Good-Flavored Evil?

[WD40]

I'm planning on running "The Quicksilver Hourglass" (Dungeon 123) as a one-off epic game...

I'm pregenerating the characters for it. I've got some cool ideas...

My habit of playing with weird characters kicked in, and a character I'd like to have in is a Good-Aligned Mummy Truenamer. Because, of all undead (Not counting Deathless) Mummies are most likly to be good-aligned, and I personally think that Truenamers fit in quite well with Egyptian type mysticism... If only in flavor rather than accuracy.

However, this may cause problems with the party's leader: Mr. Wonderful McShiney Epic Paladin of ultimate Goddie-two-shoeiness.

Creating undead is an evil act, can't dispute that. But if the undead itself is not evil, is allowing it's continued existence an evil act?

Come to think of it, with the introduction of deathless, (Either Ebberron or BoED) is the creation of a Good-Aligned undead an evil act?

Do you think my Mr. Wonderful McShiney can adventure alongside my Mummy Truenamer?

Do paladins have to Smite Evil at every opportunity, or is it feasible for them to work with Evil characters, providing they don't to anything nasty? I'm thinking of Spiderman having to team up with Venom in order for both of them to over come a greater evil: Carnage...

What do you think?

 

[Clueless]

What's the personality of your Paladin and Mummy *players*? It's rarely the characters that make this a difficult situation. Will they be able to find a way to make it work? (And if the mummy is good aligned, that paladin ought to be at least tolerable if not perfectly ok - esp if the GM says 'find a reason to work with him'.)

If the players want it to work out, and the Gm wants it to work out - there's no reason it won't.

 

[Aegir]

Creating undead is an evil act, can't dispute that. But if the undead itself is not evil, is allowing it's continued existence an evil act?

It would depend on what deity/cause he serves, really. Undeath is an evil act (by D&D standards), period, but whether the paladin decides to smite the mummy even if he is goodly is entirely up to the paladin, and whether the deity would smite his paladinhood for him *not* smiting the mummy is entirely dependent on the deity.

Any sort of "pure" good deity is likely going to view undeath as a corruption that needs removal. Any sort of nature god is going to see undeath as a disturbance of the natural order. Most likely any non-evil death deity (Kelemvor, specifically) is going to see undeath as wrong.

Come to think of it, with the introduction of deathless, (Either Ebberron or BoED) is the creation of a Good-Aligned undead an evil act?

Deathless are not goodly undead, they're deathless; one is created with negative energy, the other positive. If you want to avoid this topic entirely, you can declare this mummy a "deathless mummy" (thus animated by positive energy) and likely all is well.

Do paladins have to Smite Evil at every opportunity, or is it feasible for them to work with Evil characters, providing they don't to anything nasty?

That is their function; there is a reason paladins have earned the alignment "lawful stupid." Paladins (rightly or wrongly) are bastions of good and believe in good and evil: there is no middle ground.

 

[FireLance]

Why does it have to be an undead mummy? Why can't it be a deathless mummy? Especially if you think it's going to cause problems with the paladin.

 

[Shayuri]

It's worth pointing out that if the mummy is good aligned, it's not evil. This isn't like Outsiders, who personify alignments and thus have alignment subtypes. A demon or devil can adopt a good alignment and still show up as being evil because their very substance is evil, regardless of their actions or choices.

Undead don't have that problem. Even though an overwhelming majority of undead critters are evil...and some undead are definitionally evil (eg - vampires, who become chaotic evil as part of adopting the vampire template)...a mummy isn't much more than a sentient walking corpse. Think good thoughts, adopt good beliefs, do good deeds...and you're a good sentient walking corpse. Nothing in a mummy's nature compels it to evil...they just usually are.

The paladin might be dubious at first, but I think a truly good paladin would at least give you a chance to prove yourself.

 

[jasin]

Why does it have to be an undead mummy? Why can't it be a deathless mummy? Especially if you think it's going to cause problems with the paladin.

Because "deathless" is a silly cop out to avoid interesting situations like these?

