From: covin@tartarus.uchicago.edu (David Covin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Intelligent opponents (was Re: Lich & Demi-Lich...)
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:14:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: despair.COVIN.92Oct16141417
	<9OCT199223095035@juliet.caltech.edu> <Bw64A9.30t.2@cs.cmu.edu>
	<Bw6G46.D0q@acsu.buffalo.edu> <1992Oct16.120625.20274@ugle.unit.no>
Organization: University of Chicago Computer Science

In article <1992Oct16.120625.20274@ugle.unit.no> brunborg@solan.unit.no (]dne Brunborg) writes:

>Concidering the fact that liches are undead, means that they are connected to
>the Negative Material Plane, and (the way I see it) will eventually be turned
>chaotic evil. 

So it's about Undead Alignment.  And, if you will, racism in AD&D.

I will grant you that, except for the more recent fiction
concentrating on the erotic and sensual aspects to the exclusion of
most else, vampires, werewolves, and similar creatures of the night
are generally portrayed in legend and story as being *cursed* beings,
unhappy, tormented, for whom death is a welcome release.  Dracula,
and the unlucky werewolf, were seen to lament the fate that turned
them into ravening, unthinking beasts, killing their own loved ones
in a frenzy of bloodlust.

Being the unwilling instrument of violent death to your family and
friends is a horrible curse, and one can certainly understand their
being angst-ridden and suicidal.  However, "sorrowful" /= "evil."
AD&D glosses over the whole vampire angst schtick, and just declares,
"you are now EVIL.  Put on your EVIL t-shirt and start thinking 
nasty thoughts," with no further ado.  If you are a vampire, you
become-- *Poof*!-- EVIL.  If you are a werewolf, you become-- *Poof*!
-- EVIL.  And, the former poster argues, if you are a lich, you
become-- *Poof*!-- EVIL.  Bye-bye free will.

Now, to me, there's nothing tragic about an evil werewolf, vampire,
or lich.  It kills people, you kill it, that's the end.  Maybe AD&D
is supposed to be that way-- no moral ambiguity that might lead to
charges of corrupting the youth... But, I don't find it very
interesting.  Might as well be playing nethack, which I can do
whenever I feel like it, without worrying about other people's
schedules... 

What's tragic is good people under an evil curse.  You are not evil,
but you hunger for blood; eventually, the bloodlust drives you into
an unthinking frenzy and you kill someone.  Now what?  You know that
if you continue this way, you'll kill again.  And again.  And again.

Now you come to an alignment crisis.  You were a paladin-- pledged
to defend life and uphold the ideals of your god.  You are no paladin
now-- knowing you are tainted with evil, you are too overcome with
shame to face your god.  You have not been to church since it started.
You tried to pray, but broke down crying, and could not continue.
You must end your existence now, or kill again.

So, paladins don't last as vampires, or as werewolves.  By some
supreme act of will, they either achieve a cure or die nobly,
resisting the curse that tries to twist their very body to evil ends.
But this is no act of magic, that unwillingly changes their alignment.
It's simply that paladins, once infected, often kill themselves.  Most
"Good" aligned persons, if their will is strong enough, will seek
this solution to spare the world the horror that they would otherwise
perpetrate.  And people who were "Chaotic-Evil" to start with, before
infection, just won't care.

Others will seek a middle ground... and some may find it.

The way I see it, *being* a vampire, werewolf, werefrog, ghost, etc.
doesn't make you evil.  However, *remaining* such a creature, and
accepting that your continued life means that others must continue
to die, may be an evil act.  It's the acceptance of killing that's
the problem, not some "evil taint" in your blood.

Even the killing need not be evil.  Read S.P. Somtow's "Moon Dance"
for a portrayal of True Neutral werewolves.  They prey on human
flesh; but only on the old and sickly, and only on those who have 
chosen to give themselves to the wolves voluntarily, so that they
will no longer drain the resources of the tribe.  The same story
contains a group of Chaotic Evil werewolves, too, who belive simply
that being a werewolf means being a killer, and that in living they
accept that role for themselves, and kill without compunction.

It does make sense to me that most of those who come to accept life
as a werewolf or vampire will embrace killing and become chaotic
evil-- simple moral cowardice will lead many to this choice.  But
there is room for other choices.  Free will is retained.  You only
become evil if you *choose* to do so.  You may feel the choice is
inevitable-- but if so, it is only so for *you*; another person could
choose differently.

(Mind you, DMs should certainly lay heavy guilt-trips on undead or
lycanthrope PCs.  But if the character is noble and the player is
clever, it should be possible for the PC to come to terms with his
or her new nature, in a way that won't *necessarily* lead to an
evil alignment.  *Particularly* in AD&D-- "I've been killing orcs
all of my existence.  Before, I chopped their heads off; now, I drink
their blood.  How is this any worse?")

What does this say about liches?  Well, why would a lich become evil?
So that their soul may mirror their outward appearance?  (This is
not a trivial reason.  "I look like a monster, people recoil from me
in horror and treat me like a monster-- guess I should act like a
monster, too.")  Because the process of becoming a lich requires
such unconcern for the normal values of mortal life that liches have
no common ground with mortals?  Because becoming a lich requires 
killing fellow mortals in large numbers? ("For this ritual, take
13 still-beating human hearts, and...")  These are all excellent
reasons.  "Contact with the negative material plane," to my mind, is
not.  "Well, you feel chilly and uncomfortable all the time, so you
become evil."

--
David Covin                           covin@despair.uchicago.edu
Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA