Law and Chaos, Revisited

In this post, I quoted, without context, a few passages from Michael Moorcock’s The Weird of the White Wolf, in which Elric muses on law, chaos, and the balance between the two. Moorcock’s Elric stories are the basis for the original D&D alignment system (lawful/neutral/chaotic), and though the D&D alignment system has taken on a life of its own over the course of the past 40 years, understanding its origins in Moorcock’s writing is vital to understanding what it actually means to be “lawful” or “chaotic.”

In the first passage, Elric describes his desire for stability, for order, in the universe. The world is a chaotic place, and Elric searches for meaning in the meaningless swirl of events. Ultimately, however, he decides that there is no lasting order, that chaos reigns: “our brief existence is both meaningless and damned.” Given this truth, he trusts “only in my sword and myself.”

Between the poles of law and chaos, there is another cosmic outlook: neutrality. To be “neutral” in the struggle between law and chaos is to believe that a balance of these two extreme forces is necessary.

The “True Neutral” alignment makes sense within this context. True neutrality is not a belief in the balance between good or evil, in which someone feels the need to balance a benevolent act with a malevolent one—to tip the scales toward goodness by saving an innocent life and then redress this imbalance by murdering an innocent—but a belief in the balance between law and chaos. 

In the neutral disposition, too much law leads to stagnation, but too much chaos leads to dissolution. Rigid bureaucracies need to be shaken up once in a while lest they ossify into reflexive traditionalism, and even in an anarchist society hierarchies must form now and then to accomplish certain goals.

Looking at it this way, neutrality seems like a fairly sensible, even common-sense, position to take. The vast majority of NPCs would likely be neutral, avoiding the extreme positions of law and chaos and instead favoring a pragmatic balance between the two.

A follower of Law, on the other hand, would reject anarchism outright, believing that “without law nothing material is possible,” and that meaning and purpose are inherent within the lawful structure of the universe, while a follower of Chaos would see seemingly “lawful” natural events such as the movements of the planets as ultimately transitory in the grand scheme of things. Everything that seems permanent eventually crumbles into dust, and from that dust, new patterns emerge, but not because of any cosmic order, but by sheer accident. 

Even within the nine-alignment system, understanding law and chaos in this manner makes alignment make sense. The lawful/neutral/chaotic axis is a cosmic philosophical outlook, and the good/neutral/evil axis represents a character’s actions in the context of their philosophical beliefs.

For example, Elric sees only chaos in the universe, and so chooses to trust only in himself. That seems like a chaotic neutral disposition to me, not chaotic evil, as the original Deities & Demigods surmises.

A chaotic evil response to the universal rule of Chaos would be, “nothing matters, nothing means anything, so I am free to lie and steal and kill and do whatever I want because all laws are fake.”

A chaotic good character would see the chaos inherent in the universe and say that because Chaos reigns, Law does not have a monopoly on righteousness. In fact, Law only leads to stagnation, a slavish devotion to tradition, and a constraining of freedom and progress.

So in light of Elric’s ruminations on Law and Chaos, I would explain alignment this way: lawful, neutral, and chaotic describes how you believe the universe functions; good, neutral, and evil describes how you act out those beliefs.  

Poe's Names

This isn’t a comprehensive list of every Poe character ever but a collection of the more evocative names, drawn mainly from his poems. The most famous aren’t here (no Lenore or Annabel Lee), nor are the more obvious historical figures (Tamerlane). Some of these names sound like they belong in a sword and sorcery setting (Ulalume, Yaanel), which makes sense considering Poe’s influence on the Weird writers, while others will lend a more traditionally Gothic flavor.

d20 Name

       1.      Ulalume

       2.      Eiros

       3.      Israfel

       4.      Ianthe

       5.      Mendez Ferdinando

       6.      Solomon Don Dunce

       7.      Eulalie

       8.      Irene

       9.      D'Elormie

       10.  Isidore

       11.  Guy de Vere

       12.  Alessandra

       13.  Castiglione

       14.  Lalage

       15.  Jacinta

       16.  Baldazzar

       17.  Auber

       18.  Yaanel

       19.  Ligeia

       20.  Angelo

Speaking as a player, naming my character is often the hardest part of character creation. It's tempting to always go with a goofball name just because it's always easier to be funny than to try to come up with something serious that just ends up being dumb. I like having a list of "flavorful" names to choose from so that I can fit into the overall concept of the campaign and not worry about drawing a blank at character creation and ending up with Crack Skullgood, first level fighter. Something like this sword & sorcery nation generator from Chris Kutalik, but for character names, would be even better than a simple list of names. 

