Why is creating undead Evil?

[Segev]

What's the contradiction with pollution?

Mainly that any “pollution” argument for evil can be countered by doing something “purifying,” or otherwise mitigating it. It also is deeply unsatisfying on a fiction layer to have it be evil but not really do anything that seems very evil.

As well, if more good is done by the undead at your behest than whatever amount of “evil pollution” is generated, it isn’t net evil anymore.

The trouble with “evil pollution” is that it’s entirely fungible. Generic or specific good can counteract it. Evil’s true sting is in its non-fungible nature. You can’t beat up one kid and heal another’s broken leg and call it balanced. Even if the beating was required to perform the healing, the very act of viewing one kid as disposable to heal another is evil, because kids are not fungible.

D&D can tolerate a certain amount of that, but generic evil “pollution” is something that could just be cancelled one for one by generic goodness. Countered and overwhelmed, even. Making it okay to create as much as you want as long as you do enough good to overwhelm it.

There’s no overwhelming non-fungible evil deeds to be considered Good. At best, if you do evil with any regularity, you could be neutral. But fungible evil pollution doesn’t hold this property because the evil pollution isn’t doing anything and can be cancelled as immediately as you like, or even preemptively by a lot of good pollution, or generic good deeds.

Evil having substance needs to be more substantial than a generic miasma of malignancy that you’re informed you’re making worse but no reasonable amount of play would ever truly show its results.

[Troacctid]

Why is it a given that good cancels out evil like that? That's not how it works in Eberron.

If your factory pollutes a river, the river doesn't become unpolluted just because you generated that toxic waste while manufacturing medical supplies to donate to children's hospitals.

[Vaern]

The argument that "evil pollution" doesn't matter because you can easily "clean it up" by being good has a major flaw in it. It actually requires you to put work into cleaning it up. I could toss an empty soda can out the window on my way to work with the expectation that eventually someone's going to clean it up, with no intention of doing it myself, and you know what? That would make me kind of an ass. And a week later, I might be driving to work and find a raccoon with its hand stuck in that empty can and realize that it was kind of a **** move to have tossed that can way back then. Now the damage has been done and it's too late to take it back, and the best that stopping to pick it up myself can do it prevent further collateral damage being caused by my negligence.
Even if you could clean up or counteract whatever evil comes into the world by making your zombies, there will still likely be ramifications and lasting effects if you don't do it fast enough... and even if you are responsible enough to use [Evil] magic without upsetting the cosmic balance, you still need to worry about all of the other would-be good necromancers cleaning up their mess before the consequences of their actions become apparent. Maybe eventually someone will come to clean up after them, but judging by the state of the highway just outside of town it seems pretty clear that people generally don't care about the consequences of pollution so long as the ramifications don't immediately affect them personally. It doesn't look very good for your argument.

[ShurikVch]

Mainly that any “pollution” argument for evil can be countered by doing something “purifying,” or otherwise mitigating it. It also is deeply unsatisfying on a fiction layer to have it be evil but not really do anything that seems very evil.

As well, if more good is done by the undead at your behest than whatever amount of “evil pollution” is generated, it isn’t net evil anymore.

The trouble with “evil pollution” is that it’s entirely fungible. Generic or specific good can counteract it. Evil’s true sting is in its non-fungible nature. You can’t beat up one kid and heal another’s broken leg and call it balanced. Even if the beating was required to perform the healing, the very act of viewing one kid as disposable to heal another is evil, because kids are not fungible.

D&D can tolerate a certain amount of that, but generic evil “pollution” is something that could just be cancelled one for one by generic goodness. Countered and overwhelmed, even. Making it okay to create as much as you want as long as you do enough good to overwhelm it.

There’s no overwhelming non-fungible evil deeds to be considered Good. At best, if you do evil with any regularity, you could be neutral. But fungible evil pollution doesn’t hold this property because the evil pollution isn’t doing anything and can be cancelled as immediately as you like, or even preemptively by a lot of good pollution, or generic good deeds.

Evil having substance needs to be more substantial than a generic miasma of malignancy that you’re informed you’re making worse but no reasonable amount of play would ever truly show its results.

Note: most of spells which directly using Negative Energy are non-[Evil]: Circle of Doom, Inflict ... Wound line, Harm, Negative Energy Ray/Burst/Wave...
Actually, in the shape I encountered this argument, it was slightly different: It doesn't said anything about "Evil", but pointed the Negative Energy is dangerous and harmful for most living things (and, maybe, even for some non-living), thus - increasing its presence in the world is bad.

But even in that form, this argument is still a nonsense
Because in the same fashion, we can blame magic which:
create water - for the increase in global sea level,
conjures fire - for Global Warming,
using Positive Energy - for increasing number of oncological diseases (and attracting Ragnorra).

[Quertus]

Sure, they're under your control, but you're basically gambling the safety of any innocents nearby that you won't lose control.

