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

[mocking bird]

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.

I made the distinction several posts ago.  The diffrence is that while eating souls is indeed a survival issue they made the choice to make the change to become undead and therefore need sould to survive.  As such is was a choice to need souls to survive as they did not need to before hand.  In other words they made the conscious choice to kill when it was still a choice, not a necessity.  In effect they chose an unnecessary mode of survival.  If a person gave up all money and decided to live off of stealing from others, does that absolve the person from stealing as it would be for survival or are they held accountable because they made the choice to make stealing mandatory?

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.

If this were mandatory, then why would not all Kultheans make such sacrifices in order to make the sun rise and would not temples of Klyssus be everywhere the sun rises? 

But perhaps that is a bad example as it affects the entire planet rather than just smaller parts like ships or individuals.  For storms and weather and more isolated natural events there is often crossover between deities (storm vs. sea for example) as each does not have absolute control over the otehr.

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.

Why not?  The gods, much like those in ancient times, seem anthropomorphized archtypes rather than as moreal absolutes.  Calling the gods evil yet not being embodiments of Ultimate Evil (which I don't see as logical let alone possible or practical) is not contradictory.

[Hawkwind]

I made the distinction several posts ago.  The diffrence is that while eating souls is indeed a survival issue they made the choice to make the change to become undead and therefore need sould to survive.  As such is was a choice to need souls to survive as they did not need to before hand.  In other words they made the conscious choice to kill when it was still a choice, not a necessity.  In effect they chose an unnecessary mode of survival.  If a person gave up all money and decided to live off of stealing from others, does that absolve the person from stealing as it would be for survival or are they held accountable because they made the choice to make stealing mandatory?

I don't completely agree with this. In a lot of vampire mythology being turned into a vampire is not a matter of choice - it just happens if you are drained by another vampire. In those circumstances the person has not chosen to become undead, but has had the change forced upon them.

Admittedly I don't recall of the top of my head whether RM2/SW vampires need to drink from their sires to turn or whether its an automatic occurrance.

And I don't think your stealing analogy is a particularly good one. If you choose to give away all your money and steal for a living, that's not because you have to to survive. You can always get another job or live as a beggar. If you are involuntarily made undead, then you don't have other options - you feed on humans or you cease to exist.

Hawk

[Walt]

@Yammahoper:
I like your concept. Somewhere you wrote "that the Unlife needs forms, reflections of the esseance, to interact and destroy/devour."
I?m wondering if you?ve made up your mind about the Unlife getting corrupted through this needed forms instead (the standard) other way round?
For sure you, as nice person, can be somehow corrupted if you are using the unlife energy. But let us think about all this unlife minions having for some time (adding sometimes into millennias) to copy essaence forms for interaction in the Kulthean plane. How fast are they corrupted towards the Essaence?

A note for the Editor:
This is one of the best threads I know. But it?s hard to read. Can?t it somehow be edited and can?t the, a little lengthy, discussion about good and evil between mocking bird and metallion not somehow be linked to the other topic about essaence, dark essaence and unlife?

[yammahoper]

Walt, you have created the germ for a fantastic story line.  Thanks.

It involves a Demon of the void, ala Shrek like being, who after centuries living as a neo-esseance being, converts to the forces of life.  Now a double agent, It plots to stop the invasion and unmaking of the esseance  planes by the void. 

Worked properly, It could be the counter to the near unstopable power of Shrek and Ondoval.  Now to plan a good death for that NPC, and how to convey to the players It is a turncoat they can rely on and even trust.

I have never created magic that is slaying versus the unlife in my games.  Perhaps that is just one thing It could provide, since It has such an innate understanding of voidal beings form, function and weave of voidal energy with esseance.  Perhaps Shrek could in time discover a traitor exist and the revelation that esseance corruption is a possibility, a dangerous one that threatens the entire war effort.

Very neat idea indeed.  I have previously always imagined the unlife as perfectly implaccable and impossible to corrupt.  But as in all good games, the endless question of what if rears its head.

lynn

[Walt]

The other idea I had in mind was a possible plan of Voriig Kye: Through stealing the Faaw Shryac and reducing Schrek to his actual form Vorig needs only to wait while the Essaence probably corrupts Schrek slowly (through the millennias)  towards the forces of life.

[yammahoper]

Well...I don't think the corruption would be a guarantee, no more thanthe unlife corrupting the dark gods.

