Originally, alignment in Eberron was difficult to determine, if it could be categorized at all... that also applied to gods, and you can see that in each god's tenants, especially in the Faiths of Eberron.
With 4th Edition, the renaming of "Neutral" to "Unaligned" makes the job of classifying religions all the more easier... so I was wondering, what do people think of the rule that religions don't have alignments?
Oh sure, Thrane's temple might be filled with (mostly) lawful good Flamists, and that Cult of the Dragon Below attempting to destroy Thronehold is obviously evil. But those are the worshipers who interpret religion to their ends--the gods themselves are indifferent to good and evil?
To show you what I mean, spoiler block contains a brief synopsis of each god and my thoughts on them.
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* The Silver Flame is infamous for it's evil in the name of good, or good done in the name of evil (depending on whether it's Tira Miron or the demon speaking).
* Arawai is the goddess of life, and is potentially "good", but also has a lot of neutrality in her tenants... "All life is sacred" also means "Even mind flayers have the right to eat."
* Aureon is the god of law and magic, for the sake of law and magic...
* Balinor is the god of killing animals, and preventing savagery from nature against civilization at any cost--and vice versa (people hunting wolves to extinction in Breland? Kill the people.)
* Boldrei is the goddess of communities and government--neither of which are particularly good or evil (devils have communities and governments too, you know!)
* Dol Arrah, the goddess of honor, but also patron of war. One of the few potentially "good" goddesses--but then, we come to that war thing.
* Dol Dorn, god of combat for the sake of combat.
* Kol Korran, god of prosperity and thievery.
* Olladra, goddess of gambling, self-gratification, and good fortune.
* Onatar, god of making stuff (and for every stone mason who crafts an orphanage is a necromancer sending a prayer to Onatar in the hopes his palace built of the bones of the innocent holds up in foul weather)
* The Devourer is the god of the destruction of nature, and protector of those who would stand up to nature without trying to stop it.
* The Fury is the goddess of both madness and passion, instinct and vengeance... following the fancies of your heart, and fulfilling your darkest emotions...
* The Keeper is the god of both death (which I consider actually neutral), gluttony (both fun and evil), and time (both good and evil)...
* The Mockery is the god of treachery, and is one of the few potentially evil gods. But he also preaches pragmatism: if the only way to win an important battle is through trickery and stealth, then why commit suicide just for honor?
* The Shadow is the god of balance. He makes bad things good. He makes good things bad. He destroys things that don't exist, and creates things that do exist. Sure, he's also the god of chaotic and destructive magic, but without The Shadow, Aureon would destroy the world with his overly rigid and stifling laws. The Shadow is the yin to the yang.
* The Traveler is the god of change, whether for the benefit or decimation of society--or completely indifferent. The god of chaos, but as with the Shadow, without chaos, there is only conformity and stifling rules.
* The Blood of Vol believes that each person holds a spark of true divinity within--and that each person must life up to their true potential.
* The Cults of the Dragon Below believe that the mind is incapable (or unwilling) to comprehend the world, which has too many mind-wrenching acts of both glorious heroism and dreadful horror to take in. And therefore, if you want to become wise and reach enlightenment and true understanding of the world around you, you have to go insane--because sane minds can't comprehend the world. (Reminds me of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy...)
* The Path of Light believes in meditation, and communion, and preparing for attacks from Dal Quor. Even in the ECS, it's neutral.
* The Undying Court believes that ancestors are to be respected like gods, and necromancy is A.O.K.
* Arawai is the goddess of life, and is potentially "good", but also has a lot of neutrality in her tenants... "All life is sacred" also means "Even mind flayers have the right to eat."
* Aureon is the god of law and magic, for the sake of law and magic...
* Balinor is the god of killing animals, and preventing savagery from nature against civilization at any cost--and vice versa (people hunting wolves to extinction in Breland? Kill the people.)
* Boldrei is the goddess of communities and government--neither of which are particularly good or evil (devils have communities and governments too, you know!)
* Dol Arrah, the goddess of honor, but also patron of war. One of the few potentially "good" goddesses--but then, we come to that war thing.
* Dol Dorn, god of combat for the sake of combat.
* Kol Korran, god of prosperity and thievery.
* Olladra, goddess of gambling, self-gratification, and good fortune.
* Onatar, god of making stuff (and for every stone mason who crafts an orphanage is a necromancer sending a prayer to Onatar in the hopes his palace built of the bones of the innocent holds up in foul weather)
* The Devourer is the god of the destruction of nature, and protector of those who would stand up to nature without trying to stop it.
* The Fury is the goddess of both madness and passion, instinct and vengeance... following the fancies of your heart, and fulfilling your darkest emotions...
* The Keeper is the god of both death (which I consider actually neutral), gluttony (both fun and evil), and time (both good and evil)...
* The Mockery is the god of treachery, and is one of the few potentially evil gods. But he also preaches pragmatism: if the only way to win an important battle is through trickery and stealth, then why commit suicide just for honor?
* The Shadow is the god of balance. He makes bad things good. He makes good things bad. He destroys things that don't exist, and creates things that do exist. Sure, he's also the god of chaotic and destructive magic, but without The Shadow, Aureon would destroy the world with his overly rigid and stifling laws. The Shadow is the yin to the yang.
* The Traveler is the god of change, whether for the benefit or decimation of society--or completely indifferent. The god of chaos, but as with the Shadow, without chaos, there is only conformity and stifling rules.
* The Blood of Vol believes that each person holds a spark of true divinity within--and that each person must life up to their true potential.
* The Cults of the Dragon Below believe that the mind is incapable (or unwilling) to comprehend the world, which has too many mind-wrenching acts of both glorious heroism and dreadful horror to take in. And therefore, if you want to become wise and reach enlightenment and true understanding of the world around you, you have to go insane--because sane minds can't comprehend the world. (Reminds me of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy...)
* The Path of Light believes in meditation, and communion, and preparing for attacks from Dal Quor. Even in the ECS, it's neutral.
* The Undying Court believes that ancestors are to be respected like gods, and necromancy is A.O.K.
i think that some of thing you said are taken to simple. "The Undying Court believes that ancestors are to be respected like gods, and necromancy is A.O.K." well the elves do not use normal necromancy and i think they just call it necromancy becaues they do not have another name for it.
'Undying' doesn't exist anymore, because 'Undead' no longer means 'Evil being powered by the negative energy plane'. Undying was always a kludge, and they even admit so in Worlds and Monsters (page 52, if you care to know).
Thus, in 4E, the difference between an undying priest in charge of resurrecting the dead as undying and a Blood of Vol cleric raising undead armies is not their rituals, or power sources--merely their goals, and the alignments of those they raise.
"Dol Arrah, the goddess of honor, but also patron of war. One of the few potentially "good" goddesses--but then, we come to that war thing." this to be is not right becaues war is evil but Dol arrah stands for the good side of it like the ideals you go to war for like: freeing slaves, defending your land, human rights.
You just ADMITTED I'm right in making Dol Arrah unaligned.
War is evil but Dol Arrah stands for the good side of it.
So she simultaneously stands for both good and evil goals.
Also, I'd like to point out the large number of evil races who believe in codes of honor, but are nonetheless evil. They send praise to Dol Arrah. Devils, evil dragonborn, and any warrior who is greedy, selfish, and destructive but still follows a personal code of honor (don't hurt women and children, even if your goal is to make them all slaves...) are all honorable but NOT good.
Anyway, the point of my post is that yes, the popular opinion of each god has it's own alignment preferences. It's blatantly obvious that the Silver Flame is, by scripture, a lawful good organization. However, I think it should be called unaligned, because in Eberron, even a lawful good organization can be used to forward the cause of evil.
I wasn't trying to say "Gods are neither good nor evil" but rather "Gods don't have an alignment at all"
After all, in 4th edition, 'unaligned' doesn't mean 'true neutral'. It means 'without particular alignment.'
And I think all Eberron gods are 'without particular alignment'--though the most vocal members of their clergy have their own alignment, of course.
Dol arrah stands for the good side of it like the ideals you go to war for like: freeing slaves, defending your land, human rights.
...or taking other people's land, enslaving their people, destroying their civilization, acquiring wealth, personal vengeance...
I don't think any other god represents these ideals. The Keeper stands for greed, The Mockery stands for vengeance, the Fury stands for passion, but Dol Arrah is the only goddess who actually stands for the singular concept of 'war', and all the reasons that cause it.
* The Silver Flame is infamous for it's evil in the name of good, or good done in the name of evil (depending on whether it's Tira Miron or the demon speaking).
Seriously!? What do you mean "infamous?" Only two things have made it infamous: The Lycanthrope Inquisition and its zealotry in the Last War. Period. The Flame was created by pure good coatls and bound on Eberron by a lawful good paladin of Dol Arrah. Tira is the voice of the Flame, and schizophrenics believe that a demon resides inside the PURE GOOD of the Flame. The Flame preaches peace and the hope of a world united in the harmony of GOOD. Most followers of the Flame are good people who lead decent lives, they aren't mindless crusaders who kill heretics on site.
