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Line 1: {{trope}} * This happened a lot in the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'': Nowhere did it stand out more than in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. When the games began, the mystically oriented Traditions were the good guys fighting a war of ideology against the all-powerful Technocracy, who tried to "smooth out" the bumps in reality through extermination of all supernatural creatures. As the game went through multiple revisions, however, the flaws and in-fighting of the Traditions began to come to the fore, and it became possible for the player characters to be a group of young, idealistic Technocrats trying to reform a corrupt monolith from the inside.<br />The later sourcebooks (and the old stuff if you look hard enough) make it more and more easy to believe that the Technocracy, even with its flaws, really is doing the right thing by trying to save humanity from all the supernatural things that want to eat them, enslave them, or remake the world in their own image. A world ruled by the Technocracy might be bleak, but imagine a world dominated by the philosophical paradigm of, say, [[The Magocracy\|The Order of Hermes]], or the [[Gaia's Vengeance\|Verbena]]... :* Much the same, but with different trappings?<br />To put a point on it: depending on who you ask, the Technocracy is a genocidal [[Big Brother Is Watching\|Thought Police]] bent on creating a stagnant world they have absolute control over, a bunch of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist~~\|Well-Intentioned Extremists~~]]s for whom [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], or [[Designated Villain~~\|Designated Villains~~]]s who are the absolutely justified in their belief that supernatural influence over the Human Race is a quantifiable bad thing. By that same token, the Council of Nine either represents the last best hope for creativity, nobility and the realization of personal potential, or a bunch of selfish children who refuse to acknowledge the true implication of their abilities against the Greater Good. It's all heavily dependent on where on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] the World of Darkness lies. Unfortunately for the Traditions, this is the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin\|World of Darkness.]]▼ :The later sourcebooks (and the old stuff if you look hard enough) make it more and more easy to believe that the Technocracy, even with its flaws, really is doing the right thing by trying to save humanity from all the supernatural things that want to eat them, enslave them, or remake the world in their own image. A world ruled by the Technocracy might be bleak, but imagine a world dominated by the philosophical paradigm of, say, [[The Magocracy\|The Order of Hermes]], or the [[Gaia's Vengeance\|Verbena]]... The central idea of ''[[Demon: The Fallen]]'' is the alternate interpretation that Lucifer rebelled [[Satan Is Good\|in order to save humanity]] from being condemned to ignorance by an uncaring God. But even that interpretation is subject to a decent amount of doubt. Was it for love? Or was Lucifer simply ambitious? Or did he do it because God ''told'' him to?<br />And there's the ever continuing problem of getting the players to not just be [[Exclusively Evil]] since they are called demons. Some go for [[Blood Knight]] types, some go for manipulative Al-Pachino-From-Devils-Advocate types, and almost all of them miss the point of the game. The expanded power sets (Lore of Violation anyone?) doesn't really help with this.▼ ▲:To put a point on it: depending on who you ask, the Technocracy is a genocidal [[Big Brother Is Watching\|Thought Police]] bent on creating a stagnant world they have absolute control over, a bunch of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist\|Well-Intentioned Extremists]] for whom [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], or [[Designated Villain\|Designated Villains]] who are the absolutely justified in their belief that supernatural influence over the Human Race is a quantifiable bad thing. By that same token, the Council of Nine either represents the last best hope for creativity, nobility and the realization of personal potential, or a bunch of selfish children who refuse to acknowledge the true implication of their abilities against the Greater Good. It's all heavily dependent on where on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] the World of Darkness lies. Unfortunately for the Traditions, this is the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin\|World of Darkness.]] ▲ The central idea of ''[[Demon: The Fallen]]'' is the alternate interpretation that Lucifer rebelled [[Satan Is Good\|in order to save humanity]] from being condemned to ignorance by an uncaring God. But even that interpretation is subject to a decent amount of doubt. Was it for love? Or was Lucifer simply ambitious? Or did he do it because God ''told'' him to? :And there's the ever continuing problem of getting the players to not just