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Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Starfinder RPG

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Planar Adventures / Building a Planar Campaign / Alternate Cosmologies

Alignment-Free Cosmology

Source Planar Adventures pg. 86
The Great Beyond relies on the presumption of outsiders linked to alignment, but what happens if you remove alignments from the game completely? In this alternative cosmology, the various outsider races might represent not alignments but concepts. Archons represent justice, while angels serve as unique representatives of their divine patrons, agathions as mercy, azatas as freedom, inevitables as rules, proteans as change, devils as punishment, daemons as death, and demons as temptation to sin. You can delve even further, assigning (for example) each individual type of devil a different form of punishment. From such decisions, entire new planes suggest themselves—one for each race of outsider to call home. Regardless of the conceptual assignments used, it’s not likely that large amounts of flavor change heavily, but the mechanical framework requires adjustments in the absence of spells and abilities that rely solely upon alignment, such as those offering protection from evil or good or from chaos or law.

In an alignment-free cosmology, rivalries between outsiders would not be split upon the easy lines of alignment, and unusual alliances might be made. Daemons representing death by execution might collaborate with devils representing lawful punishment and archons devoted to justice. Even stranger alliances might form between outsiders associated with more narrow concepts, such as a type of protean devoted to creative architecture working alongside an axiomite devoted to city planning.

Without alignment to rely on, the gods in this cosmology play a more important role, rallying a multitude of outsiders to the concepts encompassed by their areas of concern and enabling campaigning based on each type of outsider’s role rather than its morality and ethics. Mortal souls still flow to the specific god the owner worshiped above others, but rather than alignment, the owner’s actions serve as the determining factor of her fate if she died without a specific faith. An honest farmer’s soul would migrate toward the realm of the inevitables, perhaps, since the farmer obeyed the laws of the land and dutifully provided for her family and society, whereas another farmer might go to the realm of devils because of his penchant in life for abusing his employees.

In such a world, spells that function based on alignment will work quite differently, or perhaps not at all. In most cases, this puts you in the position of having to make decisions on the spot as to whether detect evil would provide information, or whether or not a holy sword might hurt the creature that attempts to wield it. As a result, the players’ trust in you becomes far more important in an alignmentfree cosmology, since they must respect and trust that you are making decisions for the good of gameplay, not to be merely antagonistic or competitive.