This scroll was found amidst some ruins in the Barony of Dun Valley. It is an interesting lecture, in that it explains the psychology of the evil personality. I felt that it was appropriate to post its contents here given that there are quite a few of you out there that need its guidance. From examining the other scrolls found with this one, it appears that this was a lecture that Zh'risia received from a Tsol'teth Overlord before the invasion of Sapience on the 1st of Sarapin, 258 AF. Although it is rather long, it is extremely insightful. Some of you "Evil Surface Dwellers" would do well to heed its lessons.

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This isn't really a lecture on how to pillage, raze or kidnap. You won't find any information here about what to hunt when you first enter the Surface World. It isn't quite a lecture on how to be evil, either. That's a matter of personal style. No, this is more a guide on how the evil surface dwellers THINK.

Aye, this article is long. Yes, it is almost all personal opinions. If you don't care how evil, ruthless and nefarious surface dwellers think (and you should), or aren't the least bit confused about it, don't listen to the entire lecture. If you are like a lot of Tsol'Teth, however, and there are a ton of questions in your mind about how that surface scum behave and think, then hopefully you will find some answers here.

I find that most surface dwellers and yes even we Tsol'teths have three types of attitudes. There are some that just want to "play" the game of life, and have no interest in interacting with others on any level higher than "team play", and Tsol'teth are no different. Fine by me. Stay out of my way and have fun.

Then, of course, there are those who want to LIVE, and try to be evil or good or neutral as befits their personal philosophy of life. An admirable goal.

But there is also the type of surface dweller unique to the evil persona. They might say they are evil and they sometimes act like they are. What is really happening, however, is that they want to be [Real World] nasty, and they think that being evil gives them an [in-game] excuse, because that's the way that an evil villain is "supposed" to act. That's "EVIL", right?

The real problem is that sometimes you can't tell the difference between the second and third types of surface dwellers. Sometimes Good surface dwellers think that Evil surface dwellers act the same way as the surface dwellers who are just being [Real World] mean. This isn't surprising, since the realities of life [game background] tend to be darned hard to reconcile with good sense. How, exactly, do those surface dwellers worship a god of evil or a god of darkness or a god of war, and why would they? How does anyone get anything done with all that hating and fighting going on? Good questions.

This is slightly off the subject, but I need to get it out of the way first. I lot of planes we Tsol'teth have conquered tend to boil the eternal struggle between good and evil down to something called the "light" versus the "dark". It gets to a point where one side isn't really any more "good" or "evil" than the other, its more like whether you decide to play black or white in a game of King's Chess. This, at the risk of offending the other Overlords, is lame.

The struggle between good and evil on the plane we are about to conquer is certainly not such a wishy-washy, indistinct matter at least not to Gods of that World. Some of the Gods are petty. Some of them feel that if He or She can't have the world to Him or Herself, then no other God can have it. It will be destroyed, and along the way the children of the other gods, and perhaps the gods themselves, will be made miserable.

This is the motivation of a majority of the inhabitants of the evil city of Ashtan. These surface dwellers are an embodiment of their god's will, and live for no other reason than the achievement of this goal. Needless to say this makes them rather unpopular with the surface dwellers of Shallam. Hardly a mere theoretical controversy, is it? Luckily, we Tsol'teth suffer no such conflict amongst ourselves. Our Gods are united and strong in their goal to conquer the rest of existence and so are we. Now back to the subject.

The first big question that springs to mind is, "Why DO they continue to worship these evil gods?" Simple question. It has a very simple answer: THEY NO LONGER HAVE A CHOICE!

Evil surface dwellers are not like the Good surface dwellers. Evil surface dwellers do not have free will. This is very important. Surface dwellers that follow other gods may or may not have free will, but this was TAKEN from Evil Surface dwellers. Evil surface dwellers do not choose between right and wrong like Good surface dwellers.

None of the surface dwellers ever think to themselves, "Gee, I wonder if there are any demons like Azmodai that have decided to be good." That would be unthinkable. A demon CAN'T be "good". It doesn't even know what "good" is. The same is sadly true for most of the evil people in the city of Ashtan (We shall use this to our advantage when we begin our invasion). Now, this does not mean that there are not Evil Surface dwellers that have turned away from evil and tried to live a good life, but more on that later.

So Evil Surface Dwellers MUST obey their god. What does that mean, do they hate everyone? Yes, in a way, but they don't necessarily always act like it. Overt nastiness is the very lowest form of evil.

So then the next question is what the heck is evil? Not such a dumb question. What is evil depends on the surface dweller's viewpoint. Surface dwellers usually define evil as whatever is directly opposed to the well being of their particular group. If they are human, whatever is against the continued existence of humans is pretty evil to them. Humans probably seem pretty evil to say... termites. Interestingly enough, truly evil surface dwellers rarely think of THEMSELVES that way. The Surface Dwellers of Hashan who tore down the Ithmian Forests didn't do it because they are nasty and like to hurt trees. They think they are helping their city by clearing cropland. (Well, and maybe making a buck in the process. True evil is often quite selfish.)

So, does that mean that evil surface dwellers think that they are right in wanting to destroy the world, and that its actually all the good surface dwellers that are "evil"? Well, it would, but the great tragedy is that it doesn't.

You see, evil surface dwellers didn't start out as pure creations of the Evil Gods (obviously). They aren't demons. They started out as perfectly fine surface dwellers, tied to no god. Maybe the Evil Gods couldn't completely destroy the original spirit that Lord Sarapis placed in them, or maybe in Their pettiness They thought it would be more fun to leave just a trace. Either way, on some very deep level, evil surface dwellers KNOW they are evil. They hate themselves. This is very important to thinking like an evil surface dweller. The other important thing is THEY DON'T EVER MENTION THIS OUT LOUD!

Okay, practical exercise time. Think about yourself. Think about that fact about yourself that you really hate (everyone has one). That thing that is so disappointing to you about yourself that you bury it deep down inside and never think about it. Now imagine dwelling on that fact every day of your life. That is how an evil surface dweller lives; knowing how flawed he is. Now, this fact about yourself, would you ever talk about it to anyone else?

To a total stranger? To your brother or sister? I didn't think so. If someone else called it to your attention, wouldn't you even get really defensive about it and deny it adamantly, even getting rather violent if they pushed? (Be honest, I can't hear you anyway.)

This is also the explanation behind those very few formerly evil surface dwellers that want to be "good". They are VERY rare, of course, and they are essentially flawed (in the eyes of the Evil Gods, that is). These individuals have more of the original spirit in them than they should have, and are pulled closer to Good and farther from Evil because of it. It's a hard path to follow something like being neutral, only worse. Nobody is really going to ever accept you. (I hope to the Great Gods of the Tsol'Teth that I don't see EVERY other evil surface dweller trying to be good. It's just so unoriginal. If those surface dwellers want to be good surface dwellers, consider starting over from scratch.)

Now we know the basis of the legendary arrogance of evil surface dwellers: they hate themselves. They are flawed and they know it, they are wrong and they know it, but Heaven forbid anyone ELSE say so. Firstly good surface dwellers are almost always mistaken about WHY evil surface dwellers are wrong, and the more correct they are, the more it annoys an evil person to hear it.

Followers of the Good surface dwelling gods are worst of all. They remind the evil surface dwellers of what they SHOULD have been. They must die so the evil surface dwellers don't have to look at them.

Evil surface dwellers are arrogant because they are never truly happy. They are also rather wild for the same reason. Some of us Tsol'teth drink too much, take drugs, and participate in other rather promiscuous activities just because we are trying to forget how darned unhappy we are. Evil surface dwellers are like this to an extreme. Their culture is full of dark "pleasures" which are just futile attempts to relieve the pain of existing.

Remember, evil surface dwellers don't EVER admit any of these feelings to themselves or anyone else.

Okay, so now we are thinking like an evil surface dweller (painful, isn't it?) So what do they do now? How do they ACT? Well, the first thing to remember is that they are NOT nasty and hateful to other evil surface dwellers. Oh, sure, they hate each other deep down inside just as they despise their individual selves, but its against the will of their gods to fight amongst themselves. The Good surface dwellers are against them and that's plenty.

The most evil societies are always the most oppressive. The perfect example of how evil surface dwellers should live is ants. Yes, I said ants. The ant society is very structured. It has a Queen, workers, soldiers, etc. No ant would dare deny their purpose in life and do something else. It wouldn't be right. This sort of background is good, because it explains a Divine Truth [game mechanic]. It explains why I as a priest can't suddenly decide to learn occultist magic and still retain knowledge of my priestly skills, and why a Paladin can't suddenly start doing the same thing. We all have our tasks in life. Their Evil Gods chose them for them when they gave away their free will, and that is what they must do.

So Evil Surface dwellers help out their Brothers and Sisters, but what about those good surface dwellers, and those "neutral" surface dwellers?

The important thing to remember about dealing with good and neutral surface dwellers is to know the difference between being evil to a person's [character], and being evil to the person's [player]. Don't be [Real World] mean. We Tsol'teth are all trying to have fun. Being an evil surface dweller is no excuse to be a nasty [player].

Keep yourself separate from those surface dwellers. The evil surface dwellers can think that Evil Societies are perfect, but YOU need to remember that they aren't, and that although Evil Surface Dweller's purpose in life is destruction, YOUR purpose in the invasion is to provide a fun opponent for all the "good" and "evil" surface dwellers.

I can't really tell you how to BE evil Tsol'teth Overlord, I'm afraid. I can only tell you that it IS possible to do it and not be hateful to the surface dwellers. I know that I am certainly hard to like, and have few "friends" outside of my race. How to do this is impossible to explain, but I suspect that most Tsol'teth out there know the difference between right and wrong. It shouldn't be hard to figure out.

Well, you may disagree with everything I said here. That wouldn't be bad, because it would mean that you have come up with something that you think is better. In that case, you didn't need to be listening to this anyway, did you? To everyone else, I hope that this helps you mount a successful invasion that you can have fun orchestrating and the surface dwellers can have fun fighting against. Being an evil Tsol'teth Overlord is great, don't sell them short.

Conquer all the surface dwellers and teach them what TRUE evil is!

Penned by my hand on the 11th of Mayan, in the year 271 AF.