Currently playing a cleric of Gorum and in the Inner Sea God's PDF there is a picture of a temple of Gorum. The temple has trail markers lining the road that have heads on pikes. Most likely from enemies slew in combat. My cleric is Chaotic Good. Probably bordering on Chaotic Neutral. If he was to take the heads off the bodies of his foes and set them up in the area the battle took place would that be an evil act? Or would it be an honorable one to honor Gorum? I had done it before with bugbears and my DM said it was being questionable. The second time I wanted to try to do so was against worshipers of Norgorber. That time he said I was pushing it. I just want others interpretation on it. I know GM has rule 0 but this is just for myself as well in the future should I run a game with Gorumites.
Not a rules question, the rules don't detail things like this.
Totally GM call.
Evil? Well it's certainly not good.
If it is allowed (legally) in the area you are in, then probably not evil (assuming a non-evil kingdom).
Applying modern ideas to a mythical medieval setting is silly.
If the law allowed it, and someone attempted to repeatedly invade my home, I would ABSOLUTELY start putting heads on pikes as a warning.
Nothing evil about defending your family.
So, context matters, but no, I wouldn't call it evil without knowing more of the context.
Clerics of Gorum would have no problems as Gorum is CN. You however are chaotic good and that may be where the problem lies.
We were not defending a family or anything. For the bugbears we were ambushed by them on our way to our destination. After battle I took their heads and put them on pikes in the area we fought them.
For the worshipers of Norgorber we found a hideout of them and attacked them in their dining room. After the battle I went to get some javelins ready to set their heads on them and my DM said it was an evil act.
I don't see it as necessarily evil or good, but instead more neutral.
It's not evil, as it really isn't directly harming any (living) being, nor is it causing someone to suffer needlessly (beyond the intimidating factor, but is Intimidate evil?).
But it's certainly not a good act.
A Chaotic Neutral god like Gorum would most likely see it as honoring the dead by immortalizing their remains, while also proclaiming your victory over your enemies.
It's no different than hanging your flag on a flagpole somewhere to show that you have won, although it is a bit more gruesome.
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Why it should be an evil act?
Questionable hygiene and bad smell? Sure.
Evil? I don't see why. In a world where raise dead exist removing the head of the enemy and taking it away is a logic act, it make raising the dead more difficult.
Sure, it is not a good act but unless you are a member of a religion that feel that a body should be buried whole and that any damage done to it will be reflected in the afterlife I don't see why this act should be defined evil.
I think it stems from a modern idea of anything that brutal cannot possibly be good, and must be evil.
However, this is not Earth, 2016. This is Golarion, where quite a few of the rules are different.
We were not defending a family or anything. For the bugbears we were ambushed by them on our way to our destination. After battle I took their heads and put them on pikes in the area we fought them.
For the worshipers of Norgorber we found a hideout of them and attacked them in their dining room. After the battle I went to get some javelins ready to set their heads on them and my DM said it was an evil act.
I would say you reacted to an ambush. Local law in the area would likely have resulted in their execution had they been caught and tried in court...
So you really just carried out an inevitable sentence, saving the taxpayers a lot of time and money.
Your GM needs to lighten up, he's applying too much modern thinking to a fantasy game.
Now, if you dismembered them and, say, ATE parts... that's different.
In every game I play in, I make a point of getting my characters deputized/have something in writing that essentially gives them a limited ability to kill (a la Judge Dredd). If the locals are going to consider us evil for defending their town, we leave them to die.
Good luck, jerks.
The locals in the area are Hellknights. Were just outside of Fort Inevitable and heading to the Emerald Spire. So I could see the first being okay. It was the second with human worshipers of Norgorber that he had a problem with. Since I was beheading them and piking them in the room we found them in. But i figured Gorum would be fine with it since he detests Norgorber. That and the temple picture to back it up.
The locals in the area are Hellknights. Were just outside of Fort Inevitable and heading to the Emerald Spire. So I could see the first being okay. It was the second with human worshipers of Norgorber that he had a problem with. Since I was beheading them and piking them in the room we found them in. But i figured Gorum would be fine with it since he detests Norgorber. That and the temple picture to back it up.
It's highly subjective. Essentially, if your GM has a problem with the piking, he should absolutely DETEST the murders even more.
I mean seriously, adventurers are repeat violent offenders.
Running around murdering dozens, if not HUNDREDS of sentient creatures in their travels. Employing swords and spells to end lives. Sometimes horrible things that just outright KILL people (Phantasmal Killer, for example).
Cutting off some heads and posting them as a warning to others that may wish to attack you is really just being proactive, and trying to REDUCE the amount of death (because every one creature you scare off with this tactic is one more soul that lives another day).
Right?
If your GM gives you a hassle about the piking, have your character refuse to kill things, because murder is a WAY more serious crime than desecrating a corpse, in any era.
