Purely Neutral Clerics [3.5]

[Duke of Urrel]

Here's a well-known passage from the cleric's class description that I have trouble interpreting. I've italicized and bold-typed those parts that give me trouble.

"A cleric’s alignment must be within one step of his deity’s (that is, it may be one step away on either the lawful-chaotic axis or the good-evil axis, but not both). A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral."

As we know, there are five different alignments that are at least partly neutral (NN NG, NE, LN, and CN), but only one of them is purely neutral (NN).

I am confident that when the word "neutral" first appears in this passage ("A cleric may not be neutral..."), it means "purely neutral," because this would explicitly deny the option given in the previous sentence to clerics of five out of nine alignments. If the game designers had really intended to do this, I think they would have offered the one-step-away option exclusively to LG, LE, CG, and CE clerics, thereby sparing the need to deny the option explicitly to clerics of the remaining five alignments. How's my logic so far...?

The second time the word "neutral" appears ("...unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral"), it may mean either "purely neutral" or "partly neutral," and I am not sure which it should mean. Consider the two options:

1. If we assume that the word means "purely neutral" the second time it appears, then the second sentence becomes a separate rule, namely that purely neutral clerics are incompatible with partly neutral deities. I believe this is a strange and arbitrary rule, but it is possible to imagine defensible reasons for it. For example, one may argue that the rule is intended to discourage clerics from adopting the traditional alignment of druids.

2. On the other hand, suppose we assume that the word means "partly neutral" the second time it appears. In this case, the second sentence is not a separate rule, but merely recapitulates the rule given in the previous sentence by giving four specific cases of it. However, one may argue that this recapitulation is not superfluous, because it avoids having to explain that when you count steps between the alignments, you must move only vertically or horizontally, but you can never count the diagonal distance between pure neutrality and any completely non-neutral alignment (LG, LE, CG, or CE) as one step.

Perhaps there is a broad consensus about the correct interpretation of this rule – but perhaps there isn't. What do you think?

Since this isn't a RAW thread, I welcome not only interpretations of this rule, but also evaluations. Is it a good rule? Would you like a stricter one, or a looser one?

[Sylthia]

I use the looser interpretation as DM, but I think the stricter one is intended, but I think this is a good reason to use True Neutral, rather than just saying Neutral all the time. It can be too ambiguous.

[karkus]

A Neutral Good god can have clerics of the three Good alignments (Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Good). A Lawful Neutral god can have clerics of any Lawful alignments (Good, Neutral, and Evil).

A Neutral (AKA "True Neutral") god can have clerics of any Neutral alignment (Lawful, "True," and Chaotic), as well as Neutral Good and Neutral Evil.

Does this answer your question? Basically that particular piece should be interpreted to be in favor of the clerics; allowing a wider range of alignments. When it said "A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral," what it meant was "-may not be true neutral-" in alignment.

[TuggyNE]

I use the looser interpretation as DM, but I think the stricter one is intended, but I think this is a good reason to use True Neutral, rather than just saying Neutral all the time. It can be too ambiguous.

I entirely agree with this; it was customary to use "neutral" all by itself to mean what we call "true neutral", but that's a bad idea. And, because of that, I'm fairly sure that the tighter meaning is intended; the clarification implied by the looser interpretation seems entirely useless.

Incidentally, I favor renaming Neutrality on the Law/Chaos axis to Pragmatic, since it removes this problem entirely; just say that Druids have to be Neutral or Pragmatic, only PN gods can have Pragmatic Neutral Clerics, and so on.

[HunterOfJello]

I have no strong feelings on the matter either way.


(yay neutrality!)

[Sylthia]

It seems that D&D has trouble deciding what True Neutral is supposed to mean in general. It can get to silly levels of extreme ambivalence, trying to micromanage the world into some crazy view of balance, or just have someone who doesn't feel strongly in either alignment axis.

[TuggyNE]

It seems that D&D has trouble deciding what True Neutral is supposed to mean in general. It can get to silly levels of extreme ambivalence, trying to micromanage the world into some crazy view of balance, or just have someone who doesn't feel strongly in either alignment axis.

