Brainstorming session, part 3: the upper planes

Celestial module idea:

Instead of the cliched extraplanar invasion, what if the celestials were the ones invading? Some celestial general could discover a plot to uncover some new weapon, and the invasion could be his attempt to destroy it. Of course, the PCs have to step in when he starts causing more harm than good. It'd be fun to put in the same elements and portents of "an army from another plane coming to attack our world," because the players wouldn't ever expect it to refer to a leonal and his soldiers.

And they're holding Santa captive until the Fiends give up. Even their dark hearts can't live without Christmas for long.

Just butting in to say that I find that idea really awesome. Great potential imagery, too.

A rogue celestial with a crack team of elite fanatics, maybe.

It seams to me that makeing Celestials the primary players in an Upper Plane Conflict is too much like the Blood War. Personally, I think that the Celestials should be more concerned with the well-being of non-evil life in the planes, and the fostering of Good through them than with simply taking on the Fiends. To this end, I think that they would generally see the various good religions of the planes as the best tools for achieving this goal, and would therefore be working to support the goals of good Powers and their respective religions. Going at it from this angle can then give the Powers a greater role in the setting; indeed I've thought that for too long they've been merely part of the background.

Here's an example of how I'd go about this (taken from a campaign story-arch I intend to use in the near future):

In the beginning there were two powerful entities that were of the spirit of stone and metal. One was named Moradin and his sister/wife was named Dvalin. They were familiar with the many things that crawled through the caverns and walked on the surface. Some of them made them smile. Some repulsed them.
Moradin and Dvalin decided that they would create their own people to live in the earth, and the would be called Dwarves. The Dwarves were taught how to shape the earth into homes for themselves and to forge the earth into great works of artifice. The Dwarves were shown the things that crawled through the depths that repulsed their gods and made war on them.
Years passed, Dwarves flourished, and where their were once only two, a whole pantheon had been born. But differences began to emerge between Moradin and Dvalin. Dvalin, now know as "Mind Etcher" taught her mortal children the Arcane arts for with it, she reasoned, the capabilities of Dwarven craftsmanship would be limited only by their imagination. She taught them to make each of their creations a work of art, and to apply those lessons to their own lives, because distinction and individual greatness leads to the greatness of the entire Dwarven people. She bolstered friendships with the gods of other races, most notably the Elves and the Human pantheon known as the Aesir, for while they were not of the stone, they did have common ideals (and enemies).
Moradin (now called "Soul Forger") however, did not trust the power of the Arcane, it was unknown to him and feared that it might have an ill effect on his people. He believed that his Dwarves should rely solely upon muscle, steel and divine might. In his view the good of the Dwarven people depends upon the individual placeing the needs of society far above his/her own wishes. Brute force utilized by well trained armies is the most effective way to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies, and Outsiders(non-Dwarves) may be useful in a pinch but otherwise are to be regarded with suspicion.
Eventually they came to dwell in seperate Planes. Moradin built a realm on the slopes of Mount Celestia, and Dvalin in the caverns of Ysgard known as Nidavelir. Moradin came to Mourn the loss of their love and wished that Dvalin could only see that he had things right, then they could be together and their children would be united. It was then that Moradin met a strange little fellow with bright red hair. Although he was an outsider, Moradin found that he came to trust this man. His new friend gave him a box and told Moradin that he should give this box to his beloved Dvalin and that when she takes out the token inside, all of Moradin's problems would disapear.
Moradin did as his friend said and pleaded with Dvalin for a chance to win her back to him. She gave in, and after an evening of romance, Moradin gave the box to Dvalin as a token of his affection. Delighted, Dvalin took the box, but upon opening it delight turned into horror. Suddenly, Dvalin froze, and she slowly turned to rock. However, this was not the stone of the earth from which the two had sprung an eon ago, this was the cold rock that inhabits the Astral. Dvalin was now dead and her body transported to the Silvery Void.
Moradin at first was shocked and wracked with guilt over what had transpired, but eventually came to believe that this was for the best. He took one of his daughters as his new wife, and all mention of Dvalin was outlawed. Eventually, she was forgotten by all Dwarves save for the highest ranks of the Church of Moradin.
And so it has been until today, when a young cleric of Moradin stumbles upon evidence of an unheard of dwarven god floating in the Astral, and recieves visions in her dreams. She is stirring, and the planes will not be the same.

