact their archetypes unless something acts to alter them. It is in the Fire Elemental's nature to burn, and in the Earth Elemental's nature to dig. If the Fire Elemental burns down your village, it is not done with malice, but simply because that is what Fire Elementals do. If the Earth Elemental undermines your fortress, it is not done with some sadistic vengeful glee, but again, simply because that is what Earth Elementals do. When a Demon is let loose, they rape, torture, destroy, and sow havoc and heartbreak wherever they go, defiling all they touch, with an unholy glee, because that is what they do. It is their nature.
3) The Undead. The Undead are as much tied to the infinite entropy of the Negative Material Plane as the Elementals are to theirs. They are denizens, as much as the Djinn and Marid, created by the entropic storm which constantly hungers to destroy all that is created. That willfull, hatefull, sentient hunger infuses all negative energy constructs, driving them to destroy and kill living things. This is why they are Evil. In Pathfinder, the Negative Energy Plane -created- the Shadow Plane, trying to forge its own creation in the same way that the Positive Material Plane spawned the Prime Material. It seems to be very much... alive... after a fashion.
4) Undead Behavior: Unintelligent Undead have no motive force but the drive instilled by negative energy to destroy everything that lives. When uncontrolled, they stand still.. waiting... until some motive impels them. A rat that runs by impels them to stand, and move, and stalk, and hunt, looking for the rat until another living thing runs across the stalking undead. Then it changes focus. Whatever the most immediate living thing is, the zombie shambles toward with all due shamble, until it can tear into some tasty brainz. Unintelligent Undead with a controller must be specifically told to do -anything-. Their inherent impetus, that Negative Energy Instinct, if you will, is supressed. They stand quietly by while you carve chunks of rancid meat from their carcasses, or bolt metal restraints through their arm-bones. Uncontrolled Undead can be assumed to have a single, over-riding command.
"Kill the Living."
Please, think on this, and discuss. Turn or Rebuke my argument.
I agree with you.
Although I liked in 2nd edition where (regular) zombies were actually TN - more mindless corpses animated by magic than truly undead creations; for those you'd have to look at the juju and more advanced zombies - I understand the shift to 3rd edition's more... moralistic point of view. (2nd edition was also a little free-er with their alignments, as much evidence can be found in Planescape where many things that we might consider Good or Evil occurred that were not labeled as such. For example, in 2nd edition, the Negative Energy Plane was not, by itself, evil.)
So I would say that while I agree, the flaw in the argument is your presupposition that the Negative Energy Plane is itself "Evil", as opposed to just amoral - and thus free/unable to be ascribed an alignment. (Much like your Fire elemental must burn, the Negative must entrope.)
The problem with some of these ideas is they fail at the setting-neutral goals that the Pathfinder core rules have; while also failing to make any sense internally. This problem began with 3.5, when they started making undead evil so that Paladins could smite them. In previous editions, I believe more thought went into the morality aspects of D&D, instead of this mess that cannot even be called black and white (more like a newspaper that a vial of ink got knocked over on).
1) Planar Absolutes have obvious and far reaching consequences when paired with the ability to detect those Absolutes. Even a redeemed Devil has the (Evil) subtype. There is no escaping these absolutes, and even the redeemed Devil still has the urge to do Evil, they simply choose not to.
Yes. I'm very much supportive of the idea of alignment subtypes to represent deep, inherent chaos, evil, law, or good; as opposed to the creatures actual alignment. Things like the fallen angel, or evil that awoke to justice. This sort of thing can be seen in everything from real world theology (such as the fall of Lucifer), to fictional stories like Devil May Cry.
This also has very noticeable both mechanical (in-game) and for story purposes. No matter what the creature's true alignment is, it can register and be treated as its innate alignment. For mechanical purposes, it allows use to have things like Lemures be wholly Lawful Evil, even though they are completely mindless and incapable of moral decision. If you could give sentience to the lemure, then perhaps it could be changed, but otherwise it's literally a ball of evil.
2) Planar Influence, as in the first point, cannot be sidestepped by simple free will, and it can be argued that native outsiders DO NOT HAVE free will; They are forced to enact their archetypes unless something acts to alter them. It is in the Fire Elemental's nature to burn, and in the Earth Elemental's nature to dig. If the Fire Elemental burns down your village, it is not done with malice, but simply because that is what Fire Elementals do. If the Earth Elemental undermines your fortress, it is not done with some sadistic vengeful glee, but again, simply because that is what Earth Elementals do. When a Demon is let loose, they rape, torture, destroy, and sow havoc and heartbreak wherever they go, defiling all they touch, with an unholy glee, because that is what they do. It is their nature.
This is where I begin to disagree on many grounds. The idea that creatures with an alignment subtype do not have free will makes a wide variety of stories and concepts completely impossible without directly ignoring the rules; and that's not what the rules are meant for. If this was the case, we would have no characters like Lucifer the Fallen Angel and Enemy of Man, nor would we have Spawn the Badass ex-hellion.
While fire elementals burn things, they are sentient. They have enough Intelligence to be reasoned with. They can learn languages. If you had a fire elemental that knew what it was doing when it burned down your house, then you have an evil-thinking fire elemental.
Likewise, it can be argued that things like gluttony and rape are natural instincts of humans, but we choose to rail against out instincts because we are a higher being (in D&D/PF terms, we have Int 3+).
I'm not saying that being intelligent means you will. A demon's penchant for destruction, cruelty, and mayhem, likely stems not only from a very powerful predisposition, but also by everything they have learned or know socially. For this reason, if you find a Lawful Good demon, know that it has likely had to struggle to be what it is, and even then the demon will carry that Chaos and Evil subtype with them unless there is some outside intervention.
3) The Undead. The Undead are as much tied to the infinite entropy of the Negative Material Plane as the Elementals are to theirs. They are denizens, as much as the Djinn and Marid, created by the entropic storm which constantly hungers to destroy all that is created. That willfull, hatefull, sentient hunger infuses all negative energy constructs, driving them to destroy and kill living things. This is why they are Evil. In Pathfinder, the Negative Energy Plane -created- the Shadow Plane, trying to forge its own creation in the same way that the Positive Material Plane spawned the Prime Material. It seems to be very much... alive... after a fashion.
And here is where 3.5 began getting stupid really fast. Entropy and death are not evil in any sense of the word. They may be feared, but they are not evil. Likewise, a vast number of undead have no such hungers to kill or eat the living. Even skeletons do not have a desire to kill and eat the living (though apparently "evil cunning" means "skilled with weapons and armor").
In previous editions of D&D (that is up through 3E), skeletons and zombies were unsettling but neutral creatures that had no purpose or will other than to serve their masters. They are powered by death, while lacking any sort of sentience to exert that power beyond the semblance of intelligence imparted by their masters; effectively making them undead golems. This made them ideal for protecting ancient tombs, crypts, or passages leading to something you wouldn't want disturbed; as they would follow their last command until either destroyed or issued a new command. An un-eating, unthinking, sentry that you can arm and leave standing around for thousands of years in some dungeon or crypt to protect a treasure or body? Sounds logical to me.
Prior to 3E, the spell animate dead was merely mentioned as something that good clerics do not use without a good reason; and they had a respect for the power that they were wielding. It would be entirely legit, for example, to have a cleric of *insert good deity here* that prayed and then called up the dead bodies of a town's graveyard to save the living members of a town from destruction, only to put them back when they were no longer needed.
Also, negative energy is less destructive than the elemental plane of fire. Only beings born of positive energy are hurt there (IE - living creatures, including demons and angels), while creatures that are undead, constructs, and objects are safe from the miasma effects of the plane and its energies.
However, almost everything burns. Fire will destroy you, your livestock, your house, your car, that beautiful painting you made, as well as most beings including demons, devils, angels, archons, undead, and constructs. Fire is innately destructive. Negative energy is not. We can actually observe that things can be created through negative energy, and that negative energy can be used for entirely benign purposes. Likewise, we can see that like fire, neither negative energy itself, nor the negative energy plane are aligned.
This is where 3.x becomes very washy over the whole thing. Negative energy isn't evil. We can even observe, through spells like inflict critical wounds, harm, enervation, vampiric touch, waves of exhaustion, so forth, that negative energy is not evil. At least no more evil than fireball or magic missile. All of these spells revolve around channeling positive energy, or siphoning away or even consuming someone's life force; but these are not evil inherently. Likewise, positive energy spells are unaligned in the same ways.
The only instance where channeling positive or negative energy has any connection to alignment is with clerics. Only good or neutral clerics can channel positive energy, while only neutral or evil clerics can channel negative energy. But wait! Good necromancers can also channel negative energy, so it's apparently a cleric problem, not an energy problem.
4) Undead Behavior: Unintelligent Undead have no motive force but the drive instilled by negative energy to destroy everything that lives. When uncontrolled, they stand still.. waiting... until some motive impels them. A rat that runs by impels them to stand, and move, and stalk, and hunt, looking for the rat until another living thing runs across the stalking undead. Then it changes focus. Whatever the most immediate living thing is, the zombie shambles toward with all due shamble, until it can tear into some tasty brainz. Unintelligent Undead with a controller must be specifically told to do -anything-. Their inherent impetus, that Negative Energy Instinct, if you will, is supressed. They stand quietly by while you carve chunks of rancid meat from their carcasses, or bolt metal restraints through their arm-bones. Uncontrolled Undead can be assumed to have a single, over-riding command.
Here we get into another can of worms. The "drive" instilled by negative energy doesn't exist. The negative energy plane is described as being "uncaring and intolerant of life"; but that statement does not denote any hatred for life, only that it does not support it. Living things tend to die on the negative energy plane, but it doesn't actively attempt to destroy them as part of the natural order. It is however entirely comfortable to creatures that are not living.
In contrast is the positive energy plane. The positive energy plane is hostile to both living and unliving creatures, and can and will kill you if you are there for too long. Quote: "Despite the beneficial effects of the plane, it is one of the most hostile of the Inner Planes. An unprotected character on this plane swells with power as positive energy is forced upon her. Then, because her mortal frame is unable to contain that power, she is immolated, like a mote of dust caught at the edge of a supernova. Visits to the Positive Energy Plane are brief, and even then travelers must be heavily protected."
The supposed "life hating" plane actually doesn't hate life at all, and is observably less hostile than the positive energy plane which is the source of life, even towards the creatures associated with it. A simple death ward spell can allow living creatures to exist on the negative energy plane, but there is no such luck for the positive.
How does this affect the mentality of undead? Well logically it shouldn't. The "skeletons and zombies are evil" thing is a 3.5 creation, and a poorly thought out one. By all accounts of the lore involving the very energies empowering them, the mindless husks should be just that - mindless and without will.
As for other undead, such as wights, ghouls, ghasts, morgues, and so forth, we can see that most if not all of them have some connection with cruelty and/or evil lives, explaining their evil tendencies in death. Ghouls not born from cannibals seem to only be evil insofar as they eat dead bodies of their ex-fellow humanoids (a practice that is not evil innately, as some real life cannibal tribes eat their dead out of respect or even love), while wights may be born from particularly malevolent evils. Wights can, however, be born from a violent death (going off their lore, a serial rapist could theoretically end up with a wight returned to exact vengeance for the wight's violent death). Ghouls be created by spells, so there's at least one way to make a "ghoul" without an evil subject.
Likewise, there are other undead, including ghosts and baelnorn (also known as arch-liches) in D&D history that in many cases are not only not-evil, but they can actively be good and promoting goodness in the world. The ghost of a paladin that returns to carry a message of warning to a band of heroes, or an a lich that uses unlife to see to so greater purpose (even merely taking care of their family for generations as the Baelnorn of Forgotten Realms lore) at the cost of their own heavenly rewards, are examples of good undead; fully powered by the negative energy that is blamed for causing undead to be evil.
Before anyone brings it up...
We can also see that mindless undead (skeletons and zombies) are not powered by some sort of twisted trapping of the soul of the person you are animating. We can see this because we know what happens and where a soul goes when it dies in D&D, and not even animate dead can distort these facts. Animate dead does not grab someone out of the heavens and shove them, bound and shacked, into an undead body to make them a slave (though if it pulled them out of the hells it might even be considered merciful); and you'd have all manner of godly things on your butt in no time if it did (do you not think that celestial beings would be able to track down the guy that keeps stealing little Timmies and Sarahs from heaven and go deliver the smite? Characters are only 5th-7th level when animate dead becomes available).
Likewise, another proof is that you don't even need a body that was once alive. As written, you need only a corpse. A wizard that creates a statue, casts stone to flesh on the statue, and then animate dead on the new corpse gets an undead minion. The statue never had a soul of and kind, but you made it into a suitable "body" for the negative energy and then exerted your will over it. Instant "just add flesh" minion.
Commentary
It pains me to see that 3.5 D&D, and now Pathfinder, is becoming less efficient at setting neutrality, and intentionally creating errors in logical philosophy. In 3E, the rules were simple and clear cut. If you had less than 3 or no Int score, you were Neutral, always; because you cannot think and therefor you cannot have an alignment. You can have alignment subtypes (you still get your LE lemures), but non-sentient means non-sentient.