I think there shouldn't be any problems if players are reasonable. The mummy and/or the paladin might angst about it, but I think it's pretty obvious a paladin shouldn't destroy an innocent creature just because of an accident of birth. At worst, if we're talking about a deity for whom undead hate is more important than Good/mercy, the paladin might end up changing deities.

 

[phindar]

There was a great video game (well, I liked it) called Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. Sort of an action/adventure with puzzle solving and some RPG elements. In it, a prince was turned into a mundane mummy (the non-undead kind... or the dead kind) and over the course of the game you collected his canopic vases. Each time you got one the mummy animated and he could run around and try to get through some horribly lethal trap filled dungeon. The idea was to get all his canopic vases so that the Cursed Mummy could be returned to life.

Maybe the mummy in your game could take a page from that book. He could present himself to the paladin as a cursed victim, and if he is destroyed his soul will suffer eternal torment. He must complete some task or get some item in order to break the curse.

But if you wanted to get some sort of Spidey/Venom team-up, I'd say make the Mummy evil but necessary to the quest, and give him and the paladin the same ultimate goal. I mean, its not really a hero/villain team up if they're both good. (I mean, if Buffy and Spike can team up in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th seasons, then I'd like to think a paladin and a mummy can work together in a one-off epic game. I smell a sit-com!)

 

[avigor]

Try a house rule:

Create some sort of ritual or rule by which intelligent undead who change to a good alignment, or are of a good alignment during their creation as an undead, can convert into a deathless instead. You'd also have to create a similar ritual for the opposite; one idea that provides itself is a house rule for the Atonement spell.

Utilizing truenaming might come in handy there; wouldn't a truename reveal alignment to someone who was especially knowledgeable about the subject? Truenaming allows one to change or control someone via learning their truenames; a truenamer could, in theory (and especially if he's epic level), change his type by altering his truename.



For the conversion itself, first swap the undead type with deathless. Then, convert any undead templates such as mummy or lich or whatever into some sort of deathless version.

For special abilities from undead templates (a lich's touch attack, for example), I'd suggest converting them to some sort of positive energy variant, such as a lay on hands ability or a once a week restoration by touch power or somesuch. As for diseases like mummy rot or poisons such as ghoul venom, you might want to consider trying out swapping it with a disease or poison from the Book of Exalted Deeds.

 

[Li Shenron]

It depends on what is your and your friends' idea of paladins. Let's assume you're trying to stick with the PHB concept...

Good-Aligned Mummy Truenamer.

That should already be the end of the question. The PHB Paladin doesn't team up with evil beings. This one is a good being so it's ok. The PHB Paladin doesn't have restrictions about having undead friends.

Creating undead is an evil act, can't dispute that. But if the undead itself is not evil, is allowing it's continued existence an evil act?

I don't understand why you worry about this at all... The paladin is not creating the mummy, neither is another PC, and the mummy is not guilty of "creating himself". Or are you worried that the paladin would refuse to play in a game with a DM that creates undead? Allowing the existence is stretching it too much since the mummy is good.

Come to think of it, with the introduction of deathless, (Either Ebberron or BoED) is the creation of a Good-Aligned undead an evil act?

You have to find your own answer. In our games we've never had someone "create a good undead", and the few good undead always had some reason to exist which is not "being created" by another character.

Do paladins have to Smite Evil at every opportunity, or is it feasible for them to work with Evil characters, providing they don't to anything nasty? I'm thinking of Spiderman having to team up with Venom in order for both of them to over come a greater evil: Carnage...

By the PHB concept they shouldn't willingly work with someone who is evil, period. Spiderman certainly could never be a PHB paladin. They also don't have to smite evil at every opportunity, like blindly, if there is a reason (e.g. maybe the paladin shouldn't now waste his time with lesser evil or the greater evil will escape). But allying with lesser evil against the greater evil is certainly NO for a PHB paladin.

 

[avigor]

Yep. PHB says that paladins can't help people if they will use that help for evil or chaotic ends. A spidey-venom teamup could only happen with a neutral or chaotic good spidey, and I'd be guessing neutral.