I gotten hold of some ancient Greek/Amazon figures and thought it would be fun to add some city states based on the Athens and Plato"s Republic.
But when I thought about the Alignment of the cities I concluded they had to be Lawful Evil.Perhaps not the Devil Worshipping , baby sacrificing Lawful evil, but lawful evil leaning toward Neutral.
First you have slavery, a majority of Athens population were slaves and Plato in his Republic stated there should be 3 slaves for every citizen.
Then you have Athens aggressive policy of attacking and trying to conquer smaller cities just because they felt it was in Athens best interest, never mind the City just wanted to be left alone.
And then there their conduct in War slaughting the entire male population of cities they took and selling the women and children into slavery.
of course the people of Athens would ridicule that their actions where evil, stating they where natural for a city in their position and that one could walk the streets safely,that their laws where just, and people could discuss the issues of the day freely.
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By modern standards, historical societies were unambiguously evil. Slavery was pretty much universally accepted, and the abolition of the institution didn't start to gain momentum until the industrial revolution. The extermination of entires cities was not all that uncommon, and outright genocide haunts the pages of history. Racism, misogyny, and religions persecution were the rule. People who stood up against these things did exist, but history is written by the rich and powerful so these heroic individuals often take a back seat to honouring villains.
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Well, I think you could distinguish between the Athenian republic as it was in everyday life (and war), as opposed to the theoretical ideal republic as envisioned by Plato. I think Plato's ideal republic might be more LN or even LG - focused on people acting virtuously according to their social rank. Although "virtue" seems to be more about propriety and good conduct than about being nice. So more like LN than LG.
I'd agree with Ascalaphus that any state based on Plato's Republic would likely be Lawful Neutral. It was all about the rule of law, maintaining the staus quo and duty. The "Philosopher King" was a servant to the people, not the other way around. Plato's state was not meant to be expansionist or warlike, and while the higher social ranks were meant as warriors they were primarily for self-defense. Obviously it wouldn't take much to make it fall from the ideal.
As for slavery, sexism, xenophobia and so on, the issues are difficult in alignment terms. The Good-Evil/Law-Chaos alignment system relies on us approaching it from a modern perspective, with a passing knowledge of 3000 years of changes in ethics and social mores. Ancient Greek society was almost unquestioning of slavery, the closest it really gets is Aristotle saying that slavery permits a greater good, the freeing of citizens to improve the state through political discourse, but the slavery of those who are not "natural slaves" was wrong. From a modern viewpoint slavery is evil, but ancient societies often didn't think of it in moral terms at all.
From a game standpoint some of these nations may be evil, but many could be considered neutral with significant negative factors. Otherwise you'd need to consider every real-life civilization before the mid 1800s (abolition of slavery) or the 1960s (widespread moves for racial/sexual equality) evil.
you could make a pretty interesting LE nation based on Athens, for a game. Although again I don't really think alignment works when applied to real life or non DnD stuff. The majority of ancient civilizations would be prone to tipping over into the evil side of the scale.
Well, yes, if you design your city-state on the pillars of slavery, military conquest and genocide, the yeah, LE is going to be where you end up, especially if all its neighbors states mirror modern morals. It doesn't matter that citizens raised within that state consider their behavior normal, or even a grand experiment for the greater good, if the rest of the realm has set the bar of acceptable behavior higher. Remember you're debating the alignment of a state, not an individual.
If ALL nations of the realm embrace the same tenants, then I suppose an argument could be made for LN but still, it seems like slavery and murder on unarmed civilians as a state policy should always be evil.
....Do I even need to mention what happened to Socrates, who was Plato's teacher?
Socrates "Ok kids, let's practice asking questions"
Athens "Death by horrible, horrible poison for you"
I mean, there was probably a lot more going on there (wikipedia gives a rather long laundry list of possible reasons), but still, Hemlock is rather brutal, even if you are putting a guy to death. Even just strangling him with bare hands seems kinder.
