Alignment Sucks

[Username17]

All falling happens through atonement and the Helm of Opposite Alignment. The first requires that you get a really high Diplomacy check and the second requires a failed Will save.

Both effects are Core, completely permanent, and equally accessible for the forces of Good and Evil.

Angels Fall and Demons are redeemed. It requires a 9th level Cleric or a Deva on a stick. Let me tell you, in my Pimp Shack where I do the planar bindings and the higgly jigglies, you can bet I've got myself a Deva on permanent loan. Magical Compulsion Effects can't make you sign up for atonement, but plain old Diplomacy or Intimidate totally can. Once Wayne Brady goes to town on the ladies they are any alignment I tell them to have.

Outside of Core you've got Pokemastering and the curse of crumbling conviction, both of which permanently and truly leave even outsiders with a new outlook....

-Username17

[squirrelloid]

1154991804[/unixtime]]That's an arguement I don't care to get involved in. What I'm talking about is your insistance that angels cannot fall in D&D through their own actions, and how whenever someone presents evidence for it (Eyrinies, Baalzelbub, Fallen template) you put your fingers in your ears and scream "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". Angels can clearly fall in D&D. What happens afterwards I am content to leave to you guys to figure out. All I care about right now is the falling.

You continue to insist that Angels cannot fall through their own action. Evidence has been provided otherwise. Refute it or go home, but don't keep trying to tell us that your piss poor attempt at logical legerdemain has any value.

-Desdan

You might not care to get involved, but the underlying alignment structure prohibits angels from falling through their own actions. Which suggests all examples to the contrary are people at WotC making mistakes through ignorance of the rules. Specifically:

Baalzebul is clearly not a fallen angel because he does not have the [good] subtype, and as per RAW he would if he had previously been an angel.

Most creatures that have this subtype also have good alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype

QED.

Erinyes are 'rumored' to be fallen angels, which is a load of crap since they come from Greek mythology which has no angels. The rumor has no basis in anything, and it seems to be mentioned merely because they're hot devils, and we couldnt possibly have L/E look good...? And even WotC hasn't committed themselves to it being true or not. Otherwise it would be more than just a rumor. They also fail to have the [Good] subtype.

I await an actual source for the Fallen template which i cannot seem to find in my own sourcebooks.

Draco -
Consider that the only mythology we have with fallen angels would have it as equally plausible that God wanted Satan to fall, and thus made it be so. Intervention of a deity seems to be a perfectly plausible way to change the behaviour of an [$alignment] being. Milton's version is not the only plausible version of events. Yes, we want there to be fallen angels - we have powerful magical beings who can accomodate such a change - we don't need their alignment to drift without help to have fallen angels.

Frank - I disagree that Diplomacy and similar effects should allow you to make an outsider with an [alignment] tag act in opposition to their alignment, and even a Helm of Opposite Alignment should probably fail unless it changes the very building blocks of their being from [Good] to [Evil] (Now, i'm not sure i oppose a Helm of Opposite Alignment actually doing that...). I would maintain the only way to cause an [alignment] being to change their alignment to -alignment would also necessarily change their [alignment] to [-alignment].

In other words, their alignment is submissive to their [alignment] because alignment for outerplanar outsiders follows as a consequence of [alignment], but if you can change their [alignment] their alignment necessarily follows. This should take some powerful magic. I mean, its equivalent to turning elemental Water into elemental Fire. I'm sure someone can do it, but they aren't going to do it every day before breakfast.

Now, core yes, you can get a sufficiently badass Diplomacy check and make a Solar eat babies, but this causes all the problems with the alignment rules mentioned earlier.

Ultimately, good and evil are objective forces, and [good] and [evil] beings alignment is tied to their subtype, or good and evil are meaningless concepts. The only way mortals in D+D can know objective good and evil is through the actions of outsiders - if an outsider (say a Solar) detects as both good and evil, objective good (or evil) becomes unknowable. In fact, objective good becomes impossible, because that Solar who eats babies is in fact good.

Obviously this is a place where the rules are going to multiply contradict themselves, because WotC never bothered to think about the consequences of absolute alignment. Ultimately, the solution must (1) Throw out objective alignment, the outer planes, spells which detect alignment, spell which depend on alignment, and the alignment subtypes (all of which require objective alignment) or (2) Bring the rest of the system into accord with alignment being objective. And *I dont care which one*. But you can't have both - you can't have subjectively objective alignments. Honestly, two isn't that painful if thought through, and it requires less modification of the rules.