So, under this paradigm, is it building cars or driving cars that is evil?

I think the specifically "unspeakably evil act" that is part of becoming a lich is a 3e addition. (They never specify the unspeakably evil act in question.)

And then 5e forgot the point of becoming a lich at all and made them soul-vampires.

Becoming a Lich has always required evil acts, and they were specified (drinking a potion of dead babies and puppy blood is only part of it - you had to poison the baby with specific poisons, and other people with other poisons, and… etc… to make this potion).

Also, yes, 5e failed.

Note: most of spells which directly using Negative Energy are non-[Evil]: Circle of Doom, Inflict ... Wound line, Harm, Negative Energy Ray/Burst/Wave...
Actually, in the shape I encountered this argument, it was slightly different: It doesn't said anything about "Evil", but pointed the Negative Energy is dangerous and harmful for most living things (and, maybe, even for some non-living), thus - increasing its presence in the world is bad.

But even in that form, this argument is still a nonsense
Because in the same fashion, we can blame magic which:
create water - for the increase in global sea level,
conjures fire - for Global Warming,
using Positive Energy - for increasing number of oncological diseases (and attracting Ragnorra).

Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, has specifically invented custom spells, Quertus' Heal Time I-IX, to undo the damage caused to the time steam by the casting of chronomantic spells (like Haste or Time Stop). Chronomancy is a school of magic where D&D was very specific that the entire school causes "pollution" damage. Yet those spells aren't labeled as "evil".

So, agreed, this argument doesn't hold up.

[Alcore]

Why is creating undead Evil?

(setting dependent)

Because they are beings of negative energy that hungers for the positive energy (which is all living creatures) and they generally lack any morals if intelligent. Those who remember their past lives can continue to do good out of habit but its now a habit not an Ideal.


Because (sometimes) you are literally binding the soul of another creature into servitude. Into a dead and forever rotting body that will slowly torment the target in one fashion or another.

I contend, as many do, that there's nothing inherently Evil about raising the undead. But I also contend that the allowance of necromancy is Evil.

Why?

I have no idea why you are talking of a paradox. I also have no idea 'why' as it is your thoughts. Asking why like this is unproductive. Why what?


I can hardly conjecture on your own thoughts.

So, how's that sound?

It sounds like I don't ever want to meet you if you are ever able to perform necromancy. Part of you sounds like you view everything as a resource (including the people) while another part sounds like you view necromancy (or evil magic) as sapient enough to push you towards your own corruption. Both are possible.

Just an observation of the motivations that such actions would inevitably create. One that is ultimately more human than many like to admit.

you don't need to tell me how evil humans are. I know all too well...

[Segev]

Why is it a given that good cancels out evil like that? That's not how it works in Eberron.

If your factory pollutes a river, the river doesn't become unpolluted just because you generated that toxic waste while manufacturing medical supplies to donate to children's hospitals.

The thing is, "evil pollution" doesn't do anything on its own even under the formulation we're given except "promote evil." So if you do generic good, you can easily counterbalance whatever evil is "promoted" by it.

And I call it fungible because if you cast a [good] spell for every [evil] spell you cast, you should generate as much "good anti-pollution" as you generate "evil pollution."

The argument that "evil pollution" doesn't matter because you can easily "clean it up" by being good has a major flaw in it. It actually requires you to put work into cleaning it up. I could toss an empty soda can out the window on my way to work with the expectation that eventually someone's going to clean it up, with no intention of doing it myself, and you know what? That would make me kind of an ass. And a week later, I might be driving to work and find a raccoon with its hand stuck in that empty can and realize that it was kind of a **** move to have tossed that can way back then. Now the damage has been done and it's too late to take it back, and the best that stopping to pick it up myself can do it prevent further collateral damage being caused by my negligence.
Even if you could clean up or counteract whatever evil comes into the world by making your zombies, there will still likely be ramifications and lasting effects if you don't do it fast enough... and even if you are responsible enough to use [Evil] magic without upsetting the cosmic balance, you still need to worry about all of the other would-be good necromancers cleaning up their mess before the consequences of their actions become apparent. Maybe eventually someone will come to clean up after them, but judging by the state of the highway just outside of town it seems pretty clear that people generally don't care about the consequences of pollution so long as the ramifications don't immediately affect them personally. It doesn't look very good for your argument.

You can do it pro-actively, too. Give enough candy out to kiddos, and the puppy slushie you make out of live puppies to drink in front of other kids is "paid for."

Except that that isn't how it works with real good and real evil, as evidenced by how ridiculous "do good things for some kids to pay for being cruel to others" is in my very example, here. But the moment it's undefinable "evil pollution" that's just some sort of "well, um, there's more evil in the world," you can make up for it before or after with as much "goodness" as you need to do. This could just be spamming [good] spells to "pay" for it.

For the record, unless a [good] spell also does something inherently good, I am not in favor of spells having that label, either.

