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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Yeah, I think I'd be in that last group. The only things I can imagine that would be unforgivable are things which are actively, willfully ongoing. It's too easy for me to imagine someone doing something, however horrible, then having their mind be effectively completely rewritten (instantly, through 1000 years of atonement, whatever), and then being asked to believe that even despite that, I should hold that previous act undertaken by a radically different persona against the new persona - just because it happens to be inhabiting the same flesh/mind/soul/whatever as the old one.

    On the other hand, if you change the persona like that, and the new one refuses to stop doing the continuing horrible thing, that takes it into a realm where I can start to imagine 'unforgivable' . And even then, for me it'd need to be something purely willful, where the person could actually do differently without any real consequence but still chooses to do the horrible thing. OOC at least (I'm not a paladin after all) I'm willing to at least entertain the argument that there are situations in which something horrible happens to a few people but a much larger number of people are prevented from coming to harm by it.

    So what I'm looking for if I'm going to judge someone 'unforgivable' is a willful, continuing set of acts of horribleness that could be avoided but where the person is choosing to do so anyhow.
    If you're "completely rewriting" the person, then perhaps yes,they could be forgiven. But that's introducing a new scenario, not proving the existing one "bad." Besides, a lich who was willing to go to such lengths to preserve his own existence would consider such a death of personality at least as unacceptable as actual final death.

    The idea behind the utterly reprehensible act which must be committed to become a lich is that you can't do it and be a good person. You can't even be neutral and engage in such willful evil, even once.

    Sure, you can construct odd corner cases around this, but they generally are going to involve incredible ignorance or effectively destroying the lich who did it. Want your excuse for a "good lich" who was born as one because the old one's mind was completely replaced by this new, genuinely nice and kind person? Okay, go for it.

  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    If you're "completely rewriting" the person, then perhaps yes,they could be forgiven. But that's introducing a new scenario, not proving the existing one "bad." Besides, a lich who was willing to go to such lengths to preserve his own existence would consider such a death of personality at least as unacceptable as actual final death.

    The idea behind the utterly reprehensible act which must be committed to become a lich is that you can't do it and be a good person. You can't even be neutral and engage in such willful evil, even once.

    Sure, you can construct odd corner cases around this, but they generally are going to involve incredible ignorance or effectively destroying the lich who did it. Want your excuse for a "good lich" who was born as one because the old one's mind was completely replaced by this new, genuinely nice and kind person? Okay, go for it.

    For some reason, certain worldbuilders (authors or game setting creators or whoever) who are willing to introduce all sorts of elements that would -- if actually followed through to their logical conclusion -- utterly change the setting into something unlike the real world and unlike what the worldbuilder ends up presenting to us, and who are so often willing to ignore in part or in total the implications of those elements...

    ...are absolutely against including any form of immortality or agelessness that isn't totally and irredeemable evil. As if protagonists and allies not eventually dying of old age would uniquely shatter the setting or make it completely untenable.

    "Here's a form of magic that would triple the yield of crops and can be cast without drawbacks by 1/5th of the population... but I'm still going to present a society of landbound serfs under yearly threat of starvation, with 95% of the population involved in farming. Wait, you think I should include possible agelessness for people who aren't evil? That would make the setting totally illogical and destroy the moral fabric of the tale!"

    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-03-29 at 10:05 AM.
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  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    "Here's a form of magic that would triple the yield of crops and can be cast without drawbacks by 1/5th of the population... but I'm still going to present a society of landbound serfs under yearly threat of starvation, with 95% of the population involved in farming. Wait, you think I should include possible agelessness for people who aren't evil? That would make the setting totally illogical and destroy the moral fabric of the tale!"