In this storyline (Pre-FW) the various Dwarven Powers, allied Powers, Factions, and others would take sides in a conflict over the unity of the Dwarven people and the ressurection of Dvalin. Violent conflict would at first be avoided in favor of trying to convice the opposition of the rightness of their own views, but eventually diplomacy will give way to a massive battle on the very corpse of Dvalin (that happens to be taking place simultaneously with Faction War). Of course, bringing Her back is only the begining, as She's not exactly in the best of moods (or mental states).

This is the sort of thing I'd like to see more of. Power v. Power struggles becoming a prominent part of the setting, and I think that using these as a way to bring various Good groups in conflict is full of potential.

Moradin trusted the stranger completely. Even gods make mistakes. Besides, I don't think he has access to that spell.

Yeah, that's exactly who it was. And the thing in the box? That's something that Dvalin herself made. See, it's actually a godly attribute made for her best friend an Elven Dream goddess (I can't remember her name). So the thing actually put dvalin into a deep sleap that only resembled death. The Dream goddess owed Loki a big favor and got Dvalin to take part of her esscence and make it into an attribute, and then gave it to Loki. Loki was doing this because he was commissioned by Powers that wanted to see the Dwarves and Elves weakened. Of course Loki's tricks have a way of making things turn out better than before..

Also, I was giving this as an example of Inter- and Intra- religious conflict that can shake up the planes. I was not saying that this exact plotline should be part of it, just food for thought. It just seems to me that outside of Dead Gods, the Powers didn't actually play a big part in the setting.

Call me stupid, but I really don't see how turning the kitten-torturing, baby-eating, gnome-punting, and otherwise mean fiendish hordes into unicorn loving pansies is evil. It's a public service to the multiverse!

How about a better idea.

Rather than a group that means good but is really doing evil, a group that does good that has unpleasant consequences.

The [insert name here] are a sect that hails from the Prime, where they would travel from world to world, destroying utopias. Their reasoning is that while a societyis a utopia, they cannot grow and improve themselves. However, they aren't brutal savages or sadists, simply burning a society to the ground teaches them nothing. They destroy utopias by exploiting the flaws in the society to cause it to break down. In their words, "from the death of joy comes wisdom". Recently, they found a portal to the Upper Planes, and promptly set about their attempts at bring down the assorted celestial societies. Unsurpisingly, the celestials are divided as to whether to oppose the sect or support them. Those who support them say that if their gambit works, the celestials would rise from the ashes better and wiser than before. Those that oppose them say that their success will weaken Good, and will give the fiends many opportunities to wreak havok. Both sides are right, to a degree.

They've also encountered the Harmonium, and have quickly become deadly enemies of them. You can guess why.

Most members of the sect itself are NG, with the occasional LG or CG.

Hippo: I was thought your hippies were going to turn *all* the fiends into kitten huggers, not just the tanar'ri. Ergo I asked...

There are a lot of ideas for what this 'Peace War' can be fought over, and many of them are really good. How are we going to settle on just one?

I'm going to babble a little bit about this because frankly the whole subject is fascinating to me.

Your idea is overlapping ethical behavior with ethical idealism (ex: saving people's lives versus pursuing Justice), which is one of the things D&D sucks with.

DMs have a little wiggle room, but morality in D&D is basically black-and-white. Alignment is what you are doing, not what you will do or intend to do. Destroying utopian societies is a pretty evil practice by D&D standards, even if you're going to help them rebuild and become stronger. I mean, people die when societies crumble. Especially utopian ones. Killing people for the greater good (burning down a city to protect others from plague, for instance) is evil. DMs will use these sorts of situations to turn Paladins into Ex-Paladins. Because in D&D, there always is an alternative--flying wish-granting monkeys could show up and save everyone's ass. Hey, you never know.

