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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 375397" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree.IMC, although nuetrality is the overall alignment of humans (and to a lesser extent each of the seven 'free peoples'), every region has a trend toward a particular alignment based on thier cultural values.  The effects of this trend are generally not extreme, say maybe 10%-20% of the population has that alignment and maybe an equal ammount have a similar alignments (one step removed), but since aligned people tend to be more vocal and motivated than non-aligned ones, the aligned minorities tend to have influence over the political climate of the region that is disporportionate to thier size.  But it is hardly anything like absolute on an individual level or on the level of societies as a whole.  One nation, say Gulthion, may be an 'evil' nation - but we are talking about a minority of people who are evil and even they are not evil all the time.  And because we have two axis moral system, not every good nation is closely allied with every other good nation.Gulthion (which tends toward chaotic evil) is in many ways more closely allied in philosophy with Harlond (which tends toward chaotic good) than Harlond is with their mutual neighbor Hishen (which tends toward lawful good, at least in the past few years), which is in turn tradiationally more closely allied with Tethis (which tends toward lawful evil).  Alliances between the four could conceivably switch back and forth depending on the interests of the state and the overall philosophical or actual reasons for the conflict.  Harlond and Hishen currently have an uneasy alliance, not because the ethnic Har of Harlond and the ethic Gouths of Hishen get along (because they don't), but because Tethis is allied with Okmar in a sea war with Hishen southern ally and close philosophical match Minoor over control of the shipping along the Sword Coast.  The fact that the Emporer of Tethis is a brutal despot and the King of Hishen is a noble even heroic man hardly comes into the equation.  And even so, the King of Hishen's war with his peoples historic enemies in Gulthion (which controls Harlonds access to the spice roads to the west), threats the alliance with Hishen.   And the only reason it doesn't crumble doesn't have to do with the blatant evil of Gultion, but with the fact that the Har have never gotten along with the ethnic Timesi that make up the ruling class of Gulthion all that well anyway (they have a three thousand year old grudge).But just because my campaign world (and the campaigns that I've played in) is filled with all sorts of greyness and grit doesn't mean that I don't consider good and evil real absolute and doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the philosophical issues related to good and evil, nor does it mean that there aren't some NPC's for which the alignment question is pretty clear cut.One little note on the Paladin issue.  While it has never been explicitly stated, it is always been clear to me that Paladin's are intended to be 'more good than lawful', and part of what makes them interesting is the fact that there lawfulness can interfere with there goodness (and sometimes vica versa).  Why do I say 'more good than lawful'?  Because Paladin's don't smite chaos, nor do they detect chaos, nor do they turn chaotic beings (say fey).  Their opposition to chaos is strong, but not nearly so strong as there opposition to evil.  Paladins are in many ways reflections of the fact that it is difficult for humans to talk about, think about, and be good without codifying it in some manner eventually - with the resulting lose in real goodness.</blockquote>

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