Self-explanatory question.
Say the only way a Paladin could survive was to eat another living being of the same race. Would they do it, or would they sooner sacrifice themselves for that same person to live?
Well, Id say the G in LG takes precedent here with a "No cannibalism for the paladin."
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Why would a paladin ever consider cannibalism as an option?
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Why would a paladin ever consider cannibalism as an option?
The sea is a harsh mistress, me boy. She don't let no soft men escape her grasp.
More seriously, yeah, stranded in a harsh environment, with no way to get out or reliably get food... sometimes there are things you just have to do. Heck, lizardfolk are neutral, yet they are described as having to rely upon cannibalism due to the harshness of swamps. And heck, the game even has some signs that cannibalism is oddly relative (the Wendigo does not develop in societies where it is accepted, such as with the Lizardfolk, and instead it comes from the shame over cannibalism).
Anyway, I would say that, it is possible given the right conditions. If you are talking about 2 people stranded, and one needs to kill and eat the other to survive....then no, that is straight 'fall' territory.
But you have to remember that paladins are often the big strong tough guys that everyone relies on. So if you had a whole party, and one was dying of some vague illness (hard to imagine with the game's high magic, but stay with me here; pretend everyone is level 2), and everyone needed to eat if they hoped to have the strength to survive..... a paladin would have to weigh his options. I mean, in this scenario, everyone is relying upon his strength. Can he abandon that duty just because it is 'taboo' to eat this... meat that is just lying there?
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Desecration of the dead is, if not an evil act, very much a taboo one. Even for the purpose of survival, it's still desecrating the corpse of once a sapient, living person, and is incredibly disrespectful to that person. Considering the afterlife and ghosts are real, doubly so.
If it's not a taboo, you're probably following a religion that can't have paladins in the first place.
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Self-explanatory question.
Say the only way a Paladin could survive was to eat another living being of the same race. Would they do it, or would they sooner sacrifice themselves for that same person to live?
1. Won't murder someone to eat them.
2. Already dead? Pass the salt, please.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Desecration of the dead is, if not an evil act, very much a taboo one. Even for the purpose of survival, it's still desecrating the corpse of once a sapient, living person, and is incredibly disrespectful to that person. Considering the afterlife and ghosts are real, doubly so.
If it's not a taboo, you're probably following a religion that can't have paladins in the first place.
What if they asked you to do it?
"After I'm gone" *cough**cough* "I want you to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get the scepter of darkness to the temple" *cough* "If it isn't sealed, we are all doomed anyway......you know what you have to do...." *chest burster pops out, roll for initiative*
Plus, I think that cannibalism could arguable happen with a LG religion. It all depends- is this predatory, or is it simply part of the normal funerary rights?
I've at least heard of the idea of 'letting a little of them live on inside of us'.
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Taboos against cannibilism are cultural, as the lizard folk example proves.. Some may see it as okay, others may condemn you to the Nine Hells or abyss.
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Didn't Paizo release a horribly dumb statement about eating people and the concept of evil? Something about the evilness being determined by whether or not you get a stat boost from it.
Didn't Paizo release a horribly dumb statement about eating people and the concept of evil? Something about the evilness being determined by whether or not you get a stat boost from it.
OH, just in luck. There is a thread going on about drinking Dragon's Blood (since dragoncrafting is a thing) over in the rules forum. I'll grab the quote from this Source.:
We're not talking about eating animated objects made out of chocolate syrup, we're talking about the blood of the living. If you bite someone and swallow human blood, you're saying, "this creature is food to me, I will gain sustenance from drinking its blood." And if you're doing that to an intelligent creature, you're treating intelligent creatures as food. That's evil.
If Rolf has to kill someone in order to defend himself, we accept that.
If Rolf is attacked and has to resort to biting his attacker in order to escape or avoid being killed, we accept that.
If Rolf bites his attacker and decides to swallow the attacker's blood, that's just creepy and inappropriate.
If Rolf swallow's the attacker's blood and his eyes light up with joy and he gets stronger for doing so, that's evil.I doesn't matter if Rolf is a human, dhampir, half-orc, or gnome; gaining power from drinking a person's blood is creepy and evil.
It's an easy choice: If you're worried about drinking blood being an evil act, (a) play an evil character, or (b) don't take the Blood Drinker feat. Your character lives in a universe where there are absolutes for the alignments, and the physics of that universe says "Feeding on unwilling intelligent creatures is an evil act."
