Is my character realy evil?

I'm currently playing, and having a lot of fun with, an artificer. The alignment is NE. But ewhat I'm wondering is, is it truely how it sould be, and do my as yet secret plans change that.

Current situation: The guy works well in a team, offers a discount to team members (local black market, 125% of listed price, my price, 80% of listed price) on items, etc.... He has never raped, tortured, or whaterver, he has however attacked caravans and killed witnesses in cold blood. he also recently entered the employ of a devil, though I'm still not sure how it'll work out.

Now for my plans: I plan to take a castle, somewhere, preferably near a river, with a mine and farming ground. The thing is, while being evil, the way I see it, mistreating the commoneers is not in his best interrest, So when commoneers come, he will come up with the worker homunculi, that will help at farmwork, mining, whatever for one week providing the peasent undergoes the tranferrance ritual (I mean, even a level 2 commoneer can provide for a lot of magic items). I also plan to homebrew an item based on the liquid pain extractor, to extract craft xp in liquid form (not necessarely painfull). They will also be provided with decanters of endless water when needed. naturally, the taxes will be pretty steep (around 40% of income) , but famine is basically not an issue anymore, they have a (seemingly) benevolent master, who is getting filthy rich by selling potions and low-level magic gear ans uses that to hire a small army to protect them, etc.... If all goes reasonably well, I imagine I could carve a small kingdom in the wilderness pretty quickly, employing golems and undead to support the main army (a party member is a necromancer). Now of course, the only goal here is profit and power, and I would'nt want to be the outlaws and other miscreants who will be drained of their precious xp and used to make flesh golems, but my subjects will be healthy, wealthy, and happy.


So, big plan aside, would that be considered evil, or just neutral?

I would rate him as neutral. Caring about others is good, yourself is neutral, and stomping on others is evil. You are looking out for number one, but you don't care about stabbing number 2 unless you profit by it, and your strategy seems to avoid a lot of opportunities to help yourself that would require hurting others. I'd say it was somewhere between neutral and evil, but much closer to neutral than evil, and definitely lawful. Just my 2cp.

I have a hard time imagining extracting the liquid form of anything out of someone a non-evil action, unless it's cancer or some such.

I would say Lawful Evil. Definitely not a great guy, but at least you're loyal enough those under you for them to not absolutely despise life in your kingdom, at least from what I read.

Using miscreants as golem-fuel? Very lawful evil in my opinion.

You're an enlightened form of evil. You've read the Evil Overlord list... but you're still evil.

Let's put it this way... if your peasants renege on the deal, and rise up against you (with the help of some adventurers who have heard about this wizard and his necromancer), what are you going to do? You're going to react evilly. You're going to teach them a lesson... an effective lesson, perhaps, but a lesson, nonetheless.

There's a couple of points to consider:

1) If your artificer was trying to conquer other kingdoms as a way of bringing order and prosperity to those lands, that would be considered good. However, if your artificer is interested in conquest for conquest's sake, then he is likely evil.
2) The tactics you use in battle has to be considered as well. Do you take any prisoners other than wealthy lords? If you murder prisoners, that's definitely evil. I also note you're willing to use necromancy, which in and of itself is an "evil" art.
3) You don't mistreat your subjects, but if they didn't want to be ruled by you, would you have any qualms about crushing a rebellion by any means possible?

I note that you're using an artificer, a class that originated in Eberron. There's a good example from Eberron that applies here: the quori.

The quori (creatures that exist in dreams) rule over the nation of Reidra, right? Now the majority of Reidrans are basically happy and healthy under their rule (though they don't exactly know it is the quori ruling them), and for the most part, their land is a perfect example of order and tranquility. So why are the quori evil?

Because they do their best to stamp out free will and independent thought. The Reidrans are basically sheep; sure, the Reidrans are happy, but that doesn't make the quori benevolent rulers. And just because your artificer doesn't oppress his people doesn't necessarily make him a nice guy, if it's just his means to an end.

From the sounds of it your plan involves either sacrificing people for magic items, or extracting pain in liquid form for magic items. This seems like evil to me.

However, short of those, it seems along the lines of neutral leaning towards evil.

Evil. As you say he's killed in cold blood and apparently feels no remorse for doing so and likely expects to do similar acts again. Being evil doesn't require that you rape, maim and pillage; it just requires that you abuse others to get what you want. And treating your friends and subjects well isn't necessarily good, that's just good sense.

TS

Don't worry, you're still evil. Smart Evil, at that.

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Originally Posted by Face Of Evil

There's a couple of points to consider:

1) If your artificer was trying to conquer other kingdoms as a way of bringing order and prosperity to those lands, that would be considered good. However, if your artificer is interested in conquest for conquest's sake, then he is likely evil.
2) The tactics you use in battle has to be considered as well. Do you take any prisoners other than wealthy lords? If you murder prisoners, that's definitely evil. I also note you're willing to use necromancy, which in and of itself is an "evil" art.
3) You don't mistreat your subjects, but if they didn't want to be ruled by you, would you have any qualms about crushing a rebellion by any means possible?

I note that you're using an artificer, a class that originated in Eberron. There's a good example from Eberron that applies here: the quori.

The quori (creatures that exist in dreams) rule over the nation of Reidra, right? Now the majority of Reidrans are basically happy and healthy under their rule (though they don't exactly know it is the quori ruling them), and for the most part, their land is a perfect example of order and tranquility. So why are the quori evil?

Because they do their best to stamp out free will and independent thought. The Reidrans are basically sheep; sure, the Reidrans are happy, but that doesn't make the quori benevolent rulers. And just because your artificer doesn't oppress his people doesn't necessarily make him a nice guy, if it's just his means to an end.

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1) Darth Vader and the Empire conquered the galaxy and brought order and prosperity to the galaxy. Conquest for Conquest's sake would be more in line with chaos than good and evil.

2)Murdering prisoners for the sake or murdering them would defiantly be Chaotic Evil, murdering them because a rival kingdom didn't meet your demands for their safe release? I could see that as Lawful Evil. But if you murder a prisoner because they were trying to instigate a revolt and riot? That would be neutral to me - justice is blind.

3)Very neutral - you don't go out of your way to hurt people, but if they are in your way... too bad for them.

I very much see the OP's character as Neutral Evil, and perhaps see him switching to Lawful Evil once his dominion is under this thumb.

Are you acting towards what you believe to be Neutral Evil? Honestly, if you are, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

From the sounds of things, you're doin' just fine. You're lookin' out for the people under you, as long as they're under you. You've already stated that you have no problem destroying opposition, and your motivations are purely selfish. That screams NE to me, but that's just my opinion.