Thoughts on Research (and Some Other Nonsense)

I’m currently working on a Victorian-inspired campaign setting. I know, there are like at least—and this is just a rough guesstimate (not even a precise guesstimate)—forty eight thousand of these out there already. Why make another one? I’ll get into that later. But right now I want to talk about research.

I studied a lot of 19^th century British literature (not just Victorian) in grad school, even published a paper, so I’m having no problem finding source material. I’m going as far back as the Romantic era, Coleridge in particular, since Gothic literature continued to influence poets and artists up to the turn of the 20^th century. Poe’s in there, too, and all of the French poets he inspired, and Marx’s Capital (lots of vampires and werewolves and ghosts in control of the arcane constructs that are colonizing humanity); I’ve been reading everything from Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna to China Miéville.

I’ve got about 30 books, articles, poems, and films in my “Appendix N” right now. It’s like writing my thesis all over again, and it’s easy to get bogged down, or just to get so into reading and learning and absorbing information, that I never get around to actually writing. So here’s what I’m doing about it: I read a source, I take some notes, and then I don’t look back at it again.

I’m trying to keep the research at arm’s length for a few reasons. Most practically, constantly referring back to what I’ve read means I’m not writing. But I also don’t want to just put a fantasy paintjob on the Victorian era, faithfully reproducing historical details in D&D terms. What I want is to get a feel for the time and to capture the major themes without just doing “Fantasy London” or whatever. I have zero interest in steampunk; my interest lies more along the lines of the use of Gothic aesthetic figures as a way to describe and come to terms with the new social and economic order taking shape in this era. Hopefully this approach will result in a game more interesting than gears on a corset and goggles on a top hat, but steers clear of a super serious, not-your-grandma’s, grim’n’gritty reflection on class struggle, slavery, imperialism, and patriarchy.  It’ll be pretentious¹, how could it not be, I’m making it, but shit, I like games that let you go into a cave and kill everything and not have to think about the orc babies.

So anyway, the research I’m doing will help me get into the thematic space I need to be in to write this thing, but I don’t want to be shackled to notions of historical accuracy, so once I’ve read something, I’m not going back to it.  I have to remind myself that this isn’t scholarship; it’s a game.

_____

1. Pretentious, like having footnotes in a blog post. Reminds me of this classic from Jeff Rients. God, I can’t believe that post is almost a decade old. 

The Vampire Muse

Vampire Muse

Medium humanoid, neutral evil

AC: 12

HP: 54 (8d8+16)

STR 10 DEX 12 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 16 CHA 18

Saving Throws: Int +6, Cha +8

Resistance: Cannot be charmed

Skills: Perception +7, History (art) +9, Persuasion +8

Languages: Common, Elven (or the dominant artistic language for a particular culture)

Innate Spellcasting:

2/day: charm person, energy form, misty step

1/day: Visceral art

Actions:

Mind blast: recharge 6. DC 15 Intelligence save or take 22 (4d8+4) damage.

Slam: Melee weapon attack, +4 to hit, 2d8+4 bludgeoning damage. While in ethereal form, the Vampire Muse can strike out with a wispy tendril up to 10’ long that affects both corporeal and noncorporeal beings.

Onaya: You already have the talent inside you. I can see it. You just need someone to help you bring it to the surface.

Jake: How?

Onaya: There are ways. Exercises...techniques.

Jake: Can you show them to me?

The pen of the poet, the brush of the painter, the chisel of the sculptor, the voice of the singer: the acts of creation of great artists release arcane energy into the world. There are beings that feed off of this energy. They are called Vampire Muses.

