Your character's propensity toward good or evil

Alignment is a gauge used by Avalon to determine whether your character leans toward altruistic or selfish actions. It measures your propensity towards the good forces in Avalon or the darker, more sinister cause of evil.

Your alignment will impact and be affected by many things in the course of your Avalon life, most notably the contents of your current "mosaic chapter" and the experiences you encounter - first time and if significant types, any time.

Alignment determines the reaction of many of the land's CCC (computer controlled characters) when first you meet, what quests (if any) they trust you to complete, whether or not their reaction to your presence is violent or not, etc.

Whether you are aware of it or not, almost every instance, quest, experience, and action has an alignment effect - although most are so small as to be inconsequential. Quests and combat and chapter experiences are the biggest influences on your own alignment's rise or fall.

Simply put: do bad things, alignment goes down, do good things and up it goes. The more bad or evil you become, the more good or pure must the experience be to impact, and visa versa. Example: somebody who is just bad will be able to do good things and soon move up in alignment to reverse the badness, but somebody who has reached evil will find the merely good of little help and will need to seek pure experiences to work evil up to bad; then then the good will benefit again.

In this way the choice to be Diabolical or Angelic is more significant than first glance since to reverse it will not be easy. Merely good or pure or bad or evil experiences will be a drop in the ocean for the truly Diabolical or steadfastly Angelic souls.

For many experiences to be listed in a chapter it will require alignment to be compatible, e..g. an evil experience wouldn't given to a good aligned player; a chaotic experience wouldn't likely appear in a lawful player chapter.

Alignment has ten distinct points, ascending from neutral or descending from it. It can be at lowest -50000 and as high as +50000. Here's the little list:

-30000   DIABOLICAL

-10000   EVIL

-1000    BAD

-100     CHAOTIC

= 0       NEUTRAL

+100     LAWFUL

+1000    GOOD

+10000   PURE

+30000   ANGELIC

Syntax: ALIGNMENT.

Tells you your own alignment and the distinct level it reveals, e..g. from ANGELIC through LAWFUL and NEUTRAL and CHAOTIC through DIABOLICAL. There are special attributes for each of the alignment levels including the possible "neutrality choice" available to all, which in effect fixes one's alignment at NEUTRAL irrevocably. See HELP NEUTRAL for info on this. It is a lifelong choice and can only be reversed by the Gods so do not make it without full understanding.

Syntax: HELP <alignment level>.

You can get info on what each alignment level may mean, the level's attributes and idiosyncracies, by typing HELP then the level e..g. HELP DIABOLICAL, HELP LAWFUL, HELP ANGELIC etc. It is recommended you check up on HELP LAWFUL and HELP CHAOTIC as they are special cases, not yet "good" or "bad" but with traits all their own.

Syntax: ALIGNMENT <other player>.

Y ou are able to gauge the alignment of another person - not precisely but roughly, since all alignments give off a certain aura or impression. Type ALIGNMENT and then the other person's name and you will soon learn (broadly speaking) where on the spectrum of Angelic to Diabolical he or she is rated.

Syntax: PENANCES.

As life goes on it is usual to come into contact with many cities, towns, villages and regions. Most of the interactions will conform to type but sometimes you may find you do something to upset a foreign town or earn the long-term antipathy of some opposing city-state. If you act against one of these foreign places you can expect to be declared an "enemy" and thereafter treated as such whenever you come onto enemy territory or meet enemy CCCs and NPCs.

Should you wish to try to reverse "enemy" status and restore yourself in the good graces of the city, town, village or region whose antipathy you have earned, you need to do penance. Penance is usually a deed or action or quest of extra-special benefit or sign of good faith to the place whose "enemy" status you carry. Successful penance means removal of "enemy" status and lo! you become a friend again. Typing PENANCES will tell you all the places you have "enemy" status and if known, the choice of penances you have available to regain friendship.

Syntax: PENANCE <penance name>.

Listed alongside the short description of all penances available is a word in " " marks. This single word is used for refer to the penance itself and you can use it with PENANCE <penance word> to get more info about what to do and how to do it - if any is available.

Syntax: PROMPT ALN.

This designation ALN using the prompt information system will place your current alignment (both number and level) as one of the pieces of info kept up to date as part of your game prompt. See HELP PROMPT for details on this system; type PROMPT HELP for an instant glimpse of its potential.

See HELP MOSAIC, HELP CHAPTER, HELP TYPES and HELP LEGEND for further details on character outlook and standing.