So my party and I are stuck. We can not determine my Wyrwoods alignment. The running theme is he is just cold and logical and cultural taboos really go over his head. So far we have just said he is true neutral but he's doing things that are questionable to say the least.
For example should he die he expects others to recycle him so that another Wyrwood may be "born" of his scrap. But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon. And that is kind of the tip of the iceberg of the things he "recycles". We can't beat the logic of it but we are wondering if intent is more important than social constructs when determining alignment. Its okay if he ends up being evil but it kinda matters for summoning and some spells. At this point I am just hoping to go mythic so I can take beyond morality and forget about it.
My take on the RAW of this. Good and Evil are universal truths, not cultural norms, this is why detect spells don't care about culture, and smite evil works regardless, and alignment can shift regardless of who is watching. Loser case good and evil is cultural etc...
This is the only way I can fit logic with strict RAW, as with all.things alignment there will be as many table variants as tables.
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Lizard folk are a generally neutral race, but the bestiary notes they... 'recycle'.
The justification is that the swamps are a hard place to live and... well... why let good meat go to waste?
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Does he ever take risks to help strangers? If so: probably good.
Does he hurt innocent people for selfish reasons? If so: probably evil.
Does he use 'Evil' aligned spells a lot?
If so, he's using the power of Evil, which could cause him to turn evil according to the Ultimate Horror rules.
Note that recycling people into a flesh golem isn't Evil in that way; it's tampering with the forces of Undeath that messes with your soul.
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Yup, social contracts and taboos have nothing inherent to do with Good and Evil in Pathfinder. Good and Evil are absolute truths of the universe.
Recycling things is not Evil in most cases...but is in the specific case of Animate Dead, because that's actually, on a metaphysical level, preventing their soul from moving on and actually being recycled. Frankly, someone into recycling is gonna have even more problems with undeath than most people if they understand the metaphysics at all. Undead also tend to try and murder people when left unattended so it's also the equivalent of polluting the environment with deadly refuse.
Really, creating undead is Evil for lots of sound reasons.
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It could just be that he misunderstands how squishies get recycled. When they die, they are eaten by scavengers, worms and moulds, which in turn are eaten by others, until they end up nourishing whatever is at the top of the food chain. If he understands this principle, he may stop trying to pervert it with necromancy.
So my party and I are stuck. We can not determine my Wyrwoods alignment. The running theme is he is just cold and logical and cultural taboos really go over his head. So far we have just said he is true neutral but he's doing things that are questionable to say the least.
For example should he die he expects others to recycle him so that another Wyrwood may be "born" of his scrap. But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon. And that is kind of the tip of the iceberg of the things he "recycles". We can't beat the logic of it but we are wondering if intent is more important than social constructs when determining alignment. Its okay if he ends up being evil but it kinda matters for summoning and some spells. At this point I am just hoping to go mythic so I can take beyond morality and forget about it.
As others have said, the means he is using to recycle is important. Using Animate Dead means he's using [Evil] means to do so, making him Neutral Evil. If he's using simple Craft Construct feats and treating corpses he finds/comes across as crafting materials isn't exactly Evil, but isn't really Good either, making him True Neutral.
Honestly, the most good way for him to recycle would be using Raise Dead/Resurrection spells. But, that's expensive, and he probably doesn't consider it an option since it's something he can't benefit from, and because it's not really recycling. I mean, Reincarnation would be the closest thing to it, which is a lot less expensive, so that might be something he can consider using.
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But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon.
It doesn't have to be necromancy.
Animate Objects on corpses works to recycle and is less evil (though definitely frowned upon by many cultures).
But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon.It doesn't have to be necromancy.
Animate Objects on corpses works to recycle and is less evil (though definitely frowned upon by many cultures).
Would love to do that instead but Animate objects is not on the Wizard spell list for some reason. I still think that is an oversight and as far as I know you cannot get it though the ring or other such items.
Would love to do that instead but Animate objects is not on the Wizard spell list for some reason. I still think that is an oversight and as far as I know you cannot get it though the ring or other such items.But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon.It doesn't have to be necromancy.
Animate Objects on corpses works to recycle and is less evil (though definitely frowned upon by many cultures).
Perhaps possess object instead? Lets you use the corpses of your enemy for things you don't want to do with your real body.
So my party and I are stuck. We can not determine my Wyrwoods alignment. The running theme is he is just cold and logical and cultural taboos really go over his head. So far we have just said he is true neutral but he's doing things that are questionable to say the least.
For example should he die he expects others to recycle him so that another Wyrwood may be "born" of his scrap. But when he does this to squishy things its called necromancy and its generally frowned upon. And that is kind of the tip of the iceberg of the things he "recycles". We can't beat the logic of it but we are wondering if intent is more important than social constructs when determining alignment. Its okay if he ends up being evil but it kinda matters for summoning and some spells. At this point I am just hoping to go mythic so I can take beyond morality and forget about it.
It seems that your character falls under the criteria of the Blue and Orange morality. Just roll along with True Neutral and don't take a big sweat over it if the rest of the table is fine with it.