Topic: Are the Dark Gods and Demons of Essaence evil?

[metallion]

Until we can agree on definitions of 'good' and 'evil,' it's meaningless to apply those terms to gods.

No we don't.  The gods themselves have made that definition already and is represented in the worshp in their various churches.  There is no transcendence beyond good and evil because the gods haven't done so.  Simply put good is beneficial and approved for the god, evil is prohibited and bad for the god. 

That's no help either from a perspective within the game or outside the game discussing it.  Inside the game, all gods say they someone's good and someone else is evil, such that (for example) a Phaonite and a Xanarite have mutually exclusive definitions of the terms.  Outside the game, "the gods themselves" don't do anything we don't make them do, being fictional creations, bringing it back to us to define the terms so that we can put those definitions into the gods' mouths. 

For that matter, who is to say there isn't some greater "cycle of life" in place that Life and Unlife participate in?  Neither the Lords of Orhan or Charon are gods in any sense real world theology would recognize, so how much reliance can be placed on either of them?

In SW, there is no greater cycle of (Un)Life unless the GM has added one.

Nothing in the base rules says one way or the other that there is no greater cycle, so it's a GM decision either way.

As for choice and taking an extreme example - if you chose to go through some transformation to become immortal but the cost is to eat newborn children, is that a survival need?  I would say no.  Lions eat children because they may have to, those who chose to become Unlife do so because they want to.  The need for survival has been removed from the equation.

Both lions and liches choose to do what they do because the alternative is death.  If that doesn't make both choices a survival need, then you're using a definition of the term "survival need" with which I'm unfamilar.

For real world analogies, the Gods of Charon remind me (or vice versa really) a little of the 11 anti-cosmic gods from the MLO (the destroyers who run counter to the Architect you might say).

Really?  The Azerate strikes me as much more unified than the Charoni are desribed.

The Lords of Orhon likewise equate to various archtypes in many ancient and modern pagan pantheons.

With the vital difference that the Gods in modern and ancient pantheons are, well, Gods; not refugees from some cosmic catastrophe stranded in a small corner of the universe where leakage from another universe lets them survive.

[mocking bird]

That's no help either from a perspective within the game or outside the game discussing it.  Inside the game, all gods say they someone's good and someone else is evil, such that (for example) a Phaonite and a Xanarite have mutually exclusive definitions of the terms.  Outside the game, "the gods themselves" don't do anything we don't make them do, being fictional creations, bringing it back to us to define the terms so that we can put those definitions into the gods' mouths. 

Yes it is a help as it solves the problem for us to define good or evil for ourselves, we do however define it for the gods.  In other words we do not need to define absolute Good or absolute Evil (or have an all encompassing definition of Good & Evil) as from the variuos deities perspective it is all relative.  While indeed we are doing the work of putting the definitions into the gods' mouths, we already have a perspective to draw from in that the gods desires are defined in the game - the GM just needs to fill in the blanks.

Both lions and liches choose to do what they do because the alternative is death.  If that doesn't make both choices a survival need, then you're using a definition of the term "survival need" with which I'm unfamilar

You are missing my point.  Lions & leeches eat what they do as a need for survival - no alternatives.  If you make the conscious choice to join the Unlife fully realizing that in order to survive after that point, while it is a survival issue that you need to eat souls you had made that choice beforehand.  In other words eating souls was never a survival issue, it was completely a choice.

Really?  The Azerate strikes me as much more unified than the Charoni are desribed.

I haven't gone too deeply into them as the MLO is a fairly secretive bunch - and I can't read Swedish.  I was thinking more along the lines of the Destroyer aspect of them.   However they also seem a little Unlife-ish creating portals to the dark dimensions and such.  But that isn't a discussion for here really.

[metallion]

Yes it is a help as it solves the problem for us to define good or evil for ourselves, we do however define it for the gods.  In other words we do not need to define absolute Good or absolute Evil (or have an all encompassing definition of Good & Evil) as from the variuos deities perspective it is all relative.  While indeed we are doing the work of putting the definitions into the gods' mouths, we already have a perspective to draw from in that the gods desires are defined in the game - the GM just needs to fill in the blanks.

