Here’s something that’s been irritating me for years – Why is negative energy “evil” and positive energy “good”?
They’re both inner planes, basic building blocks of reality, so as far as I can tell they’re both part of the natural order but negative energy is constantly referred to as “unnatural”. Why should this differentiation be made here rather than with fire and air or water and earth or opposite polarities on a magnet?
Also- positive energy kills you! We just don’t usually have a potent enough source of it to do so but if you 'overload' you die all the same. I’m developing an NPC around this at the moment and he’s got some fairly nasty things to say about the stuff.
For that matter, what’s so unnatural about undead that rise spontaneously? Why are they automatically evil? I know that it makes things easier for DM’s to have some creatures that attack on sight anything that lives (and is sentient and roughly PC shaped) but it doesn’t seem to logically follow. If anything they should be naturally neutral albeit susceptible to influence- which the lower outer planes (the ones to do with alignment) would be happy to provide.
Oh, while I’m at it, vermin (Insects and arachnids) being considered mindless and almost evil – you need to be non-good to take prestige classes associated with them irritates me too. I have pet scorpions so does that make me more evil than someone who keeps fish?
Ok, rant finished, comments welcome.
By the way, is the name Azriael already taken in the planescape setting, I’m thinking of giving it to the NPC I mentioned and wanted to check first.
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I see where you're coming from.
The two Energy Planes are neutral, just like all the other Inner Planes. However, one is more appealing to the mortal folks than the other because of it's potential.
The Positive Energy Plane is the source of new life, rather than the end of it. It also fuels spells and powers that create or support life. It's hard not to have a better opinion of the stuff that saved your son from the dead book than the stuff that brought to unlife the bodak that put him there.
The Negative Energy Plane, however, saps life. It is the end of creation, and only appealing to masochistic or pessimistic berks like Dustmen and Doomguards. The only type of life it fuels is unlife, which is an abomination and perversion of life. Mindless undead like zombies and skeletons are more like constructs, and thus neutral, but are usually created by evil casters for evil purposes. Most good guys just don't care for the stuff. Other undead, such as the previously mentioned bodak, are naturally evil. Why? Because they fall outside of the natural order and wrack the previously living souls of the deceased with constant sorrow and pain, causing irreversible spiritual trauma that fosters evil.
So although the two planes themselves are neutral, their uses and their [few] inhabitants are swayed toward one side or the other.
There's a similar situation going on with water and fire, although to a lesser degree. Water and fire are both useful to the cosmos. They can also support life and take it away.
You can drown in water, you can drink too much of it, and entire nations can be swept away by enough of it. However, it is also a necessary component of life.
Fire burns. It also grants heat in the cold and light in the darkness.
Why is it, then, that people fear fire but not water? Even those that live with the sea say the water supports life but it's the 'storm' that kills. People use fire, candles and campfires and the like, but they use it sparingly and with much care. They fear it because it can easily get out of control.
Thus, we see the Plane of Fire as hellish but the Plane of Water as serine. Thus, the majority of the main inhabitents of Fire are evil (Efreet, Salamanders, etc.) while Water retains a neutral appearance (Marids, tritons, etc.). Again, the situation isn't as black and white as that with the energy planes, but it's still there.
In regards to vermin, I completely agree with you. I have always disagreed with the non-good or evil requirements for vermin related prestige classes such as those in Savage Species and Book of Vile Darkness (respectively). Thankfully, most vermin monsters are neutral, just like animals. They're no more evil for eating a field of crops or poisoning a person than is a rabbit or a platypus (yes, that's the only mammal with poison that I could come up with off the top of my head). I guess, because most people have a natural aversion to bugs, that belief is so widespread that vermin deities usually end up being evil. That would be the only way I can see that working. It still doesn't explain the non clerical vermin prestige classes having to be evil, but perhaps the societies that train them are evil. Who knows?
Finally, regards to the name Azriael, I have no idea.
The End.