D&D's ethos measures immediate results, not long-term ones. Pursuing the 'Greater Good' (with a capital G) is like pursuing any ideal (Justice, Vengeance, Honor). It's squarely in the neutral-ville, sometimes bleeding over towards evil if you're ruthless about it. It doesn't matter if this ideal is good, because you may very well be committing atrocities along the way to reach it. And in D&D, what makes you good is what you are doing right now. Unfair? Maybe, but that's the system.

In short, when encountering a plague-infested town, good guys try to heal the sick and minimize their pain, neutral guys either ignore it or burn it down so the sickness doesn't spread, and evil guys take the oppurtunity to steal all their stuff.

Anyway, an interesting way to add another dimension to this might be to have the group split into two factions: the Breakers and the Builders. One would be neutralish/evil society-crippling Doomguard veterans, while the other provides humanitarian aid and societal reconstruction. They would have an antagonistic symbiotic relationship.

As a sidenote, in most D&D campaigns, violently annihilating an evil society isn't evil at all. Even though many more innocents will be dying (children, the infirm, etcetera). I mean, how many adventurers are actively committing genocide against the goblins? How many goblin children are starving in the winter because their fathers and mothers are dead?

I understand. What I said was that when you destroy a society, even through sociopolitical means, people will probably die. And if you are the one destroying that society, you are responsible for those deaths.

Again, taking out a good-aligned Utopia (even nonviolently) is an evil act by D&D's standards.

Yes, but they did do a significant amount of Evil. That can't be ignored.
Now, Good + Evil = Neutral. These guys may have Good intentions and end up doing Good in the long run, but if they have to do Evil to get there then their Alignment, if not their idealogy, will be Neutral with Good tendancies.

So you're saying that Shemeska's Baernaloth Severeth Na’Halastrian, The Wanderer is also Good because he brings faulty societies down, letting other better societies take their place? I disagree... if you work toward the fall of a society, you're not doing anything productive or helpful. Although good may come in the longrun, and even if that is your purpose, it's too far and too vague to reconcile the evil of destroying countless lives.

nick012000 said:

Player's Handbook, page 104

Emphasis mine. Listen, I understand what you're trying to say here, but mechanically, alignments in D&D just don't work like this. Pursing a 'Greater Good' has no more impact on your alignment than pursing 'Justice', or 'Greater Evil', or 'Overdue Library Books'. It's flavor-text.

The 'Greater Good' you're describing has nothing to do with good-aligned characters. Seriously. You're describing a philosophy, not an alignment. I could have a Lawful Evil character who pursued your 'Greater Good'. I have had them. They make great villains.

Again, in D&D, what makes you a good guy isn't your philosophy, but what you do. It is action based. Destroying a society because you believe this will result in a stronger society is no more 'good' than shooting people in the face because you believe this will result in them learning how to dodge bullets.

Alignment in D&D is a boolean operator. Either you're good or you're not good. If you're destroying a good society, you're not good. Doesn't matter what your justification is--you're destroying a good society. It doesn't matter what you think this will do.

Oh, yes, The Great Hippo. Definately. However, you're focusing on the short-term results of their actions, and ignoring the long-term- something that Good itself would be much more concerned with. By removing the utopian societies, they are ultimately saving lives, by bringing the society down in a controlled fashion. This isn't a hypothetical- they've got thousands of years of experience doing this, and divinations to track the consequences of their actions to ensure a net Good effect.

I'm not talking about philosophy here. Remember that all actions are defined by their both intentions and consequences, and that all actions have both short-term and long-term results. They are doing this with Good intentions, and while their actions do have slight Evil short-term consequences, these are greatly outweighed by the Good long-term consequences.

That's what I was trying to say, Armoury, that the way Nick currently describes his sect, it does not seem Good. Their intentions might be, but then I doubt every Evil goblin tribe out there goes out to 'wreak havok'. Some of them might just be following their cultural traditions in an attempt to survive, but the way most other peoples, and the multiverse, sees their actions is absolutely Evil.