....Do I even need to mention what happened to Socrates, who was Plato's teacher?
Socrates "Ok kids, let's practice asking questions"
Athens "Death by horrible, horrible poison for you"
I mean, there was probably a lot more going on there (wikipedia gives a rather long laundry list of possible reasons), but still, Hemlock is rather brutal, even if you are putting a guy to death. Even just strangling him with bare hands seems kinder.
Socrates was also the teacher to the 30 tyrants and his philosophy was almost directly responsible for the temporary removal of the Athenian democracy.
Post this upheaval a blanket pardon was issued to all the citizens to end the bloodshed, which included Socrates.
He was then later charged for impiety and corrupting the youth as a way to indirectly get back at him.
I'm pretty sure it was Socrates own bloody-mindedness that got him killed rather than anything else. He was charged with "Corrupting the Youth" as Marcus says and was sentenced to death. However, the prosecutors offered to drop the charges if he stopped teaching. At the sentencing he was given the opportunity to propose an alternative to death, but instead he made a joke at the jury's expense. He later had the opportunity to escape, and was urged to by his students but chose not to. Smart people can be really stupid.
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Yeah, overall strong tendencies towards LE fits a number of the more imperial ancient civilizations (Athens prominent among these) just fine.
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Although again I don't really think alignment works when applied to real life or non DnD stuff.
Actually, I find it works just fine. The sad reality is that in real life evil usually wins... and then rewrites history to make itself look good. It's only been the advent of mass-media that has really changed this, bringing atrocities to global attention in a way that just wasn't possible in an earlier era, and allowing villains to be called out for what they really are and for heroes - the likes of Ghandi or Nelson Mandela - to be recognized and given the support they deserve.
One thing I do disagree with is the presumption that these societies are mostly lawful. While almost every society has some veneer of lawfulness, in reality I think the majority were on the chaotic side of neutral due to rampant corruption and cronyism. It's one thing to have legal principles, the real question that determines whether a society is lawful is whether those legal principles are actually applied. In reality, corruption runs rampant through many societies. Laws are often written with the intent of being enforced unequally and as little more than a pretext to attack political opponents, while people with political connections have a "get out of jail free card" and only face such prosecution if they fall out of favor with the powers-that-be.
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The notion of an LE Athens is pretty cool. I ran similar ideas in a campaign before. Pseudo Athens and Sparta warring over the mind and soul of the pseudo Peloponnese, but all the pcs saw were the atrocities on the little people.
The notion of an LE Socrates on the other hand, is mind blowing and I will steal that forthwith ;)
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Couple common misconceptions about Socrates & Plato have been aired here. Plato's my specialty, so some comments.
(1) Plato's dialogues & the historical Socrates. Although we may be able to find evidence in Plato's dialogues that could help us form a picture of the historical Socrates, we should not forget that these are *Plato's* works and that the "Socrates" we find in them is Plato's character, not the historical person. Plato's literary accomplishment makes that easy to forget. (In fact, the genre of the Socratic dialogue was already well - established by other associates of Socrates by the time Plato took it up. The first chapter of Kahn's 1996 monograph, *Plato and the Socratic Dialogue*, offers an interesting survey of what little we know of other Socratics' *Sokratikoi Logoi*.)
(2) Socrates & the Thirty. Although it seems likely that one motivation for Socrates' trial was suspicion of his known association with notorious figures such as Alcibiades and Critias and Charmides (the latter two Plato's relatives and involved with the Thirty, Critias as a leader and probably its chief intellectual), we shouldn't mistake Athenian suspicion of Socrates at the time for historical fact. He may or may not have been sympathetic to their oligarchical agenda, but (despite the claims of certain scholars), it seems at best a stretch to claim that he was "almost directly responsible" for the coup.
If we accept the account of the *Apology* on this count at least (and I don't know anyone who doesn't), it's worth keeping in mind that one of Socrates' central defenses in the text is his story of two acts of civil disobedience in face of illegal acts by those in power—his resistance under the democracy to the (illegal) mass trial of the generals of Arginusae, and his refusal to participate in the Thirty's reign of terror when he refused to arrest Leon of Salamis for execution (the Thirty sought to make more Athenians complicit in the regime's misdeeds by ordering them to arrest those marked for killing).
If this is paired with some of Plato's other depictions of Socrates, we have a character who probably didn't have high hopes for democracy (that part's not universally accepted—there's been a persistent faction especially since the 90s that sees Socrates as a democratic reformer [but they're wrong on the "democratic" part]) but who held a deep belief that citizens ought to obey standing law—no advocate of revolution, this guy.
In fact, one of Plato's more interesting dialogues is a short piece called the *Charmides* in which Socrates discusses the possibility of "self-knowledge" with Critias (& Charmides, though he's mostly a spectator as the young charge of Critias). The upshot of the piece (which many interpretations miss, oddly), is a caution against political adventurism based on brash confidence in one's own superior intellect.
Now, the last bit here is more of interest in interpreting Plato than uncovering the historical Socrates, but it is worth pondering when you come to, say, the end of Rep. VII, where Socrates suggests the "quickest and easiest way" to establish the city they've built in speech—and lists a series of proposals rather like the initial measures put in place by the Thirty!
All of which perhaps only goes to show that I get a little too excited talking about Plato... :-P
[*Phone post*]
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But what would make a cool city for a game? I'd say an Athens either CN or LN/LE, depending on the story you want to tell and which period of Athens' history you take as a model. (I think CN for the worst times of the Pelopponesian War, or LE for more in-control domineering imperialism are probably the most interesting options.)
If you want something modeled on Kallipolis, I'd suggest that LN has more interesting story possibilities than LE (*maybe* LG, depending on how much you want to stress the sincerely-meant claim that each individual's life in the city is the best-possible life they could live on earth). The main claim of Kallipolis is that it's working for the good of all, and a highly regimented and tightly controlled city ruled by Contemplator's of the structure of the cosmos replicating that structure in its social order is way cooler as LN than as just another totalitarian LE story.
:-)
But what would make a cool city for a game? I'd say an Athens either CN or LN/LE, depending on the story you want to tell and which period of Athens' history you take as a model. (I think CN for the worst times of the Pelopponesian War, or LE for more in-control domineering imperialism are probably the most interesting options.)
Excuse me if my lack of knowledge of Athenian history messes this up, but how about this: A CN 'rough side of town' kind of Athens is introduced and visited, and then the campaign goes on to other lands, and then months later the party returns to find a decidedly more LE authority has established itself in response to that CN period.
Would that be workable? Does it sound interesting?
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How about this: A CN 'rough side of town' kind of Athens is introduced and visited, and then the campaign goes on to other lands, and then months later the party returns to find a decidedly more LE authority has established itself in response to that CN period.
Would that be workable? Does it sound interesting?
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun! Here are a few possible Greek-ish events that I can think of that might help for inspiration. Maybe some of them will speak to you.
The best source for on-theme material will always the source material, of course! So any Herodotus or Thucydides you can lay your hands on you might find material in, as well as any of the speeches (Lysias 12, against a former member of the Thirty, might have some good stuff). Or for outrageousness, any of Aristophanes' plays.
* The city has been ruled for years by a family of strong-men (or -women, if you'd rather). Although they did not seize power illegitimately, relations between the rulers and the citizens out of power have grown tense (because XYZ). The citizens rebel, declaring the ruling family tyrants, and chase them out.
* The surviving member(s) of the former ruling family recruit an army and return to reclaim their power and put down the leaders of the rebellion.
* The city is peaceful on the surface, but bitter battles play out in the assembly and the courts as rival factions vie for power. Amid a recent rise in crime, several mid-level political actors have found dead, apparently in robberies gone wrong.
