OOTS #1045 - The Discussion Thread

[pendell]

That is D&D rules, actually. And that's why, even if your race has an Intelligence penalty, you can't reduce it lower than 3. (If you play an elf, +2 Dexterity -2 Constitution, roll a 3, and put it in Constitution, you have a Constitution of 1; if you play a half-orc, +2 Strength -2 Intelligence -2 Charisma, roll a 3, 4, or 5, and put it in Intelligence, you have an Intelligence of 3).

That is, it's D&D rules except when they ignore it for some weird reason. (Zombies have Intelligence 0 and are Neutral Evil, for example.)

Is it because Zombies are supernatural creations empowered by the Negative energy plane? If you take something up and power it with 100% evil, it's reasonable that it should have an evil alignment, even if it does not itself have the ability to understand the difference between good and evil.

Where that gets really interesting is when you give a creature made from evil enough intelligence and wisdom to be able to understand good from evil for itself, and choose to act against its own nature. In such case, the moral struggle would be far more intense than it would be, say, for a celestial or a human.

ISTR there was a case story of a succubus-paladin. If the creature had been born a human, she would probably have been a saint of legend. As it is, when your entire being is made of evil you probably qualify for Exalted if you can just push your character to act in a manner humans would consider "true neutral". The sheer willpower it must take to do the smallest good act -- to toss an ant outside the house instead of squashing it -- say -- must be incalculable when literally every fiber of your being is pushing you to act in the opposite way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mightymosy]

Is it because Zombies are supernatural creations empowered by the Negative energy plane? If you take something up and power it with 100% evil, it's reasonable that it should have an evil alignment, even if it does not itself have the ability to understand the difference between good and evil.

Where that gets really interesting is when you give a creature made from evil enough intelligence and wisdom to be able to understand good from evil for itself, and choose to act against its own nature. In such case, the moral struggle would be far more intense than it would be, say, for a celestial or a human.

ISTR there was a case story of a succubus-paladin. If the creature had been born a human, she would probably have been a saint of legend. As it is, when your entire being is made of evil you probably qualify for Exalted if you can just push your character to act in a manner humans would consider "true neutral". The sheer willpower it must take to do the smallest good act -- to toss an ant outside the house instead of squashing it -- say -- must be incalculable when literally every fiber of your being is pushing you to act in the opposite way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I think it is more likely that Zombies were labeled "evil" before the concepts of good and evil were given deeper considerations than "let's invent some enemies for paladins to use smite evil against". From what I read in this forum, D&D developed from a (morally) rather simplicstic world view. Concepts like "good orcs and goblins" sprang into exsistence a couple years later, or do I have the wrong impression?

[tsj]

I suppose Roy and Miko are exactly the same then, since they're both Lawful Good.
Or, to avoid opening that can of worms, Roy and Eugene.

Adding to this, in #791 Thog makes it clear he hasn't seen Nale in a while (which is also obvious from other details and dialog in the story). All that conscious evil he displayed in the arena had nothing to do with wanting to please the Linear Guild.

Roy and Mike are the same in the sense that they are both LG and both act in accordance with what they consider to be "the right thing"

Miko was lead astray

I doubt that Eugene is LG. A LG charecter would not torment his son.
But even if he is then there are similarities between them


Belkar and Thog are both CE.
But Belkar wants to better his alignment. .. a CE creature that wants to improve himself is no longer CE

What makes Belkar and Thog different? They both enjoy killing and have both killed ALOT

Thog could just as well be a member of the OOTS ... he just wants to kill... he might not care what alignment his victims have... same as Belkar (he killed the oracle)

[Keltest]

I think it is more likely that Zombies were labeled "evil" before the concepts of good and evil were given deeper considerations than "let's invent some enemies for paladins to use smite evil against". From what I read in this forum, D&D developed from a (morally) rather simplicstic world view. Concepts like "good orcs and goblins" sprang into exsistence a couple years later, or do I have the wrong impression?

Maybe. On the other hand, "evil" seems like a pretty good term to use to describe an untiring machine designed primarily for violence that is incapable of mercy, with no limits on the depths of the depravity it is willing to sink to save for the imagination of its controller.

