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Conradine
2019-09-26, 01:08 PM
Talingrade is described as a Lawful Good country, but Talingrade's laws sentence to death intellectuals on a yearly basis, utilize torture, forced labor in inhumane conditions ( salt mines ) and torturous execution ( death by fire ).
Worse yet, it punishes with death thought crimes ( heresy ).
How can that be a LG country and, more important, how can Mitra be a Good deity and condone these behiavours?

NNescio
2019-09-26, 01:13 PM
Talingrade is described as a Lawful Good country, but Talingrade's laws sentence to death intellectuals on a yearly basis, utilize torture, forced labor in inhumane conditions ( salt mines ) and torturous execution ( death by fire ).
Worse yet, it punishes with death thought crimes ( heresy ).
How can that be a LG country and, more important, how can Mitra be a Good deity and condone these behiavours?

Because Paizo.

Psyren
2019-09-26, 02:25 PM
Meh, Talingarde was a small sandbox thrown together to be an excuse for your PCs to be the mustache-twirling Legion of Doom in one specific campaign. It's not a place that's supposed to be fleshed out or really fit in with Golarion as a whole (nor does it, IIRC.) Don't overthink it.

Also, I think the burning Asmodeus worshipers is meant to be an irony thing?

EDIT: Double-checked and yes, Way of the Wicked is third-party. Folks like NNescio eager to dunk on Paizo would do well to do their research first.

Eladrinblade
2019-09-26, 08:00 PM
Talingrade is described as a Lawful Good country, but Talingrade's laws sentence to death intellectuals on a yearly basis, utilize torture, forced labor in inhumane conditions ( salt mines ) and torturous execution ( death by fire ).
Worse yet, it punishes with death thought crimes ( heresy ).
How can that be a LG country and, more important, how can Mitra be a Good deity and condone these behiavours?


Meh, Talingarde was a small sandbox thrown together to be an excuse for your PCs to be the mustache-twirling Legion of Doom in one specific campaign. It's not a place that's supposed to be fleshed out or really fit in with Golarion as a whole (nor does it, IIRC.) Don't overthink it.

Also, I think the burning Asmodeus worshipers is meant to be an irony thing?

So the "thought crime" is being a devil cultist? Haha, nice rhetoric.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-27, 12:47 AM
I've argued in another thread that I'm not sure any sort of extreme works with Good - and thus, you can have a sort of soft-Lawful, Good alignment, but once the adherence to Law becomes extreme, you cannot remain Good.

However ... if you accept that harsh, draconian laws from an extreme Lawful alignment are compatible with an overall Good society, then I see little problem. Of course, I'm playing Devil's Advocate, my personal view is the polar opposite. But one could argue that a nation full of high ideals could protect those ideals with some pretty awful laws .. sure, why not.

It's what the elves do, isn't it? At least, it's certainly what elves do in my games =)

Rynjin
2019-09-27, 02:02 AM
Because Paizo.

Way of the Wicked is not a Paizo AP, and they did not create Talingarde.

Anywho, I would be wary of further replies to this thread given the way some posts are already being worded.

King of Nowhere
2019-09-27, 03:46 AM
I don't know the setting, but maybe it's just a matter of comparison? Perhaps the other places are much worse. Perhaps those harsh extreme laws are necessary for survival in a crapsack world.

Or perhaps the setting was poorly conceived, or the nation was poorly conceived. Published settings are not always consistent

MoiMagnus
2019-09-27, 04:08 AM
How can that be a LG country and, more important, how can Mitra be a Good deity and condone these behiavours?

Because even peoples who write and develop D&D disagree on the meaning of alignment. But instead of going into heated debate on online forums about "Was [insert bloody dictator] lawful good?" or "Is torture acceptable for a LG paladin?" or "Are LG gods the true bad guys?", they create/publish stuff that push their vision of the alignment system.

