It really depends on timeframe considered.
Chaotic Evil can descend into deeper depravities than the other two - they take the most *joy* in committing evil acts. So in short time horizons, I think they are the most evil.
But... as time horizons lengthen, it is Lawful Evil that pulls ahead - methodically corrupting and destroying people en masse, leaving black stains across the history books.
If you had to spend a day with one of the two, I'd rather suffer the presence of Adolf Hitler than Charles Manson... and yet Hitler is responsible for greater atrocities in the long run.
Then again, one could argue Neutral Evil can be the worst of both worlds...
You could say the lawful good inquisitor hunting down a demon that tortures a poor farmer that harbors said demon for information because it offered a boon to the farmer, and his family in exchange for some minor favor or promise to not kill them.
This is pretty evil considering the farmer only option was help or die then the inquisitor shows up the farmer is relived that help comes. The demon flees with som incriminating parting words leaving the inquisitor duty bound to verify that the farmer, and his family are not in fact cultists of the demon. In all this the inquisitor followed the code of his order and is considering the good of the many out weighing the few.
You could say the lawful good inquisitor hunting down a demon that tortures a poor farmer that harbors said demon for information because it offered a boon to the farmer, and his family in exchange for some minor favor or promise to not kill them.
This is pretty evil considering the farmer only option was help or die then the inquisitor shows up the farmer is relived that help comes. The demon flees with som incriminating parting words leaving the inquisitor duty bound to verify that the farmer, and his family are not in fact cultists of the demon. In all this the inquisitor followed the code of his order and is considering the good of the many out weighing the few.
I don't understand your argument, can you elaborate?
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Logically, it's Neutral Evil.
Let's say that some kind of temptation to do evil is offered, with relatively little risk or cost.
Let's assume that 1% of the time, any given evil character does not do the evil thing, whether due to some whim, twinge of conscience, or some personal reason.
Let's assume that 1% of the time, a Lawful Evil character refrains from the evil because some larger Lawful issue is at stake.
Likewise, the Chaotic character 1% of the time embraces a Chaotic choice that negates the desire to do evil.
The Neutral Evil character exists to do evil whenever it is advantageous, so there is a 0% chance of them not doing evil because of a more powerful principle at work.
So, LE and CE do the evil thing 98% of the time, but the NE character does it 99% of the time. As your alignment includes, in part, the totality of your behavior, and your likely behavior in the future, the NE character is slightly more evil.
More or less alignment is relative to a situation I've played lawful evil characters that have done tremendously good things but then extorted the hell out those that benifitted. I've also played lawful good characters that followed a code of conduct that was good but, so strict that innocents would suffer because they were a minority to those that will be saved.
This is mostly due to when I play a character I put a gritty realism to there outlooks.
Also NE is the only one that's sole motivation for evil is truly this is what I feel needs to be done damn the law or my own personal joy in it evil is necessary I will be its vessel. As I will always believe though evil comes in all alignments as does good it all depends on the players style, and ability to make the realization most situations cause harm to an innocent somewhere.
So here's the problem with the "LE may choose L" and "CE may choose C", at least in my view.
Alignment is DESCRIPTIVE, not PRESCRIPTIVE - that is, a LE character isn't LE and therefore values and acts on both; he's LE because his actions fit a pattern identified as LE. And what that means is that his actions show a lawful MEANS to reach evil ENDS. A CE character is similar - he'll use chaotic MEANS to reach evil ENDS. A neutral character will use any and all means to reach evil ends. But in all three cases, the result is still evil, just a different flavor of evil.
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I vote for NE.
A Lawful character may do Evil because he is just following orders. It's often forgotten that alignment also describes the mooks. They are the guys on the ground who actually pushed the Jews (et al.) into the camps. They didn't get the idea to on their own; they only had the capacity to do it. They needed to orders to have Evil be done.