If weapons can be evil, why not zombies?

[Deepbluediver]

@deepbluediver: I think Orcs and half-orcs are over used as the bad guys in stories/comics

You can thank Tolkein for that. He set down a lot of the fantasy tropes we still use today, and in LotR Orcs and Goblins (of which the distinction is less clear) are an always-evil race. So when you want something in a movie or novel for your heroic, white, (probably) male protagonists to fight, orcs are an easy go-to.

That being said, webcomics are actually really good about subverting that sort sort of thing. They are still sometimes SEEN as evil by other races, but then you get to know them and you find out they are quite a bit more complex. Dominic Deegan was one, Goblins! is another. Then there's this comic:http://www.daughterofthelilies.com/
Where one of the main 4 characters is a Lawul-Good Orc.

So if you want examples they are out there, you just need to look for them. A trying to defend or excuse Thog doesn't help your cause (IMO) more than using a different character would.

otoh.. wouldn't Belkar and Thog have very similar alignment? What makes them so different?

For most of the comic they were very similar- I think Belkar might have even started off as CE as well. He's recently been showing some improvement on the morality-front, but it's definitely a recent development. If Belkar had been part of the Linear Guild and Thog had been with Order of the Stick would Thog's temperament have improved? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't excuse the fact that he was/is unrepentingly evil in his own right.

@deepbluediver: I assume Elan is a LG goody twoshoes that (mentally) lives in LG Elan land due to low mental stats...

Elan definitely isn't lawful- Haley makes the comment at one point that he's more like her than Roy. I don't recall offhand his exact alignment (and I'm to lazy to go to the character-stats thread and look it up) but he's at most Neutral-good and possible even Chaotic Good, similar to Haley (who's merely Chaotic-goodish).

Miko was lead astray

Lead by whom? The Giant has said that most of her positive traits are thanks to Shojo's guidance and mentorship. The quote is something like "he was the tape the held her together, which is why she went to pieces when it was pulled off".

[nleseul]

Belkar and Thog are both CE.
But Belkar wants to better his alignment. .. a CE creature that wants to improve himself is no longer CE

What makes Belkar and Thog different? They both enjoy killing and have both killed ALOT

Thog could just as well be a member of the OOTS ... he just wants to kill... he might not care what alignment his victims have... same as Belkar (he killed the oracle)

The difference between Belkar and Thog is that Belkar wants to avoid being punished for being CE. He wants to be allowed to stab people in peace, so he's making some effort to learn how to stab people in ways that the world around him accepts and encourages. Whereas Thog doesn't really care if he gets punished; he can have just as much fun smashing things and people in prison as outside of prison.

That said, it is potentially true that Thog's Evil desire to smash things could have been used for Good purposes, as Roy is doing with Belkar's Evil desire to stab things. But that's not how things worked out. And anyway, Evil acts directed by an outside influence toward Good goals are still Evil acts.

[Keltest]

You can thank Tolkein for that. He set down a lot of the fantasy tropes we still use today, and in LotR Orcs and Goblins (of which the distinction is less clear) are an always-evil race. So when you want something in a movie or novel for your heroic, white, (probably) male protagonists to fight, orcs are an easy go-to.

Off topic for a second, but the distinction is pretty much down to whos speaking. Orcs and goblins are the same creatures. The name "orc" is the elvish term for the race, so the elves, Gondorians and Dunedain all use the word Orc. Hobbits and dwarves tend towards goblin, and you will notice that in The Hobbit, when there aren't any elves or Men in the party, they pretty much exclusively call them goblins. They will also call them Uruks, which is the Black Speech name for the race called orcs, although sometimes they will use it to refer to the Uruk-Hai as well, which makes it more confusing still.

[Deepbluediver]

Off topic for a second, but the distinction is pretty much down to whos speaking. Orcs and goblins are the same creatures. The name "orc" is the elvish term for the race, so the elves, Gondorians and Dunedain all use the word Orc. Hobbits and dwarves tend towards goblin, and you will notice that in The Hobbit, when there aren't any elves or Men in the party, they pretty much exclusively call them goblins. They will also call them Uruks, which is the Black Speech name for the race called orcs, although sometimes they will use it to refer to the Uruk-Hai as well, which makes it more confusing still.

