Alignment-related question (for YOUR character?)

[Jon_Dahl]

You can answer this from your current character's perspective (if you have many characters right now, tell all of them!) or you can give your answer from any point of view you wish to use.

There is an upheaval in the kingdom where your character and other PCs adventure: half a dozen scholars and nobles are trying to bring back the local human language that existed before Common became dominant. It still exists, but just barely. The group spends unprecedented amounts of gold to provide teaching to common folk in the ancient language. While people learn the basics of the language, they also become literate and learn rudimentary mathematics and history. The history teaching is strongly biased in order to highlight the importance of the ancient language. A lot of literature is being published in the ancient language and some churches begin to hold services only in that language. Many scholars and officials begin to use the language in their daily work. As a benefit, they receive the favor of the group. Getting the favor of the group is a very important benefit.

A rich noble, who is relatively unknown, contacts the PCs and says that in their folly, the group is damaging Common's status and this is evil, since having a world language is a huge benefit, and this sort of separatism cannot be tolerated. The noble says that eventually the ancient language will replace Common, and this will hurt everyone. She says that she has tried to influence the king, but he doesn't listen. No one listens, and she is not a popular person among the local clergies (far-ranging political feud with her father). She asks that the PCs would simply destroy the group, and if that meant killing all of them, she would be ok with that. She promises to aid the PCs and arrange their escape or immunity after the deed, and also to pay them lots of gold right now and afterwards.

What would be your reaction (to her proposal and to the overall situation) ?

[stanprollyright]

1. I'd say this noble lady is pretty crazy if she thinks learning a language makes the other one cease to exist.
2. If there's already a bunch of people learning it and literature coming out, etc. killing the original group isn't going to help anything. It's already viral.
3. The king has every right to be isolationist, even if its against the country's best interests. (Please don't go around killing Brexit supporters).
4. A good character would never be down for this. The ends don't justify the means and all that. Neutral and evil characters might do it for a big chunk of cash, but the only alignment that I could see actually being in favor of this mission on its own merits is Lawful Evil.

[Inevitability]

Character in question is a LN warforged psion, and would pretty much only object to language changes if laws are broken in the progress (and it doesn't seem like they are). Even then, the warforged wouldn't actually kill the lawbreakers, unless the broken laws deserve capital punishment (and it doesn't seem they are).

[Remuko]

One of my most recent characters is a LG (exalted) Pixie Monk. I do not think she would accept this at all. This proposal sounds downright evil. She may on her own go and see this town (greater invisibility and all that) and maybe try to have a discussion to see if they keep common as a second language for communicating with other races still. But yeah, she would absolutely not agree to that proposal. In fact she may wish to subdue this person and have them imprisoned or checked for magical and mundane illnesses as this person seems completely insane.


My other recent character is a NE Favored Soul Bone Creature/Skeleton. He'd probably but okay with killing them if the proposal paid well in money or something else valuable (even if its intangible). He's a simple man.

[Echch]

It's as good a reason to murder someone as any other, I guess...
Probably not worth it though. I wouldn't go further than a suggestion spell or two, maybe roll diplomacy.

[Zeruel]

Mmh, as a NG character (many of mine are) I would try to diplomacy some sense into the autors of said separatism since, while not an evil act, it would create cultural obstacles both to them and their allies (who probably wouldn't bother to all learn a forgotten language just to accomodate the bidding of a single kingdom).

It is good to know two languages, and relearning the ancient one seems to have provided benefits to this realm, but such a deviation as abandoning Common at all may cause the arise of suspect in the surrounding lands.
"Uhm, will they try to impose us their culture?"
"We were good allies, but know they are not even trying to communicate intelligibly. Are they planning something against us?"

Needless to say that that may be seen as an act of superiority, and future lack of easy communication won't help at all.

Still, no blood-shedding to accomplish the reunification: it may be a bold, selfish and unreasoned behavior to just isolate yourself out of the blue, but still not evil.

[Geddy2112]

I am currently playing word for word Hunter S. Thompson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson):Father of Gonzo Journalism, self described "freak", author and writer, famous for Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas as a Chaotic Neutral urban druid and gunslinger in a space theme sci fi campaign. I am playing him true to from, chapter by chapter of Fear and Loathing. The following are my best interpretation of his views. I give the following as I believe he would.

