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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 2514615" data-attributes="member: 27780">Not in the same way as humans, but yes they do have a certain amount of freedom of choice in exactly what they do. The difference is that they have incredibly strong moral imperitives and drives, that are essential to them being the way they are, while humans have biological imperitives such as food, air, sleep, and mating. Some Exemplars have specific dietary requirements, but their main need is to carry out and propagate their particular brand of sin or virtue, and killing, seducing, draining emotions or whatever is a means to that end. If they change alignment, they change what they fundementaly are, and probably become an exemplar of the new appropriate type. &nbsp;2nd ed planescape stuff explains that fairly neatly. And since the premise of &quot;these creatures are formed from the souls of creatures of a particular alignment after their death&quot; and the proportion of good to evil creatures in the various D&amp;D monster manuals, the greater frequency of fiends is understandable. In the D&amp;D universe, there are simply far more races naturaly predisposed towards evil. And since evil things are more likely to kill and be killed, that means far more souls going to the lower planes and becoming fiends. &nbsp;Shrug. In general, it seems to be depicted that they cannot breed with one another, but are cross-fertile with virtualy any race that breeds normally. What the metaphysical explanation for that could be, I have no idea, and you should decide for yourself, but the ramifications in story terms are significant and fairly obvious.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 2514615, member: 27780"] Not in the same way as humans, but yes they do have a certain amount of freedom of choice in exactly what they do. The difference is that they have incredibly strong moral imperitives and drives, that are essential to them being the way they are, while humans have biological imperitives such as food, air, sleep, and mating. Some Exemplars have specific dietary requirements, but their main need is to carry out and propagate their particular brand of sin or virtue, and killing, seducing, draining emotions or whatever is a means to that end. If they change alignment, they change what they fundementaly are, and probably become an exemplar of the new appropriate type. 2nd ed planescape stuff explains that fairly neatly. And since the premise of "these creatures are formed from the souls of creatures of a particular alignment after their death" and the proportion of good to evil creatures in the various D&D monster manuals, the greater frequency of fiends is understandable. In the D&D universe, there are simply far more races naturaly predisposed towards evil. And since evil things are more likely to kill and be killed, that means far more souls going to the lower planes and becoming fiends. Shrug. In general, it seems to be depicted that they cannot breed with one another, but are cross-fertile with virtualy any race that breeds normally. What the metaphysical explanation for that could be, I have no idea, and you should decide for yourself, but the ramifications in story terms are significant and fairly obvious. [/QUOTE]

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