OK, noted. I thought the distinction was that they were kinda like different breeds of the same race but it sounds like it's actually even less than that, and just a linguistic issue.

I am not an expert in Tolkien-lore so feel free to correct me.

[Keltest]

OK, noted. I thought the distinction was that they were kinda like different breeds of the same race but it sounds like it's actually even less than that, and just a linguistic issue.

I am not an expert in Tolkien-lore so feel free to correct me.

There is a certain correlation between the goblins in the Hobbit being smaller and weaker than the Orcs in the LotR, but that's more a case of geography and the orcs being in an actual conquering army as opposed to just random groups of non-militant cave dwellers. Biologically they are the same.

[Sian]

Roy is multiclassing into Psychic Warrior

[Kish]

Is it because Zombies are supernatural creations empowered by the Negative energy plane? If you take something up and power it with 100% evil, it's reasonable that it should have an evil alignment, even if it does not itself have the ability to understand the difference between good and evil.

The negative energy plane isn't evil. If you can survive being there, your good-typed spells will be just as powerful, your evil-typed spells no more powerful. (Compare to Hades, where good-typed spells are weakened and evil-typed spells are enhanced.) If you go to the negative energy plane without negative energy protection you'll keel over quickly from the ambient negative energy, but you'll die quickly on the positive energy plane too (one quickly reduces your hit points, the other heals you to full...and when you're fully healed and it tries to heal you further, you explode).

[Peelee]

I assume that Thog has not only a low int, but also a low wis.

That means that he barely knows right from wrong and that he is almost acting on instinct and he is what you would call .. a retard/retarded. ..

even though he kills a lot.. he is closer to the kid killing bugs than Sabine and Nale is..... and that gives him a weird kind of innocent personality...the puppy thing just further cements his personality

that personality plus the fact that orcs and half-orcs are my favorite races.. makes it difficult for me to be mad at Thog for killing stuff

I believe that int score CAN be linked to knowing what is good and what is evil.
what kind of int score does a typical animal have in d&d 3.5? if Thog has an int score that is equal to that of an animal then he is acting mainly on instinct and not a wense of morality

No. No no no no no no no. Absolutely not.

I don't consider any of the characters in the entire comic to be "mentally handicapped." Thog is not smart compared to Roy, but he does not have an atypical neurology. He is capable of determining right from wrong, and chooses wrong consistently. I know people like to project this idea onto Thog that he's not responsible for his actions because he's dumb, but…he is responsible. We know he is because the orcs on the island are the same as him and don't murder people just for fun.

In D&D terms, anyone who has an Intelligence of 3 or higher is capable of determining right from wrong (because they have an alignment); speak, read, and write a language fluently; and generally looking after themselves on a daily basis while adventuring in a dangerous dungeon. This does not describe most real-world people with mental handicaps (to my knowledge). Which means the bulk of the spectrum of mental handicaps probably sits somewhere below 3 and above 2, because it's a system designed for action-adventure and it doesn't need more granularity than that. It doesn't want to have the conversation, and honestly, in this case, I'm inclined to agree. D&D is a system that only describes people within a certain range of mental ability, and OOTS follows suit.

If I was depicting Thog (or anyone else) as displaying behaviors and attitudes common among actual mentally disabled people and then mocking them, you would certainly have a point. I don't think I am. Thog is "fantasy dumb." It's a trope of the genre that I'm using, not a reflection of the real world. I know everyone loves to repeat that line I said about the only worthwhile part of fantasy being what it tells us about the real world, but that doesn't need to apply to every single part of the entire story. Sometimes, you have to sell the rest of the fantasy world straight in order to highlight the things you want to talk about. The "barbarians are stupid" cliché falls into that category for me.

And if your argument is that I should only have people of below-average intelligence behave as pure innocent saints, well, that's a whole other sort of harmful portrayal. I'll take my story where people on both ends of the IQ scale are equally capable of the full range of morality, thanks.

otoh.. wouldn't Belkar and Thog have very similar alignment? What makes them so different?
If Belkar is NE and Thog is CE then they are only 1 step from each other thus Belkar could be like Thog and Thog could be like Belkar at any time.
Belkar and Thog both have low int and wis
actually both Belkar and Thog are CE.
But how can Belkar be CE if he wants to improve himself?
since Belkar wants to improve himself I see him as NE instead of CE.
If Belkar = CE and Thog = CE then Belkar = Thog!

