The Ethics of Slaying half-fiendish silver dragons

[Nightfall]

Oh I so didn't need that... :\

Hannibal the girl dragon child...

*shivers*

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Oh I so didn't need that... :\

Hannibal the girl dragon child...

*shivers*

It is an intriguing image, is it not? And pretty close to how I envisioned her...

 

[Nifft]

This is great stuff.

My PCs killed a Young Adult Blue (male) in Carceri, and found three eggs. They don't know that the mom is a half-fiend shadow-creature Old Blue... but they took the eggs, and have been raising two of the Wyrmlings (half-fiend shadow critters, too).

One of the PCs (a Monk/Paladin) took Leadership, so his little Wyrmling is going to be easy to "save", but the other PC who's got a Wyrmling hasn't got any mechanical justification for it... well, all these wicked ideas will come in handy some day soon I hope!

-- N

 

[Storyteller01]

This is great stuff.

My PCs killed a Young Adult Blue (male) in Carceri, and found three eggs. They don't know that the mom is a half-fiend shadow-creature Old Blue... but they took the eggs, and have been raising two of the Wyrmlings (half-fiend shadow critters, too).

One of the PCs (a Monk/Paladin) took Leadership, so his little Wyrmling is going to be easy to "save", but the other PC who's got a Wyrmling hasn't got any mechanical justification for it... well, all these wicked ideas will come in handy some day soon I hope!

-- N

Enjoy! Let us know how it turns out, 'kay?

 

[frankthedm]

One of the PCs then argued with her that it is Wrong to take apart living things (which didn't convince her at all) and that it is possible to learn much more about things by putting them together instead of taking them apart (which she said she will think about - the player rolled really well with Diplomacy). They then left her presence with the promise "to look her up later", to which she replied: "Perhaps I will look you up first." which freaked them out even more...

Once they were out of earshot, they argued...

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.

 

[Celebrim]

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.

In the case of the half-fiend spawn you may think you are getting around that, but water down ultimate evil is still ultimate evil. Even if you start talking about 'half-fiend'/'half-celestial' you are talking simply nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Regardless of your cosmological justification, there can't be 'half-fiend'/'half-celestials' because the two symbols aren't misible. It's like having something be half matter and half anti-matter. What is it that is half matter and half-antimatter? It's nothing. The whole thing just goes 'poof' whether we are speaking literally or metaphorically.

I'd just kill it. In order for a thing to be redeemable it must possess some degree of free will. Fiendish things have no free will in the matter. They have to be fiendish.

About the only way I could see making this thing redeemable is if it turned out to be two things inhabiting the same body, one of which was all fiend and the other of which was all something else. Then perhaps it would be redeemable under the loving breath of Bahumet, who could perhaps burn away the part that was irredeemable cleansing body and spirit. But trying to redeem a half-fiend without unmaking the half that is fiend is to me a completely impossible concept - and its quite beyond the power of any mortal to unmake the body and spirit of something without killing it. A more serious question is whether its even in the power of a god to unmake the body and spirit of something - changing its essential nature - without defacto killing the thing itself. Is personality death the same as death?

Putting it into another concept, let's say this is Hannibal the Girl Child Dragon? Is Hannibal redeemable in any fashion other than death? Charismatic and attractive are not aspects that make him redeemable. Just because the evil thing evokes sympathy doesn't mean mean that its any more redeemable. In fact, this just means its all the more dangerous and less redeemable. Hannibal exists as a literary character solely by his capacity to kill and terrify. That's the reason he was created. He can never stop being that. If you ever thing he is anything else, then you've forgotten what he is. And Hannibal is supposed to be merely human, not literally an incarnation of evil.

 

[Belmont20xx]

But the fluff and rules of D&D both state that fiends can rise, or celstials fall. Triel comes to mind as the most famous fallen angel, and the BoED has some options for redeeming the "iredeemable" such as the spell Sanctify the Wicked. The fact that she has a half silver dragon side would only make it easier to turn her from the a dark path.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

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.

I think the real question you would need to answer, however, is "Is it *actually* Half-Fiendish, or is Half-Fiendish just the template that matched most closely the author's desired mechanical goals?"

Sepcifically, we don't yet know that the creature's parent is a being of Evil incarnate. Yes, he's one bad-ass mutha (Shut yo mouth!), but then so are many wizards on the path to lichdom and clerics of Evil deities.

The creature's father could simply be an Evil being of immense power, and not necessarily a fiend.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, I solve the [EVIL] vs. cuddly l'il evil dichotomy in a number of ways.

If you are born on (take your first breath on) an [Evil] plane, your soul is Tainted. This is tough to lift. You probably gain the [Evil] descriptor.

If you are born on the Prime, your soul is Natural. You are not necessarily [Good] or [Evil].

If you have a fiendish parent, you gain some powers (some of them will be [Evil] powers, probably -- poison, animate dead, smite good). You don't necessarily gain the [Evil] descriptor.

If you voluntarily draw power from an [Evil] being via worship, you gain the [Evil] descriptor. Clerics, Blackguards, etc. If you atain powerful blessings from a [Good] being via worship, you gain the [Good] descriptor.

If you cast a lot of [Evil] spells (or use a lot of [Evil] spell-like abilities), you will start to gain the [Evil] descriptor.

Detect good, evil, etc. detect the descriptors. Additionally, detect evil detects undead, and detect good detects living creatures. Neither would detect a Modron.

Otherwise, you're basically Neutral.

-- N

 

[Eltern]

Is Hannibal redeemable in any fashion other than death? Charismatic and attractive are not aspects that make him redeemable...Hannibal exists as a literary character solely by his capacity to kill and terrify. That's the reason he was created. He can never stop being that. If you ever thing he is anything else, then you've forgotten what he is. And Hannibal is supposed to be merely human, not literally an incarnation of evil.

That's all subject to literary interpretation As a Lecterphile, I tend to disagree.