    In fairness immortality can be done in a few ways in fiction. You can go the undead monster with liches, vampires, and other assorted gribblies. All of them are monsters of one sort or another. One of other methods is being sufficiently awesome like the Eight Immortals from Taoist beliefs, who are immortal by virtue of being awesome Taoists. Eberron takes a third route with the Undying Court of Aerenal. They aren't undead perse and are created via some kind of religious devotion on the part of the elves where the court as a whole is effectively treated as a deity for the purposes of the game. Eberron also doesn't tend towards alignment absolutes for creatures (good red dragon, evil gold dragons for example) even if it uses the alignment system in descriptive rather than prescriptive way.

    In comparison the lich is basically side stepping the whole learn how to do stuff and be meditative and calm to achieve a higher state of being, and just decide they'll do something horrific to gain immortality and damn the consequences.

    I kind of like the idea that at least part of the ritual for lichdom involves tricking another person to willing take the lich's place in the after life.
    Last edited by Beleriphon; 2017-03-29 at 10:32 AM.

  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Unoriginal View Post
    Err, while I agree that there is a place for black-and-white morality in fiction, you choose a pretty terrible exemple.

    Warhammer is NOT a black-and-white morality setting. Some witch hunters are actually protecting the situations from threats, others are pretty much horrible people who commit horrific acts out of fanaticism or sadism.
    That is because I did not use Warhammer as an example of black and white morality, but rather as an example of a setting that forces us to suspend our real world morality.
    It always amazes me how often people on forums would rather accuse you of misreading their posts with malice than re-explain their ideas with clarity.

  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vitruviansquid View Post
    That is because I did not use Warhammer as an example of black and white morality, but rather as an example of a setting that forces us to suspend our real world morality.
    ...but it doesn't? Not really, at least. It's a grim world full of jerks and monsters, but they're judged by our standards as much as by the in-setting ones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    For some reason, certain worldbuilders (authors or game setting creators or whoever) who are willing to introduce all sorts of elements that would -- if actually followed through to their logical conclusion -- utterly change the setting into something unlike the real world and unlike what the worldbuilder ends up presenting to us, and who are so often willing to ignore in part or in total the implications of those elements...

    ...are absolutely against including any form of immortality or agelessness that isn't totally and irredeemable evil. As if protagonists and allies not eventually dying of old age would uniquely shatter the setting or make it completely untenable.

    "Here's a form of magic that would triple the yield of crops and can be cast without drawbacks by 1/5th of the population... but I'm still going to present a society of landbound serfs under yearly threat of starvation, with 95% of the population involved in farming. Wait, you think I should include possible agelessness for people who aren't evil? That would make the setting totally illogical and destroy the moral fabric of the tale!"

    For what it's worth, DnD 3.X, 4e and 5e all includes options for immortality that are *not* totally and irredeemably evil.
    Last edited by Unoriginal; 2017-03-29 at 11:27 AM.

  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Don't Lichs have to to like commit mass murder to become a lich or something? Like the ritual to split the soul is evil isn't it?

  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Part of the reason why immortality requires "irredeemable evil" from a narrative standpoint is simply the question of why anybody would bother with the "evil version" if a non-evil version (which wouldn't get do-gooders trying to thwart your attempt, nor get people seeking revenge on you for doing it) existed.

    This can be answered a few ways, but the essence of them all will come down to the evil version being easier or costing the user less. But, for that to work, the requisite "evil cost" must be something that isn't too onerous to pay in terms of things the evil jerk who uses it would care about. Every day, he has to cast a spell that kills a random person in the world, but he doesn't have to know nor care who it is nor have them in his power? Sure, why not? It requires you find a new body, belonging to somebody young and with physical features you like, every few decades? That probably is okay, too. Every day, he has to consume the life force of a helpless person of his race? That's a bit more iffy, because it means an exotic food supply that tends to make others mad and get you on hit lists. Not to mention the sheer expense of keeping it going.

    It requires a singularly evil act, once? Okay, that might we worth doing, since it is a one-and-done deal. As long as the non-evil immortality solutions don't cost even less.

