The only mentions I've seen of a 'Darach' is from a tv show called teen wolf, considering that it doesn't appear to have any basis from outside the show i wouldn't really use such a title for evil druids. If there is an actual basis then by all means my apologies, please send a link or reference where you've heard/read of it from cause it would be an interesting thing to read up on
I would say that druidic balance is the natural order. the planes are in check, the wolves (or any animal) live in harmony within their system. cities and nature, fey and undead; all stakeholders are represented and managed...
also,
they all speak druidic and no one else does. this indicates some organization. I will agree that not all druids will work together at all times. but they all have more in common than they have differences.
Actually, according to most sources druids don't tend to see undead as part of the natural balance of things, some might i suppose but with undead being seen as a deviation from the natural cycle of life, most druids tend to see undead as abominations and abhor them. I myself disagree with such a philosophy since there have been ways for undead to naturally occur without interference from a god or caster.
Actually, according to most sources druids don't tend to see undead as part of the natural balance of things, some might i suppose but with undead being seen as a deviation from the natural cycle of life, most druids tend to see undead as abominations and abhor them. I myself disagree with such a philosophy since there have been ways for undead to naturally occur without interference from a god or caster.
Can you give some examples? Usually undead occurring accidentally are still tied to some kind of corruption, intended or not. For example, someone that dies in the Vast Swamp in Faerûn, might rise as an undead if they died in a part of the swamp that crosses over with the Shadowfell (Shadow Swamp).
I'm not sure a druid would view such a creature as natural, and most would probably see it as a kindness to destroy it, especially if there's a chance of it spreading more corruption. Likewise, if a ghost were created because someone was murdered, that might be unintended but it was an act of evil so a druid might see it as their duty to send it on its way rather than leave it roaming.
Within the topic of the thread though, an evil druid might simply not care, or see undead as an opportunity to do some "good" by their own twisted logic; i.e- use something unnatural to destroy those who threaten nature, the classic "monsters to kill monsters" argument. An evil druid doesn't necessarily consider what they are doing to be evil, they probably think they're doing the right thing, and that they're the only one with the will to do it even if it means staining their hands with blood to do it, because once their duty is fulfilled they'll stop, right?
Yeah there are examples all over the place where it's not evil, it's nature like as you brought up lizardfolk will kill if the situation calls for it but not out of complete evil. Additionally, when the Tarrasque tail-slams you to kingdom come, it isn't evil. It is however an uncaring, unaligned monster who doesn't give a crap about your life. Or like how thri-kreen are completely willing to make you their next meal if you don't do them any good or slack off, but are actually chaotic neutral and completely willing to help.
In the end it's all perspective. I lied about my Circle of Shadows; I actually made the Circle of the Wastelands. These druids have figured out that while nuclear radiation is bad for humans, elves, and basically any other non-cockroach-based humanoid, it doesn't hurt animals in the long term. They are fine with incinerating people and committing war crimes to bring back natural balance that was lost in some places after people moved on from natural (and most arcane) magic and went to making technology and machinery.
Lizard Folk actually will kill out of complete evil. Conquering and Killing are some of their primary pillars of how they deal with various issues of other species. Only resorting to other things when those don't work. Those are actually characteristics of their race. You'll notice that I said they aren't Evil ONLY because of Cannabilism. Not that what they do isn't evil. Just that they don't necessarily consider what they do evil. Which is a long way from actually not being evil.
Lizard Folk actually will kill out of complete evil. Conquering and Killing are some of their primary pillars of how they deal with various issues of other species. Only resorting to other things when those don't work. Those are actually characteristics of their race. You'll notice that I said they aren't Evil ONLY because of Cannabilism. Not that what they do isn't evil. Just that they don't necessarily consider what they do evil. Which is a long way from actually not being evil.
Do you have a source for this?
In 5e the Lizardfolk monster entry describes them as "truly neutral", they kill if it's expedient to do-so, but they'll also drive people away if that's easier/safer. They're also not cannibals; they do not eat their own kind. Now whether it's "evil" to eat another sentient creature is debatable, but Wizards of the Coast don't appear to consider it automatically evil, or they'd have been given an evil alignment to reflect this, and while they seem to have a preference for eating humanoids when they can, it doesn't say they seek them out, only that prisoners (captured entering their territory) may be eaten. It also sounds more like something that's done out of ritual or tradition, rather than malice.
Lizardfolk only seem to normally be considered evil if they are followers of Sess'inek (a reptilian demon lord) or if they have chosen to serve an evil dragon (and even then, it's not really the Lizardfolk themselves that are evil, but the dragon they are following the instructions of). Left to their own devices the entry makes it clear they're intended to be neutral.
Lizard Folk actually will kill out of complete evil. Conquering and Killing are some of their primary pillars of how they deal with various issues of other species. Only resorting to other things when those don't work. Those are actually characteristics of their race. You'll notice that I said they aren't Evil ONLY because of Cannabilism. Not that what they do isn't evil. Just that they don't necessarily consider what they do evil. Which is a long way from actually not being evil.
Do you have a source for this?
In 5e the Lizardfolk monster entry describes them as "truly neutral", they kill if it's expedient to do-so, but they'll also drive people away if that's easier/safer. They're also not cannibals; they do not eat their own kind. Now whether it's "evil" to eat another sentient creature is debatable, but Wizards of the Coast don't appear to consider it automatically evil, or they'd have been given an evil alignment to reflect this, and while they seem to have a preference for eating humanoids when they can, it doesn't say they seek them out, only that prisoners (captured entering their territory) may be eaten. It also sounds more like something that's done out of ritual or tradition, rather than malice.
Lizardfolk only seem to normally be considered evil if they are followers of Sess'inek (a reptilian demon lord) or if they have chosen to serve an evil dragon (and even then, it's not really the Lizardfolk themselves that are evil, but the dragon they are following the instructions of). Left to their own devices the entry makes it clear they're intended to be neutral.
Read their entry closer. And you'll find their excuse for making Lizardfolk Neutral in plain sight. Let me quote it for you.
"Lizardfolk have no notion of traditional morality, and they find the concepts of good and evil utterly alien. Truly neutral creatures, they kill when it is expedient and do whatever it takes to survive."
This is their excuse. And instead of attempting to make them unaligned. Because 5e hadn't fully learned that trick early on. They instead made them neutral. You'll actually find a few entries like this. This has been their excuse for at least a couple of editions now. Even while they then go on to basically say all of the evil things they do like hunting intelligent creatures, Which actually their Entry in no way says that other Lizardfolk do not count for such hunting. And it even states they don't like to go beyond their borders often because others May hunt them. But there is no distinction made about it only being by other races either.
So yes. If we go strictly by what's written about them in the contexts provided. They eat sentients of all kinds. Including other lizardfolk that are not part of their tribe that wander into their hunting grounds. They are xenophobic and not afraid to kill to protect what is theirs, though they may use non-lethal means at times to do so, Which actually contradicts the whole later statement about how anything and everything that enters their hunting grounds is food. But hey, it is what it is, let them be complicated and contradictory about it.
But let's go further than that. Let's talk about another similar race that is actually less violent, More prone to trading with other races and mostly just wants to be left alone, That is conveniently missing the excuse about "alien thinking" despite being another reptillian race. one that is not given this excuse of neutrality despite the fact that they are more fitting of it.
An Entire Race of reclusive Builders, Miner's, and Inventors that only travel away from their places of digging and living in need of resources, that aren't things that make them inclined to get it from others, and is all about community and the needs of the whole and are known for trying to deter rather than fight. But they are automatically lawful evil. A Race that their only dislike of any other race is because they are Pranksters and their Prankster God imprisoned one oftheir gods for doing his duty. With a Write Up that should really make them lawful Neutral because they only get into evil acts when forced to by other bigger things. It's not something they pursue in any real way on their own as a race.
Yet Kobolds are Lawful Evil, and the Much more Harmful and Evil Acting Race of lizardfolk are Neutral because of a magical handwaving line about not understanding good and evil. Despite the Fact that we know that Understanding or believing your actions match a particular alignment does not necessarily mean that you are of that alignment.
Read their entry closer. And you'll find their excuse for making Lizardfolk Neutral in plain sight. Let me quote it for you.
The entry literally says that they are "truly neutral". It doesn't matter what your moral view of them might be, as they are not a species capable of understanding it.
At its simplest, "evil" in terms of D&D alignment means that a creature knows that what it does is wrong, but chooses to do it anyway, either because it doesn't care, or because it believes it is achieving some higher purpose or whatever (ends justify the means). Lizardfolk don't do any of this, they seem to genuinely not understand that what they are doing might be wrong; it's just what they do, and there is no indication that they do any of it purely out of malice or such.
Kobolds by comparison are described as "craven"; they know that what an evil creatures tells them to do is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway out of fear. Now while I generally agree that they should probably be some flavour of neutral (I'd argue chaotic personally, as while they live in communities they're not generally seen to have problems with stealing from others etc.), on the other hand if we assume that "minion" Kobolds are the type players are most likely to encounter as monsters, then evil is probably right, as even if they're doing it out of fear they're still knowingly committing evil acts, and that could easily feed into worse (if being evil makes a Kobold in a group more likely to survive, then the most evil may well thrive).
Read their entry closer. And you'll find their excuse for making Lizardfolk Neutral in plain sight. Let me quote it for you.
The entry literally says that they are "truly neutral". It doesn't matter what your moral view of them might be, as they are not a species capable of understanding it.
At its simplest, "evil" in terms of D&D alignment means that a creature knows that what it does is wrong, but chooses to do it anyway, either because it doesn't care, or because it believes it is achieving some higher purpose or whatever (ends justify the means). Lizardfolk don't do any of this, they seem to genuinely not understand that what they are doing might be wrong; it's just what they do, and there is no indication that they do any of it purely out of malice or such.
Kobolds by comparison are described as "craven"; they know that what an evil creatures tells them to do is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway out of fear. Now while I generally agree that they should probably be some flavour of neutral (I'd argue chaotic personally, as while they live in communities they're not generally seen to have problems with stealing from others etc.), on the other hand if we assume that "minion" Kobolds are the type players are most likely to encounter as monsters, then evil is probably right, as even if they're doing it out of fear they're still knowingly committing evil acts, and that could easily feed into worse (if being evil makes a Kobold in a group more likely to survive, then the most evil may well thrive).
It's not my moral View. It's an objective view based upon the Alignment System. If they do things that would turn them evil and are reasons for other Races to be Evil. They are objectively evil. If they hunt and eat any sentients that come along in their area without regard to what they are as they are written. That is a trait of Evil Creatures. That's actually one of the Traits that is treated as reason that races like Drow and Other Underdark races are evil as well. Because they are willing to do things like eat other sentients at times. Though there are other behaviors that make Drow evil as well.
Excusing that all because what is basically a contradicted throw away line in the lizardfolk write up is not reason for them to be Neutral.
And no Kobolds should not be Choatic. They are not individualistic and they are not lawbreaking in the service of whim. They are group based. they follow group rules and work in an ordered fashion towards those goals. Their Whim or desire is secondary to the needs of the group. That is the very basis of a lawful society at it's most basic. Kobolds are indeed Lawful but there is nothing about them that actually makes them evil other than the fact that PC parties run into them in various places. Often enough under the control of something else or because the PC's invade their home to kill things and loot it so Kobolds end up Evil. And the worst that the Kobolds do is use traps to deter and remove intruders and fight to defend their homes from groups that effectively invade it.
It's not my moral View. It's an objective view based upon the Alignment System.
And yet the people who created the alignment system, and the monsters, very specifically disagree with you. 🤔
Look, the monster description very explicitly tells you they are neutral and why; theirs is a species that, unlike the Drow and Kobolds etc. who can knowingly commit wrongs, the Lizardfolk (generally) do not have the concepts of good or evil acts. They are not capable of choosing to do an evil act knowing it is wrong, because they do not know it is wrong. And I will absolutely judge their alignment on the basis of the phrase "truly neutral" because it is literally telling you about how the neutral monster is truly neutral.
You can't just directly contradict the monster entry insisting that everyone accept that your view of what they should be is more correct than what is literally written in the actual books. You are of course free to disagree with it, and play it differently in your own games, but ultimately a creature's alignment is either written in a book, in which case that is the canonical alignment, or it's left open (and I guarantee yours will not be the only interpretation).
But it's also worth mentioning that eating sentient creatures is only an "evil" act if you consider such creatures to have more of a right to life than "lesser" creatures such as livestock. But that is an arbitrary and subjective distinction; both are living beings, neither wishes to be killed and be eaten. A neutral Lizardfolk sees no inherent difference between the two; it's fine to eat both. To be evil it would have to know on some level that it is wrong and choose to do it anyway.
The alignment system has always had a tremendous amount of overlap; a creature can believe it is good but actually be evil, or it can be truly good and commit terrible acts, and I can absolutely argue Kobolds as chaotic neutral, but am not going to (because it's off topic). There is no single right answer to a moral question; humanity has literally been debating morality for thousands of years, I highly doubt that were the likes of Plato and Aristotle alive today that they'd just say "Morality is whatever Fateless decides it is", because there is no such thing as an objective moral system (not one that can actually work) either in reality or D&D; except ironically for the one that says "a creature's alignment is what it says on its entry".
For a topic about evil druids this is seriously off topic; Lizardfolk are neutral, it says so in their monster entry. Don't like it? Don't use that in your own games, but that won't change what it says.
It's not my moral View. It's an objective view based upon the Alignment System.
