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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Every paladin would know about the schools of magic, because paladins can cast spells themselves, including some Necromancy spells. Let's not bring 2ed concepts (the schools being for wizards while cleric spells used spheres and paladins cast as crippled clerics) into this comic.
(To be clear: Tsukiko did things with magic that literally everyone else found disgusting, even Xykon. No reference to any of the schools needed or indicated.)
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
"Unnatural acts of Wizardry" is clearly a catch-all for a number of specific spells or effects.
That label does have the useful sound of fake objectivity. Start with animating undead as a heinous crime, throw in Magic Jar for the obvious reasons, and then push Domination and Suggestion into the pile as well because it is useful to ban these spells while pretending it is just a clarification about an honored older moral tradition.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
That label does have the useful sound of fake objectivity. Start with animating undead as a heinous crime, throw in Magic Jar for the obvious reasons, and then push Domination and Suggestion into the pile as well because it is useful to ban these spells while pretending it is just a clarification about an honored older moral tradition.
It doesn't have to be an honoured older tradition; Cliffport bans the use of Detect Evil as evidence in a court because of how that screws up the process. You don't have to have an archaic taboo for certain magic to be seen as disruptive to a society.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emanick
I doubt Tsukiko was imprisoned simply because the Azurites have an aesthetic distaste to the kind of magic she performs. It goes without saying that Azure City probably doesn't object to things merely because they're "unnatural" - after all, as you point out, curing wounds or disease falls under that category, yet the city pretty clearly has clerics who are free to cast their spells as they please.
No, I expect that Azure City considers either necromancy or a specific kind of necromancy to be "unnatural" in a societally damaging way, possibly because that kind of magic is strongly correlated with Evil magic, and the state obviously has a strong interest in preventing Evil spellcasters from getting to the point where they pose a threat to society. Remember that the name of a crime often has very little to do with why the crime is, well, a crime.
It's helpful to remember that there are two relevant definitions of "unnatural" that can apply here. One is a contrast between the natural and supernatural; essentially, anything magical or otherwise supernatural (outside our accepted science,) and thus equally unnatural. But remember the other definition of unnatural that is strongly colored by social norms. Making love to animals or corpses is not supernatural by any means, but within our world is it considered unnatural in many cultures because it violates social norms. These norms are so deeply ingrained that we can readily pass laws with no greater justification beyond "It's unnatural," because the vast majority of us share these norms, or at the very least are aware of their power in society. And if an outsider watched all this, the distinction between unnatural and natural might seem arbitrary to him, and he would be hard pressed to articulate a simple set of criteria that would differentiate between a wide range of unnatural and natural things.
In Stickworld, it seems like magic in general is accepted as something that is real, that is empirical provable, and is understood to some extent. Something is not unnatural merely because it is magic. There's no reason Stickworld's arbitrary social norms wouldn't distinguish between types of magic, and like you say it's entirely plausible that a city full of paladins and good clerics might accept healing magic to be completely acceptable, while having strong social taboos about magic more normally associated with the deep end of the alignment pool, or magic that they just think is icky. In a city full of paladins, even if those norms weren't enforced by law, it's pretty plausible that there would be enough social pressure from everyone else to essentially banish Tsukiko far away from "decent folk."
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jasdoif
Well, Liches are Liches. I never even immagined the possibility of Xykon *not* being Xykon.
Specifically, I was thinking of the wights. Which are essentially vampires, minus all the special abilities and weaknesses (i.e. self-multiplying sentient undead with no particular flavor about what brings them to be, other than being spawned from a similar undead).
I guess, especially with that quote from Rich, it's obvious that not *all* (sentient) undead work like vampires. But that doesn't mean none of them do, either. Wights, to me, sound like they could possibly work like vampires as far as the soul hostage-taking goes.
But maybe not.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
That label does have the useful sound of fake objectivity. Start with animating undead as a heinous crime, throw in Magic Jar for the obvious reasons, and then push Domination and Suggestion into the pile as well because it is useful to ban these spells while pretending it is just a clarification about an honored older moral tradition.
