Paladins and Evil

Remove all ads!

I've personally never fully understood how Paladins of Ilmater deal with evil. They basically exonerate martyrdom and endurance through the most trying of situations, not to mention their god is a Christ Figure. The two Paladins of Ilmater I've made always seem to find it hard to commit acts of violence against living creatures that aren't the likes of a Red Dragon or a Balor, something that's the epitome of evil. It always seemed more appropriate for the paladin trying to suffer through and redeem creatures that where evil, but not thuroughly evil (specifically LE characters who are more restricted then other evil alignments), for if they could redeem an evil character, they could stop the suffering that accompanies the death of that evil character (specifically the likes of an evil noble or someone else from a suitibly close knit family). While the character may be evil and cause suffering, the evil character's death will bring suffering to those who loved the evil character, hence the path to personally redeem said evil character always seemed the most appropriate to me for a Paladin of Ilmater.

 

Ilmater's focus is different from Tyr's, for instance. Tyr has no problem acknowledging force and even physical strength as the way of maintaining order in the society, whereas Ilmater focuses on the suffering, on endurance, on prevailing of good of itself, rather than by being enforced. Tyr wants a good order, Ilmater wants good people. Perhaps in the eyes of paladins of Tyr, a good order will make people good, whereas in the eyes of Ilmatari paladins, good people will not create an evil, unjust order.

 

nice to know my Paladins of Ilmater weren't too out of line as forces of nuturing and compassion as opposed to champions of righteous action. I could just never play a class that epitomizes good while using violence as it's first response to evil.

Such thinking is why I have fun satirizing Paladins with a Paladin of Tyr kills anyone who "fails" a detect evil "on sight" and believes that there can never be redemption for a creature of evil alignment. Every evil ation must be punished, every source of evil snuffed out, every chaotic action must face justice, creatures of chaos (namely chaotic outsiders like Slaadi, Chaotic core races are redeemable so long as they aren't CE) must face the judgement of order (must be slain).

 

Yes, you need to roleplay personality rather than class or race or numbers. Even the core books, the sort of bible of all numbers, say that. Righteous action is valid but it should never turn into a simple "we and they" divide, making it good to fight them because they're evil, their being evil being the universal convenient excuse for everything.

I don't think Tyr is too vindictive or bent on elimination, either. Actually, I think it's quite Tyrian to act on a person's acts rather than disposition or plans or behaviour.

I wouldn't be so sure about justice for chaotic action. Chaotic actions aren't the best idea of justice but so long as they aren't evil at it, they don't directly oppose justice and call for punishment. It's rather a "defect" of sorts.

 

The Paladin wasn't suppose to be reflective of Tyr, as I actually had a hard time deciding what deity I wanted him to serve when I first created the idea of what he was (I was orginally going to make him a Paladin of Helm as Helm has always seemed the most black and white deity to me). I eventually took Tyr because I figured as a follower of Tyr, he could himself almost as an avatar of justice and seek out and destroy all things harmful to Lawful Good (and therefore unjust in his mind).

He's so thuroughly into the belief that justice is blind he doesn't allow anything to come between him when despensing "justice" (and the fact that he sees himself as an extention of the law leads him to believe his actions are alway in perfect accordance with the law... even if he's breaking them), the evil law abiding aristocrat or law abiding slaver is by no means safe from the Paladin, for laws that serve to protect the wicked and exploit the innocent are therefore "injust" and not applicable to him.

He doesn't really distinguish between action and aura either, evil itself is unjust and creates injustice, hence in his mind the only just course of action is to eliminate the source of injustice. He also feels the need to destroy creatures like Slaadi because they create an environment where the social moral code in which justice is dependant on is non-existant.

I've always had the most fun with this character when he's forced to encounter chaotic good characters because his code of conduct has no proper course of action to deal with them and in his mind this alignment shouldn't even exist.

Often times when I use this paladin, he only serves as a way to elaborate the moral positions of other characters and serve for the discussion of how fanatical a character's pursuit of creating and mantaining a "good environment" before the actions taken start to become the same as the actions taken by an evil character to further his own ends.

This Paladin of Tyr whenever possible comes into comflict with one of my Paladins of Ilmater as she's trying to redeem an evil character of mine who for his own reasons is trying to become a little more charitable. Of course this Paladin of Tyr doesn't believe this evil character can be redeemed and believes that the evil character is corrupting the Paladin of Ilmater. The Paladin of Tyr makes for a bit of fun for me when he comes into contact with other good characters just because he can't but try to mold every good character into his ideas of what a good character is, specifically younger paladins (like my Paladin of Ilmater).