How can Isis be good?

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How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Okay, this has been bothering me for years.
Isis is presented as the most good of the good gods. "She is outraged by injustice and always tries to right a wrong"
okay...
So how has her cult on Lemuria, for the last four hundred years prospered on its campaign of the mass murder and slavery of the innocent?
I mean we are talking tens of thousands hers

How is the Church of Light and Dark able to be the one that is sanctioning the atrocities in the Disputed Lands and the Western Empire?

How has she allowed the unjust persecution of the Changlings to continue, by her very church no less. Even though she knows
the truth of the matter, and that the entire Changling inquisition was a plot to seize power. And that she knows that the changelings are not only not monsters but were one of the key forces that saved the Light in the Chaos war.

I mean this stuff is being done in her name and she just sits back, does nothing, rakes in the PPE and continues to grant all the priests their spells and miracles?

Shouldn't she be like... Diabolic?
I mean She is worse than Set here. He at least admits to the evil he promotes. Where as Isis, and the other "gods of light" simply pretend to be good, actually actively promote evil, then promote more evil to 'punish' the innocent...and call all of it "good".
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, the denizens of the Palladium world are probably just a fraction of her worshipers in the megaverse. As such, she may be unaware of their actions.

-Vek
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Veknironth wrote:Well, the denizens of the Palladium world are probably just a fraction of her worshipers in the megaverse. As such, she may be unaware of their actions.

-Vek
"Also, you've posed the question that plagues every religion."

So she is aware enough to be personally sending priests on specific quests in specific cities in the Western Empire...
...but not aware enough to notice what her personal cult has been up to for the last 400+ years?
On one of the most important and well monitored dimensions in the multiverse (It has the Old Ones prisons after all). And where at least one of her Husbands artifacts is canonically kept!

At best that makes her Anarchist as it demonstrates a total disregard for the needs of anyone else and frankly to even do that requires a level of disregard that is beyond belief.
It also means that she is obviously NOT "Compassionate, merciful, kind, and honorable." nor is "she outraged by injustice" let alone "always tries to right a wrong"

I mean seriously... how often is she doing her "Check up on worshipers"? Shouldn't she notice "oh hey, why are there slave camps here in my holy city?" You know... maybe after a century or two?
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Reagren Wright »

Dragons and Gods (page 87)

There are many myths about gods, and very often the myths are contradictory. Look at Algor.
Those who worship him as the Northern Sea God describe him as the father (or mother, in those
places where Algor is depicted as female) of the ocean, who is patron of all who travel the seas.
Worshippers in the North Church see Algor as one of a number of gods, and certainly not
the creator of the ocean (one story has it that Od was displeased with the Palladium World,
and spit on it, and that's how the oceans were formed).So what is "true?"
From Algor's point of view, all of the myths are true. At the very least, he will never bother to
deny any of them.Or, from a more cynical point of view, Algor is worshipped on the basis of the
myths about him. To deny any myth means risking the loss of worshippers. So Algor accepts
whatever mortal myths are created, and keeps his mouth shut about the "truth."

So you were right, the gods DON'T care who they get their PPE from. They have their own personal
alignment and don't care about the alignment of those who worship them. If you attend the Church of Light
and Dark you might now be worshipping (one particular god) but attending the church service your P.P.E. would
be disturbed to everyone. Its when the worshippers start doing crazy stuff that they get annoyed. During the Elf/Dwarf War the
Gods of Light abandoned the Palladium World, meaning they unplugged all their Priests (accept for the one devoted to healing).
Because they couldn't just support one side anyone more.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Reagren Wright wrote:Dragons and Gods (page 87)

There are many myths about gods, and very often the myths are contradictory. Look at Algor.
Those who worship him as the Northern Sea God describe him as the father (or mother, in those
places where Algor is depicted as female) of the ocean, who is patron of all who travel the seas.
Worshippers in the North Church see Algor as one of a number of gods, and certainly not
the creator of the ocean (one story has it that Od was displeased with the Palladium World,
and spit on it, and that's how the oceans were formed).So what is "true?"
From Algor's point of view, all of the myths are true. At the very least, he will never bother to
deny any of them.Or, from a more cynical point of view, Algor is worshipped on the basis of the
myths about him. To deny any myth means risking the loss of worshippers. So Algor accepts
whatever mortal myths are created, and keeps his mouth shut about the "truth."

So you were right, the gods DON'T care who they get their PPE from. They have their own personal
alignment and don't care about the alignment of those who worship them. If you attend the Church of Light
and Dark you might now be worshipping (one particular god) but attending the church service your P.P.E. would
be disturbed to everyone. Its when the worshippers start doing crazy stuff that they get annoyed. During the Elf/Dwarf War the
Gods of Light abandoned the Palladium World, meaning they unplugged all their Priests (accept for the one devoted to healing).
Because they couldn't just support one side anyone more.

Yes.
That's fine as far as it goes...
But "I accept all myths" and "I don't care about the alignment of my followers" is a far cry from "I am totally chill with the murder and enslavement of innocents as a religious sacrament of my personal cult because like... I only detest evil and cruelty and injustice if it isn't done in my name, 'cause if it is, then that's cool."

