The Church of the Silver Flame and the lycanthrope purge [Archive]

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 06:12 PM

Alright, so a bit of a preface:

1.) Upon reflection, my main experience in Eberron seems to have diverged from the core setting. I qualify what I said before by saying the new Silver Flame is not as it was, and my knowledge of the setting lore seems to be different from the official lore.

2.) I am a NG druid (irl) with a serious addiction to diversity and individuality (strong chaotic bias, but not nearly as strong as my good-issues, and I usually actually follow the law). Thus, Silver Flame feels...eh, it's a personal preference. I'm sure they are nice people, and do good things. But it's not how I would do stuff, and it's not how I would promote goodness, either.

So, that said, I believe in individual redemption and atonement. But I'm not sure the same is true of institutions. Can an organization be redeemed and absolved of its past misdeeds? This is a pretty pithy question, frankly, and I'm not an expert on the history of Eberron, the current state of things, or really much beyond the fact that the CotSF was once involved in some seriously despicable behavior.

It's also hard to discuss this topic without citing historical examples, which I'm fairly certain will violate several forum rules in short order.

That aside, I believe that Eberron was conceived in part to chart the grey area, and move the standard moral issues in the game beyond "slay the evil beasties," a land in which the game had languished for some time back in the days of 2e and further back. 3e handled this better, but it wasn't until Eberron, I think, when they intentionally ditched a bunch of racial stereotypes, added in unfamiliar elements, and set the whole thing in a highly political and morally ambiguous setting, replete with a history of serious warfare, genocide, and huge age-ending invasions by stuff from beyond the pale.

So, I think that the debate is valid. Do the shifters/lycanthropes have a valid bone to pick with CotSF? I'd say so. But how can the misdeeds of the past be redressed? How can the residual fear/hatred/prejudice be reversed? CotSF can do good deeds until they're blue in the face, but until they balance the account with the descendents of those they wronged, and make serious, broad attempts to put things right, their "goodness" can and should be questioned.

Anyway, it's an interesting discussion. I will read more of the source material and commentary and add more as I discover and learn. Thanks for hosting a discussion of such an incisive issue.

Palanan

2013-09-19, 08:13 PM

Phelix, just to follow up on one comment you made in the fluff-races thread:

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Now, morally speaking, it is no less appalling. I totally agree that anyone that holds themselves to any firm standard of goodness should have dropped out of silver flame.

I would say, instead, that there may be a lot of people who believe they can heal the wrongs by working from within. They may or may not be accurate in that belief, in terms of practical effect, but does holding that belief make them morally compromised? I wouldn't think so.

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
I am a NG druid (irl)....

Hey, you too?

:smalltongue:

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 08:23 PM

avr

2013-09-19, 08:31 PM

123456789blaaa

2013-09-19, 08:33 PM

Hmm. The problem with staying within the organization is that a clean break is pretty much impossible. Those that have been wronged by the CotSF can probably righteously ask for justice from anyone in the organization, and each member bears this burden (though those that are less than exalted could just ignore the injustices of the past).

Even a very righteous, good-aligned CotSF member that has denounced the past and acted morally and exemplary in all other matters is connected institutionally to the wrongs of the past. While making a break from CotSF in order to avoid righting those wrongs is also not quite the right thing to do, it may well be more feasible to move away from that institutional taint, and seek to do good on one's own.

Basically, restitution must be made to those wronged (or their descendents). And anyone that flies under the banner of CotSF must tackle this problem, or be guilty of ignoring the suffering caused by the unhealed wounds of the past. Which is clearly quite the stain for any good conscience to endure.

The problem with that is that the Purge was over a 100 years ago. And it's not like anyone took the time to make family records while a werecreature version of 28 Days Later was happening. The Church is currently trying to keep shifters and good werecreatures protected but there's nothing specifically for the descendants of the Purged.

EDIT:
Bear in mind that your typical CE werewolf may not be someone you particularly want to make restitution to. As in, their persecuted ancestors committed plenty of atrocities and given the opportunity they would too.

It might be possible to convert them in Eberron then give them restitution and I expect that some Flamers would see that as the most just thing to do, but others would be happy to close the book of history with a shudder.

Yeah, I'm assuming people read the Keith Baker quotes I posted in the previous thread. In Eberron, Purging the evil lycanthropes was pretty much the right thing to do. The issue is that they also killed shifters and good lycanthropes.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 08:38 PM

Palanan

2013-09-19, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Can an organization be redeemed and absolved of its past misdeeds?

One of the greatest questions in human experience, and I would agree with you it's almost impossible to discuss fully without delving into any number of highly-charged historical episodes.

That said....

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Even a very righteous, good-aligned CotSF member that has denounced the past and acted morally and exemplary in all other matters is connected institutionally to the wrongs of the past.

There's the institutional connection, yes; but does that automatically bring culpability? I would say...not necessarily, and certainly not always as a hard-and-fast rule.

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Basically, restitution must be made to those wronged (or their descendents). And anyone that flies under the banner of CotSF must tackle this problem, or be guilty of ignoring the suffering caused by the unhealed wounds of the past. Which is clearly quite the stain for any good conscience to endure.

This nicely encapsulates one perspective on the issue, and as presented I would agree entirely, at least in broad terms.

The problems begin with how one defines "tackling the problem." Praying to the Silver Flame? Adopting an orphaned lycanthrope? Something in between? Absent a standard mandated by the Silver Flame itself, this becomes an issue for the individual to wrestle with, and presumably there are many in the institution who do so.

One question would be whether the institution itself encourages this sort of inner struggle--either on an individual basis, or as part of a process of dialogue and reconciliation within the public space of the institution itself--or whether the hierarchy would rather gloss over these issues, and actively suppresses discussion of same, both within the institution and by the faithful at large.

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Specifically, failing to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent when exacting "justice" is wrong. This is one area where there isn't much grey.

But doesn't this also apply to the distinction between those who committed appalling acts under the banner of the Silver Flame, and those who did not, but who still struggle with the institutional taint?

avr

2013-09-19, 08:53 PM

Thinking about it, a century ago isn't nearly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#vitalStatistics) long enough for all the non-humans in CotSF to have expired of old age. Was it really that recently in Eberron's history?

I was thinking of a break where none of those who were personally involved in the Purge would be around any more. In that case personal responsibility is a little harder to ascribe.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 08:54 PM

There's the institutional connection, yes; but does that automatically bring culpability? I would say...not necessarily, and certainly not always as a hard-and-fast rule.

The problem is that, to truly be good, you have to strive to avoid even the perception of wrongdoing. An impossible quest, to be sure, but without such vigilance, even harmless misunderstandings can be twisted into perceived ill intent. While a person is only responsible for the wrong they do as an individual, failing to stop evil from being perpetuated by those around you, or by not correcting the misconceptions that lead to suffering, is also a bad thing best avoided or fought against.

But doesn't this also apply to the distinction between those who committed appalling acts under the banner of the Silver Flame, and those who did not, but who still struggle with the institutional taint?

Bolded response. Your last bit here is extremely cogent. I'll think about how I would respond, but I think you have a good point.

EDIT: Alright, I think I have "thought about it."

My position is that a current CotSF member is free from personal culpability for the wrongs of the past.

But the CotSF itself is responsible for terrible things, not just individually, but as an organization. People think of CotSF, and, rightly or wrongly, judge that "those people saved us from those wretched animal people." The church's history is cloaked in hatred, and, although perpetrators pass away, the cultural memory vastly transcends the span of a single lifetime.

Thus, CotSF will continue to, however inadvertently, be hurting people. While a certain amount of this suffering is almost an inherent aspect of life (the wrongs of the past echo into the present...nothing a good person can do will stop this), a good person must do everything possible to help people that are suffering.

I believe the organization can, and must, take steps to fix the way their past actions continue to spread injustice, but I'm unclear that any member of CotSF doesn't share in the taint.

Think of any real-life example of this. Are members of Organization X that has terribly wronged people held blameless? Maybe this "group punishment" is also wrong, but it is a burden that I think is an inescapable part of being part of Organization X.

avr

2013-09-19, 09:02 PM

832 YK for approx 50 years, ends ~882 YK, current year 998 YK. See http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Timeline

Most elves, dwarves and gnomes involved in the Purge will still be around unless the Last War killed them off, some half-elves survive, and a few halflings will too. Any humans who haven't used powerful magic are history of course.

Yeah, there's room for this to be a very active issue.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-19, 09:17 PM

Nothing personal, but "the typical CE werewolf" in no way justifies collective punishment.

As a rule, the collective punishment of any group of people for the crimes of a few, or even of a majority, is soundly in the evil category. By lumping in a few innocent werewolves with the hideous murdering flesheating majority, those that exacted the punishment went from justified to murderers themselves.

Specifically, failing to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent when exacting "justice" is wrong. This is one area where there isn't much grey.

EDIT: To respond to the Count, it really doesn't matter how much time has passed. If the people wronged or their descendents are still suffering due to popular prejudice (and I definitely got the feeling that this is the case from what I've read of shifter/lycanthrope behavior in current times), or even from fear of prejudice, then the wrongs have not been righted. The legacy of the past lives on in the hearts and minds of the living, and even if there is no ongoing crime, the stained past can and does exact a toll on the living.

To be truly absolved, the CotSF must not only tirelessly fight to make things right with those wronged, but to reverse the popular attitudes and prejudices that their past teachings have led to, attitudes that perpetuate the false beliefs.

Maybe they have started this process, but expect that it will not be a quick mark to erase from their accounts.

I can't see where anyone said that. Could you quote the bit?

I'm not saying that the time passage matters, what I'm trying to say is that because of how much time has passed, it's even harder than normal to know which being is a descendant of which lycanthrope or shifter killed. Nobody really kept records at all so what's stopping some shifter today from saying 'oh yeah my werebear great-grandfather was totally brutally murdered. Give me my money please"?

832 YK for approx 50 years, ends ~882 YK, current year 998 YK. See http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Timeline

Most elves, dwarves and gnomes involved in the Purge will still be around unless the Last War killed them off, some half-elves survive, and a few halflings will too. Any humans who haven't used powerful magic are history of course.

Yeah, there's room for this to be a very active issue.

The thing is though that the Church is mostly made up of humans. Given that so many Templars died in the Purge I would guess that those numbers would be even less if you only counted the ones doing those things. Then you have to consider that the younger and healthier ones would still be doing active duty in the meanwhile (thus increasing the possibility of death). I think that it's enough to be a plot point for a particular game but in terms of being a very active issue? Probably not.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 09:21 PM

Bear in mind that your typical CE werewolf may not be someone you particularly want to make restitution to. As in, their persecuted ancestors committed plenty of atrocities and given the opportunity they would too.

It might be possible to convert them in Eberron then give them restitution and I expect that some Flamers would see that as the most just thing to do, but others would be happy to close the book of history with a shudder.

Sorry, I often forget to quote people directly.

EDIT: To the broader point, the problem is that direct victimization isn't the extent of the damage caused by an institutional crime. Again, maybe the individual isn't responsible, but the institution carries the burden of the suffering of every shifter that has been run out of town since the purge, just because the citizens of that town remember that the animal-people are evil (an outdated teaching, but these hatreds have a way of embedding themselves).

Real life racism is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Many people unwittingly participate in long past crimes without even realizing it, simply by reinforcing the pain suffered by minorities by action or inaction. While the individual can't answer for those long past crimes, the individual is tainted, rightfully or wrongfully.

Palanan

2013-09-19, 09:29 PM

On another aspect, I meant to comment on this before, and I see it even more strongly presented here:

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
The problem is that, to truly be good, you have to strive to avoid even the perception of wrongdoing. An impossible quest, to be sure...

In your comments earlier, and especially here, there seems to be the idea of an impossible standard which must be striven for, desperately reached out to, even though the attempt is almost certain to fail. This to me feels like an extension of a code of chivalry, which demands the pursuit of the ideal even as it acknowledges the seeds of failure borne within. It has all the supernally demanding rigor of a paladin's code.

But stepping back a bit, I wonder if this is the right frame through which to judge the adherents of the Silver Flame. Is this how they judge themselves? Is this the standard they demand of themselves? I don't know much about the source material, so I wonder if the adherents of the Silver Flame have these same razor-fine notions of ultimate purity of good, the subtlety of concern about the many aspects of how one can fail to be good. Is that what the Silver Flame teaches? And if not, how far can we fairly apply the standards you've alluded to?

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
Think of any real-life example of this. Are members of Organization X that has terribly wronged people held blameless? Maybe this "group punishment" is also wrong, but it is a burden that I think is an inescapable part of being part of Organization X.

Well, this can be taken to disturbing lengths, if you replace "organization" with "culture" or "nation." Suddenly an entire people, or a nation-state, is being held accountable for wrongs which certain individuals or subgroups have committed, or which a culture or nation has perpetrated in the past and then repudiated and forsworn.

But if an entire people is still held responsible, and punished for earlier wrongs, is that just?

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 09:38 PM

Hmm. I'm a druid in spirit, but I was raised Catholic. Maybe it shows from my comments.:smalltongue:

Personally, I feel a deep anger toward those groups of which I am a part that have inflicted suffering, however distant. Maybe it's wrong for me to feel this way, but I think there is a dark temptation toward thinking "I'm glad I don't approve of all that stuff that happened, cause that would be troubling."

Evil is a corrupting influence. Good is not. Few people are accidentally good, and I tend to believe that, as suffering is a pretty inherent condition of living, that evil is a tendency of pretty much everyone. The good must be vigilant against such evil. I hear Yoda speaking in my heart.

Now, as to the dogma of the CotSF itself, goodness knows. I am still reading on this, and have gotten rather sidetracked by the much more interesting conversation we are having. I fear that my fellow players in a campaign past may have slightly misled me as to the current state of affairs. That said...50 years of purging is pretty intense.

avr

2013-09-19, 09:41 PM

It's not that much time Count. Between living memories of non-humans (whether they're members of the church, lycanthropes where the -anthrope isn't human, or just people who happened to be living nearby), magic like Speak with Dead, and the records that did exist, I suspect a considerable majority of shifters could be traced back a few generations. Admittedly, some changeling conman might be able to make a career out of milking such a compensation system if it existed.

Anyway the CotSF would be more likely to try and compensate people by bringing them into the church and helping them there if I'm reading them right.

Phelix, I don't think there's any argument that the CotSF didn't go too far in the Purge. If I gave the impression of saying that I apologise. The question is more of what the current members of the church would or should do in response.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-19, 09:47 PM

And, again, nothing personal.

I've noticed, and to make it clear, I wasn't referring to financial restitution, but rather an effort to make things right. Offering money in response to someone's suffering rarely "makes things right," but it can substantially improve the mood of those involved. And as has been pointed out, a financial solution attracts its own brand of corruption.

EDIT: I also got the impression that CotSF was kind of in favor of getting people to join their group, whether we call this converting people or recruiting them. Not sure the shifters and their kin would go for this.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-21, 03:16 PM

One thing that I think I may have miscommunicated: when I talk about "good" and "evil" lycanthropes I'm talking about specific types of lycanthropes. Werewolfs and wererats are always evil because the magical curse makes them so. The opposite is true with werebears and werelions.

Hmm. I'm a druid in spirit, but I was raised Catholic. Maybe it shows from my comments.:smalltongue:

Personally, I feel a deep anger toward those groups of which I am a part that have inflicted suffering, however distant. Maybe it's wrong for me to feel this way, but I think there is a dark temptation toward thinking "I'm glad I don't approve of all that stuff that happened, cause that would be troubling."

Evil is a corrupting influence. Good is not. Few people are accidentally good, and I tend to believe that, as suffering is a pretty inherent condition of living, that evil is a tendency of pretty much everyone. The good must be vigilant against such evil. I hear Yoda speaking in my heart.

Now, as to the dogma of the CotSF itself, goodness knows. I am still reading on this, and have gotten rather sidetracked by the much more interesting conversation we are having. I fear that my fellow players in a campaign past may have slightly misled me as to the current state of affairs. That said...50 years of purging is pretty intense.

Some really good sources for research besides the wikis are from Keith Baker himself. His various blogs over the years have had Eberron Q and A's interspersed between "life" posts (scroll down to get to the relevant posts):

gloomforge (http://gloomforge.livejournal.com/) (this is where I got the quotes from the previous thread)

Have Dice Will Travel (http://bossythecow.com/hdwt/)

keith-baker.com (http://keith-baker.com/) (this is where he currently blogs at)

BOSSYTHECOW.COM (http://www.bossythecow.com/askthedreamingdark.htm) (I'm not sure what this site is exactly. It seems to be Bakers abandoned previous website home. Anyways, scroll down to the bottom for an archive of the Eberron Q and A's located there)

And how did they mislead you?

It's not that much time Count. Between living memories of non-humans (whether they're members of the church, lycanthropes where the -anthrope isn't human, or just people who happened to be living nearby), magic like Speak with Dead, and the records that did exist, I suspect a considerable majority of shifters could be traced back a few generations. Admittedly, some changeling conman might be able to make a career out of milking such a compensation system if it existed.

Anyway the CotSF would be more likely to try and compensate people by bringing them into the church and helping them there if I'm reading them right.

Phelix, I don't think there's any argument that the CotSF didn't go too far in the Purge. If I gave the impression of saying that I apologise. The question is more of what the current members of the church would or should do in response.

I think you're misunderstanding the situation of the Purge. This wasn't like a normal war (even a really horrible one like WWII). It was a zombie Apocalypse but with werecreatures instead of zombies.

At the height of the Purge, villages were getting massacred, buildings were getting destroyed, wererats had established humongous freaking warrens beneath the largest cities. Werewolves ran in packs throughout the wilderness. It was chaos and destruction everywhere and for most people, every waking moment was spent trying to stay alive. There weren't many "safe" places and the ones that existed were like very well-funded survivor enclaves in a zombie apocalypse movie.

In this kind of situation, people do not pay attention to which Templar kills which werecreature or shifter (except close friends and family). People were not creating new records because they were too busy trying to find food and not get killed.

Any corpses have long since rotted away. A preserved one might be plot point for a particular game but it's an exception. The lycanthropes were hunted almost to extinction.

I'm not saying it's impossible to trace a bloodline back to that time but it's going to be a limited thing.

And, again, nothing personal.

I've noticed, and to make it clear, I wasn't referring to financial restitution, but rather an effort to make things right. Offering money in response to someone's suffering rarely "makes things right," but it can substantially improve the mood of those involved. And as has been pointed out, a financial solution attracts its own brand of corruption.

EDIT: I also got the impression that CotSF was kind of in favor of getting people to join their group, whether we call this converting people or recruiting them. Not sure the shifters and their kin would go for this.

Actually, there were shifters joining the Silver Flame even during the Purge. While there are certainly many shifters that will not forgive the Silver Flame, there are shifters in the Church in present times.