A Chaotic character might do Evil because he is outright insane. A man who could be described more as a beast than a human - a character like Sabretooth - does as he pleases without truly thinking it through. They could be therefore guided towards non-Evil things through appeals to simple desires like offering money, sex, or food in exchange for restricting kills towards specific undesirables like enemy combatants or criminals.
A Neutral character does Evil only because he wishes to. He may have orders but he can ignore them to do further evil. This can mean torturing or raping a prisoner with being told to. But since they are non-chaotic, they are more likely to forgo a kill to inflict non-lethal cruelties. They extend the Evil in this way.
Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.
Neutral Evil is Pure.
From a Pathfinder Cosmological sense, Daemons are the grandest threat. The Devils would only to rule everything. If everyone perfectly obeyed then they would be happy. The Demons want to destroy things and lives but it will leave some people and things alone so they can rebuild and knock those things down later. There is still life afterward.
It is the Daemon that offers the perfect ideal of Evil: selfish, destructive, and violent. They want to destroy all creation, including themselves. The last Daemon will look upon the emptiness of a universe devoid of creation and know the final peace right before it commits suicide to forever rid the universe of the possibility of Life, Goodness, and Beauty.
That's because CN is "The GM said no CE/Evil". So the player plays CN and then proceeds to kill and eat babies/bathe in the blood of the innocent/recreate the Saw movies, all while convincing everyone else that it's still technically CN so they haven't violated their alignment. Usually dragging everyone else down with them.Chaotic Neutral of course. The others corrupt the game world, but that one corrupts the player.
{. . .}Missed this one before -- actually, with Chaotic Neutral, the corrupt player corrupts the campaign -- at least that was my experience in college, and judging from other posts on these messageboards, my experience was far from unique. Chaotic Neutral played right would be more like Deadpool, but seems like nobody actually does that . . . .
Problem with that idea is that some of these players do this even when the DM never actually said No Evil Characters . . . .
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I vote for NE.
A Lawful character may do Evil because he is just following orders. It's often forgotten that alignment also describes the mooks. They are the guys on the ground who actually pushed the Jews (et al.) into the camps. They didn't get the idea to on their own; they only had the capacity to do it. They needed to orders to have Evil be done.
A Chaotic character might do Evil because he is outright insane. A man who could be described more as a beast than a human - a character like Sabretooth - does as he pleases without truly thinking it through. They could be therefore guided towards non-Evil things through appeals to simple desires like offering money, sex, or food in exchange for restricting kills towards specific undesirables like enemy combatants or criminals.
A Neutral character does Evil only because he wishes to. He may have orders but he can ignore them to do further evil. This can mean torturing or raping a prisoner with being told to. But since they are non-chaotic, they are more likely to forgo a kill to inflict non-lethal cruelties. They extend the Evil in this way.
Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.Neutral Evil is Pure.
From a Pathfinder Cosmological sense, Daemons are the grandest threat. The Devils would only to rule everything. If everyone perfectly obeyed then they would be happy. The Demons want to destroy things and lives but it will leave some people and things alone so they can rebuild and knock those things down later. There is still life afterward.
It is the Daemon that offers the perfect ideal of Evil: selfish, destructive, and violent. They want to destroy all creation, including themselves. The last Daemon will look upon the emptiness of a universe devoid of creation and know the final peace right before it commits suicide to forever rid the universe of the possibility of Life, Goodness, and Beauty.
Great post.
It seems there are two main schools of thought on this.
1) all evil alignments are equally evil, they differ only in method not evilness.
2) neutral evil is the most evil because it has no chaotic or lawful distractions.
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Thing is, that Daemon goal of nothingness also leads to a universe without the possibility of cruelty, domination, or suffering. Which arguably reinforces that the Daemons are as influenced by their Neutral alignment as Devils are by their Lawful alignment, and are just seeking an Evil path to a balance that can never again be disturbed.
I'd say that Lawful Evil is the worst evil, or at least in Golarion Devils are, because they don't want to destroy everything like Daemons and Demons. They want to make everything else as Evil as they are. If Daemons have their way, its a universe where nothing can ever suffer again. If Demons have their way, its just a continuing cycle of innocent victims to destroy for fun. But if Devils get what they want, all the multitudes of every plane will be as Evil as the most vile Pit Fiend, and creation will know nothing else.