be [[Exclusively Evil]] since they are called demons. Some go for [[Blood Knight]] types, some go for manipulative Al-Pachino-From-Devils-Advocate types, and almost all of them miss the point of the game. The expanded power sets (Lore of Violation anyone?) doesn't really help with this. * It happens a lot in ''[[Exalted]]''. Solars: Are they returning divinely empowered rulers who will lead Creation into a new golden age, or are they destined to fall into the same madness as before and make things even worse? Line 11 ⟶ 9: Sidereals: Stuck-up bureaucrats who couldn't see beyond their own noses and almost doomed Creation as a result, or secret agents who keep reality intact? Abyssals: Death-obsessed omnicidal maniacs, or... eh, there's not much room for an alternate interpretation here. Everyone ''always'' ignores the Lunars. Most of the world sees them as raving, flea-bitten beastmen who squander their lives fighting each other over territory, mates, and bragging rights, when they aren't attempting to burn and destroy civilization to usher in total chaos. This is actually a deliberate ruse to appear less of a threat, so that the Dragonblooded and Sidereals don't try seriously hunting them down like they did the Solars. While many Lunars might fit the stereotypes if you squint real hard (and some even if you don't), for the most part they're a band of misunderstood heroes honestly trying to protect the world from itself and actually fighting to prevent Chaos. There are various factions devoted to protecting the world in the way they think most important, either by preserving (and improving) ancient knowledge, defending nature (and thus the Mother Earth Goddess) from ruination, patrolling the borders of the world to keep Chaos at bay, seeking to reinstate the Solar Exalted as kings of the world (a highly controversial idea among Lunars), or experimenting with isolated human civilizations in an attempt to come up with a viable alternative to the Realm's corrupt brand of civilization. In general, yes, the Lunar Exalted think the current order is corrupt and needs to ~~go -- but~~go—but they're not so stupid as to do that unless they've got something better to replace it, and they've given a lot of thought about ''how'' to do the replacing without destroying the world in the attempt.<br />In the first edition Lunars book, "raving, flea-bitten beastmen who squander their lives fighting each other over territory, mates, and bragging rights, when they aren't attempting to burn and destroy civilization to usher in total chaos" was exactly correct. It wasn't until the second edition that White Wolf fixed that.<br />In ''Exalted 2.0'', the whole Lunar "let's figure out a way to create a better society" thing is executed in practice by having individual Lunars go out and ''create test societies''—which frequently fail to produce positive results. Rather than try to fix the problems that they have caused through their social engineering (such as now-ancient grudges, entire societies on the brink of being press-ganged into demonic armies, and other such [[Doomy Dooms of Doom\|dooms]]), Lunars often ''abandon'' said projects, for better or worse. The [[Our Titans Are Different\|Primordials]]: Callous and vindictive psychopaths who treated their minions like dirt and the world and their creations like playthings they would occasionally break for fun? Or the victims of divine usurpers who painted them as far more malicious than they ever were, and now are so angry by this betrayal that they embrace this persona, and arranged it so that history repeats itself?<br />Right now, the answer looks like "It depends on the Primordial." Some were really that awful. Kimbery turns out not to have changed much by becoming a Yozi, and was just as much of a mood-swinging psychotic [[My Beloved Smother]] who alternated between loving the Lintha and her other creations and showering them with her favor and hating them for real or imagined slights against her and tormenting them back when she was a Primordial. The Dragon's Shadow was a treacherous [[Manipulative Bastard]] who is strongly implied to have intentionally orchestrated the Primordial War and whose primary change upon becoming the Ebon Dragon was actually being ''better off than he was as a Primordial'' ~~-- he~~—he now embodies the dragon he was once the mere shadow of, and is one of the most powerful and influential of the Yozis. She Who Lives In Her Name destroyed 90% of Creation [[Ret-Gone\|at the conceptual level]] in what amounted to a temper tantrum upon being defeated and imprisoned, and was against the existence of free will from the ~~start -- The~~start—The Dragon's Shadow convinced the Divine Tyrant (now Malfeas) that free will was necessary, and he convinced She Who Lives In Her Name to allow its existence.