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<blockquote data-quote="Kurotowa" data-source="post: 9224092" data-attributes="member: 27957">Do you want the history of depictions of the planes in D&amp;D, or an attempt to rationalize the current setup? I can't speak authoritatively to the former, beyond knowing that it's complex and branching. At some points I believe it's had more overlap with a Shadow Plane that had its own native undead ecosystem. But I can attempt the latter.Right now, the negative energy plane isn't &quot;evil&quot; in the same morally charged way the Lower Planes are. Instead, think of negative energy as anti-life energy in the same sense as anti-matter; elementally opposed and mutually destructive to. Using it in small and controlled amounts is just fine. Spaying it around recklessly so it wrecks the area is not. Infusing it as an animating force results in a creature with an intrinsic drive to snuff out all the horrible positive energy it's surrounded by, ie kill the living. So releasing undead into the world is like scattering landmines around a suburban neighborhood. It's &quot;evil&quot; because innocent people are going to die as a result, and in a completely foreseeable way.The positive energy plane, meanwhile, is similarly useful in controlled doses for things like healing. Too much of it unshielded is still enough to cause deadly overloads, though. But as for self-directed creatures animated by positive energy... they're already everywhere. So it's not especially dangerous to dabble in that, and therefore neither &quot;good&quot; or &quot;evil&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kurotowa, post: 9224092, member: 27957"] Do you want the history of depictions of the planes in D&D, or an attempt to rationalize the current setup? I can't speak authoritatively to the former, beyond knowing that it's complex and branching. At some points I believe it's had more overlap with a Shadow Plane that had its own native undead ecosystem. But I can attempt the latter. Right now, the negative energy plane isn't "evil" in the same morally charged way the Lower Planes are. Instead, think of negative energy as anti-life energy in the same sense as anti-matter; elementally opposed and mutually destructive to. Using it in small and controlled amounts is just fine. Spaying it around recklessly so it wrecks the area is not. Infusing it as an animating force results in a creature with an intrinsic drive to snuff out all the horrible positive energy it's surrounded by, ie kill the living. So releasing undead into the world is like scattering landmines around a suburban neighborhood. It's "evil" because innocent people are going to die as a result, and in a completely foreseeable way. The positive energy plane, meanwhile, is similarly useful in controlled doses for things like healing. Too much of it unshielded is still enough to cause deadly overloads, though. But as for self-directed creatures animated by positive energy... they're already everywhere. So it's not especially dangerous to dabble in that, and therefore neither "good" or "evil". [/QUOTE]

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