I wouldn't say it is stupid, necessarily. I mean, anything that can be described as 'gaining power by consuming the flesh of the living' sounds rather evil to me. That usually involves the dark arts, which is usually not good for spiritual health.
Still, for the purposes of this discussion, I think the second to last example is relevant- it is creepy and inappropriate... but if it is an unpleasant necessity, then it is not evil. Also note- the fact that 'unwilling' is specifically mentioned can take this to ALL SORTS of places that you should have safesearch on for. But it does support my example of a dying man offering up his body for others to survive.
EDIT- also Deusvult- yeah, cannibalism is usually defined in game as eating a sentient creature. But again, I just came from a thread talking about eating dragons. One of the main points from that is how we can mount dragon heads over our mantle place and wear armor make from their skin without too much flack.
Thanks for the quote. I can sort of understand because chromatic dragons are 99.999% chaotic evil (Paladins even get bonuses on their smite against them...), but if you did it to any other chaotic evil people, Paladin falls. Absolute/Systemized Morality is bizarre sometimes.
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SKR's quote there is a fairly specific case - the intelligent creature doesn't want to be eaten, and it sounds like the eater is just bloodthirsty, not doing it for survival.
A paladin doing it so they could survive because there's no other options, especially with that creature's permission, surely isn't the same thing.
There's probably a case where a paladin would still do it even without their permission, if it means he/she's the only one that can save a village of orphans, but not if he's dead from starvation.
Thanks for the quote. I can sort of understand because chromatic dragons are 99.999% chaotic evil (Paladins even get bonuses on their smite against them...), but if you did it to any other chaotic evil people, Paladin falls. Absolute/Systemized Morality is bizarre sometimes.
That's the polite way to put it.
Thanks for the quote. I can sort of understand because chromatic dragons are 99.999% chaotic evil (Paladins even get bonuses on their smite against them...), but if you did it to any other chaotic evil people, Paladin falls. Absolute/Systemized Morality is bizarre sometimes.
Yeah, things get weird with dragons, since they are usually the large and in charge lizard, and humans are the squishy underdogs. So relations get a bit weird due to that, since you can't exactly go pulling punches too much.
Not to mention the fact that elf leather armor is probably not that good, while dragon scale armor can do all sorts of crazy stuff, like resist an element. So 'necessity' and 'legitimate need' muddies the water too. I mean, cannibalism is usually evil because you can just have a sandwich
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People are friends, not food.
I could easily see a paladin based off weird Catholicism using the body parts of saints in armor and magic items. Saint skin leather though would only be cool if said saint opted into the church organ donor club.
Cannibalism though is cultural for the most part. If you eat someone you killed for the purpose of eating them then cannibalism is evil. If you eat the corpse of someone against the wishes of their loved ones that is evil. Otherwise it's the same morality as corpse looting.
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Alignment is actually a really simple thing to handle when people aren't overcomplicating it. Here, I'll break it down.
1. Is eating a /corpse/, regardless of what soul it once had, "hurting", "oppressing", or "killing" someone?
2. If the answer is "No" (and is is no), then it is not evil.
What people are really arguing over concerning cannibalism is whether or not it's okay to murder someone to eat them, but here's the thing.
1. Is murdering someone, for any reason, hurting, oppressing, or killing someone?
2. If the answer is "Yes" (and it is), then yes it is evil.
What you do with the body after that is pretty irrelevant, because at that point it is a soulless object made of various organic materials generally defined as meat and bones.
EDIT: So again, if I was playing a Paladin, sure I'd eat somebody. For some characters it might even be a part of their normal mode of operations. However, I wouldn't kill anyone to eat them, even if it meant starving to death myself, because that would require me to harm them.
I'm reminded of an old movie, "Alive." True story about a plane crash in the Andes, survivors resorted to eating those who died in the crash to survive long enough to get out, or get rescued, don't exactly recall which. I would not say that any of those people committed an evil act.
What's evil about cannibalism? If there's some body just lying there, all juicy and tender, there's nothing wrong with taking a bite when you're in dire need. It's a slightly different story if you killed someone just to eat them.
If you eat the corpse of someone against the wishes of their loved ones that is evil.
I disagree. It's Chaotic, not evil.
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It's an "only if" situation. A paladin would do everything in her power to avoid such a situation. I sincerely doubt that any party stranded anywhere would find cannibalism a sincere recourse. Survival checks, Profession checks, etc.
