Does the holy symbol focus impart the new sixth sense? Does the caster need to recognize any corresponding symbols or colors? Is the vision this divination unlocks a way of reading the weave itself?
Personally I always looked at Detect Evil and similar spells as looking at the planar alignments of the creature or item being examined. While its not exact, it does give a reasonable degree of measure of strength of planar resonances or sympathies, so can be used to guage the alignment thing.
As to its relationship to other divinations, I'd say it was somewhat similar, since I tend to think of those spells looking for similar resonances and sympathies, although fairly different ones from the Detect Evil spell.
I'd say the relationship it shared with the Holy Symbol as a focus came more from using an item with a known resonance and planar sympathy, and so is useful as a comparative aid, though not really a necessary one as the caster becomes more and more sure of their castings (read takes the eschew/ignore material components feat-line). As such, I don't think it entails reading the Weave, though learning how to differentiate those resonances by interpreting them as colors or symbols could work to make them a bit more interesting than assuming automatic knowledge.
-One way it can work is people give off "auras" that can be detected with magic, or with Psionics. Using Detect Alignment lets you see the "Color Aura" of the person. I know with Tibetan Buddhist mysticism, this is how it's done. Mystics who can see into the souls of others say that each person has a nimbus of color around their head like a halo that changes in color to depict their mood, intentions, etc. Perhaps their "aura" then alters the Weave around them, which the reader then sees when he/she casts his/her spell, and "reads".
-Detect Magic is similar (at least, that's how I play it). When the caster uses it, before he/she can concentrate and "read" the enchantments, the item that is magical glows in a color appropriate for what it is. A Holy sword, for example, will glow white. An Unholy sword will glow black.
-With things like Detect Animals, Detect Plants, etc., it's much easier, since there isn't any gray area- a plant is a plant, an animal is an animal, etc. With those, I'd say it just alerts the caster to the presence of those things.
-That's one of the problems with D&D alignment being, more or less, objective: Something that is defined as evil is, no matter what, and something that isn't defined as evil isn't evil, no matter what. So, to use the good ol' Star Wars example, using Force Lightning to blast the guy holding the little girl hostage gives you a Dark Side point no matter what, and using Force Heal to prolong the torture of someone doesn't give you a Dark Side point.
Force Heal to prolong torture will give a DSP (dependent on how accurate my memory is and gm interpretation), it just gets treated as a moral transgression since torture will not typically be considered a good act and acting to prolong it is directly assisting in its commission. The catch being that the same act done to keep someone alive in hope of impending rescue is a good act, no DSP. Intent is a factor in both D&D and SW. Not to say there isn't a problem with the old alignment systems, there is but it's mostly that the phrasing used easily lends itself to bad interpretation. I'm rather fond of objective morality in the sense that Good and Evil are actual forces that influence matters. I just don't see any need to presume mortals can clearly define them any more than mortals can define divinities. We grab onto the handful of basics that we can almost understand and either take the rest on faith or try and avoid the topic. Sometimes our interpretation will be wrong.
To original question:
Highly Modified Law of Sympathy: Sufficiently like objects can form metaphysical ties.
Actions that further Evil connect to the actual power that is Evil and dampen, conceal or negate to varying degrees connections to that power which is Good. You aren't actually seeing and weighing a mortal mind or soul, your mortal mind isn't adequately advanced to do so. You are instead seeking out connections to the moral absolutes. Whichever one is predominant is normally the alignment, provided of course there isn't any magical trickery involved.
EDIT ADD-ON: Or since the spell in question is detect evil rather than detect alignment, you're just seeking to find people, items, etc where evil is the predominant connection.
The actual physical sensation is iffy. One of the novels basically treated the subject as an aura sight but going off text from Magic of Faerun regarding The Power (divine magic) and personal preference, I treat a lot of divinations as somewhat variable in this regard. The spell provides the data but mortal minds interpret it differently. Some may see auras, others may go by scent, depends on caster.
Say a Knight of Anu (Homebrew/Utter east org that is similar to the Spanish Inquisition) cast this spell on a town on some villagers that his fellow knights are holding in the town square on their knees. These folks follow the Adama, and not Anu, so the Knight-Inquisitor finds them 'evil' and has them executed for sacrilege.
To most other folks, these guys and their religion would be considered evil, but they consider themselves the epitome of 'good'.
Ergo, to use the spell 'correctly', you would have to forgo all the silly alignment rules and the DM should make the decision based on his own knowledge of the situation.
