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sleepydwarf
2011-11-10, 05:10 AM
Hiya everyone,

I am currently playing a character that has lost all memory of who they are and what they were like prior to a specific event occuring. Essentially, they were a high level magic user that was raised in a caring and controled environment, that lost all knowledge and experience of the arcane arts due to a massive magical failure occuring throughtout the world.

My question for the forum is this, if the character was a lawful good alignment prior to the event, then as they very slowly regain knowledge and experience again, would their alignment have remained lawful good? Or would it be more likely that their alignment would change depending more on their actions after the event? Basically, is the aligment because of breeding, naturing or environment?

The character is a human wizard, so no alignment restrictions because of race or class.

I know, and my DM agrees, that the alignment is a guide only and not set in stone. The alignment can be changed depending on the actions undertaken when campaining, but that is with a character that has all of their mental facilities intact (if such a thing exists for a character). How would you as a player or as a DM handle the possibility of alignment changing under these conditions?

Also, the character was a member of an elite paramilitary force in a different part of the world to where she is now, one of the conditions of serving in the force is that you are lawful good, and no they are not all paladins, especially as they serve the rulers of the land and not a deity. What would happen in the future when she meets up with members of the force that know her, especially if her actions have been more evil and self serving of late?

And finally, how would you handle the changes in personality and alignment if they ever find a way of restoring her memory fully? She would suddenly have all the memories and ingrained behaviour patterns of a lawful good character and the memories of recent evil behaviour?

Personally, I think my character is either going to go totally mad or is doomed from the DM throwing big and heavy things at her and me. And yes I am discussing these matters with the DM and he knew what the history of the character was when he agreed to this, heck, he wrote up half of the history of the charcter so that he could use things from it as a plot hook without me knowing exactly what was going on.

Thanks in advance for any and thoughts on this matter :)

Stay safe and have fun.

Sleepydwarf

Alleran
2011-11-10, 06:04 AM
My question for the forum is this, if the character was a lawful good alignment prior to the event, then as they very slowly regain knowledge and experience again, would their alignment have remained lawful good? Or would it be more likely that their alignment would change depending more on their actions after the event? Basically, is the aligment because of breeding, naturing or environment?
It entirely depends on how you want to run it.

They might have an inner nature that leads them to do good (link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodFeelsGood)).

They might have an inner nature that drives them to evil, which was held in check by their upbringing and beliefs before the memory loss (link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilFeelsGood)).

There might be a slippery slope, and with their memory loss they find that they like doing bad things (link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil)).

Or they might have been set to a blank slate from the memory loss (link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RousseauWasRight)).

One example of somebody who was good, went bad, and was redeemed partly through a memory wipe, though, is Darth Revan from the KotOR games.