Fey vs. Undead: The Law vs Chaos Debate

[the_brazenburn]

Everybody now knows about Fiends vs. Celestials. It's literally the most famous instance of dualism throughout all history.

But what about Law vs. Chaos? Yes, I know there are Modrons/Inevitables, and Slaads for Chaos, but I'm looking for something a little closer to home. Something on the Feywild and Shadowfell. Something involving... Fey and Undead.

What if Fey embodied all that was chaotic, and Undead all that is lawful? This would make necromancy a less evil school of magic, and would put the Material Planes in the front lines of the Law/Chaos war between the Shadowfell and Feywild.

For those who desire it, we could also put Fiends and Celestials in the mix at the same time, and even have them interbreed for the "corner" alignments. So Demons are Fiends/Fey, Devils are Fiends/Undead, Angels are Celestials/Undead, and Eladrins are Celestials/Fey.

Obviously it doesn't work for everything. Undead are usually portrayed as evil, and Fey are good. But I think it would be an interesting twist on the stale Fiend/Celestial trope.

What does the Playground think of this idea?

[PhoenixPhyre]

See, I don't see Fey as good. They're chaotic, often to the extremes. They're capricious, undependable, and often terrifying. Their morality is alien to all mortal views. Even when they help, they're not being benevolent. They're doing it for their own reasons, which may include the color of the hair, or the sound of the wind.

I don't see undead as being lawful:

* the lesser ones are tools. Hungry tools, like using a lion to pull a cart, but tools.
* the greater ones (especially liches) are frantic attempts to break or evade the most fundamental law of all--all that lives must die.

Undead are the essence of self-absorption, which is a core evil trait.

[Millstone85]

There are obvious ties between the Feywild and Arborea. Also, one of the most famous elven deities is now a demon in the Abyss. It is probably easy to sell the Feywild as a CG/CN/CE plane.

Meanwhile, the outer plane the Shadowfell is most similar to is... Hades. They even use the same despair rules in the DMG. So, while Hades is NE, the Shadowfell feels evil-ish? And that's a shame, because I could see Inevitables of Death with connections to both Mechanus and the Shadowfell.

They wouldn't be "undead", though. Even when undeath isn't wholly evil, it is certainly against "the natural order".

[the_brazenburn]

Yeah, I see your points about RAW undead. I had actually meant reskinned undead as servants of law, the ultimate law being death. After all, every law has to allow certain people to break the law in order to enforce it.

[Millstone85]

Yeah, I see your points about RAW undead. I had actually meant reskinned undead as servants of law, the ultimate law being death. After all, every law has to allow certain people to break the law in order to enforce it.As in it takes a ghost to catch a ghost? Or the revenants the Raven Queen used to create in 4e? Yes, that's actually a great theme.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, I see your points about RAW undead. I had actually meant reskinned undead as servants of law, the ultimate law being death. After all, every law has to allow certain people to break the law in order to enforce it.


As in it takes a ghost to catch a ghost? Or the revenants the Raven Queen used to create in 4e? Yes, that's actually a great theme.

I could see that. Wouldn't work in my setting, because undead inherently feed off of life around them just by existing--plants don't grow well (or at all) in heavy undead areas, animals sicken, etc. But then again, I don't use alignments at all, so...

I have had some noble undead (including L, the gnome lich who needed to be so to make a prophesy happen right), but they're few and far between.

I don't use fey either--they're really just natural spirits, like the spirits of trees and animals and rocks and rivers.

[Angelalex242]

For good aligned undead, I recommend a vampire who was once ridiculously Chaotic Evil who fed on the wrong girl and got Cursed with a human soul that he loses if he's ever truly happy.

You could also make another endlessly snarky and really funny vampire who was not very good at being evil and eventually got his soul back.

For bonus points, they're both in love with a short blonde female monk.

[AureusFulgens]

I actually do something similar to this in the world I set my campaigns in, but the opposite for the Feywild is Mechanus. (I never really liked the Shadowfell as an opposite for Faerie.) So you have a duality of a chaotic world of infinite change and potential, and a rigid world of perfect order and predictability.

To elaborate a bit, I imagine the multiverse as a disc floating over a bottomless abyss of of Elemental Chaos beneath an Astral sky (which, yes, I jacked from 4th edition). The center of the disc is Mechanus, serving as a sort of magnetic "pole" around which reality can coalesce from chaos, and the edge of the disc is Faerie, where reality is strange and ever-changing. Then the body of the disc is an Ethereal sea in which various Material worlds float, and the one I prefer to use for my campaigns floats relatively close to the edge (so that Faerie plays a rather important role, while I haven't developed Mechanus as much).

[AureusFulgens]

For good aligned undead, I recommend a vampire who was once ridiculously Chaotic Evil who fed on the wrong girl and got Cursed with a human soul that he loses if he's ever truly happy.

You could also make another endlessly snarky and really funny vampire who was not very good at being evil and eventually got his soul back.

For bonus points, they're both in love with a short blonde female monk.

I feel like there's a reference I'm not getting here. I also feel like it's the Dresden Files, but I am not certain.

[Angelalex242]

I feel like there's a reference I'm not getting here. I also feel like it's the Dresden Files, but I am not certain.

Nope, not Dresden. 1997-2003, and that's all the hints you get.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I feel like there's a reference I'm not getting here. I also feel like it's the Dresden Files, but I am not certain.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first one's Angel, the second is Spike. Buffy is the monk.