Evil is highly subjective. ;)
Just look at all the 'discussipons' LK and I have about Dark Elves/Drow and Gold-Silver/Eladrin Elves - everything depends on how you perceive things.
As to whether they see themselves as good or evil, that doesn't change their planar alignments, just their view of their relative morality. That they call someone good evil doesn't change the objective definitions of good and evil in the D&D universe. It just means that the evil guy would use "Detect Good" to detect "Evil" beings with subjective naming conventions... or maybe even a more specialized spell like "Detect Infidel".
On the other hand, Drow consider themselves evil, and will even tell you not to turn your back on any Drow (including themselves).
Which makes them HONEST... and that is far more 'good' in my book then the self-deceiving Eladrin and their delusions of Grandeur. How many humans have Drow killed? A few thousand? ten-thousand? fifty-thousand?
It doesn't matter - now look at how many humans Elves have killed, not to mention their own people (which appears to be far more then the Drow ever killed) - everything from those undersea cities of the Netherease, to Jhaamdath, to the untold millions that died as a result of the sundering (or were never even born, depending on how you look at it).
Not to mention the theft of the Nether Scrolls from the Netherease, which may have helped Karsus in his research, had he still had them available (lord knows how many millions have died just becase of their 'meddling').
Ergo, if I were suddenly a mage on Toril and cast detect evil, every Elf in a hundred-mile radius would light-up. If LK cast the same spell (as himself, not Lord Karsus), the Elves wouldn't show-up on his 'radar'... but a few Gnomes might. :P
Though I thought it was the sea elf kingdom that got wasted when they blasted Jhaamdath, not Netherese, or was that something else entirely?
Oh, and you should know by now that you're preaching to the choir when it comes to the evil atrocities of the elves. :P
I think this is one of the fundamental flaws with alignment: it is objective. Certain things are always good, and other things are always evil. They are real and tangible forces.
Who wants to extrapolate things out from there, bringing them to their logical conclusion? ;)
Force Heal to prolong torture will give a DSP (dependent on how accurate my memory is and gm interpretation), it just gets treated as a moral transgression since torture will not typically be considered a good act and acting to prolong it is directly assisting in its commission.
-It is the act of torturing that is evil, and is netting one the Dark Side Point, however. The act of channeling the Force to heal them does not automatically net one the Dark Side Point. Unlike, Force Lightning, that always does. This is the problem with George Lucas' version of the Force.
-I, like you, liked the concept of objective evil. In some cases, it does work. Using D&D as our basis of comparison, Devils are objective evil entities. They are birthed of the essence of 'Law' and the essence of 'Evil'. Barring highly unusual circumstances, Devils are evil. Always. And, this extends to other D&D Outsider entities- Demons are CE, Eladrin are CG, Yugoloth are NE, and so on.
-In the real world, and in D&D worlds in which emotion and action aren't definites- for a lack of better words- it doesn't work. According to the Player's Handbook, using poison is evil, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Even if the person uses poison for a benevolent reason- someone slips a little something into the king's coffee, causing him to have stomach cramps all morning, causing him to miss his morning address to the nation, causing the assassin who was going to kill him when he spoke to have to alter his/her plans- it is evil, no ifs, ands, or buts. I, personally, would have trouble defining this as evil. Likewise, things I personally consider evil just aren't in different cultures. In India, there existed a practice known as 'Sati', in which widowed women immolated themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Did I consider this evil, when first reading it? Sure. After thinking a little, though, I can't call it 'evil'. No one is forcing the woman- she is doing it on her own volition. It's was normal (note, it's not a very normal thing anymore) practice in India. It's no more or no less evil than an "iffy" ritual that is something that I find of little consequence in my own life and culture. Some would find it evil that parents willingly subject their newborn infants to a bris. Is it?
I would say it was evil myself... up there with enforced clitorectomies in my book, as it still results in a permanent mutilation without the consent of the person being mutilated. But there you're talking about a judgment call... which I don't think could be answered even in D&D terms really.
-Exactly. I find it perfectly normal, something that should be done. What is the objective answer? There is none. Which is why, ultimately, on matters like this, objectivism fails.
Though I thought it was the sea elf kingdom that got wasted when they blasted Jhaamdath, not Netherese, or was that something else entirely?
It was a human kingdom, although not a Netherese kingdom.