Right, my Pragmatic proposal, when it comes to TN/NN/N/PN (whatever you want to call it) basically assumes the latter; I kind of think there should actually be a rarely-seen tenth alignment for "neither law nor chaos nor good nor evil, nothing overmuch, and the balance must be preserved". (Rarely seen, in large part, because it has such strong required elements of all of those extremes that it undermines its own philosophy!)

[Devils_Advocate]

I use the looser interpretation as DM, but I think the stricter one is intended, but I think this is a good reason to use True Neutral, rather than just saying Neutral all the time. It can be too ambiguous.
True Neutral is its own weird "The Balance must be preserved!" thing, though. So, how about we take a page from 4E's book and call unaligned characters... "Unaligned"? Because it is essentially lacking an alignment, like a non-creature. (The misdirection spell description notes that detecting as a tree means detecting as Neutral.)


I kind of think there should actually be a rarely-seen tenth alignment for "neither law nor chaos nor good nor evil, nothing overmuch, and the balance must be preserved". (Rarely seen, in large part, because it has such strong required elements of all of those extremes that it undermines its own philosophy!)
I remember reading a post about this somewhere, that went something like

"The best thing you can do to mess with one of the rilmani is to argue that excessive devotion to Balance is itself unbalanced. Now, your more advanced specimens will already understand this instinctively. They'll calmly explain that they're not trying to bring everyone and everything else over to their side, and will point to the other Outer Planes as necessary balancing extremes.

The reactions of their less enlightened brethren can be fun to watch, though."


Incidentally, I favor renaming Neutrality on the Law/Chaos axis to Pragmatic, since it removes this problem entirely; just say that Druids have to be Neutral or Pragmatic, only PN gods can have Pragmatic Neutral Clerics, and so on.
I do agree that pragmatic characters are neither Lawful nor Chaotic, but I'm not so sure that all Neutral characters are pragmatic. And even if they are, not all Neutral things are characters! It seems like a stretch to call a tree pragmatic. Still, maybe? Hmm.

My own tentative better names for Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic alignment are "Kind", "Cruel", "Honorable", and "Defiant", respectively, but it seems that somehow I never really thought about what it would be descriptive to call Neutral and Neutral until now. Go figure!


As we know, there are five different alignments that are at least partly neutral (NN NG, NE, LN, and CN), but only one of them is purely neutral (NN).
Is that right? The term "neutral" is used to mean three different things:

1. Neither lawful nor chaotic
2. Neither good nor evil
3. The combination of the above (i.e. both 1 and 2).

Your statement does not appear to be correct for any of these three meanings. Only NG, NE, and "NN" are neutral in the first sense; only LN, CN, and "NN" are neutral in the second sense; and only "NN" is neutral in the third sense!

I'm pretty sure that the rules never use "neutral" to mean "containing the word 'neutral'", which seems to be how you're using it here. And thank goodness! The word is too overloaded already!


If we assume that the word means "purely neutral" the second time it appears, then the second sentence becomes a separate rule, namely that purely neutral clerics are incompatible with partly neutral deities. I believe this is a strange and arbitrary rule
Bwuh? Do you think Pelor and Nerull hand out spells to Unaligned peeps because that promotes the balance between Law and Chaos? Because I can only see your rule (that Unaligned clerics can serve "partly neutral" deities) as not being strange and arbitrary under the assumption that "partly neutral" deities work like that. But I'm pretty sure Pelor and Nerull don't really give a rat's ass about the balance between Law and Chaos.


However, one may argue that this recapitulation is not superfluous, because it avoids having to explain that when you count steps between the alignments, you must move only vertically or horizontally, but you can never count the diagonal distance between pure neutrality and any completely non-neutral alignment (LG, LE, CG, or CE) as one step.
In that case, would still be superfluous because this is already covered parenthetically:

"A cleric’s alignment must be within one step of his deity’s (that is, it may be one step away on either the lawful-chaotic axis or the good-evil axis, but not both)."


