How FAST should he turn evil? (Updated 2/9)

[BSF]

You know, I replied this morning, but it looks like the post was eaten up in cyberspace. I am guessing it was a casualty when they brought the boards down. *sigh*

Fortunately, Merak has said a good deal of what I did! Go Merak. I think I like his post better. Remember that an Erinyes is geared toward Deception and Temptation. You have already played up the Tempation through the obvious Seduction. All very nice!

I would not have the character automatically ping as Evil right now. This is the beginning of the roleplaying experience, not the end. You want the character (and the player) to squirm and enjoy the dilema. However, the dagger will ping as Evil. Perhaps you should give it a permanent Nondetection that applies to the wielder as well (Same as an Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location). This works nicely as more Deception. Especially since the character won't be able to figure out if he has slid to Evil himself, after all, the dagger controls the nondetection effect and with a duration of 1 hour/level, the dagger can make sure it is not easy for the character to hire somebody to "look into it".

If you go with the assertion that the character is not Evil and has not signed away his Soul because he did so under duress, the character has an easy way out. Either fess up to everything and beg the Cleric to help him come clean, or suck up the cost and live your life as well as you can. Both of these are easy "solutions".

Once the character begins to sacrifice enemies and sending their soul to Hell, he is sliding down that road himself. As a DM, look for the eagerness to kill and sacrifice to determine the speed at which he is sliding. If he actually slays enough people to buy his soul back, have the Erinyes show up and tell him he is all clear. She will give him a way to request her help again in the future. who knows, maybe he will succumb again? However, at this point, he has willingly consigned his soul to Hell for taking service of an Erinyes by sacrificing all those other souls.

Keep it simple. Let the Deception of the Erinyes do it's work and let the player roleplay the character into a deep, deep hole. How much more fun can you ask for than that?

 

[Saeviomagy]

That depends on what the treasure is, who is guarding it, and why the PC is hunting it. I presume you mean an adventurer wandering into random ruins in hopes of looting them ? That's Neutral, at best.

Nope, I'm talking about the good old "there may be treasure in them thar hills, but watch out for it has powerful guardians" type looking for treasure - the intent is to defeat the guardian to get the treasure, and it's a fairly normal style of play for D&D, one in which the adventurers typically need not be evil.

If he's going to open otherwise-undisturbed tombs to do it, that's grave robbery, and is an Evil action. If, on the other hand, there are undead in the tombs and those undead attack the party, the PCs can claim to have won the treasure as "spoils of combat."

Wha? So if they go into a tomb with the intent of robbing it, they become evil, but then they become good again if there happen to be undead there?

Characters who invade a foreign land, enter the homes of its inhabitants, kill said inhabitants, and loot the homes/bodies have done Evil. It does not matter what the alignment of the victims was in that sense.

Ahh, so ridding the land of those nasty orcs is automatically an evil act. I see.

Creating Undead is seen as an abomination, and most Clerics don't need to be told to destroy them (usually seen as freeing the soul and laying the undead to rest); this is usually considered "undoing a great evil". That's a good deal different than murdering people to send their souls to a fiend in order to get yours "back".

Creating undead is certainly seen as an abomination in some D&D settings, and certainly the spell has the evil tag.

However it's quite clear that the evil tag has nothing to do with imprisoning souls (neither trap the soul nor soul bind, both of which imprison souls are [evil] spells, so it's clearly not the aspect of imprisoning the soul that does it). Therefore the undoing of that particular aspect (ie - freeing souls) cannot automatically be a good action.

Killing undead is a good act because (wait for it) undead are inherently evil (even, supposedly, those with no mind or motivations of their own, which sort of blows a hole in your "motivation matters" rhetoric below).

On the contrary, it is an excellent metric.

Good=Selfless, does what it feels is right with little or no regard for personal cost. Making a (probably suicidal) stand against overwhelming odds so that others can get away is a prime example.

Evil=Selfish, does what it feels will gain it the maximum personal benefit regardless of the cost to others. Killing others for your own profit (paid assassin) is a prime example.

Neutral= Mix, does what it feels is right if the personal cost is not too high, or does something for its own advantage if the cost to others is not too high.

Ok, so where does defeating great evils and taking their treasure as spoils of war fall in?

Alignment is as much, or more, about WHY you do something as it is about WHAT you do. Very few actions are definitively Evil; most depend on the WHY.

In this particular case, we've got someone abetting evil (he's only killing evil creatures - it's been established already that in this campaign world this is a good or neutral act) in order to save his own soul, an act which could arguably bring a change for the better to the world (ie - if a powerful force for good becomes a devil instead of an angel, that's a net benefit for evil).

It's not as simple as "murder for profit", not by a long margin.

 

[Orius]

My feeling is that people shouldn't forfeit their souls if they don't sign the contract of their own free will. Whats the point of devils being known for making contracts with "a fine print", if they can just *boom* charm someone into signing them?

Yeah, I agree. It's all about the mortal willingly choosing evil, and knowing the consequences.

Alternately, she could be just lying about it and using it as an excuse to get the PC to willingly damn himself.