Basically... her cult, not the entire church mind you but specifically The Church Of Isis, Lemuia Branch *has* been doing crazy stuff. For 400 hundred years. And she has not only been fine with it, but she has been granting them spells and miracles to support it up to and including the magic needed to help with the murdering and enslavement!
That is why I am saying that it is functionally impossible for her to be good.
She is deliberately, willfully, and knowingly endorsing evil and deliberately, willfully and knowingly assisting in its spread and perpetuation. That is hardly a "good" act.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, here's the problem with stories, myths, and religion. From the standpoint of the worshiper, the god or goddess is sending people on quests and missions. But to someone on the outside, that person is doing whatever he or she wants and using the god or goddess as a reason. In our world, so many people use religion as an excuse for all manner of acts. It's entirely possible that people in the Palladium world just do what they want and use Isis as a reason. The priests could just tell someone Isis told them to go to war, a mentally unstable person could hear voices and assume it's Isis. Or, some other entity could pose as Isis and have her followers commit atrocities in her name.

-Vek
"And for Isis, the more followers the better, even if they're bad people."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

It's a Complex issue mixing morals, points of view and beliefs.
We have been raised that slavery is bad, so anyone who agrees with it must be bad (That makes pretty much the whole of timiro evil)
How about the Paladin that goes in and burns out a nest of goblins that are harassing farmers, killing females and younglings. To the farmers the paladin is a hero, to the goblins he's an evil genocidal maniac.
If a god believes in free will how much should they involve themselves.
Is what you think is evil the template that evil should be judged by. if yes, why? (you are the dm is a good answer mind you)
Also if a god drops by to boot some head, what's stops all the other gods from doing the same and turning palladium into a wasteland.
It's in the book why some good followers worship the evil gods, they give them gifts to avert their attention so they look elsewhere and don't bring misfortune to the worshiper.

I play that the gods have bound themselves by a pact not to come to palladium again and cause
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Veknironth wrote:Well, here's the problem with stories, myths, and religion. From the standpoint of the worshiper, the god or goddess is sending people on quests and missions. But to someone on the outside, that person is doing whatever he or she wants and using the god or goddess as a reason. In our world, so many people use religion as an excuse for all manner of acts. It's entirely possible that people in the Palladium world just do what they want and use Isis as a reason. The priests could just tell someone Isis told them to go to war, a mentally unstable person could hear voices and assume it's Isis. Or, some other entity could pose as Isis and have her followers commit atrocities in her name.

-Vek
"And for Isis, the more followers the better, even if they're bad people."

When the books say "Is on a mission from Isis herself to do X" though that doesn't really wash.
And more to the point... even if they are doing things just in her name... they are still doing it in her name. And she is sitting back and saying "that's cool"
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

kiralon wrote:It's a Complex issue mixing morals, points of view and beliefs.
We have been raised that slavery is bad, so anyone who agrees with it must be bad (That makes pretty much the whole of timiro evil)
How about the Paladin that goes in and burns out a nest of goblins that are harassing farmers, killing females and younglings. To the farmers the paladin is a hero, to the goblins he's an evil genocidal maniac.

Palladium is pretty clear on that.
He is at best Anarchist.
Period. Dot. End of story.
The "harm and innocent" thing is pretty cut and dry.

kiralon wrote:If a god believes in free will how much should they involve themselves.
Is what you think is evil the template that evil should be judged by. if yes, why? (you are the dm is a good answer mind you)
Also if a god drops by to boot some head, what's stops all the other gods from doing the same and turning palladium into a wasteland.
It's in the book why some good followers worship the evil gods, they give them gifts to avert their attention so they look elsewhere and don't bring misfortune to the worshiper.

I play that the gods have bound themselves by a pact not to come to palladium again and cause

If the gods are able to intervene by sending direct messages. Personally assigning quests, performing miracles, and appearing in dreams and all the rest...
...then the idea that Isis can't stop in to her High Priest and say "Um this whole mass murder and slavery thing? Not so much, cut it out."
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Reagren Wright »

You also have to remember Isis is worshipped all over the Megaverse. She potentally has billions and billions of followers. In the cosmic
balance of things, her definition of scruplulous is different then the mortal definition because after all she is a god. We mere mortals and our
70+ years are just a blimp in the grand scheme of things. Look in the various human mythologies. The gods that were good were not truly
good. Artermis tuned a guy into a stag for looking at her take a bath then he got eaten by his own hunting dogs. Apollo chases a girl down
because he wants her so badly until she asks to give up her humanity and be turns into a plant. How many women did Zeus force himself
upon? And these are just the classic Greek Gods. Gods definitions of good and human definition is a different version of rule and laws.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

These a the moral questions I like putting to players ingame.

So the paladin is evil if he burns out the nest of harmless goblins, but he also knows that if he doesn't burn them out they will grow up and kill, rape and torture the farmers in later years (as this cycle has been going for centuries, the goblins and orcs eat the people, the people kill the goblins and orcs). That the goblins and orcs, when grown up will loot and pillage is a given fact, so he can't let the youngsters live because they will go murder people when older, but he can't also burn them out because they are innocent and has to wait until they has murdered someone.

Does that mean a vampire who hasn't killed anyone yet (first few hours of change) should be left alone because it hasn't killed yet (which makes him innocent) but who will be overwhelmed with hunger and it will go and feed on the nearby villagers. Is killing the vamp beforehand murder, do you have to wait for it to kill someone before you can do anything about it if you are a good person.

That what I meant about your template of evil, you think goblins are people too so anything that happens to them should be judged by human standards.

What happens if you are raised to think they are vermin to be exterminated. Is it then any different from burning out a nest of rat babies, whom are innocent, but who you know will grow up to be damaging vermin.