I don't mind animate dead being [evil]. I just want it, like the process of becoming a lich, to actually have something evil that you have to do to cast it.

[SquidFighter]

That, and there is no actual garantee that positive energy neutrally cancel out negative energy.

You know, like summoning a water elemental doesn't in itself "cancel out" summoning a fire elemental.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Honestly, unless an effect literally channels [Chaos], [Law], [Good], or [Evil] energy directly, or it summons or calls a being literally made from one of those things, it should not have any of those descriptors.

Even mindrape, despite the name, can be used for inherently neutral and even good things, such as teaching large amounts of information nigh instantaneously. It's only considered [Evil] because of the name and the book it is in.

And animate dead is only [Evil] because it's icky, not because it's actually [Evil]. No [Evil] energy is being channeled, and the undead it creates are mindless, completely lack any kind of self motivation whatsoever, and contain no [Evil] in them at all. Death and entropy aren't [Evil], because they're simply a part of the natural world, just like life and creation aren't. And life and creation can't be [Good] -- see Ragnorra, the positive energy elder evil.

[Troacctid]

Note: most of spells which directly using Negative Energy are non-[Evil]: Circle of Doom, Inflict ... Wound line, Harm, Negative Energy Ray/Burst/Wave...
Actually, in the shape I encountered this argument, it was slightly different: It doesn't said anything about "Evil", but pointed the Negative Energy is dangerous and harmful for most living things (and, maybe, even for some non-living), thus - increasing its presence in the world is bad.

But even in that form, this argument is still a nonsense
Because in the same fashion, we can blame magic which:
create water - for the increase in global sea level,
conjures fire - for Global Warming,
using Positive Energy - for increasing number of oncological diseases (and attracting Ragnorra).

That sounds like an argument people would make in-universe. The obvious counterargument is that all uses of negative energy don't need to be evil for animating the dead to be evil. Mabaran power can be channeled safely, and animate dead is unsafe. Like driving a car without an exhaust filter.

The thing is, "evil pollution" doesn't do anything on its own even under the formulation we're given except "promote evil." So if you do generic good, you can easily counterbalance whatever evil is "promoted" by it.

And I call it fungible because if you cast a [good] spell for every [evil] spell you cast, you should generate as much "good anti-pollution" as you generate "evil pollution."

You can do it pro-actively, too. Give enough candy out to kiddos, and the puppy slushie you make out of live puppies to drink in front of other kids is "paid for."

Except that that isn't how it works with real good and real evil, as evidenced by how ridiculous "do good things for some kids to pay for being cruel to others" is in my very example, here. But the moment it's undefinable "evil pollution" that's just some sort of "well, um, there's more evil in the world," you can make up for it before or after with as much "goodness" as you need to do. This could just be spamming [good] spells to "pay" for it.

...Every point here is wrong.

1. Mabaran pollution has tangible harmful effects on the environment.
2. It's not easily undone simply by casting positive energy spells, and certainly not at a 1:1 ratio.
3. Performing unrelated virtuous deeds doesn't exempt you from the damage you're doing.
4. The reason it sounds ridiculous is because it is ridiculous, for the reasons stated above.

While it is true that Irian energy can repair the damage done by Mabaran energy, the process is very slow because destroying something is always easier than rebuilding it, and casting [Good] spells doesn't do anything to help the process unless the spells are specifically designed for that purpose. Even if it did help, your undead would still be doing damage in the meantime. Increased use of undead during the Last War has only made the problem worse; some scholars have even speculated that Mabaran pollution was partially responsible for the Mourning.

[gijoemike]

Honestly, unless an effect literally channels [Chaos], [Law], [Good], or [Evil] energy directly, or it summons or calls a being literally made from one of those things, it should not have any of those descriptors.

Even mindrape, despite the name, can be used for inherently neutral and even good things, such as teaching large amounts of information nigh instantaneously. It's only considered [Evil] because of the name and the book it is in.

And animate dead is only [Evil] because it's icky, not because it's actually [Evil]. No [Evil] energy is being channeled, and the undead it creates are mindless, completely lack any kind of self motivation whatsoever, and contain no [Evil] in them at all. Death and entropy aren't [Evil], because they're simply a part of the natural world, just like life and creation aren't. And life and creation can't be [Good] -- see Ragnorra, the positive energy elder evil.

Animate dead is odd because it is channeling negative energy. And you pointed out Negative energy isn't evil.

Also, it doesn't take into consideration how you got said body. Maybe it was a willful legal demand you do this after X died. Perhaps the caster doesn't want to do this.


It doesn't matter what the undead will do in 20 seconds after being raised or 20 years afterward. This spell and it being EVIL don't take that into consideration. Those actions will have good/evil consequences of their own. Yes, I stated GOOD in that sentence.

Why is the moment of bringing forth a mindless undead, incapable of morality, an EVIL act without argument (90% of all settings)?