Though ultimately the greatest threat are the Neutrals. I mean with enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals? Who knows. And what drives those Neutrals? Lust for gold? Power? Or were they just born with hearts full of Neutrality...
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I would say that destroying everything isn't a drive to bring balance, it's bringing Evil to it's logical end, the complete destruction of everything that ever was, is, and will be.
It's the ultimate murder.
Balance through murder is still balance.
And I just can't accept the idea that an Evil that accepts an end to suffering can take the crown of Most Evilest. Its the Evil that never allows an end and never allows for anything but itself that gets my vote.
That, or those filthy Neutrals...
Good can never get a chance to rise or challenge Evil again if there's no Good. Or Evil. Or universe.
{. . .}
Great post.It seems there are two main schools of thought on this.
1) all evil alignments are equally evil, they differ only in method not evilness.
2) neutral evil is the most evil because it has no chaotic or lawful distractions.
I am in between: Evil alignments are close to each other in Evilness, but Neutral Evil gets a bit of an edge for having no Chaotic or Lawful distractions. Hence my vote for a slightly bowed out square alignment graph with rounded corners.
{. . .}
It is the Daemon that offers the perfect ideal of Evil: selfish, destructive, and violent. They want to destroy all creation, including themselves. The last Daemon will look upon the emptiness of a universe devoid of creation and know the final peace right before it commits suicide to forever rid the universe of the possibility of Life, Goodness, and Beauty.
Or alternatively, it remakes creation in its image, like Amon in the In Utter Darkness timeline of the StarCraft universe . . . .
{. . .}
It is the Daemon that offers the perfect ideal of Evil: selfish, destructive, and violent. They want to destroy all creation, including themselves. The last Daemon will look upon the emptiness of a universe devoid of creation and know the final peace right before it commits suicide to forever rid the universe of the possibility of Life, Goodness, and Beauty.Or alternatively, it remakes creation in its image, like Amon in the In Utter Darkness timeline of the StarCraft universe . . . .
Right but they don't want that. There is nothing to create from after oblivion. The Demon might allow for such a thing. They see a beautiful sand castle and knock it down for fun. Some goody-two-shoes builds another castle out of the sand leftover. The Daemon destroys the castle, the sand, the beach, the ocean, the planet, the multiverse until there is no possible way to build another sand castle ever again.
Well, it depends. Some of them might want their type of sand castle, but do everything they can to make sure that nobody else can ever build a sand castle.
If you read the lore about Amon in the StarCraft universe, he does sound an awful lot like a Daemon, except that he wants to remake the universe in his image (or at least that's what he says some of the time), even though he seems to want to destroy everything that has existed up to that point (except, of course, himself) to get there.
Perhaps he is neutral evil without being the ultimate in neutral evil?
^Of course, you can't be sure about how truthful the Daemons themselves are . . . .
Good point!
I think neutral evil is the most evil, however I also think many people get called chaotic evil when they're neutral evil, just because they act really crazy.
Neutral doesn't care about the law, chaotic people would be people who WANT to specifically bring down the system.
so anyone acting out crazy evil actions because they simply want to should be called neutral evil, not chaotic evil. Chaotic evil has the law as an enemy, neutral evil just thinks of it as a hindrance.
like the crazy raiders from mad max type stuff.
Neutral evil, they have rudimentary systems to keep a basic order, they're not trying to improve thigns but they're not all trying to kill each other or the bossed just because he's the leader or higher up. They do it because they want to be promoted/grudge, nothing chaotic about it.
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^No, that's Lawful Stupid, not Lawful Good. It's easy to get those mixed up.
It is interesting that nobody has put forward an argument that Chaotic Evil is the most evil alignment in this thread.
I have seen it stated in other threads in these forums that Lawful Evil is the least evil and Chaotic Evil the most evil.
