Setting: Morality?

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angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
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Setting: Morality?

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Just some thoughts on what the morality of the various Realms might be like, and how that would feed into laws and societies.

Black/Naraka is Cynical, so selfishness is the foundation of morality, though enlightened self-interest is possible. Laws are merely guidelines of what the powerful find annoying and will punish the weak for doing. Without a strong authority, gang warfare and banditry is moral. With a strong central authority, fascism takes over, peaceful for the same reason that organized crime cuts down on disorganized crime. Corruption is open and expected.

(Blue)/Asuraloka is Emotional, which means that what feels right is right. There are no laws per se, and disputes are settled by appeals to sentiment. Society is about riling up and calming down mobs. This is the sort of setup where agreements made while drunk are more binding than usual.

Green/Tiryagyoni is Instinctual. While Asuralokans follow their hearts and passions, Tiryagyonians follow their guts. Asking why and reflecting are activities which take one further from the truth. I don't know what kind of society that produces.

(Red)/Pretaloka is Rational, which leads me to believe that they'd base their morality on principles like The Golden Rule or Kantian Duty. Laws are treated like scientific hypotheses, constantly examined and tested to see how closely their results cleave to the core principles, and amended when they are found wanting.

White/Yama is Traditional, so what is right is what society decrees, or more appropriately, what society has always decreed. Laws are extremely reliant on precedent, and society is deeply conservative. To some degree, there is no deviance between legality and morality, because what was written in ancient times is the objective measure of what is right.

Is this a useful path to go down?
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Bigode
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Re: Setting: Morality?

Post by Bigode »

I feel so. As for Tiryagyoni, maybe it'll just spawn hives on one side, families on another and complete anarchy on the last, like animal societies do?
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angelfromanotherpin
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Re: Setting: Morality?

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

On reflection, I think Tirgagyoni morality lends itself to tribalism, where people only spend significant chunks of time with people they know and care about. If societies get big enough to seriously strain those bonds, they dissolve into blood-feuds. So either inbreeding isn't a problem, or youngsters go out on quests of adulthood to find spouses. Exile is probably a fairly common punishment.

Hell, you could probably just crib extensively from The Jungle Book, replacing the wolves with the wolf tribe, and so forth.
Username17
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Re: Setting: Morality?

Post by Username17 »

The Jungle Book is a good analogy, as the Bugbears are essentially Baloo, and the Vanara are the Bandar Log.

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Judging__Eagle
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Re: Setting: Morality?

Post by Judging__Eagle »

I now want to make a Bugbear that rides a cargo-carrying Wyvern, who is named Baloo. With a child bugbear cohort that rides a magical flying metal boomerang that uses a sling or bow.
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