As far as I'm concerned, creating mindless undead is a form of desecrating a corpse. Bodies should be laid to rest in the way considered proper by the deceased's religion, not forced to stagger about and obey commands from a wizard. Desecrating a corpse is an evil act, regardless of that corpse's actions in life. It has been considered a grave misdeed in every culture in human history, so why wouldn't that hold true in a fantasy world? Yes, I can see a very few specific instances in which it may be considered tolerable to raise a zombie or skeleton (using them to fight off a greater threat, using them to train people to fight undead), but even then it would be considered an act of desperation or absolute necessity, not a normal every day occurrence.And what if the culture is pro-undead?
A culture being for something doesn't make it right, good, or proper.
Aztec culture was pro-human sacrifice and pro sacrifice the losing sports team. Doesn't make it good.
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If Animate Dead is evil because you don't follow the normal cycle of life (life then death then life instead of life then death), then Resurection should be evil too because this breaks the normal cycle of life juste as much as Animate Dead (life then death then life instead of life then death). We may argue that you need the creature's permission for Resurection, but still. Resurrecting someone, even with their permission, is a perversion of the cycle of life, no matter how you do it.Cycle of Souls, not life. Resurrection doesn't damage the soul.Neither does animate dead though. Your soul is just peachy.
Also raise dead, resurrection and such do damage the soul. That's what the Negative Levels/Con Drain is supposed to represent.
Actually no since you need True Resurrection to be brought back if you’re turned into an undead, do you not? I’d have to go look through the River of Souls article again but I think it’s expanded upon there.
Also, Con Drain/Life Energy =/= soul
If Animate Dead is evil because you don't follow the normal cycle of life (life then death then life instead of life then death), then Resurection should be evil too because this breaks the normal cycle of life juste as much as Animate Dead (life then death then life instead of life then death). We may argue that you need the creature's permission for Resurection, but still. Resurrecting someone, even with their permission, is a perversion of the cycle of life, no matter how you do it.Cycle of Souls, not life. Resurrection doesn't damage the soul.Neither does animate dead though. Your soul is just peachy.
Also raise dead, resurrection and such do damage the soul. That's what the Negative Levels/Con Drain is supposed to represent.
Actually no since you need True Resurrection to be brought back if you’re turned into an undead, do you not? I’d have to go look through the River of Souls article again but I think it’s expanded upon there.
Also, Con Drain/Life Energy =/= soul
Both resurrection and true resurrection can return you to life even if your body was made into an undead creature, but only if the creature was destroyed. I assume raise dead can't because destroying the undead creature would destroy the body and you need it whole for the spell, but it's unclear.
Only intelligent undead have souls (or rather, are souls, if we're talking about intelligent incorporeal undead). And those do indeed go against the Cycle of Souls, but mindless undead (which is what you make with animate dead) are soul-less and don't interfere at all.
Also note that the "Progression of Souls" part of the River of Souls article makes no mention whatsoever about resurrection. You can yoink them out of it at certain points, but that's not actually part of the cycle. You're messing with it just as much as a Lich is.
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If Animate Dead is evil because you don't follow the normal cycle of life (life then death then life instead of life then death), then Resurection should be evil too because this breaks the normal cycle of life juste as much as Animate Dead (life then death then life instead of life then death). We may argue that you need the creature's permission for Resurection, but still. Resurrecting someone, even with their permission, is a perversion of the cycle of life, no matter how you do it.Cycle of Souls, not life. Resurrection doesn't damage the soul.Neither does animate dead though. Your soul is just peachy.
Also raise dead, resurrection and such do damage the soul. That's what the Negative Levels/Con Drain is supposed to represent.
Actually no since you need True Resurrection to be brought back if you’re turned into an undead, do you not? I’d have to go look through the River of Souls article again but I think it’s expanded upon there.
Also, Con Drain/Life Energy =/= soul
Both resurrection and true resurrection can return you to life even if your body was made into an undead creature, but only if the creature was destroyed. I assume raise dead can't because destroying the undead creature would destroy the body and you need it whole for the spell, but it's unclear.
Only intelligent undead have souls (or rather, are souls, if we're talking about intelligent incorporeal undead). And those do indeed go against the Cycle of Souls, but mindless undead (which is what you make with animate dead) are soul-less and don't interfere at all.
