Wednesday, February 20, 2019

When Gods and Morality are Misaligned

Unlike our world, the world of D&D had many different gods and goddesses. Some of them are Good, some of them are Evil, and some of them are more or less Neutral, possibly with good or evil tendencies. Some of them specialize in certain areas, or Domains, like the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, being the gods and goddesses of agriculture, metalcraft, hunting, etc. Sometimes, people worship these gods because their philosophies line up with their god's philosophies. For example, a person who is good would probably choose to worship a god or goddess who is good. Alternatively, one might worship a god or goddess because of the amount of time one spends in that god's or goddess's domain. For example, a farmer might worship a god or goddess of agriculture, regardless of anyone's moral leanings. 

Krusk Bloodfist is a pirate captain. He became a pirate captain mostly by accident and by going with the flow; he didn't maliciously choose to be a marauder. Morally speaking, I see him as a Neutral character. He doesn't go out of his way to hurt people without reason, but he does what he wants, including stealing, and he doesn't mind hurting the people who try to stop him. He looks out for himself and his friends, but no one else. However, despite his general lack of interest in the well-being of others, he does have some respect for women, mostly due to the two most important women in his life: his wife, Holly; and his goddess, Besmara.

Until recently, Krusk's relationship with his wife was uncertain. He returned home to look for her, but he didn't find her there. Instead, he found out that she had been kidnapped. He released her and swore vengeance on her kidnapper. This will become important in a moment.

Krusk's relationship with Besmara may recently have become as uncertain as his relationship with his wife had been. Besmara is the goddess of pirates and piracy. She is a Neutral goddess with some evil tendencies, but she has helped Krusk's crew and Krusk himself personally on multiple occasions. Krusk owes Besmara his thanks, his freedom, and his life. Naturally, he has begun worshiping her, despite knowing very little about the specific details of her tenets or of the nuances of her moral leanings. He knows she wants him to be a good pirate, but that's about it.

Krusk's lack of knowledge about Besmara's morality system influenced a key moment in the session of D&D I played tonight. Our characters were fighting their way through a monster-infested sea cave, and we found a woman who was being held captive by the monsters. Once we saved her from the monsters, she identified herself as the queen of a race of sea creatures, and some of the characters wanted to hold her for ransom, but Krusk decided to release her for a great number of reasons. She had already suffered enough at the hands of the monsters. She hadn't done anything to harm them. He didn't want her people to do anything to harm them. He felt like he would have been a hypocrite for taking a woman captive while he was actively planning revenge against the man who had taken his woman captive. And he thought that Besmara, being a woman, would have had some issues with him taking a woman hostage. Killing men is one thing; kidnapping a woman is something else entirely, or so Krusk thought.

After releasing the fishy queen, Krusk consulted with a cleric of Besmara to see whether he had made the right call. Apparently, he hadn't. Apparently, Besmara cares more about collecting treasure than respecting women, and, despite spending a good deal of time on the ocean, she doesn't much value the lives of the creatures who live there. Krusk had thought that Besmara wouldn't have wanted him to take the queen lady captive. Evidently, Krusk had thought wrong.

In a way, Krusk's situation was painfully relatable. We often have to choose between what we want to do and what God wants us to do, and we sometimes have to choose between what we think is right and what God says is right, but, phrased another way, Krusk's moral dilemma was one that we, thankfully, will never have to face. He had to choose between doing what was right and doing what his goddess wanted him to do. God will never force us to choose between doing what He tells us to do and doing what's right because He only ever tells us to do what's right. We can always be confident in the righteousness of God's commandments. We will never have to choose between doing good and obeying God.

However, that makes Krusk's predicament especially difficult for me to solve. On the one hand, he still owes Besmara several favors, and he hopes to persuade her to do more favors for him and his crew. He also owes it, both to his goddess and to his crew, to be the best, most financially-successful pirate he can be. A queen's ransom would have been a great help in that respect. And he isn't exactly a moral paragon anyway. What's the harm in crossing one more moral line? On the other hand, he isn't totally amoral either. There were some lines he wouldn't cross lightly, mostly out of respect for women, especially his wife. Even when he thought his wife might hate him, he stayed faithful to her. And now that he learned that she had been held captive for months, holding another woman captive seems especially repugnant to him. Yet, that's what his goddess would have wanted.

Krusk is, once again, torn. Previously, he had been torn between his desire to be with his wife and his desire to thank/repay Besmara for making it possible for him to return to his wife. Now that his wife is on board with him and his pirate crew, both literally and figuratively, he no longer has to choose between being a pirate and being with his wife. Now he has to choose between being the kind of pirate he wants to be and being the kind of pirate Besmara wants him to be. He has to choose between doing what he wants to do and doing what Besmara wants him to do. This is going to be a tough decision for him.

In a way, I'm glad that Krusk still has some moral challenges to wrestle with. It'll help keep his story interesting. But more than that, I'm glad that this is one moral challenge that I won't have to wrestle with myself. Unlike Krusk, I can, in good conscience, devote myself entirely to the service of my God. I can do what He wants me to do how He wants me to do it and know for a fact that I am doing the right thing. Until now, I've taken that for granted, but now I am very thankful that I will never have to choose between obeying God and doing what's right.

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