Where does the line between acceptable monster kill and innocent murdering lay . . .
What is a monster ???
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, this is also the problem with a narrative in the book. It doesn't give a point of view. The statement "is on a mission from Isis herself" it could mean several things. It could mean the person THINKS he or she is on a mission from Isis. If it's the omniscient third person, then you can take it as an absolute fact. Of course, even if you add up all instances of that being reported in the books, how many of them are there? Let's say there are five of them. That would be five concrete instances of Isis acting directly in the entire thousands of years history of the Palladium world.

I just don't think the gods interact with the non-deity population that frequently or directly.

-Vek
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

kiralon wrote:These a the moral questions I like putting to players ingame.

So the paladin is evil if he burns out the nest of harmless goblins, but he also knows that if he doesn't burn them out they will grow up and kill, rape and torture the farmers in later years (as this cycle has been going for centuries, the goblins and orcs eat the people, the people kill the goblins and orcs). That the goblins and orcs, when grown up will loot and pillage is a given fact, so he can't let the youngsters live because they will go murder people when older, but he can't also burn them out because they are innocent and has to wait until they has murdered someone.

False dichotomy.
There are options besides "murder the children" and "do nothing"

kiralon wrote:Does that mean a vampire who hasn't killed anyone yet (first few hours of change) should be left alone because it hasn't killed yet (which makes him innocent) but who will be overwhelmed with hunger and it will go and feed on the nearby villagers. Is killing the vamp beforehand murder, do you have to wait for it to kill someone before you can do anything about it if you are a good person.

No, a vampire is not a person. A vampire is, canonically a kind of demon, an extension of the demon/god/or AI that spawned it the soul of the person has been replaced by an essence fragment.
It does not count as "innocent" anymore than the dark god that made it is innocent.

kiralon wrote:That what I meant about your template of evil, you think goblins are people too so anything that happens to them should be judged by human standards.

What happens if you are raised to think they are vermin to be exterminated. Is it then any different from burning out a nest of rat babies, whom are innocent, but who you know will grow up to be damaging vermin.

Where does the line between acceptable monster kill and innocent murdering lay . . .
What is a monster ???

That line of logic works in our world...where do do not have the ability to test the universal absolute good/evil of an action.
The paladin in PF does. He can *litterally* know if any action is good or evil because good and evil are not philosophical concepts to debate. They are concrete physical realities like magnetisim and gravity.
Just because he was raised as an Anarchist and is selfish and feels that he should not treat others well does not make it "good". There is no "ignorance" defense.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Veknironth wrote:Well, this is also the problem with a narrative in the book. It doesn't give a point of view. The statement "is on a mission from Isis herself" it could mean several things. It could mean the person THINKS he or she is on a mission from Isis. If it's the omniscient third person, then you can take it as an absolute fact. Of course, even if you add up all instances of that being reported in the books, how many of them are there? Let's say there are five of them. That would be five concrete instances of Isis acting directly in the entire thousands of years history of the Palladium world.

I just don't think the gods interact with the non-deity population that frequently or directly.

-Vek
"Of course, if you're the GM, you can change that!"

We see instances of the gods directly acting all the time. They quite litterally do it on a daily basis in Rifts.
And that *still* does not get her out of her cult doing things.
If she has the time to direct a level 3 priest on a personal quest, and can personally evaluate every miracle request... she has the time to pop in and say "no, mass murder of innocents is not okay"
But she doesn't.
How can she be "defending the innocent" if she is murdering and enslaving them.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

These are good responses
eliakon wrote:
False dichotomy.
There are options besides "murder the children" and "do nothing"

That are feasible for peasants that won't put an undue burden. Give them to someone else - who would take them other than maybe more goblins. Leave them to either starve to death or grow up and do what comes natural to them. Not many options that would work. An adventuring party wouldn't hang around, so that would mean taking them with them. That wouldn't work well either because there is still the issue of who to give them to.

eliakon wrote:No, a vampire is not a person. A vampire is, canonically a kind of demon, an extension of the demon/god/or AI that spawned it the soul of the person has been replaced by an essence fragment.
It does not count as "innocent" anymore than the dark god that made it is innocent.

So you are assuming that because it is evil it does evil and is OK to kill, you haven't seen it before, so you cannot know if it has killed someone yet, but you are pretty sure it will. Whatever controls it might not have done anything evil, unless you know of it personally you can only guess. I think its a very good guess but still a guess. So why are goblins any different, You are assuming they are innocent, but are they. Have they murdered their brothers and sisters to stay alive. What age is it ok to kill them all. Are the going to murder a family that takes them in, is a family that takes them in going to enslave them.

eliakon wrote:
That line of logic works in our world...where do do not have the ability to test the universal absolute good/evil of an action.
The paladin in PF does. He can *litterally* know if any action is good or evil because good and evil are not philosophical concepts to debate. They are concrete physical realities like magnetisim and gravity.
Just because he was raised as an Anarchist and is selfish and feels that he should not treat others well does not make it "good". There is no "ignorance" defense.


I wasn't aware that palladins in palladium had an innate detect evil ability, so im not %100 sure on the paladins automagically knowing what is evil. I know they are more accepting of monster races, but if an enemy goblin village has been sending raids, I can't see many child goblins surviving if they are from timiro or the western empire unless they were to go to be slaves. If this was an issue palladins and knights wouldn't be able to ride around either country because they would be fighting from the get go to save slaves. If they are from eastern territories and GNW its more likely but I still wouldn't expect many survivors. I not sure how much killing the paladins would do but I'm not sure if they would do much to stop it if others were doing it to a race that has been demonised by humans.

