Black Dragons. Evil?

I'm assuming that Black Dragons are inherently evil. Would their eggs detect as evil?

Well now you are treading on the line of when does life begin.

Depending on how you define that is how your question should be answered.

If life begins at conception then yes, if life begins at birth then no.

irdeggman said:

Well now you are treading on the line of when does life begin.
Depending on how you define that is how your question should be answered.
If life begins at conception then yes, if life begins at birth then no.

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Even though I concede that you've answered that particular philosophical question as profound as possible, I'd like to rebutt that laying the eggs in the first place was an inherent evil act of an inherent evil being to serve to propagate inherent evil and the eggs could theoretically be detected as a lingering aura of evil.

Kind regards

And in contrast an evil wizard who creates a +2 longsword. The sword would not radiate evil.

If on the other hand it was intelligent it would have an alignment and would thus radiate evil. Remember that alignment is the key now not intentions.

Check the table under the spell. So which one would the act was evil fall under?

And evil item is one that has an alignment of evil and an evil spell is one that has the Evil descriptor.

The auras fall under:

Evil creature
Undead
Evil outsider
cleric of an evil deity
Evil magic item or spell

well there is, for once, the fact, that it can have a lingering evil aura, if it has long been near to an incredibly evil creature or it was long in an incredibly evil place... (but then - the whole place would be evil and you couldn't pinpoint the eggs inside).

next is the big question - if the creature inside of the egg could (wouldn't be inside it's egg), would it then do evil acts (and it doesn't matter if it knows what evil is or not).

If you found an orc baby and raise it as your own... I do think it wouldn't be evil... can't you do the same to a baby dragon? Well - in the alignment for the dragon it says "Allways chaotic evil". The orc is only "often chaotic evil". Therefore, if you take this by the word I would say yes, the black dragon is evil from the beginning. If you would give it a small chance, that the creature might be turned from evil... then I would say No - the dragonegg is not evil in itself.

About that part that it has to do with when you decide that it is a living/thinking creature or not... I don't think this has anything todo with it - it's just if chromatic dragons are inheritly allways ever total evil or if there might be a very little small tiny chance that one might not be... your decision...IMO

Gwaihir said:

I'm assuming that Black Dragons are inherently evil. Would their eggs detect as evil?

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Only if you cook them with an intelligently evil frying pan.

Azalnubizar said:

About that part that it has to do with when you decide that it is a living/thinking creature or not... I don't think this has anything todo with it - it's just if chromatic dragons are inheritly allways ever total evil or if there might be a very little small tiny chance that one might not be... your decision...IMO

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My point was that if it is not alive then it is an item without an alignment. That was why I brought it up.

Now based on the spell description - how would one detect an "evil place"?

Places don't have alignments. Planes do, but they are special.

Only items with alignments radiate evil per the spell description (detect evil).

If you look in the Draconomicon it says that the eggs become sentient quite a while before they are hatched I believe. I'd say once they "turn on" they'd radiate an evil aura.

The black dragons eggs radiate just the cutest darn evil aura you've ever seen!

Like any other living being IMC I say the eggs are alive from conception and since pure breed Black dragons are always evil, the eggs detect as evil. As such they do not count as innocent. An evil momma dragon should do her darnedest to keep paladins away from her eggs.

irdeggman said:

.Now based on the spell description - how would one detect an "evil place"?

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You use detect evil in a really bad place. Instead of just criss-crossing lingering auras, the land and air themselves bear the taint of wickedness. As for what could cause this blasphemy, since you can cast Detect Evil, it is probably your job to find out!

...unless of yource you are playing in Eberron...then all bets are off...