[User3]

1154967644[/unixtime]]Saying angels can't fall because if they do, they aren't angels anymore is like saying trees cant be made into furniture because if they are, they aren't trees anymore.

Fwib, that just blew my mind.
You can't make furniture out of trees.

Also, my touchpad-based scrolling just stopped working, making this approximately twice as hard to post.

[RandomCasualty]

1154999636[/unixtime]]
Ultimately, good and evil are objective forces, and [good] and [evil] beings alignment is tied to their subtype, or good and evil are meaningless concepts. The only way mortals in D+D can know objective good and evil is through the actions of outsiders - if an outsider (say a Solar) detects as both good and evil, objective good (or evil) becomes unknowable. In fact, objective good becomes impossible, because that Solar who eats babies is in fact good.

Well, what you're talking about is flawless alignment detection. This is different from absolute alignment. Just because something "detects" as good does not make it actually good.

Good and evil dont' even have to be absolute, they could be simple tags that some things detect for and others don't. Hell, the cosmos could make mistakes sometimes and label certain things as good when they actually shouldn't be and vice versa. As far as what's detectable probably doesn't even matter much.

You're applying far too much baggage to the alignment tags. They basically just mechanically consider you good or evil or whatever, but so what? Doesn't mean you really are. Hell, a use magic device check can qualify you for alignment prereqs too. Doesn't mean you temporarily become good. Alignment detection isn't perfect, nor should it be, otherwise the world would be an incredibly boring place.

[squirrelloid]

1155003103[/unixtime]]

1154999636[/unixtime]]
Ultimately, good and evil are objective forces, and [good] and [evil] beings alignment is tied to their subtype, or good and evil are meaningless concepts. The only way mortals in D+D can know objective good and evil is through the actions of outsiders - if an outsider (say a Solar) detects as both good and evil, objective good (or evil) becomes unknowable. In fact, objective good becomes impossible, because that Solar who eats babies is in fact good.

Well, what you're talking about is flawless alignment detection. This is different from absolute alignment. Just because something "detects" as good does not make it actually good.

Good and evil dont' even have to be absolute, they could be simple tags that some things detect for and others don't. Hell, the cosmos could make mistakes sometimes and label certain things as good when they actually shouldn't be and vice versa. As far as what's detectable probably doesn't even matter much.

You're applying far too much baggage to the alignment tags. They basically just mechanically consider you good or evil or whatever, but so what? Doesn't mean you really are. Hell, a use magic device check can qualify you for alignment prereqs too. Doesn't mean you temporarily become good. Alignment detection isn't perfect, nor should it be, otherwise the world would be an incredibly boring place.

Do i really need to quote the SRD on good and evil being objective again?

And how do the outerplanes make any sense whatsoever without objective alignment?

[RandomCasualty]

1155003589[/unixtime]]
Do i really need to quote the SRD on good and evil being objective again?

And how do the outerplanes make any sense whatsoever without objective alignment?

Good and evil are objective, but alignment auras are just a game mechanic. A holy sword can still be used to kill babies, and a solar can still decide to become evil.

Good and evil are in fact about choice. If you take away the choice element, then you are no longer capable of taking good or evil actions. A robot following its programming and slaughtering innocents doesn't suddenly become evil. There is no selfishness involved, it is in fact just a pure act of obedience. Pure objectivity has never existed in D&D.

Everything is relative. It's okay for paladins to slaughter orcs, but not okay if they start killing innocent humans. If you want absolutism, then you're just going to have laws like "Thou shalt not kill". And that'd be a really boring game.

[Maj]

Erinyes are 'rumored' to be fallen angels, which is a load of crap since they come from Greek mythology which has no angels.

Um...

The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: eudaemons (also called kalodaemons) and kakodaemons, respectively. Eudaemons resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble.

The rumor has no basis in anything

It doesn't matter. In D&D, there is a creature called a medusa, and a creature called a gorgon - despite the fact that Medusa was a gorgon in actual mythology.

The fact that you can't find a real-life factual basis for a given sentence in the books means nothing. If the book says there's a rumor that Erinyes were once angels, then that means - in the D&D universe - that characters have this illusion in their heads. Now, in-game, there may or may not be justification for this idea, but dismissing an idea in the books because you don't recognize its real-life origin is silly.

