Asral, neutrality, and honor

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Naga
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Asral, neutrality, and honor

#1 Post by Naga » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:16 am

How are the followers of morally neutral gods, such as Asral, supposed to regard the problems of good and evil? Are they equivalent? There has been a lot of criticism from the administration about an insufficient hatred on the part of everyday "goodies" towards evil characters and evil actions. Is it true that Asralites as well are too tolerant, or do they have grounds to be?

Some have interpreted true goodness and true honor to be very similar. For example, Tanielites condemn backstabbing, even for good ends, as sinful, and most Asralites consider it dishonorable. Defiling corpses is against goodness, and it is also against honor. Killing innocents is against goodness, and also against honor. Not only is donating to beggars good, it is considered honorable to be generous.

Examine the laws of Elvandar and the laws of Arborea and you will find that they are very much in accords, as would be expected if honor and goodness place similar restraints on one's behavior.

Others have interpreted honor as supporting one particular combat-style: the open, bold warrior. The thief, the backstabber is something beyond the honor of Asral. Is this the case? Even in Homer, there was room in honor for the roguish cunning of Odysseus.

Asral is not true-neutral, but rather neutral-evil. But the humans probably have the shakiest history with both Sathonys and the Lilith, what with betraying Sathonys as a race and then conquering the Plains from the goblinoid tribes.

In short, what is there for a morally neutral character to condemn? How is the idea of "honor" and "dishonor" difference in practice than good vs. evil?

If honor and goodness are really so different, how would a society look that enshrines honor rather than goodness as the basis of its law?

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chara
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#2 Post by chara » Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:43 am

I believe that honor depends a lot on your viewpoint. As a thief, I think that you would definitely see honor in some actions of the thief, but as a Taniel follower, you'd think thieves are scum. A Sathonys follower believes that his actions are good, just as an Evren follower does. This is why, if you ask a person in Asador for the reputation of a typical Satho follower, you'll get the response that he or she is saintly, whereas in Elvandar they would be considered backstabbing scum.

Asral favors honor and bravery in battle over distinctions of good vs. evil. He loves the underdog and the person who goes down fighting. It was this trait that drew him to humans to begin with. An Asral follower would scorn anyone strong picking on the weak or anyone powerful abusing that power.

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#3 Post by Abharsair » Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:53 am

Let's have a look at Asral before we address your actual questions. Asral is considered to be a neutral/slighty evil god and it's important to accurately define that. The term slightly evil is used in out of character discussions to make it easier for the reader to evaluate Asral based on our modern moral values, and most characters in the game wouldn't call him evil (unless they are fanatically good). So why is he "slightly evil"? Because he doesn't mind death, and he actually encourages war as long as it's glorious and entertaining (for him). He doesn't even need a particularly good reason, as long as it is a somewhat challenging and fair fight. So why isn't he truly evil then? Because he doesn't like slaughtering the weak, he doesn't insist on sacrificing living victims, he doesn't approve of treachery, deceit, or sneaky tactics and he abhors cowardice. The really evil gods wouldn't mind any of those things as long as they would advance their goals.

Now it should also become obvious why being a follower of Asral doesn't make it automatically peachy to hang out with followers of evil deities. I don't say they can't or never should, but the participating parties should be fully aware of the differences. Especially if one is supposed to be a respected citizen of a lawful town, because that opens a completely different can of worms aside from the religious problems. A follower of Sathonys or Lilith is the absolute antithesis of what an ordinary citizen of one of the major towns is. A victory of their gods would mean total destruction of everything a normal citizen favors, as well as permanent enslavement and annihilation of everything and everyone who opposes them.

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#4 Post by Grindel » Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:07 am

Just like with karma, everyone honours different things...

Good vs. evil is then quite easy to identify, and if asked most neutral people will want to be in company with good guys rather than bad ones. Understandably.

> What to condemn?

Your char and his according choice of "god" will tell you, and you do not even need to think about being slightly to the good or bad side, or so, which is way too technical!


So let's see: Asralites will like an open, "honest" fight, and would more readily accecpt some rowdie a than a thief or such. They would not smile and talk to a sneaky assassin, but call him a coward and just turn away. Note that they would not feel the need to punish said sneak, that's for different groups. Dark priests too will not really qualify as good friends. Anything else will indeed be too tolerant.

A Zhakrinite will really like to see (or cause) struggle between opposing forces in general. He might deal with any person - but on a personal level one will (regardless how well one gets on with different folks) prefer to have contact with that side which is least inclined to cut ones throat.


