Question about souls, gods and Roy

[Jasdoif]

As is Rich, and I believe that was the exact analogy he used. The good gods run a free-range ethical farm...But, in the end, the chicjen's gonna get its neck snapped.

Pretty close.

I see it this way:
CG gods are those that advocate for organic and free range farms, but they are not vegetarian; they still eat you in the end .

Bingo.

And I presume everyone who has a moral problem with the gods using the mortal world to generate their sustenance will be going vegan now.

[Mechalich]

That's... pretty horrifying

Evil gods are evil, and should be horrifying. That the forces of evil are equally strong as the forces of good is a facet of the D&D Great Wheel cosmology, in which no one alignment can ever triumph, or even really truly make gains, against any of the others. This is in fact quite grim, and the symbol of Planescape is not named The Lady of Pain for no reason, and many of Planescape's native factions rejected standard D&D reality in some fashion, positing, essentially, that the universe sucked and should be replaced with a better one (arguments regarding what that would look like or how to accomplish it were, as can be imagined, substantial). Rich, in creating Stickworld, seems to have largely embraced this vision of the multiverse with the significant caveat that a big reveal tearing reality down and replacing it with something ostensibly better may be in the offing (planet in the rift and all that).

Note that a D&D world doesn't have to be made this way. In Dragonlance, the good gods are stronger - when they finally get off their lazy butts and do something - than the evil ones. In the Forgotten Realms, the world is maintained by Lord Ao, and the balance of good and evil can shift, to the point that gods can die (and even be slain by mortals under the right circumstances) and therefore the world can at least potentially become a better place, and arguably has. OOTS is plagued by the rule Rich wrote in that the gods can, apparently at any time, vote to destroy the world, which means that any time the good/evil or law/chaos balance shifts enough to get a few neutral deities to vote with the disadvantaged side, it's reboot time.

The Dark One's afterlife doesn't seem too bad for the goblins though

Maybe? We only have the testimony of an extremely biased source - high level clerics get preferential treatment even if the Dark One wasn't trying to put one over on Jirix. Also, assuming the Dark One is based in Stickworld's equivalent of Acheron, it's possible for the afterlife to appear superficially much better than it is. Acheron is the plane of endless unwinnable, utterly pointless warfare - like All Quiet on the Western Front on repeat forever - but even an environment like that can have the occasional good day.

As is Rich, and I believe that was the exact analogy he used. The good gods run a free-range ethical farm...But, in the end, the chicjen's gonna get its neck snapped.

I don't think it's quite right though. If we're comparing souls to chickens, the good gods are running a chicken sanctuary and the chickens they are as happy as chickens can possibly be, but eventually they can tired of scratching and clucking and doing chicken style things and just kind of lay down in the big field; at which point they get ground into fertilizer. The non-divine soul, in Stickworld (and in D&D generally) isn't an immortal soul. It lasts a potentially really long time, but it's not meant to last forever (hypothetically this may be a consequence of there being only three 'divine colors' available, possibly with four the gods could make better mortals, Stickworld is a distinctly 'fallen' reality). Note that even Liches, assuming they don't get destroyed, eventually send their spirits so far from their bodies that they get lost in the cracks of the multiverse and spend eternity insane, alone, and hopeless. There are various means to prolong mortal life, but only divine ascension - which requires transcending mortality in some fundamental way - allows for true immortality. And even that's not a sure thing, since gods are both not guaranteed to persist through reset and can be destroyed by the Snarl.

[Dasick]

Animals still can't become people

People can become gods in OOTSverse

That's a massive degree of separation right there (although I would consider eating Koko the Gorilla to be uncomfortably close to cannibalism)

"Ethic" consumption of dairy, eggs and honey is entirely possible

Acheron is the plane of endless unwinnable, utterly pointless warfare - like All Quiet on the Western Front on repeat forever - but even an environment like that can have the occasional good day.

Sounds quite fun actually, provided the souls don't die.

Note that even Liches, assuming they don't get destroyed, eventually send their spirits so far from their bodies that they get lost in the cracks of the multiverse and spend eternity insane, alone, and hopeless.

Desire to know intensifies

[Beni-Kujaku]

Animals still can't become people

People can become gods in OOTSverse

That's a massive degree of separation right there (although I would consider eating Koko the Gorilla to be uncomfortably close to cannibalism)

That's... I'd say not really. First, it's incredibly rare to the point of being negligible. With training, apes can learn sign language, they can make human friends and adopt humans as their children. Dogs can be domesticated and have intelligence comparable to that of a small child. There's no fundamental difference between humans and animals. Humans are animals.
Any definition of "changing into a human" except a gentic one can be fulfilled by an animal.

