D&D 5E Evil enough?

[Andor]

Okay, so one of my players wants to switch characters. He made up a tiefling warlock but he misunderstood tielfling lore and thought he was supposed the be the first generation son of a devil. So he wrote up a backstory about how he was raised by his mother alone in a shack until the day he answered a knock at the door he shouldn't have and his mother was killed by someone for consorting with evil and he was left alone at a young age on the streets. Now he's trying to hunt down the people who killed his mother and has made a pact with something he believes to be his father for information and power. So he's ruthless and driven by revenge but not particularly evil beyond the gang enforcer level.

Now since his backstory is closer to a cambion than a 5e tiefling I told him he is going to ping as evil on any detect spell regardless of his alignment, but gave hin an extra cantrip to compensate.

The trouble I have is working out the motivations of his patron, he is going to be working much more closely with him than most warlocks I've seen and his (chain pact) familiar is actually going to be runnning back and forth to hell as a messenger. (Refluffing the dismiss familiar as popping him back to the lower planes as opposed to a pocket dimension.) Now as the literal son of an outsider as well as a direct representative he should be fairly important for some kind of evil cult or organization, but I've been mulling over exactly what kind of evil, or even the meaning of evil.

I had an idea this morning and thought I'd run it by you guys for feedback. I was at the british museum last week and in the new mummy exhibit noticed a bit about how one of the amulets put into the mummy was supposed to magically hide the sins of the deceased from the judge of the underworld to help get you into the afterlife. I personally thought this was kind of hilarious but today it gelled together in my head with the scape-goat ritual and ritual confession.

So my thought is that while evil has it's rewards no one particularly wants to got to hell. So I plan to make the PC a representative of a cult of Confession. They would be kind of a service provider to villains. He gets called up by some evil guy who fears approaching death and who wants to scam the system. He confesses all his sins to the PC who ritually transfers the sins to his familiar who then bears it down to hell. If it works then after death the soul is unmarked by the sin done in life and gets to go to one of the nicer afterlives, the demon/devil/whatever gets to eat nice nutritious evil and even better learns a whole bunch of juicy secrets which can then be traded and sold in the underworld to further other beings plans. To the individual confessing there is no downside, no horrid sacrifice, no price beyond whatever payment the PC wants. The evil lies in the fact that it's subverting the entire system of reward and punishment which theoretically balances the outerplanes, as well as setting up a major upheaval in the upper planes when it's eventually discovered that some of the souls recieving the rewards of virtue, shouldn't be.

Thoughts?

 

[Gilladian]

My main question would be - what does the player want? Does he think this role is fun to play? If not, why force it on him? It doesn't sound very adventurous, to me...

 

[Aloïsius]

My main question would be - what does the player want? Does he think this role is fun to play? If not, why force it on him? It doesn't sound very adventurous, to me...

Yup. That makes him some kind of swiss banker of souls, helping fraudster in exchange of... of what exactly ?

Plus, devils and demons are hungry after mortal souls. Not after pure evilness.

However, you can imagine something else. The reason why he is a tiefling and his mother was killed is because such a cult was able to transmit the sin upon his mother (and thus himself). Which lead to his mother death (and emprisonement in Hell/the abyss), while himself lives this cursed existence.

Now, what about his patron ? I think it's probably some kind of devil, rather than demon, who learned about the plot. Bending even more toward law than toward evil, he wants to use the PC to destroy the cult. As a reward, he may free the soul of his mother (after all, she is somewhat innocent), but at the price of the PC's one plus any number of cultist he may kill and doom.

Of course, the PC (and the player) does not know this and believes he is trully the son of a devil/demon. He will learn the truth latter, probably after having been manipulated by the cult into killing whatever paladins/religious order was on their track.

So, you need two story. The real one (which will be known to you only at first) and the one the PC has been indoctrined with.

 

[Andor]

Plus, devils and demons are hungry after mortal souls. Not after pure evilness.

What demons and devils are after is rather up to me as the GM, is it not?

So, you need two story. The real one (which will be known to you only at first) and the one the PC has been indoctrined with.

Oh there is no question that there will be more than one story, there may even be more than one truth. The player is perfectly well aware of this.

My main question would be - what does the player want? Does he think this role is fun to play? If not, why force it on him? It doesn't sound very adventurous, to me...

Well this is more along the lines of backstory/b-plot stuff. The PCs main job will be adventuring with the party. But when they get into town his familliar will occasionally pop up with a "Hey Boss" and a side mission. The characters goal is to track down and avenge himself upon his mothers killers, the pact was made to help him in that goal. The long term plans of his patron and/or his father (and mother?) are different questions.