I await an actual source for the Fallen template which i cannot seem to find in my own sourcebooks.

As far as my research indicates, it's not in a WotC product.

Third party sources that contain it: Legions of Hell: Book of Fiends I, Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition (3.0 & 3.5).


That being said... There are problems with the concept of absolute alignment and the concept of falling. I opt for the method by which you can keep both: mechanics to explain falling/rising/going right/going left.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Yeah, my memory must be faulty there, my research has turned up nothing on the matter.

-Desdan

[Draco_Argentum]

1154999636[/unixtime]]
Draco -
Consider that the only mythology we have with fallen angels would have it as equally plausible that God wanted Satan to fall, and thus made it be so.

God is omnipotent, He didn't just want Satan to fall he explicitly allowed it and was responsible for creating evil to fall to in the first place. He also made it so that you can't fall to fnord, only evil.

Honestly, why are we even arguing this? We all know the alignment system needs redoing anyway, who cares what exactly the current rules say.

[TarlSS]

Here's another approach I posted in the home rules forum.

Why not just do it the lazy way and keep the alignment system in it's current flawed, horrible form? And just let it degrade. People write one alignment on thier character sheet, and that's it. It doesn't change regardless of thier actions, and it only changes in accordance to thier wishes when they level.

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. NPCs work this way too. Thus, people's actions are unpredictable despite what they 'detect' as.

And there we go. Alignment as a significant mechanic just goes away. People are free to choose thier alignment despite actions, so it doesn't matter anymore. Alignment based spells can remain intact, since there isn't so much waffling about, and 'smite good' actualy becomes useful when who commit murder declare themselves as good.

Now you can have your evil angels of death and valiant heroes disguised as blackguards bringing down the corrupt system of lord paladins. All done.

[RandomCasualty]

I've never really found the big deal about alignment. I've never had a problem with it in all my time DMing or being a PC. It's one of those mechanics that's only flawed if the DM wants to be a total ball-buster with it. Besides that you probably don't care about it much.

Unless you're arguing about alignment detection, which is another story entirely which more or less screws with mystery plots and leads to detect/smite black and white paladins.

[User3]

Tarlss - Hey, if all alignment does in your game is become a way to signal red/blue/green/orange teams, great. Thats a perfectly consistent approach, it just has nothing to do with what the game says alignment is.

Maj - Erinyes still don't have the [good] descriptor, and thus are not and have never been angels.

Draco - it really doesnt matter, So God strips Satan of [Good], lets him do whatever, and appends [Evil] later. It still involves the *direct intervention of a deity*, which is some seriously wacked shit. This isn't just a random angel deciding he's going to be a little selfish today.

RC -

Good and evil are objective, but alignment auras are just a game mechanic. A holy sword can still be used to kill babies, and a solar can still decide to become evil.

Good and evil are in fact about choice. If you take away the choice element, then you are no longer capable of taking good or evil actions. A robot following its programming and slaughtering innocents doesn't suddenly become evil. There is no selfishness involved, it is in fact just a pure act of obedience. Pure objectivity has never existed in D&D.

Everything is relative. It's okay for paladins to slaughter orcs, but not okay if they start killing innocent humans. If you want absolutism, then you're just going to have laws like "Thou shalt not kill". And that'd be a really boring game.

Good and Evil are about choice for non-outerplanar natives. As are Law and Chaos. These people, such as the PCs, fall into an alignment based upon how their actions mesh with the objective standard of that alignment, as per alignments being absolute standards. There is no room for interpretation. Otherwise we have Paladins getting double-bind screwed in the ass every time they enter a L/E kingdom. If there isn't some objective standard of Law for them to swear allegiance to, and there isn't some objective standard of good, there are going to be situations in which to uphold one he must reject the other. Absolute standards make plausible Law-Chaos and Good-Evil are independent axes that interact in no way whatsoever. L/G is choosing G instead of E and L instead of C with no conflict possible between them. This is the only world in which alignment-restricted paladins make sense.