On the other hand, there is a fundamental difference between gods and mortals. Gods are powered by belief, and mortals are powered by matter. The Dark One became a god after he died, due to overwhelming worship. I'd argue he wasn't even changed into a god than he was created as a god. Gods do not retain a mind of their own (since their whole being is the amalgamation of what mortals think of them, see Loki's inability to tell the truth to Hel), they do not retain a body of their own (since they can shapeshift and change size at will), and the change occuring is sudden (in comparison to, for example, a mortal soul in heaven slowly changing into a paragon of their alignment). This is a situation where the mortal is quite literally consumed by the created god.

If a woman dies giving birth, you wouldn't say she transformed into the baby, just that the baby was born, and the mother was no more. It's very much the same thing for mortals changing into gods.

But the fact that gods are fundamentally different from mortals also plays a big role here. If we somehow stumbled upon a small mouse-like creature, a perfect replica of the ancestor of our race from millions of years ago, in a lost valley full of them, and they escaped and thrived in the world, would it be more unethical to eat them than to eat a sheep because we looked like that before? These mice are as much or less valuable, by any metric except maybe scientific interest, than dogs, or cows, or goats. Mortals are less valuable to gods individually than dogs are to us humans. Why would it be ethical to eat animals and not to eat mortals, even if they were to just chomp on them instead of slowly draining their energy while giving them a near-eternity of bliss?

[hroþila]

With training, apes can learn sign language

Not really on-topic, but that's a severe overstatement. Apes can learn signs, but they don't learn sign language. They don't have any grammar which is what distinguishes language from a collection of calls. And the degree to which they consciously and intentionally use the signs they do learn to communicate specific things is disputed. The research into ape language is highly controversial.

edit: Kanzi might still count as being able to use language to an extent, but signs aren't how he communicates for the most part.

[brian 333]

Animals still can't become people.

Apparently they can. And much more easily than

People can become gods in OOTSverse

We humans tend to think of communication in very specific, androcentric ways. Do dolphins communicate? How about elephants? Dogs?

Do they have language and culture? Do they pass this down to their offspring, and if so, how much is learned behavior?

It is known that chimpanzees raised by humans cannot be returned to the wild, primarily because wild chimpanzees will kill them. Is it because they smell funny? Or is it because they don't speak the same language?

Domestic animals have a broad range of signals that they use to communicate with their humans. We generally don't teach these signals to them, they teach them to us. Do they have a better grasp of the essentials of communication than humans?

Elephants can be taught to paint pictures. But elephants in the wild do not engage in any art form we recognize. Does this mean that they lack culture? Well, there are huge behavioral differences between Namibian elephants and Saharan elephants. Somehow, baby elephants learn how to act like the other elephants around them. Is this 'culture'? Or something else?

The truth is, humans are just learning how humans communicate, (or fail to.) It takes a huge leap of faith to presume the limits of animal communication.

[Mechalich]

Not everything in a D&D that is intelligent is a mortal being with a soul. Outsiders, for example, are essentially condensed ideology despite having memories and a personality, and when they are destroyed, that's it. Elementals, likewise, are raw stuff that's acquired a mind (elementals are quite happy to exist in the complete absence of deities or mortals, and are generally assumed to cosmically predate both). Fey get even weirder, being a condensation of something that might be considered emotion or wonder or something else equally difficult to define. Additionally, even among beings with souls, the soul itself is subject to both dislocation from the body, and outright destruction by non-divine actors. A Devourer isn't even an especially powerful monster, but it is broadly defined by its ability to consume souls.

Ultimately, D&D lacks any sort of theological consistency (the very existence of Planescape's factions is an exercise in pointing this out) which makes discussions of this nature very difficult. We know some, but not all the rules as they apply specifically to Stickworld. The best overall estimate is that Stickworld is not a very nice place - it's deities appear to be distributed fairly even across the alignment pie - and it is almost impossible to change things for the better unless the balance of said divine alignments is altered. Worth noting that, even if the 'heroes' did something spectacular like saved the world from the Snarl and all ascended to godhood, their own alignment mix means that this would only marginally tilt the world towards good.