The problem that leaves you with is that if good and evil mean nothing more than "$Diety likes it" and "$Diety doesn't like it," saying  "The Unlife is Evil" reduces to "Orhan doesn't like the Unlife."  Setting this beside "Scalu likes the Unlife" leads us to "The Unlife is Good."  Once you're there, "The Unlife is Evil" means nothing more than "I worship the Lords of Orhan" rather than being any sort of commentary on the Unlife itself.

Which is fine for defining the belief structures of Orhanians in the game, but leaves no meta-game basis for saying "The Unlife is Evil."

You are missing my point.  Lions & leeches eat what they do as a need for survival - no alternatives.  If you make the conscious choice to join the Unlife fully realizing that in order to survive after that point, while it is a survival issue that you need to eat souls you had made that choice beforehand.  In other words eating souls was never a survival issue, it was completely a choice.

Actually, I think you're missing my point.  Lions and leeches (and Liches, which was not a typo) do have an alternative to eating what they do: death.  If you want to restrict the analysis to the sentient, you and I choose to kill every time we eat, and we do have the alternative of choosing to die.  We make that choice knowing that if we choose to kill to live we will have to continue to make that choice in order to survive after that point.  This is exactly the situation someone who is deciding whether to die or to join the Unlife is making.  If they are evil for choosing to live even if it means they must kill, then you and I  are evil for making the very same choice.

[Terry K. Amthor]

First, I want to say that this is a delightful discussion! This is of course an interesting and complex philosophical concept. I have always had some problems dealing with 'evil' because I have trouble wrapping my mind around what most consider evil, and understanding its motives. The interesting thing, as someone earlier pointed out, is that most people in our world hisory who we consier evil, probably did not think of themselves as evil. Perhaps they made choices they felt were less than ideal but 'necessary'. Did Hitler or Stalin or Genghis Kahn consider themselves evil? I bet not. But I think we agree now that Hitler was evil: he turned one people against another, and in a classic political maneuver, made a race into a 'threat' to unite Germany (sound familiar?). Was it a coldly calculated maneuver? Yes. But I bet he rationalized to himself that it was necessary to save his country... and he brought Germany from bankruptcy to the verge of world domination (I think that's from Star Trek). He was not the hand-wringing evil genius of fiction like Ming the Merciless, who knows he is evil and revels in it. Even the campy series on ABC Family, Fallen, is kind of interesting in the whole argument about god's angels and the rebel angels, and who is really any better because god's angels stoop to some pretty low tactics.

Today on Meet the Press Stephen Colbert brought Up Nixon. Was he evil? I would say no. He did stupid, harmful things, but in his paranoid, isolated mind, he thought he was doing what was best for the country (cut to... Colin Powell's powerpoint presentation to the UN).

Evil rarely knows itself; and we rarely even know it when we first see it. That's what is seductive about evil; it has convinced itself that it is what is best, so it can convince YOU. And admittedly, that should make 'detect Evil' a ridiculous spell. Even the Priests Arnak would not think of themselves as 'evil.' They think the Loremasters are 'evil.' You can draw your own modern comparisons...

And me, being a type-B personality, has a real hard time getting into the mind of someone who wants to take power and rule people. I mean, what's up with Vladimir Putin? I don't get that whole mindset. He is not really threatened by the US, he is using it as an excuse to rule Russia another few years. Ugh, who wants that responsibility?

But I digress.

I enjoy reading all your interpretaions of the Shadow World, and many of these ideas about evil and the unlife are wonderful concepts. Good job!

[mocking bird]

The problem that leaves you with is that if good and evil mean nothing more than "$Diety likes it" and "$Diety doesn't like it," saying  "The Unlife is Evil" reduces to "Orhan doesn't like the Unlife."  Setting this beside "Scalu likes the Unlife" leads us to "The Unlife is Good."  Once you're there, "The Unlife is Evil" means nothing more than "I worship the Lords of Orhan" rather than being any sort of commentary on the Unlife itself.

