OOTS #1212 - The Discussion Thread

[Particle_Man]

Do we have any definitive statement of her alignment? So far , I'm leaning towards chaotic neutral for both her and Grayview. There's still room for both chaotic evil or neutral evil, but I don't recall her doing anything that would specifically put her in that end of the alignment pool .



Respectfully,

Brian P.

Well the “Nothing Matters” of the NE plane fits Greyview’s philosophy.

[understatement]

I'd say Oona's evil because she is willing to kill two sentient intelligent beings just for food (for the MiTD), but the comic tells us that simply having an Evil alignment is not enough to warrant immediate execution.

[Metastachydium]

I'll still grant that feeding an enemy to a monster is an evil act, but I don't think they're quite out of the running for some variant of neutral just yet. I think we also have to recognize there are degrees of evil ;however evil Oona and Grayview are , I suspect they are still nowhere as deep in the alignment pool as Belkar, Redcloak, and Xykon.

Granted, but it's hard to compete with those three.

They're not random humans. They're obviously paladins of the Sapphire Guard, a group which, so far as we know, is at war with all goblinoids everywhere.
They are enemy soldiers, to be killed on sight.

Oona never mentioned her tribe having a present or past conflict with humans in general or the Guard in particular. Also, Oona stumbled upon them by accident and saw them from behind first. He had no way of telling they are paladins. O-Chul seemed unarmed, had no piece of armour visible from that angle and he was wearing a grey cloak (which is not something an Azurite paladin would normally do). For all Oona knew, Lien's spear could have been a -fishing tool (the two were walking atop a frozen body of water, after all).
I'm pretty sure her reasoning was „oh, humans; Great Beasts likes those for dinner” rather than „oh no, enemy combatants; must protect the village from Azurite murderhobos.”

If the situation was reversed , I doubt the paladins would have hesitated to kill her. They wouldn't have fed her to a monster, of course. But given the end result is death in any event, I'm not sure that this is quite as horrible as it would be in the southlands. This is the pole , after all. Protein is scarce and they make use of everything.

We are talking about O-Chul and Lien, not Gin Jun. Were they to realize she was a threat, they would have tried their best to dispatch her, but „goblinoid ahead, kill on sight mode: on” does not exactly sound like their modus operandi. Also, despite the scarcity of resources affects them too I'm pretty sure „protein's protein” would not have crossed their minds, either.

Edit:

ETA: Reading the strips again , I don't think Oona's thoughts on this are so abstract. She's not attacking them as a soldier against other soldiers; she's acting more like a hunter who allowed a quarry to escape. To her, humans are creatures to hunt.

That's part of my point, you know.

Given their environment and circumstance, I find this a reasonable outlook for either an evil or a neutral creature living up here. Polar Bears are neutral , after all, and they kill human beings in the real world in just those environments for just those reasons.

Fun real-life tip: Polar Bears are one of the only species in the world which will hunt humans for food . Most animals are a bit afraid of humans, and will fight in self-defense or if enraged. But they don't actually try to eat people. Polar Bears do.

As far as we know, polar bears are Neutral inasmuch as they do not distinguish between Good and Evil, chiefly because they are not sapient (in the sense in which we call oursleves sapient). Oona is sapient, she is capable of empathy (she resents the collective suffering of her tribe) and I don't suppose she is too dumbto know that humans are sapient as well.

[Fyraltari]

If I had to work under duress for two people on a project I disagreed with, I'd not be half as cheerful as she is. That said, if she's only finding out now that their plan risks the world, it will make sense for her to remain with them only if she gets way less cheerful, no?

Who said anything about working under duress? So far she's had a mutually beneficial agreement with Team Evil that went along swimmingly. All I'm saying is that one ought to proceed with caution when meeting a dragon in a powder keg.

Also some people are just naturally cheerful and others are just naturally gloom, your behaviour needs not match Oona's.

In any case, her reaction to all this should teach her a lot about her character. And her decision to just stay and listen without intervening is already a show that hse is cautious and wants to know as much as bugbearly possible before making a move.

They're not random humans. They're obviously paladins of the Sapphire Guard, a group which, so far as we know, is at war with all goblinoids everywhere.

No they're not. Even 30 years ago, when they were willing to murder goblins indiscriminately they didn't seek them out unless on Gate-related business. And they most certainly never went as far as the North Pole.

They are enemy soldiers, to be killed on sight. If the situation was reversed , I doubt the paladins would have hesitated to kill her.

I also doubt the Paladins would have hesitated to kill her, because I am certain O-Chul and Lien would not have hesitated to let her be. Murderhobos, they are not.

