Role playing moral dilemma, what would you do?
- Thread starter Erithtotl
- Start date
I would probably try to round the kids up and send them to a monastery (preferrably a religious one). In cloistered life, all the outside distractions can be removed while the kids indoctrination focuses on un-brainwashing them. Plus, monasteries don't require much in the form of payment.
Getting them there is a little tougher, you'd probably want some folks to stay behind and care for the kiddies, then figure out a path to get them where you want to go later. It really depends on how cooperative they are... if you need to lock them up the whole time it won't work out, but if you can let them roam free, you could easily caravan across a good distance, or have them work on a boat.
-nameless
Getting them there is a little tougher, you'd probably want some folks to stay behind and care for the kiddies, then figure out a path to get them where you want to go later. It really depends on how cooperative they are... if you need to lock them up the whole time it won't work out, but if you can let them roam free, you could easily caravan across a good distance, or have them work on a boat.
-nameless
Sanackranib
First Post
childern
Are they for sale? you mentioned that they are already on the path to the dark side. If you are willing to sell them I can offer a fair price. I'm sure that it should be a simple matter to transfer their worship to Velsharoon. If that works for you then leave word at the Raging Lion Inn-Waterdeep-North Ward.
Are you strong enough to turn them to the light? or will they fall to a darker power.
If you choose to try to turn them it will cost you time and you will miss your ship, allowing somone else to find the artifact you seek.
Choose the lesser evil. I look forward to doing business with you.
Are they for sale? you mentioned that they are already on the path to the dark side. If you are willing to sell them I can offer a fair price. I'm sure that it should be a simple matter to transfer their worship to Velsharoon. If that works for you then leave word at the Raging Lion Inn-Waterdeep-North Ward.
Are you strong enough to turn them to the light? or will they fall to a darker power.
If you choose to try to turn them it will cost you time and you will miss your ship, allowing somone else to find the artifact you seek.
Choose the lesser evil. I look forward to doing business with you.
Cutty Sark
First Post
Your path is clear...
I'll tell you what my Paladin of Heironeous would do. I don't really have a Paladin of Heironeous, and your path isn't really clear, but I have a solution that's pretty good from a roleplaying standpoint.
You have to stay.
You have seven other party members to complete your artifact adventure. On this island, you have 1 ally
and
The kids need help. Not just help, but they need to be shown the light from your god's hand on earth. That'd be you. You've spent enough of your time and your god's divine gifts on adventures of dubious importance to Heironeous. Here's a chance for you to try to do a whole world of humanitarian good. Anybody can fight for their god, but how many can say that they've fought for the souls of that many children?
In some games, this would be the ultimate sacrifice. It'd be like retiring your PC. It might make everybody else in your group mad. But wouldn't you feel good about yourself?
Especially if your DM found a way to get you back. As an example, maybe you could set up a temporary school and temple, and your friends could inform the clergy on the mainland, and they could send an official priest to continue the kids' education and conversion. Heck, you could even play a Cleric of Heironeous tagging along with the party on the mainland for a couple of sessions until they can get back to the jungle. Or not. Just an idea.
I'll tell you what my Paladin of Heironeous would do. I don't really have a Paladin of Heironeous, and your path isn't really clear, but I have a solution that's pretty good from a roleplaying standpoint.
You have to stay.
You have seven other party members to complete your artifact adventure. On this island, you have 1 ally
and
The kids need help. Not just help, but they need to be shown the light from your god's hand on earth. That'd be you. You've spent enough of your time and your god's divine gifts on adventures of dubious importance to Heironeous. Here's a chance for you to try to do a whole world of humanitarian good. Anybody can fight for their god, but how many can say that they've fought for the souls of that many children?
In some games, this would be the ultimate sacrifice. It'd be like retiring your PC. It might make everybody else in your group mad. But wouldn't you feel good about yourself?
Especially if your DM found a way to get you back. As an example, maybe you could set up a temporary school and temple, and your friends could inform the clergy on the mainland, and they could send an official priest to continue the kids' education and conversion. Heck, you could even play a Cleric of Heironeous tagging along with the party on the mainland for a couple of sessions until they can get back to the jungle. Or not. Just an idea.
The_lone_gunman
First Post
I have to agree with Cutty.
Your paladin should stay.
Work something out with your DM, talk to him offline. If he is a good DM, he will come up with a way to work you into the story that allows your Paladin to do his duty. (a simple solution would be another ship that was coming in a week or so time). If it was my character, I would stay, hands down.
You said you were coming back, do you now have the artifact? Is it something that must be returned within the next few weeks or all is lost type thing? As a paladin, it would be your duty to make certain that those kids were looked after. If your party doesnt want to roleplay it, it could even be something glossed over in email with the DM (he could easily fast forward time to gloss over the roleplaying aspects), however, if I was DM, I would think this would generate some awesome opportunites for some great roleplaying.
From what you described, it would be good to stay until the locals can get control of the situation, take care of the kids, and make sure the other slavers/pirates are taken to the nearest civilized area for justice.
my two cp.
TLG
Your paladin should stay.
Work something out with your DM, talk to him offline. If he is a good DM, he will come up with a way to work you into the story that allows your Paladin to do his duty. (a simple solution would be another ship that was coming in a week or so time). If it was my character, I would stay, hands down.
You said you were coming back, do you now have the artifact? Is it something that must be returned within the next few weeks or all is lost type thing? As a paladin, it would be your duty to make certain that those kids were looked after. If your party doesnt want to roleplay it, it could even be something glossed over in email with the DM (he could easily fast forward time to gloss over the roleplaying aspects), however, if I was DM, I would think this would generate some awesome opportunites for some great roleplaying.
From what you described, it would be good to stay until the locals can get control of the situation, take care of the kids, and make sure the other slavers/pirates are taken to the nearest civilized area for justice.
my two cp.
TLG
LostSoul
Adventurer
mythago said:
They could be, as long as the arm of the "law" reaches far enough. A clean, peaceful city is good for business. But anybody who steps outside the line gets his balls cut off. And his family, his pets, his neighbours, and anybody who said "Hi" to him.
But that's Lawful Evil.
If you've got a Chaotic government, then anything goes. The city is stratified into different power structures, house by house, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, until it reaches up to the top dog. The weak die young, the strong die slightly after, and those with their heads down and minds in their own business live a slightly longer life.
Sanackranib
First Post
leave or stay
Leave or stay this whole good/evil thing is all shades of gray . . . anyway who put you in charge of their destiny? All you did was to kill their teachers and elders, those who were responcible for their well being because by your own admission they were in a society that you do not approve of. Time to change your stick and get off the holyer then thou soap box. All you paladins/"holy clerics & warriors" are the same, you come in and vanquish people just because they don't share your beliefs. A friend of mine did the same only you types kept calling it murder when he did it. You are no better then we are just the other side of the same coin. How does the hypocracy of it all not keep you up at night.
Let the children choose their own destiny, but be sure to offer them BOTH choices. Don't just assume that they want to be "good". BLAH
Leave or stay this whole good/evil thing is all shades of gray . . . anyway who put you in charge of their destiny? All you did was to kill their teachers and elders, those who were responcible for their well being because by your own admission they were in a society that you do not approve of. Time to change your stick and get off the holyer then thou soap box. All you paladins/"holy clerics & warriors" are the same, you come in and vanquish people just because they don't share your beliefs. A friend of mine did the same only you types kept calling it murder when he did it. You are no better then we are just the other side of the same coin. How does the hypocracy of it all not keep you up at night.
Let the children choose their own destiny, but be sure to offer them BOTH choices. Don't just assume that they want to be "good". BLAH
Some good stuff here, and some funny comments too, I like it.