D&D objective good and evil, I disagree with the PHB on a couple points. Most of the time, I think intent must be factored before an act classes on the alignment scale. There are very, very few crimes that I consider innately evil regardless of justification and intent. Heck, even attempted destruction of a mortal's soul which I treat as an auto death sentence most of the time gets a partial ride in sufficiently desperate conditions. The other complication I toss in is that while it's possible to commit evil acts unkowingly, a single unknown evil is not an alignment changing event any more than a single DSP. A lifetime of extremely evil activity with good justification (in the villain's eyes) might manage shift alignment but that provides an excuse to give out moral issues to players on whether slaughtering the guy out of hand is more appropriate than trying to change him.
If you prefer to limit headaches though, just remove alignment from mortals. Say that a mortal is incapable of tying themself closely enough to one of the absolute moralities to register as good or ill without becoming something other than mortal.
It was a human kingdom, although not a Netherese kingdom.
No, no, no...
I was talking about two seperate incidents.
Netheril had two enclaves Underwater, and the Sea Elves - the Kingdom of Seros was founded by them - wiped-out both enclaves - mass extinction, by somehow shutting-down their protective mythalars (which kept water out, instead of having them fly).
None of that has anything to do with the atrocity that was Jhaamdath.
Anyhow, that bit about the Netherease Underwater Enclaves got me thinking - if Mythalars can also produce (or at least maintain) a breathable atmosphere, aside from their usual gig of making cities fly... then Mythalars sound very much like large-scale Spelljamming Helms!
Perhaps the Netherease were more successful with Spelljamming tech then we had thought. There just might be a few cities still flying around in Arcane Space.
And yes, I realize that this has very little to do with the topic, except that we all agree that Nethrease would detect as evil.. or was it the Elves?
Maybe their Spelljamming research was merely a means to an end?
Does a lingering aura visually work as an aura trail? This way following an evil aura could be possible by blocking away the aura's of neutral and good creatures. Following a faint evil aura would be painstakingly difficult in a city filled with a sufficiently large evil population criscrossing eachothers aura trails.
An act of evil leaves a more permanent mark in the fabric of the weave (or the planes) as the trauma saturates an area with some of the active and/or victimised souls pathos. So some streets in Fearuns darker towns and places that give that oominous feeling actually are collecting spots for evil emanations of things in the past best left untold...
A high dc sense motive or wisdom check sometimes might give even a noncaster the ability to see a glimpse of an aura.
Perhaps the Netherease were more successful with Spelljamming tech then we had thought. There just might be a few cities still flying around in Arcane Space.
they abandoned spelljamming as being too expensive
-Which means that, in theory, there is a "space station" of Netherese still up there who can't come down, and they are very angry.
An act of evil leaves a more permanent mark in the fabric of the weave (or the planes) as the trauma saturates an area with some of the active and/or victimised souls pathos. So some streets in Fearuns darker towns and places that give that oominous feeling actually are collecting spots for evil emanations of things in the past best left untold...
-I would also say that an act of evil leaves a "permanent mark" on the soul/Incarnum of an individual. I'm find of Incarnum (you know that): Perhaps Detect Evil "looks" and "analyzes" the Incarnum of an individual, which would be basically a "painting" of their life. There would be 'good' auras in it, 'bad' auras in it, 'neutral', 'lawful', and so on.
A high dc sense motive or wisdom check sometimes might give even a noncaster the ability to see a glimpse of an aura.
-Unconsciously tapping into their own Incarnum/Psionic abilities, that remain untapped by their conscious.
It was a human kingdom, although not a Netherese kingdom.
I knew that part... I was getting at the sea elven kingdom that got trashed by Jhaamdath raining down destruction upon it in the wake of its own destruction.
As to the topic at hand, I wouldn't think most casually evil folks would detect with the spell. Actively evil, sure, they would, but the ones who just are but don't necessarily go out of their way to do anything about it wouldn't. I tend to think of it as a simple verification system for the paladin's smite ability, to make ensure that their divinely granted ability to smite evildoers isn't wasted on the undeserving. Having said that, I doubt most, or any really, would go around detecting and looking for someone to smite unless they were committing an evil act or encountered in combat. And even then, I doubt most paladins would 'waste' it on petty thugs without sufficiently good reason... and no, I don't think being 'evil' is a good enough reason. Just seems to cheapen the ability to my mind.
Indeed, linking the detection spell to a divinition into the souls of those in the area has a strong incarnum flavour in of itself. The only problem is the incarnum view on a soulless being would be jarring to say the least. It might fail to show an undeads aura replacing it with a dark reflection of the (animated) soul.
-Maybe that is how Detect Undead works: Instead of seeing a "black aura" (evil), or a "white aura" (good), or something in between, the caster doesn't see any aura. And, that's how he/she knows it's something Undead.
