Evil Gods and Summoners

I like evil gods. I like them a lot.

This is, in part, why I am immensely appreciative of James Raggi's discussion of alignment in his LotFP Grindhouse rules, about which I have mused at length before. The main idea is that Law and Chaos are palpable cosmic forces affecting the game-world, not just moral abstractions. So almost everybody in the human and demi-human species are neutral. Demons and the undead are aligned with Chaos, as are those who meddle in the arcane arts (which could simply be called "chaotic arts"). All clerics, unless they serve demons or chaotic demigods, are aligned with Law.

In some ways, this Law/Chaos business all ties back to the presumption of a multi-dimensional universe and the possibility for inter-dimensional travel: Law is what "naturally" occurs in one's home dimension, including its "indigenous" gods, and Chaos always comes from without, crossing into a foreign dimension via the energies of Chaos.

Again, I did not really make this up on my own, although it makes a lot of sense to me. I am once again indebted to Mr. Raggi, who succinctly describes arcane power thus:

"Magic fundamentally works by ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time and pulling out energy that interacts with and warps our reality. Various mages have managed to consistently capture specific energy in exact amounts to produce replicable results. Spells.

"The Summon spell opens the rift between the worlds a little bit more and forces an inhabitant into our world to do the Magic-User's bidding. What exactly comes through the tear, and whether or not it will do what the summoner wishes, are unpredictable."

[from the Summon spell description on Grindhouse Rules and Magic pg. 142]

This description fits perfectly with the core assumptions about how magic works in Ara. We have always included summoners as part of the Lands of Ara setting, and acknowledged in our own original writeup how dangerous Summoning could and should be. Summoning is a major part of what attracts demons -- i.e., Evil Gods -- to Ara in the first place. That is why it is technically an outlawed Art in the Lands of Ara now.

Yet Summoning surely still persists. Hell, the PCs in my current campaign are hot on the trail of some demonic entities that seem to have access to Summoner-created dimensional gates of some kind!

On a practical note, I wonder if I should technically make Raggi's Summon spell available in the Lands of Ara setting? Seems logical. . .

Alignment By Raggi (and Goodman)

Alignment in D&D has always somewhat vexed me. It is a concept I am still (after all these years) trying to make sense out of / make peace with.

Dedicated as I am to learning the Old Ways, I am really determined to try to come to grips with an exciting, generative interpretation of the "alignment" concept in D&D, specifically using the standard OD&D / Labyrinth Lord / B/X Threefold Alignment System, i.e., Law - Neutrality - Chaos only.

[Those interested in my prior statements / musings on this issue may consult this post on alignment languages in Ara, as well as my previous "State of the Union" on Arandish Campaign Alignment found here.]

As it happens, I was just discussing this very topic with Spawn of Endra last weekend. He and I were talking about what his character, Innominus, a Lawfully aligned Cleric, would do (or would feel most compelled to do) with the Chaotically aligned sword the party filched off the defeated Hobgoblin General back in Session 26 of our campaign. [We never quite answered that question.]

One thing I feel strongly is that each god or deity in Ara should be unique, and may have specific idiosyncrasies that do not quite "align" with the Threefold Alignment System. That is, gods and extraplanar beings may not necessarily have alignments.

That said, I DO want Law and Chaos to be palpable forces engaged in an ancient, cosmic battle in the "big picture" of my Lands of Ara campaign setting. This is not a specific idea that has existed in Ara prior to its current Labyrinth Lord-based iteration, but I am now looking for ways to integrate a big-picture conflict between two opposed cosmic principles into the game-world. Perhaps in time I will come up with specific names for these two opposed forces -- something like Ara (Law) vs. The Demon Plane (Chaos) -- but for now I want to puzzle it out using the game's default terms, Law - Neutrality - Chaos.

Enter James Raggi's LotFP Grindhouse Edition and its take on alignment, found on pp. 21-22 of the Rules and Magic book. Both Spawn and I took a look at that section during our talk last weekend, and lo! leave it to Raggi to cut through the bullshit and issue a concise, clear definition of how alignment can work in D&D:

"Alignment is a character's orientation on a cosmic scale. It has nothing to do with a character's allegiances, personality, morality, or actions. Alignments will mostly be used to determine how a character is affected by certain magical elements in the game."