The PC should be screwed anyway for willingly making out with an erinyes, though.

Now THAT sounds redundant.

Seriously though, did she appear as an erinyes, or as a normal mortal woman? That would make a difference.

 

[Orius]

Mhhh ... how is killing an evil person the normal way (sending his soul to hell, where it belongs) different from killing an evil person with the dagger (sending his soul to hell, where it belongs)? Some devil is bound to profit from it, wouldn't it even be better to know, who it is, so you can thwart its schemes later?

Because in my view, whether an act is good, neutral or evil, is a more matter of motive, not the act in and of itself. If that evil person mentioned above is actively trying to kill you, but you kill him first, it's self-defence. Acts of survival are morally neutral. But if he wasn't a threat, and you actively sought him out for the sole reason of killing him, then that is deliberate murder, and evil.

 

[Rel]

Seriously though, did she appear as an erinyes, or as a normal mortal woman? That would make a difference.

She had the wings, the flawless naked body, the wicked-yet-inviting smile, the whole deal. Plus, as I mentioned before, they were standing smack dab in the middle of Hell (and not the nice part).

In his defence, I described her as "the unholy union of Lucy Liu and Monica Bellucci". Given that, who can blame the guy?

 

[Orius]

Once again I seek the opinions of my fellow ENWorlders in how I should best handle a situation in my weekly game. Here's the deal:

One of the characters sold his soul to a devil (cheaply I might add) a couple sessions ago. He was immediately interested in getting it back. One option that the devil offered him was that she would obtain a special "Sacrificial Dagger" for him to use. Anybody he kills with this dagger has their soul sent to Hell under the control of the devil who has the lein against the soul of the PC. Once he has killed enough creatures with this dagger (10 HD x the character's current level), his soul is out of hock.

There's no question in my mind that his doing this is evil so let's go forward with that already stipulated. The question is "How fast will his alignment go from Neutral to Neutral Evil?"

There are some mitigating and aggravating factors to consider:

The one (and only as far as I can see) thing in his favor is that the individuals he intends on killing with the dagger are already Evil themselves. In the cosmology of my campaign, these guys are headed to Hell already anyway. The only thing the PC is changing is whose "inbox" these souls are landing in, if you will.

[snip]

He also knows that the devil in question is accumulating these souls for a reason: She's going to sell them to a Devil Lord in exchange for him enchanting a Gate that she's been working on that will allow her to periodically enter the Prime Material Plane for purposes of seducing mortals there and possibly getting her lovely hands on their souls as well.

Given all of that, I'm wondering how quickly I should have him make the transition to Evil.

Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. He sold his soul, now wants it back and is going around murdering people and knowingly contributing to a plot to help the forces of Hell gain power on the Material Plane? I'd say he's already knowingly and willingly made the transition. He should at this point be considered evil. I know I'm repeating what others have said, but just because a person is killing is evil at the moment he kills them and they end up in Hell isn't a mitigating circumstance for the PC. If they weren't murdered, in your cosmology, would they still have a chance for redemption? If so, the PC is depriving them of that for a chance to save his own ass. And that is evil.

Here's another idea for you: you mentioned these sould were destined for another devil's "inbox". If this PC commences on his unholy quest and send these souls to the erinyes, whatever devil or devils were destined to get those souls is/are not going to be happy. For example, the first guy owes his soul to a pit fiend. The PC kills this guy, and the erinyes gets his soul, that pit fiend is not going to be happy. He'll be thinking something like, "I spend decades corrupting that sob, and now this bitch thinks she can steal his soul from me?" If he starts using this dagger, there should be plenty of irate devils pissed at the PC, which will make for some very nice plot complications. None of these people he kills should be souls she's already going to get, after all, since she won't profit from that in the long run.

I'd be interested in your opinions. The primary reason this is important is because another party member is a Fighter/Cleric of St. Cuthbert (Lawful Neutral) and he Detects Evil quite frequently. There may come a point when he catches the character in question in one of these spells and some hard questions get asked.

Uh-oh. St Cuthbert would definitly approve of retribution against this guy. There's definitely some party fights coming up here!

 

[AnthonyJ]

Nope, I'm talking about the good old "there may be treasure in them thar hills, but watch out for it has powerful guardians" type looking for treasure - the intent is to defeat the guardian to get the treasure, and it's a fairly normal style of play for D&D, one in which the adventurers typically need not be evil.

Unless there's a reason other than a lust for wealth behind going seeking the treasure in question, this is at best neutral (if the guardians are beings that for one reason or another can be destroyed without moral significance) and at worst evil (if the guardians are, say, sentient beings who aren't bothering anyone and are at least theoretically capable of being non-evil).

Wha? So if they go into a tomb with the intent of robbing it, they become evil, but then they become good again if there happen to be undead there?

If they go into a tomb in hopes of treasure, that's automatically a mildly evil act. If they go into a tomb because undead are coming out of the tomb and ravaging the town, that's a good act. If they go into the tomb because there's undead there that might cause problems, that's a mildly good act. If they go into the tomb for multiple reasons, all apply -- thus if you know there's treasure inside, and you know there's undead inside that aren't currently bothering anyone but might later, it's probably a net neutral act.

