Roleplay Aeridin style

[major6]

Ok, this is more for me but I guess it may help others.  First I will give my opinion then I am sure I will hear all the fun answers.  Basically the way I read into Aeridin(ites) is that they will not take a life unless "absolutely" necessary.  This is only one of Aeridin's bios though and the second is that basically of an undead killer.  To me the way I look at this is that necessity can be looked at many ways and although should not be "wanton" killing should not be sitting back while others get killed while they can help it.  They are there to aid others, so if there is an evil black mage in the area constantly slaughtering citizens and adventurers alike I look at it as one life taken and many lives spared would be something Aeridin would approve.  Now I am not saying Trith would not first try to speak to said mage if he could but in his following he also would not just sit by.  Secondly, since all life is sacred, if he was with others while out adventuring and was attacked, he would defend himself.  The way I play this is that he uses no bladed weapons so since there is not a non-lethal mode in the game if he ends up "killing" something I look at it as he just knocked them out for a long time.

So to sum it all up.  All gods have different ideals, most have multiple.  Each follower does not always follow everything to the letter but what they feel is right to them unless of course they were corrected by a higher order this is what I feel roleplaying one would be like.  Please fell free to rip this to shreds if I am totally off, but I really would like to hear opinions and from DM's the truth on such.  Thanks again.

P/O Trith

[Hellblazer]

This subject has already been debated extensively. But since it's not always easy to find info on the forums, here you go.

I agree with you, and it was always my point, that an Aeridinite should never sit back and let people get hurt, even if they knew there would be fighting if they were ask to accompany people around. Of course, lex was always a bit to proactive for the church views.

http://forums.layonara.com/roleplaying/114473-aeridin-truth-behind-dogma.html

[ycleption]

I will opine that there are certainly various ways to play any god's dogma; there are also ways to rationalize any god's dogma to make the character easier to play.

Just make sure that you are doing the first. The only thing that might be sticky with what you've said is the defending yourself while adventuring... you're ok so long as you aren't intentionally placing yourself in positions where you know you will have to defend yourself with force (ask yourself why the character would be adventuring in the first place, if you aren't going to slay undead and such).

[DMOE]

The only thing that might be sticky with what you've said is the defending yourself while adventuring... you're ok so long as you aren't intentionally placing yourself in positions where you know you will have to defend yourself with force (ask yourself why the character would be adventuring in the first place, if you aren't going to slay undead and such).

I agree wholeheartedly with this.....

As better people than me have said before on the forums...

You can always find an RP EXCUSE.....But you really should be finding an RP REASON.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Aid Those In Need.

This is the central dogmatic statement of Aeridin the Lifegiver.

Secondary to this is "Preserve and Protect Life."

What this means is that an Aeridinite would do his or her absolute best to keep others alive and well... Cleansing disease and poison, healing even the most grevious of wounds... But once death has taken its toll, respecting the moving on of the Cycle.

To me, that means no Raise Dead or Resurrection, but I'll leave that to the DMs to decide.

As to combat? Well, that's been discussed exhaustively, but the basic consensus is that you shouldn't go looking for a fight, and would typically want to avoid violent conflict. At what costs depends on the character.

But just because an ogre is wandering around, raiding villages, doesn't mean that an Aeridinite would be Johnny-On-The-Spot to kill it. The Aeridinite would likely try to knock it out and send it off to other ogres.

[Hellblazer]

Actually it was debated in the post that i linked that raising the dead who was killed by a unnatural way, was alright because the soul had not completely left the body unless under the council of Aeridin the soul mother had taken the last strand of soul. (extrapolation here since Aeridin is the god of life, he would supersede the soul mother.)

I'll also re-iterate the dogma that is found in game

Preserve and protect life, the gift to exist is not one to be taken lightly and thus one must live an exemplary life, devoted to benevolence and care. Tend to those who ail. Offer your gift of healing to make their stay in the mortal realm a wholesome experience, yet once death has taken its toll, respect the passing and enjoy the found memories of their life. Do not dwell or mourn those who past for too long, death is sadness, but without understanding sorrow, one can not understand happiness.
 