Ugh. Suffice it to say that your example is heavily disputed on every count.

I think ripvanwormer might mean that not every economist thinks the New Deal pulled us out of the depression (actually, quite a few think it made it worse), FDR's real motives are suspect (the institution of Social Security allowed for tighter control and identification over the population), and any sense of entitlement you believe Americans might have can come from other sources.

To quote that other guy: Your example is heavily disputed on every count. By everyone.

Regardless, this is not a helpful direction to take the discussion. The historical significance of FDR's New Deal isn't going to help us determine whether or not the means can justify the ends in the D&D ethos.

But who's the guy sitting up on a throne dictating what's good and what's evil? The answer is pretty simple: Farmer Joe. The planes are shaped by Farmer Joe's beliefs, and so it just makes sense that ethics are too. The dichtonomy of Law versus Chaos and Evil versus Good are merely representative of Farmer Joe's worldview, which the Multiverse reinforces.

The important thing about this to remember is that Farmer Joe isn't very smart. Stabbing orcs in the face is okay, because orcs have tried to stab Farmer Joe in the face in the past. Stabbing other farmers in the face? Definitely a no-no. So, for the good guys, stabbing farmers in the face isn't allowed.

Basically, if you couldn't explain your actions to Farmer Joe in such a way that he would understand that they are ultimately for the better good, it isn't a 'good action'. And Farmer Joe's not going to understand your thousand-year old war against utopian societies. All Farmer Joe sees is that he can't sell his crops or buy his seeds, because all the stores are closed thanks to the economy crashing. Farmer Joe's gonna starve, and in Farmer Joe's eyes, that means you're evil. At best, neutral.

And the Multiverse is on Farmer Joe's side.

D&D ethics aren't a game of karmic retribution. You don't get to 'make up' for bad deeds by assuring us that these deeds will cause greater good deeds in the future. Stabbing people in the face now because you think it will make things wonderful a hundred years down the road is just too complex for D&D alignments to understand. This isn't a sophisticated measuring tool of morality; this is just the way farmers perceive the Multiverse.

You got it.

I think belief is power, and can certainly change the nature of alignments in D&D/Planescape, but I think the relationship between alignments, the Outer Planes, and belief is circular: Farmer Joe's beliefs can and do shape the behavior of fiends, celestials et al, but the behavior of fiends, celestials, et al also shape the beliefs of Farmer Joe.

That is to say, the inhabitants of the Outer Planes can take an active role in shaping their own destinies. That is largely what the Blood War is about; yugoloths, baatezu, tanar'ri, and others attempting to define, for the entire multiverse, exactly what it means to be evil. If the tanar'ri are doing well in the war, Chaos and Evil across the multiverse increase in power, the tanar'ri themselves become physically and magically more potent, and the soul of Farmer Joe, representing the mean average of the beliefs of every sapient on every plane (not just the Prime), becomes just a little more Abyssal.

Every time a gate town slides, the cosmic balance shifts. Every time a celestial is corrupted or a fiend brought to virtue, the cosmic scales move a significant amount, and everything and everyone changes.

So if a group of celestials want to make it so that the cosmos recognizes that complete pacifism is the only true path to Good, they can try to do that, and have a chance of succeeding. They can go the elaborate route of starting religions and schools - perhaps sects and factions - to convince as many people as possible that this is the case, or they could be more direct, perhaps encouraging the crucial upper planar realms, sites, and celestial paragons devoted to concepts like war, punishment, or self-defense slide into the lower planes, so that the force of Good know longer has those concepts within it.

Ideas, in Planescape, exist not just in the heads of those who are aware of them. They're physical places and even people. They're sects and factions and powerful entities; they're monsters, realms, and planes of existence. A campaign set in the Outer Planes exists simultaneously inside Farmer Joe's head - while individuals have free will, the collective (un)consciousness can be manipulated directly.