* A prominent citizen with extensive mercantile connections has been accused of sympathizing with a perceived rival state. Perhaps he has a mistress of the foreign nationality? For extra xenophobia, have his child accused of being half-foreign. (One of the constant fights in the Greek cities was the definition of "who counts as a citizen" [and thus, has full rights]. Lots of "both parents must be citizens from good families" sorts of tests at various times.)
* The political elite gather in cultured drinking clubs to pass time and form alliances. Recently, one club has attracted a reputation for rowdiness; it's rumored that they may be behind the defiling of a certain sacred site. Insert whatever complications you like.
* A foreign invasion forces unification and resistance. The enemy driven back, citizens are filled with nationalistic (and xenophobic/racist) pride.
* The city politely exiles several "difficult" families to "settle a colony," and ignores their pleas for help when they have difficulty in their uncultivated land. Three generations later, the colony is prosperous and the mother city makes great accusations that they "fail to respect their ancestors" and "spit upon the justice of the gods" when the colony refuses to sign an exploitative trade treaty with the mother city.
* A dissident faction in the city appeals to a neighboring city for aid in taking over the government, promising a foreign policy more amenable to the target of their appeal.
* In a time of great unrest, complete chaos has overtaken the city, with several charismatic leaders struggling for influence. Private citizens begin to act on their grudges, accusing their neighbors of ever-more-outlandish crimes in an attempt to get their neighbors killed and their property confiscated, a portion of which will go to the accuser as a token of gratitude for "keeping public order."
* The city organizes what amounts to an international protection racket, leveraging its great wealth and military prowess to dominate smaller cities in the region, crushing one every once in a while to make an example of it.
* A recent military expedition turned back in face of dark omens from their seers. A military defeat followed, and now the people are split: have the gods expressed their displeasure? was the general merely incompetent? are the ancestral gods worthless fictions who should be discarded? Religious and military tension boils over (probably fed by secret factions, who perhaps corrupted the omens, to give your PCs targets!).
Okay, that's an improvised list. Hope some of it's interesting. :-)
I'm pretty sure it was Socrates own bloody-mindedness that got him killed rather than anything else. He was charged with "Corrupting the Youth" as Marcus says and was sentenced to death. However, the prosecutors offered to drop the charges if he stopped teaching. At the sentencing he was given the opportunity to propose an alternative to death, but instead he made a joke at the jury's expense. He later had the opportunity to escape, and was urged to by his students but chose not to. Smart people can be really stupid.Or just plain old stubborn. Then again, exile from Athen simply may not have been acceptable to him. Athens was THE place to be if you were going to be a philosopher. Might as well ask an actor to accept exile from Hollywood.
Not to mention that Socrates was just plain old for his era, given that he was in his seventies. Exile isn't easy for a young man, let alone one Socrates' age.
Thanks for the import and Ideas.. Im stil going to run my city States as Lawful Evil, but one in which the Law aspect is more important and dominant then the evil aspect. Most people I know run Lawful Evil with the Evil side being dominant.,But here I think the Law aspect should be dominant.
I want to add that slavery was complex in the ancient world. No one would argue that it's morally acceptable, but many slaves enjoyed a good deal of autonomy and lived reasonably well. It wasn't by any means true that all slaves did backbreaking forced labor under the lash.
Slavery was only complex due to how horrible life as a serf was. Most lower class life in the ancient world would be considered slavery if practiced today. Being formally a slave meant you had specific value but you were owned either way.
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I wouldn't say that slavery was evil by itself in the ancient world, otherwise good alignment communities would not exist. But there are a different degree of slavery and how slaves are treated. For the ancient Greeks, slaves were a requirement for having a caste of free citizens as only by having slaves could a small portion of the population afford to devote the time for education that a stable democratic state requires to exist.
That's actually completely not true. The idea of slavery as a necessary evil is pretty much just a myth perpetuated by slavery and racism apologists and those that have drank their kool-aid.
