There is sooooo much I could underline there...but I'll just let it be fully digested...every single word.ALIGNMENT
In the temple of Pelor is an ancient tome. When the temple recruits
adventurers for its most sensitive and important quests, each one
who wants to participate must kiss the book. Those who are evil in
their hearts are blasted by holy power, and even those who are neither
good nor evil are stunned. Only those who are good can kiss the
tome without harm and are trusted with the temple’s most
important work. Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the
D&D game. They are the forces that define the cosmos.
Devils in human guise stalk the land, tempting people toward
evil. Holy clerics use the power of good to protect worshipers. Devotees
of evil gods bring ruin on innocents to win the favor of their
deities, while trusting that rewards await them in the afterlife.
Crusading paladins fearlessly confront evildoers, knowing that
this short life is nothing worth clinging to. Warlords turn to
whichever supernatural power will help them conquer, and
proxies for good and evil gods promise rewards in return for the
warlords’ oaths of obedience.
A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are
represented by its alignment: lawful good, neutral good,
chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful
evil, neutral evil, and chaotic evil. (See Table 6–1: Creature,
Race, and Class Alignments, on the next page, for examples of
which creatures, races, and classes favor which alignments.)
Choose an alignment for your character, using his or her
race and class as a guide. Most player characters are good or
neutral rather than evil. In general, evil alignments are for
villains and monsters.
Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s
identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your
character. Each alignment represents a broad range of
personality types or personal philosophies, so two lawful
good characters can still be quite different from each
other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.
A lawful good character may have a greedy streak that
occasionally tempts him to take something or hoard
something he has even if that’s not lawful or good
behavior. People are also not consistent from day to day. A
good character can lose his temper, a neutral character can
be inspired to perform a noble act, and so on.
Choosing an alignment for your character means stating your
intent to play that character a certain way. If your character acts in a
way more appropriate to another alignment, the DM may decide
that your character’s alignment has changed to match her actions.