Scow2

2013-09-22, 08:19 PM

Bolded response. Your last bit here is extremely cogent. I'll think about how I would respond, but I think you have a good point.

EDIT: Alright, I think I have "thought about it."

My position is that a current CotSF member is free from personal culpability for the wrongs of the past.

But the CotSF itself is responsible for terrible things, not just individually, but as an organization. People think of CotSF, and, rightly or wrongly, judge that "those people saved us from those wretched animal people." The church's history is cloaked in hatred, and, although perpetrators pass away, the cultural memory vastly transcends the span of a single lifetime.

Thus, CotSF will continue to, however inadvertently, be hurting people. While a certain amount of this suffering is almost an inherent aspect of life (the wrongs of the past echo into the present...nothing a good person can do will stop this), a good person must do everything possible to help people that are suffering.

I believe the organization can, and must, take steps to fix the way their past actions continue to spread injustice, but I'm unclear that any member of CotSF doesn't share in the taint.

Think of any real-life example of this. Are members of Organization X that has terribly wronged people held blameless? Maybe this "group punishment" is also wrong, but it is a burden that I think is an inescapable part of being part of Organization X.I do not appreciate your condemnation of every one of every group that ever existed. False accusations and blame-laying are also not to be tolerated. There is no "Taint" left from that. There will always be well-intentioned zealots. It's not the fault of the Silver Flame that shifters and Good Lycanthropes are victimized - that has never been their goal. In fact, in the hundred years since the purge, the Silver Flame has extended its full protections to even the ones that hate them. The reason Shifters are feared and 'oppressed' isn't because the Silver Flame killed a bunch of them - it's because 100 years ago, lycanthropes (Which shifters are related to) went insane and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Your "Guilt by association" can be just as easily swung the other way, with Lycanthropes being held perpetually in contempt for the mindless slaughter of innocent people hundreds of years ago... except not every living Lycanthrope has made a pact to lay down its life to protect and serve the innocent, weak, and everyone else against very real, supernatural horror, and also engage in common altruism to fight domestic evil.

Holding good people responsible for the ignorance and hatred of others ("Good people must ensure they are percieved as being good!") is extremely... sick

And since when has "Sacrificing my own life to protect the weak and innocent" ever been an act of evil and hatred?

EDIT: To the broader point, the problem is that direct victimization isn't the extent of the damage caused by an institutional crime. Again, maybe the individual isn't responsible, but the institution carries the burden of the suffering of every shifter that has been run out of town since the purge, just because the citizens of that town remember that the animal-people are evil (an outdated teaching, but these hatreds have a way of embedding themselves).Why is the Silver Flame being blamed for the actions of the Sovereign Host-worshiping people of Anduiar? The Silver Flame moved to protect the people of Anduiar. Their only 'crime' was acting on bad/incomplete information, or failing to catch Zealots that crawled into power and took things too far.

Real life racism is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Many people unwittingly participate in long past crimes without even realizing it, simply by reinforcing the pain suffered by minorities by action or inaction. While the individual can't answer for those long past crimes, the individual is tainted, rightfully or wrongfully.No. Not to the extent you are thinking. What you are insisting is that a cycle of revenge and disproportionate restitution (Not a typo) must be made until the end of time.

How many innocents were the Silver Flame supposed to let die? Mistakes were made, but the costs had the action not been attempted are worse. It has been generations since the purge, and, frankly, the 'victims' need to get over it and move on with their lives instead of wallowing in "You wronged me!" self-entitlement. Taken as a whole in the balance of Good and Evil on the Silver Flame's record, the bits of the "Lycanthropic Purge" the Church has any culpability for is an "oops" on the Malevometer, and one they've done everything within their power to rectify the issue since then. If you only look at and never forgive the crimes of the past, and disregard all the good it does, everyone looks like they belong in the Abyss.

Psyren

2013-09-22, 08:43 PM

I'm a big fan of supporting designer intent rather than reading against it, particularly in cases where they chime in and provide that intent directly, since it encourages them to keep doing so (and thus reduces silly internet arguments.) To that end, I'm more inclined to side with what Keith tried to convey about the Silver Flame than resorting to a darker reading.

Coidzor

2013-09-22, 11:05 PM

I prefer my Church of the Silver Flame as an indictment of the otherwise typical D&D setting/dev belief that Lawful Good is Best Good by having the people who are still good rather than vaguely goodish or corrupt being isolated from any true power or influence to effect the culture of the church or being the occasional really virtuous layman.

The earnestly good but naive loli-pope, the occasional Paladin who actually knows how to Paladin, the odd PC standing in contrast to those who have given into corruption or been beaten down by the monolithic hierarchy and bureaucracy of running the largest organized hierarchical paramilitary religion in the known world. Most of them aren't *bad* per se, they're just doing what they think is in the interest of the church and what is in their interest and that's not necessarily always going to be right or good so much as what keeps the Church powerful and rich and in control as much as possible.

Cardinal Krozen is in the minority, but he's part of a very influential and manipulative minority that makes sure that young, idealistic clerics and paladins get broken down by bureaucracy, are actively corrupted, or receive mysterious re-assignments to go adventuring and typically die horribly as well as keeping the loli-pope as more of an ill-informed figurehead than as a true leader.

Also, when you've got an army of Paladins running around who aren't as Good as they think they are, well... Mikos. Mikos everywhere. And everyone loves to hate a Miko even if they're not an antagonist who gets met on the field of battle.

Psyren

2013-09-22, 11:07 PM

The earnestly good but naive loli-pope

rofl :smallbiggrin:

Coidzor

2013-09-22, 11:12 PM

rofl :smallbiggrin:

I mean, Jaela's not a bad name, but when you could call her the loli-pope instead it's really no contest. Also, she's still somewhere between 7 and 14. Narrative Causality demands that she either be naive or wise beyond her years.

And when you take Cardinal Richilieu and rename him Cardinal Krozen and give him the task of politically isolating and making a puppet or figurehead out of the supernaturally chosen vessel for your deity-equivalent... Failure isn't an option otherwise he'd be dead and there'd be another character occupying his position. So he'd better be a magnificent bastard and accomplishing this. And for that to work he needs the loli-pope to not be wise beyond her years, otherwise we'd just have a story about how the Loli-Pope purified the church of corruption like that one story about the miner's son who saved a princess from goblins and then was given the ability to tell whether people were really people on the inside based upon whether he felt a man's hand or an animal when he shook their hand.

Big Fau

2013-09-22, 11:33 PM

I mean, Jaela's not a bad name, but when you could call her the loli-pope instead it's really no contest. Also, she's still somewhere between 7 and 14.

11, and Faiths of Eberron demonstrates that she's incredibly wise for her age (comes from having a base 15 Wis as a 3rd level Cleric). She started acting as the Voice at age 6.

Coidzor

2013-09-22, 11:56 PM

11, and Faiths of Eberron demonstrates that she's incredibly wise for her age (comes from having a base 15 Wis as a 3rd level Cleric). She started acting as the Voice at age 6.

And yet Krozen is still around. So for that narrative's purposes...

Big Fau

2013-09-23, 06:55 AM

And yet Krozen is still around. So for that narrative's purposes...

He isn't exactly overt about his alignment. In fact, his paranoia can be partially chalked up to him knowing that the Lolipope can hand him his ass while in the Keep. Just because he's LE doesn't mean he walks around with a neon sign proclaiming it, nor does it mean the Lolipope keeps Detect Evil going 24/7.

Krozen also has Undetectable Alignment prepared according to his stats in Five Nations.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 09:45 AM

I do not appreciate your condemnation of every one of every group that ever existed. False accusations and blame-laying are also not to be tolerated. There is no "Taint" left from that. There will always be well-intentioned zealots. It's not the fault of the Silver Flame that shifters and Good Lycanthropes are victimized - that has never been their goal. In fact, in the hundred years since the purge, the Silver Flame has extended its full protections to even the ones that hate them. The reason Shifters are feared and 'oppressed' isn't because the Silver Flame killed a bunch of them - it's because 100 years ago, lycanthropes (Which shifters are related to) went insane and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Your "Guilt by association" can be just as easily swung the other way, with Lycanthropes being held perpetually in contempt for the mindless slaughter of innocent people hundreds of years ago... except not every living Lycanthrope has made a pact to lay down its life to protect and serve the innocent, weak, and everyone else against very real, supernatural horror, and also engage in common altruism to fight domestic evil.

Holding good people responsible for the ignorance and hatred of others ("Good people must ensure they are percieved as being good!") is extremely... sick

And since when has "Sacrificing my own life to protect the weak and innocent" ever been an act of evil and hatred?

Why is the Silver Flame being blamed for the actions of the Sovereign Host-worshiping people of Anduiar? The Silver Flame moved to protect the people of Anduiar. Their only 'crime' was acting on bad/incomplete information, or failing to catch Zealots that crawled into power and took things too far.

No. Not to the extent you are thinking. What you are insisting is that a cycle of revenge and disproportionate restitution (Not a typo) must be made until the end of time.

How many innocents were the Silver Flame supposed to let die? Mistakes were made, but the costs had the action not been attempted are worse. It has been generations since the purge, and, frankly, the 'victims' need to get over it and move on with their lives instead of wallowing in "You wronged me!" self-entitlement. Taken as a whole in the balance of Good and Evil on the Silver Flame's record, the bits of the "Lycanthropic Purge" the Church has any culpability for is an "oops" on the Malevometer, and one they've done everything within their power to rectify the issue since then. If you only look at and never forgive the crimes of the past, and disregard all the good it does, everyone looks like they belong in the Abyss.

I agree with you but let's try and keep the anger to a minimum. I don't want this debate to escalate and get the thread locked.

I prefer my Church of the Silver Flame as an indictment of the otherwise typical D&D setting/dev belief that Lawful Good is Best Good by having the people who are still good rather than vaguely goodish or corrupt being isolated from any true power or influence to effect the culture of the church or being the occasional really virtuous layman.

The earnestly good but naive loli-pope, the occasional Paladin who actually knows how to Paladin, the odd PC standing in contrast to those who have given into corruption or been beaten down by the monolithic hierarchy and bureaucracy of running the largest organized hierarchical paramilitary religion in the known world. Most of them aren't *bad* per se, they're just doing what they think is in the interest of the church and what is in their interest and that's not necessarily always going to be right or good so much as what keeps the Church powerful and rich and in control as much as possible.

Cardinal Krozen is in the minority, but he's part of a very influential and manipulative minority that makes sure that young, idealistic clerics and paladins get broken down by bureaucracy, are actively corrupted, or receive mysterious re-assignments to go adventuring and typically die horribly as well as keeping the loli-pope as more of an ill-informed figurehead than as a true leader.

Also, when you've got an army of Paladins running around who aren't as Good as they think they are, well... Mikos. Mikos everywhere. And everyone loves to hate a Miko even if they're not an antagonist who gets met on the field of battle.

The thing is though that even if this is rare in most dnd settings, it's become clichéd and boring IMO in other works of fiction. I've seen so many Miko types and corrupted churches that it's just getting boring for me. That's why I like the Church of the Silver Flame. The evil is still there but it's the shadow in the flame, not the flame itself.

Roguenewb

2013-09-23, 10:40 AM

I agree with you but let's try and keep the anger to a minimum. I don't want this debate to escalate and get the thread locked.

The thing is though that even if this is rare in most dnd settings, it's become clichéd and boring IMO in other works of fiction. I've seen so many Miko types and corrupted churches that it's just getting boring for me. That's why I like the Church of the Silver Flame. The evil is still there but it's the shadow in the flame, not the flame itself.

QFT. QFT. QFT. The Miko thing is so hilariously overdone that I can't even play paladins in most groups, because they expect that kind of insanity. Every damn church I ever write into a setting while DMing, half the players immediately assume its corrupt, and the others assume its a pawn of some greater evil. It's dumb. You want corrupt, pawn of evil church? Well, Eberron provides, go run the Blood of Vol. But the CotSF is good. Its inarguable, the setting's creator explicitly says so. If you run it as not good, its technically not Eberron, its a homebrew strongly based on Eberron. Yes Krozen is bad, but that doesn't mean he's got the whole church in his hands.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 11:16 AM

I've seen so many Miko types and corrupted churches that it's just getting boring for me. That's why I like the Church of the Silver Flame. The evil is still there but it's the shadow in the flame, not the flame itself.

Even in present day Eberron, there's the Penitent- shifters who believe themselves guilty of the "innate sin" of being tainted by the lycanthropic curse- and thus obliged to sacrifice their lives in service to the Silver Flame in atonement.

There's also the Servants of the Pure Flame, who have no qualms about forcing others to convert to worship of it, despite this being against the core precepts of the group- and whose extremists believe that the more divergent form of Silver Flame worship practiced by the Ghost Guardian tribe of orcs, is a heresy to be wiped out.

There's the Inquisition- who have enough people in it who believe that "the ends justify the means" (and have resorted to torture and the killing of the innocent along with the guilty) to taint the reputation of the organisation as a whole.

And so forth.

"Good church with a disturbing amount of over-ruthless higher-ups" is the best that can be said about it.

Big Fau

2013-09-23, 12:02 PM

"Good church with a disturbing amount of over-ruthless higher-ups" is the best that can be said about it.

Name them. Krozen's a given, but how many other examples are there? Even in published Eberron modules and the official novels it doesn't come up nearly enough to call it "disturbing". The Purge may have happened during a particularly bad time for the church, but a majority of those responsible are dead (be it through natural death or because they were killed during the Purge).

Faiths of Eberron also gave us a depiction of the Purge in action:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/foe_gallery/99896.jpg

The caption for that image? "Those who believe the lycanthropic purge was a church-sponsored massacre never experienced the horror for themselves." That image depicts Wereboars, which the MM states are "Always Neutral". Extremists shouldn't be the standard to which you judge the CoSF. They are an exception to the norm, and outnumbered by the people who actually believe in the church's dogma.

Every religion has radical supporters, and Eberron's books highlight them to give the DM a reason to justify certain antagonists' actions. I'm also sure that the Cult of the Dragon Below has a handful of Good-aligned members, just as the Dark Six and Blood of Vol do (in fact, the latter has a huge number of neutral/good-aligned devotees in Karrnath.). The Purge was such a huge issue that it justifies drama between a Silver Flame PC and a Shifter/True Lycan PC/NPC.

And then there's the events of the Blade of the Flame trilogy, where Lycanthropy plays a huge role (not going into spoilers unless asked).

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 12:20 PM

Even in present day Eberron, there's the Penitent- shifters who believe themselves guilty of the "innate sin" of being tainted by the lycanthropic curse- and thus obliged to sacrifice their lives in service to the Silver Flame in atonement.

There's also the Servants of the Pure Flame, who have no qualms about forcing others to convert to worship of it, despite this being against the core precepts of the group- and whose extremists believe that the more divergent form of Silver Flame worship practiced by the Ghost Guardian tribe of orcs, is a heresy to be wiped out.

There's the Inquisition- who have enough people in it who believe that "the ends justify the means" (and have resorted to torture and the killing of the innocent along with the guilty) to taint the reputation of the organisation as a whole.

And so forth.

"Good church with a disturbing amount of over-ruthless higher-ups" is the best that can be said about it.

The Penitent are deluded yes but not really evil. Their beliefs are harmful to themselves but they don't go around forcing it on others. I'm not sure why you listed it :smallconfused:.

The Servants of the Pure Flame are jerks yes. They and the Tarnished are what I was mainly talking about.

Most of the Inquisitors would never stoop to acts of evil. The rare extremist members are able to taint the reputation of the sect because the rest are so good. Dr. Jekyll spent his whole career saving children's lives and yet Mr. Hyde's single murder was more publicized than all of it. I don't see how the Inquisition conflicts with what I said.

And out of all of those, only the Servants of the Pure Flame (a single small sect) have any kind of influence in the higher hierarchy. So I'm not seeing where you got the idea of "a disturbing amount of over-ruthless higher ups".

I linked a few quotes by Keith Baker in the thread that I linked in the OP of this one. Did you read them?

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 12:41 PM

It's Faiths of Eberron that describes the Inquisition in those terms:

p68:

One order stands out in the minds of Purified and nonbelievers alike. Its members have been known at various times as the Ardent Seekers of the Illuminated Word, the Knights Inquisitive, the Office of the Hallowed Confessors, and - most simply and most famously - the Inquisition/ They have been a knightly order and a monastic order, but are now simply a semiformal gathering of Church operatives. Whatever their shape, their purpose remains the same: to root out enemies of the Silver Flame, with the Purified and without, and to cleanse the world of them by all appropriate means.

The definition of "appropriate" changes from era to era, and from inquisitor to inquisitor. Most would never stoop to acts of evil, but some believe strongly that the ends justify the means. Some even resort to tortures, or to burning innocents to cleanse a village of a single evil. Unfortunately the actions of these few have tainted the reputation of the Inquisition, so that other people see all inquisitors as the worst of the Silver Flame.

p69:
Ghaash'kala, the Ghost Guardians:

The tribesmen worship a great power called the Kalok Shash, the "Binding Flame," which gathers the souls of the departed and keeps darkness and evil at bay. Some Purified refuse to accept this as an embodiment of the Silver Flame, unwilling to share a faith with barbaric orcs. Most priests, however, acknowledge that the Ghaash'kala do indeed worship the Flame, but believe their view of it to be skewed and inaccurate. The Flame has sent several missionary expeditions, but none of any real size or success to date, due at least in part to extremists among the Servants of the Pure Flame who would rather see this heretical worship wiped out than accepted.

Servants of the Pure Flame

The Servants (also called Puritans) are true fanatics and extremists. They follow every law of the faith to the letter, seek the destruction of every force even remotely opposed to the Flame, and have no compunctions - unlike other Purified - about forced conversion. The Puritans are the most likely to resort to violent or questionable means to obtain a "good" goal, and they have substantial power and influence in the priesthood, all the way to the Diet of Cardinals.
p62:
Corruption:

It astounds many people that a Church standing for justice, right, and the abolishment of evil could be so rife with corruption. For all their enemies, it sometimes seems that the priesthood of the Silver Flame must inevitably be brought not from without, but from the growing darkness within.

To an extent, this is a skewed perception. The overwhelming majority of Silver Flame priests are legitimately faithful, if perhaps not as pure as they would like. Only a small portion of priests are truly corrupt, but they stand out so starkly against the bright background of the rest, and tend to hold positions of great importance when they are discovered, creating the impression that the taint runs deeper than it does.

Still, corruption does indeed eat away at portions of the Church hierarchy.

It goes on to say that the most common form of corruption involves setting aside mercy and compassion, sacrificing the innocent for "the greater good", torturing and killing without remorse, and "using dark methods to win the battle against evil.