    Elans are a non-evil solution for immortality, but the cost to the character is high if not insurmountable. If non-human, the would-be elan is just plain out of luck. If human, the would-be elan - even if the costs to pay for the ritual are negligible for some reason - has to give up all the power and skill he's accumulated throughout his life and start over. He may or may not lose enough memories for those who believe memories make the man to declare him a different person. But he's giving up a LOT and essentially starting over.

    Lich-based immortality has an additional attractive edge: you come back from anything that tries to kill you, even if it succeeds in destroying your body entirely. So unique features like that could make "evil" immortality more attractive than non-evil.


    If immortality has a non-evil solution which is cost effective compared to evil versions, then it makes little sense for people to use evil versions. As "the quest for immortality" is a prime villain motivation, it behooves writers to keep it as something that there's a reason to oppose causing to happen.

  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Rowling goes down the same road with "wicked immortality" and "an unspeakably evil act", and it gets tedious.

    Somehow, I'm not impressed by being told that an act is so evil that you can't tell us what it is. Between reality and imagination, the whole notion rings hollow.
    You wouldn't like Planescape Torment then lol

    I find this very similar to the question "What would a paladin do if he met the Nameless One?". Imagine a saintly Nameless One. A sincerely, deeply caring individual. Who just happens to be damned for all time no matter what he does. Someone who did something in the past so evil and wrong that no matter how much time he spends trying to behave he won't ever make a dent.
    The evil mark on him would be unbearable for a Paladin to sense, and yet the Paladin (who is - largely speaking - a human being) would probably also realise that the guy standing in front of him lives in total, complete remorse and that it's been millennia since he last did anything remotely evil.

    Honestly it wouldn't be wrong to call a Paladin sticking his flaming sword into such a creature's chest "murderer".

  9. - Top - End - #99
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by LughSpear View Post
    Don't Lichs have to to like commit mass murder to become a lich or something?
    In 5e, you have to commit mass murder to *keep* being a Lich, as you need to eat souls regularly. The process of transforming into a Lich involves charming little things like bargaining with evil entities to even learn how to do the ritual, which most likely will leave the caster heavily indebted to them, and then you have to kill yourself by ingesting a mix of poison and the blood of a sapient creature whose soul you're destroying.

  10. - Top - End - #100
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    If you're "completely rewriting" the person, then perhaps yes,they could be forgiven. But that's introducing a new scenario, not proving the existing one "bad." Besides, a lich who was willing to go to such lengths to preserve his own existence would consider such a death of personality at least as unacceptable as actual final death.
    The instant complete rewrite is primarily a thought experiment for me to determine whether I could imagine forgiveness as possible or not. If I accept that people change, I have to accept that its at least conceivably possible for people to change by an arbitrary amount. Furthermore, it makes clear that the 'unforgivableness' is more tied to the presence or absence of significant change in the actor than anything to do with the historical fact that a particular action was taken at some point in the past.

    That is to say, what is the mental process I go through when I decide that I do not forgive someone? It's because I feel as though a person's past actions predict their future behavior, and so learning or experiencing something negative about them at one point means that I protect myself by thinking of them as someone who would do that particular thing again. So then forgiveness means reaching a point where I am willing to believe that the person is not particularly likely to do that kind of horrible thing again.

    People change significantly on decadal timescales just as a byproduct of living their life - after a hundred of those intervals, I'd gues most personae will have quietly 'died' while the person wasn't looking if you start talking about lifespans in the millennia. If I found out that someone committed mass murder when they were 15, got locked away in jail, found they were immortal somewhere along the way, then spent the next, say, thousand years being an upstanding citizen and helping people without any particular spots on their record or indications of backsliding, yeah, I'd probably be prepared to forgive them the mass murder. The observations of a thousand years of consistent behavior would be a stronger indication to me of their character than the one historical event. I'd want to know 'hey, what was up with that?', but if I got responses that indicated a believable trajectory of personal change, sure, no reason to treat them like the person they used to be.

