Alignment
Alignment is the measure of how good or evil you are. This is of importance to priests (and of some importance to followers), since being out of alignment penalizes ritual difficulty, effectiveness, and cost. As of December 22, 2023, being too far out of alignment no longer makes rituals outright impossible. This was communicated as an interim fix, with further changes to alignment coming eventually.
Being out of alignment--with your deity "annoyed" with you or worse--still prevents you from entering worshiper-only areas of your temple (which most instructor rooms are).
Newbies still in Pumpkin Town can change their alignment by rescuing or drowning beetles in the priests' guild area. This is a good idea if you're planning to join the priests' guild, and you can almost get to ideal Pishite or Sekkite alignment this way.
Contents
Alignments for different deities
Each deity has a different range of alignments they would like their priests and followers to stay inside. You can check your alignment at any time with "score align" or "score alignment" ("score" by itself also contains this information)--this gives you a general indication of how good or evil you are, and tells you how happy (or not) your deity is with you. If you are in alignment, they will be "very happy" or "pleased" with you. If you're so far out of alignment as to not be able to perform rituals, they'll be "quite annoyed", or worse, "very angry" with you. If you're on the edge, they'll be "a little concerned" about you, and rituals may be more difficult.
Alignment is visible to players on a scale that goes from 50 good to 50 evil using the Detect Alignment ritual, or in a number of steps using the "score align" command.
- Pishe wants her worshippers to be at least 3 good ("good") and up, being concerned at 2 good ("barely good") and 49 - 50 good (the very high end of "extremely good"). Perfect alignment is around 25 - 26 good, or around the beginning of the "extremely good" range.
- Gufnork wants his worshippers to be at least 3 good, but not more than about 11 - 12 good ("quite good"), being concerned at 2 good and 12 good. Perfect alignment is around 6 - 7 good ("quite good").
- Gapp wants his worshippers to be at least research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. but not more than research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. , being concerned research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. and at research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. . Perfect alignment is around 3 good.
- Sandelfon wants his worshippers to be less than 5 degrees good or evil ("good" or "evil"), being concerned at 4 degrees good or evil. Perfect alignment is around 0 good/evil ("neutral").
- Fish wants his worshippers to be between research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. , being concerned at research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. . Perfect alignment is around 0 - 1 evil.
- Hat wants his worshippers to be at least research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. , but not more than about research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. , being concerned at research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. . Perfect alignment is around 5 evil.
- Sek wants his worshippers to be at least 3 evil and up, being concerned at 2 evil and 49 - 50 evil. Perfect alignment is around 26 evil.
The mud tracks alignment on a scale with a large number of steps, examination of the mudlib (/include/tune.h) suggests that this may be from -10000 (good) to 10000 (evil).
#define MAX_AL 10000
The mapping in the mudlib (/std/living/living.c) of score align to absolute alignment values in the mud is as follows:
string align_string() { switch ( alignment ) { case -MAX_AL .. -5001 : return "extremely good"; break; case -5000 .. -2501 : return "very good"; break; case -2500 .. -1251 : return "quite good"; break; case -1250 .. -601 : return "good"; break; case -600 .. -301 : return "barely good"; break; case -300 .. 300 : return "neutral"; break; case 301 .. 600 : return "barely evil"; break; case 601 .. 1250 : return "evil"; break; case 1251 .. 2500 : return "quite evil"; break; case 2501 .. 5000 : return "very evil"; break; default : return "extremely evil"; break; } } /* align_string() */
Thus, if we divided those mudlib values by -200 (so evil is negative), then we get:
Min | Max | Align |
---|---|---|
25.005 | 50 | extremely good |
12.505 | 25 | very good |
6.255 | 12.5 | quite good |
3.005 | 6.25 | good |
1.505 | 3 | barely good |
-1.5 | 1.5 | neutral |
-3 | -1.505 | barely evil |
-6.25 | -3.005 | evil |
-12.5 | -6.255 | quite evil |
-25 | -12.505 | very evil |
-50 | -25.005 | extremely evil |
This maps pretty well with reports from the Detect Alignment ritual.
