When last we left Ruby and her friends, she was resting from being poisoned by the bite of a giant horse-sized spider in the ruins of an abandoned wood elf tree house village.
The next morning a strange warrior comes to the trees and shouts up at them for help. He is a rough looking woodsmen type armed with a battleaxe who introduces himself as Burgis. He says he is a friend of a dryad named Khloris who lives nearby. Her grove of oak trees is being cut down by a band of orc raiders and she needs their help immediately. Ruby mounts Windcarrier and flies over to the grove to check on Burgis’ story. On the way she casts her routine Endure Elements spell to protect herself from the freezing temperatures and windchill, but also casts Mage Armor and Protection from Arrows in case there is trouble. Flying over the tree tops she sees an orc riding a giant bat just ahead of her. The bat-rider also sees her and flies back below the trees, but instead of giving chase Ruby flies back to her patrol to warn her friends that there are indeed orcs in the forest.
I figured that if the elves can have aerial reconnaissance, then I'll give the orcs their own version.
When the patrol gets to the grove they discover that all the oaks have been cut down and a huge bonfire started. The remains of what looks like a party with empty flasks and kegs and trash are strewn about. They quickly put out the fire that is still burning and in danger of starting a forest fire. Hidden in the nearby foliage is the dying dryad whose oak tree was felled and burned. She tells the party that it was the orc raiders who are now rushing back to some nearby caves to hide from the dawn and any who might hunt them. Ruby asks the dryad if she can make a home in another oak tree, but Khloric sadly tells Ruby that each dryad is born as the spirit of a single tree, and if that tree is dies the dryad will soon die as well. She bids them farewell and then merges into a nearby tree to travel through the roots of the trees to see her dryad sisters before she inevitably withers away. Ruby wonders why such sad things have to happen and makes a determination to find the orcs who did it. Their trail is all too easy to find as the orcs left obvious tracks in the fresh snow, in addition to all the hacking and slashing of the trees and bushes and other trash left behind in their wake. They finally find the entrance to an abandoned mine set in the forested hills.
So, the orcs aren't just cutting down trees - they're murdering them! I have to admit that maybe I did go too far in villainizing indiscriminate logging of old growth forests - but this right out Lord of the Rings (well with dryads instead of ents). Also, I had to have the orcs do something that was clearly villainous or else they wouldn't be - well - villains. In addition, when I first told Julie that orcs were rampaging in the forest cutting down trees her initial reaction was to shrug her shoulders and say, "Well, maybe they need firewood." So clearly I had to up the stakes. But she did say to me, "Why did you have to make this story so sad?"
After that her reactions to the orcs became much more rutheless. This is going to have to be corrected down the line I think. I have succeeded in demonizing the enemy, and that's not something I really approve of anymore - even in a fantasy game. I think in a future story I will present the orcs in a different light and see if I can get Julie to see that maybe they are brainwashed victims of their evil gods and primitive idealogies and not just inherently evil beings who should be slaughtered without thought. Yeah, yeah, I know - orcs are supposed to be inherently evil - that's the fun of having them around as hapless cannon fodder for the heroes to cut down in large numbers. But I really want to make this less of a violent video game and something that is more thoughtful. But that will have to be for a future story.
Alion, one of Ruby’s sergeants, uses his magic to cover the entrance to the mines with a mist that will cover them. Then Ruby tries to sneak with the mist and her Cloak of Elvenkind to cover her, but she stumbles on a rock and the orcs fire their crossbow bolts at the sound, but fortunately none hit her. She then casts a Light spell on the tip of her wand and illuminates the mines first chamber so she can see the many orcs there. She follows this with a Color Spray from her wand which causes a couple of them to fall to the ground dizzy and blind from the overwhelming swirl of colored lights. At that time, Blain, Nyra, and Alion rush in through the mist firing arrows at the orcs as the orcs fire back with their crossbows. Burgis, meanwhile, strips of his armor and clothes and transforms into a raging manlike wild boar, he then charges in with his battleaxe. In a few moments four orcs are felled by Blain and Alion’s arrows, four others run off in different directions deeper into the mine, and the two that fell to Ruby’s Color Spray are taken prisoner. The first chamber of the mines is secured.
Once again, Ruby's spells incapitate rather than kill. This was not at all by any plan of mine - just the way she designed her character. But this is when the ethical dilemma comes in once again:
Further in, Ruby spots the giant bat hanging asleep from the ceiling. They decide to leave it in peace. Now they have to decide what to do with the prisoners. Burgis argues for killing them immediately. Nyra and Alion explain that the high elves do not kill helpless prisoners, it would make them as bad as the orcs. Usually they break their weapons and make them swear on pain of death to never enter the Vesve Forest again before letting them run back home. The elves know the orcs will lie, but they also know that the helpless orcs are often killed later by less merciful inhabitants of the forest and even if they make it home their fellow orcs often kill them for being so weak that they were captured and chased out of the forest by elves. Blain asks Ruby what she wants to do with them. Ruby seriously considers killing them, worried that they might attack later if they are let go – even if the elves do make sure they run away weaponless. Burgis offers to take them outside to behead them himself. Ruby also considers this, but Blain tells her that it would still be her responsibility, even if she lets someone else do the dirty work. He reminds her that the pegasi she is looking for will not allow anyone with the taint of evil to approach them. Reluctantly, Ruby agrees to let Nyra and Alion chase the orcs away, but not until after they browbeat them into talking about the mines and what to expect in them.