Alignment does not dictate actions. Actions dictate alignment. And you're completely failing to take into account personality. If Indiana Jones is thrown into a pit of snakes and Sallah rescues him, Sallah is Good. If Indiana Jones is thrown into a pit of snakes and Bob wants to rescue him but is unable due to his crippling fear of snakes, that does not necessarily mean that Bob is Neutral; Bob was just scared ****less. If having an alignment meant you had to act in a very specific way, D&D would be a very different game, and OotS would be a very different story.

[tsj]

The difference between Belkar and Thog is that Belkar wants to avoid being punished for being CE. He wants to be allowed to stab people in peace, so he's making some effort to learn how to stab people in ways that the world around him accepts and encourages. Whereas Thog doesn't really care if he gets punished; he can have just as much fun smashing things and people in prison as outside of prison.

That said, it is potentially true that Thog's Evil desire to smash things could have been used for Good purposes, as Roy is doing with Belkar's Evil desire to stab things. But that's not how things worked out. And anyway, Evil acts directed by an outside influence toward Good goals are still Evil acts.

So basically we agree that Thog and Belkar are alot alike since they are both CE and their actiobs are basically very dependent on the ggroups they ended up in (good vs evil groups)

[Basement Cat]

- We also don't know how Eugene's future will be in that place, after the stuff he did - the last one burning the important message about V he was supposed to deliver to Roy.
Sure, maybe we just won't get that info about Eugene because he is just a side character, but it might be interesting for some readers, and maybe Rich Burlew wants to tell that story.

This.

I've often wondered whether Eugene could get kicked out of "Cloud Purgatory" on the Celestial Mountain's base because he's been caught at least once actively braking the rules.

It could be that if when Xykon is destroyed Eugene will be permitted entry and will spend an unusually long time on the lower levels of Mt. Celestia. Or he might get kicked out to Neutral Good heaven. I don't see him been neutral enough to end up in True Neutral territory, though.

Has this topic been addressed in previous threads...or is that a silly question?

[Ruck]

Elan definitely isn't lawful- Haley makes the comment at one point that he's more like her than Roy. I don't recall offhand his exact alignment (and I'm to lazy to go to the character-stats thread and look it up) but he's at most Neutral-good and possible even Chaotic Good, similar to Haley (who's merely Chaotic-goodish).

Elan explicitly identifies himself as Chaotic Good in #445.

[Deepbluediver]

So basically we agree that Thog and Belkar are alot alike since they are both CE and their actiobs are basically very dependent on the ggroups they ended up in (good vs evil groups)

They WERE somewhat alike, but then again there's only 9 alignments and a whole heaping pile of characters; you have expect a certain amount of overlap. And while the company you keep can influence a person's actions, it does not absolve you of your own responsibility. That's the point- each character is their own person, and something like "I was just following orders" is not an excuse.

Crystal seems to be on par (mentally) with Thog- are you going to argue that she's only evil because she worked for Bozzok?

Elan explicitly identifies himself as Chaotic Good in #445.

Well there you go. Thank you.

[Deepbluediver]

Actually, now that I think about it, none of the most Chaotic-Evil characters who've had significant screen-time (Belkar, Thog, Crystal) display particularly astounding mental stats. It might be interesting to explore a little how The Giant (or other writers) use and/or subvert certain fantasy tropes, and how alignment determines personality and vice-versa. Everything below is obviously just what I think, but I'm putting this disclaimer here so I don't have to add "IMO" and "personally I believe..." to every line.


One of the best ways to show that a character has high Intelligence in writing or in movies (aside from having them spout some random scientific mumbo-jumbo) is usually to have them craft ridiculously complicated plans. Nale and Shojo are the best examples in this strip. So in fiction, "smart" frequently means the man-with-the-plan, or a long term thinker.

