Was Redcloak evil since the beginning?

[dancrilis]

The process of being trained as a priest and ultimately being ordained means embracing the practices, rituals, and sacraments of said faith, often for years. If that faith is evil, it's going to have some sacraments and rituals that involve evil acts (if it doesn't why is it evil?). The prospective priest is going to perform those, probably dozens or even hundreds of times, repeatedly before ordination.

You can run your games that way but it is not the default - it is entirely possible that The Dark One requires nothing from his clerics other then to preach his teachings (Goblins are oppressed and The Dark One is the only hope of ending such oppression) and follow the instruction of senior priests, that his most senior priest needs to be utterly dedicated to a plan that might unmake reality above all other concerns likely will result in the higher orders of the priesthood holding an evil alignment (as all other concerns include the lives and dignity of sentient creatures) and that progressing through the priesthood to gradually result in evil actions is not unreasonable.

As I stated above whether Redcloak was evil or not prior to claiming the mantle is not known - it is not unreasonable that he was evil, he grew up in a society that was likely to be evil, joined a priesthood under the head priest (who was likely to be evil), and immediately embraced a plan to hold the world hostage without consideration for alternatives.
But a neutral (or even a good) person might have done the same depending on circumstances.

[Mechalich]

You can run your games that way but it is not the default - it is entirely possible that The Dark One requires nothing from his clerics other then to preach his teachings (Goblins are oppressed and The Dark One is the only hope of ending such oppression) and follow the instruction of senior priests, that his most senior priest needs to be utterly dedicated to a plan that might unmake reality above all other concerns likely will result in the higher orders of the priesthood holding an evil alignment (as all other concerns include the lives and dignity of sentient creatures) and that progressing through the priesthood to gradually result in evil actions is not unreasonable.

The obliteration of everything is, in D&D, True Neutral. The Negative Energy Plane, which represents precisely this impulse, has this alignment, this has been established for ages. A faith dedicated to the annihilation of all things is neutral. Besides, the Dark One isn't dedicated to destroying reality - that's the Snarl (allegedly) - the Dark One is dedicated to extorting control of reality from everyone else.

The One Step Rule allows for LN clerics of LE gods and CN clerics of CE gods. That would suggest that the LN cleric has not "performed evil acts dozens to hundreds of times" - being a cleric may only require strong faith, not huge amounts of training and ordination.

As my post mentioned, a God may have multiple sects, with different practices. They may not even worship the deity by the same name or title. it's evil possible that the Dark One has a large neutral sect that stresses Goblinoid Supremacy above any other goals. However, in the specific case of Redcloak we know he comes from the sect that sources the high priest, which is going to be the core sect with complete matching between deity and worshipper alignment.

Also, the term 'ordination' implies a long period of training and systemic ritual practice, and a D&D cleric is supposed to have trained for years. People who simply manifest divine abilities spontaneously through faith are Favored Souls, not clerics.

[Fyraltari]

In my headcanon this setting respect the one-step aligment rule, but with some exception based on race and geography. Some God seems to have entire races in their portfolio, for example every Dwarf may be a follower of Thor not caring about the aligment, but only a CG/CN/NG northern human can. In this case, the Dark One can be the deity of every Goblinoids in the world.

Yeah, that sounds reasonnable.

Pretty sure that being an adult is required for class levels.

I don't know about that. I know that Right-Eye described Redcloak as a teenager when he put on the Mantle and that Xykon could cast spells before he was ten, so even if that's a rule I don't think it's being followed closely in this case.
For what it's worth, my guess is that Reddie was the goblin equivalent of 15-17 years old.

It is extremely likely that the training, rites, and rituals necessary to become a priest of the Dark One mandate evil actions. The senior members of the priesthood, and the Dark One himself, would be idiots not to set things up that way such that prospective individuals are groomed properly for the service of an evil deity. If Redcloak wasn't made to murder an innocent at some point prior to or during his ordination, the church is being shockingly lax. It's also highly likely that the various prospective priests competed in a typical horror-fantasy battle royal scenario that encouraged then to brutalize, subordinate, inform upon, and even secretly kill their rivals due to ruthless competition for resources that could sustain only some small fraction of the initial total.

