While we're making up evil acts, I'd like to point out that eating chocolate icecream is an abhorrently evil act, along with playing checkers, and feeling depressed.Allip: Suicide from madness. Evil Act.
Attic Whisperer: An attic whisperer spawns as the result of a lonely or neglected child's death. Evil Act.
So neglecting someone to death isn't evil?
|
As someone who is currently playing a non-evil necromancer, I've got to say the draw of non-evil undead is very simple in my eyes.
Every unique undead is on some level a tragedy and a story, they were people once, they lived, loved and died, they had desires and dreams, wants, hopes and fears and all this is laid out for the players to explore when they come across the silent haunting of their once-homes by the lost and the damned.
Be it the ghost that haunts her resting place because her body was never found, the desperate ever-hungry mother, who died in a famine and still carries her still living child, constantly fighting the urge to feast on it while she finds someone, anyone who can take it from her to somewhere safe or the skeletal paladin that holds vanguard and the line long after the forces of darkness have stopped trying to face him, the undead are a wonderful, dark and tragic mirror of lives unfulfilled. Even hordes of mindless undead can be used to show really interesting horrors by proxy, wrongs that might not ever be righted because the worst has already happened and all the PCs can do is try to help as they can.If you make all undead always evil, you lose the subtle sympathy that there could be for them and reduce what are essentially, the tragic lost and hopeless dead to monsters one and all, after all, we all die one day and wouldn't we like to rest easy in our graves as well, or if we were murdered, to have our killers brought to justice?
So, less special snowflake, more its an interesting angle that rarely gets used because undead are Always Evil.
All of these examples can be Evil and even more tragic and full of RP gold because of it. The problem lies with the simplistic view that Evil must always be destroyed on sight.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Alignment > Pharasma.Pharasma would be inclined to disagree with you.No, it factually is not.If you make yourself undead, you defy fate, you defy balance.
You force your will above that of existence and nature.
Self serving, self empowering.
That is Evil.
"She is out for herself, pure and simple."
Quote from the Core Rulebook, on the subject of Neutral Evil.Shackling your soul, defying fate, all so you can "live" longer.
All so you can avoid death.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to corrupt your soul.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to defy your own death.
That is self serving, to the extent that it is just about the greediest thing that you could do.
That is self serving, to the extent that you would deny the afterlife you are destined for the soul that you owe it.
You seek out undeath, you are serving yourself above all else.
You seek out undeath, you are commiting evil.
What are the other ways?
Become a God?
The word "god" in this case should be lower-case. The word "god" is only capitalized when referencing a monotheistic religion in which the term in interchangeable with their name, not when talking about polytheism. Obviously not the case here since it's "a" god.
Sorry - it's a very common mistake - but it's a pet peeve of mine.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Negative energy is a neutral energy from a neutral plane. Just like positive energy. They are not aligned, they are just aspects of existence. They have nothing to do with alignment, no matter how destructive they are as an energy.
The rules strongly imply a connection between negative energy and evil:
A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures. An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
They are connected.
In Golarions cosmology Good = Life and Evil = Death.
Same was true for planescape I believe.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
"She is out for herself, pure and simple."
Quote from the Core Rulebook, on the subject of Neutral Evil.Shackling your soul, defying fate, all so you can "live" longer.
All so you can avoid death.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to corrupt your soul.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to defy your own death.
That is self serving, to the extent that it is just about the greediest thing that you could do.
That is self serving, to the extent that you would deny the afterlife you are destined for the soul that you owe it.You seek out undeath, you are serving yourself above all else.
You seek out undeath, you are commiting evil.
Eating a healthy diet to postpone death is also self-serving.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"She is out for herself, pure and simple."
Quote from the Core Rulebook, on the subject of Neutral Evil.Shackling your soul, defying fate, all so you can "live" longer.
All so you can avoid death.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to corrupt your soul.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to defy your own death.
That is self serving, to the extent that it is just about the greediest thing that you could do.
That is self serving, to the extent that you would deny the afterlife you are destined for the soul that you owe it.You seek out undeath, you are serving yourself above all else.
You seek out undeath, you are commiting evil.Eating a healthy diet to postpone death is also self-serving.
You still die when your time is up.
Undeath isn't about postponing the inevitable.It's about avoiding it at all cost.
"She is out for herself, pure and simple."
Quote from the Core Rulebook, on the subject of Neutral Evil.Shackling your soul, defying fate, all so you can "live" longer.
All so you can avoid death.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to corrupt your soul.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to defy your own death.
That is self serving, to the extent that it is just about the greediest thing that you could do.
That is self serving, to the extent that you would deny the afterlife you are destined for the soul that you owe it.You seek out undeath, you are serving yourself above all else.
You seek out undeath, you are commiting evil.Eating a healthy diet to postpone death is also self-serving.
Lots of false equivalencies in this thread. Though that's what Alignment arguments basically are.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
IMO, this whole thing boils down to that If you want a more shades of grey world go ahead, but the game is based on certain things being Black and White.
