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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6405322" data-attributes="member: 71756">Trying to roll this back into cosmology (which, is after all, what this thread is allegedly about), I went ahead and took a closer look at what the planar sourcebooks have to say about alignment. And I have to admit that I have to revise my position somewhat... according to the lore, neutral good (on a cosmological scale) is more good than lawful good or chaotic good and neutral evil is more evil than lawful evil or chaotic evil. Which actually kind of makes sense when you consider LN is clearly more lawful than the other lawful alignments and CN is more chaotic.Here's what the Manual of the Planes (3rd edition) has to say about Elysium (the celestial plane found at the center between the planes of law and chaos):And here's what it has to say about Elysium's opposite, the Gray Waste of Hades:Additionally, the Outer Planes each have alignment characteristics which negatively effect those of opposing alignments. Elysium is the only "strongly good" plane and Hades is the only "strongly evil" plane. Celestia and the Hells, conversely are "mildly good/evil" and "mildly lawful" while Arborea and the Abyss are "mildly good/evil" and "mildly chaotic."This is, incidentally, backed up by the 1st edition Manual of the Planes:Interestingly though, the Planescape Campaign Setting supports a (slightly) more nuanced view:Either way though, there does seem to be a consensus (on the whole) that Elysium and its inhabitants represent the purest example of supernatural good while Hades and its inhabitants are the purest representatives of planar evil.This doesn't necessarily apply to mortals though. Whereas a guardinal or a yugoloth is, by its nature, essentially good or evil (barring very rare exceptions) a mortal who's alignment shows up as "neutral good" or "neutral evil" isn't necessarily "pure" good or evil. A neutral good character can, for instance, exist somewhere between neutral good and true neutrality... or between neutral good and lawful good (or neutral good and chaotic good). A lawful good character can, on the whole be more lawful than good... or more good than lawful. As Rich Burlew (author of The Order of the Stick) has said, alignment isn't meant to represent a straight-jacket for player characters: nuance is allowed (and indeed expected). Three lawful good characters may differ significantly in how lawful or good they are. The Great Wheel even takes this into account; there are three planes in the multiverse that are at least partially lawful good in nature: Celestia (equally lawful and good), Bytopia (more good than lawful), and Arcadia (more lawful than good).On a cosmological level though, the gods and outsiders of pure good are those of a neutral good alignment. And the gods and outsiders of pure evil are neutral evil. And pure chaos is chaotic neutral. And pure law is lawful neutral.And why should it? All detect evil does is detect evil; it doesn't detect the specific quantity of law, evil, chaos, and good in a subject, just the fact that evil is present. The only degree to which the strength of evil detected is dependent on how supernatural it's nature is. A mortal creature that's just evil comes up fairly faint on the spell's radar. Conversely, an evil outsider (like a fiend) or the cleric of an evil deity (who channels their patron's power) comes up very strongly. But nowhere in the rules does the detect evil spell say it should be able to determine how evil any individual creature is.</blockquote>

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