Those evil slaad.

[Lord Pendragon]

I think this is what is tripping you up- neutrality is not good and evil in similiar proportions, but instead is self-interest and survival.

I'm not tripped up at all, I just happen to believe you are wrong. Self-interest at the cost of others is evil. Survival at the cost of others, when other options are available, can be evil if taken to extremes. And killing is certainly taking it to extremes. The reason animals are Neutral is because they aren't sentient, not because their only interest is survival.

The slaad propagate their species by implanting eggs in them- its simply part of their reproductive biology. Trying to reproduce doesn't make them evil, but it does mean they will often act callously, with their own survival, and that of their species at the forefront. Thats basically natural selection in action- the strongest survive by weeding out the weak, either indirectly (or in this case) directly.

Natural selection, when practiced by sentient beings on other sentient beings, is evil. The American colonists killing off the Native Americans was natural selection. The Japanese killing off the native Hokkaidans was natural selection. Indeed, among sentient beings we have another word for "natural selection." It's called genocide. I'd be interested in your defense of genocide as a neutral act.

I see the slaad as CN because they will do whatever it takes to survive and further their species. This requires they kill other sentients, but they do not do it out of malice, but out of need.

That's just it, Goth. It doesn't require they kill other sentients. They could just as easily raise cows. That's right, raise livestock, for the express purpose of using the livestock to breed. They don't. Instead, they inject their eggs into anything they come across. They choose to disregard sentient life. And that's evil.

They are not above killing, torturing, or other evil actions if it suits them, but neither would they necessarily be averse to aiding someone else if it was in their benefit.

Aiding someone else because it's in your own best interests is not a good act. It's a selfish act, which is at best neutral, and at worst evil.

Again, let me reclarify that I'm not putting forth the opinion that Neutrality is a matter of Good and Evil in perfect balance. Not at all. There are shades of grey that are made up of various good and evil impulses. It's when faced with the complete absence of one of the defining poles, that something can no longer be Neutral and must fall under the jurisdiction of the opposite pole. If slaadi commited good acts, even occasionally, then they could rightfully claim an alignment of Chaotic-Neutral with Evil tendancies.

But they don't. Everything they do is either Evil, or sometimes Neutral. If anything, that makes them Chaotic-Evil with Neutral tendancies.

 

[Gez]

Again, let me reclarify that I'm not putting forth the opinion that Neutrality is a matter of Good and Evil in perfect balance. Not at all.

Exactly. If you alternate good and evil act out of a weird desire to be "balanced", then you're not neutral -- you're demented. And still evil.

"I helped the old blind man cross the street, so I had to kick his dog to compensate! I saved this girl from drowning in the quicksand, so I had to rape her to compensate!"

Good and evil aren't really symmetrical things. There's a reason they are the vertical axis of the alignment chart -- the relationship between them is not one of mirrorlike-equality, there's entropy that changes everything. It's always easier to fall than to climb. A few evil acts are enough to fall, while you need to be consistently good to climb back.

And one of the reason why evil is much stronger than good is merely because selfishness is evil. Disregard for others is evil. Disrespect for life is evil.

Natural selection, when practiced by sentient beings on other sentient beings, is evil.

I'll go even further and remove the "sentient" beings part of the equation. Evil in D&D is not killing -- heroes and celestial alike nearly always have blood on their hands -- but disrespect for life. A slaad that kills every creature it meets, whether to eat or to implant eggs, is just obeying its urges without any considerations to the creatures it uses.

 

[rushlight]

In my mind, the difference between a CN slaadi who kills a bunch of random people and a CE slaadi who kills a bunch of random people is intent. If it's just killing because it's mad/hungry/whatever then it's CN. While it may be intellegent, it's not killing for pleasure or selfish gain - it's killing because of instinct. Knowingly killing innocents for profit and fun would be evil.

I also would consider the Borg to be CN. They don't have a particular hatred for all life, nor is their intent to eradicate everything in the galaxy. Their goal is to take lower life-forms and elevate them into a better life-form - a much more advanced, stronger, better life-form (from their perspective). Even Jean Luc realized they weren't Evil - as witnessed in the episode where they found the Borg scout and sent that virus back. His guilt, and torture over the decision shows that even he didn't think they were acting out of spite, or "pure evilness" - even though they still had to be stopped.

As an aside, in my campaign, the slaad have featured heavily. They were part of a massive army, which would likely have cut a swath through the human lands on the material plane. However, they weren't there to fight the humans - they had come to stop the destruction of their plane. Unfortunatly, the humans are just in the way. Of course, if they'd move aside and let the slaadi army pass unmolested through their lands there wouldn't be much bloodshed. But I don't see those kingdoms just opening their gates to an army of outsiders - especially if the humans don't know the intent of the slaad. The slaad are likely to kill anyone between them and their goal.