Redcloak may not have been evil when he chose to become an acolyte of the Dark One, but he certainly would be by the time he came out as a priest. That sort of psychological restructuring is necessary for such a society to sustain itself.

You're just making stuff up, now. There's absolutely nothing in text that suggests ritualistic murder as part of worshipping the Dark One, something that would probably have come up during the occupation of Azure City, nor are his Clerics ever shown to struggle against one another. The Dark One, for what little we know of him, is evil in the same way every other character in the comic is evil: he's violent and puts his grudges and obsessions well above the well-being of others, not out of a commitment to the Greater Evil. Why would he care about his minions' alignment as long as they further his designs? The notion that a church devoted to a god who happens to be evil must necessarily be steeped in murder at a fundamental level seems... Childishly black-and-white.

Sometimes a character may not even be aware they are a cleric. Heroes of Horror had a cleric of the God of Spite who is not fully aware of having become one.

Okay, that's great.

Aside from the aura (Neutral clerics of evil gods "ping as" evil) they gain none of the the other "Evil traits". They don't take a negative level from wielding Holy weapons. Smite Evil doesn't do any extra damage to them. And so forth.

Is there a less reliable spell in this game? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that left-handed people ping as evil because of how "sinister" we are.

[hamishspence]

Also, the term 'ordination' implies a long period of training and systemic ritual practice, and a D&D cleric is supposed to have trained for years. People who simply manifest divine abilities spontaneously through faith are Favored Souls, not clerics.

A wizard's supposed to have trained for years too - and yet any adventurer can multiclass into Wizard at any point.

[hroþila]

You're just making stuff up, now. There's absolutely nothing in text that suggests ritualistic murder as part of worshipping the Dark One, something that would probably have come up during the occupation of Azure City, nor are his Clerics ever shown to struggle against one another. The Dark One, for what little we know of him, is evil in the same way every other character in the comic is evil: he's violent and puts his grudges and obsessions well above the well-being of others, not out of a commitment to the Greater Evil. Why would he care about his minions' alignment as long as they further his designs? The notion that a church devoted to a god who happens to be evil must necessarily be steeped in murder at a fundamental level seems... Childishly black-and-white.

They might be thinking of this strip, but that's about the priest of "this big demon prince guy", who may or may not be the Dark One (it's certainly not an accurate description, but it's being said by a very dismissive and rebellious teen after all). Regardless, even if he is meant to be the Dark One, there's no indication that what that priest did was representative of the church as a whole - we saw nothing like it at Redcloak's initiation, for example.

[Beni-Kujaku]

The obliteration of everything is, in D&D, True Neutral. The Negative Energy Plane, which represents precisely this impulse, has this alignment, this has been established for ages. A faith dedicated to the annihilation of all things is neutral. Besides, the Dark One isn't dedicated to destroying reality - that's the Snarl (allegedly) - the Dark One is dedicated to extorting control of reality from everyone else.

The Negative Energy Plane may be true neutral by itself (everything gotta decay in the end, it's just how life works), but channeling its energy to destroy other Planes is quite explicitly evil. The entropomancer requires the character to be nongood, and clerics of evil gods channel negative energy to cast Inflict spells and rebuke undead. One might even argue that this is what defines the difference between good and evil among gods. The good gods tend toward creation, and channel positive energy, and the evil gods tend towards destruction, and channel negative energy. The rest of their mentality only stems from that initial fact.

[hamishspence]

As my post mentioned, a God may have multiple sects, with different practices. They may not even worship the deity by the same name or title. it's evil possible that the Dark One has a large neutral sect that stresses Goblinoid Supremacy above any other goals. However, in the specific case of Redcloak we know he comes from the sect that sources the high priest, which is going to be the core sect with complete matching between deity and worshipper alignment.

That's not how it works. The one-step rule doesn't dictate what sect the cleric comes from - only whether the cleric can access power or not.