[Resileaf]

Something that keeps coming up in this forum is that the OotS gods eat souls, but unless they are specifically mentioned to do so, the process of souls slowly fueling their afterlives does not in any way involve the gods eating or destroying the souls. The gods eat worship, active or otherwise, and are fueled by mortal souls who believe in them. When a dwarf soul gets sent to Valhalla, Thor doesn't go in the halls and start munching on them when he gets hungry, he just passively gains sustenance from their presence. Everything else is up to the soul and how it interacts with the plane it was sent to.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not really on-topic, but that's a severe overstatement. Apes can learn signs, but they don't learn sign language.

Thank you.

People can become gods in OOTSverse

We have seen on screen that a dwarf king can become a demigod, but I think that the deities themselves simply are (per the Crayon Drawings etc) and preceded all of creation. TDO's ascension all the way up to deity, beyond demigod, is a pretty big deal / exception, as is his quiddity.

"Ethic" consumption of dairy, eggs and honey is entirely possible

It is also breakfast. (Although my favorite breakfast on the weekend is a bowl of Irish oatmeal just the way I like it, before anyone else wakes up).

We humans tend to think of communication in very specific, androcentric ways. Do dolphins communicate? How about elephants? Dogs?

Communication may not be language, or need not to be language, to be effective. If you have ever watched a large flock of birds fly together and change direction en masse, you can be sure that some form of communication is involved.

But elephants in the wild do not engage in any art form we recognize.

There is a subtle artistry in the way that an elephant leaves a mound of feces, but we are such Philistines that we cannot appreciate it.

Not everything in a D&D that is intelligent is a mortal being with a soul.

Roy's significant other being a fine example.

Ultimately, D&D lacks any sort of theological consistency (the very existence of Planescape's factions is an exercise in pointing this out)

Nor has it any economic consistency. But you might say that it can have a cosmological consistency, if the world building is done well. (And I think that Rich has done good world building).

Something that keeps coming up in this forum is that the OotS gods eat souls

I prefer fillet of sole. I guess that tastes differ.

[Dasick]

Pretty close.

Reading Rich's answers is ruining the story for me lol.

He's wrong about the cosmology not mattering on a couple of counts. The major one is that with this information, Xykon goes from a juvenile one dimensional puppy kicker villain to being the only major character with the right idea. "Be a lich, be a vampire, be a brain in the jar"

Idk, I hate one dimensional evil villains. But I hate stories where the bad guys have a point and the good guys are too much into the whole reactionary upholding status quo thing to ever address it or provide a good enough counter.

That's... I'd say not really. First, it's incredibly rare to the point of being negligible. With training, apes can learn sign language, they can make human friends and adopt humans as their children. Dogs can be domesticated and have intelligence comparable to that of a small child. There's no fundamental difference between humans and animals. Humans are animals.
Any definition of "changing into a human" except a gentic one can be fulfilled by an animal.

In the western culture, it's generally considered horrifying to eat dogs for the reasons you listed. The list of "horrifying to eat animals" is rapidly growing - horses used to be a delicacy, but not so much now. Vegetarianism and veganism in principle is on the rise in the first world, and not counting it, there's plenty of some very old cultures and philosophies that encourage it if they don't demand it.

Second, I said "uncomfortably close", not being the same thing. I was watching a tourism-mentary on the Hadza, really good stuff. They hunt some baboons there. The youtuber keeps commenting how uncomfortable it is to eat the monkey meat because they're so human looking. Those monkeys couldn't use signs, and weren't domesticated or tame, and it was still uncomfortable enough for the youtuber to comment on it.

Third - humans are sentient, animals aren't. That's a much more important categorical distinction than mere biology. Animals as far as we can tell, haven't been able to achieve sentience the same way. And even then many people want to extend the conception of inalienable human rights to them.

Apparently they can. And much more easily than

Funny. You know what I meant. Rest of your comment - see above.

We have seen on screen that a dwarf king can become a demigod, but I think that the deities themselves simply are (per the Crayon Drawings etc) and preceded all of creation. TDO's ascension all the way up to deity, beyond demigod, is a pretty big deal / exception, as is his quiddity.

Elves have also become gods, quite a few of them given the plural.

Nor has it any economic consistency. But you might say that it can have a cosmological consistency, if the world building is done well. (And I think that Rich has done good world building).

The devil is in the details, and details like this unintentionally cast the story in a completely different light

[KorvinStarmast]

Elves have also become gods, quite a few of them given the plural.

Gods or demigods?

[Fyraltari]

Gods or demigods?

Aren't demigods gods, just not very powerful?

