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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 3367214" data-attributes="member: 11697">I don't particularly care for the Hellbred to be honest. It seems too much in the vein of something better used in a cosmology in which a monolithic Good vs Evil dichotomy exists, something that doesn't truly exist in D&D's cosmology. The idea of redemption... the word itself has trappings of an objective, overwhelming good which is also a bit of a wierd fit for D&D, since evil souls aren't going to the lower planes for punishment or retribution for sins, they're going there to wallow in what their souls most resemble.But.That said, while in the general case the idea seems cliche to me, the potential still exists for evil souls to change from what they are. Mortal souls in the lower planes can evolve into different things either through their own action (the transition of larvae into Hordelings) or through outside action (the transformation into lemures in Baator), and they can go in directions at odds with where they end up. Mortal souls don't arrive anywhere in the planes in a purified form. Any random petitioner is still cluttered with flaws and bits of conflicting metaphysical essence at odds with the majority parts that drew them to whatever plane they're on. It's possible for will or circumstance to tip the scales one way or the other, even if dramatically different ways.We have examples of fallen archons, fallen eladrin, etc alongside examples of risen baatezu and even risen yugoloths. If those living manifestations of alignments can change their colors, so to speak, that opens the door for petitioners to conceivably change. But keep in mind that most petitioners don't have many, or any, memories of their mortal life to work with. So a faint bit of regret might be there, but not perhaps the reason why a particular petitioner sitting on a sandbar in the acid shallows of Porphatys feels that way. Such change, call it redemption if you want, is going to be rare as all heck.And of course souls/petitioners that worship specific gods and are claimed by members of a particular pantheon may be subject to specific rules that on a local level trump the overwhelming situation in the universe of a whole. For example there's the particular brand of soul-hoarding fascism happily embraced by the Torillian pantheon. If you fail to worship them, or do so falsely, you do experience punishment regardless of alignment, because the gods on that world don't want their monopoly threatened. To such souls the fiends from a certain point of view offer a harsh brand of freedom from Kelemvor's idealistic slavery of mortals that didn't dance to his deific fellows' tune. Redemption exists under the laws of the Faerunian gods, but it only will happen by their rules, under their system. But the redemption of Torillian souls has more to do with being claimed by one god versus another rather than a personal change involving their own essence, their own inner being, by their own will and determination.</blockquote>

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