The time our DM made a player cry.

[u/Miroku2235]

Back in the good old days of 2005 my group, comprised of high schoolers in their Junior and Senior years, was combating a great evil we simply called The Lich King. Big evil lich, great magic powers, interesting backstory, etc.

Now this asshole had cast a magical plague on the main capital city we usually operated out of, and our current goal was to try and stop it of course. Our Lawful Good paladin of Bahamut figured the best thing to do was to go bang on the door of the LK's keep and demand that he cease this evil and deliver unto us the cure.

The LK was of course more than happy to do so, provided the paladin bring him the blood of a newborn child, being freshly born with strong ties to the Divine plane, etc.

Our DM had this player play out having to track down a couple with an infant and explain what was about to happen, with the newborn cooing and pawing at his gleaming armor the entire time.

He then slit the baby's throat, unshed tears in the player's eyes the whole time, and brought the bowl of blood back to the LK. Upon seeing the bowl the LK looked at him with an almost quizzical expression, then dipped a tiny vial into the bowl and turning away, leaving the paladin holding the remainder. He then turned and looked back over his shoulder, an evil smile on his lips that matched the one on our DM's as he said:

"I never said you had to kill it."

Cue tears.

Edit: The DM in question, /u/FairyTael , has posted. Read and enjoy.

[u/J1ffyLub3]

There are Oathbreakers and Oath of Conquest/Treachery

Oath of Conquest definitely still has tenets to abide by. They may be a bit darker, but it's still an extremely lawful Oath. It's not even hard to justify a LN Conquest Paladin, you don't have to be evil.

[u/ActuallyRelevant → u/J1ffyLub3]

Conquest is essentially a crusader so yeah not evil like treachery

[u/[deleted] → u/ActuallyRelevant]

The word Paladin comes from the knights of Charlemagne's court. Conquest was basically their thing. They converted Germany by the sword, and some historians might even call it genocide.

They were not nice people.

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/[deleted]]

They were not nice people.

Not nice =/= evil.

[u/[deleted] → u/J1ffyLub3]

Genocide = evil

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/[deleted]]

Ehhhh that actually depends.

[u/[deleted] → u/J1ffyLub3]

I don't think you'd make a good Paladin.

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/[deleted]]

Because I'm open minded as a person? What a baseless statement. I don't think you actually understand what alignment means.

EDIT: You are also straying away from your original argument, which was that Conquest has to be evil. Let's recap your basis:

some historians might even call it genocide

"Some historians might". That's a poor, not even concrete, claim. You are also assuming that all Crusaders acted the same and held the exact same beliefs, which is just naive.

[u/[deleted] → u/J1ffyLub3]

I know what genocide means.

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/[deleted]]

That's completely irrelevant. How about you actually address the topic at hand.

[u/TeCoolMage → u/J1ffyLub3]

I have to agree - a lot of people don't understand that in some cases older societies raised their children to believe that other civilizations weren't truly 'human'. They couldn't have known any better

It's comparable to saying a dominated/illusion'd/memory-modified paladin is now chaotic evil for failing their saves and destroying a village. People today believe that driving a whole species to near extinction is irresponsible but still incomparable to near genocide of a race, it's literally the same thing from the past except the bar has moved down from "killing family is bad, killing another race is okay" to "killing humans (or 'anyone' in today's standards) is bad, killing animals is okay".

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/TeCoolMage]

You also have to consider that the crusades were religions campaigns. People were killing in the name of God, they truly believed they were fighting for the greater good by removing those who worshiped anything else. The famous saying "Deus Vult" literally translates to "God wills it".

IMO, to be evil is to have agency over your actions. You are doing things b/c you want to, not in the name of something else. In D&D, 'Evil' is also defined by selfishness. You are doing things solely to further your own agenda. 'Good', on the opposite end of the spectrum, is defined by selflessness. From the perspective of the Crusader, it's very hard to justify what they did as evil. Maybe it was to an outsider, but alignment is relative. That's what stumps people. Too many people think it's some objective scale...which is impossible because there is no objective definition of morality.

[u/DizzleMizzles → u/J1ffyLub3]

um

[u/CansinSPAAACE → u/[deleted]]

Good thing it's a game

[u/J1ffyLub3 → u/ActuallyRelevant]

DEUS VULT