Promote health and the well being of the body and mind before everything else. Any extension, transformation, alteration and corruption to the natural form and shapes of being, is an affront against the sanctity and purity of life and should be confronted at first, with gentle lessons and benevolent teaching, and if such ways do not work, with a stern and firm stance instead. Violence is the last option; use it only on those who defy these teaching.
 
undeath is the most blatant aberration to the sanctity and purity of life. Put them to rest by any means necessary so that their souls may reach their homes. use the gift of the Caring light, to bring brightness to the darkest of places, never succumb to its temptation for they only bring a taint on the spirit

[lonnarin]

Essentially, as long as you wear robes and bludgeon the mage slowly and painfully over a long course of time with a quarterstaff, then it's ok.  Preserving your own life with armor as if your life was sacred, or limiting the suffering of foes by using a quicker, less painful weapon like an axe to the neck is a big no no.  You are expected to throw away your life like a candy wrapper, and any death you cause is to be as slow and excrutiating as possible.  This is of course not at all supported by the code of Aeriden, but wholley endorsed by his mandatory dress code.  If you think you have it bad, druids are expected to protect all animals and trees, and may only wear items made from animals and trees.  To wear metal armor that does not cry out in animalspeak for its life to be spared or to use a straight sword is blashphemy... only the curvy swords are found in nature.

My two cents on mandatory dress codes which make no practical sense despite their dogmatic requirements.

[Hellblazer]

Actually you misread the Aeridinte dress code.

The paladin and cleric are allowed to wear Full plates and shields even the use of the morningstar. But from the dogma stand point only in the dire circumstances. which protecting your own life or the life of someone else, or fighting undeads (for the morning star), warrant.

but like for any other Monk they are entitled to some light weapons. They can also choose to wear re-enforce clothing which will not deprive them of their mobility. The only difference is that for Aeridin, a monk can not use light slashing weapons.

And yes I know you were being sarcastic, but you were also giving wrong info.

[lonnarin]

Well, a priest of any faith may use any armor or weapon they choose providing they have a good reason written in X many paragraphs in their bio to do so.  Like their own god being completely bonkers, for example.  I just wish Druids had that luxury.

And of course Paladins are exempt from most laws of their churches regarding dress code and the weapons of their god...  They're Lawful Good.   You would think that the clerics who didnt have to be lawful would be even more exempt, but it gets all topsy turvy when religious fanatics are involved.  Like what happens when a paladin of Lucinda who must protect the weave in all its forms comes across a hoarde of evil liches kept alive by their own goddess' will?  Whew... now that's a can of worms right there.  

Yet it's a much greater stretch somehow for goodly, protective gods like Beryl, Shindaleria or Folian to have paladins, despite their not being directly responsible for the undead scourge worldwide being sustained.  One would think that their loving code of good coupled with their desire to protect their people and the woods around them from the defilement of undead would be enough for paladin orders, but nah.  The lichmaker gets them.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

The devout of Aeridin typically wear white robes with their god's symbol on them, as a sign to the commonfolk that "HERE'S A HEALER!!!" Those in situations of physical danger typically wear fullplate if they can afford it, or other armor if they can't. After all, it's best for protecting you!

Aeridinites use blunt weapons because they can more easily be used to stop someone without killing them. And again, only typically - for undead who are resistant to simple bludgeoning force, a morningstar would be favored.

Weapons, on the other hand, whose main purpose is to maim or kill the living, are frowned upon. A morningstar turned against anything but the undead, for example, would be a big no-no.

As an aside, the Dogma of Aeridin as it stands now is listed in my link above...

In terms of raising the dead, I think Aeridin would frown on it, whatever the case, based on the description in the Dogma. "Tend to those who ail; offer your gift of healing to make their stay in the mortal realm a wholesome experience, yet once death has taken its toll, respect the passing and enjoy the fond memories of their life."

[Hellblazer]

Stephen, the word taking its toll in this case is referring to the death strands. Dorg had already posted about that in the link I have provided about raising dead npc which can also be applied to pc.

If you read the link I have provided earlier on, the Ig dogma is the one that should be used by Aeridinites (even copy pasted it here).

On the question of NPCs and whether or not one should be raised by an Aeridinite...

In my personal opinion, this is one question that does not have a single answer. Here's some scenarios...

1) Relatively important and/or innocent NPC is killed before the party by some hostile action, or perhaps a terrible accident that may or may not have been caused by the party. Should this death have happened? Should an Aeridinite cleric just look at the body and shake his head in disappointment, but do nothing even though the body may still be warm?

2) The long-dead (say 100 years) and quite inanimate remains of some prominent historical figure are discovered. This figure may be the key to unlocking some mystery, or may have had some key information, etc.