    But if they said 'no reason, just haven't felt like it recently' then maybe not so much forgiveness there. There's a wide gulf between 'forgiveness is possible' and 'I choose to forgive', and part of bridging that is giving me what I need to adapt my beliefs about the person.

    The idea behind the utterly reprehensible act which must be committed to become a lich is that you can't do it and be a good person. You can't even be neutral and engage in such willful evil, even once.

    Sure, you can construct odd corner cases around this, but they generally are going to involve incredible ignorance or effectively destroying the lich who did it. Want your excuse for a "good lich" who was born as one b Aecause the old one's mind was completely replaced by this new, genuinely nice and kind person? Okay, go for it.
    When we get to cosmic alignment as opposed to forgiveness, there's something dissociated involved. If you want to say 'anyone who does this act has their soul irreversibly tainted by evil, so no matter what they do they will go to the lower planes when they are destroyed, will always ping as evil, etc' then sure, I can buy that. The same way that getting a big radiation dose and then spending the rest of my life being really cautious about radiation safety won't remove the genetic damage. But then the result is a setup where I'm more inclined to treat cosmic alignments of all sorts as unfortunate afflictions and not indications of how I should regard that individual in my interactions with them. But that opens the can of worms that in such a world, picking a side between Good and Evil and making decisions based on that would potentially be a pretty willfully evil thing to do (in the ethical or moral sense). In such a world, I could imagine that I could forgive the lich their single act of unspeakable evil, but the paladin might be the one who is beyond forgiveness (in the sense that they've actively committed to a continuing pattern of behavior that I would expect to bring them into moral conflict with me at some future point).

  11. - Top - End - #101
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Because its not "just" the act of murder, something you are yourself making disturbingly light of. Murder is the first part, but then theres some other non-specified part that that does the actual transferring of your soul to the object, and THAT is the part that is nausea-inducing.
    Gas chambers aren't unspeakable. I really, really have an intellectual problem with the idea of an unspeakable crime or process when the holocaust isn't unspeakable.

    Rowling telling her editor and the editor going "no, you can't put that in print" I can well believe, some of her pen-name books are pretty sadistic.
    Last edited by halfeye; 2017-03-29 at 01:06 PM.
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  12. - Top - End - #102
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Forgiveness is an interesting concept, that probably goes beyond the scope of this forum to discuss. You can forgive somebody for anything. Whether they are truly able to atone for it, however, is another matter. Can they make it up?

    In a sense, murder is almost irredeemable in that regard: you cannot bring the slain back to life. Torture is also pretty tricky: you cannot undo the torment they endured. And trying might be, in a way, worse, since memory modification is pretty scary stuff and of questionable acceptability.


    In some faiths, actually being relieved of the burden of one's sins is beyond the power of mortal men to achieve on their own; it requires a divine gift.

    The question over whether that gift alone is enough, or an actual demonstration of effort to make up for it as far as the sinner is able is required, is a dividing line amongst a few denominations of those faiths.


    D&D 3e (and earlier editions) has the atonement spell, which can restore alignment after the target has done something to undergo a change of heart. Perhaps, then, the lich who has truly changed from the being who was willing to engage in that vile act and has done all he could to make up for ever having done it would be able to achieve a Good alignment if he received atonement from a Good cleric.

    The point I keep trying to make, and am not sure I'm making clearly enough, is that the lich, having been willing to engage in the "unspeakably evil" act, is evil. His willingness to do it and his willful execution of it damns him. Changing later is hard, if possible at all. But there's no "well, I'll do it, then I'll repent for it and be Good again" plan that works the way it's planned. It's harder to have a real change of heart when you went into something knowing you would need to have one after you'd done it.