▼ :In the first edition Lunars book, "raving, flea-bitten beastmen who squander their lives fighting each other over territory, mates, and bragging rights, when they aren't attempting to burn and destroy civilization to usher in total chaos" was exactly correct. It wasn't until the second edition that White Wolf fixed that. The Neverborn: A bunch of sore losers [[Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum\|trying to end an ancient war in a draw]]? Or a bunch of [[Woobie~~\|Woobies~~]]s [[And I Must Scream\|trying to end their eternal torment]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds\|the only way they know how]]? Or [[Jerkass Woobie~~\|Jerkass Woobies~~]]s combining both?▼ :In ''Exalted 2.0'', the whole Lunar "let's figure out a way to create a better society" thing is executed in practice by having individual Lunars go out and ''create test societies'' -- which frequently fail to produce positive results. Rather than try to fix the problems that they have caused through their social engineering (such as now-ancient grudges, entire societies on the brink of being press-ganged into demonic armies, and other such [[Doomy Dooms of Doom\|dooms]]), Lunars often ''abandon'' said projects, for better or worse. The [[Our Titans Are Different\|Primordials]]: Callous and vindictive psychopaths who treated their minions like dirt and the world and their creations like playthings they would occasionally break for fun? Or the victims of divine usurpers who painted them as far more malicious than they ever were, and now are so angry by this betrayal that they embrace this persona, and arranged it so that history repeats itself? ▲:Right now, the answer looks like "It depends on the Primordial." Some were really that awful. Kimbery turns out not to have changed much by becoming a Yozi, and was just as much of a mood-swinging psychotic [[My Beloved Smother]] who alternated between loving the Lintha and her other creations and showering them with her favor and hating them for real or imagined slights against her and tormenting them back when she was a Primordial. The Dragon's Shadow was a treacherous [[Manipulative Bastard]] who is strongly implied to have intentionally orchestrated the Primordial War and whose primary change upon becoming the Ebon Dragon was actually being ''better off than he was as a Primordial'' -- he now embodies the dragon he was once the mere shadow of, and is one of the most powerful and influential of the Yozis. She Who Lives In Her Name destroyed 90% of Creation [[Ret-Gone\|at the conceptual level]] in what amounted to a temper tantrum upon being defeated and imprisoned, and was against the existence of free will from the start -- The Dragon's Shadow convinced the Divine Tyrant (now Malfeas) that free will was necessary, and he convinced She Who Lives In Her Name to allow its existence. ▲ The Neverborn: A bunch of sore losers [[Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum\|trying to end an ancient war in a draw]]? Or a bunch of [[Woobie\|Woobies]] [[And I Must Scream\|trying to end their eternal torment]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds\|the only way they know how]]? Or [[Jerkass Woobie\|Jerkass Woobies]] combining both? Autochthon: Noble champion of the little guy? Or the supergod equivalent of those Columbine kids, murdering his peers because they picked on him? [[The Fair Folk]]: Twisted, horrific, soul-sucking monsters from beyond, out to sunder Creation and lay waste to reality? Or angry, displaced natives trying to get back their homelands? The Deathlords are typically portrayed as [[Complete Monster~~\|Complete Monsters~~]]s who agreed to destroy Creation in exchange for the power to rule over its dying remains; the First and Forsaken Lion and Eye and Seven Despairs' saving of Creation from the Great Contagion is normally described as if it were an accident. [[Fridge Logic]], however, suggests an alternative ~~interpretation -- why~~interpretation—why would they want Creation to be killed by someone else? Given that they are supposed to be two of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, it makes much more sense to assume that they saved the world ''deliberately''; even if they swore to destroy it, neither really has any actual reason to want to see it die, and plenty of reasons not to. They're all still brutal dictators and conquerors, and the only First Age Solars ''not'' to repent of the horrific atrocities they committed in life. All of them? [[Grey and Gray Morality\|All of the above.]] * ''[[Warhammer ~~40000~~40,000]]'' is ''made'' for this, and has room for all possible interpretations of ''every'' side, from the Imperium to Chaos. The Imperium of Man: Are they a [[The Empire\|vast, monolithic entity]] of [[Humans Are ~~Bastards~~the Real Monsters\|xenophobic]] [[Church Militant\|fundamentalists]], or simply a race that has been forced to [[Well-Intentioned Extremist\|resort to extreme measures]] in order to ensure their very survival in the [[Crapsack World\|Grim and Dark]] future? * The Inquisition: are they, as Ciaphas Cain ('''Hero of the IMPERIUM!''') once calls them, "the Emperor's pet psychopaths" or are they heroic individuals shouldering an impossibly weighty burden and forced to make the cruelest decisions imaginable? Canon is that they can be one or the other; some are evil, some are good. Which