[Peelee]

It's all a road to producing a few high-level representatives in a world with rolled stats

Stats are not a zero sum game. If you roll an 18, that doesn't affect what I will roll at all, and if you kill me, you ability score died not improve.

divinely-induced resource shortages

Clerics are famously able to create more resources.

[Fyraltari]

Stats are not a zero sum game. If you roll an 18, that doesn't affect what I will roll at all, and if you kill me, you ability score died not improve.

And, unless I am mistaken, XP collecting is a negative-sum game (when you kill a dude, you earn less XPs than his total), meaning that making some of your dudes stronger by killing your other dudes is a wasteful process.

[Peelee]

And, unless I am mistaken, XP collecting is a negative-sum game (when you kill a dude, you earn less XPs than his total), meaning that making some of your dudes stronger by killing your other dudes is a wasteful process.

Also an excellent point.

[littlebum2002]

I don't believe OotS observers the one step alignment rule. For example, Durkon is the lawful follower of a chaotic god. Redcloak at the start of his whitecloak ceremony is pretty clearly supposed to be Innocent, which is hard to shoehorn into D&D mechanics, but would often be interpreted as true neutral.

I would say the moment Redcloak became lowercase evil was some off the screen moment between donning the mantle and meeting Xyklon where he didn't have some big dramatic reason for violence/ cruelty, but did it because it was simpler.

As for capital E Evil, I'd say the climatic moment of start of darkness.

I have another quibble about this: do we know that the stickverse Thor is Chaotic? Or are we just assuming he is because the D&D Thor is chaotic?

[hamishspence]

I think it's mostly because we see him do Chaotic things:


https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0201.html


Seems like a godly version of what Elan does here:


https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0206.html

Thor-worshipping souls go to Valhalla:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1136.html

which, if it's anything like its Great Wheel counterpart, Ysgard, is on the border between CG and CN.

Using the list of 17 Outer Plane mottos shown here:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1138.html

Valhalla's would be the blue-grey "Fight the good fight".

Bariaurs are, if I remember rightly, a "nearly always CG" celestial.

All these things seem like hints in the CG direction.

[Fyraltari]

He also has a... lackadaisical relationship with the various rules and covenants between the gods.

[JonahFalcon]

A wizard's supposed to have trained for years too - and yet any adventurer can multiclass into Wizard at any point.

V complains that hir decades of training and studying can somehow be duplicated by killing kobolds.

[Jason]

I always thought the Dark One must be some variety of Lawful Evil. He was a warlord and organizer of goblin kind during his life. Lawful Evil leaders don't need to have their servants constantly fighting and killing each other. He'll want them to compete with each other, yes, but compete in accomplishing his goals and climbing in his hierarchy.

We don't see any of the initiation rites for Redcloak, so there's no telling what they involve, really. It might just involve proving knowledge of the Dark One's basic teachings and making a commitment to his service. Those teachings would include a big heap of racism against humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings and general animosity towards the other gods, so accepting those teachings and wanting to guide your life with them would be an evil act, but it wouldn't be as evil as having to murder somebody.

Redcloak might have been Neutral or Lawful Neutral at the time he was ordained. I would call him Lawful Evil now. He too is an organizer.

[hamishspence]

Doubt he was True Neutral - one of the cleric rules is that they can't be TN unless their deity is TN.

[Post-human]

Although it's true that the Dark One is an Evil deity, he's also - and foremost - the only deity of the whole goblin assemble. And the only Purple deity.

I think that he can be considered outside the main rules.

[hroþila]

Doubt he was True Neutral - one of the cleric rules is that they can't be TN unless their deity is TN.

Redcloak took the time to carefully fold his white cloak before donning the Crimson Mantle. No way he wasn't already Lawful.

[Doug Lampert]

Is there a less reliable spell in this game? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that left-handed people ping as evil because of how "sinister" we are.

Hey, the spell itself lists all the ways you can detect as evil (other than obscure prestige class powers). There aren't THAT many.

