Li Shenron
Legend
Mouseferatu said:
Very well put.
Law vs. Chaos - the forgotten conflict
- Thread starter Thurbane
- Start date
Very well put.
Li Shenron
Legend
Wolfwood2 said:
I think the opposite can be said as well.
Law/chaos is a matter of means ONLY if you are comparing Lawful Good with Chaotic Good.
But "neutral law" and "neutral chaos" seem to be goals per se, and not methods.
Geron Raveneye
Explorer
The closest D20 product that springs to my mind is actually the Iron Kingdoms campaign setting, where you basically have 6 gods who represent 6 spokes on a pretty simple wheel.
Menoth the (assumed) creator of everything. He brought order and law to the primitive humans, and his representatives protected them from the predators of the wild. His words are Law to his followers, and apart from being the "Old Faith" in the biggest kingdom of the area, there is a whole church state revolving around his worship, led by a LN high priest and a group of LE inquisitors and secret police.
The Devourer Wurm is the opposite, and Menoth's archnemesis. It represents chaos, destruction, the rule of strength of claw and fang. In his more benevolent aspects, it is the predators of the wild, the destructive powers of nature. It is the patron of wild shapeshifters and raging berserker tribes. Its cults are hunted by Menoth's church throughout the kingdoms.
Morrow and Thamar represent Good and Evil on this wheel. Once siblings on a quest for immortality, for the freedom of thinking, creativity, and personal enlightenment, they split up over their opinions on how to utilize the abilities and powers gained. Morrow opted for an altruistic approach, encouraging his followers to develop their abilities to their fullest potential and help others with them. Thamar drove her followers to use their abilities for their own gain instead, without much respect or thought for the rest of society. Morrow's church is the most accepted, since it tolerates personal freedom a lot more than that of Menoth. Thamar fosters small cults and sects that work from the shadows to pick at the roots of her brother's church.
Dhunia represents "Mother Nature". She is the primary deity of the intelligent humanoids, like gobbers, ogrun and trollkin. The circle of life is their religion, and they worship her accordingly. Oppsing her thematically is Cyriss, a pretty newly revealed goddess, who has dominion over mechanics, mathematics, astrology, and most other sciences. Since the Iron Kingdoms are pretty heavy on magical mechanika, this comes pretty much with the territory.
Creating a Law vs. Chaos conflict in that setting is as easy as having a group of characters be employed by the church of Menoth to exterminate a local cell of Devourer cultists as a starting point, and then letting that grow to whatever dimensions you like. As long as all characters are lawful, the church will accept them. Adherers of the faith would be more welcome, of course. But since most of the Faithful are busy preparing a war, resources are stretched thin, which is where adventurers can come in.
By the way, those deities are mostly human-centered, or for humanoids. Dwarves have their own pantheon of ancestors that don't split up along those lines, and so did the elves...until they managed to tap their gods on the Prime in their hubris, which led to the gods wander off after a few centuries to find a way back home, leaving most of their clerics powerless and mad.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Menoth the (assumed) creator of everything. He brought order and law to the primitive humans, and his representatives protected them from the predators of the wild. His words are Law to his followers, and apart from being the "Old Faith" in the biggest kingdom of the area, there is a whole church state revolving around his worship, led by a LN high priest and a group of LE inquisitors and secret police.
The Devourer Wurm is the opposite, and Menoth's archnemesis. It represents chaos, destruction, the rule of strength of claw and fang. In his more benevolent aspects, it is the predators of the wild, the destructive powers of nature. It is the patron of wild shapeshifters and raging berserker tribes. Its cults are hunted by Menoth's church throughout the kingdoms.
Morrow and Thamar represent Good and Evil on this wheel. Once siblings on a quest for immortality, for the freedom of thinking, creativity, and personal enlightenment, they split up over their opinions on how to utilize the abilities and powers gained. Morrow opted for an altruistic approach, encouraging his followers to develop their abilities to their fullest potential and help others with them. Thamar drove her followers to use their abilities for their own gain instead, without much respect or thought for the rest of society. Morrow's church is the most accepted, since it tolerates personal freedom a lot more than that of Menoth. Thamar fosters small cults and sects that work from the shadows to pick at the roots of her brother's church.
Dhunia represents "Mother Nature". She is the primary deity of the intelligent humanoids, like gobbers, ogrun and trollkin. The circle of life is their religion, and they worship her accordingly. Oppsing her thematically is Cyriss, a pretty newly revealed goddess, who has dominion over mechanics, mathematics, astrology, and most other sciences. Since the Iron Kingdoms are pretty heavy on magical mechanika, this comes pretty much with the territory.
Creating a Law vs. Chaos conflict in that setting is as easy as having a group of characters be employed by the church of Menoth to exterminate a local cell of Devourer cultists as a starting point, and then letting that grow to whatever dimensions you like. As long as all characters are lawful, the church will accept them. Adherers of the faith would be more welcome, of course. But since most of the Faithful are busy preparing a war, resources are stretched thin, which is where adventurers can come in.
