Wtf


If it doesn't fit anywhere else, it belongs here. Also, come here if you just need to get hammered.

bel

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2184

Joined: Tuesday, 3rd February 2015, 22:05

Post Tuesday, 23rd July 2019, 09:12

Wtf

Wiki wrote:Ambiguity in the Crawl notion of 'Evil'

Although the good gods in Crawl are portrayed as adhering invariably to moral absolutes, to the extent that even the unwitting use by the player's character of items tagged 'evil' is cause for divine punishment, there is a certain degree of ambiguity in the notion of evil in Stone Soup. Consider that the ordinary practice of an adventurer is to kill and in many cases eat an entire dungeon full of living beings, many of them sapient. In other words, a player can expect, even in low-rune runs, to perform actions constitutive of genocide. Devotion to one of the good gods hardly alters this. It would not be unusual for a favored worshipper of The Shining One, for example, an ostensibly “good” god who frowns on indiscriminate slaughter, to nevertheless kill all, and eat many, of the elves, orcs and nagas in the entire dungeon.

It is unclear what if anything the various societies of dungeon denizens, who, judging by the absence of intra-monster violence within the dungeon, are wholly peaceful, have done to deserve this horrific retribution. On the face of it, the adventurer is simply seeking the Orb. Since “evil”-aligned adventurers act in essentially the same way that “good” ones do in pursuit of this goal, it is unlikely that the finding of this orb is a sufficiently good act in itself to justify the avalanche of butchery.

In the final analysis, it seems that Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the story of a peaceful, multi-cultural and multi-species society falling victim to a single adventurer's avarice and quest for glory. By the time the worshiper of Zin has waded through the rivers of blood he must spill in order to claim the Orb, it is more than a little difficult to distinguish him from a devotee of Makhleb.

Against the background of the game's overarching narrative, namely murder, cannibalism, genocide and theft on an industrial scale introduced to utopia, the Necromantic spell “Regeneration”, a spell anathematised as “evil” by the “good” gods, hardly compares.

Zot Zealot

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Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Tuesday, 23rd July 2019, 10:25

Re: Wtf

you disagree?

Crypt Cleanser

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Joined: Saturday, 12th December 2015, 23:54

Post Tuesday, 23rd July 2019, 11:51

Re: Wtf

The only good wiki page tbh

For this message the author Hellmonk has received thanks: 3
duvessa, Implojin, nago
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 24th July 2019, 13:22

Re: Wtf

It's cool headcanon, but it's far from the only option, and just the author's personal take.

For example, the Orb could have been stolen by the denizens of the Dungeon, who are all part of a mob, or an army. The Orb is an item of multiplanar power, and the quest to recover it could be the only way to stop the world of the PC from being destroyed, or turned into a layer of the Abyss.

It's like the "genocide" deal. It is based on the idea that the dungeon is where a people lives, rather than just a very large fortress.
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Blades Runner

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Joined: Tuesday, 11th December 2018, 19:14

Post Wednesday, 24th July 2019, 16:54

Re: Wtf

Only real disagreement is that monsters are hostile regardless of player conduct towards them in most cases. Whether this is good or evil depends on your utility function and some assumptions about the orb of Zot which have no basis in any confirmed information.

I would broadly agree that the gods of the game don't appear to conform to any coherent interpretation of "good" or "evil". They probably have no need for human morals anyway.

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