Screwtape Fiends

[Nifft]

I'd like to put more evil into my [Evil] Outsiders.

Specifically, temptation. I'd like some help coming up with concrete proposals fiends can use to tempt PCs or NPCs into actions that are terribly wrong.

Adultery is easy -- that kind of indecent proposal has been around forever, and there's lots of literature describing the proposing of it.

Theft is fairly easy -- people have been convincing each other to aid and abet such operations for a long, long time. Embezzlement comes along for the ride.

But how do you talk someone into gluttony?
How do you tempt someone with suicide?
Other than flattery, what breeds pride?

Thank you for your darkest thoughts, -- N

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I'd like to put more evil into my [Evil] Outsiders.

Specifically, temptation. I'd like some help coming up with concrete proposals fiends can use to tempt PCs or NPCs into actions that are terribly wrong.

How do you tempt someone with suicide?

With futility and loss of hope. In order to tempt a sapient being to commit suicide you must understand their motivations and desires on a greater level than the simplistic layer of lust. The first step is failure, you must seek out the things that matter to them and which they seek to accomplish and ensure that they fail in those endeavors. Regularly enough that they begin to doubt whether they CAN succeed. Once the seed is sown and futility creeps in a wedge must be driven between the target and those who care about them. The greatest barrier to hopelessness and suicide are the people who care for them. So those relationships must be broken, and in such a way that the target believes it was their fault all along, reinforcing their sense of futility in action. When all hope is lost and they believe any action they could take will only make things worse, then is when you tempt them with suicide. When their resistance is lowest and it exploits the flaws you've driven to the forefront in anticipation.

Other than flattery, what breeds pride?

Undeserved success. Pride is a flaw for the powerful and influential, those who rule and judge. I will focus on leadership castes. All leaders wish to think of themselves as successful and adept at their position, whatever the exact position may be. They are innately predisposed to be suspicious of failure but to embrace successes. So you manufacture successes for them. Foster a cult of inept buffoons and allow them to be routed out without undue trouble. Engineer mishaps then provide the means to overcome them. Encourage (enemy x) to raid but redirect some adventurers into the area so that he'll be able to send them to deal with the problem. Catch him alone with attack beasts that would normally be too strong but have been weakened via poison or some other artifice so that he can triumph unexpectedly fostering belief in his abilities. Spread rumors of a (hag/witch/evil spirit/etc) causing trouble then impersonate it and allow him to just barely succeed in "killing" your astral projection/simulcrum/summoned double/etc. Make sure bards trumpet his name and deeds far and wide in only slightly exagerrated measure and he knows about it. The greater you convince him his successes are the more pride will fill him and cause him to begin making mistakes or causing trouble for himself. It is the first step in the later paths of corruption, whether merely to rip the false pride out from under his feet and cause despair leading to suicide or other actions which remove him as a threat or to the long slow slide into evil as a useful pawn and servant.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Well for suicide you need to make someone's life unbearable. Try to drive them to despair. Take a look at the Book of Job in the Bible for inspiration. The Outsider should target the character's loved ones and those things/places that are important to them. Destroy their life's work. But do it slowly, piece by piece. And preferrably with the character getting oh so tantalizingly close to saving the day. Trouble is, in a social game like DnD there's always the party to act as support network. You'd need isolate the character from them too, which would be difficult to pull off, and may be interpretted as "picking on."

In my current campaign I want to bring the characters close to despair. (But not suicide.) I've spent 14 levels getting them attached to their home land. The rest of the campaign is going to it's slow destruction as a ring of enemies besieges it and slowly tears it down. Enemies they have helped make. I'd dearly like to see the characters fighting the last fight, bravely facing their own destruction so as as many civilians as possible can escape at the last minute. But we'll see how it turns out.

Gluttony. Now this one has me stumped. Eating to compensate. But to compensate for what? Short of putting addictive substances in the food or some sort of curse I'm not sure what to do. Would certainly work best with a good role player who was happy to go along. Just generally describe the delicous food that keeps coming the character's way.

Pride: mmmmm. A friend of mine ran an Ars Magica game where he worked on the pride of one of the PLAYERS. Worked well too, just about had the guy destroy the world. Which was of course the devils' plan.

Started by making the PC inferior to a powerful NPC (the head of the coven) who frequently over ruled and/or bossed around the PC. Then along come these "Nephilim" who need a favour, one that incidentally would let the PC get his hands on the Book of Ages (macguffin of ulimate power.) Of course using the book would actually unmake the world. The other players worked it out just in the nick of time and stopped the proud one. I wasn't there so only have the broad outline but it did sound very good.

The Fiend Folio has PrC's for outsiders give specialised powers in areas like temptation, possession, creating cults. Haven't used any of them but they look good.

look forward to other's ideas.

 

[Quickleaf]

IMC, fiends usually have several stages of proposals:

1. The Cold Call: Either the fiend has been summoned, is subdued or threatened with overwhelming force, or otherwise meets a PC who they've never met before (and probably scarcely heard of). In this case, the fiend probably only makes proposals that sound logical and beneficial (though never overly so) - they are the embodiment of pragmatism. If anything the fiend errors on the side of caution - better not to try too much too soon.

2. Cultivation: Now the fiend does their homework on the PC's history and relationships, searching for weaknesses. The fiend may make small changes in the PC's life, but never anything to make its presence known. Proposals at this stage are "quid pro quo" - everything the fiend gets out of the bargain appears to the PC to be fair and equitable while the PC steadily gets more and more. A baseline of trust is established.