The only problem I have with that is detect Undead. Unless your pulling a 'reverse the polarity' schtick (a'la Star Trek) and now you are looking to 'see' the negative energy emananting from something, rather then the positive.
This, assuming of course, that a creature's 'Aura' is based upon Positive energy (which makes sese, to me at least).
Hmmm... "reversing the Polarity" I meant somewhat in jest, but now that I think about how the magic system works (or used to work), and how MU's can reverse spells, it does seem to be a good explanation.
All based off of what LK said, of course. ;)
Edit: Thinking further on this, then you really couldn't have a 'detect good' or 'detect evil' - if you can see the person's 'Aura', then it should just be 'detect Alignment'. Also, it would defeat the purpose of masking your alignment with a spell or magical devices -what would your Aura look like? Grey? Or would it not show up at all?
Grey should be true neutral, I would imagine, and 'no Aura' should be undead, so people would assume someone with a masked Aura would be undead!
And even if they didn't, there would still be the problem of trying explain to the War Wizard you are trying to get past why, exactly, you feel the need to mask your Alignment in the first place.
That makes some sense.
When I played a Paladin in WoW, I had 'Detect Undead', but never saw much use for it. After all, I was intending to kill EVERYTHING I ran into, so knowing they were there didn't matter (I see it, I kill it... simple).
Then I entered a certain area (I forget where - probably the undead lands), and I was like "Dang! I'm glad I have that spell!".
When you're in a place where you are just barely strong enough to take on one or two at a time, its good to know where they are all at. :D
Also, IIRC, it also told me which were where, which was great when you have a quest to kill certain ones.
Not sure what they had to do with the topic, though...
Grey should be true neutral, I would imagine, and 'no Aura' should be undead, so people would assume someone with a masked Aura would be undead!
-In that case, a 'masked alignment' should show up a different color, since those masking their alignment aren't neutral, or undead. Maybe a haze of all different possible colors?
-I had an interesting though, but I don't remember it exactly. It was something along the lines of perhaps Detect Evil is somewhat Psionic in nature, with Mystra and Auppenser making some kind of deal long ago, and, as such, the spell allows the caster to 'scan' the targets surface thoughts, allowing him to get the sense of it a person is 'good', evil', and so on. Something like that.
So evil thought is the source of evil aura's emenating from a person. Hmm. Seems fairly logical.
Meaning a person can be evil even when they haven't acted so, which is very real in D&D.
I think most divine spellcasters who employ detect evil have a multitude of ways how they register the evil thoughts, aura or soul. The nature oriented gods (inlcuding most demihuman and monstrous humanoid dieties) would the grant the smell sensation, the more knowledge based dieties would grant a soulsight or would use the thoughtscan, the more emotion based gods the aurasight.
Not buying it. Wouldn't work on objects/locations if it just relied on surface thoughts and the like.
Stone and mineral speaks terran when adressed to. So does wood have surface thoughts in Sylvan. In D&D almost everything can have some sort of "base thought".
Not buying it. Wouldn't work on objects/locations if it just relied on surface thoughts and the like.
-Not necessarily thoughts, but "brain* waves" perhaps. Something like that.
*Or the brain's equivalent.
Not to mention the theft of the Nether Scrolls from the Netherease, which may have helped Karsus in his research, had he still had them available (lord knows how many millions have died just becase of their 'meddling').
I'd like to point out that the Netherese stole the scrolls from the elves first. :P
It might even complicate the otherwise quite yes or no answer to the spell if the actions of the subject of detect evil are ambiguous or neutral. This might mean that they have the quality of good as well as evil encompasing in their auras. Judges of Tyr might be experts at interpreting the brainwaves and alterations to the aura's of the subjects of a trial; under the pressure of a lawful trial (and a zone of truth) a person's aura might exhibit the traits of both extreme evil, complete detachment and awesome goodness.
It might even be subjective (like most spells are). When the defendant of the accused makes a compelling argument stirring the harts of both the guildjudge and the guildmeisters the defendant might be seen by the attendant jury caster of a detect evil spell as supremely good. A killer on trial might get away because a detect evil casting jury member has a skewed view on morals after coming back from a disastrous adventure where he lost his friends. His own acceptance of the evil reality of adventuring might have jaded him to a point of indifference to smaller, insideous types of evil.
Seeing the potential to evil in a soul is the quality sought of by most judges of Tyr (and Torm in the 15th century Realms) who want to be succesful judges. The impressions and imprints left by the planar resonance of evil actions and thoughts are reflections of the essences of evil on the different planes/domains of evil fearunian deites.