I want to add that slavery was complex in the ancient world. No one would argue that it's morally acceptable, but many slaves enjoyed a good deal of autonomy and lived reasonably well. It wasn't by any means true that all slaves did backbreaking forced labor under the lash.
Best example of that is the Mamelukes in various Arabic countries from the 10 century till 1830. In theory every Mameluke was a slave. In practice they tended to run the country.
The Mamluks were only slaves until they finished training. They were owned by the king directly as children then essentially given positions of minor nobility directly under his commande. As a result he used them as a tool to retain separate power from the nobility. Eventually the Mamluk system came to rule directly due to this status as a power tool when several weak kings came along.
Even if one considers them slaves instead of indentured servants, for every Mamluk there were several laboring slaves that were treated little better than animals. Even the freeborn non-nobility were treated rather poorly in medieval Egypt, though not to the level of most European nations of the time.
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I think that far enough into the future, our society will look downright evil as well
I wouldn't say that slavery was evil by itself in the ancient world, otherwise good alignment communities would not exist. But there are a different degree of slavery and how slaves are treated. For the ancient Greeks, slaves were a requirement for having a caste of free citizens as only by having slaves could a small portion of the population afford to devote the time for education that a stable democratic state requires to exist.
I think it's fair to say that whether or not a society practices slavery is not the only factor in whether one should consider it evil.
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Arguably, ancient societies were more honest about which social classes were slaves, compared to say an (early) modern industrial proletariat.
I don't think it happened a lot among the Greeks, but among the Romans, the slaves of powerful men (like emperors) could often be far more powerful than (poor/middle-classed) free men. Such slaves and were at the head of various bureaucracies.
It was also quite normal for household slaves to earn manumission, but even when legally freed, it was normal for an ex-slave to remain with his master's household, just with a higher rank.
The technically-slave private secretary of a senator has quite a different life than one who's been sentenced to the salt mines. From a distance, the secretary's enslavement might not be hugely different from someone today with stern non-compete clauses in his contract. They both have relative but not total freedom.
Ascalaphus is correct again. When we view as slavery based on the last couple of hundred years is not necessarily the same as slavery in Ancient Greece or Rome. It was common for educated slaves (mainly Greeks) in Rome to be valued teachers. Teachers, secretaries, accountants, administrators and physicians could all be slaves. The only difference between medieval serfs and rural slaves in the Roman empire is pretty much the name they were called. Obviously, some got screwed and had to work the mines or a similarly brutal job too.
If anyone has watched the HBO drama Rome (I recommend it, it's great) then the character Posca, Caesar's chief slave, is a very influential man.
Ascalaphus is correct again. When we view as slavery based on the last couple of hundred years is not necessarily the same as slavery in Ancient Greece or Rome.
Yeah, a lot of people tend to assume all slavery is like 19th century American chattel slavery. Probably because it's the most recent and well-known example.
Yeah, a lot of people tend to assume all slavery is like 19th century American chattel slavery. Probably because it's the most recent and well-known example.
Slavery is pretty much always the same. In America, even in the height of chattel slavery, house slaves lived much better lives than northern wage slaves or low income southern farmers. That doesn't mean we have to give them a pass on the immorality of their actions. If you have a system of objective morality, as Pathfinder and D&D do, the societies and institutions that promote slavery and serfdom have to be considered evil. It doesn't necessarily make every single person in them evil and there can be non-evil slave owners. However those people who participate in the culture are non-evil in-spite of an inherently evil system they are in, not because the institution somehow "works" when given to non-evil people.
Slavery in its pure form is not evil, it's neutral. Slavery is actually considered part of the rise of civilization, because it meant you had a use for a person who was not linked to you, and you did not kill him. Enslaving an enemy instead of slaughtering them like an animal would is considered a key advance on the scale. Suddenly, life had some value.
