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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 4914247" data-attributes="member: 8863">I've got a kingdom in a homebrew I'm working on that is a fairly despotic state -- but the overall alignment is Lawful Good.  It's a fanatic theocracy run by paladins and clerics of a LG god where the worship of other gods are forbidden, and which has very strict moral laws against things considered evil and/or chaotic.  It's also waging a war of aggression against its neighbors which do not share its black and white views on morality.The thing is, I can't just look to historical examples of oppressive theocratic societies (kind of tiptoeing around here so I don't break the religion/politics rule) for examples.  That's because some of those examples include things like genocide, torture, and like nastiness which is definitely NOT LG.  The thing is, they haven't collectively crossed the Moral Event Horizon here.  There may be some individuals who have slipped, but overall the cleric and paladin powers are intact.   To further confuse the issue, the god doesn't disapprove of their actions yet; his portfolio is law and justice and the kingdoms the theocracy is opposed to are a corrupt, decadent empire (TN), a city-state run by thieves and bandits (CG/N), a federation of pirate islands (CN), and a land ruled feuding evil arcane spellcasters (more or less CE).  I'm thinking the theocracy tries to break prisoners by forcing them to listen to sermons on virtue, among other methods.  They will use corporal forms of punishment, but nothing that's outright inhumane, so they'll flog prisoners, but not torture them or go out of their way to main them, and they don't execute without a trial, and only for the most serious offenders (murderers, blasphemers, traitors, and the like but not anyone who they believe can be redeemed).  It's the methods that's got me hung up here, they do use coercion and corporal punishment, but I'm having trouble coming up with coercive methods that don't slide down into evil.Edition specifically i'm dealing with 3.x here.And no, I don't have the Book of Exalted Deeds, so that's no help.And anyone who thinks this is a good reason why alignment makes no sense in classic D&D, that doesn't help me at all either.And don't get this thread locked because the religion/politics rule got broken.  This is a subject that can very easily slip over that line with a few careless words, and I trust I don't have to explain why.</blockquote>

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