Perhaps there is a broad consensus about the correct interpretation of this rule – but perhaps there isn't. What do you think?
As I mentioned in the other thread where this came up, the intent is pretty clear. Books that explicitly list out the alignments of deities' clerics, like Deities & Demigods and Faiths & Pantheons, only list the three appropriate alignments for deities who aren't Neutral (i.e. Unaligned).


Since this isn't a RAW thread, I welcome not only interpretations of this rule, but also evaluations. Is it a good rule? Would you like a stricter one, or a looser one?
Arguably, it would be better for clerics to be restricted to their deities' alignments, and Druids restricted to Unaligned or True Neutral. And for them all to be given official codes of conduct, because the DM probably won't bother to make one up.

[Psyren]

For intent we only have to look at the core (Greyhawk) pantheon. Deities and Demigods for instance has the two poster-boys of neutrality, Boccob ("The Uncaring") and Obad-Hai, master of druids. Both are as TN as they come, and under both we see "Cleric Alignments: CN, LN, N, NE, NG."

For the other way around, I looked for gods that allowed "N" clerics. Only the TN gods had this alignment listed as allowable, that I could see.

[ArcturusV]

It probably was referring not to TRUE Neutral. But Neutral on the Good/Evil Axis. Least that was always my theory. Note that basically the Cleric Powers, as they exist, are all about the Split between Good and Evil. Or Neutral worshiping Good or Evil, Turning/Rebuking and Spontaneous Casting. Then again they also refer to "Or a neutral cleric of a good god"/"Or a neutral cleric of an evil god" in the text as well.

So maybe it was intended as True Neutral. But that doesn't make sense either as I'm sure they referenced things like Clerics of Pelor being able to be True Neutral.

It might just be something where no one really checked it out.

There's definite contradiction.

I prefer, personally, just axing out the Neutral on Good-Evil. Makes decent sense. Law and Chaos can get together well enough (Least on the Good and Neutral Columns, Blood War being the exception, but Evil doesn't tend to get along with Evil anyway). So if you want to dance the Good-Evil shades of Grey, pick a Grey God.

[MukkTB]

It only makes sense if they meant partially neutral each time they said neutral, or full neutral each time they said neutral. Using one word to signal one and then the other would be insane. It wouldn't stand up RAW.

[Psyren]

Judging by DaD, it seems to mean "A cleric may not be true neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also true neutral."

[The Boz]

I almost feel like there should be 27 or 36 or 72 alignments, but increasing accuracy comes at a cost of needless bookkeeping.

[Duke of Urrel]

Thanks for all the comments, and particularly to Devils_Advocate for following me here.

I think my original view was most strongly influenced by the graphic design of the nine-alignment chart, and insufficiently informed by Deities & Demogods. The only sourcebook I have for the Greyhawk deities is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer from the year 2000, which includes (and indeed prominently features) "Pholtus (of the Blinding Light), LG (LN), intermediate god of Light, Resolution, Law, Order, Inflexibility, Sun, and Moons." (The parenthetical alignment was identified in this book as the deity's "secondary" alignment.) So I was primed to accept a very symmetrical notion of how divine tolerance works. If a Lawful-Good deity (like Pholtus) can accept a Lawful-Neutral cleric, then why can't a Neutral-Good deity accept a Neutral-Neutral cleric? Are Neutral-Good deities somehow less tolerant than the "inflexible" Pholtus?

So now I have dug up my old Player's Handbook, Version 3.0, and found the following passage: "Additionally, a cleric may not be neutral unless his deity is neutral. Exceptions are the clerics of St. Cuthbert (a lawful neutral deity), who may only be lawful-good or lawful-neutral."

And now I have a new interpretation! (Well, all right, an interpretation that is new for me, but perhaps for nobody else who is reading this thread.) These two juxtaposed sentences in Version 3.0 imply that the game designers meant morally Neutral – that is, specifically Neutral with respect to Good and Evil, not ethically Neutral (with respect to Law and Chaos), an attitude that Tuggyne has helpfully distinguished as "pragmatic."

