Alignment change- has it ever occurred in any of the OOTS books, including prequels?

[hamishspence]

Inspired by a debate in one of the other threads, I figured the topic deserved its own.

The example was Right Eye- speculation that he might have changed alignment from Evil to True Neutral (his confirmed alignment) in SoD.

Are there any other characters for whom the possibility of their having undergone an alignment change is worth debating about?

[Kish]

Lots who people will debate for (Redcloak's brother, Belkar, Miko, Elan, Haley...Durkon...I think Redcloak is a real possibility, and one or the other of the goblin brothers is a near-certainty, actually; Redcloak strikes me as no more evil than his brother at the start of Start of Darkness).

I wonder if it's ever happened unambiguously. I can't think of any.

[SowZ]

Is there any strong reason to believe Right Eye was ever evil?

[hamishspence]

Not that I know of.

[Kish]

Let me clarify that I find "Redcloak and his brother both spent most of Start of Darkness Neutral; 'Start of Darkness' is primarily the tale of Redcloak's becoming evil" far more likely than "Redcloak's brother used to be evil and became neutral," personally.

[SowZ]

Let me clarify that I find "Redcloak and his brother both spent most of Start of Darkness Neutral; 'Start of Darkness' is primarily the tale of Redcloak's becoming evil" far more likely than "Redcloak's brother used to be evil and became neutral," personally.

Why do people assume he was ever evil? Yeah, he likes killing humans. No more so than many humans like killing goblins.

[hamishspence]

And treants. He also suggests "waiting around to see who wins" and killing the lizardfolk if they're the ones who win that fight.

[Cerussite]

None of those actions is evil, and if you'd classify them as that, you'd basically be labeling every soldier in the world as evil, since they're willing to kill soldiers they're at war with. Letting two enemies duke it out isn't evil either. What'd the good course of action be? Get in the middle of the fight and get slaughtered for TWO groups at once? Good isn't the stupid alignment.

[JSSheridan]

Why do people assume he was ever evil? Yeah, he likes killing humans. No more so than many humans like killing goblins.

You mean Evil humans? Neutral and Good people (of any species) don't enjoy taking a life.

That said, we never see Right-Eye commit any evil acts. The goblins he and RC lead have been under attack by the Sapphire Guard for years, and while it would be ideal to try to negotiate, it wouldn't be required. However, he freely suggest killing whoever wins between the SG and lizardfolk even though the lizardfolk never wronged the goblins, and he was sold on Xykon the quickest because he was "Totally Evil."

He fought alongside other goblins for Lirian's gate, and the goblins were hardly a beacon of Good there since they were aggressors, but RE mainly seemed concerned with protecting RC and the other goblins. This was when RE got fed up with Xykon for his carelessness about goblins.

After that, I think he wised up to the Plan and decided that he was responsible for making life better for goblins, not gods, clerics, or sorcerers.

I could see RE being evil with neutral tendencies to neutral later, or neutral with evil tendencies and dropping those tendencies later.

[Porthos]

Are there any other characters for whom the possibility of their having undergone an alignment change is worth debating about?

I'd say Haley is the most definitive, even over Redcloak.

She was a classic borderline CN/G character at the beginning of the strip. This was acknowledged later on by her famous statement that she was Chaotic Good... ish.

Now what side of the line one thought she was on at the start of the strip is (and has been :smalltongue:) debatable. But I think she's been a classic CG character pretty much since the time where she was a resistance leader after Azure City fell.

Is she as Good as Elan? No. But then few people are. :smallwink: Does she still have some lingering traces of her old CN (tinged) alignment? Maybe. But I find it extremely hard to believe that she would ever make a statement about slavery like she once almost did (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0171.html). Or pull a stunt like this ever again. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html)

Yes, she might be a bit too willing to deliver what she feels is karmic justice to others (robbing the street robbers (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0673.html) in Sandsedge and killing the palace guards in her escape attempt (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0722.html) are the two most oftenly raised recent examples). Her statement that Nale probably deserved what happened to him (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0914.html) is also a reflection of this belief. My response to that is, once again, not everyone can be Good as Elan. :smallwink:

[SowZ]

You mean Evil humans? Neutral and Good people (of any species) don't enjoy taking a life.

That said, we never see Right-Eye commit any evil acts. The goblins he and RC lead have been under attack by the Sapphire Guard for years, and while it would be ideal to try to negotiate, it wouldn't be required. However, he freely suggest killing whoever wins between the SG and lizardfolk even though the lizardfolk never wronged the goblins, and he was sold on Xykon the quickest because he was "Totally Evil."

He fought alongside other goblins for Lirian's gate, and the goblins were hardly a beacon of Good there since they were aggressors, but RE mainly seemed concerned with protecting RC and the other goblins. This was when RE got fed up with Xykon for his carelessness about goblins.

After that, I think he wised up to the Plan and decided that he was responsible for making life better for goblins, not gods, clerics, or sorcerers.

I could see RE being evil with neutral tendencies to neutral later, or neutral with evil tendencies and dropping those tendencies later.

I disagree. You could have a good character who enjoys fighting, even fighting to the death. That's certainly a dark streak, and it pulls him closer to the evil end of the alignment spectrum, but that one trait isn't enough to make you evil. Which people you kill, how you kill them, etc. etc. is enough to make you evil, though.

There are a plethora of fictional characters who are good, noble, self sacrificing people who enjoy battles. Even in real life, it is common for veterans to say that despite war being hell, they still miss the fight in a bizarre kind of way and getting a rush of adrenaline that feels good and a positive 'reward' center in your brain lighting up after killing something is actually natural.

Call it human nature, call it an evolutionary instinct to make us want to hunt/do well in warfare, etc. Call it what you want.

[LuisDantas]

None of those actions is evil,

Eh.


and if you'd classify them as that, you'd basically be labeling every soldier in the world as evil, since they're willing to kill soldiers they're at war with.

There is indeed something to that.

[LuisDantas]

IIRC there is a clear shift in attitude, if not alignment, in Right-Eye during SoD.


He basically got tired of being part of Xykon's expendable hordes.


I would say that he was some variety Evil at the start, but shifted into Neutral later on.

Redcloak became a lot more conscious of others during the Azure City Siege. IMO this may well justify a change from Chaotic Evil into Lawful Evil.


Miko IMO went through a very small yet sufficient change at some point between #406 and #460. She began #406 having at least a self-image basis for being Lawful Neutral, perhaps even Lawful Good - if only by the slightest of margins. By the time #460 ended she was quite firmly True Neutral Self-Serving. The change itself was fairly big, particularly when it comes to her sanity and mental stability, but its effect on alignment was just enough to be real.

On the other hand, I've always maintained that Miko may have always been True Neutral and only been a Paladin by virtue of the 12 Gods' generosity, so who knows.


Belkar may have shifted into Neutral Evil now, I dunno. I've not made my mind about the nasty little psycho murderer yet.

Haley IMO has developed, not so much changed alignment.

Durkon... too soo to tell, I suppose, although he is expected to be (Lawful?) Evil now.

[Porthos]

On the other hand, I've always maintained that Miko may have always been True Neutral and only been a Paladin by virtue of the 12 Gods' generosity, so who knows.

I don't even get that at all. Outside of the fact that it doesn't work that way in D&D, and Rich's own comments about Miko's Lawfulness in commentary, in what way was she always TN?

I don't even see it if I squint hard. :smalltongue:

[sengmeng]

Belkar changed his alignment early on, in this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html), although it only lasted until this one. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html)

[Amphiox]

The way I read SoD, RE actually started out slightly further on the evil side of the spectrum than Redcloak. He was the one who was more aggressively desiring vengeance on humans, and he was the one who was initially more enamored with and more approving of Xykon.

The two brothers flipped roles as the story unfolded.

(And to me it was RE who did all the changing. Redcloak was static from the moment he put on the cloak.)

[Harbinger]

Other than Durkon's vampire induced Lawful Evil streak, I personally believe Haley was Chaotic Neutral at the beginning of the strip.

[Spoomeister]

Durkon changed from NG (possibly even LG depending on if his adherance to the dwarven code is demonstrating Lawfulness) to NE. Followers of Thor in D&D are generally NG. And now as Durkon once put it to Malack, he is, quote, "a frickin' vampire".

And V changed from true Neutral pre-soul-splice, to NE (Familicide, a.k.a. "the Godwin's Law of the OOTS Forums") and is possibly back to true Neutral again what with all the remorse and introspection and terror and such she's been showing the last hundred strips or so.

But those are the ones that we have solid proof-positive of, plus the good points earlier that people made re: Miko (LG -> LN) and RightEye (Evil -> Neutral).

The one I'd speculate on, thanks to interaction with O-Chul, is nudging MITD from Neutral Evil to Neutral Good. Helping O-Chul escape was... not quite Neutral Good, more Selfish Good or Sentimental Good or "Neutral Me". But talking Redcloak and Xykon out of attacking the party after Girard's Gate blew... concern for friends of his friends, with a comment of "I saved the day!" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0901.html), is starting to get more to an awareness of, and preference for, helping the Good Guys...

(I suspect this thread will quickly go the way of other alignment threads on the forums, making alignment discussions almost as taboo as discussions of real-world politics, real-world religion, or the comic update frequency.)

[Cerussite]

Eh.

There is indeed something to that.

You're right. The right thing for soldiers to do is sit down and wait for the soldiers in the other faction to kill their whole regiment. Good doesn't mean stupid.

The Giant explicitly stated not even the army of the EoB, a moustache-twirling nation, is comprised of evil soldiers alone.

[Tsyndrome]

In RC's case, he's been a cleric of The Dark One for as long as we've known him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't clerics need to maintain the same alignment as their god in order to be granted spells? That should certainly imply that he couldn't have changed his alignment without changing the god he worshipped.

[Cerussite]

In RC's case, he's been a cleric of The Dark One for as long as we've known him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't clerics need to maintain the same alignment as their god in order to be granted spells? That should certainly imply that he couldn't have changed his alignment without changing the god he worshipped.

No. They can be, per core, at most 1 step from their god, eg. LE god, NE cleric, NG god, TN cleric, and so on.

Arguably, in the OotS world, one could make a case for further steps being allowed, given how Thor acts very much chaotically, while Durkon is firmly LG

[Spoomeister]

No. They can be, per core, at most 1 step from their god, eg. LE god, NE cleric, NG god, TN cleric, and so on.

Arguably, in the OotS world, one could make a case for further steps being allowed, given how Thor acts very much chaotically, while Durkon is firmly LG

Actually, this leads to a question of who Durkon is worshipping now, since he's now evil yet still has spells. I suppose that will be sorted out (or kept off-panel indefinitely) the next time Our Heroes make it to dusk.

[Cerussite]

Actually, this leads to a question of who Durkon is worshipping now, since he's now evil yet still has spells. I suppose that will be sorted out (or kept off-panel indefinitely) the next time Our Heroes make it to dusk.

He's a non-theistic cleric, as per the Giant himself. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15060436#post15060436)

[Tsyndrome]

Actually, this leads to a question of who Durkon is worshipping now, since he's now evil yet still has spells. I suppose that will be sorted out (or kept off-panel indefinitely) the next time Our Heroes make it to dusk.

His spells so far, one would assume, are the ones he prepared that morning, granted by Thor. He'll get them from somewhere else when it gets to dusk, but in the meantime he's still got the spells he prepared.

[Nilan8888]

I think with Miko what happens in #406 is merely the culmination of potential alignment triggers that had been latent for a long, long time -- before she ever actually met the OOTS.

[FujinAkari]

Other than Durkon's vampire induced Lawful Evil streak, I personally believe Haley was Chaotic Neutral at the beginning of the strip.

This is pretty much expressly denied as Rich.

Every character except Belkar began the strip as Good. Rich quickly decided that V should actually be Neutral and has since retconned his earlier statements, but he has never made any such statement in regards to Haley :smallsmile:

[Porthos]

Durkon changed from NG (possibly even LG depending on if his adherance to the dwarven code is demonstrating Lawfulness) to NE. Followers of Thor in D&D are generally NG. And now as Durkon once put it to Malack, he is, quote, "a frickin' vampire".

See, it's statements like this one (and others whenever this topic comes up) which makes me realize that it's not alignment that is the problem in D&D, per se, but the personal interpetation of what alignment is where the problems start.

Even if we set aside the statement in oOotPCs about Durkon's Lawfulness (he's called out as being very Lawful), it would never occur to me to call Durkon anything other than Lawful. He's one of the most Lawful people in the entire strip. He's certainly the most Lawful member of Team OotS.

The fact that he worships/ed Thor raises more questions about Thor than it does about Durkon. :smallwink:

[Mike Havran]

But those are the ones that we have solid proof-positive of, plus the good points earlier that people made re: Miko (LG -> LN) and RightEye (Evil -> Neutral). There was never a proof that Miko was LN. Falling from paladinhood doesn't mean you have to change your alignment.


No. They can be, per core, at most 1 step from their god, eg. LE god, NE cleric, NG god, TN cleric, and so on. Nitpick: I don't think you can have TN Cleric of a deity who isn't TN.



It's not in the strip, but the Giant said that without Bozzok's influence, Crystal would change from NE to CE in a week, but that's not a big deal.

[SavageWombat]

Point - Right-Eye first appeared in the book as a child (a big one) and by word of Rich, we're not supposed to have to consider a child "Evil".

[jidasfire]

There was never a proof that Miko was LN. Falling from paladinhood doesn't mean you have to change your alignment.


Y'know, people say this a lot, but even if you're inclined to be forgiving of her brutally murdering a defenseless old man based on specious and faulty information, the bloodthirsty smile on her face as she was about to also murder the one person who tried to help and forgive her directly afterwards (and a fellow paladin to boot) seems to speak against it.

