Evil by birth?

[John Morrow]

This has now brought up and interesting contraverial question, is any creature (outsider or otherwise) BORN truly evil or made that way by upbrining.

As an advocate of explicitly defining that aspect of a creature, I think you can play it either way. But I think a creature that is Evil by nature has a very different moral dynamic than a creature that is Evil by choice. It basically moves the game out of the realm of action movies and fantasy epics, where the villains can be killed without pause because they are Evil, and into the realm of the modern justice system, where the bad guys have rights, deserve the presumption of innocence, should be taken prisoner rather that dispatched when wounded or knocked out, and always need to be treated humanely by good characters. Playing a "judge, jury, and executioner" vigilante (which is what many RPG protagonists are) is a very different proposition when the Evil people might simply be raised wrong, are just misguided, or might be redeemed than it is when they are a dark blot on humanity that can never change. Pick the tone you want and go for it.

If an angel can fall, can a demon rise?

Well, there is also a train of thought that the angels that fell were destined to fall because of character flaws and remain fallen because they are unable to deal with those flaws and eliminate them. That's not to say that the story of a demon that finds redemption can't be done and can't be interesting (in fact, there is an excellent campaign write-up on this site that deals with that very idea here http://enworld.org/forums/printthread.php?t=58227&page=1&pp=25). It's simply pointing out that just because demons were not always fallen does not mean that their fall was not inevitable or was a matter of real choice. Demons and devils are often meant to represent sins incarnate, not well rounded people.

Of course it could also be a choice and simply a difficult choice for them to change -- so difficult that only a rare few do it. Science Fiction authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did a pretty good job of illustrating how an attachment to sins and character flaws can keep one from redemption in their treatment of Dante's Inferno. In that point of view, those condemned to Hell keep themselves in Hell because they prefer to be there (the old "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven" line from Milton's Paradise Lost is along the same lines). That simply raises the question of why this demon was able to rise above it.

I have players who want to start new characters who are of races normally allways evil (one even wants to try the vrock idea) and play them as alingments other than evil. Can a demon 'choose' to be better, if not good at least nutral?

That's up to you. It does not violate the rules, which allow for even creatures with an Always alignment to be [edit]a different alignment[/edit]. You simply need to manage the implications of it. Why would one demon "choose" to be better and not many others (as opposed to having their alignment magically altered)? If demons can be reformed, then don't Good characters have an obligation to try to reform and redeem them? This can all be very interesting but it's much more morally heavy than a game where the players can "See Demon. Insert Holy Avenger. Return it to Hell. Do not think twice about it." Instead, they have to "See Demon. Try to Reform Demon. Take risks to give Demon a chance to reform. Return Demon to Hell only if absolutely necessary. Wonder whether one could have done something differently to reform Demon." and so on.

One of the strongest arguments refers to Fall-from-Grace, the Soft spoken sucubuss from the PC game "Plancescape: Torment". For those who are unfamiliar to the game she is true-nutral.

Role-playing seem to have an obsession with iconoclasm. Good Demons? Sure. Good Vampires? Sure. Good Werewolves? Sure. Personally, I think that a large part of the symbolism of those creatures is that their powers come at a cost. Yeah, Vampires are immortal, can turn into animals, and can control people's minds but the downside is that their souls are damned to Hell, they can never see the sun, and they must kill people to survive. I think that giving players the power without the price loses something from the equation.

OF course this could posibly leave all other automaticly evil races (or conditions such as lichdom, vampirim, and lycathropy/werewolf) open for possible good alinments.

It can. Or you could try to have it both ways, as I am in my campaign, and declare some creatures Evil by nature and others Evil by choice. Perhaps those undead, because they are animated by negative energy, are Evil by nature and werewolves, like a person with rabbies or dementia, is Evil by affliction, while your demons really are Evil by choice. That's an option, too.

Sould it be possible? I would be willing to say yes, but only under VERY limited circumstances and rare ocasions. Only because there will always be those to try to defiy their nature. Naturaly such characters will be plauges by "bad luck" (evil grin) for going against their nature.

That's fine, too. What you need to work out is what those limited circumstances are and why they are so rare. What does it involve and why don't more demons and other evil creatures do it? And if such a thing is available, are the forces of good working to make it a more common and available option to evil creatures and if not, why not?

I want to know what others think, has this sort of thing been done before, is it maddness, or it there merit to the argumant?

I think the campaign write-up that I provided a link to, above, should give you a good idea of how heavy this sort of thing can get. It's not madness but it does have implications. The question is whether you can either deal with those implications or effectively ignore them.

 

[Beholder Bob]

Well, I was born evil.

Satan - Satan, he's are man, if he can't do it, Beelzebub can!

Oh. Excuse me.

For my campaign - if it grew up on its 'native plane', then it is bound by the planes alignment - until it spends time on a non-native plane. Once on a non-native plane, it is capable of epiphany, of redemption (or falling). A demon that grows up on the prime can develop into any alignment - though it still has a strong disposition of evil.

BB

 

[Umbran]

This has now brought up and interesting contraverial question, is any creature (outsider or otherwise) BORN truly evil or made that way by upbrining. If an angel can fall, can a demon rise?

Note that these may be two separate questions, and they may not mean what you think they mean.