Since Wizards of the Coast decided that they wanted Paladins to have more smite targets, they made undead evil without actually giving them a good reason for being so. Pathfinder seems to have taken up the reigns by just trying to justify this bizarre choice, and sadly fails to address the many other problems with this sort of reasoning.
Meanwhile, it reduces the setting neutrality that the PF core rules are supposed to present and/or strive for. It asserts its own (questionable) ideas of morality on the mechanics and the creatures, regardless of the philosophical or logical considerations behind those mechanics. This is one of my greatest disappointments with the PF rules.
In contrast is the positive energy plane. The positive energy plane is hostile to both living and unliving creatures, and can and will kill you if you are there for too long. Quote: "Despite the beneficial effects of the plane, it is one of the most hostile of the Inner Planes. An unprotected character on this plane swells with power as positive energy is forced upon her. Then, because her mortal frame is unable to contain that power, she is immolated, like a mote of dust caught at the edge of a supernova. Visits to the Positive Energy Plane are brief, and even then travelers must be heavily protected."
Just be emo, cutting yourself to keep the positive flow down. It works.
For the redeemed devil: I´d rule that he is of a good alignment. I´d rule Alignment at the set of your mind, not some taint.
For the thinking undead: My concept of these guys goes like this:
The ability to sustain existence in the world of the living springs from life. The body of a living being is a stable container for a life force.
Undead bodies are not stable in this manner anymore - any life force contained in them drifts away. To stay in the world, they have to get life force now and then which is by stealing it, for example by drinking blood or getting someone sacrificed in your name. The drinking of blood is not just stealing the blood (which the body can reproduce) but a permanent loss of life force which brings a permanent illness to the victim, maybe even death (/unlife) since it could instabilize the life force container.(that´s my concept)
Thus, if you are undead and good, you are doomed to end very soon since stealing life force is a dedicated evil act, even if the victim is evil itself. (well, you could go with some good vampire who survives by sucking on rats, but that one wouldn´t be a mighty vampire but a weak shadow of one)
For the redeemed devil: I´d rule that he is of a good alignment. I´d rule Alignment at the set of your mind, not some taint.
For the thinking undead: My concept of these guys goes like this:
The ability to sustain existence in the world of the living springs from life. The body of a living being is a stable container for a life force.
Undead bodies are not stable in this manner anymore - any life force contained in them drifts away. To stay in the world, they have to get life force now and then which is by stealing it, for example by drinking blood or getting someone sacrificed in your name. The drinking of blood is not just stealing the blood (which the body can reproduce) but a permanent loss of life force which brings a permanent illness to the victim, maybe even death (/unlife) since it could instabilize the life force container.(that´s my concept)
Thus, if you are undead and good, you are doomed to end very soon since stealing life force is a dedicated evil act, even if the victim is evil itself. (well, you could go with some good vampire who survives by sucking on rats, but that one wouldn´t be a mighty vampire but a weak shadow of one)
That's great and all, but it's completely untrue. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but that it's a false one in terms of what we're discussing. The fluff ideas you provide directly go against that most undead do not require life energy at all, even from a feeding perspective. EDIT: Even the idea that a vampire feeding off rats and animals is somehow weaker than one feeding off humans is alien to the subject. This is akin to Ann Rice novels, which while good, are definitely not "setting neutral".
Likewise, stealing life force isn't a dedicated evil act. We can observe this because of things like vampiric touch.
There's a lot of dependancy on the definition of Evil you are understanding. I'm of the opinion that true setting neutrality cannot exist with an alignment system, as it implies an inherent judgement. If one is to look at whether a creature, concept or act is inherently evil, first they must define what the term entails. Otherwise it's just applying your own morality to the answer.
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I'm going to throw in with the idea that Demons and Devils and such in Pathfinder (likewise Archons and Azatas) don't have a lot in the way of free will - at least as described in the Bestiaries. These entities are described as arising out of the coalescing of good or evil souls that drift around their native planes - they spring into being fully-formed, and do not grow into their evil or goodness. In effect, all of their moral choices have already been made for them by the souls from which they arise. They are literally made of the goodness or badness of deceased mortals, so how can they truly make moral decisions of their own?
So maybe they have free will about how they pursue their morality (or immorality) but they don't have any choice in how they view it?
I generally agree with Ahiel....negative energy is not inherently evil...as positive energy is not inherently good. It has almost always been this way since 1st ed D&D...except the mindless undead. A zombie or a skelton should not be evil...because I think you need sentinence to be evil..or good or netral...or lawful or chaotic for that matter. Really what the game needed for a long time to cover mindless undead and constructs is unaligned. Haveing every creature have a alignment just makes no sense. Heck though out to 3.5(I don't enough about 4th ed to say) have had examples of Good undead.
Making them evil just does not make a sense.
What I differ on is this. Undead are a abomination to nature...in that they go against the natural order of things. It goes I think beyond the issue of alignment here.
Also the act of animating the dead even into mindless undead is a evil act...mostly to do with cultural morales. I can think of a couple of ways it can be done that is not evil...but generaly a necromance who goes about animating undead is defiling the corpse...which is a never approved in any culture I can think of...
Conversely I can see a society where it is allowed for people to sell their corpses to be turned into a undead...or even good faiths doing it with people of their faith who volunteered to do so to protect the religions holy sites and tombs of their important person...hence why you always see undead protecting tombs.
But putting the evil alignment automaticaly on all undead just because of negative energy...I think is a more gamist thing than a lore(or as most people call it 'Fluff' ) thing. Some do deserved it....naturalyy occuring undead are usualy evil people....lichs have devour somebosy's souls...etc. Some I think should have looser alignments.
I think the real matter underlying all of this, is the tension that has always existed between the nature of a universe of absolutes, and the drama that comes from wrestling with matters of free will.
It's always going to be more dramatic, entertaining and exciting to think of characters in the game - monsters included - as being redeemable when evil, or corruptible when good. That is interesting to us, and I think it is also impulsive: we can't help but think in those terms because to some extent each of us is concerned with our own moral boundaries.
On the other hand, the game does promote absolutes as a matter of its mechanics in terms of interaction with spells, abilities, etc.
There is always going to be gray area that players debate, and even some not-so-gray area that players turn into gray area, probably largely because they are projecting themselves into it. Which, let's face it, is actually the point of an RPG, so can't be helped.
I guess I'm saying that each of the points made in the OP, though relevant and even agreeable, won't truly survive contact with the gaming table. The dichotomy will always exist. It has to, or the game gets boring. That also means there will always be some discussion on these points (I know our group has on occasion discussed these matters at length).
That's great and all, but it's completely untrue.
Rule numer one: Ignore the RAW if something else is more fun ^^
(Yeah, my concept is not Golarion as written. Use it or don´t. Point is, in my opinion my concept is a sound one that solves part of the problem when adopted. The stuff about eating rats is OT, I just added it because it is somewhat part of the concept)
Likewise, stealing life force isn't a dedicated evil act. We can observe this because of things like vampiric touch.
There´s fluff and there´s system. Vampiric touch is system and as for the fluff, you can rule that what you take with vampiric touch is not the same as the life force I wrote about - as Hitpoints and Levels definitely aren´t it.
Btw, depending on specific moral views, vampiric touch is dedicated evil - it´s the old argument about if dark magic is just a tool (and using it for good without collateral damage is ok) or if using it is somewhat corrupting (example from reality: war parties who agree on banning the usage of horrible chemical weapons like mustard gas)I think the real matter underlying all of this, is the tension that has always existed between the nature of a universe of absolutes, and the drama that comes from wrestling with matters of free will.
All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king thereafter.
So, if mindless undead are a tool they have no morality. The only morality involved is the use to which they are put. By and large, in the game world, they are created by evil creatures and tasked on evil endeavours. Rather than being evil in and of themselves, they are merely parts of an evil whole. This would justify the evil alignment, I feel, but having a blanket evil judgement on any necromancy or living dead does somewhat imply a universal morality there. It's fair to say that there is potential for good aligned undead, I suppose.
Furthermore, there seems to be an standard in the game that the extermination of life without due cause, such as self defence, is an evil act. If an undead creature is motivated to do such an acts as its basic nature, then its basic nature could be said to be evil.
Bruunwald is right, though. The game is a swashbuckling, swords and sorcery game at heart, and to be so it needs to carry those absolutes. Whether or not you play by them in a group is a personal choice.
So, if mindless undead are a tool they have no morality. The only morality involved is the use to which they are put. By and large, in the game world, they are created by evil creatures and tasked on evil endeavours. Rather than being evil in and of themselves, they are merely parts of an evil whole. This would justify the evil alignment, I feel, but having a blanket evil judgement on any necromancy or living dead does somewhat imply a universal morality there. It's fair to say that there is potential for good aligned undead, I suppose.
So a evil fighter sword is evil? Or a assassin's dagger is evil? They are as much a part of of the evil whole as midless undead.
Rule numer one: Ignore the RAW if something else is more fun ^^
(Yeah, my concept is not Golarion as written. Use it or don´t. Point is, in my opinion my concept is a sound one that solves part of the problem when adopted. The stuff about eating rats is OT, I just added it because it is somewhat part of the concept)
But it's still pretty irrelevant. I agree about changing the game if it doesn't work for you; but the conversation is about absolutes (or so I thought) and how that meshes with things. Also, to my knowledge, Golarion has nothing to do with it.
There´s fluff and there´s system. Vampiric touch is system and as for the fluff, you can rule that what you take with vampiric touch is not the same as the life force I wrote about - as Hitpoints and Levels definitely aren´t it.
Btw, depending on specific moral views, vampiric touch is dedicated evil - it´s the old argument about if dark magic is just a tool (and using it for good without collateral damage is ok) or if using it is somewhat corrupting (example from reality: war parties who agree on banning the usage of horrible chemical weapons like mustard gas)
Some spells and a number of undead creatures have the ability to drain away life and energy; this dreadful attack results in “negative levels.” - PRD, Energy Drain. Enervation is not evil according to the rules.
While I agree that people can decide that they don't want to use certain weapons or tactics, it is the same as poison. Poison is not inherently evil (this is another one of those things that has been washy in some D&D fluffs), nor is using poison to kill your enemy evil. Some people don't like it. Some people use it. It's just a tool. It doesn't really matter if you stab someone to death, burn them with a fireball, or suck out their life force, in the end they're dead.
I agree that most of these tings are based on perspectives. In my own campaign, the largest country on the prime continent could be described as very religious, and very orderly. Due to the interpretations of their religious teachings, there's a lot of things that are restricted, illegal, and banned. Necromancy is one of those things (some forms of necromancy are fine), but it's like these because they see them as abominable.
Meanwhile, another culture might see all magic as evil.
Meanwhile still, a necropolis on the other side of the continent might have humans and undead living side by side, with a lich-queen that governs a utopia of well educated people, with mindless undead doing menial labor like digging ditches and plowing farms, while their overlords (the civilians) are encouraged to attend schools to learn to advance their understanding of philosophy, science, and magic.
Both the 1st and the 2nd places exist in my campaign setting. One is a powerful civilization built by people with devout religious thoughts, guarded by a powerful Templar, and ready to weed out dangerous cultists and the like, and the other is a large city-state that functions pretty much exactly like the 1st place, except they do so in a way that the 1st place finds completely reprehensible on grounds of differing viewpoints.
However, I do house-rule the 3.5 nonsense out of my lore; because if you use the 3.5/PF undead stuff, logic falls apart; and I like my stuff internally consistent.
That being said, you'll notice I didn't bring these two peoples from my campaign into the discussion when Purplefixer requested the debate.
an object itself is not aligned... howeaver if an object is used over and over in the comission of an evil act say murder then eventualy it will regester as evil just as the robes of a saint will regester as good.
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This happens to be a discussion of interest to me.
What is the Negative energy plane like?
For reference purposes.
Description of the Negative Plane
Manual of the Planes 1st edition D&D
P. 54
“Negative materiel Plane….Also known as the Plane of Negative Energy”
“ The negative materiel plane sucks in all matter and energy. The negative materiel plane is eternally dark, its structures and towers made up of solid blackness”
“Undead: many undead draw their animating force from the from the Negative Materiel Plane which endows them with the power to drain ability scores and levels. Such creatures are said to exist in both the prime materiel and negative materiel planes simultaneously, though this is unlikely as the two are not linked.”
Manuel of the Planes 3rd edition D&D
P. 80
“ Negative Energy Plane
It is the blackest night. It is the heart of darkness. It is the hunger that devours souls. The Negative Energy Plane is a barren and empty place, a void without end, and a place of empty endless night. Worse it is a needy greedy plane sucking the life out of anything that is vunerable. Heat fire and life itself are all drawn into the maw of this plane, which hungers for more.
To the observer there is little to see on the negative energy plane. It is a dark empty place, an eternal pit where a travvleer can fall until the plane itself steals away all light and life.