By contrast, the best way to describe the personality of a CE character is hedonistic- they do what they want in the moment. I want icecream? I eat icecream. I want to kill that guy? I kill that guy. If I can get icecream fastest by killing some guys I'll do both. Etc etc etc. So chaotic-evil characters are less likely to be the ones making plans, especially if they are in a group with characters who's defining trait is "smart" or "leader".

For a good example of a "smart" chaotic-evil character I tend to think of the Joker (sorry to step outside of OotS for a moment). I know some people complain that comic-book plans frequently rely on absurdly unlikely series of random events, but I have a different theory. The Joker (and characters like him I guess) doesn't have a plan- he's just really really adaptable. And then when a series of events lines up in his favor, he claims afterwards that that was the plan all along.


I'm not really sure I was trying to reach any conclusions here- these are just a few thoughts I had. Anyone else want to weigh-in?

[dancrilis]

Actually, now that I think about it, none of the most Chaotic-Evil characters who've had significant screen-time (Belkar, Thog, Crystal) display particularly astounding mental stats.

While Xykon's Intelligence and Wisdom are debatable I do find that he is both smart and wise (not necessarily astounding but above average and possible significantly so).

Also with DnD evil chaotic gods and powerful demons do exist and can plan perfectly well to achieve their aims - Loki seems to be Chaotic Evil and has plans and plots from before the world was made for example.

[Deepbluediver]

While Xykon's Intelligence and Wisdom are debatable I do find that he is both smart and wise (not necessarily astounding but above average and possible significantly so).

Hmm, good point. He does seem to fit my description of not being much in to long-term planning though, that's more Redcloak's thing.

[factotum]

Liches get +2 to all their mental stats (Int, Wis *and* Cha, although Xykon being a sorcerer would presumably have been pretty high on the latter anyway). Add to that the +1 to mental stats that you gain at various age categories (middle aged, old aged and venerable), all of which Xykon must have got while he was alive, means he's sitting on +5 whatever he started adulthood with--so even if he was as stupid as Thog when a young man, which he clearly wasn't, he'd be average intelligence now.

[nyjastul69]

You can thank Tolkein for that. He set down a lot of the fantasy tropes we still use today, and in LotR Orcs and Goblins (of which the distinction is less clear) are an always-evil race. So when you want something in a movie or novel for your heroic, white, (probably) male protagonists to fight, orcs are an easy go-to.

That being said, webcomics are actually really good about subverting that sort sort of thing. They are still sometimes SEEN as evil by other races, but then you get to know them and you find out they are quite a bit more complex. Dominic Deegan was one, Goblins! is another. Then there's this comic:http://www.daughterofthelilies.com/
Where one of the main 4 characters is a Lawul-Good Orc.

So if you want examples they are out there, you just need to look for them. A trying to defend or excuse Thog doesn't help your cause (IMO) more than using a different character would.



For most of the comic they were very similar- I think Belkar might have even started off as CE as well. He's recently been showing some improvement on the morality-front, but it's definitely a recent development. If Belkar had been part of the Linear Guild and Thog had been with Order of the Stick would Thog's temperament have improved? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't excuse the fact that he was/is unrepentingly evil in his own right.


Elan definitely isn't lawful- Haley makes the comment at one point that he's more like her than Roy. I don't recall offhand his exact alignment (and I'm to lazy to go to the character-stats thread and look it up) but he's at most Neutral-good and possible even Chaotic Good, similar to Haley (who's merely Chaotic-goodish).



Lead by whom? The Giant has said that most of her positive traits are thanks to Shojo's guidance and mentorship. The quote is something like "he was the tape the held her together, which is why she went to pieces when it was pulled off".

Orcs and Goblins aren't an 'always evil' race. Not in 3e anyway. I didnt read anything after correcting you.

[8BitNinja]

It's probably a thing that's done to allow for cool Smite Evil type skills to apply to those enemies, even if they themselves aren't technically mindful enough to be Evil.



