Trouble with Outsider Depiction

[Merlion]

I have...or at least some times have...a problem with how Outsiders...or more specificaly the exemplar Outsiders, fiends, celestials, etc are presented and dealt with in D&D, on a couple of levels.

One, is the whole spirit/body fusion thing. I tend to think of demons, angels etc as spiritual entities that take on physical forms. In D&D they are more or less purely physical beings that reproduce physically (I assume), and that once you kill them in their physical bodies, there dead.

Of course in older editions, this was not the case...when defeated, the spirit of such a creature fled back to its home plane.

Nextly, on a more philosophical level, they are treated as more or less embodiments of the planes of alignment and/or of the alignments themselves that come into existence being totally evil or totally good. And yet they have minds, Int, Cha, and Wis scores. So the question is, do they have free will? If so, that means a Pit Fiend could decide to change and follow the path of good...but what would happen? And if not...can something be truly evil, or good, if it has no choice in the matter?


Now the easy obvious answer to this quandry would be to say that fiends were all originally Celestials that fell from grace. The only trouble with that is how to explain their vast numbers, and the fact that there are generally more types of fiends than types of celestials.


Also, a biggy for me is deciding how I would want to handle things like half celestials and half fiends. To me, having them be capable of reproducing is a bit...odd...but I do like the option for players and creatures and what have you.


Thoughts, suggestions?

 

[Umbran]

Nextly, on a more philosophical level, they are treated as more or less embodiments of the planes of alignment and/or of the alignments themselves that come into existence being totally evil or totally good. And yet they have minds, Int, Cha, and Wis scores. So the question is, do they have free will? If so, that means a Pit Fiend could decide to change and follow the path of good...but what would happen? And if not...can something be truly evil, or good, if it has no choice in the matter?

Well, you have to be careful when considering "free will". It doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means for Outsiders. Specifically, "free will" does not necessarily imply "freedom of action".

Assume that I, as a human, have free will. That does not allow me to overcome purely physical impediments. My free will does not allow me to defy gravity. Alignment is similarly a palpable force in the D&D universe, that we can interact with through magic. Well, the Outsider is clearly magical. Maybe Alignment pulls at them as gravity does on your dwarf. Your dwarf can't fly without some assistance, and the demon can't be good without assistance either. What they may want or will has nothing to do with it.

 

[Merlion]

Assume that I, as a human, have free will. That does not allow me to overcome purely physical impediments. My free will does not allow me to defy gravity. Alignment is similarly a palpable force in the D&D universe, that we can interact with through magic. Well, the Outsider is clearly magical. Maybe Alignment pulls at them as gravity does on your dwarf. Your dwarf can't fly without some assistance, and the demon can't be good without assistance either. What they may want or will has nothing to do with it.

This is an interesting point. However, I am coming at it from the perspective of actual good and evil, not the weird way D&D alignment works.

Philosphically, free will...as in freedom of choice, is a requisite for evil or good. If a being lacks the ability to choose its actions, then the being itself cant really be considered evil for doing something that it litterally cannot choose not to do. Unless perhaps it did have the ability to self terminate, in which case it could choose to suicide instead of continuing to do evil.


Thats why the notion of something that simply is evil, is "born" evil, causes problems for me. Either it doesnt have free will, and so isnt truly personaly evil its basically just a force of nature, or it has free will and chooses evil (and therefore is not "born" that way)


Which like I said is why I favor the idea that fiends are fallen celestials (or fallen somethings) but this doesnt explain their numbers or the ability to reproduce and crossbreed.

 

[Aaron L]

As far as the spirit/body angle goes, the way I see its that they ARE beings of pure spirit, but thier spirit is solid material, and you can destroy it. I like it actually. Demons dont have a spirit, they ARE a spirit, but a spirit you can touch. And chop up into little itty peices.


As for the embodiement of a plane thing, they ain't. In 3E, outsiders are usually portrayed as the recycled souls of dead Prime Material beings. At least the demons and devils and angels. Now, if yurr talking elementals, thats a different ball of wax.

 

[WayneLigon]

This is an interesting point. However, I am coming at it from the perspective of actual good and evil, not the weird way D&D alignment works.

What actual good and evil? You have to create that answer for your game universe since no-one has ever answered those questions. You have to define those terms for your game world then stick to those rules and see where things take you. It becomes a closed system. You have an answer an entire book worth of questions on the nature of the gods, what gods there are, how they work, how the universe works, and all that.

Once you go off in that direction, you're not really talking about D&D anymore, so anything you decide is cool. Any questions you have about the treatment of the outer planar creatures becomes instantly moot if you're not using or agreeing about how alignment works in the game, so you pretty much short circuit any solution right there

I also don't see how your 'obvious answer' later on is either obvious or an answer.

 

[William_2]

Basically, I agree. Those creatures are such broadly considered, paper-thin concepts that, to be honest, I find them laughable. I tend to believe that intelligence does carry with it free will, and thus an intelligent race of creatures would run the same gamut as humanity. While a race that is uniformly good by nature despite individual choices is a pleasant thought in a way, I agree that there might be some difficulty in considering any such beings good with a small g, given the lack of any actual tendencies the other way.

The notion of entire races and cultures build solely on being evil is one that I find completely ridiculous, as well. I tend to stay away from all such creatures in D&D, as they just seem utterly senseless to me. Ferocious monsters, wonderful. Evil villains from another race, great. But a race of intelligent evil beings? Really not for me. So, the evil Outsider races are the most ridiculous to me. Even looking at some prominent source material for such creatures, it makes a difference to me that angels and devils are good and evil examples of the same creatures, rather than separate races. Paradise Lost, not the Monster Manual, for me. >

 

[(un)reason]

I have...or at least some times have...a problem with how Outsiders...or more specificaly the exemplar Outsiders, fiends, celestials, etc are presented and dealt with in D&D, on a couple of levels.