Also note that the "Progression of Souls" part of the River of Souls article makes no mention whatsoever about resurrection. You can yoink them out of it at certain points, but that's not actually part of the cycle. You're messing with it just as much as a Lich is.
Except you’re not, as you stated it doesn’t talk about resurrection. But it does talk, however lightly, about an undead and the soul that formed them, referring to them as Delinquent Souls. There is no such stigma or caution attributed to Resurrecting/Reincarnating.
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Resurrected/raised people are still mortal, and will die in time if only of old age. The same is not true of undead
Except you’re not, as you stated it doesn’t talk about resurrection. But it does talk, however lightly, about an undead and the soul that formed them, referring to them as Delinquent Souls. There is no such stigma or caution attributed to Resurrecting/Reincarnating.
A Lich/Ghost/Ghoul/what have you is essentially between steps 1 and 2 of the cycle, for however long that is. When you resu/raise/reincarnate/whatever, you're yoinking them from the cycle at any step 2-5. Then they have to restart the cycle from there all over again if/when they eventually die.
Note that reincarnate can totally bring you back if you died of old age (unlike the others) so there's no real difference between a Lich and somebody who keeps reincarnating all the time. Both of those souls can go effectively forever without being judged, thus interrupting the cycle.
There's no reason to make the distinction between intelligent undead and these kinds of people since they will all at one point go through the cycle anyway. It's just a question of when, and as the article says:
"The process might take millennia, but such gulfs of time mean little amid the greater workings of the multiverse."
Also this doesn't adress mindless undead. They don't have souls. They don't do anything to the cycle.
Resurrected/raised people are still mortal, and will die in time if only of old age. The same is not true of undead
That's what reincarnate is for. Can bring you back even from that, indefinitely. It's like lichdom, except it costs you 1,000 gp every time you die. Plus 25,000 if you want to cast wish so you're returned to your original form. Oh and it requires a helper, but so do all the others so.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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That's what reincarnate is for. Can bring you back even from that, indefinitely. It's like lichdom, except it costs you 1,000 gp every time you die. Plus 25,000 if you want to cast wish so you're returned to your original form. Oh and it requires a helper, but so do all the others so.
Maybe the universe is pissed at you for not paying your Life subscription fee?
So lichdom is basically the metaphysical equivalent of stealing cable?
That's what reincarnate is for. Can bring you back even from that, indefinitely. It's like lichdom, except it costs you 1,000 gp every time you die. Plus 25,000 if you want to cast wish so you're returned to your original form. Oh and it requires a helper, but so do all the others so.Maybe the universe is pissed at you for not paying your Life subscription fee?
So lichdom is basically the metaphysical equivalent of stealing cable?
What if the lich pays 1,000 gp every time his body is destroyed and/or he lives enough years that a person of his original race would've died?
Would that cover it? How does the universe quantify your Life subscription?
This would be another one of those posts that I suspect is meant at least in part sarcastically but that is an exact literal representation of how I would adjudicate the issue in question. (With a side note saying "Possible Neutral Smartass; serious-minded Neutral outsiders likely to get irked therewith.")I don't know about the rest of you, but to keep my Neutral Alignment active with my Diety (Nivi Rhombodazzle), after a week of:
Casting spells with a Good discriptor, saving people from death, slaying demons/devils/etc and actually saving the world;I have to go kick a few puppies, and take candy from the kids at Auntie Baltwins Home for Recovery (she gives me a special rate for the service).
I am looking forward to some more Demon Fighting around the Worldwound this year, and maybe freeing some slaves... so I guess I may have to look into volunteering down at the Hellfire club on my days off... just to offset the "good" stains on my "alignment chart"...
How are the rest of you maintaining your Neutral alignment?
I kept reading your post to make sure you were serious, or if it was a joke. I can't help but think you are serious, which baffles me. How can that possibly be Neutral? I murder little kids on Monday, but I make up for it by the good deeds I do 6 out of the 7 other days of the week, so I am Neutral with Good tendencies? And if I only murder little kids on Christmas, heck, the one day of Evil barely registers in comparison with my 364 days of Good, so... Lawful Good?
