Excerpts From The Journal Of Hrogar

I grow increasingly worried about Alcander. He displays a number of qualities that I know to have caused the downfall of many a Paladin: pride, arrogance, and worst of all, troubling signs of fanaticism.

In my youth spent in a boarding school in City of Origin, many of the other children were the offspring of Paladins. They were there to be trained, so that they might follow in their parent’s footsteps. Far too frequently, I saw, my fellows would push each other around and brawl, trying to prove ones might over another. Or they would get into bragging competitions, trying to declare one’s superiority because of higher birthright, or other equally unimportant qualities. Often they seemed more intent on proving their superiority over their fellows, than they were on preparing themselves to help the greater good. And I noted, with dismay, that these tendencies continued on from the early days in school on into the later years as we went through our final training before becoming Paladins.

And frequently, due to my inherent frailty of body, an affliction I have dealt with since birth, I found myself the frequent victim of such bullying.

Admittedly, it was good for me, I suppose, for it is due to such experiences that I eventually developed my ability to talk my way out of problematic situations. This is also why I carry a bastard sword, for I found that with bullies, “speak softly, but carry a big sword” tends to work wonders toward convincing them that a reasoned solution is the better option.

I asked my mentor once if such problems went away once one finally became a Paladin and grew wiser with years. Surely, the adult Paladins had matured beyond this pointless boasting and macho displays. Alas, he told me, it never seems to go away. Far too frequently, it seems, Paladins become more obsessed with glory and fame than they are with the righting of wrongs and the protection of the innocent. The quest for greater titles and prestige tends to be one of the greatest pitfalls Paladins succumb to on the path of righteousness.

This is part of the reason that the mentality of Alcander troubles me so. His obsession toward proving how “manly” he is seems little different than the boasts of the bullies. While it is important to know one’s strengths and limits, and some pride at one’s own strengths and accomplishments in only natural, one must be wary of having too much pride, and of losing sight of the true goals.

On a related manner, Alcander has been increasingly harassing us for our interest in gaining resources for the eventual improvement of our equipment. While he’s correct that one shouldn’t become wholly dependent on equipment, to forgo such things entirely seems equally unwise. As is so often the case, a balance must be found and maintained. Refusing what tools we have available to us may some day mean the difference between victory and defeat in our duties. Better to use any and all reasonable resources we can muster, than willfully forgo a potential advantage in the battle against evil. To do so, seems to me, to be immoral.

However, I feel it is incredibly important to make the following point: I do not think that Alcander should necessarily follow my example. It is quite admirable to avoid excessive ties to material objects, and truly, greed is another pitfall on the path to righteousness. As I said, it all comes down to a balance. And knowing where that balance lays is not an easy thing to determine. While I suspect this is unlikely, I may find in the future that Alcander is closer to the proper balance point that I am. And if I see evidence of this, I will likely alter my habits accordingly. He has his path, as I have mine, as the pacifist cleric Markus had his. This is how it should be. There is no one path to righteousness, and thus we must each decide how we go about following our varied callings.

This leads me to the most troubling trait I have been recently noticing in Alcander: his increasing tendency to harass the rest of us for not following his example. His philosophy seems to be that everyone should follow his path. When one starts believing that their path is the only acceptable path, they are on the ledge of fanaticism. Of all my mentor’s teachings, this was one of his most important: “Fanaticism is perhaps the most dangerous trap a Paladin can stumble into. For it blinds one to what is truly good and evil. Fanatics can perform the most terrible, the most evil deeds, and declare it to be necessary for the good of all.” So many times have Paladins fallen to vile deeds, all the while certain that their actions were just. It is as the sages tell: “The path to darkness is paved with good intentions.”

And especially does this seem to happen in conjunction with religious beliefs. I know of one Paladin who supposedly justified his actions by saying: “Kill them all, for the gods will know their own” and then went on to murder men, women, and children, all the while believing that he was acting as his god wanted. This is the primary reason that I choose to not worship any specific god. Better to pay modest homage to all of them, than to declare specific allegiance to any one of them.

Interestingly, I get the feeling that Alcander has seen the kind of suffering that this can bring. On a few occasions, I have heard him malign the so-called “monotheists”, or worshipers of a single deity. Truly, this sounds exactly like the kind of fanatics my mentor warned me about. Those who are so certain that their path and their deity are the only true path and deity; that they force others to convert to their own path, destroying any who resist. It would be tragic misfortune if Alcander were to end up becoming effectively the same as those who it seems caused so much pain and misery in his homeland.

However, I still have hope for him. In time I will try to convince him of the error of the philosophy that there can only be one path to goodness. Hopefully, I’ll get through to him, before he becomes that which he himself loathes.