Evil Creature
Undead
Evil Outsider
Cleric of an Evil Deity
Evil Magic Item
Evil Spell
Lingering Aura

Fully ONE of those seven things actually requires that there be an evil creature present! (Evil outsider can come from the subtype.)

Of course, it's pretty well the second weakest of the lot and will be overridden by almost anything but lingering at a vaguely equal power level, but that's a petty detail.

The fact that the cleric in Greysky who removed Belkar's curse may well have a stronger evil Aura than Xykon even if he is not evil at all is totally a feature, not a bug.

[halfeye]

And, unless I am mistaken, XP collecting is a negative-sum game (when you kill a dude, you earn less XPs than his total), meaning that making some of your dudes stronger by killing your other dudes is a wasteful process.

I don't play D&D itself, but I play a lot of games, and it seems to me that in general, two level 5 characters stand no chance against one level 10 character, so it's not clear that the sith way isn't a win overall, even if the XP is a loss.

It does seem stupid if it works, but it's not clear to me that by the arithmetic it actually reliably doesn't.

[Psyren]

Yes, but "teenager" is a spectrum that includes adults at the high end.

Regardless, though, WhiteRedcloak certainly seems to be an entry-level adult when we first come across him. That's how he read to me, at least, well before I even considered the OP question.

"Adulthood" has previously been conferred at younger ages as well.

I think what matters in Redcloak's case is when he first consciously committed an evil act. Everything that happened in his home village could have been chalked up to ignorance and self-defense had he stopped there, but he didn't, so it's moot.

The deva's statement to me means that OotS children are either not considered to have alignment or that their actions are not weighted in the same way, but where the deva defines "childhood" in that context is unclear.

[Doug Lampert]

I don't play D&D itself, but I play a lot of games, and it seems to me that in general, two level 5 characters stand no chance against one level 10 character, so it's not clear that the sith way isn't a win overall, even if the XP is a loss.

It does seem stupid if it works, but it's not clear to me that by the arithmetic it actually reliably doesn't.

In theory, two level 5 characters are equal to one level 7 character, let's say I start with 16 level 5 characters, and have them single elimination fight to the death.

16 level 5 with 10,000 XP each => 8 level 5 with 11,500 XP each => 4 level 5 with 13,000 XP each => 2 level 5 with 14,500 XP each => 1 level 6 with 16,000 XP.

That didn't work well. My group is weaker by roughly a factor of 11, I have gone from 16 characters to one who is NOT even twice as strong as the starter set.

128 level 5 characters with 10,000 XP each => 1 level 7 with 21,400 XP. You have killed over 99% of your starting pool to get ONE guy to be twice as strong.

2,024 guys at level 5 => 1 level 8 with 29,800 XP.

It ONLY takes a starting pool of 131,072 level 5 guys to get your one level 10 guy, who is still not immune to swarms of level 5 guys....

This is bad. It is really spectacularly bad.

[mjasghar]

Bariaurs aren’t celestials - that refers to beings made from good souls and infused with energy like devas and planetars and guardinals (the later reproduce however but still have special powers etc).
Bariaurs are a mortal race that is primarily planars (born on the planes) as opposed to primes (born on a Prime Material Plane). In theory a colony could go live on the prime and their descendants would just be goat centaurs.

[hamishspence]

In 3.5, any Extraplanar Outsider with the Good subtype, native to one of the Upper Planes, is a Celestial.

BoED has a Bariaur which is a Celestial.

However, it is true that there is also a Bariaur in Planar Handbook and MoTP, that lacks the Good subtype - that version might be just "regular bariaur" and the Celestial version might be "exalted Bariaur" (Planar Handbook suggests calling the BoED version that, to distinguish it from the MoTP version).

[Metastachydium]

In theory, two level 5 characters are equal to one level 7 character, let's say I start with 16 level 5 characters, and have them single elimination fight to the death.