Now onto the concept of the Sovreign Host.
*Arawai- Goddess of the harvest, and GOOD because she acts as a kind mother to all who partake of her gifts. She is a creater of life and holds it most sacred.
*Aureon- He is unaligned, because magic and law are neutral concepts, but he isn't a negligent neutral. Law protects civilization from the depredations of chaos and the unrest it brings. Law isn't stifiling, it helps free you from the worry of anarchy.
*Balinor- He is similar to Arawai, but slightly more animalistic in his approach. He advocates hunting what you NEED to survive, and only honorable hunting. If people begin overhunting and such (as per your poor example), they will find Balinor's displeasure, and of course fall apart because they no longer have a viable food source.
*Boldrei- Goddess of the hearth and home, she is about defending the community from outside forces, and heals the heart by the wood-stoked fire. She advocates strong family values, and teaches that neighbors should love and care for each other to keep the community strong. Devils are all about infighting and political back-stabbing. They would worship the Mockery.
*Dol Arrah- Goddess of light, hope, and war. War is NOT an evil concept, and only those (such as yourself) with the view of a 5-year old would believe such a thing. It is those who instigate the war for nefarious purposes who are evil, and would not have the favor of one such as Dol Arrah. Dol Arrah supports just war; war that is started to overthrow a dictator, liberate a people from oppression, and right worngs known to exist. High ideals that are begat of a feeling for a better world. If war must be done to do so, than it will be. However, she doesn't support needless butchery, and only prefers soldier-on-soldier combat.
*Dol Dorn- Like his sister Dol Arrah, he is a god of war, but he also has domain over athletics and honorable combat. Use the Kord description in the 4E PHB, that's the one Keith was aiming for, not your's.
*Kol Korran- God of merchants and prosperity, he is unaligned because he deals strictly with the economy and travel. Thieves worship him because they hope to become rich, not because you think he advocates thievery.
*Olladra- One of my fav gods, I can't believe you see her as pretty much a brothel goddess! She is the goddess of good fortune and new experience, like Avandra in the PHB. When your chips are down, she's the one who gives you hope and picks you up when you're down.
*Onatar- Seriously? Onatar is a provider god, like Osiris of Egyptian lore. Onatar provided the races with fire and the methods with which to build and harness their futures. He is nominally the god of building civilization, and creating better moral foundations. He wants the mortal races to help themselves, and he'll do what he can along the way. The necromancer would probably pray to the Shadow so that the magic hold his structurally unsound bone house up.
*The Devourer- God of destruction; pure and simple. How can you even concieve that there is some kind of good in him? He is the abusive side of nature; the yang to Arawai's yin. He seeks only to destroy. Thus making him Evil.
*Fury- Goddess of unbridled passion, which without moderation leads to madness. The thing is, the Fury hates moderation, so most of her followers are INSANE!
*Keeper- Death is neutral, but the Kepper stands for the way dark side of death; he constantly seeks to devour souls in order to sate his hunger, and advocates the murder of sentient species in order to feed his habit. If anything, he is the god of murder.
*Mockery- God of treachery, with no pragmatism; he has no spine, period. Even Dol Arrah understands the need for discretion, but the Mockery sees only back-stabbing and cloak-and-dagger techniques as the proper way of combat. The Mockery is actually aggressive in terms of starting wars, whereas Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn are more reflexive.
*Shadow- He isn't the god of balance; he is the god of ceaseless destruction, leaving only entropy and woe in his path. He hates everything, and advocates the PERVERSION of magic in order for this end to occur. Aureon wouldn't destroy the world; he seeks to keep it safe from the likes of the Shadow.
*Traveler- God of chaos and evolution, pure and simple. He is the only unaligned god of the Dark Six, and doesn't seek the downfall of the civilized races. He only teaches that change is constant and that those who can't adapt will be left behind.
For proper understanding of Eberron's religions, I suggest you read [b]Faiths of Eberron[b], a good fluff read. You have an enlightened day now, ya hear?
I'll just address your more severe fallacies:
Tira is the voice of the Flame, and schizophrenics believe that a demon resides inside the PURE GOOD of the Flame.
Your argument is "The Flame is good! I know, because the Flame told me it was!"
...wait... what religion are you?
Most followers of the Flame are good people who lead decent lives, they aren't mindless crusaders who kill heretics on site.
Okay, you're completely missing the point of my idea to make gods unaligned. You seem to take the word 'unaligned' and interpret it as 'chaotic evil', for some reason. Don't know why. Ever picked up a 4E book?
In any case, 'unaligned' means 'without alignment'. There are good aligned worshipers, bad aligned worshipers... corruption in the church, any church, is a strong theme in Eberron. In fact, you are telling me that the church is pure good, with no evil in it whatsoever--which seems somewhat contradictory to Eberron's theme that you can't judge a book by it's cover, a dragon by it's scales, or a church by it's clergy.
Now onto the concept of the Sovreign Host.
Any proper argument should begin by admitting the other person has an interesting viewpoint, or is correct in a few areas, or something. That way, you don't put me on pure defensive, and are able to persuade me to your viewpoint.
Arawai- Goddess of the harvest, and GOOD because she acts as a kind mother to all who partake of her gifts. She is a creater of life and holds it most sacred.
My point was, the creator of all life also created demons, the daelkyr, black dragons, and her generalized philosophy means that The Keeper or The Mockery are sacred in her eyes, because they are living--if immortal living--beings as well.
And a god who treats all life, independent of their morality, as sacred is neutral. Or unaligned. Whatever.
He is unaligned, because magic and law are neutral concepts, but he isn't a negligent neutral. Law protects civilization from the depredations of chaos and the unrest it brings. Law isn't stifiling, it helps free you from the worry of anarchy.
Blacks.
Were.
Legal.
Slaves.
He is similar to Arawai, but slightly more animalistic in his approach. He advocates hunting what you NEED to survive, and only honorable hunting. If people begin overhunting and such (as per your poor example), they will find Balinor's displeasure, and of course fall apart because they no longer have a viable food source.
Or, they will face his wrath. He's a nature god. Nature gods are wrathy like that. In any case, I've read the Faiths of Eberron: "The lord of beasts is one of the most violent of the Sovereign Host."
Most of his quests involve killing animals or people who are causing trouble for each other.
And his favored weapon is the battleaxe.
How do you perceive this guy as anything but unaligned?
Boldrei- Goddess of the hearth and home, she is about defending the community from outside forces, and heals the heart by the wood-stoked fire.
Elder brain, kthanksbai.
Devils are all about infighting and political back-stabbing. They would worship the Mockery.
What Eberron book are you reading?
People don't worship one god. They worship The Sovereign Host as a whole, and send prayers to the ones relevant to the situation. A devil about to try to get a promotion through political slander sends a prayer to the Mockery, yes, but your argument is a strawman tactic: that's not what I said. I didn't say "They beg for help from Boldrei when they're about to do political slander!". I said "They beg for help from Boldrei when they're building new homes, or organizing a community.
No devil is an island; even Asmodeus needs the willing cooperation of his peers, from time to time.
Dol Arrah- Goddess of light, hope, and war. War is NOT an evil concept, and only those (such as yourself) with the view of a 5-year old would believe such a thing.
Strawman tactics.
One person described the good reasons for war. I described the bad. And I said that the fact Dol Arrah supports good AND bad wars (being the patron of all wars) means she's neutral.
It is those who instigate the war for nefarious purposes who are evil, and would not have the favor of one such as Dol Arrah.
They're evil so they don't worship good gods!
Again, I'd like to remind you that Eberron is all about not being able to figure out someone's motives and morals, just from how they behave and appear.
In any case, traditionally the Dungeons and Dragons pantheons have been split up into gods whose domains DO NOT OVERLAP. So if you are heading into war, you send a prayer to Dol Arrah, and she takes all prayers equally.
However, she doesn't support needless butchery, and only prefers soldier-on-soldier combat.
Oh come on, the gods don't even exist. How can they not support something? If I'm evil, and I send a prayer to Dol Arrah, she's supporting me by her very nonexistance.
Unless she does exist.
It's like she's a quantum particle. She exists in all states of supporting my war and not supporting my war and being neutral about my war because she exists in all states of existance and nonexistance at the same time, until the Dungeon Master examines her existence, at which point the Eberron Waveform Collapse occurs.
That last paragraph had no point, I just wanted to say Eberron Waveform Collapse.
Like his sister Dol Arrah, he is a god of war, but he also has domain over athletics and honorable combat.
No.
He's a god of martial combat.
Not of war..
Use the Kord description in the 4E PHB, that's the one Keith was aiming for, not your's.
"Intentional fallacy"
I'm sorry, are you Keith Baker? Or are you telling me Keith Baker is a plagiarist? In any case, unless the Hellcow comes on and tells me himself that when he was writing up Dol Dorn he was trying to copy-paste Kord's description, I will not believe any accusations of yours to that effect.