What would the cows of the world call the races that eat them - evil by our thoughts. Our perception of evil says that if it eats you it is evil, so does that make everyone evil because burgers?
So I think evil is what the most powerful force in the area that holds it thinks it is. I'm not the most powerful person in the world, and I might disagree with many things that people think are good and evil, but because I disagree with it does it make it so, or what the consensus of the area is if it's different.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

I think it's a matter of scale. If a god went after every injustice, they would spend every waking minute of every day travelling through thousands of worlds to try and save millions of people. The gods are more concerned with global and megaversal threats. It could likely be that the events happening on Lemuria are also part of a bigger plan. Maybe the injustice there has to take place to allow for a leader to rise up that will abolish the way of life there, and go on to stop a world ending evil.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Whiskeyjack wrote:I think it's a matter of scale. If a god went after every injustice, they would spend every waking minute of every day travelling through thousands of worlds to try and save millions of people. The gods are more concerned with global and megaversal threats. It could likely be that the events happening on Lemuria are also part of a bigger plan. Maybe the injustice there has to take place to allow for a leader to rise up that will abolish the way of life there, and go on to stop a world ending evil.

There are two problems with this excuse
1) is that it is not "every injustice" to keep her own house in order. If she is running a cult of murder and slavery then she really has no grounds to be out trying to pretend to be going after any other form of evil...

2) the gods don't have any form of precognition in canon. Now sure, you can houserule up that they can see hundreds of years into the future and perfectly see the future... but that is a house rule. That doesn't excuse her canon actions. And her canon actions are letting four hundred years plus of atrocities slide because there might be some good?
She isn't omniscient so the "omniscient good viewpoint" defense doesn't work here.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

You just kind of defeated your viewpoint there. If she isn't omniscient, she can in no way know what every one of her millions of followers are doing. A priest powers are given by a god more or less without knowledge of what the powers are being used for. Only in the case of major miracle or some world shattering event do they tend to pay attention. Some backwater island with a minuscule population is never going to be on her radar. Even if she decides to look through the eyes of one of her priestesses there, it's not like they spend their days flaying people alive. For the most part they live fairly sedentary lives. Men that stay in their place are treated well. It's only newcomers that cause trouble that are treated harshly. All in all, I can't see Isis even knowing Lemuria exists.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

Not to mention the gods idea of good and evil is obviously different. The goddess of Paladins killed her lover because he told her he loved her most, when secretly he loved their unborn child a little more, so she slew him in cold blood (she did ask 3 times though lol). They obviously think things that aren't gods must be ants to be played with. Worshippers are so much fun, you can look through their eyes, get a magnifying glass and burn them. Pull their wings off and tie a bit of string to them, and if they annoy you spray them with an agonising nerve toxin and you listen to them scream themselves to death.

@Eliakon's False Dichotomy
I noticed that you said it was and then didn't come up with any alternatives for the villagers and orc problem, not to mention your assumptions on a vampires evil.
It shows that your line in the ground is supernatural evil with no evidence required for its execution. It's evil so it must have done evil, so killing it without evidence of wrongdoing isn't evil (just like the villagers to the goblins), but I must say I was thinking of first ed version of vampires (mostly because I play first ed), because second ed vamps make good over bosses for vamps, but them being finger puppets never meshed well with anyone I know.
So say its a first ed vampire who has spent his 3 days in the dirt and has just arisen. You know it will go eat somebody, you can't hang around so do you kill the innocent being that wont be innocent for long, or do you let eat some villagers and deal with it on the way back. In this situation for the characters I'd have them be going somewhere where lots of people will die if they don't get there in time, and hanging around for the new vamp to do evil would be too long.

And I'm also very curious about paladins auto-magically knowing if something is right or wrong, that sounds like a house ruling as I haven't noticed it anywhere in the books (maybe palladins of rurga???), I do sort of agree with the idea as I gave paladins the ability to detect evil if they pray and concentrate, but mine is a house ruling.

Also, what happens if the law of the land says to exterminate the raiders completely, which would include the children. The paladin is bound by the rules of the kingdom he is in as well.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, if first whatever happens in Rifts stays in Rifts. Using "It happens in Rifts" as a basis for an argument leads down all manner of paths. Why aren't there Glitterboys in the Palladium World? They quite literally, are there every day in Rifts.

Second, where does it state that the Palladin can detect evil? The Palladin is listed in the main book on pages 88 and 89 and I don't see that ability anywhere. I see "Way of the Horse", "Way of the Lance". and "Demon Death Blow". The Demon Death Blow doesn't even mention good or evil. Furthermore, the spell Sense Evil only senses supernatural evil and the psionic ability only sense evil in regular humans if they "have an immediate evil intention, are incredibly evil, are psychotic, or possess psionic powers which create an evil aura". Now that incredibly evil part is the messy one. What makes something run-of-the-mill evil vs incredibly evil? That is going to depend on the individual, I suspect. It's not a universal score card which is objective and factual.

I'm also curious, which organizations does Isis sponsor that commit murder and slavery? I honestly don't know.

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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

I have Lemuria but I haven't read it. Could you give me page numbers so I can look at this myself and actually have an opinion?
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by dreicunan »

I believe that he is talking about the island of LemAria from Adventures on the High Seas, which features enslavement of males who get uppity with their female overlords. They apparently do not practice death by snu-snu, however, despite what some of the art in that section might lead one to believe.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

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The perspective of a god is a strange thing for a human to contemplate. They live forever, have gazillions of worshipers, and compete with each other in both pantheon teams and as individuals. They may look out for the good of their worshipers, but they're not out to protect innocent lives "just 'cause."

