reconsidering alignment languages
This Cleric doesn’t have time for your party’s carousing and petty theft. He’s got life goals.
As I mentioned in my Dungeon 23 Diary, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Cleric class in Dungeons & Dragons. What I find fascinating about Clerics is that they are uniquely connected to the world cosmology because of their faith. Other characters don’t have that, or if they do, it’s generally just window dressing and can be disposed of without much consequence - at least as far as game mechanics are concerned.
A Fighter with a Noble background can change their name and reject their nobility and still be a Fighter. A Cleric can’t eschew their faith without losing their ability to, you know, do cleric shit.
I think that is absolutely cool. It really is a gift in character creation to have these strong passions and goals built into the Class from the start. It’s a link to the world that also helps you explore it.
But I feel like people who play Clerics often get relegated to a supporting character - a one-dimensional utility that everyone else gets to use while they have fun. And a Cleric’s faith is usually some kind of obstacle that the other players have to work around. Clerics find themselves trapped in the role of babysitter to a bunch of tomb raiding heathens, usually having to justify it with some variation of “My God needs me to protect them – they know not what they do.”
That’s your identity now. There’s nothing left to really explore that hasn’t been explored by every other Cleric Player stuck in the same position.
And while that’s totally cool if you want to play that kind of character, it’s a goddamned crime that it has become the default. In The Alexandrian’s blog, he talked about the original Clerics being more akin to our conceptualization of Van Helsing from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I really liked that idea. Like a lot. Because I want Clerics to feel like they have more agency beyond keeping the party safe, and holding the diamonds for Resurrection spells.
I don’t know enough about the history of RPGs to know when or how Clerics became just “The Healer”, but I am trying to figure out how to fix it in my own games, which means I need to really define what a Cleric is. What is Cleric? Why is Cleric?
But before I can do that I have to develop the moral and philosophical fabric that Clerics are cut from. What kind of culture even needs a Cleric? It couldn’t just be about believing in a specific deity. It had to be broader than that. It had to be about a fervent commitment to an ideology. Something that could then be translated to a deity… or deities if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
In order to build this cultural foundation for Clerics to stand on, I realized I needed to dig up the concept of Alignment and what purpose it can serve(and has served) in games.
Three Spheres of Alignment
As most of you reading this are aware, there are three alignments: Chaos, Law, and Neutral. The world is built around this pulpy conflict between Chaos and Law. Unfortunately Neutrals are caught in the middle.
Law is about nice ideas like Truth and Justice. Chaos is in opposition to that. Burn it down, baby. If you want to make it super black and white, Law is Good. Chaos is Evil. And why not? That kind of simplicity can be really helpful when trying to play a game. In fact, I’d argue that kind of simplicity makes more complex ideas accessible and easier to explore, but that argument’s for a different day.
So okay, Law is good, Chaos bad, but we need a little more than that to get to Clerics. In order for a Cleric of Law (or Chaos) to exist we need to develop some kind of culture around the two alignments. A culture that would spawn a person who’d devote their life to the cause.
Thinking on this I was reminded of another fascination I have. Language. Specifically the Alignment Languages found in older editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
I find this idea absolutely fascinating but I did not understand why it was a part of the game, and what real purpose it served. My googling doesn’t reveal a ton of satisfying answers. So I’ve tried to develop a new (at least to me) concept of Alignment Languages, one that will ultimately help me define what it means to be a Cleric.
The Language of Alignment
When it comes to language, D&D has one for pretty much every race, and a Common language that everyone picks up. Elves speak Elvish. Dwarves speak Dwarvish. One could infer from this that initially these races evolved separately, developing their own culture and language, before meeting one another. That’s fine. That why Chinese speak Chinese and Britons speak English.
So if these racial languages develop from a shared genealogical culture base, then where does the language of Chaos or Law come from? The statement “I am Elvish” is fundamentally different than saying “I am Lawful.”
I mean, it should be. At least in my world it is. We’re not talking midichlorians here.
I started brainstorming the concept of what an Alignment Language is. At first, all I knew was what I didn’t want it to be. I didn’t want it to be a literal language like Dwarvish or Chinese. That doesn’t really define the culture of Law or Chaos, because it doesn’t explain how one learned the language. If you behave Lawful you just know how to speak to people in Lawful? That’s lame as hell.
After a brainstorming session with Gail I think we developed something a lot cooler.
The Language of Law
The concept of Law and Chaos is not something you’re born with, it’s something you’re taught. And while it may be the “nature” of the world, it is through “nurture” that we develop our understanding of it.
Why AI won’t replace real artists? Because real artists won’t draw Van Helsing with a hundred fucking fingers on one hand.
This means The Language of Law is learned through education. Think of it like becoming a Lawyer. Lawyers are speaking words you know, but they are able to put them together in a way that regular folks don’t understand. And those words are pretty powerful.
In our fantasy world, being educated in Law means you understand how to stave off Chaos. Maybe you achieve this through legislation or medicine. Or maybe it’s through magic, which is how we can get to our version Clerics.
Let’s go back to that Cleric/Van Helsing analogy the Alexandrian mentioned earlier and unpack it a little further.
Van Helsing is Law.
Dracula is Chaos.
Jonathan Harker is Neutral.
Dracula has given himself to Chaos and has gained incredible powers – but they always come with a price. Sure you can live forever but sunlight can kill you, so no more brunches. This is part of the balance that Chaos vs. Law represents in the cosmology.
Chaos is only powerful if no one knows the rules of Law that can can control it.