GAMMA RADIATION

What? Life flows from Positive energy as decreed by the gods. When a caster has to channel negative energy against the natural order, it breaks something within. Raising the undead has nothing to do with gods ,devils, the heavens, hells, or intent. The strain of it is like exposing your soul to gamma radiation and no hazmat suit CAN exist.

This result of EVIL isn't morality, or channeling the substance of the lower hells. And this explanation is also why MindRape and Deathwatch are EVIL. Both of those spells result in good things more often than not on this board. It isn't about the use, its about how it exposes the caster's ?soul? to GAMMA RADIATION.

This is very much like Troacctid's comment about pollution. One cannot just clean up exposure with a counter effort. Its really difficult and effects last for years.

I like this explanation because it handles just the spell's casting. Most of these other responses deal with culture, morality, the fear caused later on, and are situational. None of those things are the actual casting of the spell. These spells aren't evil because of the name, or because they are icky, or because of channeling bad/evil things. They break the caster's "je ne sais quoi" (usually referred to as the Soul). All the souls in hell aren't evil, some are just broken beyond repair.


Casting this spell will break you a little bit, do you accept it? Yes or no.

[Troacctid]

One of the fun side effects of this interpretation is that it's theoretically possible to research non-evil versions of the same spells, achieving the same result by healthier means.

[gijoemike]

One of the fun side effects of this interpretation is that it's theoretically possible to research non-evil versions of the same spells, achieving the same result by healthier means.

There is a wizard ACF for necromancers only. You get a skeleton minion that is under your control like a familiar. You lose familiar when you take this ACF. I view that ACF exactly like you are describing. It is a long term ritual, more costly, and it doesn't scar the soul. Work a round's absolutely exist. Earlier in this thread the example of Animate Object on a corpse comes close to the same effect. Thematically very different, but the numbers are pretty close. Imbue with spirit is almost an exact work around.

[Troacctid]

Well, the skeleton itself is still causing pollution by existing (cf. evil alignment despite being mindless), even though the ritual to create it is cleaner, so it's not a perfect solution, but it's a step in the right direction.

[ShurikVch]

Animate dead is odd because it is channeling negative energy. And you pointed out Negative energy isn't evil.

Also, it doesn't take into consideration how you got said body. Maybe it was a willful legal demand you do this after X died. Perhaps the caster doesn't want to do this.


It doesn't matter what the undead will do in 20 seconds after being raised or 20 years afterward. This spell and it being EVIL don't take that into consideration. Those actions will have good/evil consequences of their own. Yes, I stated GOOD in that sentence.

Why is the moment of bringing forth a mindless undead, incapable of morality, an EVIL act without argument (90% of all settings)?


GAMMA RADIATION

What? Life flows from Positive energy as decreed by the gods. When a caster has to channel negative energy against the natural order, it breaks something within. Raising the undead has nothing to do with gods ,devils, the heavens, hells, or intent. The strain of it is like exposing your soul to gamma radiation and no hazmat suit CAN exist.

This result of EVIL isn't morality, or channeling the substance of the lower hells. And this explanation is also why MindRape and Deathwatch are EVIL. Both of those spells result in good things more often than not on this board. It isn't about the use, its about how it exposes the caster's ?soul? to GAMMA RADIATION.

This is very much like Troacctid's comment about pollution. One cannot just clean up exposure with a counter effort. Its really difficult and effects last for years.

I like this explanation because it handles just the spell's casting. Most of these other responses deal with culture, morality, the fear caused later on, and are situational. None of those things are the actual casting of the spell. These spells aren't evil because of the name, or because they are icky, or because of channeling bad/evil things. They break the caster's "je ne sais quoi" (usually referred to as the Soul). All the souls in hell aren't evil, some are just broken beyond repair.


Casting this spell will break you a little bit, do you accept it? Yes or no.

Let me remind it: Material Plane is a mixture of stuff from all the Inner Planes - which is, by definition, includes Negative Energy Plane

Positive Energy Plane isn't Good, and Negative Energy Plane - isn't Evil
They're the "Plus" and "Minus" of the universe

...Every point here is wrong.

1. Mabaran pollution has tangible harmful effects on the environment.
2. It's not easily undone simply by casting positive energy spells, and certainly not at a 1:1 ratio.
3. Performing unrelated virtuous deeds doesn't exempt you from the damage you're doing.
4. The reason it sounds ridiculous is because it is ridiculous, for the reasons stated above.

While it is true that Irian energy can repair the damage done by Mabaran energy, the process is very slow because destroying something is always easier than rebuilding it, and casting [Good] spells doesn't do anything to help the process unless the spells are specifically designed for that purpose. Even if it did help, your undead would still be doing damage in the meantime. Increased use of undead during the Last War has only made the problem worse; some scholars have even speculated that Mabaran pollution was partially responsible for the Mourning.

