Riddle me this, Den:
Why is it that these undead are Chaotic Evil:
Shadow
Ghoul
Mohrg
Bodak
Nightshade
But these undead are Lawful Evil:
Wight
Wraith
Spectre
Mummy
And these undead are Neutral Evil:
Allip
Devourer
Skeleton
Zombie
And these undead are Any Evil:
Lich
Vampire
What part of what a Wraith does is different enough from what a Shadow does to make one Lawful and the other Chaotic? What's Lawful about a Wight? Why are Vampires (who eat people's blood) not the same alignment as Ghouls (who eat people's organs?)
I don't care how the designers came up with these alignments, I just want a good narrative for why this should be the case.
Undead Alignments
Moderator: Moderators
Undead Alignments
FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
-
Midnight_v
- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 629
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 10:27 pm
- Location: Texas
Because giant frog, naturally.
If you go off the "limbo is totally insane" you can begin to build a narrative why different undead are reacting to that force differently.
Though could take a little while to force something coherent out of completely arbitrary distinctions
If you go off the "limbo is totally insane" you can begin to build a narrative why different undead are reacting to that force differently.
Though could take a little while to force something coherent out of completely arbitrary distinctions
Don't hate the world you see, create the world you want....
...If only you'd have stopped forever...Dear Midnight, you have actually made me sad. I took a day off of posting yesterday because of actual sadness you made me feel in my heart for you.
-
Giant Frog
- NPC
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:10 pm
- Location: Limbo
Mummies are lawful because they guard tombs, allips are neutral because they are too mad to have ethical agency, and skeletons and zombies are neutral because they lack sapience for ethical agency. Undead are evil because negative energy is spooky. Vampires and liches are any evil because they keep their ethics from life.
I don't know about the rest, but ghouls and mohrgs arise from social outcasts (cannibals) and criminals (murderers), respectively, so i can see a rationale there.
I don't know about the rest, but ghouls and mohrgs arise from social outcasts (cannibals) and criminals (murderers), respectively, so i can see a rationale there.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
So if I understand correctly, what you're asking for is a Law-Chaos framework that's designed around putting these undead in their proper categories, and disregards both what the books say on the subject (because it is incoherent) and also regardless of whether or not the rationale given ends up making Orcs Lawful and Hobgoblins Chaotic?
Basically, yes. If the same framework also happens to work well for orcs and goblins (or demons and devils), that's gravy.
FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
tl;dr: It looks like Lawful=most always sedentary, Chaotic=most always nomadic, and Neutral=varies from one individual to the next works out okay if you're willing to assume that the monsters who aren't explicitly or implicitly one or the other follow the pattern. This conveniently also maps pretty well to Orcs/Hobgoblins and, while I'm not sure, I think also Demons/Devils.
Neat. First of all, Prak mentioned a couple of freebies. Lich and Vampire transformation do not exert a significant change on the personality of those transformed, so they become Evil because all undead are Evil because shut up, and they retain their previous position on the Law-Chaos axis. I think all of the undead except skeletons and zombies have INT scores, which means they're Neutral because they're mindless.
For the rest, let's look at what these things have in common with each other:
Shadows hate life and light. They self-reproduce.
Ghouls ate people in life (maybe) and eat people after death. They also self-reproduce, and contrary to their life, their self-reproduction text makes no mention of having been a cannibal in life. The fluff says the cannibalism thing might just be a rumor, and the crunch suggests that it totally is.
Mohrgs do not self-reproduce, so already the "zombie plague is Chaotic because shut up" is out. Didn't really expect that one to pan out anyway. Regardless, Mohrgs are mass murderers who died. I think they spontaneously reanimate as Mohrgs.
Bodaks self-reproduce and are created by contact with "absolute evil" which is conveniently completely undefined, so these guys are basically a wild.
Nightshades are a collection of three different varieties of undead who share in common being comprised of shadow and evil itself. They do not self-reproduce and no indication is given as to how they can reproduce.
What do all these guys have in common? They are typically encountered in small groups. Ghouls self-reproduce, but on a long delay, and are not encountered in groups larger than about 12. Mohrgs and Nightshades do not self-reproduce and are typically encountered alone or in very small groups (2-4 plus non-sentient minions). Bodaks also self-reproduce, but are only found in very small groups like the Mohrg. A "swarm" of Shadows is less than a dozen. We'll see whether or not this pattern of "Chaotic means never organizes itself into groups of more than about twelve by choice" holds, but I suspect it won't.
Wights self-reproduce and are found in similar numbers to Ghouls, so yup, that ship is sunk is already. They lurk in graves and barrows, whereas Ghouls haunt any location with corpses to feed on. This usually means graveyards, but can also mean battlefields. My current tack is "Chaotic is nomadic, Lawful is sedentary."
Wraiths have no apparent distinctions whatsoever from Shadows except that one is made of darkness and the other is ghostly. Shadows are explicitly called out as being "predatory," however, which I am going to use as extremely weak justification for their being nomadic (or at least roaming over large tracts of land), and that wraiths in contrast are more stationary. So at this point I'm basically using the strategy that if my theory isn't contradicted, I'm going to assume it's true.
Spectres explicitly haunt the location of their death. Definitely stationary.
Mummies, of course, guard their ancient tombs and temples. Also stationary.