It has happened again; with the help of the Playground, I have once again seen something that I failed to see for years! The general rule (or at least the former general rule of Version 3.0), which I failed to see until now, is that the deities' tolerance generally works only horizontally, not vertically. This is why the example of St. Cuthbert (who tolerates two vertically arranged alignments) is called an "exception." So in that other thread concerning "Neutral clerics of Evil deities," we were all actually discussing a possibility generally outside the rules – or at least outside the Version 3.0 rules.

I think there are, or there should be, quite a few exceptions to this "divine tolerance works only horizontally" rule besides St. Cuthbert (and Pholtus). For example, Wee Jas seems like a good candidate for a tendency symmetrically opposed to St. Cuthbert, namely tolerance for either Lawful-Neutral or Lawful-Evil worshipers – and perhaps clerics as well.

[Duke of Urrel]

Reading over what I wrote in my last posting, I realize that alas, it doesn't make sense. The example of St. Cuthbert is, in fact, in no conceivable way an exception to the rule that "a cleric may not be neutral unless his deity is neutral" ... because St. Cuthbert is Lawful-Neutral, not Lawful-Good. Nor is St. Cuthbert exceptional because he tolerates Lawful-Good clerics. Perhaps he's exceptional only because he doesn't tolerate Lawful-Evil clerics. At any rate, trying to make sense of this particular "St. Cuthbert clause" is a fool's errand, because it seems not to make any sense itself.

The clause would have made sense if it had referred to Pholtus rather than to St. Cuthbert. Indeed, Pholtus remains an exception to the rule I posited in my last posting, which is that the tolerance of deities works generally in a horizontal rather than a vertical direction. However, since no Player's Handbook, not even my 3.0 Version edition, ever made any reference to Pholtus, there now seems to be no sufficient reason to assume that divine tolerance generally works more horizontally than vertically. Maybe that's how it works out statistically when one looks at Deities & Demigods (which I do not have at my fingertips), but there's no hard and fast rule.

I am slowly coming around to accept the rule that purely Neutral clerics are acceptable only to purely Neutral deities – if for no other reason than that I am developing a craving for simplicity right now. However, I would like to add that since pure Neutrality is a very common alignment, perhaps the most common one among humans, deities who are not themselves purely Neutral can ill afford to reject purely Neutral worshipers. They can afford to be picky only about their clerics.

[hamishspence]

I think there are, or there should be, quite a few exceptions to this "divine tolerance works only horizontally" rule besides St. Cuthbert (and Pholtus). For example, Wee Jas seems like a good candidate for a tendency symmetrically opposed to St. Cuthbert, namely tolerance for either Lawful-Neutral or Lawful-Evil worshipers – and perhaps clerics as well.

It's more that St Cuthbert does not accept LE clerics.

He's not the only example of a deity with a narrower set of available alignments than "one step" - Tiamat (Deities & Demigods version) does not allow LN clerics- only LE and NE.

[KillianHawkeye]

St. Cuthbert is an exception to the "one step" rule (in that he doesn't allow Lawful Evil clerics despite being Lawful Neutral), not the "no Neutral clerics unless deity is Neutral" rule.

[hamishspence]

Some deities in Faiths & Pantheons allow alignments more than one step away.

Gond allows clerics of all 9 alignments.

Velsharoon (NE) allows LN and CN clerics.

[qwertyu63]

To answer the first post:

I think that in both cases it means True Neutral. I also house-rule that rule away, and just use the one step rule for all cases.

[Duke of Urrel]

The rule that deities generally don't accept purely Neutral clerics unless they are purely Neutral themselves creates a corollary rule, namely that most deities, occupying places on the great wheel one or two steps away from the hub, tolerate only alignments adjacent to them on that wheel, not the hub itself.

