Sturmgard Conversion: Alignment and the Afterlife

The Sturmgard Conversion is coming along nicely. One sticking point I have is with alignment. The original version of the game used only 3 alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Later versions of D&D adopted 9 alignments by adding in the Good-Evil axis. I'm not sure which I want to use for Sturmgard. I will be using Basic/Expert rules which are not tied terribly to alignment. However, using sub-classes with alignment restrictions poses a problem. Paladins, Rangers, Druids, and Assassins all have alignment requirements, something that seems rather difficult to pin in a 3-alignment system. After all, if the monsters are mostly Chaotic, that only leaves really 2 choices for PCs who are heroic (Lawful and Neutral). However, there are no "devils" in Basic/Expert, only demons. I've also complained frequently about the spells using Good/Evil as descriptors when alignments use Law/Chaos. They are similar but not the same. I was then thinking of using only Good-Neutral-Evil for alignments, but that seems a bit bland. I want to keep the simplicity of the system intact and not add in any unnecessary ingredients to confuse.

So what would a Sturmgard campaign with classic Basic/Expert alignments look like? Well, Druids are Neutral in any campaign, but Rangers and Paladins are Lawful only. Assassins in OD&D were listed as Neutral only (go figure) so that still works. Most of the "good" deities become Lawful, and Chithara remains Neutral. Spithre and Gorgus revert to Chaotic (but they were anyway). How do I convert the other alignments?

Well, it seems that if you take the nine-alignment chart with good alignments on top, neutral in the middle, and evil on the bottom, you come up with a 3x3 matrix. Separating them into three diagonal stripes from the upper right to the lower left gives you the zones of alignment conversion. Thus LAWFUL encompasses the alignments of LN, LG, NG; NEUTRAL encompasses the alignments of LE, TN, and CG; and CHAOTIC encompasses NE, CE, and CN. Having LE and CG in the same band as neutral can be explained in this way - LE is chaotic behavior with a lawful bent, thus equating to neutral; and CG is good behavior with a selfish bent, thus also balancing out to neutral.

What does this mean for the hosts of creatures in the Monster Manual? Well, devils and faeries become Neutral, as do elves. Dwarves become Lawful as do Halflings. All humanoids become Chaotic, including Orcs and Hobgoblins who would otherwise be considered Neutral since they are (erroneously in my opinion) listed as LE in the Monster Manual. Nothing says that humanoids can't be Neutral in alignment, it simply doesn't fit their modus operandi.

So, in a world without devils and high fay, what would the cosmos look like? Apparently there would be a heaven and an underworld, with some form of spirit plane more concerned with nature and the elements. In essence, the structure of the Inner Planes from Deities and Demi-gods fits this view. The Positive Material Plane identifies as Lawful Heaven, the Negative Material Plane as the Chaotic underworld, and the elemental and Ethereal Planes as the Neutral zones. What about Astral? I think that having the Inner Plane cosmos for Sturmgard works for the creation myth I've developed. Astral would equate to outer space, a transitive plane of vacuum that exists for the mind alone where Talas can be seen in the night sky. Using it may lead to other planes of existence separate from this cosmos - such as the D&D standard cosmology, the Forgotten Realms cosmology, Dark Sun or other campaign settings. In essence, the Astral plane separates universes from one another - it is the space in between the layers of reality.

So, when one dies and is Lawful, they go to the Heavens (positive material plane) where they join with the Light. Chaotic creatures descend to the Hells (negative material plane) where they become shadows. Neutral creatures merge with the spirit planes (ethereal and elemental planes) and this is why elementals sometimes form animal shapes or humanoid shapes. In other consequences, Elves are more attuned to this Neutral philosophy and thus cannot be raised from the dead, although they can be reincarnated. Perhaps the cycle of life already takes into account alignment in the D&D system. Assume the following - living Lawful creatures can be raised from the dead as normal; living Neutral creatures can be reincarnated into new forms; and Chaotic creatures once dead can only be reanimated as undead. A resurrection spell is able to bring anyone back to life in the form they inhabited regardless of alignment. This has interesting implications. First, the curse of undeath applied to a non-Chaotic creature means that their soul is not recoverable. Hence, once you are turned into a ghoul, wight, zombie, skeleton, wraith, mummy, vampire, etc. you cannot be brought back from that state (short of a wish, that is). Neutral creatures reincarnated into a form that is not viable for adventuring (animals, monsters, etc) effectively end that character's career, but the chance of coming back as someone usable remains. The problem is the loss of all Experience Points. There is no resurrection survival chance in Basic, so the chance of being able to bring someone back from the dead is 100%. Perhaps having the character make a Constitution check on d20 would be more appropriate, but would suck if their Constitution is too low.

One has to consider also the cost involved in bringing the dead back to life. Gygax originally set the Raise Dead spell at 5th level meaning a cleric needs to be a minimum of 9th level to cast it. Animate Dead I believe is a 5th level magic-user spell, later a 3rd level cleric spell. Resurrection is a 7th level cleric spell and probably only available at like 14th level or higher for clerics. Does this mean that any character below 9th level (Name Level) is not really viable for such magics? Should there be a level where using such magic is considered viable? It seems to me that 1st-3rd level characters are too fragile to even consider raising from the dead. Once a character breaks that boundary to 4th level then, and only then, are they considered to be viable for resurrection. The prohibitive cost of such a casting means that only the very successful would have enough ready cash to use. Without training costs, wealth tends to pile up in the base town without much use. Magic items are meant to be found, not bought. So all that loot can be used as an insurance policy against death. So what happens to the loot when low level characters die? One suggestion is to name a next of kin (the next character rolled as replacement). Another is to redistribute the treasure to the surviving party members. This could mean an increase in XP, but since there was no danger involved in its gain I don't think XP is appropriate to be awarded for someone else's redistributed hoard.

I'll have to contemplate these issues a bit more before finalizing the decision.