[Tzardok]

Aren't demigods gods, just not very powerful?

Under the normal 3.x rules? Yes.

[Dasick]

Gods or demigods?

They're always mentioned as gods. V worships an ancient elven deity of knowledge.

Man, imagine being an elf wizard, spending your life worshipping a deity of knowledge, but when you die and go to the god's realm? You can't learn jack squat! No new spells, no revelation of arcane mysteries of the universe. That's almost poetic in how a fitting punishment it is for those arrogant knife eared monkeys.

[KorvinStarmast]

They're always mentioned as gods. V worships an ancient elven deity of knowledge.

OK, thanks, I guess I need to review that stuff about the Western pantheon.

[Fyraltari]

Man, imagine being an elf wizard, spending your life worshipping a deity of knowledge, but when you die and go to the god's realm? You can't learn jack squat! No new spells, no revelation of arcane mysteries of the universe. That's almost poetic in how a fitting punishment it is for those arrogant knife eared monkeys.

Okay, Ysgramor, you need to chill. Sorry, I'm on an Elder Scrolls bend these days.

[Mike Havran]

He's wrong about the cosmology not mattering on a couple of counts. The major one is that with this information, Xykon goes from a juvenile one dimensional puppy kicker villain to being the only major character with the right idea. "Be a lich, be a vampire, be a brain in the jar"

Not so much. Remember the whole Material world lasts only a few thousand years, give or take. And after it's gone, souls are either consumed by Snarl and cease to exist, or drawn into the plane that matches their alignment most.

I guess the process that transforms the sentient soul into the foundation of the Plane lasts many thousands of years (Horace was enjoying afterlife for about 50 years, got into level 3 and was still indistinguishable from a fresh soul like Roy.

So, trading "immortality" that does not survive current iteration for an alignment that sends you into a crappier afterlife seems like a bad deal to me.

[Peelee]

Reading Rich's answers is ruining the story for me lol.

He's wrong about the cosmology not mattering on a couple of counts. The major one is that with this information, Xykon goes from a juvenile one dimensional puppy kicker villain to being the only major character with the right idea. "Be a lich, be a vampire, be a brain in the jar"

I gotta say, if the more you learn about an authors intentions for his story while he's still writing his story ruins the story for you, I don't think it's gonna get better for you.

Also, as for cosmology, that's entirely your opinion, and one I do not share at all. At no point did I ever read that and think, "huh, Xykon is right all along".

[Mechalich]

Also, as for cosmology, that's entirely your opinion, and one I do not share at all. At no point did I ever read that and think, "huh, Xykon is right all along".

Xykon's not correct, but he is self-aware.

If you are evil, and know it, then it doesn't take that many ranks in Knowledge (the planes) to realize that dying is going to suck. Now, the appropriate reaction to a revelation like this ought to be working as hard as possible to achieve some kind of redemption in order to avoid the Lower Planes. 'I don't want to go to Hell so I've got to be good' is a self-serving motive for good deeds, but it is a logical one (and even in a fairly ungenerous philosophical interpretation, ought to be enough to get to a decently neutral afterlife).

Xykon, by contrast, absolutely refuses to even consider repentance. Instead, he's trying to cheat the system by arranging things so he never gets tagged with the 'you died' marker. This makes sense. Lichdom carries an almost inevitable bad end along with it - eventually the phylactery gets destroyed (demiliches are prone to destruction by such factors as 'glaciation' and 'subduction' after tens of thousands of years astral projected) and the soul is lost in madness wandering the dark reaches of the multiverse - but in the meantime (un)life is a whole heck of a lot better than eternal torture at the hands of the fiends.

Ultimately, in the flow chart of D&D life, the Lower Planes are an endpoint to be avoided at all costs. The easy way to do that is 'be a good person' but if that's not in the cards, you might as well try other option that's available. And there certainly are a lot of them.

[Kish]

Xykon is neither correct nor self-aware. The thought of prolonging his life in any way never even occurred to him; it was all Redcloak. He lied to taunt Vaarsuvius, nothing more.

[Fyraltari]

Xykon's not correct, but he is self-aware.

If you are evil, and know it, then it doesn't take that many ranks in Knowledge (the planes) to realize that dying is going to suck. Now, the appropriate reaction to a revelation like this ought to be working as hard as possible to achieve some kind of redemption in order to avoid the Lower Planes. 'I don't want to go to Hell so I've got to be good' is a self-serving motive for good deeds, but it is a logical one (and even in a fairly ungenerous philosophical interpretation, ought to be enough to get to a decently neutral afterlife).