Another corollary rule is that all deities with a fixed and singular alignment except for purely Neutral ones generally tolerate only two alignments that are not their own, and these are always adjacent alignments on the great wheel, not the purely Neutral alignment. Purely Neutral deities, on the other hand (such as Boccob and Obad-Hai), generally tolerate four alignments that are not their own.

I am warming up to acceptance of the general rule that only purely Neutral deities accept purely Neutral clerics, which seems simpler and more orderly now than before. I am even willing to accept some weird consequences of this rule, such as the possibility (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Neutral-Good goddess Ehlonna welcomes purely Neutral druids, but rejects purely Neutral clerics.

There must of course be exceptions to this general rule, and they are of two types. One is more restricted tolerance on the part of deities like St. Cuthbert, Tiamat, etc., and the other is more expanded tolerance on the part of deities like Gond and Velsharoon (who are both completely unfamiliar to me). (If Velsharoon tolerates CN and LN clerics, but not CE or LE ones, then Velsharoon is exceptionally exceptional.) The principle "specific trumps general" holds as usual. My thanks to Hamishspence for these examples.

And once again, thanks to all for your help!

[Psyren]

It's more that St Cuthbert does not accept LE clerics.

He's not the only example of a deity with a narrower set of available alignments than "one step" - Tiamat (Deities & Demigods version) does not allow LN clerics- only LE and NE.

Yep, and Bahamut (from the same book) doesn't allow LN, only LG and NG.

But the core deities still have no TN clerics worshipping Non-TN gods all the same.


Some deities in Faiths & Pantheons allow alignments more than one step away.

Gond allows clerics of all 9 alignments.

Velsharoon (NE) allows LN and CN clerics.

FaP is Faerun though, which changes other divine rules (e.g. no clerics of a cause, the Wall, CG gods with LG paladin orders etc.)

[Sylthia]

For NG or NE clerics accepting TN clerics, for RAW, I don't think they allow it but if the cleric is focusing on an aspect of the deity rather than their Goodness or Evilness, I'd allow it as a DM. I'm not sure why TN has to be just a special case for the alignment one-step-away rule.

[Devils_Advocate]

You know, I just noticed that the quoted passage says "A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral". So, obviously both uses of "neutral" mean the same thing there, or it wouldn't be "also"!

Furthermore, examining the Cleric class description reveals that this rule is given twice, once before the "Game Rule Information" part, on page 30:


Typically, a cleric is the same alignment as his deity, though some clerics are one step away from their respective deities in alignment. For example, most clerics of Heironeous, the god of valor (who is lawful good) are lawful good, but some are lawful neutral or neutral good. Additionally, a cleric may not be neutral (that is, neutral on both the good–evil axis and the lawful–chaotic axis) unless his deity is neutral.
Now, one could argue that these are separate rules, rather than simply different phrasings of the same rule -- to put it all together unambiguously, "A cleric may not be neutral (that is, neutral on both the good–evil axis and the lawful–chaotic axis) unless his deity is also neutral" -- but this argument would be quite disingenuous.

... In fact, the reading of "neutral" in "A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral" as "ethically neutral", "morally neutral", or "partly neutral" would invalidate the example given, so it must by elimination mean "true" neutral! (Furthermore, neutral is conspicuously absent from the alignments that some clerics of Heironeous are noted as being.) So there you go, all from the PHB, no other book needed.

CHECK AND MATE. :D


I'm not sure why TN has to be just a special case for the alignment one-step-away rule.
It's generally only for True Neutral that being Neutral on either axis means dedication to balancing the other two alignment components. As such, a typical Neutral Good or Neutral Evil deity has no more reason to grant spells to True Neutral or Unaligned characters than to Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral characters. Yeah, being Unaligned gives you the abstract quality of being neither Lawful nor Chaotic in common with Pelor and Nerull... but they don't care. There are lots of things you have in common with them, like being a thinking being, and not being made out of fire, and so on and so forth, but that's not gonna score any points with 'em, comprende? ;) And the same sort of consideration applies to Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral deities.

