D&D 5E Is trafficking in soul coins ostensibly evil?

[Necropolitan]

Using soul coins is basically slavery.

You're using somebody's entire being against their will for your own benefit in a way that either treats them as literal currency or harms their soul.

So yeah it's evil.

Which is actually really clever. Devils can corrupt mortals and get them damned just by getting them to engage in commerce using soul coins/use the coins for their abilities/as fuel.

 

[R_J_K75]

So yeah it's evil.

I think it begs the question, does @ECMO3 character know that the coins contain trapped souls? Even if they do, being LN why would they care? They're just engaging in commerce using the currency of the realm, it's not like they are the one trapping the souls. The only reason I can think of is if they draw the ire of the rest of the party. I think the LG characters would have more of a problem with it but seems like they are turning a blind eye.

Alignment has always been so subjective and too open to interpretation that I think it's good that it has effectively vanished from the game. Ask 100 players and 100 DMs this question (or any other) and you'll get a wide range of varying answers.

Murdering someone in cold blood is evil. Giving a starving peasant a gold piece to feed his family is good. Standing by watching and doing nothing while the evil person murders the peasant for the gold coin that the good person just gave them is neutral. This example is pretty cut and dry but most situations in D&D that call into question a person's alignment usually aren't. Add law and chaos to the equation and it gets even muddier.

 

[Necropolitan]

Even if they do, being LN why would they care? They're just engaging in commerce using the currency of the realm, it's not like they are the one trapping the souls.

They're capable of moral reasoning. Being Lawful Neutral doesn't mean you just shrug your shoulders at Evil just because it's Lawful, that's Lawful Evil behavior.

Murdering someone in cold blood is evil. Giving a starving peasant a gold piece to feed his family is good. Standing by watching and doing nothing while the evil person murders the peasant for the gold coin that the good person just gave them is neutral.

No, that's not how it works.

Absolute indifference to morality Neutrality is for beings incapable of caring or understanding like Inevitables, not PCs.

You'd have to go all the way back to the Gygax rules for Druids to get anything close to that in terms of alignment rulings.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Traditionally, you're only allowed to inflict suffering on creatures for being evil while they're alive and possibly wither in your way or possess something you want. Once they're dead, their dignity and comfort matter.

 

[R_J_K75]

Being Lawful Neutral doesn't mean you just shrug your shoulders at Evil just because it's Lawful, that's Lawful Evil behavior.

As I see it the L part of the alignment says you look at the world from a lawful standpoint and the N says whether the law is good or evil doesn't matter, they will follow the law in most cases.

Like I said its subjective

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hmm. Yes, dealing in soul coins is distasteful and likely evil. But that brings up the question: is the construction of an afterlife where evil souls are condemned to eternal* torture not then inherently evil? I mean, is being forged into a coin any worse than what's already happening to them in Hell?

* For certain values of eternal.

D&D typically dodges this little moral quandry by saying that the torture-plane is essentially created by the evil people themselves (cuz they like torture, and made a place where all the evil people go to torture each other).

 

[Professor Murder]

Can a soul be recovered from a soul coin in the campaign? If so, then yeah, it's evil to truck with them just as it's evil to engage in slaving on any level. The neutral stance would be neither acting to trade soul coins nor to liberate them. As soon as you willingly and knowingly engage in an evil system, you are engaging with evil. People who look for loopholes for why it's ok to engage aren't neutral, they are evil. Neutral would be pure non-engagement, not perpetuating nor opposing an evil system.

Now if souls cannot be recovered from soul coins, as in they are smelted from souls but said souls are consumed in the creation, like Oboli in Wraith the Oblivion for example, then only participating in the making of the coins is expressly evil. But then again, even that is questionable.

 

[Seramus]

The REALLY EVIL thing is to destroy those souls as fuel for your hell-vehicle like in DiA :'D

We considered this neutral since you're permanently ending the souls torment.

 

[the Jester]

Hmm. Yes, dealing in soul coins is distasteful and likely evil. But that brings up the question: is the construction of an afterlife where evil souls are condemned to eternal* torture not then inherently evil? I mean, is being forged into a coin any worse than what's already happening to them in Hell?

* For certain values of eternal.

At issue, at least IMHO, is the pc's participation in that eternal punishment and torture.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

At issue, at least IMHO, is the pc's participation in that eternal punishment and torture.

Yeah I'm finding it weird people are all overlooking this.

You have personal moral and ethical responsibility for any trading, buying or selling you involve yourself in. It is morally on you. If you sell a gun to a man intending who you know to either intending to do harm with it, or think it's quite possible they are, you are morally culpable. If you sell an animal to someone who you know has a reputation for torturing animals, you are morally culpable.

Likewise, if you trade/sell a soulcoin to a being which you know is likely to harm the soul within that coin, you are morally culpable. It is not a neutral act. It carries moral weight.

5E's alignments are descriptive, not prescriptive, but if you're selling soulcoins to monstrous infernal beings, it doesn't matter if it's legal or not, you're engaging in what is clearly a form of evil, so I would suggest LN is probably an inaccurate descriptor of the alignment of a character who does that unless this is just a complete moral blindspot for that character, like they've just never thought about it.

Very surprised any LG characters in the party haven't put a stop to this, honestly. Unless they're playing the characters as "Lawful Stupid" stereotypes, it being "legal" (in hell!) is irrelevant.