[DF] Evil and Unholy, is there a difference?

[b-dog]

As far as what is evil, demons would come to mind. But undead I am not so sure. Maybe liches are not all evil and maybe not all wights are either. But both demons and undead are unholy and likely affected by holy warriors and holy clerics. This complicates things because there are things like Resistance to Evil Powers which would resist against demonic, evil cleric and unholy warrior powers not maybe not to certain undead because they may not all be completely evil. Another problem is Detect Evil which would detect demons, evil clerics and unholy warriors but not necessarily some kinds of undead.

I would think that both Resistance to Evil Powers and Detect Evil would be better phrased as Protection from Unholy Powers and Detect Unholy so as include undead. Unless it is supposed to distinguish between the two; having evil a subset of the larger unholy grouping. But it would make me wonder why a holy cleric could turn undead and injure them with holy water but then have his Resistance to Evil powers not help the holy cleric. I don't know what to think about this but if anyone has any ideas as to how this should work please feel free to explain. Thanks.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by b-dog

As far as what is evil, demons would come to mind. But undead I am not so sure. Maybe liches are not all evil and maybe not all wights are either. But both demons and undead are unholy and likely affected by holy warriors and holy clerics. This complicates things because there are things like Resistance to Evil Powers which would resist against demonic, evil cleric and unholy warrior powers not maybe not to certain undead because they may not all be completely evil. Another problem is Detect Evil which would detect demons, evil clerics and unholy warriors but not necessarily some kinds of undead.

The disconnect goes away if you realize that most cultures consider dead people doing anything to substantially affect the physical world to be supernatural evil. Grandad might be allowed to make a bite of food or a sip of drink from the dumb supper disappear on Hallows, or leave a detectable warm spot on your sickbed where he was watching over you until your fever broke, but when he lets people see him wandering around he (or his reanimator) has crossed the line into violating the natural order before he even starts to mumble about brains. Even if he's a patriotic zombie and only eats Yankee brains, he's still undermining the cause in the eyes of the Lord; he needs to be put down like Ol' Yeller. Parson Brown might decide to let up with the scripture long enough for Grandad to frighten the carpetbaggers into dropping the stolen ballot boxes, but anyone Grandad hurts along the way is on the Parson's head as well.

[ThomasSmith]

I confess to finding amusing the mental image of the holy priest deliberately refraining from exorcising an undead horror so as to complete some other, entirely mundane task.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by ThomasSmith

I confess to finding amusing the mental image of the holy priest deliberately refraining from exorcising an undead horror so as to complete some other, entirely mundane task.

No less a parson with confederate sympathies! I think someone has been playing Deadlands.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by b-dog

As far as what is evil, demons would come to mind. But undead I am not so sure. Maybe liches are not all evil and maybe not all wights are either. But both demons and undead are unholy and likely affected by holy warriors and holy clerics. This complicates things because there are things like Resistance to Evil Powers which would resist against demonic, evil cleric and unholy warrior powers not maybe not to certain undead because they may not all be completely evil. Another problem is Detect Evil which would detect demons, evil clerics and unholy warriors but not necessarily some kinds of undead.

I would think that both Resistance to Evil Powers and Detect Evil would be better phrased as Protection from Unholy Powers and Detect Unholy so as include undead. Unless it is supposed to distinguish between the two; having evil a subset of the larger unholy grouping. But it would make me wonder why a holy cleric could turn undead and injure them with holy water but then have his Resistance to Evil powers not help the holy cleric. I don't know what to think about this but if anyone has any ideas as to how this should work please feel free to explain. Thanks.

b-dog, Unholiness and (capital E) Evil are tightly intertwined, but IMHO, are distinct. Unholiness is a source. It's what keeps Demons and Undeads existing, it's what powers the Evil Cleric spells, and the Unholy Warrior's special abilities. Evil is a goal, a motivation, a way of understanding the world. Now, since most of those that use the Unholy power source are Evil, such terms are used interchangeably in GURPS DF books (that try to take a light, and slightly humorous take on the subject). This means that any innate abilities of Undead, even if they're not specifically called Unholy, are "evil supernatural powers", but the spells of a lich are powered by mana, are resisted as if he was still living.

In the end, as usual (and this is something that you don't seem to grasp, given the number of similar threads you've created), it comes to GM's choice. There are no fundamental truths in GURPS, not even in tightly defined genres such as DF.

[b-dog]

So liches, wraiths, wights, vampires, shadows, spectres, zombies and skeletons will Detect as Evil?

And Resist Evil Powers will help defend against their innate attacks?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by b-dog

So liches, wraiths, wights, vampires, shadows, spectres, zombies and skeletons will Detect as Evil?

And Resist Evil Powers will help defend against their innate attacks?

In my games, it would work like this. Nothing requires that it works in this way in yours though

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

So liches, wraiths, wights, vampires, shadows, spectres, zombies and skeletons will Detect as Evil?

And Resist Evil Powers will help defend against their innate attacks?

I'd let it be so for the intelligent undead. For those with Automaton or Reprogrammable Duty, there's no motivation, so there is no Evil intent. You could use affected by Pentagram and True Faith as the determiner, but evil, to me, implies a choice.

For the lich, I dunno. It actually doesn't have any malicious disadvantages (wraiths, for example, have both Bloodlust and Callous, which aren't very nice; demons have Bloodlust, Bully, Callous, Sadism and Selfish), though it is affected by Pentagram and turned by True Faith. Your call. If your game has a more vile way of reaching lichdom -- the process of making a Horcrux springs to mind -- then it's plainly Evil, regardless of current disadvantages.

Anyone who is using a power with Unholy as a source is pretty much evil by definition.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by b-dog

As far as what is evil, demons would come to mind. But undead I am not so sure. Maybe liches are not all evil and maybe not all wights are either. But both demons and undead are unholy and likely affected by holy warriors and holy clerics. This complicates things because there are things like Resistance to Evil Powers which would resist against demonic, evil cleric and unholy warrior powers not maybe not to certain undead because they may not all be completely evil. Another problem is Detect Evil which would detect demons, evil clerics and unholy warriors but not necessarily some kinds of undead.

I would think that both Resistance to Evil Powers and Detect Evil would be better phrased as Protection from Unholy Powers and Detect Unholy so as include undead. Unless it is supposed to distinguish between the two; having evil a subset of the larger unholy grouping. But it would make me wonder why a holy cleric could turn undead and injure them with holy water but then have his Resistance to Evil powers not help the holy cleric. I don't know what to think about this but if anyone has any ideas as to how this should work please feel free to explain. Thanks.

What if being undead was their sentence for evil they did in life? Alternatively what if they were under the spell of an evil wizard in which case they would be be no more evil then any slave who does evil things for his master's bidding? And when the PCs find out they can go on a quest to free them naturally enough.
Or what if good ghosts simply appear differently, because evil ones are malicious and want to harm mankind while good ones want to help or to just be left alone.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

I'd let it be so for the intelligent undead. For those with Automaton or Reprogrammable Duty, there's no motivation, so there is no Evil intent..

There's the evil intent of the programmer and the evil magic he used to make them what they are.