The negative energy plane is the most hostile of the inner planes, and the most intolerant of life. Only creatures invulnerable to its life draining energies may survive there, and even they have problems as the negative energy tugs at them imploringly”
Pathfinder Companion: The Beyond
P 8
“the Negative energy Plane empowers undead just as Possitive energy is the driving force behind all living things , but contrary to some religious dogma, neither is it nor its destructive energies are evil.”
While the Negative energy plane may in its description sound evil, No where in the descriptions of the Negative Energy Plane over the editions of the game have I found anything that says the plane itself is evil. In the Great Beyond, it even states that the Negative Plane, although destructive, isn’t evil.
I couldn’t find my 2nd edition sources
I have a question about the animate dead spell. I know that the spell animates skeletons and zombies. How does it do this? Negative Energy? Does it bind the spirit of the deceased to its rotting body to animate it? I understand that the spell is Evil. Why?
I have tried to dig through my D&D books, and this is what I have found.
For reference purposes
The Animate Dead Spell
1st editon players handbook
The text there reads as follows:
3rd level cleric spell (I was directed here from the 5th level wizard spell description P. 47
“ Explanation/ Description: This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters, skeletons or zombies, from the bones or bodies of dead humans. The effect is to cause these remains to become animated and obey the commands of the Cleric casting the spell. The skeletons or zombies will follow, remain in an area and attack and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature), entering the place, etc. The spell will animate the monsters until they are destroyed or until the magic is dispelled. (See dispel magic spell). The cleric is able to animate 1 skeleton or 1 zombie for each level of experience he or she has attained. Thus a 2nd level cleric can animate 2 of these monsters, a 3rd level 3 etc. The act of animating dead is not basically a good one, and it must be used with careful consideration and good reason by clerics of good alignment. It requires a drop of blood, a piece of human flesh, and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete this spell. “
Ah the days of brief spell descriptions.
The 2nd edition description is a little longer
I have the 11 printing 1994.
“This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters- skeletons or zombies- usually from the bones or bodies of dead humans, demihumans, or humanoids. The spell causes existing remains to become animated and obey the simple verbal commands of the caster. The skeletons or zombies can follow the caster, remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature) entering the place, etc. the undead remain animated until they are destroyed in combat or are turned; the magic cannot be dispelled. The following types of dead creatures can be animated: A) Humans, Demihumand, and Humanoids with 1 hit die. The wizard can animate one skeleton for each experience level he has attained, or one zombie for every tow levels. The experience levels, if any of the slain are ignored; the body of a newly dead 9 level fighter is animated as a zombie with 2 hit dice, without special class or racial abilities.
B) Creatures with more than 1 hit die. The number of undead animated is determined by the monster hit dice (the total hit dice cannot exceed the wizard’s level). Skeletal forms have the hit dice of the original creature, while zombie forms have one more hit die. Thus a 12 level wizard could animate four zombie gnolls (4x[2+1 hit dice]=12), or s single fire giant skeleton. Such undead have none of the special abilities they had in life.
C) Creatures with less than 1 hit die. The caster can animate two skeletons per level or one zombie per level. The creatures have their normal hit dice as skeletons and an additional hit die as zombies. Clerics receive a +1 bonus when trying to turn these. This spell assumes that the bodies or bones are available and are reasonably intact (those of skeletons and zombies destroyed in combat wont be)
It requires a drop of blood and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete the spell. The casting of this spell is not a good act and only evil wizards use it frequently.”
And now lets take a look at the text of the 3.5 spell.
(I know there is a 3.0 version, but I am too lazy to type it out)
“Necromancy [evil]
This spell turns the bones or bodes of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. The undead can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. (A destroyed skeleton or zombie can’t be animated again).
Regardless of the kind of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit. See page 128)
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. (You choose which creatures are released). If you are a cleric, any undead you command by virtue of your power to command or rebuke undead do not count toward the limit.
Skeletons: a skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones, co creating a skeleton from a purple worm, for example, is not possible. If a skeleton is made from a corps its flesh falls off the bones.
Zombies: a zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a true anatomy, so a dead gelatinous cube, for example cannot be animated as a zombie.
Materiel components: you must place a black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per hit die of the undead into the mouth or eye socket of each corpse you intend to animate. The magic of the spell turns these gems into worthless burned out shells. “
P198 player’s handbook
Pathfinder SRD
animate dead
I decided to turn to the Complete Necromancer’s handbook for further clarification about the Animate Dead spell. I understand what it does, I am curious to find out how.
Interestingly in the Complete Necromancer’s handbook on page 46 and 47 the text refers to criminal or black necromancy, Grey or Neutral Necromancy, and Benign white Necromancy.
Interestingly Animate dead is placed in Grey necromancy.
“ Take Animate dead for instance, raising up a zombie to carry one’s luggage is not an evil act but animating the dead for the purpose of attacking a merchant caravan is another matter entirely”
Page 174 of the player’s handbook
“ Necromancy- Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school. Representative spells include, cause fear, and animate dead and finger of death. “
Page 317 of the monster manual states that “ the undead type: undead are once living creatures animated by spiritual and supernatural forces”.
This begins to hint at what animated the undead, the how.
On page 7 of Liber Mortis it states, “ where does the energy for animation come from? Negative Energy”
Well that is all I have found. I am sure there is more stuff under my nose, and I have failed to see it
I haven’t found any textual evidence that souls are ripped from the afterlife and bound to their rotting former corpses. . The only evidence I have found that Animate dead is evil is the spell description- it states that the spell is evil
This of course brings us to the monster descriptions of the skeletons and zombies.
Skeleton
Monster Manuel, 3rd edition 1978, (1st edition Dungeons and Dragons)
P. 89- Alignment: Neutral
Monster Manuel 3.5, 1st printing July 2003.
p. 225- Alignment- Always Neutral Evil
Pathfinder
skeleton
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Zombie
Monster Manuel, 3rd edition 1978, (1st edition Dungeons and Dragons)
P. 103 - Alignment: Neutral
Monster Manuel 3.5, 1st printing July 2003.
p. 266- Alignment- Always Neutral Evil
Pathfinder
zombie
Alignment Neutral Evil
An interesting side note
Mummy
Monster Manuel, 3rd edition 1978, (1st edition Dungeons and Dragons)
P. 72- Alignment: Lawful Evil
An interesting side note “Mummies are undead humans with existence on both the normal and positive materiel planes”
Now this must be a “typo” because the rest of the monster reads like an evil undead empowered by the Negative Materiel Plane.
Interestingly their alignments, as was previously pointed out , in first edition was neutral. I cant find my 2nd edition Monsterous Compendium, to see what their alignments were, but as a previous poster mentioned, it was neutral. It wasn’t until the 3rd edtition that the skeleton and Zombies alignment became evil. I suppose skeletons and zombies were neutral in alignment because they were automatons animated by negative energy, incapable of making any of their own choices, thus the neutral alignment. Personally, I happen to like the shift in third edition, making the skeleton and zombie’s alignment evil.
Also from the texts it appears that the undead are animated by negative energy, not souls ripped from the afterlife and bound to their decaying corpses.
Now while I haven’t found any textual evidence beyond the evil descriptor of the animate dead spell, and the NE alignment entry in the monster entries to say they are evil, I suppose the disparity for me is that the undead are evil, while their animating force, negative energy isn’t. In my home games for my own purposes I give the Negative Energy plane an evil alignment, and the Positive Energy Plane a good alignment. To me this makes logical internal sense. I do however like an exception, and in my games, the exception to the all undead are evil, are the Ghosts. I allow them to have alignments other then evil, like neutral.
I included the descriptions of the negative plane, and the animate dead spell, and the skeletons and zombies so that it would be easy for people to reference.
Thank you for putting up with my long-winded post. Give me enough time and I think I might find more to say. This may be a bad thing.
.
Alright kids, don't make me pull this thread over! ;)
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The Juju Oracles create intelligent and otherwise undead that match thier alignment be it good evil or neutral. They channel spirits into the bodies they are animating which is not considered an evil act. The Osirians prepare dead specificly to turn into undead without desecrating the bodies.
Its entirely possible for someone to use necromancy to create undead without desecrating the bodies. The entire problem is an arbitrary alignment being shoved onto an activity that people have issues with. Then again the whole alignment issue should have been removed a long time ago as it serves no real purpose.
The problem with some of these ideas is they fail at the setting-neutral goals that the Pathfinder core rules have; while also failing to make any sense internally. This problem began with 3.5, when they started making undead evil so that Paladins could smite them. In previous editions, I believe more thought went into the morality aspects of D&D, instead of this mess that cannot even be called black and white (more like a newspaper that a vial of ink got knocked over on).
Previous editions let's go all the way back to 1st Edition AD+D and the delightful fiend folio.
Vampires- chaotic evil
Banshees- Chaotic evil
Wraiths - lawful evil
Wights - chaotic evil
Mummies - lawful evil
Sons of Kyuss, lawful evil
Death Knights chaotic evil.Now it didn't go into the fluff of why until later editions, many of these types are CREATED to be evil, occasionally as curse/retribution of evil acts in Life (Lord Soth, Strahd of Ravenloft some are almost entirely evil because of the torment of a restless undead existence. Actually it wasn't until 3.0 that brought of the possiblity of positvively charged good undead...the deathless and that was mostly Forgotten Realms and Eberron.
Firstly, I noticed there are no skeletons or zombies on that list. Only creatures with have willful minds.
Secondly, skeletons and zombies were Neutral in 3rd Edition as well, with making them evil being a suggested change by a poorly thought out source book (the BoVD) that came out towards the end of 3E (most people even think it's a 3.5 book).
Furthermore, the 3E forgotten realms had no such thing as Deathless. If I pop open my copy of Monsters of Faerun, I will not find any deathless in its pages. I do, however, find a number of undead. Undead including the Baelnorn or Good-Lich, which have a number of difference variances from the standard lich, and can even cast animate dead as a spell-like ability.
Interestingly their alignments, as was previously pointed out , in first edition was neutral. I cant find my 2nd edition Monsterous Compendium, to see what their alignments were, but as a previous poster mentioned, it was neutral. It wasn’t until the 3rd edtition that the skeleton and Zombies alignment became evil.
Much thanks for your post. This one, however, is in error. It was not until 3.5 that skeletons and zombies became evil. They were Neutral right through 3rd Edition. 3E also had a rule that explained that mindless creatures and creatures of animal intelligence were always neutral because they couldn't make moral choices. 3.5 muddled this by saying that this was true except for sometimes; with no explanation for it.
That's why in my campaign, if I need some "raw evil" monster, that's what I have the Evil subtype for. Be it undead, outsider, or otherwise.
First off, I'd suggest everyone read Frank & K's Tome of Necromancy. It explores the question nicely, comes up with some useful definitions, and ultimately points out that this is a decision which each DM/GM must make for his/her game.
While I can't speak for Paizo, I believe the question has been left contradictory and ambiguous both for backwards compatibility with 3.5 materials (which are contradictory and ambiguous) and because it is ultimately is a question which each DM/GM will want to answer both for his campaign and for the mood of a particular game session.
If the necromancer slips in the bathtub one day, what happens to his zombie servants? Do they immediately kill the goldfish and his pet parrot then wander off in search of an orphanage to remake into a Romero flick? Do they instead continue with their last orders, feeding the long dead goldfish every other day, changing the papers on the ancient insane parrot's cage, and bringing the master's moldering corpse a snifter of brandy precisely at 2:00 every day just like he liked like the automated house in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles? Do they just shamble about aimlessly as sad and tragic reminders of what they once were? Or are the operating like a broken computer program, attempting to still obey the master's wishes, but all there is now is a parrot that formerly belonged to a pirate, and all it knows how to say is, "Yo ho ho, me hearties! Lock them scalawags in the brig 'n bring me rum 'n wenches!"
Any of these can make a good story, and it's boring to redline any of them and say, "Undead only operate this way." It could be absolutely marvelous to find that the crazed madwoman who escaped from the house of the dead, raving about "The rotten dead man and his evil bird!" was not in fact describing a lich and his familiar but something far less expected.
Actually it wasn't until 3.0 that brought of the possiblity of positvively charged good undead...the deathless and that was mostly Forgotten Realms and Eberron.
Actualy the Arch lich( and the baelorna in the FR goes back to the 2nd ed...but might go farther I don't recall. But I know they existed back than.
The Deathless was not 3.0 either...Eberron is pure 3.5. Which saw the move to making Negative energy = evil...which was a change that they failed to se well or two reasons...
1) They are still good undead in 3.5...only eberron had deathless.
2) It was not universal...Enverate and the Cause wounds pell ...Vampiric touch ... Ghoiul touch...should all be evil. It is just not logical or internaly consistent.
It was poorly thought out.
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First off, I'd suggest everyone read Frank & K's Tome of Necromancy. It explores the question nicely, comes up with some useful definitions, and ultimately points out that this is a decision which each DM/GM must make for his/her game.
While I can't speak for Paizo, I believe the question has been left contradictory and ambiguous both for backwards compatibility with 3.5 materials (which are contradictory and ambiguous) and because it is ultimately is a question which each DM/GM will want to answer both for his campaign and for the mood of a particular game session.