This would be another one of those posts that I suspect is meant at least in part sarcastically but that is an exact literal representation of how I would adjudicate the issue in question. (With a side note saying "Possible Neutral Smartass; serious-minded Neutral outsiders likely to get irked therewith.")I don't know about the rest of you, but to keep my Neutral Alignment active with my Diety (Nivi Rhombodazzle), after a week of:
Casting spells with a Good discriptor, saving people from death, slaying demons/devils/etc and actually saving the world;I have to go kick a few puppies, and take candy from the kids at Auntie Baltwins Home for Recovery (she gives me a special rate for the service).
I am looking forward to some more Demon Fighting around the Worldwound this year, and maybe freeing some slaves... so I guess I may have to look into volunteering down at the Hellfire club on my days off... just to offset the "good" stains on my "alignment chart"...
How are the rest of you maintaining your Neutral alignment?
I kept reading your post to make sure you were serious, or if it was a joke. I can't help but think you are serious, which baffles me. How can that possibly be Neutral?
All you need is a god somewhere totting up the Good and Evil acts and seeing which ones come out ahead; my understanding of how the Boneyard works is that even the difficult cases are figuring out where to send a soul, so that appears to be canon sfaict. (If souls could be divided up and the good bits rewarded and the bad punished, that would be an interestingly different way to do it.)
It seems also relevant that the balisse angel in Bestiary 5 is specifically identified as "formed from the souls of individuals who committed evil acts but were later redeemed and died while living an exemplary moral life", which sounds a lot like doing enough Good outweighing having done undeniable Evil, so far as...
Right on. I think I understand what you are saying now.
I like the Bestiary 5 entry because it acknowledges the person moved to all-in on the Good side, which I think is necessary to be Good and whether they did Evil is irrelevant. (There is nothing wrong with a deity that tallies good deeds and bad ones and rewards or punishes accordingly; it's just the soul needs to go where their alignment takes them, regardless of whether they used to be something else. If it doesn't work like that, the rulers of the afterlife are dorks. E.g., this Champion of Hell is actually Chaotic Good, but he did too many Lawful Evil things in his youth, so here he is.) Similarly, I don't think characters can choose to be an alignment; the player can only identify an intent. I have never played with someone who wanted to choose an alignment and then play a different alignment just to derail the game or trick me. It's just stupid. Players might choose the wrong alignment because the DM has house rules or interprets the rather confusing rules differently than the player, but it is generally accidental and unfortunate.
I just want the core rules to make it clear to avoid accidents. Alignment most certainly *is* a straightjacket if you do not choose the right alignment for the character, so it should be chosen carefully. Get rid of all that "it's a vague personality" crap and give a baseline rule that everyone understands. As long as your character has the fundamental belief, they get that alignment. If the DM wants to house rule, that is their right and perhaps even responsibility (if the baseline alignment doesn't match their setting).
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Reincarnation would be bad way to maintain immortality though because spell's flavor says you retain "Most" of your memories. So evidently if you cast it multiple times in row, you will slowly change in your personality as you lose more and more memories. Considering that organic brain does have limit to memory, I'd say that doing it at end of your old age wouldn't really differ much either. Reincarnation the spell doesn't really differ much from reincarnation that happens naturally except that you retain part of memories.
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...Please include reason for it in the core rulebook so I don't have to justify it to players through random forum comments or D&D era books :'D Because seriously, I get into a lot of semantics conversation about why its evil since mindless undead don't actually affect soul of the dead person as zombies and such are soulless.we appear to be wondering off track on this thread... here's a repost of the "original poster" and what I think they were trying to say...
If creating mindless undead through necromancy is still evil in 2e...Please include reason for it in the core rulebook.
Sounds good to me.
Said to the original poster :D
I've kinda given up on this point for people staying on the topic. I mean, when topic shifts to "How come on raise dead is okay?" there is no coming back anymore
Aren't alignment threads entertaining?
Yes, creating mindless undead (like skeletons and zombies) is an EVIL act, and all such undead are inescapably EVIL because that is the nature of undeath. It's the negation of life, it's anathema to all the good gods, it's unnaturally and unspeakably EVIL.
By definition.
And I do agree with one thing the OP said: it wouldn't hurt to state this intrisic EVIL orientation in the CRB. I'd expect to find it in the undead type descriptor, and in the evil type spell descriptor, as well as having a short paragraph in the necromancy spell school descriptor clearly stating that some uses of necromancy are intrinsically good (like healing) while other uses of necromancy are intrinsically EVIL.
