Immortal Spheres as Alignments and more!
by Greg WeatherupCommenting on the Sphere alignment system.
interesting, though the "Philosopihcal" & "Spirited" labels don't match the spheres IMHO. I see "Philosophical" and think of "Thought" first, "Time" secondly. And "Spirited" I think of Energy first, Thought Second,
Let me throw up a table to see how some of these match the 2-axis system of AD&D, for the moment using the "Matter"-"Thought"-"Energy"-"Time" and "Creative"-"Entropy" labels...
| LG | Matter-Creative or Thought-Creative |
| LN | Matter or Thought or Matter-(Thought) |
| LE | Matter-Entropy or Thought-Entropy |
| NG | Time-Creative or Thought-Creative |
| NN | Energy-(Matter) or Thought-(Time) |
| NE | Time-Entropy or Thought-Entropy |
| CG | Energy-Creative or Time-Creative |
| CN | Energy or Time or Time-(Energy) |
| CE | Energy-Entropy or Time-Entropy |
| impossible | Matter-Time & Energy-Thought |
One's in Parenthesis are the dominated ones - and they occur in 2 types of places- choices where they are a 3rd choice (the only ones that have 3 match's) or True Neutral (where they are the only choices - and true neutral is supposed to be a tough balancing act). The two impossible combinations would be Matter-Time (LN?) and Energy-Thought (CN?).
This of course assumes that the "sphere's of Life" (="creative") is always "Good" and that "Entropy" is always "Evil". While that's not always true in real-life, I've got no problem with it being so in-game.
for a head start on some possible terminology for the combined one's, maybe something like this:
| Matter & (Thought) | LN | Orderly? |
| Energy & (Matter) | NN | Quantitative? Analytical? |
| Thought & (Time) | NN | Philosophical |
| Time & (Energy) | CN | Dynamic |
| Matter & Time | LN | Stoic? |
| Energy & Thought | CN | Spirited |
of course the last two are combinations of opposed spheres, but "Spirited" just fits the combination so good that I wanted to include it.