And Shrek might well succeed LONG before corruption of esseance might get him.

lynn

[RandalThor]

Kabis, you MUST write a new module...SOON.
lynn

He may not have time.

KABIS: THE DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS IS COMING. YOUR TIME DRAWS TO A CLOSE.

[RandalThor]

As for the good vs. evil discussion. Great discussion. No help in a game. The human species hasn't figured this one out so I won't expect a game designer to do so.

Define evil for your game. Define good for your game. Go from there. If you want it to be ambiguous and hard to define in your game, do it. But do not expect the system to make that easy as ALL of these systems have been created with a (relatively) clear definition of good (flowers, puppies, helping your neighbor) and evil (murder, rape, sucking souls). Detect spells detect those things and those beings/individuals that do those things.

[Kabis]

He may not have time.

KABIS: THE DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS IS COMING. YOUR TIME DRAWS TO A CLOSE.

Oh? Is that a date? I don't normally date extra planar creatures unless they have lush, long, flowing tentacles. I have a special cognac available that we can sample next to the fires of dying worlds.

[RandalThor]

Yes, it's a date. Bring your appetite..


(Sorry, couldn't "stay in character" - just too funny  )

[Kabis]

I have bestowed a laugh point upon you for humouring Kabis. 

[RandalThor]

From this campaign adventure the two parts I am definately using are the first (gotta get them started, don't I?) and the one where the witch wants the "seed" of one of the PCs. That one is definately the creepiest I have come across in a long time. Kudos. Not sure if I am going to have the "witch" be the Raven Queen in disguise or not yet..........

[Dr. Joe]

Yes, a really interesting discussion - which leaves me in a state of confusion! 

Shadow World defines capital-E evil as "the drive to destroy -- and feed on that destruction."

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.

I can't see how not to agree given the above definition. But I think the main point about the Unlife is its ultimate goal: total annihilation (see, e.g., SWMA4. Can't imagine the Unlife at all without such a goal). I would say that "the drive to destroy -- and feed on that destruction."  is a necessary condition to be (of) the Unlife, but it isn't sufficient. Only by adding the total annihilation condition does it make sense to me.

This has pretty big repercussions. A real follower of the Unlife automatically has self destruction as a goal - something which certainly cannot be said of a Charon god or a vampire!

But then, I always have problems with these Void-discussions. To me (yes, physics... ) the Void is simply characterized by the absence of matter/energy, i.e., the presence of nothing. This leaves room neither for evil, be it with capital or small e, nor for its antithesis.
Bringing the matter-antimatter analogy for life(essaence) versus unlife(antiessaence) into play, one could imagine that the Void provides a driving force that tries to unite the two - leading to said total annihilation. But then why would this be the goal of one of the "partners"?

Wouldn't it make much more sense, then, to make total annihilation of life the goal of the Unlife? That would easily explain why the forces of Life strive to bar all Unlife from entering SW, in self-defense, so to speak.

Furthermore, in RL, we seem to live in a world with a massive imbalance between matter and antimatter towards the matter side of the scale, for whatever reason. In SW, this could translate to a massive surplus of life/essaence, which may be interpreted as a world of Good, i.e., the surplus actually defines the character of the world.
IIIRC, someone mentioned that the Unlife is seeping in from a parallel universe - which would obviously be one where the scale is tipped towards the antimatter/antiessaence/unlife side.

Dark gods, dragonlords and other formidable powers could, in the Good SW, harness the destructive power of the Unlife leaking in. This would by general consensus be seen as capital-E-Evil as such acts advance the Unlife towards its total annihilation of Life goal. Also, the self destruction problem for followers of the Unlife goes away.

Sorry if too convoluted, got to think a bit more about this...

[DonMoody]

But then, I always have problems with these Void-discussions.
To me (yes, physics... ) the Void is simply characterized by the absence of matter/energy, i.e., the presence of nothing.
This leaves room neither for evil, be it with capital or small e, nor for its antithesis.
Bringing the matter-antimatter analogy for life(essaence) versus unlife(antiessaence) into play, ...

I think matter anti-matter analogy doesn't fit very well.

I think a better analogy for 'the Void' and 'Unlife' is dark matter.

Of course, dark matter that is self aware and seeks to destroy life but I think you get the idea.

DonMoody

P.S. FWIW, I think of 'the Void' as a different place, not of this universe but perhaps of a parallel one that is quite different from our universe (or the SW universe if you prefer).