And don't forget Fireball, as long as we're just making up what spells to toss in there.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
I wonder if there is just a small list of spells anyone can use and then you need a permit to use particular ones with in their jurisdiction.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Goblin_Priest
I guess, especially with that quote from Rich, it's obvious that not *all* (sentient) undead work like vampires. But that doesn't mean none of them do, either. Wights, to me, sound like they could possibly work like vampires as far as the soul hostage-taking goes.
But maybe not.
I would guess that wights do work like vampires. Perhaps ghouls and ghasts and spectres, too.
The language of Ressurection implies that every kind of undeath affects the soul's journey in some manner not spelled out. That is a very strong hint that all kinds of undeath are powerfully "not nice", even if it offers enough wiggle room for reasonable people to speculate in other directions.
Rich's take on vampires makes sense because it is implied by the rules that it is possible to get back the Real Durkon, one that may be changed by the experience but is most likely to have the same alignment as when the death occurred. The captured soul model works because it would be weird for a soul to be "physically" amended to become evil*, and weirder still if later removal of undeath simply "poof!" changed the soul back.
* Weird but not necessarily out of the question in a universe of powerful magic. If a soul could be forced to be changed, then it would be perfectly reasonable for all Good gods to go completely apeship against every kind of undeath.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
I dunno about
all necromancy. The
Mark of Justice is necromancy, and
Hinjo didn't seem it imply it was flat-out illegal, just it wasn't part of the the Azure City legal system, and he wasn't under any legal obligation to remove it.
Sorry, by "necromancy" I meant "creating undead", not "any spell in the necromancy school". I was trying to refute the claim that creating undead isn't inherently evil. While that argument can certainly be made, in the vast majority of fantasy settings (especially places with a strong Lawful Good undercurrent like Azure City) they're not going to make that distinction.
However, on that note, I was in a party where I had to convince the team Paladin to let me turn an evil dragon we vanquished into a zombie because it was the only way to get us where we had to go in time. He agreed but kept burning the darn thing with holy water.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
And don't forget Fireball, as long as we're just making up what spells to toss in there.
I suspect that knowing how to cast a Fireball would not cause any problems, but casting fireballs into crowds would. In the same vein, perhaps knowing Charm spells would not be grounds for imprisonment but using them would.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hamste
I wonder if there is just a small list of spells anyone can use and then you need a permit to use particular ones with in their jurisdiction.
It is not particularly unreasonable to expect there to be a list of spells that would be considered immoral to use. Cliffport considers summoning demons an offense (aside from murdering a bunch of civilians it's what they book Elan on). The reason spells that create/summon creatures are considered henious is probably three-fold:
1. They usually require resources that are usually acquired in immoral ways; sacrifices for demons, bodies for undead. Yes, it is possible to donate your body to science (or magic, in this instance) but as most uses of undead are violent, I hardly see many people signing up to that unless they were in desperate need of cash for their family.
2. They usually break some sort of religious or social taboo. True, this is a poor reason to outright ban anything, but the gods in OotS are very real and can intervene either directly or through proxies; and most Good gods take a dim view of the undead and demons.
3. Spells that grant control of creatures are inherently dangerous. If the user is not skilled, they might accidentally create a bunch of ravenous killers and set them loose in a city. Yes, the same is true for many other spells, but I think that with these sorts of spells knowing the repercussions is more difficult (saying to a skeleton, guard this cave entrance, and a skeleton killing innocent travelers who pass by it, for instance).
Also, a culture might not have a problem with a spell but might with its common usage. In Morrowind, the setting of the third Elder Scrolls game, using the bones of ancestors to create skeletal guardians for tombs is a time honoured tradition, but the local elves are even more hostile to traditional necromancers than normal.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
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Originally Posted by
littlebum2002
Sorry, by "necromancy" I meant "creating undead", not "any spell in the necromancy school". I was trying to refute the claim that creating undead isn't inherently evil. While that argument can certainly be made, in the vast majority of fantasy settings (especially places with a strong Lawful Good undercurrent like Azure City) they're not going to make that distinction.