The Penitent are deluded yes but not really evil. Their beliefs are harmful to themselves but they don't go around forcing it on others. I'm not sure why you listed it :smallconfused:

Mostly because they wouldn't be believing it unless someone in the Church was teaching them it.

And out of all of those, only the Servants of the Pure Flame (a single small sect) have any kind of influence in the higher hierarchy. So I'm not seeing where you got the idea of "a disturbing amount of over-ruthless higher ups".

"Over-ruthlessness" being the most common form of corruption, might have been part of the reason.

I linked a few quotes by Keith Baker in the thread that I linked in the OP of this one. Did you read them?

I did- and while it's true that there are "more Jaela Daerans than Cardinal Krozens" it's also true that a certain level of intolerance is the norm, not the exception- as demonstrated by the quotes from the "typical Thrane merchant" in Five Nations, which are explicitly stated to represent the popular majority view:

p137:

Cyran Refugees & the Mourning:
"That was the judgement of the Silver Flame, I tell you. The corrupt and faithless Cyrans got what they deserved."

Darguun
"A recognized nation of goblins? What filth! Flame forgive me, but you can't civilize the uncivilized - Treaty of Thronehold be damned."

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 01:16 PM

To anyone who was upset by my earlier statements, I believe a more exhaustive search of my comments will reveal that I pretty much plead ignorance to this specific circumstance, and my comments are more in line with what I generally feel are problems with institutional crimes and the individuals associated with said institution. So, if source material makes my points seem invalid, then my points are probably invalid in this instance.

That said, I kind of feel that, while a person is not to be held responsible for the crimes of others, it is very difficult to toe the line on goodness while feeling that all that stuff from the past is done and dusted. In an ideal world, everyone is judged only on their own actions and merits. But a good person can't really assume that the whole world operates on such idealistic parameters. Largely because it doesn't.

Whether the good person likes it or not, the past haunts everyone. This is part of why evil works; suffering breeds more suffering. While the good person might not bear personal responsibility for the suffering, it's hard to be good and not try to do what one can to relieve even a small amount. In my view, this may even amount to justification for leaving an institution that is seen to be guilty of past crimes or ongoing injustices.

Again, let me reiterate, my argument is now to the broader point on this issue, rather than speaking to the specifics of the CotSF and the purge. I've realized that several things that I've taken for granted (like I've never, ever bought into the shoddy, RAW logic that certain animal-types are somehow inherently evil when it comes to lycanthropy...a bizarrely real-world ethnocentric view that I ditched way back in 2e), are not the rules present in the setting. My views on the specific example are thus pretty much erroneous, but I think there is a broader point to be made.

As ever, I mean no insult to anyone, and apologize if any is implied or stated.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 01:40 PM

The Silver Flame in general is implied to have a fairly relaxed attitude to evil-aligned individuals in the organization here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041122a

In Eberron, the alignment of a priest does not have to match that of his deity. As a result, corruption is a major concern in the Church of the Silver Flame. However, corruption can take many forms, and each can have a vastly different impact on a campaign.

The most common form of corruption is when zealous devotion causes a priest to set aside mercy and compassion. Such a priest may be a pillar of his community and an admirable man who has absolute dedication to the Church. But if he must sacrifice the innocent in pursuit of the greater good, he will. He will torture and kill without remorse. He will not glorify these actions, and will not torture needlessly -- but he will not shirk from using dark methods to win the battle against evil.

A second form of corruption is greed. The clerics and adepts of the Silver Flame are not supposed to sell divine spells; these miracles are to be saved for the protection of the faithful. But some clerics use their spells to gain gold or influence. Some just want to live lives of luxury, but others believe that there are many ways to fight evil -- and that political power is a more effective weapon than a paladin's sword. While these priests have an evil alignment, they may still be working in the interests of the greater good -- at least, as they see it.

These two types of priests both have their redeeming features. They do not see themselves as evil and may aid the cause of good.

The Church does not define evil as "that which can be detected with detect evil"; as noted earlier, someone with an evil alignment may serve the greater good. Furthermore, a cleric of a good deity always possesses a good aura, regardless of her personal alignment. Rank within the church hierarchy is another complication: a pilgrim can't kill a cardinal and expect to get away with it because "he was evil." She will need proof of actions that went against church doctrine and harmed the innocent.

Psyren

2013-09-23, 01:45 PM

That tells you how the "evil" individuals in the church are likely to behave though - what it doesn't tell you is how many of them there are, or how influential they are, compared to the genuinely good clergy. So it doesn't contradict Keith's statement that the church is Good on the whole.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 01:48 PM

The splatbooks do say that the majority of individuals in the organization are Good- and not extremist- but also that the extremists wield a lot of power.

Coidzor

2013-09-23, 01:51 PM

The thing is though that even if this is rare in most dnd settings, it's become clichéd and boring IMO in other works of fiction. I've seen so many Miko types and corrupted churches that it's just getting boring for me. That's why I like the Church of the Silver Flame. The evil is still there but it's the shadow in the flame, not the flame itself.

It's more the banality of hierarchies and subversion rather than overt corruption. Think more along the lines of the general church of Om in Small Gods rather than the Inquisition.

If I wanted a genuine good church of good in my D&D I'd just use Pelor sans Burning Hate and there we go. Funnily enough, the Burning Hate seems to be considered the more interesting option despite being a cliche itself.

He isn't exactly overt about his alignment. In fact, his paranoia can be partially chalked up to him knowing that the Lolipope can hand him his ass while in the Keep. Just because he's LE doesn't mean he walks around with a neon sign proclaiming it, nor does it mean the Lolipope keeps Detect Evil going 24/7.

Krozen also has Undetectable Alignment prepared according to his stats in Five Nations.

Yes, exactly. I never stated that I thought he was going around cackling all the time, just that he was maneuvering around her and she hadn't caught him. :smallconfused:

QFT. QFT. QFT. The Miko thing is so hilariously overdone that I can't even play paladins in most groups, because they expect that kind of insanity.

Every damn church I ever write into a setting while DMing, half the players immediately assume its corrupt, and the others assume its a pawn of some greater evil. It's dumb. You want corrupt, pawn of evil church? Well, Eberron provides, go run the Blood of Vol.

So you've got a problem with giving the public what they want? :smalltongue:

What do you mean corrupt? The Blood of Vol is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. :smallamused:

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 02:03 PM

Taken as a whole in the balance of Good and Evil on the Silver Flame's record, the bits of the "Lycanthropic Purge" the Church has any culpability for is an "oops" on the Malevometer, and one they've done everything within their power to rectify the issue since then.

Some, maybe. Others carry on exactly the same attitude and methodology:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050404a

Lycanthropes in the Modern Age

Today, the balance of power within the Church of the Silver Flame has shifted toward the moderates, and many feel shame and regret for the actions of their predecessors. While the evil lycanthropes needed to be stopped, the paranoia and zealotry of the age led to the death of innocents. However, it did accomplish one goal: The Silver Flame did gain many supporters as a result of the purge, and Aundair is the stronghold of the puritan faction in the modern age. The puritans refuse to see the purge as anything but a triumph; most have been raised on tales of the horrors of the early ninth century. They feel no shame about the deaths of non-evil lycanthropes or afflicted victims who might have been cured; in the eyes of the puritans, lycanthropes are monsters -- and the duty of the templar is to defend the innocent from evil, not to feel pity for monsters.

While the Church of Thrane no longer follows Jolan Sol's doctrines, the church continues to hunt shapeshifters in the present day. Jaela Daran has ordered templars to subdue lycanthropes whenever possible and to accept the surrender of any lycanthrope, so that the shapeshifter can be cured or exiled to Lamannia. However, if a lycanthrope does not cooperate, the templars use lethal force. This is covered under provisions in the Code of Galifar; the templars of the Church are authorized to defend the people of the Five Nations against supernatural threats, and a lycanthrope who willfully maintains his condition is seen as intentionally endangering others. The puritans of Aundair are infamous for ignoring Jaela's edicts, and most Aundairian templars show no mercy when dealing with lycanthropes.

This means that werebear players, at least, have grounds to be upset with the Silver Flame.

It has been generations since the purge, and, frankly, the 'victims' need to get over it and move on with their lives instead of wallowing in "You wronged me!" self-entitlement.

It's still going on- it just involves "exile to Lamannia" (unless caught by Aundairian templars) rather than killing.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 03:30 PM

It's Faiths of Eberron that describes the Inquisition in those terms:

p68:

p69:
Ghaash'kala, the Ghost Guardians:

Servants of the Pure Flame

p62:
Corruption:

It goes on to say that the most common form of corruption involves setting aside mercy and compassion, sacrificing the innocent for "the greater good", torturing and killing without remorse, and "using dark methods to win the battle against evil.

Mostly because they wouldn't be believing it unless someone in the Church was teaching them it.

"Over-ruthlessness" being the most common form of corruption, might have been part of the reason.

I did- and while it's true that there are "more Jaela Daerans than Cardinal Krozens" it's also true that a certain level of intolerance is the norm, not the exception- as demonstrated by the quotes from the "typical Thrane merchant" in Five Nations, which are explicitly stated to represent the popular majority view:

p137:

The first quote doesn't seem to contradict me :smallconfused:. The Inquisition is mostly good except for a few bad apples. These people taint the reputation of the order as a whole.

The others are pretty much what I was saying. There is darkness and evil within the Church but it is confined to the puritans and scattered members of the Church outside that sect. It's still there but the majority of the Church is good.

"Most common" is talking about the corruption that is most prevalent. It does not mean that corruption is prevalent. Do you understand what I mean?

I don't see any need for the Church to have taught the Puritans their beliefs. The end of the Purge was just over 100 years ago. A shifter raised in modern times can see prejudice outside the Silver Flame all the time. Once they establish a doctrine, they begin teaching it to other shifters and it becomes self-perpetuating. While it's possible a member of the Church was the one who started the cycle, I think it's unlikely given that the Church sees the Purge as a black mark on their history.

"Over-ruthlessness" being the most common form of corruption, might have been part of the reason.

Yes but that doesn't mean that corruption is common. It means that when there is corruption, "over-ruthlessness" is the most common type.

I did- and while it's true that there are "more Jaela Daerans than Cardinal Krozens" it's also true that a certain level of intolerance is the norm, not the exception- as demonstrated by the quotes from the "typical Thrane merchant" in Five Nations, which are explicitly stated to represent the popular majority view:

p137:

Her views represent the views of the popular majority of Thrane, not the Silver Flame. Yes Thrane is the location of the heads of the Silver Flame but the number of uneducated peasants still far outnumber them. Also:

It's unfortunate that Forge of War seems to emphasize this misconception of the Thrane and the Church of the Silver Flame.

Yes, this was a little frustrating for me. The Forge of War is generally a great book,but it does have a fairly unstable view of Thrane and the Flame. Personally, when I do try to reconcile this, I consider it to be the result of an influx of faithful from other nations flocking to Thrane in the wake of the declaration of the theocracy. In my opinion Thrane has always been the seat of moderation, but where the Flame has taken root in other nations - especially Aundair, where the seeds were sown in the midst of the madness of war - you have the more fanatical and unorthodox sects. Thus, these converts flocking to the new kingdom of the Thrane would bring instability and chaos as they attempted to find a place in the promised land. I will point to page 55 of TFOW:

The armies of Thrane claim the blessing of the Silver Flame and for the most part act in the devoted, compassionate, honest, and true manner befitting such an honor.

It continues to say that there were troubles in the early years as overzealous soldiers commited atrocities, but that this was brought under control; this again is where I would attribute this to an influx or unorthodox immigrants being slowly converted to the moderate path.

One thing I would certainly add to TFoW description: I have always considered Thrane to have the best archers of the Five Nations, and considered its peasant archers to be a major part of its success in war (much like England at Agincourt). Training in the bow is a common part of the faith of the Silver Flame, and I consider many Thranish peasants to either have a proficiency fat or a level of warrior. So to me, that's a defining element of Thranish tactics - superior archery among the militias.

To anyone who was upset by my earlier statements, I believe a more exhaustive search of my comments will reveal that I pretty much plead ignorance to this specific circumstance, and my comments are more in line with what I generally feel are problems with institutional crimes and the individuals associated with said institution. So, if source material makes my points seem invalid, then my points are probably invalid in this instance.

That said, I kind of feel that, while a person is not to be held responsible for the crimes of others, it is very difficult to toe the line on goodness while feeling that all that stuff from the past is done and dusted. In an ideal world, everyone is judged only on their own actions and merits. But a good person can't really assume that the whole world operates on such idealistic parameters. Largely because it doesn't.

Whether the good person likes it or not, the past haunts everyone. This is part of why evil works; suffering breeds more suffering. While the good person might not bear personal responsibility for the suffering, it's hard to be good and not try to do what one can to relieve even a small amount. In my view, this may even amount to justification for leaving an institution that is seen to be guilty of past crimes or ongoing injustices.

Again, let me reiterate, my argument is now to the broader point on this issue, rather than speaking to the specifics of the CotSF and the purge. I've realized that several things that I've taken for granted (like I've never, ever bought into the shoddy, RAW logic that certain animal-types are somehow inherently evil when it comes to lycanthropy...a bizarrely real-world ethnocentric view that I ditched way back in 2e), are not the rules present in the setting. My views on the specific example are thus pretty much erroneous, but I think there is a broader point to be made.

As ever, I mean no insult to anyone, and apologize if any is implied or stated.

Oh? What things? Are they the things your players misled you about?

One thing about lycanthropes=inherently evil thing: Lycanthropy is a magical curse. It is unnatural.

The Silver Flame in general is implied to have a fairly relaxed attitude to evil-aligned individuals in the organization here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041122a

What Psyren said. And corruption is a major concern for the Silver Flame (I can get a quote if you want).

The splatbooks do say that the majority of individuals in the organization are Good- and not extremist- but also that the extremists wield a lot of power.

You're...kind of right. The extremists don't actually wield that much power. They are a fringe group as evidenced by the support for Jaela in Thrane.

On the other hand, hidden and corrupted individuals in the Church can hold much power. Cardinal Krozen is...a cardinal. He thinks of the followers of the Pure Flame as fools and hates them. However, he pushes for war and secretly consorts with demons.

It's more the banality of hierarchies and subversion rather than overt corruption. Think more along the lines of the general church of Om in Small Gods rather than the Inquisition.

If I wanted a genuine good church of good in my D&D I'd just use Pelor sans Burning Hate and there we go. Funnily enough, the Burning Hate seems to be considered the more interesting option despite being a cliche itself.

Yes, exactly. I never stated that I thought he was going around cackling all the time, just that he was maneuvering around her and she hadn't caught him. :smallconfused:

So you've got a problem with giving the public what they want? :smalltongue:

What do you mean corrupt? The Blood of Vol is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. :smallamused:

The reason the Burning Hate is so popular is because normal Pelor is boring. He is a generic sun god of generic goodness. Subverting this is still more interesting than the normal version even if it's cliché.

This is also partially why I would personally prefer the Silver Flame in place of Pelor's church. There is corruption and evil within the Silver Flame.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 03:37 PM

And corruption is a major concern for the Silver Flame (I can get a quote if you want).

My quote did include that statement.

The point being that, from their perspective- people who have become evil-aligned (possibly through overzealousness) can still serve the greater good- and thus- overzealousness ends up perpetuating itself.

While it's possible a member of the Church was the one who started the cycle, I think it's unlikely given that the Church sees the Purge as a black mark on their history.
Only the moderate faction does- the hardline faction sees it as a triumph rather than a black mark.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 03:50 PM

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 03:53 PM

Eberron changed most "Always" alignments (including those of natural lycanthropes) to "Usually" or "Often" in any case.

Faerun also has a lot more in the way on nonevil werewolves (the Gray Wolf barbarian tribe among others, for example, and the lythari (elven werewolves).

Big Fau

2013-09-23, 03:55 PM

Lycanthropy alignment restrictions.

Frankly, this is one of the few times I'm actually thankful that D&D imposes an alignment restriction on something. I usually bar my players from playing Evil-aligned characters, which has the convenient side effect of keeping the resident Twilight fangirl from playing a Jacob knockoff.

I can totally understand where you're coming from, but sometimes we're better off...

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 04:01 PM

Eberron changed most "Always" alignments (including those of natural lycanthropes) to "Usually" or "Often" in any case.

Well, I thought this was the case. Even with "often," a good-aligned person really can't apply blanket slay-on-sight stuff. What can I say? Being really good is really hard. Most people fail hard, especially if they are in the business of ending sentients.

Frankly, this is one of the few times I'm actually thankful that D&D imposes an alignment restriction on something. I usually bar my players from playing Evil-aligned characters, which has the convenient side effect of keeping the resident Twilight fangirl from playing a Jacob knockoff.

I can totally understand where you're coming from, but sometimes we're better off...

I was a fan of lycanthropes before Jacob, before Underworld, before White Wolf Games. Is Jacob somehow off the table while Mr. Bearenstein is not? Cause that's just poor logic, in my mind.

Unless you want to run with the irl flavor, which is fine. But it's poorly substantiated in-game, in my mind. Which is why a number of settings then proceeded to violate the hard-and-fast default rule, IMO.

Coidzor

2013-09-23, 04:09 PM

The part that bothers me about the magical curse of lycanthropy and its alignment implications is that they make no sense. Why is one species of lycanthrope more prone to certain behaviors than another one? Doesn't really make sense to me, since I always pictured the mental influence of the affliction to be largely caused by a conflicted identity (I'm a man? I'm an animal? WHAT THE *bleep* IS GOING ON?) and the pain of the physical transformation, among other things.

I totally can't buy that wolves are somehow more malicious than bears (ever met an angry bear?), or that something about wolf mentality makes one CE or whatever. Prone to madness, sure. Corrupted by darkness, as opposed to Mr. Bearenstein over there? That somehow is just weird.

I'm aware of the role of irl mythology here, and also aware of the flawed nature of my objection; if I object to one ethnocentric bit of irl influence, then I pretty much have to chuck the whole game, which is largely based in part on other such influences.

Personally, I despise the hard-and-fast "x is ALWAYS y alignment" thing. It's dumb. (Am I betraying my Chaotic bias yet?) Well, I just like diversity, and in a big world with billions of sentient beings, hard-and-fast rules are not at all the norm. And as free will is also a crucial part of being good, I rather cringe at rules that severely limit how it can be interpreted.

Sorry for the tangent. I'll chime in on the topic at hand and note that, in many systems of morality, one could well point out that someone that accepts that some evil is acceptable "for the greater good" is probably treading on thin ice already. It's a hop skip and a jump from there to "the ends justify the means," classic self-righteous road to hell Ba'ator stuff.