"Good god man, how dare you work for these swine!? This jack booted stormtrooper stamping out the common decency of a real human tongue-the key to the American dream. Scurvy shyster ******** like this probably voted for Hubert Humphrey, and they most certainly killed Jesus!" *Stops to swat at imaginary bats with a fly swatter*

"Anyways, I support these kids. Real Horatio Alger; I myself love the wild power of the language and the purity of the madness that governs it and makes it music. You should listen to me, I AM A DOCTOR OF JOURNALISM..... CAN YOU HEAR ME?! What matters is communication, and I get that, without communication we deteriorate to the level of dumb beasts. These scholars of writing are respectable people like myself, multiple felons perhaps, but certainly not dangerous. A mission to cut their heads off and bury their corpses in the ******* desert is just doing what those authoritarian pigs want. Listen I've been******* around in my time by a fairly good cross-section of mean-tempered, rule-crazy cops, and now it's our turn! Were in charge!

I am rooting for these kids, hell, I am one of them! That's the handle, the true American dream- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we don't need that. Our energy will simply prevail. We have the momentum; riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. Ten years from now, maybe only five, you can go up on a steep hill and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
Long story short, my current character would tell this quest giver to shove it. I would likely be one of these types teaching the ancient language(and most certainly know it). I would agree with the sentiment that a universal language is important, but I would argue such fearmongering about this as a threat to common is just authoritarian BS.

[The Extinguisher]

It's pretty important to understand what Common is exactly. It's a global language shared by every race, which means it's going to be a jumble of every other language. A mass pidgin that developed and grew as more and more races made contact with each other and began trading and communicating. If it's used frequently enough, and if communities grow more diverse that it's used primarily, it starts to become it's own language. With simple grammar, lots and lots of loanwords, but a language none the less.

If the human language is no longer used, that suggests that human communities really weren't strictly human. If there were settlements of just humans, they would be bilingual much like the rest of the world. Instead most humans only know Common, so they would have had a need for using Common much, much more and Human use in private would decline.

Now, this push to revitalize Human probably wont ever replace Common. It died out (or is no longer widely used) for a reason. Think of Latin. It's popular, still spoken, but it's no one's native language. Human will end up the same way in this kingdom. Now, this kingdom must by more isolationist then most human kingdoms, but for Human to have caught on the way it has it must have been isolationist already. They've already reduced contact with other communities.

At the end of the day though, even if it does catch on, it wont ever replace Common. The versatility of an actual common language it too strong, and it will just create a kingdom of bilinguals. Which is fine. They're a little more separated than other humans, but no one's ever been angry at the elves for having their own language. Or the dwarves. Or the halflings, or the dragons, or the lizardfolk, etc etc etc.

On top of that, this noble just requested that I kill a very large group of people (with how used the language is, getting rid of the group that started it isn't going to stop the spread of the language) and also seeks to gain a lot of power out of it. So I mean the best thing to do is arrest her and take her to the authorities.

[danielxcutter]

Hmmm, I don't have a D&D character right now, but I do have a OotS-style comic in the works, so this is how some of the characters would react.

(Note: when I say OotS-style, I mean D&D 3.5-mechanics world + blatant shattering of the fourth wall.)

NG Elan Psychic Warrior: *sighs* I'm sorry, but I can't do this. I don't really agree with some of the things those people do, but I don't think this is the right thing to do either. Please, isn't there another way?

TN Halfling Rogue/Wizard/Arcane Trickster/Spellwarp Sniper: Sorry lady, find someone else. Or preferably, don't. *walks away*

LN Human Monk/Druid/Sacred Fist: That's... not really going to work. Going against the natural flow is never a good idea... and not just for druids. So what if Common dies out? Everything dies and passes the torch to the next generation sooner or later. Maybe the time has come for Common to do that too.

[Fizban]

False Dichotomy. In real life plenty of people know several languages, learning a new one isn't going to magically make the old one go away. A language so widespread it is spoken literally everywhere won't die out unless someone conquers everywhere and stamps it out on purpose. The worst that will happen is your little corner of the world might get slightly harder to navigate for foreigners.

