Alignment

The following alignments are permitted for starting characters:

Lawful Good
Lawful Neutral
Lawful Evil
Neutral Good
True Neutral
Chaotic Good
Chaotic Neutral

Chaotic alignments are rare in a hyper-lawful society like Cheliax, and any chaotic characters (particularly chaotic neutral) should espouse a philosophical/political vantage point, rather than just being chaotic neutral as an excuse to act like a total nutter.

I'm going to be more strict with tracking alignment with this campaign, particularly for characters like paladins, clerics, and monks. I'm going to use an ethics/morals chart to keep track of alignment. Each axis (ethics = law/chaos, morals = good/evil) will be tracked on a 1-100 scale using the system at this link. The chart at the bottom of the link indicates coloured blocks representing varying degrees of each of the nine alignments, and grey blocks indicating transition areas between alignements. Starting characters should be in the middle of their chosen alignment. A lawful good character, for example, would be at 85 on the ethical scale and 85 on the morality scale; a neutral good character would be at 50 on the ethical scale and 85 on the morality scale, and so on.

Your character's actions during the campaign will affect his/her standing on the alignment scale. Classes with abilities tied directly to alignment will find themselves hindered if they reach the grey areas (paladins may lose their highest level ability, for example) and may lose their abilities entirely if they fall on the other side of the grey scale.

I've never been very strict with alignment before, but after completing the Savage Tide campaign I felt that implementing consequences for the many questionable decisions you were forced to make would have made for a more interesting campaign. Council of Thieves should offer up some similar ethical quandries, so we'll see how it goes.