Which is fine for defining the belief structures of Orhanians in the game, but leaves no meta-game basis for saying "The Unlife is Evil."

Consider the gods as bankers.  Souls are the currency used as deposits in these banks that keeps them running.  The Unlife in effect burns the money eliminating it from circulation.  This from either side would be considered detrimental to the survival of the banks and therefore would be considered 'evil' by both sides.

That being said I am starting to like the idea of moving the Unlife out of the good/evil discussion as they do seem to be a special case.  The agothu seem to have a 'free pass' being considered insane but might not be considered evil as their mental processes are incomprehensible.

This discussion, and others like it, might also need new terms to be used.  Good and Evil are quite nebulous terms and can lead to confusion.  For example if an evil cleric casts a detection spell on another evil cleric - would it show up as evil or good?  This seems to be the heart of the discussion 'evil' vs 'Evil' similar to satan as accuser or Satan as ruler of Hell.

Actually, I think you're missing my point.  Lions and leeches (and Liches, which was not a typo) do have an alternative to eating what they do: death.  If you want to restrict the analysis to the sentient, you and I choose to kill every time we eat, and we do have the alternative of choosing to die.  We make that choice knowing that if we choose to kill to live we will have to continue to make that choice in order to survive after that point.  This is exactly the situation someone who is deciding whether to die or to join the Unlife is making.  If they are evil for choosing to live even if it means they must kill, then you and I  are evil for making the very same choice.

No it isn't.  Before changing into Unlife soul suckers, the person does not have to eat souls to survive but unless a vegan, killing to survive is natural.  It is not a survival issue to eat souls - it is a simple matter of choice.  Consider a rancher who owns several cattle - and has no problem eating beef.  One day this person decides to turn to cannibalism as his only source of food - even though cows abound to an alternate food source is readily available.  Would you consider this an evil act?  That to me is the Unlife - the choice to become so for reasons other than survival.

I will grant that this does make some interesting dilemmas for those changed against their will where eating souls for survival was not a choice.  Comparing this to my above exmple it would be like the Donner party or the rugby players in Alive who resorted to cannibalism (from corpses in the latter, unknown I believe for the former) for survival.  Here you enter into fuzzy areas between evil acts and evil intents.  Is killing for the sake of survival (foodwise, not self defense) an evil or neutral act?

But I think we agree now that Hitler was evil: he turned one people against another, and in a classic political maneuver, made a race into a 'threat' to unite Germany (sound familiar?). Was it a coldly calculated maneuver? Yes. But I bet he rationalized to himself that it was necessary to save his country

Ack - Godwin's Theory strikes again.
Could be known evil acts, lesser evil vs. greater good or simiply deranged mentality.  It is similar to lie detections - the speaker isn't lying if he thinks what he is saying is true.  Can acts be considered evil without the intent?

[metallion]

Consider the gods as bankers.  Souls are the currency used as deposits in these banks that keeps them running.  The Unlife in effect burns the money eliminating it from circulation.  This from either side would be considered detrimental to the survival of the banks and therefore would be considered 'evil' by both sides.

Banks spend all kinds of effort doing all kinds of things to regulate the rate at which the supply of money increases.  Unrestricted growth of the supply of money leads necessarily to inflation.  There was even a country a few years back that simply made everyone trade their old money for new money at a rate of 1000:1 in order to curb inflation.  Mints burn cash every day in order to release new, less worn bills, without destabilizing the economy.  Quite the opposite of being considered detrimental, it's considered vital to the survival of banks and the economy they serve!  (Now that I'm thinking about this, I think my Lorgalis is going to start using the analogy to explain why the Unlife is a  necessary part of existence!)

Before changing into Unlife soul suckers, the person does not have to eat souls to survive but unless a vegan, killing to survive is natural.