And yet the people who created the alignment system, and the monsters, very specifically disagree with you. 🤔
Look, the monster description very explicitly tells you they are neutral and why; theirs is a species that, unlike the Drow and Kobolds etc. who can knowingly commit wrongs, the Lizardfolk (generally) do not have the concepts of good or evil acts. They are not capable of choosing to do an evil act knowing it is wrong, because they do not know it is wrong. And I will absolutely judge their alignment on the basis of the phrase "truly neutral" because it is literally telling you about how the neutral monster is truly neutral.
You can't just directly contradict the monster entry insisting that everyone accept that your view of what they should be is more correct than what is literally written in the actual books. You are of course free to disagree with it, and play it differently in your own games, but ultimately a creature's alignment is either written in a book, in which case that is the canonical alignment, or it's left open (and I guarantee yours will not be the only interpretation).
The alignment system has always had a tremendous amount of overlap; a creature can believe it is good but actually be evil, or it can be truly good and commit terrible acts, and I can absolutely argue Kobolds as chaotic neutral, but am not going to (because it's off topic). There is no single right answer to a moral question; humanity has literally been debating morality for thousands of years, I highly doubt that were the likes of Plato and Aristotle alive today that they'd just say "Morality is whatever Fateless decides it is", because there is no such thing as objective morality either in reality or D&D except where it is printed explicitly on a monster entry (as it is in this case).
For a topic about evil druids this is seriously off topic; Lizardfolk are neutral, it says so in their monster entry. Don't like it? Don't that in your own games, but that won't change what it says.
Except no they don't. Because It's very easy to just slap any alignment onto anything and we have evidence that was likely done for a number of entries.
When you take a Monster and Label it Truely Neutral and then it does very little that's Truely Neutral. Then it's not Truely Neutral. Even if they slap an excuse on it. Not knowing they are doing bad does not cancel out the bad. It never has. This statement is not "Morality by Fateless" as you want to brush it off as.
But the Reasoning your Arguing the large Majority of Major Villains should actually be Considered Good. They are doing bad things for what they believe to be Good Reasons and what they see as Best for the World. Their Righteousness should counter act any evilness in whatever they do on that basis and the party must be evil for opposing them despite doing thigns that actually help the world. Particularly when most often they are not all that righteous or even sure they are doing the right thing, or that the right thing is actually good. They are just doing what they need to.
This is not "Morality by Fateless" either. We all Know the Bad Guys are Bad Because they do Bad things and their Reasoning may make it more relatable or pitiable or otherwise pull at emotional heart strings, it might even lead some to try to redeem said individual. But they are still Bad Guys for what they do. This is fundamental even when we can't always agree exactly on everything that is bad. This is an outright rejection of these little contradictory statements of behavior that we're presented with.
A Single Lines Removal should not be all it takes to change the entire flavor of the Race. And that's realistically what you have with the lizardfolk. It's not just because they are a PC race either. Thre are plenty of PC races that the overall group of them are evil. Thta's nothing new. It's ok for the individual to be different from that.
But that single line has another problem. An Entire Classification of Monster, Most of which either come from somewhere beyond the known planes of existance or are entirely manufactured is the Abberations. They are creatures with truely alien minds and ways of thinking for basically all of them. You know what alignment most of these races that should have even less concept of good and evil than the LIzardfolk is? They are Evil. There are some that are neutral. Maybe one or two that are good. But the vast majority are evil Alignment.
And this can all lead right back into the whole Topic of Evil Druids. Evil Druids that have been written up, and Organizations they belong to. Almost All twist the Idea that Nature can be Cruel, Survival of the Fittest, and Reasserting Nature's Dominance for their major motivations for attacking and harming people and places. They Claim to just be doing what is natural. But they get no protections from the creators about how they are not evil. They are all treated as evil. They are given Evil Alignments. They become adversaries to good and neutral groups as part of stories. And the overall behavior is enough to label them as evil with no excuses about it, and we are told their excuses they might actually give us do not make them less evil.
When you take a Monster and Label it Truely Neutral and then it does very little that's Truely Neutral. Then it's not Truely Neutral. Even if they slap an excuse on it. Not knowing they are doing bad does not cancel out the bad. It never has. This statement is not "Morality by Fateless" as you want to brush it off as.
Except that it is; you keep insisting that what they do is evil, but you don't justify it; you've decided that what they do is evil, and therefore they must be evil by your judgement, even though the entry tells you why they are not, and is absolutely clear that they are neutral.
But the Reasoning your Arguing the large Majority of Major Villains should actually be Considered Good. They are doing bad things for what they believe to be Good Reasons and what they see as Best for the World.
That's not what I've said at all (the opposite in fact, as I'm arguing there are no simple objective answers except what is written as canon); knowingly doing something wrong but believing you're doing it for the right reasons can definitely still be evil, but it's not an opposite end of the spectrum as you seem to want to believe; a good person can do terrible things and still be generally good, while a villain can consistently do even worse things for the exact same reason and be evil instead. It's not just the actions that matter, but why you do them, but there is a tipping point between which actions and justification balance one way or the other, but that is an extremely subjective decision, and the differences can be vanishingly small or entirely arbitrary.
This is a fundamental principle in most systems of morality, with the exception of systems like Kant's categorical imperatives where actions themselves must be judged as objectively good or bad, and performing them is therefore always good or bad, regardless of your reasons for doing them. But that kind of morality opens up huge flaws as you need to first find a way to judge the "goodness" of an action, and that kind of absolutism often takes no account of justification at all, e.g- if killing is wrong then you can't defend yourself unless you know you can do so without killing your attacker.
This is not "Morality by Fateless" either. We all Know the Bad Guys are Bad Because they do Bad things and their Reasoning may make it more relatable or pitiable or otherwise pull at emotional heart strings, it might even lead some to try to redeem said individual. But they are still Bad Guys for what they do. This is fundamental even when we can't always agree exactly on everything that is bad. This is an outright rejection of these little contradictory statements of behavior that we're presented with.
This is precisely the kind of absolutism that causes a moral system to collapse; how many good deeds negates a bad one? Is it one to one? If I help 10 grannies across the street does that make up for my torturing another one to death earlier? The moment you start thinking in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys" you're not thinking in terms of morality at all, you're applying your own absolutism, that's not how morality works. And just because you view something as wrong, doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you; see the pro-life vs. abortion rights issue.
At what point do two people doing different things for the exact same reason separate to become one good and one bad?
A Single Lines Removal should not be all it takes to change the entire flavor of the Race. And that's realistically what you have with the lizardfolk. It's not just because they are a PC race either. Thre are plenty of PC races that the overall group of them are evil. Thta's nothing new. It's ok for the individual to be different from that.
Except that it wouldn't change it; you want them to be evil because you subjectively consider what they do to be automatically evil. You don't seem to want to consider it as a moral issue, it's "I say what they do is evil so they're evil". This is why I'm accusing you of morality by Fateless; you seem to want an objective answer to everything, but morality is not objective, except in D&D there is actually one objective form of morality; whatever is written on the page, but you don't agree with that, you want others to accept your subjective demand that you are the arbiter of what is true objective morality.
Why is it wrong to eat a sentient being but not any other living creature? Neither wishes to be killed and eaten; just because you consider a sentient being to be inherently more valuable does not mean that they are. It's entirely possible to argue that it's better to eat sentients because they are more destructive and harmful to their environment, but the Lizardfolk don't appear to believe that, the distinction to them simply does not matter, and may not even occur to them at all. That's why it's a form of neutrality. They are hungry, and they have meat, so they eat it. Their gods require sacrifice, so they sacrifice.
You haven't established the maliciousness or the concept of right and wrong required for this to be evil within a framework where neither exists. Other creatures like evil dragons may eat both sentients and animals, but for preferring sentients to be truly evil they'd really need to prefer sentientsbecause unlike animals, sentients are capable of begging and bargaining for their lives or similar reasons; if they're purely opportunistic hunters then it's a lot harder to argue as evil, as food is food when you're hungry.
If eating a sentient creature were automatically evil then every single predator in the game would be evil; Lizardfolk being capable of rational thought does not make something fine for an animal suddenly evil, especially if their motivation is more "animalistic" than emotional, you're the one making the leap. Alignment is as much about informing behaviour; Lizardfolk seem intended to be stereotypically "cold-blooded", i.e- dispassionate, not motivated by maliciousness but instead by necessity and defensive xenophobia (not tolerating other sentient species in their territory). A DM can absolutely play them as vicious killers who go out their way to capture fresh sacrifices from nearby towns, but that's their choice to make them more evil, just as you could run them less violent in how they defend themselves, and more accepting or even helpful towards strangers.
But that single line has another problem. An Entire Classification of Monster, Most of which either come from somewhere beyond the known planes of existance or are entirely manufactured is the Abberations. They are creatures with truely alien minds and ways of thinking for basically all of them. You know what alignment most of these races that should have even less concept of good and evil than the LIzardfolk is? They are Evil.
I don't have time to trawl through all the abberations, but to take an example such as a Beholder they're not evil because they're alien, they're evil because they want to enslave, torture or destroy anything that they consider to be a lesser being (which happens to be everything that isn't themselves), and they are actively malicious and cruel in how they go about. However, nothing in a beholder's entry suggests that they do not consider what they do to be wrong, their justification is that they are superior or paranoid, and so are content to do it anyway. In other words it's not that they do not recognise right and wrong, they simply do not care if something is wrong so long as they get what they want.
And this can all lead right back into the whole Topic of Evil Druids. Evil Druids that have been written up, and Organizations they belong to. Almost All twist the Idea that Nature can be Cruel, Survival of the Fittest, and Reasserting Nature's Dominance for their major motivations for attacking and harming people and places. They Claim to just be doing what is natural. But they get no protections from the creators about how they are not evil. They are all treated as evil. They are given Evil Alignments. They become adversaries to good and neutral groups as part of stories. And the overall behavior is enough to label them as evil with no excuses about it, and we are told their excuses they might actually give us do not make them less evil.
Such a type of evil druid as you're describing isn't being cruel or murderous with some higher goal in mind, e.g- driving away or wiping out the population of a town to protect a forest (ends justify the means). Being cruel and murderous is their goal (it is the end that they seek). As I've said, actions aren't all that matters in morality, it also matters why something is done, but neither is the whole of the equation (most moral systems try to balance the two).
A druid doing the exact same things but with some specific goal in mind could just as easily be a lesser neutral evil or true neutral instead, depending upon what it is they seek to achieve, and their willingness to go further than they need to. The thing you don't seem to want to accept on this and other morality threads is that even within the set alignments there is no right and wrong answer to every question; a character can be evil but not malicious, or good and ruthless and so-on, there are very few purely good or purely evil beings, and those are usually gods, and most of those are just boring caricatures, and individual actions are not automatically "good" or "evil" as they can be done for the "right" or "wrong" reasons, and for some creatures none of these concepts exist.
When you take a Monster and Label it Truely Neutral and then it does very little that's Truely Neutral. Then it's not Truely Neutral. Even if they slap an excuse on it. Not knowing they are doing bad does not cancel out the bad. It never has. This statement is not "Morality by Fateless" as you want to brush it off as.
Except that it is; you keep insisting that what they do is evil, but you don't justify it; you've decided that what they do is evil, and therefore they must be evil by your judgement, even though the entry tells you why they are not, and is absolutely clear that they are neutral.
But the Reasoning your Arguing the large Majority of Major Villains should actually be Considered Good. They are doing bad things for what they believe to be Good Reasons and what they see as Best for the World.
That's not what I've said at all (the opposite in fact, as I'm arguing there are no simple objective answers except what is written as canon); knowingly doing something wrong but believing you're doing it for the right reasons can definitely still be evil, but it's not an opposite end of the spectrum as you seem to want to believe; a good person can do terrible things and still be generally good, while a villain can consistently do even worse things for the exact same reason and be evil instead. It's not just the actions that matter, but why you do them, but there is a tipping point between which actions and justification balance one way or the other, but that is an extremely subjective decision, and the differences can be vanishingly small or entirely arbitrary.
This is a fundamental principle in most systems of morality, with the exception of systems like Kant's categorical imperatives where actions themselves must be judged as objectively good or bad, and performing them is therefore always good or bad, regardless of your reasons for doing them. But that kind of morality opens up huge flaws as you need to first find a way to judge the "goodness" of an action, and that kind of absolutism often takes no account of justification at all, e.g- if killing is wrong then you can't defend yourself unless you know you can do so without killing your attacker.
This is not "Morality by Fateless" either. We all Know the Bad Guys are Bad Because they do Bad things and their Reasoning may make it more relatable or pitiable or otherwise pull at emotional heart strings, it might even lead some to try to redeem said individual. But they are still Bad Guys for what they do. This is fundamental even when we can't always agree exactly on everything that is bad. This is an outright rejection of these little contradictory statements of behavior that we're presented with.
This is precisely the kind of absolutism that causes a moral system to collapse; how many good deeds negates a bad one? Is it one to one? If I help 10 grannies across the street does that make up for my torturing another one to death earlier? The moment you start thinking in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys" you're not thinking in terms of morality at all, you're applying your own absolutism, that's not how morality works. And just because you view something as wrong, doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you; see the pro-life vs. abortion rights issue.
At what point do two people doing different things for the exact same reason separate to become one good and one bad?
A Single Lines Removal should not be all it takes to change the entire flavor of the Race. And that's realistically what you have with the lizardfolk. It's not just because they are a PC race either. Thre are plenty of PC races that the overall group of them are evil. Thta's nothing new. It's ok for the individual to be different from that.