The staying idea is actually really cool. I would consider it but in our campaign the party is actually serving a higher power, and their main mission can't really be put off. The idea of attacking the slavers was of questionable value, but something my character didn't feel comfortable not doing, and it only delayed us a day or two. Staying behind would be forsaking a sworn oath and possibly causing very bad things to happen in the rest of the world. It was a surpise to find the children already so indoctrinated as to be openly, aggressively hostile. Additionally, we had hoped that the other slaves we had freed would take the children with them back into the jungles. But apparently, they felt that the children were already lost to them and left them behind.
As I said before, I already have my own idea of what to do, though I'm not thrilled with it. I don't want to necissarily make my choice based on what people say here since its kinda cheating, but I am curious as to the opinions people have, and the Staying Behind option, which I never would have considered is really interesting.
As for the town 'functioning normally except run by pirates', thats actually not really the case. The place IS a rats nest. There is no authority, drug use is rampant and pretty much everyone is armed and fights break out for no reason all the time.
The staying idea is actually really cool. I would consider it but in our campaign the party is actually serving a higher power, and their main mission can't really be put off. The idea of attacking the slavers was of questionable value, but something my character didn't feel comfortable not doing, and it only delayed us a day or two. Staying behind would be forsaking a sworn oath and possibly causing very bad things to happen in the rest of the world. It was a surpise to find the children already so indoctrinated as to be openly, aggressively hostile. Additionally, we had hoped that the other slaves we had freed would take the children with them back into the jungles. But apparently, they felt that the children were already lost to them and left them behind.
As I said before, I already have my own idea of what to do, though I'm not thrilled with it. I don't want to necissarily make my choice based on what people say here since its kinda cheating, but I am curious as to the opinions people have, and the Staying Behind option, which I never would have considered is really interesting.
As for the town 'functioning normally except run by pirates', thats actually not really the case. The place IS a rats nest. There is no authority, drug use is rampant and pretty much everyone is armed and fights break out for no reason all the time.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
The question nobody's asked here is this: what does it mean to be indoctrinated into the cult of Nerull?
It appears you're using the Greyhawk or the D&D Pantheon which is polytheistic. So, it probably doesn't mean that they think Nerull is the only god or the only authority. As I see it, that leaves two options:
1. Nerull is the hater of life. Indoctrinated into his perspective, these children also hate life. Those who showed promise were groomed to wield his powers and have probably already helped out by holding down the sacrifices on Nerull's grim altar and learning how to command his undead soldiers. They're probably at least apprentice level clerics of Nerull. The others are fanatical soldiers of Nerull awaiting the opportunity to die and return as Undead if they are judged worthy.
In this case, there are a few things that stand out. First, the "children" have probably already committed or been accomplices to unspeakable crimes. How could they be trained to offer sacrifices of living flesh to Nerull without having prisoners, slaves, and other children who resisted the brainwashing in order to practice on? They're guilty of crimes worthy of death. And if a lone paladin were to remain and attempt to train them in the paths of light and goodness, he'd probably just get a knife in his back while he slept. Since rehabilitation is not an option in this case, the party has two choices available to them: 1. Turn this group of juvenile Nerull cultists loose on the surrounding community. 2. Inflict appropriate punishment for their crimes--that is to say, kill them.
There is another possibility though:
2. Every cult needs loyal soldiers.
They were indoctrinated to obey their elders in the cult and were being trained as an elite cadre of soldiers loyal to their masters in life and in death. As such, while they may operate on a dog eat dog manner within the grouping, they demonstrate unswerving loyalty to their master--at least as long as their master can demonstrate enough strength to keep them under control. Although they sacrificed to Nerull, that was a matter of their society as much as their personal loyalty.