Even vegans kill each and every time they choose to eat rather than die.

It is not a survival issue to eat souls - it is a simple matter of choice.  Consider a rancher who owns several cattle - and has no problem eating beef.  One day this person decides to turn to cannibalism as his only source of food - even though cows abound to an alternate food source is readily available.  Would you consider this an evil act?  That to me is the Unlife - the choice to become so for reasons other than survival.

Your analogy is close, but not quite there.  Consider a rancher who owns several cattle and has no problem eating beef.  He's running out of cattle. (i.e. he's mortal)  He can either die of starvation after he eats the last beefsteak fro m the last bull, or he can turn to cannibalism to survive.  You can make the argument that he should choose to die rather than resort to cannibalism, but you cannot argue that the choice to resort to cannibalism in that case is not necessary to survive.

[Ack - Godwin's Theory strikes again.

Nope -- no one has been called a Nazi or compared to Hitler.

[mocking bird]

Banks spend all kinds of effort doing all kinds of things to regulate the rate at which the supply of money increases.  Unrestricted growth of the supply of money leads necessarily to inflation.  There was even a country a few years back that simply made everyone trade their old money for new money at a rate of 1000:1 in order to curb inflation.  Mints burn cash every day in order to release new, less worn bills, without destabilizing the economy.  Quite the opposite of being considered detrimental, it's considered vital to the survival of banks and the economy they serve!  (Now that I'm thinking about this, I think my Lorgalis is going to start using the analogy to explain why the Unlife is a  necessary part of existence!)

Miiiight have taken that analogy a little far.  How exactly do you get inflation from a supply of souls?  Do gods trade three elves for two humans in the hope of getting a 2% return?  Depending on the mythology of the world, 'burning the money' where reincarnation is the 'market' would definitely be bad - especially if you have a finite supply of souls out there.  If not there all the 'bills' are new as they are all first issue.

Even vegans kill each and every time they choose to eat rather than die.

Are you referring to people or in nature?  I recall a story of one of the lives of Buddha where he, as a rabbit, came across a starving monk.  The Buddha threw himself into the fire so that the pacifist monk may live.  Some Jain's don't even eat root vegatbles (like potatos) as pulling them out is a violent act or wear breathing masks and sweep before each step to avoid killing insects.  Martyring one's self rather than acting against one's personal beliefs is a very common theme in all religions.  Survival of the soul becomes more important that the survival of the body. 

Your analogy is close, but not quite there.  Consider a rancher who owns several cattle and has no problem eating beef.  He's running out of cattle. (i.e. he's mortal)  He can either die of starvation after he eats the last beefsteak fro m the last bull, or he can turn to cannibalism to survive.  You can make the argument that he should choose to die rather than resort to cannibalism, but you cannot argue that the choice to resort to cannibalism in that case is not necessary to survive.

No, he ate his neighbor before eating the last cow hence cannibalism was not necessary to survive as of yet.  Under this logic why not just eat the neighbor first and save the cows who are worth money and perhaps the neighbor is eating beef as well?  It is still a choice issue, not a survival issue.  Only when all other possibilities have been exhausted do people then begin to offer the extenuating circumstances rationalization - and some not even then.

Nope -- no one has been called a Nazi or compared to Hitler.

Stalin & Ghengis Khan were as well as he being used as an example of what 'evil' is.

[metallion]

I didn't take the analogy anywhere, the analogy simply doesn't work.  You gave banks destroying currency as analogous to what the Unlife does, and that all banks could agree it was detrimental to all banks.  This simply isn't true, as banks destroy currency as part of their normal operations.  (It's worth noting here that Klyssus destroys a soul every day in order to raise the sun with his chariot.  Phaonites may well call this sacrilege, but who's to say that if a day passed in which he didn't receive his sacrifice the sun would not rise?)

Are you referring to people or in nature?

I've only ever heard the term "vegan" used to refer to people, but my point remains true:  for something to live, something else dies.

