It may seem like they help law/good more often than an organization devoted to balance should, but remember since the time the setting has been published, evil has been on the ascendancy. Checking that can keep a wizard, or eight, busy.
It may seem like they help law/good more often than an organization devoted to balance should, but remember since the time the setting has been published, evil has been on the ascendancy. Checking that can keep a wizard, or eight, busy.
Scott
oops, sorry scott, i didnt make myself clear.
is there any exemples of the C8 helping caos?
like, releasing some demon, or washing their hands in pholtus holly water
Didn't some writing imply that they had a hand in releasing Iuz? Like they gave Robilar some item to dispel the binding intentionally? Not a close follower of the post-Gygax material, but I seem to remember reading that somewhere.
Yes, it's suggested in the Living Greyhawk Journal #0 that Mordenkainen gave Robilar the means to dispel Zagig's God Trap (he has that disjunction spell) because he hoped Iuz would help avert the doom he foresaw involving Tharizdun. Turning evil against evil, you know.
Another example is Rary killing Otiluke and Tenser - definitely an evil act from a formerly neutral member of the Circle of Eight. Some have theorized that Mordenkainen might have helped plan it because Otiluke and Tenser knew too much.
Some have even speculated that Mordenkainen might have deliberately sent the other members of the Circle to their doom in the module Vecna Lives, where all of them die fighting an ancient warlord possessed by one of Vecna's artifacts. The fact that almost all of the Circle was dead or recently recloned prevented them from acting to stop the Greyhawk Wars. If Mordenkainen believed the Wars were a necessary check against the forces of Good, he might resort to something like that. And he might do whatever it took to make sure the others never found out about it afterwards.
Well, Mordenkainen and Rary. Bigby agrees with Mordenkainen in most things, though I'm not aware of any concrete examples of "evil" things he might have done.
Tenser is definitely only in favor of good (though sometimes in an underhanded way), and Nystul and Theodain seem to be more about opposing evil.
Hmm, I like the road you seem to be taking, Rasgon. As far as the Vecna Lives mod goes, anyway. If Mordenkainen sees Iuz as a necessay evil, as the article in LGJ #0 indicates, then would he be prepared to see all of his colleagues in the circle cop it in the short term, so long as he could clone them and bring them back to eventually to counterbalance the Old One? If Iuz needed that leg up to bring his plans of conquest to fruition, I for one see Mordenkainen being that cold and calculating....
I'm not so sure I agree about the Rary incident though. While Tenser was definitely a thorn in the side at times, and Otiluke appears to have been a bit of a loose cannon, Bigby has ever been the loyal friend and stalwart colleague to Mordenkainen. Would he really risk the loss of such worthies?
And why not bend every resource available in the years since to see Rary destroyed if he also knew too much? If memory serves, LGJ #0 indicates that Otto too, may know more than he should of Mordenkainen's movements, but he doesn't seem to be in any danger.
And why go to such lengths to reinvigorate the circle? Theodain and Warnes would be at least as much of a pain in the proverbial as Otiluke and Tenser IMHO.
I'd love to discuss this more. Would it require a new thread? I'm still new to the Wide Wide World of Web...
I have always seen Mord working to maintain a balance in the Flan, a balance of his own conception. I played it as though Rary decided to to take a different approach than Mord and Mord decided to do away with him.
There is speculation that Mordenkainen had a hand in the kidnapping of Thrommel (preventing the union of Furyondy and Veluna, too powerful a force for good if united) and in the release of Zuggtomy from the Temple of Elemental Evil via Robilar.
It does seem that the "evil" stuff is being done by Mordy and not the Circle per se.
IMC, I see the Circle as unified in the goal of keeping Oerth free of off-Oerth influences. They are eight mages (personally powerful mortals)working to make sure the world is not overwhelmed by Divine power. In some sense they are anti-religious.
Within the Circle, though, there are differences of opinion about just which Outer Planer threats are most important. Tenser is more concerned about demonic and diabolical plots. Mordenkainen is more worried about the union or triumph of good nations creating Holy States that will result in undue power for Rao or Cuthbert, etc.
I have always seen Mord working to maintain a balance in the Flan, a balance of his own conception. I played it as though Rary decided to to take a different approach than Mord and Mord decided to do away with him.
Wouldn't that make Mordenkainen evil? I'm not sure how to define Balance but I don't think doing some evil acts and some good acts in equal measure makes you neutral (or serving Balance).
Serving Balance is more of a cosmic thing. I think of the treatment of the original Druid class. They protected nature/the cosmos from harm. If forces threatened nature they would act, however. They might act in a subtle way or, if no other option was available, in a harsh way like an earthquake or lightning bolt to destroy the ememies of nature/the cosmos/Balance.
Perhaps a disillusioned Mordenkainen who believes he is serving Balance could do away with his comrades - but power has gotten to his head and he has really become evil.
I'm not so sure I agree about the Rary incident though. While Tenser was definitely a thorn in the side at times, and Otiluke appears to have been a bit of a loose cannon, Bigby has ever been the loyal friend and stalwart colleague to Mordenkainen. Would he really risk the loss of such worthies?
A few of my players loathe Mordy from previous campaigns, and its an unspoken goal they want a crack at him. Now, they'll pr'bly get creamed but a natural 20 always hits, and its a crit too...
Mordenkainen believes if the Balance isn't maintained in the world, the world will end. If Good were to triumph on a cosmic scale, the cosmos will come crashing down, and all existence with it.
And he may be right.
This doesn't mean he has to murder a baby for every one he rescues, or anything silly like that. In his day to day life he's free to make friends, love, eat ice cream without immediately eating something noxious to counter it, and everything else normal people do.
It does mean that he thinks if Good becomes too powerful, people will get weak and lazy, and they will not be prepared when something Really Nasty shows up. He's seen visions of possible futures, and all the blissful utopias with their simpering eloi all end up being squashed. Because eloi have no need for heroes, or think they don't.
The core of the relatively small philosophy is theodicy, the problem of evil. Why does evil exist? What purpose does it serve? Whether you believe that exists to temper the iron of our souls, or to allow for the existence of free will, or to ensure that the weak are culled and the strong survive, it's not so far out of the theological mainstream to think that evil has some purpose, and therefore ought to continue to exist. If you don't believe in a singular all-powerful deity capable of maintaining the delicate balance between not enough evil and too much evil without mortal aid, then sometimes powerful mortals willing to sacrifice their own happiness for the survival of existence itself must be called upon to do their part.
Of course, both Law and Chaos, safety and freedom, structure and energy must exist as well.
This is all different from ordinary neutrality, where people might be basically good but commit few acts of significant good or evil in their lives, or the neutrality of the druids which is more concerned with the balance of nature. This is a scholarly, metaphysical neutrality embraced only by Boccob and certain other outer planar beings and the strange mortal cabals inspired by them.
I'll reiterate that I don't think that Mordenkainen or other true neutral members of the Circle are madmen who murder one day and then give to charity in order to "balance it out" in their minds. That would simply be a deranged kind of evil. They have distant, broader goals involving the fates of nations, worlds, and gods. Most of what happens is beneath their notice. If the Circle of Eight has not been noted as causing much evil, it's because the vast majority of the time they have no need to. They certainly aren't required to work as much evil as good in order to "balance" themselves out. This is about their vision of the cosmos, not their own souls. And in the magical multiverse of D&D, where Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos and Balance, are real forces that form the basis of the outer planes, they may well be right.
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