So I’m creating a character and I’d like some varying opinions on matters. (They’re to be used in DND but also any story telling medium)
Introduction, backstory: The concept of the character is that they are “birthed” by another character of mine I currently call the Geneticist. In a standard fantasy world, the Geneticist comes from a hyper evolved civilization of elves who decided to focus on innovating their understanding of magic and the material world into sciences, instead of settling into old traditions. The Geneticist is an equivalent pre/post doc in his studies which are, obviously, genetics and biochemistry and has developed the technology which could incorporate the genetic material of other beings into his own to do wild shit. However the “elders” say the work is too risky and while theoretically possible they shouldn’t test it as no one would/should agree. Now the Geneticist is unhappy with this but does respect the free will of other’s to participate or not.
This leads to the Geneticist leaving the society to pursue his research. Adventures and development occur and frankly I love this character so much by themselves I should make another post about them….Moving on to the current topic though—
Later in life, the Geneticist works on a project to create a new sentient being. Using mushrooms (cause they’re so perfectly odd and unique), the Geneticist designs and specializes various types of fungi to act as different organs and tissues and Frankensteins this new being into existence. I really like the themes of Frankenstein and wish to parallel them, however where Victor Frankenstein abandons his Creation and is frankly unable to handle the situation at all, the Geneticist persists. Because they wanted this and they must see the experiment through to its very end.
Again, I have not worked out a name but for the sake of being coherent I’ll refer to the creature as Fung-I (cause why not).
I have details as to physical appearance and personality vaguely worked out. Those details are not the topic I’m focusing on though I’d love questions to be asked about literally anything about this concept!!! If not serious though at least make it funny.
My issue is free will and motivations. See I have a Catholic perspective of free will and have about two definitions which are (very basically) “choosing to follow God’s will, or not” and “being able to choose between two good/bad/evil options”. But here’s the thing, Fung-I’s closest thing to God as a creator is the Geneticist and the definitions of “good” and “bad” can be extremely subjective and are usually based upon what a person grew up learning. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, to my understanding, does not elaborate on good/bad/evil and speaks more to developing thought out understandings of morality up to defining “objective moral truths”.
See, this is an issue because the purpose of the project of the Genticist was not only to make a completely new complex creature but also to see how it integrates into the ecosystems. They wanted to make the passive decomposer (fungi) to be active. In a way they created a new predator and wished to see how it handled itself. And so they designed it to be humanoid because (in most fantasy though not all) humanoids are the most sentient. They designed Fung-I to be vibrant because they hypothesized it would attract before it repelled. The Geneticist imbued a their creation with charged evolutionary abilities to always adapt and be the next step (not only to improve themselves but also cause the rest of nature to have to adapt in tandem.)
So this is the motivations the Geneticist, the creator, has and teaches to Fung-I. But now we are at free will and how that affects the personality, morality, and development of the character. More importantly, what is it the allows a rational being to have free will versus a “common animal”? Which, in the real world, we observe to be as intelligent as small children.
Please feel free to ask questions to help develop your and my ideas. Feel free to contribute in any other way as well though if it is not serious or on topic at least make it funny.