I recall a story of one of the lives of Buddha where he, as a rabbit, came across a starving monk.  The Buddha threw himself into the fire so that the pacifist monk may live.

Even then, the monk lives because the Buddha/rabbit died.

No, he ate his neighbor before eating the last cow hence cannibalism was not necessary to survive as of yet.

Remembering that in this analogy, cows are breaths/heartbeats/whatever keeps a mortal alive, if the mortal waits until the last one is exhausted, the mortal dies.  What you can't get around is that unless the mortal employs the Unlife, they will die, and that makes it a survival need.  As I said, you can try to argue that survival is not always ethical, but you can't argue that it's not needed for survival.

Godwin's law states that in any Usenet debate, the chance that one person will call the other a Nazi approaches unity.  That has not happened in this thread.

[Zwilnik]

A bit off-track here, perhaps. I consider Charon gods evil, no question there. But is it possible to discern between degrees of evil? Is Unlife more Evil than the dark gods, and if so, for what reason? I would say yes. This will take a moment.

Orhanians and practically everyone on Kulthea uses the same source of power for spells. This source is the rift made by the Lords of Orhan as they arrived, and I think it was mentioned somewhere that its power came from a more ordered reality. Unlife is of chaos. Without going to details, I assume that the power leaking from the rift to Kulthean reality is somehow irritating or ugly to Unlife, like an oil spill on sea might be for humans. But until humans and Lords of Essaence started mucking about with it, it was nothing more than an eyesore. Actually using Essaence might be annoying to Unlife, so it reaches up from the depths of chaos and tries to swat out the source of this disturbance.

For some reason, Unlife cannot manifest or exist on Kulthean reality (perhaps it simply cannot comprehend such concepts as form or shape, but the reason is not important for now), so it does the next best thing and attempts to influence the locals and turn them against each other. And while it cannot enter this reality, it can project power to its servants. This is anti-essaence, the Power of Unlife.

But even if Unlife has very active agents who keep flipping out and killing people all the time, most of the magical power in the world is still regular essaence from the rift, which is huge compared to the conduits Unlife has drilled through. This has two results.

First, when anti-essaence can be detected, it feels wrong. Everyone on Kulthea has evolved in the presence of regular Essaence, and constant exposure to it means most people don't consider it abnormal. They may not be able to use it, but they don't fear it or worry about it much. Anti-essaence is different, and people tend to be wary of different things. So, abnormal, different, unnatural.

Second, all those murdering and destroying agents of Unlife do not really give good press to anti-essaence. Most people who are proficient in wielding it are homicidal and insane, and are considered evil (by survivors, at least). People connect these two things in their minds, and think anti-essance = evil.

Dark gods mix the pot a little. I would hazard a guess, that whatever their origins are, they were locked away and unable to touch or wield regular Essaence. Perhaps they can access it in small quantities, but nowhere as much as they would like. But when Unlife started pouring its own power to Kulthea, they realized that whoever locked regular Essaence away from them did not anticipate the existence of anti-essaence. Dark gods then learn to tap into this new power source and break out of their prison, descending upon the world. Perhaps they learned the method of accessing the power from observing Unlife's power conduits, or perhaps they are merely using some ambient anti-essaence. Anyway, they use mostly anti-essaence.

The difference between Unlife and its minions and dark gods in this example is the level of control. Regular minions are puny compared to Unlife, and as it provides power, it takes them over. Dark gods are immune to this control for some reason. They use anti-essaence simply because they can, and because it is the only source of power available to them in large quantities.

Degrees of evil, then. Real anti-essaence from Unlife is ultimately controlled by it, and is driven by its will. Even when such power is channeled through a non-corrupted host, it is still stronger and more focused. Dark gods function as power converters, and while the energy they use is still unnatural, it lacks the pure malice of Unlife. Whether the dark gods know what Unlife wants, they don't care. They want the power, so they use it. And their own methods are not always very much better, so anti-essaence still gets bad press when used.

