Based on our discussions on a different thread, this thread is designed explore all the armies of WFB in terms of how "good" or "evil" they are. Specifically, the aim is to come up with an ordered list of all the armies, ranked from "most good" to "most evil". I must admit, that I am not fully versed on all the fluff of all the armies, so this first list is just presented as a starting point. I reserve the right to change and alter my list as the discussion progresses. GOOD Dwarfs High Elves Bretonnia Lizardmen The Empire Wood Elves ------------------------ Tomb Kings Ogre Kingdoms ------------------------- Vampire Counts Chaos Dwarfs Orcs & Goblins Beastmen Skaven Warriors of Chaos Dark Elves Daemons of Chaos EVIL The thatched lines denote the divisions between good, neutral and evil armies.
Ogre Kingdoms eat people. If the Good-Evil spectrum factors how the faction treats outsiders, then Ogres must be Evil. Tomb Kings murdered their own citizens to enslave them for all time with necromancy. If the Good-Evil spectrum factors how the faction treats their lower classes, then Tomb Kings must be Evil. I would put Wood Elves in the Neutral category. If you leave the Wood Elves alone, they will leave you alone. Wood Elves don't usually ride to the rescue of other groups unless it gives them a chance to catch one of their ancestral foes off guard. The evil thing probably holds if you go on the assumption that endorsing slavery is less evil than murder. Also, is necromancy a form of slavery or is just "gross abuse of a corpse"? Do the undead minions of the Vampire Counts suffer? Note that Dark Elves and Skaven generally follow up their slavery with murder. I agree with you on the order for everything from Wood Elves down, more or less. Brettonians, Lizardmen, Empire, Dwarves, and High Elves occasionally commit themselves to help other people. Not often though. Except for the Brettonians they all treat their own lower classes reasonably well. Brettonia probably helps other people enough to make up for them mistreating their own peasants. When I try to reank these groups by relative good I get a metaphorical headache.
Incorrect, the Tomb Kings never intended to enslave anyone through Necromancy, they wanted to become immortal without being dead - the Liche Priests were tasked with trying to research how this could be achieved. It was Nagash exclusively who wanted to enslave all Nehekharans through Necromancy, and almost succeeded if it wasn't for the Skaven freeing Alcadizaar the Conqueror and giving him a weapon to murder Nagash with. When Nagash died, the necromantic magic then spiralled out of control and dissipated all across Nehekhara, which caused the Tomb Kings and their servants to rise again as undead simply as an unintended by-product. The Tomb Kings were fractious and aggressive towards one another, that's true, even more so than the Empire city states, which along with their xenophobia puts them in Neutral rather than Good, but they weren't trying to enslave their own people. Trust me, I've just read my copy of the Tomb Kings army book and am now quite seasoned on their lore.
Try it for 40k, where everyone is just a slightly different shade of absolutely vile evil. Ok, but joke aside. For this to work we probably have to talk about a philosophical question first: What is good and evil? D&D defines evil mostly as selfishness and good as altruism. But how absolute is that measurement, and do we judge by outcome or intention? And is there a universal standard to agree on, or is behaviour measured within the system of values within a society? How much evil can a person or society do and still count as 'good' (or vice versa)? 20 years ago this was an ongoing topic in the D&D forum I was active on. Examples: - "altruism is selfish, too. People act altruistic to feel better. Every 'good' person is actually 'evil' if evil is defined as selfishness." - "one evil deed can ruin a lifetime of good deeds" - "one good deed can redeem a lifetime of evilness" - "fans of eugenics think they would do good by killing all the disabled persons ('you have to break eggs to make an omelette'), making the people as a whole more healthy by removing the disabled ones from the gene pool." - "that's not evil, that's tradition" - "Mayans/Vikings/whatever were clearly evil because they used human sacrifices/raided settlements" The additional problem is societies vs. individuals. For a society we probably have to look at how they behave within their system, and toward others. @Scalenex has a few very good points here (and in the other thread) Let's take Dwarves. They have some human village in their Book of Grudges because of... dunno... the mayor cut a dwarf's beard (does it work that way? Whatever). 80 years later (the mayor is long dead) they refuse to trade with that village during a famine because of that grudge, causing the death of 100 villagers. Is that evil or not? And regardless of whether it is: does it make the Dwarven King evil? His government? The Dwarven society? All Dwarves? I once wrote a D&D adventure for my group that challenged their views on some of those topics. It had Dwarves (funny because one of the most honorable player characters was a Dwarf himself) that had human slaves. And most the humans thought it was totally OK as many of them were way better off that way. Most dwarves didnt see a problem with it either. In the context of my adventure some of the slavers were actually the good guys, and some that opposed slavery were the bad guys. That caused some major headaches among the players, and some fun/interesting situations and discussions.
