First, let me say that I am not talking about paladins empowered under a SPHERE that happens to be controlled by an evil god....but rather a Paladin that is Empowered by an evil god with the intention of following that religion.


One of the main reasons that I have always heard (and used when my chars were goodies) for why those of the Fortress and many other goodies and paladins do not use Evil tainted Items...is that "to use the tools of evil to fight evil becomes self-defeating" or that "using things tainted with evil taints the soul and starts it down the path to evil"....or other reasons similar to that.

My problem, is with paladins who accept the above arguments for *ITEMS* ....then think nothing about willingly channeling power into Thera from an Evil God.

Think about it....these paladins are PRAYING to an EVIL god to heal their wounds....that sure doesn't sound very "Paladinly" to me.

In my opinion. A paladin that dislikes using evil items...but then follows an evil god is being a Hypocrit, plain and simple.

So, what if a paladin doesn't mind using evil items? Then he isn't being a Hypocrit by following an evil god, right? Well...yeah....but I dare you to make a Paladin that wears a ####load of Evil flagged gear...and see how successful you are at being a "PALADIN"....a BEACON for the Light and an Example for others to follow.


Of course, in cf, can paladins be empowered by evil gods and be members of their religions? Yes. Has it happened? I'm sure it has...

SHOULD it happen, and allow them to stay Good alignment and paladin class....? No, not in my opinion.

As Ilanit
I followed Intronan the evil arial god
of Time/Death/Combat

As a paladin I saw it less as a evil god and just a GOD who are you to judge him I saw the evil in his heart and instead saw his wisdom instead of his evil...

Kinda of a rambly statement but it *might* help..

....then yes. A paladin may only have a deity that's one off on alignment or ethos (LG, LN, NG) and he gains his power directly from his/her deity.

However, in CF, not only can paladins be neutral, religions are sphere based. The "classical" RPG religion doesn't apply as much because the spheres, order, chaos, even destruction and vivimancy are in and of themselves neither good or evil.

I see it as immortals have tapped into these spheres, which represent the universe, and channel that power to their followers.

Some for good or evil reasons, shokai, vynmylak, beroxxus, ect.

Some because these immortals wish to see a "concept" flourish, Leadership, Honor, Order, Reason, things that are neither good or evil, they just are.

So if a pally just want to be a great leader, I don't think it makes him evil because he follows Zulg.

But yeah, it is a little wierd to worship a patron that is the paragon of all you want to destroy. Whenever I had a goodie follow a baddie, it was always like I treated the religion as an ideology, and not being subservient to the head of it.

Kinda like loving your country, but disliking the president.

Both views, yours and mine, are perfectly acceptable IC, I think. I even had a paladin once that screamed at another paladin for following Zulg. :P

There are very few inherently "evil" religions. You have Beroxxus and...uhm...yeah. Just because the god is evil, does not necessarily mean the religion is.

Personally I'm largely disinterested in many of the religions that are about currently. Very few have that certain something that brings me back time and time again. To further limit my options based on align would be counterproductive. I'd get tired of Shok and Vyn after awhile.

It has to do with the fact that a Paladin is channeling power from a source that is Pure EVIl into Thera.

Think about it.

Paladin gets hurt ...
Paladin closes his eyes and prays to a powerful and immortal Entity of Pure Evil..."Please heal my wounds"
And his wounds heal.

Or

Paladin finds a sword. Sword is not blessed.
Paladin closes his eyes and grants the weapon the blessing of an Immortal god of EVIL.
paladin wields sword to go out and stand as a beacon for the light.

Or...

Paladin gets stuck in a no-recall room.
He then prays to his god, an entity of Pure Evil...and get's this echo...
Paladin spreads his arms wide and everything is briefly bathed in a soft light of serenity and cleansing.
Then he can recall.

Yeah, those all make COMPLETE sense for a Paladin. <---that was sarcasm, intended to convey the fact that I believe the opposite.


The above just doesn't sound "Paladinly" to me.

If, however, the paladin wasn't following the evil god...but just empowered under a sphere...it could be argued that he is getting his power directly from the Sphere itself, and not from a being of Darkness.

But, if the paladin follows the Religion...it has nothing to do with the religion itself being evil...it goes that he is praying to a being of Darkness for his power.





"Death awaits ya all, wit nasteh big pointeh teeth!"

If you eliminate the possibility that goodies can follow "evil" gods, and that's NEVER going to happen...face it, you effectively reduce their options by about 40%. Many of those evil gods have already noted that it would be difficult to impossible to earn their tattoo as a goodie (Khasotholas, Valguarnera, Beroxxus), why increase the difficulty even further by taking out other gods that are viable options (Lyristeon, Zulghinlour)?

We could just turn all the gods into humans, but that'd be retarded.

It seems to me to be a relatively inconsequential topic when there are far more substantive topics and arguments that could be made concerning various facets of roleplay and pk in CF.

A paladin worshipping a fire giant anti-paladin who steals souls and is the patron of the largest evil empire in Thera? I can see someone who's played other RPGs wondering about that a bit. :P

You'd never see, say, a paladin in Forgotten Realms (tm) following Bane, for instance.

Remember, Zulghinlour as a God, is neither a fire giant, nor an anti-paladin. They're Gods, and probably somewhat beyond the mortal classifications of Good/Evil. Most paladins who might follow him, or similarly other evil Gods, seem to be of the concept that they agree with the faith of the God, and that is their beliefs. Yes, Zulghinlour is the patron of Empire, but he's also the patron of leaders of men. This paladin is agreeing with the faith, but not nessecarily the rest of it.

>A paladin worshipping a fire giant anti-paladin who steals
>souls and is the patron of the largest evil empire in Thera? I
>can see someone who's played other RPGs wondering about that a
>bit. :P

A paladin worshipping me isn't nearly as easy as a paladin worshipping Vynmynlak or Shokai. Trust me, I play off on that piece of the Code every single time a paladin comes to me for empowerment. If you can't convince me of why you should be empowered by me as a powerful figure of evil, chances are it's not going to happen. I think I can count on one hand the number of paladins I've empowered.

>You'd never see, say, a paladin in Forgotten Realms (tm)
>following Bane, for instance.

Nope! However, in the FR you'd also have a lot of viable choices for gods as a paladin. In CF, the number of empowering immortals is always going to be more limited.