No, it's not that wolves are more evil than bears. It's that wolves are *believed* to be more evil than bears. We have a lot more stories about wolves eating grannies and coming in the middle of the night and eating families at the edge of the village than we do about bears doing stuff like that except in retaliation to being messed with, like the bears that ate Goldilocks.

Wolves and other evil lycanthropes are only evil because people believe that the animal they turn into is sinister, thus they become sinister. How lycanthropy changes what hand is dominant when the system doesn't even have a way of determining handed-ness, I'll never know.

The reason the Burning Hate is so popular is because normal Pelor is boring. He is a generic sun god of generic goodness. Subverting this is still more interesting than the normal version even if it's cliché.

This is also partially why I would personally prefer the Silver Flame in place of Pelor's church. There is corruption and evil within the Silver Flame.

Right, so, uh... Do you want the Church to be Good or do you want the Church to be Interesting, because you seem to indicate that there's some mutual exclusivity here? :smallconfused:

Or are you simply unhappy when the demands of the narrative place an emphasis on the church as a flawed, even failing group?

Big Fau

2013-09-23, 04:14 PM

I was a fan of lycanthropes before Jacob, before Underworld, before White Wolf Games. Is Jacob somehow off the table while Mr. Bearenstein is not? Cause that's just poor logic, in my mind.

Unless you want to run with the irl flavor, which is fine. But it's poorly substantiated in-game, in my mind. Which is why a number of settings then proceeded to violate the hard-and-fast default rule, IMO.

The player isn't interested in non-Wolf lycans, so Bears are fair-game (not that any of my other players would use one due to ECL).

The player would settle on Druids if I allowed them (banned them along with the rest of the Tier 1s).

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 04:15 PM

Well, I thought this was the case. Even with "often," a good-aligned person really can't apply blanket slay-on-sight stuff. What can I say? Being really good is really hard. Most people fail hard, especially if they are in the business of ending sentients.

Going by Races of Eberron, until they finally realised shifters weren't lycanthropes in any sense, it was mostly shifters that were attacked.

p32:

War truly came to the shifters sixty years before the start of the Last War, when the Church of the Silver Flame began its crusade to destroy lycanthropes. At first, shifters were lumped in with lycanthropes, and quite a few fell in the first years of the crusade. Three years into the crusade, the Church recognized shifters as a separate species untouched by the taint of lycanthropy. Some believe that the Church took this step after making a deal with some shifters - a deal that required shifters to hunt down and reveal the locations of lycanthropes to the Church.

Though only a few shifters cooperated with the Church in this manner, all felt shame and guilt over these actions. Whatever people individually thought of the Church's crusade, the prejudice against lycanthropy spread throughout the continent's subconscious. Some of this taint became associated with shifters, as well, but moreover, people saw shifters as betrayers of their own kind, despite the limited number of incidents and the fact that shifters and lycanthropes have a distant connection at best.

Because of this, the crusade affected the thoughts and lives of every shifter in Khorvaire to some extent, leaving a lingering distrust between shifters and members of other races that still affects relations today.
p34:

Recent shifter history has been shaped and tainted by the terrible zealotry of the Church of the Silver Flame. When the Church began its great crusade to rid the world of lycanthropy, it made little distinction between the rare and powerful true lycanthropes and their more civilized offshoots, the shifters. Although the shifters had long since become their own race, their ability to shift their forms, the trappings of their moon worship, and their relatively small numbers made them ideal targets of the Church's zeal. Compared to true lycanthropes, which are decidedly difficult to track and exceedingly powerful, shifters were easy for the Church to find and attack. It's little surprise, then, that most of the Church's early "successes" were at the expense of the shifter race.

The Church used its crusade against the shifters as proof that its crusade against lycanthropy was right and destined for success. Although it reversed its view on shifters in the early years of the crusade and later acknowledged that shifters are a separate race, the damage had already been done. Some of the Church's less than honorable leaders used the crusade as an excuse to pursue private vendettas against shifter communities or to gather great profit at the expense of shifter lives. In war-torn Khorvaire, it's unlikely that such pain and suspicion will find healing or resolution soon.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 04:19 PM

No, it's not that wolves are more evil than bears. It's that wolves are *believed* to be more evil than bears. We have a lot more stories about wolves eating grannies and coming in the middle of the night and eating families at the edge of the village than we do about bears doing stuff like that except in retaliation to being messed with, like the bears that ate Goldilocks.

Wolves and other evil lycanthropes are only evil because people believe that the animal they turn into is sinister, thus they become sinister. How lycanthropy changes what hand is dominant when the system doesn't even have a way of determining handed-ness, I'll never know.

I agree with your analysis. My objection hinges on the "we." In-game, there is no such "we" of people raised on the stories of Western European-fail understanding of animal psychology. Such people are no more common than those raised on other stories, and their narratives don't dominate my setting any more than any other group. So no cultural bias exists. Scary bear is scary. Scary wolf is scary. Damn, life is scary.

But condemned to evil? Ick, that's just a really blunt instrument for addressing what is actually a very interesting psychological phenomenon (even going back to real-life demonization of people that display animalistic behavior or appearance).

EDIT: It matters little whether the CotSF attacked shifter or lycanthropes, whether a knowing error for convenience/good press ("look, we're making progress!"), or just a bit of flawed logic. The end result still seems the same; many were killed, some justifiably, many not so much.

Even in a world where capital "E" Evil exists, killing people is bad, a last resort. I just find it hard to believe that a good-aligned church that endorsed this as it's primary MO for dealing with an entire subset of people, however long ago, and however much they backpedaled, is something that anyone in the church could be less than obsessively repentant about, to the point of detracting from matters at hand.

It's a good fight, to be sure, but it seems to me that CotSF really is still in the midst of really coming to terms with it's internally conflicting doctrines.

Again, disclaimer regarding knowing what I am talking about. Bad habit. Aside from Baker's bit, though, some of the source material seems to work both ways. Only just digging into it, though.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 04:22 PM

Werebears being Good was probably a nod to Beorn from the Hobbit.

Psyren

2013-09-23, 04:22 PM

I did do a Jon Talbain way back in the day, long before Twilight was a thing. Though of course, Dimitri Maximoff could piledrive that pansy Edward any day of the week, so I guess VS gets a free pass to cool :smalltongue:

Scow2

2013-09-23, 04:25 PM

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 04:31 PM

There's also "natural lycanthropes" though it's left unclear where they first came from.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 04:33 PM

My quote did include that statement.

The point being that, from their perspective- people who have become evil-aligned (possibly through overzealousness) can still serve the greater good- and thus- overzealousness ends up perpetuating itself.

Only the moderate faction does- the hardline faction sees it as a triumph rather than a black mark.

Right. We agree.

The part that bothers me about the magical curse of lycanthropy and its alignment implications is that they make no sense. Why is one species of lycanthrope more prone to certain behaviors than another one? Doesn't really make sense to me, since I always pictured the mental influence of the affliction to be largely caused by a conflicted identity (I'm a man? I'm an animal? WHAT THE *bleep* IS GOING ON?) and the pain of the physical transformation, among other things.

I totally can't buy that wolves are somehow more malicious than bears (ever met an angry bear?), or that something about wolf mentality makes one CE or whatever. Prone to madness, sure. Corrupted by darkness, as opposed to Mr. Bearenstein over there? That somehow is just weird.

I'm aware of the role of irl mythology here, and also aware of the flawed nature of my objection; if I object to one ethnocentric bit of irl influence, then I pretty much have to chuck the whole game, which is largely based in part on other such influences.

Personally, I despise the hard-and-fast "x is ALWAYS y alignment" thing. It's dumb. (Am I betraying my Chaotic bias yet?) Well, I just like diversity, and in a big world with billions of sentient beings, hard-and-fast rules are not at all the norm. And as free will is also a crucial part of being good, I rather cringe at rules that severely limit how it can be interpreted.

Sorry for the tangent. I'll chime in on the topic at hand and note that, in many systems of morality, one could well point out that someone that accepts that some evil is acceptable "for the greater good" is probably treading on thin ice already. It's a hop skip and a jump from there to "the ends justify the means," classic self-righteous road to hell Ba'ator stuff.

Sorry for throwing more quotes at you but Keith's views pretty much mirror my own. Why spend time typing it up? :smallbiggrin::

Again, the key to me with this issue is the nature of lycanthropic alignment. In my opinion, there's a huge difference between an evil human (or orc), an evil werewolf, and an evil demon - which is exactly what's spelled out in detail in Faiths of Eberron. The evil human may be driven by greed. He may be misguided. But he's not necessarily a killer. His actions are influenced by his environment, upbringing, and so on. But the evil werewolf is different: his actions are influenced by a supernatural force. He's not just greedy or power-hungry - he has an unnatural desire to spill blood that has been forced upon him by a curse. And the demon isn't simply choosing to be evil; the demon is an incarnation of the very concept of evil.

The same holds true in reverse for good lycanthropes. There's a huge difference between a good farmer and a good werebear. If there wasn't - if contracting good-aligned lycanthropy simply made you a more altruistic, gentle person - you'd see the Silver Flame SPREADING lycanthropy as a way to bring positive values to the world. But as it stands, such an act would mean the end of civilization as we know it. Because they may be good, but they are still driven by the nature of the animal. They are driven to the wilderness, driven to shun the company of others. A world of werebears would be a world with no cities, and few communities beyond small family groups. Actually, I can see the Ashbound attempting this - because this would be the sort of world they'd approve of.

So again, the destruction of good lycanthropes is an unquestioned tragedy and an unjust action. Aside from those who had become evil (as described in the Dragonshard), good lycanthropes wouldn't hurt innocent beings intentionally. But at the same time, they still carried a supernatural curse that changed its victims in both body and mind, and this was enough to terrify the people who had suffered through a long nightmare, and who wanted the curse to be eliminated once and for all.

<snip>

Sure, the 3E MM says they're all evil, but so what? Eberron is the setting where that kind of alignment rigidity doesn't hold, right?

This is obviously a valid point, and one I've talked about before. The key to me is exactly what I've described above. In Eberron, orcs aren't inherently evil because fundamentally, an orc is no different from a human. It is a sentient being whose outlook and morality are shaped by its upbringing and environment. So no humanoid (creature type, not shape) species is genetically evil. What brings a forced alignment is when magic enters the picture. The demon is a force of magic. In my opinion, an outsider IS its alignment; as we've seen before, when that alignment changes the creature can physically transform (thus, the radiant idols are distinctly different from the angels they once were). An angel can fall, but when it does, it's not an angel any more.

Then you have a creature like the lycanthrope, whose alignment isn't derived from upbringing or environment, but rather enforced upon it by a supernatural force. In my opinion, a werewolf isn't just a fuzzy human - it is, as I've said, driven by a curse that forces it to embody our worst fears of the natural world. Wolves are not vicious murderers; werewolves are. It's not a champion of nature; it's a distortion of nature, that turns the victim into a predator who preys on his own kind.

Eberron is all about the shades of gray, but you do get the true evil when you come to the pulp; and in my mind, lycanthropy is something that can create truly terrifying, inhuman evil. At the same time, it brings back the shades of gray in that it's not the fault of the werewolf; after all, "even a man who's pure of heart and says his prayers by night..." and all that. The tragedy of the (MM) werewolf is that even the most virtuous paladin can become a savage murderer when gripped by the curse of lycanthropy. The noir story is in following the trail of the brutal murders only to discover the killer is your girlfriend (an innocent charity worker who'd never harm a soul)... or for that matter, that YOU are the killer, and you simply don't remember your actions.
<snip>

It all adds up to players not assuming that werewolves are inherently evil. Sure, the 3E MM says they're all evil, but so what? Eberron is the setting where that kind of alignment rigidity doesn't hold, right?

I just wanted to touch on this one more time to note the manner in which it was finally addressed. The Purge Dragonshard linked above notes that alignment isn't linked to form, but rather to strain. You can have an evil werebear, and it creates other evil werebears; meanwhile a good werewolf creates other good werewolves.

From a story perspective this allows uncertainty and the ability to deal with lycanthropes of any alignment regardless of form. It helps justify the actions of the Purge, because it means that they couldn't just say "Leave the bears alone." But honestly, I don't like it. I prefer the concept given on page 178 of the MM:

Noble creatures such as bears, eagles, and lions tend to produce good-aligned lycanthropes. Sinister creatures such as rats, snakes, and wolves tend to produce evil-aligned lycanthropes. This is a reflection of how these creatures are perceived, not any innate quality of the animal itself...

That last part is the key to my whole interpretation. The reason the werewolf is an evil murderer is drawn from the primal fears of the farmers worried for their flocks, who see the wolf as the predator who strikes from the darkness. The rat is the urban schemer, spreading disease and scavenging on our goods. The true wolf isn't evil, any more than a lion is especially noble; but we tend to us the lion as a symbol of nobility, and the werelion reflects that subconcious approach.

With this in mind, I'm all for good werewolves, but I wouldn't make them RANDOMLY good; I'd place them near a culture that reveres the wolf, perhaps focusing on the pack bond and skill as a hunter. Likewise, if the drow of Xen'drik had werescorpions, I'd expect them to be good, because of the drow's respect for the scorpion - while in the Blade Desert or Demon Wastes, werescorpions would likely be evil, products of the primal fears of travelers.

So my main thing is that I like the alignment of the lycanthrope to have a strong symbolic meaning; essentially, your personality is being shoved aside and overwritten with this primal archetype. That may leave room for good werewolves, in the right place - but I'd expect that to be reflected by the surrounding culture, as opposed to having good and evil werewolves side by side in the same territory.

Becoming a wolf isn't what makes you evil if you're a wolf lycanthrope. It's the magical curse that does that. You can think of specifically becoming a wolf as an unrelated side effect.

<snip>
Right, so, uh... Do you want the Church to be Good or do you want the Church to be Interesting, because you seem to indicate that there's some mutual exclusivity here? :smallconfused:

Or are you simply unhappy when the demands of the narrative place an emphasis on the church as a flawed, even failing group?

There is no mutual exclusivity. If that was what was gotten across than I apologize. What I mean is that there is a reason some people (like myself) would rather use the Silver Flame in the role of a "good church of goodness" instead of just using Pelors faith. You seemed to be saying that if you weren't going to use the Silver Flame as a "good church of goodness" than why use it instead of Pelors faith.

Demands of which narrative? I'm talking about the material in the gamebooks, not using the Silver Flame at the table. Or did you mean "church" as in different faiths in general?

Going by Races of Eberron, until they finally realised shifters weren't lycanthropes in any sense, it was mostly shifters that were attacked.

p32:

p34:

Yep. Though this was partially exacerbated by wererats who scapegoated shifters.

There's also "natural lycanthropes" though it's left unclear where they first came from.

When two afflicted lycanthropes have children, the result is a natural lycanthropes. Then that natural lycanthrope has kids which are natural lycanthropes and so on.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 04:36 PM

Well, that's not how it happens. The change completely changes and infects the mind with a new outlook and behaviors they can't control, dependent on the therianthrope in question. They are NOT related to the actual animal except superficially.

In other words, because that's what the rules say. I don't like limiting the "reality" of my setting to a rather contrived, and highly grandfathered, bit of rules.

I'm okay with the mind being infected an all, but a little more deference toward actual logic. Werewolves seek to kill as many intelligent people as possible, often those close to them, while weretigers seek isolation and might kill solitary travelers or the like? Sorry, inconsistent. Some arbitrary rules just break my suspension of disbelief, and this is one of them.

But my personal issues detract from the more interesting matter at hand.:smallsmile:

EDIT: To Keith Baker's argument, I can accept supernatural forces manipulating people. That's fine. But why do they manipulate people randomly based by what animal form they take? Is there an explanation? Who is this supernatural force? Why are bear-men so nice? I don't buy the "because shepherd fear wolves" bit. Shepherds in lion-infested areas would fear lions, and bears probably kill livestock on occasion, too. There is plenty to fear in any type of animal (hint, the non-human bit).

I dunno, this is clearly just a pet peeve for me, so don't mind me. I'm sure the setting has it's reasons.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 04:43 PM

And the demon isn't simply choosing to be evil; the demon is an incarnation of the very concept of evil.

Eberron has had nonevil fiends on occasion- notably, a Yugoloth, in Explorer's Handbook. (p87) However that one doesn't have the Evil subtype- so arguably it's not a fiend anymore.

When two afflicted lycanthropes have children, the result is a natural lycanthropes. Then that natural lycanthrope has kids which are natural lycanthropes and so on.

I've checked the MM- I didn't spot anything like that. Where is it- and what's the wording?

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 05:01 PM

Ugh, I didn't even get into the difference between natural and afflicted lycanthropes, and how can you tell the difference when you've already decided to solve the problem with a sword.

Luckily, we've already determined that most of the victims of the purge were seemingly shifters, who don't have all this complicated stuff going on.

But I find the racial component largely secondary.

Relevant Bits:

1.) CotSF thought they were justified at the time.

2.) Some lycanthropes had gone berserk and done terrible things.

3.) The targets were everyone in a subgroup, not just individuals x or y. Was there a mechanism for judging individuals? Sounds like it was a pretty pitched environment, and such conflicts rarely yield up anything resembling justice.

4.) Beyond being directly responsible for slayings, the church actively spread the belief that everyone of a subgroup was evil, or at least deserving of fear/hatred, more by their actions than their words. Even if they reversed course later, such beliefs can't be erased as easily as they can be created.

In my mind, point #4 is possibly the real problem. Not only were they responsible for wrongdoing, but they allowed vast numbers of others to see wrongdoing as justifiable. These fears and hatreds are just as insidious as any more explicit corruption among the current church officials, and much harder to rectify, in my opinion.

EDIT: In my setting, any lycanthrope will pass it on to their offspring, regardless of the status of their mate. But my ruling on this matter predated the existence of shifters. This is part of why the curse is feared; its a taint that can be spread not only by the normal vector, but also passed as an uncurable burden to children. Furthermore, this view helps perpetuate hatred of natural lycanthropes, who generally don't endorse infecting people (because incidences of infection directly correlate with incidences of natural lycanthrope persecution).

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 05:08 PM

In other words, because that's what the rules say. I don't like limiting the "reality" of my setting to a rather contrived, and highly grandfathered, bit of rules.

I'm okay with the mind being infected an all, but a little more deference toward actual logic. Werewolves seek to kill as many intelligent people as possible, often those close to them, while weretigers seek isolation and might kill solitary travelers or the like? Sorry, inconsistent. Some arbitrary rules just break my suspension of disbelief, and this is one of them.

But my personal issues detract from the more interesting matter at hand.:smallsmile:

EDIT: To Keith Baker's argument, I can accept supernatural forces manipulating people. That's fine. But why do they manipulate people randomly based by what animal form they take? Is there an explanation? Who is this supernatural force? Why are bear-men so nice? I don't buy the "because shepherd fear wolves" bit. Shepherds in lion-infested areas would fear lions, and bears probably kill livestock on occasion, too. There is plenty to fear in any type of animal (hint, the non-human bit).