The very conception of the outerplanes is that its the platonic ideal of alignments like the inner planes are of matter. Objective Good means good isn't just an evaluation of an action, its a palpable thing that can be measured. And in the outerplanes there is stuff made of that shit. If everything is relative then you cannot have aligned planes, it makes no sense at all. The outerplanes cease to exist. Alignment-based effects cease to exist because there is no way for them to determine if they can actually target something. A question as simple as "is X good" is unanswerable if 'good' isn't measurable. Detect $alignment returns "I dont know". Blasphemy does absolutely nothing. I can change my PCs alignment 30 times per minute because the words on the paper are totally meaningless. There is no way to verify my character's alignment.

The very existence of [alignment] tags, the outerplanes, and alignment-based effects depend on alignments being objective real things. If distance is subjective, i can't target a spell with range, because i say its 15' and he says its 5000'. And we're *both right*. Similarly, if alignment isn't objective, i say he's *evil* and he says he's *good*, and we're both right. Might as well give every character the free action: change your alignment, useable at will.

Not that you can't write all that crap out of your games, but thats what you need to do if alignment is subjective.

-squirrelloid

[User3]

And you know something; this entire discussion about whether alignments are absolute or not only started because RC decided L-C defined as negative-positive entropy didn't make sense as character personality descriptors, and i said i didnt care because i was much more concerned about defining what extraplanar beings who were pure fucking law would do in a given situation, and what objective Law or Chaos meant.

I said merely that L-C as negative-positive entropy would be interesting for a world, and further postulated that it was consistent with D+D ideas of absolute alignment in a way the current L-C system is not.

-Squirrelloid "waiting around for organisms to dissolve"

[RandomCasualty]

1155073783[/unixtime]]
If everything is relative then you cannot have aligned planes, it makes no sense at all. The outerplanes cease to exist. Alignment-based effects cease to exist because there is no way for them to determine if they can actually target something. A question as simple as "is X good" is unanswerable if 'good' isn't measurable. Detect $alignment returns "I dont know". Blasphemy does absolutely nothing. I can change my PCs alignment 30 times per minute because the words on the paper are totally meaningless. There is no way to verify my character's alignment.

I'm not sure why you're so caught up on this "if it's not 100% objective, then it's meaningless" rant.

Good and evil aren't absolute concepts. If you expect an RPG to somehow tell you exactly what good and evil are without human judgment, then you're expecting way too much. Even expert moral philosophers cannot agree on what good and evil is, and yet you want Monte Cook to be able to tell you? Um... no dude. That's all I can say. It ain't happening.

In an RPG, an alignment is some tag that's attached to a creature based on how the universe (aka the DM) sees their actions. You can indeed "verify" that tag by having someone cast detect evil on you or whatever. Now, you may not agree that you're worthy of that tag, but that's still how the game treats you.

The very existence of [alignment] tags, the outerplanes, and alignment-based effects depend on alignments being objective real things. If distance is subjective, i can't target a spell with range, because i say its 15' and he says its 5000'. And we're *both right*. Similarly, if alignment isn't objective, i say he's *evil* and he says he's *good*, and we're both right. Might as well give every character the free action: change your alignment, useable at will.

No, you can't. Alignment is a tag like any other tag (like [elf]). You have it if the stat block says you do. And that's pretty objective. The game either considers you evil or it doesn't based on what your alignment stat says you are. That's about as objective as you can get.

Now, what is subjective is how alignment actually changes. What it takes to make you go from good to evil or lawful to chaotic is DM fiat. I don't really think we'll be able to design a system better than that either, because morality is ultimately a human concept, and trying to make a codified system for it will only lead to crap you don't want that will be worse than simple DM fiat.

Now I think being able to change your alignment by your actions is generally a good mechanic to have in the game, but if you wanted you could have a weird static alignment system, where angels can go around murdering babies and still stay lawful good aligned. You could do that too.

The idea however is that if you're going to go along defining certain actions as good and certain actions as evil, then free will pretty much has to exist in your system to actually change people's alignments. That being said, I don't think it's possible to objectively define what a good or evil action is without being so oversimplistic as to lose the generic definition of good and evil.

[User3]

1155074438[/unixtime]]

1155073783[/unixtime]]
If everything is relative then you cannot have aligned planes, it makes no sense at all. The outerplanes cease to exist. Alignment-based effects cease to exist because there is no way for them to determine if they can actually target something. A question as simple as "is X good" is unanswerable if 'good' isn't measurable. Detect $alignment returns "I dont know". Blasphemy does absolutely nothing. I can change my PCs alignment 30 times per minute because the words on the paper are totally meaningless. There is no way to verify my character's alignment.

