In truth, I really doubt that anyone really, truly thinks in their heart of hearts "I am evil" when actually being evil. Guilt is--at best--an afterwards condition.cure wrote:It is a deep seated suspicion of mine that to do evil on a grand scale requires the conviction that one is doing good.
I find it highly relevant that you use the word "conviction"--what is rarely pointed out is that fanaticism is inevitably at the core of large-scale evil; that is, the overwhelming belief that a particular viewpoint is correct, taken as a matter of faith so that any "proof" or "reason" to the contrary is simply ignored.
Well, I'd agree and disagree with on those points. Clearly, no large group of humanity can be casually dismissed as sociopathic en masse. The Nazis, after all, included genuine fanatics (those who believed in the philosophy and would do any act in support of it), average believers (people who believed some or most of the philosophy and would fight in support of it), patriotic Germans (that is, individuals who believed that the National Socialists offered the best chance for a strong and meaningful restored Germany and considered this more important than any qualms they may or may not have had about their philosophies or methods), people moved by mob psychology, people who disagreed but not strongly enough to make a fuss, people who disagreed but were scared to make a fuss...and that's just a general smattering off the top of my head. Obviously, any great evil that is defined by a social movement requires complex factors of time, place, and personality.It is a misreading of history to view its worst men as being sociopaths. The orchestration of grand evils is by its essence a social activity, which is to say one requiring cooperation, and hence belief. What is monstrous about the Nazis is not that they are spiders, but rather that they are human. And all too human we should add.
However, I'd strongly disagree with characterizing the leaders of any such movement as having "reasons." Simply because behavior can be explained does not mean it can be justified--regardless of the causes or perceived causes of a person's beliefs, it does not mean that a sane individual would act in that fashion. A person who is capable of saying, "Yes, my beliefs/philosophies/political ambitions/social fears enable me to order the deaths of millions" is across some line somewhere, and I would argue that if such a person cannot be considered "insane" if not precisely "sociopathic" then there is truthfully no point in defining "normalcy" at all. Something is broken there. To wit, if Trotsky had been able to win out in the political struggle, or if the complex social and economic factors that led to Naziism gaining influence in 1930s Germany had not been in place, Stalin and Hitler, personally, would still have been madmen within their own scope of insanity. They merely would not have been the historically-defined monsters that they were.
Well, apart from the "branding every one of 'em on the forehead as his personal property" thing. I admit that I'm a bit of a disadvantage here, lacking the Falkovnia Gazetteer, which may flesh things out somewhat. But everything I have read on Drakov and Falkovnia indicates that Drakov is a man utterly obsessed with the desire to rule and control. His entire character is defined by his power-lust. As a former mercenary he craves respect as a king, a leader, a great man of power. This by itself does not make him a monster--indeed, it might instead have made him Napoleon. Yet instead it is coupled with a brutal sadism and a perception that the people of Falkovnia are, essentially, mere objects for him to do with as he wishes to achieve his own ends.So return to Vlad. There is no evidence that he demands his underlings to debase themselves before him like Azalin does.
(As an aside, I'd actually point out that these two traits seem opposed to one another--a true sociopath would seem to lack sufficient empathy with his victims to be able to perceive their suffering to appreciate it on an aesthetic level. I'd suspect that Drakov's sadism is really more of an expression of his frustrated power-lust, a kind of "Look at me! See what utter and complete control I have over you! You live or die, suffer or feel relief solely at my whim!" thing.)
So let us say that he cherishes Falkovnians who distinguish themselves in their service to their country, culture, race and system through valorous feats of arms. Such men and women receive high honours at the hands of Vlad himself. They are noble warriors, fit of mind and fit of body, not the sneak thief rats of Richemulot, not the smiling, venemous waifs of Borca, not the effeminate flops of Dementlieu, not the death dealing tools of Lamordia and Darkon.
Vlad values hard work, honesty, strength, health, cooperation. Indeed he expects them of all Falkovnians. And he sees their essential enemies encircling Falkovnia. So what does he do? Break the choke hold. And what do his failures testify to? The desperate plight of virtue in a world filled with vice. The tragedy, as Vlad sees it, is that the rivers of blood so necessarily spilled in the defense of human virtue are no assurance of victory.
By all means Vlad revels in the slaughter of his wars for they are nothing less than the slaughter of the enemies of humanity. The tragedy is that he fails to realise that he is himself the enemy of the humanity that he boldly champions (or would boldly champion if he were not locked away in his land). And his curse is not really to fail as a conquerer. It is rather to fail in his quest to secure the good of his people . . . as he so mistakenly sees it.
The problem here is that "so let us say" leading off that phrase. To wit, we the players and DM's have to take the effort to change the Drakov as written to something else to make him comprehensible from a real-world perspective, to humanize him as it were. Of course, this is a thread about "possible fixes," and what you're doing is exactly that, restructuring the presently-existing Drakov and Falkovnia.
I'd especially suggest that you're doing an excellent job of fixing Falkovnia more than Drakov. One of the amazing weaknesses of the 2nd Ed. Drakov is the question of why the Falkovnians put up with this guy. At the risk of Godwin's Lawing this argument into oblivion, he's the Fuhrer (well, King-Fuhrer) but doesn't have any Nazis to lead. The real-world horror of Hitler wasn't Hitler the man, it was the nation of Germany infected by National Socialism. As currently written, the player empathizes with the common Falkovnian oppressed and brutalized by Drakov and his hawk-stepping Talons. In your revision, the common Falkovnian instead becomes part and parcel of his own oppression, and the question becomes for each individual Falkovnian how deeply has fanatical Drakovism sunk into their spirit, outweighing concerns of justice and decency (remember that the Dark Powers and their Powers Checks do apply an objective standard of good and evil to the behavior of people in Ravenloftian, freeing Falkovnia from the kind of complicated moral debates we see above).
I'd go one further and suggest that on some level, in his heart of hearts, the Drakov you describe knows that it is all a lie. That is, he's not a Falkovnian--Falkovnia exists for him, was actually created for him (one reason why, I suspect, the as-he-is-published Drakov is so cavalier with his treatment of his people; he regards them essentially as artifacts put there for him to do with as he chooses), and while all the people under him may one day feel the glory of Falkovnia uber alles as he succeeds, all his own victories will be merely dust, for he stands apart from it all in the end.