If the necromancer slips in the bathtub one day, what happens to his zombie servants? Do they immediately kill the goldfish and his pet parrot then wander off in search of an orphanage to remake into a Romero flick? Do they instead continue with their last orders, feeding the long dead goldfish every other day, changing the papers on the ancient insane parrot's cage, and bringing the master's moldering corpse a snifter of brandy precisely at 2:00 every day just like he liked like the automated house in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles? Do they just shamble about aimlessly as sad and tragic reminders of what they once were? Or are the operating like a broken computer program, attempting to still obey the master's wishes, but all there is now is a parrot that formerly belonged to a pirate, and all it knows how to say is, "Yo ho ho, me hearties! Lock them scalawags in the brig 'n bring me rum 'n wenches!"
Any of these can make a good story, and it's boring to redline any of them and say, "Undead only operate this way." It could be absolutely marvelous to find that the crazed madwoman who escaped from the house of the dead, raving about "The rotten dead man and his evil bird!" was not in fact describing a lich and his familiar but something far less expected.
That's totally cool.
I would prefer one or the other (to kill threads of this sort in which someone proclaims that mindless things can be malignant and 'hate' stuff or that animate dead tears souls out of heaven and traps them in mindless rotting bodies, and yet somehow also turns them evil, even if they were paladins, and turns them mindless, even if they were very smart, and makes them hate life, even if they were saints who ran an orphanage for lost puppies, and cause them to suffer anguish in their rotting shells, even though they are mindless and immune to mind-affecting effects and apparently incapable of feeling pain or anguish...), but I like the flexibility, too.
Ideally,
A) positive and negative energy would either remain neutral, and the alignment descriptors on certain spells (and anything that explicitly is mindless and lacks volition or the capacity for malevolence) would die.
B) positive energy becomes good, negative energy becomes evil, skeletons and zombies bump up to Int 1 so that they can harbor ill will and malign intent, and all spells that channel negative energy gain the Evil descriptor and all spells that channel positive energy gain the Good descriptor, and some new spells are thrown into the game to allow evil clerics to use necromancy or transmutation magic to heal their evil followers, since they would be incapable of channeling Good positive energy in the casting of Cure Wounds spells.
A seems like a helluva a lot less work, just taking us back to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition, where negative energy was neutral but dangerous (like fire, or positive energy), and mindless things were, uh, mindless, but I'm not at all adverse to the sort of game-setting that would be created by B, either.
It's this contradictory 3.5-derived mish-mash where things incapable of malice can be malicious, and undead explicitly stated to be incapable of doing anything without orders and having zero volition of their own are said to 'hate life' and to 'wander around destroying life if uncontrolled' that bugs me.
Negative energy, IMO, has never really been properly explored.
*I* think that it shouldn't be a free endless supply of mechanical energy, via animate dead or the existence of various undead, but that it should represent a hungry void of power. Instead of being a free picnic of everlasting energy, able to maintain an undead 'generator' forever, it should consume energy from the world around it (planes above it).
The way the game is *currently* designed, living creatures have to murder and devour other living creatures to maintain their existence, profitting and thriving on the blood, fear and pain of other life, and yet, inexplicably, *they* can be Paladins, while skeletons and zombies can apparently function *forever* without a single input of energy, mechanical, chemical, radiant, magical, whatever, after the casting of the initial animate dead spell.
I would much rather have it that all undead, including the mindless ones, require energy, which they cannot absorb in any other way than by ripping it from the bodies of other living creatures. Ghouls and vampires already serve as precedent for this, although, in the core rules, they suffer no actual physical effects for refusing to feed. I'd prefer if undead explicitly grew weaker without sustenance, but remained capable of going into a hibernation state, so that one could open a tomb and discover a wight or mummy who'se been there for centuries, and isn't at all impeded by the lack of sustenance, since he's been 'napping.'
As with any rule, there would be exceptions. Skeletons and zombies could be maintained by recasting the animate dead spell. Cast it every day, and the undead created by it will be 'fat and healthy,' by undead standards. Liches transcend the entire need to feed, and are empowered by arcane forces (or divine forces, whatever, it's magic), and regard undead who have not managed to transcend the messy biological needs of the living, and still must feed to survive, as inferior flawed copies of the process that they've used. (Mummies might similarly no longer need to feed, using very different rituals to reach much the same effect as Liches.) But shadows, spectres, wraiths, wights, ghouls, ghasts and vampires would absolutely need to take from the living to survive. Most would directly steal life-energy, through level drain, but ghouls and vampires would have a special ability to absorb life-energy the same way that living humans do, by devouring the flesh and tissues of living creatures. Ghouls and Vampires might see this as an advantage over the others (a ghoul can 'feed' on a steak from a cow that has been dead for days, and get some chewy sustenance out of a long-buried corpse, for instance, and a vampire can feed from a human by drawing blood, and leave the human alive and able to be fed from again, and again, and again, whereas a wight or shadow has no such benefit), while some of the less visceral undead, such as spectres, might regard their need to consume fleshy bits and tissues as a disgusting degenerate throwback to mortal existence, and compare a vampire drinking blood to a living mortal still needing to visit the outhouse.
Using this paradigm, all negative energy based effects (whether undead existences or magical spells) would *take* energy from something, but never grant energy to something (although it might, as a secondary effect, share some energy stolen from another, as with the vampiric touch spell, or a 'vampiric' ray of enfeeblement spell that drains a foe of X amount of Str and grants the caster 1/2 of X worth of Str for a short time). Skeletons and zombies would require either 'feeding' (ordering them to kill living creatures to draw forth their life-energy and continue their own animation) or sustenance by recasting the animate dead spell every 24 hours, although, like other undead, they could perhaps be left dormant, so that, once again, a GM could put a dozen of them in a crypt, abandoned for centuries, and have them 'spring to life' to attack intruders. The object isn't to take away story use from GMs, after all!
Most undead would also be able to destroy *each other* to free up any stolen life-energy within themselves, although such fare would be very much last resort, since it would be a frustrating taste of the meal that a living person would provide.
Corner cases like 'shadowpocalypse' or 'wightpocalypse' become increasingly unlikely, as shadows or wights that remain active have an increased chance of 'starving to death' if they don't keep up with their feeding requirements, and if they run around turning everything they kill into shadows or wights, they just create competition for food. Six days later, a wandering tinker comes to town, and there are corpses everywhere. A single wight was dug up, hibernating in a tomb, killed everyone, turned them into wights, and they had nothing left to eat, wandering over the fields and crops, starving to death, since they'd devoured every living thing within miles, and had resorted to tearing each other apart to try and free the last dregs of stolen life-energy within their own undead bodies. In some basement, a wight or two may have survived, having dropped into hibernation themselves, to avoid starving to death...
That's my dream. Negative energy isn't the free spigot of endless power. (That's the positive energy plane!) It's the drain at the bottom of the sink, into which everything will eventually swirl and be devoured. It only takes, it never gives.
(Unless one thinks of it as a black hole, that will either explode when it's 'full,' or connects via hyperspatial wormhole to the 'white hole' that is the positive energy plane, making every single thing that gets 'devoured' by the negative energy plane necessary for the positive energy plane to function. But that's the sort of detail that's unecessary for running the game, and serves only as a philosophical point for priests and wizards to argue about.)
I think the best way to deal with it is to have the Negative material plane be like the Sea, or Fire, or any other force of nature, meaning utterly mindless except when it isn't.
Basically, posit that there's one or more zeitgeists that occasionally puppets these things, the same way that Oracles can get powered by, for example, Fire, without worshipping an actual god or goddess of fire.
Gods and goddesses tend to take human form, and follow this by having human foibles, up to an including going on dates, having allies and enemies, etc. Zeitgeists? They're impersonal elemental forces, and can be malevolent, benevolent or neutral mostly depending on the perspective of the viewer. The sea can bring bounty to a fisherman or wreck a ship. Fire can used to warm a home or burn it to the ground. Death energy? It could be highly useful for pest control, ridding a barn of rats for example, unless of course you happen to be a rat, in which case you'd view it as an evil unrelenting horror.
Looking at the skeletons, for example, the zeitgeist theory actually helps to explain how the bones of a washerwoman, who never wielded a blade in her life, can somehow hop up after death, grab a sword and shield, and march and stab people with perfect military precision.
Admittedly, the D&D skeletons are based on the skeleton warriors from Jason and the Argonauts. There, the priest is using sympathetic magic to sow the ground with the hydra's teeth to get the dead slain by the hydra to rise up and go after the guys who took the golden fleece. Reasonably, all of these dead were warriors who knew their way around a sword and shield in life and thus, unsurprisingly, retain this knowledge in death.
If you go with the zeitgeist theory, the "natural cunning" that skeletons have is based on them being empowered not just by negative energy but by some zeitgeist comprised not just of death but of the knowledge of slain soldiers, thus granting basic weapon proficiency and knowledge of military tactics, without the tedium inherent in having to put your undead conscripts through basic training.
Presumably there are other zeitgeists a necromancer could call on. Want a danse macabre? There's a spell for that! Cast it and you can have your skeletons dancing around like the Grateful Dead, even playing instruments despite the fact that they never had any musical training or talent in life. Kind of like that scene at the end of "The Music Man," only with undead instead of children.
One assumes the same thing goes on with banshees, as you have the ghosts of women who never did a day of housework in their lives are suddenly going to the ford and washing the bloody shirts of the doomed like a bunch of Irish laundresses.
But anyway, back to the standard skeletons. One assumes that if the base programming of skeletons is "Destroy the living," this is because the zeitgeist which grants them their martial knowledge also gives them "Destroy the living" as a standing order unless this is over-ridden by a necromancer, dark cleric, or anyone else with undead controlling capabilities.
It's also a reasonable assumption, because wizards would think of these things, that there should be some spell similar to Geas to allow you to give a skeleton or other mindless undead an order which it will follow even if you're not around, due to being dead or simply on vacation. Really no point in having an undead servant guarding your tower if it goes gallivanting off to torture orphans the moment you turn your back, now is there?
One would also assume that necromancers might have other uses for their mindless undead than just military ones. Who's going to wash this gravedirt out of your new robe? Yes, banshees know how to do it, but they're awfully screechy, and you just want your robe laundered without some dire prophecy about how you're going to die because some spirit has been damned to an endless existence of women's work and household drudgery. Maybe the zeitgeist responsible for giving banshees ranks in Profession Laundress could be used in the creation of a skeleton or zombie? Yes, it might still hate the living, but if uncontrolled, wouldn't likely do anything more harmful than overstarching their shirts.
Now of course there's a question of whether mindless undead puppeted by some quasi-mindless zeitgeist actively "hate" the living or "hunger" for their life energy or if they just set about snuffing that life energy out with military precision, nothing personal about it, because that's what they're created to do. It also starts to tread into how paladins detect than anything is "evil" and alignment debate. But that's yet another endless thread....
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I think the best way to deal with it is to have the Negative material plane be like the Sea, or Fire, or any other force of nature, meaning utterly mindless except when it isn't.
The zietgiest idea is intriguing, and would certainly be one explanation of why undead can use weapons (although it still leaves perplexing how various humanoids and outsiders can be 'proficient in any weapon / armor it's described as having,' which, to my mind, is just a handwave, and the undead shouldn't need any more complicated an explanation than 'handwave').
I tended to assume, and that's just me making something up, that the 'echo' contacted by Speak with Dead was kind of like the Egyptian concept of a khaibit or 'shadow of the soul' left behind in a corpse, and contained some sort of hazy memory of the previous inhabitant, whose actual soul was off strumming a harp in paradise (or burning in hell, or whatever). The understanding of how to use weapons and armor would just be 'echoes' of the knowledge of the previous inhabitant, but that itself would bring up the problem of not every skeleton / zombie having the same weapon and armor skills (since a commoner or adept's corpse would have much more limited 'echoes' of weapon / armor use than a warrior or aristocrats). That level of detail would require an extra sentence to be written somewhere, and it's so much more fun to make stuff up. :)
For the most part, I just kinda handwaved it, like the idea that a living monstrous humanoid or outsider is 'proficient in whatever it's got in its hand when you see it.'
I'll quibble over the non-evil-ness (or the potential coolness of a setting where negative energy is evil, positive energy is good, and evil clerics and critters can't use cure spells) all day long, 'cause that has interesting setting implications and storytelling possibilities, but there are rules like these free weapon / armor proficiencies that I just throw my hands up and say, 'whatever.'
A lot of these flow back to my wild-eyed frothing dislike of nonabilities. Int 0, and yet capable of understanding the spoken commands of their creators? Capable of being trained? Capable of volition, intent, malice? Ooh, how much I hate nonabilities. Con zero, yet still needing to feed, and suffering consequences if it doesn't? Still with organs (such as a heart than can be staked) or body parts that function as part of a system, animated by something not biology, but still a system that can be meddled with or kept flowing smoothly, functioning in a 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' manner, and yet with no Con score? Ugh. Bugs can totally be trained, in the real world, and in the game (go go Steeder-riding Duergar and spider-taming Drow), making the Int 0 Vermin rule in 3.0 as problematic (and requiring various exceptions to be invented, such as spells or domains that allow mind-affecting effects to affect vermin, or feats that allow vermin training or vermin companions) as the mindless-but-capable-of-thinking-*wrongbadnasty*-thoughts, notion introduced in 3.5.
