BoVD & the lingering effects of evil

[Myrmex]

I was paging through the BoVD last night, and found this bit:

Darkness like the world was never seen before
Generally unique in all the world, such an event scars the nature of reality. Such a scar will probably never heal. The worst of all fell events might include:
•An act of genocide
•The birth of an evil god
•The murder of a god, demigod, or legendary hero of light


Alright, the last two I can see as extremely evil and rare occurrences, but genocide? Between 1951 and 2000, wikipedia has 19 acts of genocide, or attempted genocide, listed. That's an average of more than one every 3 years.

If you're in your twenties, you've lived through a period of time when the world has seen at least three bona fide genocides (Rwanda, Darfur, and the Srebrenica Genocide).


So is the average D&D world more or less evil than ours? If people behave the same in D&D as they do in RL, then shouldn't most of the Prime be an extension of the Lower Planes?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Alright, the last two I can see as extremely evil and rare occurrences, but genocide? Between 1951 and 2000, wikipedia has 19 acts of genocide, or attempted genocide, listed. That's an average of more than one every 3 years.

I'm fairly sure that while real-life genocide involves the destruction of, say, the entire Rwandan people, when the BoVD says "genocide" it means something like the destruction of the entire human race. Remember, "race" in D&D and "race" in real life mean entirely different things. I mean, any adventurer can wipe out entire tribes of kobolds or goblins or whatever purely as a side effect of a quest, but when you get into "billions of deaths" territory, yeah, I can see that definitely being evil.

[Tiki Snakes]

Plus, this is the BoVD we are talking about. Bless it's black heart, but it's not the best thing to rely on in many ways.

[Gensh]

when the BoVD says "genocide" it means something like the destruction of the entire human race.

I'm not so sure that'd leave much of a lingering aura. It's not like they were sacrificed to an evil god or anything, and if we go by precendents, Erekose's genocide actually led to world peace and fixed the environment.

[Rainbownaga]

It depends a lot on your definition of genocide.

According to the UN definitions, you can commit genocide without even killing a single person; the the deliberate suppression and assimilation of a culture is technically sufficient.

Additionally, ethnic cleansing on smaller scales may be genocide by modern usage, but even successfully removing a certain race from a small area isn't quite the same as the elimination of an entire race that is implied.

I think the point is that "genocide" in this case is shorthand for killing a LOT of people.

[ghashxx]

And besides, how normal would you say any area is that's had genocide going on. Heck, there are repercussions from how the US treated Native Americans back in the day: Indian Casinos. That one was a joke, but the fact remains that in real life there remains serious mental/emotional scarring from the atrocities in Rwanda etc. It's just that those scars aren't felt except over in that region.

The world of D&D always seems to be much smaller geographically, so terrible things happening would be felt more strongly because the place is closer to home, literally. That and the whole "magic exists there and not here" thing going on that plays around with how everything works.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: This is too political already and trending even more so. Thread locked.