Here’s the thing, whether or not all Avangions are good, they can still be antagonists for your PCs. Good aligned antagonists aren’t too hard to pull off. All you need is for the antagonist’s goals to run counter to the PCs or for their goals to be mutually exclusive. Not all villains need to be defeated by stabbing them to death after all, though I also know plenty of PCs that’d gladly kill anyone that gets in their way.
Mind you, I do think good aligned villains are best served as secondary villains, obstacles, or rivals. But the point is it doesn’t matter if Avangions are good aligned or not. What they’re doing might be good for Athas but might be harmful for the PCs and/or everyone they care about.
As for my personal take on Avangions, I see them as needing to have a certain degree of selflessness for several of the transformation rituals. However nothing stops their alignment from changing some time after they complete the ritual, they won’t spontaneously turn into a human or anything. I have the same logic with dragons tbh. Odds are good though that once their alignment deviates they won’t continue the process of metamorphosis. Also I personally imagine that a fully transformed Avangion is guaranteed to be good aligned and would come off as more of a distant alien deity than a man.
According to the initial boxed set at least, preservers have no alignment restrictions, so in theory you could be an evil preserver, though an evil avangion is unlikely given what is required to be one.
A neutral one I could buy though - they are willing to do what is needed to bring about the restoration of the world that more good aligned characters aren’t. Sort of like the Operative in Serenity. He knows he is evil and what he does is evil, but he is making a better world, one in which he will not live in.
Yeah, I’m starting to think I must have dreamt this, or maybe read it somewhere in a homebrew. I can’t find the quote.
In any case, the discussion here is great. I’m quite partial to the idea that an Avangion will eventually become so distant from their original humanity (humanoidity?) that questions of morals will become extremely grey for them. Example, an Avangion might hold your hand and shower you with an overwhelming feeling of empathy and goodness while they murder you because your death will save a forest and ten thousand lives.
This is how I want to run Avangions. I really wanted to find an official quote that supports this concept, but everything I find about Avangions only talks about them being good. I can’t find any quotes that suggest them being out of touch, questionable morals for the greater good etc.
I will admit I am not familiar with that book to fairly judge. However, I do think there is certainly something to it. On the one hand, the sorcerer monarchs are mortals who have gained immense magical and psionic power. They are an example of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Once human, now monsters.
However, none of these characters were good to begin with. There’s no fall from grace here. These were people who saw genocide as a stepping stone to a better world.
It might be most apt to say power made them less human. It didn’t turn them into monsters though. They did that to themselves.
In Dune the Bene Gesserit Have a saying that power doesn’t corrupt but instead power draws the corrupt and absolute power draws the absolutely corruptible.
Sorry for the thread necromancy, but a friend of mine has just finished God-Emperor. This topic is just too juicy for me to resist
We’ve discussed Leto II’s motivations and character at length. In the end we realised that - at a deeper psychological level - he was much more selfish, egocentric and self-serving than he seems. What he did was done for the ‘good of mankind’, according to his vision. Leto II was extremely invested in his ideas of what future holds for mankind, which path to follow and which fates to avoid. The thing is, this view was personal and extremely subjective. It was informed by his powers and unique abilities, but at the end of the day, it was still what he thought was best for mankind.
And this is where it gets really interesting. In God-Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert made Leto II’s predictions canon. It is his subjective point of view, but he was right all along. However, what if he wasn’t? What if his visions were a complete hogwash? What if he desperately tried to save humanity from delusions that only existed in his head, made horrifying sacrifices to avoid disasters that’d never come true and pursue a ‘golden path’ no one actually needed?
My friend and I agreed that’s a great villain idea: A God-Emperor wannabe who believes themself to be a saviour, completely detached from reality. A ‘martyr-tyrant’ who believes themself to be a ‘good guy’, forced to do awful things for the greater good, lamenting the ‘necessary sacrifices’ they are ‘forced to make’. In reality, they’re nothing more than a monster consumed by hubris and lost in their own delusions, desperately building castles in the sand to satisfy their own self-importance.
