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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 1809570" data-attributes="member: 13098">I would like to point out a couple of things that seem to be overlooked here.- "The Church of Heironeous was the primary religion in the country, but has recently lost access to divine spells and abilities."- "The Church of Pelor, via the party member, is slowly growing to fill the role that the church of Heironeous used to fill, but they were essentially a cult prior to Heironeous’s loss of influence, so they are still small"- "The Church of Nerull has stepped forward to fill the gap."Nerull has already gained influence without any action on the part of Mortimer.  "Mortimers 2 generals fully support the assistance of the church of Nerull and are primarily blinded by the health of their troops and the inability of the church of Heironeous to help out the military."Heironeous is already 'losing' somewhere.  Mortimer is in a terrible position as he is 'negotiatiing' from a weak position to begin with.  The country is at war and Mortimer has ended up as a de-facto head of state.  He is in a 'screwed no matter what' position since his decisions and actions affect the entire country.  The agreement stinks.  No apparent alternative options have been presented.  Sure, he can (an probably should) look for other options.  But he is saddled with responsibility.  I would probably be looking into reasons why Heironeous has stopped giving his agents powers, or is unable to.  But skipping out for a couple of weeks to find out might not be an option.  By the time he gets back, there might not be anybody in the country left.  He has taken the easy route.  He may be approaching things pragmatically.  Is Mortimer screwed?  Most likely he is.  But with thousands of lives on the line when you have to make a decision, your judgement may falter.  It's a tough road to be a hero.  But why nealize the PC by arbitrarily moving alignment toward Evil?Look at it this way:  What RP potential can come from this by just taking it through the rest of the paces?  The situation goes from bad to worse and Mortimer has to take up the fight he should be doing now at a later stage - the PC is 'punished' if he remains good by knowing he faltered at a key early moment.  The situation gets worse and Mortimer keeps accepting new 'deals', knowing he is sliding down the path of evil and is unwilling to completely embrace it, or to avoid the temptation.  What kind of story comes from that?The situation seems to improve and Mortimer fully embraces evil as a solution to his woes.  At some point, the real 'Good' guys (perhaps including former companions of Moritmer) come to take care of Mortimer.What other situations might arise?  The only real reason to implement an alignment change is when you start using alignment specific spells.  By the time that really becomes an issue, I would think it would be very clear to the entire group if Mortimer's alignment has changed.  Let the PC be and have NPCs treat him according to their morals and agendas.  At this level of the game, the rest will probably begin to fall into place when it becomes necessary to figure it out.  *shrug*  I think it would even be possible for Mortimer to become Evil while thinking he has done nothing but Good.  Maybe the Player would even be that delusional.  But I think it would be clear to everyone else around the table and will make for a great campaign story as it unfolds.</blockquote>

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