  13. - Top - End - #103
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    In a sense, murder is almost irredeemable in that regard: you cannot bring the slain back to life.
    Yeah, but that doesn't really apply to D&D
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  14. - Top - End - #104
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Unoriginal View Post
    In 5e, you have to commit mass murder to *keep* being a Lich, as you need to eat souls regularly. The process of transforming into a Lich involves charming little things like bargaining with evil entities to even learn how to do the ritual, which most likely will leave the caster heavily indebted to them, and then you have to kill yourself by ingesting a mix of poison and the blood of a sapient creature whose soul you're destroying.
    So basically a knockoff of the Emperor from WH40k?
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  15. - Top - End - #105
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    So basically a knockoff of the Emperor from WH40k?
    Not really, no.

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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    In 5e, liches trade being ugly and having a more severe hunger (they MUST kill their victims) for being able to go out in the sunlight, compared to vampires. I'm not sure that's worth it.

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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    In 5e, liches trade being ugly and having a more severe hunger (they MUST kill their victims) for being able to go out in the sunlight, compared to vampires. I'm not sure that's worth it.
    They also got to stay themselves.

    Their horrible, evil selves.

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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    So basically a knockoff of the Emperor from WH40k?
    At a certain point the Emperor of Mankind isn't actually being given a choice in his current state. By all accounts he knew Horus would kill him and then he'd be reborn as something more necessary to guide mankind than a warrior king.

  19. - Top - End - #109
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Forgiveness is an interesting concept, that probably goes beyond the scope of this forum to discuss. You can forgive somebody for anything. Whether they are truly able to atone for it, however, is another matter. Can they make it up?

    In a sense, murder is almost irredeemable in that regard: you cannot bring the slain back to life. Torture is also pretty tricky: you cannot undo the torment they endured. And trying might be, in a way, worse, since memory modification is pretty scary stuff and of questionable acceptability.


    In some faiths, actually being relieved of the burden of one's sins is beyond the power of mortal men to achieve on their own; it requires a divine gift.

    The question over whether that gift alone is enough, or an actual demonstration of effort to make up for it as far as the sinner is able is required, is a dividing line amongst a few denominations of those faiths.


    D&D 3e (and earlier editions) has the atonement spell, which can restore alignment after the target has done something to undergo a change of heart. Perhaps, then, the lich who has truly changed from the being who was willing to engage in that vile act and has done all he could to make up for ever having done it would be able to achieve a Good alignment if he received atonement from a Good cleric.

    The point I keep trying to make, and am not sure I'm making clearly enough, is that the lich, having been willing to engage in the "unspeakably evil" act, is evil. His willingness to do it and his willful execution of it damns him. Changing later is hard, if possible at all. But there's no "well, I'll do it, then I'll repent for it and be Good again" plan that works the way it's planned. It's harder to have a real change of heart when you went into something knowing you would need to have one after you'd done it.
    This gets into that dissociation between cosmic alignment and on-the-ground ethics of people. If Evil is thrown around by cosmic forces in too definitional a way, it risks losing meaning as actually being 'bad'.

    In a fantasy setting there can certainly be an objectively verifiable god handing down judgements which anyone can go and look up with the right spell. But if those judgements don't actually correlate with how the judged behave, they don't really mean much. In that sense, someone could be Evil but still be the kind of person you want in your community, looking after your kids, etc; while someone Good could end up being a monster as long as they took pains to do so in a cosmically-approved way.

    An interesting variant would be if alignment is explicitly infallibly prescient - someone who will murder but hasn't is exactly as Evil as someone who murdered before. That'd present a bit of complexity to the 'ongoing' thing - I don't have a good answer to how I'd reason about forgiveness in such a world.

  20. - Top - End - #110
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    The idea is less that the atonement (spell or otherwise) is necessary to satisfy some arbitrary cosmic "because I said so" alignment, and more that it's the final "cleanser" to wipe away whatever metaphysical stains of the alignment(s) you're swearing off might still have on your soul based on your past actions.

