How FAST should he turn evil? (Updated 2/9)

[Rel]

***I've added a brief post to the end of this thread in case anybody cares how things are panning out. I figured I owed you guys for contributing.***


Once again I seek the opinions of my fellow ENWorlders in how I should best handle a situation in my weekly game. Here's the deal:

One of the characters sold his soul to a devil (cheaply I might add) a couple sessions ago. He was immediately interested in getting it back. One option that the devil offered him was that she would obtain a special "Sacrificial Dagger" for him to use. Anybody he kills with this dagger has their soul sent to Hell under the control of the devil who has the lein against the soul of the PC. Once he has killed enough creatures with this dagger (10 HD x the character's current level), his soul is out of hock.

There's no question in my mind that his doing this is evil so let's go forward with that already stipulated. The question is "How fast will his alignment go from Neutral to Neutral Evil?"

There are some mitigating and aggravating factors to consider:

The one (and only as far as I can see) thing in his favor is that the individuals he intends on killing with the dagger are already Evil themselves. In the cosmology of my campaign, these guys are headed to Hell already anyway. The only thing the PC is changing is whose "inbox" these souls are landing in, if you will.

There are several things that can potentially hasten the character's fall into Evil:

I've added a list of circumstances by which he can gain "extra credit" for the souls he obtains with the dagger. I drew these from the Book of Vile Darkness and they contain things like "The subject is tortured for a day before being sacrificed" and "The subject is of Good alignment" and things like that. If he opts to avail himself of any of these, I'll shift him to Evil then and there.

If he uses the dagger on someone who is Neutral (and therefore, according to my cosmology, whose soul was originally bound for the Spirit Realm and not Hell), I'll probably shift him to Evil as well.

He also knows that the devil in question is accumulating these souls for a reason: She's going to sell them to a Devil Lord in exchange for him enchanting a Gate that she's been working on that will allow her to periodically enter the Prime Material Plane for purposes of seducing mortals there and possibly getting her lovely hands on their souls as well.

Given all of that, I'm wondering how quickly I should have him make the transition to Evil. I'd be interested in your opinions. The primary reason this is important is because another party member is a Fighter/Cleric of St. Cuthbert (Lawful Neutral) and he Detects Evil quite frequently. There may come a point when he catches the character in question in one of these spells and some hard questions get asked.

As a bonus question, feel free to toss out opinions on another aspect of this situation:

The dagger is not actually a dagger per se, but a minor devil shaped like a dagger. As it consumes these souls (and thereby sends them to Hell), it will siphon off a bit of power each time and become more powerful. I intend to give the dagger some additional powers as it consumes more souls. I have not yet decided what these powers will be and how fast they will accumulate.

I don't really want the dagger to become overly powerful, but it would be fun if the PC wound up saying to himself, "Well, my soul-debt is paid off and I can now be free of this cursed, evil dagger...but it's so damned useful..."

 

[diaglo]

as soon as he signed the original contract i would've treated his character as evil. not told the player until he tried to get some aid or help from a good aligned church or ran a foul of a paladin or someone else detecting evil.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Were there any mitigating circumstances as to why he sold his soul out?

Was he in fear of his life, trying to help someone else, or compelled to do it?

If it was just for personal gain of some sort, then I'd say he was pretty much evil as it stands?

 

[Rel]

Were there any mitigating circumstances as to why he sold his soul out?

Was he in fear of his life, trying to help someone else, or compelled to do it?

If it was just for personal gain of some sort, then I'd say he was pretty much evil as it stands?

I should have clarified this in the first place. It started off with him trying to help the party. He agreed to kiss the Erinyes in exchange for her sheltering the party from a large pack of devils that were hunting them. During the kiss, she tried to Charm him but failed. Later I talked him into getting "more intimate" with her, using the lure of some information that she had that the party wanted and the fact that she was hotter than Hell's hinges. The player agreed because he said that his PC would tend to fall for a hot chick like that and they really did want that information. Besides, he had resisted her Charms the first time around, right?

Of course he failed the Will save on the second try and found himself willing to do ANYTHING for her and gave up his soul in exchange for the information they sought. Since he was magically compelled to make the deal, I didn't turn him Evil for it.

 

[Silveras]

I agree with Diaglo ... as soon as the deal was struck, he was Evil.

A couple of other points:
1) It doesn't matter what alignment the victim is when he sacrifices it; sacrificing Evil creatures doesn't get past the fact that he is killing others for his own benefit. That's Evil.

2) It is arguable that, as a non-Cleric, he'd almost never register on a detect evil spell. However, that dagger should be making the Cleric's head ache every time he uses the spell.

 

[Henry]

*gives Rel a virtual handshake*

Good job, sir!

First, are souls irredeemable in the campaign? He could not talk to a clergy of some sort to find another alternative?

I would say if he goes through with it against irredeemable souls, then he would be evil around halfway through the process - he is, after all, willingly helping a devil gain more power. He needs to check hard as he can to see if there is a third option. Failing that, true good would mean sacrificing his own soul in order to keep the forces of evil from gaining ground. So while he's killing those first few evil people, he needs to be searching all the while for a loophole.

