Law vs. Chaos - the forgotten conflict

[Evilhalfling]

The rose and the prophet series by Weis and Hickman was also a lovely Law/chaos conflict
with the D&D roots the two opposing gods were CN and LN - there was evil to fight as well,
and good was occasionally helpful, but Law was really the enemy.

 

[Felix]

Alignment-wise, Lawful and Chaotic have no meaning apart from the second part of alignment they are attached to.

So True N, LN and CN alignments are meaningless?

 

[Phlebas]

Its always struck me how easy LG & CG find ways of working together, but LG & LE seem destined for battle....

I can imagine a lawful empire, with a paladinic / monkish police force, where the jails were run by devils as part of 'just punishment'. the paladins would disagree with the methods of the devils, but couldn't disapprove of the aims. the devils would respect the paladins organisation, but despair of their lack of true efficiency. The inevitables acting as judges woudl carefully balance all facts before issuing their (final) judgement. Citizens contributing to the empire would find it an efficient, safe place to live. Dissenters would be warned, and finally compelled to obey the norms.

on the fringes are the woodlands, mystically protected by ancient elven bards who allow all and sundry to seek shelter in the lands. The orcs tribes are the defenders of the land, working with some human barabarian tribes, summoning demons and eladrim to defeat the imperial armies that threaten to invade. Meanwhile the underground halfling railroad provides a haven for escaped slaves and 'The Council of the Woods', a secret society allegedly works for the overthrow of the Empire and the establishment of Democratic city states.

 

[stonegod]

My wife's first 3.0 campaign was all about LvC: My PCs LN dwarven monkish order try to save the world vs a giant gate of chaos that would destroy everything. Of course, in the name of "stopping chaos", my PC ended up destabilizing the dwarven monarchy, causing a civil war, instigated a elven guerilla uprising vs human hunters, solidified the power of a CE god by destroying the leaders of her rivals, and barely avoided splintering his own order. So, I think C won more than L did. We nicknamed him "Chaos b#!&@"

 

[DM-Rocco]

Prestige classes - the only remotely Lawful or Chaotic related PrCs I've seen have been 3rd party.

- Thanks, T

Well, even though it is a base class, the Paladin is the ultimate Law PrC. Then you have the Dwarven defender, on the chaos side, even though it doesn't flat out say it (and you have to be evil instead of chaotic), you have the Blackguard. I always looked at the blackguard as chaotic evil, the direct opposite of the lawful good paladin.

 

[Felix]

the Paladin is the ultimate Law PrC.

Justicar, baby, Justicar.

 

[Nifft]

My favorite analogy for Law vs. Chaos comes from linguistics: the debate between the Prescriptive vs. Descriptive camps.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Li Shenron]

Chaos on the other hand just doesn't care. It's goal is entrophy, which, thanks to the designers of the multiverse, simply happens.

Some forms of anarchism could be very committed...

Admittedly, if chaos is intended in a cosmic-universal sense, so that it means entropy, then it does sound quite aloof.

But then the counterpart to such a cosmic-level "entropic chaos" is not the average lawfulness of wanting an organized society, but would rather be a cosmic-level "total-stillness lawfulness", which could be just as aloof (after all, the rules of the universe never change, so there's nothing more to achieve -> see Modrons aloofness) or otherwise as destructive as a demonic/slaadi type of chaos, except that instead of wanting to shred the universe to pieces they effectively want to stop it frozen .

The parallel to the good-motivated lawfulness of wanting the universe stable and safe enough, is a good-motivated chaos that wants the universe to keep evolving to a better state.

 

[heirodule]

Skarns vs Rillkans is very law vs. chaosy

Magic of Incarnum.

Incarnate class.

Go for it.

 

[Sejs]

Much though I might catch flak for referencing World of Warcraft...

I actually very much like how they handled the conflict between the (elemental) Old Gods and the Titans in that setting.

Very quintessential Law versus Chaos sort of thing.