By the way, those deities are mostly human-centered, or for humanoids. Dwarves have their own pantheon of ancestors that don't split up along those lines, and so did the elves...until they managed to tap their gods on the Prime in their hubris, which led to the gods wander off after a few centuries to find a way back home, leaving most of their clerics powerless and mad.
Kahuna Burger
First Post
It was about 5 minutes or less...Bad Paper said:
Shemeska
Adventurer
The Blood War, one of the primary moving forces on the planes, with fingers of influence and tendrils of corruption reaching into every single plane, is heavily about the Law vs Chaos divide among Evil*. Everyone has a stake in the outcome, or lack of an outcome. The eladrin cannot fathom a lawful baatezu victory, nor can the archons stomach a chaotic tanar'ri victory. And it drew upon an older conflict between the lawful vaati of the elemental planes and the obyriths of the Abyss (which made for some strange bedfellows, with some of the good archomentals siding with the obyriths and some of the evil ones siding with the vaati).
Good isn't immune to the conflict between Law and Chaos either, and relations between the Eladrin and Archons are usually frosty, with a mutual feeling of pity and misunderstanding pervading their interactions (though they don't pitch over into genocide like the fiends).
Among the planar factions, Law and Chaos have been at odds frequently, with the Harmonium and Mercykillers at odds with the Xaositects and some ideological elements within the Doomguard, etc. The Doomguard however are a bit more complex, being devoted to universal entropy, yet having some splinter sects devoted to a chaotic interpretation of entropy, and some being devoted to a lawful interpretation.
*and Evil's self-cannibalization for the sake of misery for misery's sake
Good isn't immune to the conflict between Law and Chaos either, and relations between the Eladrin and Archons are usually frosty, with a mutual feeling of pity and misunderstanding pervading their interactions (though they don't pitch over into genocide like the fiends).
Among the planar factions, Law and Chaos have been at odds frequently, with the Harmonium and Mercykillers at odds with the Xaositects and some ideological elements within the Doomguard, etc. The Doomguard however are a bit more complex, being devoted to universal entropy, yet having some splinter sects devoted to a chaotic interpretation of entropy, and some being devoted to a lawful interpretation.
*and Evil's self-cannibalization for the sake of misery for misery's sake
Doug McCrae
Legend
Law vs. chaos? Bah! Blink dogs vs. displacer beasts is the true forgotten conflict of D&D. What could be more primal than the ancient struggle between cats and dogs? Woefully underrepresented in WotC products. Yes, yes, I'm sure there's a 300 pg supplement about it from Mongoose but I'd like to see full colour pictures by Wayne Reynolds. Y'know, like his classic orcs charging dwarves painting but with displacer beasts charging blink dogs.
Check out L.E. Modesitt's books if you're looking for ideas.
Alignment-wise, Lawful and Chaotic have no meaning apart from the second part of alignment they are attached to. Lawful means that you adhere rigorously to some sort of structure . . . *what* structure is never laid out. It is indicated that LE people follow some kind of "internal" code, but what is the point of a structure you make up for yourself? Chaotic people make up their own "rules" too! In the end it seems more like Lawful means that once you *have* a set of rules (regardless of where they come from), you, personally, don't change them.
Chaotic is self-contradictory and *reactive*, because it is based on a *rejection* of structure. If you rigorously disobey all the rules, then you're just as ordered as a Lawful person . . . but if you *sometimes* obey the rules and *sometimes* don't, then shouldn't you be *neutral* with respect to the Law/Chaos axis?
If you are looking to have a true Law vs. Chaos conflict then you need to have a set of external (to individuals) rules that everyone can reference in order to determine whether a given individual is lawful or chaotic. Namely, you need a set of rules that govern reality (or nature or whatever you want to call it). Chaos, then, is a defiance of reality, a constant striving against the restrictions of nature, whereas Law is an acceptance of natural restrictions and acting in accordance with them.
For example: a lawful person accepts the fact that all mortals must die and lives their life accordingly, a chaotic person might live as though he believed he was going to live forever.
Depending on your personal viewpoint, you could present Law as possessing a great deal of passivity (would a lawful person seek to *extend* their life by, say, working out and studying medicine and ways to keep people from aging? Or would they just numbly resign themselves to death and not even bother to get some rest if they got sick?). You can also present Chaotic people as living in denial or even nihilistic (would a chaotic person jump at the chance to be undead? Would they get pissed off and devote their lives to "defying" death by becoming some kind of daredevil?)
You could even do *all* of the above approaches, so that there was constant debate within both groups as to who belonged to them, which is where your magic could come in: means of detecting whether someone was actually Lawful or Chaotic could be quite valuable!
I view a Chaotic person as someone that doesn't even think to discover whether what they desire is actually possible, a Neutral person (on this axis) as one that is aware of the natural rules but follows them or not based on some sort of personal scheme, and a lawful person as one who seeks to command nature by obeying it.
