Re: Selune and the Iron Monks

On Aug 1, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Asa Benjamin Winkler wrote:

> On Aug 1, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Michael Billard wrote:
>
>
>>
>> I understand your concern about why a Chaotic Good deity would  
>> sponsor a lawful order. My take is that a goddess whose temperment  
>> stresses tolerance and acceptance above all other principals would  
>> accept monks of a more lawful bent. There's a line in A Brave New  
>> World that says something to the effect of a society stressing  
>> tolerance should be able to accomodate savage from the outside  
>> world. That's partly what I had in mind. Do others have a similar  
>> problem with Selune being the monks' sponsors? I suppose I could  
>> create a deity with a similar portfolio and value system.

Thing is, if the monks worship a deity whose portfolio includes  
tolerance and acceptance, an alignment restriction of any kind  
doesn't seem proper. This is not to say that tolerance and acceptance  
= "no restrictions on anything, woo hoo!", but alignment is belief,  
and to restrict a group or order's membership based on belief seems  
sort of seems to cut against the grain of tolerance.

>>
>> Maybe I didn't word it right but Eilistraee doesn't actually  
>> sponsor the monks. They just liked some of their values, and they  
>> saw her followers as people who weren't tolerated anywhere else.  
>> Perhaps I should list them as allies and de-emphasize a couple of  
>> things in their background.
>
> Perhaps the monks simply don't consider Selune to be Chaotic Good.   
> It's not as if there's an index in which to look up deities'  
> alignments, and a group of monks might well believe that the  
> eternal cycles of the moon were an excellent illustration of the  
> fundamental laws which permeates all creation (such as, say,  
> tolerance is extremely important because the perpetual revolutions  
> of time will otherwise inexorably turn the persecutor into the  
> persecuted, etc.).  Sure, other monks and/or clerics would argue  
> that Selune is really CG, not LG, but that's what theological  
> disputes are for.

Well, that might work in the real world where religion and deities  
are disembodied, omnipresent and decidedly more subtle, but in the  
fantasy melieu your gods and goddesses are more like really really  
really powerful people. So it's not really a question of the monks'  
philosophical belief in a deity, especially since it's noted that  
Selune sponsors the monks (implying she took a look at the group and  
said "yeah, okay, you can put my name on this").