I dunno, this is clearly just a pet peeve for me, so don't mind me. I'm sure the setting has it's reasons.

Well an origin for lycanthropy is never given so I could give lots of different explanations. However, I think Keith's explanation would already be to your liking. Check the third quote of his that I posted in my previous post.

Eberron has had nonevil fiends on occasion- notably, a Yugoloth, in Explorer's Handbook. (p87) However that one doesn't have the Evil subtype- so arguably it's not a fiend anymore.

I've checked the MM- I didn't spot anything like that. Where is it- and what's the wording?

Hmm...it appears this issue is a bit more complicated than I thought. First quote:

There are, in fact, two kinds of lycanthropes: those who have contracted the condition as a curse (afflicted lycanthropes), and those who were born with it (natural lycanthropes). The child of a natural lycanthrope is always a natural lycanthrope, but the child of an afflicted lycanthrope is a normal example of his or her race until puberty, at which point there is a 50% chance that the child manifests lycanthropy as a natural lycanthrope

But that's from a setting specific book.

From the SRD (the actual one, not the other almost identical one that's commonly used):

Lycanthropy can be spread like a disease. Sometimes a lycanthrope begins life as a normal humanoid or giant who subsequently contracts lycanthropy after being wounded by a lycanthrope. Such a creature is called an afflicted lycanthrope. Other lycanthropes are born as lycanthropes, and are known as natural lycanthropes.

"Lycanthrope” is a template that can be added to any humanoid or giant (referred to hereafter as the base creature). The lycanthrope template can be inherited (for natural lycanthropes) or acquired (for afflicted lycanthropes).

So the last two quotes say that natural lycanthropes are born but doesn't say what from. The first one confirms what I said but is from a setting-specific book. Hmm...

Ugh, I didn't even get into the difference between natural and afflicted lycanthropes, and how can you tell the difference when you've already decided to solve the problem with a sword.

Luckily, we've already determined that most of the victims of the purge were seemingly shifters, who don't have all this complicated stuff going on.

But I find the racial component largely secondary.

Relevant Bits:

1.) CotSF thought they were justified.

2.) Some lycanthropes had gone berserk and done terrible things.

3.) The targets were everyone in a subgroup, not just individuals x or y. Was there a mechanism for judging individuals? Sounds like it was a pretty pitched environment, and such conflicts rarely yield up anything resembling justice.

4.) Beyond being directly responsible for slayings, the church actively spread the belief that everyone of a subgroup was evil, more by their actions than their words. Even if they reversed course later, such beliefs can't be erased as easily as they can be created.

In my mind, point #4 is possibly the real problem. Not only were they responsible for wrongdoing, but they allowed vast numbers of others to see wrongdoing as justifiable. These fears and hatreds are just as insidious as any more explicit corruption among the current church officials, and much harder to rectify, in my opinion.

This is incorrect actually. Most of the victims of the Lycanthropic Purge were...well...lycanthropes. Many shifters were slaughtered but the Church realized it was wrong in the early days of the Purge. That's why lycanthropes are still extremely rare in modern times while there are thriving shifter villages all over Khorvaire (well, except Aundaire).

I'd respond to your other points but I think I'm not getting some of my points across. Could you describe the lycanthrope Purge as best as you can Phelix? I'd like to see how you perceive that time.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 05:13 PM

This is incorrect actually. Most of the victims of the Lycanthropic Purge were...well...lycanthropes. Many shifters were slaughtered but the Church realized it was wrong in the early days of the Purge. That's why lycanthropes are still extremely rare in modern times while there are thriving shifter villages all over Khorvaire (well, except Aundaire).

Lycanthropes were supposed to be rare at the start of the Purge as well:

When the Church began its great crusade to rid the world of lycanthropy, it made little distinction between the rare and powerful true lycanthropes and their more civilized offshoots, the shifters.

though those numbers might have shot up when afflicted lycanthropes suddenly became contagious.

So the last two quotes say that natural lycanthropes are born but doesn't say what from. The first one confirms what I said but is from a setting-specific book. Hmm...

That book also suggests that some people believe it was a blessing from Selune on orphans in the wilderness that created the first ones- others, that it was a curse from Malar.

A more recent lycanthrope type (the weresnakes) was created to mark a pact between the evil deity Set, and the serpentfolk creator race, the sarrukh.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 05:18 PM

Lycanthropes were supposed to be rare at the start of the Purge as well:

though those numbers might have shot up when afflicted lycanthropes suddenly became contagious.

I don't mean to be rude but of course the numbers shot up. That's kind of the whole point. What gave you any impression otherwise?

Anyways, lycanthropes were hunted almost to extinction after the Purge. They were even rarer than before. It was only after 100 years of no Purging that the lycanthropes were able to build themselves back up to "rare" status.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 05:20 PM

Not sure just how much they shot up though.

Or how many shifters there were at the start of the crusade, and how many died over the three years in which it was mostly shifters being targeted.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 05:29 PM

I really have an almost negative modifier in Kn(history) for Eberron, as I've alluded to.

Let's see.

To me, Eberron's history is punctuated by regular upheavals in which some massive evil crushes civilizations, but is eventually battled back against all odds. The names escape me, but it does seem to have been a fairly regular occurrence in the distant past (ah, quori, daelkyr, stuff like that).

These potentially world-ending things are accompanied by the usual types of major civilization/political/religious shifts.

So we come to the more recent era. In between the big, really evil stuff, the nations and races get up to their usual ideological/strategic/ritualized conflicts. That's just the way things are. These conflicts operate on an ideological basis, and while individuals may be categorized as good or evil, few of these flawed generalizations can be made about collective behaviors, which are usually a grab bag of grayness.

The most recent era was the setting for a big war, one in which pretty much everyone got together and participated in the sketchiness that is war. No moral high ground.

As part of a subplot of this big conflict, the CotSF identified a legitimate threat: some lycanthropes were murdering many, many people. In full damage control mode, the church sweeps in, and begins a period of dealing with the symptom, not the cause.

And this was flawed, it seems, as for at least several years, they engaged in murdering people that simply resembled those that were to blame. This is pretty dark. So dark, in fact, that the church realized that it was a dumb mistake, and reversed its rulings.

So, finally, they went after the culprits. With a very big blunt instrument, from what I can tell. Maybe "purge" is a misnomer, but it usually doesn't refer to a carefully deliberated identification and punishment of wrongdoers.

In the end, it's 50 years of hunting for bad people, according to my math from an earlier quote. And it seems they "caught" rather more than just the bad people.

Scroll to the present, and some/most people in the church realize that this was all rather flies in the face of what the church represents. Others don't much care or are corrupt or whatever.

I'm sure my accuracy here is not great, and as I also alluded to, a DM and group of players I was with (all irl chaotic) may have mildly misled me about the CotSF. In that campaign, Sephiroth showed up and infected the Silver Flame with Jenova. That episode may have led me to rather a harsher indictment of CotSF than they deserve, as anyone that falls to Sephiroth's logic is pretty fail in my eyes (was playing a LG non-Eberron Int-based monk at the time, so my views are probably skewed by her views...hehehe).

That said, any form of militant goodness raises my ears. Such stories tend to be fraught with moral peril.

EDIT:
Hamishspence:
"Not sure just how much they shot up though.

Or how many shifters there were at the start of the crusade, and how many died over the three years in which it was mostly shifters being targeted."

And, also, during which shifters were much easier to find than the rarer and more elusive lycanthropes.

In the end, the numbers are irrelevant. To the good, the loss of one innocent life is a terrible crime. Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent face punishment for which they are not guilty. While it's an irl bit of reference, justice isn't justice if it isn't for everyone. When I wrong people in attempting to right wrongs, I haven't done anyone any service.

hamishspence

2013-09-23, 05:38 PM

So we come to the more recent era. In between the big, really evil stuff, the nations and races get up to their usual ideological/strategic/ritualized conflicts. That's just the way things are. These conflicts operate on an ideological basis, and while individuals may be categorized as good or evil, few of these flawed generalizations can be made about collective behaviors, which are usually a grab bag of grayness.

The most recent era was the setting for a big war, one in which pretty much everyone got together and participated in the sketchiness that is war. No moral high ground.

As part of a subplot of this big conflict, the CotSF identified a legitimate threat: some lycanthropes were murdering many, many people. In full damage control mode, the church sweeps in, and begins a period of dealing with the symptom, not the cause.

And this was flawed, it seems, as for at least several years, they engaged in murdering people that simply resembled those that were to blame. This is pretty dark. So dark, in fact, that the church realized that it was a dumb mistake, and reversed its rulings.

So, finally, they went after the culprits. With a very big blunt instrument, from what I can tell. Maybe "purge" is a misnomer, but it usually doesn't refer to a carefully deliberated identification and punishment of wrongdoers.

In the end, it's 50 years of hunting for bad people, according to my math from an earlier quote. And it seems they "caught" rather more than just the bad people.
The Purge was a bit before the start of the Last War, which began in 894 YK.

The Keith Baker article on the Purge and the lead-up to it- relevant bits:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050404a

Around 800 YK, the power of the curse began to grow. The scholars of Aundair sought an answer in planar conjunctions or the influence of unknown fiends, while deep in the Eldeen Reaches shifter moonspeakers bemoaned the growing power of the unseen moon. Evil lycanthropes -- always the most numerous of the shapeshifters -- became even more vicious, and many good and neutral lycanthropes were corrupted and drawn down to the darkness. Afflicted lycanthropes gained the ability to pass the curse to their own victims, allowing lycanthropy to spread with terrifying speed. By the early years of the ninth century, packs of werewolves were roaming across western Khorvaire and wererats had established warrens beneath the greatest cities of the age. Farmers lived in fear of wolves that walked like humans. What was once a superstition used to frighten children was now horrifying reality.

The Purge

The templars of the Church of the Silver Flame had fought shapeshifters in the past. But the heart of the Church of the Silver Flame was in the nation of Thrane, far from the traditional Eldeen haunts of the lycanthropes. As the death toll mounted in Aundair and Breland, the cardinals grew increasingly concerned and the templars began to take a more active role in the defense of the western lands. The puritan scholars of the Silver Flame began to study their enemies. A number of factors colored this research:

The subjects of study were evil lycanthropes. Good lycanthropes were rare and reclusive to begin with, and many had fallen prey to the growing power of the curse. As a result, the puritans quickly assumed that all lycanthropes were inherently evil.

Many priests noticed the similarity between the hybrid forms of the lycanthropes and the common form of the rakshasa, and asserted that lycanthropes were demons or would become true fiends in time.

Curing lycanthropy is a difficult challenge. Natural lycanthropes cannot be cured, and an afflicted lycanthrope can be cured only if it wants to be; the shapeshifter can always choose to fail the associated Will saving throw. The first priests who sought a cure decided that it was impossible; only in the last decades of the purge did a band of more moderate and moral priests prove that it could be done.

In addition to this flawed research, the Keeper of the Flame had an agenda of his own. Jolan Sol saw the situation as an opportunity to strengthen the influence of the Silver Flame in Aundair. In 832 YK he proclaimed that the curse of lycanthropy corrupted the soul itself. This announcement spread fear throughout Breland and Aundair and strengthened the resolve of the armies of the Flame, who ventured west with the goal of eradicating the plague from the face of Eberron.

The battle was long and brutal. Today, many assume that the lycanthropes were hunted prey, fleeing from the overwhelming force of the Church of the Silver Flame. Little could be further from the truth. The typical wereboar is far deadlier than the average templar of the Flame, and even if the soldier defeats his prey, one good bite is all it takes to transfer the curse and create a new wereboar. Evil werewolves infected entire villages, and wererats took great pleasure in infecting templars, imprisoning them until the curse took hold, and then sending them against their former allies. Clever lycanthropes fanned the puritans' paranoia toward the shifters, and these mistrustful folk massacred hundreds of shifters before someone could prove to them that shifters did not carry the curse. While some of the shifters later fought alongside the templars, many have never forgiven the Silver Flame -- and, indeed, humanity -- for these deaths.

As the tide slowly began to turn in the favor of the Church of the Silver Flame, the challenge became one of finding the lycanthropes hidden among human and shifter communities. Here again, many puritans acted with overzealous aggression, harming the innocent in their desperate quest to eliminate the remaining shapeshifters. Ultimately House Medani produced dragonshard foci that could detect lycanthropes and guide the templars to the true foe, and this heralded the end of the purge. By 880 YK, the Church of the Silver Flame withdrew its forces from the Eldeen Reaches, claiming that the threat of the curse had finally been eliminated.

123456789blaaa

2013-09-23, 05:49 PM

Not sure just how much they shot up though.

Or how many shifters there were at the start of the crusade, and how many died over the three years in which it was mostly shifters being targeted.

Enough that during the Purge, thousands of innocents were being slaughtered. Enough that without the Purge, the lycanthrope plague would have spread to all of Khorvaire and eliminated society as we know it. Enough that wererats were able to establish enormous warrens beneath the largest cities. Enough that entire villages were being destroyed. Enough that-well I think you get the idea.

I really have an almost negative modifier in Kn(history) for Eberron, as I've alluded to.

Let's see.

To me, Eberron's history is punctuated by regular upheavals in which some massive evil crushes civilizations, but is eventually battled back against all odds. The names escape me, but it does seem to have been a fairly regular occurrence in the distant past (ah, quori, daelkyr, stuff like that).

These potentially world-ending things are accompanied by the usual types of major civilization/political/religious shifts.

So we come to the more recent era. In between the big, really evil stuff, the nations and races get up to their usual ideological/strategic/ritualized conflicts. That's just the way things are. These conflicts operate on an ideological basis, and while individuals may be categorized as good or evil, few of these flawed generalizations can be made about collective behaviors, which are usually a grab bag of grayness.

The most recent era was the setting for a big war, one in which pretty much everyone got together and participated in the sketchiness that is war. No moral high ground.

As part of a subplot of this big conflict, the CotSF identified a legitimate threat: some lycanthropes were murdering many, many people. In full damage control mode, the church sweeps in, and begins a period of dealing with the symptom, not the cause.

And this was flawed, it seems, as for at least several years, they engaged in murdering people that simply resembled those that were to blame. This is pretty dark. So dark, in fact, that the church realized that it was a dumb mistake, and reversed its rulings.

So, finally, they went after the culprits. With a very big blunt instrument, from what I can tell. Maybe "purge" is a misnomer, but it usually doesn't refer to a carefully deliberated identification and punishment of wrongdoers.

In the end, it's 50 years of hunting for bad people, according to my math from an earlier quote. And it seems they "caught" rather more than just the bad people.

Scroll to the present, and some/most people in the church realize that this was all rather flies in the face of what the church represents. Others don't much care or are corrupt or whatever.

I'm sure my accuracy here is not great, and as I also alluded to, a DM and group of players I was with (all irl chaotic) may have mildly misled me about the CotSF. In that campaign, Sephiroth showed up and infected the Silver Flame with Jenova. That episode may have led me to rather a harsher indictment of CotSF than they deserve, as anyone that falls to Sephiroth's logic is pretty fail in my eyes (was playing a LG non-Eberron Int-based monk at the time, so my views are probably skewed by her views...hehehe).

That said, any form of militant goodness raises my ears. Such stories tend to be fraught with moral peril.

EDIT:
Hamishspence:
"Not sure just how much they shot up though.

Or how many shifters there were at the start of the crusade, and how many died over the three years in which it was mostly shifters being targeted."

And, also, during which shifters were much easier to find than the rarer and more elusive lycanthropes.

In the end, the numbers are irrelevant. To the good, the loss of one innocent life is a terrible crime. Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent face punishment for which they are not guilty. While it's an irl bit of reference, justice isn't justice if it isn't for everyone. When I wrong people in attempting to right wrongs, I haven't done anyone any service.

Alright so you're basically right. However, your details on the Purge are scarce. I suggest looking at both my reply to Hamish in this post and the quote he posted in the post above mine.

Also:

In the end, the numbers are irrelevant. To the good, the loss of one innocent life is a terrible crime. Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent face punishment for which they are not guilty. While it's an irl bit of reference, justice isn't justice if it isn't for everyone. When I wrong people in attempting to right wrongs, I haven't done anyone any service

See, as I said above, the thing about the Purge is that if it hadn't happened? If the Church hadn't sent Templars to kill the lycanthropes? The entire continent of Khorvaire would have been doomed. The plague would have enveloped the entire continent and everyone on it would have been either infected or dead. There would have been more shifters killed or turned into murderous psychopaths than there were after the Purge.

Possibly even other continents would have been attacked if the wererats managed to restrain their murderous impulses enough to build ships.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-23, 05:51 PM

Clever lycanthropes fanned the puritans' paranoia toward the shifters, and these mistrustful folk massacred hundreds of shifters before someone could prove to them that shifters did not carry the curse. While some of the shifters later fought alongside the templars, many have never forgiven the Silver Flame -- and, indeed, humanity -- for these deaths.

An excellent example of why the good shouldn't dabble in evil. Evil always does it better.

I don't know that any of what I just read alters my initial judgement. The black was blacker (it usually is, by the way) than I thought, but the CotSF was still neck deep in it. With a truly formidable, really evil threat, the need to really, very much refrain from gray behavior is increased, not decreased. If dire times call for dire measures, then just chuck right and wrong out the window; evil really enjoys it when good people go mucking around in the deep end of the pool like they can control the fallout.

Ooh...some bad mixed metaphors there. Sorry if I'm becoming...what's the word...ah, whatever. Facetious? No. My thoughts on this issue are quite complex, and run afoul of my real-life morality left, right, and center.

137beth

2013-09-23, 05:54 PM

What do you mean corrupt? The Blood of Vol is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. :smallamused:

...
ya know, the blood of Vol may be the least corrupt institution in Eberron:smalleek:

Even the dragons of Argonnesson have an imbalance between colors (i.e., according to DoE, the dragon colors with high charisma end up with unduly high influence in the democratic conclave).

Well, the lords of dust aren't particularly corrupt, but they also don't have much unity between followers of different overlords, so...yea, Vol might be the winner for non-corrupt control.

Wait, come to think of it, I don't recall anything about corruption in Aerenal.

Big Fau

2013-09-23, 05:56 PM

Possibly even other continents would have been attacked if the wererats managed to restrain their murderous impulses enough to build ships.

Weresharks are a thing though (not saying any more than this due to spoilers).

Wait, come to think of it, I don't recall anything about corruption in Aerenal.

I think either FoE or the Explorer's Handbook mentions that Vol's agents have infiltrated the Undying Courts. I know it's stated, I just don't remember where).