I'm not sure why you're so caught up on this "if it's not 100% objective, then it's meaningless" rant.

Good and evil aren't absolute concepts. If you expect an RPG to somehow tell you exactly what good and evil are without human judgment, then you're expecting way too much. Even expert moral philosophers cannot agree on what good and evil is, and yet you want Monte Cook to be able to tell you? Um... no dude. That's all I can say. It ain't happening.

In an RPG, an alignment is some tag that's attached to a creature based on how the universe (aka the DM) sees their actions. You can indeed "verify" that tag by having someone cast detect evil on you or whatever. Now, you may not agree that you're worthy of that tag, but that's still how the game treats you.

The very existence of [alignment] tags, the outerplanes, and alignment-based effects depend on alignments being objective real things. If distance is subjective, i can't target a spell with range, because i say its 15' and he says its 5000'. And we're *both right*. Similarly, if alignment isn't objective, i say he's *evil* and he says he's *good*, and we're both right. Might as well give every character the free action: change your alignment, useable at will.

No, you can't. Alignment is a tag like any other tag (like [elf]). You have it if the stat block says you do. And that's pretty objective. The game either considers you evil or it doesn't based on what your alignment stat says you are. That's about as objective as you can get.

Now, what is subjective is how alignment actually changes. What it takes to make you go from good to evil or lawful to chaotic is DM fiat. I don't really think we'll be able to design a system better than that either, because morality is ultimately a human concept, and trying to make a codified system for it will only lead to crap you don't want that will be worse than simple DM fiat.

I'm not asking D+D to decide the 'one true answer' to morality, i'm merely asking that a given campaign world provide its standard of morality. We can all pretend that being good in that campaign world means what that standard says it does, regardless of our personal opinions.

And i expect any campaign world which logically demands absolute alignment to tell me what its idea of those alignments is. Eg, the Nine Hells is literally Lawful and Evil. What the fuck does that mean if alignment isn't absolute. Because thats a pretty absolute statement, and its made about a *place* which can take no action whatsoever.

I expect beings of pure alignment to act in ways totally alien to PCs. Thats good for the game. People aren't cut out to be pure good or pure evil. (Just like they aren't cut out to be dedicated to increasing or reducing entropy). But those guys on the outerplanes are. They're totally alien. They're not just people who look like monsters. They should be more inscrutable than Mindflayers.

Because ultimately the D+D universe says that alignment is objective. That there are outerplanes which are the physical embodiments of these objectives, and that there are beings who live there that live, breathe, eat, shit, and are incarnate avatars of these objective alignments. People can choose to adhere to the principles of the alignments to a limited degree, and it will be a poor showing but at least they tried. These outerplanar dudes are the real deal - perfect in their ... dedication is the wrong word ... representation of their alignment's ideals. A Solar is literally a Good elemental. You know, like a Fire elemental, except made of pure Good.

If you want subjective alignment and extant outerplanes, i want to hear a justification for the existence of planes that are somehow aligned to subjective standards.

Heck, objective alignment doesnt even prohibit people from having subjective morality. The universe might say they're wrong, but that doesnt stop people from believing things in reality (re: anti-evolutionists, flat earthers, etc...), so why should it stop people in a campaign world. Maybe the fundamental cosmic laws are mutable if the PCs get awesome enough, and they can go beat the outerplanes with awesome and make Good be what they want it to be. I don't know, what i do know is that the outerplanes themselves are the very embodiment of objective alignments, and make no sense outside that box.

-squirrelloid

[RandomCasualty]

1155075659[/unixtime]]
I'm not asking D+D to decide the 'one true answer' to morality, i'm merely asking that a given campaign world provide its standard of morality. We can all pretend that being good in that campaign world means what that standard says it does, regardless of our personal opinions.

But you are asking for it to give some kind of unambiguous definition to good and evil, something that somehow all minds playing the game can universally agree on. The only way you can do this is with a straight up rigid code. So if you want to base your entire campaign on the ten commandments for instance, then maybe you can get a fixed point of good and evil. However, doing things by rigid codes tends to have quite a bit of loopholes and even then requires some interpretation, much as a judge has to interpret the law.