The Tomb Kings wanted to live forever. They didn't give much though to their servants who were basically props for their supposed immortality. At least that's how I understand it. Ok, I will trust you, but personally I would rather have a regular death than eternal life polishing a pharoah's boots.
These armies By the Dwarves code, they are good. These armies are doing good by their own codes Dwarfs High Elves Bretonnia Lizardmen The Empire Wood Elves Daemons of Chaos These armies have a really weak facade of a code that even they themselves don't really believe it Skaven Chaos Dwarves Dark Elves Warriors of Chaos Dogs of War We don't need no stinking moral code, and we don't care what you think! Vampire Counts Orcs & Goblins Ogre Kingdoms Beasts of Chaos Get out of my sandbox! Tomb Kings
For the breakdown of good, evil and neutral armies I used the 8th edition Alignment Summary.... Tomb Kings are very much a neutral army in my eyes. @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl is correct that they did not murder and enslave their people with Necromancy. That was the machinations of Nagash alone, and Tomb Kings arrived in their current state when Skaven backstabbery foiled Nagash's evil plans. While Nagash was Nehekharan, the Tomb Kings did not exist yet. By the time Tomb Kings come into existence, it would not be fair to classify Nagash as a Tomb King; he is more of an entity unto himself (which is why he isn't a special character in the TK army book). If we disregard the alignment summary, I would agree with you that Ogre Kingdoms could be classified as an evil army. I also agree with you that Wood Elves could be classed as neutral. I believe the actual Elves of the Wood Elves are still good, but the spirits (Spites) of Athel Loren are pretty evil. Athel Loren is a pretty dark place. Each of us will invariably weigh different aspects of evil differently. Just use your own definition when constructing your list and we can then explore those differences as they manifest in our lists. For the record, cutting off a Dwarf's beard is a HUGE offense! I suspect that such a grudge would be settled far sooner! As to your question, I don't think it is evil at all. The Dwarf's are under no obligation to trade with the humans. The humans had 80 years to settle that grudge peacefully, so they can't then look to the Dwarfs, who they wronged in the past, for help.
That's the point where I would say the Dwarves did act evil. A single person (who happened to be the mayor of that village) wronged a Dwarf 80 years ago. None of the current villagers has ever done anything bad to a Dwarf. In fact it might be that nobody even remembers that. Now they urgently need help. Denying help to all those people (and they would even pay for it, that's why I wrote trade and not just begging for help) because one person who is long dead wronged the dwarves is petty and selfish in my view, especially if a number if people is in danger of dying. They act lawful, but they put lawfulness so far above altruism that I would call this act evil. If they just did not care about the humans it might be neutral. A good person would have helped in _some_ way. They had at least the following options (alignments in brackets) 1 - send help without demanding payment (CG because against customs) 2 - send help for normal payment (NG, still against customs because grudges need to be settled) 3 - send help for a higher price (might be money and/or something else like an apology etc.) (I'd call that LG because the increased price might settle the grudge, but they still help. 4 - let them pay for help, but increase the price so much that they cannot pay so some of them still die (LE) 5 - like 4, but send them less food than they paid for (NE) 6 - kill them all (CE) 7 - do nothing (LE) As for Order/Chaos/Destruction in regards to Good and Evil: Order =/= Good. VERY different things.