If I had my druthers, *cars* would have Con scores, to represent the ability to gum up the works and 'starve' them with lack of fuel or 'smother' them with lack of oxygen. A system is a system, whether it's a tree, a puppy or a computer. Either can get a 'virus' and become 'unhealthy' or even 'die.'
Which is yet *another* debate.
Haven't found away to work the undead/evil/negative energy debate into the DR/golfbag thing yet, 'though. :)
Yeah, let's stick to RAW/RAI published sources, please, unless you're talking about a published argument or explanation that illuminates something we're talking about outside of the Paizo IP. "I decided it wasn't" is a straw-man argument, easily refuted by "I decided not to listen to you", and we don't want to go down that route.
Talking with Ashiel is fun. Ash is a Master Debater. >.>
This, however...:
Ghouls not born from cannibals seem to only be evil insofar as they eat dead bodies of their ex-fellow humanoids (a practice that is not evil innately, as some real life cannibal tribes eat their dead out of respect or even love)
Is, it turns out, patently untrue! It's one of those things 'everyone knows' that everyone is wrong about! My wife is a PhD student (six more weeks *crossfingers*) working on her history doctorate, and one of the blow your mind things she had to study was cannibalism. Turns out, every SINGLE reference to cannibalism ever recorded outside of abberant Ozark families of caucasians who capture and eat strangers, or emergency situations like the Donner Party, have always been "In My Grandfather's Time". "In My Grandfather's Time" is an oral history shortcut to saying "In The Mythic Age", and as it turns out cannibalism never actually happened. Not even the Aztecs ate parts of their victims, those got fed to their stone idols by way of proxy to sending hearts to their gods.
All that aside, however, the arguments are still very valid. Let's see if I can refute "The NEP is not inherantly evil, just apathetic".
PFRPG: p440
Shadow Plane: The eerie and deadly Shadow Plane
is a grim, colorless “duplicate” of the Material Plane. It
overlaps with the Material Plane but is smaller in size,
and is in many ways a warped and mocking “ref lection” of
the Material Plane, one infused with negative energy (see
Inner Planes) and serving as home for strange monsters
like undead shadows and worse....
Energy Planes: Two energy planes exist—the Positive
Energy Plane (from which the animating spark of life hails)
and the Negative Energy Plane (from which the sinister
taint of undeath hails). Energy from both planes infuses
reality, the ebb and f low of this energy running through
all creatures to bear them along the journey from birth to
death. Clerics utilize power from these planes when they
channel energy.
So the cosmology in the PFRPG supplement is very very -thin-. It only covers a single page. Looks like for deeper understanding, we have to turn to a setting document, which again makes it look like the Bestiary was written -primarily- for Golarion. The Golarian influence is obviously very strong in those books, since even goblins have changed to the Golarion Green.
The Pathfinder Chronicles - Campaign Setting: p181 says
A jealous, hollow twin to the Positive Energy Plane, the
Negative Energy Plane cannot create. It can only consume
and destroy.
The devouring void forges twisted mockeries of the
Material Plane’s denizens, with the Shadow Plane itself the
greatest expression of this warped emulation. Largely sterile
and desolate, the Negative Energy Plane is yet populated by
great numbers of undead, especially the more powerful and
intelligent, as well as predatory f locks of sceaduinar, the
“raptors of the void.”...
Isolated on the far side of the Ethereal mists, the Shadow
Plane exists as a twisted ref lection of the Material Plane. Like
a funhouse mirror or a broken, warped pane of glass looking
out into a caged menagerie, the Shadow Plane emulates the
Material Plane’s life but only manages to produce and populate
itself with hollow perversions.
...
The Shadow Plane is also known as the Plane of Death—
not so much for any association with the afterlife, or any
metaphysical quality with the soul or dying, but rather with
the sense of physical oblivion due to its association with the
Negative Energy Plane. In a very real sense, the Shadow Plane
is a misbegotten child of the Negative Energy Plane, which sits
nestled at the Shadow Plane’s heart like a putrid, open sore,
occasionally leaking its essence beyond its borders, sterilizing swathes of Shadow and creating many of the types of undead
commonly thought of as being natives of the Shadow Plane.A portion of the plane’s antipathy to natives of the Material
Plane also stems from its use as a prison plane for the deity
Zon-Kuthon. Although the deity long ago ripped free from his
bonds, his eons of brewing hatred infected whole regions of
the plane, and even now, the landscape there unconsciously
enacts the imprisoned god’s ancient desires, as if his dreams
and nightmares sullied the plane’s very fabric. Hinterlands
affected by Zon-Kuthon still dot the planar landscape,
drifting uncannily to where mortal planewalkers frequently
pass. For his part, still making his home within Shadow, Zon-
Kuthon shows little interest in altering the regions he long
ago affected.
Bestiary Monsters:
Returning with warped bodies, alien sentience, and a hunger for life, devourers threaten all souls with a terrifying, tormented annihilation.Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living
world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a
result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful
creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.
((Possibly a point in Ash's favor, but you'll note that even the good and lawful can be driven to hateful cruelty by the touch of negative energy. One might go so far as to reason "That's why its negative, and not just Death Energy."))Ghouls mostly just seem gross... they even prefer to eat carrion.
Lich: Any evil alignment, but nothing it actually SAYS is evil. Just driven to power, which while might be a bit Slytherin, doesn't necessarily have to hurt anyone. Guess that would make them "Selfish Face Neutral Evil"?
Those who slay many over the course of their lifetimes, be they serial killers, mass-murderers, warmongering soldiers, or battle-driven berserkers, become marked and tainted by the sheer weight of their murderous deeds. When such killers are brought to justice and publicly executed for their heinous crimes before they have a chance to atone,
the remains sometimes return to unlife to continue their
dark work as a mohrg.
Undead things caring less for life than they did before
their own deaths, mohrgs exist solely to wreak havoc on
the living.((Mummies actually appear to be beneficial and useful.))]
((Skeletons give no other reasons for being undead other than being animated by a malevolent source.))
Spectres are evil undead that hate sunlight and living
things.((Vampires don't sound evil at all. >.>))
Wights are humanoids who rise as undead due to
necromancy, a violent death, or an extremely malevolent
personality. In some cases, a wight arises when an evil
undead spirit permanently bonds with a corpse, often the
corpse of a slain warrior. They are barely recognizable to
those who knew them in life; their f lesh is twisted by evil
and undeath, the eyes burn with hatred, and the teeth
become beast-like.Wraiths are undead creatures born of evil and darkness.
They hate light and living things, as they have lost much
of their connection to their former lives.Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do
little more than follow orders. When left unattended,
zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures
to slaughter and devour. Zombies attack until destroyed,
having no regard for their own safety.
Bestiary 2 Monsters:
An attic whisperers haunts shadowy, forgotten
places like old buildings and dilapidated
institutions, places that were once homes to both
young children and subtle evils. Hiding in
drafty attics and moldy basements, an attic
whisperer might lie dormant for decades
while the quick go about their lives—often
a scant f loor away. The coming of a new
child, though, rekindles some hope in the
creature, its animating spirits motivated
by loneliness, and ever seeking comfort
and companionship. Once an attic
whisperer finds a potential playmate,
it does all it can to ensure it will never
be lonely again by attempting to lure
its friend to it, singing nursery rhymes,
leaving trails of old toys, or calling out in
the stolen voices of other children.A banshee is the enraged spirit of an elven woman who
either betrayed those she loved or was herself betrayed.
Maddened by grief, a banshee visits her vengeance on all
living creatures—innocent or guilty—with her fearsome
touch and deadly wails.When mortal humanoids find themselves exposed to profound, supernatural
evil, a horrific, occult transformation can strip them of their souls and damn them to the tortured existence of a bodak.Bodaks vehemently despise all living creatures and immediately seek to destroy any they encounter.Some say the origins of the crawling hand lie in the
experiments of demented necromancers contracted to
construct tiny assassins. Other tales tell of gruesome
prosthetics sparked to life by evil magic, which then
developed primitive sentience and vengefully strangled
their hosts. Regardless, the crawling hand is an efficient
killing tool.
When not commanded to kill, the crawling hand remains still and can be handled and transported safely.
((Clearly not as evil as many others, and with an intelligence of only 2, closer akin to animals or Skeletons than other undead. But it still sounds like the mere brush of BUTT-CRUNCHING-EVIL warps and twists those things that are undead into something horrific and unpleasant.))Crypt things are undead creatures found guarding
tombs, graves, and crypts. Necromancers and other
spellcasters create them... ((Strangely, no actual evidence of evil here other than the fantastic artwork... Let us not judge a book-obsessed undead by his horrific cover...))Draugr smell of decay and the sea, and
drip water wherever they go. These foul
beings are usually created when humanoid
creatures are lost at sea in regions haunted by
evil spirits or necromantic effects. The corpses
of these drowned sailors cling fiercely to
unlife, attacking any living creatures that
intrude upon them.Terrifying reapers of souls, dullahans are created by
powerful fiends from the souls of particularly cruel
generals, watch-captains, or other military commanders.
Sent back from the pits of Hell to sow terror and harvest
new souls, dullahans return to the towns or villages they
lived in as mortals. While their favored victims are evil
men and women (or their living descendants) whose souls
are destined for Hell, the dullahans have no qualms about
adding innocents to their lists of victims.Nightshades are ridiculously evil.
The poltergeist experiences great
trauma over its condition; this trauma twists its psyche to
evil and fosters an overall hatred of the living expressed
in outbursts of rage.Although its body quickly rots away, a ravener does not
care for the needs of the f lesh. It seeks only to consume life,
be it from wild animals, would-be dragonslayers, or even
other dragons. A ravener is often on the move, changing
lairs frequently as its territories become devoid of life.
((Starts evil, ends evil, no big surprise here...))Fueled by hatred and a need for vengeance, a revenant rises
from the grave to hunt and kill its murderer. Devoid of
any compassion, emotion, or logic, a revenant has but one
purpose, and cannot rest until it has found vengeance.Consumed by the same lusts and excesses that led them
in life, the souls of some sinners rise as totenmaskes,
drinking the flesh and memories of living creatures
and even stepping into their lives to once more pursue
their base desires.The winterwight is an undead horror born from the
coldest depths of the negative energy plane. Sometimes called hatewraiths because of their
insatiable lust for suffering, these frozen horrors are
often found in areas that suffer from magical cold or
frozen climates.When an exceptionally vile hag or witch dies with some
malicious plot left incomplete, or proves too horridly
tenacious to succumb to the call of death, the foul energies
of these wicked old crones sometimes spawn incorporeal undead known as witchfires.A juju zombie is an animated corpse of a creature, created to
serve as an undead minion, that retains the skills and abilities it
possessed in life.
((Intelligent, evil undead, but no mention of such... Since it's created AS a minion, I wonder if it has any impetus at all once released?))
Clearly, it is possible to forge a link with the Negative Energy Plane through PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL. Mass murderers, abandoned children, torturers, and anyone else who juggles severed baby heads can become undead without even having to learn magic or be acted on by a necromancer. Necromancy is clearly evil for dealing with the force of nihilism and destruction, in the same way that corporate evil is evil because it cares nothing for the lives and welfare of those it impacts, and only for its own gain. It seems like, no matter which way you slice it, Necromancy is the "asbestos lining" kind of evil... We could have used something more expensive, like gating in an outsider, but we went with the cheap and easy route of sacreligiously defiling the dead to use as raw materials in our quest to benefit the powerful and determined.
Still... that evil taint can be a bit dubious in places... If the ghost of a paladin is haunting the crypt and another Paladin smites it, it should deal damage because of the undead nature, and not because the PalaGhost is evil. It seems they could have fixed this as readily by adding "Smite works on critters of evil alignment; and doubly so on any undead creature or evil outsider, regardless of true alignment."
The only thing we can't get away from is that undead hate the living. They breathe bitterness and spew forth vomitous naughtybad dislike. The very stuff that births them in the Golarion Campaign Setting has a sentient loathing for all that is life and light, and it seems they havn't bothered to divest that from the base material in the bestiary books. The covering of the planes in the core book is barely a paragraph, and gives us nothing to go on, so the only thing we seem capable of doing is extrapolating from that, that taint of the negative energy makes things -negative-.
One of the bigger mistakes in the Pathfinder RPG is that they didn't remove the association between negative energy and evil (and conversely between positive energy and good).
The bigger mistake was leaving alignment in the game at all.
Says the guy who's avatar looks for all the world like a Cartoon Alhoon.
It's not a mistake... it's a feature. Alignment has been in DnD since the beginning, and is an integral part of the game, even if it does cause the occasional issue with having to reteach someone to read a simple paragraph before they play a character. Removing alignments changes a great deal of the way the game is played, from detection spells, to outsiders, to banes and smites. Don't fool with core ideals of DnD, you'll knock over a painstakingly mud-shined house of cards.