Dark gods are the diet coke of evil compared to Unlife, but they are still evil, and evil in this case is association between the type of power and the way that power is wielded.

I also agree with Mocking Bird about the soul-annihilation imbalance.
Shift changes, gotta run home and think about this some more!

[mocking bird]

I didn't take the analogy anywhere, the analogy simply doesn't work.  You gave banks destroying currency as analogous to what the Unlife does, and that all banks could agree it was detrimental to all banks.  This simply isn't true, as banks destroy currency as part of their normal operations.

Banks do destroy money, mints print more.  What if there aren't any mints to print more money?

Remembering that in this analogy, cows are breaths/heartbeats/whatever keeps a mortal alive, if the mortal waits until the last one is exhausted, the mortal dies.  What you can't get around is that unless the mortal employs the Unlife, they will die, and that makes it a survival need.  As I said, you can try to argue that survival is not always ethical, but you can't argue that it's not needed for survival.

Agreed that cows do indeed have a heartbeat.  However I am saying that there is an ethical difference between killing a cow to survive and killing your neighbor because you want to.

[Arioch]

Great topic! 

In the real world, and in well-constructed fantasy, no one but the insane take themselves to be evil.  Sauron was Morgoth's faithful servant.  Morgoth, in turn, felt quite justified in his rebellion against Illuvitar.  Who knows?  Perhaps if we ever got to hear Melkor's side of the story, we'd think he had a point.  (For those who want to remove a layer of abstraction and consider that Satan thought he had a point, and perhaps he did, I recommend Steven Brust's To Reign In Hell. 

I completely agree with you on this point.

Let's think about that for a moment.  By that definition, every living being is Evil.  To live is to destroy and feed on that destruction.  The Unlife feeds on the soul as well as the body -- what of it?  Food is food.

This would be a good point, if it weren't for the fact that undead are not living being. They are dead. They all died and then came back to the world of the living (for various reasons), but they do not live.
And they also do not need to feed on souls/other being to continue existing (also vampires don't "die" if they do not feed for long times, they just become inactive). Undead can exist forever even without seeing a single living being in their whole unlife.
They destroy living beings (and souls) either because they choose to do so or because their mere presence drain the life-force out of the living around them (and in this case they could simply choose to stay away from them bu they don't do that).
And also remember that in many cases undeath is described as an horrible state of existance and many beings seems glad to be freed from it...

[DonMoody]

What you can't get around is that unless the mortal employs the Unlife, they will die, and that makes it a survival need.

I think this is where the analogy goes astray.

Despite the use of the word 'mortal', the 'mortal' will exist past the demise of his body.
As the mortal does not need the Unlife (or anything else) for that to happen, the perception of a "survival need" is actually a misperception.
There will be survival without the Unlife.


I also dislike the money/print money analogy.
A better analogy might be water.
Yeah, water here goes there and often undergoes changes as it does [evaporates, condense, freezes, thaws, ...], but the amount of water is [essentially] unchanged*.
If we [for the sake of this argument] equate 'water' with 'souls', then what the Unlife does is destroy water, forever reducing the amount that exists (or the total amount that could exist).


Does any of this drill down to defining what is 'evil'?
Probably not directly.
But if 'evil' is defined as 'destroy or enslave souls', then both the Unlife and the Dark Gods (and their followers/minions) would detect as evil.

DonMoody

* Yeah, I know more water can be made from hydrogen and oxygen and existing water broken down into hydrogen and oxygen but I think you get the idea.

[metallion]

Banks do destroy money, mints print more.  What if there aren't any mints to print more money?

Then people would use something else for money.  But who's to say whether new souls are created or not?  Or if the creation of new souls requires the destruction of old ones? 

Agreed that cows do indeed have a heartbeat.  However I am saying that there is an ethical difference between killing a cow to survive and killing your neighbor because you want to.

