Shattered Kingdoms

Geez, Dally.

Code doesn't auto-wrap. Could you do something about that to restore the readability of the thread?

Oh, and playing outside of your alignment is pitiful. Suck up the Bolt -- with the right MP, it doesn't hurt as much as people think. Now I've contributed something to stay on-topic.

Figures I'd be the first post on the next page.

There have been gray priests and HFs in the Zavijah faith - but there sure aren't any now. The last three immortals to control the faith have been quite clear that the faith is supposed to be light-aura.



And we have a alignment that matches that view quite well - aberrant. Even if you don't like our particular alignment system, you're not free of the obligation to pick the closest alignment to your character's philosphy.

There is little reason to play a grey-aligned priest of a non-neutral diety without the possibility of induction into a Cabal or Tribunal, since those are the two largest PK factors nowadays. Take away the incentive, the twinkery will cease, and those who actually have a reason besides mechanics to play a grey-aura priest of a non-neutral diety will be rare and actually well-played.

Also, grey-auras have no place in the Tribunal system at all, really, from looking at the helpfiles for Anarchist and Unprincipled.

I inducted said priest in question and his roleplay is excellent. I probably cast the detect aura spell once the whole time I had my character. If your rp supports your desire, then I don't care what aura you are. If grey's shouldn't be in light or dark aura faiths, then lets look at the opposite.

What are light aura and dark aura people doing in grey faiths? As HF and HP's no less? No one ever complains about that. That's because there is no mechanical advantage to being in a grey aura faith. So it's obvious to me that none of you really care about the rp prespectives of mixed religious auras so much as that you just don't want them having an advantage mechanics wise.

I disagree. Aberrant -clearly- describes itself as an evil alignment, not merely a selfish or "neutral" one. The lawful - selfish / neutral combination is missing. Evil guys are called such because they act with active cruelty and have hearts filled with negative emotions instead of a mere by-product of their indifference/selfishness. It just happens that the "closest one" might just not be that close at all.

The fact that this alignment system manages to actually -limit- the player in a particular case causes this kind of mix-up; For me, unprincipled comes significantly closer to the alignment I seek (the afore mentioned sort) than the aberrant "package" does. If we follow your logic, both might be equally far, and a lot of people will argue that aberrant is further away, since good/evil is more important that law/chaos in the large scale. It's all a matter of perspective. One could easily argue the alignment rules are violated if you pick aberrant for this particular character.

// A sound point, Cannibal.

Mine autowraps....




While I understand the point you're making, I disagree. The light and dark aura faiths are light & dark because they specifically preach and advance a particular moral agenda that is actively "good" or actively "evil". Minus Ain, the gray aura faiths are specifically amoral. Death/Time/Change, Nature, the Elements... these faiths are not religions preaching a specific morality, but ones that support the worship of a particularly amoral concept. Now, if you were someone like Salak, whose "preaching" about the religion of death included MURDERING people on a regular basis, that would be a character of evil morality worshipping an amoral concept from a decidedly evil perspective. Similarly, you might have an elf worshipping nature whose "preaching" about the religion of nature included the aspects of growth & mending and behaved as a dedicated healer. That would be a character of good morality worshipping an amoral concept with a decidedly good perspective.

The gray aura religions are generally set up very specifically to be suited either specifically to gray auras or specifically to be amoral. Now, the argument can be made (and I assure you, it most certainly WAS discussed and debated among the immstaff as the current pantheon was developed), certain religions like "wisdom" and "war" could be argued to be gray aura also. After all, a necromancer has a measure of intelligence and wisdom, and might be devoted not necessarily to wanton destruction, but the furthering of his studies. Why could this necromancer not serve the god of wisdom? Or a paladin whose sole purpose in life is to smite the wicked, to wage war eternal on all evil, why could he not serve the god of war?

Frankly, I think these are good ideas, but in a world of swords & sorcery, you really need to have a demarcation of good & evil. Wisdom & war happen to have been drawn on their perspective sides of that demarcation line in this specific fantasy world that we are playing in. Attributes like "liberty" and "conquest" have been associated with those gods to more further entrench them in those auras that they are supposed to be written into. If you get down to splitting hairs as close as humanly possible, you can come up with a wild justification for just about anything. But there is a certain spirit of the game that has been designed and a specific atmosphere of the world that is our game setting. And sometimes good sportsmanship involves just accepting the parameters of the game in good faith and playing within them.

BTW... you'll find that usually the people who refuse to do so, and are always looking for some kind of loophole, are usually the people who aren't playing for fun, who get the most frustrated and are always storming out of the game over some childish technicality/legalism.