[Porthos]

Y'know, people say this a lot, but even if you're inclined to be forgiving of her brutally murdering a defenseless old man based on specious and faulty information, the bloodthirsty smile on her face as she was about to also murder the one person who tried to help and forgive her directly afterwards (and a fellow paladin to boot) seems to speak against it.

My attitude is/was that she was near the LG/LN line for a long time. And she sailed over that line in the aftermath of the Shojo murder.

Anything that happened during it I put down to being in the throws of a psychological breakdown and thus not predictive of what her alignment would turn out to be.

Call it a Kernel Panic, if one will. :smallwink:

[Copperdragon]

Durkon went from Lawful Good to (Probably) Lawful Evil.

Right-Eye was always neutral, imo. I think he was tempted with evil (by Redcloak), but resisted. Redcloak probably became evil. And mad. I think that it is safe to say Redcloak is just as mad as Xykon, only in a different way.

Haley was always CG, but she easily could have shifted to neutral but due to Elan and Roy, she clearly shifted into "solid CG". Her not being a paladin does allow for a few (understandable, but still) evil acts (as murdering Crystal).

I see Miko as having always been Lawful Good, but at the end, she stayed good, but shifted away from Lawful. I think she fell for commiting an evil act but at the same time acknowledged her long slide into the chaos in her head that turned her NG.
This of course is debateable.

I think Shojo could have shifted during his reign from CG to CN. He started out as "Good" but in the end he was just upholding his own system for the own sake. Yes, he did it for good in general, but he did it for himself as well and he had no moral limits anymore so he could not even tell Shojo about the ruse.
It's the intentions are good, but what then happens is so far neutral and centered around the own person that it seems legit to me to call it Neutral. He played all sides by his own rules and nothing else, so he is still securely established as chaotic.

I'm farily certain that Eugene has shifted alignment. Either in his last years as mortal or now since he was hanging around a ghost. There's no way I can see him still being either Lawful or Good. I'd say he shifted in the True Neutral bin by now. He cares about himself, nothing else and whatever Lawful streaks he has they are countered by his chaotic means and non-conformist morals by now. If Roy "got in" for "trying", then Eugene is now going to get kept out by "not trying at all anymore, even less than before and that was already disappointing".

[Mando Knight]

He's a non-theistic cleric, as per the Giant himself. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15060436#post15060436)

It's not a definitive statement that Durkon is non-theistic, it's a statement that rules-wise, it's possible, and that the Giant is not limited by the rules of the game that his webcomic happens to be loosely based on, and he is especially not limited by someone else's misinterpretations of the rules.

Given that he hasn't pontificated on his new outlook on life, it's also quite possible that he was nudged into worshipping Nergal or any Northern god of compatible alignment (heck, as a completely crazy option, he might have converted to Giggles, clown-god of slapstick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0561.html)). It might not be as probable as becoming a non-theistic cleric (the Giggles option is the least probable of the bunch), but they are possible and at this point irrelevant (he still has spells (the ones that he asked for from Thor, despite presumably no longer being compatible with the faith), but he prays for them at dusk and spontaneously converts spells to Inflict instead of Cure, that's all he told us so far, and that's all we need to know).

[mhsmith]

Durkon changed from NG (possibly even LG depending on if his adherance to the dwarven code is demonstrating Lawfulness) to NE. Followers of Thor in D&D are generally NG. And now as Durkon once put it to Malack, he is, quote, "a frickin' vampire".

And V changed from true Neutral pre-soul-splice, to NE (Familicide, a.k.a. "the Godwin's Law of the OOTS Forums") and is possibly back to true Neutral again what with all the remorse and introspection and terror and such she's been showing the last hundred strips or so.

But those are the ones that we have solid proof-positive of, plus the good points earlier that people made re: Miko (LG -> LN) and RightEye (Evil -> Neutral).

The one I'd speculate on, thanks to interaction with O-Chul, is nudging MITD from Neutral Evil to Neutral Good. Helping O-Chul escape was... not quite Neutral Good, more Selfish Good or Sentimental Good or "Neutral Me". But talking Redcloak and Xykon out of attacking the party after Girard's Gate blew... concern for friends of his friends, with a comment of "I saved the day!" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0901.html), is starting to get more to an awareness of, and preference for, helping the Good Guys...

(I suspect this thread will quickly go the way of other alignment threads on the forums, making alignment discussions almost as taboo as discussions of real-world politics, real-world religion, or the comic update frequency.)

Durkon was about as Lawful as you can get without completely going off the deep end (reinforced painfully here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html)). He was never neutral on law/chaos scale.

[Bulldog Psion]

Miko went from Lawful Good to Something Else.

Varsuuvius went from True Neutral to Neutral Evil.

Durkon went from Lawful Good to Lawful Evil.

Not sure if there are any more.

[ti'esar]

I'm farily certain that Eugene has shifted alignment. Either in his last years as mortal or now since he was hanging around a ghost. There's no way I can see him still being either Lawful or Good. I'd say he shifted in the True Neutral bin by now. He cares about himself, nothing else and whatever Lawful streaks he has they are countered by his chaotic means and non-conformist morals by now. If Roy "got in" for "trying", then Eugene is now going to get kept out by "not trying at all anymore, even less than before and that was already disappointing".

Eugene's deva in SOD (not going bother spoiling this given how freely people are talking about Right-Eye) said that he didn't see anything "too serious" on his record at the time of his death. He may have been a poor father - although how much so may be impossible to tell - but as a person he seems to have remained Lawful Good to the day he died.

Afterwards is probably a different story, of course.

[FujinAkari]

Eugene's deva in SOD (not going bother spoiling this given how freely people are talking about Right-Eye)

Wait... who?

[SowZ]

Wait... who?

I believe he meant Eugene's ghost. Eugene's Deva changing alignment would not only have zero in comic justification, but would be virtually impossible.

[Porthos]

I believe he meant Eugene's ghost. Eugene's Deva changing alignment would not only have zero in comic justification, but would be virtually impossible.
ti'esar was referring to the fact on the very last page of SoD, we see Eugene get interviewed by a Celestial Deva. Allow me to rephrase ti'esar's comment slightly and without the parenthesis:

The Celestial Deva who interviews Eugene after his death in SoD said that he didn't see anything "too serious" on Eugene's record at the time of Eugene's death.

[LuisDantas]

I don't even get that at all. Outside of the fact that it doesn't work that way in D&D, and Rich's own comments about Miko's Lawfulness in commentary, in what way was she always TN?

I don't even see it if I squint hard. :smalltongue:

Really?

The starting point is #460's Miko, which is the very framework of a character who never even understood what being LG is.

That Miko, admitedly a very broken one, is the archetypical True Neutral Self-Serving, in desperate search of an excuse to regain her confortable thought of glory and grandiose destiny. And as they say, you never know one until he (or she) is out of options.

Then there are those few strips immediately after #406, and details as how she instinctively kept resorting to her martial side while simultaneously making ever more insistent yet empty statements about her supposedly pious nature, regaining her sword immediately after losing her status as a paladin, etc.

And yet, it was actually not that much of a departure of her previous mindset. Miko was more self-controlled, but not wiser, for a good while before that.

A good case can be made that Belkar corrupted her, but then again, it is not that reasonable to assume that a true Paladin (of the highest level, as she herself declared before butchering Shojo) will be shaken out of her alignment by just a few interactions with a gnat like Belkar.

That all but officially declares that Miko very much liked to think of herself as LG, but never was of that alignment.

Sure, the Giant thinks differently, or at least seems to have had a different proposal originally. I don't hope to overrule him on his own story, but I have no duty to either assume that he did not change his mind at some point or share his reading of what alignments are and how they work.

[Sunken Valley]

Haley= CN- CG. From robbing goblins and hiding loot from the party to guarding a guy's corpse for a year and leading a resistance.

Miko= LG- LN. From being a blessed champion of the gods to killing an old man in cold blood and doing duty beyond reason.

Righteye= NE- N. From aiding a plan to help an evil god and allying with an evil mage to being a family man and renouncing his evil god.

Eugene Greenhilt= LG- N. From being a supportive (or semi supportive) father and caring about his family to using dubious means to try get into heaven.

Durkon= LG - LE. From being the nicest character in the comic to an undead who snaps necks with glee.

Malack= ??- LE. From a barbaric shaman to a sophisticated priest with ambitions to enslave a continent.

Nale= LE- NE From being raised as the loyal son of a tyrant to working with a demon and a chaotic barbarian and actively rejecting his father's philosophy, wanting to do it his way.

Varsuuvius= N- NE- N. From a self interested elf to a soul less, power mad mass murderer who killed thousands back to a self interested elf who feels guilt.

Therkla= LN- N. From a loyal servant of a Daimyo to a neutral ninja wanting to maintain balance.

[Domino Quartz]

Really?

The starting point is #460's Miko, which is the very framework of a character who never even understood what being LG is.

Says who?



That Miko, admitedly a very broken one, is the archetypical True Neutral Self-Serving, in desperate search of an excuse to regain her confortable thought of glory and grandiose destiny. And as they say, you never know one until he (or she) is out of options.

Again, how is this the case?



That all but officially declares that Miko very much liked to think of herself as LG, but never was of that alignment.

If that were the case, she couldn't have been a paladin.

[hamishspence]

A more controversial one- Xykon, from TN to CE.

Reason- the first we see of him in SoD is that he's a small child, only 4 years old going by the dates given in the book, and his later statement about his age.


This is pretty much expressly denied as Rich.

Every character except Belkar began the strip as Good. Rich quickly decided that V should actually be Neutral and has since retconned his earlier statements, but he has never made any such statement in regards to Haley :smallsmile:

Given that she begins Origin of PCs as a "greedy thief" - before becoming an adventurer, and given that her father's "rob the rich to feed the needy" policy (a percentage, after reasonable expenses) didn't prevent him from being CN- I could easily see her being CN at the start of Origin of PCs and CG at the end.

[Spoomeister]

He's a non-theistic cleric, as per the Giant himself. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15060436#post15060436)

Meh. Rules-accurate but dramatically unsatisfying. And weird in this specific story, because while the Giant emphasizes that no cleric needs to pray for their spells (as a defense of why vamp clerics can do what they do per RAW), you still have a story in OOTS where a big deal has been made of the powers Durkon had access to previously, and how they came from praying to Thor or otherwise asking him for guidance directly... Perhaps that's more a critique of RAW than Rich's story choices then.

Rich has a lot of story to go so I suppose I should withhold further judgement... but Durkon's relationship to his deity, and how and where he gets his spells now, is something I'm looking forward to seeing more about at some point in-story. Might even be an offhand "don't ask, man" sort of throwaway one-liner and that's that perhaps.

[Spoomeister]

See, it's statements like this one (and others whenever this topic comes up) which makes me realize that it's not alignment that is the problem in D&D, per se, but the personal interpetation of what alignment is where the problems start.

Even if we set aside the statement in oOotPCs about Durkon's Lawfulness (he's called out as being very Lawful), it would never occur to me to call Durkon anything other than Lawful. He's one of the most Lawful people in the entire strip. He's certainly the most Lawful member of Team OotS.

The fact that he worships/ed Thor raises more questions about Thor than it does about Durkon. :smallwink:

It's statements like this one (about oOotPCs) that made me ask my other thread question about what the essential OOTS is, as I shouldn't have to had read every non-online piece of the story to be able to correctly interpret the online story. :smallbiggrin: And yeah, i was thinking alignment in general as lawful=follow-the-law, but forgot the whole personal code aspect of it. He's a Dwarf to a t. No neutral-ness in there.

And yes, Thor's worthiness for following by nice guys like pre-Durkula Durkon has always been a head-scratcher. In addition to well, being the joke. :smallsmile:

[Cerussite]

Meh. Rules-accurate but dramatically unsatisfying. And weird in this specific story, because while the Giant emphasizes that no cleric needs to pray for their spells (as a defense of why vamp clerics can do what they do per RAW), you still have a story in OOTS where a big deal has been made of the powers Durkon had access to previously, and how they came from praying to Thor or otherwise asking him for guidance directly... Perhaps that's more a critique of RAW than Rich's story choices then.

Rich has a lot of story to go so I suppose I should withhold further judgement... but Durkon's relationship to his deity, and how and where he gets his spells now, is something I'm looking forward to seeing more about at some point in-story. Might even be an offhand "don't ask, man" sort of throwaway one-liner and that's that perhaps.

I like to think that his spells would come from a consortium of evil deities. I'd find it awesome to see Durkon praying for his spells and Lee taking the call.

[Spoomeister]

There was never a proof that Miko was LN. Falling from paladinhood doesn't mean you have to change your alignment.

Duly noted. Come to think of it, it's arguable more that Miko had always been LN, as following her interpretation of the paladin's code and her interpretation of the will of the gods was more important than notions of goodness. Her fall was a change in status and standing with the gods and not an alignment change per se.

[Spoomeister]

I like to think that his spells would come from a consortium of evil deities. I'd find it awesome to see Durkon praying for his spells and Lee taking the call.

With Durkon filling out a customer satisfaction survey afterwards and noting in the comments that he is getting much better service and response time from his service provider since changing carriers. :smallbiggrin:

[Ghost Nappa]

Roy: Consistently and thoroughly Lawful Good.
Haley: Chaotic-Neutral/Good to Chaotic Good.
Elan: Stupid Good to Chaotic Good/Neutral Good.
Belkar: Stupid Evil to Chaotic Evil to ...uhhh...Neutral Evil?
Vaarsuvius: True Neutral to...Good goals with evil means which is still True Neutral
Durkon: Lawful Good INTO
Durkula: Lawful Evil

Miko: Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral OR True Neutral or Homebrewed TN Paladin (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Paladin). (Paladins are always restricted to LG. Remember that.)

