Viconia's relationship with Shar (Romance Spoilers abound!)
SassyGoldElf
Member Posts: 73
So this is something that's recently come of interest to me actually in regards to one of my original Forgotten Realms characters who is fairly new (I do a lot of writing) and I realized that the situations as far as the relationships with the Lady of Loss between my OC - a Neutral human Shadowdancer who I would like to have some levels of Cleric - and Viconia are not so different.
Now this whole thing is a spoiler for the Viconia romance, so I hope the title warning will suffice.
I have always liked that Viconia can be turned Neutral (and Edwin too, if you had that mod way back when). Likewise if I remember correctly, Anomen could be messed with, because I did so enjoy leading him on and then utterly destroying him. It was pretty much the only way to make his character interesting. A change in alignment is a signal of a very big character development and/or growth, which is important to storytelling. Thus, from a roleplaying perspective it's a wonderful touch to the system, despite having its flaws. However, it does have to remain in sync with the core rules, or why are we playing D&D at all?
With Anomen he lost his paladin abilities I believe, and even though it was a mod in the case of Edwin it didn't matter because he's exiled from Thay anyway, and you can't really lose Red Wizard abilities. It's not like the tattoos melt off of you if you get cast out (although that paints an amusing mental picture). Viconia on the other hand still worshipped a goddess who, by all D&D rulebooks I can find, does not embrace non-evil worshippers.
I have to say personally, I really fiercely disagree with the rulebooks, which in itself rubs me the wrong way because I don't like to argue with canon. But especially for Shar, a goddess whose portfolio consists largely of domains without any inclination of good or evil, how is it inconceivable that a character who is open to both good and evil acts be unconcerned with the morality of his or her patron diety? Oh yes, Shar herself is evil, and most sects of her church entail murder and other distasteful acts in order to be admitted. But do all Clerics have to be members of the actual clergy? In Viconia's case, one is lead to assume that her training from the Underdark allowed her to maintain her Cleric abilities, and when Lloth no longer answered her prayers, Shar saw an opportunity. To me this implies a personal relationship with a deity rather than a learned one. I feel like there ought to be other venues besides joining a regimented church that can be taken for a character to gain the powers of a Cleric.
I do know that many of the Forgotten Realms novels introduce situations in which good storytelling can stretch and even break the rules, but I've never read any of the ones that have any focus on Shar (open to recommendations if anyone knows of any). In any case, I'm curious to see what other people have thought of this whole thing, if you noticed the clash between the rules and the game here, and how you justify it or reject it.
Now this whole thing is a spoiler for the Viconia romance, so I hope the title warning will suffice.
I have always liked that Viconia can be turned Neutral (and Edwin too, if you had that mod way back when). Likewise if I remember correctly, Anomen could be messed with, because I did so enjoy leading him on and then utterly destroying him. It was pretty much the only way to make his character interesting. A change in alignment is a signal of a very big character development and/or growth, which is important to storytelling. Thus, from a roleplaying perspective it's a wonderful touch to the system, despite having its flaws. However, it does have to remain in sync with the core rules, or why are we playing D&D at all?
With Anomen he lost his paladin abilities I believe, and even though it was a mod in the case of Edwin it didn't matter because he's exiled from Thay anyway, and you can't really lose Red Wizard abilities. It's not like the tattoos melt off of you if you get cast out (although that paints an amusing mental picture). Viconia on the other hand still worshipped a goddess who, by all D&D rulebooks I can find, does not embrace non-evil worshippers.
I have to say personally, I really fiercely disagree with the rulebooks, which in itself rubs me the wrong way because I don't like to argue with canon. But especially for Shar, a goddess whose portfolio consists largely of domains without any inclination of good or evil, how is it inconceivable that a character who is open to both good and evil acts be unconcerned with the morality of his or her patron diety? Oh yes, Shar herself is evil, and most sects of her church entail murder and other distasteful acts in order to be admitted. But do all Clerics have to be members of the actual clergy? In Viconia's case, one is lead to assume that her training from the Underdark allowed her to maintain her Cleric abilities, and when Lloth no longer answered her prayers, Shar saw an opportunity. To me this implies a personal relationship with a deity rather than a learned one. I feel like there ought to be other venues besides joining a regimented church that can be taken for a character to gain the powers of a Cleric.
I do know that many of the Forgotten Realms novels introduce situations in which good storytelling can stretch and even break the rules, but I've never read any of the ones that have any focus on Shar (open to recommendations if anyone knows of any). In any case, I'm curious to see what other people have thought of this whole thing, if you noticed the clash between the rules and the game here, and how you justify it or reject it.
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As for Shar, I personally consider her and her clergy to be one of the most subversively evil of all. I don't think there's any problem at all with non-evil folk worshiping her as laypeople--I'm sure she'd love any opportunity to drag someone down into the darkness. By the rules, yeah, you can't actually get powers from her without being evil, but you could possibly justify it as a neutral person who's going to have a hell of a time not being corrupted by that church.
Lipservice to a deity is pretty standard; even good characters will pay tribute to an evil deity whose portfolio involves their livelihood or success in a particular endeavor. Building on this I was thinking in terms of characters who do enough to please a deity and spread their doctrine but who tend to downplay certain parts of it in favor of those that speak more to them.
It was actually this weird little entry I found on the sects of Shar's church that made me start thinking this way:
"Unusual among other orders in the Church, Darkcloaks are actually a compassionate group of oracles and care-givers who tend to those troubled souls who are emotionally damaged, often bringing the bliss of forgetfulness to soothe their pain. Their work has done much to present the church in a positive light to the populace, though too often the reaction is still negative. This order includes some of the few non-evil, non-neutral clerics in the Church."
Again, having not read any of the novels that really focus on Shar I feel I'm a tad blindsighted to her particular level of evilness so to speak. I suppose as I move through the novels about the Spellplague I'll get a pretty damn good idea though.