If you don't like that, change it in your game, or play something else.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Negative energy is a neutral energy from a neutral plane. Just like positive energy. They are not aligned, they are just aspects of existence. They have nothing to do with alignment, no matter how destructive they are as an energy.The rules strongly imply a connection between negative energy and evil:
A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures. An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
Good prefers to heal its allies while Evil prefers to hurt its enemies
Evil can have many shades too. Not all of them are of the pitchest black. Goes for Good too
Too true.
Good deeds done for selfish reasons.Wicked deeds done for just causes.
It's all about extent, context, and rationale.
Raising an undead hoard to protect a village is still an evil action (you are, as I said before, binding their souls after all).
It's just done for a good cause.
If you're willing to resort to such a perverse method of defense, then the action's not really so goodly...
After all, very few villains recognize themselves as such.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Evil can have many shades too. Not all of them are of the pitchest black. Goes for Good tooToo true.
Good deeds done for selfish reasons.
Wicked deeds done for just causes.It's all about extent, context, and rationale.
Raising an undead hoard to protect a village is still an evil action (you are, as I said before, binding their souls after all).
It's just done for a good cause.
If you're willing to resort to such a perverse method of defense, then the action's not really so goodly...After all, very few villains recognize themselves as such.
My TN Cleric of Pharasma would not create undead but she will take control of those she meets and send them to meet her goddess after they help her with her current problems
HWalsh's argument is confirmed by Urgathoa. Her church's policy is essentially "eat, drink, and be merry, for Pharasma cannot touch you". Being a vampire is absolutely the easy way out, the method of avoiding any and all consequences for your actions.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
The undead still die - it's just less predictable how long it will take them to die.
Normally, they last about three rounds of combat, in my experience.
|
Pharasma's will be doneBecause people would let you do that to the king?
My TN Cleric of Pharasma would not create undead but she will take control of those she meets and send them to meet her goddess after they help her with her current problems
That has to do with whether you would try it - nothing to do with whether you could pull it off.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
A Neutral Goddess hating undead doesn't make them Evil.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A Neutral Goddess hating undead doesn't make them Evil.
We have Empyreal Lords of execution, prostitution, and all manner of things that are traditionally considered evil acts but if done the right way can be good. There is not a single Golarion deity with undeath in their portfolio that isn't evil.
Like, you can argue whether or not it should apply to D&D in general, but in Golarion undeath is capital E Evil, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.Undead can't live on animals. Its going to be soylent green time eventually.
Then you become the monster. Otherwise your "monster" is twilight, not a vampire.
Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.
You do realize there are more evil and neutral vampires than god in Twilight, right?
Heck the last two movies are all about the evil ones. Apparently, each Twilight vampire randomly gets some magic power or two.
Heck, Edward's baby has mind control powers as well as being able to create a false reality.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nah, super easy. Just go ask one of the thousands of good vampires in your world. They are, after all, so easy to maintain. You just need to not have been evil after being turned.
They are immortal, powerful, and would be super popular. There would be tons of them. They are more powerful than normal heroes too. Realistically there would be hundreds of thousands of them.
If we're talking about D&D/Pathfinder vampires, that particular state of undeath is one of the least desirable forms of undeath as presented as an option for undeath. You vaporize in sunlight, can't cross running water, have an irritating aversion to holy symbols and garlic, can't approach mirrors, can't enter places without invitations, etc, etc.
Meanwhile, you're making a lot of assumptions about the world I mentioned. In that world, being undead has a lot of negative hype surrounding it due to the fact the world is not a coldly logical place (though it might be better overall if it were) as the vast majority of the world has religious and cultural bias against the undead, mostly due to a longstanding tradition of evil undead villains and the misuse of mindless undead.
Of course, vampires aren't particularly powerful as a given in my world (they're initially a bit stronger than your run of the mill human but it's leagues away from the PF vampire template, where a near equivalent of said template is reserved for especially powerful vampire "lords").
All of that is fairly irrelevant, however, since the fact still remains that in any Pathfinder, there is nothing stopping a vampire from simply not being evil. There's nothing that forces them to do so and no reason that something should. So the point still stands. The hows and whys to how common undead of any sort in a campaign are ultimately left to the writer to decide, but there's no more (and no less) reason to assume that everyone and their neighbor would be vampires than reason to assume that shadows would have wiped out all of humanity already, or that dragons would have enslaved the world already, or that everyone would be a slave to a ruling caste of wizards.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"She is out for herself, pure and simple."
Quote from the Core Rulebook, on the subject of Neutral Evil.
You might want to include the rest of the description there.
Neutral Evil: A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn't have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.
Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
1. to indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated: His words implied a lack of faith.
2.(of words) to signify or mean.
3. to involve as a necessary circumstance: Speech implies a speaker.
THIS IS EVIL.
Shackling your soul, defying fate, all so you can "live" longer.
All so you can avoid death.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to corrupt your soul.
That's self serving, to the extent that you are willing to defy your own death.
That is self serving, to the extent that it is just about the greediest thing that you could do.