Redcloak: Neutral Evil to True Neutral, good goals with evil means AND regrets his actions especially after Right-Eye's death

Xykon: Affably Chaotic Evil (human) to Occasionally Affably Chaotic Evil (Lich)
Monster in the Dark: True Neutral to Anti-villain Neutral Good?
Right-Eye: Neutral Evil? to True Neutral or Neutral Good.

Okay follow me on this one: Look at page 87. "I moved up here about a year later. It's nice, no paladins, no elves, no raids on humans. We just try to live the best we can with what we have...When I looked into my oldest boy's little yellow eyes for the first time, I knew I had to try to give him the best life I could.

Redcloak: Then you would willing to restart the Plan? Only be seizing equality-

Right-Eye: Ok, when normal people say that, they don't mean holding the gods hostage with an unstoppable killing machine via some improbable evil scheme. They mean, like, setting up a college fund or something.

Nale: Complexity Addiction Lawful Evil to Practical Neutral Evil to deadasadoornale

[jidasfire]

Redcloak: Neutral Evil to True Neutral, good goals with evil means AND regrets his actions especially after Right-Eye's death



Most of your points are pretty valid, but Redcloak as True Neutral? Mr. Hangs the Corpses of Soldiers and Civilians Alike from Walls with his Army of Demons? Oh no. Redcloak could conceivably have been Lawful Neutral up to the point when he killed his brother, but after that, he's been growing steadily more evil. I suspect at this point he wouldn't even hesitate to murder those slaves in front of O-Chul.

[Mando Knight]

Redcloak: Neutral Evil to True Neutral, good goals with evil means AND regrets his actions especially after Right-Eye's death

True Neutral? His goal is to get goblins to be treated "equally" not by creating a successful and stable goblin nation (though he tried that with the ruins of Azure City, and the results are still clearly Evil, showing us what "equality" means to goblins), but with the apocalyptic equivalent of holding a gun to a leader's head until he agrees to the terms.

[Bulldog Psion]

Redcloak is no less evil than Xykon. He went from Lawful Evil to Lawful Evil, and maybe further development to Lawful Evil. :smallwink:

[LuisDantas]

Says who?


Again, how is this the case?

a) Sez me.

b) As depicted in #460 and a few of the strips following. Miko there is utterly despicable, with no other goal than avenging her pride.



If that were the case, she couldn't have been a paladin.

Indeed. As I stated a few posts ago, I don't think she ever qualified, at least during her on-time panel.

It is an untold story waiting to be told. How the 12 God somehow agreed to lend Miko Paladin status despite her obvious lack of understanding of what the concept is all about. Maybe they earned her (or one of her parents) a favor somehow, or maybe she used to be a bit on the LG side long ago.

[hamishspence]

Miko may have had a bit of up and down in her career-


If anything, I attribute most of her positive traits to the way she was raised by Shojo and her subsequent membership in the Sapphire Guard. Which is not to say that he did a perfect job, but he recognized that she needed discipline in order to function, and gave her life meaning and purpose that it wouldn't have otherwise had. I've always felt that someone who had come to him with less underlying issues (whether due to her inherent personality or the trauma of losing her parents and getting sent to a monastery) could have been raised the same way and not turned out to be like Miko. Likewise, if Miko had never met Shojo, she probably would have left the monastery as an angry unstable loner with no purpose. Shojo's guidance was the tape that was held her together for so long, which is why she went to pieces when it was ripped off.

going from the potential "angry unstable loner" she was in danger of becoming before Shojo's intervention, to someone who did some good in her career, before becoming overzealous and abrasive, and getting assigned long missions away from Azure City.

[TheFamilarRaven]

I don't typically don't debate on forums about subjective opinions on alignment or OotS character alignment but in this case I'll say a few words.

Miko was lawful good. Plain and simple. It's a requirement for the class to use their powers (i.e any other alignment and you can't smite evil without homebrew rules or PrC's that allow for chaotic and neutral good paladins.). And as the Giant has shown, he fudges with the rules no more than any other DM would to make certain situation cool, (for instance, a prophecy to roll a natural 20 in a given circumstances), but does not mess around with core rules.
I should also note, that even though Miko was a holier than thou stick in the mud, she was still lawful good. That being said, Miko was an allegory of how one should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, ever, ever ever EEEEEEEEVER ... play paladin, OR LG for that matter. The correct way to play paladin is shown by every other significant paladin of the Sapphire Guard, (Hinjo, O-Chul etc).

Also, how is V true neutral? rather than lawful neutral? Other than selling V's soul, (which is considered evil, not chaotic). V views things as objectively and as logically as possible, and gets flustered at any sort of illogical occurrence, like spell booster packs and Power Word taking up 8 pages in a spell book, even though it's one word. Even some quotes like "As the size of the explosion increases, the amount of social situations it can;t solve riches zero", still comes with an orderly chart.

Edit: Minor acts of Chaos/neutral/law good/neutral/evil do not shift alignment. Consistent acts of the above traits cements alignments. Dramatic acts of the above alignments shift alignment. They only shift one step at time, unless under special circumstances (vampirism, spells, REALLY dramatic alignment acts). However the law/chaos axis and good/evil axis are different from each other, so it is possible to shift from LG to TN for example. The reason i'm stating the is because people have been posting that Miko went form LG to LN with her murdering of Shojo. Since that murder was dramatically Evil AND chaotic it shifted her from LG to TN.

[hamishspence]

V's not exactly beholden to External Authority- and being Lawful through a Personal Code, in OoTS, tends to require a lot:



In my personal interpretation of Lawfulness in D&D, I believe that yes, it is possible to be Lawful using a personal code rather than the societal definitions of law and order. However, I believe that the burden of upholding that code has to be much stricter than that of the average person in order to actually qualify as Lawful. You must be willing to suffer personal detriment through adhesion to your code, without wavering, if you want to wear the Lawful hat.

Because almost everyone has a personal code of some sort; Robin Hood had a personal code, and he's the poster child for Chaotic Good. The reason his code doesn't rise to the level of Lawful is that he would be willing to bend it in a pinch. And since he's already bucking all the societal traditions of his civilization, there are no additional penalties or punishments for him breaking his own code. He's unlikely to beat himself up if he needs to violate his own principles for the Greater Good; he'll justify it to himself as doing what needed to be done, maybe sigh wistfully once, and then get on with his next adventure.

Conversely, a Lawful character who obeys society's traditions has a ready-made source of punishment should he break those standards. If such a character does stray, she can maintain her Lawfulness by submitting to the proper authorities for judgment. Turning yourself in effectively atones for the breaking of the code, undoing (or at least mitigating) the non-Lawful act.

A Lawful character who operates strictly by a personal code, on the other hand, is responsible for punishing herself in the event of a breach of that code. If she waves it off as doing what needed to be done, then she is not Lawful, she's Neutral at the least. If she does it enough, she may even become Chaotic. A truly Lawful character operating on a personal code will suffer through deeply unpleasant situations in order to uphold it, and will take steps to punish themselves if they don't (possibly going as far as to commit honorable suicide).

People think that using the "personal code" option makes life as a Lawful character easier. It shouldn't. It should be harder to maintain an entirely self-directed personal code than it is to subscribe to the code of an existing country or organization. This is one of the reasons that most Lawful characters follow an external code. It is not required, no, but it is much, much easier. Exceptions should be unusual and noteworthy. It should be an exceptional roleplaying challenge to take on the burden of holding yourself to a strict code even when there are no external penalties for failing.

[TheFamilarRaven]

I''ll consent to that. those are all valid points

[Porthos]

Really?

The starting point is #460's Miko, which is the very framework of a character who never even understood what being LG is.

That Miko, admitedly a very broken one, is the archetypical True Neutral Self-Serving, in desperate search of an excuse to regain her confortable thought of glory and grandiose destiny. And as they say, you never know one until he (or she) is out of options.

It think when it comes right down to it, we have radically different definitions of what True Neutral is.

As for Miko, I view her as being extremely Lawful all the way up to the moment she went coo coo for coca puffs in 406. After that, I can see the debates, if not agree. But before? She was nothing if not Lawful. Her whole life centered around being Lawful. Looking back through all of the strips before then I see very little evidence of un-Lawful behavior.

Does she give deference to authority? Yes.
Does she value tradition and order for its own sake? Yes.
Does she seek to impose Order on the world? Yes.
Does she follow orders that she clearly doesn't want to? Yes. Oh, she almost broke in regards to Belkar and the trialroom, but she held firm.

This might open up a can of worms, but it's probably inevitable anyway:

(Intentionally leaving out the Lawful Good description)

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.

Those describe Miko to a T, IMO.

As for True Neutral:

Neutral, "Undecided"
A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

None of that really decribes Miko at all pre 406. I don't think much of it desribes Miko post 406, either but that's besides the point.

Of course, before we get too far down the rabbit hole there is this point:


Alignment
A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.

Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

I put this in to remind that all alignments are broad categories with lots of room for varience. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Roy, Durkon (pre vamping at least), Miko (pre-406 at least), and Hinjo all have different personalities and ways of dealing with things. Yet they are all Lawful Good. Furthermore, both Xykon and Belkar are Chaotic Evil, yet even they have their differences when it comes right down to it.

I guess I can't see anything at all for Miko that says True Neutral when it comes to her actions and motivations pre-406.

[Jay R]

I don't believe that Miko had an alignment change. There certainly was no noticeable difference. Her alignment as a Paladin was technically Lawful Good, but it was definitely in the stupid and judgmental corner of LG.

Whatever alignment change there might have been, Miko clearly didn't have the stick removed when she fell.

-------------------

And I suspect that most of Tsukiko's wights who started out as Azure City residents had an alignment change, just like Durkon.

[Zevox]

Lots who people will debate for (Redcloak's brother, Belkar, Miko, Elan, Haley...Durkon...I think Redcloak is a real possibility, and one or the other of the goblin brothers is a near-certainty, actually; Redcloak strikes me as no more evil than his brother at the start of Start of Darkness).

I wonder if it's ever happened unambiguously. I can't think of any.
Durkon seems pretty unambiguous at this point. Even besides the simple fact that D&D rules say that becoming a Vampire means becoming evil, he acts very differently when he fights Nale and kills Zz'dtri than he ever did before becoming a Vampire. He hasn't done much else that calls it out yet, but all he's been doing since then is trying to help the Order stay alive in a couple of pretty rough combat situations, so there's not much different he would be doing regardless of alignment.

Beyond that, yeah, all pretty ambiguous. I'm of the camp that would say Miko changed alignments (to LN) when she fell, and I could see an argument for Haley (CN to CG) and possibly Redcloak (LN to LE), but am not certain I agree with them. Right-Eye I have a bit more trouble with, but part of that is because there's little to go on for his alignment before he reached the point where he wanted to abandon The Plan, which seems the most likely time for him to have become TN if he wasn't always.


Also, how is V true neutral? rather than lawful neutral? Other than selling V's soul, (which is considered evil, not chaotic). V views things as objectively and as logically as possible, and gets flustered at any sort of illogical occurrence, like spell booster packs and Power Word taking up 8 pages in a spell book, even though it's one word. Even some quotes like "As the size of the explosion increases, the amount of social situations it can;t solve riches zero", still comes with an orderly chart.
None of that has anything to do with being Lawful, just with being intelligent and scholarly. Which is par for the course for Wizards of any alignment.

[TheFamilarRaven]

None of that has anything to do with being Lawful, just with being intelligent and scholarly. Which is par for the course for Wizards of any alignment.

Given the Giant's take on what Lawful means, it seems unlikely that V is LN, I've already consented this.

However, since you bring it up. "...is par for the course for Wizards of any alignment." PHB clearly states that wizards (with the exception of Illusionists and Transumuters) tend towards law, so you can see why all the scholarly talk led me to believe lawfulness.

[Reddish Mage]

There's an awful lot of speculation here, but the only explicitly story-supported alignment change is Durkon's change from Lawful Good to [presumably] Lawful Evil.

Miko sins (which are an outgrowth of her personality) seem to be suggested by Soon to result in her being cast out of Celestia (we will escort you to where you are going as well). This suggests an alignment shift, but if she was sent to the logical place of Arcadia, she could simply be borderline LG/LN in the Giant's estimation.

We do have some tantalizing major shifts in behavior: Belkar has a major personal revelation and changes behavior in a major way. V similarly acts very different before, then during, and then after the Darth-V arc. However, we have nothing in story that tells us that this shift in behavior resulted in alignment change (the fiend's say about V's behavior that they gave a 50/50 estimate of winding up with her soul; That certainly seems like there was no permanent shift and they also said the spell did not result in a temporary shift; So if anything we have confirmation that V never changed alignment).

Everyone else, especially Haley (who gets more mature and displays more concern about others but the Giant confirmed her alignment pretty early as Chaotic Good) do not show such tantalizing major shifts nor do we get an in story hint of such a change.

Therkla has been confirmed by the Giant as True Neutral as conceived and historically (resulting in exploding forums at the time).

The only caveat, given that the Giant is against anything biological having a born alignment, is it appears anything and everything that was ever a child was neutral at some early point in childhood.

[rodneyAnonymous]

...it appears anything and everything that was ever a child was neutral at some early point in childhood.

I disagree. Not having an alignment and having a neutral alignment are two different things. Children are unaligned.

If the child grows up to become evil (or whatever), that is gaining an alignment, not changing it.

(Kind of like undead do not have a CON score, which is way different than having CON 0.)

[Zevox]

I disagree. Not having an alignment and having a neutral alignment are two different things. Children are unaligned.
Technically, D&D treats them as the same thing for rules purposes. Animals and creatures with animal-level intelligence are considered automatically True Neutral due to not having enough intelligence to be anything else.

