Shattered Kingdoms

Ardith, we are talking about FAITHS here. Thank you for letting us all know how you run your CABAL.

You're welcome.

If you examine Ain closely, you'll see there's little room for grey, even though it's listed with the greys. Ain religion has a split personality. You're either light or dark, there's no room for middle ground. Originally, it was Principled or Aberrant, but there is a little wiggle room now, provided you stay within the aura.

Fepel; The fact that someone truly believes he is good or at least not evil, does not make it true. You are -very- right in that most Imperials learn to accept evil as strength, valor, etc. both dark and gray ones. All in all, good and beneficial thingies in life. But the ones who are white aura and most that are grey -realize- what is happening in their kingdom, or better yet, they admit it to themselves. They either try to cope (most lighties) or they take advantage of the situation as much as possible, but don't necessarily get into it with cruel intent (most grey ones).

Also, I do not agree with what you said about someone "bailing out" of a Faith. That's simply not possible since faith is not politics. No one will join a faith unless they truly, and whole-heartedly believe in the relevant God and his teachings (at least part of them). Worshippers in SK offer their very soul to a god, and if it's just some pact of convenience and lip service the god will not accept the follower. If it so happens that the follower loses his faith later on, he is bound to lose the God's favor entirely, with the well-known consequences of being damned for life or at least until he redeems himself blah blah blah.

That said, the MC has always been an Dark and Grey cabal. The few exceptions that lighties were accepted (I can only think of Venator) were lighties who stopped caring about who they serve and what they did and for what reasons. In effect, they were not lighties anymore. The alignment help files make that crystal clear.

Ardith's got the paladin bit right. Wish I had played after paladins got changed (at last). Although D might have overdone it a bit with the Call Armor joke of a spell.

My take on the grey alignment in Dark/Lightie faiths; It depends. Some grey auras take on a tendency to cooperate and lean more towards the way white auras or dark auras think and act. You can say they fit in. Some remain rather neutral, but none of them really bears a God's devotion to darkness or the light. They focus on the spheres instead. If a grey priest of Zavijah sees any of his god's spheres threatened, he'll go off. He will believe in them and try to promote them across the realms by any means available to him. But that doesn't make him a truly caring person. He might see a cruel execution in the Empire or someone being tortured in the north and not find it necessary to act or feel sadness for the fact.

In the same way, a grey follower of Sadr does not have to take pleasure in the spread of disease/suffering. He might appear as a wise teacher of those around him, seeking to spread the message of the rewards of enduring pain, and that life without it is not worth living. A grey follower of Sargas might be one of the most pleasant and boisterous persons to have around. But he'll still love to go to war, to see conflict and if that means he's gotta to kill a lot of people, so be it; it's all good sport, and they'll go to Ehrenfeld if they're worthy anyway. He doesn't feel good about destroying them, he feels good about defeating them. Etc. etc. Grey followers make very interesting additions. In some cases, priests can contribute a lot to the Faith's RP too.

1) Gray aura priest in Sargas = someone who wanted to play a heavy armor priest without having the alignment constrictions that come with being a dark aura, namely those associated with holy word, spear of faith, bolt of glory. Sargas = Evil. What the hell is going on when a gray aura rogue (unless I misread that eye of sargas title) is made the HF of a freaking EVIL HELLION RELIGION and gray aura priests start getting invested? To quote one of my favorite TV shows: "Dude, that's pretty f**ked up right there."

2) Fepel: From what I understand, despite your tenure as the leader of MC, you're still new to SK, so I can understand your misconception. The Midnight Council has always been an evil organization on SK, and it was originally & has always been intended to be an evil organization on SK- very specifically a hellion/evil warrior cabal designed as a counterbalance to the Hammer, which was designed very specifically as a paladin/good warrior cabal. There have always been the exceptions of gray auras who made their way into the cabal, and once or twice there were even the extremely rare light aura who made it in. But the trend toward trying to design it as a gray aura cabal is, once again, "pretty f**ked up right there".


People seem to have decided that "evil" is really only what is practiced by the likes of necromancers and the adepts. And that if they aren't really one of these two, then they create their character as gray aura and play them as evil as they want. Hell, I see countless gray auras who roleplay their characters as more evil than hellions- engaging endlessly in indiscriminate murder, slavery, robbery, deceit, conquest, etc. People often seem to take the term "selfish" of the gray auras to an extreme- right into the diabolic.






The general concept of the selfish/gray aura is one of personal freedom. The Empire is NOT a nation of freedoms. They're the biggest slave dealers and tyrranical oppressors in Pyrathia (well, except for Ch'zzrym perhaps). By serving in the Midnight Council, the unprincipled character would be the person representing all those things that he opposes. And the anarchist... perhaps more than any other alignment except principled, the anarchist would be opposed to the rigid Imperial rulers.




The above is the best definition of what the Empire and the Midnight Council represent, along with:




The truth is, most of those gray auras are actually roleplayed as aberrant or miscreant, and sometimes diabolic. The explanation:

You've got good points Dally, but we know that there is a serious bit missing in the Pendragon alignment system; A grey alignment of organized, lawful bend. The Empire and the MC can be a perfect environment for those who follow laws almost blindly, without taking it "personal" as far as causing others agony goes.

I'd rather play my unprincipled/anarchist character as "disciplined" (my own version of a grey analogy to Aberrant/Principled alignments) in the Empire than shrug and miss the chance because of a lacking morality system.

As far as priests avoiding dark-aura hitting stuff are concerned, I guess that is pathetic.

I was raised a Roman Catholic and for about 17 years or so bought into the religion hook line & sinker. Now I'm agnostic leaning towards Judiasm. People bail on religions all the time. Some more historical ones include Constantine and Luther.

In real world religions, God presumably only shows up to claim your soul AFTER you've died. In SK, if you were to try to switch after dedicating your soul, an immortal could certainly show up right then.

I can't say that I ever remember a grey aura priest in a light aura religion. Could someone please point one out for me?

Yes Fepel, I was talking about the way typical medieval -fantasy- deities work. We can't compare RL to the gods that appear and make their presence known, even if only by allowing their priests to use their power in the form of prayers. They demand your soul, and dedication to them above all other things.