Ahh, so ridding the land of those nasty orcs is automatically an evil act. I see.

Depends on what the orcs are doing. If the orcs aren't bothering anyone, yeah, it's an evil act.

Ok, so where does defeating great evils and taking their treasure as spoils of war fall in?

Good, assuming the 'great evils' have in fact proven their evil by their actions.

 

[Nightfall]

I pretty much side with everyone here that said "He made his bed now he has to lie in it." Therefore he committed an evil act by selling his soul to Hell now he's trying to get back. If it's mean he's already NE if not already aligned to the fiend itself.

 

[Goobermunch]

This is how I would do it:

He was under duress. He did not, in fact, sell his soul to the Erinyes. She just convinced him that he did, and struck a deal with him to "get it back."

You have to understand, when dealing with devils, you can't trust a single thing they say.
The dagger is the temptation. By killing with the dagger, knowing that he's sending a soul to damnation, he actually turns evil and places his soul in jepardy. In this case, when he dies his soul will go to the same place he voluntarily sent the others. After all, killing people for the sole, selfish reason to regain your own soul is evil, no matter how you cut it. Those BoVD "extras" are just icing on the web of lies. He's evil if he uses the dagger, no matter how he goes about it.

If, on the other hand, he refrains from using the dagger, making the decision that he would rather lose his own soul than consign even a single evil person to damnation, then the onus is lifted and he becomes good again.

I really like this answer.

In fact, I think it's probably the best one offered here.

However, I'd like to put out another option. It's dark, but definitely provides some good storytelling options.

I apologize to the authors of John Constantine: Hellblazer.

He should sell his soul some more. A lot more. He should sell his soul to every devil of equal power he can find. Emphasis on equal power.

That way, when he dies, there's gonna be a fight.

Devil #1 is going to argue that the rule should be first in time, first in right.

Devil #800 is going to argue that he's got the most recent deed and he had no notice of the prior sale. He's a bona fide purchaser for value.

Devils #2-799 will gladly kill each other to put themselves in a claiming position, provided the PC makes his soul seem valuable enough.

He should probably also point out how foolish they are for being willing to kill each other over this and how he's turned their evil act into an act of great goodness. Goodness from the sense that there will be some dead devils out of the deal.

In the graphic novel, at least, J.C. bought himself 5-10 more years of life by putting the relevant devils in a position where they didn't want to kill each other.

Play both sides against the middle.

--G

 

[Rel]

I apologize to the authors of John Constantine: Hellblazer.

He should sell his soul some more. A lot more. He should sell his soul to every devil of equal power he can find. Emphasis on equal power.

That way, when he dies, there's gonna be a fight.

Diabolical idea! I like it in general but it probably isn't going to happen. The fact is that the fate of this character's soul is not the main focus of the campaign. The party has far bigger fish to fry at the moment.

In the interests of moving this discussion forward I'll say that this discussion has helped me reach a decision:

I've settled on the idea that the character is not yet Evil. He did not willingly sign over his soul to the Erinyes (and if I decide to pursue Merak's idea he may not have sold it at all). His sin there was that he gave into temptation with a known seducer and put himself in a compromising position that led to his compulsion to sell his soul. This is somewhere between evil and stupid. He then agreed to an arrangement by which he can regain his soul by sending other souls to this devil. The agreement itself is evil.

BUT, I don't think those two relatively minor transgressions are enough to turn him Evil yet. It's going to take until the first time he uses the dagger on someone to make that transition (but it will happen immediately instead of being a "slow slide" as I was originally thinking).

I think this is a fair alternative to the "he was Evil the moment he agreed to use the dagger" scenario. Otherwise, he is (literally) damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Frankly, I don't think it matters all that much because I've almost certain that he IS going to use the dagger. But I doubt very much that he's going to avail himself of any of the "extra credit" options that will deepen his slide into Evil. He will most likely use the dagger to coup de grace downed foes who are already quite evil to begin with. He's going to be as subtle about this as possible to avoid open conflict with the Cleric of St. Cuthbert and I lay about even money that he gets away with it (he can probably pull off the slight of hand necessary and he has a Glove of Storing to aid in that endeavor and keep the blade hidden while he's not using it).

I get the feeling that there is a lingering suspicion that this player is some sort of immature, power-gamer who gets off on the idea of being Evil. If so, it is unfounded. I've gamed with this guy for many years and he has played a couple "morally questionable" characters over that time (an assassin on one occasion that I can recall) but I've never seen him go off the deep end about it. He's a good roleplayer and this plotline concerning temptation, seduction, hard choices and redemption is fertile ground for good roleplaying fun for him and everyone else in the group.

So I consider the main question settled and your various responses were instrumental in me making the decision I did. Perhaps we can go forward without this thread being treated as "Yet Another Alignment Debate". I am still open to suggestions about how the mechanics of the dagger gaining power might work. If you've got ideas about that, I'm all ears.

Thanks for all your replies.