Xykon, by contrast, absolutely refuses to even consider repentance. Instead, he's trying to cheat the system by arranging things so he never gets tagged with the 'you died' marker. This makes sense. Lichdom carries an almost inevitable bad end along with it - eventually the phylactery gets destroyed (demiliches are prone to destruction by such factors as 'glaciation' and 'subduction' after tens of thousands of years astral projected) and the soul is lost in madness wandering the dark reaches of the multiverse - but in the meantime (un)life is a whole heck of a lot better than eternal torture at the hands of the fiends.

The funny thing is that it's a lie. We know why he became a a lich, we saw it happen. And it wasn't to avoid the Big Fire Below. Consider the reasons he gives to join in the Plan:

Don't get me wrong, it's a lot more complicated than my usual M. O., but it has a certain scale that I think I've been lacking. I mean, I've been cruising around doing local evil here and there for decades, but I'm not getting any younger. Time to start thinking about a legacy. And what legacy would be better than, "Ruled the whole damn world." [sic]

Emphasis mine.

Does that sound like the words of a man who would do anything to avoid death?

The "do anything to avoid the Big Fire" line is a post-hoc rationalization. He's making stuff up to make himself feel better about being a lich when he doesn't actually like being one.

Edit: Dammit, Kish!

[hroþila]

Also, Xykon's philosophy only makes sense if you assume he can actually stay undead indefinitely. But even ignoring the fact that the world has an expiration date due to the Snarl, that's not a given, especially in a universe partially governed by the rules of drama. Liches can be destroyed, and on a sufficiently long scale the vast majority of them will be destroyed eventually. He's not escaping the big fire below, he's just kicking the can down the road. And if you actually take the Snarl into account, then the gods are quite likely to destroy the world and everyone in it at some point, rendering Xykon's efforts moot (I mean, the gods are almost certainly not going to destroy this world, but that's still the overwhelmingly most likely scenario from an in-universe point of view).

(It's also worth pointing out that Xykon's words were purely a post hoc rationalization, not an actual philosophy of his)

edit: partially ninja'd

[Mechalich]

The funny thing is that it's a lie. We know why he became a a lich, we saw it happen. And it wasn't to avoid the Big Fire Below.

It was a lie then, it could easily be the truth now. He's been a Lich for a while, even been blown up a few times.

Also, Xykon's philosophy only makes sense if you assume he can actually stay undead indefinitely. But even ignoring the fact that the world has an expiration date due to the Snarl, that's not a given, especially in a universe partially governed by the rules of drama. Liches can be destroyed, and on a sufficiently long scale the vast majority of them will be destroyed eventually. He's not escaping the big fire below, he's just kicking the can down the road. And if you actually take the Snarl into account, then the gods are quite likely to destroy the world and everyone in it at some point, rendering Xykon's efforts moot (I mean, the gods are almost certainly not going to destroy this world, but that's still the overwhelmingly most likely scenario from an in-universe point of view).

It doesn't require indefinitely; it just requires enough time to evolve into a demilich. Liches who achieve demilichdom don't go to the Lower Planes, their souls get lost in the multiverse when their phylacteries are indeed almost inevitably destroyed by various extremely long-term processes. That's bad, but probably not worse than being tortured until existence hurts too much to continue.

Also, regarding the Snarl, that fate can be avoided by virtue of not being on the Prime Material when it breaks through - Hilgya made this plan explicitly. Xykon thinks his phylactery is in his astral fortress, which would not be subject to the Snarl's destruction. Exactly what the gods do various mortals who pull this stunt is unclear, but it does seem to be an option.

[Ruck]

I gotta say, if the more you learn about an authors intentions for his story while he's still writing his story ruins the story for you, I don't think it's gonna get better for you.

Also, as for cosmology, that's entirely your opinion, and one I do not share at all. At no point did I ever read that and think, "huh, Xykon is right all along".

Well, Xykon is right if your priority is "maintain existence as a separate entity or consciousness, no matter what the cost." In that sense, thinking he's right might be unintentionally revealing about your priorities.

More broadly, per your first paragraph, there have been multiple times in the last few days Dasick has posted something like "The more I learn about this story and the author's intentions, the less I like it," which suggests OOTS just isn't the story they want it to be and isn't going to be. Or, as a famous fictional businessman once said, "You want it to be one way, but it's the other way."

