Champions of Toran and Lawful Goodness...

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

I was reading a very interesting article on LORE last night about [LORE]Champions of Toran[/LORE] and saw something very interesting...

[SIZE=10]"The final stage is the Divine Champion. These elite few have found the path of temperance. They have progressed beyond the code of the paladin. Oh, they follow it when they can, but they also fully understand that evil doesn't play by rules. That it's rarely that easy or black and white. They do more than fight evil, they seek it out. They climb down into those black pits and let the light of Toran shine there. Where the Paladin combats any evil they find, the Champion's duty is to seek it out. Fight it head to head. Tooth and nail, smite it hip and thigh. Where the paladin tries to sway away from baser emotions, the Champion fills themselves with righteous indignation and divine wrath, for they know that there is power in emotion. They aren't afraid to get dirty, in fact that is part of their duty. Toran forgives them all, as long as their fight is pure and their duty unwavering. They aren't above taking the quicker path if it means Toran's greater purpose is served. They understand the greater good and are willing to make the sacrifices that the others of their ilk are not willing or capable to do."

[SIZE=13]So...  this made me think a bit...  Divine Champions seem to be willing to break some rules to achieve the Greater Good...  So why do they have to be Lawful Good?

I guess you could say they have to adhere to the Oaths and Code of Toran's Holy Warriors, but there are more laws then just those of the Gods...

Part of the Reason I'm asking is cause one of my Characters is Neutral Good, but I've always thought that while not a Paladin, he might one day see if he's worthy to become a Champion of Toran, and was curious about how strong a Req the LG alignment was, and maybe why its there...  Anyway, just some feed back would be good, then this can get buried back under the piles of posts in the forum vault.  
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[Acacea]

As far as I know, that text is straight out of the manual. Divine Champions by default only require a non-evil alignment (or is it any good?) and a weapon focus in any melee weapon. They are also arguably a step below paladins, having fewer of their abilities. In Layonara it is more like the other way around, and you must be of your deity's specific alignment, and have weapon focus in your deity's favored weapon. Toran's is LG because Toran is LG. If we had Divine Champions of Rofirein (and I kind of feel that we should have just had a class called "Divine Champion" instead of adding copies for different names, then you could take it for a few more appropriate deities as well), then he would be LN with focus in the bastard sword, though you could make the case that he'd do well enough with any bladed weapon.

They are the chosen, the elite, the ones that capture the complete will of the god. There is no one-step slippage or warring interpretations of dogma, there is just straight worship of the core of the faith. Best of the best and all that.

It is of course kind of funny to have 3 different divine classes that are all supposed to capture the will of a god, so who knows what they think of each other. The high level cleric is arguably the most favored, having hordes of blessings bestowed at their wish, and the paladins typically follow their orders, yet are the bright shiny ones held to the highest of standards. But no, it's the divine champions held to the highest standards, selected by the gods... or wait... It will be nice to just have a mix of different skills than several different class packages all claiming to be the voice, arm, or heart of a god. I guess those would be cleric, paladin, and champion, respectively.