Alignment
In the Hyborian Age d20 campaign the alignment rules are not used.
There are several reasons why it is strongly suggested to remove alignment from a Hyborian Age campaign:
- The Hyborian Age is set within the Sword & Sorcery genre (a genre which, according to some scholars, was invented by Robert E. Howard). Although this genre certainly has its own set of clichés, it differs from high fantasy in that there is no delicate balance between good and evil, with fair and noble elves valiantly fighting against stupid, evil orcs. Rather, it is a grim world of cruel kings, barbarous fighters, beautiful women, and ambitious sorcerers and foul demons lurking in the shadows. Individuals within this world are defined by their motivation, culture and personal ambitions and ethics.
- Alignment is never interpreted the same way by two people. Usually, even the Dungeon Master has trouble defining the behavior of the different alignments.
- Having characters act according to their own motivation creates much more interesting plots and storylines than simply "I'm good, you're evil" plotlines.
As a consequence, characters, creatures and deities have no listed alignment value. The PCs will have to judge for themselves whether an NPC is "evil" based on his or her actions.
- Without alignment, spells such as know alignment will obviously have little value.
- Under this rule, protection from evil is called spell of protection and grants an AC bonus against all enemies of the priest (in addition to its other benefits, which remain unchanged). Magic circle against evil similarly becomes magic circle, while holy word becomes word of power (affecting all hostile creatures regardless of alignment). And so on.
- Regarding other spells which take alignment into consideration, it is up to the DM to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a creature is "good" or "evil" for the purposes of such spells.