Of course, you could argue that NG and NE deities should have N and LN and CN clerics. Personally, I think it should depend on the deity. Pelor probably ain't gonna hand out magic to non-Good folks, but Garl Glittergold? Sure, why not? (Then again, you could argue that he shouldn't even be counted as Good-aligned.) It's easy to imagine most CN deities accepting clerics of any non-Lawful alignment.

Conversely, some gods should be more restrictive than in the RAW. Heironeous, for example, should only allow Lawful Good clerics... because he's a paladin, and paladins only accept Lawful Good followers! (Technically, accepting LN and NG followers may be passable as not a gross violation of the paladin code of conduct, but it still strikes me as pretty inappropriate for the Archpaladin, of all deities.)

In short, the general rule shouldn't exist; because, like restricting clerics to blunt weapons, it makes sense less than half the time.


I am even willing to accept some weird consequences of this rule, such as the possibility (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Neutral-Good goddess Ehlonna welcomes purely Neutral druids, but rejects purely Neutral clerics.
A careful reading of the relevant Living Greyhawk PDF (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Publication:Living_Greyhawk_Official_Listing_of_De ities_for_Use_in_the_Campaign) indicates that this would be permissible:



A cleric/favored soul may not be neutral unless its deity's alignment is also neutral.
A cleric/favored soul's alignment must be within one step of its deity (either on the law-chaos axis or the good-evil one, but not both).
A specific deity-serving druid/paladin's alignment must be within one step of its deity (either on the law-chaos axis or the good-evil one, but not both).

There doesn't seem to be a rule that says "A specific deity-serving druid/paladin may not be neutral unless its deity's alignment is also neutral".


(If Velsharoon tolerates CN and LN clerics, but not CE or LE ones, then Velsharoon is exceptionally exceptional.)
I personally suspect that that's an error and the alignments should be NE, LE, and CE. There doesn't seem to be any reason, good or otherwise, for it to be as written.


However, I would like to add that since pure Neutrality is a very common alignment, perhaps the most common one among humans, deities who are not themselves purely Neutral can ill afford to reject purely Neutral worshipers. They can afford to be picky only about their clerics.
Actually, the above-linked Living Greyhawk PDF describes many non-human deities as being picky about the race of their worshipers, though not about worshiper alignment. Not that this makes any sense. There's no obvious reason for them to be bothered by worship by other races, and seems weird for the Chaotic Good god of elves, for example, to be that racist.

Indeed, it is an interesting question whether any deity would have any reason to reject anyone's worship ever, and if so what that reason might be. Perhaps because a mortal is so mistaken as to be truly worshiping a false distortion of the deity rather than the deity itself? Something which, on a large scale, could warp the actual deity, as a creature of belief, to conform to "its worshipers'" perceptions? One can but speculate.


I think my original view was most strongly influenced by the graphic design of the nine-alignment chart
Which chart would that be? Is it in the 3.0 PHB?


The only sourcebook I have for the Greyhawk deities is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer from the year 2000, which includes (and indeed prominently features) "Pholtus (of the Blinding Light), LG (LN), intermediate god of Light, Resolution, Law, Order, Inflexibility, Sun, and Moons." (The parenthetical alignment was identified in this book as the deity's "secondary" alignment.) So I was primed to accept a very symmetrical notion of how divine tolerance works. If a Lawful-Good deity (like Pholtus) can accept a Lawful-Neutral cleric, then why can't a Neutral-Good deity accept a Neutral-Neutral cleric? Are Neutral-Good deities somehow less tolerant than the "inflexible" Pholtus?
Ho ho ho ho!

With all due respect, that's looking at it precisely backwards! XD See, Pholtus's "my way or the highway" perspective is one more befitting a Lawful Evil deity; the idea that he even is Lawful Good seems highly dubious! He is, at best, Lawful Good but extremely close to Lawful Neutral. So it only makes sense that he'd accept LN clerics, being practically LN himself! It's because he's so intolerant, not in spite of it! XD

Pholtus is kind of a living illustration of the absurdity of classifying as "good" the rejection of freedom, mercy, compromise, etc. "THE IMPURE SHALL BE BURNT AWAY UNTIL ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS REMAIN!!!!" really just does not fit Good alignment at all, but gets nonsensically associated with it nevertheless.