Really? Paladin cannibals? Really? I understand the exercise but wtf.
As a GM, I'll toss out a wounded moose- hey, it's got a broken hoof! Stabbity and sustainable.
Why should a paladin fall to cannibalism? Spells, tactics, Survival, and aid from party members....
It's an "only if" situation. A paladin would do everything in her power to avoid such a situation. I sincerely doubt that any party stranded anywhere would find cannibalism a sincere recourse. Survival checks, Profession checks, etc.
Really? Paladin cannibals? Really? I understand the exercise but wtf.
As a GM, I'll toss out a wounded moose- hey, it's got a broken hoof! Stabbity and sustainable.
Why should a paladin fall to cannibalism? Spells, tactics, Survival, and aid from party members....
....plane of fire. Or shadows. Negative energy? Anywhere where survival checks only bring up rocks. Anyplace that the moose would have to be a high level spell caster to reach (and we are going back into cannibalism since such a moose would have to be awakened)
And yes, it is an extremely unlikely scenario, which would only be set up due to GM fiat. The game is too much about PC empowerment for this to be a realistic event. But this is more a thought experiment based around the idea of paladin morality and the ethics within the setting.
......not to mention the fact that it is way easier for people to get into starvation style conditions in real life than it is in the limited game system. Real life humans do not know the DCs needed to pass survival checks, and even then, we are likely too low level to reliably pass them. But again, that has little to do with the game mechanics.
If I were playing a paladin I suspect I would decline to eat the flesh of a sentient being, even if this would likely mean my death.
In the circumstance where I had the consent of the being in question, who was not dying by my own hand, I might... but I would still feel that I would need to atone afterwards.
If the situation were grave enough, and I expected that many would die as a result of my inaction, I might, but I would expect to lose my paladin powers for it and be forced to continue on as an ordinary fighter type until I could arrange an atonement. The loss of my powers would not dissuade me from my quest, but would inform my actions afterwards.
Isn't Create Food and Water on their spell list?
Isn't Create Food and Water on their spell list?
Only create water, and that is a 1st level spell for them.
uckkkk, gross
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It's an "only if" situation. A paladin would do everything in her power to avoid such a situation. I sincerely doubt that any party stranded anywhere would find cannibalism a sincere recourse. Survival checks, Profession checks, etc.
Really? Paladin cannibals? Really? I understand the exercise but wtf.
As a GM, I'll toss out a wounded moose- hey, it's got a broken hoof! Stabbity and sustainable.
Why should a paladin fall to cannibalism? Spells, tactics, Survival, and aid from party members....
Why in the hell would I kill a living creature, when I have both the means to heal it myself, and a dead corpse right there to eat instead!?
You MONSTER! D:<
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It's an "only if" situation. A paladin would do everything in her power to avoid such a situation. I sincerely doubt that any party stranded anywhere would find cannibalism a sincere recourse. Survival checks, Profession checks, etc.
Really? Paladin cannibals? Really? I understand the exercise but wtf.
As a GM, I'll toss out a wounded moose- hey, it's got a broken hoof! Stabbity and sustainable.
Why should a paladin fall to cannibalism? Spells, tactics, Survival, and aid from party members....
Why in the hell would I kill a living creature, when I have both the means to heal it myself, and a dead corpse right there to eat instead!?
You MONSTER! D:<
Yeah seriously. Are you saying that animal has less right to live than a corpse' nebulous right to go uneaten? After all that meat is simply going to rot away to waste if no one eats it.
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Yeah seriously. Are you saying that animal has less right to live than a corpse' nebulous right to go uneaten? After all that meat is simply going to rot away to waste if no one eats it.It's an "only if" situation. A paladin would do everything in her power to avoid such a situation. I sincerely doubt that any party stranded anywhere would find cannibalism a sincere recourse. Survival checks, Profession checks, etc.
Really? Paladin cannibals? Really? I understand the exercise but wtf.
As a GM, I'll toss out a wounded moose- hey, it's got a broken hoof! Stabbity and sustainable.
Why should a paladin fall to cannibalism? Spells, tactics, Survival, and aid from party members....
Why in the hell would I kill a living creature, when I have both the means to heal it myself, and a dead corpse right there to eat instead!?
You MONSTER! D:<
In fact, I would argue B.A.'s Pally should fall for purposefully ignoring a painless meal to brutalize a wounded neutral creature. How do you live with yourself...