Vampire Muses are aesthetes with a great appreciation for beauty in all its forms. Their charisma allows them to easily forge relationships with young artists who are still full of potential and eager to prove themselves.

Vampire Muses usually reject overt violence, but if attacked, defend themselves with their mind blast, use their energy form ability, and try escape the confrontation.

Visceral Art: With a touch, the Vampire Muse unlocks the target’s latent artistic potential. Establishing contact takes one round. The target does not make a saving throw if he willingly submitted to the Vampire Muse’s touch, and the Vampire Muse cannot use this ability on a creature against its will. As the target creates its work of art, the Vampire Muse surreptitiously saps the target of his power. As the target’s magnum opus pours from the his pen, the Vampire Muse draws sustenance from the target’s mind. Roll on the following table each day that the target is under the spell to determine the spell’s effects:

Roll (d8)          Effect

1                Target loses 1d4 points of Intelligence

2                Target loses 1d4 points of Constitution

3-5             Target loses 1d4 point of Charisma

6                Target loses 1d4 maximum hit points

7                Target takes 1d6 psychic damage from pushing too hard

8                No effect

While in the visceral art trance, the target will actually be creating his finest work of art; it is not a trick or an illusion. The target can see the results. The target does not, however, realize that he is slowly being drained of life until the effects become obvious to him. At the end of each day that the target suffers a negative effect, roll a DC25 perception check. On a successful check, the target may then roll a DC18 Charisma save to break the spell. If the target’s Charisma, Constitution, maximum hit points fall to zero, the target dies.  If the spell is broken while the target is still alive, the target regains any lost ability scores and maximum hit points.

Onaya: They all died in the end...but look what I gave them in return: immortality. Their names will live forever because of me.

One thing though: “Vampire Muse” isn’t a very cool name. Aesthetic Enervator? No. Art Sucker? Nope. Poiesophage? Ehhhh.  

Central Asia-influenced Campaign Setting

• Imagine if the Plague of Justinian (541-542) wiped out 75% of the population of the Roman Empire, sending the Mediterranean and Europe back to the Neolithic Era. (think Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt)
• The starting town could be in a Kashmir/Hindu Kush/Torugart Pass-type crossroads where there is something interesting in all directions
• East: The western frontier of China
• Northeast: Smaller warring kingdoms
• North: the endless steppes, nomadic tribes
• Northwest: more steppes
• West: desert, scattered city-states
• Southwest: the Sasanian Empire
• South: Hindu Kush Mountains (Dwarves?)
• Further South: Greco-Indian Kingdoms of Punjab: remnants of Alexander the Great’s empire—this is where you have statues of the Buddha done in Greek style. Descendants of an ancient elven empire?
• Southeast: Tibet
• Silk Road: Desert oases, caravanserai, cave monasteries.  Nomads settled into cities built by older civilizations. 

 

Wizard, hireling, fighter, cleric

Classes

·         Cleric:  I can see the cleric’s role in society being the disposal of corpses in towers of silence (give them a spell to summon scavenger birds?) in addition to their traditional function as fighters of the undead. Fire and Water are agents of purification. Corpses are a host for druj, which reanimates impure corpses.

·         Fighter: Cataphracts, nomadic mounted archers, guardians of caravans, bandits.

·         Magic-User: The Greeks and Romans claimed Zoroaster invented magic and astrology.  Ostanes introduced it to the West by accompanying Xerxes in his war against Greece. 

·         Thief: Explorers, merchants, highwaymen, among other things.

·         Elf: The Xian, celestial beings said to live in the Tian Shan mountain range

·         Dwarf: The Yaksha of Hindu mythology (caretakers of treasure buried below the earth)

Alignment

·         Law: Asha, created in the world through good deeds, etc.

·         Chaos: Druj, the opposing force that seeks to destroy the world (Although I personally don’t like the use of “law” and “chaos” as synonyms for “good” and “evil”: Maybe instead of the Law/Neutrality/Chaos system, a simple Good/Evil system to reflect the dualism of the religion?)