The Ethics of Slaying half-fiendish silver dragons

[Jürgen Hubert]

That was a HUGE mistake. If something is walking around in a child's form, there is a good chance they will have thier Con Lowered by that form. The party should have attacked when they saw those eyes[they have seen them berfore], They could have got it flat footed and without its natural armor. possibly forcing a massive damage save in the ambush round if the smaller=lower massive damage threshhold rule is used. Its first action will be to move or shift to normal, likley drawing AoO's from expainsion or movement and giving pcs even more free wacks.

Well, they are very hesitant about attacking and killing anything that hasn't attacked them first. Sure, this isn't always the most effective stratefy - but it is great role-playing, and I'm proud of my group for that.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I don't have much to say except that the idea of fiendish spawn that are only partially evil but somehow still have a strand of good in them is utterly unappealling to me. This is not like dealing with a half-orc child. It demotes the concept of fiends from that of incarnations of evil to that or mere monsters. It smacks of 'fiends are people too'. I could just as well use people if I need something to stand in for people, or orc if I needed something to stand in for 'generally ugly savage person'. Once you start appealing to the symbolism of demons, you are by definition talking about 'incarnated evil', and if incarnated evil is only partially evil its like saying that evil isn't evil. If evil isn't evil, then evil doesn't exist which judging by the complex moral problems you seem to be trying to put into your stories doesn't seem to me at first glance what you are actually trying to say.

The answer to this is, of course:

"What would make for the better story?"

If the PCs are really insistent about "saving" her, then I'll make it just barely possible. I like to indulge my players like that.

Of course, I'm not going to make it easy for them...

 

[Ryltar]

It smacks of 'fiends are people too'.

Oh, but they are. Ultimately evil people, of course, but they still have wishes, desires, ideals like everyone else, twisted though they may be. To deny them that would be to reduce Evil to something like "I'm not touching that with a 10ft pole, it's evil", thus taking every possible depth from the concept.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Oh, but they are. Ultimately evil people, of course, but they still have wishes, desires, ideals like everyone else, twisted though they may be. To deny them that would be to reduce Evil to something like "I'm not touching that with a 10ft pole, it's evil", thus taking every possible depth from the concept.

I tend to agree. "Ultimate Evil" is best left to cthonic entities that no human can comprehend and stay sane, who don't speak in any recognizeable language and who don't have any remotely humanoid forms. If humans see or hear something that they think of as "human" with these beings, it is only a delusion of their mind that tries to make sense of what they experience.

Demons and devils ultimately can trace their origin to human souls (at least in Planescape, which I consider one of the best settings to feature these entities), and thus, it should be possible for humans to recognize their emotions and aspirations - even if almost all humans will be shocked by the whole intensity of their evil.

 

[glass]

"To see how it would effect the local goblins. They have a rather interesting ecological niche. Besides, I was hungry. Human livers go very well with wine. Care for some Waterdehaven Merlot? DR 154, an exceptional year..."

Oh, Hanilbal Lecter. For seom reason when at first glance I thought Hanibal Smith, and I didn't remember his being particularly amoral


glass.

 

[Celebrim]

Oh, but they are. Ultimately evil people, of course, but they still have wishes, desires, ideals like everyone else, twisted though they may be. To deny them that would be to reduce Evil to something like "I'm not touching that with a 10ft pole, it's evil", thus taking every possible depth from the concept.

To each as they think is best, but I think you just removed all possible depth from the concept. If fiends - and just so we are on the same page here I mean the whole extraplanar D&D collection of demons, devils, daemons, hags, hordlings, etc. - are just like everyone else, what's the point?

What's interesting about evil is generally that it is "Don't touch this with a 10ft. pole, it's evil", and people touch it anyway.

I don't think it is actually possible to understand the motivations of something that is truly evil. Typically when people talk about evil, they project onto it things which are actually good and just twist them a little (if they are even capable of that). I think that that is a failure of the imagination, and to imagine that demons still have wishes, desires and ideals "like everyone else" is a failure of the imagination. I don't think that something that is actually evil does have rational sentiments the way that we understand them. Things that are inhuman should be inhuman, and thier inhumanity is the depth of the concept.