Saidoro

2013-09-23, 11:07 PM

Whether the good person likes it or not, the past haunts everyone. This is part of why evil works; suffering breeds more suffering. While the good person might not bear personal responsibility for the suffering, it's hard to be good and not try to do what one can to relieve even a small amount. In my view, this may even amount to justification for leaving an institution that is seen to be guilty of past crimes or ongoing injustices.
Shouldn't a good person be helping a suffering one regardless of whether they had a hand in that suffering?

No, it's not that wolves are more evil than bears. It's that wolves are *believed* to be more evil than bears. We have a lot more stories about wolves eating grannies and coming in the middle of the night and eating families at the edge of the village than we do about bears doing stuff like that except in retaliation to being messed with, like the bears that ate Goldilocks.
Which is kind of weird now that I think about it. Barring major overpopulation, wolves will basically leave you alone if you don't bug them or get close to where they keep their cubs. Bears will attack humans out of territoriality.

Kuulvheysoon

2013-09-23, 11:39 PM

Actually, there were shifters joining the Silver Flame even during the Purge. While there are certainly many shifters that will not forgive the Silver Flame, there are shifters in the Church in present times.

Benin Silverclaws being one of the most famous - there's even an adventure hook (in the Thrane description of the ECS, IIRC) about recovering his body for the church as a hero.

And then there's the events of the Blade of the Flame trilogy, where Lycanthropy plays a huge role (not going into spoilers unless asked).

Honestly, this is where I get my "feel" for the CotSF.

But overall, I'm with the Count, Psyren and, most importantly, Keith Baker.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 12:58 AM

Part of the reason I'm a little suspicious of "If they hadn't acted as they did, the world would have been doomed" - is that according to Races of Eberron, they spent 3 years mostly attacking the wrong targets- and this didn't lead to the world being doomed.

So the issue may, while serious, not have been a "brink of disaster" one.

Greenish

2013-09-24, 01:10 AM

One of the main aspects of Eberron is the ambivalence. Few people are completely in the right, and few people are completely in the wrong.

The Purges killed a great many of innocents. The Purges also saved a great many of innocent. There is no simple answer as to which side was the right one. That's just how Eberron ticks.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 01:22 AM

I figure it as:

Start of Purge: 3 year massacre of innocent shifters (often motivated by personal grudges and a desire to get their wealth) - clearly wrong.

Middle of Purge: long war against attacking lycanthropes, defending communities from them first and foremost - clearly right.

End of Purge: Innocent communities regularly destroyed to winkle out the lone lycanthrope in the community- a bit more ambiguous considering how much destruction the lycanthropes had been wreaking.

There is no simple answer as to which side was the right one. That's just how Eberron ticks.

That said, readers will still tend to come down on one side or another:

from:

Taken as a whole in the balance of Good and Evil on the Silver Flame's record, the bits of the "Lycanthropic Purge" the Church has any culpability for is an "oops" on the Malevometer, and one they've done everything within their power to rectify the issue since then.

to a much more harsh take on their early and late massacres.

Coidzor

2013-09-24, 01:42 AM

There is no mutual exclusivity. If that was what was gotten across than I apologize. What I mean is that there is a reason some people (like myself) would rather use the Silver Flame in the role of a "good church of goodness" instead of just using Pelors faith. You seemed to be saying that if you weren't going to use the Silver Flame as a "good church of goodness" than why use it instead of Pelors faith.

Demands of which narrative? I'm talking about the material in the gamebooks, not using the Silver Flame at the table. Or did you mean "church" as in different faiths in general?

I suppose I mostly just see "good church of goodness" as at odds with being aware of and using the blemishes, especially when those blemishes by their nature and by design grab attention and focus. Partially because if they were really that good they'd be a bit better at policing themselves than anyone in Eberron seems to be, with the exception of the Riedrans and the massive resources they put into scanning the minds of the entire populace in great periodic sweeps of the country.

The meta-narrative of the setting and the narrative of the individual game itself wherein we need antagonists, generally, to play the game, and the Silver Flame is one source of antagonists, regardless of personal connections to lycanthropy. Their existence in the meta-narrative of the game books is to set up their use at the individual table, as far as I'm given to understand it anyway.

Which is kind of weird now that I think about it. Barring major overpopulation, wolves will basically leave you alone if you don't bug them or get close to where they keep their cubs. Bears will attack humans out of territoriality.

Yeah, I've never figured out where those stories came from, but they've got them from Ireland to Russia, at least. And then down in Rome they have the She-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus.

But, eh, once enough people believe something it starts to alter the fabric of reality so that it becomes true. At least if you believe Planescape.

Greenish

2013-09-24, 01:50 AM

Wolves get bad rep because of the bad years (when they descent on settlements), and because they do raid livestock. Bears get bad rep because they sometimes attack people just for lolz.

And, well, among agrarian peoples, most larger predators have pretty poor reception. Wolves, bears, lynxes, whathaveyou easily get faulted for the loss of livestock whether related or not.

Grayson01

2013-09-24, 04:27 AM

First I wanna state that most of my knowledge of the Sliver Flame comes from reading the Eberron Novels and less from the campaign setting books so if you find the novels un-cannon most of my points are not valid.

First to the quote bellow, Speak with dead, raise dead, and any resurection spell is strictly forbidden by CoTSF Dogma. So any such castings would be throw out and a violtion to the CoTSF.

To a comment made by the Count about the curse making Wearwolves Wearrats always Evil dose not fall into Eberron which part of it's major fluff is that (excluding Outsiders) Alighnment restrictions are completely ignored. Eberron is based on the idea that Alighnment is not set in stone.

As to the argument that time is not a factor and that the Church is still guilty for it's past actions and they have not done anything to make amends.
The Church has made many strides towards wrighting the wrongs of the Purge it has excepted Shifters, and Full Lycans into it's fold, raised them to High ranking offices, also extending hands to people still suffering from the effects of the purge (shown in Legacy of the Wolf) and in the Third book of The Blade of Flame Trilogy Sea of Death.
So as time goes on the CHurch as taken Steps to righting it's wrongs, and has drasticly changed it's policy towards Lycans and shifters. Becoming a new orginization is some ways.
The heart of this question is how long and how much dose an orginzation have to wait and change before it is no longer the orginal guilty party. The very idea of orginization is a "unreal" social construct. What defines an orginization, is it the memembers, id it it's Highest ranking officals, is it the name, is it the idea it reperesnts. If one of those factors change can you still say it's the same, or dose many of those have to change and if so how many much change before it is no longer the same institution.

It's not that much time Count. Between living memories of non-humans (whether they're members of the church, lycanthropes where the -anthrope isn't human, or just people who happened to be living nearby), magic like Speak with Dead, and the records that did exist, I suspect a considerable majority of shifters could be traced back a few generations. Admittedly, some changeling conman might be able to make a career out of milking such a compensation system if it existed.

Anyway the CotSF would be more likely to try and compensate people by bringing them into the church and helping them there if I'm reading them right.

Phelix, I don't think there's any argument that the CotSF didn't go too far in the Purge. If I gave the impression of saying that I apologise. The question is more of what the current members of the church would or should do in response.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 05:59 AM

The Purge Dragonshards article answers a couple of these comments:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20050404a

To a comment made by the Count about the curse making Wearwolves Wearrats always Evil dose not fall into Eberron which part of it's major fluff is that (excluding Outsiders) Alighnment restrictions are completely ignored. Eberron is based on the idea that Alighnment is not set in stone.
The idea is that, shortly before the Purge, the vast majority of Neutral and Good lycanthropes turned Evil:

Around 800 YK, the power of the curse began to grow. The scholars of Aundair sought an answer in planar conjunctions or the influence of unknown fiends, while deep in the Eldeen Reaches shifter moonspeakers bemoaned the growing power of the unseen moon. Evil lycanthropes -- always the most numerous of the shapeshifters -- became even more vicious, and many good and neutral lycanthropes were corrupted and drawn down to the darkness.

As to the argument that time is not a factor and that the Church is still guilty for it's past actions and they have not done anything to make amends.
The Church has made many strides towards wrighting the wrongs of the Purge it has excepted Shifters, and Full Lycans into it's fold, raised them to High ranking offices, also extending hands to people still suffering from the effects of the purge (shown in Legacy of the Wolf) and in the Third book of The Blade of Flame Trilogy Sea of Death.
So as time goes on the CHurch as taken Steps to righting it's wrongs, and has drasticly changed it's policy towards Lycans and shifters. Becoming a new orginization is some ways.

Problem is, standard operating procedure for full lycanthropes is still "hunt down, then cure or exile (kill if they do not surrender) (with Aundair favouring "just kill"):

Lycanthropes in the Modern Age

While the Church of Thrane no longer follows Jolan Sol's doctrines, the church continues to hunt shapeshifters in the present day. Jaela Daran has ordered templars to subdue lycanthropes whenever possible and to accept the surrender of any lycanthrope, so that the shapeshifter can be cured or exiled to Lamannia. However, if a lycanthrope does not cooperate, the templars use lethal force. This is covered under provisions in the Code of Galifar; the templars of the Church are authorized to defend the people of the Five Nations against supernatural threats, and a lycanthrope who willfully maintains his condition is seen as intentionally endangering others. The puritans of Aundair are infamous for ignoring Jaela's edicts, and most Aundairian templars show no mercy when dealing with lycanthropes.

I suppose I mostly just see "good church of goodness" as at odds with being aware of and using the blemishes, especially when those blemishes by their nature and by design grab attention and focus.
The Silver Flame Dragonshard article does seem to encourage using the blemishes:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041115a

The Fury of the Flame

The ministry of the Silver Flame performs countless good works throughout the Five Nations, but the actions of the templars often overshadow these efforts. The most dramatic instance of this occurred when the inquisition destroyed the lycanthropes. To outsiders, this wholesale slaughter may seem shocking and unforgivable. However, a few factors can help people understand how such an event could occur -- and what the Church might do in the future.

The Church of the Silver Flame operates under a strict hierarchy. The Church expects the faithful to trust the wisdom of those who stand above them, since those higher in the hierarchy stand closer to the Flame. Thus, most templars act without questioning their orders: If a cardinal authorizes an action, it must be in the best interests of the world. This is especially true of the puritans.

The ultimate goal of the Church is to cleanse Eberron itself. For many members of the Church, this noble goal justifies any means required to reach it. This manner of thinking serves as one of the sources of evil-aligned priests within Thrane. Such a priest may be good in almost all ways, but she has a willingness to employ evil tools -- such as torture -- when necessary to achieve a goal that furthers the Church's cause.

When the Church targets a problem, it seeks to completely eliminate it. The templars act with ruthless efficiency. In the case of lycanthropy, any lycanthrope can afflict a victim with a curse that alters behavior and alignment, and this makes the victim a threat to others and a new carrier for the curse. In 832 YK, the Keeper of the Silver Flame declared that lycanthropy afflicted the soul as well as the body, since it could turn the noblest soul to a tool of darkness. Even those lycanthropic strains that were not inherently evil still force a change of behavior on the subject, and were thus suspect; the Keeper declared that these still imperiled the soul. If a single lycanthrope remained alive, it could pass the curse to others, and they could pass the curse to others, and within a generation the problem could arise anew. Thus all lycanthropes -- even those seemingly innocent and young -- must be destroyed.

A handful of paladins found alternatives. Some helped werebears escape to Lamannia, while others sought to cure the afflicted. Unfortunately, the process of breaking the curse is long and involved, and the Keeper of the Flame said that once the curse was set (via changing alignment), nothing could save the victim's soul. And so the templars relied on their silvered swords, cutting out the cancer and praying for forgiveness when innocents fell at their hands.
The Church is fighting a war, and it intends to win. Casualties are certain. Sacrifices must be made, and allies may fall to friendly fire. But the Church will always act swiftly, decisively, and in a manner that serves the greater good -- at least, as the cardinals see it.

The idea that good people can do evil and that evil people can serve the cause of good is a central theme of Eberron. The Church of the Silver Flame embraces this paradox. It has a noble cause. The majority of its followers champion the ways of the light. And yet, with the best of intentions, they can become your enemies -- or you may be asked to do questionable things in the service of the Church.

Scow2

2013-09-24, 09:01 AM

In the end, the numbers are irrelevant. To the good, the loss of one innocent life is a terrible crime. Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent face punishment for which they are not guilty. While it's an irl bit of reference, justice isn't justice if it isn't for everyone. When I wrong people in attempting to right wrongs, I haven't done anyone any service.While that sounds nice in theory, letting the hundred guilty go results in the deaths of Tens or Hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and millions as those that survive turn into the 'guilty'.

This wasn't "Law & Order", "12 Angry Men" or "CSI" - it was "28 Days Later"

And on the subject of "Excluding Outsiders" (Which should also apply to certain Aberrations) - Therianthropy is an Outsider-style curse. It's not "Except Outsiders" that are exempt from "Alignment's not set in stone". It's "Except Supernatural Evils", which includes Undead, Outsiders, Therianthropy, Daelkyr and their aberations, Quori, and other nastiness.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 10:03 AM

This wasn't "Law & Order", "12 Angry Men" or "CSI" - it was "28 Days Later"

Not I Am Legend then?

Scow2

2013-09-24, 10:45 AM

Not I Am Legend then?It eventually became "I am Legend" - but only toward the end, and in the beginning when Shifters were confused with full-blooded Lycanthropes - partially through the machinations of Wererats.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 10:47 AM

Regardless of who manipulated him into it- the Keeper of the Flame still essentially ordered the Church of the Silver Flame to genocide a bunch of innocent shifters- which lasted 3 years until he changed his mind.

3 years in which the power of the crusade was directed primarily against shifters rather than lycanthropes.

Scow2

2013-09-24, 10:50 AM

3 years in which the power of the crusade was directed primarily against shifters rather than lycanthropes.Directed against Shifters AND Lycanthropes. Not instead of.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 10:50 AM

While that sounds nice in theory, letting the hundred guilty go results in the deaths of Tens or Hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and millions as those that survive turn into the 'guilty'.

This wasn't "Law & Order", "12 Angry Men" or "CSI" - it was "28 Days Later"

I'm not saying from a practical viewpoint of survival the purge wasn't necessary. Just that it was still immoral.

The problem that this mode of thinking sets up is that there is some kind of meter somewhere that tells the good people that, if there is enough scat hitting the fan, then it's okay to throw the rules out the window.

I just feel that that isn't actually an acceptable excuse. If one wants to be good, accept the rules. Murder is wrong. If it's absolutely necessary, then so be it, but it was still an immoral act, and there will be repercussions, and atonement must be made. No exceptions. No "ends justify the means."

It's a big problem when all that's necessary to permit good people to do sketchy things is for evil people to turn up the fear level. As a strictly good person, one should primarily believe that there is always a better way.

Coidzor

2013-09-24, 10:55 AM

Scow2

2013-09-24, 11:00 AM

I'm not saying from a practical viewpoint of survival the purge wasn't necessary. Just that it was still immoral.

The problem that this mode of thinking sets up is that there is some kind of meter somewhere that tells the good people that, if there is enough scat hitting the fan, then it's okay to throw the rules out the window.

I just feel that that isn't actually an acceptable excuse. If one wants to be good, accept the rules. Murder is wrong. If it's absolutely necessary, then so be it, but it was still an immoral act, and there will be repercussions, and atonement must be made. No exceptions. No "ends justify the means."

It's a big problem when all that's necessary to permit good people to do sketchy things is for evil people to turn up the fear level. As a strictly good person, one should primarily believe that there is always a better way.Rules DO go out the window when **** starts hitting the fan, and Evil is prevailing. Especially when adherence to "The Rules" is enabling widespread death, destruction, disease, and disaster.

When it comes between doing the Right thing and doing the Legal thing, Right takes precedence. There were several cases during the Purge where Good went by the wayside through the treachery of Evil, but those were generally cared out by extremists or mislead soldiers. And mistakes were made - but inaction would have been worse for everyone.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 11:00 AM

Directed against Shifters AND Lycanthropes. Not instead of.

With most of the successes being against shifters:

Races of Eberron p34:

Compared to true lycanthropes, which are decidedly difficult to track and exceedingly powerful, shifters were easy for the Church to find and attack. It's little surprise, then, that most of the Church's early "successes" were at the expense of the shifter race.

The Church used its crusade against the shifters as proof that its crusade against lycanthropy was right and destined for success. Although it reversed its view on shifters in the early years of the crusade and later acknowledged that shifters are a separate race, the damage had already been done.

Coidzor

2013-09-24, 11:11 AM

Rules DO go out the window when **** starts hitting the fan, and Evil is prevailing. Especially when adherence to "The Rules" is enabling widespread death, destruction, disease, and disaster.

When it comes between doing the Right thing and doing the Legal thing, Right takes precedence. There were several cases during the Purge where Good went by the wayside through the treachery of Evil, but those were generally cared out by extremists or mislead soldiers. And mistakes were made - but inaction would have been worse for everyone.

I rather doubt it. Wizards and Clerics working together to actually come up with a solution instead of just shrugging and saying "eh, kill them all, we've got more interesting things to deal with," leaving Paladins, of all people, to be the ones who even try to come up with any cure. It's one of those places where Eberron rather blatantly breaks versimiltude for me, since usually it's a bit better about actually taking the game into account in the world design. At the end of the day, the Lycanthropic Purge says to me, "Keith Baker wanted this to happen too badly to execute it with 100% aplomb," and, y'know, considering the nature of the medium and how big of a thing world-building is, that's to be expected. 100%ing is difficult enough as it is.

Why is inaction the only alternative to wholesale genocide and pogroms of one's own people and an only tangentially-related minority which had nothing to do with the actual problem? Of being so lazy that they couldn't be bothered to find a better way of dealing with solitary were-creatures hiding out in towns of normal people than by massacring the whole town? Adding new spells to the rules set is one of the things these sorts of backstory disasters and kerfluffles are for, after all.

Also, you're forgetting that the Good thing and the Right thing are one and the same and as soon as you're doing Evil in the name of Good you're no longer doing the Right thing. :smallconfused: Or at least Neutral, I suppose. Evil though, that's just Right out.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 11:12 AM

So, as a good person, one only needs a decent reason for doing bad things? Moral subjectivism is pretty much the direction that this heads in. What qualifies as justification?

Setting aside the grand scope of the purge, I find that suggestion very troubling. Good people must be good. That's what makes good different from evil. Evil has no rules, no principles. But for a good person, those principles are the only thing that separates one from the darkness. If, at some point, those principles are suddenly invalid.... Well, I can only say that that bodes very well for forces of evil.

Now, in the shades of gray of the setting, of course evil is not totally avoidable, and good is never totally pure. The problem is that CotSF kind of promotes a way of thinking that is leading it's followers to believe they have the moral high ground. Sometimes they do, but in the cases where they don't have the high ground, but believe they do, a truly excellent opportunity exists for evil to have its way. The good members of CotSF should know better, IMHO. Self-righteousness is a double-edged sword, and one must always be wary of seeming right, as opposed to being right.

EDIT: Bing bing bing. And the winner is Coidzor. How in the world does it take over half a century to figure out that hunting and killing people with a contagious condition, on foot in melee, without reliable detection, is not the best method? Was gonna say the same thing before.

Coidzor

2013-09-24, 11:15 AM

The problem is that CotSF kind of promotes a way of thinking that is leading it's followers to believe they have the moral high ground.

Kind of? I always figured it just flat-out does, which is part of why they're disliked by other good-ish factions as being full of themselves, at least if I'm recollecting correctly.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 11:20 AM

I rather doubt it. Wizards and Clerics working together to actually come up with a solution instead of just shrugging and saying "eh, kill them all, we've got more interesting things to deal with," leaving Paladins, of all people, to be the ones who even try to come up with any cure.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was the moderate faction that the paladins were most attracted to.

And that the end to the targeting of shifters occurred when paladins who had Fallen for participating in shifter massacres said "Hey- we're Falling- these guys might be innocent".

Roguenewb

2013-09-24, 01:24 PM

There is some seriously simplistic morality being bandied about in this thread. I hope these are beliefs about in-game alignment, and not how you think about morality in the real world, or if you do, that you don't vote.

Good and evil are endlessly complicated. Killing an innocent for your own gain is undoubtedly evil. Killing an innocent to prevent 2 other innocent deaths is a good act. Killing an innocent to prevent severe harm to 2 others, where does that fall? Severe harm to 3? 4? 10? 100? 1000? Everyone?

Killing someone you believe to guilty, but is actually innocent, probably still good. Kill someone you know to be innocent because you believe it will help overall, arguably still good, though the calculus is complicated.

The Purge overall, helped more than it hurt. It probably counts as a good act, taken as a whole. Don't argue that it helped more than it hurt, go read those Keith Baker quotes, its his setting, the equivalent of God said it helped. Could they have done less harm? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean their evil just because there was a better way. There way was still good, it just could have gone better.

On the topic of corruption, the Puritans are probably LN as a whole, at best. But they don't guide the church or have considerable power. Once again, this is inarguable, GOD SAID IT. Statements made by Keith Baker about the contents of Eberron, literally cannot be gainsaid, they are literal truth.

PS Please don't make any points about you play something different with the rules or the setup. Thats either homebrew or a small view for your plot.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 01:30 PM

If it's said in one of the books, or on the WoTC site, yes- but even setting inventors tend to spin off a little from the standard.

Ed Greenwood's Faerun is not quite the same as WoTC Faerun anymore. The same could be said of Keith Baker statements that are on his blog rather than on the WoTC site.

Killing an innocent to prevent 2 other innocent deaths is a good act.

Some moralists might state that- but where's it stated in D&D?

If a doctor kidnaps and murders someone, and uses their organs to save 2 lives- do the lives saved turn the murder into a nonevil act?

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 01:34 PM

Also, you're forgetting that the Good thing and the Right thing are one and the same and as soon as you're doing Evil in the name of Good you're no longer doing the Right thing. :smallconfused: Or at least Neutral, I suppose. Evil though, that's just Right out.

The above bears repeating.

Killing people is bad. Even killing guilty, evil people is bad, because you are removing any chance for redemption, repentance, and the possibility that said person later does something good. There is an argument for killing the irredeemable (fiends, undead), but the lycanthropes that were being manipulated by the curse could possibly have been cured, and thus probably aren't as bad as fiends. Killing them was judged necessary. It was not good.

Killing innocent people is ALWAYS BAD. There just is no magic amount of good ends that will justify any amount of dead innocents. None.

Again, the setting is very grey, and, just like IRL, the idealism of good has to live with the reality of evil, and try to make the best of things. But that doesn't mean that the principles themselves can just be dropped when the going gets hard.

Basically, find a better way or learn to live with the fact that you screwed up and are in serious need of atonement. The good news is that forgiveness is a virtue!

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 01:38 PM

Killing innocent people is ALWAYS BAD. There just is no magic amount of good ends that will justify any amount of dead innocents.

That said, some policies that save innocents, also kill a small proportion of them instead of saving them- yet- since there is no intent to kill them- and only a small possibility of killing them each time- it's considered permissible.

An obvious example would be vaccination with a mildly hazardous vaccine in the face of a high-threat disease outbreak.

Thus, making that decision would probably not be considered an Evil act by D&D standards.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 01:44 PM

That said, some policies that save innocents, also kill a small proportion of them instead of saving them- yet- since there is no intent to kill them- and only a small possibility of killing them each time- it's considered permissible.

An obvious example would be vaccination with a mildly hazardous vaccine in the face of a high-threat disease outbreak.

Thus, making that decision would probably not be considered an Evil act by D&D standards.

The key to your example is that each person vaccinated is educated and made aware of the risks, and given a choice. Forcing someone to do something that entails personal risk is also something to avoid.

There is a line that I'm trying to point out. Sometimes there are acts that are committed with good intention that cause some degree of evil. Such acts, I would argue, can't be good. But they might avoid a greater evil, and so be deemed an acceptable cost.

But the act that leads to even the small evil is not good. A good person should repent of such acts, and given the chance to do it again, try to find a better way.

It may be my personal interpretation, but I find that any amount of "justifiable evil" just leads to terrible immorality creep, a very dangerous, slippery slope. An evil act is evil. If one commits such an act, own it, and repent. None of this "but it was worth it."

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 01:53 PM

True- it may depend on the DM as to what forms of "harming the innocent" are culpable, and what are not.

Some decisions can involve people being given a choice- but in other cases (such as the crashing plane pilot trying to land in the least populated area possible) - giving the plane passengers a say in where the plane lands is inappropriate.

Intent, and reasonable precautions, can mean that a paladin decision that "harms the innocent" or "accidentally brings about a calamity" does not qualify as Fall-worthy:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

Though a paladin must always strive to bring about a just and righteous outcome, she is not omnipotent. If someone tricks her into acting in a way that harms the innocent, or if an action of hers accidentally brings about a calamity, she may rightly feel that she is at fault. But although she should by all means attempt to redress the wrong, she should not lose her paladinhood for it. Intent is not always easy to judge, but as long as a paladin's heart was in the right place and she took reasonable precautions, she cannot be blamed for a poor result.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 02:09 PM

Intent, and reasonable precautions, can mean that a paladin decision that "harms the innocent" or "accidentally brings about a calamity" does not qualify as Fall-worthy:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

This only points out that some degrees of wrong-doing are not fall-worthy, something I would have already assumed. Good is supposed to be forgiving, even when stringent; if one fails paladins left and right for minor infractions that weren't really their fault, then that's just a waste of devoted servants (hard to come by).

Basically, one may condemn evil in its many forms with abandon. But forgiveness is equally as important to being good, perhaps even moreso. Without the ability to turn fail-prone mortals from bad-guys to back on the path, then evil really would have a big advantage.

Additionally, in my view, a good person should always be mindful that, at some point, they are going to do something wrong. No one is evil-proof. Remain vigilant, and seek to redress wrongs at the earliest opportunity.

We are a bit off the topic, though the discussion continues to be fascinating. I really like the intersection between the relaxed morality of the overall Eberron setting, and the way it affects the microcosm, at the individual level.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 02:20 PM

The atonement spell mentions "evil acts committed unwittingly":

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/atonement.htm

This spell removes the burden of evil acts or misdeeds from the subject. The creature seeking atonement must be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds. If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you. However, in the case of a creature atoning for deliberate misdeeds and acts of a knowing and willful nature, you must intercede with your deity (requiring you to expend 500 XP) in order to expunge the subject’s burden.

A paladin who has lost her class features due to committing an evil act may have her paladinhood restored to her by this spell.

The class description itself, however, only specifically mentions willfully committed ones:

A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies).

leaving it up in the air as to whether an "evil act committed unwittingly" can ever cause a paladin to Fall or not.

The code, at least, does demand that a paladin "punish those who harm or threaten innocents" - making it feasible that harming innocents, for whatever reason, counts as a "violation of the code", whether or not it qualifies as a "willfully committed evil act".

I lean to the view that a paladin who participated in the lynching of one or more innocent shifters during the Purge, would be at considerable risk of Falling during that lynching.

Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me that Falls caused by this- led to paladins petitioning the Keeper to reexamine the decision to exterminate all shifters as well as all lycanthropes, and the repealing of that decision 3 years into the Purge.

Roguenewb

2013-09-24, 02:45 PM

Killing people is bad. Even killing guilty, evil people is bad, because you are removing any chance for redemption, repentance, and the possibility that said person later does something good. There is an argument for killing the irredeemable (fiends, undead), but the lycanthropes that were being manipulated by the curse could possibly have been cured, and thus probably aren't as bad as fiends. Killing them was judged necessary. It was not good.

Killing innocent people is ALWAYS BAD. There just is no magic amount of good ends that will justify any amount of dead innocents. None.

Again, the setting is very grey, and, just like IRL, the idealism of good has to live with the reality of evil, and try to make the best of things. But that doesn't mean that the principles themselves can just be dropped when the going gets hard.

Basically, find a better way or learn to live with the fact that you screwed up and are in serious need of atonement. The good news is that forgiveness is a virtue!

Untrue. This is simply not the case. There are cases where killing someone is the best act in a situation. They aren't even that rare. Police officers are forced into them every single day. There are cases where killing innocents creates more total good, but they are more rare. Imagine being trapped in a pass in winter, with 10 people. Either, you kill one person, and nine survive, or you allow everyone to starve to death slowly. That person is innocent, yet...isn't killing and eating them the right course of action? 9 innocent survivors is better than 0.

What about situations where death is the only thing you can manage? There are cases, especially in D&D, where I can kill the NPC, but lack the ability to apprehend them. Perhaps the penalties from non-lethal options make them non-viable. Perhaps the NPCs will save is too great for KOs. In a more cynical game, they have enough political connections that death, and only death, is the only way to remove them from the playing field. What should the Paladin do? Kill the Evil (or even misguided Good) NPC, or let the NPC continue to hurt and kill innocents? Should the Paladin simply try to use non-lethal methods, fail, and die, knowing the whole time that he could have protected all those people? Lawful Good doesn't mean Impractical Good.

The world is hard. Often times, the moral outcome is...bad. What we want to be the case concerning violence, killing, and good is often not the case. Now, if you want to play D&D and avoid those difficulties, fine. But at least admit its escapism and not reflective of the real world. Too many posts in this thread use the morality system they teach 11 year olds.

hamishspence

2013-09-24, 02:50 PM

Imagine being trapped in a pass in winter, with 10 people. Either, you kill one person, and nine survive, or you allow everyone to starve to death slowly. That person is innocent, yet...isn't killing and eating them the right course of action? 9 innocent survivors is better than 0.

In the most notable case where this decision did happen: R vs Dudley & Stephens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_v._Dudley_%26_Stephens), the perpetrators were tried and convicted of murder- though their sentence was reduced after trial.

As a result, the default in English law is that "necessity" is not a defence against a charge of murder.

Phelix-Mu

2013-09-24, 05:16 PM

The world is hard. Often times, the moral outcome is...bad. What we want to be the case concerning violence, killing, and good is often not the case. Now, if you want to play D&D and avoid those difficulties, fine. But at least admit its escapism and not reflective of the real world. Too many posts in this thread use the morality system they teach 11 year olds.

Aside from all my objections to what you said, we would do well to not involve much discussion of irl morality; my apologies if I have done so. Not only is it off-topic (if marginally so), but it also quickly runs afoul of both forum policy and people's feelings.

Also, I said pretty much the same thing about grayness and life rarely being so clean-cut.

hamishspence

2013-09-25, 06:00 AM

Aside from all my objections to what you said, we would do well to not involve much discussion of irl morality; my apologies if I have done so. Not only is it off-topic (if marginally so), but it also quickly runs afoul of both forum policy and people's feelings.

True. Threads about "moral philosophy in D&D" can work- as long as one steers clear of politics, religion, "Was X act morally justified?" and being rude about another person's interpretation- but it requires a lot of care.

Scow2

2013-09-25, 07:08 PM

Tbut the lycanthropes that were being manipulated by the curse could possibly have been cured, and thus probably aren't as bad as fiends. Curing lycanthropes is well, WELL beyond the means of 99.999% of the people in Eberron, and beyond the means of 100% of those in the area that was afflicted.

The purge started when Lycanthropes started getting out of hand, with even non-evil Lycanthropes going insane, and ALL of them becoming infectious. Lycanthropes started with early 'victories'. The Silver Flame responded swiftly to the threat... but ignorance of the nature of Shifters and misinformation spread by wererats misdirected the Silver Flame toward Shifters, which were believed to be the same thing as Psychothropes until the Flame got the wake-up call on that.

It started good, soured quickly, straightened itself out again, then went bad when the Lycanthropes lost the psychostuff that was making them insane and evil without the decency of giving the Silver Flame the memo that they weren't crazy and infectious anymore.

Coidzor

2013-09-25, 08:46 PM

Good and evil are endlessly complicated.

Killing an innocent to prevent 2 other innocent deaths is a good act.

One of these things is not like the other.

123456789blaaa

2013-10-14, 05:58 PM

First @Roguenewb: Let's try to avoid directly stating that the people opposing your views are wrong. It's fine if we're talking about objective facts (the question of "is the sky blue" for example) but it just inflames tempers and blocks discussion when we're talking about something as confusing and grey as morality.

An excellent example of why the good shouldn't dabble in evil. Evil always does it better.

I don't know that any of what I just read alters my initial judgement. The black was blacker (it usually is, by the way) than I thought, but the CotSF was still neck deep in it. With a truly formidable, really evil threat, the need to really, very much refrain from gray behavior is increased, not decreased. If dire times call for dire measures, then just chuck right and wrong out the window; evil really enjoys it when good people go mucking around in the deep end of the pool like they can control the fallout.

Ooh...some bad mixed metaphors there. Sorry if I'm becoming...what's the word...ah, whatever. Facetious? No. My thoughts on this issue are quite complex, and run afoul of my real-life morality left, right, and center.

Alright. I have a question then: let's say you're an inhabitant in modern-day Eberron. You are given the ability to go back in time and delay the Silver Flame from responding to the lycanthrope threat. This means that the Church waits until they have more info. This leads to a drastic decrease in innocent Shifters and good Lycanthropes killed by them. However, this also means that many many more people in general (shifters, members of the Church, good lycanthropes, commoners etc) are killed instead by the evil lycanthropes. The plague manages to spread much farther too and the war lasts for 40 more years. Many more people are also left homeless because of the lycanthropes destroying the cities and towns they overtake.

My question is: would you go back? Why or why not?

Weresharks are a thing though (not saying any more than this due to spoilers).

I think either FoE or the Explorer's Handbook mentions that Vol's agents have infiltrated the Undying Courts. I know it's stated, I just don't remember where).

Waaa? :smallconfused:. A spoilered response would be fine.

Part of the reason I'm a little suspicious of "If they hadn't acted as they did, the world would have been doomed" - is that according to Races of Eberron, they spent 3 years mostly attacking the wrong targets- and this didn't lead to the world being doomed.

So the issue may, while serious, not have been a "brink of disaster" one.

<snip>

<snip>

So, it was always supposed to be a FLAWED action, an action that had tragic consequences. But like the Church itself, overall it was supposed to have been a noble act DESPITE the flaws and tragedy.

See: many wars with which I could name but shan't for the sake of not pulling politics into this. :)
Absolutely. Though again, here you can argue that if NOTHING had been done the plague would have spread out across Galifar, and potentially given us that savage world. So yes, you can draw comparisons to many wars which turned into quagmires or disasters at the end - but there's no question here whether or not going to war was a mistake. And that, I think, is the biggest part the ECS doesn't spell out - the idea that the Purge began as an effort to contain the SPREAD of lycanthropy, which was reaching a critical level.

I think the answer to that question is simply a matter of distances. Khorvaire is an entire continent remember. Lycanthropes still need to eat and sleep and tech like Lighting Rails for moving large distances hadn't been invented yet. The lycanthropes were busy massacring people in part of the continent and a few spread the curse to another part which caused more lycanthropes to be born and start killing people and so on.

I rather doubt it. Wizards and Clerics working together to actually come up with a solution instead of just shrugging and saying "eh, kill them all, we've got more interesting things to deal with," leaving Paladins, of all people, to be the ones who even try to come up with any cure. It's one of those places where Eberron rather blatantly breaks versimiltude for me, since usually it's a bit better about actually taking the game into account in the world design. At the end of the day, the Lycanthropic Purge says to me, "Keith Baker wanted this to happen too badly to execute it with 100% aplomb," and, y'know, considering the nature of the medium and how big of a thing world-building is, that's to be expected. 100%ing is difficult enough as it is.

Why is inaction the only alternative to wholesale genocide and pogroms of one's own people and an only tangentially-related minority which had nothing to do with the actual problem? Of being so lazy that they couldn't be bothered to find a better way of dealing with solitary were-creatures hiding out in towns of normal people than by massacring the whole town? Adding new spells to the rules set is one of the things these sorts of backstory disasters and kerfluffles are for, after all.

Also, you're forgetting that the Good thing and the Right thing are one and the same and as soon as you're doing Evil in the name of Good you're no longer doing the Right thing. :smallconfused: Or at least Neutral, I suppose. Evil though, that's just Right out.

So, as a good person, one only needs a decent reason for doing bad things? Moral subjectivism is pretty much the direction that this heads in. What qualifies as justification?

Setting aside the grand scope of the purge, I find that suggestion very troubling. Good people must be good. That's what makes good different from evil. Evil has no rules, no principles. But for a good person, those principles are the only thing that separates one from the darkness. If, at some point, those principles are suddenly invalid.... Well, I can only say that that bodes very well for forces of evil.

Now, in the shades of gray of the setting, of course evil is not totally avoidable, and good is never totally pure. The problem is that CotSF kind of promotes a way of thinking that is leading it's followers to believe they have the moral high ground. Sometimes they do, but in the cases where they don't have the high ground, but believe they do, a truly excellent opportunity exists for evil to have its way. The good members of CotSF should know better, IMHO. Self-righteousness is a double-edged sword, and one must always be wary of seeming right, as opposed to being right.

EDIT: Bing bing bing. And the winner is Coidzor. How in the world does it take over half a century to figure out that hunting and killing people with a contagious condition, on foot in melee, without reliable detection, is not the best method? Was gonna say the same thing before.

I think you guys are mixing two different debates here. The first one (which we're currently discussing) is whether the Purge was morally right. The second one that you guys bring up is if the Purge was intellectually stupid. Given that I think it's pretty clear the setting itself doesn't think it was stupid, I don't think it's relevant to the current debate. I'd be happy to discuss it at a later time but right now it'll probably just confuse things.