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Aren't alignment threads entertaining?
Yes, creating mindless undead (like skeletons and zombies) is an EVIL act, and all such undead are inescapably EVIL because that is the nature of undeath. It's the negation of life, it's anathema to all the good gods, it's unnaturally and unspeakably EVIL.
By definition.
And I do agree with one thing the OP said: it wouldn't hurt to state this intrisic EVIL orientation in the CRB. I'd expect to find it in the undead type descriptor, and in the evil type spell descriptor, as well as having a short paragraph in the necromancy spell school descriptor clearly stating that some uses of necromancy are intrinsically good (like healing) while other uses of necromancy are intrinsically EVIL.
Ah, of course right after I post that, someone finally posts on topic :D
But yeah, I would like to add that main point of why they should give reason for it is to clear questions like "So why is flesh golem not evil, but zombies and skeletons are evil?". Mechanical reason is "Because one is construct and not undead" and then question becomes "Why it is contruct instead of undead" to which answer becomes "Because its not animated by negative energy" after which becomes question I asked before about why things animated by negative energy are evil if negative energy itself is stated to be neutral <_<
(and do note, there ARE non evil ways to create skeletons and zombies available to different archetypes, that just makes it weirder)
Like, I just want them to state reason why one type of animated corpse is evil and another isn't and have it be consistent reason so that players can stop arguing about it. "Its evil because its animated by non inherently evil energy" is confusing without explanation, so either make it so that negative energy is evil or explain why it makes things evil even though it itself isn't evil.(like I don't know, maybe negative energy cultivates negative emotions and hatred towards life, so mindless things animated it are driven by pure uncontrolled malice while creatures)
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I don't disagree.
But I also think that flesh golems should be intrinsically EVIL as well. I mean, instead of animating a corpse with magic, you are dismembering a half dozen or more corpses, sewing them together and then animating them with magic. That's gotta be at least as evil as animating undead!
And negative energy should be intrinsically evil, not neutral. Or at least NE - only neutral on the law-chaos axis.
I must add that the twists and knots of all the arguments in favor of animating undead not being an intrinsically EVIL act are pretty funny. <g>
Make the creation of Undeaed Guardians a ritual that takes time, and explicitly involves someone sacrificing themselves, and their right to the afterlife for a long time, part of it.
Keep Create Undead a quicker spell developed by the power-hungry, who don't care that that's your dead husband or wife; "it's just flesh" to them. Aka, "your family is my tool, don't be so /selfish/!"
Making a corpse move around through Animate Object is mere puppetry. An evil creature is not being created. So no, that scenario is not automatically evil.
a number of magic items are crafted from body parts of intelligent creatures (even humans). These items, and the crafting of them, are not called out as "an intrinsically EVIL act". Why not?
Heck, a number of ITEMS are crafted from body parts of semi-intelligent creatures - why isn't the crafting of leather items "an intrinsically EVIL act"? Perhaps we should label anyone dealing with dead thing as have severe social stigmas of kegare (穢れ or "defilement") attached to them?
Making a spellbook covered in human skin (or virtually any other use of humanoid body parts) should also be considered an evil act. You got me there.
I think that the Paizo stance on undead has always been that they are intrinsically EVIL by their very nature - because they are unnatural blasphemies against life. So animating the dead is also an intrinsically evil act.
I get that some folks don't want this to be true. But as far as I can tell it's a concept that is deeply rooted in Golarion lore, cosmology and theology. It's also deeply rooted in literary and cinematic portrayals of the undead, which are in turn deeply rooted in Christian dogma and superstition. I mean just look at the Gothic tradition in literature.
If you really want to dig into why animating the dead is an intrinsically evil act, you've got to go back to historical precedents where science and medicine (especially surgery and anatomical study) were ostracized and condemned on religious grounds.
But I suspect such a discussion would quickly overstep forum guidelines.