Don't overthink it as something necessarily coherent with the rules of alignment, or even with the remaining of the world building.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-27, 09:58 AM
Talingrade is described as a Lawful Good country, but Talingrade's laws sentence to death intellectuals on a yearly basis, utilize torture, forced labor in inhumane conditions ( salt mines ) and torturous execution ( death by fire ).
Worse yet, it punishes with death thought crimes ( heresy ).
How can that be a LG country and, more important, how can Mitra be a Good deity and condone these behiavours?

Because Alignment is funny that way.

Conradine
2019-09-27, 10:06 AM
So the "thought crime" is being a devil cultist? Haha, nice rhetoric.

No, not only being an evil cultist. Merely saying ( in public ) or writing that Mitra did not create the world is enough for getting the pyre. They even have their index of forbidden books.

Psyren
2019-09-27, 10:29 AM
No, not only being an evil cultist. Merely saying ( in public ) or writing that Mitra did not create the world is enough for getting the pyre. They even have their index of forbidden books.

Your questions about this setting and its... let's say liberal interpretation of Lawful Good, would probably be best directed toward Fire Mountain Games, its authors.

If you're asking "do we think this publisher interpreted the alignment correctly" - I would say that I consider burning any sapients alive (Asmodeus-worshipers or not) to be questionable.

Conradine
2019-09-27, 10:35 AM
I could... understand - although I still consider it at very least a non-good action - sentencing to the pyre a murderous arsonist, a fiend summoner or a cultist who sacrifice innocents to his god / demon lord / archdevil.

But to burn alive someone for verbally challenging authority is clearly Evil. It's something I would expect in a LE tyranny.

icefractal
2019-09-27, 03:51 PM
Not surprising they went this route, although I'd agree it's basically cheating.

Not a lot of people, even ones who signed up for an "evil" AP, really enjoy being bad people who make the world a worse place. At least not once you get into details.

So, one approach is to make it so "the good side is the real bad guys". But that's hard to do without making them not actually "good".

What's easier to do is make another evil-ish side, give it some aesthetics often associated with good (shiny armor, sun motifs, angels, etc) and there you go, opposition you can feel good about smacking down.

Castilonium
2019-09-28, 08:07 AM
In WotW, every villain PC gets a trait that says what crime they went to prison for. Here's the list (https://way-of-the-wickedunderableedingsun.obsidianportal.com/wikis/campaign-trait) that someone copy/pasted for their online game. All of them spell out the fact that the crime had to be serious enough to land your PC in prison. The only trait that isn't explicit like that is Heresy. I suspect the author simply forgot to be explicit with it, and Conradine is cherry-picking it out of the long list of traits. As to Conradine's motives, I don't know. They made another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?598299-Way-of-the-Wicked-possible-diplomatic-resolution) about Talingarde's morality in another section of these forums.

Just want everyone to have the full information in front of them, because informed decisions > kneejerk judgments.

Conradine
2019-09-28, 08:28 AM
"Cherry picking" is the action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, arguments etc., from what is available.

Bringing on the issue of the heresy crime is not cherry picking: the crime is there, and it's clearly and explicity broad enough to cover verbal and written opposition to che Church, not only devil / demon worship.

Also, death by burning is the punishment for desacration of holy places and blasphemy too, which, although obnoxious, are hardly crimes worth an execution.

Beside that, economic crimes like high theft, extortion, fraud and forgery are punished with life at hard labor in the salt
mines. Let me quote volume 1, pag 24 to describe what kind of punishment is:


Or they get sent to the infamous salt mines of Varyston where the martinet overseer implements draconian security measures and the chains have better quality locks. And there, eventually, slowly, painfully -- they die.

Slow, painful death in inhumane conditions. Which IMO is torture.


---

And I don't even get started about the pratice of branding prisoners, which amounts to mere sadism...

Psyren
2019-09-28, 04:43 PM
I'm not sure what your objective here is Conradine. These guys are hardly the first 3PP to have a wonky setting concept.

AdAstra
2019-09-28, 04:57 PM
"Cherry picking" is the action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, arguments etc., from what is available.