Saying there's an ethical difference between things is very different from saying that one of those things is a survival need.  It seems that you're saying survival is not always an ethical choice.  That's a legitimate position to stake out, but it's by no means universally agreed.  We're left again without Capital-G-and-E Good and Evil, and instead left with good=my ethic; evil=not my ethic.

Part of the problem we're struggling with here is that Shadow World, and to an extent FRP as a whole, has inherited Tolkein's notions of Good and Evil, which depend entirely on subscribing to a Catholic cosmology wherein God/Illuvatar/whatever is defined as Good and those who oppose God/Illuvatar/whatever is defined as Evil because God/Illuvatar/whatever's fans get to do the defining.  Terry didn't stick us with an Illuvatar (And as a Wiccan, I'm really glad he didn't because it saves me the effort of taking it back out), but part of the price for not having such a foundation is that we don't have a basis for objective Good and Evil, only subjective good and evil.

[metallion]

I completely agree with you on this point.

This would be a good point, if it weren't for the fact that undead are not living being. They are dead.

If they were dead, they wouldn't need the term "undead" to describe them.  They are neither alive nor dead, but a third state.  That third state clearly involves the process of feeding.

And they also do not need to feed on souls/other being to continue existing (also vampires don't "die" if they do not feed for long times, they just become inactive). Undead can exist forever even without seeing a single living being in their whole unlife.

By that logic, we are all still evil because we eat enough to thrive, not merely enough to be "inactive." 

They destroy living beings (and souls) either because they choose to do so or because their mere presence drain the life-force out of the living around them (and in this case they could simply choose to stay away from them bu they don't do that).

I'd dispute that.  It seems to me that far more people go to places where the Undead are (Thanor, Vour, Catacombs, etc.) than the other way around. 

[Arioch]

If they were dead, they wouldn't need the term "undead" to describe them. They are neither alive nor dead, but a third state.

Yes, that was what I wanted to say with "They all died and then came back to the world of the living (for various reasons), but they do not live."
Since they are neither dead nor living, I think that we cannot apply to them the same logic we use for living beings.

That third state clearly involves the process of feeding.

Vampires are really the only undead that need to "feed" that come to my mind... So I think that this state doesn't involve a process of feeding at all.

I'd dispute that.  It seems to me that far more people go to places where the Undead are (Thanor, Vour, Catacombs, etc.) than the other way around.

Lol, yes in this case I think that the undead are justifed for draining the idiots who disturb them. 

[mocking bird]

Saying there's an ethical difference between things is very different from saying that one of those things is a survival need.  It seems that you're saying survival is not always an ethical choice.  That's a legitimate position to stake out, but it's by no means universally agreed.  We're left again without Capital-G-and-E Good and Evil, and instead left with good=my ethic; evil=not my ethic.

No, I am not saying that survival is an ethical choice.  What I am saying is that undead feeding on souls (or destroying them if you will) is not a survival choice.  It becomes killing for the sake of killing or even because they enjoy it which under virtually all belief systems is considered an evil act.  I am not sure what flavor of Wiccan you would be but several I have corresponded with would agree.

Terry didn't stick us with an Illuvatar (And as a Wiccan, I'm really glad he didn't because it saves me the effort of taking it back out), but part of the price for not having such a foundation is that we don't have a basis for objective Good and Evil, only subjective good and evil.

However he did put in gods with different personalities and different requirements of its worshippers.  As such the objective G & E is already put  into the game.  Just because you don't have a Judeo/Xian/Muslim or even gnostic Demiurge/Yaldabaoth running aroung does not mean Good and Evil are not present.

[metallion]

No, I am not saying that survival is an ethical choice.  What I am saying is that undead feeding on souls (or destroying them if you will) is not a survival choice.  It becomes killing for the sake of killing or even because they enjoy it which under virtually all belief systems is considered an evil act.  I am not sure what flavor of Wiccan you would be but several I have corresponded with would agree.