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...This would be another one of those posts that I suspect is meant at least in part sarcastically but that is an exact literal representation of how I would adjudicate the issue in question. (With a side note saying "Possible Neutral Smartass; serious-minded Neutral outsiders likely to get irked therewith.")I don't know about the rest of you, but to keep my Neutral Alignment active with my Diety (Nivi Rhombodazzle), after a week of:
Casting spells with a Good discriptor, saving people from death, slaying demons/devils/etc and actually saving the world;I have to go kick a few puppies, and take candy from the kids at Auntie Baltwins Home for Recovery (she gives me a special rate for the service).
I am looking forward to some more Demon Fighting around the Worldwound this year, and maybe freeing some slaves... so I guess I may have to look into volunteering down at the Hellfire club on my days off... just to offset the "good" stains on my "alignment chart"...
How are the rest of you maintaining your Neutral alignment?
I kept reading your post to make sure you were serious, or if it was a joke. I can't help but think you are serious, which baffles me. How can that possibly be Neutral?
All you need is a god somewhere totting up the Good and Evil acts and seeing which ones come out ahead; my understanding of how the Boneyard works is that even the difficult cases are figuring out where to send a soul, so that appears to be canon sfaict. (If souls could be divided up and the good bits rewarded and the bad punished, that would be an interestingly different way to do it.)
It seems also relevant that the balisse angel in Bestiary 5 is specifically identified as "formed from the souls of individuals who committed evil acts but were later redeemed and died while living an exemplary
Uh yeah, if a judge is labeling (or in this case wanting to) sex workers Evil at PFS tables that definitely needs to be brought to the attention of someone higher on the food chain.
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I don't disagree.
But I also think that flesh golems should be intrinsically EVIL as well. I mean, instead of animating a corpse with magic, you are dismembering a half dozen or more corpses, sewing them together and then animating them with magic. That's gotta be at least as evil as animating undead!
And negative energy should be intrinsically evil, not neutral. Or at least NE - only neutral on the law-chaos axis.
I must add that the twists and knots of all the arguments in favor of animating undead not being an intrinsically EVIL act are pretty funny. <g>
Creating Flesh Golems(and any other body part golem) is already evil though, because creating them requires casting animate dead. The end result itself is neutral which is the weird part.
Make the creation of Undeaed Guardians a ritual that takes time, and explicitly involves someone sacrificing themselves, and their right to the afterlife for a long time, part of it.
Keep Create Undead a quicker spell developed by the power-hungry, who don't care that that's your dead husband or wife; "it's just flesh" to them. Aka, "your family is my tool, don't be so /selfish/!"
I could easily believe a culture where having your loved one "animated" would be a desired end.
"Torg always wanted to fight against the monsters of the jungle that threaten our village. He would be very happy to see that he can continue this sacred duty even after death!"
"You culture sticks your dead in cold dark boxes and puts them in a hole in the ground away from their loved ones? What did they do to deserve this lonely fate?"
"I hope that after I die, I can continue to build a home for my dependents... yeah, as a zombie assigned to the public works department, I'll be helping to build the new aqueduct, and thus insuring fresh water for our city and my dependents for generations to come."
...Unless there is an in game reason WHY the use of the spell is an EVIL act. I mean, it could be as simple as: "because I said so"... Or - "Because when the Gods created the Universe they said it was..."
In the above, you'd want a ritual involving the consent of the dying.
Otherwise, you're risking trapping someone's soul for eternity without their involved consent.
You'd, in addition, need a timer on the ritual's duration, where the person could join their ancestors in the beyond once their "period of x years of service" is done.
Finally, you'd need a public works department that ensured these bodies were cared for with respect, to both honor their commitment and their families, as part of that ritual contract. Use you and just grind you into the ground? That /says something/ about the society involved in it.
So at the very least, you're looking at something more complicated than a spell to have something like that.
The /spell version/ (not ritual version, with its honor and safeguards) would be what the script kiddies use.
The spell is powerful, faster, and used by people who didn't care about those things. The spell doesn't have those safeguards. The spell doesn't offer consent. The victims don't have an end where the they are enabled to rejoin the gods or afterlife when their servitude is done.
Evil necromancers make great villains because they /don't care/. There's a dehumanizing aspect to their gaze that makes them great villains.
The blinding Ray bit is a stack of nonsense only suitable to keep sunshine out of the hands of evil casters.
Holy vs Unholy might be a better distinction for these sorts of spells.
I mean that there is no reason to consider weaponized sunlight to have any particular virtue. It isn't more powerful against evil targets and it doesn't do anything particularly good on its own.