[Poppatomus]

Technically, D&D treats them as the same thing for rules purposes. Animals and creatures with animal-level intelligence are considered automatically True Neutral due to not having enough intelligence to be anything else.

True. Although, in RA's defense, partly this is a semantic issue, since the same position on the alignment chart is used for "true neutral" and "undecided". In a sense, D&D does have an unaligned category, it's just that it has the same name as neutral.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Technically, D&D treats them as the same thing for rules purposes. Animals and creatures with animal-level intelligence are considered automatically True Neutral due to not having enough intelligence to be anything else.

I realize that, but just semantically, describing children as "changing alignment" when they grow up is not the kind of alignment change the OP is describing.


...the same position on the alignment chart is used for "true neutral" and "undecided". In a sense, D&D does have an unaligned category, it's just that it has the same name as neutral.

Totally.

[Zevox]

I realize that, but just semantically, describing children as "changing alignment" when they grow up is not the kind of alignment change the OP is describing.
Oh, certainly true. Just bringing it up because I strongly suspect that's what Reddish Mage was thinking of when he made that statement.

[LadyEowyn]

We do have some tantalizing major shifts in behavior: Belkar has a major personal revelation and changes behavior in a major way. V similarly acts very different before, then during, and then after the Darth-V arc. However, we have nothing in story that tells us that this shift in behavior resulted in alignment change (the fiend's say about V's behavior that they gave a 50/50 estimate of winding up with her soul; That certainly seems like there was no permanent shift and they also said the spell did not result in a temporary shift; So if anything we have confirmation that V never changed alignment).

Everyone else, especially Haley (who gets more mature and displays more concern about others but the Giant confirmed her alignment pretty early as Chaotic Good) do not show such tantalizing major shifts nor do we get an in story hint of such a change.
I think this may be one of Rich's points in the comic - alignment is not the same thing as personality and behaviour, and a person can undergo some major behavioural shifts without their alignment changing.

Belkar, for example, is still chaotic evil - he has an active dislike of and disregard for authority, and he kills people and makes people miserable for his own amusement - but he is now being tactical about his evil rather than random. "Chaotic", as an alignment, does not have to (indeed, should not) be treated as meaning "senseless and random".

[theNater]

The starting point is #460's Miko, which is the very framework of a character who never even understood what being LG is.
Understanding an alignment is not a prerequisite for being that alignment. Consider Elan; his understanding of Good has all the depth of "if Nale dies, Mommy will cry (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0068.html)". Yet he manages to be Good by emulating the example of Good people as best he can, which is a perfectly reasonable approach for a Chaotic Good character. Note that it has a weakness; Elan can be talked out of what he knows is right by someone he trusts, as almost happened when Vaarsuvius zapped Kubota (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0596.html)(first two panels).

Miko, on the other hand, is Good as a result of her adherence to a Good code. This is the Lawful equivalent to Elan's approach. Of course, it has its own weaknesses. Because she doesn't understand the intent behind the code, it's easy for her to misinterpret it. She fell into the classic trap; her code requires her to punish Evil-doers, and she interprets that universally as killing them. That's what leads to her murdering Shojo instead of arresting him, and that's why she fell.

[Kish]

Indeed, Rich said that the stat block for babies should have "Alignment: TBD," not, "Alignment: Neutral."

[LuisDantas]

Understanding an alignment is not a prerequisite for being that alignment.

Sure.

But if we are going to argue about Miko being Lawful or Good, I don't think trusting her instincts will be at all helpful to her case.

We are talking about the person who took it upon herself to judge her own liege lord (so much for being Lawful) and who could just barely contain her bloodthirst at the best of times.



(...)

Miko, on the other hand, is Good as a result of her adherence to a Good code.

Is she? Which code? In which strips do we see that?

She was repressed as heck, but that is not being Good, nor is it adherence to a code. Miko was motived by pride, first and foremost.

A Good character would simply not have self-justified on behalf of her pride as Miko did from #460 on.



This is the Lawful equivalent to Elan's approach. Of course, it has its own weaknesses. Because she doesn't understand the intent behind the code, it's easy for her to misinterpret it. She fell into the classic trap; her code requires her to punish Evil-doers, and she interprets that universally as killing them. That's what leads to her murdering Shojo instead of arresting him, and that's why she fell.

So you are arguing that she was not Lawful or Good, but instead simply repressed? That is how it sounds, and that is what I think as well.

[Themrys]

Sure.

But if we are going to argue about Miko being Lawful or Good, I don't think trusting her instincts will be at all helpful to her case.

We are talking about the person who took it upon herself to judge her own liege lord (so much for being Lawful) and who could just barely contain her bloodthirst at the best of times.

Are lawful good characters not expected to act against law if the law is evil?

Her mistake was not to judge her liege lord for his apparently evil behaviour - not doing so would have meant that she is more lawful than good - but to kill first and ask questions later.

She was a paladin, so she must have been lawful good. And I can imagine that. We have seen her from her worst side, with Belkar provoking her and all that ... but in everyday life, she probably was just a bit holier-than-thou. The behaviour of the people who know her implied that. Good is not the same thing as nice, after all.

[Cerussite]

Is she? Which code? In which strips do we see that?

She was repressed as heck, but that is not being Good, nor is it adherence to a code. Miko was motived by pride, first and foremost.

A Good character would simply not have self-justified on behalf of her pride as Miko

The Paladin oaths she swore. She is shown battling forces of evil (such as Belkar and the Ogres attacking the farmers) and adhering blindly to the law when there were no ambiguities inherent to the code, such as when she heard Shojo on the throne room: she was not emotionally prepared to see a situation ahere her authority figure was conflicting with the paladin code. Having to rely on her nonexistent common sense, she breaks down and misjudges everything horribly. Without an authority figure to provide that common sense for her, she had nowhere to go but downhill from that point on.

Miko was merely immature: without an authority figure to show her how to interpret the code, she could not be LG, but as long as she had that she was fine, if a bit of an ass.

[Diadem]

Can we stop talking about Durkula being LE as if it's a confirmed fact?

We don't know Durkula's alignment. We have no hard evidence about it, only speculation.

Really, what he has done so far?
- Decline the offer of a hated enemy to join forces. That says exactly nothing about his alignment.
- Rejoin the OOTS, who are his friends, and on a quest to save the world. Again, that says exactly nothing about his alignment.
- Kill an evil and dangerous criminal, and personal enemy, without seemingly a second thought. That's not good or evil, but it is rather chaotic.
- Take mental possession of other sentient beings who are attacking them. Again neither good nor bad, though somewhat on the chaotic side.

All in all we have exactly 0 evidence about his position on the good-evil axis, and only very slight evidence about his position on the lawful-chaotic axis.

So based on his actions so far, CG is actually more likely than NE!

Of course the claim that he's LE is based not on his actions, but on preconceived notions about what a vampire should be. But that does not account for much, and certainly does not count as proof. Rich follows his own rules, and free will trumping entries from the MM is one of the major themes of the series. Assuming Durkula is evil because he's a vampire is as wrong as assuming all goblins are evil because they are goblins. To put it even more blunty: If Durkula is evil just because he is a vampire, than V was right in casting familicide.

[Reddish Mage]

Technically, D&D treats them as the same thing for rules purposes. Animals and creatures with animal-level intelligence are considered automatically True Neutral due to not having enough intelligence to be anything else.

This is what I was getting at in my last paragraph. The rules place "having no moral capability," "undetermined," "not committed," "vanilla," and "philosophically committed to balancing good/evil/law/chaos" in a single bucket.


Can we stop talking about Durkula being LE as if it's a confirmed fact?

We don't know Durkula's alignment. We have no hard evidence about it, only speculation.

All in all we have exactly 0 evidence about his position on the good-evil axis, and only very slight evidence about his position on the lawful-chaotic axis.

So based on his actions so far, CG is actually more likely than NE!

Assuming Durkula is evil because he's a vampire is as wrong as assuming all goblins are evil because they are goblins. To put it even more blunty: If Durkula is evil just because he is a vampire, than V was right in casting familicide.

Evil is a metaphysical force in D&D that determines class, abilities, magic and equipment as well as a tag on actions. We know Durkon is evil because he now spontaneously casts inflict wound spells. Also, turning vampire is not the same as being a goblin. Goblins are supposedly biological creatures and vampires are the explicit products of evil magic.

[Vulnudaemon]

Well, those are tricky statements. A non-sentient undead, like an animated skeleton or a zombie, is still marked as "evil" just because, as you say, they are raised by "evil" magic, spooky looks aside, they are not far from golems, which are neutral. Should a non-sentient undead suddenly gain intelect, it'd become automatically evil?
Are undeads inherently evil or is it that they are detected as evil regardless of alignment?

[Mando Knight]

Can we stop talking about Durkula being LE as if it's a confirmed fact?

We don't know Durkula's alignment. We have no hard evidence about it, only speculation.

Really, what he has done so far?
- Decline the offer of a hated enemy to join forces. That says exactly nothing about his alignment.
- Rejoin the OOTS, who are his friends, and on a quest to save the world. Again, that says exactly nothing about his alignment.
- Kill an evil and dangerous criminal, and personal enemy, without seemingly a second thought. That's not good or evil, but it is rather chaotic.
- Take mental possession of other sentient beings who are attacking them. Again neither good nor bad, though somewhat on the chaotic side.

All in all we have exactly 0 evidence about his position on the good-evil axis, and only very slight evidence about his position on the lawful-chaotic axis.

So based on his actions so far, CG is actually more likely than NE!

Of course the claim that he's LE is based not on his actions, but on preconceived notions about what a vampire should be. But that does not account for much, and certainly does not count as proof. Rich follows his own rules, and free will trumping entries from the MM is one of the major themes of the series. Assuming Durkula is evil because he's a vampire is as wrong as assuming all goblins are evil because they are goblins. To put it even more blunty: If Durkula is evil just because he is a vampire, than V was right in casting familicide.
The act of becoming a vampire alters one's way of thinking. Durkon did not choose to become Evil, Evil was thrust upon him.
When directly asked about whether he was Evil now, he replied "not any more'n Belkar, I'd wager." If he wasn't Evil at all, he wouldn't have compared himself to Death's Lil' Helper.
Planar Ally depends on your alignment. Since Durkon pulled what appears to be a Barbed Devil (not too many other green human-shaped fiends with lots of spikes), he would have to be LE.

[TheFamilarRaven]

^ I'll also add that since he was LG before, it only makes sense that he'd be LE, because Vampirism only affects good/evil axis, not law and chaos.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Spontaneously casting inflict spells may be a result of vampirism (and only an indirect result of alignment), but his Planar Ally calling a barbed devil is unambiguous: Durkon is evil now.

(The fact that he was mind controlled would not affect what kind of outsider that he calls.)

[theNater]

But if we are going to argue about Miko being Lawful or Good, I don't think trusting her instincts will be at all helpful to her case.
Of course not. She has terrible instincts. That's why she has a code, so there's something she can trust other than her instincts. Just like how Elan has terrible judgement, so he substitutes the judgement of people like Roy, Haley, and Hinjo.

We are talking about the person who took it upon herself to judge her own liege lord (so much for being Lawful) and who could just barely contain her bloodthirst at the best of times.
Indeed we are, and it's worth noting that barely containing one's bloodthirst still counts as containing one's bloodthirst.

Is she? Which code? In which strips do we see that?
The paladin's code, at least. We see that in every strip in which she is a paladin. For some more specific examples, she helps the dirt farmers because it is her duty (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0211.html), and when she takes responsibility for the safety and well-being of her prisoners (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0225.html).

She was repressed as heck, but that is not being Good, nor is it adherence to a code. Miko was motived by pride, first and foremost.
A person can be proud and Good. For example, Roy is not immune to pride even now (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0887.html), and admits to having been first motivated by it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html).

A Good character would simply not have self-justified on behalf of her pride as Miko did from #460 on.
Out of curiosity, what is Roy self-justifying on behalf of when he abandons Elan (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0153.html), and do you believe he undergo an alignment shift for the duration?

My position is that he doesn't. Good characters can, and often do, make mistakes. That's okay, and there are ways of handling it. Miko made a series of huge mistakes, but that doesn't necessarily mean an alignment change, and it certainly doesn't retroactively change her alignment.

So you are arguing that she was not Lawful or Good, but instead simply repressed? That is how it sounds, and that is what I think as well.
Repression is common among Lawful characters. See: Durkon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html), Roy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0064.html), and Roy again (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0409.html). The fact that she is repressing her instincts and desires in order to obey orders is what makes her Lawful.

[Carl]

LuisDantas: Recommend you read this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid).

Also consider both the giant's comment about Shojo being the glue that held her together, his role in her life on a personnel level, and what we saw with Roy vis a vis Belkar in Celestia.

Given the circumstances it's not surprising Miko had a fairly obvious and major emotional breakdown. She just suffered what is for all intents and purposes the single greatest personal betrayal possible. Like many people going through that her actions take an extra large turn towards the irrational. And as we've seen with Roy, the Deva's seem to be allowed to be understanding of such extenuating circumstances.

Miko's problem IMO is that she never got chance to recover from the emotional shock she suffered. She was still in denial about the whole thing when she died. She needed far more time, and preferably time away from Azure City, to recover, and ultimately find a new purpose in life. Much would depend on the specifics of what happened to her parent's and what happened at the monastery to leave her so much damaged goods.

[Liliet]

I don't want to believe that Durkon is Evil now too, and I consider the idea of "immediate change of alignment" rather silly unless extremely properly and carefully implemented. However, his facial expression when facing Z and Nale told me this was wishful thinking: his personality changed at least a little.

