Let me get this straight about Shar... (Story/Lore thread)

[prosthetic soul]

Again, I am quite green to D&D. So correct me if I am mistaken. But In the D&D cosmology Shar is essentially a goddess (I use that term loosely, as she has explicitly stated she doesn't consider herself a goddess) who wants to reset the entire universe to its DEFAULT FACTORY SETTING. In other words, return the universe to a state of total nothingness. No life, no planes, no creatures, no intelligent humanoids, etc. Am I getting this right so far?

And according to the "loremasters" or the official 5e wikipedia page or whatever, Shar is considered Neutral Evil. And she isn't even considered the most evil god/goddess in the D&D setting...

I'm sorry, what?
u wot m8?
Could you please reiterate that?

She...isn't considered the most evil goddess in the lore? She isn't even considered Chaotic Evil? Am I taking crazy pills or is this a serious skewing of the moral alignment chart, not to mention an insane underplaying of what is essentially a goddess who sounds more sinister and evil than the Dead Three™ combined. At least Bhaal wants to keep his murdering spree contained to Toril. Shar wants to continue her murdering spree ACROSS THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

Do you people not have any fripping FRIP what Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil actually entail? Assassins and mercenaries for hire are Neutral Evil. They do evil ♥♥♥♥ but they don't actively go out of their way to disrupt civilization. They will murder but only if the price is right. A god or goddess who is neutral evil would be someone more along the lines of Nocturnal from The Elder Scrolls.

tl;dr: Shar should be classified as Chaotic Evil, and she's definitely up there as one of, if not the most evil deity in D&D. I'm sorry, but there are no va-jay-jay bonuses where I'm from.

[Blood of Kerensky]

I have to disagree. Nothingness means no pain, no suffering, but also no joy. That's pretty neutral evil, since it's neither selfish, nor random. It's nothing. Chaotic evil is something different. It's senseless destruction and 'everyone for themselves'.

[zero]

neutral evil doesn't mean "less evil" it means that they do evil without a strong regard for order, nor do they follow every whim or impulse they do.

neutral in this context is center of the lawful/chaotic alignment, which is a method of structure, not a measure of good/evil.

[Nolo Contendere]

Not a lot of D&D experience myself since high school, but here's the rundown on the law-chaos axis:

Lawful: The law is of absolute importance. whether this is ensuring justice for all or scheming and manipulating your way through corrupt politics or somewhere in between is irrelevant.

Neutral: Follow the law when it suits you. Disregard it when convenient.

Chaotic: "♥♥♥♥ you, I do what I want!"

EG:

Lawful Good/Evil: Superman/Darth Vader
Neutral Good/Evil: Every Vigilante ever/ Almost every sufficiently large corporation in fiction
Chaotic Good/Evil: Robin Hood/Joker

[zero]

Originally posted by Nolo Contendere:

Not a lot of D&D experience myself since high school, but here's the rundown on the law-chaos axis:

Lawful: The law is of absolute importance. whether this is ensuring justice for all or scheming and manipulating your way through corrupt politics or somewhere in between is irrelevant.

Neutral: Follow the law when it suits you. Disregard it when convenient.

Chaotic: "♥♥♥♥ you, I do what I want!"

EG:

Lawful Good/Evil: Superman/Darth Vader
Neutral Good/Evil: Every Vigilante ever/ Almost every sufficiently large corporation in fiction
Chaotic Good/Evil: Robin Hood/Joker

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by zero:

Originally posted by Nolo Contendere:

Not a lot of D&D experience myself since high school, but here's the rundown on the law-chaos axis:

Lawful: The law is of absolute importance. whether this is ensuring justice for all or scheming and manipulating your way through corrupt politics or somewhere in between is irrelevant.

Neutral: Follow the law when it suits you. Disregard it when convenient.

Chaotic: "♥♥♥♥ you, I do what I want!"

EG:

Lawful Good/Evil: Superman/Darth Vader
Neutral Good/Evil: Every Vigilante ever/ Almost every sufficiently large corporation in fiction
Chaotic Good/Evil: Robin Hood/Joker

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

Batman and Captain America are probably the only ones who would qualify as Paladin of Vengeance / Devotion with being most lawful of the comic heroes.

Even Superman attacks Batman for their lawfulness.

But yeah, discussions like these are probably for the Wizards reason enough to overthink the alignment system in a world more and more grey than white and black day by day. The age of Star Wars is over.

[Kaisha]

You can't think too hard about D&D alignment or it all starts to fall apart. Things like 'lawful evil' don't make any sense.

[zero]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by zero:

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

Batman and Captain America are probably the only ones who would qualify as Paladin of Vengeance / Devotion with being most lawful of the comic heroes.

Even Superman attacks Batman for their lawfulness.