The good/evil thing is easy to see and judge. No one likes murder and theft but murderers and thieves.
Honour then is seen and judged differently in the groups. Crusaders & co do a good job to act consistent in their bigotry, which must be countet to the honour-side.
But when my char ran away from a "nice" fight with the sathos, the Asralites should have spat in his face, which they unfortunately didn't.

> if honor and goodness are really so different, how would a society look
> that enshrines honor rather than goodness as the basis of its law?

Here I can only <guess>
Think of Asador. It accommodates ever single sort of evil-doer. If everyone there would murder his neighbour, there would soon be nothing left. But as that place seems to come along swimmngly, there must be a society that works on honour and tolerance, while lacking goodness. </guess>

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#5 Post by rafael » Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:14 am

Maybe one could take a page from the nietzschean characterization of aristocratic types. I am absolutely 100% rusty but while generosity might signal some greathness of spirit, the beggar would never be respected or considered an equal or a peer, even more they would not pity him or commiserate so typical motivations for such an action would palpably be absent. They might show more generosity and honor to an enemy in battle, if they consider him a peer than to someone of their race if they do not belong to the warrior-caste or hold some form of traditional authority.

If I would be making changes, perhaps I would gear the law and underlying motivations to those congruent with a society full of aristocratic priviledges and a warrior mentality. High ideals like good, or even abstract honour should not hold sway over its members but rather traditional authority that has been sedimented into a more or less ethical code of conduct, that is palpably different for the members of society depending of their station in life, and what's more clearly biased to the traditional warrior/asral caste mindset. There would be protections of the rights that are very clear and not really restricted by moral compass but only by tradition and the limits of force. (There are things that would be hard to enforce for a warrior-caste even with their military superiority.) For everyone else, I would envision the law to be just full of restrictions, unless there has been some burgeoning merchant class and the like that has started to gain influence in Arborea. But really, merchants and everyone else who works for a living are foul creatures. Live by the sword and die by the sword everyone!

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#6 Post by chara » Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:14 am

Grindel, you're also making the basic mistake that everyone agrees what good is. But in fact, your perspective makes a huge amount of difference. Think of the RL Crusaders who murdered, raped, and pillaged, all with the 100% belief that they were doing the right and just thing. Or think of modern-day terrorist cells who fervently believe that they are doing God's work as they kill innocents.

Lilith and Sathonys followers don't think of themselves as evil. When we talk of them as the evil gods, that's an OOC perspective (or the perspective of the lawful areas). Among themselves, they are the good gods and Evren and Taniel are evil.

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#7 Post by Grindel » Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:25 am

> Grindel, you're also making the basic mistake that everyone agrees what good is.

Maybe so, yes.

I was trying to make a difference between goodness and honour. I would regard slaughter in a crusade to belong to the honour-side while criminal murder as in lacking goodness. But then, criminals are the smallest problem here... ;-)

Still, I think the question of what to condemn quite easy to answer for a given character and his faith.

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#8 Post by eirikeld » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:35 pm

For a look at an honour bound society, that is not necessarily good by modern standards, consider a feudal one. Particularly japanese, but also feudal western europe.

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#9 Post by Olrane » Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:31 pm

I have to agree with the point that Asador has some honor but little goodness. Unless it is suicidal, they will protect their own. Also, those who dishonor the city or its clergy are cast out: thieves don't steal much there, and it's not just because they fear to lose sanctuary, but because they believe they live in a more perfect place without the fetters of arbitrary moral laws, and wouldn't destroy it. They would love to bring down the Good and Law of Taniel, so they'd gladly cause strife and chaos in the Southlands.

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#10 Post by Olrane » Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:46 pm

It also occurs to me that at times Naarved can be a much better representation of what a city of Asral might look like, if it were more about Asral's values. Brawls, cussing, drinking...Arborea, on the other hand, is cosmopolitan and moderate.

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#11 Post by Delia » Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:00 pm

They would love to bring down the Good and Law of Taniel
Sounds a bit weird to my ears. Would not the prosperity brought by stability and good trade be preferable to thieves as a whole than some political/divine agenda? In general atleast, I know IC situations change periodically though the current trend might be more towards what you said. Ok, needs to be said also that I know little of what transpires within thieves, and I am happy that way :)
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#12 Post by Olrane » Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:19 pm

Oh, I was just commenting on their anarchist streak. It's natural...wouldn't you like to get rid of competition?

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