[LuisDantas]

Are lawful good characters not expected to act against law if the law is evil?

A player and GM call, and a roleplaying opportunity, far as I can tell. They are expected to be in conflict if they somehow conclude that the law is evil (which is slightly absurd IMO; law can no more be "evil" than it can be "good', which is both absurd in and of itself and at odds with the very idea of separate axis for law and for good).

If you want a blanket judgement, though, then yes, I would say that part of being a LG character is indeed to be expected not to act against law even if it is evil.



Her mistake was not to judge her liege lord for his apparently evil behaviour - not doing so would have meant that she is more lawful than good - but to kill first and ask questions later.

I'm not following you, sorry.



She was a paladin, so she must have been lawful good.

That is the starting point, to be sure.

Trouble is, that is a bit at odds with what we actually saw in the strips.

The Giant himself made fun recently of the notion that Elan was LE despite hardly ever showing Lawful tendencies, so I fail to see what the problem is with my questioning whether Miko truly was ever LG.



And I can imagine that. We have seen her from her worst side, with Belkar provoking her and all that ... but in everyday life, she probably was just a bit holier-than-thou. The behaviour of the people who know her implied that. Good is not the same thing as nice, after all.

So I take it you disagree with me? It is fine if you do, but I don't think you are attempting to show me why you do.



The Paladin oaths she swore. She is shown battling forces of evil (such as Belkar and the Ogres attacking the farmers) and adhering blindly to the law when there were no ambiguities inherent to the code, such as when she heard Shojo on the throne room: she was not emotionally prepared to see a situation where her authority figure was conflicting with the paladin code. Having to rely on her nonexistent common sense, she breaks down and misjudges everything horribly. Without an authority figure to provide that common sense for her, she had nowhere to go but downhill from that point on.

I agree that such was her behavior and general mindset. I fail to see how that would make her LG.

The way I see it, being LG is not possible without a certain degree of psychological structure.



Miko was merely immature: without an authority figure to show her how to interpret the code, she could not be LG, but as long as she had that she was fine, if a bit of an ass.

My point precisely. "Being fine as long as she had an authority figure to show her how to interpret things" means, among other things, falling short of being Good, and arguably even of being Lawful. It is evidence for her being True Neutral.


Can we stop talking about Durkula being LE as if it's a confirmed fact?

Seeing how his spontaneous casting is now for damage spells instead of healing spells, it is pretty difficult to deny that he must be some sort of Evil alignment right now.

It seems to me that you are expecting alignments to be a far more reliable indicator of values and behavior than they are supposed to be (at least in this webcomic).



Of course not. She has terrible instincts. That's why she has a code, so there's something she can trust other than her instincts. Just like how Elan has terrible judgement, so he substitutes the judgement of people like Roy, Haley, and Hinjo.

Elan is Chaotic, in part because he has bad judgement. A Lawful character would at least attempt to have good judgement. Are you arguing that Miko is not Lawful, just repressed? I would agree with that.


Indeed we are, and it's worth noting that barely containing one's bloodthirst still counts as containing one's bloodthirst.

Which talks a lot about her goals and self-image, but not so much about her actual alignment. Even Xykon will restrain himself when given a good enough reason.

For Miko, maintaining her self-image as a high level Paladin was a powerful motivator. But it was not a vocation that she had. She simply did not know better, and was badly lacking in self-judgement.



The paladin's code, at least. We see that in every strip in which she is a paladin. For some more specific examples, she helps the dirt farmers because it is her duty (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0211.html), and when she takes responsibility for the safety and well-being of her prisoners (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0225.html).

Trouble is, Miko at no point shows anything resembling a good understanding of the point of the Code. Her grasp of alignments, including her own, is incipient at best.



A person can be proud and Good. For example, Roy is not immune to pride even now (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0887.html), and admits to having been first motivated by it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html).

True. I fail to see how that would apply to Miko, though.



Out of curiosity, what is Roy self-justifying on behalf of when he abandons Elan (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0153.html), and do you believe he undergo an alignment shift for the duration?

I don't know why you think he is self-justifying. Roy is very honest about his reasons, and they sure sound true. Nor does he seem to be in much of a psychological crisis, either. He is certainly not lying to himself about his reasons and goals.

His situation in #153 is completely unlike Miko's in #406 / #460.



My position is that he doesn't. Good characters can, and often do, make mistakes. That's okay, and there are ways of handling it. Miko made a series of huge mistakes, but that doesn't necessarily mean an alignment change, and it certainly doesn't retroactively change her alignment.

I agree with your statements here, but not with your apparent judgement of how they apply to Miko, if at all. We have good reason to doubt that Miko was ever LG except in her own self-image and nominally by virtue of having been accepted as a Paladin.

I would love to read the tale of how that came to be, in fact. It ought to be interesting.



Repression is common among Lawful characters. See: Durkon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html), Roy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0064.html), and Roy again (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0409.html). The fact that she is repressing her instincts and desires in order to obey orders is what makes her Lawful.

Emphatically disagreeing here. She is trying to the best of her abilities. And failing disastrously at that. She simply doesn't have it in her.



LuisDantas: Recommend you read this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid).

That article points out that Miko is a parody of Lawful Stupid in #215. I agree. Many of her strips have her as parodies (as opposed to examples) of Lawful characters. #460-on are examples as well.


Also consider both the giant's comment about Shojo being the glue that held her together, his role in her life on a personnel level, and what we saw with Roy vis a vis Belkar in Celestia.

Given the circumstances it's not surprising Miko had a fairly obvious and major emotional breakdown. She just suffered what is for all intents and purposes the single greatest personal betrayal possible. Like many people going through that her actions take an extra large turn towards the irrational. And as we've seen with Roy, the Deva's seem to be allowed to be understanding of such extenuating circumstances.

True enough. Miko did have a lot of good reasons for going through a breakdown.

I don't fault her for that (in fact, I blame Shojo and even Hinjo to a lesser degree), but I must still consider how she behaved while broken. That tells me a whole lot about her alignment, far more than her usual, very conflicted behavior does.


Miko's problem IMO is that she never got chance to recover from the emotional shock she suffered. She was still in denial about the whole thing when she died. She needed far more time, and preferably time away from Azure City, to recover, and ultimately find a new purpose in life. Much would depend on the specifics of what happened to her parent's and what happened at the monastery to leave her so much damaged goods.

I agree. I still think this indicates that her alignment may well never have been either Lawful nor Good.

[LuisDantas]

I don't want to believe that Durkon is Evil now too, and I consider the idea of "immediate change of alignment" rather silly unless extremely properly and carefully implemented. However, his facial expression when facing Z and Nale told me this was wishful thinking: his personality changed at least a little.

I don't know whether it is proper and careful, but the idea that becoming a vampire changes a person deeply and not for the better has a lot of well-documented antecedents in fiction, at the very least. It may even be considered a core part of the concept of vampires.

And well, who knows how any of us would behave if we felt the need of drinking blood to survive?

[Liliet]

A player and GM call, and a roleplaying opportunity, far as I can tell. They are expected to be in conflict if they somehow conclude that the law is evil (which is slightly absurd IMO; law can no more be "evil" than it can be "good', which is both absurd in and of itself and at odds with the very idea of separate axis for law and for good).
No, it is not. The concept of law as such is Neutral on moral axis precisely because different laws can be Good or Evil. For example, law that declares the punishment for peeing on pavement to be gladiator pits until death is definitely Evil, and so is law that requires the citizens of the kingdom to feed the vampires by drawing lots who goes to die today. Law that requires the king to feed all hungry people by paying their bills in the taverns if they ask for it is Good, and so is law that the orphans must be provided with shelter and food.

Sure, it often depends on the culture (reaction of the citizens) and application of the law in any given situation. But judgements can be made.



If you want a blanket judgement, though, then yes, I would say that part of being a LG character is indeed to be expected not to act against law even if it is evil.
I remember quite well that it was specified in core, that Lawful characters are only expected to submit to legitimate authority, that is, authority that they themselves percieve as legitimate. If a paladin tries to overthrow the Evil overlord that drains the coutry of food and happiness, he is not supposed to follow the law installed by said overlord.




Elan is Chaotic, in part because he has bad judgement. A Lawful character would at least attempt to have good judgement.
I resent that statement.

Elan has excellent judgement in regards to his alignment. He has as much fun as possible in any given situation. Sometimes it is inappropriate, which is the sign of bad judgement, but not always. Are you saying that him deciding to pay for the drink with "30ft movement speed" was an example of bad judgement? Are you saying that his wish to just declare Kubota guilty instead of having a court trial was an example of bad judgement?

And Elan has excellent judgement on what it means to be Good. His gut feeling never betrayed him in that regard as far as I remember.


A Lawful character is one that trusts his laws and authorities to have good judgement, and the only judgement he makes himself is a choice of these laws and authorities. In Miko's case it was wise, because her choice of authorities was definitely better than her attitude towards people around her. Well, up until the moment she gave up on Shojo's authority and Azure City laws, which was exactly when everything went downhill for her.



I don't know whether it is proper and careful, but the idea that becoming a vampire changes a person deeply and not for the better has a lot of well-documented antecedents in fiction, at the very least. It may even be considered a core part of the concept of vampires.

And well, who knows how any of us would behave if we felt the need of drinking blood to survive?
"How we would behave if we suddenly became vampires" is quite a different point from "Once you become a vampire, you are no longer yourself". There may be a fine line, and enforced change of alignment can be on either side depending on how it's played, but it's an important distinction.

[theNater]

Elan is Chaotic, in part because he has bad judgement. A Lawful character would at least attempt to have good judgement. Are you arguing that Miko is not Lawful, just repressed? I would agree with that.
Judgement is not an indicator of alignment. Xykon largely has pretty good judgement, but is Chaotic. Repression, on the other hand, is a Lawful trait, so saying she's not Lawful because she's repressed is bizarre.
Trouble is, Miko at no point shows anything resembling a good understanding of the point of the Code. Her grasp of alignments, including her own, is incipient at best.
Her grasp of alignments is irrelevant, just as Elan's is.

Which talks a lot about her goals and self-image, but not so much about her actual alignment. Even Xykon will restrain himself when given a good enough reason.

For Miko, maintaining her self-image as a high level Paladin was a powerful motivator. But it was not a vocation that she had. She simply did not know better, and was badly lacking in self-judgement.

True. I fail to see how that would apply to Miko, though.
I've merged these parts, because they're related. Ego is an acceptable motivator for Good characters. Wanting to become famous for doing good deeds and wanting to maintain a self-image as a good person do not make you Neutral, unless you regularly refrain from doing Good when it won't improve your public image.

I don't know why you think he is self-justifying. Roy is very honest about his reasons, and they sure sound true. Nor does he seem to be in much of a psychological crisis, either. He is certainly not lying to himself about his reasons and goals.

His situation in #153 is completely unlike Miko's in #406 / #460.
He's leaving Elan behind because he doesn't like him, and is building up a party effectiveness framework to justify it.

I agree with your statements here, but not with your apparent judgement of how they apply to Miko, if at all. We have good reason to doubt that Miko was ever LG except in her own self-image and nominally by virtue of having been accepted as a Paladin.
We have plausible reason to doubt that she continued to be LG after murdering Shojo. That does not translate to good reason to doubt she was LG beforehand.

Emphatically disagreeing here. She is trying to the best of her abilities. And failing disastrously at that. She simply doesn't have it in her.
We have word directly from a deva (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html) that trying counts. And we have no evidence that she's failed disastrously prior to #406.

And I have to ask, is it your position that some characters can never be Good? That attempting to reform an Evildoer will be fruitless, because they lack inherent Goodness? The line "she simply doesn't have it in her" seems to imply that, and that is absolutely not how D&D Goodness works.

[hamishspence]

I've merged these parts, because they're related. Ego is an acceptable motivator for Good characters. Wanting to become famous for doing good deeds and wanting to maintain a self-image as a good person do not make you Neutral, unless you regularly refrain from doing Good when it won't improve your public image.

This might fall under "is a sacrifice a sacrifice if the person doing it thinks it's a fair trade?"

According to BoED, "Good" deeds done that cost the user nothing, or are done because they cause the doer to benefit, are Neutral rather than Good.

Thus, if the "benefit" is emotional rather than physical, for the sheer boost it provides to the doer's self-image and personal happiness, such deeds might be closer to the Neutral rather than Good level.

[Liliet]

Thus, if the "benefit" is emotional rather than physical, for the sheer boost it provides to the doer's self-image and personal happiness, such deeds might be closer to the Neutral rather than Good level.
You must be joking.

How do you imagine any motivation without "emotional benefit"?

[hamishspence]

It's possible that "All good acts must be self-sacrificing on some level" is a little harsh.

Still - when the loss to them personally outweighs the gain - some personal enjoyment may not matter.

[Liliet]

It's possible that "All good acts must be self-sacrificing on some level" is a little harsh.

Still - when the loss to them personally outweighs the gain - some personal enjoyment may not matter.
A person always makes decisions on basis of "gain outweighs loss". Sacrifice is when you give something away to get something else instead. A person is Good when emotional gain from the others' happiness outweighs personal losses of material or social nature (and the further they are from material, the more muddied this issue becomes).

[hamishspence]

I was thinking about what happens if someone with zero empathy, but a interest in the D&D concept of "Good" takes up heroing.

They are not getting anything, personally, out of other people's happiness being increased, or their misery decreased- and are personally losing in time, pain, etc- yet they keep on doing it.

What is such a person, if not Good? If anything, they may deserve more credit than a normal hero- since what they're doing doesn't come naturally to them at all.

[Liliet]

I was thinking about what happens if someone with zero empathy, but a interest in the D&D concept of "Good" takes up heroing.

