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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1630265" data-attributes="member: 707">The book On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony (Incarnations of Immortality,) provides an interesting illustration of evil and the soul that I like to parallel when dealing with paladins in my campaigns.Basically, in the book, Death was charged with weighing a soul at death and determining whether that soul should rise up to heaven, or sink to hell.&nbsp; A soul, once freed of its body, looked like nothing more than a thin sheet of gauze, and for each evil thing that person had ever done, there was a bit of a stain on the gauze, while for each good act the gauze was slightly cleaned.&nbsp; So at the end of a long life, Death would examine this gauzy soul, and take a measure of how dark or light it had become.I treat souls similarly in my campaigns for humanoid races and other intelligent creatures.&nbsp; Evil acts darken a soul, while good acts purify it.&nbsp; A paladin can, through his divine sight, examine the current state of a creature's soul, allowing him to tell whether it is mostly light, or greatly tainted.The catch, of course, is that a soul is only truly judged at death.&nbsp; So even a very dark soul might still atone for the sins of the past and be reclaimed, and even the brightest soul might yet fall.&nbsp; This means that a paladin has to consider whether or not to kill an evil man very carefully, because he is denying that man a chance for redemption.To frame it in the terms of the original poster: IMC, evil and Evil are merely a matter of degree.&nbsp; Demons are spawned 100% evil, while Angels are created 100% good.&nbsp; Mortals, however, find their own path.&nbsp; Some can be as terrible as any devil, others as saintly as a celestial.&nbsp; It's what makes Mortals so special.&nbsp; They get to choose.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lord Pendragon, post: 1630265, member: 707"] The book [u]On a Pale Horse[/u] by Piers Anthony ([i]Incarnations of Immortality[/i],) provides an interesting illustration of evil and the soul that I like to parallel when dealing with paladins in my campaigns. Basically, in the book, Death was charged with weighing a soul at death and determining whether that soul should rise up to heaven, or sink to hell. A soul, once freed of its body, looked like nothing more than a thin sheet of gauze, and for each evil thing that person had ever done, there was a bit of a stain on the gauze, while for each good act the gauze was slightly cleaned. So at the end of a long life, Death would examine this gauzy soul, and take a measure of how dark or light it had become. I treat souls similarly in my campaigns for humanoid races and other intelligent creatures. Evil acts darken a soul, while good acts purify it. A paladin can, through his divine sight, examine the current state of a creature's soul, allowing him to tell whether it is mostly light, or greatly tainted. The catch, of course, is that a soul is only truly judged at death. So even a very dark soul might still atone for the sins of the past and be reclaimed, and even the brightest soul might yet fall. This means that a paladin has to consider whether or not to kill an evil man very carefully, because he is denying that man a chance for redemption. To frame it in the terms of the original poster: IMC, evil and Evil are merely a matter of degree. Demons are spawned 100% evil, while Angels are created 100% good. Mortals, however, find their own path. Some can be as terrible as any devil, others as saintly as a celestial. It's what makes Mortals so special. They get to choose. [/QUOTE]

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