We were not defending a family or anything. For the bugbears we were ambushed by them on our way to our destination. After battle I took their heads and put them on pikes in the area we fought them.
For the worshipers of Norgorber we found a hideout of them and attacked them in their dining room. After the battle I went to get some javelins ready to set their heads on them and my DM said it was an evil act.
Solidly neutral at worst. Norgorber cultists are generally considered Very Bad People, as are bugbears. If your warning deters bugbears in the area from further ambushes I'd say you did the locals a favor. Evil is a real tangible thing in Pathfinder; it's got none of the real shades of grey we have here IRL.
A paladin might even do the same. Is it honorable to put your enemies heads on a pike? Depends on your definition of honor; it's not lying or using poison as per the code, deosnt even rise to that level really. Is it evil? Not unless your in a world where dismemberment disqualifies you from a your afterlife or something. Is it yucky and distasteful though?
Most likely, but not evil.
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Yeah...why would this be Evil?
Despoiling the bodies of your enemies is usually considered morally on par with looting them in most real-world cultures. Given how Pathfinder works, that's probably not Evil.
In many regions it will be looked at as horrible, and counter to the dominant culture, and it thus might be Chaotic...but Evil? Nah.
Evil 'implies hurting, oppressing, or killing others'...putting heads on pikes can be used to hurt or oppress, but the act isn't inherently either of those things, so it's morally neutral.
Even the British did it, I wouldn't call them evil...
IMO it is neutral to evil, but within the dictates of your deities will. It could cause suffering to the families of the dead, so if you are ok with that.... As a DM, in my campaign I would have little problem with such corpse desecration as long as the other characters are ok with it and you don't cause suffering to innocents. So depending on the context it could be evil. My suggestion, ask your DM.
Evil? Well it's certainly not good.
Doesnt make it evil.
There is a whole wide area of deeds and actions that are simply neutral. Not extreme enough to be considered Good or Evil, or Lawful or Chaotic.
It's not the action of a Good person as you're not allowing your enemies to be buried by the survivors. Or to be buried intact at all. It's nothing less than a brutal act of dominance as one of the typical moves of any tyrant is to display the heads of his executed enemies.
It'd be an act of horriffic cruelty in Greek culture of the classical heroes as without proper burial of a complete body the spirit becomes restless undead. Which is why what Achillies does to Hector's corpse is considered so horrific. (When Priam comes to request his son's body for burial, Achilles takes pains to hide the abuse he put it through dragging it around the walls of Troy.)
But then again Gorum doesn't give a rats tooth about Good and Evil, which is though while the one-step alignment rule is kosher, it's not always equally appropriate. CE and CN clerics of Gorum make sense, CG Gorumites are a much harder concept to wrap my head around. Good characters desire an end to war. Gorumites however never want the fighting to stop.
If you have to ask if a given action is evil, it's probably not something that a Good character should be listing as Standard Operating Procedure.
Evil? Probably not.
Good? Definitely not.
Neutral? Mostly likely.
What exactly would be evil about it? Whom is the act harming? The heads of the fallen are already dead, it does not cause them further harm. At most it is an act of intimidation to display the heads of your fallen enemies. But that isn't evil. I can't think of any particular reason why this would be evil.
Now, I would consider it strongly neutral, and I would still say that if you persisted in such activities long enough you would stop being CG and start being CN. Given the number of times you've done this, as a GM I might tell you that you aren't good anymore (but you wouldn't need to worry about falling to evil for this particular action).
Evil? Well it's certainly not good.Doesnt make it evil.
There is a whole wide area of deeds and actions that are simply neutral. Not extreme enough to be considered Good or Evil, or Lawful or Chaotic.
Exactly. I just don't think a good character would do it, or if he did it would in response to a great atrocity, or if he did he would later regret it.
Heads of executed criminals were displayed on London Bridge until 1772. The authorities in Britain would have considered themselves Lawful and probably Good too.
Cultures change. What we find offensive now is not necessarily so in a different setting. A GM and group of players should decide what sort of setting they are happy in and rule accordingly.
Heads of executed criminals were displayed on London Bridge until 1772. The authorities in Britain would have considered themselves Lawful and probably Good too.
Charles Dickens, among others would beg to differ. And again I really doubt that the folks of the 18th century would be defining themselves by alignment. They'd be defining themselves as the ones in charge and that their God-given right to be in charge was proven by the fact that they were in charge.
This didn't stop others in the same time period from pointing out the truth, although they frequently paid dearly for it.
It's probably neutral and culturally appropriate for a Gorumite. I'd expect other characters to have their own views and reservations. Just because you can doesn't automatically suggest you should :)
RedDingo, if you're talking about the film The Two Towers, it was one orc head after the orcs had invaded the rohirim's land. Perhaps the quantity of heads is not important, but I wanted to put that into context. I don't think it's the same as lining a road.