Daedrova
First Post
Have you ever wondered about the morality of slaying the Terrasque? To my surprise, this issue came up during a D&D session I was playing in last night.
I know many may not have had the chance to face off against the infamous creature… but has this issue even arisen in anyone’s mind?
What happened to bring this up goes as follows: Our party had learned that an artifact sought was in the possession of some foolish young adventurer when he was consumed by the Terrasque some years ago.
A friend of this unfortunate monster snack witnessed the occurrence and actually followed the beast for some days (at minimal safe distance) and watched it eventually wade into the sea. There he saw some robe figure also observing the creature, and made a note of where this suspicious fellow went (a hidden entrance in a cliff face near the sea) but never found the courage to investigate further.
When we found that he had information on this artifact, he divulged all the previous information on us, and led us to that place. We made our way into the hidden entrance, and through quite the treacherous dungeon which led us miles below the surface. Finally we came to the resting form of the colossal Terrasque.
Now, from being the learned (30th level prolific) characters that we are, my thought was to slay the beast so he could no longer bring such suffering and destruction to the world… we were down one player this session, so there were three of us. The other two were a CN female Elven Rogue (30) who has been a friend of my character since there elven youths, the other a CN female Halfling Wizard (30). My character is a CN male Elven Ranger/Fighter.
When I drew my weapons to attack the sleeping menace I was the immediate target of disdain from both the other characters… I was suddenly being accused of “murder” and being “dishonorable” for such an action. I explained my intent (above) quite reasonably and they accused me of some type of meta-gaming… “oh, how do you know about this creature?”
A quick question of the DM confirmed that when he first mentioned “Terrasque” it was under the assumption that our (very experienced and learned) characters did indeed know of this creature.
Oh, some of the statements were as follows:
“the creature is no more intelligent than an animal, I am not going to kill an innocent creature.”
“It is not like it is currently hurting anyone, it would be like kicking a Doberman Pincer because you know it is a mean dog and may bite someone someday”
After a bit of an argument, when I told them that I would proceed and that their arguments seemed extremely unreasonable, they left me to face the beast, scoffing and making comments such as “good luck [sarcastically], hope it doesn’t hurt too bad when it eats you.”
This from long time friends?
Was my action wrong? Were they justified to leave me to face such a danger alone?
I know many may not have had the chance to face off against the infamous creature… but has this issue even arisen in anyone’s mind?
What happened to bring this up goes as follows: Our party had learned that an artifact sought was in the possession of some foolish young adventurer when he was consumed by the Terrasque some years ago.
A friend of this unfortunate monster snack witnessed the occurrence and actually followed the beast for some days (at minimal safe distance) and watched it eventually wade into the sea. There he saw some robe figure also observing the creature, and made a note of where this suspicious fellow went (a hidden entrance in a cliff face near the sea) but never found the courage to investigate further.
When we found that he had information on this artifact, he divulged all the previous information on us, and led us to that place. We made our way into the hidden entrance, and through quite the treacherous dungeon which led us miles below the surface. Finally we came to the resting form of the colossal Terrasque.
Now, from being the learned (30th level prolific) characters that we are, my thought was to slay the beast so he could no longer bring such suffering and destruction to the world… we were down one player this session, so there were three of us. The other two were a CN female Elven Rogue (30) who has been a friend of my character since there elven youths, the other a CN female Halfling Wizard (30). My character is a CN male Elven Ranger/Fighter.
When I drew my weapons to attack the sleeping menace I was the immediate target of disdain from both the other characters… I was suddenly being accused of “murder” and being “dishonorable” for such an action. I explained my intent (above) quite reasonably and they accused me of some type of meta-gaming… “oh, how do you know about this creature?”
A quick question of the DM confirmed that when he first mentioned “Terrasque” it was under the assumption that our (very experienced and learned) characters did indeed know of this creature.
Oh, some of the statements were as follows:
“the creature is no more intelligent than an animal, I am not going to kill an innocent creature.”
“It is not like it is currently hurting anyone, it would be like kicking a Doberman Pincer because you know it is a mean dog and may bite someone someday”
After a bit of an argument, when I told them that I would proceed and that their arguments seemed extremely unreasonable, they left me to face the beast, scoffing and making comments such as “good luck [sarcastically], hope it doesn’t hurt too bad when it eats you.”
This from long time friends?
Was my action wrong? Were they justified to leave me to face such a danger alone?