[Efrate]

NE Warforged Cloistered Cleric/Binder: "You are giving me Carte Blanche to kill a massive amount of people, get paid for it, and immunity to persecution, and spread fear to an entire nation?" Several spells to determine veracity of if this person can do as they say. It checks out? "Sign me up. Do you need the bodies? I have uses for them."

Doesn't check out? "I have some reservations, mayhaps you can show me a bit of the wealth and power to change my mind?" Several spells to convince said person this is reasonable. Then rob, kill, and hey! New meat puppet to play with! "I might join this revolution, sounds like it has potential."

[Ninjaxenomorph]

(From the perspective, and world, of one character I toy around with, a curse-oriented magus)

"Trying to replace the Queen's Common*? Might have some trouble with that. Survived the end of an age, along with its namesake. But you want these scholars dead, to preserve the integrity of Common in this kingdom. To me, this sounds like a power play to remove the erudite and educated. Maybe put yourself in charge, all under a veneer of trying to keep the natural order of things. After all, don't want the peasants and serfs to revolt when they realize how much you're taxing them, right?

Either way, I'm your man. Even if I wasn't a cold-hearted bastard willing to stab people for gold, I never much cared for scholarly types. Prodding where they shouldn't, opening things better left closed until people like me can open 'em. I'm gonna need their names, and what kinda protection they might have. From what you say, it sounds like these are smart people. And in my experience, spellcasters and smart people have a big overlap."

*The formal name for Common in this setting, where it has been associated with an immortal queen of one particular country. Called the Queen.

As you probably guessed, the character here is Chaotic Evil. Would probably be plotting a double-cross when this was done.

[Tiri]

My oldest ongoing character is a goblin sorcerer, currently trying to rescue his people from a slaver and reestablish the tribe in a peaceful area.

He would probably reject the offer, then report the noble to the king to gain favor, to use should he ever complete his primary goal.

To him, all humans, dwarves, halfings and gnomes are just subspecies, and all but humans have their own languages already so he'd hardly care if one more language resurfaced.

[Katrina]

One setting specific issue: In many settings, Common is a hodgepodge trade tongue and damaging its status is meaningless. In those settings where it is not, damaging the status of one language is simply one way to discredit and take apart your enemies.


Killing someone over a language is stupid. There are many languages already, and learning one more isn't going to hurt anyone. The true concern here is the spin being put on the language itself. The peasants learning the history are being taught a skewed version of events that makes the language and the teachers thereof seem more important. The advantages of support from the group coming with built in subtle manipulations to keep working with that group brings a tear to my eye. I will consider working under cover to infiltrate this group and potentially destroy or control them at a later decision. I simply must meet the mastermind behind this. He's probably immortal, its far too long term for a mortal plot.

Oh. You. Yes. You're quaint. (After a few divinations, charm person/Monster whichever is fitting. Probably monster just to be sure. )



Hm...I've killed people for less. Usually means it costs more though. I mean, the language can't be that big of a deal? Is it linked to some kinda ancient mind eating abomination? No? Are you sure? Well, like I said. I've killed for less. Made problems with the establishment for less too. So you're good for the payment, right?



No. I mean, this cannot be...are you seriously trying to hire people for this? Forget this. Forget all of it. *Casts suggestion*

[LordOfCain]

Xavier Pyranus (LE Azurin Warblade): How much gold are we talking about? I don't sell my services for less than several thousand.

[Elrak]

Holouh van Lintas (LN Cloistered Cleric of Ohgma). The described approach sounds downright evil and worse than that, more than likely unlawful. Generally speaking, teaching people and sharing knowledge is something to be commended. The only issue my character would see in all this is the fact that the history teachings are being twisted in order to make the language appear more important than it actually is. Furthermore, a literate populous would sooner or later understand the value of learning more than one language in order to facilitate trade making which makes her argument sound rather weak.

[Quertus]

Hunter would beseech the will of the gods.

Quertus wouldn't care (and would already know the language).

S. would eat her brain, to find out what was really going on. Then either take up her cause, or turn her corpse over to the authorities.