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

[Davek]

Or he could just fall on the dagger himself.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Ok, I'm going with a Western Medieval mindset. Your morals may very. This is not a political statment based on real current religions.

He was Damned the moment he laid with her. He gave in to lust and slept with a Infernal creature, one that I'm sure he was warned about by a good priest that it would destroy his soul.

But I don't know how morals or the gods work in your world so, who knows.

But as soon as he gave in to temptation, I'd slam down the alignment change.

I would agree with what is said here if the character was of good alignment.

The character though is neutral. Would a neutral character who slept with a solar turn automatically to good alignment? I do not think so. So why should a neutral character automatically turn to evil for sleeping with an evil creature?

 

[Joshua Randall]

It's always dangerous to get into these alignment debates, but I'll risk it - through metaphor.

If I get drunk and run you over with my car, am I responsible?

If you are my superior officer and you order me to do something that I know to be wrong, should I do it anyway? If I do so, am I also in the wrong?

Depending upon your answers to these questions, the PC's evilness falls somewhere along the spectrum from "already damned" to "in a big mess, but it wasn't his fault".

Personally I would say he is already damned. As herald put it -- he knew that consorting with fiends was evil, but he did it anyway.

P.S. There is an issue of Dragon magazine with rules for characters gradually giving in to fiendish corruption - you might find some useful information there.

 

[Davek]

Did the character/party know that it was an infernal creature, or was it disguised?

 

[LGodamus]

Looking at your Location field over there, I wonder if you speak from experience, LGodamus.

Heheh, you will get to know me better, and draw your own conclusions at game day

 

[herald]

dup error

 

[herald]

I would agree with what is said here if the character was of good alignment.

The character though is neutral. Would a neutral character who slept with a solar turn automatically to good alignment? I do not think so. So why should a neutral character automatically turn to evil for sleeping with an evil creature?

Well, as I said before, I'm coming from a Western Medieval mindset.

The arguement about making love to a solar/angel is interesting, you could go back to a certain passage of real world religious text and find examples of that (Man, I'm really trying to stay with in the board rules here, but if I step on someone's toes, I am really sorry.)

If a character was to somehow become intimate with a celestial creature as powerful as that, I could understand a conversion to Good from Neutral. I don't think that I could really go to deep into that because 1) it would be a hijack and 2) I don't think that I can do it with out going into a taboo here. I'm going to spare Eric's Grandma the upset.

Here is my point. When it comes down to fiction about Devil's it's assumed that they are the converse of good, and most trixter demons have a goal of some sort. Those that are evil have already consined thier souls to damnation, but the rest are to be destroyed by getting them to sin.

More times than not we think of sin as a taboo. Don't do this or else. They consider sin as a way of power. They want to trade in souls so they trick mortals into sin so they may get that soul.

I'm not saying that a soul is irredemable, these Demons will try and ensure however that the "lost soul" so to speak will not find thier true path.

Now, how you define your game world's morality is up to you. And what ever you decide for your game is the right choice for you. But in my opinion, the inferanal are playing for keeps, and they don't just want the Good to fall, but they want the neutral to fall as well. Evil will always fall to them, and they use them like pawns to make the good and the neutral to give up hope and turn to sin just to forget how hard the world can be.

But that's just me.

 

[Rel]

Personally I would say he is already damned. As herald put it -- he knew that consorting with fiends was evil, but he did it anyway.

You'll get no argument from me that consorting with fiends is an evil act. And, in answer to Davek's question, they were fairly certain she was BAD (they were standing in one of Hell's less savory neighborhoods at the time). But the point I'm hanging on is whether or not that particular evil act is enough to turn you Evil.

Let me try a metaphor of my own (I'm not ignoring yours, Joshua but they strike me as too likely to cause the thread to devolve if I'm not extremely careful - I'm going to keep my thoughts on them to myself for the moment.): Suppose that my PC (for purposes of this debate, say he's Neutral) is contacted by somebody whom I know to be Evil and told that they have a job for me. I meet with them and they tell me that they'll give me 1,000 GP if I kill someone else whom I know to be Evil. I agree to do this.

Am I Evil yet? Killing people for money is an evil act. I've agreed to do this evil act. If I do it, I'd say I'm Evil. But between the point where I said I'd do it and the point where I've done the deed, I think I'm still in the shady end of Neutral.

That's where I think this character is right now. It may largely be a moot point however as he has gone to considerable effort to obtain the Dagger and seems to have every intention of using it (albeit on some very nasty individuals who have just recently slaughtered thousands of innocent women and children). So he's on the fast track to Evil unless he has a major crisis of conscience.

 

[herald]

You'll get no argument from me that consorting with fiends is an evil act. And, in answer to Davek's question, they were fairly certain she was BAD (they were standing in one of Hell's less savory neighborhoods at the time). But the point I'm hanging on is whether or not that particular evil act is enough to turn you Evil.

Let me try a metaphor of my own (I'm not ignoring yours, Joshua but they strike me as too likely to cause the thread to devolve if I'm not extremely careful - I'm going to keep my thoughts on them to myself for the moment.): Suppose that my PC (for purposes of this debate, say he's Neutral) is contacted by somebody whom I know to be Evil and told that they have a job for me. I meet with them and they tell me that they'll give me 1,000 GP if I kill someone else whom I know to be Evil. I agree to do this.

Am I Evil yet? Killing people for money is an evil act. I've agreed to do this evil act. If I do it, I'd say I'm Evil. But between the point where I said I'd do it and the point where I've done the deed, I think I'm still in the shady end of Neutral.

That's where I think this character is right now. It may largely be a moot point however as he has gone to considerable effort to obtain the Dagger and seems to have every intention of using it (albeit on some very nasty individuals who have just recently slaughtered thousands of innocent women and children). So he's on the fast track to Evil unless he has a major crisis of conscience.

There is still a grey area with this concept. If you murder this evil person, I would say that's evil. Otherwise it depends. War is often predicated on this concept. They are evil and must be stopped. Become my soldier and I will pay to and together we will do some good.

So we go back to the original situation, is there a grey area with the sin. Is the individual innocent? Was he tricked. More times than not, in the Medieval mindset that didn't matter. But lets say it does, Remember, the demon/devil wanted the character to sin, the sin of lust. It could have disguised itself to do so, but it didn't. The character made the choice to lay with evil, and to do so is to taint your soul.

 

[Silveras]

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.

That changes things a bit. Still, by agreeing to give the souls of others in an effort to get his own back, that's still Evil (no matter the alignment of the souls in question).