I think this would work perfectly with the SM mindset. Would there be any SMs who delude themselves into thinking they’re the last hope of the intelligent life? Are there any who’d call themselves God-Emperors, dead set on saving their people from anything but themselves? By that, I mean not just SMs who present themselves like that in propaganda, but ones who actually believe in their own lies. Any candidates?
Dregoth. He believes he’s a god (well, almost). His people have been conditioned to treat him as a god. Everyone left on Athas is destined to either be converted to Dray and worship him (if human), or scoured away in a tidal wave of blood (if non-human or human but refuse the dray transformation). Dregoth has taken Rajaat’s genocidal focus and given it a unique twist. After all, he’s only doing it for the betterment of Athas. I’d say Big D is definitely a monster lost in his own delusions and consumed by hubris.
I don’t think Daskinor would qualify as although he’s utterly lost in his own paranoid delusions, he’s mostly incapable of functioning for decades at a time.
Yep. Dregoth is an idealist. He still cleaves to the ideals of the Cleansing Wars, but humans are replaced with his Dray as the beneficiaries.
Daskinor is mentally ill, and that makes him very dangerous. I surmise that Daskinor’s mental illness manifests as large amounts of his time spent in a disassociative mental state. During this time, Daskinor is probably manifesting all kinds of psionic powers, like reality revision (which is like a psionic wish), and is not even conscious of it. This would account for some of the weirdness affecting Eldaarich.
That’s a really good point. I wonder if the number of bend reality and reality revision instances over two millennia could have permanently weakened planar boundaries around Eldaarich - at least to the Far Realm (is my favoured option).
Lalali-Puy has also completely bought into her own hype as the Oba and most of her city is in love with her. Quite a bit like Leto’s fishspeakers who are completely devoted to him. She goes so far as to enslave and experiment on nature spirits but believes she’s this benevolent forest goddess who will save Athas’ ecology.
I feel like a former Champion who felt this way (preparing a non-human people for a foreseen time of hardship) volunteering to Cleanse that race would be a fun take on it.
Obviously none of the existing SM’s are viable for this idea, but imagine if (and this doesn’t work) big D had chosen the Giants as a chosen people, foreseen the times ahead, and volunteered to Cleanse them - all the while actually sharpening their skills and hardening them for the future, and ensuring that SOME of them survived.
This would be much easier to explain with human nations and the existing Champions, but that lacks the brutal love and sense of betrayal I’m thinking of.
You could probably also make a good case that Oronis has evolved into a messiah complex, although I don’t recall any of the official description talking about that. It just seems natural to me. Previously a dragon, sees the error of his ways, becomes an avangion, sees what he can do, builds an empire, and eventually starts to believe his way is the only way and starts a crusade. I could totally see it being “for the good of Athas” and slowly evolving into something which hurts/kills a lot of people along the way.
That’s a perversion of Leto II concept if I ever seen one. Thank you, I can’t believe I didn’t think of him.
This is amazing - and in a way, I think it could work within the Leto II frame. What if Daskinor subconsciously uses reality revision to create the dangers he’s so afraid of? ‘I want my delusions to be true’ is an extremely compelling wish for someone living in a constant paranoid fear: It vindicates them and gives them an enemy they can confront (or run away from). This could create a wicked circle in which he’s constantly ‘protecting’ Eldaarich from dangers he creates.
This. I can imagine Daskinor constantly probing and prodding, weakening the boundaries just to prove he’s right. This could be conscious - ‘I need to find the threat before it finds me’ - or subconscious, but either way, it’d be dangerous in the extreme.
I was thinking about her, too. She’s got an actual cult of personality going on, plus she seems to believe being a defiler has nothing to do with saving the ecology.
That’s an interesting point. I’m looking at the champion list right now and I see a pattern: Out of the ‘civilised’, playable races, only the cleansing of Gnomes has succeeded. Most of the successful cleansing were either monstrous menace humanoids (kobolds, ogres, orcs, goblins, trolls), with a bunch of barbaric species (lizardfolk, wemic) and fey (faeries). I’m sure this has been discussed countless times before but, taking your theory into account, this does open up some interesting possibilities.
The problem with Oronis is that he’s a ‘straight’ Leto II figure. You could argue that he’s not picky with his means, but can we say that his end goal is not going to be good for Athas?