Except that it wouldn't change it; you want them to be evil because you subjectively consider what they do to be automatically evil. You don't seem to want to consider it as a moral issue, it's "I say what they do is evil so they're evil". This is why I'm accusing you of morality by Fateless; you seem to want an objective answer to everything, but morality is not objective, except in D&D there is actually one objective form of morality; whatever is written on the page, but you don't agree with that, you want others to accept your subjective demand that you are the arbiter of what is true objective morality.
Why is it wrong to eat a sentient being but not any other living creature? Neither wishes to be killed and eaten; just because you consider a sentient being to be inherently more valuable does not mean that they are. It's entirely possible to argue that it's better to eat sentients because they are more destructive and harmful to their environment, but the Lizardfolk don't appear to believe that, the distinction to them simply does not matter, and may not even occur to them at all. That's why it's a form of neutrality. They are hungry, and they have meat, so they eat it. Their gods require sacrifice, so they sacrifice.
You haven't established the maliciousness or the concept of right and wrong required for this to be evil within a framework where neither exists. Other creatures like evil dragons may eat both sentients and animals, but for preferring sentients to be truly evil they'd really need to prefer sentientsbecause unlike animals, sentients are capable of begging and bargaining for their lives or similar reasons; if they're purely opportunistic hunters then it's a lot harder to argue as evil, as food is food when you're hungry.
If eating a sentient creature were automatically evil then every single predator in the game would be evil; Lizardfolk being capable of rational thought does not make something fine for an animal suddenly evil, especially if their motivation is more "animalistic" than emotional, you're the one making the leap. Alignment is as much about informing behaviour; Lizardfolk seem intended to be stereotypically "cold-blooded", i.e- dispassionate, not motivated by maliciousness but instead by necessity and defensive xenophobia (not tolerating other sentient species in their territory). A DM can absolutely play them as vicious killers who go out their way to capture fresh sacrifices from nearby towns, but that's their choice to make them more evil, just as you could run them less violent in how they defend themselves, and more accepting or even helpful towards strangers.
But that single line has another problem. An Entire Classification of Monster, Most of which either come from somewhere beyond the known planes of existance or are entirely manufactured is the Abberations. They are creatures with truely alien minds and ways of thinking for basically all of them. You know what alignment most of these races that should have even less concept of good and evil than the LIzardfolk is? They are Evil.
I don't have time to trawl through all the abberations, but to take an example such as a Beholder they're not evil because they're alien, they're evil because they want to enslave, torture or destroy anything that they consider to be a lesser being (which happens to be everything that isn't themselves), and they are actively malicious and cruel in how they go about. However, nothing in a beholder's entry suggests that they do not consider what they do to be wrong, their justification is that they are superior or paranoid, and so are content to do it anyway. In other words it's not that they do not recognise right and wrong, they simply do not care if something is wrong so long as they get what they want.
And this can all lead right back into the whole Topic of Evil Druids. Evil Druids that have been written up, and Organizations they belong to. Almost All twist the Idea that Nature can be Cruel, Survival of the Fittest, and Reasserting Nature's Dominance for their major motivations for attacking and harming people and places. They Claim to just be doing what is natural. But they get no protections from the creators about how they are not evil. They are all treated as evil. They are given Evil Alignments. They become adversaries to good and neutral groups as part of stories. And the overall behavior is enough to label them as evil with no excuses about it, and we are told their excuses they might actually give us do not make them less evil.
Such a type of evil druid as you're describing isn't being cruel or murderous with some higher goal in mind, e.g- driving away or wiping out the population of a town to protect a forest (ends justify the means). Being cruel and murderous is their goal (it is the end that they seek). As I've said, actions aren't all that matters in morality, it also matters why something is done, but neither is the whole of the equation (most moral systems try to balance the two).
A druid doing the exact same things but with some specific goal in mind could just as easily be a lesser neutral evil or true neutral instead, depending upon what it is they seek to achieve, and their willingness to go further than they need to. The thing you don't seem to want to accept on this and other morality threads is that even within the set alignments there is no right and wrong answer to every question; a character can be evil but not malicious, or good and ruthless and so-on, there are very few purely good or purely evil beings, and those are usually gods, and most of those are just boring caricatures, and individual actions are not automatically "good" or "evil" as they can be done for the "right" or "wrong" reasons, and for some creatures none of these concepts exist.
I'm not putting the way that lizardfolk are written and Not Being Good despite them being good on different sides of the Spectrum. I am saying they are on the exact same side of the Spectrum. It is you argueing that they are on different sides. NOT ME.
And WHY doesn't Matter. Your Even Admitting it doesn't matter while Trying to tell me it Matters. You outright say that a person that does bad things but believes they are good isn't actually good. But their Thinking, which is most often the basis of their Reasoning for doing so, May have good Intentions yet they still are not good. Your the One Creating a Dissonent Seperation between these things in your argument. Not me.
There's an Age Old Saying about this. "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions". This an exact basic understanding that Why doesn't really make one less evil. I'm not Applying Absolutism. Your Making Excuses for why the System doesn't Track out and why they don't fit despite the fact that everything fits. Your Taking a Tiny Detail, That isn't supported by anything else written about their general behavior and excusing it all, Even though it's more than enough to objectively be used in judgement against other things in the same system.
Your Entire Argument against me about how I am flawed also doesn't work. Because there is NO ACTUAL JUSTIFICATION for their neutrality. The Justification that your pointing to is not objectively supported. It requires you to Subjectively choose to ignore what is actually there. All the Justifications in their Write up are for Evil not for Neutral. The best you get as a Reason for Why they are Neutral more than just a single sentence that when taken out changes the whole write up is a mention of occasionally trading with others. That is it. All of the rest of their write up is how they are territorial and will either drive off or hunt and eat everything in whatever area they claim and other such acts. These details are the Reasoning that you are Ignoring and they are not Neutral. They are Not Good. They fulfill every criteria that your saying that I am flawed for Not having and Not paying attention to.
Also I'm gonna Call BS On my not understanding in Morality threads. I am understanding fully. I am taking into account the entire Sum of the Actions. Not singular lines. Not individual pieces that are misconstrued. I'm talking about the over all picture. Something that Poeple choose to ignore again and again and again. On All kinds of Subjects, In all Kinds of Debates. And then i show Proof or "They Reason Why" that your so obsessed over somehow trying to use against me. The Same Thing that you insist is so important and there is so much Nuance when I point to you various nuanced Details and how they do not Fit the System that you Claim I am ignoring and must Follow because the People that Created it must have Followed it when I can actually point to how it doesn't fit their Own System. And I've even pointed out ways it does not fit. And i've pointed out at least one other Example of an Entry that is not correct despite adamant responses that the creators created it that way so it must be right and that the write up must actually be viewed as Neutral when it's not written in an actual Neutral manner.
There is not justifications Or Nuance of Any Good to counteract the Bad in the Way that Lizardfolk are Written. Particularly when put up against other things that are written as evil under the same criteria as the Lizardfolk. Or For That Matter, Are Written as Alien Minded if not more so, as a single sentence in the Lizardfolk write up claims lizardfolk, Yet Almost All of these Alien Minded Creatures have All of that Nuance and Justification that says despite the fact that Their Minds are Alien in working to us and may not actually have the understanding of Good and Evil that the REst of the game world has, They are STILL EVIL.
If anybody in this conversation is being Absolutist it is not me. It's you Because Your Stating that Despite the fact that all the details are telling us that the lizardfolk are not good. That they will eat anything and anybody that comes into their territory and other details like this that none of that Matters Because they have one line about having Alien minds to not understand Good or Evil. And that the alignment line on their stat block is filled in as neutral. So that they must be Neutral despite any evidence to the Contrary and not balancing Evidence to back it up. This is Absolutism.
This is Creating Unfounded Absolute Moral Principles and Assigning them to something regardless of context as you want to argue that I'm doing.
And By the Way. Eatting sentients. A kind of common trait amongst evil things. It tends to go hand in hand with seeing other Beings as Lesser. So if they are Lesser then they are no better than either Food or Tools to be used. But your Going to justify it as neutral because it fits your argument. Despite that even amongst Humans in the REal World Cannibalism and Eatting things that would have intelligence and capabilities similar to humans is pretty universally banned as wrong. To the Point that Some go on Moral Crusades about eatting Animals and the like because they have some level of intelligence themselves, And One of the Pivotal Morality Points about catching Dolphin's in nets when Fishing is because they are highly intelligent and it's wrong to treat intelligent Creatures that way.
And your Beholder ARgument. It's just as bad. There is Nothing that Actually States that Beholders do know that what they are doing is Bad and Don't Care. It only says that it can be paranoid and that Anything That isn't a Beholder is in it's mind beneath it. You'll Also Note that when it comes to the Beholder. It's Own Write Up says that it recognizes Other Beholders for what they Are and as their only ACTUAL RIVALS and Doesn't like Them for Being Different. On Top of that. Their whole thing start with how bizarre and alien their sentience is, how their Perceptions are not normal and inhuman and how they affect reality with sheer force of Will. They have more Alien Thinking Justification than the Lizardfolk Do. But your Cherry Picking Details to make them evil and the lizardfolk Neutral despite the fact that Beholder's have Other Details talking about how Alien they are. This is the flaw in your argument. The cherry picking of details and calling it Nuance and justification for a Moral Difference. Nuance is added on to the whole picture. it is not some piecemeal system where you only take part of something. it's where you show how that thing enhances the Whole. Which you are not doing. Here is the Actual Nuance to the whole Thing. They Spend Two Full Paragraphs talking about how Different the Mind of Beholder's are compared to other Sentient Beings like Humans that we are used to, And this includes Lizardfolk which are still technically humanoid in the end, and not a simple sentence to claim it. It Even States that It's Paranoia Stems from the fact that it can see multiple ways that events play out because of it's level of intellect and strange way of thinking.
Beholder's are good when it comes to my Argument against the Lizardfolk. They are bad for yours. Primarily because So much time is spent in their whole Descriptions talking about how Alien and unlike Humans they actually are and think. The Nuance and Justification that you claim that I'm missing. And you can read it for yourself. I'll link you to their Write up in Volo's Guide. They are in many ways One of the biggest Examples why the single line in the Lizardfolk Write up does not work.
on Top of that. I'll hit another big one. The Illithid's. Another Species from somewhere beyond. Using their Mental Powers to bend others to their Will and work for them in ways the Illithids find distainful or can't do themselves. A Race so old it's on the verge of extinction according to the 5e write up. There is nothing in their write up that suggests that they in any way have any concept that what they do is evil. That it's anything more than natural to them to control and enslave others that they do. They Are basically all categorically listed as evil for the Enslavement, The Devouring of Sentients (most specifically their Brains), and just every other aspect of how they see and treat other Sentient Beings in General that are not entirely disconnected from the Lizardfolk writeup. These are Outright described from the very beginning as Horrific, ALIEN beings. Their Primary Focus is implied to Be sustaining themselves, Not anything any more inherently nefarious than lizardfolk hunting anybody that enters their territories overall. Their Slavery of other Sentients through mind magic is even stated to basically be a matter of Physical Labor and that slaves are only eaten as a last resort when they can't get food from elsewhere. They are another Race that Spends Paragraphs talking about their alien physiology and to some extent their odd intellect to show how alien that they are. How Different their thinking is about the whole matter, and how eating the brains of sentients is not just a matter of convenience like the lizardfolk but an outright necessity. Yet this is all used to portray how evil they are. Not Neutral. EVIL. Yet they have far more Nuance that we can draw upon than anything we get with the Lizardfolk and far more detail about just how alien they are.
And On top of All of this. Their write ups don't change just because you remove an unsupported line that says "They don't understand good and evil so they can't be good or evil."
And your being either Obtuse or Blind if your saying I haven't shown their Maliciousness. Their Maliciousness is literally in black and White. Attack ANYTHING that is NOT THEM to either drive it off or kill it. Unless it's so powerful, and usually enough like them, That they can't. Do begrudging Business at best but always be paranoid they are going to hunt you because you Will Hunt Them more often than Not if they come in your territory. That is malicious intent right there. Malicious intent your Willfully ignoring just so that you can choose to be right. Even in their Very Short bit about driving others away, It's mentioned that one of their preferred methods of deterring people is to do things like drive them into crocodiles and the like to be killed instead. Maliciousness is obvious in passages such as the following that often appear in their write ups about behavior. All of which is Willful Behavior on the part of lizardfolk.
"Great Feasts and Sacrifices.Lizardfolk are omnivorous, but they have a taste for humanoid flesh. Prisoners are often taken back to their camps to become the centerpieces of great feasts and rites involving dancing, storytelling, and ritual combat. Victims are either cooked and eaten by the tribe, or are sacrificed to Semuanya, the lizardfolk god."
You Say i haven't established things like a Malicious nature and it takes that Malicious Nature to prove their intent and thus make them evil. Their Malicious intent is more Black and White than it is in All of the Illithid write up, Or even the Beholder Writeup for that matter. Even The Arrogance factor of the Beholder states that they don't treat others (with the exception of other Beholders) with any kind of Malicious intent. They may do things like Point out their Failings but Their Arrogance isn't malicious and they don't brag. So if your going to use Malicious Intent as your measuring Stick and Find Beholders and Illithid's as evil because of the way they treat people. You cannot then make exception for the Lizardfolk for doing the same and similar things willfully.