Ahhh, I see. Sorry!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
littlebum2002
However, on that note, I was in a party where I had to convince the team Paladin to let me turn an evil dragon we vanquished into a zombie because it was the only way to get us where we had to go in time. He agreed but kept burning the darn thing with holy water.
Ahhh, torture. The mightiest weapon in the Paladin's arsen-wait, what? Imean, I realize it's a zombie, but still... that's a bit unsettling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spellbreaker26
I suspect that knowing how to cast a Fireball would not cause any problems, but casting fireballs into crowds would. In the same vein, perhaps knowing Charm spells would not be grounds for imprisonment but using them would.
That was my point, in a way. The spells that were being cynically suggested for falling in the "sort of catch-all" of unnatural wizardry applied to about that level, instead of spells or effects that are unequivocally evil.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
Ahhh, torture. The mightiest weapon in the Paladin's arsen-wait, what? Imean, I realize it's a zombie, but still... that's a bit unsettling.
Oh, he wasn't trying to torture it, he was trying to cleanse/bless it.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
I thought he was trying to ensure that once the journey was finished, the zombie would be very quickly killable - saving time by damaging it on the way rather than waiting till they arrived.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
littlebum2002
Oh, he wasn't trying to torture it, he was trying to cleanse/bless it.
I... still don't understand what he thought he was actually going to accomplish there. Presumably he is aware that killing the dragon they are riding on is bad?
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Keltest
I... still don't understand what he thought he was actually going to accomplish there. Presumably he is aware that killing the dragon they are riding on is bad?
"Oh [patron deity], make this unholy abomination I'm riding on a little less of an affront to all that lives. Also less icky. Praise be unto [patron deity]."
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
georgie_leech
"Oh [patron deity], make this unholy abomination I'm riding on a little less of an affront to all that lives. Also less icky. Praise be unto [patron deity]."
This, pretty much. It's like how whenever you're spending the night in an "evil" place, your Paladin and/or Cleric will usually bless the ground, just to be safe? Well this guy was blessing the back of the unholy dragon he was riding on. A nervous tic I guess you could call it.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
Do you similarly think the real-life charge of "criminal mischief" should be renamed, because if it is already criminal, then it is already illegal?
"Unnatural wizardry" is probably a generic term for a host of acts. So they used "unnatural" instead of "criminal" or "felony." Unless you know what all it covers, it seems a bit difficult to rally against it being misnamed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kish
I agree that "unnatural" is a meaningless word and the crime amounts to "Acts of Wizardry We Don't Like," but it's to be expected. Azure City is a city with all the stereotypical narrow-mindedness authors often associate with "Lawful," and paladins in OotS have sticks up their asses as a class feature. It is pretty clear that Tsukiko belonged, if not in prison, then in a mental institution with good enough security that she couldn't hurt the other inmates.
Case closed. That's exactly what I meant, emphasis mine.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Well, that blew up quickly...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
That disrespect for a human corpse can disrupt the soul's journey to its proper place is a ubiquitous bit of mythology. So much so that some cultures specifically mess with the corpse of their fallen enemies, while other cultures think that only a complete idiot dares provoke the wrath of a unrestful spirit.
I can totally understand that impulse, but as you pointed out, D&D has no particular consistency on whether the host body's soul is involved in the process at all (as would certainly be the case with traditional voodoun zombies.) If D&D specifically wanted to make necromancy about the process of communing with and/or coercing the spirits of the dead, it would be one thing, but it tacked on this idea that the person's soul, an unrelated spirit from the dimension of evil sand, or no spirit at all might be involved. That killing people is morally problematic is also a universal cultural norm, but Cloudkill does not come with an [Evil] descriptor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
Careful. In the larger universe the story takes place, it may be normal to get more skilled by studying things. It so happens to be an impractical for adventurous PCs, so we have no core rules to cover it. The fact that the core rules do not exist does not prove anything about how NPC work-- that is why Crystal's assertion that she magically levels to be an appropriate nemesis for Haley is so funny.