Now, remember that there's an important difference between Raise Dead and Resurrection.

In scenario 1, much like a modern paramedic or doctor might be able to revive a patient who has died in some way, why wouldn't an Aeridinite restore life to someone, through Raise Dead for example, who perhaps shouldn't have died in the first place? To draw the line at NPCs just seems quite the wrong perspective, in my opinion.

In scenario 2, Raise Dead would have zero effect, as the limit for that spell is 1 day/caster level. Resurrection however is something like 10 years per caster level. Clearly such a resurrection would require GM intervention. Now, it is unlikely that an Aeridinte cleric would perform or sanction such an occurrence because the deceased is long, long dead, having passed on from life and into the next part of the cycle. So in such a case, an Aeridinite probably should not perform the resurrection, and he/she would likely (and probably should) protest if such a thing were discussed or done.

[lonnarin]

I wonder if there's a sect of Aeridenites out there who refuse to falsely extend life to the point where they refuse to heal wounds, raise the fallen or disinfect diseases.  Surely if somebody is dying from a foot gone gangrene, then it is a natural passing.  Who are we to eradicate all the innocent little bacteria in the wound, dont they have a right to life too?  

Then if somebody lives on as a revenant and through no spells cast becomes an undead creature of their own, how is that not a natural passing?  If the soul is eternal and it so chooses to live on as a ghost ot a shambling corpse, Wouldn't "cleansing" that undead essentially be wanton slaughter of an autonomous life?  It seems if anything, the obsession with wiping out undeath is a worship of death rather than life.  It must insult Aeriden to see people raising themselves through sheer force of will instead of being unnaturally sustained under his own powers of healing.

So at the center of every god's dogma is not reason, not loving grace, but simply another infallible being's ego-trip, and the near-vampiric hunger for souls to sustain them. If Aeriden were truly as natural as he claims to be, wouldn't he let himself die instead of insisting upon being eternally worshipped?  He was born mortal once... how many thousands of more years does he need before a natural death?

All gods contradict themselves if you give them enough rope to work with.  I read the old and new testaments and I see two different gods, or the biggest case of bi-polar disorder in history.  One seconds he's telling us to slay all Caananite tribes down to the last man, woman, child and cattle... the next he wants us to turn the other cheek and reattach a roman soldier's ear.  Between the wanton slaughter of pagan babies and the forgiveness of enemies, nobody knows whats going on up there.... that's theology.  We never get absolutes until its theocracy, and then that's only one mortal dictator's opinion.

[Hellblazer]

Lonnarin, can I ask you how your comments that you posted helps in anyway clarifying something a new player wants light on to better rp his dogma? From where I am from this is called spamming. Posting for no reason other than posting, if you prefer.

[lonnarin]

Canadians call that debate, actually.

[Hellblazer]

<- read profile *shakes his head*  .

[ycleption]

@lonnarin

Well, yes, certainly some zealot could believe that, but would Aeridin allow his gifts to be used by those who perverted the doctrine like that? This being a fantasy world, to a certain extant there can be a "right" way to interpret the doctrine.

Edit: read the few posts that were written while I was typing and decided that I really didn't need to post part of what I wrote.

[Weeblie]

There might be whatever sect having whatever ackward understanding of the dogma as they wishes to. But in the end, if they wishes the support of the majority of other followers and more importantly, in the case of clerics and paladins, if they have any gift/power at all, it's in Aeridin's hands fully and completely.

The sect followers as lonnarin described would not have the power to raise the dead in first hand, making their "choice" of not to rather moot...

Multiple parts of his dogma is up to oneself to decide in what way one wishes to read it as. Raise the dead following Dorganath's principles? Sure... fine there! Refusing to raise the dead at all, being a strong believer that -all- dead should be dead? Works utterly fine also (although... one gets a dilemma in case oneself is getting raised... or "rebuilt" by the bindstones)!

Wear armor or refusing to wear armor? Either works, as dogma supports both variants! For the first, one should at least wear normal robes from time to time... as that's rather customary and being an elven god, Aeridin is likely to like customs!

[EdTheKet]

And....getting this thread back on topic.

Basically the way I read into Aeridin(ites) is that they will not take a life unless "absolutely" necessary.

Correct, and "absolutely" really is "absolutely".

This is only one of Aeridin's bios though and the second is that basically of an undead killer.

Correct, but it's now extended already, see the more recent dogma that's already in game (but not on LORE yet).