EDIT: On that note, I can guarantee that the immortals, also, would be able to enjoy the game a lot more, and would still to this day have a whole lot more direct interaction with the players if so many hundreds of hours of immortal time hadn't been wasted having to dual legalisms and "letter of the law" vs. "spirit of the law" issues with hair-splitting f**kwad players who were obviously more interested in playing outside the rules and ruining somebody else's fun instead of just accepting what is freely given to them and playing within those parameters.

This alignment system isn't based on D&D's two-dimensional law/good system. Example: Zavijah's faith, with its strong emphasis on liberty, would likely be chaotic good in D&D terms. In SK, though, its clerics could well be principled, if they live by the principles of their god.

An alignment's goodness is based strongly on who a person is willing to harm, and for what purpose. For example, a scrupulous character is willing to risk a little injury to others, in pursuit of goodness and justice. Despite his high-mindedness, he's counted as more evil than one who keeps to his principles at the potential expense of victory.

Selfish characters are more willing to hurt others - but only as their personal needs demand. These aren't axe murderers killing people in the street; unprincipled characters in particular have consciences. Only if their life or liberty is in danger, they may not be reliable. This is especially true for anarchists, who place such a high value on their own freedom and independence instead of others' welfare.

We call those characters evil, who are still further inclined to make others suffer. That includes the aberrant character, who is willing to inflict pain not for a good cause, or for his own immediate need, but out of some abstract principle. This still puts him above the miscreant who does it for trivial benefit, or the diabolic who does it for pleasure. But it's reasonable for this system to count the aberrant below an anarchist.

There are things I don't like about this system either. But it works better if you don't impose D&D on it, and if you do your best to pick the matching philosophy, no matter how auras are finally assigned.

As for the complaint about good and evil clergy in selfish faiths, I think it's something to consider, but not a huge problem. The question is, who would an unprincipled or anarchstic god ICly choose to represent them? I don't have much trouble imagining such a god choosing an aberrant or scrupulous representative. Diabolic or principled characters, though, might well be considered too loopy to work through.

I disagree with this to some degree. Just because a person wouldn't hurt a fly doesn't mean he/she is an uber-lightie. Likewise, good characters can be quite intolerant to evil.

I'll agree that its one way of judging, but I don't think its the only one.

What Benzo said. I think it's a healthy combination of intent + act. When a paladin defends his ctiy from a necromancer who has slain many and harmed a lot more, he harms him only because he must do so for his people (and the world) to be rid of his active evil. But the town grocer or some other random fellow (take the old woman in Everclear for a good example) don't murder or even attack people daily, they might even be repulsed by witnessing violence. The paladin is clearly good in this case, even though he has actually "harmed" others a lot more than the common citizen. Physically, at least.

Still, the minds of those commoners aren't any more pure than those of a random murdererous brigand of Teron. The grocer can think some of the most debauched things about his fellow citizens, he may indirectly seek to harm any of them or simply grow miserable in his hatred. The old woman might purposefully mislead young people coming to her for advice, making sure they suffer the most without actually being able to blame her for it.

And so on.

Forsooth: D&D's alignment system does cover the spectrum of a person's behavior adequately, even if superficially. Pendragon (the one Dulrik or whoever was it chose for SKs) does it rather worse. And let us remind ourselves that this is not arthurian legend where Pendragon's alignments -might- have fitted well with the setting. SKs is largely your standard D&Dish medieval fantasy world.

But again, there appears to be no alignment that describes people who will hurt others if there's need (to follow their dedication to a specific code of principles or just a very rigid way of living, the opposite of anarchist), but don't take any pleasure or satisfaction in doing so. Even though the aberrant one might have a more "refined" reason behind his acts, he does give in to hatred, sadism, cruelty and other such emotions regularly. The only difference is that he might have greater control over them, and refrain from harming particular groups or persons because of his personal principles. He might even grow to "love" someone, but this is more of a strict, sometimes zealous devotion, than the warm feeling of affection found in white and grey aura characters.

I'm not sure if there really is a Pendragon alignment system or if that is just a miscommunication. I originally saw our alignment system in a RPG known as Palladium. Yeah, it has it's flaws, but I was disenchanted with the "standard" system popularized by D&D, which has two axes - Law-Neutral-Chaos and Good-Neutral-Evil, mostly because I don't believe anybody is really capable of being "True Neutral".

There has been some talk of rounding out the current alignments with a new eighth one to be called something like "Ordered" but could probably more accurately just be called "Whipped". Someone who is basically selfish but doesn't break the rules cause they don't want to get caught. It fits but it isn't really a very interesting alignment for someone who is supposed to be an adventurer.