Curing lycanthropes is well, WELL beyond the means of 99.999% of the people in Eberron, and beyond the means of 100% of those in the area that was afflicted.

The purge started when Lycanthropes started getting out of hand, with even non-evil Lycanthropes going insane, and ALL of them becoming infectious. Lycanthropes started with early 'victories'. The Silver Flame responded swiftly to the threat... but ignorance of the nature of Shifters and misinformation spread by wererats misdirected the Silver Flame toward Shifters, which were believed to be the same thing as Psychothropes until the Flame got the wake-up call on that.

It started good, soured quickly, straightened itself out again, then went bad when the Lycanthropes lost the psychostuff that was making them insane and evil without the decency of giving the Silver Flame the memo that they weren't crazy and infectious anymore.

This basically. A very good summation of the whole thing.

hamishspence

2013-10-14, 06:01 PM

It started good, soured quickly, straightened itself out again, then went bad when the Lycanthropes lost the psychostuff that was making them insane and evil without the decency of giving the Silver Flame the memo that they weren't crazy and infectious anymore.

Exactly how were they going to "give the Silver Flame the memo"?

Big Fau

2013-10-14, 06:05 PM

Waaa? :smallconfused:. A spoilered response would be fine.

Warning: Massive plot spoiler
Blade of the Flame Book 3: An army of brainwashed (although they were already kinda crazy) Weresharks invade Regalport and starts massacring people. They are stopped by a Werewolf Wereshark Clergyman of the Silver Flame (yeah, he got infected twice).

Said clergyman decides to live his life in the ocean, either converting the inhabitants to the Silver Flame or preventing the remaining weresharks from attacking people. Don't remember which.

The single most over-the-top moment in the trilogy, but damn was it cool.

123456789blaaa

2013-10-14, 06:09 PM

Exactly how were they going to "give the Silver Flame the memo"?

I think he was joking a bit.

Warning: Massive plot spoiler
Blade of the Flame Book 3: An army of brainwashed (although they were already kinda crazy) Weresharks invade Regalport and starts massacring people. They are stopped by a Werewolf Wereshark Clergyman of the Silver Flame (yeah, he got infected twice).

Said clergyman decides to live his life in the ocean, either converting the inhabitants to the Silver Flame or preventing the remaining weresharks from attacking people. Don't remember which.

The single most over-the-top moment in the trilogy, but damn was it cool.

Whoops did not know that it was from the Eberron books. Luckily I only saw a little bit at the beginning and am forgetting it as I type. Phew.

Coidzor

2013-10-14, 06:44 PM

Warning: Massive plot spoiler
Blade of the Flame Book 3: An army of brainwashed (although they were already kinda crazy) Weresharks invade Regalport and starts massacring people. They are stopped by a Werewolf Wereshark Clergyman of the Silver Flame (yeah, he got infected twice).

Said clergyman decides to live his life in the ocean, either converting the inhabitants to the Silver Flame or preventing the remaining weresharks from attacking people. Don't remember which.

The single most over-the-top moment in the trilogy, but damn was it cool.

I'd... I'd just love to see an illustration of that.

I think you guys are mixing two different debates here. The first one (which we're currently discussing) is whether the Purge was morally right. The second one that you guys bring up is if the Purge was intellectually stupid. Given that I think it's pretty clear the setting itself doesn't think it was stupid, I don't think it's relevant to the current debate. I'd be happy to discuss it at a later time but right now it'll probably just confuse things.

It does, to a certain extent. Part of what I view as the moral failure of the Church(and other relevant powers that were at the time) and the reason why I view it as a black-to-dark-grey stain on the Church rather than a feather in its cap is how poorly they handled it compared with how they could have handled it given what is known about the setting and the system and pseudo-lore upon which the setting is built.

When you've got wizards who can make owlbears and artificers who can take a look at ancient relics and get them up and running again in order to churn out armies and all kinds of other things, you at least need to explain why you never even bothered tried using all of that brain power or at least some kind of throwaway line about something stymieing them. Maybe I missed it(in which case, fair enough, sorry for the time wasting), but my understanding and what I recall from my reading is that they didn't try anything and just went into murder-maim-kill and got tricked by were-rats. Were-rats. For Hate of Pelor. *frothes at the mouth with impotent nerd-rage*

Big Fau

2013-10-14, 06:50 PM

I'd... I'd just love to see an illustration of that.

Not quite the actual scene (it shows Diran Bastian, the protagonist, fighting sharks, presumably of the were-variety), but here you go (http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Death-Blade-Flame-Book/dp/0786947918#reader_B0036S4CJI).

Coidzor

2013-10-14, 06:58 PM

Not quite the actual scene (it shows Diran Bastian, the protagonist, fighting sharks, presumably of the were-variety), but here you go (http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Death-Blade-Flame-Book/dp/0786947918#reader_B0036S4CJI).
I was thinking more of whatever the hybrid form of a were-shark-wolf would be fighting a bunch of hybrid form were-sharks of various humanoid species and sizes.

Be a pretty sweet poster, methinks.

123456789blaaa

2013-10-14, 07:04 PM

I'd... I'd just love to see an illustration of that.

It does, to a certain extent. Part of what I view as the moral failure of the Church(and other relevant powers that were at the time) and the reason why I view it as a black-to-dark-grey stain on the Church rather than a feather in its cap is how poorly they handled it compared with how they could have handled it given what is known about the setting and the system and pseudo-lore upon which the setting is built.

When you've got wizards who can make owlbears and artificers who can take a look at ancient relics and get them up and running again in order to churn out armies and all kinds of other things, you at least need to explain why you never even bothered tried using all of that brain power or at least some kind of throwaway line about something stymieing them. Maybe I missed it(in which case, fair enough, sorry for the time wasting), but my understanding and what I recall from my reading is that they didn't try anything and just went into murder-maim-kill and got tricked by were-rats. Were-rats. For Hate of Pelor. *frothes at the mouth with impotent nerd-rage*

Lycanthropy has been around Khorvaire since anyone can remember. Lycanthropes were still a problem-though not an apocalyptic threat- before the plague. People getting bitten had there lives ruined and very possibly the lives of other people as well.

What I'm getting at is that the idea of curing lycanthropes isn't a new thing. In peacetime, with abundant resources, you don't think many wizards and artificers didn't try to find another cure besides the ones that had already been found? (and who knows, maybe they were the ones who found out the 5 different ways to cure a lycanthrope). Than in what was basically wartime, when people were dying, why the heck would they suddenly be able to get a cure now that they hadn't been able to before? :smallconfused:

The average wererat has the same Int score as the average human. Why is being tricked by them so bad?

Coidzor

2013-10-14, 07:11 PM

Lycanthropy has been around Khorvaire since anyone can remember. Lycanthropes were still a problem-though not an apocalyptic threat- before the plague. People getting bitten had there lives ruined and very possibly the lives of other people as well.

What I'm getting at is that the idea of curing lycanthropes isn't a new thing. In peacetime, with abundant resources, you don't think many wizards and artificers didn't try to find another cure besides the ones that had already been found? (and who knows, maybe they were the ones who found out the 5 different ways to cure a lycanthrope). Than in what was basically wartime, when people were dying, why the heck would they suddenly be able to get a cure now that they hadn't been able to before? :smallconfused:

The average wererat has the same Int score as the average human. Why is being tricked by them so bad?

It's not even the cure aspect. It's that they never even tried developing a spell that could detect it, thus necessitating all of those "oh, well, there might be a were-boar somewhere in the tri-county area, sorry everyone, you're all going to be barbecued now." Which is too bad, because a detect lycanthrope spell would've been a really flavorful addition to the setting.

Not really, no demand under normal circumstances, and certainly no cause for anyone to collaborate. Sure, you might get the occasional obsessive, maybe, or the equivalent of a magical grad student who decided that curing lycanthropy sounded better than building a better owlbear. Something like the lycanthropic purge should've kicked off something like the magical equivalent of the manhatten project devoted to coming up with the smallpox vaccine or something.

Because they were just average wererats, those are cannon fodder, not something to trick higher level characters. Now if it'd been some kind of special wererat that came up with it, that'd satisfy the demands of the narrative.

Big Fau

2013-10-14, 07:33 PM

Because they were just average wererats, those are cannon fodder, not something to trick higher level characters. Now if it'd been some kind of special wererat that came up with it, that'd satisfy the demands of the narrative.

What high-level characters? A majority of the Flame's following are 1st level commoners, and the purge was carried out by anyone with a HD bigger than 1d4. It was the low-level cannon fodder that got tricked, which made up a majority of the membership. It took 3 years for the mid-ranks and high-ranks to finally put an end to the Shifter scapegoating, likely because they grew overly suspicious of the "success" of the Purge thus far. This led to a proper investigation.

The wererat was no different from a normal person Int-wise, which means coming up with a simple "He carries the curse, burn the witch!" while pointing at a dirt-common Shifter is not out of his realm of rational thinking.

Scow2

2013-10-14, 07:35 PM

It's not even the cure aspect. It's that they never even tried developing a spell that could detect it, thus necessitating all of those "oh, well, there might be a were-boar somewhere in the tri-county area, sorry everyone, you're all going to be barbecued now." Which is too bad, because a detect lycanthrope spell would've been a really flavorful addition to the setting.It probably did, but resulted in No Results Worth Mentioning. There is no guarantee that spell research will work, no matter how many GP or days you pour into it.

Not really, no demand under normal circumstances, and certainly no cause for anyone to collaborate. Sure, you might get the occasional obsessive, maybe, or the equivalent of a magical grad student who decided that curing lycanthropy sounded better than building a better owlbear. Something like the lycanthropic purge should've kicked off something like the magical equivalent of the manhatten project devoted to coming up with the smallpox vaccine or something."Normal circumstances" before the purge were still very bad, though that's something people living in the Post-Purge lycanthrope-free world have the luxury of completely ignoring and forgetting about, to Silver-Guilt followers of the Flame and paint them as ignorant, bloodthirsty savages and relic of a more barbaric time, while playing up the "Victim Shifter/Lycanthrope" card.

Because they were just average wererats, those are cannon fodder, not something to trick higher level characters. Now if it'd been some kind of special wererat that came up with it, that'd satisfy the demands of the narrative.Nonsense. Wererats are known for their deception and cunning. It's their defining trait among the Theiranthropes. The "Cannon Fodder" lycanthropes are the Wereboars and Werewolves... which are also Shock Troops. There might be a Therianthrope in the area? Surprise! They're all Therianthropes.

123456789blaaa

2013-10-14, 08:58 PM

It's not even the cure aspect. It's that they never even tried developing a spell that could detect it, thus necessitating all of those "oh, well, there might be a were-boar somewhere in the tri-county area, sorry everyone, you're all going to be barbecued now." Which is too bad, because a detect lycanthrope spell would've been a really flavorful addition to the setting.

Not really, no demand under normal circumstances, and certainly no cause for anyone to collaborate. Sure, you might get the occasional obsessive, maybe, or the equivalent of a magical grad student who decided that curing lycanthropy sounded better than building a better owlbear. Something like the lycanthropic purge should've kicked off something like the magical equivalent of the manhatten project devoted to coming up with the smallpox vaccine or something.

Because they were just average wererats, those are cannon fodder, not something to trick higher level characters. Now if it'd been some kind of special wererat that came up with it, that'd satisfy the demands of the narrative.

So is your problem is that you believe the Silver Flame were being lazy and stupid? I think Keith's quotes make it clear the Church was not supposed to be taken that way. This sounds like more of an issue with the developers not fully understanding the setting than a moral issue.

And what Big Fau said.

Coidzor

2013-10-14, 10:57 PM

It probably did, but resulted in No Results Worth Mentioning. There is no guarantee that spell research will work, no matter how many GP or days you pour into it.

"Normal circumstances" before the purge were still very bad, though that's something people living in the Post-Purge lycanthrope-free world have the luxury of completely ignoring and forgetting about, to Silver-Guilt followers of the Flame and paint them as ignorant, bloodthirsty savages and relic of a more barbaric time, while playing up the "Victim Shifter/Lycanthrope" card.

*shrug* Maybe.

My understanding was that the Lycanthropic Purge happened after the establishment of Galifar but well before the disintegration of Galifar, but after its golden age. My mistake on the Eberron timeline then, sorry.

Nonsense. Wererats are known for their deception and cunning. It's their defining trait among the Theiranthropes. The "Cannon Fodder" lycanthropes are the Wereboars and Werewolves... which are also Shock Troops. There might be a Therianthrope in the area? Surprise! They're all Therianthropes.

I see. My apologies, I was mistaken on the place of wererats within the greater context of D&D, I had always recalled them as the form of lycanthrope most commonly encountered at low levels because they're so pitiful.

What high-level characters? A majority of the Flame's following are 1st level commoners, and the purge was carried out by anyone with a HD bigger than 1d4. It was the low-level cannon fodder that got tricked, which made up a majority of the membership. It took 3 years for the mid-ranks and high-ranks to finally put an end to the Shifter scapegoating, likely because they grew overly suspicious of the "success" of the Purge thus far. This led to a proper investigation.

The wererat was no different from a normal person Int-wise, which means coming up with a simple "He carries the curse, burn the witch!" while pointing at a dirt-common Shifter is not out of his realm of rational thinking.

I suppose. It just rubs me the wrong way if they're supposed to have been both that hands off and for the situation to have been such dire straits.

That working on peasants and on low-tier people without any oversight, sure. Aside from circumstances resulting in people being cut off, they're supposed to be pretty damn hierarchical though, so that sort of puts their characterization at odds with itself, which, again, rubs me the wrong way.

Big Fau

2013-10-14, 11:47 PM

I suppose. It just rubs me the wrong way if they're supposed to have been both that hands off and for the situation to have been such dire straits.

That working on peasants and on low-tier people without any oversight, sure. Aside from circumstances resulting in people being cut off, they're supposed to be pretty damn hierarchical though, so that sort of puts their characterization at odds with itself, which, again, rubs me the wrong way.

Well here's the thing: Maybe in the first year of the Purge the mid-level guys were somewhat successful, but once word got around that lycans were being hunted it would be fairly logical that they would either retaliate or go into hiding.

If it did, the "success ratio" would have dropped and the mid-level guys would have been reassigned to problematic areas, such as dealing with the lycans who retaliated. This left scouting out the ones in hiding up to the low-levels, and then the Wererats (do remember that they can have ranks in Bluff due to RHD) started up their misdirection. Cue Shifter massacres.

Since Shifters can also be commoners, and even Shifting won't help against a torch and pitchfork mob, they got scapegoated. Word starts to spread that the Purge is gaining success, the mid-levels shrug it off at first until some evidence presents itself (be it a Shifter approaching some more amiable members of the church, a mid-level witnessing a sanctioned murder of innocent lives, or simply the mid-level guys getting suspicious about just how much success the rank-and-file are having with an enemy that can potentially kill the mid-level guys; fairly sure that last one was what tipped the mid-levels off), and the mid-levels investigate that.

So the mid-levels would have had a reason to not be present to oversee the Purge. And there's also the Corrupted Flame aspect of the church, which could have fueled the fire for kicks (certainly wouldn't be out of character for it).

Scow2

2013-10-15, 04:03 PM

*shrug* Maybe.

My understanding was that the Lycanthropic Purge happened after the establishment of Galifar but well before the disintegration of Galifar, but after its golden age. My mistake on the Eberron timeline then, sorry.It doesn't matter when in the establishment of Galifar the Purge happened. Prior to the Purge, there were problems with Lycanthropes. The world went on despite them, though, complete with Galifar's rise, golden age, and begin of its decline - but the Lycanthropes were still a serious problem for those that had to deal with them (Which was a lot of people). The Purge happened when things ended up getting so bad that overwhelming scorched-earth militant action was forced. And, with Lycanthropes being the highly-contagious and ridiculously powerful menace they are, letting up after they had gotten the upper hand would have resulted in the Lycanthropes quickly retaking the advantage. But, the rest of the world can feel free to condemn the Silver Flame because it can't remember the horror of a Lycanthrope attack, before or after the Purge.

I see. My apologies, I was mistaken on the place of wererats within the greater context of D&D, I had always recalled them as the form of lycanthrope most commonly encountered at low levels because they're so pitiful.Wererats ARE the lowest-CR of the lycanthropes, and are easy for lower-level PCs to deal with when it comes to smacking them. However, if they can bring their social skills to bear, they punch FAR above their weight. The purge wasn't an adventure - it was a war.

hamishspence

2013-10-15, 04:12 PM

. But, the rest of the world can feel free to condemn the Silver Flame because it can't remember the horror of a Lycanthrope attack, before or after the Purge.

Quite a large proportion of the present-day Silver Flame themselves are willing to condemn at least some of the actions of their predecessors. Including the leader of the whole church.

Phelix-Mu

2013-10-16, 12:05 PM

Backing off from the whole specifics of the situation in Eberron, I find myself generally in alignment with Coidzor's points.

Mainly, I find that good people should always be suspicious when the choice that a situation presents is

a.) Do nothing, and let terrible things happen.

b.) Do something that may potentially be terrible or lead to terrible things happening.

This is a false choice. Part of being good is the belief that there is a way to be good, that evil is not a necessary outcome of a terrible situation. There is always a better way; the challenge is to find it. Whether it's creativity, perseverance, or just sticking to ones principles, there are many ways to avoid being dragged into the best of two evils paradigm.

I'm not saying that all of the suffering was avoidable or that imperfect people could find an ideal solution in crappy circumstances. I'm just saying that it seems like a whole bunch of morally upright people played right into the hands of a bad situation.

As Coidzor suggests, the CotSF swung a pretty blunt instrument (paladins and popular outrage) at a very complex problem. I'm unclear on the state of Eberron society back then, but that seem well below the setting's usual approach to problems, particularly on the magic front.

My stance is that yes, they can be forgiven for the past, but only as long as they are aware that there really is precious little preventing such bad judgment in the future. And the first step in repeating such missteps is often the simple thought "we had no choice." I just don't buy that.

Again, just my opinions. No offense meant.

EDIT: I think, again as someone else stated, part of the problem is the conceit of the narrative. It's established that this stuff happened. But it's not clear to me that proper thought was given to "does it make sense that this happened." The narrative requires that no heroes cropped up, and that the moral ambiguity of the setting both be prevalent in this series of events, yet also conveniently suspended by the berserker curse lycanthropy, which throws its victims into the very small pool of truly black/white creatures. CotSF failed to prevent terrible things, even when the span of time suggests that something more productive than exterminatus should have been developed.

Eh, as I said before, this whole bit is fraught with moral peril. I feel strongly that I can't see eye to eye with CotSF, but I'm not sure it's a logical or sensible view on my part.