Well the “Nothing Matters” of the NE plane fits Greyview’s philosophy.

Greyview in the afterlife: Nod. Does not get treat.

[Ionathus]

Because, if she heard what Redcloak said about being willing to destroy Oona's tribe to get a new possible life for hypothetical goblins of the next world, their goals stopped aligning then and there given the context.

I addressed that in an earlier point. It's entirely plausible that she hears all that and thinks "green shaman is shouting spiritual stuff at dwarf sha-persons. What a lively spirited exchange of ideas!" She might be taking her cues from Redcloak entirely and is content to be a bystander unless he actively, physically, right now endangers her physically.

Vague dangers to the future of the world don't matter to everybody equally -- especially those who have to live in harsh and dangerous climates, like Oona does. "Focus on the here and now and find joy wherever you can" could very well be her personal philosophy.

Polar Bears are neutral , after all, and they kill human beings in the real world in just those environments for just those reasons.

Nonsentient animals don't have alignments. You can't have an alignment without possessing self-awareness and an understanding of morals & of how your actions will affect others.

I know 3.5e declared all animals Neutral, but I see that as an ad-hoc decision that doesn't really make sense. I'm pretty certain that's why 5e deliberately included "Unaligned" as an alignment option -- to prevent debates & comparisons like this.

[pendell]

I also doubt the Paladins would have hesitated to kill her, because I am certain O-Chul and Lien would not have hesitated to let her be. Murderhobos, they are not.

Not murderhobos, but soldiers on a mission. I'll quote Lord of the Rings again.

'I serve only the Lord of the Mark, Théoden King son of Thengel,' answered Éomer. 'We do not serve the Power of the Black Land far away, but neither are we yet at open war with him.... We welcomed guests kindly in the better days, but in these times the unbidden stranger finds us swift and hard. Come! Who are you? Whom do you serve?'....

"I might have slain you long ago. For I am commanded to slay all whom I find in this land without the leave of the Lord of Gondor."

So, yes. Here we have the party on a quest of potentially world-ending proportions. If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment. Even in our world, "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" is a sign posted prominently at sensitive military bases. Not enforced nearly so strictly in times of peace, but the times Oona and Redcloak live in aren't peaceful.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jason]

Nonsentient animals don't have alignments. You can't have an alignment without possessing self-awareness and an understanding of morals & of how your actions will affect others.

I know 3.5e declared all animals Neutral, but I see that as an ad-hoc decision that doesn't really make sense. I'm pretty certain that's why 5e deliberately included "Unaligned" as an alignment option -- to prevent debates & comparisons like this.

If polar bears did become sentient and continued to hunt other beings they knew to be sapients for food when they could be hunting non-sapients then they would have to be considered evil in alignment.

[Fyraltari]

Not murderhobos, but soldiers on a mission. I'll quote Lord of the Rings again.

Can I just say that I love that your examples of people shooting on sights is of people taking intruders (sort of) prisoners and trying to assert wether they're ennemies or not before making a decision. I don't think this makes your point as well as you think it does.

Not that it would matter anyway, since LotR has absolutely squat to do with what we're talking about.

So, yes. Here we have the party on a quest of potentially world-ending proportions. If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment.

Are we still talking about O-Chul and Lien or some alternate universe versions?

Even in our world, "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" is a sign posted prominently at sensitive military bases. Not enforced nearly so strictly in times of peace, but the times Oona and Redcloak live in aren't peaceful.

And as we all know, militaries never do anything morally wrong.

Not that it would matter anyway, since military customs have absolutely squat to do with what we're talking about.

[Jason]

Not murderhobos, but soldiers on a mission. I'll quote Lord of the Rings again.

You do remember that Eomer and Faramir then both exercised their own judgement and violated their standing orders in order to assist the intruders they had just told those orders to, right?

[hroþila]

If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment.

You mean ex-paladins.

[Rogar Demonblud]

He means blackguards.

[Worldsong]

Fair point. Even so,

They're not random humans. They're obviously paladins of the Sapphire Guard, a group which, so far as we know, is at war with all goblinoids everywhere.

They are enemy soldiers, to be killed on sight. If the situation was reversed , I doubt the paladins would have hesitated to kill her. They wouldn't have fed her to a monster, of course. But given the end result is death in any event, I'm not sure that this is quite as horrible as it would be in the southlands. This is the pole , after all. Protein is scarce and they make use of everything.