When why the heck Karrnath isn't Undead-infested wasteland?
Somehow, when books saying about Mabar contamination, they mentioning Aerenal, Breland, Eldeen Reaches, - but not Karrnath...

[Troacctid]

When why the heck Karrnath isn't Undead-infested wasteland?
Somehow, when books saying about Mabar contamination, they mentioning Aerenal, Breland, Eldeen Reaches, - but not Karrnath...

That's like asking if global warming is real, why are there still blizzards?

Karrnathi undead exist precisely because Karrnath already contained Mabaran manifest zones (or "undead wastelands") that allowed for experimentation with more advanced forms of necromancy. As for the undead troops themselves, for most of the Last War, they fought primarily on the borders or in other nations, so it's not like they were all concentrated in Karrnath. It was only relatively recently that all undead troops were recalled back to Karrnath's borders. Incidentally, the Day of Mourning coincided with a large-scale Karrnathi operation in Cyre where they seized Cyran territory and were mustering forces there in preparation for invading Breland.

[Segev]

I have no idea what "mabaran pollution" is, and it sounds to me like "it has measurable effects on the environment" (if you're referring to D&D and not something real-world, and real-world environmental discussion would stem into politics and so I won't discuss it on this forum), is something made up post-hoc to justify it. The fact that whatever opposing "good pollution" is doesn't counter it sounds like asymmetry and also would perforce violate the rules about good-aligned spells being inherently good in order to justify evil-aligned spells being inherently evil.

[Troacctid]

I have no idea what "mabaran pollution" is, and it sounds to me like "it has measurable effects on the environment" (if you're referring to D&D and not something real-world, and real-world environmental discussion would stem into politics and so I won't discuss it on this forum), is something made up post-hoc to justify it. The fact that whatever opposing "good pollution" is doesn't counter it sounds like asymmetry and also would perforce violate the rules about good-aligned spells being inherently good in order to justify evil-aligned spells being inherently evil.

Seeing as Eberron wasn't invented until after the release of the 3.5e Player's Handbook, yes, the animate dead spell's evil tag predates the setting's cosmology. It also posits a world where the evil tag makes sense for reasons that are internally consistent and are strong drivers of stories and conflicts in a campaign while also being flexible enough for a DM to push them to the background if desired and leaving plenty of room for moral ambiguity or black and white morality depending on the needs of the plot.

It's a great solution. It just requires you to relax your assumption that good and evil are perfectly symmetrical, which, frankly, doesn't seem like a very well-founded assumption to me in the first place.

[Alcore]

Why is it a given that good cancels out evil like that? That's not how it works in Eberron.

If your factory pollutes a river, the river doesn't become unpolluted just because you generated that toxic waste while manufacturing medical supplies to donate to children's hospitals.

When "polluting" evil comes up I am reminded of the taint rules and it can't cancel out. Sure there are ways to remove it and one or two doesn't even need a cleric but it can take days, weeks or even months to get some of it gone. On the flip side gaining taint (or polluting evil) is so easy that most end up warped or dead in a matter of days.


Even if we used the detail light version in Unearth Arcana a party of heroes is likely to pick up 3-5 taint on a single night fighting evil.

[Segev]

Seeing as Eberron wasn't invented until after the release of the 3.5e Player's Handbook, yes, the animate dead spell's evil tag predates the setting's cosmology. It also posits a world where the evil tag makes sense for reasons that are internally consistent and are strong drivers of stories and conflicts in a campaign while also being flexible enough for a DM to push them to the background if desired and leaving plenty of room for moral ambiguity or black and white morality depending on the needs of the plot.

It's a great solution. It just requires you to relax your assumption that good and evil are perfectly symmetrical, which, frankly, doesn't seem like a very well-founded assumption to me in the first place.

Relaxing that assumption leads to further paradox and contradiction.

Let's say that Mordenkainen decides to conduct an experiment, and constructs a chamber which can perfectly contain both good and evil energies of all sorts. He then sets up a pair of special spell traps within this chamber which constantly and consistently cast some sort of spell that has the [evil] tag and [good] tag, designed such that they pump equal quantities of "good pollution" and "evil pollution" into the chamber at a constant rate. If they are not opposites which cancel each other out, then the chamber becomes filled ever-more full with both concentrated Good and concentrated Evil, neither able to cancel out the other.

What happens in that chamber? What does all this concentrated good and evil actually amount to? If you need more than a white room to work with, let's say he manages to make something like his own version of a Dominion from the Demiplane of Dread. Not stealing one, not dealing with the Dark Powers, just making something remarkably like it: self-contained but big enough for a small civilization and some adventure to go on. He then sets that up to have a proportional-to-the-size-of-the-domain amount of good and evil pollution, again in equal amounts with equal flow rates, to pour into it. What does this do to the domain? What does all this ambient evil and good that is somehow not cancelling out make this domain look like?