[Kish]

It was a lie then, it could easily be the truth now. He's been a Lich for a while, even been blown up a few times.

It will always be a lie that he lifted one fleshy finger to prolong his existence when he was a living sorcerer, rather than needing to be talked into it. That's how the past works.

[Psyren]

As is Rich, and I believe that was the exact analogy he used. The good gods run a free-range ethical farm...But, in the end, the chicjen's gonna get its neck snapped.

I don't think this analogy really works either. Nobody is "snapping the chicken's neck*." The chicken has free will, and gets to choose when it stops being a chicken. Moreover, unlike a mortal chicken, it can choose to keep being a chicken as long as it wants.

*In the Good planes, anyway.

[hroþila]

Also, regarding the Snarl, that fate can be avoided by virtue of not being on the Prime Material when it breaks through - Hilgya made this plan explicitly. Xykon thinks his phylactery is in his astral fortress, which would not be subject to the Snarl's destruction. Exactly what the gods do various mortals who pull this stunt is unclear, but it does seem to be an option.

Let's just say I'm sceptical about the long-term prospects of such a plan. We don't know how long the period in between worlds is, but I would imagine the gods have taken into account such an obvious loophole. My headcanon is that it is probably workable for mortals (as they all have a short lifespan compared to the kind of scale the gods may be working with), but it's not a one-way ticket to literal immortality, and I wouldn't bet on anyone making it through to the next world.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Third - humans are sentient, animals aren't. That's a much more important categorical distinction than mere biology. Animals as far as we can tell, haven't been able to achieve sentience the same way. And even then many people want to extend the conception of inalienable human rights to them.

Yeeeeeeaaaaah, I'd like you to define "sentience" there, boy.

[Vahnavoi]

Regarding Xykon:

In addition to what was already said above of Xykon the Lich using post-hoc rationalization to taunt V, Start of Darkness makes it abundantly clear, both through displayed events and Xykon's own words, that the process preserved as little of Xykon the Person as it preserved flesh on his bones. Being Top Evil is about how far you're willing to debase yourself... and Xykon debased himself so far he lost his last source of happiness that isn't sadistic desire to see others suffer and die.

It takes a very special person to consider this a fate better than the "big fire below". Redcloak was more right than wrong when he said undead are less persons and more automated weapon systems you aim at people you want gone.

---

Regarding human and animal sentience:

Modern science has shown that sentience is a continuum. Majority of animals (and even many plants) are sentient to some degree, and several species show both self-awareness and intelligence comparable to human children. The new(er) term in fashion to imply a sharp dichtomy between humans and animals is "sapience", but that line isn't considerably clearer than the previous one.

Additionally, at the same time as animal sciences have shown animals are more aware than they've been given credit for, advances in information processing technology and machine learning have shown that even inorganic objects can be granted qualities traditionally thought to be domain of advanced human thinking. You may be more able to strike a conversation with a chatterbox AI than a dog, but the latter has capacity to feel pain and to dream while the former does not.

All that is also massively beyond the point because "humans are sapient, animals are not" does not directly lead to "animals are OK to eat, humans are not". Simplest application of Hume's Guillotine shows this. Some additional clause about what exactly makes sapient beings more worthy than other things is required. The kicker is, for any setting where divine beings are real, it's easy to add or extend a similar clause to separate divine beings from mortals. To paraphrase a differen author: "Individual mortals always die. However, gods may survive, and gods surviving also means mortals as a group survive. Therefore, it is a moral duty for mortals to act in ways that keep the gods alive."

You may not like that, but that does not make it incoherent. In philosophy and science, there's a concept associated with the phrase "biting the bullet". That means accepting conclusions that feel wrong emotionally and intuitively, but are logically sound. A lot of criticisms of D&D alignment and by extension OotS cosmology, including some of Rich's own arguments, fail to show logical incoherence or rational unsatisfyingness of the underlying system. They only show, and completely rely on, personal-level emotional unsatisfyingness and incoherence with conclusions drawn from different systems entirely.

[hamishspence]

Redcloak was more right than wrong when he said undead are less persons and more automated weapon systems you aim at people you want gone.

Good Deeds Gone Unpunished, with its portrayal of the Ghost character Melisander in the first story (not Deathless, very much a Ghost, with negative energy-type powers) IMO subverted this a bit - Melisander is very much a person, and Hinjo has no problem with her continuing to haunt the new Azure City settlement. Indeed, he insists on paying her for her services, even though, as a Ghost, she has trouble handling anything solid.