Van Helsing has studied Law, and so he understands how this works. Jonathan Harker is just a Neutral Dude just trying to do his job and earn a living. He didn’t study up on this kind of shit. So when Van Helsing is like “Yo, we’re going to attack during the daytime, drive a stake through his heart, and cut off the bastard’s head,” Harker is like “I don’t get it but I guess I gotta go along to get along.” I know I’m conflating a lot of adaptations of the the character into one idea, but you know what I’m talking about.
Read this description of Van Helsing from the book:
“He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than anyone else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy.”
Sounds like the dopest Cleric ever to me.
So in D&D terms, a good Cleric knows how to control the Chaos, and can do so by speaking in Law to achieve a magical affect – like Turn Undead. Turn Undead repels creatures like zombies, like a cross repels Dracula. You could even flavor it that way when you cast the spell. Now it’s not just “I cast a magic spell and the affect happens.” It’s “because I know the undead fear the sign of Pelor, I brandish it and speak the Vow of Lawful Protection, driving these zombies from the pits they crawled from.” We’re telling a fucking story here.
Another example!
Think of the movie The Exorcist. A little girl named Regan gets possessed by a demon (a dark agent of Chaos!). None of the doctors can figure out what can be done to fix it. Enter The Clerics. Father Merrin and Father Karras know the Rules of Law that govern Chaos and use them to exorcise the demon.
Those Clerics are actively fighting the battle. And it’s not about a desire to turn Clerics into warriors. It’s about giving them something else to do. A specialized task. I love the idea of a fight against a Chaos Demon, and the Cleric needs to figure out how to repel it. But while they’re doing that, the rest of the party is defending them from harm. Now the roles are reversed and it’s the Cleric being supported. That’s fun; that’s something different.
The Language of Chaos
These are forbidden words that disrupt reality in an attempt to supersede the Rule of Law. They are anathema to anyone studying Law. It is a language of great power, and to study it means you run the risk of being corrupted.
With this in mind, Chaos is the language of most spells as magic is generally a perversion of reality for your own personal gain. Your intention behind casting that spell may be noble, but Chaos is the reason that spell exists in the first place. It takes a special kind of person to not be tempted to use that kind of power for ill.
Of course not all magic is Chaotic. Law must have its own spells to restore balance.
Which is to say - a cleric that casts Light is speaking Law, one that casts Darkness is speaking Chaos.
If we define the language of spells in terms of Law and Chaos, it puts Wizards and other spell casters in an interesting position. A Wizard would start Neutral and study Chaotic and/or Lawful texts to gain their power. Can they stay truly Neutral over time?
I love the Dungeon Crawl Classics concept of magic being something that can and will ultimately corrupt you. But you can even see this in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, we just normalize it. I mean think of the Fireball spell. Any wizard that makes extensive use of Fireball in 5e is probably more Chaotic than not and often lean on it as a destructive solution to problems that could have been solved a differently.
Beyond Magical Applications.
Okay, so we have a lot of examples of how to use the Language of Law and Chaos specifically in magical applications. But we can also imagine how the educated use the Language of Law to rule the land.
When nobles meet to discuss politics, they’re talking in a form of Law. This means the neutral commoners don’t know what the hell is going on. They just hunt and farm and survive and hope the nobles know what they’re doing.
One of the revelations Gail had that really unlocked my concept of Law as psuedo-language, came from the Nicholas Cage movie National Treasure.
For those who didn’t bother, Nicolas Cage is trying to find a treasure, but he has to decipher clues left behind by Freemasons. The Freemasons, in D&D terms, are like Ancient Lawful Gods that gave birth to Planet America, the Center of the Universe. Nicolas Cage can’t do this quest by himself, so he works with a party of adventurers lead by the nefarious Sean Bean.
So in this example, Nicolas Cage is Lawful and Sean Bean is Chaos, and all the clues left behind are written in the Language of Law. That means only Nic Cage can solve them, and Sean Bean can only look dumbfounded. Their relationship at the beginning of the movie is mutually beneficial because Sean Bean has the power and means to protect Cage, and Cage has the understanding of Law to lead them to the treasure.
It’s not until Sean Bean thinks he can get by without his Lawful guide, that he reveals his True Alignment and attempts to dispose of Nic Cage.
I imagine this Cleric is using multiple collected artifacts, and Lawful knowledge to handle some Lich. Like a boss.
With that in mind, Law and Chaos languages become a really versatile utility for game masters to explain why a player character doesn’t understand something like a riddle or inscriptions on a tomb. Maybe the method of disarming a trap is written in Lawful for everyone to see, but only those who commit themselves to Law would understand it.
Now What?
I think in my game, Alignment has to be more than just a character’s behavior. It’s buying into a philosophy at a spiritual and/or intellectual level. Most characters would probably be Neutral, and may even stay that way throughout a campaign. To become Lawful isn’t just a declaration, vow, or even series of good deeds. It’s a commitment to an ideal.
I think this allows players the space to discover their passion for Law or Chaos through play, as opposed to having to choose between the two at the beginning. Maybe players aren’t even interested in this dichotomy, and they just want to loot dungeons and kick ass. That’s cool too. But I hope that by defining how Alignment functions in the world beyond “you’re either good or evil”, I’ve made it a concept worth exploring. I certainly feel like I’ve made it more interesting for me to use as a game master.
Ultimately, Alignment for characters should be a “buy-in” concept. It’s apart of the world, but the level at which you want it to be apart of your character is dependent on you and, to an extent, the class you choose.
With this in mind, I think I can start really fleshing out a Cleric’s role in my campaign setting, and how players can run them narrative and mechanically.
When I get to that, I have no idea, but it’s on my mind, so it’s gotta be sometime.
-jae
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