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The Thinktank => Talespinning => : awaken DM golem February 06, 2011, 04:43:25 PM

: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: awaken DM golem February 06, 2011, 04:43:25 PM
Something always bugged me about
the various Paladin or Evul alignment battles.
You know those endless threads about
how exactly the LG creed had to be.

It's easier for me to draw an example from 2e.
In the Planes Of Law book set, the Ba'atezu
had a convoluted "advancement" through
the devilish hierarchy. Something happened
before you even got there. First you
had to be LE enough, so when you died
you went to your heaven, in this case, Hell(s).
Second, you got to be a mindless piece of slag
called a Lemure - possibly with a dash of
devilish herding. You survive by perhaps luck alone,
and don't get off-ed by Blood War participation.
This takes a long time, a really long time.
Third, you get promoted to be a Nupperibo.
How exactly this happens, is completely unknown
to your once upon a millennia, life.
Fourth, you survive this epoch of your extended death,
and start your way up the Infernal ranks.
And maybe you don't advance in a way, that you
get to your ultimate goal of being a Pit Fiend.
Supposing your duplicity and back stabbing and
eternal warring is sufficiently LE, you might make it.
Good for evul you  :devil

But how many millenia does this take?
There's a Spinagon that looks in every book ever written,
just for his name alone. Drat !! he says.
Thousand years of looking and you still LE suck.
Best guess is it'll take longer than Humanity has had history.
You've got to be Lawful Evil Super
and PROVE it, over and over like the Groundhog Day movie.

Can your dippy Paladin be comparatively sooooo Lawful Good ??
I doubt it ... and I believe that.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Littha February 06, 2011, 07:41:41 PM
is it just me or did relatively none of that make any sense?
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Garryl February 06, 2011, 11:22:03 PM
That's Lawful Evil bureaucracy for you. And Awaken DM Golem's writing style. They're both incomprehensible if you're not part of the mindset already.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: awaken DM golem February 07, 2011, 08:37:38 PM
That's Lawful Evil bureaucracy for you. And Awaken DM Golem's writing style.
2 out of 3 ain't bad.
They're both incomprehensible if you're not part of the mindset already.
Visit a lawyer and/or talk to a politician ; then do it again with different dudes.



Lets say that a Pit Fiend is the paragon of "virtue" for Lawful Evil.
How'd it get to that point?
Maybe 1000+ years of being an Ice Demon.
Maybe 1000+ years of being a Horned Demon before that.
It'd have to NOT die. It'd have to be very Lawful Evil to get this far.

( ... down the chain ... )

Maybe 1000+ years of being an Abishai, and sometimes different colors.
Maybe 1000+ years of being a Spinagon.
The example I gave, is in the Baatezu booklet.
A spinagon reads book after book looking for his name throughout history.
And it doesn't find it.
That's more self centered neutral than lawful evil.
I'd bet that 5000+ "years" from now, that little Spinnie ain't going anywhere.

(way before that)
How long do you have to stay LE and dead,
before a Night Hag whips you into a soul-market ??
(evil grin)
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Kajhera February 09, 2011, 05:10:48 PM
... So what does the goodness of a paladin have to do with the astonishing evilness of a powerful devil?  ???

A sensible paladin facing a powerful devil should know his goodness is a sputtering candle against the depths of endless night he may face? I'll...keep it in mind, humility is a fair virtue when it's true.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: veekie February 10, 2011, 04:42:41 AM
Actually, if the paladin is the same level as the devil he'd have a good aura of equal strength. :)
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: oslecamo February 10, 2011, 11:07:13 AM
You know, Fiendish Codex has a considerable section dealing with exactly this.

One interesting detail it's that if, in life, you were a truly genius LE mastermind, and like turned whole countries if not worlds to LE, you can be instantly promoted to a stronger form, even straight to Pit Fiend, upon death.  Extremely rare, but possible.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: The_Mad_Linguist February 19, 2011, 11:53:00 PM
Actually, if the paladin is the same level as the devil he'd have a good aura of equal strength. :)

Yeah, devils are real slackers.  It takes thousands of years for a devil to achieve the moral magnitude a paladin can reach in a few months.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: veekie February 20, 2011, 04:05:41 AM
Mortals are always in such a hurry, its like they die in no time at all or something.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: awaken DM golem February 21, 2011, 08:36:55 PM
Kaj ... I did say "Paladin or evul" in the first post, and "comparatively" in the second.
There are still lots of alignment yaks going on.

TML ... devils are slackers ...  :lol

oslecamo and veekie are feeling this.



