Kingdoms of Kalamar questions

[Lord Ben]

Not so

I disagree. If you get more into politics religion becomes less of an issue. Especially when it comes to people with codes of honor. If you have a highly trained and disiplined military they're mostly going to be lawful, some are probably even good who just serve their country. The enemies are also just people serving their country too, in RL this is fine because if we do something bad during war we don't lose our paladinhood. But what does the Paladin working for one country do when he has to fight the Paladin working for the other country? It becomes far more muddles when it gets into that.

Furydoney (sp?) is a nation in Greyhawk led by a Paladin and the nation is at Eternal war with the Nation of Iuz. Iuz dosen't have Paladins and the other side dosen't have blackguards so it becomes fairly simple to do things like wars.

As a DM I'll probably try to avoid having Paladin vs Paladin fights, but if I avoid the national issues I'm taking away a large part of what makes Kalamar so great.

 

[Noah Kolman]

A misconception

Hey,

I just wanted to clear up some confusion that seems to have been generated. The Kalamar Player's Guide will include favored weapons and it will include the domains for the Kalamar deities. These domains are the standard D&D domains, and it will be the same list that appears as errata. Some deities will be getting additional domains from a set of new, supplemental domains. Thus, we are not replacing the standard domains, but supplementing them with some new Kalamar domains.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Re: MoF

Another Kalamar Kwestion: How does alignment work in this world. It dosen't specify alignment much when talking about the world which is fine with me, but how do you handle paladins working for the gov't? Lets say a Paladin of the Knight of the Gods is hired along with his warband (the other PC's) to intercept a Kalamarian caravan and destroy it. You get to your perfect spot only to find the Caravan led by a Paladin of the Old Man. Is good allowed to fight good or does good/evil trump politics? Or is that another muddy deal that's up to me to decide? Grr.... Good/Evil works well in Greyhawk where most nations who are good are aligned with other good nations and at war with bad nations, but in Kalamar when Politics is much more important in a world view then religion it gets muddy.

Lord Ben,

Like the real world, good people sometimes do bad things, and bad people sometimes do good things. Or two people of identical alignment may be striving towards the same goal for different reasons.
As it states in the D&D Player's Handbook on page 87, "It [alignment] is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. ... Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two lawful good characters can be quite different from each other."
When it comes to alignment, the final ruling is up to the DM.

Hope that helps!

Mark Plemmons
Kenzer & Company
Art Liaison/Comic & Miniatures Manager

 

[Dristram]

Re: Re: MoF

Lord Ben,

Like the real world, good people sometimes do bad things, and bad people sometimes do good things. Or two people of identical alignment may be striving towards the same goal for different reasons.
As it states in the D&D Player's Handbook on page 87, "It [alignment] is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. ... Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two lawful good characters can be quite different from each other."

To give an example of good fighting good, IMC the party was halted by a Sentinel of the True Way (an organization bent on ridding the world of magic to bring it back to simpler times). He was fully aware that the party had recently acquired a powerful spell book. The Sentinels wanted it. This Sentinel simply asked for it. The party refused to give it to him and began to walk away. The Sentinel warned them he would use force to get it if necessary. The party kept going. So they were ambushed by more Sentinels. They were all powerful enough to be a match for the party and ended up taking them all out (not using any magic!) These Sentinels were of good alignment as was the party. Being of good alignment, they bound the party members and made sure they would be okay. Then proceeded to take all their magic items!

Good vs. good. It was not about alignment. It was about beliefs.

 

[Sayburr]

Well put Dristram:

Here is a real world situation. World War II. The Japanese believed they were acting Lawful Good and if the concept existed they would quickly tell you that they were lawful good. The Americans didn't think so, though.

I could easily see a paladin vs. paladin fight since "lawful" is based on beliefs and on the culture's laws.

But, that is just my opinion and in your game it should be your option that counts.

 

[Lord Ben]

I guess I just tend to think of most D&D worlds as a place where good and evil are definate and absolute, not moral relatives. I also tend to think of D&D as good vs evil. What I'll probably do is to have Kalamar be the evil empire, and have the PC's work either for or against them. Other nations I'll probably divide into good and evil terms too, although they may have a local baron or something that is good. I'm a fairly new DM and this campaign world presents challenges, but I like it and I look forward to getting done with the Temple of EE and starting in Kalamar.

 

[Disciple of Darwin]

I say go for it Lord Ben!

To me that's what makes Kalamar great - it allows for that perspective just as easily as mine. My PCs will start off in the empire feeling like the are surrounded my bad guys (hobos northward, those horrible dwarves in the moutains who act up so often the Empire has to keep military there to keep them in line, my gods, don't even talk to me about the Renaarese over the K'asas and their lawless, pirating ways!)

Yes, the Empire is the shining light of Tellene. Humans were destined to rule all they see and Emperor Kabori was destined to rule the humans.

BTW Arcady- you cracked me up with that elf pudding comment!

 

[Kichwas]

[OT] Morality in WWII.

Completley off topic:

Well put Dristram:

Here is a real world situation. World War II. The Japanese believed they were acting Lawful Good and if the concept existed they would quickly tell you that they were lawful good. The Americans didn't think so, though.

Actually I don't think you would get that answer from even a Japanese soilder asked during the early days of the war when they were all gun-ho.

They were all about Imperialism. They spent the previous hundred years watching another race of people carve up Asia and plunder it. They decided that only they should be allowed to do that. They wanted to be an Imperial power like the British. They saw the AMericans as the greatest potential threat to this. So they struck us in a way that they thought would cripple our navy and cause us to quickly sue for peace and grant them dominance over much of our sealanes and territories in the pacific.

It had nothing to do with morality.

We on the other hand saw the war in Europe as none of our business. We didn't really care who won. We were happily selling goods to both sides. We even designed and sold many of the machines used to identify and capture Jews. IBM in fact invented a machine to quickly search records and sort out those deemed to be Jewish. There were IBM execs training people in Germany on how to use it...

We had no noble goals either. We only joined because we got attacked. That provided the excuse for us to pick a side in Europe as well. Up to that point Congress had been adamant in refusing the presidents calls to aid our 'Allies'. Likely because there was simply too much money to be made in not aiding them. And besides; why should Americans die to save a few foreigners from their own mess? (A view the US has always had when looking at any conflict in the world not set inside our own borders).

Morality didn't enter WWII until near the very end when the soilders of the Allies uncovered the camps in Europe and spread the news before they government could cover it up like they did with the camps in Asia and Japan (which were similar in scope and scale to the more well known ones in Europe; though the ones in Asia did more 'medical' experiements...).

Much like the Civil War. We didn't call it a war to end slavery until nearly after we'd ended slavery in what was at the time merely a ploy to win more support and try to gain defections (emancipation was only granted to states that didn't quite the rebel side. Of course... none of them quite the rebel side... but emancipation was not granted in the north until the 14th amendment AFTER the war).

 

[Sayburr]

I am humbled by your knowledge. Guess that wasn't such a good example after all.

 

[Lord Ben]

Before WWII we clearly favored the allies. We had the lend-lease program for aircraft, destroyers, etc for Briton and Russia both. We gave them millions of dollars worth of military equipment and we weren't sure they could pay us back.

WWI was the war we sold a ton of stuff to both sides.