An assassin's motives.

[Thomas Percy]

Holy slayer (assassin) can be portraited as some kind of paladin, when he:
- never killing for money
- never killing innocents
- killing in the name of ethos.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

BTW: little known bit of celebrity trivia- Sex Guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer was, like all good Israelis, a part of their military for a time. She was trained as a sniper and was wounded in action in 1948.

Is SHE evil?

 

[Iku Rex]

I'm rather surprised at some of the "killing is an evil act" arguments in this thread.

Are all predatory animals (or animal-like monsters) Evil?
Are all soldiers/mercenaries whose main motivation is their pay or "special benefits" Evil?
Are all adventurers who accept money to accomplish tasks that involve killing Evil?

I'll agree that most kill-for-money assassins will be Evil in DnD terms. But simply accepting money for killing is not necessarily Evil.

 

[Umbran]

Not even for someone of the X neutral alignment?

Well, no. Here's why.

Alignment, as far as I am concerned, is a sort of long-term average of behavior. If you do a lot of evil things, you become evil. Killing a sentient being for personal profit is evil. It's one of the more evil things a person can do.

A CN or LN person might be able to do it occasionally and remain neutral. But not repeatedly. This guy makes a profession out of it. He's dedicated to doing it on a regular basis, and actually sounds pretty proud of it. He'd have to be equally dedicated to doing some Good if he wants to end up neutral. But by his credo, he isn't. He's not just on the slippery slope - he's wearing skis.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's almost Lawful Good. Lawful in that he obeys orders that are very difficult to carry out, and Good in that he suffers the guilt of killing for the good of others.

Feeling bad about something doesn't make you Good, otherwise, you could have Lawful Good adultery, theft and every other sort of crime.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I once had a concept for a sort of "karmic" assassin- someone who punished the wicked by ushering them onto the next life, so they could more quickly get back to trying to "get it right" the second time.

Perhaps an organization could have a similar philosophy? "We're not killing them, we're just trying to set the cosmic balance back to right."

There was just such an organization in Mage: The Ascension, in fact, although most people seemed to think of them as scary ooga booga killers and that's all.

 

[[mik]]

Well, when it starts with "Above all," it sorta tells people that's the part to focus on.

Fair enough, that's what I get for posting with a lack of sleep. The point I was trying to make was that, in the Discworld novels the OP was inspired by, while all Assassins follow (pretty much) that code, not every Assassin (i.e. member of the Guild) has the exact same alignment, and they are probably not even all evil. Compare Teatime (Hogfather, CE), Lord Downey (many books, LE), Vetinari (particularly in Night Watch, some shade of Neutral) and Teppic (Pyramids, probably CG). Teppic probably isn't a good example, as he is never depicted actually killing, but the others are all to some degree murderers.

Sorry for the tangent, I tend to be a bit of a Discworld fanboy.

By the way, don't know if many here have read A Calculated Magic by Robert Weinberg, but how about the way he presents the Erinyes (the Furies) in that novel? Killers for hire, but want to hear about their intended victim's crimes before they hunt them down. Sounds a lot like many D&D heroes...

 

[Deadguy]

There was just such an organization in Mage: The Ascension, in fact, although most people seemed to think of them as scary ooga booga killers and that's all.

I see you and I had a similar experience with the Euthanatos Whizbang!

 

[Felix]

Vetinari (particularly in Night Watch, some shade of Neutral)

He is absolutely enigmatic. You could draft arguments for him being Evil, Good, or Neutral, and even then it would be a toss-up.

That's why he's my favorite character. Heh.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In D&D terms, its a good bet Vetinari rolls D% to determine his alignment on an hourly basis.