You are The one Drawing Absolute Lines in the Sand and then saying what fits those lines and what doesn't and calling it Morality. Your not taking any kind of big picture approach even as you argue that I should be using a big picture approach and shouldn't be "absolutist". Less Evil is not the same thing as Not Evil. It is just Less Evil. But it is still evil. But I'm sure your going to tell me that all of this proves nothing.
As a side note. I'll even add for you already. Pretty much the only Aberations that are not listed as Evil are the Slaad. And the Slaad are all magically created creatures of Chaos that spread a disease that turns humanoids into slaad's. The destruction is just a part of who they are and the only thing they actively oppose are modron's. The Only Exception to that being the Death Slaad which is outright mentioned being Evil's Corruption of Chaos through Negative Energy and that they willfully like to actively harm others for sadistic pleasure and actively gather up lesser slaadi into raiding parties to go cause havoc and infect humanoids into incubators for more of their kind. All other Forms of Slaad aren't even noted as the type to go after humanoids even for reproductive purpose. it's entire nuance is just that it's something that happens when the two things interact. (I might also point out that neither the beholder or the Illithid have anything in their massive write ups that in any way suggests any actual pleasure in what they do to others. So that attempt at drawing a moral line doesn't work on them either.)
I'm not putting the way that lizardfolk are written and Not Being Good despite them being good on different sides of the Spectrum. I am saying they are on the exact same side of the Spectrum. It is you argueing that they are on different sides. NOT ME.
What is this even in response to? My comment about the spectrum is about the spectrum of good and evil; the mistaken idea that good and evil are opposite ends of a line with neutral in the middle, but it's nowhere near as simple as that. A character can flip from good to evil without ever being neutral, a creature can do good and bad without ever being good or evil and so-on. And I never argued that Lizardfolk are on an opposite end to anything; they're neutral by default.
And WHY doesn't Matter. Your Even Admitting it doesn't matter while Trying to tell me it Matters. You outright say that a person that does bad things but believes they are good isn't actually good. But their Thinking, which is most often the basis of their Reasoning for doing so, May have good Intentions yet they still are not good. Your the One Creating a Dissonent Seperation between these things in your argument. Not me.
I'm sorry but you really need to read what I've actually said because either you haven't understood, you haven't cared to, as these are not arguments I've made. All I've done is point out that both good and evil characters can do terrible things, and that the separation between the two (and neutral) isn't necessarily all that large.
Actions and intentions both matter, but your arguments seem to be based on actions alone without consideration of intention.
There's an Age Old Saying about this. "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions". This an exact basic understanding that Why doesn't really make one less evil. I'm not Applying Absolutism. Your Making Excuses for why the System doesn't Track out and why they don't fit despite the fact that everything fits. Your Taking a Tiny Detail, That isn't supported by anything else written about their general behavior and excusing it all, Even though it's more than enough to objectively be used in judgement against other things in the same system.
What "system" do you imagine you're talking about here? You keep claiming that there is some objective system by which alignment is applied but this has never been true in D&D. The alignment system is simplistic but not simple; its definitions are vague and include concepts that are highly complex in their own right.
But you're in luck; unlike in real-world morality there is an objective system of morality possible within D&D. It's called "what it says on the sheet, or whatever your DM says it is". Everything else is subjective.
Your Entire Argument against me about how I am flawed also doesn't work. Because there is NO ACTUAL JUSTIFICATION for their neutrality. The Justification that your pointing to is not objectively supported. It requires you to Subjectively choose to ignore what is actually there. All the Justifications in their Write up are for Evil not for Neutral. The best you get as a Reason for Why they are Neutral more than just a single sentence that when taken out changes the whole write up is a mention of occasionally trading with others. That is it. All of the rest of their write up is how they are territorial and will either drive off or hunt and eat everything in whatever area they claim and other such acts. These details are the Reasoning that you are Ignoring and they are not Neutral. They are Not Good. They fulfill every criteria that your saying that I am flawed for Not having and Not paying attention to.
Here you go again using the word objective; you do realise that saying that you are being objective does not make it true, right? Once again, philosophers have been trying to come up with systems of objective morality for literally thousands of years and have never succeeded; the D&D alignment system has not somehow magically solved the same problems.
It's a system for categorising NPCs and enemies, and helping players to inform their character's behaviour and motivations.
Also I'm gonna Call BS On my not understanding in Morality threads. I am understanding fully. I am taking into account the entire Sum of the Actions. Not singular lines. Not individual pieces that are misconstrued. I'm talking about the over all picture. Something that Poeple choose to ignore again and again and again. On All kinds of Subjects, In all Kinds of Debates. And then i show Proof or "They Reason Why" that your so obsessed over somehow trying to use against me. The Same Thing that you insist is so important and there is so much Nuance when I point to you various nuanced Details and how they do not Fit the System that you Claim I am ignoring and must Follow because the People that Created it must have Followed it when I can actually point to how it doesn't fit their Own System. And I've even pointed out ways it does not fit. And i've pointed out at least one other Example of an Entry that is not correct despite adamant responses that the creators created it that way so it must be right and that the write up must actually be viewed as Neutral when it's not written in an actual Neutral manner.
And here it is again; you understand "fully". Only you are looking at "the full picture". Your understanding of alignment transcends all others and so therefore we must all just bow down and accept your wisdom? God complex much?
There is not justifications Or Nuance of Any Good to counteract the Bad in the Way that Lizardfolk are Written. Particularly when put up against other things that are written as evil under the same criteria as the Lizardfolk. Or For That Matter, Are Written as Alien Minded if not more so, as a single sentence in the Lizardfolk write up claims lizardfolk, Yet Almost All of these Alien Minded Creatures have All of that Nuance and Justification that says despite the fact that Their Minds are Alien in working to us and may not actually have the understanding of Good and Evil that the REst of the game world has, They are STILL EVIL.
And yet they are described as cruel, or hateful, and so-on, which make clear that they are not dispassionate beings. If you were actually looking at the entries for their differences to Lizardfolk rather than just for similarities then you might actually see them. I've tried to explain this so many times now, that good and evil are not the simple concepts that you seem to want them to be; what makes one thing evil is not always going to be the same as what makes another evil, and even when two things are evil, one can be more evil than the other.
If anybody in this conversation is being Absolutist it is not me. It's you Because Your Stating that Despite the fact that all the details are telling us that the lizardfolk are not good.
Except that it's not a fact, you're deciding that your subjective opinion is fact and applying it unconditionally; pretty much the very definition of absolutism.
That they will eat anything and anybody that comes into their territory and other details like this that none of that Matters Because they have one line about having Alien minds to not understand Good or Evil. And that the alignment line on their stat block is filled in as neutral. So that they must be Neutral despite any evidence to the Contrary and not balancing Evidence to back it up. This is Absolutism.
No, it's the D&D alignment system; you know, the thing you're insisting is wrong, yet also simultaneously can't be because you alone understand how to apply it absolutely even when it directly disagrees with you?
And By the Way. Eatting sentients. A kind of common trait amongst evil things. It tends to go hand in hand with seeing other Beings as Lesser. So if they are Lesser then they are no better than either Food or Tools to be used. But your Going to justify it as neutral because it fits your argument. Despite that even amongst Humans in the REal World Cannibalism and Eatting things that would have intelligence and capabilities similar to humans is pretty universally banned as wrong. To the Point that Some go on Moral Crusades about eatting Animals and the like because they have some level of intelligence themselves, And One of the Pivotal Morality Points about catching Dolphin's in nets when Fishing is because they are highly intelligent and it's wrong to treat intelligent Creatures that way.
And yet you can't justify it. Once again, if eating intelligent beings is automatically evil then any predator in the game that will eat a person should also be evil by your logic, yet they aren't.
You accuse me of justifying it as neutral because it fits my argument, but I'm not; I'm inviting you to justify why it's evil in terms other than "because these creatures do it and are evil". Your arguments are all based on actions being inherently good or evil, which means that a creature's alignment must be informed by those actions not the other way around. So what makes these actions objectively good or evil? Because if you can't answer that, then your argument is not objective. In fact it's as much based on what the creature entries say as you keep claiming mine is, except that's not really my argument at all as I've tried to point out to you.
My argument is that the Lizardfolk entry justifies its classification as neutral; it says it's neutral, and it says why, and that there is plenty of moral reasoning that supports this, because morality is complex and alignment in D&D is vague. That's how all alignment in D&D works at the end of the day.
And your Beholder ARgument. It's just as bad. There is Nothing that Actually States that Beholders do know that what they are doing is Bad and Don't Care.
And? I've never said that's the only condition for being evil, in fact I've said the opposite; there are many, many ways that a creature can be justified as evil, just as there are many, many ways that a creature who behaves in much the same way could be justified as neutral or even good, because again, morality is incredibly complicated, and the D&D alignment system extremely simplistic (because it's there to inform behaviour, not to be an absolute guide on how to live and judge morality).
They have more Alien Thinking Justification than the Lizardfolk Do. But your Cherry Picking Details to make them evil and the lizardfolk Neutral despite the fact that Beholder's have Other Details talking about how Alien they are. This is the flaw in your argument. The cherry picking of details and calling it Nuance and justification for a Moral Difference. Nuance is added on to the whole picture. it is not some piecemeal system where you only take part of something. it's where you show how that thing enhances the Whole. Which you are not doing. Here is the Actual Nuance to the whole Thing. They Spend Two Full Paragraphs talking about how Different the Mind of Beholder's are compared to other Sentient Beings like Humans that we are used to, And this includes Lizardfolk which are still technically humanoid in the end, and not a simple sentence to claim it. It Even States that It's Paranoia Stems from the fact that it can see multiple ways that events play out because of it's level of intellect and strange way of thinking.
You accuse me of cherry picking details but that's what you are doing; you are only looking at the loosest similarities between creatures in order to justify the argument you want to make, but you're ignoring the differences that justify why they're evil and Lizardfolk are not. You cite their alienness, but ignore their arrogance, their hatefulness, pridefulness, greed and so-on, all things that are not used to describe the Lizardfolk.
Except here's the problem; their alienness is not being used to justify them as neutral, meanwhile other aspects (the ones you're ignoring) are used to justify them as evil. In the case of the Beholder specifically they are described as "hateful" and "greedy", it talks about them "toying" with "lesser beings" and so-on. None of these things are used to describe the Lizardfolk, and that's just in the first paragraph!
I'm well aware that Beholders are alien, but Lizardfolk are not described as alien, they are described as having no concept of good and evil.
And your being either Obtuse or Blind if your saying I haven't shown their Maliciousness. Their Maliciousness is literally in black and White. Attack ANYTHING that is NOT THEM to either drive it off or kill it. Unless it's so powerful, and usually enough like them, That they can't. Do begrudging Business at best but always be paranoid they are going to hunt you because you Will Hunt Them more often than Not if they come in your territory. That is malicious intent right there.
No, that's xenophobia, it's right there in the entry; to be malicious they'd have to be doing something worse than protecting their own borders and doing begrudging business. Wanting to be left to themselves and getting rid of those who intrude is not maliciousness, again you're applying your own subjective view, which doesn't work if you're going to keep insisting that you're being objective.
You are The one Drawing Absolute Lines in the Sand and then saying what fits those lines and what doesn't and calling it Morality. Your not taking any kind of big picture approach even as you argue that I should be using a big picture approach and shouldn't be "absolutist". Less Evil is not the same thing as Not Evil. It is just Less Evil. But it is still evil. But I'm sure your going to tell me that all of this proves nothing.
The more you accuse me of doing the exact thing you've done from the start, when I have not done it at all, the weaker your position becomes.
When it comes to issues of morality I do not argue in absolutes; in fact I have tried to be quite clear from the beginning that morality is far more complicated than that. I am not so arrogant as to think that I have discovered the one true morality when thousands of years of human history has failed to discover it.
And you're still dealing in absolutes even within your attempt to (wrongly) accuse me of it! Degrees of "good" and "evil" matter, because being a bit greedy alone isn't enough to make someone evil, it's the degree and extent of it (and what you might be willing to do to satisfy it) that matters, otherwise there'd be no need for a neutral category at all because nothing could ever be truly neutral.
But I'm not really interested in posting further either way, as I doubt any of this has been of any use to anyone; I asked you if you had a source for Lizardfolk being evil, and the answer is you don't, just a subjective opinion in direct contradiction to the canonical alignment of Lizardfolk, so really my question was answered long ago.
So I'm unsbubscribing from this thread; if you'd like to know what my arguments are, please go back and try reading them, instead of trying to tell me what I'm saying (when I'm not).
