A Far Out Rant

[Raven Crowking]

On the lion - again, as I have repeated before, animals are given a free pass on alignment due to having a 2 Int. Elementals aren't exactly the brightest lights in the sky, but, they aren't animal intelligence. However, an elemental doesn't go out of his way to do anything to a sentient being he meets. Yes, an elemental might attack you or it might not.

I'm of the "outside alignments" bent myself. I think that Darkness & Dread gave a great means of creating these sorts of creatures in D&D terms.

Of course, following Lovecraft, many of those things might not attack you just because they met you. You'll proabaly be a little less sane, though, for having met them. And, as we are not evil for not worrying about the ants we might step on on a thousand-mile journey, neither are they generally concerned about us (although some of the Elder Races might be, either through scientific interest, or through other reasons, but generally not "evil" reasons per se).

 

[frankthedm]

A low int fire elemental did not mean to burn you to death, he just wanted to give you a hug.

 

[Koewn]

I'm just about to finish up an adventure involving an Alienist; a heavily modified Speaker In Dreams.

Now, I do not use and do somewhat dislike the strictures of the alignment system. However, I don't see any issue with defining the entities who interact with the Prime as Evil - my only qualifier would be that this is a lesser evil than the denizens of the Lower Planes.

Devils/daemons/demons *know* they're evil, they revel in it; Far Realms entities simply exist.

In fact, if I can go mangle some psychology for a second, I'll define things as such:

* The aligned planar denizens are the Superego; they are defined by alignment and morality. They *are* alignment and morality.

* The Prime Material and other non-aligned planes are part of the Ego, they weigh their own actions, end up as any alignment.

* The Far Realms are the id. They exist; they live, they want. Alignment has no purchase here.

My Far Realms/"id" entity that these cultists are contacting is operating in "ego" via this contact; so I would have no qualms defining it as "evil" under the alignment system. Things that cannot be defined in any other way than "evil" are going to happen - the entity is showing curiosity in the Prime (and would risk being corrupted with "ego", perhaps, the same way the cultists are corrupted with "id").

It's just that it's curiousity will result in a Tentacular Spectacular of gibber, clawing, gnashing, oozing evil. No harm meant.

 

[tomBitonti]

I'd lean twards Abyss in D&D terms, with enough madness to be an Obyrith dominant layer. Nothing far realmy enough happened, but plenty of evil and chaos. It has that lovecraftian vibe to it of bad places outside of our reality. but going there does seem to have less profound effects that a far realm visit tends to have.

And I felt the movie was just fine.

The dilemma for me is that simply visiting the event horizon realm seems to have very negative consequences. This is on par with far realms, where the planes themselves are inimical (to life as we know it). On the other hand, the realm was deliberately cruel and harmful, which doesn't quite match the D20 description of far realms.

The issue that I have, compared to D20 layers of the abyss, is that simple being in the D20 abyss doesn't seem to be harmful in and of itself.

 

[Shadeydm]

I think it is a mistake to consider the alignment question of critters from the Far Realms in the context of PCs and how they view alignment. The mortal races view of alignment is tainted by perspective and can vary greatly between individuals based on culture, upbringing, enviroment etc.

Where alignments are much more absolute are the gods and yet from the perspective of mortals the actions of the gods can seem quite opposite of what is expected because mortals cannot fathom the knowldege or motiviations of the divine.

Perhaps then the best judge of what alignment do critters from the far realms have upon arriving in our universe would be in the eyes of the gods who are as absolute as it gets in terms of alignment imo.

So how does the pantheon of your gaming world view critters from the far realms?

 

[frankthedm]

So how does the pantheon of your gaming world view critters from the far realms?

IMG, the Single greatest threat to their continued existance.

 

[werk]

Hear hear!

I always pegged Cthulhu and Azathoth as the warm and snuggly, misunderstood type.

Kind of like Barney, or the Care Bears.

Everyone has seen these by now, right?

http://toyvault.com/cthulhu

 

[Koewn]

So, how does the pantheon of your gaming world view critters from the far realms?

IMG, the Single greatest threat to their continued existance.

Since I'm running an adventure vs. an Alienist right now, I've given it some thought. I'm not going to make it an official proclamation, but I'll have the BBEG allude to it in this last bit of mayhem coming up next weekend.

I'm running a monotheistic world right now.

Where's that god from? This monolithic, "LG" creator of the universe?

Yep. Far Realms. It removed itself from the Far Realms, found itself amongst nothing, and said "Let there be." And it was.

How does it view it's once-plane-mates? (heh, plane-mate) It wants to keep them the heck out of it's playground, but some of it's little human children keep picking up the phone to say "Ia! Ia!" back home.

Course, nobody knows or could find this out. Except an Alienist. They may even get to other multiverses created by other realms-born gods.

Dunno if I'll make it true or not.


Odd thing about a monotheistic world; I originally started it because I was tired of all the this-and-that gods. Now that we're in it deeper, all I want to do is reboot and do a full on multiple-god Greek style with lots of divine intervention. Dunno.

Koewn

 

[Arnwyn]

This is probably one of the coolest threads I've read in quite a while.

 

[Shadeydm]

An interesting take on the subject to be sure, kudos to you sir!

Since I'm running an adventure vs. an Alienist right now, I've given it some thought. I'm not going to make it an official proclamation, but I'll have the BBEG allude to it in this last bit of mayhem coming up next weekend.

I'm running a monotheistic world right now.

Where's that god from? This monolithic, "LG" creator of the universe?

Yep. Far Realms. It removed itself from the Far Realms, found itself amongst nothing, and said "Let there be." And it was.

How does it view it's once-plane-mates? (heh, plane-mate) It wants to keep them the heck out of it's playground, but some of it's little human children keep picking up the phone to say "Ia! Ia!" back home.

Course, nobody knows or could find this out. Except an Alienist. They may even get to other multiverses created by other realms-born gods.

Dunno if I'll make it true or not.


Odd thing about a monotheistic world; I originally started it because I was tired of all the this-and-that gods. Now that we're in it deeper, all I want to do is reboot and do a full on multiple-god Greek style with lots of divine intervention. Dunno.

Koewn