Yeah, first of all, consider having a conversation with a person who's actually intellectually disabled sometime - which is, incidentally, the actual word that they prefer you use, as the other one is staggeringly insulting. Second of all, intellectually disabled people can be manipulated into committing some awful things due to their lack of understanding of a situation and/or learning that they must be compliant at all times, but that is not the situation with Thog. Thog enjoys and initiates Evil acts and understands full well that other people are being hurt and just doesn't care because he finds it entertaining. Could Roy's influence have potentially changed that? Eh, maybe, in the sense that I believe that anyone is potentially redeemable. But if so, it'd be because of that second fact, not because of Thog's Int score. It'd have been "Thog learns to care about other people and respect their right to exist," similar to Belkar, not "Thog learns the reality of what he's doing."

And un-awakened animals always have Int scores of lower than 3, making them incapable of having an alignment, again by the rules.

Retard/Retarded is an actual medical term.

[DaggerPen]

Retard/Retarded is an actual medical term.

So were "idiot", "imbecile", "feeble-minded" and "moron", once upon a time. Language evolves. You're really, really not going to find many people in the intellectually disabled community using that as the term. You can do some reading on something called the "euphemism treadmill" if you're curious.

[Jasdoif]

Actually, now that I think about it, none of the most Chaotic-Evil characters who've had significant screen-time (Belkar, Thog, Crystal) display particularly astounding mental stats.

What, exactly, do you think constitutes a display of "particularly astounding mental stats"? And Crystal's Neutral Evil, anyway.

[Lord Raziere]

My 2 cents on this discussion:

1. if you want a good orc hero in literature, check out the series literally called Orcs by Stan Nicohls. It has a protagonist by the name of Stryke, leading an orcish warband that fights against an evil sorceress, said orcish warband also has a dwarf accepted into their ranks who is just one of their friends.

2. I'd consider Xykon a smart chaotic evil myself. He knows what he wants, how to get it and what price to pay, and is willing to pay it. He knows exactly what kind of person he is, being fully aware that is the most card-carrying villain on the face of the planet and is perfectly ok with it, revels in it, takes advantage of it, and how to play it out for his advantage. I wouldn't put his Int very high, but his Cha must be really high for him to cast his spells and his Wisdom must be real good in my opinion. He notices things, he is real street-smart as opposed to book smart, he knows when to stop being flashy and stylish and just defeat his opponent with pure force, and he knows that he isn't good at long term planning or being subtle so he sticks to his guns and lets Redcloak handle those things. He is aware of his situation to a noticeable degree, enough to make him far more dangerous than your average B-List Mustache-Twirler. Its why he is the big bad: you don't get to this status without learning to avoid some of the weaknesses of lesser villains.

And as Start of Darkness shows:

Spoiler

Show

there is some things he does prepare on, and there is times where he has a plan not because of Int but because of Wis. Where he was aware of how everyone would act in the situation he was in: he knew that Dorukan would be lured out by Lirian. He knew Right-Eye would try to betray him, and he knew Redcloak would kill his brother to make the plan go through no matter the cost, and even if RC didn't do as he bet he would, he had a back up plan just in case. Then he knew what to say to Redcloak to make him keep going along with his plan while still rubbing how far he has fallen in his face. No amount of Int will allow you to do that.

Finally, Xykon knows how to balance pleasure with pragmatism. When to stop having fun, when to start, things like that.

3. Int and Wis have no connection to morality however. If that was true, Vaarsuvius would be far better than mere Neutral and would've never made the choice to go through the soul-dealy thing that they regret now, and Redcloak- being a character with REALLY high stats in Int, Wis AND Cha- would be the most moral character in the comic, but, he is Lawful Evil. and then is ol' Tarquin's scores, he can't have done it without some Wis, and his knowledge of many different kinds of fighting speaks of some Int, while everyone in Elan's family has good Cha, and we all know how evil he is.

All Int and Wis do is determine how much information you have and how sophisticated your decision making is. and you can do Good even if your lacking info and can't make real sophisticate decisions, its just that you'll probably end up making a lot of mistakes that you'll have to fix because of it. Heroes being too stupid or unaware to figure out what they breaking and reaping the consequences of doing so is a common trope after all.

[Deepbluediver]

Orcs and Goblins aren't an 'always evil' race. Not in 3e anyway. I didnt read anything after correcting you.

I don't recall saying anything about 3rd-edition? I only said they were always-evil in LotR, which AFAIK is true.