    So, for example, if a free spirit with a kindly heart broke laws for the good of those he could see based on his own judgment because he found rules to be getting in the way of what was right were to undergo a slow change of heart - perhaps because he saw one too many times how his failure to adhere to the rules led to circumstances he couldn't foresee, but which the rules were put in place to handle - and he also started to realize that his kindness was being exploited by those who may not deserve it, and was unintentionally harming people who he felt "deserved it" when, again, he really didn't know...

    ...if this free spirit slowly started to believe that the rules are there for a reason, and that fair application of them to all regardless of how a kind and generous heart would like to handle it is the only way to prevent greater misery and unhappiness brought about by disorder, I'd argue that he's sliding from CG to LN. Definitely a well-meaning LN, but LN nonetheless.

    If he were a well-meaning LN who found himself working with the LE church of Hextor, and wanted to join their clergy, he probably would need an Atonement, despite being LN now, for his past Chaotic and Good deeds before he could really take on the mantle of Hextor's power. Again, this isn't an arbitrary "Hextor says so" thing, but a statement about the condition of his soul: it is still stained by the Chaos and Good he once performed with great zeal. He lacks the power to release them. The atonement spell, therefore, wipes away those actions' metaphysical connection to him. Yes, he still did them, but they no longer have power over him.

    Like a Paladin who cannot have his powers while a Chaotic deed rests upon his soul, this now-LN would-be cleric of Hextor couldn't become a cleric of Hextor with the Chaotic and Good deeds in his soul. Hextor's pure LE power couldn't flow through him with those obstructive stains there.

    It doesn't matter how long you stay out of the mud if you never bathe after having been wallowing in it, after all: you're still dirty.

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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    In 5e, liches trade being ugly and having a more severe hunger (they MUST kill their victims) for being able to go out in the sunlight, compared to vampires. I'm not sure that's worth it.
    Especially not if Reincarnate is still on the table (Is it? I'm not familiar with 5E Reincarnate). That's the funny thing about all the extreme immortality methods in 3.5 / PF - you can just reincarnate your way back to adult age periodically and live forever. Sure, Druids might not be on board if they knew your plan, but that's what scrolls (or deception, mind control, etc) are for.

    But even in that context, Lich made sense for a certain type of person, because it was the ultimate in self-sufficiency. You don't have to mess around with other people, or remembering to do anything, the rest of the world could be destroyed and you'd still last forever. And you come back from destruction without any allies helping you, which is handy.

    If you're that highly reliant on victims, it pretty much negates that. Maybe if it was easy to do - something a Wizard who wasn't powerful enough to stockpile Reincarnations could still manage - then it would serve that purpose. Not sure I like Liches being the chump option though.
    Last edited by icefractal; 2017-03-29 at 02:58 PM.

  22. - Top - End - #112
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by MonkeySage View Post
    If a lich is the legitimate ruler of a kingdom, has not violated the laws of the kingdom, and treats their people fairly enough (for an evil creature)... What is a paladin to do in this situation if:
    They live in this kingdom?
    They visit this kingdom?
    The lich visits their country?

    In neither country is being a lich necessarily illegal.
    In the World of Greyhawk an evil physical god ruled as a sovereign in the Empire of Iuz, so this scenario has a solid pedigree in D&D. Ravenloft is based on the assumption that a vampire was competently governing his homeland. I'm not sure about Forgotten Realms or Eberron, but I am hopeful that another denizen of the Playground will provide an example for those settings.

    I am assuming that the Lich-King is legally recognized as a bonefide ruler (a formal title and is treated as a sovereign... however reluctantly... by other heads of state in the setting and the like) I am assuming further that the Lich-King is ruling over a functioning state (businesses run, crops are harvested, a stable standing army, treaties and trade agreements are enforced, a functioning court system, and the like.) The state would likely be oppressive and likely conform to the Crapsack World trope from TV Tropes, but I also assume it is a functioning society.

    I am also assuming a state of relative peace, because if the paladin were from a nation that had declared war on the lich's state, or if the paladin were part of a faction of a declared civil war, the paladin would be free to kill the lich on sight.