Ever.
Kol Korran- God of merchants and prosperity, he is unaligned because he deals strictly with the economy and travel. Thieves worship him because they hope to become rich, not because you think he advocates thievery.
You mock me for not reading Faiths of Eberron, but what about you?
"In his darker aspect, he is also the patron of thieves and fences... some legends ascribe to him a sense of resentment and a feeling that the other gods do not consider him an equal... [this manifests] as schemes to enrich himself at the expense of others."
Right there. In his description. Kol Korran is both a merchant and a thief--not his followers, but HIM.
Olladra- One of my fav gods, I can't believe you see her as pretty much a brothel goddess!
...
She is the goddess of feast and good fortune. And generosity.
And also pride. And fickleness. And not evenly distributing wealth to those who deserve it. And putting good people in the poor houses. And blind risk. And misfortune.
Her symbol is a domino. And dominos have two sides.
She is the goddess of good fortune and new experience, like Avandra in the PHB. When your chips are down, she's the one who gives you hope and picks you up when you're down.
By her very description in Faiths, she's also the one to put you down in the first place. Read it. Read any Eberron book. It's a good setting.
Onatar- Seriously? SERIOUSLY!?!?! The whole necromancer BS is just mind-boggling!!! Onatar is a provider god, like Osiris of Egyptian lore.
Onatar is a builder.
If you're building something, you ask for his assistance. He's the god of craft, and industry, and weapons and fire. If you're building a city of flame out of the congealed blood of your enemies, and you want to construct an unlimited number of razor-sharp scimitars for your warforged armies to carry into battle?
Onatar is the god of building cities. God of flames. God of weapons. God of metal. God of METAL WEAPONS. God of warforged.
Onatar swings both ways, baby.
And he steals ideas.
Yeah, Onatar is a plagiarist.
The Traveler is the god of invention, believe it or not. And if the Traveler invents things, what does Onatar do? Take The Traveler's inventions (before the Traveler can destroy them out of boredom, malice, or for philisophical reasons) and create more of them.
Onatar provided the races with fire and the methods with which to build and harness their futures.
Fire also destroys houses, burns down forests, and kills innocents trapped within it.
The stupid necromancer would probably pray to the Shadow so that the magic hold his structurally unsound bone house up.
I just like this one because you mock the necromancer's architectural ability. That has got to be the best quote ever. Can I put that in my signature? XD XD XD
The Devourer- God of destruction; pure and simple. How can you even concieve that there is some kind of good in him?
Because he's the god of nature's wrath... he protects the sahuigan, he destroys both good and evil sailors...
And for all his anger, if you respect nature, he's willing to spare you.
Mercy?
From an evil god of destruction?
Only one of us can be telling the truth. And it isn't the one who is not me.
Fury- Goddess of unbridled passion, which without moderation leads to madness. The thing is, the Fury hates moderation, so most of her followers are INSANE!
Well, insanity is the domain of the Cults of the Dragon Below. But anyway:
When you fall in love, do you not feel passion? When you send a prayer that your passion is requited, do you not send it to the goddess of passion?
Love is an emotion. Happiness is an emotion. Pride is an emotion. Comfort is an emotion.
Hate is an emotion. Fear is an emotion. Disgust is an emotion. Anger is an emotion.
The Fury is the goddess of emotions. Even if those who worship her tend to be crazy... they're the fun kind of crazy. The kind of people who go from raging orgies and giving free glasses of elven wine just because the felt like it, and it was their instinct to be so kind, to being bloodthirsty murders and thieves, because someone said something rude that ****** them off.
Are they crazy? Yes.
But are the Fury's domains, "emotion", "passion", "instinct" and "intuition" good OR evil? No.
Some aspects are good. Some aspects are evil. It depends which end of the spectrum you are on at the moment.
And that is why she's unaligned.
Keeper- Death is neutral, but the Kepper stands for the way dark side of death; he constantly seeks to devour souls in order to sate his hunger, and advocates the murder of sentient species in order to feed his habit.
He's the god of death and time; which are both neutral. Even if he may be evil in some ways, his primary duties are neutral. He's also a glutton. Which means that, like Olladra, he is the god of feast. In fact, he and Olladra are surprisingly similar-minded in this matter:
Olladra says that whoever she feels like giving lots of food and money and wine to at the moment, deserves it.
The Keeper says that whatever food and money and wine you can acquire through force or persuasion, you deserve.
And they both say you should enjoy it as much as possible.
Gluttony doesn't just mean you get fat. It also means you enjoy something: food.
His portfolio is: death, entropy, greed, hunger, time.
If Olladra can drive good people into the poorhouse, and make starving people die of hunger while kings prepare magnificent feasts that wind up in a dumpster, and be called good, why can't The Keeper be called at the very least unaligned for his only slightly evil trait, 'greed'?
If anything, he is the god of murder.
We're talking fact, not conjecture.
Mockery- God of treachery, with no pragmatism; he has no spine, period. ... The Mockery is actually aggressive in terms of starting wars, whereas Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn are more reflexive.
The Mockery only starts wars he know he can win. That's called pragmatism. And he's the god of vengeance when someone betrays you... he's also the god of vigilante justice (He's Batman!) and assassinations.
Assassinations seems to be what you think are his evil point. He's not willing to stand up and fight someone face to face...
The next time your lawful good rogue wants to lay a sneak attack against a chaotic evil baron, and he fails because the DM says The Mockery only supports evil assassinations, lemme know how you feel ;)
The point is, assassination is a tool. In the modern world, is it used for primarily evil? Yes. Modern day assassins are the scum of the earth.
But think back to ancient times. Think of an order of assassins who exists to support the government.
Or who eliminate targets that having honorable combat with, with armies and declaring a battleground and fighting things out, would end thousands of innocent and military lives, destroy landscapes, desecrate holy grounds and kill any heirs who might rise to the target's throne and possibly do GOOD.
Honorable combat is a large brush filled with law and pride which destroys everything in it's wake, assassination is a fine brush with stealth and malice which destroys only the targets who are determined to be threats.
Which one's good? Which one's evil? They're both killing. That's what it comes down to.
You wag your finger at the Keeper for encouraging killing of people whose time has come anyway. Yet you allow Balinor to kill those who threaten nature. You tell me The Mockery isn't allowed to go cloak-and-dagger on someone who they wouldn't stand a chance against in honorable combat...
Yet you never stop to consider that maybe, non-honorable combat is the only way to survive a situation in which you're righteous?
Shadow- He isn't the god of balance; he is the god of ceaseless destruction, leaving only entropy and woe in his path.
If that's what it takes to balance the world, then yes:
His worshippers must understand the natural and magical world, and are proficient with arcane and divine magic. He is the god of duality, by Faiths of Eberron, which means that as you say, he hates everything. If another god stands for something, he stands against it.
"[His] name is invoked in the name of ambition or discovery, especially arcane insight." Sounds pretty damn evil, I know, right?
Aureon, his effective twin, stands for order? He stands for chaos. Dol Arrah represents the sun? The Shadow represents the night. Balinor represents nature? The Shadow represents wasteland.
But there is no clause that says his duality domain applies only to good gods. Nowhere. In any book. Anywhere.
The Traveler stands for chaos? The Shadow will organize everything. The Keeper stands for greed? The Shadow will redistribute the wealth. The Devourer stands for the wrath of nature? The Shadow will show people the way to safety.
He is the god of debate. He is the god of taking the opposed point of view, just to play devil's advocate. Come to think of it, that would make The Shadow my patron deity, and explain why I love him so much.
But in the end, opposing both sides--life and death, good and evil, sun and moon, right and wrong--leaves him dead in the center. He can't oppose EVERYTHING at the same time, because that's self-contradictory and impossible.
So he bounces back and forth, choosing sides in a highly chaotic manner depending on who he feels like opposing at the moment.
And while he may be chaotic for this... he's unaligned.
He's the god of being the other side of the coin, the dark side of the moon.
He hates everything, and advocates the PERVERSION of magic in order for this end to occur. Aureon wouldn't destroy the world; he seeks to keep it safe from the likes of the Shadow.
No, Aureon wouldn't destroy the world. But he would purge it of all original thought, all creativity, all change, all travel to new places... he would like it if there were only one language... and he doesn't like other religions because they cause conflict...
He would bury the earth beneath the sea, just to make the world perfectly smooth and round.
He is the god of geometry. He is the god of organization.
Aureon is only able to function as a good god, because he has the evil gods keeping him from becoming a destroyer himself. And The Shadow fills that role. It's his destiny, it's his birthright: every time Aureon would so something so overtly lawful that it would stifle life from all the mortals of the world, The Shadow is there to oppose him. It's The Shadow's domain and duty to oppose the god of order...