Your making Excuses. over and over again. Philosopher's have not been argueing about Objective Morality. They Argue Subjective Morality. Objective Morality is easy. Subjective morality is the issue. Subjective morality as part of Philosophy has also been argued for the last 3000 years for a reason. It's a Tool to make people think. It's not trying to define the rules. It's trying to push the Rules. It's a 3k year Old Conversation that goes around and around discussing "What If" and "Is this an Exception" to the Objective Morality that is designed not let academic's get complacent and simply accept what they are told to think. When they argue these questions it's not actually about what is right and wrong. It's about how far your willing to push right or wrong to get what you see as a Desired Result. if your Teacher's didn't teach you this then they have failed. Because what is Objectively Good. That's not hard to define at all. What is hard to define and entirely Subjective is the Greater Good. Doing those bad things for a Good Reason. So it's interesting as they keep arguing this for so long that they keep coming back to two simple conclusions. Either "It's worth it." or "It's not worth it." And that these two answers are entirely subjective and entirely individualistic. Nothing else. Those so Called Morality Questions from Philosophers that people get caught up on without context like the number of people on the train tracks and different permutations of what they are. Those Questions are not ever about the people on the tracks. Those are only hypothetical representations of where you personally draw the line between the two answers. "It's worth it." or "It's not worth it." Ultimately when they are asking them they aren't even trying to come up with a consensus. Just understanding of the world, how you view it, and perhaps a bit of why you view it that way. They aren't actually arguing what is good or bad at all. Good or Bad in that conversation is just a mental jumping off point. A Common ground for people to work from so that they can make discourse. That's it. It is in no Way this Massive Conundrum that your making it out to be. The Conundrum is where you draw the line. My Philosophy Teacher would have told you this. Along with something along the lines of "If you came here to get an answer of right or wrong. Then you are already missing the point. Because that is not what is actually being Asked. Philosophy is only asking you to think and take in information and Examine that Information from Different Angles. Science and History will sort everything else out."
I've read your arguments. They don't fit what you think your saying. They aren't actually arguing against me. But they are full of subjective excuses why you can side against me while making them. That's it. Your Arguing that my stance is Absolutes because you Yourself are working in those Absolute's so I must be too and you refuse to see anything I say as anything other than that. Your actually demonstrating the Same Mentality that the Lizardfolk's very mentality as presented to us about other species (to the point of being surprised when Elves, dwarves, etc aren't just out to hunt and eat them or sacrifice them to gods) does in essence. "This is how I treat something there for everybody else is going to treat it that way and I must behave accordingly."
I'm not Drawing a Line. I have never once Drawn a line in this conversation. I have simply taken the lines drawn by what we are given from the Creators of the Game and the other examples in the game. I have no need to Draw the Line as you seem to claim it. The Line is yours and that is why you are living and dying by the line and ignoring details to make things fit the line that you have drawn. This is why you are cherry picking details while ignoring any and all supporting evidence contrary to it. Your Working from your Conclusion. Your Drawn Line. I'm working with the details that we are given.
I didn't ignore anything about the Beholder being Evil. You chose to read them as evil and i never contradicted this even once. you used the Same mentality when you choose to read the lizardfolk as neutral. All while accusing me of working under some absolute system and ignoring things. The Beholder. Doesn't Torture people. It Sees Working for them as a Matter of Respect. things beneath them are not worth that respect to them. They Are Used or Gotten Rid of. Being Toyed with is all in the minds of Those Beneath them. They are nothing more to a Beholder than Bugs are to us. But your Creating all of these mental gymnastics about how they do horrible things to people and because those things are horrible then they are justified as being evil. Even while accusing me of using such mentality about the lizardfolk. yet you cannot even recognize that your doing this and using the same exact mentality on every front that you accuse me of having.
Your Whole ARgument even about the Beholder's first paragraph. A shortened down synopsis about them. You say what's in the first paragraph but conveniently ignore that Nothing in the Sentence your Pointing out is actually Supported in the Rest of the shortened Synopsis and not said at all in the longer detailed coverage about Beholder's that I linked you from Volo's. Which is a far more detailed and indepth write up about them. Your again Cherry Picking Details to support your Subjective argument based on the lines that you've drawn.
In Fact. Your also heavily mischaracterizing me because your arguing from a position that because I point these things out I'm somehow saying that Beholder's aren't evil and i'm ignoring anything that makes them evil. I am not doing this. i have not done it even once. I've not tried to say beholders are anything but evil. I've just pointed out how there is a lot more supporting evidence to the Beholder than there is to the Lizardfolk of the same kind. But your choosing subjectively that one is one thing and the other is something else. That is a CHOICE and ASSUMPTION that you are making. It is not one I am making.
I never said that Beholder's are not evil. Just that they don't actually reflect what you say they do but are still evil. Just like the Lizardfolk do not actually reflect what you say they do other than under your Assumptive line drawn choice. The difference is I'm not saying they are neutral. You accuse me of Being Absolutist and ignoring details to make that reasoning. I am not ignoring detials and I'm not Being Absolutist. I'm showing how the Whole reflects something. That is not me drawing some line when I do this. I'm showing how the parts fit together. And how with those parts put together they actually have similarities with other things that lines have been drawn for already without me drawing them.
Also. No. People do not just turn straight from good to Evil. Unless there is Magic Involved. It's a change that happens over time. An Evil person Does not automatically become good. There is no Magical Redeeming Act. There is no Magical Damning Act Either. Your working under the presumption that these things exist and not me. I'm simply working off the whole picture. What is actually presented to us. I'm not assigning some subjective weight to a single behavior, A Behavior that cannot and does not undergo instant change without severely altering circumstances that we are not presented with for Lizardfolk as a whole. Psychology will actually tell you this much. Psychology is in part the long process of changing behaviors and ways of thinking where it can and addressing them in ways to make them managable where they can't. Sudden shifts in such things are anomolies and usually signs of something severely wrong. Sudden Shifts in Behavior of this Nature are actually one of the signs of various physical and mental maladies ranging from the onset of something small but managable to the potentially deadly. Otherwise Actual change takes a long time and it's a culmination of a lot of work and a lot of acts. Either consciously or subconsciously rather than being anything all at once as you claim.
Finally To address. Degree's do not matter in the way that you think. You can Be Greedy without being Evil because you can be doing other things that despite your greed can otherwise be very good and pure. Such as always coveting those things so that you can help out others and in your greed you rarely make it your place to actually cause somebody else distress to obtain something. Greed itself is not Good or Evil. That's you drawing another Absolutist Line in the Sand despite saying that's my weapon of choice. It's a line in the Sand many have drawn simply because it was drawn by a Monk something like 1000 or 1500 years ago as one of his mortal Failings that were Mutated into the 7 deadly Sins that are so popular to tote around as being in the Bible despite never actually appearing there at all. And it's interesting that you choose Greed to show degree's of something being important because that's you assigning the absolute value of wrong to it and then trying to mitigate the amount of wrongness by saying there are different levels of greed rather than addressing the Various other actions that a person is taking as being Good or Evil and Greed being nothing more than a motivator that doesn't actually make a person Good or Bad, But what a person does because of that Motivator on the other hand very much does in it's sum total.
If you want a fine example about how Greed itself is not inherently bad. Watch a Korean movie called "Along with the Gods: The two worlds." it does a real good job of addressing some of these concepts. In it one of the things that the main character is tried for in the afterlife to see if he's eligible for reincarnation is his greed. But his "greed" as it were was only part of doing everything he could to support his family and others and a natural part of him trying to make up for things he did wrong and him trying to be what he thought was good. it also addresses to a nice extent that Objective Good and Bad is easy and Definable. But Subjective morality is completely different and not so easy. That in Subjective Morality something bad could be deemed good under the right circumstances. It Also does a good job of showing how Philosophically the Whole is important rather than the individual parts. Looking at it from different angles or with different things as part of the picture to give context to the whole. But Overall It's a Great Example of Philosophy at work because it's not Looking for Right or Wrong, It doesn't actually care about that answer. Asking for it is just the jumping off point and It's simply trying to look at the whole through the context of several different directions. And that What is Good or Bad while Objectively Absolute may be very different Subjectively and that Subjective nature of it is found from examining the whole for the sum of it's parts and not just cherry picking the individual pieces.
A couple of points from the peanut gallery and then I’ll shut up and let you argue for my intertainment and others. 1) the thread was about whether there could be evil druids and pretty much everyone agreed that yes there could be so the thread should be dead. 2) good and evil is a human construction nature doesn’t have good or evil it simply has actions/events. Tsunamis aren’t good or evil, volcanic eruptions aren’t good or evil, asteroid impacts aren’t good or evil, a shark killing you by biting your leg off so you bleed to death isn’t good or evil, a lizardman killing you for food (including protecting its village’s food supply) Isn’t good or evil unless the lizard man has a conception of good and evil. 3) the monster manual states that lizard folk have no conception of good or evil so no matter how you (who does have such a conception) Perceive their actions and label them and the lizard folk based on that perception they aren’t good or evil. 4) we don’t really have a good label for this except perhaps amoral (which has taken on a whole bunch of its own connotations so isn’t really good here) so the best the game can do is label them neutral. 5) just to piss every one off 🤪😳let me grow biblical for a moment and remind us all that humans too were once in the lizardfolk’s place - back in the garden of eden before Adam and Eve ate “of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil”. Good and evil are human learned behaviors/thought processes, apparently lizard folk haven’t yet “eaten of the fruit” . 6) sorry for intruding on your slugfest I’ll shut up now😄😆
I play an evil druid and I also use this same character as an NPC when I DM campaigns. His name is the Decapitor, the Harbinger of the Final Forest of the Underdark. As a druid, he is trying to restore balance. He is a drow elf who feels that the surface world does not have enough darkness in it and far too much life. Therefore, he kills surface dwellers and uses their corpses to fertilize soil. The Decapitor plants a seed each time he kills a surface dwellers in hopes that each seed will grow into a tree of the Final Forest. He hopes to cover as much land as possible with trees of the Final Forest, because each fully grown tree blocks out the sun and creates extremely dark shadows. In the Decapitor's mind, enough of these trees could block out the sun from shining upon entire continents, thus enabling his drow brethren and other creatures of the Underdark to live on the surface.
good and evil is a human construction nature doesn’t have good or evil it simply has actions/events.
In real life yes. It's worth noting though that good and evil are metaphysical constructs that exist as actual forces of the universe in several of D&D's core settings.
In those settings it's not just philosophical and "I'm not evil because I decided I'm not evil" becomes a poor excuse.
good and evil is a human construction nature doesn’t have good or evil it simply has actions/events.
In real life yes. It's worth noting though that good and evil are metaphysical constructs that exist as actual forces of the universe in several of D&D's core settings.
In those settings it's not just philosophical and "I'm not evil because I decided I'm not evil" becomes a poor excuse.
It does but in every one of those worlds the construct is that of the dm not some outside metaphilosophical one intruding into it. So we can’t speak to whether something is good or evil there only that specific DM can.
In those settings it's not just philosophical and "I'm not evil because I decided I'm not evil" becomes a poor excuse.
Even in those types of settings there are still grey areas in between; celestials can turn bad, demons can be benign or weirdly helpful (possibly as part of some scheme) and so-on, which all gives room for the alignment of individuals to differ from the alignment of the group.
The only mentions I've seen of a 'Darach' is from a tv show called teen wolf, considering that it doesn't appear to have any basis from outside the show i wouldn't really use such a title for evil druids. If there is an actual basis then by all means my apologies, please send a link or reference where you've heard/read of it from cause it would be an interesting thing to read up on
Actually, according to most sources druids don't tend to see undead as part of the natural balance of things, some might i suppose but with undead being seen as a deviation from the natural cycle of life, most druids tend to see undead as abominations and abhor them. I myself disagree with such a philosophy since there have been ways for undead to naturally occur without interference from a god or caster.
Can you give some examples? Usually undead occurring accidentally are still tied to some kind of corruption, intended or not. For example, someone that dies in the Vast Swamp in Faerûn, might rise as an undead if they died in a part of the swamp that crosses over with the Shadowfell (Shadow Swamp).
I'm not sure a druid would view such a creature as natural, and most would probably see it as a kindness to destroy it, especially if there's a chance of it spreading more corruption. Likewise, if a ghost were created because someone was murdered, that might be unintended but it was an act of evil so a druid might see it as their duty to send it on its way rather than leave it roaming.
Within the topic of the thread though, an evil druid might simply not care, or see undead as an opportunity to do some "good" by their own twisted logic; i.e- use something unnatural to destroy those who threaten nature, the classic "monsters to kill monsters" argument. An evil druid doesn't necessarily consider what they are doing to be evil, they probably think they're doing the right thing, and that they're the only one with the will to do it even if it means staining their hands with blood to do it, because once their duty is fulfilled they'll stop, right?
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Lizard Folk actually will kill out of complete evil. Conquering and Killing are some of their primary pillars of how they deal with various issues of other species. Only resorting to other things when those don't work. Those are actually characteristics of their race. You'll notice that I said they aren't Evil ONLY because of Cannabilism. Not that what they do isn't evil. Just that they don't necessarily consider what they do evil. Which is a long way from actually not being evil.
Do you have a source for this?
In 5e the Lizardfolk monster entry describes them as "truly neutral", they kill if it's expedient to do-so, but they'll also drive people away if that's easier/safer. They're also not cannibals; they do not eat their own kind. Now whether it's "evil" to eat another sentient creature is debatable, but Wizards of the Coast don't appear to consider it automatically evil, or they'd have been given an evil alignment to reflect this, and while they seem to have a preference for eating humanoids when they can, it doesn't say they seek them out, only that prisoners (captured entering their territory) may be eaten. It also sounds more like something that's done out of ritual or tradition, rather than malice.
Lizardfolk only seem to normally be considered evil if they are followers of Sess'inek (a reptilian demon lord) or if they have chosen to serve an evil dragon (and even then, it's not really the Lizardfolk themselves that are evil, but the dragon they are following the instructions of). Left to their own devices the entry makes it clear they're intended to be neutral.
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Read their entry closer. And you'll find their excuse for making Lizardfolk Neutral in plain sight. Let me quote it for you.
"Lizardfolk have no notion of traditional morality, and they find the concepts of good and evil utterly alien. Truly neutral creatures, they kill when it is expedient and do whatever it takes to survive."