Alignment-wise, Lawful and Chaotic have no meaning apart from the second part of alignment they are attached to. Lawful means that you adhere rigorously to some sort of structure . . . *what* structure is never laid out. It is indicated that LE people follow some kind of "internal" code, but what is the point of a structure you make up for yourself? Chaotic people make up their own "rules" too! In the end it seems more like Lawful means that once you *have* a set of rules (regardless of where they come from), you, personally, don't change them.
Chaotic is self-contradictory and *reactive*, because it is based on a *rejection* of structure. If you rigorously disobey all the rules, then you're just as ordered as a Lawful person . . . but if you *sometimes* obey the rules and *sometimes* don't, then shouldn't you be *neutral* with respect to the Law/Chaos axis?
If you are looking to have a true Law vs. Chaos conflict then you need to have a set of external (to individuals) rules that everyone can reference in order to determine whether a given individual is lawful or chaotic. Namely, you need a set of rules that govern reality (or nature or whatever you want to call it). Chaos, then, is a defiance of reality, a constant striving against the restrictions of nature, whereas Law is an acceptance of natural restrictions and acting in accordance with them.
For example: a lawful person accepts the fact that all mortals must die and lives their life accordingly, a chaotic person might live as though he believed he was going to live forever.
Depending on your personal viewpoint, you could present Law as possessing a great deal of passivity (would a lawful person seek to *extend* their life by, say, working out and studying medicine and ways to keep people from aging? Or would they just numbly resign themselves to death and not even bother to get some rest if they got sick?). You can also present Chaotic people as living in denial or even nihilistic (would a chaotic person jump at the chance to be undead? Would they get pissed off and devote their lives to "defying" death by becoming some kind of daredevil?)
You could even do *all* of the above approaches, so that there was constant debate within both groups as to who belonged to them, which is where your magic could come in: means of detecting whether someone was actually Lawful or Chaotic could be quite valuable!
I view a Chaotic person as someone that doesn't even think to discover whether what they desire is actually possible, a Neutral person (on this axis) as one that is aware of the natural rules but follows them or not based on some sort of personal scheme, and a lawful person as one who seeks to command nature by obeying it.
tzor
First Post
I think the real reason why law/chaos isn't as "sexy" as good/evil is becuase frankly, chaos doesn't care.
Think of this for a minute: Consider the othter alignment points:
Evil is all about puting the self ahead of everything else. Real evil charcters tend to be really committed about self advancement.
Good is all about puting others ahead of themselves. Real good characters tend to be really committed about helping others, often by stoping evil folks who are hurting others.
Law is all about order and discipline and self control. Real law tends to be very disciplined as to their commitment to discipline.
Chaos on the other hand just doesn't care. It's goal is entrophy, which, thanks to the designers of the multiverse, simply happens. Absent from issues of good or evil, Neutral Chaos tends to be one big disorganized party.
You can see this in action through the old demon/devil "blood wars" where the organized lawful evil is locked in an eternal struggle with the outnumbering "let's just throw strength at the problem" chaotic evil. You can see a similiar example in the classic example of the lawful roman / chaotic barbarian models.
Think of this for a minute: Consider the othter alignment points:
Evil is all about puting the self ahead of everything else. Real evil charcters tend to be really committed about self advancement.
Good is all about puting others ahead of themselves. Real good characters tend to be really committed about helping others, often by stoping evil folks who are hurting others.
Law is all about order and discipline and self control. Real law tends to be very disciplined as to their commitment to discipline.
Chaos on the other hand just doesn't care. It's goal is entrophy, which, thanks to the designers of the multiverse, simply happens. Absent from issues of good or evil, Neutral Chaos tends to be one big disorganized party.
You can see this in action through the old demon/devil "blood wars" where the organized lawful evil is locked in an eternal struggle with the outnumbering "let's just throw strength at the problem" chaotic evil. You can see a similiar example in the classic example of the lawful roman / chaotic barbarian models.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Law vs. chaos doesn't work in a world with good and evil alignments also. As soon as evil arrives on the scene there's no point in fighting the law/chaos battle as evil obviously needs bashing.
Hussar
Legend
((Where's Nightfall?))
I would point to Scarred Lands as having some degree of Law/Chaos fighting. After all, what was the Divine War if not a struggle of order (the gods) vs chaos (the Titans). The Titans weren't evil, they were chaotic. The gods wanted to stop the titans from simply wiping the slate clean every few thousand years and starting over and fought them. Despite the fact that the gods are diametrically opposed good/evil wise, they still fought together against Chaos.
I would point to Scarred Lands as having some degree of Law/Chaos fighting. After all, what was the Divine War if not a struggle of order (the gods) vs chaos (the Titans). The Titans weren't evil, they were chaotic. The gods wanted to stop the titans from simply wiping the slate clean every few thousand years and starting over and fought them. Despite the fact that the gods are diametrically opposed good/evil wise, they still fought together against Chaos.