In the larger universe the story takes place, the Gods specifically (according to Redcloak) created dozens of humanoid species as sources for XP that their clerics could not otherwise easily obtain. Even if it were true that practice & study were an equally viable method of gaining levels, there's never been a 100% 'safe' way to study the impaling of creatures on sharp metal, and this is certainly a world where embarking to slay monsters is considered a perfectly normal and respectable profession. Arbitrary hangups over the outlet you plug your save-or-suck spells into doesn't make much sense in that context.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
That killing people is morally problematic is also a universal cultural norm, but Cloudkill does not come with an [Evil] descriptor.
Unlawfully killing people is a nearly universal cultural norm; but nearly all modern societies have armies and police that have the authority to lawfully kill people in certain circumstances. This is a false equivalence.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
The language of
Ressurection implies that every kind of undeath affects the soul's journey in some manner not spelled out.
Eh, not really. It just makes sense that the soul can't return to the body if something else is using it.
(I do consider the OOTSverse take on vampirism to be an interesting one, since it makes the vampire into a particularly cruel and nauseating parasite just by existing, but... well, it also means the story thus far isn't really about Durkon, but external actors fighting over his corpse.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kish
I agree that "unnatural" is a meaningless word and the crime amounts to "Acts of Wizardry We Don't Like," but it's to be expected. Azure City is a city with all the stereotypical narrow-mindedness authors often associate with "Lawful," and paladins in OotS have sticks up their asses as a class feature. It is pretty clear that Tsukiko belonged, if not in prison, then in a mental institution with good enough security that she couldn't hurt the other inmates.
The evidence on this point is very sparse, and complicated by OOTS having no real distinction between setting/plot logic and either cartoon physics or random 21st-century-pop-culture inserts, but I do find it interesting that the city of goblin-smiting martinets also has a small (and passably integrated) half-orc population, and the New Year's bash seemed fairly disinhibited (I vaguely recall Hinjo said something about wanting to party with the commoners in ways that proper decorum wouldn't permit.) I kind of want to squint at this and imagine Shojo's hand in a counter-conservative policy agenda, but either way it's possible AC isn't 100% kimonos and filial piety.
One other point that might be relevant is that, while traditional eastern societies were repressive and authoritarian in a lot of ways, they were apparently okay-ish with various forms of gay/lesbian sexuality. Even Miko is sanguine, with a hint of envy(?), about her paladin juniors going girl-on-girl.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spellbreaker26
Unlawfully killing people is a nearly universal cultural norm; but nearly all modern societies have armies and police that have the authority to lawfully kill people in certain circumstances.
If you can take away the [Evil] tag because there are circumstances where you can find official permission, or reasonable justification, to kill, I see no reason why equally plausible circumstances for raising the dead can't have a similar effect.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
If you can take away the [Evil] tag because there are circumstances where you can find official permission, or reasonable justification, to kill, I see no reason why equally plausible circumstances for raising the dead can't have a similar effect.
I actually can see those circumstances...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spellbreaker26
Also, a culture might not have a problem with a spell but might with its common usage. In Morrowind, the setting of the third Elder Scrolls game, using the bones of ancestors to create skeletal guardians for tombs is a time honoured tradition, but the local elves are even more hostile to traditional necromancers than normal.
The problem is that treatment of human remains is a very sensitive subject, and you'd need to get some sort of authority from the government or permission from the family to animate said remains. There are probably not going to be a huge supply of volunteers OK with having their bodies turned into meat puppets; therefore Necromancers either have to switch to a different branch of wizardry or stoop to grave robbing.
