More questions of alignment! (Because this is seriously fun)

[AgentofHellfire]

...yeah, I have a lot of characters lying around, and a good deal of them morally ambiguous. This up and coming one is actually an Exalted character, but since I'm asking about DnD I'll try my best to translate her.

Weaver Of Dark Tapestries

So, for those of you that don't play Exalted: Hers is a world where Resurrection is impossible. You do not come back from the dead...quite the same.

In addition, the only intelligent undead in the setting are harder to create and control. You can't just whip up most of them.

So this character, Weaver of Dark Tapestries, has endeavored to fix both of these, performing a great deal of experiments on Resurrection-through-undeath. Which basically means making corpses into zombies and trying (through some combination of magic and "therapy") to nurse their former selves back into being.

This is not a pleasant process for the zombies themselves, of course (and whatever remains of the people that they once were), and the zombies still have some homicidal tendencies in spite of all her work. It's unclear that what she's doing will even work. But she is genuinely trying to save these people, and her main goal is eliminating death itself from the setting. Permanently.
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So! Same question, again. Good, Neutral, or Evil?

[Twilightwyrm]

Maybe I'm missing something from another topic, but what, specifically, is your question?

[AgentofHellfire]

Maybe I'm missing something from another topic, but what, specifically, is your question?

Is the character Good, Neutral or Evil in alignment?

[hamishspence]

If "bringing back the dead as zombies" is not Evil in itself in the Exalted setting, it may depend on how the character treats people.

Do they see all opponents as targets to be destroyed? Do they abduct people for their experiments? And so forth.

[AgentofHellfire]

If "bringing back the dead as zombies" is not Evil in itself in the Exalted setting, it may depend on how the character treats people.

Do they see all opponents as targets to be destroyed? Do they abduct people for their experiments? And so forth.


She's basically a hermit, actually, partially out of obsession with her project and partially out of self-loathing/tragic backstory elements (she worked with much more obviously evil people for a while, as their necromancer...)

[hamishspence]

Might depend on how much evil she's done in the past, and whether she resolved to atone for any of it.

Depending on the nature of the "tragic backstory" she may or may not have become what D&D would call an Evil-aligned person. But the amount of info isn't much at the moment.

D&D makes "undead-raising" an evil act in general (but some undead-raisers manage to maintain a Neutral alignment).

In the context of Exalted, it might not be- depends on if the magic is considered to be corruptive magic or not.

[The Oni]

If her goal is altruistic and isn't really harming anyone I don't think she could be considered evil. You could say that she's harming the zombies brought back - but they were *dead,* so they may be better off now than before.

I guess it depends on how the afterlife works in Exalted; denying someone Heaven/Paradise might be considered Evil.

I'd say she's probably Chaotic Good...more Chaotic than Good...because she's rebelling against the laws of *death,* and that's about as chaotic as it gets.

[Spore]

I am currently playing a NG Oracle of Bones in pathfinder. Yes, I have an undead summon, and yes, I have fluff reasons onto why this is reasonable. I had a debate with the player of our Paladin, and he said, summoning undead is fine, but forcing the undeath upon a body is plain evil. And I have to agree.

It is one thing to summon a banshee to protect a family from being killed, but it is an entirely different matter of reanimating people as undead. I suppose, your system still forces a Will saves upon your undead? What happens afterwards? Are they controlled by the "necromancer"? Are they free? Do they have to accept their new life or can they die?

Warcraft is playing with the same notion. If you make a test account and create a Forsaken (undead) character, you will have a more elaborate answer than any forum poster can ever give you. Basically there the undead were minions for an evil entity (called Lich King) but were freed of their slavery by a banshee queen.

Some committed suicide immediately, not just a few went absolutely insane, some lost sentience, some became evil, some started to take up their old beliefs (including channeling "the light", equivalent of conjuration [good] spells such as CLW although they take damage from doing so). The undeath blocks out positive emotions and enforces negative ones. A forsaken can feel a bunny's pelt while stroking it, but it doesn't please them anymore. Torturing the bunny however gives them an intense feeling of power and cruelty.