If it helps, you can start by describing what two separate, otherwise-identical domains would look like with only [good] and only [evil] pollution being pumped into them. I have my own theories on this, but they lead to the two cancelling out when combined in Mordenkainen's experiment, so I am not going to suggest my theory and instead invite yours in hopes that I can understand what it is you're seeing as a sensible solution to this.

[Troacctid]

Relaxing that assumption leads to further paradox and contradiction.

Let's say that Mordenkainen decides to conduct an experiment, and constructs a chamber which can perfectly contain both good and evil energies of all sorts. He then sets up a pair of special spell traps within this chamber which constantly and consistently cast some sort of spell that has the [evil] tag and [good] tag, designed such that they pump equal quantities of "good pollution" and "evil pollution" into the chamber at a constant rate. If they are not opposites which cancel each other out, then the chamber becomes filled ever-more full with both concentrated Good and concentrated Evil, neither able to cancel out the other.

What happens in that chamber? What does all this concentrated good and evil actually amount to? If you need more than a white room to work with, let's say he manages to make something like his own version of a Dominion from the Demiplane of Dread. Not stealing one, not dealing with the Dark Powers, just making something remarkably like it: self-contained but big enough for a small civilization and some adventure to go on. He then sets that up to have a proportional-to-the-size-of-the-domain amount of good and evil pollution, again in equal amounts with equal flow rates, to pour into it. What does this do to the domain? What does all this ambient evil and good that is somehow not cancelling out make this domain look like?

This sounds like an interesting experiment, but I don't see the paradox or contradiction in it. The DM decides what happens, and that then becomes the canonical interaction for the setting when combining opposing planar energies in a pressure cooker device. Most likely the effect you get is going to depend on the kind of dragonshards you used in the device, and if you lose control of it, it probably overloads and causes an explosion that collapses your lair with just enough time for the heroes to escape.

If it helps, you can start by describing what two separate, otherwise-identical domains would look like with only [good] and only [evil] pollution being pumped into them. I have my own theories on this, but they lead to the two cancelling out when combined in Mordenkainen's experiment, so I am not going to suggest my theory and instead invite yours in hopes that I can understand what it is you're seeing as a sensible solution to this.

You mean planes composed of Irian energy and Mabaran energy? How about...Irian and Mabar?

Or do you mean regions of the Material Plane that are saturated with Irian or Mabaran energy? That would be a manifest zone.

[Segev]

This sounds like an interesting experiment, but I don't see the paradox or contradiction in it. The DM decides what happens, and that then becomes the canonical interaction for the setting when combining opposing planar energies in a pressure cooker device. Most likely the effect you get is going to depend on the kind of dragonshards you used in the device, and if you lose control of it, it probably overloads and causes an explosion that collapses your lair with just enough time for the heroes to escape.


You mean planes composed of Irian energy and Mabaran energy? How about...Irian and Mabar?

Or do you mean regions of the Material Plane that are saturated with Irian or Mabaran energy? That would be a manifest zone.

No. I do not mean planes composed of Irian energy and Mabaran energy.

Mordenkainen isn't an Eberron character, and I have not been discussing Eberron. I even expressed confusion over this "mabar" thing, though I did glean that Eberron is what you were talking about with your reply about Eberron post-dating the writing of animate dead.

I'm talking about D&D in general.

Please answer my question regarding Mordenkainen's experiment wrt Great Wheel cosmology. I don't know enough about Eberron to have an intelligent discussion on the nature of "radiation" from its planes. And, for the purposes of this thread, I am entirely uninterested in it at this point. It certainly doesn't sound like the planes in Eberron have "evil pollution," but instead have some other kind of pollution that is being called "evil."

[Troacctid]

I'm talking about Eberron because it has a strong, internally consistent explanation why animate dead would be evil. If you're not interested in the setting, then I guess you can just take my word for it and concede that it's possible for an internally consistent explanation to exist.

[Segev]

I'm talking about Eberron because it has a strong, internally consistent explanation why animate dead would be evil. If you're not interested in the setting, then I guess you can just take my word for it and concede that it's possible for an internally consistent explanation to exist.

From your description, the planes have themes beyond “good” and “evil.” If the explanation only works when you add setting assumptions not present in most D&D, it fails to suffice. I’m glad it works for you in Eberron games. But whatever it is about Mabar and Irnia that makes it possible to have them mix together into a coherent set of conditions when a region is saturated in both pretty well indicates that they aren’t just evil and good.

And, frankly, this could lead to too much Iranian radiation being a bad thing, too, meaning casting too many [good] spells could be an evil act. Which is its own contradiction.

So even in Eberron, there are contradictions that arise from the assumption that there is “evil radiation” that can coexist with “ good radiation” rather than cancelling our, and still having the rules regarding casting aligned spells being aligned acts.

If you INSIST on using Eberron, please explain what a melding of Irnia and Mabar would look like. Because again, what I can pick up from the scant details you offer is that something about them is not mutually exclusive. And I cannot see how that can make any amount of Iranian energy purely a good thing.