We see slavery in the real world today as implicitly evil, but that hasn't always been the case. We see wiping out entire enemy populations is today as implicitly evil, but that hasn't always been the case, either. If you regard a type of person as being less than a person, or as an inferior kind of person, then it quickly becomes easy to justify doing some awful stuff to that type of person.

That's the whole deal with Lemaria. The women in charge see men (and the uglier races and magic users) as inferior and intrinsically flawed; therefore it's ok to treat them as less than fully human. A fully compliant man is respected and loved like a good dog, but if he gets out of hand or lashes out, he'll be put down like a mad dog. Among people the ruling women of Lemaria relate to as peers (i.e. other women), their conduct is very much in line with a good alignment.

Isis isn't interested in ending slavery or stopping killings because those two things are only incompatible with good alignments if they see the enslaved and killed as people. Isis may intervene to protect her worshippers or stop conflicts between her worshippers, but ending slavery and killing of sentients across the megaverse is a fool's errand.

In any case, Lemaria is a peaceful, modestly successful community that's been stable for 400 years. If she were to go in, flip some tables, and demand that every sentient on that island get equal treatment, the social upheaval might destabilize the society such that they wipe each other out within a generation or two. Like I said, gods live a long, long time, and their perspective on morality is going to seem quite alien to a human, like trying to explain classical music to an amoeba.

The one big problem with Lemaria that I can't reconcile with the alignment of their leadership is that they attack passing ships without provocation. Almost everything else can be explained away.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

dreicunan wrote:I believe that he is talking about the island of LemAria from Adventures on the High Seas, which features enslavement of males who get uppity with their female overlords. They apparently do not practice death by snu-snu, however, despite what some of the art in that section might lead one to believe.


OH, okay. I don't think the OP is going to find a satisfactory answer unless Kevin himself comes here and clarifies things, and the odds of that are less then zero. Hopefully he can meet him at a convention and talk to him about it. As for me, I'm going to treat it like a role playing game and run things as I see fit for my players.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Hotrod wrote:The one big problem with Lemaria that I can't reconcile with the alignment of their leadership is that they attack passing ships without provocation. Almost everything else can be explained away.

It is the randomly attacking passing ships so that they can enslave the survivors that is pretty much an evil act.
That right there is serial mass murder.
In Isis's name since it is how they keep their murder cult going.
But the priests and warlocks doing it are good.

It is either sloppy writing, bad examples of alignments (scrupulous Dr Feral, hello there), or yet another example of how the Alignment system in Palladium seems designed solely as a bludgon with which to force players to act in certain narrow ways, while not applying alignments to anything or anyone else. (thus you get scrupulous Doc Feral, or Cosmo Knights commiting serial genocide, or the majority of the CS being good, or... good murder cults)
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

Hotrod wrote:The one big problem with Lemaria that I can't reconcile with the alignment of their leadership is that they attack passing ships without provocation. Almost everything else can be explained away.

Lemaria is at war with the world of men, so all ships with men on them are ships of the enemy. Sink em, capture the crew and get the loot, convert if you can, hang 'em if you can't.
It's universally known that sinking the ships of your enemy is a good act.

So basically just rolls back to point of view, if what you are killing has been classed as not part of your group, then its not evil to kill them. Because they would obviously kill you if they had the chance, so lemarians are practicing premeditated "self defence" murder.

Eliakon is just projecting his sense of good and evil on others, which doesn't work. Some of it is palladiums writing, but it mostly comes down to -
who gets to decide what is good and what is evil.
what if an alien race came along and went, oh look, the humans are destroying this planet, lets cull the population.
We would think that it's evil, the aliens would think it's good.
And if its evil to cull humans, why isn't it evil to cull animals.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

Palladium has never struck me as the most internally consistent (rules and settings) game out there. I try to never hold much stock in what a designer, that has never meet me or my players, wrote as "gospel". Pedantically speaking the OP is correct, it's right there in Dragon's and Gods pg. 87 under "God's perceptions through their followers" but in a game with so many different writers involved with the game (and Kevin's seat of the pants style from time to time) things aren't going to fit neatly into place. I think you're going to have to figure out how you want to handle it and act accordingly.
I mean this is an RPG, no one's keeping score or going to report you to Palladium books if you change something you find paradoxical. If you feel you have to play Rules As Written then like I said: You aren't going to find much help unless Kevin or his officially appointed representative comes here and sets us all straight...and even then I'm just going to do what I think is best for my group anyway.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Reagren Wright »

One last thing of note the literature and history. The women of Lemaria are there in the first place
because they were slaves of pirates. The pirates for whatever reason where going through
the Sea of Despair going to where? We can assume the Western Empire but whose to say? The
Priestess of Isis Cassandra establishes a women dominated society to ensure women never get
treated as slaves again. To put them in a position of power. Now since you are in the middle of the
Sea of Despair (part of the world I happen to know a great deal about) let me assure you that
supply ships are not coming any time soon. Lemaria is a small dot in the ocean. This isn't Lopan or
Bizantium, they receive no commercial traffic, no trade, nothing. In the adventure the only reason
player characters arrive there is shere happenstance. They have fishing vessels that can't function
more than 30 hours at sea. They are trapped here. So the women have created a society in which
they are in charge and to get supplies of any sort. They rely on the extremely rare opportunity of
salvaging a ship. So I don't see the "mass murder" going on. Or the mass slavery. I see a medieval
society in which women rule in the place of men. Oh if Bizantium wanted too, they could take out
this island and its population.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by dreicunan »

Regarding Paladins being able to detect evil: Paladins of Rurga do get sense supernatural evil, "Same as spell description on page 190, Palladium Fantasy RPG 2nd Ed., except that the Palladin of Rurga can automatically sense supernatural evil without having to activate a spell or think about it." There aren't many of them, but they do exist.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Library Ogre »

So, there's a problem with the "Isis is Megaversal" argument, and it's in the text of the Priest of Light OCC, on page 64. Isis knows what you're doing and what you're saying.

