Tanagaar, "archon empyreal lord of night, owls, and watchfulness" (Chronicle of the Righteous p. 25, Inner Sea Gods p. 324) is a lawful good deity with the Darkness domain (CRB p. 42). This domain has spells such as "2nd—blindness/deafness (only to cause blindness)" and "5th—summon monster V (summons 1d3 shadows)". These spells are not terribly enlightened. A deity can't very well gripe about a cleric using one of their domain spells. How can a good character justify casting such spells?
P.S. Tanagaar is legal for worship according to Additional Resources 20150615 ("all empyreal lords on the inside front cover and pages 6–29 are legal for play").
Causing blindness is not really inherently evil any more than fireball is.
If it were a home game for shadows I would just borrow from the shadowdancer PrC and say the shadows were the same alignment as the deity granting the spell. Playing PFS I would just tell myself they are non-evil and gloss over them being turned/affected by positive energy. As long as you don't direct your shadows to attack the local orphanage it shouldn't ever be an issue.
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I'm with you on shadow summoning. Blindness, though, seems like a fine option for lawful good.
It's highly nonlethal, and even better, is dismissible. This means that as long as you stay alive, the offender's sight is just a standard action away - giving him reason to comply and motivation to keep you alive. Once you've worked things out (removing the charm that turned him against you, convincing him of the error of his ways, turning him over to the guards, etc.) he gets his sight back.
Very useful. ^_^
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Fluff wise, the shadows probably match the alignment of the deity, at least that how I would run it in a home game, sadly they didn't specify it, which if you try to use it in PFS , you wouldn't be able to cast shadows as a LG cleric due to the alignment restrictions.
I thought about this, actually. It turns out that's not the case.
Summon monster is only [evil] if the summoned creature has the evil subtype - shadows may be undead, but they have no such subtype.
In PFS, your LG cleric can summon (evil) shadows with no more repercussion than summoning anything else. ^_^
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Causing blindness is not really inherently evil any more than fireball is.
If it were a home game for shadows I would just borrow from the shadowdancer PrC and say the shadows were the same alignment as the deity granting the spell. Playing PFS I would just tell myself they are non-evil and gloss over them being turned/affected by positive energy. As long as you don't direct your shadows to attack the local orphanage it shouldn't ever be an issue.
Officially (for PFS and such) they would still be evil, and even a vampire paladin is still harmed by negative energy.
Just clarifying - no offense meant. ^_^
I know - that's why 'tell myself'. I'd have to suspend disbelief when my "not-evil" evil shadows get affected by things that affect evil creatures but for the few times that it is likely to arise I can suspend disbelief that much. I'd also have to state they are evil if questioned, but as you point out no rule saying I can't summon them. As long as I only use them in the same way as any other summoned monster and don't use them to commit an expressly evil act I shouldn't ever be in danger of an alignment breach. 99% of the time it will be a non-issue.
and none taken :D
Summon monster makes the spell have an alignment subtype if either the creature has an alignment subtype or if the creature is marked with a star, which makes the spells alignment subtypes match the caster's alignment. If neither is the case the spell has no alignment subtypes and can be cast by clerics without restriction. Shadows may be evil but they're not evil enough to get the subtype, apparently.
On the fluff - burning people with fire causes them a great deal of pain and can kill them. Fire domain spells are fine for good clerics of an appropriate god; blindness is nice by comparison. Letting shadows create spawn seems pretty evil but I'm not sure they can do so when summoned, their abilities tend to end when the spell does. Without that it doesn't seem to me that the spell is necessarily evil.
Thank you for your insight! This really helps. I was looking for a night-flavored priest who worships a good deity and did not want to run afoul of RAI.
No problem! ^_^
You might also want to give Tsukiyo a look...
Extremely interesting. Thank you for the flavor.
Prince of the Moon brought back to life by Shizuru. Patron of the
samsaran race. LG god of the jade, moon, and spirits.
Domains Darkness, Good, Law,
Madness, Repose
Subdomains Ancestors, Archon,
Insanity, Moon, Night, and Souls
Favored Weapon longspear
Waiting for Deific Obedience for Tian Xia gods....
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Fluff wise, the shadows probably match the alignment of the deity, at least that how I would run it in a home game, sadly they didn't specify it, which if you try to use it in PFS , you wouldn't be able to cast shadows as a LG cleric due to the alignment restrictions.I thought about this, actually. It turns out that's not the case.
Summon monster is only [evil] if the summoned creature has the evil subtype - shadows may be undead, but they have no such subtype.
In PFS, your LG cleric can summon (evil) shadows with no more repercussion than summoning anything else. ^_^
Now thats awesome and totally legal then.
I'm missing or misunderstanding Kalindlara's comment. Why would a vampire paladin be harmed by negative energy? Wouldn't being undead protect from the negative and make vulnerable to the positive?
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I'm missing or misunderstanding Kalindlara's comment. Why would a vampire paladin be harmed by negative energy? Wouldn't being undead protect from the negative and make vulnerable to the positive?
Oh my gosh, you're right. Major typo there - I meant to write "harmed by positive energy".
Really sorry, everyone - I messed that one up royally.
I'm missing or misunderstanding Kalindlara's comment. Why would a vampire paladin be harmed by negative energy? Wouldn't being undead protect from the negative and make vulnerable to the positive?
A "vampire" paladin may refer to a Dhampir paladin.
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I'm missing or misunderstanding Kalindlara's comment. Why would a vampire paladin be harmed by negative energy? Wouldn't being undead protect from the negative and make vulnerable to the positive?A "vampire" paladin may refer to a Dhampir paladin.
It wasn't, necessarily, but it could have - dhampir are affected the same way due to their negative energy affinity. They are advised to avoid using lay on hands on themselves.
Thanks. I play a cleric with Alignment Channel and thought there may have been some errata or unchained thing that caused it to become useless or redundant