It is interesting that nobody has put forward an argument that Chaotic Evil is the most evil alignment in this thread.
I have seen it stated in other threads in these forums that Lawful Evil is the least evil and Chaotic Evil the most evil.
it's because you asked the question in the opposite direction.
if you lined up 3 people, said which was worse and then told people to give them an alignment, I almost assure you in a vacuum most people would put the worst people as CE.
like i said, people seem to attach chaotic evil to people who aren't even that chaotic.
^I thought somebody did, although I could be getting this thread mixed up with another one. The way the various alignments are described in the various D&D/PF books, including the Paladin/Antipaladin dichotomy, sure makes it seem that the various designers at least feel that way subconsciously even if they won't say it directly. (And remember that for a while Basic D&D had a single-axis alignment system, Lawful to Chaotic, where Law was mostly equated with Good, and Chaos was mostly equated with Evil.) Part of it seems to be instinctual -- after all, dystopian regimes (not limited to governments) wanting a populist appeal brand themselves as representing "Law and Order" candidates, even when they are actually Neutral Evil (or less commonly, Chaotic Evil).
"Tammy" described Chaotic Evil but made no case for it being better or worse than the other ones.
The basic D&D alignment system was better (more logical). The current system with law/chaos on a separate axis to good/evil appears to lead to a contradiction.
the only regime I can think of that could be chaotic evil would be the mongols with a MAYBE on the French Revolutionary government that ended up being headed by Napoleon.
The Mongols didn't try to oppress the people they conquered too hard, just made them pay taxes and then they actually forcibly moved people who wee useful into locations where they could be used, forcing cultural pollination through Russia all the way into Europe. For instance they didn't force any of their beliefs on anyone they conquered, they really didn't care what or who you were so long as you could help them.
France did about as much the same thing, only using people's merit instead of status to determine who would lead.
they both were extremely bloody though with no care for human life in their way.
beyond that, I don't think any "regimes" can be really called chaotic evil.
Several failed states and rebel groups could probably be reasonably described as Chaotic Evil. Any organization stems not from a concept of building something greater than one's self, but simply from a combination of fear, force, and cult of personality. Such characteristics sometimes extend to actual regimes, although such things (like the Khmer Rouge) tend to be more on the Chaotic side of Neutral Evil -- in PlaneScape they would belong to Tarterus (Carceri) rather than the Abyss.
Several failed states and rebel groups could probably be reasonably described as Chaotic Evil. Any organization stems not from a concept of building something greater than one's self, but simply from a combination of fear, force, and cult of personality. Such characteristics sometimes extend to actual regimes, although such things (like the Khmer Rouge) tend to be more on the Chaotic side of Neutral Evil -- in PlaneScape they would belong to Tarterus (Carceri) rather than the Abyss.
those regimes would not be CE, for them to CE they'd have to support somewhat chaotic ideas. rebel groups sure. but they're not really regimes.
Chaos empowers the merits of the individual, and cult of personality really don't do anything like that at all. An organization staying in power through fear is simply evil because it simply has no care about law and order, it neither wishes to enforce them nor see them dismantled.
truly chaotic evil empires and nations stem from a freeing force that is extremely bloody. You simply don't see those show up too often.
Napoleon for instance redistributed lands from wealthy elites to men serving in his military, he purposefully tried to alter the status quo to a more populous orientation. Though if you saw what happened to those elites who resisted...
^Chaotic Evil (including some cults of personality) empower the merits of the individual who can take them for themselves. Everybody else is just out of luck. Chaotic Evil promises freedom . . . but like other forms of Evil, doesn't deliver to the overwhelming majority of adherents.
^Chaotic Evil (including some cults of personality) empower the merits of the individual who can take them for themselves. Everybody else is just out of luck. Chaotic Evil promises freedom . . . but like other forms of Evil, doesn't deliver to the overwhelming majority of adherents.
this is a regime common in movies and no where else.
unless you mean Laissez-faire capitalism(bud-dum-tiss)
anyway, the reason this doesn't exist in history for the most part, is because generally you have 1 leader, and his friends, everyone else is out of luck. Then you immediately from then on have a lawful evil aristocracy. making laws to promote the status quo.
