The Nine-Fold Path, Part 2: Alignment Origins in Dungeons & Dragons

This essay offers a comprehensive exploration of alignment in Dungeons & Dragons. It examines what alignment is, its purpose in the game, its meaning, and how it shapes both characters and monsters on individual and social levels.

If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to start with The Nine-Fold Path, Part 1: Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons, which covers the principles and functions of alignment. This section, Part 2, explores its origins in fantasy literature and its evolution within the game.

By R. Nelson Bailey

Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and Operation Chaos.

“The cosmos is growing ever more stagnant and disordered as its entropy expands towards the maximum. Static orderliness and random chaos are two sides of the same entropic coin, twin faces of Death.” — Against Time’s Arrow, Sandra Miesel

DDS1 The Sacred Temple of Erwadu

$17.99$16.19

Buy Now

“Ultimately, Chaos brings a more profound stagnation than anything it despises in Law. It must forever seek more and more sensation, more and more empty marvels, until there is nothing left and it has forgotten what true invention is.” — The Queen of Swords, Michael Moorcock

“Some stand apart, believing that a balance between the two is the proper state of things.” — “While the Gods Laugh,” Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock's Elric novel, Stormbringer, and A. Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage.

---

Early Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks - Chainmail, Men & Magic, and Greyhawk.

⚜ ═══════════════ ✦ ⚜ ✦ ═══════════════ ⚜