Korgan alignment change?

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Korgan's alignment if we have to take the various things he says into account and almost the random way he treats different subjects falls most closely in line with Chaotic Neutral. I seriously think that's what they had him as in the first place but then when they realized they needed another Evil character instead of having just the couple they went "Well this guy is the closest" and changed his alignment.

As for Keldorn and his alignment. He breaks it all over the place.

Paladin's have two issues we can some up with basics primarily. Evil Characters and thieves. Thieves because of their blatantly unlawful actions when it comes to stealing, poisons, assassination, and basically anything else that's not scouting around stealthily and opening the occassional lock or disarming traps.

Yet Keldorn makes friends with Yoshimo. Is the least condemning of his betrayal, gets buddy buddy with Korgan. Has no issues with evil choices in the hell trials or even advice for that matter(if any character should it would be him), Nor does he care if your main PC is evil or commits evil acts as long as your reputation stays above a certain level and you don't join with Bodhi.

 

Bah. Mazzy-Korgan? Opposites attract.

And there's a question of degree. I think a 16-year-old lawful good character would be rather more extreme going about it than a, what, 55-year-old? People mellow with age.

Alignments are nothing more than guidelines. Noone fits it perfectly.

 

Korgan, chaotic neutral? I can't agree with that one. CN is one of my favourite character alignments, and it certainly has gotten a bad rep ever since it was described as the alignment of "madmen," etc. Korgan has on at least one occasion butchered his ex-partymembers over money: that is an evil act if ever there was one. He obviously revels in the carnage he does (check some of his dialogues with Edwin), which is an indication of evil alignment as well. A CN character is a free-spirited and individualist, and is as prone to good acts as evil ones. She is different from a CG character in that she is not consistently altruistic, just, or kind for the sake of it. Unlike a CE character, however, she will avoid evil acts (those seriously and consciously harming another) without a good reason: money or petty insults do not count. Haer'Dali is a good CN character, as is Jan. Korgan is, overall, closer to Viconia's nihilistic outlook than to theirs. He is not idiotic enough to act as a villain near Kheldorn, of course (he'd deserve Minsc's stats if he were).

Another good example of a CN character the way I understand it (=/= the way the authors do) is Coran from BGI. For a supposedly good character, he doesn't exactly stick his head in the sack for a good cause. Heck, he couldn't even spend a year or two (1/300 of his lifespan) with the woman he had a child with. Hardly a good deed, I must say.

 

Actually that's not true. While they are not overly prone to overly good/evil acts. There is nothing at all active about avoiding such things. Part of the Chatoic Neutral alignment is not being sure just what they will do as they embrace only one particular aspect of alignments. That of chaotic acts. While he has commited evil acts. He also commits rather good acts without a second thought. his behavior to the slavers is an example of a rather good outlook(even if violent but then AD&D alignments do not take violence or lack there of as signs of good or evil).

His repeated behavior is rather neutral but it is very unpredictable. That unpredictability is what would make him Chaotic.

It seems like your basing the idea of neutrality on the portrayals given by Jaheira and certain other neutral characters of the series which have a rather Good bent to their outlooks. Cernd, Jaheira, Branwen(from BG1) they are all marked as neutral but they are all rather good bent. Not necessarily lawful or unlawful in their mindsets but they are all predominantly good in behavior not neutral.

Based upon them is the only way that Korgan really fits as evil. Kagain(BG1) or Edwin(either) better consistantly fits the idea of an evil character without necessarily being needlessly violent than Korgan does. And as has been pointed out in this thread it is not just with the Paladin that he behaves in a more neutral manner. He does it with Mazzy, He does it with imoen and Aerie. He even does it with Sarevok to an extent in ToB.

 

AFAIK if you have Korgan and Aerie in the same party in SoA, you are forced to choose between them. Since Korgan verbally abuse Aerie in SoA she puts up an ultimatum.

And it looks like Edwin and Sarevok is pretty much disgusted of Korgans bloodlust....

Funny that Keldorn isn't.

 

For all we know the simple reason would be that he had been a slave as a child once. Or that he sees the act as disgusting sign of weakness. There could be a variety of reasons.

He claims he's done worse, actually.

 

Such as?

 

I haven't seen him actually even come close to verifying that. Mostly his stuff is just him trying to sound very threatening over what happened in his last party. I don't think he actually does more than allude to doing worse. But he does condemn the slavers.

If it was an experience of his past and he was truely Chaotic evil he'd condemn the slaves from not freeing themselves from it like he has.

And I've never had any problems between Korgan and Aerie when I've taken them. Which I do tend to like to do. My problems have always been Minsc and Edwin in the same party, Keldorn and Edwin don't like each other but I don't know if they come to blows. Keldorn and Viconia are absolutely horrible to each other. More over her race than anything she actually says or does.

Korgan in fact has one or two harsh but meant to be beneficial things to say to Aerie about her complaining about her wings to try and get her to toughen up.