Right now Animate Dead and Create Undead make Evil things. They are evil because they make Evil in the world automatically. In the future, maybe Animate Dead will only make servile bone and flesh 'bots that have no independent drive to kill. I'm cool with that. Right now though, they make murder monsters that may or may not be controlled.
Blinding Ray being Good is weirder to me than Animate Dead being Evil.
We're trying to figure out why it has the [good] descriptor.The blinding Ray bit is a stack of nonsense only suitable to keep sunshine out of the hands of evil casters.
Holy vs Unholy might be a better distinction for these sorts of spells.
(bolding mine) What? I do not understand the bolded statement above. Please expand on this?
and the same could be said of why Animate Dead has the [evil] descriptor...
several of us are trying to figure out why it has the [evil] descriptor.
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According to wikipedia, it has been done. There's a project to test all books that have been claimed to be bound in human skin. There are 48 identified as such, 32 have been tested 18 have been confirmed to be human and 14 proven to be false. As far as I can tell none are occult tomes. But they must not have gotten to the collection at Miskatonic University yet.
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I mean that there is no reason to consider weaponized sunlight to have any particular virtue. It isn't more powerful against evil targets and it doesn't do anything particularly good on its own.
Right now Animate Dead and Create Undead make Evil things. They are evil because they make Evil in the world automatically. In the future, maybe Animate Dead will only make servile bone and flesh 'bots that have no independent drive to kill. I'm cool with that. Right now though, they make murder monsters that may or may not be controlled.
Blinding Ray being Good is weirder to me than Animate Dead being Evil.
I suspect blinding ray is probably listed as good for it's anti-vampire ability (it did come from the Advanced Race Guide as a Dhampir spell). I've got to agree that it's a weird choice. Shining a flashlight in someone's face isn't some holy act of goodness, even if they are a vampire.
In my opinion, negative Energy is like electricity or gasoline. It can only give something designed to accept it the potential to move, it has no motivating power on its own.
What you need is a second ingredient, some lesser entity that can drive a corpse around and be useful. So Animate Dead uses some minor mote of malice to get a Skelton or zombie moving without direct control.
It is possible that such a design is the easiest way to get the job done, but not the only one. Maybe a loyal guardsman would sacrifice a shred of his own soul in a separate spell or ritual that makes a different sort of undead. Or a death cult could buy the rights to a person's body and a sliver of essence so that on death they can animate an eternal servant, again with a separate spell or ritual.
Or a favorite bit of mine from GURPS Technomancer, where "death plus hard labor" is a legal punishment in a magically active United States of America.
No, it's simpler than that. It's a light vs darkness trope. Light is good and destroys evil, darkness is evil and it cloaks evil-doers.
Sarenrae is one the primary gods of good in the Golarion mythos, and her symbol is the piercing light of good, truth, justice and the anti-evil way. So the "blinding rays of sunlight" come from the good that is light.
You can't really logic your way through things like this. They are symbolic elements that pervade our western culture, our literature, and have found their way into our games which are inspired by that literature.
A "Lord of Light" is self-evidently good in the same way a "Lord of Darkness is the embodiment of evil.
It's not science, it's culture and literature.
A "Lord of Light" is self-evidently good in the same way a "Lord of Darkness is the embodiment of evil.
It's not science, it's culture and literature.
That isn't nearly as fun to me. Mythological resonance is not quite as satisfying as an enjoyable bit of metaphysics.
A handful of exceptions don't render every rule moot.
Also thats an infernal duke and two archon lords..not deities. Seems the only thing that proves is that evil working within the light and good working in darkness is weaker than playing to their strengths.
That's presuming that the whole sun = good, dark = evil thing is actually a cosmological rule in Pathfinder which it isn't. You've got good and evil (and neutral probably) examples for all of them and nothing in their portfolios even remotely suggests "Well Nergal could have been a Greater Deity, but the Sun part of his portfolio messes with that" or what have you. It's a lot of reading between the lines and headcannoning in reasons.
Id view pulling examples from companion splats as a bit more reading between the lines and headcannoning.
Also, on checking, the only thing nergal has in common with "the sun" is that his banner is a sun rising over a battlefield. Its not part of his portfolio in any way.