I don't think a decent unambiguous definition of good or evil is even possible, as the topics are so vague that different people are going to consider one act good and one act evil and have different arguments for it. Overall it really is best handled by a DM with a "don't be an alignment dick." guideline.

And i expect any campaign world which logically demands absolute alignment to tell me what its idea of those alignments is. Eg, the Nine Hells is literally Lawful and Evil. What the fvck does that mean if alignment isn't absolute. Because thats a pretty absolute statement, and its made about a *place* which can take no action whatsoever.

Well, all you have to know about the nine hells is that Lawful evil people go there when they die. That's it. We already know what lawful people are, it's just an alignment descriptor. There really isn't any need to try to go farther than that and have every stone in the nine hells be lawful evil. After all, every weapon forged there isn't axiomatic unholy, so why are we even trying to go too deep with the alignment of the plane. It has alignment based planar traits and lawful evil people go there when they die. It's also populated by lawful evil devils. That's really all we need to know and all we should care about.

I expect beings of pure alignment to act in ways totally alien to PCs. Thats good for the game. People aren't cut out to be pure good or pure evil. (Just like they aren't cut out to be dedicated to increasing or reducing entropy). But those guys on the outerplanes are. They're totally alien. They're not just people who look like monsters. They should be more inscrutable than Mindflayers.

But, here's the catch. Those guys were once humans. Most outsiders on the planes started as human (or elven or whatever) souls, became petitioners and gradually worked their way up to pit fiend or solar or slaad lord.

It's also very difficult to have a DM roleplay these alien beings, because if he himself cannot understand absolute good, then how is he expected to play out an angel? It just doesn't work. Even supposedly alien creatures like mind flayers have basic motivations that a DM can understand (like finding brains and slaves, and of course, basic survival). After all, you're not doing your DM any favors if you say "this creature is an embodiment of absolute good, something no mortal can truly understand. Now go try to roleplay it."

Since we are humans playing this game, everything needs to be in some way human playable, or it has to be so incomprehensible that it can take *any* action and have it be justified.

These outerplanar dudes are the real deal - perfect in their ... dedication is the wrong word ... representation of their alignment's ideals. A Solar is literally a Good elemental. You know, like a Fire elemental, except made of pure Good.

Well, I don't believe there is even a such thing as perfection in D&D. There is always some big badder dude who is supposedly a stronger personification of whatever it is you're dealing with. I mean, even solars tend to serve deities (who must then be an even bigger personification of good), only most deities tend to have human like flaws from time to time.

I suggest that you simply think of solars as paladins who got really cool outsider status. It's a lot easier than trying to imagine the incomprehensible "ultimate good" that no mortal being could ever understand yet a DM must try to roleplay. You're not making the game any better by doing that.

what i do know is that the outerplanes themselves are the very embodiment of objective alignments, and make no sense outside that box.

Again, I think you're getting too wrapped up in this.

Mechanically they're just the place you go when you're a given alignment, the place certain gods live and the source of certain types of outsiders. They tend to have a lot of beings of that alignment as well, but that's it. Nothing about Celestia says that a solar can't simply become Neutral good instead of LG, the same as nothing says that a chaotic evil cleric can't plane shift there.

Seriously. Most of the planar crap is just flavor text. Yeah, Celestia is the embodiment of good, but only because all the people of good alignment get drawn there when they die. And well, when 99%+ of your population is good, then you build a community of goodness.

[Maj]

Erinyes still don't have the [good] descriptor, and thus are not and have never been angels.

It doesn't matter. Characters who live in the D&D universe think they might be.

And that's my point: No matter what happens out of game, be it in game mechanics or real-life mythology, there are "people" who live in the D&D universe who believe that Erinyes were angels. Whether they're correct or not is irrelevant to the discussion.

It also means that regardless of whether or not there are mechanics in place to allow angels to fall, people who live in the D&D universe believe that somehow, it's actually possible.

You can either spank them for believing it, or you can write mechanics to actually make it possible. As I said before, I recognize there's a conflict of mechanics/flavor text, and I prefer the mythological possibility of angels being able to fall (and devils rise, and modrons go right, and slaad shifting left), so we created mechanics that allow it, rather than spanking those characters who believe in the impossible.

[Fwib]

Besides, the Ritual of Alignment can add or remove alignment subtypes.