Whether or not a creaure was born in a particular state is a separate question from whether or not that state may change. Whether they're born evil has no bearing on whether or not they may change later. And yet another question as to whether they may change of their own volition, or by an ouside force.

Then, there's the simple note that demons and devils and angels may not be "born" per se. Your usual humanoid monster is born of a mother, but thesame need not be true of outsiders. In sopme versions of the cosmology, outsiders can never be really and truely destroyed at all. Their spiritstuff simply returns to the beginning, reforming as a lesser form of outsider. They always did and always will exist. And this may be separate from their havign free will to change... or not.

Keep in mind, however, that in the case of certain outsiders, they always retain their subtypes: a Demon, regardless of its current alignment, retains the Chaotic and Evil subtypes; its body is made of the stuff of pure Chaos and pure Evil. Nothing it does can ever change that, and thus it is still affected by spells and other abilities that target Evil.

I imagine that if a vrock is changed by divine magic, rather than it's own volition, then the Evil and Chaotic type descriptors may no longer apply. Only his barber knows for sure

 

[John Morrow]

I imagine that if a vrock is changed by divine magic, rather than it's own volition, then the Evil and Chaotic type descriptors may no longer apply. Only his barber knows for sure

FYI, the SRD (and PHB) states, with respect to the Evil subtype:

"Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is.

 

[Rackhir]

Lady Despina's Virtue

 

[John Morrow]

Lady Despina's Virtue

It's a great campaign story, despite some problems I have with some of the details (in a story sense, not a game mechanics sense, though there is some relation between the two). I also provided a link to it above.

Just bear in mind that the story takes liberties with the rules (and admits as much). The 3.5E Atonement spell explicitly excludes outsiders ("This use of the spell does not work on outsiders or any creature incapable of changing its alignment naturally."). That exclusion suggests that the intent of the rules is that Outsiders don't repent and don't change their alignment willingly for whatever that's worth. Of course there is nothing stopping a GM from using a different interpretation if they want, like the author of the story did.

 

[Rackhir]

It's a great campaign story, despite some problems I have with some of the details (in a story sense, not a game mechanics sense, though there is some relation between the two). I also provided a link to it above.

Lets face it the answer to the original question is basically "Well what do you want to be the case." It is a DM decision and there is no gestapo enforcing the RAW. I should have checked the link first, but didn't bother. In any case I don't think there is a better answer to the question than Sepulchrave's Story hour.

 

[Shemeska]

People can happen to be of evil alignment. Gods can happen to be of evil alignment. Fiends -are- evil, the very substance of that alignment made flesh. If they for whatever reason ever suddenly step back, look at it all and ask themselves 'why?' then you're in for a fun little plot hook and a complex character.

1) They might have been formed from an imperfectly evil larvae (for a Tanar'ri or Baatezu) with perhaps a bit of taint of another alignment inside of it. Or in the case of a yugoloth, some minute fragment of another alignment might have filtered in by random chance when it was being formed out of the raw essence of its native plane, however rare it might be.

2) The fall or rise of the being towards another alignment is going to conflict with their essence and likely cause them confusion, fear, merciless agony, etc. Eventually they may revert back to their normal state, perfectly clear of that other alignment or they may shift.

I personally handle that alignment shift as having physical consequences for the risen fiend. Being the incarnate stuff of evil, if they go neutral or good it should reflect in how they appear, not just how they act and feel.

I had a risen Ultroloth in my Planescape campaign who was tortured and imprisoned by his own kind for a few millennia, but eventually escaped and made his way to Elysium. He was truly reformed and truly agonized and repentant over the countless sins of his prior existence. That said, the moment he stepped through the portal and into the layer of Amoria, he changed. His features rippled and seemed to evaporate in the sunlight, melting and boiling away his former existence, remaking him into a cervidal, ecstatic and weeping with joy. The only trace of his former self that remained physically were his eyes: they shifted color at random like that of an Ultroloth, but otherwise he was utterly redeemed and reformed from what he had been.

 

[Umbran]

FYI, the SRD (and PHB) states, with respect to the Evil subtype:

"Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is.

Ah, but types and subtypes of creatures can change! What was formerly a Humanoid cna later become Undead. If magic can turn a human into a vampire, who is to say that divine mojo cannot remove the Evil descriptor from a vrok?

 

[John Morrow]

Lets face it the answer to the original question is basically "Well what do you want to be the case." It is a DM decision and there is no gestapo enforcing the RAW.

Of course. But the DM should make that decision with an understanding of the implications just as a DM should understand the implications of allowing gunpowder or ray guns into their setting before saying, "Sure!"

I should have checked the link first, but didn't bother. In any case I don't think there is a better answer to the question than Sepulchrave's Story hour.

While I liked the story very much and think it is well written, I personally don't think that part worked very well, not because it broke the rules of the game but because it just didn't make a lot of sense to me. YMMV.



SPOILER ALERT



Given that Evil Druids are permitted and nature is Neutral, I'm not sure how or why a Demon could or would atone to a Druid for their Evil any more than they might atone to a Druid for Good acts (neither Evil nor Good are "opposed alignments" for a Druid), nor am I sure how or why such a deity could forgive a demon for sins committed against another deity or group of deities. It has a Deus Ex Machina (or should I say, "DMus Ex Machina") feel to it that I found disappointing given the lead-in.



END SPOILER