Celestials, fiends, slaadi and so forth have free will as well. They interpret the alignments they champion as best as they can; if they're wrong - and they can be wrong - they'll become cut off from their source of power, from the thing that makes up every atom of their beings. Perhaps they'll be able to find another source and slowly change their nature and physical make-up to reflect their new philosophies, or perhaps they'll just waste away and die. Perhaps, chagrined, they'll return to their original path.

It's certainly possible to be good and to make bad decisions, and I agree with Narfi Ref's larger point even if I don't agree with his example. Good intentions can have disastrous consequences; this is one of Planescape's major themes, since moral ambiguity can make for better gaming, especially in a game about philosophy.

The purity of the metaconcept may or may not take a back seat to the needs of the plot, depending on how picky the people you game with are.

The specific example at contention here - celestials destroying utopian societies - is possible, depending on the celestials in question, particularly since true utopias are unlikely outside the Upper Planes. This doesn't mean they'd remain celestials, of course.

I agree that the ends do not justify the means in D&D, but the ends can mitigate the means to some extent. Fiends may be willing to use good means to an evil end, and celestials may reluctantly employ less-than-good means if the cause is righteous enough. To do so is doubtless physically painful to them, but they may endure it if their goal is very important.

I did completely forget to factor in the Celestials (and other conceptual beings) actually taking a big role in shaping what good and evil are themselves, by winning the heart (or the nightmares) of Farmer Joe.

The idea of celestials who actually willingly accept that evil acts along the road to a greater good create indelible stains upon their souls gave me this idea for the Utopian-destroying good-guys:

Long ago during a crucial battle between Good and Evil, a celestial general found himself faced with a perplexing problem: Lose the fight with honor, or perform an act so obscene and depraved that he would be Damned forever. Knowing that failure would mean an even greater evil, he chose the second option. In doing so, he sacrificed more than merely his life-- he sacrificed his innocence.

Since that day, others have followed him. Celestials call them the Unclean Ones; fiends just call them 'those $#%$@# bastards!'. Neither likes to talk about them because they represent an abomination to both sides.

Their alignments are always Neutral, but they are all dedicated to the Greater Good. To them, no sacrifice is too great to create a Multiverse without evil. Not even their souls. In battle, they will use dishonorable tactics--even fiendish ones--without batting an eye. They will sacrifice lives of good people to accomplish their ends. They'll even see the destruction of entire planes of existence if they think it will bring them one step closer to that ultimate goal of a Multiverse pure of taint. And when they finally accomplish their holy task, when all of the Multiverse is purged of evil, there will only be one stain left to annihilate--themselves.

They only destroy innocent life when there is no other way to come closer to their ends--after all, every innocent death weakens the strength of the Greater Good. But they won't hesitate to kill you if doing so will put the Greater Good even one inch ahead of the game. Some people call them zealots, but they're not like the Harmonium--although they are vicious, they are not stupid. They are very careful to minimize any damage they might do.

Where are they getting their power from? They have been forcibly cut off from goodness, so how are they still operating? Some say the celestials still back them up, and that Good-aligned Gods quietly feed them the magic they require to exist, because they acknowledge that as much as they might hate the hypocrisy they represent, they are necessary. Others say that the Unclean Ones have actually found ways to tap into fiendish energy, and many lie on the verge of being truly corrupted into fiends. A few believe they have found a Power all for themselves who believes whole-heartedly in their philosophy.

But the important thing to note here is that they are not trying to convince you that their way is the best way. They are trying to convince the Multiverse that the Good Guy's way is the best way... Using unscrupulous means to get this point across. They are absolute hypocrites--lying, cheating, stealing, and killing to convince the Multiverse that Good is the best way... And they know this. They see it as necessary.

These guys could be Utopia destroyers. They could be a lot more, too.

What about redeemed fiends and fallen archons? They don't cease to exist. They just change into something... else. Over time they might evolve into an entirely new exemplar race (like the Asuras).

Still, anybody who works for the greater Good by commiting acts of Evil is balancing precariously on the edge of a blade, and either they will fall to the side (become wholly evil or repent) or eventually be cut to shreds. Only the strongest would be able to make a notch in the blade and fill that niche by becoming a new exemplar race. That would be almost like creating a new alignment, and that could throw the entire Wheel out of balance. Just think of the possibilities. Jemorille is probably salivating at the thought.