If the necromancer slips in the bathtub one day, what happens to his zombie servants? Do they immediately kill the goldfish and his pet parrot then wander off in search of an orphanage to remake into a Romero flick?
Yes. We know this. See my above post about 'zombies left unattended'.
Animate dead goes through the effects of what happens when undead become 'uncontrolled'. Spell durations don't lapse just because the caster died... unfortunately, Animate Dead is an instantaneous spell. Without the motive caster controlling their actions, they go back to 'Setting 0', which seems to be hunt-kill-destroy.
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Is, it turns out, patently untrue! It's one of those things 'everyone knows' that everyone is wrong about!
There's film of such stuff in Bali. They cremated the grandmother, mixed some of her ashes into a pot of water (making a nasty greasy-looking stew...), and then everyone present drank some. The Melanesians, Wari and some sect in India (Aghori?) have also been recorded in the presence of outsiders, engaged in ritual cannibalism.
Frankly, the aberrant Ozark stuff you mention is what I would have automatically discarded as being urban legend. I guess I never believed in that whole Appalachian inbreeding nonsense, and just dismissed it as picking on the region.
Then there's the whole Catholic mass thing, which is canonically ritual cannibalism, due to the literal belief in transubstantiation.
Is, it turns out, patently untrue! It's one of those things 'everyone knows' that everyone is wrong about!There's film of such stuff in Bali. They cremated the grandmother, mixed some of her ashes into a pot of water (making a nasty greasy-looking stew...), and then everyone present drank some. The Melanesians, Wari and some sect in India (Aghori?) have also been recorded in the presence of outsiders, engaged in ritual cannibalism.
Frankly, the aberrant Ozark stuff you mention is what I would have automatically discarded as being urban legend. I guess I never believed in that whole Appalachian inbreeding nonsense, and just dismissed it as picking on the region.
Then there's the whole Catholic mass thing, which is canonically ritual cannibalism, due to the literal belief in transubstantiation.
It should also be noted that in Tibetan Buddhism, the bodies of holy lamas are kept after death and sometimes ground up for use as medicine.
I have a friend who lived in a household that hosted Tibetan monks, and was treated for an illness in exactly this manner. He's amused that technically he's a cannibal.
This isn't all "in my grandfather's day."
If the necromancer slips in the bathtub one day, what happens to his zombie servants? Do they immediately kill the goldfish and his pet parrot then wander off in search of an orphanage to remake into a Romero flick?Yes. We know this. See my above post about 'zombies left unattended'.
Animate dead goes through the effects of what happens when undead become 'uncontrolled'. Spell durations don't lapse just because the caster died... unfortunately, Animate Dead is an instantaneous spell. Without the motive caster controlling their actions, they go back to 'Setting 0', which seems to be hunt-kill-destroy.
In 1st ed, no. In 3.X/Pathfinder, yes. I will freely grant you that this is what the RAW says. What I'm arguing, however, is not just the GM/DM's prerogative to switch the skeletons and zombies back to the Neutral versions from 1st ed (since the person running a game can Rule 0 anything he likes), but the fact that in Pathfinder, there are many many different sorts of skeletons and zombies, all created through various rites and rituals. To give a quick example:
Most zombies are created using animate dead. Such zombies are always of the standard type, unless the creator also casts haste or remove paralysis to create fast zombies, or contagion to create plague zombies.
Ergo, if you were wanting to create, for example, a "danse macabre" skeleton which had Perform Dance and Perform Instrument in addition to the usual weapon proficiencies that skeletons get for free, it would be completely reasonable to throw Summon Instrument in with Animate Dead to get a skeleton that pops out of the grave playing a bone flute.
Is this canon? No. To the best of my knowledge, musical dancing skeletons created by Animate Dead + Summon Instrument have appeared in no product to date. Does this follow canon guidelines, which stress that the skeletons and zombies listed are not the only possible types which can exist? Most emphatically yes.
Given this, and the fact that most necromancers would consider uncontrolled skeletons and zombies that go off to slaughter the populace to be more of a bug than a feature, you have to wonder if there might be any spells relevant to create more tractable skeletons and zombies which would be suitable for polite society. I mean, think of Geb with its vampire nobles who keep large pens of chattel slaves there to drink the blood of and how upset they'd be if the necromancer had a heart attack and all the skeletons and zombies stopped picking fruit and went and ate the slaves, wasting all the of the tasty blood in them which the vampires need. How do we put a stop to such horrors?
Two spells spring to mind:
Unseen Servant
School conjuration (creation); Level bard 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner 1, witch 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a piece of string and a bit of wood)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect one invisible, mindless, shapeless servant
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance noAn unseen servant is an invisible, mindless, shapeless force that performs simple tasks at your command. It can run and fetch things, open unstuck doors, and hold chairs, as well as clean and mend. The servant can perform only one activity at a time, but it repeats the same activity over and over again if told to do so as long as you remain within range. It can open only normal doors, drawers, lids, and the like. It has an effective Strength score of 2 (so it can lift 20 pounds or drag 100 pounds). It can trigger traps and such, but it can exert only 20 pounds of force, which is not enough to activate certain pressure plates and other devices. It can't perform any task that requires a skill check with a DC higher than 10 or that requires a check using a skill that can't be used untrained. This servant cannot fly, climb, or even swim (though it can walk on water). Its base speed is 15 feet.
The servant cannot attack in any way; it is never allowed an attack roll. It cannot be killed, but it dissipates if it takes 6 points of damage from area attacks. (It gets no saves against attacks.) If you attempt to send it beyond the spell's range (measured from your current position), the servant ceases to exist.
And:
Geas, Lesser
School enchantment (compulsion) [language-dependent, mind-affecting]; Level bard 3,cleric/oracle 6, inquisitor 4, sorcerer/wizard 4
Casting Time 1 round
Components V
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one living creature with 7 HD or less
Duration 1 day/level or until discharged (D)
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes
A lesser geas places a magical command on a creature to carry out some service or to refrain from some action or course of activity, as desired by you. The creature must have 7 or fewer HD and be able to understand you. While a geas cannot compel a creature to kill itself or perform acts that would result in certain death, it can cause almost any other course of activity.
The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes.
If the instructions involve some open-ended task that the recipient cannot complete through his own actions, the spell remains in effect for a maximum of 1 day per caster level. A clever recipient can subvert some instructions.
If the subject is prevented from obeying the lesser geas for 24 hours, it takes a -2 penalty to each of its ability scores. Each day, another -2 penalty accumulates, up to a total of -8. No ability score can be reduced to less than 1 by this effect. The ability score penalties are removed 24 hours after the subject resumes obeying the lesser geas.
A lesser geas (and all ability score penalties) can be ended by Break enchantment, limited wish, remove curse, miracle, or wish. Dispel magic does not affect a lesser geas.
Now, if you look at the text of Unseen Servant, you see that it has the twin virtues of giving something competence in butler-like tasks while at the same time making something that is unable to take part in combat. Combine that with Animate Dead and you could have what I'd call a "Servitor Zombie" or "Servitor Skeleton," and while it might hate the living with a burning mindless passion, if uncontrolled, it couldn't do anything more malicious than not pick fruit or refuse to dust. That seems exactly what would be needed for the plantations of Geb where you don't want the undead slaves eating the far more valuable living chattel every time a necromancer keels over.
Using Lesser Geas you'd have a skeleton or zombie which could still engage in combat if you wished, but wouldn't go off and do it on it's own volition, because it's loyal. Call it a "Loyal Zombie" or "Loyal Skeleton" and assume that its creator gives it the following lesser geas: "Unless I order otherwise, stand there and do nothing."
Fancier geases can go into Asimov's laws of robotics, but with that spell, while you may have a skeleton or zombie that still burns with hatred for the living and desires to consume their brains, it can't, even if the wizard who made it has been dead for a thousand years.
Very simple, but this is what sensible wizards would do if they had to worry about unsupervised mindless undead running amok.
Talking with Ashiel is fun. Ash is a Master Debater. >.>
Thank you. You honor me with your kind words. ^-^
This, however...:
Ghouls not born from cannibals seem to only be evil insofar as they eat dead bodies of their ex-fellow humanoids (a practice that is not evil innately, as some real life cannibal tribes eat their dead out of respect or even love)Is, it turns out, patently untrue! It's one of those things 'everyone knows' that everyone is wrong about! My wife is a PhD student (six more weeks *crossfingers*) working on her history doctorate, and one of the blow your mind things she had to study was cannibalism. Turns out, every SINGLE reference to cannibalism ever recorded outside of abberant Ozark families of caucasians who capture and eat strangers, or emergency situations like the Donner Party, have always been "In My Grandfather's Time". "In My Grandfather's Time" is an oral history shortcut to saying "In The Mythic Age", and as it turns out cannibalism never actually happened. Not even the Aztecs ate parts of their victims, those got fed to their stone idols by way of proxy to sending hearts to their gods.
I disagree, and so does anthropoligist Beth Conklin. Also the discovery channel disagrees too. :P
*A well thought out post describing the neutrality of the planar energies, and a list of a lot of undead, most of which are evil.*
Alright. Let's look at this logically. Undeath is the parallel of Living, with Death being the border between. This is reflected innately, even down to healing or harming hit points.
It is a fact that the vast majority of undead are either evil or neutral undead in D&D/Pathfinder, with good being a minority. I wouldn't begin to suggest that all undead are cute and cuddly. Instead, I will suggest that the lore associated with several of the undead is directly in contrast to other lore (claiming negative energy makes people evil contradicted repeatedly in its own cannon), and therefor cancels itself out. If you have a piece of lore that says "the brush of negative energy drives you insane" and then we can see that outright level draining people to death doesn't, then we have disproved this lore as being merely flavorful but meaningless.
Then, I would post that positive energy is more destructive. Positive energy can kill the creatures powered by it, and creatures not; whereas negative energy is only hostile to its polar opposite; so if we wish to draw a correlation between destructive potential and evil, then positive energy is more evil.
Now let us count the number of positive energy powered creatures that are evil to neutral, and then we can return to using the alignments of specific types of undead as an argument for all undead being evil.
*throws the bestiary on the table*
Browsing through the book, we can see the majority of the creatures within are either evil or neutral. This includes...
1) Nearly all aberrations.
2) Most humanoids (including giants).
3) Most of the dragons (including linnorms).
4) Some fey (including mites).
5) Most magical beasts (including manticore and chimeras).
6) All devils.
7) All demons.
8) Several shapechangers.
9) Most undead.
Ok, now let's break this down a bit. We can see the vast majority of everything in D&D/PF is evil or merely neutral; possibly because we're intended to fight lots of stuff, and it's not kosher to be fightin' the good guys. There are a handful of undead in the Bestiary. Most of them are evil, and a few of them neutral; and the most common undead (skeletons and zombies) seem to be evil for no reason (since we're having this discussion).
So, I would pose that if we're going to argue based on the number of creatures by the undead type that are evil, that Positive energy is in fact the most vile energy in the world, because it powers almost all the evil creatures in the bestiary, including all the demons and devils.
Angels and Archons are also powered by positive energy; but clearly they are the minority, just like baelnorn and paladin ghosts.
^-^
I see a lot of mention of the undead not supposing to be evil, but there are a few things you have to remember in a world like DnD, where the status of the soul are verifiable and CONCRETE.
1) Planar Absolutes have obvious and far reaching consequences when paired with the ability to detect those Absolutes. Even a redeemed Devil has the (Evil) subtype. There is no escaping these absolutes, and even the redeemed Devil still has the urge to do Evil, they simply choose not to.
One thing to keep in mind is that the creatures in the MM represent the norm of their species. Are all vampires, everywhere in all of existence Chaotic Evil? Lord Strahd disagrees. Are all devils evil? I recall a WotC article a while back that had a succubus who turned to good after falling in love with a mortal. These kinds of things are highly rare, but they can happen. The MM only exists to provide example creatures. It is not meant to be the absolute, be-all, end-all of all possibilities. The rules in the MM are secondary to the needs of the story.
2) Planar Influence, as in the first point, cannot be sidestepped by simple free will, and it can be argued that native outsiders DO NOT HAVE free will; They are forced to enact their archetypes unless something acts to alter them. It is in the Fire Elemental's nature to burn, and in the Earth Elemental's nature to dig. If the Fire Elemental burns down your village, it is not done with malice, but simply because that is what Fire Elementals do. If the Earth Elemental undermines your fortress, it is not done with some sadistic vengeful glee, but again, simply because that is what Earth Elementals do. When a Demon is let loose, they rape, torture, destroy, and sow havoc and heartbreak wherever they go, defiling all they touch, with an unholy glee, because that is what they do. It is their nature.
Planar beings have no free will? According to who? You even just mentioned a devil that chose to do good despite having the urge to do evil. How could such a thing be accomplished absent free will?
3) The Undead. The Undead are as much tied to the infinite entropy of the Negative Material Plane as the Elementals are to theirs. They are denizens, as much as the Djinn and Marid, created by the entropic storm which constantly hungers to destroy all that is created. That willfull, hatefull, sentient hunger infuses all negative energy constructs, driving them to destroy and kill living things. This is why they are Evil. In Pathfinder, the Negative Energy Plane -created- the Shadow Plane, trying to forge its own creation in the...
All lions, tigers and bears have the urge to devour other creatures. Some even kill human beings. Does that mean that all of these animals are evil? Many animals are highly dangerous, and yet they are still N alignment. They're simply following their instincts, and the same is true of zombies.
Your argument has another flaw. Negative energy is not inherently evil, nor is positive energy good. There are many negative energy spells that don't have the [evil] descriptor. Is using chill touch one someone really more "evil" than electrocuting them with shocking grasp? It's how one chooses to use their power that should determine morality, not the power itself.
You're ignoring planar absolutes. You cannot ignore planar absolutes in a DnD setting. Otherwise subtypes wouldn't have weight. And they do. If you smite a Redeemed Lawful Good Succubus, she still takes a frakload of extra damage.
Redeeming, the process that creates a creature outside of its natural environ and inclination, is a process gone into in the Book of Exalted Deeds. These creatures are far outside what is natural for that kind of creation, like a fire that grows flowers. Personally, I think a 'Redeemed Demon' should disappear in a puff of logic. A redeemed dragon? Sure. Redeemed intelligent undead? Maybe, sure. Obviously some undead CAN be something other than wholly evil, but skeletons and zombies?
I'd be happier with an (Evil) subtype too, sure. The act that creates them is inherantly evil, and you know its inherantly evil because it has the (Evil) spell descriptor. Does that somehow taint them? The argument must be yes, because they lack intent. Skeletons and Zombies have only impetus, which is to destroy with extreme prejudice any living thing they come in contact with. The same way antimatter does... except with anger.
Lions, tigers, and bears all have self-preservation instinct, a need to kill to eat, and don't actually care if what they are eating was alive at the time. Zombies stalk only living things, kill them with great gusto, with no regard for their own welfare, for no reason other than to kill them, and stop once it is dead.
As I argued before... if Unintelligent Undead are going to be Evil, so should Enervation, Energy Drain, Vampiric Touch, and quite possibly Chill Touch.
Ashiel:
Nowhere in any of those creatures descriptions, save the Devils and Demons, does it say that they are created because of an evil act. Nowhere do any of those creature spring up, unbidden, simply because of sheer, unadulterated hatred. When the Drow and Aboleths are concerned that's really saying something! My examining the undead was to look for examples, like above, that say that they are created because of their own instances dealing with Evil Acts in the living world, to show that acts of extreme depredation and predation can result in a natural inherent link to the NegEP.
Are there any good aligned anything (except of course the naturally occurring end result of all living things to become good outsiders...) that spontaneously creates a link to the PosiMP?
According to ghosts, it is possible that even the most lawful and good characters can be driven wacky-tuesdays by their infusion of negative energy. But then, our dead friend in the Pathfinder Module Curse of the Crimson Throne hasn't appeared to be evil *or* insane... So far.
We KNOW that in our own mythology, creatures of Law and Goodness (angels) have no free will. One of them was even fired for daring to make the wrong choice, when given conflicting commands. The very idea that a succubus, who's reasoning ability is founded on a plane of existence where torment is how you say 'howdy' and poison is the air, where darkness covers everything including the fire would fall in love with a mortal stretches the bounds of believability, and when paired with the idea that fed for aeons on a diet of opportunistic deceit and educated purely on enlightened self-interest this creature could ever trust anything ever, it goes far beyond. Fiction is fiction for a reason. It's also hard to take the Icewind Dale characters seriously...
Once again, it should be noted that much of this is IC argument, and much of it I've used, from your end, with my Necromancer characters, insisting that undead aren't evil... just misunderstood; or that the definition of Evil is warped and twisted by an overzealous church.
If negative energy isn't evil, how come Neutral Clerics of Iomedae can't rebuke undead?
I can't argue story, I can only argue source material. If you want your game world to be populated by friendly undead paladins who never ever run over sweet innocent school children playing in the street, then by all means do so. I played that character too... when I was twelve...
This is a discussion about:
1) Defining "Evil" in the DnD concept, and discussing its application to what was previously a Neutrally aligned tool.
2) The nature and relationship of positive/negative energy and yes, I have to grant, why Negative Energy is so inherantly evil without being inherantly evil across the board, while Positive Energy is the other way around.
3) Alignment Absolutes (Devils are Lawful and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Devils are Chaotic and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Archons are Lawful and Good, NO MATTER WHAT; Vampires are...?)
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As an aside to the current line of discourse, in Golarion, the sun (and other stars) generates positive energy, which fuels all life, and vampires have a very real reason to fear the light of the sun (and spectres have a real reason for their sunlight powerlessness weakness, etc.).
If sunlight, carrying positive energy down into the plants, which is then chewed up and transfered to herbivores, which is then chewed up and transferred to carnivores, that means that human beings are at the end of chain of creatures that destroy life, to liberate the positive energy stored within for their own sustenance.
So, here's the rub.
In Golarion, and, quite likely, in most D&D fantasy worlds, life-energy is positive energy. When a plant unfolds it's leaves during the dawn to absorb sunlight, it's absorbing positive energy. When a pig eats an apple, it's absorbing positive energy from the apple. When a farmer eats a pig, he's also getting positive energy from the tasty, tasty bacon.
So why would a shadow, or a wight, or a vampire want to drain life-energy from a living creature, if positive energy, which is life-energy for the living, is inherently antithetical and damaging to the undead? The act of draining life-energy from a living target should cause an undead to suffer terrible harm, possibly even to burst into flames, since the rush of stolen life-energy / positive energy would be destructive to the undead 'metabolism.'
If the undead actually fed from the living, because, unlike the living, they were incapable of generating and holding life-energy within themselves (no healing with rest, requiring a fresh supply of life-energy or losing hit points, etc.), then it would follow that positive healing energy wouldn't harm undead, but actually serve as an all-you-can eat buffet bonanza, and, possibly even prove dangerous to a positive energy channeling spellcaster, as particularly powerful undead might be able to seize onto the firehose of positive energy flowing out of the channeler and glut itself at the channelers expense, possibly even managing to use the connection to drain the channelers life-energy at a distance by 'keeping the link open.'
This version of undead wouldn't benefit from negative energy, because negative energy would be an absence of goodies, a hungering void, not an infinite source of free energy for them. They'd be just as damaged by negative energy as the living, and be even more terrified of it, since, unlike the living, the undead are not capable of resting for a few days and recovering any life-energy stolen by a negative energy attack. They lose it, it's gone forever, unless they can find another source of life-energy / positive energy to kill / devour to replace what's been stolen from them.
I can't argue story, I can only argue source material. If you want your game world to be populated by friendly undead paladins who never ever run over sweet innocent school children playing in the street, then by all means do so. I played that character too... when I was twelve...
Please spare the snark, or the implication that anyone choosing to play something you consider wrongbadfun is immature.
I know plenty of twelve year olds who liked playing with black and white morality, but they grew out of it and decided they preferred gray.
This is a discussion about:
1) Defining "Evil" in the DnD concept, and discussing its application to what was previously a Neutrally aligned tool.
2) The nature and relationship of positive/negative energy and yes, I have to grant, why Negative Energy is so inherantly evil without being inherantly evil across the board, while Positive Energy is the other way around.
3) Alignment Absolutes (Devils are Lawful and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Devils are Chaotic and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Archons are Lawful and Good, NO MATTER WHAT; Vampires are...?)
What you need to realize is that D&D over the past 33 odd years has been a case of "too many cooks." Gygax had his worldview on the way things should be done and so in the 1st ed Monster Manual there are neutral zombies and skeletons but evil ghosts. Over the years, many other authors joined the mix, using different mythologies and wanting to tell different stories which required different assumptions.
Pathfinder is no different. There are many authors writing for it, and all of us are wanting to tell somewhat different stories. The creative director and continuity editors try to smooth things out, even to the point of retconning things like paladins of Asmodeus, but there will always be some degree of inconsistency. But that's okay because it's a world which is designed for you to tell your own stories in. If you like undead paladins who are nice guys, go for it. You can grab back to the 3.5 Book of Exalted Deeds and take the Risen Martyr prestige class, or you can make something up that fits the same purpose, like writing your paladin up as a Revenant but then drawing extra revenant mythology from "The Crow." Or you can declare that all undead are remorselessly evil, and if a paladin comes back as undead, he's not a paladin anymore.
As for the question of whether you can have a redeemed succubus, a nice vampire, or anything of that nature, you're getting into the whole question of free will. If free will exists, then anything that has it is free to chose to defy its natural urges.
With Buffy, there was a whole exploration of vampires, souls and evil, and there's an opera from the 1950s called "Griffelkin" about a young devil who redeems himself, but the business with redeemed succubi isn't even anything that new.
The old myth is that succubi and incubi were the souls of mortal infants stolen by Lilith the child stealer who raised them up as her own brood. Ergo, while medieval priests were understandably quite horrified at the idea that succubi and incubi were visiting men and women in the middle of the night, having naughty sex, etc. there was at least one French theologian, whose name I'm not recollecting at the moment, who argued quite convincingly that these were not true demons but unbaptised human souls and as such were the very thing true priests should be trying to save from the clutches of Hell. He wrote this up in a treatise titled "The Lutins" if you have access to a really good French theology library.
The origin of succubi in Pathfinder? Not that much different. Still mortal souls who go to Hell, but the assumption is that they belonged to naughty princesses and jaded old courtesans, not babies who suffered crib death and were raised up by a demon mother--though as Lamashtu is just an alternate version of Lilith, this is still a perfectly reasonable origin for an elite cadre of succubi.
In any case, while Hell is supposed to burn away all memory of one's mortal life, it's not as thorough as it would like to be, at least according to the Pathfinder books. And even if it was, the question of free will is still wisely left up to the DM.
I ran a plotline years ago where there was an incubus sent out to destroy one of the party member's ability to ever love or trust another again. He was very good at the seduction angle, and she fell in love with him. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case might be, he fell in love with her as well--a thing forbidden in Hell, but existing in the mortal realm allows the possibility to exist, and thus the chance of redemption.
Of course you'd probably view this as non-canon since there have never been incubi in D&D except for some issues of Dragon. Doesn't matter. It's still a perfectly workable storyline, even if it's the once-in-a-blue-moon instance.
The once-in-a-blue-moon instances are the ones you save up for your own personal game, because those are the ones that become rare and special. Redeeming a demon should be a big deal, as would be saving any lost soul.
You're ignoring planar absolutes. You cannot ignore planar absolutes in a DnD setting. Otherwise subtypes wouldn't have weight. And they do. If you smite a Redeemed Lawful Good Succubus, she still takes a frakload of extra damage.
Sure does. I never said it didn't. I'm about 80% sure I actually said it did. :P
Redeeming, the process that creates a creature outside of its natural environ and inclination, is a process gone into in the Book of Exalted Deeds. These creatures are far outside what is natural for that kind of creation, like a fire that grows flowers. Personally, I think a 'Redeemed Demon' should disappear in a puff of logic. A redeemed dragon? Sure. Redeemed intelligent undead? Maybe, sure. Obviously some undead CAN be something other than wholly evil, but skeletons and zombies?
God, can we not escape the Book of Self Contradiction in a conversation about this sort of thing? Bringing that piece of trash into a conversation about logic, philosophy, or D&D is only set to mar the thought process of everyone involved; and I move we ignore it on grounds of sanity and preventative measures against harming our brains (if you can't tell, I really hate that damned book).
This is probably further compounded by the fact the first instance of skeletons and zombies being evil in 3.x was in fact the Book of Vile Darkness, which is also brain-numbingly bad (a spell that lets me look through a mirror and see through a different mirror is [evil]? I'd best flush my computer ASAP).
As to the skeletons or zombies part, specifically, the problem is that the fluff makes no sense in the context of the game for the reasons noted previously. We can see through many - many - instances that negative energy is not evil, and channeling it is not evil, and even draining the life out of people isn't evil unto itself; so suggesting that skeletons and zombies are evil because you neutrally stuffed a neutral energy into a neutral object = illogical and stupid.
I'd be happier with an (Evil) subtype too, sure. The act that creates them is inherantly evil, and you know its inherantly evil because it has the (Evil) spell descriptor. Does that somehow taint them? The argument must be yes, because they lack intent. Skeletons and Zombies have only impetus, which is to destroy with extreme prejudice any living thing they come in contact with. The same way antimatter does... except with anger.
Lions, tigers, and bears all have self-preservation instinct, a need to kill to eat, and don't actually care if what they are eating was alive at the time. Zombies stalk only living things, kill them with great gusto, with no regard for their own welfare, for no reason other than to kill them, and stop once it is dead.