3. Insertion: If the fiend has allies now they call on them to begin making major changes in the PCs' life while the fiend leverages events to its advantage. The fiend often uses some reverse psychology...feigning a desire for redemption, withdrawing its gifts, taking action against PCs (just business as usual for another contractor), or doing something wicked in the PCs' service and begging forgiveness. At this stage, the fiend doesn't make proposals until the moment is just right, and then it lays it on thick - the brekaing point.

4. Corruption: Now the fiend must make a decision based on the mortal's reception of its "breaking point" proposal - whether to be slow and subtle or quick and overt. Either way a series of proposals occur in this stage, each more damning than the next. Finally, in the PC's moment of desperation, the fiend makes a final proposal which leads the hero to the dark side.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

But how do you talk someone into gluttony?

I've thought about gluttony, and what it means. My thoughts have turned to economics.

We normally think of greed and gluttony of being very similar, one being coveting money, the other being coveting food. However, I see gluttony in many ways being the opposite of greed. Through greed, money is hoarded--it assumes a form of (wealth) production without consumption. Gluttony, on the other hand, is consuming more than necessary--consumption without production.

Suddenly, gluttony isn't just about eating. It's about grabbing everything you can, and using up consumables to the point of deprivation.

Greed is the sin of chasing after money for the pleasure of having money. Gluttony is the sin of burning through all the money until you keep burning without money to burn.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

InVinoVeritas, I like it. That starts the creative juices flowing.

 

[Kaodi]

If you really wanted to damn their souls forever, I think the way to go would be to figure out how to tempt them into become a tempter. Nothing says, " I'm evil! " quite like influencing others to do the evil acts.

 

[Simplicity]

I don't want to indicate what it is for fear of spoiling, but you should see the movie 1408 with John Cusack. It answers at least one of your questions quite well.

 

[Gothmog]

Some of the best background work on demons/devils I've seen was in the novel God's Demon by Wayne Barlowe. If paints a fairly graphic and disturbing picture of Hell, the infernal power plays, and demons as tempters of mankind. Note that it is NOT gaming fiction, so its actually pretty good and well thought out.

Another great resource for Faustian style devils is the Vampire: Dark Ages book Devil's Due. It examines demons of each deadly sin and their cults, how they tend to corrupt mortals, and their ultimate aims. Great background and source material, even if you don't play Vampire.

In general, I try to present demons much in this way in my games (note that I don't make a distinction between demon, devil, and daemon as D&D does- they are all just infernals, collectivly called demons). Here are some of my ideas for each deadly sin:

Avarice- tempt mortals with temporal power and wealth, but are constantly goaded on and driven by their demonic master's for more. Avarice cults tend to be small (nobody wants to share power), but they are extremely powerful due to their influence and wealth.

Envy- demons of envy tend to foster feelings of resentment in mortals, trying to destroy those who have what the moral in question lacks. If the mortal cannot find love, he tries to destroy happy loving couples. If he is crippled, he tries to set up "accidents" to injure or kill those whose physical skills he envies.

Gluttony- demons of gluttony and their followers crave sensation, to indulge their appetites to the point of satiation, and keep going past that. While several posters have assumed this was food, I'd make this case this could be overconsumption of ANY resource for one's own benefit or pleasure. Demons of gluttony often desire faith and worship- and might set themselves up as false gods. Another example- the person who takes more than his fair share of firewood to keep warm in winter, or hides food stores from others. Gluttons usually feel it is their right to have more than others, and that indulging these desires is good, since it feels good. They are the ultimate hedonists.

Lust- this one is easy. Lust is often sexual in nature, but not always. Basically any desire that is so strong that it cannot be denied is the domain of lust. Lust demons often possess humans, wearing out their host bodies indulging in ever sort of vice they can conceive of (eating, fighting, bloodlust, drinking, destruction). Cults of lust are popular, mostly due to the sexual nature, but some cults might be addicted to violence and bloodshed. These cults often use sex or other direct rewards for service.

Pride- demons of pride see themselves as worthy of worship, or believe themselves as better than others. Demons of this nature often react violently when they feel disrespected, exacting gruesome retribution on any offenders. Mortals susceptible to pride are nobles, knights, priests, etc- anyone in a position of power who believes he is entitled to the adulation of others. Mortals corrupted by pride often carry secrets grudges and plans for vengeance against those who have slighted them.

Sloth- while sloth can mean laziness, it can also mean the desire to have a simple and convenient life, which when taken to an extreme can be a sociopathic disinterest in the world. The ultimate expression of sloth is death, so demons with this as their motivating aspect often have powers of death and corruption. Cults and followers of sloth are rare, but the most disturbing- they feel no kinship for others, and view reality with a detached sort of curiousity. What would happen if I poisoned the town well? Would my master appreciate this offering?

Wrath- demons of wrath are harbingers of carnage and destruction- not because it gives them joy, but because they feel they must inflict pain and death on those who have transgressed against their personal beliefs. Some simply enjoy destruction, while others see themselves as the enforcers of some cause. Mortal followers of wrath are taught that retaliation is justified against any who block their will or desires. Those desires could be the strict code of a paladin, or the royal will of a king. One thing is certain- whether the retribution of the wrath cultist is physical, economic, political, or military is of no consequence- he must punish those who have wronged him.

 

[Nifft]

These are awesome. Thank you guys.

Let me also add this: I'd like the PCs to be able to "bust" temptations in progress. So any kind of scenarios that involve the temptation of an NPC would be brilliant. What clues would each type of tempter leave? What tell-tale signs would a victim exhibit?

I could far more easily see a fiend tempting an NPC into sloth, cowardice or suicide than I could see it happening to a PC, for example. My players are going to be easy victims of Pride and either Gluttony or Greed.

Thanks again, -- N