The problem with Oronis is that he’s a ‘straight’ Leto II figure. You could argue that he’s not picky with his means, but can we say that his end goal is not going to be good for Athas?
Oh for sure, Oronis is written in canon as a straight figure, albeit only recently. All I meant was, it isn’t a stretch at all to imagine that he might come up with a plan which he feels is good for Athas, but is terrible for the people. Same as Rajaat, who wasn’t really in it for the power, but had some kind of insane ideal world in mind. Maybe Oronis slowly reaches a point where he realizes in order to rid the world of Sorcerer Kings and Defilers, he must also unmake all the races made by the Pristine Tower, and reset everything. Maybe he’s right, it will usher in a new world which can then grow and prosper and eventually become green and blue again. And maybe he’s not even against diversity like Rajaat, just believes that the slate has to be wiped clean in order to allow it to grow again, this time the “right” way. Classic antagonist trope actually. I could easily see Oronis go down this path, and it feels similar to Leto’s path (although it’s been a couple decades since I read it). Good for Athas, not good for the people, but then Leto was so far separated from the people they might as well have been bacteria.
What you said about Leto viewing people as bacteria I think exactly encapsulates the SK mindset. They are Advanced Beings after all. They have evolved past humanity by their own means and as time goes by those who pursue that metamorphosis become ever more divorced from the mortal being they once were. Leto considered himself cruel and evil but it was because he believed he alone knew the suffering he had to put his empire through to keep them alive and viable into the future. Now think of Sorcerer Kings purposefully starting pointless wars just to get a portion of their citizens killed to keep the population at acceptable levels. Withholding food and engineering famine to conserve resources because of predicted lean years to come.
Yeah. And to extend it even further, we as humans know we need bacteria, sometimes desperately (e.g. gut flora), but we don’t need specific individual bacteria. So wiping out 95% of our gut flora by taking antibiotics to rid our bodies of an infection is morally fine, because bacteria aren’t people. But then afterwards we’ll actively build up our flora again (e.g. with acidophilous, or good dietary practices) because we need them.
So a SM wouldn’t hesitate to destroy a large amount of individual people in order to rid their kingdom of of an “infection”, but afterwards would still do smart things to build the population up again, perhaps even stronger than before.
I’d guess that the distance from Advanced Being to individual human on Athas probably has more bearing on the disconnect, rather than the evil slant. Which is why I guess that even Avangions would be susceptible to losing perspective and causing death and destruction so long as the end result is good for the grander scheme. Avangions would also see us as bacteria, just would use us to benevolent ends rather than megalomaniacal ends. We’d still eventually get used.
I should also mention the way Hamanu interacts with his Templar in RaFoaDK. Reminds me of Leto’s debates with his various Duncans. Also the way he lives through his subjects psionically makes me think about how Leto would dive into his preborn lives. That whole book feels like Lynn Abbey was trying to channel Herbert to me.
You are correct in that they are not matched teams.
Touching on Greyhawk, it was supposed to be a medieval morality of black and white. It even makes an attempt at defining good and evil in the game. I long thought it interesting that Gygax himself usually played a true neutral in that setting he himself crafted.
I feel that the real problem is that very few people study enough to get a solid grasp of what Good and Evil actually are or what they mean in real life, let alone trying to portray some travesty of Good or good in a game.
Thus most portrayals of Good (in particular) are fatally flawed and do not resemble Good in any way, which gives people the wrong impression, and a subsequent dislike, very understandably. I don’t like the definition or portrayal of Good or good in most games, all of D&D included, and especially in the BoED. (BoVD, too for that matter.) Horrible crap, banned in all of my games, nor will I game with people using it.
Good is not only the correct way to do anything and everything, it is the perfect Way (pun intended), while Evil only exists where there is rebelling against Good for the purpose of personal gain and power over others.
Good can and does exist without Evil, but Evil cannot exist without Good. Good is superior in every way to Evil.
Good is dangerous, dangerously Just and Merciful. Never underestimate the power and deadliness of Mercy. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise likely doesn’t have any real grasp of what Good actually is. After all, Justice will only punish you, but Mercy will destroy you.