Cats kill for fun, apparently. I was watching a program on the animal planet which was about the "deadliest predator", based primarily on the number of things it kills and how dangerous it is in its relative environment; and the common house cat ranked #1, because it kills over three hundred different species of creatures; often for no reason than just to kill them as most house-cats are fed and pampered, and yet they will still kill mice, snakes, insects, small reptiles, and so forth, and never bother to eat them (and I know this is a fact because my family has kept cats for many years). In D&D, we could even add Commoners to the list of things cats might hunt for S&Gs, but cats are Int 2, Neutral, incapable of moral choices.
As I argued before... if Unintelligent Undead are going to be Evil, so should Enervation, Energy Drain, Vampiric Touch, and quite possibly Chill Touch.
Agreed, though in reverse. I believe that if all of those are going to be non-evil, then unintelligent undead should as well. Making unintelligent undead Neutral requires less reconstructing of the mechanics and lore than the alternative, and makes a lot more sense given the current and past conditions.
Ashiel:
Nowhere in any of those creatures descriptions, save the Devils and Demons, does it say that they are created because of an evil act. Nowhere do any of those creature spring up, unbidden, simply because of sheer, unadulterated hatred. When the Drow and Aboleths are concerned that's really saying something! My examining the undead was to look for examples, like above, that say that they are created because of their own instances dealing with Evil Acts in the living world, to show that acts of extreme depredation and predation can result in a natural inherent link to the NegEP.Are there any good aligned anything (except of course the naturally occurring end result of all living things to become good outsiders...) that spontaneously creates a link to the PosiMP?
This is partially my point. Almost everything is evil. But when mindless undead are involved, apparently they're evil 'cause they're stuffed full of neutral; and somehow that's supposed to make 100% sense to people. The lore contradicts itself and contradicts with the mechanics that the lore is supposed to sync with. I blame the changes as they were going when 3.5 was coming out (possibly a result of Hasbro pressure to make it more family friendly, but I have nothing to back this up other than suspicion) instead of Pathfinder; though I do blame Pathfinder for the making it worse when they could have easily fixed it.
Also, as my rebuttal to the "born of evil" thing without grabbing a fiend; check this out.
Chimeras are monstrous creatures born of primordial evil. Hateful and hungry, they hunt on the ground or in the air. A chimera's dragon head may be of any evil dragon type, with the corresponding breath weapon, and its wings usually match the scales on its head. Chimeras speak with three overlapping voices, but rarely do so, typically only when playing toady to a more powerful creature. A chimera is 5 feet tall at the shoulder, nearly 10 feet long, and weighs 700 pounds.
Fun fact. Chimeras lack the Evil subtype. They're just magical beasts. So apparently you can be made out of primordial evil and be sentient and you're not inherently evil - heck you don't even register particularly potently on the detect evil scale; but take a neutral object (a corpse) and shove lots of neutral energy into it, and it's like a Geiger counter at ground zero!
According to ghosts, it is possible that even the most lawful and good characters can be driven wacky-tuesdays by their infusion of negative energy. But then, our dead friend in the Pathfinder Module Curse of the Crimson Throne hasn't appeared to be evil *or* insane... So far.
<3 CotCT. ^.^
And yes, you pretty much made my point with that. It says it can turn you evil, but there's no example of it doing so. There's nothing that it actually does. We can tie down a PC and blast them with negative energy over and over and over and over, drain their levels away, slay them three, four, five, a dozen times with negative energy, raise them, and then do it again. It doesn't make them evil. The CotCT ghost is a great example of why this sort of thing is kind of dumb.We KNOW that in our own mythology, creatures of Law and Goodness (angels) have no free will. One of them was even fired for daring to make the wrong choice, when given conflicting commands. The very idea that a succubus, who's reasoning ability is founded on a plane of existence where torment is how you say 'howdy' and poison is the air, where darkness covers everything including the fire would fall in love with a mortal stretches the bounds of believability, and when paired with the idea that fed for aeons on a diet of opportunistic deceit and educated purely on enlightened self-interest this creature could ever trust anything ever, it goes far beyond. Fiction is fiction for a reason. It's also hard to take the Icewind Dale characters seriously...
Firstly, Lucifer disagrees, as he is traditionally described as being an angel that not only had free will but was cast from heaven for a variety of reasons (the most generic story is for disobeying god, while some suggest that rebelled or even attempted a coup) but free will is something that apparently even religious texts suggest that otherworldly beings like angels are quite capable of. That is why we have stories and concepts of "fallen angels". Also, free will and threat of punishment are two very different things.
Once again, it should be noted that much of this is IC argument, and much of it I've used, from your end, with my Necromancer characters, insisting that undead aren't evil... just misunderstood; or that the definition of Evil is warped and twisted by an overzealous church.
If negative energy isn't evil, how come Neutral Clerics of Iomedae can't rebuke undead?
Good question. Maybe we should ask the necromancer wizards, who can be Lawful Good and do so.
I can't argue story, I can only argue source material. If you want your game world to be populated by friendly undead paladins who never ever run over sweet innocent school children playing in the street, then by all means do so. I played that character too... when I was twelve...
*sigh* Why is it that, whenever this conversation comes up, people have to make statements or suggest that a desire for mindless undead which are about sixteen shades of neutral to not be evil "just 'cause" means we want puppy hugging wraiths and ghouls that guest star on Sesame Street?
I'm not arguing story either, for the record. The largest contributing factors in my argument are in fact the rules (and a lot of them) that prove these concepts to be false, combined with a healthy dose of logical reasoning patterns which infallibly lead to a single conclusion: Mindless undead shouldn't be evil.
Even the Pathfinder lore makes no sense. It says in one sentence that zombies are capable of little else than standing around without orders, and then turns and says they run around trying to slaughter stuff when not given orders.
?_?
This is a discussion about:
1) Defining "Evil" in the DnD concept, and discussing its application to what was previously a Neutrally aligned tool.
2) The nature and relationship of positive/negative energy and yes, I have to grant, why Negative Energy is so inherantly evil without being inherantly evil across the board, while Positive Energy is the other way around.
3) Alignment Absolutes (Devils are Lawful and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Devils are Chaotic and Evil, NO MATTER WHAT; Archons are Lawful and Good, NO MATTER WHAT; Vampires are...?)
Hungry? :P
If you smite a Redeemed Lawful Good Succubus, she still takes a frakload of extra damage.
Depends on which rules you're going by, and it varies wildly by source. Some examples do have what you state, with a redeemed fiend still having that evil subtype, other sources have outsiders who radically shift alignment as losing their original (now non applicable) alignment subtype to match their new alignments.
Personally my own feeling on the subject is that if an outsider truly changes alignment, it's an utterly rare and singularly amazing instance, but which nonetheless can and does happen and makes for seriously deep and interesting characters to play around with. When their alignment changes, since they're literally living manifestations of that alignment, so does their substance need to change as well.
A fiend might become some form of a celestial matching the new alignment, perhaps with a single trait remaining to mark them as being different and a reminder of what they transcended, or perhaps they simply become a unique being with a totally new form that doesn't match any pre-set default. But different play styles will accomodate different perspectives on this topic, but again personally, I'm loathe to abrogate the sense of the flavor to allow a former fiend who might have risen to become a lord of heaven to be paladin smited.
Otherwise I'm staying out of this debate but with the one bit of food for thought: regarding negative energy and Golarion's Negative Energy Plane - while undeath can result from use (abuse?) of negative energy, the native paragons of negative energy view it as a horrific corruption and twisting of their substance, mocking their inability to create "life" in the way that their positive energy counterparts can. Make of that what you will. :) It's not a natural act, and they themselves obliterate undead if they have the opportunity. It warps the natural order of things and mocks them in doing so. The energy itself isn't evil or unnatural, but certain applications of it can obviously lead to those ends.
I played that character too... when I was twelve...Please spare the snark, or the implication that anyone choosing to play something you consider wrongbadfun is immature.
I know plenty of twelve year olds who liked playing with black and white morality, but they grew out of it and decided they preferred gray.
No, I mean I -actually- played that character. His name was Sir Isaac Ironhelm, and he was a human paladin, and he got dropped into a well of worlds and died horribly and (since he had a magical prosthetic arm) through some convention of my cousin, the fifteen year old DM, got turned into an undead spirit bound into a suit of armor. Rawr.
Instant Undead Paladin.
If you smite a Redeemed Lawful Good Succubus, she still takes a frakload of extra damage.
Depends on which rules you're going by, and it varies wildly by source. Some examples do have what you state, with a redeemed fiend still having that evil subtype, other sources have outsiders who radically shift alignment as losing their original (now non applicable) alignment subtype to match their new alignments.
Personally my own feeling on the subject is that if an outsider truly changes alignment, it's an utterly rare and singularly amazing instance, but which nonetheless can and does happen and makes for seriously deep and interesting characters to play around with. When their alignment changes, since they're literally living manifestations of that alignment, so does their substance need to change as well.
A fiend might become some form of a celestial matching the new alignment, perhaps with a single trait remaining to mark them as being different and a reminder of what they transcended, or perhaps they simply become a unique being with a totally new form that doesn't match any pre-set default. But different play styles will accomodate different perspectives on this topic, but again personally, I'm loathe to abrogate the sense of the flavor to allow a former fiend who might have risen to become a lord of heaven to be paladin smited.
Otherwise I'm staying out of this debate but with the one bit of food for thought: regarding negative energy and Golarion's Negative Energy Plane - while undeath can result from use (abuse?) of negative energy, the native paragons of negative energy view it as a horrific corruption and twisting of their substance, mocking their inability to create "life" in the way that their positive energy counterparts can. Make of that what you will. :) It's not a natural act, and they themselves obliterate undead if they have the opportunity. It warps the natural order of things and mocks them in doing so. The energy itself isn't evil or unnatural, but certain applications of it can obviously lead to those ends.
Ashiel says:
Good question. Maybe we should ask the necromancer wizards, who can be Lawful Good and do so.
We know why. For the same reason that good arcane spell-casters can cast evil spells and good clerics can't. Arcane Magic doesn't care about ethics and morality, only about results.
Conversely: Negative Energy Evil; Positive Energy Good. Right?
Otherwise I'm staying out of this debate but with the one bit of food for thought: regarding negative energy and Golarion's Negative Energy Plane - while undeath can result from use (abuse?) of negative energy, the native paragons of negative energy view it as a horrific corruption and twisting of their substance, mocking their inability to create "life" in the way that their positive energy counterparts can. Make of that what you will. :) It's not a natural act, and they themselves obliterate undead if they have the opportunity. It warps the natural order of things and mocks them in doing so. The energy itself isn't evil or unnatural, but certain...
Nightshades and Sceudn... dn... scunda... And Void Critters are creatures of pure negative energy, and pure annihilating entropy. They do the only thing they can do. They destroy everything they come in contact with.
Ashiel says:
Good question. Maybe we should ask the necromancer wizards, who can be Lawful Good and do so.We know why. For the same reason that good arcane spell-casters can cast evil spells and good clerics can't. Arcane Magic doesn't care about ethics and morality, only about results.
Conversely: Negative Energy Evil; Positive Energy Good. Right?
I assume you mean the Cleric's channeling ability. You're right. Only neutral and evil can spontaneously channel negative energy, and only neutral and good can spontaneously channel positive energy.
However, last time I checked:
Inflict Light Wounds
School necromancy; Level cleric 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Will half; Spell Resistance yes
When laying your hand upon a creature, you channel negative energy that deals 1d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +5).
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell cures such a creature of a like amount of damage, rather than harming it.
Is cast-able by Lawful Good Clerics of Sun and Glory-awesomeness, and does the same thing. This cleric channels negative energy into a creature, or to heal an undead, and it is neither an evil act nor forbidden by their class or their features; they can do it as often as they want to prepare the spells.
So perhaps the Good/Evil aspect represents the sort of training you're expected to have, but we may never really know. All we know is that Clerics get that particular class feature with those particular restrictions; where meanwhile the Necromancer Wizard can pop Channel Negative/Command all day long while being Lawful Good; and the Chaotic Evil Cleric of Doomsday can channel cure critical wounds and heal, and the Lawful Good Cleric of the Sun can channel negative energy through inflict critical wounds over and over if they want to.
So would Lady Gaga be considered neutral or inherently evil as a mindless undead?
Nightshades and Sceudn... dn... scunda... And Void Critters are creatures of pure negative energy, and pure annihilating entropy. They do the only thing they can do. They destroy everything they come in contact with.
Nightshades aren't true, original natives of Negative Energy, though many of them can be found there, especially on the border between Shadow and Negative Energy. They wouldn't be there except they're strong enough to avoid being torn to pieces by the void raptors.
And as for the sceaduinar, they don't destroy absolutely everything they come into contact with. Outsiders often get ignored for reasons not elaborated upon, but undead and living mortal creatures get the entropic blender treatment because of what they are (corruptions of negative energy, and the posterchildren of positive energy). In a universe where negative energy empowered beings dominated the material plane, the sceaduinar wouldn't care to do anything much to them. Entropy might be in the eye of the beholder in certain ways, because it's not pure annihilation if there's not positive energy in you, though the positive energy plane is certainly pure annihilating entropy to a being of negative energy.