Ok, for days before playing out this story with Julie I knew this might happen - some orcs might be taken prisoner. What should be done with them? The sane thing to do with enemy combatants that one cannot take prisoner is to just kill them (as anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan knows). On the other hand, killing helpless prisoners is despicable no matter who does it (as anyone who watched Letters from Iwo Jima knows). So what to do? I was also haunted by the amazon.com review of the book Lone Survivor, about the trials and travails of a Navy Seal in Afghanistan. Here is what happened to him according the amazon book description:
On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers.
That sounds like a D&D adventure - even down to the four man team and the search for a shadowy evil hidden in a mountain fortress (probably a series of caves). The D&D game is designed for an optimum of four players and a game master. But this was real life - and thus really horrific. But the most horrible thing is what the Washington Post editorial review just above the book description revealed about those events:
In June of 2005, Luttrell led a four-man team of Navy SEALs into the mountains of Afghanistan on a mission to kill a Taliban leader thought to be allied with Osama bin Laden. On foot, the team encountered two adult men and a teenage boy. A debate broke out as to whether the SEALs should summarily execute the trio to keep them from alerting the Taliban. Luttrell himself was called upon to make the decision. He was torn between considerations of morality and his survival instinct, and he points out that "any government that thinks war is somehow fair and subject to rules like a baseball game probably should not get into one. Because nothing's fair in war, and occasionally the wrong people do get killed."
Luttrell opted to spare the Afghanis' lives. About an hour later, the Taliban launched an attack that claimed nearly a hundred of their own men but also the lives of all the SEALs except Luttrell, who was left wounded.
Not long after that, the Taliban shot down an American rescue helicopter, killing all 16 men on board. Luttrell is sure that the three Afghanis he let go turned around and betrayed the SEALs.
But if nothing is fair in war, neither is anything foreordained. Luttrell was found by other Afghanis, one of whom claimed to be his village's doctor. Once again, Luttrell had to rely on his instincts. "There was something about him," Luttrell writes. "By now I'd seen a whole lot of Taliban warriors, and he looked nothing like any of them. There was no arrogance, no hatred in his eyes." Luttrell trusted the man and his colleagues, who took him back to their village, where the law of hospitality -- "strictly nonnegotiable" -- took hold. "They were committed to defend me against the Taliban," Luttrell writes, "until there was no one left alive."
The law held, and Luttrell survived, returned home and received the Navy Cross for combat heroism from President Bush.
Should Luttrell have executed two men and a teenage boy in order to protect the lives of his fire team? They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do our troops have the right to murder people for that? But at the same time, letting them go was clearly the wrong thing to do, and they had no way of keeping them prisoner. Let's not even get into whether our troops should be hunting Al Qaida in the mountains of Afghanistan in the first place (I am not going to argue about this - but I think we should and I think Al Qaida are as evil as any fantasy orc or demon). The reasonable thing to do in the real world is to just murder people who will endanger one's fire team. That's just the breaks. But what happens to your soul if you do things like that? What happens to the soul of a nation that does things like that? It may be reasonable and maybe even rational to kill someone who might betray you to your death and the death of people you are responsible for - but I believe it is still an evil act to kill helpless prisoners or hapless bystanders.
Now getting back to the game, I thought about all the possible in-game solutions to prisoners. One could enslave them (that was often the historical solution when ancient tribes or civilizations went to war). But elves keeping orc slaves is just not something I want in my game - and elves in D&D are creatues who believe in liberty and freedom above all else. They would never keep slaves. But since elves are good creatures they would also not torture or kill prisoners - or let anyone else do it for them (something our own country actually has debates about in real life). So what could they possibly do with orc prisoners. After awhile I decided the only thing they would do is break the orcs weapons, strip them of magic items, and chase them out of the forest with a token promise from the orcs to never come back. This was stupid of course - the orcs would just rearm themselves and come back (if they survived the trip home and their fellow orcs didn't kill them in disgust). But it is what I figure these idealized nearly immortal forest hippy type people would do.
So now the question became - what would Ruby do since she was in charge of the patrol?
It was not really my intention to have Julie make decisions like this. I don't think anyone should have to make decisions like this. But fortunately or unfortunately, when the D&D game is played with some seriousness and thoughtfulness and not just gleeful heedless bloodthirstiness (which I do not want to encourage) these things will come up. Particularly if the alignment system is taken seriously. In D&D no one is morally ambiguous - everyone is aligned with either Law or Chaos, Good or Evil or a deliberate (or perhaps apathetic) Neutrality. Everyone's moral and ethical stance is declared. It may change, but it is always right there on paper in black and white (or pencil). Ruby is marked down as Neutral Good. In order to maintain that alignment - she can't start committing evil acts - no matter how sane or rational such self-interest might be. So in this story I used Burgis (a Neutral character) to be the voice of amoral self-interest and commonplace ruthelessness. I used the elves and Blain (all good characters) to be the voice of conscience - idealistic stupidity and mercy even. I even used Julie's wish to have Ruby someday ride a pegasus as a further enticement to remaini a good character. Against her better judgement (and it would be against mine as well) Ruby allowed the orcs to be disarmed and chased away instead of executed.
Oh, and if anyone thinks a 10 year old girl is too young for this - they should think again. Julie is already learning about history and has made a class trip to Sutter's Mill where gold was first discovered. She has learned about how all the Native Americans had their land taken from them and how they were killed or driven away. The D&D game may get rutheless and gritty at times - but real life and the real life history that Julie is now learning is the real heartbreaking thing. And of course we are still involved in a war where these kind of things are coming up, and Julie and her class are reading current events already. So it probably is the right time to deal with these kinds of things. Though in-game I will present the voices of reason and the voices of conscience (which are not always the same) in the persona of the other characters in the story.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Posted by Ryuei at October 25, 2007 11:53 AM