But yeah, discussions like these are probably for the Wizards reason enough to overthink the alignment system in a world more and more grey than white and black day by day. The age of Star Wars is over.

batman is also reguarlarly breaking the law, frequently and often, there is a whole arc about how a lot of his evidence is useless so some criminals end up getting off scott free. he is the vigilante hero of them all, to be quiet honest.

i do agree with captain though, he is both the one who tends to follow the law the most, and the one who least often bends his values, at least in many comics.

Originally posted by Kaisha:

You can't think too hard about D&D alignment or it all starts to fall apart. Things like 'lawful evil' don't make any sense.

sure they do: tyrants are lawful evil, where is the contradiction there?

[1337_h4x0r_xXx_deathlord666_xXx]

Originally posted by zero:

Originally posted by Nolo Contendere:

Not a lot of D&D experience myself since high school, but here's the rundown on the law-chaos axis:

Lawful: The law is of absolute importance. whether this is ensuring justice for all or scheming and manipulating your way through corrupt politics or somewhere in between is irrelevant.

Neutral: Follow the law when it suits you. Disregard it when convenient.

Chaotic: "♥♥♥♥ you, I do what I want!"

EG:

Lawful Good/Evil: Superman/Darth Vader
Neutral Good/Evil: Every Vigilante ever/ Almost every sufficiently large corporation in fiction
Chaotic Good/Evil: Robin Hood/Joker

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to find really good examples of lawful good chars. I've also seen people argue that Darth Vader isn't really Lawful evil either...
In general most people recognize that really just being lawful is often kinda stupid, if you can't deviate, when it makes sense...I mean even many judges etc recognize that...
For lawful good the arthurian knights of the round table might be a better example, if at least it makes the concept behind it clear...

[Nolo Contendere]

Originally posted by zero:

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

A fair argument, however given that vigilantism is generally illegal I feel you could say the same about any comic book character. I would argue lawful good simply because of the fact that Luthor generally does not get killed by him in spite of how big an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or pain in the ass he is (there are a few timelines where this is not the case, however it is made clear that these are "alternate" timelines, not the "canon" timeline).

All that said, any comic book character's alignment depends on who is writing them.

[zero]

Originally posted by Powerword: Shill:

Originally posted by zero:

i will say superman more often then not is NG, he breaks the law/skirts it pretty freely when it gets in the way of doing good in his comics.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to find really good examples of lawful good chars. I've also seen people argue that Darth Vader isn't really Lawful evil either...
In general most people recognize that really just being lawful is often kinda stupid, if you can't deviate, when it makes sense...I mean even many judges etc recognize that...
For lawful good the arthurian knights of the round table might be a better example, if at least it makes the concept behind it clear...

it helps if you look for characters that are specifcially unbending in their beliefs, rather then being "legally" organized, but even then i do stand by my argument, at least from what ive seen, for superman/batman anyway.

fables are probably one of the easier ones to find LG characters off as they don't last long enough for the especially tough nuance to come into play, so i agree with the knights of the round style.

[Nolo Contendere]

Originally posted by Powerword: Shill:

In general most people recognize that really just being lawful is often kinda stupid, if you can't deviate, when it makes sense...

And that's why we have "lawful stupid"

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Shar is a weird one for sure, but I do agree with neutral, she isn't trying to bring chaos, she isn't trying to bring a sense of lawfulness in her evil with principles, she just wants it all gone, honestly that almost sounds more good then evil on some level haha

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Kaisha:

You can't think too hard about D&D alignment or it all starts to fall apart. Things like 'lawful evil' don't make any sense.

From my point of view it is best to see as what it is. An artificial fictional construct. After all the concept of good and evil is unnatural, even by the game's druids standards.

Though I have to admit. I hate those lawful neutral ones...

[1337_h4x0r_xXx_deathlord666_xXx]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

Shar is a weird one for sure, but I do agree with neutral, she isn't trying to bring chaos, she isn't trying to bring a sense of lawfulness in her evil with principles, she just wants it all gone, honestly that almost sounds more good then evil on some level haha

We found the secret shar worshipper ;P
It's one of her core principles, that in her view "nothingness" is the natural state of the universe. I think shar doesn't really see herself even as evil. She's just trying to return the universe to its natural state.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Powerword: Shill:

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

Shar is a weird one for sure, but I do agree with neutral, she isn't trying to bring chaos, she isn't trying to bring a sense of lawfulness in her evil with principles, she just wants it all gone, honestly that almost sounds more good then evil on some level haha

We found the secret shar worshipper ;P
It's one of her core principles, that in her view "nothingness" is the natural state of the universe. I think shar doesn't really see herself even as evil. She's just trying to return the universe to its natural state.

What's more evil? The good gods who sit around and do nothing as the world is full of strife, murder, diseases, and sit on their thrones watching? Or someone who would see none of it happen in the first place? xD

But also she ties of people's parents and kills them.... so yeah she is a little evil as well lol