The funny thing about paladins of wee jas...

[gizmo33]

Why would any church bar evil people from being members? Even for the good church of high holiness, surely those are the very people most in need of instruction.

Maybe, but in the case of Wee Jas allowing for LG/LN/LE clerics then it's more of an issue of who is doing the instructing. It's possible, although a little strange, that Wee Jas expects her clerics to change their alignment. And if she allows for paladins to join the order and eventually change their alignments to LN, then it seems that her goal is to get paladins to lose their paladinhood.

 

[GwydapLlew]

Maybe, but in the case of Wee Jas allowing for LG/LN/LE clerics then it's more of an issue of who is doing the instructing. It's possible, although a little strange, that Wee Jas expects her clerics to change their alignment. And if she allows for paladins to join the order and eventually change their alignments to LN, then it seems that her goal is to get paladins to lose their paladinhood.

I don't quite see how you are getting that. If a church allows three alignments in the clergy, while there will always be pressure from the mainstream, that doesn't mean that the deity intends for all of her worshippers to eventually become LN. It just means that the core of the religion is LN.

 

[gizmo33]

I think the potential for false positives adds for some nice uncertainty.

Nice for the DM because it creates conflict and tension, and keeps players having to think and guess. But it's not great roleplaying IMO to have NPCs (in this case a goddess) acting in ways that go against their interest just to support the DMs agenda - it hurts the believability of the game.

The spell description for Detect Evil in the SRD doesn't say anything about negative energy - though I suppose that could be a house rule. But then calling negative energy evil, if it's really something else, is misleading. I would think that if the spell is really "Detect Evil plus some other stuff" that a person who could cast the spell would understand that.

Example: In a pbp game, I'm running a paladin who has been dealing with a scholar who radiates as evil.

IMO this differs in significant ways from the situation where instead of a scholar, we're talking about a cleric that's a worshipper of your same deity and openly and willingly professes the evil alignment. I guess it's possible, but not explicitly stated anywhere, that all of the LE followers of Wee Jas were in denial of their alignment like you thought the scholar was.

Which by the way, answers the question of the evil tax farmer. Why shouldn't a paladin execute this guy? Because killing evil mortals is ultimately a failure for the cause of good.

I agree that paladin's don't kill people over speeding tickets.

But regardless, it's really that the paladin would oppose evil that's the significant part. Plus, one side of the evil tax farmer analogy said that the paladin would actually help the tax farmer. I don't really have an opinion about whether or not the paladin would kill him, but it seems like we both agree he would not allow him to operate in an unrestricted fashion, or else he'd be condoning evil actions.

I expect it's the same way with paladins of Wee Jas. They don't want to destroy the evil members of the church. They want to bring them around to the side of righteousness and make them realize that being evil is no way to live.

These are more than just members though. These are clerics of the deity. I thought the conventional interpretation of cleric was a person who was supposed to act on behalf of the will of the god. If their alignment makes them opposed to the will of the deity, how is letting them be in charge furthering anyone's interests? Clerics are given a unique set of powers that helps them obtain guidance from their deity (although that's been a point of debate) and so it seems to me somewhat reckless for the deity to put those kinds of people in charge when they don't have the alignment that she wants.

 

[gizmo33]

I don't quite see how you are getting that. If a church allows three alignments in the clergy, while there will always be pressure from the mainstream, that doesn't mean that the deity intends for all of her worshippers to eventually become LN. It just means that the core of the religion is LN.

Another poster was suggesting that the deity would allow people with "undesireable" alignments into the faith in order to convert them. I wasn't saying that.

And BTW, if the "core" of the religion is LN, then how much support can a paladin really be obtaining from membership in the church? If a deity's principles don't support the code of paladinhood, isn't that really a recipe for disaster? And why would a Lawful deity, or paladin for that matter, intentionally create that situation?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I thought the conventional interpretation of cleric was a person who was supposed to act on behalf of the will of the god.

Since clerics can be one-step-removed from the alignment of their god, I think the more rules-accurate interpretation would be a person who pays homage to something greater than themselves in exchange for magical power.

There's a story about Judaic scholars arguing a point of doctrine, and one rabbi, outnumbered, calling out 'If God had wanted my interpretation, let Him speak now!'

And lo and behold, God shows up, and says that, indeed, that's how He had intended the interpretation.

The rabbis conferred, and then pronounced that since God had given them laws and responsibility to interpret them, He was now overstepping His bounds.

I think you can see potential parallels to Lawful deities.

Hahaha, I *love* that story.

