Re: Selune and the Iron Monks

On Aug 1, 2007, at 4:13 PM, Matt Hoffman wrote:

>>
>> 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").

The question is how an order of monks ever got involved with CG  
Selune in the first place (the writeup doesn't really say).  It is  
hard to see how someone would ever have had the idea of establishing  
a monastic order devoted to, say, CE Umberlee, or finding any other  
(lawful) persons who thought it would be a good idea to join it.  I  
was offering a suggestion for why the monks themselves would even be  
interested in the patronage of a CG deity - namely, that they don't  
think she's CG.