I can easily imagine an army using regiments of undead, or priests of a Death God (by that, I mean a good death god) summoning skeletons for self defense, but I can also understand Azure City's wholesale prohibition on Necromancy. Tsukiko was locked up for practicing necromancy; in a society that allowed necromancy she probably would have gotten locked up for mis-practicing it.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
I have no difficulty with the idea that Tsukiko, specifically, was going about more-or-less everything the wrong way. But I don't see how the caster finding kosher targets for practicing Disintegrate is going to have more of a problem animating skeletal chickens, or something.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
That killing people is morally problematic is also a universal cultural norm, but Cloudkill does not come with an [Evil] descriptor.
Let me be more explicit in my reasoning.
Animating corpses is not [Evil] because people dislike it a little or a lot. It is [Evil] because it employs magic that is metaphysically inherently evil -- that is simply how the fabric of the D&D universe works.
At the meta level, this was a design choice, where different design choices were logically possible.
This particular design choice was justified because the D&D mechanics need to be somewhat sensible when drawing on a diverse set of stories/mythologies. The ubiquitous taboos are evidence about what kind of design decision would be more congruous with the mythologies from those cultures. The [Evil] label was a choice informed by what is genuinely a nearly worldwide consensus.*
We do not have any semblance of a consensus about Fireballs or Cloudkill or similar magic.
As for Cloudkill, D&D has flirted with making poison use evil, too. It would be perfectly sensible to make it [Evil] in your campaign world, but the default rules shrug on that topic.
As for your specific argument, there never has been a consensus in any culture that killing people is morally wrong. In most times and most places, there have been strong rules against killing people unnecessarily. Thus in D&D some killings are, in fact, [Evil] and others are not.
* Of course, it is probably worth mentioning that not all mythologies are equal for D&D game designers. D&D definitely draws inspiration more from Judeo-Christian stories/mythological traditions than others, and animating dead is a whopping no-no in that context. Please note that a mythological tradition is not necessarily part of the religion, but a story created that is inspired by the religious ideas. For example: King Arthur and Faust and LotR are Christian stories/mythologies (IMO), but not part of the Christian religion.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
If you can take away the [Evil] tag because there are circumstances where you can find official permission, or reasonable justification, to kill, I see no reason why equally plausible circumstances for raising the dead can't have a similar effect.
Right, since Lawful Good societies are usually known for their flexibility and willingness to find exceptions to rules.
Oh wait...
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
If you can take away the [Evil] tag because there are circumstances where you can find official permission, or reasonable justification, to kill, I see no reason why equally plausible circumstances for raising the dead can't have a similar effect.
Human(oid) laws have no bearing on the [Evil] tag. The question is not up for a vote. The very fabric of the universe decides.
You cannot fool the fabric of the universe with an ends justifies the means argument. Whether it is practical to sway an overtly LG society is a completely different question. Whether it is possible to sway a LG divine being is unclear. Something that is [Evil] is still evil regardless of who endorses the action.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snails
Animating corpses is not [Evil] because people dislike it a little or a lot.
]
No, but more to the point, animating corpses is against the law (at least, in Azure city) because people dislike it a lot. Tsukiko was in jail not because she was evil, but because she broke the law.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lacuna Caster
Eh, not really. It just makes sense that the soul can't return to the body if something else is using it.
True Resurrection says "Hi!" it's a general rule that NO method of bringing back the dead works on someone currently undead, no matter whether it needs the body or not.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
True Resurrection says "Hi!" it's a general rule that NO method of bringing back the dead works on someone currently undead, no matter whether it needs the body or not.
Are the rules not contradictory on this? The undead type says they can be targeted with true resurrection or resurrection and that it revives them.
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Re: The Stick's worst blunder: vote now!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
True Resurrection says "Hi!" it's a general rule that NO method of bringing back the dead works on someone currently undead, no matter whether it needs the body or not.
The Resurrection spell makes this clear enough. True Resurrection and Reincarnation support the language of Resurrection, strongly indicating that the physical body is not the issue.