I'll still grant that feeding an enemy to a monster is an evil act, but I don't think they're quite out of the running for some variant of neutral just yet. I think we also have to recognize there are degrees of evil ;however evil Oona and Grayview are , I suspect they are still nowhere as deep in the alignment pool as Belkar, Redcloak, and Xykon.

ETA: Reading the strips again , I don't think Oona's thoughts on this are so abstract. She's not attacking them as a soldier against other soldiers; she's acting more like a hunter who allowed a quarry to escape. To her, humans are creatures to hunt. Given their environment and circumstance, I find this a reasonable outlook for either an evil or a neutral creature living up here. Polar Bears are neutral , after all, and they kill human beings in the real world in just those environments for just those reasons.

Fun real-life tip: Polar Bears are one of the only species in the world which will hunt humans for food . Most animals are a bit afraid of humans, and will fight in self-defense or if enraged. But they don't actually try to eat people. Polar Bears do.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

Iruxi approves of this message.

If polar bears did become sentient and continued to hunt other beings they knew to be sapients for food when they could be hunting non-sapients then they would have to be considered evil in alignment.

Curiously enough lizardfolk, one of the more popular examples of a savage sapient race which eats people, are written down as Usually Neutral.

Of course that might be because most tribes don't actively hunt other races unless said races enter their territory... but that's exactly what Oona did so that would mean her actions wouldn't necessarily make her Evil.

[Jason]

Iruxi approves of this message.Curiously enough lizardfolk, one of the more popular examples of a savage sapient race which eats people, are written down as Usually Neutral.

Of course that might be because most tribes don't actively hunt other races unless said races enter their territory... but that's exactly what Oona did so that would mean her actions wouldn't necessarily make her Evil.

Eating hostile intruders after you have defeated them is not necessarily evil. Actively hunting sapients when you have other choices would be.

Attacking intruders in your unmarked territory without warning and with the intent to kill them is evil. Oona didn't say anything about "they were violating our territory" either. She said "I wanted to feed them to you because I thought they were your favorite food."

[Worldsong]

Eating hostile intruders after you have defeated them is not necessarily evil. Actively hunting sapients when you have other choices would be.

Attacking intruders in your unmarked territory without warning and with the intent to kill them is evil. Oona didn't say anything about "they were violating our territory" either. She said "I wanted to feed them to you because I thought they were your favorite food."

The lizardfolk stuff I've found doesn't really say that they only attack hostile intruders. Kind of sounds like everything inside their territory is fair game because they live in an environment where each ounce of food counts. Which is also similar to Oona's situation.

Also there's some stuff about how they consider most other races a threat because of their expansionist nature (the other races being the expansionists), which once again is similar to Oona because the reason her people live out in the middle of nowhere is because the dwarves drove them out.

EDIT: of course when I discussed this topic with my Pathfinder group (some of my fellow players had some objections to my lizardfolk wanting to consume the fallen enemies) the DM pointed out that the lizardfolk got some leeway because they have strong cultural and religious motivations to not only eat people but also to not consider this an Evil act.

[WanderingMist]

Eating hostile intruders after you have defeated them is not necessarily evil. Actively hunting sapients when you have other choices would be.

Attacking intruders in your unmarked territory without warning and with the intent to kill them is evil. Oona didn't say anything about "they were violating our territory" either. She said "I wanted to feed them to you because I thought they were your favorite food."

Actively hunting sapients for fun would be unambiguously evil. Actively hunting sapients for food (even while you have other choices) is not, as it entirely depends on what those other options actually are. Since she was hunting for food, it cannot inherently be considered an evil act. And given that she lives in an Arctic landscape and the other option in her case is "dangerous cave full of deadly monsters that she might come back alive from", two humans who haven't yet noticed her are easy game in comparison and could provide a few days' worth of food.

[Canisius]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before - but did anyone notice that Maxrah is wielding the hammer without the gloves Durkon is currently wearing? I recall some speculation that the gloves were necessary to wield the hammer.

[understatement]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before - but did anyone notice that Maxrah is wielding the hammer without the gloves Durkon is currently wearing? I recall some speculation that the gloves were necessary to wield the hammer.

Assuming it's a Hammer of Lightningbolts (or thunderbolts? I'm not sure), it doesn't need the gauntlets to function. However, gauntlets + belt + hammer unlocks the hammer's full powers.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Love seeing Oona’s presence here. Personally, I prefer how we hash things out in the Playground over the bugbear customs, but to wash their own.

