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I apologize if this conversation has already come up, but if it has I've not seen it discussed. My long time players Cody and Zach have both had pretty long Bible Study conversations with me about this general question...

How do you use Persians in a game that strictly divides good and evil?

Note: If you're in a hurry, skip to the next bold heading, otherwise here's some food for thought...

By nature of the game, there are several "evil" characters who are allied such because of their cultural brigade (i.e. the Syrians were enemies of the people of God). But the waters get murky with Persia. The ones released have been those easy to align...

Easy-Peasy-Alignment
We can confidently call Haman, essentially a pre-nazi, an evil person, along with his wife Zeresh and their plot. Persian Presidents, at least the ones from Daniel 6, plotted against Daniel and tricked the King into signing a Decree against those who Set Aside time to worship. The Prince of Persia appears describe a sort of regal and regional demon (Eph 6:12).
Finally the remaining characters are aligned to evil because of their descriptions as beasts (beast->demon->evil). Some future easy ECS would be Haman's Sons (Esther 9:7-10), Bigthana and Teresh (Esther 2:21), and Impaling Rod (read Esther sometime, Persians loved them some shish kabob!).

Not-So-Easy-Alignment
But what do we make of various Kings of Persia? Some of their contributions included...
...sending the exiles (Ezra 1:2-4) with articles and treasure to rebuild their city
...stopping construction in Jerusalem (Ezra 4:23-24) when finding that Israel/Judah had a history of "rebellion and sedition"
...the original decree (Ezra 6:2-3), found later, read... approval for reconstruct given (dizzy yet?)
...allowing Nehemiah (Neh 2:7-9) to work toward the reconstruction of Jerusalem's walls
...gave permission (signet ring'ed) for the annihilation of the Jews
...gave the Jews permission to resist the (above) attack and take their plunder

Here are some options (I know you all will think of more, that's why I love this group!)
1) We can simply align Persians as brown and emphasize the "resistant" side of Persia's works
2) We can split up Persian cards (like Kings of Israel) between Purple and Brown based on their characteristics
3) We can pull a "King Saul" trick and print those 'hard-to-align' Kings into both brigades.
4) Dual-sided cards that enter play as Hero/EC per Angry Mob rotation? 

What do you think of these options? What are some other options?

I think that, based of previous Redemption cards, the Persians would be all evil. I'm not saying I agree - in fact, I think that some of the evil characters should be good (namely, Dreaming Pharaoh).

I think that there are many characters that should start evil and turn good on a condition or start good and turn evil.

Quote from: Drrek on November 16, 2011, 09:27:26 PM

I think that there are many characters that should start evil and turn good on a condition or start good and turn evil.

I think that this would make the game much more accurate, if not extremely complicated

Quote from: Drrek on November 16, 2011, 09:27:26 PM

I think that there are many characters that should start evil and turn good on a condition or start good and turn evil.

.  The Dreaming Pharaoh could be one that becomes a Hero if Joseph is in play, for example.  Also, I think that there should be some cards that start as lost souls and become heroes. 

These 2 particular Persians seem like they should be heroes.

Quite honestly, there's the entire possibility of dual-sided cards.

As in, both sides (front and back) are used.  Not Saul/Paul.  This'd allow for more detail on SA and art.

MTG managed it quite fine with their latest set.