This is something that you can work with. In this case, an individual (perhaps the paladin or perhaps your ally in the town) who can demonstrate his strength well enough to rule over them can command their fear, respect and loyalty (such as it is). They should continue to be trained as an elite fighting force but they will offer a different kind of sacrifices to a different kind of god (Heironeous). Their training should be changed as well. New power structures should be emplaced which do not serve backstabbing or disloyalty. Training should demonstrate the values of teamwork and cooperation. (Perhaps by staging a skirmish between a group trained to fight as a unit and a group whose training is individualistic). Over time, they can be made to see the light of goodness but until then, they will be made to conform to order and used as what they are: well trained, loyal soldiers. (On the whole, assuming they started as NE, the goal would be to shift them to LN (although they might well stop at LE on their way there) and finally LG). Even if the moral training never took hold, whoever stayed would still have a disciplined troop of skilled LE fighters. Even a paladin could make use of that--maybe even to take control of and clean up the rat's nest of a pirate town.
I would expect that the situation is actually a mixture of the two. Some boys have clerical training and assisted in the sacrifices and others don't/didn't. In that case, the execution of the first group of boys (whose loyalty to Nerull would preclude the plan for the rehabilitation of the second group) would serve as both a warning and a demonstration of strength to cow the second group into submission. Since the boys are presumably NE at the moment, it's unlikely that they have significant loyalties to each other that would make such action counterproductive.
It appears you're using the Greyhawk or the D&D Pantheon which is polytheistic. So, it probably doesn't mean that they think Nerull is the only god or the only authority. As I see it, that leaves two options:
1. Nerull is the hater of life. Indoctrinated into his perspective, these children also hate life. Those who showed promise were groomed to wield his powers and have probably already helped out by holding down the sacrifices on Nerull's grim altar and learning how to command his undead soldiers. They're probably at least apprentice level clerics of Nerull. The others are fanatical soldiers of Nerull awaiting the opportunity to die and return as Undead if they are judged worthy.
In this case, there are a few things that stand out. First, the "children" have probably already committed or been accomplices to unspeakable crimes. How could they be trained to offer sacrifices of living flesh to Nerull without having prisoners, slaves, and other children who resisted the brainwashing in order to practice on? They're guilty of crimes worthy of death. And if a lone paladin were to remain and attempt to train them in the paths of light and goodness, he'd probably just get a knife in his back while he slept. Since rehabilitation is not an option in this case, the party has two choices available to them: 1. Turn this group of juvenile Nerull cultists loose on the surrounding community. 2. Inflict appropriate punishment for their crimes--that is to say, kill them.
There is another possibility though:
2. Every cult needs loyal soldiers.
They were indoctrinated to obey their elders in the cult and were being trained as an elite cadre of soldiers loyal to their masters in life and in death. As such, while they may operate on a dog eat dog manner within the grouping, they demonstrate unswerving loyalty to their master--at least as long as their master can demonstrate enough strength to keep them under control. Although they sacrificed to Nerull, that was a matter of their society as much as their personal loyalty.
This is something that you can work with. In this case, an individual (perhaps the paladin or perhaps your ally in the town) who can demonstrate his strength well enough to rule over them can command their fear, respect and loyalty (such as it is). They should continue to be trained as an elite fighting force but they will offer a different kind of sacrifices to a different kind of god (Heironeous). Their training should be changed as well. New power structures should be emplaced which do not serve backstabbing or disloyalty. Training should demonstrate the values of teamwork and cooperation. (Perhaps by staging a skirmish between a group trained to fight as a unit and a group whose training is individualistic). Over time, they can be made to see the light of goodness but until then, they will be made to conform to order and used as what they are: well trained, loyal soldiers. (On the whole, assuming they started as NE, the goal would be to shift them to LN (although they might well stop at LE on their way there) and finally LG). Even if the moral training never took hold, whoever stayed would still have a disciplined troop of skilled LE fighters. Even a paladin could make use of that--maybe even to take control of and clean up the rat's nest of a pirate town.
I would expect that the situation is actually a mixture of the two. Some boys have clerical training and assisted in the sacrifices and others don't/didn't. In that case, the execution of the first group of boys (whose loyalty to Nerull would preclude the plan for the rehabilitation of the second group) would serve as both a warning and a demonstration of strength to cow the second group into submission. Since the boys are presumably NE at the moment, it's unlikely that they have significant loyalties to each other that would make such action counterproductive.
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