Hi Everyone, 

I am making a character for a oneshot that I will be playing in.  He is a High Elf, Wizard.  He has the Sage background and is a Researcher.  I am really struggling to come up with the right alignment for him though.  Here is his personality traits and stuff:

Sounds a bit chaotic evil to me.

 To possess and protect his precious books, Aramil would kill them all.

That sounds distinctly evil, the idea of a singular, all consuming selfish goal. 

Cunning and manipulative and with a callously stubborn, grandiose sense of self

This sounds chaotic; they'll bend and break the rules to get what they want.

Your character seems pretty distinctly evil, in my opinion. The only real question is how you intend to play him- if you go for a more "does whatever he needs to in order to obtain knowledge" play style, I'd say chaotic evil. If you go for a less obsessive or more willing to obey a sense of morals/the law, then neutral or even lawful evil would best suit him.

But def evil.

Definitely seems Chaotic.  I would say he's leaning towards Evil, but isn't really cemented in it.

Having read your responses, and looked more at the alignment system, I think that he would fit more into the Lawful Evil alignment.  He has a code that he follows, and won't hurt people, just because or for no purpose, but he will use, manipulate and hurt, even kill people, if it suits his purpose.

However: Let's say, someone had a book that he wanted to add to his collection, and he said to that person "if you give me the book, I won't hurt you", and that person gave him the book. Aramil will keep his word, he will take the book and leave, without hurting the person who gave it to him.  If however, that person refused - then Aramil would most likely say something like:  "I gave you a choice, and you have chosen death!"

I think that this sound somewhat Lawful Evil.  What do you guys think?

Following an internal code isn't necessarily lawful. 

He has a code that he follows, and won't hurt people, just because or for no purpose, but he will use, manipulate and hurt, even kill people, if it suits his purpose.

This sounds chaotic because it's a premise of "I'll do what I want to get what I want"

Keeping your word isn't lawful, chaotic isn't random. A lawful character would do use the rules of whatever system they were operating within to secure the book. For example, they might get the current holder of the book incriminated for a crime that they may or may not have commited, knowing the state will confiscate all possessions and then auction them off, buying the book at said auction. Or maybe they'll draw up a detailed contract that includes a clause that if the signee doesn't follow the word of the contract (which is impossible to do for various reasons) they default ownership of the book. Or maybe they invite the owner to a gala in a country where there's a law that you must surrender all books to be copied by the state magician, and then purchase the book legally from the magician before it can be returned.

Those are all lawful evil approaches.

Give me the book and I won't kill you is not.

To me, alignment is an antiquated system that only really rears its head when spells like Detect Evil and Good, or protection from Good and Evil are cast.  I've been playing d&d for years now and my players and I almost always leave the alignment space blank because people as a whole are chaotic.

People will change their morals or ethics based on the situation and while having an alignment as a guideline is useful as a crutch for what the character can do; I find that the crutch turns out to be fused to your character once you use it. Stating that a character is Lawful Evil, or Chaotic Good, etc, before you even play the character and find what they are really like is a waste of time. Best laid plans never survive contact with the table. I made a gnome character once who I planned to be very Yoda like. In that he was a weird little gremlin of a man but incredibly wise. After session one it became clear that the character was really an old deadhead who was constantly offering mushrooms to people. And that was something that happened when I stepped into the character and not something I planned. 

BUT if you are less experienced with being in character and need the crutch, that's all good. I would say your character sounds Chaotic Evil. You mention a code of ethics he has but would also break it at the drop of a hat.  Sounds pretty chaotic to me.

Thanks guys.  Although I didn't make this character with a Chaotic Evil alignment in mind, it seems that is how he has ended up.

This is interesting because High Elves are rarely Chaotic Evil.  They are usually Chaotic Good, so I must now ask myself the question:  What has happened to Aramil in the past; why has he strayed so far from the path of light, and became so evil?

Explaining why Aramil became evil, could make quite an interesting backstory I think.

I wonder if I could somehow weave in something about Lolth and Drow.  Though probably not, for a couple of reasons.  Lolth probably would be interested in a High Elf, and Aramil is male lol.

Though he is a researcher who wants to know everything about everything, so him researching the the Drow and Lolth, isn't such a stretch.

I doubt I could do that though.

Such a shame that this character is only for a one shot.  I would really like to flesh him out and explore his past a lot more.

It sounds like he might not necessarily view himself as evil, especially if he's convinced of his own rightness. So it's less 'how did he become evil' and more 'how does he justify his choices to himself?' which is a much easier and in many cases more interesting question that'll answer largely the same thing.