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If the situation were grave enough, and I expected that many would die as a result of my inaction, I might, but I would expect to lose my paladin powers for it and be forced to continue on as an ordinary fighter type until I could arrange an atonement. The loss of my powers would not dissuade me from my quest, but would inform my actions afterwards.
It's scenarios like this that lead me to believe that (if they were actually the case) the gods would have to be legitimately pants on head retarded.
"Yo, my main man, I'm gonna have you go on this world saving quest for me. Think you can handle that?"
"You got it boss."
"Sweeeet."
*Two weeks later, trapped in a place with no food or water, companion dies, rest of the party eats them to survive, including the Paladin*
"Duuuude, gross. Man, I know I wanted you to go on this quest and s!@+ but, wow, that was icky. Sorry bro, gonna have to take your powers. Good luck with that thing I asked you to do I guess. And stop doing gross stuff dude. Seriously."
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I think the stance on cannibalism varies very much with society's views on it:
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In a world where magic and shapeshifting are relatively common, eating sentient being might be more difficult to avoid than in the Real World....
Is that crippled moose actually a wild-shaped druid or has been Awakened? You kill it for food and suddenly you've murdered an innocent sentient being who was coming to you for help. Cue Evil DM laughter as the paladin falls into his trap. Cue sound of D20 striking DM between the eyes.
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In a world where magic and shapeshifting are relatively common, eating sentient being might be more difficult to avoid than in the Real World....
Is that crippled moose actually a wild-shaped druid or has been Awakened? You kill it for food and suddenly you've murdered an innocent sentient being who was coming to you for help. Cue Evil DM laughter as the paladin falls into his trap. Cue sound of D20 striking DM between the eyes.
I would throw d6s at him like an evocation specialist.
Desecration of the dead is, if not an evil act, very much a taboo one. Even for the purpose of survival, it's still desecrating the corpse of once a sapient, living person, and is incredibly disrespectful to that person. Considering the afterlife and ghosts are real, doubly so.
If it's not a taboo, you're probably following a religion that can't have paladins in the first place.
Desecration is a pretty solid part of vampire slaying... and putting to rest people who may BECOME vampires... stakes, beheading, the whole nine yards.
Not to mention what they do to all the dead that rose and attacked them... they chop and smash those to pieces.
I don't see any situation where killing a person for food is NOT evil. However, if there was a shipwreck on a deserted barren island??? Some of the sailors were already dead? I don't believe there would be an 'evil' stigma attached to the act.
Cannibalism, send me straight to hell? Bah, what do you think confession's for?
Remember that opening scene in Pirates?
Seriously, cannibalism is universally viewed as evil and inhuman in our western society, even when people are forced into it, in order to survive. A paladin would offer to kill himself and feed his starving friends, not eat one of them, even if said friend were already dead. Cannibalism would cause the Paladin to fall so hard that he probably could never redeem himself, except possibly through a heroic death.
Yes, you could argue that Christianity is based on a highly-stylized form of ritual cannibalism. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine a more universally recognized evil act than dining on the dead.
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Cannibalism, send me straight to hell? Bah, what do you think confession's for?
Remember that opening scene in Pirates?
Seriously, cannibalism is universally viewed as evil and inhuman in our western society, even when people are forced into it, in order to survive. A paladin would offer to kill himself and feed his starving friends, not eat one of them, even if said friend were already dead. Cannibalism would cause the Paladin to fall so hard that he probably could never redeem himself, except possibly through a heroic death.
Yes, you could argue that Christianity is based on a highly-stylized form of ritual cannibalism. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine a more universally recognized evil act than dining on the dead.
Lawful Stupid in action, imo.
If it's that down to the wire, there are no other resources anywhere, I don't think anyone in their right mind would throw a paladin off that cliff for eating with everyone else. No one is enjoying it, and no one would be doing it if they had a choice, but they don't.
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Self-explanatory question.
Say the only way a Paladin could survive was to eat another living being of the same race. Would they do it, or would they sooner sacrifice themselves for that same person to live?
Only if resorting to cannibalism would be clearly and without any doubts in order to survive and thusly defeat a greater evil.
And after that a life of atonement.Otherwise a paladin would rather choose a martyr's death through starvation, staying true to his/hers code of honor and personal purity, in body, mind and spirit.
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Self-explanatory question.