AKA, there's 1 instance of chaos, never long term chaos.
to be clear, the cloests example of this I can think of is the lords encompassing the Holy Roman Empire during it's first half of existence or so. In which everyone from france to germany was basically a vassal of the holy roman empire, except nobody cared and he basically just had to protect them from outside forces. So the princes didn't have anyone to interact with but other vassals and it was basically a constant setting of turmoil and land grabs. Though bloodshed was relatively low since army sized during that time were pretty small, since people might control only a few acres to territories that you might see on a map...
The Holy Roman Emperor for reference usually had over 300 direct vassals. It was a legalistic nightmare trying to keep up with everyone's claims to land and so it was chaotic.
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Who is the most evil?
A hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Ville and Sauron.
Alternative answer, whoever casts the most Infernal Healings per day.
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I vote for NE.
A Lawful character may do Evil because he is just following orders. It's often forgotten that alignment also describes the mooks. They are the guys on the ground who actually pushed the Jews (et al.) into the camps. They didn't get the idea to on their own; they only had the capacity to do it. They needed to orders to have Evil be done.
A Chaotic character might do Evil because he is outright insane. A man who could be described more as a beast than a human - a character like Sabretooth - does as he pleases without truly thinking it through. They could be therefore guided towards non-Evil things through appeals to simple desires like offering money, sex, or food in exchange for restricting kills towards specific undesirables like enemy combatants or criminals.
A Neutral character does Evil only because he wishes to. He may have orders but he can ignore them to do further evil. This can mean torturing or raping a prisoner with being told to. But since they are non-chaotic, they are more likely to forgo a kill to inflict non-lethal cruelties. They extend the Evil in this way.
That's pretty much my view on it.
A Lawful Evil character could think of himself as a necessary evil, or even a cruel, but fair, tyrant, saving the people from themselves, or making 'hard, but necessary' sacrifices to save his nation, his race, etc. from external threats. Someone's got to make the hard choices, or the *real* bad-guys will win. The Asmodeans in Cheliax think of themselves as a thin red-and-black line against anarchy and chaos and the sort of horrible stuff going on in Galt. Some are quite happy being bad-guys, and yet plenty of them are quite capable of the mental gymnastics required to think of themselves as the only sane option in a world full of stuff that literally eats people.
A Neutral Evil character has no 'greater good' excuse for their behavior. They aren't 'being a firm leader' or 'making the hard choices,' they are straight up doing what they do out of unalloyed greed, selfishness, etc. They aren't hurting or exploiting people in service to some greater agenda, or out of violent whim (like a more chaotic evil sort), but simply because it benefits them personally.
I feel the same way about Lawful Good, Chaotic Good and Neutral Good. A chaotic good individual might free a bunch of slaves, because 'slavery bad,' but leave the newly freed people in a worse state than they were before. A Lawful Good person might turn their head and be unwilling to act against laws that are cruel.
^Chaotic Evil (including some cults of personality) empower the merits of the individual who can take them for themselves. Everybody else is just out of luck. Chaotic Evil promises freedom . . . but like other forms of Evil, doesn't deliver to the overwhelming majority of adherents.
this is a regime common in movies and no where else.
{. . .}
AKA, there's 1 instance of chaos, never long term chaos.to be clear, the cloests example of this I can think of is the lords encompassing the Holy Roman Empire during it's first half of existence or so. {. . .}
Another example that lasted over 2 decades: Somalia during the time between collapse into anarchy (1991) and the takeover by the current government (2012).
people misunderstand warlords. They act like fuedal lords, offering "protection" in exchange for servitude.
besides anarchy isn't really chaotic, it's simply chaos that's happening. somalia more neutral evil if anything shifting toward chaotic neutral.
to give understanding to my point of view.
