A Fall from Heaven D&D Campaign

[[NWO]_Valis]

WH40K stands for Warhammer 40 000 were inquisition is on 40k scale

"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt!"

and other quotas might bring you in the right mood if you play DoW [warhammer 40k RTS]

"Xeno, alien....Heretic!" -> "Elf? Dwarf?....Heretic!"

 

[wilboman]

Warhammer 40K is about as dark as it gets, all right. Darker even than FfH, because even the good guys are bad guys.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Warhammer 40K is about as dark as it gets, all right. Darker even than FfH, because even the good guys are bad guys.

You mean that FfH has good guys?
Bannor are blind fanatics , Mercurians postal angels , Elohim are-holier-than-thou ,Luchuirp like the armageddon , Kuriotates are plotting against each other , and Malakim, umm... well, they aren't a real civ

 

[Calavente]

luchuiorp like armageddon ??
no, they are able to survive the next one... but they do not like it ...
...
Khazad are good guys !!!! they are neutral just because they don't ever want to be involved with other's civ politics !!! but they are nice guys... to the bone... if you excuse their little lunacy every time you speak the 4 letter word... you know G.O.L.D ...chhht don't tell it aloud ....

oh, and you forgot the ljos.. they are nice too ... in fact, most neutral people (+the luchuirp and malakim) can be considered good peoples...

neither evil, neither blind due to their own rightness

 

[zxcvbnm]

So why they don't like it?
Golems->no lost living units
AC 70->Mithril Golem
Mud Golems->fastest workers after blight
-> Excellent way to get rid of your enemies
They don't want to bring it but they strategically don't mind if it comes

Khazad wannaget gold, they don't care much for other things, if u r too poor to live, then u can die, i'm not gonna give you any of my gold (Cassiel's 'pedia)
The elves are ready to kill any intruders, not caring whether they are good or evil(Amelanchier's 'pedia)
Amurites use child warriors (the post about the Caswallawns)
Hippus serve anyone who pays enough
Grigori discriminate religions
Lanun steal stuff and some worship the Octopus Overlords (just look at the palace graphic)

 

[Calavente]

yeah ... but
all of those are good guys for me...
"I don't mean you bad, really"
-"it's business" (hippus)
-"you said the 4 letter word !!!" (dwarf) "but if you want medicine or help to go bash your neighbour.. I'm with you"
-"as long as you don't approche my lands" (elf) "sorry, boiled cat hates cold water...no offense intended, it was just a reflexe, all this shinny metal close to our trees..."

amurite is more difficult... "we are nice toward other but hard in the selection of our own masters..." "thus, only the best armed ones can leave the academy, they will not release monster they cannot command" (typically, hemah was not formed by amurites.. he would have died/been killed as a child before being able to launch his dreams...)

lanun : you are right : I cannot come with a good way of seeing them

grigori : for me it is the nicest of all : expression of goodness... They do not discriminate religion : they just don't see any point in it. they are opposed to any influence of religion save beliefs. no part in justice, nor in army, nor in labor, no official religion, no research toward religion. but if religion comes by itself, people are free to believe. They even help the luonnatars...

 

[wilboman]

Actually, the Bannor are hard, but fair. They are not the religious fanatics (the Malakim are closer to that moniker). But they are not squeamish, and if you couple them with the rigid force of the Order, they are indeed guite unforgiving.

 

[zxcvbnm]

yeah ... but
all of those are good guys for me...
"I don't mean you bad, really"
-"it's business" (hippus)
-"you said the 4 letter word !!!" (dwarf) "but if you want medicine or help to go bash your neighbour.. I'm with you"
-"as long as you don't approche my lands" (elf) "sorry, boild cat hates cold water...no offense intended, it was just a reflexe, all this shinny metal close to our trees..."

amurite is more difficult... "we are nice toward other but hard in the selection of our own masters..." "thus, only the best armed ones can leave the academy, they will not release monster they cannot command" (typically, hemah was not formed by amurites.. he would have died/been killed as a child before being able to launch his dreams...)

lanun : you are right : I cannot come with a good way of seeing them

grigori : for me it is the nicest of all : expression of goodness... They do not discriminate religion : they just don't see any point in it. they are opposed to any influence of religion save beliefs. no part in justice, nor in army, nor in labor, no official religion, no research toward religion. but if religion comes by itself, people are free to believe. They even help the luonnatars...

"Good" or Good?
I was a bit harsh on some but
Hippus still don't care. If you are going to be good then surely you can afford to choose your customers. Realpolitik makes complete good impossible for Hippus, but it isn't a full excuse.
Dwarves:"-If you pay enough. We don't do charity."
Elves:"By making an example of what happens to intruders, we can stop the fire." (just before tearing the confessor to bits, is that what good guys do? Realpolitik again)

I share your opinion about the Grigori so that was a bit exaggerating, but they can be seen as that, after all they might just well have anti-religious views amongst the people.

Bannor, of course with the Order, I wasn't talking about alternatives but most-likelies. They burn other people en masse in their campaigns (pillar of fire 'pedia). Unquestioning obedience just doesn't seem "good" to me, it (h)allows too much abuse.

 

[Calavente]

never spoke about bannor..