But that doesn't make sense either as I'm sure they referenced things like Clerics of Pelor being able to be True Neutral.

It might just be something where no one really checked it out.

There's definite contradiction.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong and there is no contradiction on this issue. TN has never been suggested as an acceptable alignment for clerics of Pelor, to my knowledge. LN for clerics of Heironeous, sure, but that's quite different.

[Duke of Urrel]

Now, one could argue that these are separate rules, rather than simply different phrasings of the same rule -- to put it all together unambiguously, "A cleric may not be neutral (that is, neutral on both the good–evil axis and the lawful–chaotic axis) unless his deity is also neutral" -- but this argument would be quite disingenuous.

Not disingenuous, exactly, but keen to fit a strange new rule, with minimal changes, into my stubborn notions of how the old alignment wheel worked, and also keen to reject a prohibition that struck me at first as arbitrary and nonsensical. I have now, with your help and the help of others, overcome this particular prejudice.


Actually, the above-linked Living Greyhawk PDF describes many non-human deities as being picky about the race of their worshipers, though not about worshiper alignment. Not that this makes any sense. There's no obvious reason for them to be bothered by worship by other races, and seems weird for the Chaotic Good god of elves, for example, to be that racist.

Perhaps it's not racism, but some other kind of handicap. For example, perhaps Corellon Larethian, being so elf-like himself, is simply unable to draw power from the worship of non-elves. The gods of the Great Wheel cosmology are powerful, but not omnipotent.


Which chart would that be? Is it in the 3.0 PHB?

Earlier. Think second-edition AD&D. I'm an old guy! There were charts drawn up so that the fields representing the non-Neutral alignments (LG, LE, CE, and CG) shared borders with partly Neutral alignments (NG, LN, NE, and CN), but did not share borders with the central alignment (NN). Interestingly, the fields of the partly Neutral alignments all shared borders with each other as well as with the purely Neutral hub at the center.


Pholtus's "my way or the highway" perspective is one more befitting a Lawful Evil deity; the idea that he even is Lawful Good seems highly dubious! He is, at best, Lawful Good but extremely close to Lawful Neutral. So it only makes sense that he'd accept LN clerics, being practically LN himself! It's because he's so intolerant, not in spite of it! XD

Pholtus is kind of a living illustration of the absurdity of classifying as "good" the rejection of freedom, mercy, compromise, etc. "THE IMPURE SHALL BE BURNT AWAY UNTIL ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS REMAIN!!!!" really just does not fit Good alignment at all, but gets nonsensically associated with it nevertheless.

I have often wondered about Pholtus's identification as Lawful-Good – which really does appear in my Greyhawk Gazetteer as I have presented it above, no kidding. You're right; when it comes to being a tight-****, this fellow gives Saint Cuthbert serious competition. I think I shall confidently reassign him to LN and assume that the Greyhawk Gazetteer misplaced those parentheses.

By the way, it's not entirely nonsensical to confuse Lawful-Neutral behavior with Lawful-Goodness, though it is always a serious mistake. Lots of ordinary folk make this mistake, because the propaganda of Lawful-Neutrals themselves encourages it. Truly Good creatures have no patent on the word "good," so various fanatics of non-Good alignment are free to use and abuse this word. And it's not even a lie for some of them, because they honestly believe what they say. For a Lawful-Neutral zealot with strong convictions, only the Law is truly "good"; actual Goodness appears to be soft-hearted, mush-headed naïveté that can't possibly win out in the mortal struggle against Evil. Similarly, for a passionately Chaotic-Neutral free spirit, actual Goodness is only another violation of individual freedom, which is the only true "good." The so-called Goodness of actual Good creatures may not be as brutal as Evil or as obvious as Law, but it is subtly oppressive in its own way, because it inhibits being in touch with your true feelings and boldly acting upon them, wherever they may lead.