And because the god of order would wipe out all plant, animal, and bacterial life if it meant the world would be clean and orderly, the Shadow is causing good by preventing that. And when Aureon builds a society with strict laws that benefit it's people, the Shadow causes evil by preventing THAT.
The Shadow isn't evil. He's not good either. He simply opposes unreasonably extremist ideas, by being unreasonably extremist in the opposite direction, whatever direction that may end up being.
Traveler- God of chaos and evolution, pure and simple. He is the only unaligned god of the Dark Six, and doesn't seek the downfall of the civilized races.
The god of chaos doesn't seek the destruction of civilization? Civilization _IS_ order. And chaos opposes order.
He believes in destroying everything we hold true, just because such truths are 'consistent', and he hates consistency. And he believes uncivilized folk should be civilized, and civilized folk should be thrown into anarchy... and if you're standing HERE, you should go walk over THERE. And if you're walking too long, you should start running, because walking is too consistent! In fact, no, running is too orderly too! YOU MUST PLAY HOPSCOTCH TO YOUR GOALS!
The Traveler is the god of chaos. Of disorderly conduct. Of never being able to tell what the heck is going on (he is the god of disguises, after all). So yes, I agree, he's unaligned--but we agree for differing reasons.
In any case, 'unaligned' means 'without alignment'. There are good aligned worshipers, bad aligned worshipers... corruption in the church, any church, is a strong theme in Eberron. In fact, you are telling me that the church is pure good, with no evil in it whatsoever--which seems somewhat contradictory to Eberron's theme that you can't judge a book by it's cover, a dragon by it's scales, or a church by it's clergy.
You have said that you can not judge a church by it's clergy and that is the point of the Church of the Silver Flame. just because the church has bad people does not mean the god is unaligned because they have both good and bad worshipers
i do not have time to go thought the whole post but i will after i come back home
Okay, you're completely missing the point of my idea to make gods unaligned. You seem to take the word 'unaligned' and interpret it as 'chaotic evil', for some reason. Don't know why. Ever picked up a 4E book?
In any case, 'unaligned' means 'without alignment'. There are good aligned worshipers, bad aligned worshipers... corruption in the church, any church, is a strong theme in Eberron. In fact, you are telling me that the church is pure good, with no evil in it whatsoever--which seems somewhat contradictory to Eberron's theme that you can't judge a book by it's cover, a dragon by it's scales, or a church by it's clergy.
You have said that you can not judge a church by it's clergy and that is the point of the Church of the Silver Flame. just because the church has bad people does not mean the god is unaligned because they have both good and bad worshipers
i do not have time to go thought the whole post but i will after i come back home
You know, I have not personally attacked anyone here. (...in this thread...)
I simply came to a forum, and suggested an idea I had to help represent the theme of Eberron that clergy and deity don't have to be the same alignment, and that the vast, vast majority of deities have portfolios and personalities which can be called gray areas.
And this idea allows for more rolepalying opportunities... good Cults of the Dragon Below. Evil Silver Flamists. Good Dark Six priests waging open war against evil Sovereign Host priests...
And me and you, Elrodian, started having a discussion on the nature of alignment in war... and then bailey91 attacked me. And then you responded to my comparatively polite response with your own attack, at me.
I'm not sure what I did to offend either of you, with my simple idea regarding whether or not gods should even have associated alignments--or merely tenants and tendencies, but no specific alignments to call their own.
The Silver Flame might want to destroy evil, but one of the beliefs of the Flame is that committing evil acts is A.O.K. so long as it destroys an even greater evil--for example, if the only way to kill even a minor devil was to commit genocide to an entire town, while it might be frowned upon it's technically acceptable to do, according to the church's hierarchy of evil. You might have to be punished when the devil-threat has passed, but you are honored for your ability to kill the devil by any means possible.
That's not a schism group which believes that.
That's the Flame's core belief system. Straight from the Voice herself. That's why I think the Flame should be unaligned.
So, in conclusion:
If you aren't willing to have intelligent conversation that doesn't involve calling the other person names, this thread isn't for you. This was an idea thread, an open call for other Eberron DMs to voice their opinions on the matter.
So you know what?
Don't even bother posting a response if you only have more of the same. Because I'm not going to bother reading it.
The god of chaos doesn't seek the destruction of civilization? Civilization _IS_ order. And chaos opposes order.
I'll just note that chaos is only one aspect of the Traveler. Remember that artifice is also one of his spheres. Look to Faiths of Eberron; Chaos and Deception are spheres of the Traveler, but so are Invention, Evolution, and Transformation. If I had to bick one single word to sum up the Traveler, it wouldn't be Chaos; it would be Change. Some people fear change; others embrace it. It has the power to destroy society, but it also has the power to transform it, to create something better than what came before. This is where you get things like the cult of the Traveler that's found within House Cannith. They aren't chaotic. But they are seeking to transform the world with their inventions - to break out of the old traditions of the craft (which would fall under the yoke of Onatar, the traditional patron of the house) and take dangerous chances in the name of innovation.
The Traveler is an excellent example of an unaligned deity - one whose actions can be good or bad, which can destroy civilization or improve it, and one whose followers cover the entire spectrum. But I hate to see it pigeonholed as "chaos for chaos' sake" - when change and transformation are key aspects of the deity.
Looking to the war trinity, I'll point out that they are a trinity (as specifically shown by the Three Faces cult found in Rekkenmark and other military academies). Dol Arrah is not the patron of all aspects of war. Dol Arrah, Dol Azur (AKA the Mockery), and Dol Dorn are the three faces of war... the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly if you will. I think there's a good case for Dol Dorn being unaligned. But I wouldn't place the sins of war on Dol Arrah, because she doesn't stand for those things. Remember that the deities of the Sovereign Host are rarely worshipped individually. Few vassals are simply followers of Dol Arrah; instead, Dol Arrah gets credit for inspiring the noble champion, while Dol Dorn looks after the common soldier and the Mockery clouds the thoughts of the general who commands the massacre (and over the course of a bad day, a soldier could end up praying to all three). All three deities hold sway over aspects of war - but none of them have solitary dominion over it.
I am not worried about alignments for my PCs in my EB game and I am not worried about the gods alignments either. Ignoring that archaic aspect to the game makes life much easier for me (at least in respect to gaming;) ).
You know, I have not personally attacked anyone here. (...in this thread...)
I simply came to a forum, and suggested an idea I had to help represent the theme of Eberron that clergy and deity don't have to be the same alignment, and that the vast, vast majority of deities have portfolios and personalities which can be called gray areas.
And this idea allows for more rolepalying opportunities... good Cults of the Dragon Below. Evil Silver Flamists. Good Dark Six priests waging open war against evil Sovereign Host priests...
And me and you, Elrodian, started having a discussion on the nature of alignment in war... and then bailey91 attacked me. And then you responded to my comparatively polite response with your own attack, at me.
I'm not sure what I did to offend either of you, with my simple idea regarding whether or not gods should even have associated alignments--or merely tenants and tendencies, but no specific alignments to call their own.
The Silver Flame might want to destroy evil, but one of the beliefs of the Flame is that committing evil acts is A.O.K. so long as it destroys an even greater evil--for example, if the only way to kill even a minor devil was to commit genocide to an entire town, while it might be frowned upon it's technically acceptable to do, according to the church's hierarchy of evil. You might have to be punished when the devil-threat has passed, but you are honored for your ability to kill the devil by any means possible.
That's not a schism group which believes that.
That's the Flame's core belief system. Straight from the Voice herself. That's why I think the Flame should be unaligned.
But I digress.
I'm getting somewhat irritated by the people responding to my idea with "That's stupid! You're stupid! You're wrong! Everything in Eberron is black and white, there are no shades of gray in Eberron!"
So, in conclusion:
If you aren't willing to have intelligent conversation that doesn't involve calling the other person an idiot, leave my thread. This was an idea thread, an open call for other Eberron DMs to voice their opinions on the matter.
The opinions of childish fools who call people stupid and claim their ideas are idiotic, are worth less than nothing to me.
So you know what?
Don't even bother posting a response if you only have more of the same. Because if you're going to be an ******* to me again, I'm not going to bother reading it.
i called you stupid because you are not listening to the points that the other person where making and that you had to start mocking him. Yes he did do this to you but you when deeper. I real thought that at you would let the Traveler thing go because he is say that you are basically right but you had to just same some which has made thing sooooo bad in the real world. Another thing that made me say stupid is that you are say that the worshipers can be evil and good and this is right but that does not mean that the good is unaligned because the power of faith power the spells as much as the goods. so a follower of the silver flame might kill a town in order to stop an evil but with his faith in the silver flame he believe it would do it but they do not know if it would.
Traveler
I actually do acknowledge that The Traveler is not just the god of chaos. I may have brought other aspects up only in discussing other gods though... my bad.
I always imagine the tug of war between the Traveler, the Shadow, and Aureon as being aspects of chaos, balance, and law from Dominic Deegan.
In Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, there are three aspects to the world, which chooses champions among mortal or immortals of the world, who exemplify these goals. Chaos, Order, and Balance.
Chaos is responsible for all the unrest, anarchy, and irrationality in the world. But it's also responsible for all the inventions, revolutions, improvement, and movement.
Order is responsible for all the legal oppression of the masses, and lends itself to corruption by those who can interpret the law. But order is also responsible for keeping people safe through laws, and making sure that pure anarchy doesn't overtake the world.
Balance rarely ever has a role. When Chaos starts to take control, and destroy all civilization with it's over-enthusiastic sense of change, Balance steps in to give Order an advantage. When Order starts oppressing the people--such as when the laws are so powerful in a nation that a good lawyer can get away with any crime, and sue anyone who tries to stop him to get rich in the process--Balance steps in to take Order down a notch.
I've always seen the Traveler as this chaos: father of invention, the pusher behind any glorious revolution, one of the gods Boranel would have prayed to when he wanted to write the Treaty of Thronehold to permanently change Khorvaire for the better.
I've always seen Aureon as this order: patron of laws. Good laws or bad laws. Corrupt officials are protected under his banner as much as anyone else.
And the Shadow, I see as the balance. He opposes everyone else out of philosophy: he opposes Aureon's grip on orderly magic, so he devotes himself to chaos. He opposes the Traveler's invention by destroying anything new.
It might be a weak argument, but its simply how I've always imagined them: the Traveler and Aureon two opposites, yet both necessary for a balanced society. And whenever one takes too much power, the Shadow immediately opposes it out of instinct and practicality (he targets whichever target is bigger in his sights =P)
War
Mmm, I agree all three gods are distinct from each other, and all govern aspects of war... but in the end, my point for the alignment of the gods is like this:
There is no direct connection between the alignment of the gods and those who pray to them. People in war, for example, might end up praying to all three war gods--no matter if they're lawful good, unaligned, or chaotic evil.
And this applies to ALL gods. Evil Flamists are just as devout as good Flamists. Lawful good rogues still need the Mockery's support for success with their Stealth and Sneak Attack abilities.
And every god is fickle, beyond it's worshipers, it's portfolio flexing between good and evil, and the interaction between the gods--at least in myth--fluctuating between good, evil, and unaligned.
So, I was just thinking... stop labeling gods as good or evil. List their tenants, like in the PHB, describe what domains they cover, and stop making Dungeon Masters feel weird whenever they set up a chaotic evil cleric of the Flame, or a good cleric of the Cults of the Dragon Below.
Cleanly labeling gods as aligned, with no fudgery, simply black-and-white, removes their ambiguitiy, and makes it very easy to predict the morals and motives of their followers.
Remove the alignment, and the more strongly aligned gods still have strongly aligned clergy, but it removes all ability of the players to PREDICT that alignment, PREDICT their reactions..
And I love that lack of predictability in alignment. But aligning gods ruins that quite a bit, I think.
well i think that you did not look at my post mean you thing i was doing "more of the same".
Not everything is about you.
I was typing my response to Hellcow on the bus to campus, editing it while eating breakfast, and posted it 20 minutes into class.
Just because my post appeared after yours doesn't mean I didn't begin typing it beforehand.
People in war, for example, might end up praying to all three war gods--no matter if they're lawful good, unaligned, or chaotic evil.
Certainly. But they'll do this at different times and for different actions. You ask for Dol Arrah to give you the courage to do the right thing in battle; for Dol Dorn to strengthen your arm when the fray is upon you; and for the Mockery to hide your action when you slaughter your helpless prisoner. All potentially part of war - but as a vassal, you'd never pray to Dol Arrah to support your massacre of civilians. That may be part of war, but it's the part governed by the Mockery. You hope that Dol Arrah will avert her eyes and forgive you for what you have done - but the last thing you'd want to do is specifically call it to her attention.
And this applies to ALL gods. Evil Flamists are just as devout as good Flamists.
Although that's a key point. IF the evil Flamist is just as devout as a good Flamist, than he seeks to promote the creed of the church - defending the innocent from supernatural evil. This IS a good goal. He may approach in in a flawed manner - being willing to torture, for example, or kill an innocent in the name of the greater good - but the point is that the faith is based on compassion for the innocent and the courage to fight the very real forces that threaten those innocents.
Eberron has always taken the path that people of any alignment could follow any faith. We've ALWAYS said that an evil person could be a priest of the Silver Flame. But that doesn't change the fact that when you compare the creed of the CotSF to that of the Mockery, the faith encourages its followers to do good.
So we need to remember and emphasize that worshippers can take any path. But with the 4E material, the alignment is likely to speak to the intent of the creed - the alignment the faith seeks to encourage. You CAN be evil and be part of the CotSF; but if so, you are going to be failing to fully grasp and follows the ideals it seeks to spread.
As I said, the shift in alignment structure will cause some changes between the 4E and 3.5 divine alignments. But we're not abandoning them completely (though I certainly understand and respect your argument for doing so). I understand that you're saying "By looking at the tenets, I should know that this religion promotes good; there's no reason for it to also have a good alignment." Our general view is "If the tenets are supposed to promote good, there's no reason not to make clear that this is how we see it; but we've always called out the fact that followers can be of any alignment." And I certainly don't feel that this approach has prevented people from having, say, a lot of evil SF priests in the past.
You'll certainly see MORE unaligned gods in Eberron. The unaligned alignment - and shift away from alignment in general - is a good thing for Eberron (hurrah for the loss of detect evil!). But we're not going the all-unaligned route in the 4E books.
Lawful good rogues still need the Mockery's support for success with their Stealth and Sneak Attack abilities.
I'd disagree here. I'd expect the typical LG vassal rogue to actually look to Olladra and Dol Dorn as patrons. Simply flanking with an ally and using sneak attack is about martial skill, not vicious treachery; you're taking advantage of an opening. The Mockery is about betrayal, giving into bloodlust, killing the weak and innocent. The Mockery blesses the general who slaughters civilians because he can't take the chance that they may aid his enemies; who poisons the well because he fears to fight; who cuts the throat of the sleeping man. The Mockery is the darkness of war. If the LG rogue slaughters an innocent man while he's sleeping, yup, he's doing the Mockery's work. But if he backstabs a bandit? That's just a display of martial skill, aided by Olladra's touch.
So to me, again, Dol Arrah isn't simple a goddess of generic "War". She is the Sovereign of light in war; Dol Azur the lord of the darkness in war; Dol Dorn all that lies in between. It is the nature of war that it usually includes all of these - but that doesn't change the fact that Dol Arrah supports the good that can be done, while the Mockery embraces the evil.
There's certainly room to argue the point, and that's intentionally part of the religions of Eberron; just as you have a good-aligned sect that venerates the Keeper, you could easily have a Mockery cult that seeks to use his means to do good. But in my opinion, Sneak Attack is not innately an action that ties you to the Mockery; it's a martial action that relies on finesse and precision to inflict additional damage, as opposed to brute force. And Dol Dorn can guide the hand of the skilled swordsman as well as the brute.
I means, that tend to be two things; fanatism or hypocrytal use (and both aren't necessarlt contradictory...).
Not everything is about you.
I was typing my response to Hellcow on the bus to campus, editing it while eating breakfast, and posted it 20 minutes into class.
Just because my post appeared after yours doesn't mean I didn't begin typing it beforehand.
i was not try to make it about be i just posted this becaues i did not know if you read it becaues i did say some about someing that you posted about you. all you need to say is that you were typing to hellcow response alone.
Aren't evil Flame believers hypocrites and actualy not always so devout?
Not at all. An evil SF follower could be EXTREMELY devout. The issue is that he's misinterpreting the intention of the creed. For example, one of the key points of faith in the SF is that human evil should whenever possible be countered with compassion and inspiration, not with sword and flame. The cruel SF inquisitor believes that by torturing a villager he is bringing him closer to the Flame. It's not lack of devotion; it's a failure to understand the intention of the creed, something we see quite often in our own world.
Which is the point of giving the faiths alignment in the first place. What we're trying to say is that people can do evil in the name of the Silver Flame and truly believe that they are doing good... but that this is a mistake. This IS a shift from the founding principles of the faith, and it is not the path espoused by the Keeper of the Flame. Three tenets in a paragraph description can't make that clear; the hierarchy of evil on its own is a full half-page. Eberron is a world in which people can easily use a noble faith to justify evil actions - but that doesn't change the fact that someone who studies the faith closely should recognize that those actions are out of line.
I suppose it's how you define "hypocrite". IMO, the majority of evil SF followers fail to see any hypocrisy in their actions. The believe that they are following the Flame... but the common error is to lose sight of the role that compassion and charity are supposed to play, and to combat human evil in the same way one would fight demons. There's a lot of unaligned and evil SF followers in the world. But they are still part of a church founded to do good.