    I'll leave the matter of the lich's phylactery aside for the moment and assume that killing him (however temporarily) and taking over his administration would effectively depose him. While the lich was reforming his body, there would be plenty of time to coronate a different head of state.

    In my setting, a paladin would be expected to treat a sovereign who is a lich the same way as any other problematic sovereign. The paladin would seek to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

    Part of the paladin's code is to Respect Legitimate Authority. Therefore, assassination would be off the table for a paladin. And by that, I mean I would make it clear to the paladin's player that even an attempt at killing or deposing the lich-king would provoke a fall from grace. (Remember, if the paladin were at war with the lich, then the rules of engagement would be kill on sight.) Respect Legitimate Authority severely restricts a paladin's combat options against heads of state during peacetime.

    Deposing a sovereign... even a lich... would cause enough civil unrest to pose an immediate risk of killing thousands of citizens. A wave of people would likely be killed in the chaos that followed the loss of the sovereign... and the inability of the government to function would kill off thousands more in the interval between the destabilization of the lich government and the establishment of whatever government formed in the power vacuum left behind. And the power vacuum left behind would likely be a variation on the previous government.

    The scenario from the OP didn't provide for a True and Just King to step in and rule the land, so I'm not assuming that the oppressive lich-run government would be replaced with an Arthurian Fisher King constitutional monarchy. My assumption is that it would be the same Crap, put in a slightly different Sack.

    Having said all that, the paladin's right to self-defense would remain undiminished in the eyes of his divine higher power. If the Lich-King sent some mooks to kill the paladin, then the paladin could slay those mooks without fear of a fall from grace. In fact, the paladin would be within his rights to have the mooks' corpses delivered to the Lich-King so that they might be buried with full military honors.

    Resident Paladins would be expected to serve as loyal opposition to the Lich-King by day and to function as The Resistance in the shadows. These paladins would be expected to speak truth to power and call out the Lich-King every time he overstepped his authority. Player-character paladins would be allowed to ham this up and enjoy it. Local paladins would petition the Lich-King to use his power for the maximum social good, and to make sure he knew that there were judgmental eyes on him at all times.

    Visiting Paladins would serve as either official or unofficial diplomats from their homelands, they would also apply pressure to the Lich-King and his administration to rule wisely and would work tirelessly to prevent and avert a war. And unofficially, the visiting paladins would also help whatever Resistance was in place, including but in no way limited to facilitating the freeing of slaves and the expatriation of the oppressed. Visiting paladins would also publicly embarrass the Lich-King, within the limits of social decorum, by example. Kittens would be rescued from trees. Maidens would be escorted safely through streets. And bards would be deployed to sing of these good deeds. These Paladins would go full Boy Scout in public and dare anyone-- including the Lich-King-- to criticize them for it.

    When the Lich-King visited a paladin's homeland, the paladins might be tasked with assisting the Lich's guard to protect the Lich-King from assassination attempts. These paladins would press their home court advantage fully, also setting examples of conduct that made the Lich-King look like a schmuck by comparison. An assassination attempt would be out of the question, but angry villagers armed with rotten fruit would show up to pelt the Lich-King with eerie frequency and rotted fruit would be peculiarly handy. The Lich-King's guard would be prevented from retaliating against such villagers.
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  23. - Top - End - #113
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    As a 4th level Druid spell, reincarnate can be mimicked by limited wish, too, so even if you can't talk druids into helping with serial reincarnation schema, a wizard or sorcerer of higher level can arrange for it for his friends and business partners. More expensive (costs XP, or gp in PF, after all) but quite workable.

    Heck, a 20th level wizard in PF is able to sacrifice his 20th level feat for immortality. He stops aging and has no maximum age.

