Quartz
Hero
Sorry to break it to you, but according to window's "magnify.exe" those are x's.
I checked and they're not Xs, they're shadings for the eyes.
Sorry to break it to you, but according to window's "magnify.exe" those are x's.
I voted yes. Not because of killing evil dragons, but because one in there is clearly a half-dragon, which is not, by the rules, inherently evil.
If this thread has taught me anything, it's that some people will go to any length to claim that PCs aren't allowed to commit evil actions - because apparently even when they do, it's just redefined as somehow being good.
This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.
Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.
1 soul > countless lives
1 innocent life > countless innocent lives
Makes for some interesting moral calculus.
Given the power (from whatever source) to kill all those evil black dragons, you guys are arguing that is it more good to use that power for the sole selfish purpose of just saving one's own family.
What this sounds like to me is a flat out rejection of the entire concept of alignment as a meaningful descriptor or guide to actions.Even if all 1,000 of the dragons were evil, this would still be an evil act.
An Evil alignment is not an all-purpose "all morality bets are off, go ahead and slaughter me" badge - it means only that the creature in question is predisposed towards selfish, unkind actions. An evil creature - even a black dragon - might go through its entire existence without ever commiting acts so vile as to require a death sentence, even under medieval-style penal codes. Killing someone just because you know they're not a nice person is unambiguously evil.
What this sounds like to me is a flat out rejection of the entire concept of alignment as a meaningful descriptor or guide to actions.
If you're going to judge everyone based on their actions, and you're going to presume that an evil creature might just not bother ever doing anything meaningfully evil... what is alignment accomplishing? Alignment is normally supposed to speak to a creature's innate, objective nature. It stems from a historical and fantastical notion that certain creatures or races are just plain evil, no matter what. Once you've shifted to an action/punishment based morality, the concept of alignment is obsolete.
Which is cool and all. I don't really like alignment. But I'm just saying, there's no point in declaring that a dragon is inherently evil if you aren't allowed to judge the dragon on whether its inherently evil. That requires having rejected the idea of inherent nature.
With this reasoning you can justify any sort of genocide or ethnic cleansing everywhere as "It was just defence. The might have attacked me in the future"