Mummies, Spectres, and Wights are explicitly stationary, and Wraiths have no justification one way or another. Ghouls are implicitly nomadic, Shadows are very weakly implied to be nomadic, and Mohrgs, Bodaks, and Nightshades have no evidence one way or the other. Lawful as stationary and Chaotic as nomadic is something I'm feeling good about. It even maps reasonably well to most other Law/Chaos distinctions I can think of off the top of my head. Let's hope the Neutrals don't sink it!
Skeletons and Zombies are non-sentient and therefore must go wherever they're directed to. They can be either nomadic or sedentary depending, and are therefore Neutral. Even if they were one or the other by default, they are non-sentient and cannot choose to be nomadic or sedentary.
Allips also have a variable sedentary/nomadic lifestyle, as they relentlessly pursue the target of their vengeance. Nothing about the Allip suggests that they are supernaturally drawn towards their target, so it's equally possible that an Allip might chase their target down across continents or methodically search their hometown house by house, never leaving the city walls for decades.
There is no particular indication as to where a Devourer lives except for its plane of origin, so I will assume that they, too, can be either sedentary or nomadic depending on personal preference.
Neat. First of all, Prak mentioned a couple of freebies. Lich and Vampire transformation do not exert a significant change on the personality of those transformed, so they become Evil because all undead are Evil because shut up, and they retain their previous position on the Law-Chaos axis. I think all of the undead except skeletons and zombies have INT scores, which means they're Neutral because they're mindless.
For the rest, let's look at what these things have in common with each other:
Shadows hate life and light. They self-reproduce.
Ghouls ate people in life (maybe) and eat people after death. They also self-reproduce, and contrary to their life, their self-reproduction text makes no mention of having been a cannibal in life. The fluff says the cannibalism thing might just be a rumor, and the crunch suggests that it totally is.
Mohrgs do not self-reproduce, so already the "zombie plague is Chaotic because shut up" is out. Didn't really expect that one to pan out anyway. Regardless, Mohrgs are mass murderers who died. I think they spontaneously reanimate as Mohrgs.
Bodaks self-reproduce and are created by contact with "absolute evil" which is conveniently completely undefined, so these guys are basically a wild.
Nightshades are a collection of three different varieties of undead who share in common being comprised of shadow and evil itself. They do not self-reproduce and no indication is given as to how they can reproduce.
What do all these guys have in common? They are typically encountered in small groups. Ghouls self-reproduce, but on a long delay, and are not encountered in groups larger than about 12. Mohrgs and Nightshades do not self-reproduce and are typically encountered alone or in very small groups (2-4 plus non-sentient minions). Bodaks also self-reproduce, but are only found in very small groups like the Mohrg. A "swarm" of Shadows is less than a dozen. We'll see whether or not this pattern of "Chaotic means never organizes itself into groups of more than about twelve by choice" holds, but I suspect it won't.
Wights self-reproduce and are found in similar numbers to Ghouls, so yup, that ship is sunk is already. They lurk in graves and barrows, whereas Ghouls haunt any location with corpses to feed on. This usually means graveyards, but can also mean battlefields. My current tack is "Chaotic is nomadic, Lawful is sedentary."
Wraiths have no apparent distinctions whatsoever from Shadows except that one is made of darkness and the other is ghostly. Shadows are explicitly called out as being "predatory," however, which I am going to use as extremely weak justification for their being nomadic (or at least roaming over large tracts of land), and that wraiths in contrast are more stationary. So at this point I'm basically using the strategy that if my theory isn't contradicted, I'm going to assume it's true.
Spectres explicitly haunt the location of their death. Definitely stationary.
Mummies, of course, guard their ancient tombs and temples. Also stationary.
Mummies, Spectres, and Wights are explicitly stationary, and Wraiths have no justification one way or another. Ghouls are implicitly nomadic, Shadows are very weakly implied to be nomadic, and Mohrgs, Bodaks, and Nightshades have no evidence one way or the other. Lawful as stationary and Chaotic as nomadic is something I'm feeling good about. It even maps reasonably well to most other Law/Chaos distinctions I can think of off the top of my head. Let's hope the Neutrals don't sink it!
Skeletons and Zombies are non-sentient and therefore must go wherever they're directed to. They can be either nomadic or sedentary depending, and are therefore Neutral. Even if they were one or the other by default, they are non-sentient and cannot choose to be nomadic or sedentary.
Allips also have a variable sedentary/nomadic lifestyle, as they relentlessly pursue the target of their vengeance. Nothing about the Allip suggests that they are supernaturally drawn towards their target, so it's equally possible that an Allip might chase their target down across continents or methodically search their hometown house by house, never leaving the city walls for decades.
There is no particular indication as to where a Devourer lives except for its plane of origin, so I will assume that they, too, can be either sedentary or nomadic depending on personal preference.
-
Hey_I_Can_Chan
- Master
- Posts: 250
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
- Location: Garden Grove, CA
Wraiths are bound by an ancient law that requires they release anybody that can beat them in a game of chess.
Fitting with Cham's idea, they are indeed sedentary: they tend to just lie inside urns full of gold[1], emerging to kill anybody that reaches inside to steal crap.
[1] Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion, Mask of the Betrayer
Fitting with Cham's idea, they are indeed sedentary: they tend to just lie inside urns full of gold[1], emerging to kill anybody that reaches inside to steal crap.
[1] Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion, Mask of the Betrayer
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.