And I prefer "good" to "Good"

realpolitik seems ok for good people...sometimes.
tearing confessor apart to preserve the forest does not seems bad to me, confessors are not know for their goodness, only for their Goodness. they are not nice peoples, just mass murderers prefering to kill 100innocents than missing an unverified veil worshipper.
for dwarves : being good does not mean doing charity...it means fair prices, helping a dwarve in distress (attacked, not poor!!) it is just the "gold" word that is problematic with them.

hippus : ok, I yield.. they are just following realpolitik...

But for me, the real point of FfH is that while some races/civ can be good and most other are twisted, All religion have there twisted aspect.... none are good ..
order and veil are the worst in their fanatiscisme,
OO with the way of treating peoples.
FoL with the hardness for trepassers
RoK is the mildest one.
CoD is totally insane

 

[wilboman]

Runes of Kilmorph is borderline greedy, though.

 

[zxcvbnm]

It wasn't to preserve the woods, but to show what happens to trespassers. And the other people didn't have a much better fate.
Cassiel's entry is the most realistic about the right and wrong of ffh religions.

If the RoK are so good then why they don't do charity? Mammon's an evil god you know. If they think that poor people suck and that's why they are poor, it's the typical survival of the strongest hallowed.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

strictly imo, but I disagree that the dark fanstasy of FfH world means good and evil are arbitrary labels. Rather it means that there are no easy choices, who to trust is not clear, even benign orgainizations may be filled with corruption, and the good guys are no more likely to win than tha bad.

But any commoner would much rather be in the Order lands than the veil lands once the armeggeddon starts. Some innocents are certainly judged too quickly, and no one is likely to ask "how are you feeling today?", but their goal is to protect those who can't protect themselves from the forces of Hell. They would be dangerous, insane fanatics, except for one thing--they are right about the danger their foes pose. Perhaps they go way too far--or perhaps they do exactly what they must.
Likewise, the Malakim may view your faith as dangerous sedition to their community, the dwarves may eye your gold pouch, the Elohim may be too busy looking after some shrines to lift a finger when you are attacked, and the elves may view you with a haughty disdain, but compared to living in the lands ruled by the Calabim, the Clan, or the other truely evil leaders, good & evil do have some true meaning.
I should say I don't mean good as in perfect, but on balance a net positive force.( I'm not looking ot sign up with any of these )
(There is an alternative view that the calling the Order good is a joke and they are blood thirsty hypocrites, and some of the community-written pedia entries reflect this.)
Edit: I wouldn't call RoK greedy, but I would say there is little emphasis on personal discipline or charity, and they are prone to be apathetic to outsiders. So greed is a temptation they succomb to, a common weakness rather than a philosophy.

 

[wilboman]

RoK is isolationist bordering on callous, certainly. But then again, none of the religions are terribly ecumenical. I guess that's what happens when your gods hate eachother.

I don't think the Order is Evil or bloodthirsty, just inflexible. Like the tax man (although there may be differing opinions on that matter too).

 

[zxcvbnm]

The idea of dark fantasy is that there's no perfect good unlike in light fantasy, no side who always does what's right and the difference of necessary and evil is subtle, very subtle indeed.
The Order is definitely good towards most of their own but they didn't have much mercy on the Lanun citizens.
When someone is inflexible and follows orders without questioning, the system's as good as the boss, who usually ain't so good. Gods sure are a bit different but they are still petty like humans, with the One being the only one who isn't flawed

Funny how big a simple joke made by stereotyping certain empires can get, in just 90 min

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Sure, I'll agree to that. I just don't like the "there's no difference" angle, especially when the evil is shown to be so slimy icky bad.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Is slimy icky bad?
Did I ever say there's no difference? I said there's no true good

 

[MagisterCultuum]

No, but the Elohim and Grigori come pretty close.

 

[zxcvbnm]

That's true. I think Grigori is neutral only because of political reasons: no clear side in the good-evil battle of gods, and they should have access to public healers.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, you know Blaze's modmod (which was basically a combination of the most popular modmods from Sureshot, Maniac, etc, with only a few changes of his own) gave them that ability. (That was probably easier to do back when the civics were blocked in python instead of directly having an alignment requirement in xml)

You know, the Grigori and Elohim have a lot in common. Even though the Elohim do take sides in the good versus evil battle, they also won't discriminate against other based on their religion. (Well, they might if that religion were the Ashen Veil. They would probably still have compassion on the misguided souls that follow the religion, but they would oppose the demons at all costs.) Immanuel Logos abandoned his goddess in order to care for the orphans of those slain in the Wars between the Gods in the Age of Dragons, regardless of whatever god they may have followed. He clearly agreed with Cassiel about the effects of the god's wars. (actually though, it seems like his goddess may have agreed too; although she kept on fighting Aeron, she didn't try to stop Immanuel because she knew that humanity needed someone actually helping instead of just fighting in its name. Actually, by leaving the service of the goddess of spirit he seems to be serving her element all the more, perhaps even more than she was)

Good in FfH would be better described as "Anti-Evil." Agares lead his angels into evil, and some of the angels chose tho devote themselves to fighting evil at all costs. I doing so, their fanaticism may have lead them to abandon their original purposes and act in evil ways to combat the greater evil. That even the good gods have aspects of evil in them is the greatest victory of Agares. It is the neutral gods that are still fulfilling their original purpose, thus are probably closer to being what we would think of as good, but even they have probably been corrupted in some ways.

 

[zxcvbnm]

And actually Malakim get relatively close to that also. True, they are fanatics but they are tolerant towards all open religions, ie all but Ashen Veil and Council of Esus.