They are not getting anything, personally, out of other people's happiness being increased, or their misery decreased- and are personally losing in time, pain, etc- yet they keep on doing it.

What is such a person, if not Good? If anything, they may deserve more credit than a normal hero- since what they're doing doesn't come naturally to them at all.
What is their motivation for taking up heroing? Curiousity? Pride? Social status? Approval of their family? They do get something, or they wouldn't be doing this.

Also, this is precisely Miko. She obviously lacks empathy, and yet she's "heroing" as you aptly named it.

[wolfdreams01]

There is indeed something to that.

If you genuinely feel that way, then do you consider every D&D character you play to be evil? Or does your character try to use charm person spells to avoid taking even a single sentient creature's life?

[hamishspence]

What is their motivation for taking up heroing? Curiousity? Pride? Social status? Approval of their family? They do get something, or they wouldn't be doing this.

Lets say curiosity- a desire to see just how this "good" thing works.

[LuisDantas]

If you genuinely feel that way, then do you consider every D&D character you play to be evil? Or does your character try to use charm person spells to avoid taking even a single sentient creature's life?

D&D offers a very artificial environment, with whole races having evil alignments.

[Liliet]

Lets say curiosity- a desire to see just how this "good" thing works.
Well, so he gets satisfaction of his curiosity in exchange for his efforts. In fact, quite a frequent twist is that this character finds out that he does not actually lack empathy and that Good Feels Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodFeelsGood). Another is that he does, in fact, lack it and eventually gets bored and abandons this occupation.

Every character always has a motivation to do something, i.e. something to gain. If a character lacks motivation, he is not suddenly Good, he is badly written or insane.


Funny thing, I actually had exactly such a "heroing" character in a "DnD" story too. In a funny twist on the current forum discussions (and, in fact, inspired by them) she was a vampire -former Lawful Good cleric - who lost empathy upon transformation.

But as she was not only Good but also Lawful, she did not lose the desire to follow her own personal code and do what is right, even if it does not bring the satisfaction it used to. She did not have the problem with the whole feeding thing because she was high-level and had Restoration, but vampires (in my interpretation in that setting) are wired to get pleasure from their victims' pain - that she did not inflict according to her code - so she was not satisfied with her food too.

Eventually, after several years of such life, she gets depressed and all but openly seeks death, and jumps at the possibility of heroic sacrifice (that she could in fact avert if she had desire/willpower to struggle to keep existing). I'm a kind author who pities Good characters, so she gets killed and resurrected instead of just killed, and is absolutely happy to be human again - to feel empathy as a reward for her actions. Even if she is now less effective in performing them.


D&D offers a very artificial environment, with whole races having evil alignments.
No, they have "Usually Evil" or "Often Evil" descriptor, which describes their cultural norms as more selfish and hostile to strangers than is normal for the setting. DnD environment is as artificial as you imagine it, not more, not less.

[Carl]

@LuisDantas:

1. I brought up the lawful stupid page to point out, (as does the page itself), that Lawful Stupid is still technically a form of Lawful Good. It's stupid as well but that doesn't stop it still being considered Lawful Good.

2. How Miko acts after the breakdown isn't relevant to her alignment. That's my whole point. When your in the middle of a breakdown you do not act rationally or remotely normal. Their behaviour in that state is by definition an aberration that cannot be used to determine much if anything about their true character. They'll do thing's in such a state they never would otherwise.

There's a reason in IRL that in particularly severe breakdowns, (and i'd argue Miko's would certainly count on account of all the factor's around her, and especially on the basis of word of giant), a person can receive reduced sentence or be absolved completely of crimes committed in such a state on ground's of reduced responsibility due to temporary insanity.

I'd also agree that Hinjo and the other Paladin's have to bear some responsibility here, but they where as ill equipped to really fix her as Shojo was. When she came to them she was the typical anti-social loner from what we can tell. Which isn't an uncommon reaction to trauma. The problem is if you don't get them out of that rut they just, (to borrow a prattchet quote), spiral inwards until their listening to only their own bad advice and believe only they're right. Dealing with that involves getting under the shell they've pulled over themselves, and you don;t do that by scowling, making constant disapproving noises, e.t.c. Whilst he overstated it in his sarcasm with his treasure type O comment, he was also bang on the money. Miko didn't necessarily need a lover, but she did need someone who could be a close friend, who could show her the kind of unconditional affection that Shojo seems to have provided, (it's not stated but there's plenty of implication there), but on a more continual basis than he could. Someone who could and would accompany her out and about and accept her warts and all. Only once she's got someone like that in her life that she trusts can any effort be made to change her world views. Though much of doing so is about stripping away that anti-social aspect as it tends to breed a lack of understanding and empathy towards the people around them.

This is very obvious in Miko. She understands the letter of the codes of Good and Lawful, but she lacks the empathy and understanding of human nature to apply the necessary level of interpretation and discretion to those codes. She can only obey them in strict rote form because she just doesn't have enough of an understanding and connection with people to do anything else. This is very obvious in her reaction upon escaping during the battle. She refers to what's happened to the "city". Anyone who's watched her in action knows she's not really referring to the architecture here, but she can only relate to the inhabitants of the city in terms of their role as citizens of the city, she can't relate to them as individuals.

[LuisDantas]

No, they have "Usually Evil" or "Often Evil" descriptor, which describes their cultural norms as more selfish and hostile to strangers than is normal for the setting. DnD environment is as artificial as you imagine it, not more, not less.

Not sure what you mean here.

[Porthos]

If you want a blanket judgement, though, then yes, I would say that part of being a LG character is indeed to be expected not to act against law even if it is evil.

No no no, a thousand times no.

WotC: Lawful and Chaotic (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a)

A must read, IMO, about what happens when Lawful Good character run across unjust laws.

[LuisDantas]

@LuisDantas:

1. I brought up the lawful stupid page to point out, (as does the page itself), that Lawful Stupid is still technically a form of Lawful Good. It's stupid as well but that doesn't stop it still being considered Lawful Good.

And I take it that you consider Miko as an example instead of a satire?

Your privilege. I won't follow your example, though.


2. How Miko acts after the breakdown isn't relevant to her alignment. That's my whole point. When your in the middle of a breakdown you do not act rationally or remotely normal. Their behaviour in that state is by definition an aberration that cannot be used to determine much if anything about their true character. They'll do thing's in such a state they never would otherwise.

If you say so. I take much the opposite stance; it is because she is broken down that her alignment is that much more apparent.



There's a reason in IRL that in particularly severe breakdowns, (and i'd argue Miko's would certainly count on account of all the factor's around her, and especially on the basis of word of giant), a person can receive reduced sentence or be absolved completely of crimes committed in such a state on ground's of reduced responsibility due to temporary insanity.

Absolutely. Miko was very much in crisis and not in her best judgement.

That however does not change the fact that she took the stances that she took, up to and including decreeing herself the voice of divine glory and retribution.

That is not at all lawful, and I don't think it qualifies as even delusional good either.


I'd also agree that Hinjo and the other Paladin's have to bear some responsibility here, but they where as ill equipped to really fix her as Shojo was.

Much less, actually. Shojo bears the brunt of the responsibility for Miko's downfall and general lack of social adjustment, because he was the only one she would listen to.


When she came to them she was the typical anti-social loner from what we can tell. Which isn't an uncommon reaction to trauma. The problem is if you don't get them out of that rut they just, (to borrow a prattchet quote), spiral inwards until their listening to only their own bad advice and believe only they're right. Dealing with that involves getting under the shell they've pulled over themselves, and you don;t do that by scowling, making constant disapproving noises, e.t.c. Whilst he overstated it in his sarcasm with his treasure type O comment, he was also bang on the money. Miko didn't necessarily need a lover, but she did need someone who could be a close friend, who could show her the kind of unconditional affection that Shojo seems to have provided, (it's not stated but there's plenty of implication there),

Shojo mislead her, mistrust her, and made no visible effort to help her integrate or even keep her in Azure City were she might be exposed to comraderie beyond the strictly unavoidable. I would say that hints towards a lack of consideration for her as a person. Hinjo made a lot more effort towards treating Miko as a person (at least on-panel).

To be fair to Shojo, his senility facade did not give him a lot of room to care effectively for Miko in the first place. But he could have had "Mr. Scruffy" suggest Hinjo or someone else trustworthy to spend some effort at that, for instance.


but on a more continual basis than he could. Someone who could and would accompany her out and about and accept her warts and all. Only once she's got someone like that in her life that she trusts can any effort be made to change her world views. Though much of doing so is about stripping away that anti-social aspect as it tends to breed a lack of understanding and empathy towards the people around them.

True enough. It is a pity that Roy was so obnoxious towards her when he chose the Order over Miko back in #250. Not Roy's best moment, understandable as it was.


This is very obvious in Miko. She understands the letter of the codes of Good and Lawful,

Do you think she does?

Much of the point of the character is that she does not have a functional understanding of either, IMO.

She is much like Belkar, a prisoner of her self-image that can at best hope to be aimed to a worthwhile goal.


but she lacks the empathy and understanding of human nature to apply the necessary level of interpretation and discretion to those codes. She can only obey them in strict rote form because she just doesn't have enough of an understanding and connection with people to do anything else.

Which leads me to wonder if she is even capable of having anything but non-lawful, non-good alignments.


This is very obvious in her reaction upon escaping during the battle. She refers to what's happened to the "city". Anyone who's watched her in action knows she's not really referring to the architecture here, but she can only relate to the inhabitants of the city in terms of their role as citizens of the city, she can't relate to them as individuals.

Yes. She perceives the world in mechanical terms, because she is broken as a person. Even when in full control of her feelings, she is damaged goods.

[rodneyAnonymous]

This line of conservation seems to be about some hypothetical class and alignment system, and not the D&D 3.5 one.

[Zevox]

Well, those are tricky statements. A non-sentient undead, like an animated skeleton or a zombie, is still marked as "evil" just because, as you say, they are raised by "evil" magic, spooky looks aside, they are not far from golems, which are neutral. Should a non-sentient undead suddenly gain intelect, it'd become automatically evil?
Are undeads inherently evil or is it that they are detected as evil regardless of alignment?
The D&D rules answer is that the Undead are always considered evil. To the point where they actually created a separate creature type (in 3.5e at least) for undead-style creatures that were supposed to be good. "Undying" or "Deathless," or something to that effect. My memory is a tad shoddy on the exact name and it doesn't seem to be in the book I thought it was.

Personally, my answer would be that mindless undead should be considered True Neutral, for the same reason any other mindless or unintelligent creature would be. But that's just me house-ruling things that I think make sense.


Spontaneously casting inflict spells may be a result of vampirism (and only an indirect result of alignment),
Actually, no. Spontaneous casting inflict spells directly requires a change of alignment, since it's impossible within the rules for good-aligned Clerics to do that. You could theoretically argue his alignment only changed to neutral but for some reason the vampirism caused him to change to spontaneous inflict rather than spontaneous cure, but that would be a stretch even without the other evidence on the matter.

[Gray Mage]

The D&D rules answer is that the Undead are always considered evil. To the point where they actually created a separate creature type (in 3.5e at least) for undead-style creatures that were supposed to be good. "Undying" or "Deathless," or something to that effect. My memory is a tad shoddy on the exact name and it doesn't seem to be in the book I thought it was.


I don't know why they did that, actually. Ghosts can be any aligment, although I think they're the only exception.

That said, always Evil doesn't mean always. Exceptions can exist and they wouldn't scry as evil. So far IMO, this doesn't seem to be the case with Durkon.

[Zevox]

I don't know why they did that, actually. Ghosts can be any aligment, although I think they're the only exception.
Huh, you're right. I've seen Ghosts used so rarely that I actually never noticed that. That is very odd. :smallconfused:

[rodneyAnonymous]

Actually, no. Spontaneous casting inflict spells directly requires a change of alignment, since it's impossible within the rules for good-aligned Clerics to do that.

The rules for vampires (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm) in 3.5 say that vampire clerics lose their ability to turn undead and gain the ability to rebuke undead, and does not mention alignment in that section. Spontaneous casting is usually linked to this distinction. (That is, a given cleric might spontaneously cast cure spells and turn undead, and another cleric might spontaneously cast inflict spells and rebuke undead, but I don't know of a cleric that cures and rebukes or inflicts and turns. Neutral clerics must choose one pair or the other on creation.)

So it is theoretically possible to have a good-aligned vampire that spontaneously casts inflict spells, if he changes alignment later. I agree with you, though: that ability swap seems like it is tied to alignment change and not specifically changing into a vampire, but the rules don't say that explicitly, so the door is left open to argument.

On the other hand, there is no ambiguity at all about the planar ally spell. Durkon cast a spell whose effect depends on the alignment of the caster, and got an evil effect.

[Zevox]

I agree with you, though: that ability swap seems like it is tied to alignment change and not specifically changing into a vampire, but the rules don't say that explicitly, so the door is left open to argument.
Best guess on my part: if it isn't completely just to restate the effect that the alignment change has anyway, it's there for the off chance of someone house-ruling a good or neutral Vampire. Because an undead Cleric can benefit from Rebuke Undead (which can be used to Bolster instead), but would be seriously impeded in their ability to use Turn Undead, since it targets the nearest undead first, which would always be the Vampire himself.

[Carl]

and does not mention alignment in that section.

Re-read, the're explicitly always evil as per the alignment line, (it's near the bottom).

[Carl]

@LuisDantas:

1. She's a parody in the sense that she's a lawful stupid amongst actual lawful good. Not in that she's not actually lawful stupid.

2. No seriously when someone is having a really serious breakdown you cannot use their action's to determine anything because by definition of the state they're in they will do thing they would otherwise never do. That's why it's called temporary insanity.

