Editing Detect Evil (section)

==The Other Side of the Coin: The obvious counterargument==
Redeeming the degenerate and base servants of Evil is all [[Noblebright]] and good, but consider the parable of the soiled city upon the hill that was the city of Sodom and it's twin sister-city Gomorrah. Sodom was a wicked and perverse city inhabited largely by ordinary people, who were mundane in their wickedness for the most part; with the notable exception of the greater sins of their society; and they could have perhaps been delivered from evil and redeemed if they truly desired it.

So why did they not? And why did God destroy it?

God destroyed the cities not only because of their wickedness and refusal to repent, but also because their evil would have spread and because none of the evils that grew in Sodom would have swollen to such legendary heights if the normal citizens had just refused to tolerate the open practice of such wickedness. It was only by their collective apathy and tolerance for wickedness that the city sunk to such lows, as the greater acts of evil would not have been possible without such a tolerant and permissive society to fester in, and thus it was by the works of the common man of the city that it was destroyed, 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' taken to its logical extreme.

As [[Gary Gygax|Gygax]] was indeed a faithful man who knew his Bible, Evil does indeed have ways to spread and grow entrenched when permitted to do so in a society. Allowing Evil to become entrenched will make it much harder to dislodge, as the big kids down in the Lower Planes will take notice and provide aid to advance their agenda within the mortal realms. Thus societies (and by extension the people that populate them) that tolerate the presence of Evil make the war against it all the harder for the side of Good. As such, Paladins and their Orders should continually seek to conquer or destroy such societies, as they are nothing more than demon-manufacturing-plants. 

"But wait, what about the evil dead becoming demons in the hells?"

What ABOUT them? Evil's agenda within the mortal realms is to corrupt souls into ever-increasing depths of depravity and wickedness; as the more wicked and evil a soul, the easier it is to make a more powerful demon out of them when they go to hell, especially fiendish and wicked mortals often skip several steps of Hell's tortures/training when they arrive in their hell, rapidly becoming a powerful demon of renown. As mentioned in the previous section, you should try and avoid this altogether by redeeming the nasty bastard, but such mercy needs to be ASKED for, as repentance is not something passively done, but rather actively done. When a regular plain old evil-doer gets sent to his rightful reward, they often become the lowest type of demon on the totem-pole, as they're not an especially vile or wicked old soul steeped in Evil who gets to skip several steps and become an uber-demon right away, thus what Hell and the other demons down there have to do is [[Rape|"break them in"]], and these tortures and training and whatever vile indignities that are done to show that damned soul his place in the infernal hierarchy take time to do so, a looooooong time as a matter of fact.

This is in fact quite good for Team Good, the operative word here being ''time''. As the time that that damned waste of space is suffering through in the recruitment of Hell is time that they are not alive, spreading the taint of Evil ever further. It is time that they are not alive, matriculating into a more vile and wicked soul that is ripe for conversion into demon-hood. It is time that they are not spending bring OTHERS down to their level, whether it be through their own petty cruelties, their permissiveness towards the truly evil among them permitting their suffering at their hands, or their apathy towards the suffering of others that drives them into committing evil acts just to stay alive. It is time that they are not spending supporting the awful society which birthed them, thus making it easier for Team Good to destroy their debased country and weaken Evil's foothold in the world.

If you should take anything away from this, it's that good Paladins should not tolerate Evil being within their presence, if they're not going to smite it right away, then they should either engage in some good old pseudo-Christian shouting and rebuke and chastise them, or not be near Evil at all unless they're removing it with force. This can be quite disruptive, which while perfectly justified in-lore, can be a bit detrimental towards actual gameplay. Consider having the Paladin's Order be choosy about where they are sent, or mandate that their holy warriors maintain some sense of subtlety when abroad in foreign locales, after all, as Paladins are essentially the foot-soldiers of Good, the forces of Evil would likely not be pleased to see even a non-hostile Paladin amongst them.

Of course, the oft quoted "whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster" comes to mind here, as such a merciless attitude can hardly be considered as appropriate for a Lawful Good character (or a purely Good character of any stripe for that matter), but that can be considered another limitation of the traditional Lawful/Chaotic-Good/Evil [[Alignment]] system. Not to mention that real-world philosophies of ethics constantly debate over these points through the schools of Consequentialism and Deontology. At worst, such a character may devolve into an especially weird form of Lawful Evil that is somehow aligned against Evil, but realistically, such a character would either end up outright defecting or dying alone without support from their former Good patrons when they are exiled for their transgressions against moral decency. Mind you this is something to keep in mind only for the pure Edgelords of Law, these points in moderation can do wonders to alleviate the problems of [[Stupid Good]].

TLDR; your god isn't going to sweat over Evil getting a few extra [[Tanar'ri#Least_Tanar.27ri|Manes]]/[[Baatezu#Inside_the_Hierarchy|Lemures]] in the long run, don't worry about being [[Doom|knee-deep in the dead]], at least not until you're [[Blackguard|functionally indistinguishable from them.]]

[[Khorne|Law for the Law god! Justice for the Throne of Justice! Let the multiverse '''BURN'''!]]