I like that -- it is cosmic and "macro" rather than nitpicky and "micro." Raggi describes each alignment category as follows:

"Lawful: The universe has an ultimate, irrefutable truth, and a flawless, unchanging plan towards which all events inevitably march. As time moves on, all distraction and resistance to this plan falters until everything is in its perfect state forevermore, without alteration or the possibility of possibilities. Those who are Lawful in alignment are part of an inevitable destiny, but have no knowledge of what that destiny is and what their role will be in fulfilling it. So they are forever look for signs and omens to show them their proper way.

"Chaotic: The howling maelstrom beyond the veil of shadows and existence is the source of all magic. It bends and tears the fabric of the universe; it destroys all that seeks to be permanent. It allows great miracles as reality alters at the whim of those that can call the eldritch forces, and it causes great catastrophe as beings we call demons (and far, far worse) rip into our reality and lay waste to all. Everything that is made will be unmade. Nothing exists, and nothing can ever exist, not in a way that the cosmos can ever recognize. Those who are Chaotic in alignment are touched by magic, and consider the world in terms of ebbing and flowing energy, of eternal tides washing away the sand castles that great kings and mighty gods build for themselves. Many mortals who are so aligned desperately wish they were not.

"Neutral: To be Neutral is merely to exist between the forces of Law and Chaos. Mortal beings exist as Neutral creatures, and remain so throughout their existence unless taking specific steps (often unwittingly) to align themselves otherwise. In fact, most beings would be rather displeased with the notion of pure Law and Chaos, as they are defined in alignment terms. Even most who would claim allegiance to Law or Chaos are not actually Lawful or Chaotic. In the real world, every human being that has ever existed has been Neutral."

And lastly, Raggi's most provocative (and useful) declaration:

Clerics must be Lawful. Elves and Magic-Users must be Chaotic. All others are free to choose their alignment.

I hereby hork Raggi's notion that all clerics are Lawful, and that all magic-users and elves are Chaotic. Clerics follow the metaphysical "laws" of Ara, paying fealty to the gods. Magic-users and arcanists are messing with the "howling maelstrom beyond the veil of shadows and existence" that is Chaos.

As it happens, this ruling fits in beautifully with the history of arcane magic use on Ara, particularly its descent into "chaos" during the Old War.

And a postscript by Joseph Goodman [from an unrelated rpg geek thread] that really sums things up nicely:

Law is an alignment with Man; Chaos is an alignment with supernatural (or supra-mortal) powers. That frequently turns into a "good vs. evil" conversation because the supernatural powers aren't always acting in mankind's best interest! But it's not always the case.

Indeed! I think this captures the vibe I'm after quite nicely.

Alignment Languages Part 1: What Came Before

I have literally never used Alignment Languages in D&D. This is one of those concepts that my 1980s gaming compatriots and I simply ignored; I do not even recall ever discussing Alignment Languages as a concept or making conscious note of the fact that we were omitting them. We just completely disregarded the whole idea, and never looked back.

But last session (Session 30), the Arandish Labyrinth Lord campaign's newest member (who joined us two sessions ago) asked about the available languages in Ara and specifically inquired about the role of Alignment Languages in our campaign. My initial answer was that we had been ignoring them. But this led to some very productive discussion amongst the members of the group and got me to thinking about reevaluating my position on this matter.

As I have recently noted, the longer my group plays Labyrinth Lord together, the more we seem to gravitate toward playing it "as writ" -- i.e., our house rules seem to be getting fewer and fewer as we go. This is a good thing for many reasons, not least of which -- as we have poignantly learned, for example, by reverting to once-per-round 1d6 group initiative -- is that the game is actually more fun to play as written, even when some of the rules are abstract in nature and difficult to justify in "real world" terms. Going with once-per-round (rather than once-per-battle) group initiative has livened up combat a great deal since we made that switch a few sessions ago. Could incorporating Alignment Languages have an enlivening and enriching effect on our game as well?

Perhaps so, and I am intrigued to pursue this. But I have two (possibly conflicting) impulses:

1. In order for Alignment Language to work within the context of the Arandish Campaign, I want it to have at least some (however tenuous) connection to the history and culture(s) of the game-world, and yet

2. I do not want to start over-explaining or house-ruling the crap out of the concept before we've even played it. That is, I at least want to try to play Alignment Languages as written.