Most 'evil' presentations are to me simply no more evil than the Adams Family. They are simply things which enjoy things that we don't. Don't get me wrong, I adore the Adams family as a comedy, but as a presentation of evil it is incoherent and the Adams is are ultimately motivated under thier black clothing by sentiments which we associate with 'good' - family, loyalty, pleasure, freedom, creativity, etc. One thing though that the writers of the Adams Family do get right, although they never can get it consistantly right because the resulting story would be impossible to understand or imagine, is that the Adams are inversions of what we like. You shouldn't think that the Adams take pleasure from the things which cause us pain, although they are frequently presented that way because you couldn't understand them otherwise. No, real evil desire things that hurt them simply for the sake of being hurt and not because they intend to enjoy it. The gleeful anticipation is the device added by the writers because the audience can't be made to understand that they do what they don't want to do and experience what they don't want to experience because that is part of the paradox of evil. To me nothing better conveys the experience of evil than the drug addict who has lost all savor for the drug and who knows that the drug is killing them, but who continues to take it anyway because his nature is now craving the very thing which he has come to hate.

Tolkein understood evil. That's part of the reason his story about it is so powerful.

The problem with saying that evil things have desires that are just like everyone else is that, from the perspective of that person if those desires are for things which are good, then the actions that that creature takes are also good - they just happen to be not so good for you. In renders all of moral interaction down to the level of the antelope and the lioness. From the antelope's perspective, getting eaten by the lion is bad. But from the lioness's perspective, eating the antelope is a very good thing which prevents starvation, provides pleasurable sensation, and produces milk for her family. Once you turn fiends into predators having wishes and desires like everyone else, then you've denied that evil exists at all - for if a demon isnt' by definition evil then what is? You've made your statement that everything is relative and that there is no deeper meaning to life. Incidently of course, this might be just what the demon 'believes' - or at least says he believes in order to fulfill his nature and convince the unwary that evil has interesting depths.

So maybe you should think more about evil as something not to be touched with a 10' pole.

 

[Vanion]

In Reply to #1

Excellent work. I generally cringe throughout most FR campaigns (never liked the setting much, or any High Magic one for that matter), but this is quite simply top notch DMing on your part, and definitely intriguing stuff.

On the nature of the tests, I like what's been suggested so far. The 15 to wisdom score I'd see more as a representation of unnatural willpower, perception and aptitude to learn from experience rather than any general conception of the world or temperance, the character is still incredibly naive, albeit with a range of strange and compelling experiences under her belt.

Personally, I'd like to see her do something more shocking and confronting early on, such as having a dead (or perhaps living) orc tied down in front of her, partially vivisected and/or amputated. At this point, she could ask the same PC she spoke to before about how to put things together again and the joy that one derived from it.

As a way to step it up as a horrific act, you might do things a little more progressively - as a way to drop your group's guard, she might have a series of puzzles in the room before the orc. This allows the use of symbology as well, in that one might be depicting a landscape scene, another something quite idyllic, another entirely prosaic and "neutral' in the imagery, and another with a vaguely forboding image (animal iconography perhaps). She might point to the resulting puzzles and proclaim with a jaded air that they were simple problems (20 int), but that she'd found them to be somewhat interesting and vaguely satisfying for those brief moments.

Leading them into the next room and asking for an idea of how to put living things back together by pointing to the orc, and then showing the results of her previous attempts (I liked the idea of snakes that had been taken apart and sort of pieced back together withour any magical intervention), the party would have a hell of a quandary on their hands. On the one hand, they'd all have some revulsion for treatment of the orc despite their own battles with its kind. On the other, they've actually seen some positive (or perhaps only seem to have seen it, depending on your interpretation of her character) progress in their attempt to show her a different way of doing things.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

To each as they think is best, but I think you just removed all possible depth from the concept. If fiends - and just so we are on the same page here I mean the whole extraplanar D&D collection of demons, devils, daemons, hags, hordlings, etc. - are just like everyone else, what's the point?

The point is that they are reflections of the evil in our own psyche. Evil that strikes close to home. They are reflections of our own weaknesses, lusts, and sins.

Many people deny the Evil that lurks in their own heart. Demons remind us that this Evil exists. But for this, they must be recognizeable as twisted reflections of humanity.

