Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JimProfit 10-30-07, 05:56 PM	It's gonna need some work, but the general premise is this. Regardless of the PCs alignment, their understanding of the world around them begins to become clear. To say there is no good or evil is not grasping the concept or a pathetic grasp at keeping one's sanity by denial. There is most deffinitely evil. And "good" is the abscence of understanding evil. Those who are ignorant of magic's true nature remain "good". Each of the alignments is noted differantly as below for the world. Lawful Good Wether the lawful good know it or not, they are acting in the interest of devils. Policing the world to stop the transaction of life and prosperity. Death remains still, is unmoving, the lawful good convince themselves they are doing this for good ends to stop things from developing into complete anarchy. And perhaps they are right, but this is law, not good, driving them. As such, lawful good will begin to undertake more brutal, gruesome missions as time goes on. Thier cheif magistrate looks less and less human as time goes on. Before long, they're left shells of men. Feeling like slaves to the law, grasping at it as the only saivor when sorrounded by bloody chaos. They mutter to themselves "it has to be done" as a means of retainting thier innocence as opposed to thier overlord's who have no qualms about admitting they hate life, they hate other people's happyness, and they won't rest untill it's gone. Neutral Good: The neutral good do not exsist. Anyone who is neutral good is simply an illussion of an evil entity trying to lure you into a trap. They try to remain inconspicious so they don't show signs of law or chaos if it can be helped. Untill ofcourse it's too late. Chaotic Good: If paladins are lead by devils, then freedom-fighters are inspired by demons. The thirst for liberty pulses inside them, but liberty cannot be obtained without sacrifice. Ussualy someone else'es sacrifice. Freedom is dependant on who's expense your willing to take it at. As time goes on, they will make the connection, as they find themselves time and time again trying to make "exceptions" to freedom, trying so hard to convince themselves freedom can only be optimized when sometimes it's confined. At that point they begin to lose faith in themself, and thier goals. And either become jaded men who live a life of solitude, lawful minions torn to shreds from the inside out, or madmen, doing the bidding of demons in the lust for more freedom to self-sastisfy. Lawful/Chaotic Neutral: Animals are these alignments. Not able to grasp the concept of law/chaos, they can only exhibit external traits of such. If a mental score (int, wis, or cha) is 2 or less, they become lawful/chaotic neutral. True Neutral: A cult dedicated to seperating themself from the blood-war. Those who've understood that the blood-war is endless, and refuse to play along. They detatch themselves from everything, they would pray to their god, but he will not listen. He is uncaring, shutting his eyes, ears, and mouth to the affairs of other realms and keeping himself locked away as they seek to do. Perhaps true neutral is the most evil alignment of them all, self-relization unlike an animals, but doing nothing. When you do nothing, the devils triumph, they want things to remain silent and dead, when you do nothing, the demons celebrate, they want you to remain out of thier way and let them do whatever. Lawful Evil: Tottaly engrossed in the idea that things must be controlled and punished. No logging is too severe, no enslavement too unjust, living things exsist to be controlled and restricted. It is the beauty of evil. The beauty of things being a luminous quiet serenity. No thoughts, no actions, no wants, nothing. There is only pleasure in destroying pleasure. If someone is smiling, they are free, and that is sickening. Neutral Evil: Neutral Evil is when an ignorant mind has accepted evil, but doesn't know how to express it. Maybe they thirst for money or power, maybe deepdown they want to do devil's work and silence everything. Either way, they don't really "get" what's going on, and try to lookout for themselves. Neutral evils are perhaps the quickest ones to die, because once thier usefulness has been exhausted, what point is there in a pathetic neutral? Chaotic Evil: To say these guys are mad is an understatement. Living solely to destroy and sodomize everything in thier wake. The abyss is full of the most depraved, twisted, mongrels you will ever encounter. They do everything out of desire, not out of demand. You can't reason with them, you can't get them to show you mercy. You only have two options, run or die fighting. They consider this