The deities are aware of what is done in their name. They might not mind some digressions... you describe Isis as a giant golden snake who created the moon by bringing forth an egg from her mouth and she's ok with that. If you start saying "We have to enslave men for the safety of women", she's going to have to look at that statement pretty carefully, if she intends to keep her alignment while providing you the ability to act as her mortal emissary. In a sense, you're Isis's lawyer... you act in her name, and any act you take in her name reflects upon her.

Now, of course, we have to look at the specifics of the society of Lemaria. Most of the people involved in Lemaria these days are descendants of those who have been there for generations. Those who cause problems are not only outsiders, but they're lawbreakers. It's an insidious thing, when law starts to define who legitimate people are, but I'd wager that a lot "Lemarians are supposed to be good, but do evil things" gets handwaved away under it being the law. It is LEGAL to regard men as second class citizens, and the law says they're supposed to protect and support them, so the law is good, right? They're not DEMEANING men, men are just less suited to the pressures of power, as evidenced by the fact that they took our foremothers as slaves. And, of course, we punish wrongdoers with forced labor, but they've broken the law, so we are right to punish them with forced labor. Don't you do that on the mainland? And we kill some wrongdoers, but it's because it's clear that they're going to pose an ongoing threat to society. "Legal" is a hell of a term that salves a lot of consciences, and neither of the good alignments are under any obligation, per the alignment rules, to CHANGE the law, especially if they don't think about how it might be wrong.

In a lot of ways, some of this comes from Palladium alignment being purely descriptive, with next to no metaphysical consequences of being a certain alignment. In AD&D, goblins are evil because they're evil; later books modified this, somewhat, but that was the stance in a lot of the old school material. Goblin whelps are evil because they are goblins, and you don't have to consider it much beyond that. In Palladium, goblins are usually evil because they're raised a certain way. So, if you go kill a bunch of goblins who are raiding caravans, that might be legal and comport with a good alignment, but murdering their whelps is less so, because they might not be innocent, but they certainly have more capability of changing alignment than AD&D goblins are assumed to.

In short, though, Isis can remain good because her followers' actions are within the law. It is a law that they (as a society) wrote, but it's also not too dissimilar from similar laws written elsewhere. It's a flawed law, but the law is not required to be perfect.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

I just read that page Mark, and I don't see the text on a god knowing what you are doing or saying. Can you point it out?
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

Whiskeyjack wrote:I just read that page Mark, and I don't see the text on a god knowing what you are doing or saying. Can you point it out?

It's not as explicitly stated like it is in Dragon's and Gods but According to D&Gs pg 87 under Godlike perceptions a god can perceive everything like they were the follower, it can be one follower, an entire sect's follower or it can be every follower on a world...they can see, hear, smell, taste and feel what they're followers are if they choose to.
I think the thing that isn't explicitly stated but can be assumed is that the god has to stop whatever they're currently doing to do this and actually bother to pay attention. So it doesn't read to me like a constant monitoring but more like, "I wonder what my followers on palladium are up to?" pauses for a minute, gets all the input..."Okay they're pretty much fine, I suppose I'll have to do something about those women on that island but I've got a splugorth problem on another world right now."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

That's how I've always seen it. And with issues on countless worlds, surveying an entire world would probably be a very infrequent thing to do. So if she looked in on Lemari, she would likely see her priestesses going about a regular day looking after their community just like every other priest.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Library Ogre »

Whiskeyjack wrote:I just read that page Mark, and I don't see the text on a god knowing what you are doing or saying. Can you point it out?


Really, the entire "Allegiance to a God" section... your alignment has to match. Bad mouthing or disobeying your deity (say, being evil when your deity is good) is grounds to lose significantly. Failing to follow your deity can result in the entirety of your experience being stripped away.

I mean, you're drawing on the deity for all of your powers, and explicitly learn spells from them. If you're doing it for any length of time, they know about it, and are choosing not to stop you.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

Really. The text says nothing about a deity knowing every moment of every worshipers life.
It is specific to disobeying, rebuking or bad mouthing your deity. Essentially drawing the attention of your deity to call them out on something or disobeying a specific set of instructions that your god has given you or arguing when your god appears in a vision or in person. That's how I read that anyway. It's for situations where your deity has reason to be watching what you're doing do to some sort of exceptional quest.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

The gods are neither omniscient nor omnipotent.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

kiralon wrote:The gods are neither omniscient nor omnipotent.


This!
Item 1 and 2 under the heading "Limitations of Gods" Pg. 88 Dragons and Gods

Lemaria has only been around 500 years and they don't have a meaningful impact on the population of the world...Isis would have to be reading her followers at the same time they did something deplorable and then put together that it was a cultural trait and not just a random "bad egg." It is entirely feasible that Isis has no idea the island of Lemaria exists, yet, at any rate. 500 years must be like a picosecond to a god.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Colonel_Tetsuya »

I think Mark hit on some of what im going to bring up, but i think a lot of this is people thrusting their 20th century western morals into neo-feudal fantasy settings.

To whit: the assumption that slavery is "evil". That is a construct of modern society. Almost ALL ancient societies practiced it. Those societies weren't "inherently evil" or any such nonsense. Its just how it was.