Say the only way a Paladin could survive was to eat another living being of the same race. Would they do it, or would they sooner sacrifice themselves for that same person to live?
Only if resorting to cannibalism would be clearly and without any doubts in order to survive and thusly defeat a greater evil.
And after that a life of atonement.Otherwise a paladin would rather choose a martyr's death through starvation, staying true to his/hers code of honor and personal purity, in body, mind and spirit.
Would any other lawful good character? Because I don't see anything in the paladin's code about eating people.
Lawful Stupid in action, imo.
If it's that down to the wire, there are no other resources anywhere, I don't think anyone in their right mind would throw a paladin off that cliff for eating with everyone else. No one is enjoying it, and no one would be doing it if they had a choice, but they don't.
But the paladin *does* have a choice. Die, or commit a heinous, irretrievably evil act. A paladin should choose to die instead, that's part of the burden of paladinhood. A true paladin would *not* eat the dead, but would fast, and pray, and trust to the power of his god to preserve him from adversity. At least as long as we assume that our fantasy culture shares the same sort of deep-seated cultural taboo on cannibalism as our real western curlture does.
One might even argue that if his companions tricked him into cannibalism, but he later found out the truth, he would be so overcome with grief and remorse as to lose his special status.
Maybe he could atone for this evil act through a lengthy and demanding quest. But the whole concept of a paladin "falling" posits the objective existence of undeniably evil acts that are contrary to a paladin's code.
In literature, the archetypical example is Lancelot's madness.
It's not a question of "lawful stupid". It's simply a question of someone holding strong values to a point where the act of respecting those strong values is more important than self-preservation.
Would any other lawful good character? Because I don't see anything in the paladin's code about eating people.Self-explanatory question.
Say the only way a Paladin could survive was to eat another living being of the same race. Would they do it, or would they sooner sacrifice themselves for that same person to live?
Only if resorting to cannibalism would be clearly and without any doubts in order to survive and thusly defeat a greater evil.
And after that a life of atonement.Otherwise a paladin would rather choose a martyr's death through starvation, staying true to his/hers code of honor and personal purity, in body, mind and spirit.
I don't think anyone is arguing a Paladin should kill and eat people. I believe the argument is about whether it's okay if a Paladin eats an already dead person to survive by necessity.
Not pointed at anyone but I feel a reminder is needed.
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I would say depends on
A) the Paladins god (assuming there is one),
B) where the paladin is from (it's kosher in a few places and if he grew up from there, it may not be evil to him(thus it would matter to the god only))
B) The situation. If he had to eat a person to stay alive, to guard 4 children until they get back to civilization it's not remotely evil (acquiring the body may be though)
D) how the body is gained (killed in a proper fight, feels less worse than walking up to someone and just taking their head off to make manjerky)
E)The laws of the area they are in. A paladin brought up under a god of some random place that still does cannibalism/doesn't look down on it (likely seeing it as reusing resources) then it's wouldn't touch on either. (of course if a different paladin (whose culture viewed it as evil) showed up then him doing the same thing would be evil for him, but not for the first paladin)Assuming emergency like case. Then I think it's easily forgivable and wouldn't require a huge quest. Say a partymember died and everyone ate him.. I think the attonement would be A) making his death not a waste and B) likely taking over any responsiblities he had (family, etc) so you took up his mantle in exchange for rescuing you
Now we're getting into relative morality in a world and class that is confirmed to work under absolute morality. This is where things start to fall apart.
Isn't eating party members why halflings were a must-have travelling companion back in the day? Or have they changed it now that halflings are no longer sentient hairy-footed piglets?
"Heeeeere, piggy-wiggy!"
"Heeeeere, piggy-wiggy!"
Somebody beat you to it mate.
Depends on the Paladin's specific code of conduct...
Which was discussed between the Player and GM before play...
:)
I would say the Paladin should not resort to defiling the bodies of the dead for nurishment.
The reason is it is a magical world. There are spells like Raise Dead and Resurrection that work better on a whole body than a body that has been chewed on. The Paladin should protect the bodies of his comrades.
In a world like that, a Paladin should have faith that others will find and rescue him.
If the Paladin made any attempts to pray, I would also give them a hint that this is the correct course. "You find comfort in meditation. You remember many parables of how steadfast loyalty and refusal to give in to hopelessness were rewarded." Something like that.
All this is just theoretical though, I can't see myself ever putting a player in that sort of situation.