Vile Villains With A "Good" Judgement

[Bartmanhomer]

I read The Book Of Vile Darkness. It's mention evil could work together as a team. Isn't a bit ironical that working together would consider to be evil? For example, a succumbs and eryines are working together and they're both evil, when a eryines is wounded from fighting the enemies, a succumbs healed her partner.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I thnk you kind of need stuff like that even in a non-vile campaign to make your bad guys more believable.

I mean, remember the old Transformers cartoon? Starscream was constantly undermining Megatron's authority and contributed little if anything to the fight against the autobots. If Megatron had any instinct for organizational structure, he would have cleaned the autobots clock in five minutes flat.

There's nothing wrong with bad guys working together.

 

[Shemeska]

Pure evil can have friends too.

Unless your evil is one dimensional and shallow you'll need them acting in ways that are smart and frankly needed for longterm success. Organization is a good thing, though it may not be a classic heirarchy (such as the armies of an Abyssal Lord, as chaotic as they are).

For example, in the campaign followed by my first storyhour , the main antagonists are a cabal of yugoloths united really only by one charismatic leader, the eventual Oinoloth, who maintains cohesion and cooperation between his partners by a combination of knowledge about what the others want, raw power, and ensuring that they both benefit by helping him. At the same time he ends up elevating a protege to a serious position of influence, giving him a 4th supporter in power, and someone else to play off the other two in the event that they got too headstrong for his like. Those two partners and his protege all have various reasons to loathe one another, but their organization works for the most part like a well oiled machine because they have enough common goals, and enough benefits coming to them, to keep it from breaking down by their own greed and nature as effectively elementals of treachery and lies.

One of those fiends, the Keeper of the Tower Arcane in Gehenna, I actually ended up writing a love story of sorts involving him and his predecessor and lover. He betrayed her in the end, but in a twisted, perverse sort of way, they both loved one another. That 'love' of course might be wrong, ugly and unrecognizable to mortals, but it was there nonetheless.

Villains, even ruthlessly evil beings with no spark of good in their body, aren't going to be the evil equivalent of 'lawful stupid' paladins

 

[Particle_Man]

aye, the trick is that they will help each other *if it is in their own interests to do so*. This can include long-term interests. That said, if it is in their own interests to openly betray an "ally", they will do that (Cue: "I believe the usefulness of our partnership has come to an end...Good-bye!" (kills "ally"). If it is in their own interests to *secretly* betray an "ally", they will do that. Thus a sneaky good guy just has to give one of the evil allies the convincing impression that it will benefit by betraying its allies, and it will do so.

I would suggest that LE folk are more likely to see the "big picture" and work together than NE folk, who in turn would be more likley to work together than CE folk.

That said, good folk ally with each other more easily than evil folk, for the simple reason that good folk have both the motivation of self-interest *and* the motivation of helping (and not betraying) their allies as reasons not to betray their allies. So evil folk would be allied less often than good folk, other things being equal.

So I would think that, in order of "working together", the most likely would be LG, then LN (there are less beings they would consider allies, but they would be loyal to those allies), then NG, then N, CG (not that organized, but recognize that others need help), LE (enlightened self-interest + a love of organization), NE (just enlightened self-interest), CN (the "leave me alone"/early "Han Solo" alignment), CE (combines "let me do what I want" and "self-interest", so it is very hard to maintain "enlightened self-interest" for long). IMHO.

For an example of evil folks working together, read Villains by Necessity, by Eve Forward. Note the extreme circumstances required to keep the villains from turning on one another.

 

[yennico]

aye, the trick is that they will help each other *if it is in their own interests to do so*. This can include long-term interests. That said, if it is in their own interests to openly betray an "ally", they will do that (Cue: "I believe the usefulness of our partnership has come to an end...Good-bye!" (kills "ally"). If it is in their own interests to *secretly* betray an "ally", they will do that. Thus a sneaky good guy just has to give one of the evil allies the convincing impression that it will benefit by betraying its allies, and it will do so.

I would suggest that LE folk are more likely to see the "big picture" and work together than NE folk, who in turn would be more likley to work together than CE folk.

That said, good folk ally with each other more easily than evil folk, for the simple reason that good folk have both the motivation of self-interest *and* the motivation of helping (and not betraying) their allies as reasons not to betray their allies. So evil folk would be allied less often than good folk, other things being equal.

So I would think that, in order of "working together", the most likely would be LG, then LN (there are less beings they would consider allies, but they would be loyal to those allies), then NG, then N, CG (not that organized, but recognize that others need help), LE (enlightened self-interest + a love of organization), NE (just enlightened self-interest), CN (the "leave me alone"/early "Han Solo" alignment), CE (combines "let me do what I want" and "self-interest", so it is very hard to maintain "enlightened self-interest" for long). IMHO.

For an example of evil folks working together, read Villains by Necessity, by Eve Forward. Note the extreme circumstances required to keep the villains from turning on one another.

I totally agree.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The problem is those choatic evils, you just have to watch them a little bit more.

 

[Turanil]

For example, a succubus and erinyes are working together and they're both evil, when a erinyes is wounded from fighting the enemies, a succubus healed her partner.

First of all, does an erinyes or succubus have the ability to cast healing spells? I doubt it. In any case, when an evil character does it, it doesn't do it for altruistic purposes but because in the end he will get a benefit of it. So while both the succubus and paladin could heal their allies, only the paladin is reliable; the succubus healed you because it suited her needs at the moment, but later she will ask some compensation, and may well let you die next time if it better serves her objectives at that moment.

 

[yennico]

First of all, does an erinyes or succubus have the ability to cast healing spells? I doubt it.

According to the SRD 3.5 they can not. They can only cast healing spells if they have at least one level cleric.

 

[Bartmanhomer]

I assume that evil characthers who wants to help and join forces with other evil characthers would make them less evil? (Even by force.)

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Contra the mantra of most RPGs, and, indeed, much general fantasy, evil people seem to work together quite well. It's the chaotics who don't play well with others. LE is far more likely than CG or TN to produce reliable, loyal allies, minions or commanders.

However, the OP's example doesn't stick. Two vain, self-centered, petty and absolutely immoral beings with countless eons of racial hostility between them do not a stable alliance make, even ignoring the fact that one is chaotic as well.