What has been written about Alignment Languages? Let's see.

+ From Labyrinth Lord Revised (Proctor, 2009) p. 14:

"All alignments have alignment languages. In addition to the common tongue and other languages known, as indicated by class, adherents of a particular alignment share an alignment language that only they understand."

+ From Basic D&D Rulebook (Moldvay, 1981) p. B11:

"Each alignment has a secret language of passwords, hand signals, and other body motions. Player characters and intelligent monsters will always know their alignment languages. They will also recognize when another alignment language is being spoken, but will not understand it. Alignment languages are not written down, nor may they be learned unless a character changes alignment. When this happens, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately." [emphasis added]

+ From DMG (Gygax, 1979) p. 24:

"Alignment language is a handy game tool which is not unjustifiable in real terms. Thieves did employ a special cant. Secret organizations and societies did and do have certain recognition signs, signals, and recognition phrases- possibly special languages (of limited extent) as well. Consider also the medieval Catholic Church which used Latin as a common recognition and communication base to cut across national boundaries. In AD&D, alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos. Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public. They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed. Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues.

"Each alignment language is constructed to allow recognition of like-aligned creatures and to discuss the precepts of the alignment in detail. Otherwise, the tongue will permit only the most rudimentary communication with a vocabulary limited to a few score words. The speaker could inquire of the listener's state of health, ask about hunger, thirst, or degree of tiredness. A few other basic conditions and opinions could be expressed, but no more. The specialty tongues of Druidic and the Thieves' Cant are designed to handle conversations pertaining to things druidical on the one hand and thievery, robbery and the disposal of stolen goods on the other. Druids could discuss at length and in detail the state of the crops, weather, animal husbandry and foresting; but warfare, politics, adventuring, and like matter would be impossible to detail with the language.

"Any character foolish enough to announce his or her alignment by publicly crying out in that alignment tongue will incur considerable social sanctions. At best he or she will be thought unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid. Those of the same alignment will be inclined to totally ignore the character, not wishing to embarrass themselves by admitting any familiarity with the offender. Those of other alignment will likewise regard the speaker with distaste when overhearing such an outburst. At worst, the character will be marked by those hostile to the alignment in which he or she spoke.

"Alignment language is used to establish credentials only after initial communications have been established by other means. Only in the most desperate of situations would any creature utter something in the alignment tongue otherwise. It must also be noted that alignment does NOT necessarily empower a creature to actually speak or understand the alignment language which is general in the ethos. Thus, blink dogs are intelligent, lawful good creatures who have a language of their own. A lawful good human, dwarf, or brownie will be absolutely at a loss to communicate with blink dogs, however, except in the most limited of ways (non-aggression, non-fear, etc.) without knowledge of the creatures' language or some magical means. This is because blink dogs do not intellectually embrace the ethos of lawful good but are of that alignment instinctually; therefore, they do not speak the tongue used by lawful good. This is not true of gold dragons, let us say, or red dragons with respect to their alignment, who do speak their respective alignment languages."

+ From this post by James Smith:

"[Alignment] languages are limited in scope, mainly dealing with matters directly related to the ethos they serve. Seen in this light and in a culture so heavily influenced by the gods, Alignment Languages don't seem so ridiculous, at all. If you're still not on board, imagine two Religious Fundamentalists having an in-depth theological discussion. Or, better yet, two Hermetic Qabalists. Even better, two Physicists. If you're not into the same thing, you might understand some of it and may be able to identify their 'alignment,' but a lot of the terminology and meaning would go right over your head."

My thoughts at this point
In terms of grounding these concepts in a specific game-world setting like the Lands of Ara, the best analogy I can come up with is drawn from Tolkien, wherein the Lawful alignment language would loosely correlate with the elven tongue (i.e., the language of the most learned "good guys" or forces of civilization) and Chaotic with the language of Mordor. I will be looking to make a similar connection with Ara, i.e., to place the alignment languages in the context of key races / groups who already live there, while bearing in mind that these are limited languages: a "special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words" according to Gygax. More on this in the next post.

