Neodis: Alignments - What they are, how they work Here is a topic that has caused a lot of controversy over the years. Many times we have heard the accusations that someone is not acting out their alignment and at other times we hear that it’s not apparently a deciding factor in one’s behavior. In the end we have a big mess and no conclusions. The other day Keller found me, along with Pol and a few others we got into a proper discussion about the properties of good and evil and we came to a conclusion that was not just a compromise but agreeable to everyone’s sensibilities. First we have to approach the issue from several angles, we need to get the whole picture here by examining the details. How do we judge someone? It was determined that a person’s intent is what they need to be judged by. The intention of the person it determined by his natural and desires. The Intention will determine the actions that the person will want to occur. This means that we avoid judging actions that happened by mistake. A person is not evil if they make a mistake and mistakes are part of being mortal. Thus, as you can not accidentally have the wrong intentions, this is what you need to be judged by. Please understand that this was determined with the full knowledge that you can not always know a man's intentions. That’s not the point here. We are not actually making any judgments right now we are simply setting the basis under ideal circumstances. This means that the system can at best only be applied to the self with any certainty of accuracy but we can build from this basis if it becomes necessary. Now that we have the basis for what needs judgment you might realize that one intention is only part of a man. Each of us has many intentions through our entire lives. If we didn’t then we would not do anything. Hence it is conceivable that one person can do both good and evil. This is true. Each action is judged and determined as either good or evil. We all do it, it’s part of being mortal. Now determining if someone is good or evil is a matter of weighing his good and evil intentions against each other. What makes an intention good or evil you might ask? Well this is also a controversial issue. No one can give you proof of a universal standard so we have to go with a mortal one. In our Realm we are also given an Immortal one but I’ll go into that later. As we grow and learn, we take in from our surroundings information. We are taught what society thinks of as good and evil and we learn a set of values that is shared by the common mass. From this we can make our own educated guesses as to whether our intentions are good or evil. There is a universal standard. The concept of good and evil is a fundamental of conscience. That is we create the ideals ourselves and thus they exist. The ideals are polar in nature, we have evil and good as opposites. Even if you believe in a scale, that is something can be more or less good then something else, we have the extreme at each end. That is we have total good and total evil. As each one of us commits both good and evil we have no concept of total good and total evil. This is where most of our problems are, none of us can prove it because none of us have experienced it. To summarize, your alignment is based upon your intentions which are judged via the common understanding of good and evil in your society. As your intentions are not always clear, it is sometimes impossible to determine if they are good or evil. Thus you are judged upon the majority of your actions as it is reasonable to suggest that most of your intentions become clear in most of your actions and that you would seek to make as few mistakes as possible. Something has just occurred to me. I have declared that all intentions are either good or evil. Some may try to suggest that not all actions can be thusly judged. That’s the thing though, you are right, not all actions can be judged, however, we are talking about intentions only. All intentions have either good or evil motives, they might not be obvious and there maybe times when you are hard pressed to determine the motive behind your own intentions but it’s there. All Intentions are either good or evil. Lastly, I know this is long but we are finally at the end. In this realm of ours we are given a clear and concise way of determining someone’s alignment. Lord Tynian has declared that the act of worship is also an act that determines your alignment. Thus your intention to worship an evil God is an evil intention, your intention to worship a good God is likewise a good intent and of course to worship a neutral God is to have a neutral intent. Understand that this has been considered in light of what has happened within the realm, we have taken from us what we could and our new understanding comes from a cooperated effort between good and evil. Our understanding is your understanding. Kind regards |