Alignment question

Since the Chosen of Eilistraee is a religious oriented player group, naturally there is a place to have theological discussions. That is in-game religions; please leave real-world religion out of it. Debate the fine points of a certain dogma, how a church can enforce worship while staying true to its tenets or simply why one deity is better than another one is. All are free to talk about it here.

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Vherin'Kir
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Alignment question

Post by Vherin'Kir »

Since Eilistraee is chaotic good her clerics have to be NG, CG, and CN right. Now i'm just wondering do all her followers have to be one of those alignments or can they be LG, TN, and LN? just wanted to know I'm a NWN addict :angel:
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Shir'le E. Illios
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Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

Well, the question is, what constitutes as being a "follower"? Because in the Forgotten Realms pretty much everyone worships multiple deities (even clerics, while dedicated to one deity, can and often do still pay respect to other deities). This is separate from alignment and has more to do with their portfolio.

But I'm assuming that by "follower" you mean someone who has her as their patron deity. In that case, yes I believe the rules specifically state you have to be either the deity's alignment or an alignment that follows the one-step rule. So for Eilistraee that's CG, or with the one-step rule NG or CN.

Now there's a note to be made here. In 2[sup:1qqo7og6]nd[/sup:1qqo7og6] ed. Eilistraee only allowed all Good alignments (CG, NG and LG, and [i:1qqo7og6]not[/i:1qqo7og6] CN). So in general people tend to allow LG as an alignment now too (there's some precedent for this as there's more deities allowing alignments outside the strict rules).

Anyway, there you have it. :)


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Post by Vherin'Kir »

:)) ok so any good alignment is alright, ok heehee, so people can pay their respects to more than one deity great time to make one of my friends convert heeheehee or at least join us here. He's just to over-zealous (Cleric of Kelemvor) so this is gonna be a challenge hahaahha anyway thx for the reply High Priestess.


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Post by Vendrin »

Clerics have to be within one step. Lay followers can be of any alignment.
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Post by Dostrealt »

Page 39 of FRCS explains religion in the "Character Description" section.

Here is a quote that explains why characters take patron deities:

[quote="Religion - FRCS p39":1b3ouisz]Faerunian characters nearly always have a patron deity. Everyone in Faerun knows that those who die without having a patron deity to escort them to their proper judgment in the land of the dead spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless, or disappear into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons.[/quote:1b3ouisz]

From that you can read that:

[list:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]You don't need to have a patron deity but,[/*:m:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]If you don't have a patron deity you get problems during the afterlife.[/*:m:1b3ouisz][/list:u:1b3ouisz]

So essentially, if you take Eilistraee as your patron you are trusting her, or her agents, to make sure your soul gets to the right place. There is more than that for divine servants, but for people without the ability to cast divine spells that is all there is to it.

Here is a quote that explains why a patron deity isn't the only god a character worships:

[quote="Religion - FRCS p39":1b3ouisz]The selection of a patron deity does not mean that your character only worships or makes prayers and offerings to one deity. Faerun is a polytheistic world, not a monotheostic world. At appropriate moments, characters might worship or pay homage to nearly all the deities, even some they could not choose as patron deities. For example, lawful good sailors would never think of choosing Umberlee, the evil godess of the ocean, as their patron, but it would be hard to find a sailor who had not sacrificed to Umberlee before at least one journey, or made promises to her during a storm. Likewise an evil follower of Mask, the god of thieves, might make a donation to the temple of Tymora, godess of luck, before a big heist, even though Tymora is a good godess.[/quote:1b3ouisz]

From this I read that:

[list:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]An evil drow wanting to hunt a dangerous may pray to Eilistraee to grant her luck and[/*:m:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]A good drow wanting to learn new fighting techniques may pray to Selvetarm to grant them the ability to learn those skills.[/*:m:1b3ouisz][/list:u:1b3ouisz]

Both of these drow might pray to other gods, including non-drow gods.

Here is another thing that is fairly interesting (if your character doesn't ever take a class that involves the casting of divine spells:

[quote="Choosing a Patron":1b3ouisz]Having a patron deity implies some true personal attachment to that deity. Given this relationship, it is practically unheard of ffor a character to have a patron with a radically different alignment than her own. For example it is essentially impossible for a chaotic good rogue to feel a close personal connection with Bane, the lawful evil god of tyranny and fear.
When choosing a patron if you are a spellcaster, you follow the "one step" rule described in the Alignment section of the Cleric section of Chapter 3: Classes in the Players Handbook.[/quote:1b3ouisz]

From this I read:

[list:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]Clerics have to have an alignment that is one step away from their deity,[/*:m:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]Non-clerics do not have to have an alignment that is one step away from their deity, [b:1b3ouisz]however[/b:1b3ouisz],[/*:m:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]Non-clerics who are not one step away from their deity are extremely rare, [b:1b3ouisz]and[/b:1b3ouisz],[/*:m:1b3ouisz]
[*:1b3ouisz]Non-clerics can not have an alignment that opposes their deity,[/*:m:1b3ouisz][/list:u:1b3ouisz]

So I think you could create a character that was lawful good, true neutral or even chaotic evil and have that character worship Eilistraee. However, I think that character would have a totally different viewpoint of how the world works and they would be doomed to fail in their devotion to Eilistraee.

A lawful good character who tries to devote himself to Eilistraee may well find the chaotic nature of her church frustrates him. While he may agree with drow living on the surface in peace, he might think that they need to spend less time hunting and dancing and more time building up strongholds and fighting against Lolth.

A true neutral character who tries to devote herself to Eilistraee may well find that the benevolent nature of her worshipers will eventually sway the balance of nature too far into the direction of goodness. This would be unlikely to happen in the near future (as Eilistraee stands against five evil gods), and pushing for goodness is moving towards the balance point. But at some point in the far future, evil could be in the minority and evildoers would need to be defended. A character with this sort of viewpoint might spend an entire lifetime doing good acts, but do them to balance out evil acts rather than for the sake of doing goodness.

A chaotic evil character who tries to devote himself to Eilistraee may well agree with the concept of returning to the surface and living in peace. But while they may try to "repay rudeness with kindness" they may do it with a bad heart and may deeply resent anyone who treats them as "just another evil drow". Eilistraee also tells drow to "repay violence with swift violence" and an evil drow who wants to "live" by Eilistraee's code, may try to look for excuses to act violently towards anyone who is rude to them. If a scared old lady was to see a drow and start screaming and slapping at them a good drow might try to restrain them, but an evil drow might let her hurt him enought to be able to feel entitled to return violence. With many surface races being scared of drow or even hating them, it could be fairly easy for someone who doesn't live by the spirit of Eilistraee's code to distort it into a licence to kill.

So I think you [b:1b3ouisz]could[/b:1b3ouisz] role-play this sort of badly matched Eilistraee worshiper. But I think your character might be doomed to fail to live up to Eilistraee's hopes...

...unless their alignment slowly changed over time.

And I think that doing this sort of thing - and doing justice to your character's alignment and the dogma of Eilistraee would be a very tough thing to do. It [b:1b3ouisz]might[/b:1b3ouisz] be fun - a [b:1b3ouisz]lot[/b:1b3ouisz] of fun, but if you didn't really put an effort into it, it might not seem believable to other players.

But if you could pull something like this off, you could create an Eilistraee worshiper who is somehow at war with themself. Someone who sometimes gets frustrated by the emotions that stop them from being a good Eilistraee worshiper and someone who sometimes gets frustrated by a dogma of Eilistraee that seems to be "unrealistic and impossible to [b:1b3ouisz]really[/b:1b3ouisz] achive".
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