[RandalThor]

Yes, a really interesting discussion - which leaves me in a state of confusion! 

Sorry, I was referring to the Curse of Kabis campaign adventure that I am using in my SW RM game.

Because of the confusion it generates, I try to stay away from the life/unlive, matter/antimatter (or darkmatter) discussion. It hurts my little brain. Plus by not defining it, I leave it as the big unknown that I believe it should be for the characters. Each of them can define it their own way - just like they would in RL.

Though as for the Dark Gods and Demons of essaence: yeah they are evil (or Evil). As they are NOT for flowers and bunnies, they are evil. If you are agianst flowers and bunies YOU ARE EVIL. ( )

[Dr. Joe]

I think matter anti-matter analogy doesn't fit very well.

I think a better analogy for 'the Void' and 'Unlife' is dark matter.

Of course, dark matter that is self aware and seeks to destroy life but I think you get the idea.

DonMoody

P.S. FWIW, I think of 'the Void' as a different place, not of this universe but perhaps of a parallel one that is quite different from our universe (or the SW universe if you prefer).

Well...My problem with dark matter would be that it is (speculation, after all, it's still not been seen ) already present in our universe (actually, a necessity which RL-cosmologists use to explain away certain inconsistencies between current cosmologic theories and experimental observations), so there's no coherence with the bit about the Unlife seeping in through some rift torn into the fabric of space-time when the Lords of Orhan arrived? Although I do admit the name is cooler 

And another question, is it agreed that Void and Unlife are the same thing? Or isn't it that both life and unlife are children of the void, so to speak?

The Void. Again. Hm. Considering that we're playing on a fantasy world, I would imagine that the capital-V-Void is the absence of everything outside all the known parallel universes, one of which is the SW (and each of which, as ours in RL, have a normal void characterized by the absence of matter and essaence, or antimatter and anti-essaence, or a mixture of both, if that universe is one of the unlucky ones where both "phenotypes" are present). This goes nicely with the notion of an orthogonal parallel universe where the scale is tipped towards the Unlife (in my analogy a world of antimatter where "our" regular matter exists only in diminutive quantities, if at all).

I think also that these parallel universes nicely correspond to what's usually named planes of existance...and the interplanar travel of the Lords (and possibly others) may easily be envisioned as the cause for the Unlife seeping into SW.

Sorry, I was referring to the Curse of Kabis campaign adventure that I am using in my SW RM game.

Because of the confusion it generates, I try to stay away from the life/unlive, matter/antimatter (or darkmatter) discussion. It hurts my little brain. Plus by not defining it, I leave it as the big unknown that I believe it should be for the characters. Each of them can define it their own way - just like they would in RL.

Though as for the Dark Gods and Demons of essaence: yeah they are evil (or Evil). As they are NOT for flowers and bunnies, they are evil. If you are agianst flowers and bunies YOU ARE EVIL. ( )

CoB: Haven't read through that in a while, and failed to think about the good-evil-X-issue then 

As for the pain in the brain, agreed! Which is why this is such a wonderful discussion to me. 

Still, as a GM I like to have a good understanding of these things because with the people I play(ed) with, inconsistencies sooner or later cause trouble (well, my observation...). Of course, I'm not going to explain to the players how G-g-ood and E-e-vil and V-v-oid and all that jazz work, as understanding the world around them is part of the game (and yes, give em misleading information!  ).

Hopefully in agreement with metallion, my comment on the evilness of the dark gods, demons of essaence, dragonlords, etc. would be: Depends!
Defining good to mean furthering the majority goal in a universe, i.e., essaence/life in the SW (but anti-essaence/unlife in the Unlife universe) leads to the following statement:
In the universe the Unlife originates in, the dark gods etc. are certainly good. On the SW, they are certainly evil. There may be others where they would be considered neutral...By symmetry, the same is true for Lords of Orhan, they're clearly evil were they to enter the universe of the Unlife - from the point of view of that universe's inhabitants.

Somewhat OT, but to my mind not a bad "theory" to back these thoughts: The SF-movie "Event Horizon". An experiment with interstellar space travel beyond the speed of light goes wrong...See it if you can 

(click to show/hide)

The propulsion of the craft (cleverly named Event Horizon), causes travel through a parallel universe that seems to be Hell from the perspective of the universe it actually intended to travel in. This "infects" people to have visions, go completely insane, and provides the leak required by the creatures of the Hell universe to enter ours...

[Walt]

But then, I always have problems with these Void-discussions. To me (yes, physics... ) the Void is simply characterized by the absence of matter/energy, i.e., the presence of nothing. This leaves room neither for evil, be it with capital or small e, nor for its antithesis.

No, no, this was the part of the forces of Order 

Bringing the matter-antimatter analogy for life(essaence) versus unlife(antiessaence) into play, one could imagine that the Void provides a driving force that tries to unite the two - leading to said total annihilation. But then why would this be the goal of one of the "partners"?

Now, that?s a nice thought - the Void, the Elder Force. Ancestor to all cumbersomly themes and concepts of "live" and "unlife". Primal Force, in it?s casual cruelity incomprhensible beautiful! I start to admire it!!

[Dr. Joe]

But then, I always have problems with these Void-discussions. To me (yes, physics... ) the Void is simply characterized by the absence of matter/energy, i.e., the presence of nothing. This leaves room neither for evil, be it with capital or small e, nor for its antithesis.

No, no, this was the part of the forces of Order 

Ah. My next itch...
Again, following the matter-antimatter analogy for essaence, you would need to define something like the entropy of essaence. The "forces" of law strive to reduce it, aiming for nicely structured patterns of essaence. Those of chaos try to enlarge it, i.e., they see the beauty of disorder. The same is true in an anti-essaence universe - so far, I see no inconsistencies in the picture.

But then the question arises if there is a natural tendency towards one or the other ? In RL, coffee mugs fall from the table and break into thousands of pieces but the reverse, i.e., the broken mug jumping back to the table, never happens as entropy naturally tends to become larger - and additional energy is needed to reduce it. This behavior seems normal for matter in SW, too, but is there a similar tendency to increase essaence entropy?

To me, it seems plausible to say SW is an essaence universe where essaence entropy naturally increases (it is rather chaotic, no?    ). Thus, the forces of law need to constantly invest energy to keep up at least a semblance of order - but they're fighting a losing battle...

In any case, law vs. order is a nicely independent coordinate axis (in relation to good vs. evil).

Now, that?s a nice thought - the Void, the Elder Force. Ancestor to all cumbersomly themes and concepts of "live" and "unlife". Primal Force, in it?s casual cruelity incomprhensible beautiful! I start to admire it!!

Thanx...But actually I think how you state it, that's really nice...Elder Force, yeah! 
Referring to the above, make it two, one the source for essaence-antiessaence and one for order-chaos, though. 

Now, I tend to think of this Void as the generator of space-times whereas "in" it, no space-time exists and the term thus has no meaning. It "breathes" or creates and destroys universes, and the SW is one of these. Which requires vast amounts of energy (think of what's required for multiple big bangs). Given some really clever Althans who realized how this all works, they could estimate that the time scale (from their perspective inside one of the universes!?) the breathing takes place on is also huge - at least billions of years? The Lords of Orhan/Charon probably know it - they were able to nearly close a rift linking two of these universes, so they should...

Here's an open end: The matter-antimatter analogy goes only so far. When matter comes into contact with antimatter, the two annihilate, bang. This is where essaence-antiessaence differ - there must be some way to structure/project/protect/whatever one's essaence so it can resist its complement (at least for a certain time, against a certain quantity?).
We know this as Unlife creatures enter SW and are not immediately destroyed on contact with essaence. We know the Dark Gods, orginally essaence beings as the Lords, were corrupted by antiessaence during their travel to SW, not destroyed. Lots of undead roam and are not destroyed by ambient essaence...

Hopefully this isn't to OT in relation to the original question of this thread...

joe

[Dr. Joe]

This nicely explains exactly how a Dark Absolution works: The caster projects the exact amount (and pattern?) of antiessaence onto the target. It's essaence is completely wiped out in the process. No way to return this soul. And in an essaence world, of course, utterly evil.

The same goes for the effect of powerful undead whose mere touch releases tiny amounts of antiessance which reduce the victims constitution. I very much like Lynn's picture of "dark essaence machines" in this context! 

IIRC, it is mentioned in SWMA 4 that learning to use antiessaence provides a new source of power points, and that some spells actually require use of these antiessaence PPs - like dark absolution.
I hope my picture also goes quite a long way explaining the question of choice (or not) of Evil acts versus just "normal evil" acts, and how these things are rather relative, doesn't it?

[Elrik]

Did you guys ever think that the Evil creatures just need our understanding?