That's an interesting breakdown. Admittedly, my assessment was not based on the D&D alignments. In the most simplistic terms, this is how I break down good-neutral-evil in regards to your scenario... Good - the Dwarfs actively help to improve the human's situation Neutral - the Dwarfs neither act to improve or worsen the human's situation Evil - the Dwarfs purposefully commit actions to worsen the human's situation The three categories above stand for me even if the human's hadn't wronged the Dwarfs in the past. Neutral to me is doing neither good nor harm. The fact that the human's did wrong the Dwarfs in the past only solidifies for me that the Dwarfs' inaction is not evil. They owe the humans nothing. From a Dwarf's perspective, even if they didn't hold a grudge (which they clearly do!), it would make sense for them to avoid interaction with a species, that by their standards, is less than honorable. Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me. Furthermore, the fact that the Dwarfs in your scenario were able to resist getting direct revenge for the transgression and simply chose not to deal with the humans any longer would IMHO lend credence to the fact that they are actually good. That's just the way I see it though. It's interesting to see how each of us views good and evil.
They may be different, but at the very least they seem to very highly correlated. I'd even go as far as to say that the author of the 8th edition book seems to make no distinction between them. Look at the armies within the "Order" list, they are comprised of all the armies that we would consider to be good by Warhammer standards (with the possible exception of the Wood Elves). Likewise, all the forces of destruction armies are all evil, but this time, without exception.
Oh. Yeah, in the context of WHFB armies that seems to be the case. I think I put it too generally there, because (obviously) in the real world or other fictional universes that's not the case. In AoS for example the "Order" great alliance includes some incredibly evil factions, and then of course in real life many dictators would surely qualify as 'order' but most people probably wouldn't call them 'good'.
I am amazed by the fact that Bretonnia is usually listed under the good guys, when their society is based upon a rigid system of caste, with rich nobles with every right, and peasants that are worth nothing and that could well starve, because their life is nothing if compared to the one of the nobles' horses.
Was that always the case or does it vary between authors/editions? I vaguely remember some mentioning that they were different between editions but I am not sure.
It's all comparative within the context of the Warhammer world. No army is purely good, some are just more good than others. How would you rate them? Neutral? Evil? Also... let's see some ranked lists. So far, mine is the only one (as described in the original post).
don't know. I've just read the last books and since then i loathed Brets. to be fair, your list follows more the classic division of Order / Unaligned / Destruction (a division i don't agree with, BTW, as Ogre Kingdom tends toward destruction…) Evil no, but i tend to place them into the neutral cathegory. When the concern of the leaders of the society toward their people is minimal at best, i cannot see them as the good guys. Anyway (not in order) Dwarfs High Elves Lizardmen The Empire Wood Elves ------------------------ Bretonnia Tomb Kings Ogre Kingdoms Orcs & Goblins ------------------------- Vampire Counts Chaos Dwarfs Beastmen Skaven Warriors of Chaos Dark Elves Daemons of Chaos
I just used the order, non-aligned and destruction categories as a guide. I felt them to be relevant, but if you feel differently, there is no need to implement them in your own list. The only thing that is of concern is to rank the armies from "most good" to "most evil". What about Lizardmen then? I don't think Slann have much concern for Saurus or Kroxigor beyond them fulfilling their role in pursuit of the Great Plan of the Old Ones. I don't think Slann are even capable of concern in the way we feel it. On the flip side, they wouldn't look down or mistreat them either, everyone in the Lizardmen society are just cogs in the machine (and some cogs are more expendable than others). Only the Great Plan really matters. What would your ranked good-to-evil list look like without consideration of the order/non-aligned/destruction alignments? Simple list, from most good to most evil.