What, exactly, do you think constitutes a display of "particularly astounding mental stats"? And Crystal's Neutral Evil, anyway.

I don't know exactly, but Crystal, Thog, and Belkar are all called out as being below-average in at least some mental stats.

Int and Wis have no connection to morality however.

I was more interested in the correlation between morality and PERSONALITY, not morality and stats. The latter argument has already been done to death.

[Peelee]

Actually, now that I think about it, none of the most Chaotic-Evil characters who've had significant screen-time (Belkar, Thog, Crystal) display particularly astounding mental stats.

Excepting the most Chaotic-Evil character with the most significant screen-time, I'm assuming?

[tsj]

Deepbluediver:
Yes Tolkien had a huge impact on fantasy.
He invented non green orks.
That is why I consider SRD orks to be Tolkien orks.
Even if SRD orks can have green pigmentation.
They are nothing more than monsters in my opinion
Thog might be supposed to be half orc. But he is drawn as a green (warcraft) orc and I view him as such.
Consider also that SRD orks are always evil.
SRD half-orcs are supposed to be ashamed of being part ork.

The (proper) green orks are already covered in other universes such as war craft and war craft has a d20 book that can be used in d&d3.5.

[Mightymosy]

The negative energy plane isn't evil. If you can survive being there, your good-typed spells will be just as powerful, your evil-typed spells no more powerful. (Compare to Hades, where good-typed spells are weakened and evil-typed spells are enhanced.) If you go to the negative energy plane without negative energy protection you'll keel over quickly from the ambient negative energy, but you'll die quickly on the positive energy plane too (one quickly reduces your hit points, the other heals you to full...and when you're fully healed and it tries to heal you further, you explode).

Whaaaaaat?

I have always found the hitpoint-concept a bit unrealistic, but a necessary evil for easier game-playing, but charging up to the top and exploding drives the concept of humanoid batteries to a hilarious extreme

Awesome.

[Mightymosy]

Actually, now that I think about it, none of the most Chaotic-Evil characters who've had significant screen-time (Belkar, Thog, Crystal) display particularly astounding mental stats. It might be interesting to explore a little how The Giant (or other writers) use and/or subvert certain fantasy tropes, and how alignment determines personality and vice-versa. Everything below is obviously just what I think, but I'm putting this disclaimer here so I don't have to add "IMO" and "personally I believe..." to every line.


One of the best ways to show that a character has high Intelligence in writing or in movies (aside from having them spout some random scientific mumbo-jumbo) is usually to have them craft ridiculously complicated plans. Nale and Shojo are the best examples in this strip. So in fiction, "smart" frequently means the man-with-the-plan, or a long term thinker.

By contrast, the best way to describe the personality of a CE character is hedonistic- they do what they want in the moment. I want icecream? I eat icecream. I want to kill that guy? I kill that guy. If I can get icecream fastest by killing some guys I'll do both. Etc etc etc. So chaotic-evil characters are less likely to be the ones making plans, especially if they are in a group with characters who's defining trait is "smart" or "leader".

For a good example of a "smart" chaotic-evil character I tend to think of the Joker (sorry to step outside of OotS for a moment). I know some people complain that comic-book plans frequently rely on absurdly unlikely series of random events, but I have a different theory. The Joker (and characters like him I guess) doesn't have a plan- he's just really really adaptable. And then when a series of events lines up in his favor, he claims afterwards that that was the plan all along.


I'm not really sure I was trying to reach any conclusions here- these are just a few thoughts I had. Anyone else want to weigh-in?

I think your description of "smart chaotic evil" meaning "smart to adapt" fits pretty well with Xykon.

It also fits very well with Tarquin, but I think Tarquin is more lawful evil, because planning and adhering to some kind of personal code is much of his schtick.

Sometimes it's hard to put characters with different aspects into a scheme with 2 nominal dimensions of 3 expressions each.
-> 9 possible classifications are sometimes not enough to describe the multitude of aspects of characters in detail.

More specifically, I always find it hard to peg down an alignment when a character shows traits of different descriptions.
For example, how about a character that follows a strict personal code, but leaves a mess wherever he goes, because he is just not putting things in order?