[Troacctid]

From your description, the planes have themes beyond “good” and “evil.” If the explanation only works when you add setting assumptions not present in most D&D, it fails to suffice. I’m glad it works for you in Eberron games. But whatever it is about Mabar and Irnia that makes it possible to have them mix together into a coherent set of conditions when a region is saturated in both pretty well indicates that they aren’t just evil and good.

And, frankly, this could lead to too much Iranian radiation being a bad thing, too, meaning casting too many [good] spells could be an evil act. Which is its own contradiction.

So even in Eberron, there are contradictions that arise from the assumption that there is “evil radiation” that can coexist with “ good radiation” rather than cancelling our, and still having the rules regarding casting aligned spells being aligned acts.

If you INSIST on using Eberron, please explain what a melding of Irnia and Mabar would look like. Because again, what I can pick up from the scant details you offer is that something about them is not mutually exclusive. And I cannot see how that can make any amount of Iranian energy purely a good thing.

It would look like whatever the DM decides it looks like. Eberron is designed to be flexible in the types of stories it allows you to tell.

It seems to me that most of these contradictions are arising from your assumption that good and evil energies cancel each other out like [some sort of physics or chemistry metaphor about things that cancel each other out]. As far as I'm aware, this assumption is not canon.

You're also assuming that spewing dangerous pollution into the environment is only evil if the pollution is composed of Pure Cosmic Evil™. That seems extremely questionable to me. I would argue that polluting the environment with ordinary run-of-the-mill toxic waste is also evil. (See above re: Captain Planet villains, or, for an example from D&D canon, defilers in the Dark Sun setting, as described in Dragon #315, p34.) It doesn't matter if negative energy is inherently evil—the important thing is that it's a harmful substance that will place innocents in danger if it leaks everywhere.

[Silly Name]

While the pollution theory is interesting and can work depending on setting assumptions, thinking a bit more about this, it could very well be that creating undead is an Evil act because it's a defilement of a corpse.

As we've already discussed, your body being animated by necromantic magic prevents any form of resurrection from occurring until the zombie/skeleton is destroyed. And even if this isn't a practical problem for most, your corpse will still be shambling along with no agency of its own under the orders of the necromancer, rotting and decaying, forbidden from peaceful rest.

What's evil about this? One could say that a corpse is not a person, and they'd be right, but... It still was part of one, once. Defiling bodies is an act of disrespect, and a peaceful rest should be given to all. Once you start seeing those bodies as resources, once you deny them the dignity of the tomb, you being to err close to a lack of respect for the dignity of living beings.

Even if someone agreed to being raised as a zombie after their death, the issue remains that they have zero say in what happens to their body after that. The necromancer is free to do as they want with their new servant, who will obey any order without question.

You can disagree, of course, I don't pretend that this is an universal answer. But, D&D standard cosmology proposes that morality is objective: there are Good actions and Evil actions, and there is little space for moral relativism.

[noob]

While the pollution theory is interesting and can work depending on setting assumptions, thinking a bit more about this, it could very well be that creating undead is an Evil act because it's a defilement of a corpse.

As we've already discussed, your body being animated by necromantic magic prevents any form of resurrection from occurring until the zombie/skeleton is destroyed. And even if this isn't a practical problem for most, your corpse will still be shambling along with no agency of its own under the orders of the necromancer, rotting and decaying, forbidden from peaceful rest.

What's evil about this? One could say that a corpse is not a person, and they'd be right, but... It still was part of one, once. Defiling bodies is an act of disrespect, and a peaceful rest should be given to all. Once you start seeing those bodies as resources, once you deny them the dignity of the tomb, you being to err close to a lack of respect for the dignity of living beings.

Even if someone agreed to being raised as a zombie after their death, the issue remains that they have zero say in what happens to their body after that. The necromancer is free to do as they want with their new servant, who will obey any order without question.

You can disagree, of course, I don't pretend that this is an universal answer. But, D&D standard cosmology proposes that morality is objective: there are Good actions and Evil actions, and there is little space for moral relativism.

That is especially true when you have casters strong enough to make undyings which keeps their minds(and are not automatically controlled: the only perversion of free will happening is that they automatically become good aligned on creation(they can still become evil again)) and are roughly at the same cost.
If you have two options to solve a problem and that one is more ethical and efficient than the other (unless you cast create undying on non good people in which case it is unethical) then you should use the most efficient one.

[Segev]

It's not a "chemistry" thing. It's simply that good and evil are opposites. What, precisely, does "good radiation" and "evil radiation" do?

The best I've been able to come up with is "promote their alignment in the area." If good and evil are equally promoted, this would cancel out in general. Unless, I suppose, you want to suggest that you'd have extreme good and extreme evil, but that really doesn't work because that would still require locus. You can't have a Neutral person who performs extreme good and extreme evil: he's just evil who sometimes does nice things. I suppose you could argue that good just loses out to evil, but that's a bit depressing and also doesn't really fit with the notion that there's a balance in the cosmos.