If evil souls are redeemable, then he's evil with the first knifing, because he's killing whatever chance they had to be saved. The removal of freedom of choice itself in a ritual sacrifice rather than a battleground where they are actively doing evil, is evil of itself.

 

[fett527]

I agree as well. He's evil already. He made a pact he new would benefit this evil creature in more than one way. He is sending souls knowingly to this creature that will make it more powerful. It doesn't matter that those souls are evil or not they are still sacrifices for the benefit of this devil.

 

[Enkhidu]

A lot of this depends on how you view alignment and - more importantly - detect evil in your game. This is how I would do it:

The character is now tainted by evil. He will detect as such - regardless of his actual alignment - because he has willingly entered into a compact with a fiend. However, I don't think his actual alignment will change until the first time he uses the dagger. The moment that he does, he will have consigned a possibly redeemable soul to hell in order to get his soul "out of hock." The only way I could see him not having an alignment shift is if he sent irredeemable souls to hell (like supernaturally evil with a capital E).

This character has definitely started down the slippery slope.

Edit: Dangit! Henry's too fast for me!

 

[alsih2o]

major disagreement form me.

he is not evil, he was charmed and therefore signed the contract under duress.

however, should he kill but on person, no matter how evil, with that dagger it is an immediate trip to wearing the black hat.

 

[Rel]

*gives Rel a virtual handshake*

Good job, sir!

First, are souls irredeemable in the campaign? He could not talk to a clergy of some sort to find another alternative?

I would say if he goes through with it against irredeemable souls, then he would be evil around halfway through the process - he is, after all, willingly helping a devil gain more power. He needs to check hard as he can to see if there is a third option. Failing that, true good would mean sacrificing his own soul in order to keep the forces of evil from gaining ground. So while he's killing those first few evil people, he needs to be searching all the while for a loophole.

If evil souls are redeemable, then he's evil with the first knifing, because he's killing whatever chance they had to be saved. The removal of freedom of choice itself in a ritual sacrifice rather than a battleground where they are actively doing evil, is evil of itself.

Well, as Enkhidu says (Hi, Enk! Hope you had a blast with little Enk during the holidays!), the character is headed down the slippery slope. But I'm finding (and I think the player is too) the whole thing to be deliciously rife with good roleplaying and tough choices.

As I said before, the character was compelled to sign the contract, which, in our society, would render the whole arrangement invalid from the start. But devils don't always play fair. Ergo, I did not consign him to Evil at that point.

I also did not turn him to Evil at the point where he agreed to take possession of the Black Dagger. After all, he hasn't really sacrificed any souls until he uses it so there's still a chance to back out.

I'm leaning toward the point of saying that he's Evil as soon as he uses the dagger the first time. At that point, regardless of what the original destination of that soul was, he has materially aided a devil. And, in fact, has furthered her ability to do to others precisely what she did to him.

Some asked whether he had explored other options. He knows of at least one but it is probably just as Evil as using the Dagger and more dangerous and impractical. For the sake of completeness, I'll toss it into the mix and see what you think:

In Hell, souls are a form of currency. They are bought and sold by demons and devils for almost anything. This is such common practice that it can be impractical to keep track of the souls you own directly. So the devil lords have gone into the banking business.

They keep a large stable of souls in their dungeons and issue currency against the value of these souls. This currency comes in the form of "Soul Cents" (gold coins worth 1/100th of a soul) and "Skulls" (quartz carved into the likeness of skull worth 1 soul). Any of the more powerful demons and devils may have some of this currency as part of their treasure.

The PC in question could journey back to Hell and kill enough devils, confiscating their treasure, to pay off his soul-debt. This removes the "sacrificial" aspect but it still has him supplying material aid to the she-devil in question. Perhaps if he paid her off, thus freeing his soul and allowing her to finish her gate and THEN killed her and destroyed the gate, he could redeem himself somewhat.

This option is impractical due to the present circumstances of the party (they're trying to avert global catastrophe and time is short). He just doesn't have time for this side trek at the moment.

As to the issue of souls being irredeemable, most are not. In fact the party has just recently seen evidence of this when they encountered a group of Orc "freedom fighters" who had been turned away from Evil and were trying to get their brethren out from under the oppresive thumb of the Evil beings who were using them. Most non-outsider beings can atone for what they have done wrong (though it may not be easy). In fact, the PC in question is counting on this very thing.

But the problem is that, according to my cosmology, if you are Evil (with a capital E), you're going to Hell. That means that any time anybody kills a non-outsider Evil creature, they've robbed that creature of the free will to atone and thus, by the standard you're setting, committed an evil act. I can't very well let that stand in a campaign where I expect the PC's to go forth and do battle with Evil.

I view it this way: If you have turned to Evil, you deserve to go to Hell up to the point where you atone for what you've done. It is YOUR obligation to undertake that atonement as soon as possible because nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. If somebody comes along and kills you before you get around to atoning, you've got nobody to blame but yourself.

Therefore it is not an evil act to kill an Evil creature. But showing mercy and giving a chance for them to atone, IF they genuinely seem to show remorse for what they've done, is an act of good.

I'm sure others will disagree but this seems to work for me for purposes of this campaign at least. Thanks for all the responses so far and I look forward to hearing others. Oh, and for purposes of power level if you care to weigh in on the "growing power of the dagger" issue, the party is 10th level.