A character can be a good alignment and not have an issue with the institution of slavery - particularly if he grew up in a society where slavery is the norm - but CAN have a problem with people mistreating their slaves. A good character in such a society would see himself as obligated to care for and protect his slaves, but the institution of slavery itself is not good or evil. It just is. Now, his neighbor who beats and mistreats his slaves? That guy is evil.

The Palladium Goddess Isis is (rather obviously) based on the historical Isis - who was a goddess of a society that definitely practiced slavery (and in the Palladium canon, WAS that god of ancient Egypt).

This is just one example.

Not all of the things we consider "evil" today are or even can be considered evil in a feudal world... particularly a fantasy one with ACTUAL other races, not just the "different colored people of the same species" in our real world - but actual, different species/creatures.

Palladium only defines a very few things as specifically evil, such as murder, torture, and other truly dispicable things. Everything else... is up to interpretation based on the society and world its taking place in.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Library Ogre »

Whiskeyjack wrote:Really. The text says nothing about a deity knowing every moment of every worshipers life.
It is specific to disobeying, rebuking or bad mouthing your deity. Essentially drawing the attention of your deity to call them out on something or disobeying a specific set of instructions that your god has given you or arguing when your god appears in a vision or in person. That's how I read that anyway. It's for situations where your deity has reason to be watching what you're doing do to some sort of exceptional quest.


We're not talking about every moment of their worshiper's lives. We are talking about a society, over hundreds of years. We're talking thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of people praying for centuries about the cares of their lives. We're talking undoubted requests for miracles, prayers of communion, invocations of blessings. Have they deflected a winter storm with a miracle over weather? Have they brought someone back to life? How many priestesses have they had in the past few hundred years? How many have directly prayed to Isis about their concerns? How many generations have lived this way?

It doesn't require constant attention, but, really, to argue that a priest's deity will ignore their society for that long makes the entire description of them as deities erroneous.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

One of the issues is that what a god is, is likely different amongst us to begin with.
Another is that Palladium books aren't well edited to match up with previous information sources.
and there tends to be slightly conflicting info too like.

Often these gods were simply dimensional travelers just passing through and may have stopped for a moment to help some pitiful creature in distress, to right an injustice, or simply to admire the scenery. pg 82 D&G

Some of the gods aren't actually gods :eek:

And as I was trying to point out earlier
To some gods, the creatures of this world are but mere playthings, to others it is a world to conquer, and to others still, it is a world to be nurtured and aided. Some find all their worshippers here, and others divide their attentions with followers on a thousand other worlds.

some of the gods think we are bugs, others are just too busy with many many worlds to deal with, and as palladiums population isn't that big, there would be many places that they would pay more attention to just for that reason.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Colonel_Tetsuya »

Mark Hall wrote:
Whiskeyjack wrote:Really. The text says nothing about a deity knowing every moment of every worshipers life.
It is specific to disobeying, rebuking or bad mouthing your deity. Essentially drawing the attention of your deity to call them out on something or disobeying a specific set of instructions that your god has given you or arguing when your god appears in a vision or in person. That's how I read that anyway. It's for situations where your deity has reason to be watching what you're doing do to some sort of exceptional quest.


We're not talking about every moment of their worshiper's lives. We are talking about a society, over hundreds of years. We're talking thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of people praying for centuries about the cares of their lives. We're talking undoubted requests for miracles, prayers of communion, invocations of blessings. Have they deflected a winter storm with a miracle over weather? Have they brought someone back to life? How many priestesses have they had in the past few hundred years? How many have directly prayed to Isis about their concerns? How many generations have lived this way?

It doesn't require constant attention, but, really, to argue that a priest's deity will ignore their society for that long makes the entire description of them as deities erroneous.


As i have been using the PF books (currently D&G) as bedtime reading (never really done PF before, despite playing Palladium Games since ... the early 90s) - D&G makes it pretty clear (i believe outright states, but the book is in my bedroom and im not, obviously, and will not risk waking my wife at this hour) that the process of granting spells and prayers is entirely automated. The Gods dont particularly have to do anything. Given that Isis, in particular, is worshipped on dozens or hundreds of other worlds and by billions or more creatures... Palladium probably isn't her only concern.

Nor is the alignment of her followers necessarily a concern for her. If you look at one of the spider gods (id have to look them up) - they are evil as all get out, but have Priests of Light that follow them. Average people go and pray in the temples for his/her favor. They offer a service where they summon spiders to basically pesticide your crops.

As the guy above pointed out, some of the gods that are worshiped (and whose priests get the full load of powers) dont even pay attention to the Palladium world at all and have never returned since their first (and often only) appearance there.

And, as i mentioned before, 20th century earth morals dont have any particular place in the Palladium Megaverse. Palladium defines only a certain list of things that are truly evil (mostly involving murder, torture, rape (when it is mentioned), and the use/manipulation of/destruction of souls. Everything else is left up to the society in which it is set.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

Reagren Wright wrote:One last thing of note the literature and history. The women of Lemaria are there in the first place
because they were slaves of pirates. The pirates for whatever reason where going through
the Sea of Despair going to where? We can assume the Western Empire but whose to say? The
Priestess of Isis Cassandra establishes a women dominated society to ensure women never get
treated as slaves again. To put them in a position of power. Now since you are in the middle of the
Sea of Despair (part of the world I happen to know a great deal about) let me assure you that
supply ships are not coming any time soon. Lemaria is a small dot in the ocean. This isn't Lopan or
Bizantium, they receive no commercial traffic, no trade, nothing. In the adventure the only reason
player characters arrive there is shere happenstance. They have fishing vessels that can't function
more than 30 hours at sea. They are trapped here. So the women have created a society in which
they are in charge and to get supplies of any sort. They rely on the extremely rare opportunity of
salvaging a ship. So I don't see the "mass murder" going on. Or the mass slavery. I see a medieval
society in which women rule in the place of men. Oh if Bizantium wanted too, they could take out
this island and its population.