 

"Free Spirit"

Chaotic neutral characters follow their own whims. They are an individualist first and last, and values their own liberty (but will not strive to protect the freedom of others). They avoid authority, resent restrictions, and challenge traditions. However, they would not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. This is because to do so, they would have to be motivated either by good (a desire to liberate others) or evil (a desire to make those different from himself suffer).

Chaotic neutral characters may be unpredictable, but their behavior is not totally random - they are not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. However, they do act on momentary whims, and are known to be unreliable. As some would say, "the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon!"
-----
(just to clear up the CN-squabbling, taken from d20 reference doc.)

 

Hah. That's a reference several years younger than the game. Irrelevant!

Let me cite ad&d 2nd edition, player's handbook, page 47 instead:

"Chaotic Neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon! This alignment is perhaps the most difficult to play. Lunatics and madmen tend toward chaotic neutral behaviour."

Hehe. Rather different in flavour.

 

The game has an interesting spot where it displays well what Neutrality is really like as well. When you first meet Jan Jansen you can actually turn him in. Then you can go up to the jail house if its daytime and break him out of jail. It happens to be an example of law and Chaos more than good and evil. But it does supply the idea that most of them kind of balance between two concepts such as good and evil.

The mod for Chloe has another good example of neutrality in a banter between Chloe and Jaheira about the Harper's behavior of helping one side and then turning around and helping the opposite side or refusing to help either side.

 

If I remember correctly Korgan also rises to defending the women being threatened by Gromnir's guards in Saradush.

In 3rd edition there's a 1-100 slider between Good and Evil, good being 1 and evil being 100 for example. I'd call Korgan more of a 75 due to his overly selfish nature, pleasure in other people's pain and bloodlust. However I'd tip him back 25 towards neutral because he has some redeeming qualities about him such as opposing slavery of children and the relationship he forms with the PC near the end of ToB is quite strong - I dare say Korgan would give his life to protect the PC at that stage in the game.

I think all characters need to be modded so that they can change their alignments in accordance with the PC's actions, persuasive abilities and the company he keeps.

 

^That would be a cool mod, really! And it is not a very hard work, just a few extra couple of dialogues for each NPC, and near the end of ToB, they can switch alignment to suit themselves to PC's, if the PC was persuasive enough.

It works wonders with Viconia and Sarevok, (I have done both, and it was fun!) so why not others?

 

Even at Tree of Life, Korgan's dialogue is very impressive and he appears as a very loyal comrade and friend.

Edwin, on the other hand, is a really wicked and untrustworthy character and far from any possible redemption.

 

Perhaps then they should have switched their alignments, make Korgan LE and Edwin CE.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that banter was excatly the same as the part of the description of True neutral alignment you get on character creation screen.

Besides, I find it funny. Chloe gives Jaheira hard time over her(Jaheira) being True neutral, and then gives her the example you mentioned. If I understand correctly, Chloe doesn't like Jaheira's neutrality. But at the same time, Chloe too is True neutral Just one more example that shows Chloe has a few screws loose.

 

I didn't like the Chole mod from an RP perspective, she keeps alluding to game mechanics.

 

Edwin is not lawful. That much is certain. He keeps betraying his allies. He betrays Mae'Var to join you and then under certain conditions, he even betrays you to Firkraag.

However, I'm not sure if Korgan can be counted as LE either. It's true that he is truly loyal, but he has some weird comments. For example, when walking in the city he comments against civilization (a lawful character may hardly do so though it's not perhaps completely impossible); and while walking in forests he says that all trees should be burned, which precludes the assumption that he is true-neutral. Since he is truly loyal, I also have problem considering him as a CN character.

In short, Korgan is designed somewhat inconsistently. Some of his comments need to be changed if a mod intends to change his alignment. But one may say that even this inconsistency is by itself an evidence for the CN alignment. I'm not sure to what extent such an argument can be sound, however.

 

And yet it's that inconsistancy that makes him so perfectly CN.

As for Chloe. It's not Jaheira's Neutrality she dislikes. It's the meddling and damage that the Harpers do in the name of balance and Neutrality that she dislikes. But then Chloe consistantly states that she does not like making enemies to both Jaheira and Mazzy. Getting in arguments with both of them.

 

For the record, Edwin and Korgan do get along.

The point here is that BIO either didn't understand what alignment actually means, or it assigned some alignments arbitrarily to certain characters for game balance & powergamer reasons. It's always been my opinion that it's a little of both.

Jaheira is the most blindingly obvious example of BIO completely screwing up when it comes to character alignment (making her true neutral not because she actually is neutral, but so that she could be a druid), but Korgan is another great example. He simply shouldn't be getting along with Keldorn or Mazzy, yet he's best friends forever with the one and lovestruck for the other. You can try to read into what's there and make up rationalizations beyond what was even put into the game, but bottom line, their behavior is ridiculously out of character.