But in the meantime I need some kind of Evil-Outsider directed activity which is plausible both as fulfillment of the warlock pact and as a reason for making a cambion/tiefling in the first place. Since we're running Phandelver at the moment and may transfer to HotDQ in the future I'm planning on spinning the Dragon cultists into it somehow although as prey, rivals or dupes I'm not certain yet. It also has to be tolerable to a player who does not want his PC to be hand-wringing, kitten-eating evil.

 

[WayneLigon]

For patron motivation:

It sounds like it might be better to set him up as a kinds of soul con-man, whose patron wants to tip the balance of those who are 'not quite evil enough' by promising them something that doesn't exist: a way to have their cake and eat it too. Tell them that this amulet or whatever 'hides' sin - which is an absolutely silly idea when one is dealing with an actual god or otherworldly being that can see into your soul anyway* - so they'll go out and commit MORE sins, taking a soul that could have gone one way or the other, and giving it the tacit permission it really desires to do bad with the idea that it will escape punishment. It then racks up more than enough sin to tip it firmly in the balance of evil and the patron gains more prestige in hell as being an accomplished corrupter.

* - Now this presupposes that truly divine beings can't be tricked or fooled because they are omniscient, ie they will instantly see through all falsehood to an objective truth. This may or may not be a feature of your universe.

 

[Aloïsius]

What demons and devils are after is rather up to me as the GM, is it not?

Yup. But player's expectation is important as well. If your version is that much different from what the average player is expecting it may be a problem. Or not. I don't know your players nor their taste.

Anyway, as a player, I would be somewhat troubled by evil outsiders ininterested in souls. What about the classical bargain where you sell your soul in exchange of something else ?

Sure, that would make villains more frightening : they would kill and do atrocious thing in order to satiate their patron. But, aren't those able to do evil by themselves ? If not, what do they have such frightening abilities as per the MM ?

 

[Stalker0]

The story sounds good to me.


And as far as GM control on the patron, either way works depending on the game. I think the key is not to be too heavy handed with it.


If the patron wants the player to go hear the confessions of blah guy every once in a while, sounds like a plan. Also the perfect way to give the party cool info and open up plot points. Now if the character is doing this in every adventure....probably a bit of over the top. Here and there as a way to reinforce the flavor....absolutely.

And for "why would devils do this instead of getting souls?"...there's a million reasons you could come up with. Could be as simple as they have a pact with Vecna, they get secrets from the mortals, give them to Vecna for their own personal boon.

The old villain behind the villain motif.

 

[Andor]

* - Now this presupposes that truly divine beings can't be tricked or fooled because they are omniscient, ie they will instantly see through all falsehood to an objective truth. This may or may not be a feature of your universe.

Anyway, as a player, I would be somewhat troubled by evil outsiders ininterested in souls. What about the classical bargain where you sell your soul in exchange of something else ?

Yes, this is the point. We, whatever our personal beliefs, raised in a culture that posits an omniscient diety whose primary function is to ensure that justice is done by rewarding the wicked and punishing the guilty in the afterlife whatever may have happened on earth are horrified by the notion that someone could "game the system" and have their evil cake and eat it too (in heaven.) But this is both very modern and very monotheistic thinking. The polytheists and even ancient monotheists used to try to pull this stuff all the time. Again, see the egyptian amulets and the scape-goat ritual.

Myths and legends are full of people tricking the gods, like Prometheus tricking Zeus with a pile of bones covered in fat or Herakles tricking Atlas into taking back the world for a moment and then waltzing off.

To say D&D cosmology is a royal mess is a sincere understatement, but even in that mess I find it has much too much modern monotheism thinly disguised as polytheism and that annoys me. So no, the gods are neither omniscient or omnipotent. Which should not be interpreted to mean ignorant, or harmless.

So from the point of view of the character he's just being about the equivilent of a money launderer. From the point of view of the player there should be this slow dawning horror as they realize that there is no cosmic justice after all and if there were, he's part of the reason why there isn't.

 

[steeldragons]

Sounds like an awful lot of work when just asking the player to revise his backstory from what it was to, "As a tiefling, you have devilish ancestry, yes. But you aren't a cambion." and explain. He could just as easily make his patron his alleged "ancestor/great-great-nth degree-grandfather" who he researched long and hard to find...or who sought him out (sensing his willingness to be contacted and do his bidding). Nothing else really would have to change.

 

[was]

There have been many religions that have something similar to what you are discussing. I believe that they are generally referred to as "sin eaters'. Some online research might help you further flesh out your concept.