Amended House Rule: Alignment

[Note: Our Labyrinth Lord group is celebrating its one-year anniversary; our campaign launched with its first session on January 18, 2010. In celebration of this milestone, Spawn of Endra and I are going to do a series of posts over the next week or so reflecting upon the exploits, tendencies, experiences, and house rules of our group during its first year of gaming together. Enjoy!]

Amended House Rule: Alignment
Despite my previous assertion that the Arandish Labyrinth Lord Campaign would use James Maliszewski's six-point Dwimmermount alignment System, I have come to realize that for all practical purposes, we are actually using the three-point Labyrinth Lord default alignment system, consisting of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.

I think my initial attraction to Maliszewski's system had everything to do with his "Neutral" subcategories, i.e., True Neutral and Neutral (Balance). According to Maliszewski, the former is "apathetic and/or unconcerned with the battle between cosmic forces" and the latter believes "that a balance between Chaos and Law is necessary for the well-being of the cosmos." I like this distinction, but find that it has little impact upon actual game play, at least in our campaign.

So, since our campaign as played has had little use for these finer distinctions, I hereby declare that the Arandish Campaign is reverting to the three-point alignment system as delineated on Labyrinth Lord Revised p. 14. I will still allow individual players of Neutrally aligned PCs to specify that their PCs are philosophically inclined toward Neutral (Balance) if they wish, but for general game purposes, they will all be considered "Neutral."

What does that leave us? Law vs. Chaos, succinctly described by Ripper X as simply:

how well the character plays with others. Lawful characters are weak individually, but work together to solve problems. They are a team, and can act as a unit with precision. Chaotic characters, on the other hand, are exactly the opposite: they prefer fighting alone and are incapable of following orders. They are strong individuals who lack the discipline of their lawful counter-parts. Neutrally aligned characters can do both well. That is all it means! It is that simple!

So:

Alignment
Chaotic: Inimical to civilization and social organization. Incapable of following orders and unlikely to put the needs of others (especially groups / nations) ahead of their own. Chaotic is the alignment of demons, Faerie, many mages, and all serial killers.

Lawful: The philosophical stance that civilization, regardless of how it is organized, is preferable to other alternatives. Will always privilege group processes and consensual decision making over rogue action. Lawful is the alignment of unicorns, devils, army personnel, most clerics, and all social workers.

Neutral: Neither fully committed to Law nor to Chaos; pragmatic. Many inflections are possible here: the Neutral character may be apathetic, invested in balance, leaning toward lawfulness, leaning toward chaos, or none of the above.

Neutral characters with lawful tendencies work well in groups,and will typically follow the orders of Lawful characters or characters whose ideas seem reasonably certain to benefit the group. Neutral characters who prefer Chaos have very little discipline, and only trust their own authority They can work cooperatively but often undermine outside authority and resist falling in line with group decisions too easily.

Neutral is the alignment of the vast majority of dungeon delvers and adventurers.

Provocative endnote for further thought: Spawn of Endra recently brought this alternative "morality" system to my attention. I wonder if this set of alignment-esque distinctions -- adherence, consensus, and efficiency -- and the seven-point allotment system described by Greg would solve many D&D gamers' woes about the ambiguity of the D&D alignment scheme? Even without his "morality" categories, I wonder if such a point allotment system could be overlaid onto the three-point LL alignment system? Too complicated? This may be fuel for a future post. . .

[UPDATE: More thoughts on the role of alignment in the Arandish Campaign -- which may be assumed to supersede anything written above -- are found here.]

Alignment in Ara

The available alignment options in the Lands of Ara, which I am directly borrowing descriptions of from James Maliszewski’s Dwimmermount campaign, are as follows:

Chaotic: Inimical to civilization and possibly reality itself – the alignment of demons, Faerie, and the insane.

Neutral: Apathetic and/or unconcerned with the battle between cosmic forces.

Neutral (Balance): The philosophical stance that a balance between Chaos and Law is necessary for the well-being of the cosmos.

Lawful (Good): The philosophical stance that civilization exists to foster the common good.

Lawful: The philosophical stance that civilization, regardless of how it is organized, is preferable to other alternatives.

Lawful (Evil): The philosophical stance that civilization exists to allow the strong to lord it over the weak.