but Saladrax IS NOT A ROUGE DRAGON. he is evil. Its a simple bit of magic to find that out.
yup. better kill de'Arnise Keep's major domo while you're at it.
Evil doesn't mean runing though the streets seting kids and small animals on fire. Quite a few mass murderers were nice guys aside from the fact they killed people.
and? a
dragon[/b] being condescending and haughty to a small group of humanoids (about whom he admittedly doesn't know much, if he thinks they're absolutely no match for him) is not by definition evil, certainly not actively so. saladrex is not a nice guy, despite the fact that he may eat a lot of githyanki and/or illithids that might otherwise give Our Party a lot more trouble. but since this is basically about paladins taking a hit for making a morally unprovoked attacked on a nonhostile, not-clearly-or-obviously-actively-evil red dragon: if saladrex has renounced evil (or just doesn't care about it at all), he's not obligated to tell you just because you're a paladin. i don't think it's supposed to be obvious one way or the other. but he's apparently not a threat to anything except githyanki and mind flayers (or captured mind flayers, i suppose, considering his location). (and anybody else who's made it past that many levels of a dungeon as wiggy as WK, i seriously doubt qualifies as "innocents led to the slaughter".)
i agree that virtue should consider allowing for the 'Cavalier Calling', but only if Oversight is not in use.
personal extra tuppence = detect evil is a flimsy device that should at least have a more detailed description/effect. "you know that this is or isn't their alignment group", in other words "this is how they can be
expected to behave in a purely
instinctive scenario" (if they test positive). someone who registers as good or neutral with
know alignment could still commit an evil act, but that would be a surprise, right? the only real difference with detecting evil intent/tendency is that you can expect/wait for it to happen. but with saladrex, it doesn't happen. he's not even arrogant enough to be successfully taunted. (this is where the spells
taunt or
blood/animal rage would have fun application.)
I'd guess Saladrax eats the mind flayers and Githyanki the mad mage summons.
that's a lot of githyanki and mind flayers.
i haven't read up on their ecology, but i have doubts that astral-heavy critters like gith are particularly substantial eatin'.
someone should write a book on Who[m] Eats Who[m]? what limited diets certain omnivores will settle for in lean times, and so on.
actually, there's probably some kind of hibernation deal i'm forgetting about - gold dragons eat gems that tide them over for some time (if not exclusively - is it the older they get, caedwyr, or from birth?), i can't remember if reds can snack on their hoard or something...
The rare and almost unique good chromatic dragon would not behave in the manor that Saladrax does. If he was good I'd expect him to behave more like Adalon the silver dragon from the underdark.
would not. okay, thank you, Arbiter.
there has not been a single suggestion that saladrex is or even might be good. Oversight makes him CN if i'm not mistaken. which would be a completely reasonable decision, considering that saladrex doesn't behave like a typical red, apart from being arrogant/proud (which is pretty much #1 on the Things All Core Chromatics And Metallics Have In Common, or tied with Some Kind of Breath Weapon). especially considering the extreme likelihood that the party is carrying a hefty load of valuable treasure.
and adalon has become cynical - not at all typical for metallics, that i can recall - yet another candidate for roguehood.