The fact that you seem to believe otherwise tells me you don't have any experience with seeing people in even half as bad a state as that. I have and I can tell you your flat out wrong. I've seen emotional trauma push people to highly atypical actions for them in the past, and that's with a far less severe level of trauma.

3. Whilst you sort of acknowledge it later on a few lines down Shojo can't really be held responsible for anything. Yes it all blew up in the end, but that's not Shojo's fault in the end, he had responsibilities besides Miko he had to fulfil, the best he could do was what he did do. Which was provide her with a home, what affection he could, and an environment in which other's could help her. That ultimately those other in part where unable and in part where unwilling to help her doesn't entirely absolve them of blame either.

4.n I'm sorry but what!? Empathy is not a requirement for being either good or lawful. Upholding the law and performing good act's are. Prior to her breakdown she does both fully. She may be harsh, judgemental, and have absolutely no concept of leniency or moderation. But those are not requirements of being Good. And their not requirements of being Lawful unless enshrined in law, (which this being a high fantasy setting almost certainly isn't the case).

This seems to be the big point your ultimately missing. D&D definitions of Lawful requires only that you uphold the letter of the law, the spirit of it has no bearing. Indeed unless you can find a way to twist the wording, the letter of the law is something a lawful character must uphold to remain lawful, even if that letter of the law situation results in the spirit and intent behind why the law was originally put in place being ignored. It's a similar situation with good. The trick is a Lawful Good type as intended to be played can usually find some loophole abuse to stay within their alignment and the things they have to actually do to be of their alignment.

[Liliet]

Best guess on my part: if it isn't completely just to restate the effect that the alignment change has anyway, it's there for the off chance of someone house-ruling a good or neutral Vampire. Because an undead Cleric can benefit from Rebuke Undead (which can be used to Bolster instead), but would be seriously impeded in their ability to use Turn Undead, since it targets the nearest undead first, which would always be the Vampire himself.

You mention houseruling here, and you mention "some hypothetical, not 3.5 DnD alignment system" in the earlier message.

Thing is, it seems that 3.5 alignment system is so unclear and inconsistent that it will always end up houseruled. Even if you generally don't do houserules, if you want to play with alignment, you need to interpret it in a consistent way that makes sense.

Rules provide a base, that's true, and we need to stay true to that base, but not to the letter of every mention of alignment in every book, because that's impossible, they contradict each other.

Sure, vampires are always Evil. And halflings are usually Neutral. And elves are usually Chaotic Good. Does this make Belkar and V houseruled? No, because in core rules no racial alignment statement means "always, 100%, no exception". There is a succubus paladin, and there can easily be a Lawful Good vampire. Without any houseruling.

[Bulldog Psion]

No, they have "Usually Evil" or "Often Evil" descriptor, which describes their cultural norms as more selfish and hostile to strangers than is normal for the setting. DnD environment is as artificial as you imagine it, not more, not less.

I just wanted to applaud the wisdom and perception that you bring to your posts. It's refreshing. :smallsmile:

[Gray Mage]

Sure, vampires are always Evil. And halflings are usually Neutral. And elves are usually Chaotic Good. Does this make Belkar and V houseruled? No, because in core rules no racial alignment statement means "always, 100%, no exception". There is a succubus paladin, and there can easily be a Lawful Good vampire. Without any houseruling.

Agreed, but so far Durkon doesn't seem to be the case, although it's possible his aligment will change back to LG later on.

[Poppatomus]

[URL="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm"]
So it is theoretically possible to have a good-aligned vampire that spontaneously casts inflict spells, if he changes alignment later. I agree with you, though: that ability swap seems like it is tied to alignment change and not specifically changing into a vampire, but the rules don't say that explicitly, so the door is left open to argument.


Agree with your post, but want to emphasize and elaborate on this point. I think it would only be the exceptional vampire, whatever alignment, who could be able to spontaneously cast healing spells.

The way I have always understood the fluff, undead are inherently beings of darkness, as :redcloak: is fond of discussing. Their very being is only possible because of the negative energy that keeps them operating as a being. Although it's sensible that they might, with focus and the aid of a divine source of power, be able to channel positive energy to heal, their form would almost demand that they normally revert to inflict, rather than cure.

From the other side of the coin, while living things course with positive energy (and are healed by it) they are not so closely bound to it as are the undead (or their positive energy equivalents in the splatbooks). Hence, they normally have no access to negative or positive energy and, to the extent they gain such access, it flows more from the power's source (their deity/alignment) than from their essence.

I know this is kind of blowing up a minor point, but I always thought that this was one of the more interesting fluff elements of the D&D-verse.

[Wardog]

According to BoED, "Good" deeds done that cost the user nothing, or are done because they cause the doer to benefit, are Neutral rather than Good.


This bugs me for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it (possibly) contradicts the standard definition of "Good" and "Neutral":

“Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.
I would interpret that as saying that the core concept of being Good is helping, protecting and respecting others, and the core concept of being Neutral is not going out of your way to help (or harm) others. "Making personal sacrifices" looks to me to be more of a general character trait of Good people - not a fundamental requirement for every Good act.

Secondly, the BoED definition would mean that a particuar act that helps others and harms the actor is morally superior or an act that has exactly the same benefit but does not harm the benefactor. Which in turn means that the act that makes everyone better off and results in the greatest possible total benefit is "worse" than one that involves pointless and unnecessary suffering. Which to me seems silly, and an example of "Stupid Good" rather than desirable morality.

****
Following from that, I have to disagree with LuisDantas's opinion of Miko in 460 being an archytypal "neutral self-serving". Based on the official descriptions, neutral self-serving would mean someone who only cared about benefits for themselves and didn't care about helping or benefiting anyone else (but wouldn't actually harm others either).

Miko still seems to be (primarily) concerned about fulfilling her duty (and destiny) to protect the city and punish evildoers. What she is suffering from is poor (possibly delusional) reasoning, in particular confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), and possibly also just world fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy).

That doesn't make you non-good (let alone non Good), although it is likely to encourage non-good behaviour and/or alignments.

****

Regarding Durkula's alignment:
RAW says vampires are Always Evil. RAW also says that "Always Evil" doesn't necessarily mean no exceptions, but my understanding is that these exceptions are supposed to be extremely rare or unique, and only occur for specific plot reasons. "Durkon was Good before he became a vampire, so he won't be Evil now" seems to me to be too generous, and undermines the whole point of what a vampire is and why they get an "Always Evil" alignment.

A good comparison would be the Buffyverse:
When someone gets turned into a vampire, they are killed, their soul is driven from their body, and a demon takes up residence in its place. Someone doesn't so much become a vampire as have a vampire hijack their body.

Listen to me... Jesse is dead. You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him.
The only good vampires in Buffy, as far as I can remember, were ones that had somehow got their soul back, which, givn what it means to be a vampire, arguaby means they are no longer a true vampire.
Now, D&D isn't Buffy, so the rules/expectations aren't the same, but I would consider that a good guideline for how rare and special exceptions to "Always X" aglignments should be (rather than the "one in twenty" that some people interpret it as).

[Liliet]

I just wanted to applaud the wisdom and perception that you bring to your posts. It's refreshing. :smallsmile:
:smallredface:


Agreed, but so far Durkon doesn't seem to be the case, although it's possible his aligment will change back to LG later on.
So far he hasn't done anything. He did kill Zzdt'ri and scare away Nale with a creepy smile, but that's all. After that, he rejoined the party, healed them and fought under Roy's command. He hasn't made a single decision, let alone alignment-related one.

Except the decision to rejoined the party, that is. Which can mean any number of things, from selfish desire to not have the world destroyed to plans on finding a cleric who has Resurrection to having absolutely nowhere else to go in the middle of the desert. So that wasn't exactly a meaningful decision, too.

However, we know that vampirism, whatever it does with the moral axis, has no bearing on ethical one. Durkon is as Lawful as he ever was, and he was more Lawful than Miko. "Being a dwarf is about doing your duty, even if it makes you miserable. Especially if it makes you miserable!"

And which law has Durkon been following all his life? That's right, Thor's law, as interpreted by dwarves. Thor being a Chaotic Good loonie and dwarves being Lawful Good traditionalists. Common ground? Good.

I doubt Durkon will switch religions/codes just because of vampirism, that's just too convenient and not Lawful enough. And if he won't, while being Lawful Evil now, we'll be treated to a struggle of an Evil entity to uphold and promote Good. Won't it be just fun?

[Liliet]

This bugs me for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it (possibly) contradicts the standard definition of "Good" and "Neutral":
I would interpret that as saying that the core concept of being Good is helping, protecting and respecting others, and the core concept of being Neutral is not going out of your way to help (or harm) others. "Making personal sacrifices" looks to me to be more of a general character trait of Good people - not a fundamental requirement for every Good act.

Secondly, the BoED definition would mean that a particuar act that helps others and harms the actor is morally superior or an act that has exactly the same benefit but does not harm the benefactor. Which in turn means that the act that makes everyone better off and results in the greatest possible total benefit is "worse" than one that involves pointless and unnecessary suffering. Which to me seems silly, and an example of "Stupid Good" rather than desirable morality.

****
Following from that, I have to disagree with LuisDantas's opinion of Miko in 460 being an archytypal "neutral self-serving". Based on the official descriptions, neutral self-serving would mean someone who only cared about benefits for themselves and didn't care about helping or benefiting anyone else (but wouldn't actually harm others either).

Miko still seems to be (primarily) concerned about fulfilling her duty (and destiny) to protect the city and punish evildoers. What she is suffering from is poor (possibly delusional) reasoning, in particular confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), and possibly also just world fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy).

That doesn't make you non-good (let alone non Good), although it is likely to encourage non-good behaviour and/or alignments.
This.

Had Miko not encountered Belkar and Xykon, she would have brought much Good to the world. She didn't have empathy that would reward her for this, so she had to make do with improved self-image.

And I absolutely do not understand how motivation of someone who does good to others with no gain for himself would work. He's an idiot who keeps screwing up? Doesn't sound particularly Good. He's happy that other people are happy? Bzzz! Benefit! Revoking your Good-card!



****

Regarding Durkula's alignment:
RAW says vampires are Always Evil. RAW also says that "Always Evil" doesn't necessarily mean no exceptions, but my understanding is that these exceptions are supposed to be extremely rare or unique, and only occur for specific plot reasons. "Durkon was Good before he became a vampire, so he won't be Evil now" seems to me to be too generous, and undermines the whole point of what a vampire is and why they get an "Always Evil" alignment.

A good comparison would be the Buffyverse:
When someone gets turned into a vampire, they are killed, their soul is driven from their body, and a demon takes up residence in its place. Someone doesn't so much become a vampire as have a vampire hijack their body.

The only good vampires in Buffy, as far as I can remember, were ones that had somehow got their soul back, which, givn what it means to be a vampire, arguaby means they are no longer a true vampire.
Now, D&D isn't Buffy, so the rules/expectations aren't the same, but I would consider that a good guideline for how rare and special exceptions to "Always X" aglignments should be (rather than the "one in twenty" that some people interpret it as).

I think that here the soul is still in the body, it's the body that's changed. Where the separation line between body-induced thoughts and feelings and soul-induced thoughts and feelings lies, is unknown and scary to think about, so apparently the answer is "wherever is narratively convenient".

Making 1 vampire in 20 non-Evil might not work narratively, but making protagonist the same as others because statistics say so is, first of all, missing the whole point of statistics. They work the better the bigger the numbers are, and break down at number one, which is how many vampires there are in OotS.

So Durkula will be as Evil as Rich wants him to be. I like to think that he will struggle to be Good because that's the sort of story I like and the sort of story OotS has been providing so far. But no guarantee here, of course.

PS And I'll leave it as a double post because these two posts are so long they are probably easier to read separately...

[hamishspence]

And I absolutely do not understand how motivation of someone who does good to others with no gain for himself would work. He's an idiot who keeps screwing up? Doesn't sound particularly Good. He's happy that other people are happy? Bzzz! Benefit! Revoking your Good-card!
Which is pretty much the problem with building morality around "pure altruism" and/or "pure self-sacrifice" - it doesn't make sense in the context of people.

[Liliet]

Which is pretty much the problem with building morality around "pure altruism" and/or "pure self-sacrifice" - it doesn't make sense in the context of people.
How about "pure empathy"?

Doesn't sound that grandiose, but makes a lot more sense in any context, I guess.

[Zevox]

You mention houseruling here, and you mention "some hypothetical, not 3.5 DnD alignment system" in the earlier message.
The latter was someone else, actually.


Thing is, it seems that 3.5 alignment system is so unclear and inconsistent that it will always end up houseruled. Even if you generally don't do houserules, if you want to play with alignment, you need to interpret it in a consistent way that makes sense.
Applying a consistent interpretation of alignment need not be the same as house-ruling.


Sure, vampires are always Evil. And halflings are usually Neutral. And elves are usually Chaotic Good. Does this make Belkar and V houseruled?
Of course not. "Usually [alignment]" just means that that's the typical bent of the race, not by any stretch of the imagination that members the race must be that alignment. Which is a completely different circumstance from "Always [alignment]," which is a far stricter entry.


No, because in core rules no racial alignment statement means "always, 100%, no exception". There is a succubus paladin, and there can easily be a Lawful Good vampire. Without any houseruling.
True, but such creatures are one-in-a-million type exceptions, and would have to be treated as such. At this point there is no reason to conclude that Durkon is such an exception, and numerous reasons to conclude that he is not.

[Liliet]

The latter was someone else, actually.
Ouch. Sorry, then.


Applying a consistent interpretation of alignment need not be the same as house-ruling.
No, it's just that both are controversial and should not be taken for granted as being the same at every table.