Bringing on the issue of the heresy crime is not cherry picking: the crime is there, and it's clearly and explicity broad enough to cover verbal and written opposition to che Church, not only devil / demon worship.

Also, death by burning is the punishment for desacration of holy places and blasphemy too, which, although obnoxious, are hardly crimes worth an execution.

Beside that, economic crimes like high theft, extortion, fraud and forgery are punished with life at hard labor in the salt
mines. Let me quote volume 1, pag 24 to describe what kind of punishment is:



Slow, painful death in inhumane conditions. Which IMO is torture.


---

And I don't even get started about the pratice of branding prisoners, which amounts to mere sadism...

I get the feeling that the people who wrote this decided on an interpretation of national alignment being more based on what practices/behaviors they choose to encourage/punish, rather than the way that choose to do so. Basically ends-based alignment, disregarding means. Given that this may well be a world where basically everyone solves their problems with violence and death, it may not be an unjustified way to write them. If in your world the best, or widely accepted, way to be good is to help good people and hurt bad people, then things like this would count as lawful good, since it reduces the number of bad people and is codified and enforced by the law/authorities.

From a purely practical perspective, most of these things, while cruel, and 100% evil in my eyes, are not for the sole purpose of cruelty. Burning is a public spectacle. Forced labor allows you to get some practical benefit out of your prisoners before they die, doing an unpleasant/hazardous job and saving “better” people from having to do it. Branding criminals allows them to be more easily identified, even if they escape and avoid detection for years, and adds an element of permanent social shame (plus the pain) to the punishment as a further deterrent. You could, for example, give the prisoner one brand when they’re first interned, then another once they finish their sentence. That way if you find someone who only has the first brand, you know that they’re an escaped prisoner. Perhaps the first brand could also signal what crime they had committed. Basically, cruel, but not pointless cruelty.

DominoMasque
2019-10-04, 07:46 AM
I don't play with alignments much, but I think the key is that the country is Lawful Good (and I'd argue more towards Lawful than Good), they don't remove everyone evil, it is just has a LG system of government, a lot of evil folks probably do move towards the roles where they can get away with a little bit of cruelty (but maybe more petty evil still falls within neutral ymmv as to where the borders lie).

All the characters are explicitly guilty, proven beyond doubt with both evidence and magic. Heresy is at least implied to be more than talking out against Midras, it was desecrating temples etc.

But in the end it is what it is...

Hand_of_Vecna
2019-10-04, 12:07 PM
So, I think that you're letting your personal view of right and wrong as presumably a resident of a secular post enlightenment Western country be your primary guide rather than the alignment system.

Within the realms of D&D/PF Heresy does not simply offend the sensibilities of pearl clutching church ladies. Heresy is a real crime that matters. The Faith of mortals empowers gods and their Planes and effects the balance of Good and Evil on a multiversal scale.

Keep in mind that there are usually evil and always evil creatures and that many gaming tables don't take issue with these creatures being kill on sight. I usually annoy at least one person not just IC, but OOC when I play a character who treats intelligent undead as individuals, this sometimes happens even if my character decides to patch up the surviving bandits from a random encounter and let them go rather than having them executed. ( Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I don't know a better way to get across that D&D morality is not on practice real world morality)

More importantly the element that I think most needs to be kept in mind when judging Talingrade is that at the openening of WotW Talingrade is not a LG utopia, Talingrade is primed for revolution. While the country as a whole is probably still LG, it has become decadent after generations of success with local authorities are either bureocrats who aren't LG going through the motions of enforcing laws or they are LG and are desperately grasping to hold a crumbling empire together. In my own group the DM had to step outside the game to explain this to us OOC as we (the players) were confused about how we were getting away with things like destroying a whole patrol ship without getting more powerful authorities hunting is down and also weren't being bold enough on the book 2 finale; we had been playing in super stealth mode and eliminated several lieutenants and sabotaged a few things without raises any suspicions.