2e Planes of Law puts something weird on LG souls.
They have a "path" which gets them eventually
onto one of the other 6 heavens, after the first.
You have to have been on the right path.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: wotmaniac March 22, 2011, 02:53:47 PM
'cause LG is naive as fuck.  LG is a game for children to play.  only someone as short lived as mortals can wear those rose-colored glasses.  everyone else has learned better.  That's why angels eventually fall.  But fiends never ascend -- 'cause their creation knocked those damn glasses off their head.
:D
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Littha March 22, 2011, 04:47:21 PM
'cause LG is naive as fuck.  LG is a game for children to play.  only someone as short lived as mortals can wear those rose-colored glasses.  everyone else has learned better.  That's why angels eventually fall.  But fiends never ascend -- 'cause their creation knocked those damn glasses off their head.
:D

There was that one succubus paladin out there...
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: awaken DM golem March 22, 2011, 07:08:43 PM
( ... failed will save on aura alteration, lo' these long years ago ... )


Two Paladins and a Succubus walk into a bar.
Later one of the Paladins walks out.
What happened ??

I don't know.
Was I the Paladin?
Was I the Succubus?
Or was I the dude in the corner watching ?!
 :smirk
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Sinfire Titan March 22, 2011, 07:15:05 PM
Maybe 1000+ years of being an Abishai, and sometimes different colors.

Nitpick: They don't advance the same way as other devils. They have their own progression, according to Tiamat's will, and it is very rare for a Baatezu to be promoted/demoted into an Abishai.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: saethone March 28, 2011, 04:44:58 AM
I think somewhere it mentioned that it took orcus something like 4,000 to evolve through the abyss
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Jim Profit May 22, 2011, 05:37:21 PM
I'm not familiar with "official" fluff. But my idea was that demons/devils are born, not made. Some rare souls might re-emerge as fiends, but mostly they just come into existence. Forged from the tapestry that is alignment to begin with. Alignment="The Force", fiends are just creatures, conceived from the darkside of that Force...

I always fluff that mortals become undead if they die evil. Becoming either twisted souls like allips or spectres, or their bodies actually raise from the dead as ghouls or bodak. Some undead require special ritual to become, like lich, mummies, or vampires. While others belong to other creatures. Such as devours and nightstalkers for giants. Skeletons and zombies are artificial undead created by necromancers, and have no bearing on if the soul was evil in life. I've actually put more thought into undead then fiends, who I imagine the blood wars are just like Warhammer 40k. Wearing space marine armor, blasting at each other, and hacking away with vile damage bastard swords, singing Lady Gaga's "Born this way".

Why no DM has attempted a blood wars campaign is beyond me. That'd actually be cool to play as a demon or devil, loyal to your demon prince or arch-devil, and explore the politics of the different lower planes, as well as evil fighting evil. I see a "heroic" devil looking like Magneto or Doctor Doom, where as "villainous" are more like 1984 or something out of Pink Floud. Demons the same thing with Dexter Morgan as their "good guys" do to acting on compulsion, desire, and uncontrolled nature, and their "bad side" being the stereotypical nihilism of Heath Ledger's Joker.

I'd probably play as a devil so I could actually play an interesting black guard. (Maybe not a literal black guard... black guards suck) "Men get arrested. Dogs... get put down!" Or their horrific social hierarchies, where like lemures are thought to be "mindless", but it's really only cause they're too weak to defend themselves or get any credit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRNLBAISU2g  <--Lemure is the particle man of the infernal plains. XP
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Twilightwyrm July 05, 2011, 06:35:48 PM
'cause LG is naive as fuck.  LG is a game for children to play.  only someone as short lived as mortals can wear those rose-colored glasses.  everyone else has learned better.  That's why angels eventually fall.  But fiends never ascend -- 'cause their creation knocked those damn glasses off their head.
:D

Fiends never ascend because their faith in their evil is more blind than an Anchron's faith in good. Celestials might fall because questioning and self-criticism lead them away from their alignment. Fiends don't question their own evil, they either ignore it or blame it on someone else.
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Littha July 06, 2011, 09:09:30 PM
'cause LG is naive as fuck.  LG is a game for children to play.  only someone as short lived as mortals can wear those rose-colored glasses.  everyone else has learned better.  That's why angels eventually fall.  But fiends never ascend -- 'cause their creation knocked those damn glasses off their head.
:D

Fiends never ascend because their faith in their evil is more blind than an Anchron's faith in good. Celestials might fall because questioning and self-criticism lead them away from their alignment. Fiends don't question their own evil, they either ignore it or blame it on someone else.

again... succubus paladin
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: Prime32 July 06, 2011, 09:30:37 PM
again... succubus paladin
IIRC, she was trying to understand the way a paladin thought in order to seduce him and Became The Mask (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BecomingTheMask).
: Re: Alignment over 1000+ Years
: awaken DM golem July 08, 2011, 05:18:34 PM
 :plotting


I'd bet that the souls that have made it to the 2nd level of hell,
don't actually want to be anywhere else.
They might think wistfully of the 1st level.
They might wanna eventually reach for the 3rd level.
But that's what they did think, while on the 1st level.
If they sometime make it to the 3rd, they'll have to know how much easier
their after life was, back in the "good" old days on Dis.

Distopia !!

Dis , The Utopia Of The Lawful Evil.