 

[Steverooo]

In Reply to #1

Excellent work. I generally cringe throughout most FR campaigns (never liked the setting much, or any High Magic one for that matter), but this is quite simply top notch DMing on your part, and definitely intriguing stuff.

On the nature of the tests, I like what's been suggested so far. The 15 to wisdom score I'd see more as a representation of unnatural willpower, perception and aptitude to learn from experience rather than any general conception of the world or temperance, the character is still incredibly naive, albeit with a range of strange and compelling experiences under her belt.

Personally, I'd like to see her do something more shocking and confronting early on, such as having a dead (or perhaps living) orc tied down in front of her, partially vivisected and/or amputated. At this point, she could ask the same PC she spoke to before about how to put things together again and the joy that one derived from it.

As a way to step it up as a horrific act, you might do things a little more progressively - as a way to drop your group's guard, she might have a series of puzzles in the room before the orc. This allows the use of symbology as well, in that one might be depicting a landscape scene, another something quite idyllic, another entirely prosaic and "neutral' in the imagery, and another with a vaguely forboding image (animal iconography perhaps). She might point to the resulting puzzles and proclaim with a jaded air that they were simple problems (20 int), but that she'd found them to be somewhat interesting and vaguely satisfying for those brief moments.

Leading them into the next room and asking for an idea of how to put living things back together by pointing to the orc, and then showing the results of her previous attempts (I liked the idea of snakes that had been taken apart and sort of pieced back together withour any magical intervention), the party would have a hell of a quandary on their hands. On the one hand, they'd all have some revulsion for treatment of the orc despite their own battles with its kind. On the other, they've actually seen some positive (or perhaps only seem to have seen it, depending on your interpretation of her character) progress in their attempt to show her a different way of doing things.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of.

And then, let the Cleric really blow her 20-INT little mind, and cast Heal! With her [Evil] descriptor, she won't be able to do THAT!

Tolkien also asked: What is the greatest weakness of Evil? His answer: That it can only see Good as weakness.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Leading them into the next room and asking for an idea of how to put living things back together by pointing to the orc, and then showing the results of her previous attempts (I liked the idea of snakes that had been taken apart and sort of pieced back together withour any magical intervention), the party would have a hell of a quandary on their hands. On the one hand, they'd all have some revulsion for treatment of the orc despite their own battles with its kind.

Actually, I have a funny story to tell about the party and orcs...

Just before they ventured into orc territory - at the base of the Spine of the World mountains - they met a slightly crazy hermit - a monk of the Old Order. They asked him for some advice on how to deal with any orcs they might encounter, and he told them:

"Beat them up - that's the only thing they understand."

He then explained them a few things about orc psychology and language (things that would be long, descriptive, and imaginative death threats in Common are only one or two-syllabe words in orcish), and explained that being big, tough, and intimidating was the only way of getting orcs to back off. The monk only got along relatively well with one tribe of orcs - and only after he beat up about half of its members. He suggested that if the PCs really wanted to go deeper into orc territory (and for a reason as crazy as "wanting to enjoy the view over the Endless Ice Sea", no less!), they should head into the direction of that particular tribe, if only because they were less likely to attack humans on sight. In fact, they had begun to worship the monk as a minor spirit of warrior prowess, and brought him regular offerings...

The PCs then set off further north and made contact with the orcs the next night. After the ritual exchange of insults and threats, the orc demanded a trial by combat - the leader of the PCs versus the tribe's champion.

Well, the ranger/cleric of Oghma managed to buff himself with an impressive number of buffs without getting noticed, and felled the orc in a short time without even getting scratched.

The rest of the orcs were so enthusiastic about such a great fight that they spontaneously invited the PCs into their tribe, and the PCs were vaguely aware that a feast in their honor was in the offering. Since the PCs are of a very curious sort, they accepted and got to experience the full range of orc "hospitality".

Later the orc chieftain held a speech: "Our tents are your tents, our food is your food, my daughters are your wives..."

After which three grinning orc women dragged the cleric off to a tent.

Later in the morning, the PCs snuk out of the camp. The cleric would only say that it was "an interesting experience..."


All in all, the PCs don't think much of orcs because orcs like to use violence as the first, last, and only solution to all problems, but they will still try to talk things out first.