Again, it's always been the intent of Eberron that this discussions can occur, both here and on Eberron itself. Is the Keeper the greedy fiend who takes souls and tortures them, or a noble spirit who saves souls from Dolurrh? Is the Traveler a dangerous force of chaos or a positive force for change? Is the Silver Flame the defender of the weak or a force too easily turned to blind zealotry? All these are important. But we're still using alignment to speak to the intent of the most common creed.
seeing as Alignment now has no effect on the mechanics, I intend to ignore that section of the character sheet completely.
And for what it's worth, I'm all for that. I was explaining why, within the framework in which alignment is currently used, you'll still see alignments attached to faiths in 4E Eberron. I don't think a DM loses much (if anything) from just dropping alignment.
It's kinda a problem with Eberron that I have. Not necessarly by 'god decret punition', but somehow, how a Torquemada could find the power in him if he is so wrong? I means, its like going against your totem/idol's way in Shadowrun (and frequently becoming a Toxic, and so warping your path to another - if it was Eberron, it would be like becoming th Dark Flame whispering thing if you go Evil).
For me, if magic is faith and there is a profond contradiction between what you already believe and the assumated path/spirituality, an evil flame priest could loose his power, or somehow get twisted. Because of what is in you.
You have warped the faith's ideals ins elf interests or fanatism...
That's exactly correct. But a fanatic still has faith. He still BELIEVES that he is doing the right thing; he may in fact believe it with more fervor than someone who's closer to the right track. The faith says to act with compassion. Is the torturer willfully ignoring that? Is he torturing you for his own pleasure, or because he wants your stuff? Or does he truly believe that torturing you to death is the most compassionate thing he can do, because it's the only way to cleanse your soul and let you join with the Flame? This may seem twisted, it may run directly counter to the hierarchy of evil, but perhaps he follows the proclaimation of a Keeper of the Flame from the 5th Century YK, which he's twisted in his mind to support it. In our world, almost every major religion founded on peaceful principles nonetheless has spawned followers willing to kill in its name. These people may be misguided; that doesn't change the fact that they are devout. They can likely quote scripture justifying their actions. They firmly BELIEVE that they are in the right. Nonetheless, they are still acting against the principles that created the faith - and which guide the majority of its followers.
In Eberron, someone with strong enough faith can call on divine power. The fact that this can empower someone whose actions seem to run counter to the core tenets of the faith could mean any of a number of things.
- There are no gods, and the belief is simply a lens to focus ambient spiritual energy.
- There are gods, but that they do not have the time to examine the individual actions of each priest. They respond to the faith - they do not examine the action.
- There are gods, they are aware of their followers, but choose to empower even those who stray from the path for reasons of their own. The Sovereigns work in mysterious ways.
- Your prayers are answered by the god you TRULY serve, even if you believe that you serve another. The evil priest of the Silver Flame may BELIEVE that he is drawing on the power of the Flame, but in fact it is the Whisperer Within The Flame who empowers his evil deeds.
What has always been a core idea behind Eberron's religions is that schisms should be possible - that no divine force will ever come down from on high to say "UR doin it wrong, mortals." Whether that's because the gods don't exist, don't care, or simply believe that they must allow mortals to solve their own problems is a thing for you to decide.
So again, hypocritical is certainly a term that can be debated; it depends on the specific actions in question. But a follower of the Pure Flame may be incredibly DEVOUT, making serious personal sacrifices and holding to the most literal interpretation of doctrine that a moderate follower would simply ignore; it's simply the case that in clinging to the tree, he may miss the point of the forest.
Now, I do believe that if an evil priest loses FAITH, he will lose power. To draw power from the Flame, the priest must truly believe that his actions are justified within his faith. If he does not believe that, he may still be able to find a source of power, but it won't be the Flame (and this is where a corrupt priest might actually draw his divine energy from the Shadow, the Whisperer in the Flame, or another demon overlord).
Your prayers are answered by the god you TRULY serve, even if you believe that you serve another.
Just as a note, this would tie to the principle that "No evil deed can be done in Dol Arrah's name." You may carry her banner, you may claim to honor her, but when you slaughter innocents you are serving the Mockery, even if you never mention his name.
Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.
You seem to side step every moral quandary with, "Well good can be used for evil, and vice versa, making morality neutral and gray." But the thing is somethings aren't gray, or at least certain aspects of it aren't gray. Compassion for life is good, and is espoused by every religion on this earth.
*When I said Arawai is a goddess of life, I meant real life. She didn't create fiends, Khyber did. She didn't create daelkyr, the realm of Xoriat did. She creates natural life, life that is SUPPOSED to exist.
* You're point on Aureon being oppressive because he supports law is flimsy at best. Your example:
Blacks.
Were.
Legal.
Slaves.
The point is moot at best. Slavery isn't evil, it has only been labeled so by contemporary Western lawmakers. Its what you do with the slaves that constitues as evil or not. Everything is subjective; needless abuse to slaves is evil, but releasing them after their term of indenturement is up isn't.
Before you go on a tirade about how you view law as some evil taskmaster, let me explain why something like slavery isn't evil. Slavery was a common practice since before recorded history, the workforce culled from prisoners of war or debtors who couldn't give what was owed. Slavery was a way to pay back society what it was owed, and as a way of punishment for those who needed it. The funny thing about slavery today is that it is more common now than it was when America did so.
A sailor will give a sacrifice to the Devourer, but out of fear, not veneration. The Devourer would let them pass because he has been supplicated, not because he is merciful.
As Hellcow said, there are Three Faces of War (which is actually a minor religion in Rekkenmark) so my explanation of Dol Dorn was the only fact at the time, so YOU were wrong. Don't get confused now, I know its hard.
Since you have now told me you read Faiths of Eberron, you would have read the part on the Dark Six where it said "Most of those who stand with the Six direct the bulk of their worship to a single god rather than to the pantheon as a whole." Page 38. Boom. So you worship the Traveler? He's the only one important to you. The Shadow or The Keeper don't matter to him.
You know, I did attack you. I'm not sorry about it either. Elrodian was having a civilized talk with you, but rather than have a proper discussion, you tried to shoot down every point he made. I just took the strong man root and pointed out facts. Again, you used baseless conjecture in an attempt to undermine my arguments. You even spouted false facts when you had the proper material to counter me! So I leave you with this; Don't start a thread if YOU aren't open to discussion. The title is "Are All Gods Are Unaligned?" (and you criticized ME on my english!WTF?) You were asking us our opinion on the nature of the gods, and when we said what it was, you basically said "Nope, not so. I'm right." I applaud elrodian, because he was able to be calm when I wasn't.
I'll leave you now with this; Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash! You have an enlightened day now, ya hear?
P.S. Take your own advice and leave this thread, 'cause your own inflexibility has made you blind to other opinions, right or wrong.
This in itself is a worthwhile argument for making the gods unaligned. However, what we generally do is focus on the Pyrinean faith, because it's the predominant faith of Khorvaire. Arawai being good doesn't mean that all her followers must be good; that's one of the basic principles of Eberron and something that's always separated it from core. But it deals with the key point of Pyrinean faith. Arawai is NOT the goddess of nature in all of its forms, any more than Dol Arrah is a goddess of war in all its forms. By and large, spheres are divided among Sovereigns and Six, with the Sovereigns taking the light and neutral aspects of life, and the Six holding sway over the dark and frightening things. Per the Pyrinean faith, Arawai is good because represents nature's bounty - the positive aspects of the wild. She's not the creator of the destructive storm or the gibbering mouther. The Devourer embodies the dark and dangerous aspects of nature, while it's the Shadow who's said to twist nature to create monsters (which is why in Droaam the Shadow is seen as a benevolent deity). So the farmer thanks Arawai for the gentle rain and curses the Devourer for the destructive hurricane (though both were, in fact, caused by unaligned House Lyrandar).
The fact that you can have a cult that believes the Keeper is a force for good certainly complicates things. And making all gods/faiths unaligned is an interesting approach to take. It's just not the one we'll be doing in the sourcebook.
Which is surprising since it feels like half of the people on the 4E General forum hate 4E =P At least people HERE should agree Eberron rocks, and have a common ground for nonaggressive discourse.
But anyway.
I'm now satisfied with this thread, that I've gotten Hellcow to call my idea an interesting approach to take =P
Just to address bailey91: I don't think anyone disagrees that Aureon is an unaligned body. He's... lawful neutral. Unaligned is closer to that then lawful good is, so he defaults to unaligned.
Your argument was that Arawai created life. I was saying that "life" is a large umbrella. Besides: you're naming alternate creation theories when it comes to different forms of life.
The gods, especially when the DM decides that they don't exist, are merely a set of myths that may or may not be accurate. Some say that the Traveler created the universe; some say that Eberron, Siberys, and Khyber created the universe. Others say the universe has always been around, and whatever spawned the current incarnation, it was something bigger than the Traveler or the three progenitor worms or one of the dragon gods, the giant gods, the drow gods, quori... you get the idea.