A chaotic evil assassin, it's one who does his work randomly, but say one who would never take jobs from entrenched elites, or whatever, maybe they only try to kill Elites, maybe they just target heads of state because they're heads of state and thus wrong. If the assassin killed the head of state simply to make a name for them self, or they wanted to personally, they're neutral evil.
people misunderstand warlords. They act like fuedal lords, offering "protection" in exchange for servitude.
besides anarchy isn't really chaotic, it's simply chaos that's happening. somalia more neutral evil if anything shifting toward chaotic neutral.
In between Neutral Evil and Chaotic Neutral is . . . Chaotic Evil (if you stay near the rim of the alignment graph).
to give understanding to my point of view.
A chaotic evil assassin, it's one who does his work randomly, but say one who would never take jobs from entrenched elites, or whatever, maybe they only try to kill Elites, maybe they just target heads of state because they're heads of state and thus wrong. If the assassin killed the head of state simply to make a name for them self, or they wanted to personally, they're neutral evil.
A Chaotic Evil Assassin kills when they feel like it. They could even take jobs from the entrenched elites if they felt like it, but would have no qualms about taking jobs against them (possibly at the same time if they felt confident enough). But they might also kill outside their jobs if they felt like it.
people misunderstand warlords. They act like fuedal lords, offering "protection" in exchange for servitude.
besides anarchy isn't really chaotic, it's simply chaos that's happening. somalia more neutral evil if anything shifting toward chaotic neutral.
In between Neutral Evil and Chaotic Neutral is . . . Chaotic Evil (if you stay near the rim of the alignment graph).
to give understanding to my point of view.
A chaotic evil assassin, it's one who does his work randomly, but say one who would never take jobs from entrenched elites, or whatever, maybe they only try to kill Elites, maybe they just target heads of state because they're heads of state and thus wrong. If the assassin killed the head of state simply to make a name for them self, or they wanted to personally, they're neutral evil.
A Chaotic Evil Assassin kills when they feel like it. They could even take jobs from the entrenched elites if they felt like it, but would have no qualms about taking jobs against them (possibly at the same time if they felt confident enough). But they might also kill outside their jobs if they felt like it.
nah it's as much TN as CE, besides they're aiming for a straight jump, they won't slide into democracy and federalism, it just simply will be that way after the constitutions was ratified.
----
no a neutral evil assassin kills when ever he feels like it. chaos is an active opposition to law, if law is simply a hindrance then they have no strong feelings on law or chaos. they neither support nor refute law. to NE Law may be opposed to their behavior, but they're not opposed to law itself only actions against their desired behavior.
here's my point a chaotic person to me isn't 0 Law, it's -100 law if lawful is 100 law.
An assassin kills as he pleases and can simply slink away after he's killed, law is not something he opposes. to be chaotic they have to actively perform chaotic actions, and killing for fun is just neutral evil, if they only did that they'd stay neutral evil.
A neutral evil assassin will kill as he pleases whether law is there or not. (money can make them very pleased to kill someone)
A chaotic evil assassin would differ in aiming toward more lawful targets, and would have issues serving the interests of a lawful patron.
If you get my difference between them.
I see Neutral Evil Assassins as being more into killing for profit and/or to bring absolute ruin to the world. If they enjoy their job, so much the better for them, but both outside regulation and personal desires take a back seat to destruction (for either or both purposes).
I see Chaotic Evil Assassins as more capricious, although they can still do what they do for profit.
Either one could take a job from a Lawful employer, although the Chaotic Evil one would probably be a lot more nervous about potential entrapment into some kind of scheme when they just want to be "a dog chasing cars" (like Heath Ledger's Joker -- excellent portrayal of Chaotic Evil, by the way).
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@ Bandw2
If chaotic evil is defined by their opposition to law that makes their actions predictable and not chaotic at all.
What you are describing as neutral evil (acting on a whim with no rhyme or reason) sounds more like chaotic evil to me.
The instant you quantify evil, you begin to become it.
A hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Ville and Sauron.