What, no half-anarch or half-axiomatic template?

[Daalbar]

First a disclaimer: I don't have all of the books, so perhaps they do exist somewhere in an "official" publication (if so, please let me know)...

But

What's with Good/Evil fixation in D&D? the Law/Chaos axis is the Red-headed stepchild of the D&D universe. If you allow for Law/Chaos planes with Lawful/Chaotic outsiders why is everything shoehorned into Celestial/Fiend? Or are Lawful/Chaotic outsiders just not as interested in breeding with prime plane creatures as their Good/Evil counterparts are?

(If I am speaking from ignorance I appologize )

 

[Darkness]

Right, I don't think there are official templates, but you could use this for now:

Half-anarchic

 

[Zappo]

Outsiders of pure Law and Chaos such as modron and slaad cannot mate with mortals, because they are asexual. Also, a Planescape manual, can't remember which one though it might be the base boxed set, stated that the war between Good and Evil is mostly waged on the Prime, while the war between Law and Chaos is mostly waged on the Outer Planes (the Blood War for example).

However, there is a sort of slant towards Good and Evil in D&D, rather than Law and Chaos. For example, you can bypass tanar'ri DR with a holy weapon, but not with an axiomatic weapon. That's kinda silly.

 

[Daalbar]

Outsiders of pure Law and Chaos such as modron and slaad cannot mate with mortals, because they are asexual.

Is that specifically from a Planescape manual? What about Grey & Death Slaadii with their "Shapechange into Humanoid" ability -- would they be asexual humanoids? If not, they can mate (or do a good impression of it anyway) and if anything, one might expect an infusion of pure chaos to be very likely to produce some sort of anarchic offspring.

I'm a player in a campaign, not the DM, but he lets us suggest interesting ideas that might fit into some of the "less fleshed out" aspects of his game world. There is a secretive guild of chaos fomenters/assassins operating behind the scenes in this campaign and the founder of it is an extremely long-lived epic-level individual and all of his operatives are his own offspring who's mothers are killed, leaving them to fend for themselves from a young age. They naturally tend to progress as rogues (but he secretly guides their development behind the scenes and may arrange for them to fortuitously get combat or spell training as befits their inclinations). Once they reach a certain level of ability, they are "called" but woe to those who refuse the call... one of my former characters was one who accepted the call

anyway... he is supposed to be the child of a Death Slaad, but according to the DM nothing was really fleshed out beyond that. The recent publication of the "Chameleon" PRC on the WOTC website got my imagination fired up, so I'm looking into him actually being a half-anarchic doppelganger who's offspring are all Changelings (from Ebberon) and who's training involves calling those who qualify to accept entry to his organization and become trained as Chameleons.

Darkness... thanks for the link, I think that will probably do fine

 

[Klaus]

I dunno... Maybe it's just me and my crew, but I never found the Law/Chaos axis to be as interesting as the Good/Evil axis...

 

[Zappo]

Is that specifically from a Planescape manual?

Not really, but they are asexual. If we wanted to strictly look at Planescape, Faces of Evil explicitly says that baatezu have genders but cannot reproduce sexually; yugoloths can with other yugoloths; of the three big fiendish races, only tanar'ri can reproduce with mortals. Still looking at Planescape, nowhere it mentioned the possibility of other outsiders reproducing sexually with mortals, though it didn't deny it either and at least some celestials must be able to since we do have aasimars. Overall, 3E made the Outer Planes a lot more promiscuous.

What about Grey & Death Slaadii with their "Shapechange into Humanoid" ability -- would they be asexual humanoids?

Point... and even a modron could cast shapechange. Still, in their natural form they are definitely asexual. I reckon that, even in humanoid form, they wouldn't feel like having sex, or even understand it. While this explains the existance of half-axiomatic or half-anarchic creatures, I still think that they would be many orders of magnitude rarer than half-fiends and half-celestials.

However, there's another example of the slant towards the moral axis: if a mortal has sex with a tanar'ri, they get a half-fiend. Why not a half-anarchic?

I think the half-outside templates should be differentiated by the outsider's species. I can't see a half-devil having the same qualities as a half-demon.

 

[Alzrius]

Not really, but they are asexual. If we wanted to strictly look at Planescape, Faces of Evil explicitly says that baatezu have genders but cannot reproduce sexually; yugoloths can with other yugoloths; of the three big fiendish races, only tanar'ri can reproduce with mortals.

A lot of this, however, was repealed at the end of 2E, or in 3E. For example, Faces of Evil mentions that there are no half-baatezu, but it was only a short while later that half-devils (remember, in 2E "devil" was another word for "baatezu") were premiered in the Guide to Hell. Likewise, we know the half-fiend template in 3E can be the result of any evil outsiders. And even PS said there were baatezu-descended tieflings, which meant baatezu had some form of sexual reproduction.

and even a modron could cast shapechange. Still, in their natural form they are definitely asexual. I reckon that, even in humanoid form, they wouldn't feel like having sex, or even understand it.

The problem being that we already have the descendants of law/chaos-and-mortal couplings, namely the chaond and the zenythri from the MM2.

I think the mindset here is that these lawful/chaotic-descended beings are thought of as having to be from either modrons or slaad; that doesn't need to be the case. They can be descended from any creature with the axiomatic or anarchic templates (Manual of the Planes and Planar Handbook). I think that thinking is where some easier answers are.

That said, if only to fill in the gaps, I also think we need half-anarchic and half-axiomatic templates also.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Another aspect of this aspect bias in D&D is the Favored Soul class-- they gain wings at 17th level, of type determined by their position on the Good/Evil axis. (I'm leaning towards metallic/mechanical for Lawful and insectoid for Chaos.)

I know this is a minor, nitpicking point, but I feel it's worth pointing out. Next time I get to seriously thinking about the Planes, I'll be cooking up Half-Anarchic and Half-Axiomatic templates. I'm sure there are already several available online.

 

[the Jester]

My campaign is in the throes of a massive Great War of Ethics between Law and Chaos. Thus I've given these templates some thought in the past year or so, but not gotten around to the actual design work.

I definitely ought to, though- I'm starting to run out of monsters that can challenge the party in my epic game (without breaking the suspension of disbelief- I mean, how could a mu spore have lurked undetected in a civilized place?). Templates go a long way- I can easily see layering the half-fiend and half-axiomatic templates on the same creature, for example (half-devil, eh? )

 

[Zappo]

A lot of this, however, was repealed at the end of 2E, or in 3E.

Thus the "if we look strictly at Planescape" bit.