To me the way I look at this is that necessity can be looked at many ways and although should not be "wanton" killing should not be sitting back while others get killed while they can help it.

Sitting back while others get killed shouldn't happen. However, that does not mean that you can just go with a party to kill giants, and then join in in the killing or aid your comrades then, because then you are intentionally aiding the killing of the giants. After all, you went out in search of them.


 

They are there to aid others, so if there is an evil black mage in the area constantly slaughtering citizens and adventurers alike I look at it as one life taken and many lives spared would be something Aeridin would approve.

But is it then necessary to kill him, that's the question. Only as last resort.

Secondly, since all life is sacred, if he was with others while out adventuring and was attacked, he would defend himself.

When attacked, yes. But when intentionally seeking out, like in my giant example above, that's something else.

The way I play this is that he uses no bladed weapons so since there is not a non-lethal mode in the game if he ends up "killing" something I look at it as he just knocked them out for a long time.

Sorry, but dead is dead there.

So to sum it all up. All gods have different ideals, most have multiple. Each follower does not always follow everything to the letter but what they feel is right to them unless of course they were corrected by a higher order this is what I feel roleplaying one would be like.

Correct, however, you cannot twist anything out of proportion, as stated earlier in the thread already, find an RP Reason, not an RP Excuse.

Please fell free to rip this to shreds if I am totally off, but I really would like to hear opinions and from DM's the truth on such. Thanks again.

You're welcome.



Then a short note on raising and resurrecting. Aeridin does allow this. However, you as the caster should think before you use it (and it is okay to not use it). If he didn't we would've disabled it

[miltonyorkcastle]

The stuff in the quote is incorrect, and now I'm really anxious to get my hands on the new handbook because I'm apparently really confused with lots of stuff in the world right now, heh.

As much as your commentary made me smile and even chuckle, lonnarin, I do have to point out that Layo's cosmology makes defining life and death a very different animal, even from the DnD versions we're accustomed to seeing (not to mention real life scenarios).

As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong, Loremaster Ed), life and death are matters of "resonance." Something like energy, though mass has nothing to do with it. In that sense, if Aeridin supports "life," he is supporting a certain resonance range, or frequency range, local to the Layo prime. Death ushers a significant change of resonance, and by the same token undead function way outside the range referred to as "life" on Layo. So killing undead is not killing "life." For that matter, killing outsiders (like demons) in general is not killing "life" because they do not exist on the same frequency (resonance) Layo sentients do (also why they don't really "die" when you kill them on the Layo prime- they just return to the place that hosts their native resonance).

Maintaining "natural order" on Layo is maintaining the native resonance. That can be done both through healing and letting things "pass on" or die "naturally." such is the case because to maintain Layo's native resonance, there must be a constant motion of life and death, but there is room for variance. The problem for Aeridan would be if the resonance moves too far out of the native range, essentially causing what we might call an "imbalance."

So yes, Aeridan may want you to toss your life away like a candy wrapper if it maintains the "balance" or native resonance, but by the same token, he'd want you to raise back to life the army that was just slaughtered if it kept the native resonance within the preferred range.

As a priest of Aeridan, you are on Layo to support "life," that is, the Layo prime version of it, the Layo resonance.

EDIT: Ha! Yeah, Ed beat me to the punch. Whetever Ed said; he's got the know.

[EdTheKet]

As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong, Loremaster Ed), life and death are matters of "resonance." Something like energy, though mass has nothing to do with it. In that sense, if Aeridin supports "life," he is supporting a certain resonance range, or frequency range, local to the Layo prime. Death ushers a significant change of resonance, and by the same token undead function way outside the range referred to as "life" on Layo. So killing undead is not killing "life." For that matter, killing outsiders (like demons) in general is not killing "life" because they do not exist on the same frequency (resonance) Layo sentients do (also why they don't really "die" when you kill them on the Layo prime- they just return to the place that hosts their native resonance).

Sorry, not correct The various frequencies in the cosmology have nothing to do with life, death or demons (aka creatures from the Pits).


Once the last Soul Strand is cut/snapped the soul and body are no longer connected and the soul should move on (see Cosmology), preventing that by either putting your soul in a jar (like a lich), should be stopped.
Also, reanimating dead flesh (zombies, skeletons and the like) is just plain wrong (in the eyes of Aeridin) and should be stopped.

And as in the dogma that's now outside the temples, any alteration, transformation or corruption is wrong in the eyes of Aeridin.