Acceptable behaviour
Jan. 24th, 2008 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackSuppose Viking raiders have been terrorising your coast. A few Vikings have previously settled here and become accepted. You know one noble in the capital city is a Viking, but this is generally unknown, and you suspect him to have *some* nefarious purposes.
However, you have some dealings with him, partly because he's rich and powerful, and partly to find out more about him, and he hires you to assassinate the leader of a band of Vikings who have settled in the nearby countryside.
However the leader is still a boy, just old enough to go into battle, but young enough you don't feel right about holding him culpable. Killing non-resident Vikings is generally regarded as a good thing, but you don't know if this specific band has been raiding anyone, or just settled there.
Do you:
(a) Find out if they have been raiding, and if so feel no compunction about one more regrettable but necessary death?
(b) Go ahead with the assassination anyway, them being here is problem enough
(c) Talk to the boy, find out if he's as malicious as Vikings in the country generally are, or if he might find allegiance with this country.
(d) Refuse to assassinate a boy whatever the circumstances, and try to expose the secret Viking noble who instigated it?
(e) Refuse to cooperate with the noble in any way, cooperating with an evil enemy is wrong even if the specific cause is valid in itself.
(The metaphor I'm seeking is Viking <=> DnD Dragon. And "leader of band" with "30-ft-long and breathes fire". Dragons are invariably but not in this campaign necessarily evil. Killing enemies is necessary. But this young dragon could be entirely innocent, his enemy, the dragon we became embroiled with, has politicl reasons for targetting him)
However, you have some dealings with him, partly because he's rich and powerful, and partly to find out more about him, and he hires you to assassinate the leader of a band of Vikings who have settled in the nearby countryside.
However the leader is still a boy, just old enough to go into battle, but young enough you don't feel right about holding him culpable. Killing non-resident Vikings is generally regarded as a good thing, but you don't know if this specific band has been raiding anyone, or just settled there.
Do you:
(a) Find out if they have been raiding, and if so feel no compunction about one more regrettable but necessary death?
(b) Go ahead with the assassination anyway, them being here is problem enough
(c) Talk to the boy, find out if he's as malicious as Vikings in the country generally are, or if he might find allegiance with this country.
(d) Refuse to assassinate a boy whatever the circumstances, and try to expose the secret Viking noble who instigated it?
(e) Refuse to cooperate with the noble in any way, cooperating with an evil enemy is wrong even if the specific cause is valid in itself.
(The metaphor I'm seeking is Viking <=> DnD Dragon. And "leader of band" with "30-ft-long and breathes fire". Dragons are invariably but not in this campaign necessarily evil. Killing enemies is necessary. But this young dragon could be entirely innocent, his enemy, the dragon we became embroiled with, has politicl reasons for targetting him)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 03:16 pm (UTC)[1] With one, not with you personally :)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 03:50 pm (UTC)It's just *usually* me who runs away with it ;)
Damn you and your burrowing plot bunnies, by the way! At least I can console myself that writing this story properly would take an awful lot of proper research which I couldn't possibly hope to undertake in the next... 6 years, I hope!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 11:57 pm (UTC):-/
But *hug*. It's sweet we do this, even if we can't finish them.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 02:43 pm (UTC)It is sweet :) Though now I do want to finish it. Indeed, I figured out I could bypass the research stage by making it fantasy rather than historical. But, of course, there are other stories that should be finished first...
[1] Actually not a euphemism.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 11:15 pm (UTC)*hugs* Before stories might make sense. This is lovely, but may or may not be a whole story, but there's other ones that definitely are.
BTW, I saw kingdom again. I think it did work better. I didn't fall in love with it, but it was very pleasant, and lacked some of the problems of the first (admittedly exciting) episode.