This is their excuse. And instead of attempting to make them unaligned. Because 5e hadn't fully learned that trick early on. They instead made them neutral. You'll actually find a few entries like this. This has been their excuse for at least a couple of editions now. Even while they then go on to basically say all of the evil things they do like hunting intelligent creatures, Which actually their Entry in no way says that other Lizardfolk do not count for such hunting. And it even states they don't like to go beyond their borders often because others May hunt them. But there is no distinction made about it only being by other races either.
So yes. If we go strictly by what's written about them in the contexts provided. They eat sentients of all kinds. Including other lizardfolk that are not part of their tribe that wander into their hunting grounds. They are xenophobic and not afraid to kill to protect what is theirs, though they may use non-lethal means at times to do so, Which actually contradicts the whole later statement about how anything and everything that enters their hunting grounds is food. But hey, it is what it is, let them be complicated and contradictory about it.
But let's go further than that. Let's talk about another similar race that is actually less violent, More prone to trading with other races and mostly just wants to be left alone, That is conveniently missing the excuse about "alien thinking" despite being another reptillian race. one that is not given this excuse of neutrality despite the fact that they are more fitting of it.
Kobold - Monsters - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
An Entire Race of reclusive Builders, Miner's, and Inventors that only travel away from their places of digging and living in need of resources, that aren't things that make them inclined to get it from others, and is all about community and the needs of the whole and are known for trying to deter rather than fight. But they are automatically lawful evil. A Race that their only dislike of any other race is because they are Pranksters and their Prankster God imprisoned one oftheir gods for doing his duty. With a Write Up that should really make them lawful Neutral because they only get into evil acts when forced to by other bigger things. It's not something they pursue in any real way on their own as a race.
Yet Kobolds are Lawful Evil, and the Much more Harmful and Evil Acting Race of lizardfolk are Neutral because of a magical handwaving line about not understanding good and evil. Despite the Fact that we know that Understanding or believing your actions match a particular alignment does not necessarily mean that you are of that alignment.
The entry literally says that they are "truly neutral". It doesn't matter what your moral view of them might be, as they are not a species capable of understanding it.
At its simplest, "evil" in terms of D&D alignment means that a creature knows that what it does is wrong, but chooses to do it anyway, either because it doesn't care, or because it believes it is achieving some higher purpose or whatever (ends justify the means). Lizardfolk don't do any of this, they seem to genuinely not understand that what they are doing might be wrong; it's just what they do, and there is no indication that they do any of it purely out of malice or such.
Kobolds by comparison are described as "craven"; they know that what an evil creatures tells them to do is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway out of fear. Now while I generally agree that they should probably be some flavour of neutral (I'd argue chaotic personally, as while they live in communities they're not generally seen to have problems with stealing from others etc.), on the other hand if we assume that "minion" Kobolds are the type players are most likely to encounter as monsters, then evil is probably right, as even if they're doing it out of fear they're still knowingly committing evil acts, and that could easily feed into worse (if being evil makes a Kobold in a group more likely to survive, then the most evil may well thrive).
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It's not my moral View. It's an objective view based upon the Alignment System. If they do things that would turn them evil and are reasons for other Races to be Evil. They are objectively evil. If they hunt and eat any sentients that come along in their area without regard to what they are as they are written. That is a trait of Evil Creatures. That's actually one of the Traits that is treated as reason that races like Drow and Other Underdark races are evil as well. Because they are willing to do things like eat other sentients at times. Though there are other behaviors that make Drow evil as well.
Excusing that all because what is basically a contradicted throw away line in the lizardfolk write up is not reason for them to be Neutral.
And no Kobolds should not be Choatic. They are not individualistic and they are not lawbreaking in the service of whim. They are group based. they follow group rules and work in an ordered fashion towards those goals. Their Whim or desire is secondary to the needs of the group. That is the very basis of a lawful society at it's most basic. Kobolds are indeed Lawful but there is nothing about them that actually makes them evil other than the fact that PC parties run into them in various places. Often enough under the control of something else or because the PC's invade their home to kill things and loot it so Kobolds end up Evil. And the worst that the Kobolds do is use traps to deter and remove intruders and fight to defend their homes from groups that effectively invade it.
And yet the people who created the alignment system, and the monsters, very specifically disagree with you. 🤔
Look, the monster description very explicitly tells you they are neutral and why; theirs is a species that, unlike the Drow and Kobolds etc. who can knowingly commit wrongs, the Lizardfolk (generally) do not have the concepts of good or evil acts. They are not capable of choosing to do an evil act knowing it is wrong, because they do not know it is wrong. And I will absolutely judge their alignment on the basis of the phrase "truly neutral" because it is literally telling you about how the neutral monster is truly neutral.
You can't just directly contradict the monster entry insisting that everyone accept that your view of what they should be is more correct than what is literally written in the actual books. You are of course free to disagree with it, and play it differently in your own games, but ultimately a creature's alignment is either written in a book, in which case that is the canonical alignment, or it's left open (and I guarantee yours will not be the only interpretation).
But it's also worth mentioning that eating sentient creatures is only an "evil" act if you consider such creatures to have more of a right to life than "lesser" creatures such as livestock. But that is an arbitrary and subjective distinction; both are living beings, neither wishes to be killed and be eaten. A neutral Lizardfolk sees no inherent difference between the two; it's fine to eat both. To be evil it would have to know on some level that it is wrong and choose to do it anyway.
The alignment system has always had a tremendous amount of overlap; a creature can believe it is good but actually be evil, or it can be truly good and commit terrible acts, and I can absolutely argue Kobolds as chaotic neutral, but am not going to (because it's off topic). There is no single right answer to a moral question; humanity has literally been debating morality for thousands of years, I highly doubt that were the likes of Plato and Aristotle alive today that they'd just say "Morality is whatever Fateless decides it is", because there is no such thing as an objective moral system (not one that can actually work) either in reality or D&D; except ironically for the one that says "a creature's alignment is what it says on its entry".
For a topic about evil druids this is seriously off topic; Lizardfolk are neutral, it says so in their monster entry. Don't like it? Don't use that in your own games, but that won't change what it says.
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Except no they don't. Because It's very easy to just slap any alignment onto anything and we have evidence that was likely done for a number of entries.
When you take a Monster and Label it Truely Neutral and then it does very little that's Truely Neutral. Then it's not Truely Neutral. Even if they slap an excuse on it. Not knowing they are doing bad does not cancel out the bad. It never has. This statement is not "Morality by Fateless" as you want to brush it off as.
But the Reasoning your Arguing the large Majority of Major Villains should actually be Considered Good. They are doing bad things for what they believe to be Good Reasons and what they see as Best for the World. Their Righteousness should counter act any evilness in whatever they do on that basis and the party must be evil for opposing them despite doing thigns that actually help the world. Particularly when most often they are not all that righteous or even sure they are doing the right thing, or that the right thing is actually good. They are just doing what they need to.
This is not "Morality by Fateless" either. We all Know the Bad Guys are Bad Because they do Bad things and their Reasoning may make it more relatable or pitiable or otherwise pull at emotional heart strings, it might even lead some to try to redeem said individual. But they are still Bad Guys for what they do. This is fundamental even when we can't always agree exactly on everything that is bad. This is an outright rejection of these little contradictory statements of behavior that we're presented with.
A Single Lines Removal should not be all it takes to change the entire flavor of the Race. And that's realistically what you have with the lizardfolk. It's not just because they are a PC race either. Thre are plenty of PC races that the overall group of them are evil. Thta's nothing new. It's ok for the individual to be different from that.
But that single line has another problem. An Entire Classification of Monster, Most of which either come from somewhere beyond the known planes of existance or are entirely manufactured is the Abberations. They are creatures with truely alien minds and ways of thinking for basically all of them. You know what alignment most of these races that should have even less concept of good and evil than the LIzardfolk is? They are Evil. There are some that are neutral. Maybe one or two that are good. But the vast majority are evil Alignment.
And this can all lead right back into the whole Topic of Evil Druids. Evil Druids that have been written up, and Organizations they belong to. Almost All twist the Idea that Nature can be Cruel, Survival of the Fittest, and Reasserting Nature's Dominance for their major motivations for attacking and harming people and places. They Claim to just be doing what is natural. But they get no protections from the creators about how they are not evil. They are all treated as evil. They are given Evil Alignments. They become adversaries to good and neutral groups as part of stories. And the overall behavior is enough to label them as evil with no excuses about it, and we are told their excuses they might actually give us do not make them less evil.
Except that it is; you keep insisting that what they do is evil, but you don't justify it; you've decided that what they do is evil, and therefore they must be evil by your judgement, even though the entry tells you why they are not, and is absolutely clear that they are neutral.
That's not what I've said at all (the opposite in fact, as I'm arguing there are no simple objective answers except what is written as canon); knowingly doing something wrong but believing you're doing it for the right reasons can definitely still be evil, but it's not an opposite end of the spectrum as you seem to want to believe; a good person can do terrible things and still be generally good, while a villain can consistently do even worse things for the exact same reason and be evil instead. It's not just the actions that matter, but why you do them, but there is a tipping point between which actions and justification balance one way or the other, but that is an extremely subjective decision, and the differences can be vanishingly small or entirely arbitrary.
This is a fundamental principle in most systems of morality, with the exception of systems like Kant's categorical imperatives where actions themselves must be judged as objectively good or bad, and performing them is therefore always good or bad, regardless of your reasons for doing them. But that kind of morality opens up huge flaws as you need to first find a way to judge the "goodness" of an action, and that kind of absolutism often takes no account of justification at all, e.g- if killing is wrong then you can't defend yourself unless you know you can do so without killing your attacker.
This is precisely the kind of absolutism that causes a moral system to collapse; how many good deeds negates a bad one? Is it one to one? If I help 10 grannies across the street does that make up for my torturing another one to death earlier? The moment you start thinking in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys" you're not thinking in terms of morality at all, you're applying your own absolutism, that's not how morality works. And just because you view something as wrong, doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you; see the pro-life vs. abortion rights issue.
At what point do two people doing different things for the exact same reason separate to become one good and one bad?
Except that it wouldn't change it; you want them to be evil because you subjectively consider what they do to be automatically evil. You don't seem to want to consider it as a moral issue, it's "I say what they do is evil so they're evil". This is why I'm accusing you of morality by Fateless; you seem to want an objective answer to everything, but morality is not objective, except in D&D there is actually one objective form of morality; whatever is written on the page, but you don't agree with that, you want others to accept your subjective demand that you are the arbiter of what is true objective morality.
Why is it wrong to eat a sentient being but not any other living creature? Neither wishes to be killed and eaten; just because you consider a sentient being to be inherently more valuable does not mean that they are. It's entirely possible to argue that it's better to eat sentients because they are more destructive and harmful to their environment, but the Lizardfolk don't appear to believe that, the distinction to them simply does not matter, and may not even occur to them at all. That's why it's a form of neutrality. They are hungry, and they have meat, so they eat it. Their gods require sacrifice, so they sacrifice.
You haven't established the maliciousness or the concept of right and wrong required for this to be evil within a framework where neither exists. Other creatures like evil dragons may eat both sentients and animals, but for preferring sentients to be truly evil they'd really need to prefer sentients because unlike animals, sentients are capable of begging and bargaining for their lives or similar reasons; if they're purely opportunistic hunters then it's a lot harder to argue as evil, as food is food when you're hungry.
If eating a sentient creature were automatically evil then every single predator in the game would be evil; Lizardfolk being capable of rational thought does not make something fine for an animal suddenly evil, especially if their motivation is more "animalistic" than emotional, you're the one making the leap. Alignment is as much about informing behaviour; Lizardfolk seem intended to be stereotypically "cold-blooded", i.e- dispassionate, not motivated by maliciousness but instead by necessity and defensive xenophobia (not tolerating other sentient species in their territory). A DM can absolutely play them as vicious killers who go out their way to capture fresh sacrifices from nearby towns, but that's their choice to make them more evil, just as you could run them less violent in how they defend themselves, and more accepting or even helpful towards strangers.
I don't have time to trawl through all the abberations, but to take an example such as a Beholder they're not evil because they're alien, they're evil because they want to enslave, torture or destroy anything that they consider to be a lesser being (which happens to be everything that isn't themselves), and they are actively malicious and cruel in how they go about. However, nothing in a beholder's entry suggests that they do not consider what they do to be wrong, their justification is that they are superior or paranoid, and so are content to do it anyway. In other words it's not that they do not recognise right and wrong, they simply do not care if something is wrong so long as they get what they want.
Such a type of evil druid as you're describing isn't being cruel or murderous with some higher goal in mind, e.g- driving away or wiping out the population of a town to protect a forest (ends justify the means). Being cruel and murderous is their goal (it is the end that they seek). As I've said, actions aren't all that matters in morality, it also matters why something is done, but neither is the whole of the equation (most moral systems try to balance the two).
A druid doing the exact same things but with some specific goal in mind could just as easily be a lesser neutral evil or true neutral instead, depending upon what it is they seek to achieve, and their willingness to go further than they need to. The thing you don't seem to want to accept on this and other morality threads is that even within the set alignments there is no right and wrong answer to every question; a character can be evil but not malicious, or good and ruthless and so-on, there are very few purely good or purely evil beings, and those are usually gods, and most of those are just boring caricatures, and individual actions are not automatically "good" or "evil" as they can be done for the "right" or "wrong" reasons, and for some creatures none of these concepts exist.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
I'm not putting the way that lizardfolk are written and Not Being Good despite them being good on different sides of the Spectrum. I am saying they are on the exact same side of the Spectrum. It is you argueing that they are on different sides. NOT ME.