Lureing every passing ship they sea onto the rocks which, by the book, kills the majority of the crew and enslaving the surviors is pretty much serial mass murder.
Period.
Dot.
End of story.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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kiralon
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

In the Old ones book there is a chamber, that if you do a human sacrifice you can either become a bishop or a paladin.
Evil is subjective, but then there's bad writing too.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

eliakon wrote:End of story.


I guess good gods let bad things happen if you are correct. One thing is for sure, they're alignment is Canon by your definition so I guess they view it as acceptable losses for their greater good. I don't know, but it's funny how palldium has always liked making things morally "murky".
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by Whiskeyjack »

Mark Hall wrote:We're not talking about every moment of their worshiper's lives. We are talking about a society, over hundreds of years. We're talking thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of people praying for centuries about the cares of their lives. We're talking undoubted requests for miracles, prayers of communion, invocations of blessings. Have they deflected a winter storm with a miracle over weather? Have they brought someone back to life? How many priestesses have they had in the past few hundred years? How many have directly prayed to Isis about their concerns? How many generations have lived this way?

It doesn't require constant attention, but, really, to argue that a priest's deity will ignore their society for that long makes the entire description of them as deities erroneous.


I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from. The island has a current population of about 3500. That would probably be the highest in it's existence. I just see no reason for Isis to ever really take a particular interest in this island, and I don't agree that what they do is inherently evil. They're attacking ships that encroach into their territory. If captives behave, they are welcomed into the society. Going by most of the arguments here, every kingdom and being on the palladium, world should be diabolic, especially all player characters. The Wolfen and Eastern Territories are on the brink of war with raids and captives, so both of those kingdoms are pure evil, as is Rurga since she has taken a side and supports the murder of innocent Wolven on the opposite side.
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kiralon
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

Good and Evil has always been and always will be point of view dependant. Is there anybody in existence that can claim that they are so morally superior that they can say that their version is the only true version of good and evil because you might agree on what is good and evil on some things on paper(you know, like murder rape and torture), but it can and does get difficult in the real world.
The Goblin Raiders for example, is it evil to kill off the babies because they are going to grow up and fight back, if it was wolves most people would say it's fine, even though its the same act on a living creature. Just because we don't understand its sentience doesn't make killing of vermin and threats good. Where is the line drawn in respect to what your good and evil tags are applied to. There will always be situations where there is no good answer, and if that is the case is it evil if you have no good choice.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

pestigor wrote:
eliakon wrote:End of story.


I guess good gods let bad things happen if you are correct. One thing is for sure, they're alignment is Canon by your definition so I guess they view it as acceptable losses for their greater good. I don't know, but it's funny how palldium has always liked making things morally "murky".

Since the Dragons and Gods flat out says that priests of good gods are not allowed to do evil in the name of good gods...
Then yeah, it is pretty cut and dried.
If we are going to say "it is all relative" then there isn't any alignment at all and we should just admit that the entire system is bogus.
because that is the crux here
Canon states several things, they are all mutually contradictory and somethings got to give
Either
1) Isis is Diabolic (smallest change)
Or
2) Serial mass murder of strangers is a perfectly valid "good" act because you can pick and choose the definition of Innocent and all the other terms at your own personal discretion (medium sized change)
Or
3) Alignments do not actually exist (biggest change)

There really aren't a lot of other options that I'm seeing here.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by eliakon »

kiralon wrote:In the Old ones book there is a chamber, that if you do a human sacrifice you can either become a bishop or a paladin.
Evil is subjective, but then there's bad writing too.

Of a deevil lord.
Since neither Bishop nor Paladin is inherently good, and can both be evil... that demonstrates nothing other than if you get in on the ground floor of the Cult of Antipator you can snag a sweet spot at the top that is just to kill for.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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kiralon
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by kiralon »

It was just a reflection on palladiums idea of good and evil, even the things that are supposed to be the paragons of virtue can be the most evil thing you know, and only sometimes are called anti-paladins.
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Re: How can Isis be good?

Unread post by pestigor »

eliakon wrote:
pestigor wrote:
eliakon wrote:End of story.


I guess good gods let bad things happen if you are correct. One thing is for sure, they're alignment is Canon by your definition so I guess they view it as acceptable losses for their greater good. I don't know, but it's funny how palldium has always liked making things morally "murky".

Since the Dragons and Gods flat out says that priests of good gods are not allowed to do evil in the name of good gods...
Then yeah, it is pretty cut and dried.
If we are going to say "it is all relative" then there isn't any alignment at all and we should just admit that the entire system is bogus.
because that is the crux here
Canon states several things, they are all mutually contradictory and somethings got to give
Either
1) Isis is Diabolic (smallest change)
Or
2) Serial mass murder of strangers is a perfectly valid "good" act because you can pick and choose the definition of Innocent and all the other terms at your own personal discretion (medium sized change)
Or
3) Alignments do not actually exist (biggest change)

There really aren't a lot of other options that I'm seeing here.


I guess my only option is to pick one of your choices...Oh wait, I forgot that according to Kevin S' written word we can do whatever we want with these games. That means you can do that too. I think I (well actually Kevin) fixed your problem. It's not like this is some sort of game and isn't meant to be taken seriously, right?
Last edited by pestigor on Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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