There's actually a solar who is very much of this ilk in Hellbound; he's neutral, with strong good tendencies. He left Elysium because he believed in getting his hands very dirty in the name of Good. He now lives in Maladomini, protecting innocents from the baatezu and outwitting the devils at every turn.

Its great to see so many thoughts on this topic, particularly because making the Upper Planes more interesting has always been a goal of mine. However, its clear that the discussion has gone down a tangeant on the nature of good itself, and what actions may be taken in name of the greater good. Please forgive me, as it seems I have a bit of a tirad to make on the subject.

The Nature of Good
It should be noted that "the greatest good" isn't something all good people and all celestials strive for. Specifically, Lawful Good is concerned with doing good while being restrained by a code of ethics of what is proper. Chaotic Good seeks to do good without abusing or restricting the freedom and choices of others. Both alignments are thus ethically restricted, whereas I would argue Neutral Good is most focused on achieving the greatest good possible, perhaps irregardless of the methods.

Elysium itself is a perfect example of this; brainwashing people into staying on the plane seems like an immoral action, does it not? Yet there, it actually does promote the most good, a fact that cannot be argued out of game because it is the plane of greatest good. As you'll see in the Elysium writeup, the plane has also sealed away many great societies at their peak and locked them away from the rest of the multiverse. Such unrequested "imprisonment" could be seen as wrong, even evil, and certainly not kind, but if those nations someday are responsible for bringing peace and prosperity to all the multiverse, then who is to say it wasn't the greatest good to be had?

Now, the Harmonium may be a counterexample, as their efforts on Arcadia to brainwash berk's to the Hardhead way of thinking shifted an entire layer of Arcadia to Mechanus. Was the brainwashing methods/goals so immoral as to lose all pretence of serving good? Or was it the fact that the Harmonium wasn't instructing people to be good so much as be Hardheads, and in the end they were serving their own order and vision?

Too much ambiguity and confusion arises when looking at good from a modern perspective vs. a medieval fantasy perspective, as well as when adding in Lawful and Chaotic. Such arguments become even more difficult when the alignment system is viewed as an objective guideline which must be adhered to, whereas it should be accepted that characters may not strictly adhere to their alignment either because of ignorance or specific character quirks. Good people can be prideful, vain, racist, and even cruel. Evil people can be generous, merciful, and love. Good rulers can invade neighboring kingdoms and even commit genocide. Evil rulers can bring prosperity to their kingdom and make their people strong. The existence of objective morality does not mean characters need to have the full approval of the multiverse behind them in order to keep their alignment, particularly when the nature of good, lawful, evil, and chaotic can be changed by belief.

Controversial Good
There have been a couple different ideas for contentious groups of Good people. I say use them all (well, after some fleshing out anyways). Controversial Good groups are exactly what the Upper Planes need, issues that bring good people to blows and give rise to the circumstances which draw adventurers in. Every sect that breaks the mold of the civil, restrained order of Good completely trapped by their own morality adds spice to the realms. Not even the exemplar are truly perfect or agree with one another, and when considering the growing influence of planars and the factions/sects themselves, these groups should invite questions of ethics and morality instead of being limited by them.

And while its common to consider the exemplar of Good as kind, protective, honorable, and overall ideal people, that needn't be the case. Angelic beings in the past have been seen as wrathful and without mercy. The archangels of In Nomine are often cold, harsh taskmasters, while angels sometimes trick/force their servants into aiding them. In Demon: The Fallen the angels chose to keep humans ignorant beasts rather than disobey God's decrees. In the Buffyverse the Powers of Good virtually never lend a hand on Earth despite the constant encroachment of Evil and the sacrifices made by mortals. Chaotic Good exemplar may employ under-handed schemes to weaken their enemies, even outright treachery and betrayal. Good exemplar of any variety may have short tempers, be intolerate of certain beliefs that they find particularly loathsome, or believe that disputes are truly best resolved by combat.