Eberron: Forging Fury [Full and Live]

[Kerrz]

I've bothered to dig out the Book of Vile Darkness, for a brief look at Evil. It pimps out the Objective look at evil:
People are evil if they do evil things. How they justify their actions is irrelevant, what matters is what they do.
One of the things that they can do, according to the BoVD, which is evil is to create undead. Necromancers don't have much else that they can do...

So with all that being said, a Paladin could not associate with you if you create undead minions, regardless of whatever alignment we decide to give you.

(I can't believe there are rules for "what is evil?" Maybe some cultures believe in reanimating the dead as cheap labour... does that make it evil for them to partake in part of their daily routine?)

So... One of you has to kill their character concept. I'll stick by the rules, because it's easier to do so now than to have all sorts of morality questions float around later on between the two characters.

Since d'Anconia is working on another concept anyway, we might as well just go that route.

(I don't like Paladins anyway. Their damned moral code tends to ruin my morally ambiguous plot hooks - but I never remember to account for it.)

 

[d'Anconia]

No problem! I'll be posting the character tonight along with his history and all that.

 

[Timeboxer]

Just thought I'd mention in a footnote that my own feeling is that the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness are actually incompatible with Eberron. In Eberron, "good" and "evil" is less pure and objective than it is the equivalent of a "blood type," or so Keith Baker says. A paladin in a bar who realizes that the bartender is evil won't lop his head off or anything; rather, he'd just tell the bartender that he sees the darkness in his heart and ask him to shape up, or something similar.

I'd hesitate to call Karrnath an "evil country," and I think -- though it's likely that I'm wrong, as I'm basing this from a few comments in the Five Nations thread -- that the Bone Knight prestige class in the Five Nations book may actually allow you to be good-aligned, yet rebuke undead. I'll have to look at it when I get it in the mail this week.

Keep this in mind, though. If creating undead is inherently evil, then that means that creating deathless is inherently good -- isn't it? It's this sort of moral absolutism that the setting discourages, I think, and makes the idea of a Chaotic Good Necromancer who sincerely believes that the living are of more value than the dead very feasible.

 

[Bront]

I've bothered to dig out the Book of Vile Darkness, for a brief look at Evil. It pimps out the Objective look at evil:
People are evil if they do evil things. How they justify their actions is irrelevant, what matters is what they do.
One of the things that they can do, according to the BoVD, which is evil is to create undead. Necromancers don't have much else that they can do...

So with all that being said, a Paladin could not associate with you if you create undead minions, regardless of whatever alignment we decide to give you.

(I can't believe there are rules for "what is evil?" Maybe some cultures believe in reanimating the dead as cheap labour... does that make it evil for them to partake in part of their daily routine?)

So... One of you has to kill their character concept. I'll stick by the rules, because it's easier to do so now than to have all sorts of morality questions float around later on between the two characters.

Since d'Anconia is working on another concept anyway, we might as well just go that route.

(I don't like Paladins anyway. Their damned moral code tends to ruin my morally ambiguous plot hooks - but I never remember to account for it.)

Aren't there the equivilent spells to create Deathless, which is good? That could be an intertesting Necromancer variant...

 

[Kerrz]

Aren't there the equivilent spells to create Deathless, which is good? That could be an intertesting Necromancer variant...

Except I can't imagine any Aerenal elf teaching a Warforged how to use their Deathless magic.

But yes, there is alot of moral ambiguity in Eberron. I think it works alot more on the relative version of alignments than on the objective version. Yeah. "Alignments are relative gauges of a character or creature's viewpoint, and not absolute barometers of affiliation and action; nothing is exactly as it seems." (EBCS pg. 8)

Alright. It's official. We'll agree with Kieth.

That means that your alignment is based upon your personal concept of self rather than an absolute accounting of your outward actions. So people can ignorantly do evil things, thinking them good (Paladin killing helpless goblin children, thinking his Detect Evil skill is absolute) or folks can do good things, thinking them evil (killing a sick old man out of rage, but infact ending his life mercifully.)