Changing alignment
The most common way to change your alignment, either intentionally or unintentionally, is by killing things.
- In general, killing evil things makes you more good, killing good things makes you more evil, and killing neutral things moves you towards neutrality.
- Killing things with more extreme alignments moves you towards more extreme alignments, and works more quickly.
- See list of NPC Alignments for a handy list of common NPC alignments.
There are, however, a few other ways:
- Ritually burying corpses: Priests can use their ritual bury command to move their alignment more towards their ideal. This depends on faith.rituals.special.
- Praying: Praying moves priests and followers towards ideal alignment. Prayer is more effective when further away from the ideal, and is also more effective with more faith.rituals.special.
- Shattering holy relics
- If you're more evil than your deity's ideal, then you can shatter a relic of a deity more evil than yours to become more good.
- Likewise, if you're more good than your deity's ideal, you can shatter a relic of a deity more good than yours to become more evil.
- So, for example, a Pishite may shatter any non-Pishe relics to become more good (until going past ideal alignment) and a Sekkite may shatter any non-Sek relics to become more evil.
- A Gufnorkian would shatter Pishe relics to become less good, and relics of any other non-Gufnork deity to become more good.
- Using Sarilak (you need to already be a bit evil) will make your more evil while killing npcs than killing them without him.
- Burning things in the fire pit in Sek's temple in Djelibeybi (northwest part of the main hall) has a small effect on alignment, appearing to make someone about 1/40 of a degree more evil per object.
- The syntax for this is
burn <object> in {pit|fire pit|firepit}
. - It appears that all edible items may be burnt: this includes paper, most body parts, fluff, and food.
- It is possible to go significantly past ideal Sekkite alignment this way.
- The syntax for this is
- Putting fluffs (from the ritual Summon Fluff) on Gufnork's low altar either makes you more good (up to about 5 degrees good, it appears) or moves you towards Gufnork's ideal alignment. It also replenishes some of your health. This probably works for all fluffy things, not just fluffs.
- Performing Resurrect makes you more good, by about a degree.
- Certain quests change your alignment, though obviously this a one-time-only thing. For at least some of these, there are both good and evil options for completing the quest (which may not be mentioned on quest solution pages).
- If you're still in Pumpkin Town, you can drown or rescue beetles in the priests' guild hut to make yourself up to about 25 degrees good or evil.
Determining alignment
For yourself, you can get a fuzzy indicator of your alignment with your score. To see others' alignments, there are a variety of methods available.
Detect Alignment
Granted by Pishe, Sek, and Sandelfon, as well as to Sandelfon's followers, this ritual gives you a numeric indication of the target's alignment and is the most precise method. With lower skills, your result may be less accurate, but even then it seems to give you a result in the general area of the target's actual alignment.
See Alignment
Granted by Pishe and Sek, this ritual changes your vision so that when you see someone, their fuzzy alignment (the same as is shown in "score align") and their deity, if applicable, is shown after their name.
Light
Performing Light on a target will cause them to glow in a colour that gives a general indication of their alignment. Green is neutral, or nearly so. The more towards the red end of the spectrum they glow (with crimson being the highest), the eviller they are, and the more towards the violet end of the spectrum they glow (with violet being the highest), the more good they are.
This ritual is pk-checked, as it can interfere with covert actions.
Red-hilted dagger
Hitting someone with a red-hilted dagger will cause the dagger to spout flames--black flames for evil creatures, white flames for good, and nothing for neutral or nearly neutral creatures. You can get, a "flicker", a "gout", or a "jet", with a flicker meaning 2 - 4 degrees, a gout meaning 5 - 15 degrees, and a jet meaning anything over 15.
Titles
There are two titles, Lord/Lady/Creature of Light/Darkness, given to the most "good" or most "evil" player online.