Yes, I'll agree, when someone asks "Who created the beholder?" I don't say "Arawai." I say "Belashyrra (sp?)" or, at best, "The Shadow."
But if all life is sacred to Arawai, and beholders reproduce and are technically alive, doesn't that mean those lives are sacred to her?
At the very least, if I imagine Arawai in my mind, I imagine a female friend of mine who is the epitome of adoring dreadfully ugly things. She likes looking at freshly hatched spider sacks, newborn rats, and she thinks the interactions of how dangerous bacteria can essentially have a swap-meet of DNA is cool. Of course, she is a sucker for kittens, newborn babies, and she loves listening to birds tweet in the trees.
She simply loves the miracle of life, in all it's forms, from big to small, beautiful to ugly, dangerous to pleasant. That's how I imagine Arawai.
So I can see why she's labeled as "good". Because how can you imagine the person I just described and not imagine a decent, good-hearted person?
But also try to see why I would call her 'unaligned'. Just as she thinks a spider wrapping and eating a butterfly is natural and, in it's own way, beautiful and graceful, so does Arawai look at a purple worm, and admire it's grace despite it's girth--even as it destroys a town. She might not like the fact that someone in the scene is dying, but so long as neither side is undead or made of constructs, she holds both victor and victim sacred and beautiful and worthy of reproducing in her eyes.
Maybe beholders are ugly. And evil as sin. And created as a farce of nature's laws. But they're still alive. I like to think that Arawai doesn't discriminate against life, just because it's different from what she herself created.
I can admire a painting created by picasso, even if my own drawing style is different. I can admire the grace and subtly in Pride and Prejudice, even if reading that book is like a horse tranquilizer. And so does Arawai admire the work of the daelkyr in their creations, if only because they are another form of HER art--birth, life, and procreation.
* (Paraphrased) "Slavery isn't evil--black slavery included. Treating people as property is okay if everyone's doing it."
I'm not touching this topic with a 10' foot pole. Let us pretend you never made that statement.
Mm. Well, I never really expected any sort of change to the 4E Eberron rulebooks. I see the merits in keeping alignments, ignoring them, dropping them, enforcing them, or whatever else a DM wants to do with his campaign--it's just years of practice have made me reflexively argue for whatever viewpoint I'm 'assigned' almost as much as I reflexively argue against what anyoen else has to say ;)
(The Shadow coughcough)
But I like alignments sometimes. Sometimes in a campaign, I'll have Flamists show up and be completely lawful good. No "missing the forest" (I like that one XD), no minor sins in the process of removing major ones, purely diplomatic unless attacked, and all that wonderful stuff. And if you wanted to find an 'evil' Flamist, you'd probably have to set up an entire adventure just to find a RUMOR about one, because if they exist, it's like trying to find an italian who doesn't like food.
Sometimes, I'll have them always show up and be like "GAR EVIL PEOPLE *STAB* FOR THE FLAME *STABS MORE*"
"Uh, Phil, I think he's dead. You can sto--"
"DON'T TELL ME NOT TO BE A GOOD FLAMIST! *STABS OTHER GUY TOO*"
Choosing either is perfectly valid--Eberron is a setting, not a novel, and rules were made to be broken ESPECIALLY if it benefits the story and mood. Unaligned deities were an interesting topic for adding a tool to this rule-breaking, story-writing toolbox.
All I had ever wanted with this thread was to see what other DMs thought of unaligned deities, and--hopefully--bring the issue up to other Eberron DMs who might like the idea and take it as their own. I always get a smile on my face if I suggest something completley at ends with conventions, and get at least one person to tell me they like it and will use it. It means someone, somewhere, is trying to create a campaign they like, rather than a campaign that's a carbon copy of the book. So I like putting ideas on the forums, even though I know there are always some rabid teenagers ready to tear me apart for daring to challenge THEIR game. And they will.
Every single time.
Anyway. It was only ever an idea, and I don't actually intend to follow it. When I get my 4E eberron books, I'm not crossing out alignments, I'm not making a house rule, and I never would.
All I'm saying is... it makes for a good argument, saying "Godly domains work to all ends--they're all unaligned." And it's an interesting way to discuss gods with new players who may not understand Eberron's unique set of pantheons, especially after coming from Forgotten Realms or another setting with hard-and-fast god alignments.
(picking a deity to follow)
"So, the Silver Flame is essentially Bahamut?"
"Yes, but the tenants of the Silver Flame can be interpreted to cause great evil and destruction if that's what you are like deep down inside."
"Oh... But Aureon's a paragon of law, right?"
"Yeah... but he's also sort of unaligned, since his laws can be the evil corrupt laws created by politicians to get power and oppress good people, as much as he supports justified laws."
"Grr... what about the Undying Court?"
"Necromancers who believe contradicting their ancestors--no matter how good or evil--is sacrilege."
"Okay then... this one looks nice. I'll worship Olladra, she supports feast and good fortune!"
"Yeah, but she's also the goddess of being down on your luck, in the poor house, and having your last piece of bread taken away to be put on the king's banquet table."
"But I just want to worship a good god! Pure good!"
"Well, then, pick a god, any god, whether they say good or evil or chaotic or lawful, or unaligned, and say 'I worship this one! I'm good though! Pure good!' The alignments for these gods really only describes the vast majority of their clergy. Think of it like this: If one day, every member of the Silver Flame put on a helm of opposite alignment, the Silver Flame's alignment would read 'chaotic evil', because it's the clergy, more than the tenants (though the tenants do matter)."
"Okay... but does that mean I could be a good worshiper of the Blood of Vol?"
"Absolutely. They believe in reaching your full moral, physical, and spiritual potential. They believe blood is the source of all divinity. They use a lot of necromancy, but their sentient undead members are pitied because they have lost all chance of becoming pure and divine. The vast majority of the Blood of Vol clergy is demonic, vile, and power hungry, but their TENANTS can go either way."
"But I can still be pure good, right? Even if I'm not with the rest of their clergy"
"So long as you truly believe in their tenants of faith."
"No penalties?"
"Not in Eberron. You might not get promoted above 'priest' because you make their evil ranks uncomfortable, but you can nonetheless be a devout worshiper of them"
"Sweet!"
Anyway, I appreciate your input on the matter, Hellcow. And it's nice to know that I can always find intelligent conversation on Eberron from someone who's even more passionate about it than me
Seems like the only kind of passion you get on the Eberron forums from a non-designer is the kind the Fury would advocate...
Anyway alignment is a tricky issue and it is one discussion that people seem passionate about on any forum. There should be a rule that we cannot talk about Religion, Politics and Alignments on the D&D forums. ;)
I suppose I shoulda taken my own advice, and you know what? I'm just tired now. I mean, whatever, ya know? I learned D&D during 3.5 like alot of us, and I guess that's why I'm a hard-ass on alignment. I know I came off real harsh, but that's the Irish in me talking. So, I'm done.
You have an enlightend day now, ya hear?
There is no direct connection between the alignment of the gods and those who pray to them. People in war, for example, might end up praying to all three war gods--no matter if they're lawful good, unaligned, or chaotic evil.
And this applies to ALL gods. Evil Flamists are just as devout as good Flamists. Lawful good rogues still need the Mockery's support for success with their Stealth and Sneak Attack abilities.
But the thing is Dol Arrah is the patron of honorable combat, self-sacrifice, and sunlight. A peacemaker, the best aspects of the mortal soul, those who seek justice and those who fight with wisdom.
There is rather little evil in there. Heck, she's the patron of the best parts of mortals. I think that, by definition, makes her pretty good. Priests and Paladins of Dol Arrah recognize that "War is Hell." That's why peacemaking is listed under here domain. But when war breaks out, Dol Arrah is there in the thick of it, fighting for what's right. Because its the Good thing to do.
And every god is fickle, beyond it's worshipers, it's portfolio flexing between good and evil, and the interaction between the gods--at least in myth--fluctuating between good, evil, and unaligned.
But, the thing is that some domains are Good. With a capital "G"
Arawai is the goddess of Nature's bounty and all of it's gifts.
And that's it.
She's not really intereted in beholders or mind flayers.
Because she is the goddess of Nature's bounty, not the mad, twisted, tortured monstosities crafted by the Princes of Madness.
Boldei is "everything positive about society." The guardian of villages. The patron of the home.
Not too much evil there.
The Silver Flame
The deity of Purity, Redempion, Self-Sacrifice, and Just War.
To be honest, I don't see how you can get more stereotypicly good.
Now, it appears to me that your hangup with the Silver Flame is that people do evil in the Silver Flame's name.
And I guess my response is... "So?"
If I walk outside and kick someone in the shins in the name of Keith Baker, does that make Mr. Hellcow a bad person?
Cause if it doesn't, I'm kinda confused as to how this argument works.
And if it does, well... Sorry Keith. You are now a bad person.
On the same note, some deities are Evil. Note the big "E"
The Mockery
The god of Betrayal, Murder, and Bloodshed
The Shadow
The god of Corruption, Mayhem, and Dark Magic
"If Dol Arrah represents the light of the mortal soul, the Shadow represents the darkness within."