changes, as some who start well-meaning are [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]], while some who start [[Gung-Holier Than Thou]] are getting reality checks with more zeroes than they expected. * The Space Marines: psychotic butchers driven solely by hatred for everything nonhuman (and yet barely human themselves), or noble paladins of the Emperor and defenders of all humanity's goodness? Depends upon the chapter. Within chapters: [[Night Lords]]? Psychopath butchers, or self-sacrificing heroes who enforced the Imperium and were rewarded by [[Malicious Slander]]? The Dark Angels? Covering up their primarch's decision to sit out the [[Horus Heresy]] or shamed, attempting to atone for the treachery of their members? For several years, the Dark Angels were very notably part of this genre because it wasn't clear whether Lion El'Johnson or Luther was the actual traitor. It goes a step further because it was also possible there was no traitor faction and the conflict was bred purely from paranoia. The [[Horus Heresy]] series did remove the doubts of what actually happened though. Line 29 ⟶ 24: * The Adeptus Mechanicus: Is their obsession with controlling the use of all human technology merely the product of a powerful elite not wishing that power to slip through their fingers, or is it meant to safeguard the Imperium from technological terrors such as mass robot uprisings? Is the "Omnissiah" some sinister dark god imprisoned on Mars or merely another co-equal aspect of the God-Emperor? Furthermore, do the AdMech actually worship their toasters and calculators while having no idea how they really work, or are they (at least the higher ups) just running the Cult of the Machine as a front? (Most of the novels seem to treat them as competent engineers whose craft is integrated with their religion.) ** The fluff explains that it is because of this worship that the quality of their machines is so good. Since technological prowess is akin to a divine skill and enlightenment, any particular priest will take great care to learn every aspect of his trade, and apply equal dedication when actually fixing something. Therefore he will not skimp on the finest materials and will always keep his machine in top working order, in turn reinforcing the idea that failure and malfunctions are heresy. Of course, just like with other sub-factions, there's, more than enough of them in the whole Imperium to cover those points and several other extremes, including those decried as tech-heresies if found. Which, among the other things, covers various [[Mad Scientist]]s who break the main prohibitions (like building AI) or otherwise ''cannot'' be interpreted as compatible with most other teachings. The Tau: Sinister fundamentalist collectivists with no place for individuality, or idealistic and good-hearted folk heroically seeking a prosperous future for the universe? Naively doomed to sink in the mire of [[Crapsack World\|GRIMDARK]] reality, or bearers of the hopeful torch the universe needs to rekindle itself? * Commander Farsight: cruel renegade or secret agent of the Empire, forced to bear the hatred of his own people? Or freedom fighter trying to free his people from Ethereal mind control? Or shortsighted idiot/enemy pawn that's undermining one of the few things keeping the Tau from having to resort to the kinds of extremes their contemporaries have to. Even ''Games Workshop'' plays with this one, at one point having an article on their website that had someone converting him into a ''Necron'' pawn. Abnormally long lived Tau? [[Legacy Character\|Or a succession of same-named individuals?]] The truth to this question resides with the sword he carries. There are theories that Farsight is now an Eldar puppet due to the Dawn Blade being rumored to be one of the swords of Vaul, one of the only weapons that can permanately kill a C'Tan. In addition, the blade looks very much Eldar in design (see Wraithlord sword). * Of course, whatever its origin was, it could also be possessed. Even then, possibly by a [[Hunter of His Own Kind\|daemon of Malal]]. * The Ethereal Caste itself. Benevolent rulers who hoisted the Tau out of a Dark Age, replacing continual war and strife with order and purpose, or oppressive tyrants who use [[Mind Control]] to ruthlessly increase their own power and glory, or [[Shoot the Dog\|dog shooting pragmatists]]? And where did they come from in the first place? Are they freaks of evolution, creations of mad science, or something even worse? ** There is a fan theory that the Etheral's are the last ditch effort of the Old Ones to save the universe by helping create an Empire that could unite all of the races against Chaos/Tyranids/Orks/Necrons. * A lot of this debate stems from the Tau originally being portrayed almost completely positively. The more negative elements were retconned in later. The Craftworld Eldar: Utterly amoral self-serving bastards, or tragic heroes seeking to save their people and destroy Chaos? Villains or victims? Reluctant distant allies of humanity against the darkness, or among their most