Or... in our Necromancer example... being an objective observer with a slight bit of intolerance, and thus neutral. He does not believe that he is harming anyone, because he, personally, sees the bodies that he is raising as so much soulless, empty husks.

However, this still means we can't fit the Paladin in, because it is 100% definite that a Paladin of the Silver Flame would find, within himself, that the Necromancer's acts are evil, even if the Necromancer himself didn't.

So, the final word: Paladin/Necro won't fit in, but Agarndas is True Neutral until proven otherwise. If you want to play him as spiteful and cruel, we may knock him down to Neutral Evil as time goes on, but from the bio I read, he does not seem evil (unless you really want him to prove that he is.)

 

[d'Anconia]

Yeah, I completely have no problem with that. As soon as I saw the Necro a few days ago, I kinda figured that I'd be choosing another character. I'm almost done building a Warlock now, problem is I can't seem to come up with the type of unique vivid background for the Warlock like I had come up with for the Paladin. I'll think of something I'm sure

While I'm thinking, however - anyone got any spare ideas floating around? I'm debating between having him be just a freak accident in a normal production run and having him be part of a unique small production order of a experimental arcane type (ie: House Cannith or the customer wasn't too keen on having a bunch of forged who were full wizards, but giving some of them a limited amount of arcane battle powers that can be used over and over again, now that sounds like a plan!)

I'm kinda extrapolating here from the part of Races of Eberron where it says that the only type of arcane training normally given to new warforged is artificer training because of how useful it is in healing them, implying that their creators were uncomfortable giving them other more expansive types of arcane training.

 

[d'Anconia]

So out of curiosity, the old 3.0 1st level multiclass rule isn't an option right?

 

[Bront]

Well, here's an idea.

Perhaps he was being trained as a sorcerer, but in his "delving within" for his power, he managed to delve a bit to far and find power from a dark source. Perhaps he's chaotic good, and generaly doesn't intend evil with his warlock powers, and in fact thinks he's a true sorcerer, or knows he's not a true sorcerer, but he's something close so he just fakes it.

On a side note, now that we no longer have a paladin, we have no real healing in the party beyond potentialy the bard. Any thoughts on a cleric of some kind instead of the paladin? You could even do something strange like the warlock/cleric who belives he's in direct contact with his god and that's where he gets his warlock powers. (A Warlock/Favored Soul would work well that way too)

 

[Ringmereth]

Or... in our Necromancer example... being an objective observer with a slight bit of intolerance, and thus neutral. He does not believe that he is harming anyone, because he, personally, sees the bodies that he is raising as so much soulless, empty husks.

However, this still means we can't fit the Paladin in, because it is 100% definite that a Paladin of the Silver Flame would find, within himself, that the Necromancer's acts are evil, even if the Necromancer himself didn't.

So, the final word: Paladin/Necro won't fit in, but Agarndas is True Neutral until proven otherwise. If you want to play him as spiteful and cruel, we may knock him down to Neutral Evil as time goes on, but from the bio I read, he does not seem evil (unless you really want him to prove that he is.)

I rather prefer this view of alignment. I've always disliked the absolutism of the paladin-it rather reminds me of some political groups. Though having the paladin out will take care of the problem of getting smited in the first page, I was never planning on playing a downright evil character. He's (or I suppose I should say "it's") an entity born with adult intelligence who still has the life experince of a child, and is trying to figure out the world-in particular, his enigmatic creators. His experinces have pushed him towards a bit of prejudice, but he's not greedy for anything but knowledge.

Of course, that isn't to say that he might not head in a decidedly evil direction, depending on the conclusions of his studies. If he comes to the realization that humanity is innately flawed in comparison to the Warforged, I don't see why he would restrain himself from killing people... but we shall see. He might head in a completely opposite direction if he comes to more optimistic conclusions.

 

[d'Anconia]

Actually, since we have an artificer in the party, wouldn't that give us a greater healing capacity than a cleric, being that we only receive half of any healing spells cast, but can be repaired by an artificer with full effect?