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<blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 7979753" data-attributes="member: 6688049">IIRC, James Ward (or was it Rob Kuntz?) in a recent article (maybe here on ENWorld?) mentioned that he brought the idea to Gygax of adding a Good-Evil axis. Somebody correct me if I'm misremembering.That would've been around 1977 when Holmes BD&amp;D and AD&amp;D came out.Well, a matrix of 2x2 or 3x3 polar alignments, philosophies, or forces has probably been independently invented or characterized by many different thinkers, in many different contexts, for a long time.It's just that in D&amp;D's case, it seems to have come about in a certain way: Steiner &gt; Moorcock &gt; Gygax &gt; Ward(?) = Ninefold Alignment. (Where Steiner got the Threefold Forces idea would be a whole nother rabbit hole.)I only mentioned the Anthroposophic connection because Moorcock explicitly credits that (along with Zoroastrianism) for several aspects of his Elric cosmology. And Gygax clearly adapted the Law-Neutrality-Chaos concept from Moorcock. (Moorcock is listed in Appendix N.)To explicitly connect the D&amp;D alignment origins with Discordian philosophy we'd need to see if Gygax or James Ward or other early D&amp;D authors were familiar with that, or mentioned that. I suppose it's also hypothetically possible that Moorcock was familiar with Discordianism, yet there are already two confirmed sources for his metaphysics (Zoroastrianism and Anthroposophy).That is interesting. Hmm. Yes, except Warhammer seems to leave out the middle!Also, Anthroposophy posits that when the two polar forces are in a healthy balance, they manifest as Good. That's where LG and CG come in. Anthroposophy calls these the &quot;Vater Gott&quot; (LG) and &quot;Heiliger Geist&quot; (CG).The NG force is called &quot;Der Menschheitsrepräsentant&quot; (The Representative of Humanity). So NG is the center of the Steinerian system, where as gray N is the center of the Gygaxian system.There are <a href="https://m-schnur-verlag.de/eng-representative-of-humanity.htm" target="_blank">photos of the statue of these Threefold figures/force here</a>.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dungeonosophy, post: 7979753, member: 6688049"] IIRC, James Ward (or was it Rob Kuntz?) in a recent article (maybe here on ENWorld?) mentioned that he brought the idea to Gygax of adding a Good-Evil axis. Somebody correct me if I'm misremembering. That would've been around 1977 when Holmes BD&D and AD&D came out. Well, a matrix of 2x2 or 3x3 polar alignments, philosophies, or forces has probably been independently invented or characterized by many different thinkers, in many different contexts, for a long time. It's just that in D&D's case, it seems to have come about in a certain way: Steiner > Moorcock > Gygax > Ward(?) = Ninefold Alignment. (Where Steiner got the Threefold Forces idea would be a whole nother rabbit hole.) I only mentioned the Anthroposophic connection because Moorcock explicitly credits that (along with Zoroastrianism) for several aspects of his Elric cosmology. And Gygax clearly adapted the Law-Neutrality-Chaos concept from Moorcock. (Moorcock is listed in Appendix N.) To explicitly connect the D&D alignment origins with Discordian philosophy we'd need to see if Gygax or James Ward or other early D&D authors were familiar with that, or mentioned that. I suppose it's also hypothetically possible that Moorcock was familiar with Discordianism, yet there are already two confirmed sources for his metaphysics (Zoroastrianism and Anthroposophy). That is interesting. Hmm. Yes, except Warhammer seems to leave out the middle! Also, Anthroposophy posits that when the two polar forces are in a healthy balance, they manifest as Good. That's where LG and CG come in. Anthroposophy calls these the "Vater Gott" (LG) and "Heiliger Geist" (CG). The NG force is called "Der Menschheitsrepräsentant" (The Representative of Humanity). So NG is the center of the Steinerian system, where as gray N is the center of the Gygaxian system. There are [URL='https://m-schnur-verlag.de/eng-representative-of-humanity.htm']photos of the statue of these Threefold figures/force here[/URL]. [/QUOTE]

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