insidious foes? * Are they merely [[~~Jerkass\|jerkasses~~jerkass]]es seeking to preserve their own race at the expense of everyone else, or [[The Atoner\|atoners]] doing whatever is necessary to stop the threat of Chaos and the Necrons. The last dying gasp of a decadent race, or the only hope against threats that the younger races do not fully comprehend. * Further complicated by the Harlequins (who aren't technically Craftworld Eldar) - the ultimate fighting force of the Eldar and last/best line of defense against the forces of Chaos, an introverted and secretive sect more concerned with maintaining Eldar history/myth than with protecting the galaxy, or [[Complete Monster\|CompleteMonsters]] who take some perverse joy in liquefying their enemies and have sold their souls to the Laughing God for amazing power? All of the above. Though the last one is mainly because the Harlequins also recruit from the Dark Eldar... Line 46 ⟶ 43: * Chaos isn't good nor evil. It simply is a reflection of Mankind's desires, dreams, and thoughts. * The Chaos Space Marines: Vile ravagers in every possible sense, worse even than the ruthless Imperium? Or simply those that, in those dark days, cling to whatever powers they might in order to give themselves a glimmer of hope for bettering their own lot in life? Both? Abaddon the Despoiler: An [[Memetic Mutation\|armless, brainless]] [[General Failure]] who could never topple the Imperium or the only person who could unite Chaos against the Imperium.? (of course, he can be both - a great Commissar, but mediocre General) Were the Black Crusades complete and utter failures or merely setting things up for a final assault against the Imperium? * The Chaos Gods: Khorne is as much strength and honor as he is bloodshed and violence, Nurgle is as genial and loving and the comfort of the weak and the poor as he is corrupting and pestilent, Slaanesh stands for joy and pleasure to all the senses through art and form as much as outright hedonism, and Tzeentch, while a capricious schemer, could also be said to stand for hope and innovation. These are factual aspects of the characters; they embody positive and negative traits at once. * Tzeentch: brutal, traitorous Magnificent Bastard who simply wants destruction, just trying to survive, or enacting a Machiavellian plot to destroy the other Chaos Gods as a ploy to save the sentient races of the galaxy, bringing him into well intentioned extremist territory. Or he could be as caring as Nurgle, except less caring towards his worshipers than the races they originally came from? Truth be told, we know far less about Tzeentch than the other gods, and GW intends to keep it this way, so really, any character interpretation is possible. Line 62 ⟶ 59: Possibly one of the biggest ones in the whole of 40k is the Emperor. Is he... the guiding light of humanity in the darkness, a weakling corpse barely a shadow of his former self, or simply planning a comeback? Was he an idealistic crusader who wanted to establish an era of hope and strength for humanity, or a mass-murdering tyrant who ruthlessly crushed all opposition and was willing to exterminate entire non-human species in order to establish his own rule? Did he genuinely desire the destruction of religion in an effort to impose his will upon the free thoughts of man, or was it only in order to guide a newly psychic humanity to a future free of chaos? We may never know... * It's unlikely that anyone will get a clear answer. GW uses the Emperor (as a character) very sparingly, and so very little about him is known. Suffice to say, a massive amount of 40k depends on exactly how much the Emperor knew...did he deliberately scatter the Primarchs or was he the victim of a terrible accident? Did he deliberately choose to die at Terra or was it an accident too?... * Or ''[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Heresy_from_the_Emprah%E2%80%99s_point_of_view Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]''. * Yawgmoth from ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. A [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] [[Badass Normal]] [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]] [[Utopia Justifies the Means\|who made use of some innovative methods to grant his fellows a better life]] only to be [[Love Makes You Evil\|betrayed by the woman he loved]] [[Sealed Evil in a Can\|and exiled into a void plane for nine millennia]], thus making his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds\|more than justified]]? Or perhaps an [[Affably Evil]] [[Deadly Doctor]] with [[Munchausen Syndrome\|Munchausen by proxy]], [[Machine Worship\|who lost his mind]] [[Mechanical Lifeforms\|worshipping machines]] and became an [[Evilutionary Biologist]] ([[Anvilicious\|remember]], [[Science Is Bad]])? * ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' isn't immune either. Line 78 ⟶ 76: * One of these is raised by the main rulebook of ''[[Paranoia]] XP''. Friend Computer is usually portrayed as unhinged, a little bit stupid, gullible, and ruthless. One brief section of XP suggests an