16 level 5 with 10,000 XP each => 8 level 5 with 11,500 XP each => 4 level 5 with 13,000 XP each => 2 level 5 with 14,500 XP each => 1 level 6 with 16,000 XP.

That didn't work well. My group is weaker by roughly a factor of 11, I have gone from 16 characters to one who is NOT even twice as strong as the starter set.

128 level 5 characters with 10,000 XP each => 1 level 7 with 21,400 XP. You have killed over 99% of your starting pool to get ONE guy to be twice as strong.

2,024 guys at level 5 => 1 level 8 with 29,800 XP.

It ONLY takes a starting pool of 131,072 level 5 guys to get your one level 10 guy, who is still not immune to swarms of level 5 guys....

This is bad. It is really spectacularly bad.

Mathematics wins the day! (I also ran some numbers through an encounter calculator; a group of 17 CR 5 creatures already qualify as statistically "Unbeatable" for a party with a single ECL 10 character and in our case, all those CR 5 creatures are clerics with 3rd level spells.)

devas and planetars and guardinals

Did you mean: archons, guardinals and eladrins?

In theory a colony could go live on the prime and their descendants would just be goat centaurs.

Unless they are all banished back to Ysgard before that. Even PH bariaurs count as Extraplanar.

[Psyren]

Bariaurs aren’t celestials - that refers to beings made from good souls and infused with energy like devas and planetars and guardinals (the later reproduce however but still have special powers etc).
Bariaurs are a mortal race that is primarily planars (born on the planes) as opposed to primes (born on a Prime Material Plane). In theory a colony could go live on the prime and their descendants would just be goat centaurs.

D&D has gone back and forth on this. The Bariaurs in Planar Handbook are a mortal race, but the ones in BoED are actually Guardinals/Celestials.

[brian 333]

In theory, two level 5 characters are equal to one level 7 character, let's say I start with 16 level 5 characters, and have them single elimination fight to the death.

16 level 5 with 10,000 XP each => 8 level 5 with 11,500 XP each => 4 level 5 with 13,000 XP each => 2 level 5 with 14,500 XP each => 1 level 6 with 16,000 XP.

That didn't work well. My group is weaker by roughly a factor of 11, I have gone from 16 characters to one who is NOT even twice as strong as the starter set.

128 level 5 characters with 10,000 XP each => 1 level 7 with 21,400 XP. You have killed over 99% of your starting pool to get ONE guy to be twice as strong.

2,024 guys at level 5 => 1 level 8 with 29,800 XP.

It ONLY takes a starting pool of 131,072 level 5 guys to get your one level 10 guy, who is still not immune to swarms of level 5 guys....

This is bad. It is really spectacularly bad.

The trouble with this example is that it's a closed system, and exp is gained in an open system.

Infinity over time level 1 characters can produce infinity/20 level 2 characters, which can produce infinity/400 level 3 characters, and so on. The only real question is, how many level 1s exist at a given time, and how many are created during the individual's lifespan. Once you know the maximum population of level 1s, the rest can be extrapolated. For example, in a population of 400 total creatures, a single level 3 is possible if everyone has to earn exp by killing someone.

But let's not go into the many other ways exp can be earned. It will make my backstory hurt.

Edit: I just spitballed numbers, because the exact number is not as important as the concept that there is a virtual infinity of exp available over time. The character simply has to not die to get it.

[Jason]

The trouble with this example is that it's a closed system, and exp is gained in an open system.

That's kind of the point. XP gained by killing your fellow religionists is much less efficient than gaining XP by some other means. Therefore any Evil god that wants to make his or her followers higher level through killing each other is wasting resources.

[Metastachydium]

That's kind of the point. XP gained by killing your fellow religionists is much less efficient than gaining XP by some other means.

And given that they are canonically at a disadvantage so far as doing the latter's concerned, the former's even worse an idea than it sounds.

[mjasghar]

Depends on the birth rate - as seen with hobgobs when not engaged in constant conflict the population becomes massive
In that situation it’s a valid way to get a lot of mid level followers who can act as force multipliers via spells or leadership feats (think of the PC game Populous)