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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 4009592" data-attributes="member: 41584">I was just thinking of a caste system as being a feature of a lawful society, and a caste system that includes 'untouchables' or 'unpersons' as being an, if not 'evil,' certainly harsh system that promotes indifference to the fate of the lower castes.  The more lawful the system, the more rigid and permanant the castes, with arranged marriages and more strict guidelines about what members of what castes can engage in what sorts of relationships and business arrangements and what sort of laws and rights apply to them.There are less 'evil' ways to have an unsympathetic and 'selfish' culture, say a philosophy that maintains that people are born into such a caste as part of a divine plan, or as karmic punishment for misdeeds in a past life, which would lead to the higher castes being actively discouraged from doing anything for the poorer lower-caste peons, since that would be opposing the divine plan or stalling their karmic progress or whatever.  The wealthy castes would walk past beggers and lepers and feel justified to spit at them and smack at them with their riding crops, believing that these people are specifically being punished, and that any sympathy for them is wrong-headed, as they deserve their miserable lives and, indeed, making their lives even more miserable could be seen as *helping* them advance their station, or doing the gods will of punishing them for their misdeeds in prior lives!  The further this is taken, the more evil it gets.  If the society maintains that living people must advance their spiritual evolution through physical abuse or even follows a 'moral suasion' philosophy, it's well into evil.[Moral suasion being the practice of torturing members of other faiths until they accepted one's god as their savior, and then immediately killing them so that they couldn't 'backslide into their heathen ways,' thereby 'assuring the salvation of their souls.']If these sorts of beliefs are backed up by the metaphysical rules of the setting, then an evil society could grow quite powerful.  For example, if a worshipper of Loviatar could beat a worshippers of Selune until he 'repents' and swears allegiance to Loviatar, and the torturer then murders him and Loviatar actually gains that persons soul, then the evil gods are going to very much encourage that sort of 'coercive conversion.'  The evil gods might choose to reward followers for this sort of deed, perhaps with a single use of a divine spell of a level appropriate to the level / HD of the 'convert.'  Alternately, the rewards might be less god-to-mortal and more political and status-related, with those providing the greatest numbers and qualities of converts gaining recognition and status within the church-run bureacracy.  If the church doesn't actually run the government, the rewards could be as simple as 'association benefits,' like reduced costs for divine magic at any temple of the appropriate god and 'credits' that can be redeemed for mundane services (cheapest), spellcasting (cheaper by far than normal purchasing of spellcasting) and / or magic items (cheapie stuff like potions and scrolls, mostly).  With even these lesser motivations, merchants and nobles and townsfolk alike might make an attempt at 'moral suasion' at some point, to get cheaper access to Remove Disease or perhaps store up 'church credit' against an anticipated sudden need for a Raise Dead...The Book of Vile Darkness has a bunch of ways in which acts of sacrifice or extractions of pain can be utilized to gain mechanical benefits.  Allowing any of these sub-system radically increases the chances that cabals of amoral and selfish people would 'get ahead' by taking advantage of these sources of power.  Limiting one of these systems to a special technique only known to certain groups would create a power imbalance.  Example: The Church of Loviatar develops the technique to extract Liquid Pain.  They can now enchant items at an increased rate compared to other churches (or arcane casters), which puts them in the enviable position to undercut other markets, amass cash and influence, and attract the admiring eye of likewise amoral arcanists, willing to sidle up to the Paingiver to be able to likewise capitalize on their secrets of power...</blockquote>

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