Sure, but this begs the next question... Paladins, being lawful good, fight for the notion of doing good for either their god, or for the betterment of society... in their eyes. So again, couldn't an evil paladin fight for the notion of doing what he/she believes is right (the notion of the those in power having full tyrannical control) to either please his god or to make society better (in his opinion)?

It all comes down to this... good, neutral, evil... all just ideas of how to "best" run society. Since there are ideas that fall under all three categories, and gods that do as well, why not neutral or evil paladins?

I thought paladins were all about living by a code.

So it seems to me that being lawful is the key. Lawful good or lawful evil would both make sense. Maybe the word paladin connotes good (I'm not sure), in which case "lawful evil paladin" is contradictory - so you'd call him a dark knight - not big deal.

Lawful neutral seems more problematic. I imagine paladins as extremists (never deviating from their code) so it's kind of hard for me to conceive of being _extremely_ neutral. Is that like being a devout aetheist? You do one good deed and then do one bad deed to balance it out - or - do you strive to only do neutral deeds - whatever that means?

[ 11-21-2002, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: The Dude ]

No, you're thinking of the (rather stupid, I think) conception of True Neutral, not Lawful Neutral.

Lawful Neutral is adhering to laws, and supporting and justifying them no matter what is good or evil. It is the unbending judge who sentences an innocent man to death because he has been found guilty, and it is the constable that lets a criminal go free because the system is corrupt. It is not neccessarily evil, it is just Lawful.

an evil character wouldn't strive for the betterment of anything or anyone other than himself, his first loyalty always being to #1, most could care less for society except as it serves them, in which case it would take an extremely deluded fool to even consider that their own actions are beneficial to society. A lawful evil "knight" would manipulate the loopholes in the system as much as possible to further himself, at the expense of his competitors.

Chaotic evil "knights" would destroy everything that didn't directly benefit them in some way, and it would only survive as long as it could prove it's usefulness.

Neutral evil "knights" would use whichever of the above methods were most expediant at the moment to accomplish their goals, whether it be working within the system until it no longer benefits you, or randomly pillaging and raping the countyside until you can make deals (protection racket style) which would be honored as long as they're profitable.

an evil character in a paladinesque vein would be too self serving to accomplish anything for his god, except in the rare instance that the goals of both individuals coincide, so not only is it unrealistic, it's unroleplayable, and absurd in the extreme (of course the July 1980 issue of dragon Magazine (also my birth month and year) contains the information needed for an antipaladin character), the most despicable of all scum and they are chaotic evil, served by humanoids, the occasional drow, and undead/demonic servitors, what dark god would patronize such a fiend I can only imagine, most {evil gods} are too selfish to put up with the scheming and sneakiness that would be the bread and butter of such a character.

Neutrals pose an equally difficult problem, most are neutral either because they don't question orders, don't care about affairs that don't affect them directly, or are just plain insane (chaotic neutral) none of these classifications has the moral highground in the eyes of either society, their gods, or themselves (excepting of course the insane) to devote themselves to serving such a cause, a better course for them would be to serve as clerics of a war god (Tempus is chaotic neutral) or a god of judgement (Helm) or a anture deity as a Druid

[ 11-21-2002, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

if your a Chaotic evil sevant of a god, don't you believe your going to benefit in the afterlife by serving him in this life?

<font color="cadetblue">If I remember correctly isn't there an evil Paladin in 3ed D&D? It was called the Black Guard or something.</font>

I always thought of Paladins being any of the three lawful alignments.

A LG paladin will uphold the laws of his church/society as long as he or she persieves them to be right and good. If he decides that is church has become a self serving organisation and no longer cares about the deity, and it (the churches) responsibilites to the local people he will leave and find another more pure church of the same or a different god, or even start to work agaisnt his order.

A LN paladin will uphold the laws above all else, and will deal as harshly with a 'Robin Hood' kind of outlaw as he would with an evil one. He might leave his order if the highest members of it used ther status to escape the consequences of their actions, or make unfair rules and taxations to their un-needed benefit. He would generally side with good characters over evil ones because they break the law less often.

A LE paladin, is not really a true paladin, more a Blackguard (prestige class for fallen paladins in the DM's guide 3d) or anti paladin. He operates like a paladin though, serving the cause of his god and following certain rituals and prohibitions laid down by his order. He might well be the head of an army of evil creatures trying to overthrow or control a city, or the leader of an inherently evil country, because he is still lawful, it's just he now makes the laws. A less important one will probably be very knowledgable about the laws of his homleand so he will know when and how he can twist them to his advantgae or slip through loop holes in them without actually breaking them.

actually no, a chaotic evil person (for the most part) is self serving, the thoughts of an afterlife are secondary to the fullfillment of desires *now*, in the dragon magazine article it gave an example of a typical antipaladin scheme

first he would kidnap a princess of a noble, or royal line, and ransom her, then when the ransom is being delivered he would have it sacked by his forces (posing as bandits), he would then express his regret at such poor luck on the part of whatever ruler he was screwing over, and simultaneously repeat his ransom demands (if not increasing them for late charges), he would then take the ransom, kill the deliveryman and enjoy the bounty of having sold the princess off into slavery (she would undoubtably bring an inordinately high price on the slave market) and when daddy came to get her with siege train in tow, well that's just part of the hazards of the job, and well, it was time to relocate his base of operations anyway.

a chaotic evil god would of course delight in such things, but few have "heavens" that anyone sane would want to visit

of course no one ever said evil characters were completely sane to begin with...

and to be fair I had an antipaladin character once who went around giving kids syphillis (sp?) and that was just the start of his evil (anti-paladins can cause any normal natural disease and are at teh same time immune to all of them) so I know the kinds of despicable acts they are capable of.