And WHY doesn't Matter. Your Even Admitting it doesn't matter while Trying to tell me it Matters. You outright say that a person that does bad things but believes they are good isn't actually good. But their Thinking, which is most often the basis of their Reasoning for doing so, May have good Intentions yet they still are not good. Your the One Creating a Dissonent Seperation between these things in your argument. Not me.
There's an Age Old Saying about this. "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions". This an exact basic understanding that Why doesn't really make one less evil. I'm not Applying Absolutism. Your Making Excuses for why the System doesn't Track out and why they don't fit despite the fact that everything fits. Your Taking a Tiny Detail, That isn't supported by anything else written about their general behavior and excusing it all, Even though it's more than enough to objectively be used in judgement against other things in the same system.
Your Entire Argument against me about how I am flawed also doesn't work. Because there is NO ACTUAL JUSTIFICATION for their neutrality. The Justification that your pointing to is not objectively supported. It requires you to Subjectively choose to ignore what is actually there. All the Justifications in their Write up are for Evil not for Neutral. The best you get as a Reason for Why they are Neutral more than just a single sentence that when taken out changes the whole write up is a mention of occasionally trading with others. That is it. All of the rest of their write up is how they are territorial and will either drive off or hunt and eat everything in whatever area they claim and other such acts. These details are the Reasoning that you are Ignoring and they are not Neutral. They are Not Good. They fulfill every criteria that your saying that I am flawed for Not having and Not paying attention to.
Also I'm gonna Call BS On my not understanding in Morality threads. I am understanding fully. I am taking into account the entire Sum of the Actions. Not singular lines. Not individual pieces that are misconstrued. I'm talking about the over all picture. Something that Poeple choose to ignore again and again and again. On All kinds of Subjects, In all Kinds of Debates. And then i show Proof or "They Reason Why" that your so obsessed over somehow trying to use against me. The Same Thing that you insist is so important and there is so much Nuance when I point to you various nuanced Details and how they do not Fit the System that you Claim I am ignoring and must Follow because the People that Created it must have Followed it when I can actually point to how it doesn't fit their Own System. And I've even pointed out ways it does not fit. And i've pointed out at least one other Example of an Entry that is not correct despite adamant responses that the creators created it that way so it must be right and that the write up must actually be viewed as Neutral when it's not written in an actual Neutral manner.
There is not justifications Or Nuance of Any Good to counteract the Bad in the Way that Lizardfolk are Written. Particularly when put up against other things that are written as evil under the same criteria as the Lizardfolk. Or For That Matter, Are Written as Alien Minded if not more so, as a single sentence in the Lizardfolk write up claims lizardfolk, Yet Almost All of these Alien Minded Creatures have All of that Nuance and Justification that says despite the fact that Their Minds are Alien in working to us and may not actually have the understanding of Good and Evil that the REst of the game world has, They are STILL EVIL.
If anybody in this conversation is being Absolutist it is not me. It's you Because Your Stating that Despite the fact that all the details are telling us that the lizardfolk are not good. That they will eat anything and anybody that comes into their territory and other details like this that none of that Matters Because they have one line about having Alien minds to not understand Good or Evil. And that the alignment line on their stat block is filled in as neutral. So that they must be Neutral despite any evidence to the Contrary and not balancing Evidence to back it up. This is Absolutism.
This is Creating Unfounded Absolute Moral Principles and Assigning them to something regardless of context as you want to argue that I'm doing.
And By the Way. Eatting sentients. A kind of common trait amongst evil things. It tends to go hand in hand with seeing other Beings as Lesser. So if they are Lesser then they are no better than either Food or Tools to be used. But your Going to justify it as neutral because it fits your argument. Despite that even amongst Humans in the REal World Cannibalism and Eatting things that would have intelligence and capabilities similar to humans is pretty universally banned as wrong. To the Point that Some go on Moral Crusades about eatting Animals and the like because they have some level of intelligence themselves, And One of the Pivotal Morality Points about catching Dolphin's in nets when Fishing is because they are highly intelligent and it's wrong to treat intelligent Creatures that way.
And your Beholder ARgument. It's just as bad. There is Nothing that Actually States that Beholders do know that what they are doing is Bad and Don't Care. It only says that it can be paranoid and that Anything That isn't a Beholder is in it's mind beneath it. You'll Also Note that when it comes to the Beholder. It's Own Write Up says that it recognizes Other Beholders for what they Are and as their only ACTUAL RIVALS and Doesn't like Them for Being Different. On Top of that. Their whole thing start with how bizarre and alien their sentience is, how their Perceptions are not normal and inhuman and how they affect reality with sheer force of Will. They have more Alien Thinking Justification than the Lizardfolk Do. But your Cherry Picking Details to make them evil and the lizardfolk Neutral despite the fact that Beholder's have Other Details talking about how Alien they are. This is the flaw in your argument. The cherry picking of details and calling it Nuance and justification for a Moral Difference. Nuance is added on to the whole picture. it is not some piecemeal system where you only take part of something. it's where you show how that thing enhances the Whole. Which you are not doing. Here is the Actual Nuance to the whole Thing. They Spend Two Full Paragraphs talking about how Different the Mind of Beholder's are compared to other Sentient Beings like Humans that we are used to, And this includes Lizardfolk which are still technically humanoid in the end, and not a simple sentence to claim it. It Even States that It's Paranoia Stems from the fact that it can see multiple ways that events play out because of it's level of intellect and strange way of thinking.
Beholder's are good when it comes to my Argument against the Lizardfolk. They are bad for yours. Primarily because So much time is spent in their whole Descriptions talking about how Alien and unlike Humans they actually are and think. The Nuance and Justification that you claim that I'm missing. And you can read it for yourself. I'll link you to their Write up in Volo's Guide. They are in many ways One of the biggest Examples why the single line in the Lizardfolk Write up does not work.
Beholders - Volo's Guide to Monsters - Cyclopedia - Compendium - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
on Top of that. I'll hit another big one. The Illithid's. Another Species from somewhere beyond. Using their Mental Powers to bend others to their Will and work for them in ways the Illithids find distainful or can't do themselves. A Race so old it's on the verge of extinction according to the 5e write up. There is nothing in their write up that suggests that they in any way have any concept that what they do is evil. That it's anything more than natural to them to control and enslave others that they do. They Are basically all categorically listed as evil for the Enslavement, The Devouring of Sentients (most specifically their Brains), and just every other aspect of how they see and treat other Sentient Beings in General that are not entirely disconnected from the Lizardfolk writeup. These are Outright described from the very beginning as Horrific, ALIEN beings. Their Primary Focus is implied to Be sustaining themselves, Not anything any more inherently nefarious than lizardfolk hunting anybody that enters their territories overall. Their Slavery of other Sentients through mind magic is even stated to basically be a matter of Physical Labor and that slaves are only eaten as a last resort when they can't get food from elsewhere. They are another Race that Spends Paragraphs talking about their alien physiology and to some extent their odd intellect to show how alien that they are. How Different their thinking is about the whole matter, and how eating the brains of sentients is not just a matter of convenience like the lizardfolk but an outright necessity. Yet this is all used to portray how evil they are. Not Neutral. EVIL. Yet they have far more Nuance that we can draw upon than anything we get with the Lizardfolk and far more detail about just how alien they are.
And On top of All of this. Their write ups don't change just because you remove an unsupported line that says "They don't understand good and evil so they can't be good or evil."
And your being either Obtuse or Blind if your saying I haven't shown their Maliciousness. Their Maliciousness is literally in black and White. Attack ANYTHING that is NOT THEM to either drive it off or kill it. Unless it's so powerful, and usually enough like them, That they can't. Do begrudging Business at best but always be paranoid they are going to hunt you because you Will Hunt Them more often than Not if they come in your territory. That is malicious intent right there. Malicious intent your Willfully ignoring just so that you can choose to be right. Even in their Very Short bit about driving others away, It's mentioned that one of their preferred methods of deterring people is to do things like drive them into crocodiles and the like to be killed instead. Maliciousness is obvious in passages such as the following that often appear in their write ups about behavior. All of which is Willful Behavior on the part of lizardfolk.
"Great Feasts and Sacrifices. Lizardfolk are omnivorous, but they have a taste for humanoid flesh. Prisoners are often taken back to their camps to become the centerpieces of great feasts and rites involving dancing, storytelling, and ritual combat. Victims are either cooked and eaten by the tribe, or are sacrificed to Semuanya, the lizardfolk god."
You Say i haven't established things like a Malicious nature and it takes that Malicious Nature to prove their intent and thus make them evil. Their Malicious intent is more Black and White than it is in All of the Illithid write up, Or even the Beholder Writeup for that matter. Even The Arrogance factor of the Beholder states that they don't treat others (with the exception of other Beholders) with any kind of Malicious intent. They may do things like Point out their Failings but Their Arrogance isn't malicious and they don't brag. So if your going to use Malicious Intent as your measuring Stick and Find Beholders and Illithid's as evil because of the way they treat people. You cannot then make exception for the Lizardfolk for doing the same and similar things willfully.
You are The one Drawing Absolute Lines in the Sand and then saying what fits those lines and what doesn't and calling it Morality. Your not taking any kind of big picture approach even as you argue that I should be using a big picture approach and shouldn't be "absolutist". Less Evil is not the same thing as Not Evil. It is just Less Evil. But it is still evil. But I'm sure your going to tell me that all of this proves nothing.
As a side note. I'll even add for you already. Pretty much the only Aberations that are not listed as Evil are the Slaad. And the Slaad are all magically created creatures of Chaos that spread a disease that turns humanoids into slaad's. The destruction is just a part of who they are and the only thing they actively oppose are modron's. The Only Exception to that being the Death Slaad which is outright mentioned being Evil's Corruption of Chaos through Negative Energy and that they willfully like to actively harm others for sadistic pleasure and actively gather up lesser slaadi into raiding parties to go cause havoc and infect humanoids into incubators for more of their kind. All other Forms of Slaad aren't even noted as the type to go after humanoids even for reproductive purpose. it's entire nuance is just that it's something that happens when the two things interact. (I might also point out that neither the beholder or the Illithid have anything in their massive write ups that in any way suggests any actual pleasure in what they do to others. So that attempt at drawing a moral line doesn't work on them either.)
What is this even in response to? My comment about the spectrum is about the spectrum of good and evil; the mistaken idea that good and evil are opposite ends of a line with neutral in the middle, but it's nowhere near as simple as that. A character can flip from good to evil without ever being neutral, a creature can do good and bad without ever being good or evil and so-on. And I never argued that Lizardfolk are on an opposite end to anything; they're neutral by default.
I'm sorry but you really need to read what I've actually said because either you haven't understood, you haven't cared to, as these are not arguments I've made. All I've done is point out that both good and evil characters can do terrible things, and that the separation between the two (and neutral) isn't necessarily all that large.
Actions and intentions both matter, but your arguments seem to be based on actions alone without consideration of intention.
What "system" do you imagine you're talking about here? You keep claiming that there is some objective system by which alignment is applied but this has never been true in D&D. The alignment system is simplistic but not simple; its definitions are vague and include concepts that are highly complex in their own right.
But you're in luck; unlike in real-world morality there is an objective system of morality possible within D&D. It's called "what it says on the sheet, or whatever your DM says it is". Everything else is subjective.
Here you go again using the word objective; you do realise that saying that you are being objective does not make it true, right? Once again, philosophers have been trying to come up with systems of objective morality for literally thousands of years and have never succeeded; the D&D alignment system has not somehow magically solved the same problems.
It's a system for categorising NPCs and enemies, and helping players to inform their character's behaviour and motivations.
And here it is again; you understand "fully". Only you are looking at "the full picture". Your understanding of alignment transcends all others and so therefore we must all just bow down and accept your wisdom? God complex much?
And yet they are described as cruel, or hateful, and so-on, which make clear that they are not dispassionate beings. If you were actually looking at the entries for their differences to Lizardfolk rather than just for similarities then you might actually see them. I've tried to explain this so many times now, that good and evil are not the simple concepts that you seem to want them to be; what makes one thing evil is not always going to be the same as what makes another evil, and even when two things are evil, one can be more evil than the other.
Except that it's not a fact, you're deciding that your subjective opinion is fact and applying it unconditionally; pretty much the very definition of absolutism.
No, it's the D&D alignment system; you know, the thing you're insisting is wrong, yet also simultaneously can't be because you alone understand how to apply it absolutely even when it directly disagrees with you?
And yet you can't justify it. Once again, if eating intelligent beings is automatically evil then any predator in the game that will eat a person should also be evil by your logic, yet they aren't.
You accuse me of justifying it as neutral because it fits my argument, but I'm not; I'm inviting you to justify why it's evil in terms other than "because these creatures do it and are evil". Your arguments are all based on actions being inherently good or evil, which means that a creature's alignment must be informed by those actions not the other way around. So what makes these actions objectively good or evil? Because if you can't answer that, then your argument is not objective. In fact it's as much based on what the creature entries say as you keep claiming mine is, except that's not really my argument at all as I've tried to point out to you.
My argument is that the Lizardfolk entry justifies its classification as neutral; it says it's neutral, and it says why, and that there is plenty of moral reasoning that supports this, because morality is complex and alignment in D&D is vague. That's how all alignment in D&D works at the end of the day.