That is self serving, to the extent that you would deny the afterlife you are destined for the soul that you owe it.You seek out undeath, you are serving yourself above all else.
You seek out undeath, you are commiting evil.
THIS IS NOT.
You aren't hurting, oppressing, or killing others. You are not evil because of deciding that you aren't going to die. Neither is any wizard who takes the wizard discovery to become immortal.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A Neutral Goddess hating undead doesn't make them Evil.We have Empyreal Lords of execution, prostitution, and all manner of things that are traditionally considered evil acts but if done the right way can be good. There is not a single Golarion deity with undeath in their portfolio that isn't evil.
Like, you can argue whether or not it should apply to D&D in general, but in Golarion undeath is capital E Evil, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
This is also a good reason why we shouldn't let cultural bias or "tropes" muddle what alignment actually means. The vast majority of things simply are not aligned at all.
Golarion's a special snowflake that butts heads with the rules a lot and isn't internally consistent at all, but we have to remember what being evil actually means. It means hurting, oppressing, and killing. And you're not evil unless you're doing those things more than you are being altruistic, protecting life, and being concerned for the dignity of sentient creatures.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I always liked how Eberron handled undead, especially the Elves.
Also, wasn't the half elf half Dragon Lich with the cult, Vol (?) Not evil.
In otherwords as TOZ said, skeletons have not always been evil aligned, same with zombies. I believe that didn't start until 3.5. The closest I believe was it got nudged that good aligned clerics disapproved of it in 2nd ed and I think neutral ones could use it but only on temporary basis. But overall that was it. Gods didn't like it much. Didn't change alignment of anyone else.
Also, good aligned clerics CAN'T cast animate dead, no ifs ands or buts. Not that they aren't allowed, they literally cannot do it.
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one).
They don't fall, it's just literally impossible for them.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You not liking them being evil does not, in fact, make it illogical.
I've heard retorts like this use often on the boards. Why do people here seem to have such a hard time understanding cause and effect? We dislike it because it's illogical.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There's a non evil undead zombie magus or something in the Godsmouth something, something adventure set under Kaer Maga, so you know, shit happens, even on Golarion.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's a non evil undead zombie magus or something in the Godsmouth something, something adventure set under Kaer Maga, so you know, s*~* happens, even on Golarion.
Hence why Golarion is really inconsistent. Undead are evil except when they are not. Yet everyone still holds up the banner that all undead are evil, when even the setting can't keep it's shit together. I mean it has redeemed fiends which you'd think would be infinitely less likely and they still hold this line.
Also for people still going with negative=evil because undead, Positive energy makes people explode. Look at the positive energy plane. Go there, and you detonate, just like going to positive makes you a wraith, going to fire makes you incinerate, water makes you drown, air makes you fall til you hit something and die, and earth makes you go squish. They are elemental planes, they're all inimical to mortal life. But Negative is the evil one?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think, ultimately, that this discussion misses a huge issue that arises from objective alignment; that it's fundamentally impossible.
Evil is a value judgment. There is no way to make a value judgment objectively because applying value is subjective. There's no way around this as there is no God that can make a claim to objectivity in any of the published works that I'm aware of.
Basically, evil and good require subjective evaluation to mean anything.
Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.Undead can't live on animals. Its going to be soylent green time eventually.
Then you become the monster. Otherwise your "monster" is twilight, not a vampire.
Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.
the Nosferatu can live on animal blood
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Golarion's a special snowflake that butts heads with the rules a lot and isn't internally consistent at all, but we have to remember what being evil actually means. It means hurting, oppressing, and killing. And you're not evil unless you're doing those things more than you are being altruistic, protecting life, and being concerned for the dignity of sentient creatures.
Evil isn't about how many times you kick puppies as opposed to how many times you helped old ladies across the street.
It's about the fact that you kick puppies.... period.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not naming names, but certain people should stop posting their opinions as fact and read the rules of the game they're discussing.
I am sick and tired of people with artifact-opinions, dragged with them from former experiences and other roleplaying games. Opinions and biases cobbled together from X units of experience, that they now feel compelled to insist all other people share.
Just read the system. This is not your friend's DnD home-game. This is not that one time where you made that really cool world that should totally have been published professionally, and as a result its rules should apply to all other tables. This is the pathfinder roleplaying game. If you're gonna talk about a part of the game, from an honest fact-sharing position, at least have the common courtesy to read the relevant chapters before you start talking. That way we can cut out the parts where people state objectively wrong, opinionated drivel as gospel, and instead keep the conversation somewhere where disagreements are born of genuinely different interpretations of the written word of the game.
But spare me the made-up collage of tropes and 'classic fantasy values', fabricated in your personal mindscape, that is simply so amazingly cool and obviously superior, that everyone should just accept it as much better than the core assumption of the game. Especially when you're presented with the written word, taken out of the game-book itself, that clearly speaks the intent the game was designed with.
In Pathfinder, undead are not evil by default. The reason for this is that the game says so. =]
-Nearyn