One, is the whole spirit/body fusion thing. I tend to think of demons, angels etc as spiritual entities that take on physical forms. In D&D they are more or less purely physical beings that reproduce physically (I assume), and that once you kill them in their physical bodies, there dead.

Of course in older editions, this was not the case...when defeated, the spirit of such a creature fled back to its home plane.

Nextly, on a more philosophical level, they are treated as more or less embodiments of the planes of alignment and/or of the alignments themselves that come into existence being totally evil or totally good. And yet they have minds, Int, Cha, and Wis scores. So the question is, do they have free will? If so, that means a Pit Fiend could decide to change and follow the path of good...but what would happen? And if not...can something be truly evil, or good, if it has no choice in the matter?

Not in the same way as humans, but yes they do have a certain amount of freedom of choice in exactly what they do. The difference is that they have incredibly strong moral imperitives and drives, that are essential to them being the way they are, while humans have biological imperitives such as food, air, sleep, and mating. Some Exemplars have specific dietary requirements, but their main need is to carry out and propagate their particular brand of sin or virtue, and killing, seducing, draining emotions or whatever is a means to that end. If they change alignment, they change what they fundementaly are, and probably become an exemplar of the new appropriate type.

Now the easy obvious answer to this quandry would be to say that fiends were all originally Celestials that fell from grace. The only trouble with that is how to explain their vast numbers, and the fact that there are generally more types of fiends than types of celestials.

2nd ed planescape stuff explains that fairly neatly. And since the premise of "these creatures are formed from the souls of creatures of a particular alignment after their death" and the proportion of good to evil creatures in the various D&D monster manuals, the greater frequency of fiends is understandable. In the D&D universe, there are simply far more races naturaly predisposed towards evil. And since evil things are more likely to kill and be killed, that means far more souls going to the lower planes and becoming fiends.

Also, a biggy for me is deciding how I would want to handle things like half celestials and half fiends. To me, having them be capable of reproducing is a bit...odd...but I do like the option for players and creatures and what have you.

Shrug. In general, it seems to be depicted that they cannot breed with one another, but are cross-fertile with virtualy any race that breeds normally. What the metaphysical explanation for that could be, I have no idea, and you should decide for yourself, but the ramifications in story terms are significant and fairly obvious.

 

[Voadam]

And since evil things are more likely to kill and be killed, that means far more souls going to the lower planes and becoming fiends.

Good are more likely to be immortal and not be killed? I think the chances of a soul passing on to the afterlife are pretty much the same for good and evil creatures.

 

[Shemeska]

One, is the whole spirit/body fusion thing. I tend to think of demons, angels etc as spiritual entities that take on physical forms. In D&D they are more or less purely physical beings that reproduce physically (I assume), and that once you kill them in their physical bodies, there dead.

Of course in older editions, this was not the case...when defeated, the spirit of such a creature fled back to its home plane.

Which is one of the losses in 3e compared to 2e. In the name of 'simplification' we've lost all of that flavor and detail. Now you kill them and they're dead, end of story. Previously it wasn't so cut and dry, with some of them simply slowly reforming back on their home plane if killed outside of it, the chance of that, and the time it took depending on their race and how powerful they were, etc.

Also the reproduction of fiends hasn't been detailed in 3e to the extent that 2e did. 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' was just a brilliant book. [Simplification]Tanar'ri breed or form manes from petitioners, Yugoloths form spontaneously from the raw substance of their natives plane(s)[nycaloths and arcanaloths can breed among themselves, ultroloths can birth arcanaloths by parthanogenesis], and rank and file Baatezu exclusively convert petitioners into their numbers as lemures.[/Simplification]

3e just hasn't touched on the topic, and I seriously doubt that it will in the current edition with the current design philosophy for WotC products.

Now the easy obvious answer to this quandry would be to say that fiends were all originally Celestials that fell from grace. The only trouble with that is how to explain their vast numbers, and the fact that there are generally more types of fiends than types of celestials.

Mortals are weak, evil is tempting and beguiling, and as evil souls fill the metaphorical coffers of the lower planes and evil in the abstract fills the hearts of mortals, the lower planes will wax and grow in power and number of their scions. If you can say in the spirit of old Xmas movies that 'every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings', you can also in DnD say that well every time you tell a lie and cause another harm out of selfish desire, a yugoloth is belched forth from the Gray Waste or Gehenna.

Also, a biggy for me is deciding how I would want to handle things like half celestials and half fiends. To me, having them be capable of reproducing is a bit...odd...but I do like the option for players and creatures and what have you.


Thoughts, suggestions?

They're fun, largely for the complex and at times conflicting inner natures that they have bubbling around inside of them at a basic level. I don't have a problem with them breeding amongst themselves, but the interplay of some bloodlines may cause unintentional results or simply not allow for viable offspring in some cases (decided on a case by case basis).

 

[Voadam]

Nextly, on a more philosophical level, they are treated as more or less embodiments of the planes of alignment and/or of the alignments themselves that come into existence being totally evil or totally good. And yet they have minds, Int, Cha, and Wis scores. So the question is, do they have free will? If so, that means a Pit Fiend could decide to change and follow the path of good...but what would happen? And if not...can something be truly evil, or good, if it has no choice in the matter?

In the srd/MM even the always X alignment leaves room for unique exceptions and at least two WotC modules have outsiders who have switched sides.