alternative: Friend Computer is 100% sane and sees through all the evasions and deceptions, but has concluded that deceit, fear, ignorance, horrific inefficiency, and all the other perks of ''Paranoia'' are the very quintessence of human nature and has decided to do everything necessary to nurture these traits, using [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]. ** The rulebook also suggests that the GM should always have another layer. Okay, the PCs find out that Friend Computer is being controlled by evil mutants from Beta Complex, who are actually being controlled by a group of High Programmers back in Alpha Complex, who were set up by Friend Computer as part of a paranoid sting operation, but this plan was added into Friend Computer's memory banks by aliens from Pluto, who are actually just psychic projections of [[The Illuminati]], etc. In short, in Alpha Complex, everything has an alternative interpretation. * ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~& Dragons]]'' One word: Elves. ~~One word: Elves. Even after~~* ''The Complete Book of Elves'' was a good example in itself. Naturally, the internet demonstrated that there are both people [[Can't Argue with Elves\|squeeing]] over these obliviously enough to not notice [[Screw You, Elves\|any of the jokes]] refined in the book, taking all for face value with complete seriousness and run with it, and vigilant geniuses ~~who~~taking ~~take~~[[Black ~~jokes~~Comedy]] ~~there~~along with punchlines for face value ~~and~~only ~~then~~to "discover" (GASP!) that elves ~~aren~~are ''not''t as cuddly as they present themselves. The Dark Powers in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' campaign setting are usually interpreted as being evil, since they are the [[Genius Loci\|presumed masters behind the eponymous Demiplane of Dread, a place of evil and horror]], but it is also possible that they are good, and use Ravenloft as a prison for the worst villains and monsters in the multiverse. If the cage sometimes seems a gilded one, remember that each of the major villains trapped there are also given curses [[Cool and Unusual Punishment\|appropriate to their crimes]]. * The [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]] suffered by every dark lord is designed to break them and hit them where it really hurts. For example, Strahd von Zarovich, who murdered his brother to steal his fiancée (and countless other crimes) is cursed with vampirism and forced to relive the loss of his beloved Tatiana every generation. Unless things have changed in the latest edition, the setting is called The Land of Mists or something similar by its residents; Ravenloft is from ''Ravana's Loft'', and is Strahd's absolutely trope-tastic [[Haunted Castle]], named for Strahd's mother. * The problem is, almost none of the villains trapped in Ravenloft are actually major (only Vecna/Kaz and Lord Soth, all long gone from Ravenloft, were bigshots before going there). Dark Powers pick people whom they can make to suffer beautifully, not those really dangerous or really heinous. Snatching a guy who murdered his brother to steal his fiancée out of love, when ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~& Dragons]]'' is chock-full of people whose job description amounts to killing and torturing innocents [[For the Evulz]]? On the other hand, core domains of Ravenloft often are relatively safe places to live, compared to what is normal to DnD-land. Commonly encountering monsters are weak enough to remain in hiding, instead of rampaging and assaulting openly, and there is a comparative shortage of insanely powerful psychopaths on the loose. To be fair, it's not like TSR and later ~~[[Wot C]]~~WotC could denude their other campaign settings of all their good villains. Also, the Dark Powers may just not have the power to take all the really major villains from all over the multiverse; it's not like the Dark Powers have ever been portrayed as omnipotent, even within Ravenloft. Maybe they're just doing the best they can. Also, the fact that Ravenloft is in some ways ''safer'' for the average person than the typical campaign setting, what with the lack of lots of randomly rampaging monsters, may be further support for the idea that the Dark Powers are good. "[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Pelor#Pelor.2C_the_Burning_Hate Pelor The Burning Hate]" is a reinterpretation of Pelor, Neutral Good god of the Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing. ~~- in~~In part inspired by [[Tutorial Failure\|examples incongruent with the given rules and statistics]] (- thanks to D&D3 suffering from lazy editors and ~~massively~~shameless ~~copypasted~~copypaste [[padding]] at the same time). ItDigging deeper adds that ''Weapons of Legacy'' introduced a Pelorian heresy focused on [[Burn the Witch\|random murder of arcane spellcasters]], some of his followers having a tradition of [[Human Sacrifice]] in ''The Price of Power'' even before D&D3, etc. The theory manages to remain consistent with everything attributed to Pelor, ~~while~~ explaining his every action and trait as actually evil in disguise. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130518001708/http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558798/Pelor_the_Burning_Hate This] in turn is ~~[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Pelor#Pelor.2C_the_Burning_Hate~~ split] on whether he's actually [[Chaotic Evil]], [[Neutral Evil]] or [[Lawful Evil]]. Also, there's still the question of his relations with Pholtus of the Blinding Light ([[Lawful Neutral]] god of sun, law, [[Knight Templar\|resolution and inflexibility]]) either way. [[Forgotten Realms]]: is Cyric a lunatic who got lucky too many times and was a keen enough opportunist to exploit openings between his blunders, or an evil mastermind? The novels left this open to interpretation. 3.5 Edition's ''Races of the Wild'' reveals something interesting about halflings and their religion: Yondalla wasn't always the squeaky clean paragon of Lawful Good she is today. She created the halflings by stealing the best bits from all the other races, and the gods punished her by forcing her to split into two goddesses: [[Lawful Good]] Yondalla and [[Chaotic Neutral]] Dallah Thaun. They are still the same person, sharing thoughts and memories, which is why there are so many CN halflings who can claim, even under magical compulsion, to worship a LG goddess. This is a canon example of ACI, as no other books even so much as mention it; other races are forbidden to even know about Dallah Thaun. This suggests that the halflings, generally seen as no more than harmlessly mischievous, are knowingly perpetuating a culture-wide scam that allows them to steal, cheat and take vengeance all they want, and all in the name of a lawful good deity. * What's really strange is that the other gods are apparently in on it. They know of Dallah's existence, but even high level non-halfling clerics who can talk to their gods directly are seemingly kept in the dark. Good gods, evil gods, lawful ones, chaotic ones, none seem to have any problem with keeping this a secret from everyone. So either there is a truly massive cover-up going on (with even gods who despise each other playing along) or ''there is no Dallah Thaun'', the book is a fabrication, and the halflings made her up as some sort of excuse for doing as they please. Line 89: In 4th edition of, Asmodeus usurped his position from [[No Name Given\|He Who Was]], his patron deity. A lot of text tries to portray He Who Was as a benevolent deity, but angels are supposed to be extensions of their patron deity's will. How did Asmodeus get so many angels on his side? Perhaps He Who Was wasn't as squeaky clean as he's made out to be. In fact, HHW might have been the god of ambition, and the reason he had so many usurpers following Asmodeus was because of their ambitious nature. (HHW is [[YHWH\|one letter away]] from being a VERY [[Significant Anagram]]...) *** In regards to Asmodeus and He Who Was, there's some new information out about it. He Who Was was apparently the leader of the gods in their war with the primordials, but was such a benevolent god that he had little taste for war and battle and was a poor general. Asmodeus was the most powerful and skilled general the gods had, and his angels were their most powerful army. His tactics, however, were brutal and horrifying to He Who Was, who eventually cast Asmodeus down for his actions. Perhaps the peace loving He Who Was created Asmodeus and his army as an aspect of himself, an expression of his ruthless, violent tendencies so that he didn't have to live with them himself. Which could have been why he simply cast Asmodeus down, instead of destroying him outright. He couldn't bring himself to destroy part of himself. * [[BattleTech]] as a whole (At least up until the Jihad) seems to have been an exercise in creating these, all depending on what faction you decide to side with. Except for a few unambiguous [[Kick the Dog\|puppy-punters]] like [[The Caligula\|Romano Liao]] or [[Royal Brat\|Katherine ]][[Evil Prince\|Steiner-Davion]], most characters can have several Interpretations. Hanse Davion: [[Magnificent Bastard]] who [[Incredibly Lame Pun\|outfoxed]] his hidebound or deranged opponents, or [[Mary Sue]] who only got by on [[Creator's Pet\|writer's fiat]]? His son, Victor: [[The Napoleon\|Midget who can't possibly live up to his father's legacy]] or skilled warrior hobbled by politics and the above-mentioned evil sister? The Clans: [[Proud Warrior Race Guy~~\|Proud Warrior Race Guys~~]]s who deserve to lead Humanity, or [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Mary Sue~~\|Mary Sues~~]]s with [[The Munchkin\|way too much power]]? ** Sun-Tzu Liao: [[Magnificent Bastard]] who is trying to restore a fallen nation or [[Manipulative Bastard]] who only got by on the same kind of fiat that decriers attributed to Hanse Davion? {{reflist}} [[Category:{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]▼ [[Category:{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] ▲[[Category:{{~~BASEPAGENAME~~TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]