    Admittedly, lichdom kicks in as low as 11th level. Which is before even limited wish becomes available. Though a one-shot reincarnation chamber - perhaps some sort of sarcophagus - activated by a creature dying inside of it, would be 4*7*50+1000 = 1800 gp market price, and anybody with Craft Wondrous Item could theoretically make it, assuming they could make a DC 12 (if they have reincarnation) or 17 (if they don't) Spellcraft check.

    Arrange the least unpleasant way possible (without spending still more gp) to die inside the sarcophagus, and you have 1-off "return to young adulthood" as an item! Species may vary.

  24. - Top - End - #114
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Reincarnation doesn't help you live longer than your natural lifespan, aside from giving you your new form's lifespan.

  25. - Top - End - #115
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    I see nothing that says reincarnated creatures still die "when their time is up" or any other language implying a finite life span shorter than what an adult would expect to be left in his life at the apparent age of the new body.

    Heck, PF's version, at least, explicitly states it can bring back creatures that have died of old age.

  26. - Top - End - #116
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Even the 5e lich could potentially still swing goodness or at least neutrality if they were a demon hunter or somethig
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  27. - Top - End - #117
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I see nothing that says reincarnated creatures still die "when their time is up" or any other language implying a finite life span shorter than what an adult would expect to be left in his life at the apparent age of the new body.

    Heck, PF's version, at least, explicitly states it can bring back creatures that have died of old age.
    In 3.5, it explicitly cannot reverse death from old age. However given that the body is explicitly that of a "young adult" one could probably get around this by killing the intended target before they die of old age and then reincarnating them, rather than waiting for after the fact.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  28. - Top - End - #118
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    huh you come back as a young adult, i was thinking how weird it would be as a child to skip puberty and go straight to adulthood. Of course realistically a Troglodytes body is probably very different than a haflings possible more disconcerting than the difference between child an adult (mammal to reptile and all). Course d&d basically treats every species as an American in a funny hat so whatever.

  29. - Top - End - #119
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    How do we "know this"? Because a confused and repeatedly mind-magiced old man says so?
    Based on the rest of the narrative, he has to have been right, so this point is moot. Nothing in the books nor Rowling's own words actually contradict nor falsify this.

    ~1200 murders every day in the real world, and we know from the books the process requires a killing for every Horocrux... but that's somehow the detail that JKR is so reluctant to explain, and comparable to something that almost made her editor vomit? Really?
    No.

    What I've said several times is that the details you're referring to are not necessary for understanding why creating Horcrux is evil. The number of murders or speakability there of is irrelevant to what I'm saying.

    It's made out to be far more evil and repulsive than just the act of murder...
    Maybe, maybe not. Does not make it relevant, does not mean murder is not a vital component.

    In both cases, it's made out to be a remarkably evil act, and treated as "unspeakable". In both cases, the "mystery" doesn't make the act seem more evil, it's just eye-rollingly cliched.

    In both cases, if it were just killing someone as part of the ritual, then that could be said, but it's clearly not just killing someone.
    Yes, but in one case we know murder is vital component of the procedure, and that it leads to lasting metaphysical damage to one's soul, and that the only way to fix this damage is regret, so a Horcrux-using wizard by definition has to be an unrepentant murderer.

    Where as many versions of the Lich's phylactery don't include such details, which makes their evilness a much more mystifying quality.

    In short, based on known qualities of a Horcrux, there is no mystery to why a wizard using such is vile. The unknown traits of the ritual may make it more vile, they may not, but there's no room for arguing that creating Horcrux is totes okay, guys.

    Where as with a Lich's phylactery, there are no equivalent known traits.

    Do you actually disagree with this, or do you just want to complain about Rowling's squeamishness?
    Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2017-03-29 at 04:00 PM.

  30. - Top - End - #120
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    Default Re: If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Even the 5e lich could potentially still swing goodness or at least neutrality if they were a demon hunter or somethig
    No they couldn't.

    You have to do a lot of evil things to be a Lich, and keep doing them over and over.
    Last edited by Unoriginal; 2017-03-29 at 04:14 PM.

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