the pinncale of freedom. As opposed to thier half brother the diabolic who only give you the option to die. Chasing you is more fun anyway. The adrenaline, the fear in your eye, the screams. That gets them really hot. Devil/Demon Lords: Obviously i'm going to have to pick domains for each of them. As they're the only real "dieties" for this campaign, also, paladins will have to be replaced with paladins of tyranny/slaughter. And smite works on EVERYTHING, because all PCs can be lead down a path of chaotic or lawful evil. Back and fourth, back and fourth. Untill they snap. Evidently alignment becomes a non-issue. You're either working for the demons, the devils, or are some ignoramus that they either don't know or don't care about. As such, for all intents and purposes of game mechanics. There is only three alignments. Law, Neutral, and Chaos. The paladin's detect evil/good ability will simply be replaced with detect hostile intent. Clerics/Druids: Clerics and druids are probably going to have it rough (finnaly), considering thier divine powers either come from the inferno or the abyss. Devils demand specific guidelines and regimate. This means that clercis/druids are to be expected to follow rules that can change at anytime. This could become quite taxing on the mortal physichaly and mentaly. But that's precisely what the devil's want. That's how they get thier enjoyment. Demons are too aloof and crazy to set any sortof guidelines, pretty much the live and let live philosophy. Unfourtanately, this means there is no clergy, no church unity, no nothing. Evidently a demonic cleric is little more then a boy who finds a musty old tome of a demon lord and decides to dedicate his life to him after realizing what the demonic energies can do. And screw all the "n00bs" who think they know said demon-lord like they do! It's debatable wether or not to give either turn/rebuke undead. One one hand, devils love to get rid of all life to keep serenity, on the other hand, they love control. So turn or rebuke could work in thier favor. Demons don't really care if you exhibit devil like qualities, so the only differance between turn and rebuke undead is party harder or party harder.. Evidently I might replace thier turn/rebuke undead abiliy with something else. For lawful clerics, probably something like a warlock's eldritch blast, but more powerful, and only usable once per day. (Blackmage's hadoken?) Chaotic clerics get rage like a barbarian. (Blackmage's stabbity death?) Obviously sense this will be a highly dangerous game because everything is evil and or stupid. Magic is going to have to be equal to non-magic. I'm working on making the spellcasting system either weaker, or alternatively just buffing up non-casters. (And maybe rangers/paladins a little) Psionics is optional but not preffered. Not cause I dislike psionics or think they're broken, but it just doesn't fit the game very well. Not to meation then i'd have to buff yet another class (The soulknife) if I take that route. Races: More then likely sense everyone is evil. Only evil races are allowd. This kindof makes character creation a bit more complicated seeing as kobolds, goblins, and orcs all get shafted. But in a way that's good. Players will have to depend on thier wits and fairgaming equality. Rather then looking for the best option to create an unstoppable dictator/unibomber. Obviously at first, the players will be unknown or atleast unceartain about the bloodwar, they could very well be a group that got together to be evil as a clique, and the annoying antics of the chaotic evil ranger killing everything with his poisoned crossbow starts aggarvating the lawful evil fighter who just wants everyone to shut the hell up and follow his orders. Then the evil sword starts feeding his ego, giving him plans to kill the ranger in his sleep, and the demon is visting the ranger's dreams, telling him how the fighter's holding him back. If PKing is to exsist at all, that's how it should exsist.
locustechpriest 10-30-07, 07:48 PM	Overal, very interesting. Don't short neutral evil so much though. If you look at the Yugoloths, they make a tidy profit from the Blood War, and they come out ahead. Some would say that they are in moderate control of the whole conflict. Rather than indicating that neutrality is ignorance, or a lack of expression, perhaps it is a transcendant knowledge of both factions. Concerning turning an rebuking. Devilish minions should rebuke, to gain control. Demonic minions should turn, to destroy. That's my opinion, but there may be exceptions, so best to decide it for each lord (a demon lord who stirrs up the rabble to watch chaos, for example, might rebuke). Nice references to Blackmage... I lol'd.