Of course not. "Usually [alignment]" just means that that's the typical bent of the race, not by any stretch of the imagination that members the race must be that alignment. Which is a completely different circumstance from "Always [alignment]," which is a far stricter entry.
Both, as far as I remember, determine percentage - statistics, how many members of a race are of certain alignment. Statistics has descriptive power, but never prescriptive.



True, but such creatures are one-in-a-million type exceptions, and would have to be treated as such. At this point there is no reason to conclude that Durkon is such an exception, and numerous reasons to conclude that he is not.
Reason one: he's a protagonist. Even besides that, I suspect that anyone of 16th level is maybe not one in a million, but certainly one in a thousand exception.

Reason two: he's a deeply Lawful cleric of a Good deity, coming from Good background, having followed a Good code for all his life.

Reason three: he is extremely stubborn and is known to declare that duty has nothing to do with personal desires and happiness (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html).

Reason four: The Giant is exploring morality as applied to DnD. Goblins, paladins, Black Dragons, Familicide. Why wouldn't he explore vampires the same way?


And please explain what exactly reasons to conclude he is not are. I see three so far:
1) Planar Ally spell;
2) wicked smile on his face when offing Z;
3) strict interpretation of RAW.

[Gray Mage]

So far he hasn't done anything. He did kill Zzdt'ri and scare away Nale with a creepy smile, but that's all. After that, he rejoined the party, healed them and fought under Roy's command. He hasn't made a single decision, let alone alignment-related one.


Excluiding the glee on killing Z, the Planar Binding does settle that his aligment changed (that is, until we get word of the opposite from the Giant himself).

I also doubt that Miko would last much longer as a Paladin. The encounter with the order may have made the process of her becoming insane(r) faster, but I think she was well under its way before that.

[Liliet]

Excluiding the glee on killing Z, the Planar Binding does settle that his aligment changed (that is, until we get word of the opposite from the Giant himself).
Or it could be that his alignment is now Evil for all magic-related purposes but this does not affect his personality.

Or it could be that his alignment was forcibly changed and now he has a journey to get back to Lawful Good in front of him.

Imagination rules!



I also doubt that Miko would last much longer as a Paladin. The encounter with the order may have made the process of her becoming insane(r) faster, but I think she was well under its way before that.
We never know. Perhaps she'd meet someone like Roy who liked her but was less sexist and was ready to recognise her for who she was, become her close friend and make her a better person. Everything is possible. For all we know, she's gotten better since she left the monastery and the Order broke her slow path to recovery.

[Zevox]

Reason one: he's a protagonist. Even besides that, I suspect that anyone of 16th level is maybe not one in a million, but certainly one in a thousand exception.
Absent actual evidence of his alignment not changing, the first means nothing - especially since he wouldn't even be our first evil protagonist in the story. The second is completely irrelevant to begin with, as being high-level has nothing to do with whether you'd keep your alignment when turned into a Vampire.


Reason two: he's a deeply Lawful cleric of a Good deity, coming from Good background, having followed a Good code for all his life.

Reason three: he is extremely stubborn and is known to declare that duty has nothing to do with personal desires and happiness (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html).
In these you're simply describing what Durkon was like before being turned into a Vampire. Yet if being turned into a Vampire normally turns someone evil regardless of what they were like before, then such things don't matter at all.


Reason four: The Giant is exploring morality as applied to DnD. Goblins, paladins, Black Dragons, Familicide. Why wouldn't he explore vampires the same way?
That would be a narrative and thematic reason for it, if it were being done. It is not actual evidence that it is being done.


And please explain what exactly reasons to conclude he is not are. I see three so far:
1) Planar Ally spell;
2) wicked smile on his face when offing Z;
3) strict interpretation of RAW.
Expansion on your second point: the fact that he offed Z at all, especially so casually. In prior encounters with the Linear Guild he has always opted to capture or drive them off, never gone for a kill. And afterwards he indicated a desire to drink Nale's blood before killing him, and seemed disappointed when Nale got away with his teleportation spell. All of this is very unlike Durkon was when he was alive.

And a fourth point to add: when speaking to Roy after getting back together with the group, he compares himself to Belkar, which certainly seems to indicate that he thinks that his transformation has made him evil.

That first point you listed is also pretty definitive from any sort of rules PoV. The Planar Ally spell either sends a creature chosen by your deity (and the Giant has said on these boards that Durkon is currently a non-theist Cleric, so he has no deity to send it) or a creature sharing the caster's alignment. Durkon got a Barbed Devil, a Lawful Evil creature. You could even contrast this to the other time he's used it (in an admittedly out-of-continuity story, the 3e vs 4e story in SSaDT), when he got a Deva and several Hound Archons. Seems to make it pretty clear that this signifies a big change.

[Reddish Mage]

Zevox makes the points better than anyone why Durkon is evil now.

My questions is, if the Giant were to bring vampires into the big tent of that includes goblins and black dragons now, what would that means? Just that every creature can be good or evil regardless of what it looks like and does not warrant kill on sight treatment?

That point has been made with biological creatures. We know from his comments that the Giant:

1. Unlike biological creatures, the Giant has no problem with an "alien" and a genetically evil treatment regarding "explicitly magical creatures." [You are not committing the same bigotry in creating a world where undead and fiends are treated universally as monsters that need to be destroyed which you do when you create one populated by a bunch of humanoids and lizard-like things that warrant swift destruction of every age category.]

2. The Giant's own treatment of fiends (presumably also undead) is anthropomorphic, not alien.

Hence, it appears to me that the Giant did not just make Durkon into a creature that warrants shoot-on-sight treatment. However, the Giant has made Durkon a being that is "genetically" evil now. I don't mean "evil" alignment, I mean evil, in the colloquial and D&D sense that Durkula would like to do some serious oppressing and killing if he had the free time. Durkula doesn't have the free time with the world about to be destroyed, however.

My prediction is a rocky road for the Order going forward.

[hamishspence]

How about "pure empathy"?

Doesn't sound that grandiose, but makes a lot more sense in any context, I guess.

That hazard behind that, is when a character is extremely empathetic- but has an attraction to other people's unhappiness.

[Cerussite]

You could even contrast this to the other time he's used it (in an admittedly out-of-continuity story, the 3e vs 4e story in SSaDT), when he got a Deva and several Hound Archons. Seems to make it pretty clear that this signifies a big change.

Even if you don't consider that, Durkon makes it explicit that he intends to summon a bunch of Devas to protect the gate.

[Bulldog Psion]

We never know. Perhaps she'd meet someone like Roy who liked her but was less sexist and was ready to recognise her for who she was, become her close friend and make her a better person. Everything is possible. For all we know, she's gotten better since she left the monastery and the Order broke her slow path to recovery.

Well, IMO, Roy's reaction wasn't sexist, it was recognizing her for who she was. As they say, "you can't fix crazy." Take a crazy person, make them your close friend, and they'll just torment you until you give up on them, and they'll still be as crazy as the moment you set eyes on them.

Most people just are who they are. They may be able to "tweak" some details of their personality, but it's extremely rare for them to remake themselves totally, or even be capable or willing to do so. Miko was so fouled up and wacked out that trying to "make her a better person" would just end up screwing up a portion of Roy's life, utterly in vain. IMO, of course.

To put it another way, it's not Roy's responsibility to fix someone else's problems. "Therein the patient must minister largely to himself," as the doctors said in Macbeth.

[Cerussite]

Well, IMO, Roy's reaction wasn't sexist, it was recognizing her for who she was. As they say, "you can't fix crazy." Take a crazy person, make them your close friend, and they'll just torment you until you give up on them, and they'll still be as crazy as the moment you set eyes on them.

Most people just are who they are. They may be able to "tweak" some details of their personality, but it's extremely rare for them to remake themselves totally, or even be capable or willing to do so. Miko was so fouled up and wacked out that trying to "make her a better person" would just end up screwing up a portion of Roy's life, utterly in vain. IMO, of course.

To put it another way, it's not Roy's responsibility to fix someone else's problems. "Therein the patient must minister largely to himself," as the doctors said in Macbeth.

Regardless, if Roy hadn't given up on her, maybe we'd have wrapped the story up with Soon killing Xykon :P

[Bulldog Psion]

Regardless, if Roy hadn't given up on her, maybe we'd have wrapped the story up with Soon killing Xykon :P

That's quite true, too. After all, all it would have taken was about another 10 minutes without her flipping out totally.

[halfeye]

Well, IMO, Roy's reaction wasn't sexist, it was recognizing her for who she was. As they say, "you can't fix crazy." Take a crazy person, make them your close friend, and they'll just torment you until you give up on them, and they'll still be as crazy as the moment you set eyes on them.
In the real world, crazy isn't always for life. Treatment can help, and for those who are long term crazy, medications can make a significant difference.

[Cerussite]

In the real world, crazy isn't always for life. Treatment can help, and for those who are long term crazy, medications can make a significant difference.

She would have had access to clerical help in Azure city when she lived there... and look how much that work. One needs to WANT to be treated in the first place, and I think Miko would be the last person to admit that.

[Carl]

She would have had access to clerical help in Azure city when she lived there... and look how much that work. One needs to WANT to be treated in the first place, and I think Miko would be the last person to admit that.

And how is a cleric going to help? Short of mind affecting stuff which miko is immune to anyway there's nothing they can do in the way of spells that can help.

[Gray Mage]

And how is a cleric going to help? Short of mind affecting stuff which miko is immune to anyway there's nothing they can do in the way of spells that can help.

I really do not remember her being immune to mind affecting stuff. Do you have a link to where that is stated? :smallconfused:

[Carl]

Just checked, it's fear effects only, my apologies, still does anyone really think using some sort of permanant magic effect to force a change in her personality is the correct way to fix things? Never mind her excellent saving throws.

[Gray Mage]

Just checked, it's fear effects only, my apologies, still does anyone really think using some sort of permanant magic effect to force a change in her personality is the correct way to fix things? Never mind her excellent saving throws.

Which she can volutarially wave. To say the truth, I don't think it'd be much different than using meds if she was willing and I don't think Cerussite meant this to be forced on her.

[Liliet]

That hazard behind that, is when a character is extremely empathetic- but has an attraction to other people's unhappiness.
All right... I can't exactly relate to this, but it is possible...

How about "pure goodness" then? XD


Well, IMO, Roy's reaction wasn't sexist, it was recognizing her for who she was. As they say, "you can't fix crazy." Take a crazy person, make them your close friend, and they'll just torment you until you give up on them, and they'll still be as crazy as the moment you set eyes on them.

Most people just are who they are. They may be able to "tweak" some details of their personality, but it's extremely rare for them to remake themselves totally, or even be capable or willing to do so. Miko was so fouled up and wacked out that trying to "make her a better person" would just end up screwing up a portion of Roy's life, utterly in vain. IMO, of course.

To put it another way, it's not Roy's responsibility to fix someone else's problems. "Therein the patient must minister largely to himself," as the doctors said in Macbeth.
I didn't mean that he was sexist when rejecting her, I meant that he was sexist upon his initial attraction to her. He didn't try to understand her in any way, he just kept making double entendres.

A hypothetical person who liked Miko and recognised her for what she was, and decided that it was worth to try and help her... well that's wishful thinking, I know, I know.

And it's not about "remaking the whole personality", it's about learning to connect to people and emphatise with them.

[hamishspence]

Problem is that goodness is one of those things that's hard to define.

Still, the D&D definition seems to include "compassion" "altruism" and "respect for life/dignity".

Trying to make one facet be the source from which all other derive, tends to be tricky.

[Reddish Mage]

Problem is that goodness is one of those things that's hard to define.

Still, the D&D definition seems to include "compassion" "altruism" and "respect for life/dignity".

Trying to make one facet be the source from which all other derive, tends to be tricky.

And if you could do that, in this forum, we will have made a discovery that would be a great interest to Theologians, Philosophers, and Ethicists. People spend their lives and study dozens of authors working on defining these things. You have plenty of major competing ideas for what constitutes "the good."

[Liliet]

Well, I doubt that defining Good (in DnD sense, there are many meanings to the non-capitalised world) as "lacking motivation" can get actual support in such a debate.

[dancrilis]

Problem is that goodness is one of those things that's hard to define.


Not really any-more defining goodness is easy.
Please see here (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:+the+good&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=3OVeUpP4GIbC0QWt2YCAAQ#q=define:+goodness+&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB%3Aofficial) for goodness defined.

[Jay R]

In the real world, crazy isn't always for life.

Of course, this story doesn't take place in the real world.

[halfeye]

Of course, this story doesn't take place in the real world.
Quite right. However I was reacting to someone saying that in the real world, as exemplified by Shakespeare (...), there is no treatment for mental illness, people never get better. People who are ill need treatment, until they become well again, and some don't become well, but some do, and those that do aren't assisted by having "once mad, mad forever" metaphorically hung around their necks.

[hamishspence]

I've occasionally wondered if this logic should be applied to psychopathy.

"Nothing's incurable given enough time and research" is a bit optimistic- but this kind of optimism may be what drives advances in a field.

[dps]

That hazard behind that, is when a character is extremely empathetic- but has an attraction to other people's unhappiness.

IIRC, something along those lines was a plot point in the movie Strange Days.

[konradknox]

I don't even get that at all. Outside of the fact that it doesn't work that way in D&D, and Rich's own comments about Miko's Lawfulness in commentary, in what way was she always TN?

I don't even see it if I squint hard. :smalltongue:

I kinda see it. Because Miko often times misinterpreted the law, it seems either purposely or out of ignorance, and even in her final minutes refused to see past her own convictions. She followed her own law or perception of law, which pretty much sums up to "do whatever I feel is right", which is a form of "do what I want".