And? I've never said that's the only condition for being evil, in fact I've said the opposite; there are many, many ways that a creature can be justified as evil, just as there are many, many ways that a creature who behaves in much the same way could be justified as neutral or even good, because again, morality is incredibly complicated, and the D&D alignment system extremely simplistic (because it's there to inform behaviour, not to be an absolute guide on how to live and judge morality).
You accuse me of cherry picking details but that's what you are doing; you are only looking at the loosest similarities between creatures in order to justify the argument you want to make, but you're ignoring the differences that justify why they're evil and Lizardfolk are not. You cite their alienness, but ignore their arrogance, their hatefulness, pridefulness, greed and so-on, all things that are not used to describe the Lizardfolk.
Except here's the problem; their alienness is not being used to justify them as neutral, meanwhile other aspects (the ones you're ignoring) are used to justify them as evil. In the case of the Beholder specifically they are described as "hateful" and "greedy", it talks about them "toying" with "lesser beings" and so-on. None of these things are used to describe the Lizardfolk, and that's just in the first paragraph!
I'm well aware that Beholders are alien, but Lizardfolk are not described as alien, they are described as having no concept of good and evil.
No, that's xenophobia, it's right there in the entry; to be malicious they'd have to be doing something worse than protecting their own borders and doing begrudging business. Wanting to be left to themselves and getting rid of those who intrude is not maliciousness, again you're applying your own subjective view, which doesn't work if you're going to keep insisting that you're being objective.
The more you accuse me of doing the exact thing you've done from the start, when I have not done it at all, the weaker your position becomes.
When it comes to issues of morality I do not argue in absolutes; in fact I have tried to be quite clear from the beginning that morality is far more complicated than that. I am not so arrogant as to think that I have discovered the one true morality when thousands of years of human history has failed to discover it.
And you're still dealing in absolutes even within your attempt to (wrongly) accuse me of it! Degrees of "good" and "evil" matter, because being a bit greedy alone isn't enough to make someone evil, it's the degree and extent of it (and what you might be willing to do to satisfy it) that matters, otherwise there'd be no need for a neutral category at all because nothing could ever be truly neutral.
But I'm not really interested in posting further either way, as I doubt any of this has been of any use to anyone; I asked you if you had a source for Lizardfolk being evil, and the answer is you don't, just a subjective opinion in direct contradiction to the canonical alignment of Lizardfolk, so really my question was answered long ago.
So I'm unsbubscribing from this thread; if you'd like to know what my arguments are, please go back and try reading them, instead of trying to tell me what I'm saying (when I'm not).
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Your making Excuses. over and over again. Philosopher's have not been argueing about Objective Morality. They Argue Subjective Morality. Objective Morality is easy. Subjective morality is the issue. Subjective morality as part of Philosophy has also been argued for the last 3000 years for a reason. It's a Tool to make people think. It's not trying to define the rules. It's trying to push the Rules. It's a 3k year Old Conversation that goes around and around discussing "What If" and "Is this an Exception" to the Objective Morality that is designed not let academic's get complacent and simply accept what they are told to think. When they argue these questions it's not actually about what is right and wrong. It's about how far your willing to push right or wrong to get what you see as a Desired Result. if your Teacher's didn't teach you this then they have failed. Because what is Objectively Good. That's not hard to define at all. What is hard to define and entirely Subjective is the Greater Good. Doing those bad things for a Good Reason. So it's interesting as they keep arguing this for so long that they keep coming back to two simple conclusions. Either "It's worth it." or "It's not worth it." And that these two answers are entirely subjective and entirely individualistic. Nothing else. Those so Called Morality Questions from Philosophers that people get caught up on without context like the number of people on the train tracks and different permutations of what they are. Those Questions are not ever about the people on the tracks. Those are only hypothetical representations of where you personally draw the line between the two answers. "It's worth it." or "It's not worth it." Ultimately when they are asking them they aren't even trying to come up with a consensus. Just understanding of the world, how you view it, and perhaps a bit of why you view it that way. They aren't actually arguing what is good or bad at all. Good or Bad in that conversation is just a mental jumping off point. A Common ground for people to work from so that they can make discourse. That's it. It is in no Way this Massive Conundrum that your making it out to be. The Conundrum is where you draw the line. My Philosophy Teacher would have told you this. Along with something along the lines of "If you came here to get an answer of right or wrong. Then you are already missing the point. Because that is not what is actually being Asked. Philosophy is only asking you to think and take in information and Examine that Information from Different Angles. Science and History will sort everything else out."
I've read your arguments. They don't fit what you think your saying. They aren't actually arguing against me. But they are full of subjective excuses why you can side against me while making them. That's it. Your Arguing that my stance is Absolutes because you Yourself are working in those Absolute's so I must be too and you refuse to see anything I say as anything other than that. Your actually demonstrating the Same Mentality that the Lizardfolk's very mentality as presented to us about other species (to the point of being surprised when Elves, dwarves, etc aren't just out to hunt and eat them or sacrifice them to gods) does in essence. "This is how I treat something there for everybody else is going to treat it that way and I must behave accordingly."
I'm not Drawing a Line. I have never once Drawn a line in this conversation. I have simply taken the lines drawn by what we are given from the Creators of the Game and the other examples in the game. I have no need to Draw the Line as you seem to claim it. The Line is yours and that is why you are living and dying by the line and ignoring details to make things fit the line that you have drawn. This is why you are cherry picking details while ignoring any and all supporting evidence contrary to it. Your Working from your Conclusion. Your Drawn Line. I'm working with the details that we are given.
I didn't ignore anything about the Beholder being Evil. You chose to read them as evil and i never contradicted this even once. you used the Same mentality when you choose to read the lizardfolk as neutral. All while accusing me of working under some absolute system and ignoring things. The Beholder. Doesn't Torture people. It Sees Working for them as a Matter of Respect. things beneath them are not worth that respect to them. They Are Used or Gotten Rid of. Being Toyed with is all in the minds of Those Beneath them. They are nothing more to a Beholder than Bugs are to us. But your Creating all of these mental gymnastics about how they do horrible things to people and because those things are horrible then they are justified as being evil. Even while accusing me of using such mentality about the lizardfolk. yet you cannot even recognize that your doing this and using the same exact mentality on every front that you accuse me of having.
Your Whole ARgument even about the Beholder's first paragraph. A shortened down synopsis about them. You say what's in the first paragraph but conveniently ignore that Nothing in the Sentence your Pointing out is actually Supported in the Rest of the shortened Synopsis and not said at all in the longer detailed coverage about Beholder's that I linked you from Volo's. Which is a far more detailed and indepth write up about them. Your again Cherry Picking Details to support your Subjective argument based on the lines that you've drawn.
In Fact. Your also heavily mischaracterizing me because your arguing from a position that because I point these things out I'm somehow saying that Beholder's aren't evil and i'm ignoring anything that makes them evil. I am not doing this. i have not done it even once. I've not tried to say beholders are anything but evil. I've just pointed out how there is a lot more supporting evidence to the Beholder than there is to the Lizardfolk of the same kind. But your choosing subjectively that one is one thing and the other is something else. That is a CHOICE and ASSUMPTION that you are making. It is not one I am making.
I never said that Beholder's are not evil. Just that they don't actually reflect what you say they do but are still evil. Just like the Lizardfolk do not actually reflect what you say they do other than under your Assumptive line drawn choice. The difference is I'm not saying they are neutral. You accuse me of Being Absolutist and ignoring details to make that reasoning. I am not ignoring detials and I'm not Being Absolutist. I'm showing how the Whole reflects something. That is not me drawing some line when I do this. I'm showing how the parts fit together. And how with those parts put together they actually have similarities with other things that lines have been drawn for already without me drawing them.
Also. No. People do not just turn straight from good to Evil. Unless there is Magic Involved. It's a change that happens over time. An Evil person Does not automatically become good. There is no Magical Redeeming Act. There is no Magical Damning Act Either. Your working under the presumption that these things exist and not me. I'm simply working off the whole picture. What is actually presented to us. I'm not assigning some subjective weight to a single behavior, A Behavior that cannot and does not undergo instant change without severely altering circumstances that we are not presented with for Lizardfolk as a whole. Psychology will actually tell you this much. Psychology is in part the long process of changing behaviors and ways of thinking where it can and addressing them in ways to make them managable where they can't. Sudden shifts in such things are anomolies and usually signs of something severely wrong. Sudden Shifts in Behavior of this Nature are actually one of the signs of various physical and mental maladies ranging from the onset of something small but managable to the potentially deadly. Otherwise Actual change takes a long time and it's a culmination of a lot of work and a lot of acts. Either consciously or subconsciously rather than being anything all at once as you claim.
Finally To address. Degree's do not matter in the way that you think. You can Be Greedy without being Evil because you can be doing other things that despite your greed can otherwise be very good and pure. Such as always coveting those things so that you can help out others and in your greed you rarely make it your place to actually cause somebody else distress to obtain something. Greed itself is not Good or Evil. That's you drawing another Absolutist Line in the Sand despite saying that's my weapon of choice. It's a line in the Sand many have drawn simply because it was drawn by a Monk something like 1000 or 1500 years ago as one of his mortal Failings that were Mutated into the 7 deadly Sins that are so popular to tote around as being in the Bible despite never actually appearing there at all. And it's interesting that you choose Greed to show degree's of something being important because that's you assigning the absolute value of wrong to it and then trying to mitigate the amount of wrongness by saying there are different levels of greed rather than addressing the Various other actions that a person is taking as being Good or Evil and Greed being nothing more than a motivator that doesn't actually make a person Good or Bad, But what a person does because of that Motivator on the other hand very much does in it's sum total.
If you want a fine example about how Greed itself is not inherently bad. Watch a Korean movie called "Along with the Gods: The two worlds." it does a real good job of addressing some of these concepts. In it one of the things that the main character is tried for in the afterlife to see if he's eligible for reincarnation is his greed. But his "greed" as it were was only part of doing everything he could to support his family and others and a natural part of him trying to make up for things he did wrong and him trying to be what he thought was good. it also addresses to a nice extent that Objective Good and Bad is easy and Definable. But Subjective morality is completely different and not so easy. That in Subjective Morality something bad could be deemed good under the right circumstances. It Also does a good job of showing how Philosophically the Whole is important rather than the individual parts. Looking at it from different angles or with different things as part of the picture to give context to the whole. But Overall It's a Great Example of Philosophy at work because it's not Looking for Right or Wrong, It doesn't actually care about that answer. Asking for it is just the jumping off point and It's simply trying to look at the whole through the context of several different directions. And that What is Good or Bad while Objectively Absolute may be very different Subjectively and that Subjective nature of it is found from examining the whole for the sum of it's parts and not just cherry picking the individual pieces.
A couple of points from the peanut gallery and then I’ll shut up and let you argue for my intertainment and others.
1) the thread was about whether there could be evil druids and pretty much everyone agreed that yes there could be so the thread should be dead.
2) good and evil is a human construction nature doesn’t have good or evil it simply has actions/events. Tsunamis aren’t good or evil, volcanic eruptions aren’t good or evil, asteroid impacts aren’t good or evil, a shark killing you by biting your leg off so you bleed to death isn’t good or evil, a lizardman killing you for food (including protecting its village’s food supply) Isn’t good or evil unless the lizard man has a conception of good and evil.
3) the monster manual states that lizard folk have no conception of good or evil so no matter how you (who does have such a conception) Perceive their actions and label them and the lizard folk based on that perception they aren’t good or evil.
4) we don’t really have a good label for this except perhaps amoral (which has taken on a whole bunch of its own connotations so isn’t really good here) so the best the game can do is label them neutral.
5) just to piss every one off 🤪😳let me grow biblical for a moment and remind us all that humans too were once in the lizardfolk’s place - back in the garden of eden before Adam and Eve ate “of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil”. Good and evil are human learned behaviors/thought processes, apparently lizard folk haven’t yet “eaten of the fruit” .
6) sorry for intruding on your slugfest I’ll shut up now😄😆
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I play an evil druid and I also use this same character as an NPC when I DM campaigns. His name is the Decapitor, the Harbinger of the Final Forest of the Underdark. As a druid, he is trying to restore balance. He is a drow elf who feels that the surface world does not have enough darkness in it and far too much life. Therefore, he kills surface dwellers and uses their corpses to fertilize soil. The Decapitor plants a seed each time he kills a surface dwellers in hopes that each seed will grow into a tree of the Final Forest. He hopes to cover as much land as possible with trees of the Final Forest, because each fully grown tree blocks out the sun and creates extremely dark shadows. In the Decapitor's mind, enough of these trees could block out the sun from shining upon entire continents, thus enabling his drow brethren and other creatures of the Underdark to live on the surface.
The character has truly been a blast.
In real life yes. It's worth noting though that good and evil are metaphysical constructs that exist as actual forces of the universe in several of D&D's core settings.
In those settings it's not just philosophical and "I'm not evil because I decided I'm not evil" becomes a poor excuse.
It does but in every one of those worlds the construct is that of the dm not some outside metaphilosophical one intruding into it. So we can’t speak to whether something is good or evil there only that specific DM can.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Even in those types of settings there are still grey areas in between; celestials can turn bad, demons can be benign or weirdly helpful (possibly as part of some scheme) and so-on, which all gives room for the alignment of individuals to differ from the alignment of the group.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
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Some examples:
I did a damphir druid once who was killed and came back to life for revenge.