That said, I still find the "radiation" explanation...lame. "You're committing evil because it's yucky. " I like my evil in stories to actually be something that makes the reader or player feel a bit...uncomfortable...doing it, if they consider the world to be "real" for their SOD purposes. (Obviously, I am not judging anybody, here, over what they do in their pretendy-fun-times. Playing a villain because you know the world is just imaginary is fine. But if you're not detatching yourself from it, I don't want there to be 'clean evil' that can be performed by a PC to make him Eeheeheeheevil without there actually being something...uncomfortable...about his evil actions.)

If my necromancer is an evil man just because he's casting animate dead with abandon, but the worst thing you can say about him is that he's spreading "evil pollution," that is really unsatisfying. "He's jaywalking! If he and thousands of others do that, traffic might be slowed down!" is the level of guilt or the like that I'm getting a feel of from that, and it's grossly underwhelming. It feels a lot more like informed evil than real evil.

I don't support this proposal I'm about to make for other reasons, but an example of how to make it satisfyingly evil would be if skeletons and zombies actually trapped the soul of the victim in the body but cut off all ability to control it. That would be torturous and denying them release to their afterlives, and would be quite evil. (Even then, though, it could be mitigated by volunteers who know what they're getting into volunteering. Perhaps for a noble cause, soldiers willing to give up their lives in battle volunteer to be animated to keep up the fight, with the good-aligned necromancers agreeing to release them to their final rest after the war is over.)

I dislike this because it seems like it's too powerful for a third or fourth level spell and like its almost spending power to weaken its end effect. But it would work for the "always evil" thing...mostly. Maybe add in that it does torture them with agonizing pain they cannot express nor do anything about so that the volunteers are being tortured, making it sufficiently uncomfortable even with volunteers that good-aligned folks would still feel really bad about doing it.

It's probably overkill, too; it could be a much lesser evil and still be "always evil." But it needs to be sufficiently so that you feel that visceral guilt over doing it.

[Troacctid]

It's not a "chemistry" thing. It's simply that good and evil are opposites. What, precisely, does "good radiation" and "evil radiation" do?

The best I've been able to come up with is "promote their alignment in the area." If good and evil are equally promoted, this would cancel out in general. Unless, I suppose, you want to suggest that you'd have extreme good and extreme evil, but that really doesn't work because that would still require locus. You can't have a Neutral person who performs extreme good and extreme evil: he's just evil who sometimes does nice things. I suppose you could argue that good just loses out to evil, but that's a bit depressing and also doesn't really fit with the notion that there's a balance in the cosmos.

One of the themes in D&D settings is that evil is more powerful than good. In the Great Wheel cosmology, celestials are vastly outnumbered by fiends, and the only reason they're able to put up a fight at all is because the demons and devils spend so many resources fighting each other. In Eberron, major good-aligned powers were deliberately written to be limited or ineffective enough that they can't swoop in and solve all the PCs' problems. Don't even get me started on Greyhawk. And generally, it's easier to destroy than to rebuild. So there's no particular reason to assume that good and evil are perfectly balanced, and in fact it makes sense to assume the opposite.

As for what effects evil pollution has, that's easy, it corrupts and defiles the land. You've seen it a million times in media. Scar was probably casting a lot of evil spells after he usurped the throne from Mufasa.

That said, I still find the "radiation" explanation...lame. "You're committing evil because it's yucky. " I like my evil in stories to actually be something that makes the reader or player feel a bit...uncomfortable...doing it, if they consider the world to be "real" for their SOD purposes. (Obviously, I am not judging anybody, here, over what they do in their pretendy-fun-times. Playing a villain because you know the world is just imaginary is fine. But if you're not detatching yourself from it, I don't want there to be 'clean evil' that can be performed by a PC to make him Eeheeheeheevil without there actually being something...uncomfortable...about his evil actions.)

If my necromancer is an evil man just because he's casting animate dead with abandon, but the worst thing you can say about him is that he's spreading "evil pollution," that is really unsatisfying. "He's jaywalking! If he and thousands of others do that, traffic might be slowed down!" is the level of guilt or the like that I'm getting a feel of from that, and it's grossly underwhelming. It feels a lot more like informed evil than real evil.

That's a commonly held opinion in-universe. You wouldn't be the first to believe that it's inconsequential because it's not obviously hurting anyone directly. It shows a level of callousness that tends to preclude a good alignment.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Houseruling animate dead and (most) other undead-creation spells so that they channel both negative energy and capital-E Evil energy and that undead are actually "always Evil" (yes, even then), and have uncontrolled, even mindless, undead be horrifically destructive, while causing pain to the soul in the afterlife (regardless of alignment) would fix this whole debacle.