Yipe.
Moe Lane
PS: This is why you don’t make deals with shadowy, evil-aligned figures in robes. Particularly when they tell you over and over again that the power that they give you is totally and unambiguously under your control.
PPS: You really should own this series.
For the record, I’m one of those who liked it more when it was funnier, but this was truly a stunning payoff of an episode.
Wow! Not funny but truly makes a point.
It’s such an interesting moral question. Black Dragons are by their nature chaotic evil. They are also intelligent, ruthless, and prone to ambush their prey.
So is what Varsuvius is doing wrong?
And even if it is, do we think badly of him for it? He’s spent what, months going without “sleep,” working himself to death in order to try to help his friends. At that point, he is ambushed and his (presumed innocent) children threatened.
And in this state, in these circumstances, he is given the power to do what he is doing, assuring safety for himself and his family while taking out a literally evil menace and preventing the same thing from happening to him again in 100 years.
True, destroying a Chaotic Evil creature isn’t normally a problem for a Good-aligned one (presumably Neutral Good, in this case). But V is deliberately using an Evil-aligned spell to preemptively commit mass *murder*, if not actual *genocide*. And V is *enjoying* doing it, which is problematical right there.
And, oh, yeah: V will probably level because of this.
Let’s not forget the choice V made. He was given another way to save his family but his pride wouldn’t let him take it. Instead he knowingly entered in a Faustian bargain, killing the dragon, then created a greater undead and committed mass-murder. All the time, V was the one making the choices. Oh yea, his alignment has changed to Evil.
PS Moe, he won’t gain a level. He’s getting no experience for this.
Hmm…
Odds that we’re now going to cut to the dwarf, where he’s charmed a young black dragon in a tense situation, using it to fight some other threat?
As for leveling… I think he gets experience for the one dragon, but not for the rest of them.