 

[rkanodia]

Incenjucar, I think we might as well agree to disagree on this point. I believe that the ends don't justify the means in the D&D cosmology. From your posts, it seems to me that you believe that they do. If we continue, we'll just be talking past each other.

 

[Joker[ZW]]

Survival of the species tends to be beyond alignment. A slaadi who ignores viable, non-sentient food and reproductive sources in favor of sentient prey is, certainly, evil. If, however, they're basically wandering around half-starved and over-laden with eggs, it's a 'needs' thing. Consider it: If your life and/or the life of your child was determined by whether or not these strangers who have stumbled in to -your- territory survived, would you just sit there and let you and/or your children rot away and die?

...So.. survival of the species is evil now? It's not like the invading species are dying out.

Correct me if I remember it wrong, but AFAIK as one of the Planeborn races Slaadi neither age nor "need" sustenance of any kind to survive. They still eat and they breed, but not because they have to, but because they like to.
In addition Slaadi don`t -need- to breed to survive as a race because they form from the essence of their homeplane.

 

[jollyninja]

i would say that there is a huge difference between a slaadi implanting everything it comes across and genocide. if they say decided to only implant in humans or just eat elves that would be one thing. but they (in their lower forms) simply breed with anything and eat whatever seems like it might taste interesting. adventures and published materials tend to focus on the creature as ally or enemy, not both and the slaadi have been catagorised as an enemy generally correctly. using your train of thought the paladin who hunts and kills a blackguard is commiting an act of evil. it's premeditated murder. killing is killing weither done for duty, profit or fun. if motivation has no bearing on weither certian acts are good or evil, sending that blackguard to his eternity of torment in the abyss causes far more pain and suffering then anything the blackguard ever did. in effect every character can be thought of as evil simply due to the horrible racism. do they stop and try to communicate with every troll? nope, they pull out the fireball wand and burn away. how do they know that in troll society, it is not a show of respect to eat a friends torso?

anyway, someone shopuld just create a farm somewhere so the slaadi can implant their cows and a party of adventurers can shoot up levels like mad.

 

[s/LaSH]

This is indeed a complicated issue. Some thoughts:

Slaadi are tilted towards evil; their race seems to progress that way (the Death Slaad is supposed to be a corruption, but there's no equivalent good corruption version). Blame it on some sneaky 'loths if you will.

Slaadi are embodiments of chaos, not evil. Thus, they don't show up as evil to detection or smiting abilities; however, their actions may contain slightly more evil than your daily recommended allowance.

Slaadi are chaotic. It's quite possible that they did sit down and set up a Chaos Cow Cartel one day. Here are selected excerpts from the manager's diary.
Day 1: Cows grazing happily. Stud bull looks amorous; perhaps we shall have calves by spring.
Day 2: Decided grass would look better a delicate shade of pink. Cowpoke Klrhaxl disagreed. We compromised by painting it with the blood from his severed leg. Went home on amicable terms.
Day 6: The islands are simply beautiful, although one of the trees tried to eat me. Haven't a care in the world.
Day 725: Found a number of quadrupedal skeletons in a distant part of Limbo. Most perplexing; it appears they were fenced in, and didn't have the ability to just climb or 'port out. Some outsider's idea of a prison for a strange enemy?

Slaadi don't generally plan to go out and wreak massive destruction. They may well do evil things, but they only do so when the opportunity presents itself, and to a certain extent, increasing the spread of chaos is their thing, so why not infect people you come across? They live in boundless chaos; casualties are to be expected, and there's no guarantee that more slaadi will pop out of the chaos, so infecting others really is a survival tactic.

On the topic of formian borg, I think that was originally my idea - basically, the formians want slaves, but they don't want to be cruel to them - just make them contribute to society. Their society, which the slaves are now a part of. The borg have a definite tendency towards evil once you introduce the Queen, but a borg ship without their standard-issue blow-up Queen assembled will just bumble merrily along, occasionally assimilating people into a more efficiant civilisation (look at First Contact - there were plenty more people on Borg Earth that would never have been born under the Federation) and ignoring the rest until they get sneak-attacked.

There's my thoughts.

 

[LoneWolf23]

The way I understand it, the Red and Blue Slaadi are like Large, Immature children. They're impulsive and playful, but they don't always understand the consequences of their actions. They don't fight because they have some idealogical difference with you, but because they're a bit rowdy and don't understand how fragile mortal creatures are. Also, just because they don't need to eat doesn't mean they might not get curious about how something tastes.. ...You know how Babies will put anything in their mouths, right?

As for the Formians, I see them as considering themselves a more practical bunch: they "conscript" others to assist them in spreading a more balanced, ordered society. In exchange, they provide their conscripts with a roof over their heads and healthy, if unremarkable food, as well as a purpose to their existance. Basically, you'll be taken care of, even if it could be better.