[Goblin_Priest]

Oona gives the impression of not being bothered too much by her current life but I think that's more a case of her having an optimistic and cheerful personality. And while pessimists might be more focused on the problems an optimist doesn't have to be oblivious to them. So Oona could actually have a strong investment in a plan which improves things for her tribe even if she's more willing to trust Redcloak than the Dark One, Redcloak being the one standing in front of her and directly telling her that her tribe's issues will be addressed.

Oona doesn't seem to put much faith in neither TDO nor Redcloak. Redcloak's aiding her in what her culture venerates, the killing of monsters. Presumably, she's pretty high level, because otherwise they wouldn't drag her into encounters with CRs high enough to give Xykon XP. Or, in any case, she wouldn't walk out of them alive.

Her tribe is largely otarcic. Her attitude actually seems fairly representative of many rural peoples', especially those in more remote locations, who are used to all the attention and big calls being done by city folks, for city folks, far away from those who get their hands dirty every day.

Oona is presumably evil, though. Bugbears are typically chaotic evil, and she's likely some high ranking member of her tribe, not an outcast by any measure anyways. She's got a worg companion, also evil. She pays token tribute to TDO, an evil god. She's working with Team Evil. She hunts humans for sport. We haven't seen her express much evil, but I'd expect we will. We also haven't really seen her fight. Nor her worg. Looking forward to that. Good characters.

[Worldsong]

She hunts humans for sport.

Just want to point out she hunts humans for food, not sport.

[Goblin_Priest]

Just want to point out she hunts humans for food, not sport.

Hunting for food is still a sport. ;)

It was to feed TMITD. Also, eating sentient creatures is an evil act in D&D iirc.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Just want to point out she hunts humans for food, not sport.

Would it be better or worse if the only thing she was hunting for, was an outfit that looked good?

Also, what if she had the consent of the people she was hunting?

And what if she had "agreement", but got it from one of those EULA type deals?

[Ionathus]

If polar bears did become sentient and continued to hunt other beings they knew to be sapients for food when they could be hunting non-sapients then they would have to be considered evil in alignment.

If polar bears became sentient, they would cease to be what we consider "polar bears," and the comparison would become useless.

If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment. Even in our world, "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" is a sign posted prominently at sensitive military bases. Not enforced nearly so strictly in times of peace, but the times Oona and Redcloak live in aren't peaceful.

If you haven't read Good Deeds Gone Unpunished, then I can understand how you'd come to this conclusion simply based on the Sapphire Guard's zealous defense of The Gates.

If you have read GDGU, I'm surprised that you don't immediately dismiss this train of thought as soon as it even gets close to O-Chul -- who is by far the most diplomatic and egalitarian member of the comic's cast.

[Peelee]

So, yes. Here we have the party on a quest of potentially world-ending proportions. If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment. Even in our world, "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" is a sign posted prominently at sensitive military bases. Not enforced nearly so strictly in times of peace, but the times Oona and Redcloak live in aren't peaceful.

A.) Such signs are not indicative of Lawful Good.
2.) Such signs are not indicative of actual legal ability. I can put up a sign saying "trespassers will be shot", don't mean I can do it. It's a scare tactic more than anything. Like those signs on trucks saying "stay back X feet, not responsible for damage".

[The_Weirdo]

If paladins were pulling security I can definitely see them killing without hesitation any intelligent creature that wandered too close, regardless of their alignment. Even in our world, "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" is a sign posted prominently at sensitive military bases. Not enforced nearly so strictly in times of peace, but the times Oona and Redcloak live in aren't peaceful.

Even disregarding the very serious moral problems inherent to such an approach, there's the fact that, if the paladins are too cavalier about whom they kill, they can't really get all annoyed when revenge comes a-knocking, in equally indiscriminate fashion, no less. Sure, the innocents can get annoyed, but not the Paladins.

With great power comes great responsibility.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I bet Oona would love shonen anime if she got a decent signal out there.

[danielxcutter]

I think Oona probably is Evil, but it’s probably a thin, washed-out shade of Evil compared to like at least 70% of the other villains so far.

[Particle_Man]

I think the casual attitude towards potentially deadly violence as being a typical and normal way of talking through differences might be seen as some evidence for Oona being CE.

[understatement]

I think Oona probably is Evil, but it’s probably a thin, washed-out shade of Evil compared to like at least 70% of the other villains so far.

Yup. More like the MiTD or Jirix then someone straight-up malicious.

[danielxcutter]

Yup. More like the MiTD or Jirix then someone straight-up malicious.

The MitD is canonically TN, I believe, and Jirix might be LN. Still, she’s probably not much worse than Hilgya.