At this point, I need you to define your terms.  I'm defining a survival need as something that must be done in order to avoid dying.  If that's your definition, too, then the undeed feeding on souls is a survival need -- if they don't derive sustenance from acts that require the destruction of souls, then it's not feeding.  If that's not your definition, what is?

I don't know any Wiccans who would argue one should not enjoy eating, even though killing is a necessary part of eating.

If you want to condemn the unlife as evil because they kill for reasons other than sustenance, that's certainly valid, but the unlife would be no different in that from anyone else.

However he did put in gods with different personalities and different requirements of its worshippers.  As such the objective G & E is already put  into the game.  Just because you don't have a Judeo/Xian/Muslim or even gnostic Demiurge/Yaldabaoth running aroung does not mean Good and Evil are not present.

Is Klyssus good or evil?  He requires a human sacrifice every day, but if he doesn't get it, he can't make the sun rise and the world dies in cold and darkness.

Is Shaal good or evil?  He "has been known to send storms against sailors who do not seem appropriately afraid of the sea."  Few sailors would call him evil, but that just may be their allergy to drowning talking.  But how many sailors does he have to drown -- for no reason other than his mood and ego -- before land-lubbers like us stop playing that game?

Is Cay good or evil?  When he goes beserk, he destroys "everything in his path," yet he doesn't let that stop him from going into battle.  How many of his allies has he struck down?  How many quite reasonably dub him (as they do both the Aztec God Tezcatlipoca and Groo the Wanderer "Enemy of Both Sides"?

How about Scalu?  People pray to him for guidance, and whether his worshippers go mad depends on whether they can handle the visions he sends.  Truth is tough, especially in a place like Kulthea.

You can have a consistent definition of good and evil, or you can have Lords of Orhan who are consistently good and Lords of Charon who are consistently evil.   You can't have both.

[DonMoody]

Is Klyssus good or evil?  He requires a human sacrifice every day, but if he doesn't get it, he can't make the sun rise and the world dies in cold and darkness.

Given Kulthea's ties to SM (i.e. real world cosmology), this 'sunrise' thing is more myth than truth.
Klyssus is no more able to stop the sun rising on Kulthea than Sauron could on Middle Earth when he attacked Gondor (although Sauron did create/control enough clouds/smoke/dust that the sky was very overcast and little sunlight shown through around Minas Tirith).

DonMoody

[metallion]

Given Kulthea's ties to SM (i.e. real world cosmology), this 'sunrise' thing is more myth than truth.

Kulthea's ties to SM run roughshod over real world cosmology from the very premise of inhabiting two universes at once, all the way through the unanswered question of whether a Lord of Orhan is more powerful than a Starship.  "Stop the sunrise" is a planet-bound perspective on the question, but Ceril VII winking out -- or even collapsing into a Black Hole -- isn't even a little bit far fetched compared to what's accepted unquestioningly.

Klyssus is no more able to stop the sun rising on Kulthea than Sauron could on Middle Earth when he attacked Gondor (although Sauron did create/control enough clouds/smoke/dust that the sky was very overcast and little sunlight shown through around Minas Tirith).

Klyssus is a god, Sauron was a severely weakened Maiar -- hardly comparable. 

It's also not a question of Klyssus stopping the sun rising:  to hear the Lankans tell it, he needs that sacrifice every day in order to be able to make the sun (i.e. his Chariot) rise because he has no heart of his own.  It might be far fetched, but no more so than Shaal sending storms or Kuor controlling the weather.

[DonMoody]

Fair enough but:
- Every religion's mythology (even ones with 'real' gods with 'real ' power) have aspects that are apocryphal at best
- Isn't it [in some circles] common knowledge that the star Ceril VII orbits is exactly that [i.e. a star]?

This discussion seems (to me) to have drifted into the more esoteric/ethereal aspects of semantics and 'how would a specific GM interpret this or that aspect of SW'.

FWIW, on the specific question of are "Dark Gods" and "Demons of Essaence" evil or not evil, I think it is clear that by [SW] definition, they are both evil.

DonMoody