Just maybe, that Ordainer needs a hug. The Dark Priests need an understanding ear to bend. And just maybe, those messengers are acting out because their Fathers where never around.

Is it not our responsibility to take these creatures, their lives shattered by pain and confusion, under our wings and help them to find a new direction to help them along...

They could find new, successful lives in the Glorious Armies of Rhakhaan! Our Enemies are many, diverse and dangerous and they want our Lands and you Citizen, they want you dead. They sit in their dusty halls and plot, enticing our allies and foes to ensure their seat of power. Yet we are strong, our forces are able and ready. Our leaders are wise with experience and uncompromising Morals. Unlike our Enemies we are the true power of Jaiman, we have the vision, education and know how. Evil faces us on all sides and we are all that stands between the Morals of Civilized Men and demon haunted madness. That is why we are the Chosen of Orhan, we are the Righteous Sword!

Rise up Brothers and Sisters, take those that do not know and show them who and what we are. Strength, Integrity, Honour! Rhakhaan is the future, educate those that do not know, show them the Way to Civilization!

ALL HAIL RHAKHAAN!

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Evil is subjective to your view, and where you are at the moment you have to decide who is good and who is evil.

Your Characters' Gawd determines what they feel is evil, because your Priest is casting spells from that Gawd. The one I always have a problem with, is do my Evil Characters sense Good Characters as Evil? Throw that argument at a party and watch the die fly! I have had some excellent debates about PC's that do not see themselves as evil, even as they do evil deeds. It is easy for us to just put our value structure onto another, and we do it all the time.

Evil can not always be quantified. IE: the Unlife. Good people can be as cruel and do deeds as horrible as any "Evil" person. Our history is rife with sick and cruel things. We have history of Men and Women doing insainly cruel things because they feel it was for the Greater Good. Look at what Japan did to China when they invaded during WWII. They considered themselves better then the Chinese, superior in every way and they could justify the things they did. To the creatures like the Ordainers, Humans are insects, to be controlled and turned into slaves. To them, a single humans' value is negligible, but in a group we are construction crews, breeders, front line fodder and the people who nurture offspring and finally get eaten.

As has been stated many times by people before me, the Unlife wants to eat and digest all Essense, be it inside someone or a building or a child, it is not big enough to gobble us up on a single meal, so it wonders the dreadful dreams of the desperate, offering advice and direction. It empowers the willing, blinds the ignorant and hungers for every little victory and convert. It is predictable, it's methods seen before, yet it still uses them and they work. Humans are short and burn out quickly, gullible to the last, showing no trust in the past lessons. Elves have a history, a spark that lingers for eons, their past must be tainted so that the Human will not trust the Elven word in the future. Breathlessly the Unlife, and it's endless swarm of followers layer their plans, plotting for the eventuality of failure. Ever the Unlife slurps a the straw, drawing the beat of the Essence to it's ghostly lips.

I attribute the Dark Gods methodology to the ideals of The Eternals Champion's Gods of Chaos. Although Chaos will espouse Chaos, those Gods trust in a system, no matter how tenuous it may be. Each God had a name, a chosen form and appearance, a Home, and an Order. When Elric's people came to the Reality of the Young Kingdoms, they brought a new order, The Gods of Chaos's Order. It was darker, crueler, demanding and seemingly endless in it's lust for blood. Still, there were laws, roads with names, buildings, stores and rules of conduct. The average person may have not felt any real difference. Leaders were exchanged for new ones and life went on. Maybe more people where sacrificed but there where ways around that as well. The Dark Gods want power, followers, to revel in war and pain, yet in the end, they want Conquest, Temples built in their name, priests to collect and convert more to follow. They want Humans to die for them! But when that is all said and done, empires get built, highways quicken travel and people feel safe. As everyone will remember, Tanelorn was the final battle because all the Gods found it an affront to their Power. The Dark Gods do not want oblivion, they want their piece of the pie and a big one at that.

I think PC's can live with the Dark Gods, but live in a different way. No one can live with the Unlife, as even it's servants will eventually be eaten. But I believe a great many of the more powerful servants of the Unlife think like Lorgalis, that when they are done they will shrug off the Unlife and expel it, returning to their Empires.

Also, Chaos does not always mean evil, but evil things can happen in moments of Chaos.

$0.02, and I apologize if I come off far to intense. As you may have figured out I love these debates. We all share, no one is wrong and the game gets better.

I think I have pulled at everyone's eyes long enough.

E