Enslaving people just because you want money or need cheap labor? That's classic exploitation and yes, very E. Institutionalizing such is classic LE behavior, creating citizen strata and caste systems to exploit those below you.
==Aelryinth
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Slavery in its pure form is not evil, it's neutral. Slavery is actually considered part of the rise of civilization, because it meant you had a use for a person who was not linked to you, and you did not kill him. Enslaving an enemy instead of slaughtering them like an animal would is considered a key advance on the scale.
If you look at things from a Lawful perspective (and historicising the Rise of Civilization would seem to invoke such a perspective almost by default), CE to LE is a major improvement.
Institutionalizing such is classic LE behavior, creating citizen strata and caste systems to exploit those below you.
Sounds like Athens, though.
Slavery in its pure form is not evil, it's neutral. Slavery is actually considered part of the rise of civilization, because it meant you had a use for a person who was not linked to you, and you did not kill him. Enslaving an enemy instead of slaughtering them like an animal would is considered a key advance on the scale. Suddenly, life had some value.
Something being arguably less evil than genocide does not make it neutral. It's like claiming kidnapping is neutral so long as you don't rape the victim too.
If you look at the countries of the Inner Sea, the aligment is sometimes a little questionable. The evil countries are: Belkzen (Orc breeding ground), Cheliax (Devil worshipping elite), Geb (undead rulers), Irrisen (Baba Jagas children), Mediogalti (Assassins), Nidal (Zon-Kuthon worshipping elite), Razmiran (Theocracy of a false god) and the Worldwound. The thing all of these countries have in common, is that their evil has a fantasy reason, not a real world reason.
I mean based on the description of other countries someone would have reason to call them evil IRL:
Galt: Mobs killing citizens on a daily basis and trap their souls
Shackles: Ruled by pirates
Katapesh: Market for slaves and drugs, using golems powered by slave souls
Nex: Magokratie, which enslaves outsiders
Numeria: Wasteland, ruled from the shadows by powerhungry Technomancers
Rahadoum: Slavetrading and surpressing all religion
Sargava: Former colony, surpressing the natives
If you are strict, would any of these countries not be evil?
Slavery in its pure form is more like indentured labor. You work off your debt and then you're free. In most cases, you were paying back the mercy of the enemy. That's pretty neutral...I extend mercy, you pay me back, then you're free to go. Or, I could just butcher you on the battlefield so I don't have to feed, clothe and worry about your rebelling against me.
Once slavery of others became desirable...that is definitely a spin to evil. Inability to escape the status, etc etc. Definitely evil. It's this institutionalized slavery that's an aspect of LE, not slavery itself. Original Slavery is an outgrowth of war, and war isn't inherently evil, either, despite it being one of the most frequent tools of evil folk anywhere.
And no, kidnapping is still evil, if done against the will of the target. Not a good example.
I'm not disputing Athens was LN to LE in basis, all the while thinking they were the most enlightened of societies. That's LE delusional thinking at its best. 'Requiring' slaves is a clear display of that kind of stuffs, and how far they were veering from the origins of slavery.
==Aelryinth
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This is officially my favorite thread of all time.
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At the very least, they'd be a fairly predatory, caste-oriented LN or N.
==Aelryinth
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Just because Sparta went the warrior route instead of the philosophical route doesn't make it more evil then Athens. They were both conquerors and subjugated others. Sparta is probably just MORE lawful then Athens, which had a significant rogue element in the Athenian Mob.
==Aelryinth
That's actually completely not true. The idea of slavery as a necessary evil is pretty much just a myth perpetuated by slavery and racism apologists and those that have drank their kool-aid.
Necessary had little to do with it. Slavery made a lot of things easier to accomplish.
With technological advancements from the industrial revolution slavery became less and less useful to the point that humanitarian values won out over the convenience of slavery.
An example of that same system of values being used today can be found at your local Walmart. Convenience of cheap goods at the humanitarian cost of sweatshop labor.