Neither of these people are nice. In fact, they are rather Evil.
Overall, I think that you have an interesting take on the cosmology. Seriously, you've got some pretty cool ideas about the deities.
It's just that the offical stuff kinda has different ones.
To be honest, I don't see how you can get more stereotypicly good.
Now, it appears to me that your hangup with the Silver Flame is that people do evil in the Silver Flame's name.
And I guess my response is... "So?"
If I walk outside and kick someone in the shins in the name of Keith Baker, does that make Mr. Hellcow a bad person?
Cause if it doesn't, I'm kinda confused as to how this argument works.
And if it does, well... Sorry Keith. You are now a bad person.
I this is the point of the people that are arguing with you. not saying the idea is so not interesting
We've seen no evidence to the contrary in their direct intervention
The clergy? Rarely.
Most Purified will be Good, perhaps even Lawful Good, serving that great big argent bonfire in Thrane. They'll show mercy and pity those people who have evil growing in their hearts, offering to guide them to salvation so that they may one day join with the Flame and keep the world safe.
The Blood of Vol seems a lot more egocentric by nature, specifically by stating that every member has a chance to reach divinity if only their introspection is deep enough. Necromancy is a staple in the religion and that'd unnerve most people, and indeed it does.
I believe you'll find a lot more opportunistic rogues than noble and selfless crusaders in their ranks, even if my statement isn't directly expressed in any sourcebook I'm aware of.
The Sovereign Host seems like Protestantism of modern day. It's more of a cultural thing than a religious thing, really. You may know a psalm or two and know the more popular parts of the scripture, but that's mostly it. You'll say a prayer when you feel you need it and forget about it when you don't.
Cults of the Dragon Below seem... unbalanced. As in "Hey, my name is Jim and I want to put babies on spikes!"-unbalanced. As in: "freaks!"
Khybers first act upon awakening would be to smite these people who taint its divine reputation ;)
seeing as Alignment now has no effect on the mechanics, I intend to ignore that section of the character sheet completely.
I just put a thick gray line for my alignment.
I just put a thick gray line for my alignment.
This is actually the point that has always seemed oddest to me about alignment in Eberron: most people writing on the subject have been of the opinion that alignment in Eberron is 'gray' or 'blurry'.
It's not, and never has been. The threads of alignment in Eberron are for the most part quite colorful. It's just that there are so many of them, so tightly woven together, that they look gray from a distance.
Most people in Eberron were never neutral: they are, or have been, strongly aligned, with the alignment making less difference than in other settings, because somewhere along the line, someone, maybe Hellcow, maybe someone else, realized at an intuitive level that alignment is progressively less meaningful the farther away one gets from single encounters.
At the encounter level, alignment is nearly absolute: Aurala is not going to grab the nearest chambermaid and threaten to kill her if the adventurers don't back off. Kaius, on the other hand, would certainly consider doing so if the adventurers were winning, and there was a chambermaid handy.
Once we start getting away from the level of encounters, though, things start to get a little less distinct. Aurala is plotting the next steps of the War;
Kaius is plotting the next steps of the peace.
Taking this point to an extreme, we observe that the gods—assuming they exist at all—are at a level very, very far removed from encounters. [1]
All of the gods described in Eberron can have Good or Evil performed in their names. Do they—the gods—seek evil, or encourage it among their followers? Among the Sovereigns, no. The one of their number who did—Dol Azur—was flayed and cast out, becoming the Mockery.
Among the Dark Six, do they seek evil, or encourage it in their followers? Sometimes. Do they deny good? Again, sometimes: the Shadow and the Mockery more than others, perhaps.
Here, however, we find ourselves on the fragile ground between the religion and the gods: it's quite possible—I would suggest it likely—to find a good-aligned religion dedicated to worship of the Devourer, albeit their worship is likely to be of the form "we offer you these gifts that you not smite us with your hurricanes." Similar propitiatory worship is reasonable to offer the Keeper, or the Fury.
But—and we sometimes lose sight of this—we're trying to build a world specifically intended to support role-playing adventures, and we're trying to express Eberron in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons terms.
The most likely scenario, then, is that from the perspective of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, the Eberron Player's Guide will permit clerics and paladins of any alignment to select any listed faith or religious tradition as their patron for purposes of qualifying for the various Channel Divinity feats.
In other words, it seems likely that a cleric of the Sovereigns—regardless of alignment—would qualify for any of the specific Channel Divinity feats associated with any Sovereign of the Host. It is also possible that Channel Divinity feats associated with the Dark Six will be published, allowing a game-mechanical representation of, for example, a cleric of the War Triad.
A cleric or paladin of the Silver Flame would, of course, qualify only for Silver Flame-based Channel Divinity feats. Similarly for a cleric or paladin of il-Yannah,[2], the Undying Court, or the Blood of Vol.
Similarly, there will be limitations on the usefulness of holy symbols dedicated to specific deities.
And those will—probably—be the only game-mechanical limitations we see in the upcoming Eberron Player's Guide.
In other words, regardless of their actual alignments, the gods will be treated, mechanically, as if they were unaligned.
—Siran Dunmorgan
[1] The glaring exception being the Undying Court, which, taken as a whole, is a god, physically manifest on Eberron.
[2] I look forward to the publication of psionic heroes in 4th Edition. Consider the cinematic 'look' of a paladin of il-Yannah, multiclassed into Soulknife.
now please play nice:D
The Traveler is an excellent example of an unaligned deity - one whose actions can be good or bad, which can destroy civilization or improve it, and one whose followers cover the entire spectrum. But I hate to see it pigeonholed as "chaos for chaos' sake" - when change and transformation are key aspects of the deity.
The ancient Greeks saw Chaos differently. Chaos or χάος means "the primal emptiness, space" rather than "disorder" to them. The Traveler, as Hellcow sees him, is more of a God of Change. The Traveler is the embodiment of Change rather than Chaos. The Traveler should be outside of the Dark Six because of this.
However because Chaos is an aspect of change in the D&D game, and can be seen as evil, the Traveler is added to the Dark Six.
I this is the point of the people that are arguing with you. not saying the idea is so not interesting
I have to admit that I'm having trouble understanding this.
I think it means
"I think this is the point of the people that are arguing with you. I'm not saying that the idea is not interesting."
If I guessed correctly, then I really just don't understand the reasoning.
I mean, there's a difference between being thought of as a bad person because people are going around kicking shins and peeing in the town well and saying that you told them to do it.
It makes you seem like a bad person to these people, but, if you were a good person, you are still a good person.
I have to admit that I'm having trouble understanding this.
I think it means
"I think this is the point of the people that are arguing with you. I'm not saying that the idea is not interesting."
If I guessed correctly, then I really just don't understand the reasoning.
I mean, there's a difference between being thought of as a bad person because people are going around kicking shins and peeing in the town well and saying that you told them to do it.
It makes you seem like a bad person to these people, but, if you were a good person, you are still a good person.
Not according to D&D. No matter the intentions, in the 3.5e Book of Vile Darkness, creating undead, even if it was to save kittens or babies, was an Evil act. Actions define D&D alignment. With modern, Earth-born Philosophy, we can argue anything as good or evil, and argue intentions over actions, but D&D has one philosophy: actions equate alignment.
Why??? =P
And, to counter/tack on to your 3.5 argument, Heroes of Horror had a system where you only were 'evil' if you were thinking or doing evil things. Thus, a lawful good paladin could show up as evil if he was thinking of revenge, while a chaotic evil villain might not show up at all if he's behaving himself and thinking good thoughts.
Really, it comes down to: how do you define alignment?
Actions?
Intentions behind your actions?
Thoughts with or without actions?
The general trend of your behavior?
Whether you're selfish or not?
Normally, DMs/settings/players view one of the above as the correct defining quality.
But Eberron has always shied away from any strict answer, leaving 'alignment' to be relative to the eye of the Beholder. Breland attacks Cyre. Is Cyre evil and Breland good? According to Breland, yes. Is Breland evil and Cyre good? According to Cyre, yes.
My point being--which might be different than my point a year ago--in Eberron, everyone's opinion is from their own perspective. A cleric of the Fury doesn't wake up and say "I think I will be an evil jerk today!", he says "I'm going to spread passion like a wildfire today." To another church, he might be a madman; to his congregation, he might be a saint.
Thus, gods should be unaligned--and I'll still preach to my PCs that they should view the alignments in the EPG as rough guidelines, that gods could be unaligned or even opposed in alignment to what's written depending on your sect/beliefs/which tenants you hold truest and most important.
(I don't have much to add, I just appreciate the irony)
So davethebrave371 commits thread necromancy in order to tell us that creating undead is always an evil act. . .
(I don't have much to add, I just appreciate the irony)
On an eberron forum, no less. Undying Court anyone? This is an undying thread thank you.