"Look ya omnipotent poofter, you let us figure this stuff out. If we're wrong, we're wrong, but we've gotta puzzle it out for ourselves."

A lot of old rabbinic stories are very cool with how they meld the mythic and the monotheistic like that.

 

[Will]

I like this possibility:

Our god doesn't care if we are evil or good. But that's our god. Down here on Earth? We value goodness, and we're going to work to purify the other followers of Wee Jas.

Without pissing her off, ideally.


Again, RL is full of examples of deities and worship being treated as separate from other issues of morality and justice. I view a lot of D&Disms when it comes to religion as a sort of unconscious application of modern religious ideals to fantasy.

 

[gizmo33]

Since clerics can be one-step-removed from the alignment of their god, I think the more rules-accurate interpretation would be a person who pays homage to something greater than themselves in exchange for magical power.

So cleric's have no obligation to behave in any particular fashion other than to uphold an alignment that's somewhat close to the deity's? Is this really how you run it in your game? And is this really what you think the rules were intending? So Wee Jas grants powers to LG and LE clerics knowing full well that there is a strong possibility that each will use those powers to battle the other, and yet this deity claims to be Lawful?

It seems like the very act of paying homage to something non-good in exchange for power would be considered non-good by most DMs. It would be grounds for paladins losing their abilities.

You raise an interesting possibility though. But there are places in the rules (I think) that describe a cleric emulating his deity (weapon focus for a war god for instance). So I'm not really convinced that what you said fits most cleric-deity relationships in people's game or what was intended by the rules. However, I can't dispute that the "within one alignment step" rule is there, so the designers must have been thinking something. I don't know what that is though, other than what you've said, and I'm not convinced that it was well thought out.

 

[gizmo33]

Again, RL is full of examples of deities and worship being treated as separate from other issues of morality and justice. I view a lot of D&Disms when it comes to religion as a sort of unconscious application of modern religious ideals to fantasy.

If by modern ideals you mean "ideals that were documented as taking shape within the last two-thousand years" then I would agree. AFAIK the "modern religious ideals" that you're talking about are far older than plate armor and paladins. Morality, justice, and religion have pretty much been intertwined since there was writing, so I think "modern religious ideals" are well at home within fantasy.

In fact, I don't have my books with me, but even Odin was described as given advice on justice and morality within the Eddas - and considering the history of who wrote down the Eddas and why they did it, there's certainly no cause to say for certain that the Norsemen of olden times did not put more complete moral/ethical teachings in the mouths of their gods (or none at all, who can know for sure?). That's not to say that the Norse would have defined good/evil the way that the PHB does, but that's almost beside the point.

 

[Particle_Man]

Some thoughts.

Wee Jas has the Law domain, but notably not the Evil domain. So while she can have Evil clerics, she doesn't have clerics who exist to promote Evil as such (unlike actual Evil deities who *do* have Evil as a domain).

A modern case: Suppose that a member of the church finds out that the priest has been robbing banks. The priest is exposed, and arrested, but (for whatever reason) not defrocked. What is the relationship between the church member and this priest? (this is more of a lawful follower of a non-lawful priest example, mind you).

I would rule that a Paladin does not have to obey Evil commands, nor commands that promote Evil. If they find out that a priest (or king) is evil, then they would stop associating with the priest (or king). They would find another church of Wee Jas that does not have evil priests in it. Note that since the LE priests of Wee Jas don't have Evil as a domain, then their evil is more likely going to go in the direction of simple selfishness, working the system, etc., and not to "making the paladin fall to serve the cause of EVIL, mwahahahahaha!"

Being a lawful church, I imagine there are rules that would allow Paladns to "opt out" of obeying commands from priests that they detect as evil, just as soldiers don't have to obey commands that are war crimes. Paladins could also (formally, in a lawful manner) apply (and get) official sanction not to associate wtih priests that detect as evil, by filling out forms 186A/73: "Application to cease association with Clergy that detect as Evil" and 186A/74: "Application to transfer to a diocese without Clergy that detect as Evil"..

This is Wee Jas, and I bet she has laws to cover this sort of thing.

 

[Will]

Gizmo, yeah, to some extent I mean 'Christianity.' But also ideas like 'Gods are omniscient, never change their minds, and are absolutely right about everything.'

Rather than 'Do what the Gods say or we're in trouble.'

One thing that often strikes me odd about D&D religion is that it sort of squashes together 'gods as people,' 'gods as concepts,' and 'gods as pervasive universal forces.'