Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

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Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Five »

As per a suggestion put forth by ewancummins in another thread here it is: a thread for all to discuss DM options, advice, and other such things on various ways to bring traditional monsters to their games that are somehow less than monstrous through their actions. Yes, a place to discuss non-evil vampires, liches, werewolves, witches, and ghosts. And everything in between.

Got an idea on a good-aligned vampire, then break it out. Is he/she sort of like Nick Knight (from the television series Forever Knight) in that they refuse to drink human blood, or, only from the willing? Are they trying to redeem a despicably violent past? Are they successfully resisting the primal urges that came with their change? How are they doing this?

A witch that scams and feeds on other witches? Tell us about it!

A werewolf who would rather appreciate the beauty of Nature than give in to their inner Beast?

What about a ghost who, unseen by all but those rare individuals who posses The Sight, wages an eternal war with its malevolent brethren? Or, an NPC (or PC for that matter) ghost that acts as a manifestable (combat!) guardian for one of your PCs?

Have you ever played a campaign in which the players roleplayed the monsters of nightmares, satiating their appetites on the hapless? Have you ever wanted to play such a campaign? (I know, this one is the circle to the square in regards to the thread's topic, but a switched POV is or can be abstract insight into it!)

Floor's all YOURS...have at it. :)
Last edited by Five on Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by ewancummins »

First, something from published TSR Ravenloft


SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOLIER
MODULE SPOILER




BOOK OF CRYPTS



A s far as the Gothic/VR guides monster classics go:


Vampires: IMO, always evil-aligned, or in rare-as-hens teeth execeptions, neutral and fighting inevietable corruption.

I might allow a vampire bloodline for a human PC, as per Unearthed Arcana, though. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm
Or a dhamphyr?
This would be a special case, like somebody playing a drow in an FR game I ran. Not a standard option.

Lycanthropes: Werebears were apparently a popular monster-PC choice in some late 1970s/early 80s D&D campaigns. They show up as a PC option in White Dwarf.
Seems legit. Beorn!
I'd add wereboars and wereravens, as these are also omnivores and good or neutral aligned by nature, and so can more plausibly resist the urge to om nom nom people.
Lycanthropes can probably be handled better as a class than an add-on set of freebie super powers.
I own a copy of Night Howlers, which does that prefgttyt well for Classic and can be adpated to 2E.


MUM-RAS!

They're powered on that sweet, sweet Positive energy. Maybe.
Non-evil Anicent Dead? Maybe. But I doubt it. As a rule, undead=evil.
Or mindless (and still evil in 3E).

Boo-berries

Ghostwalk! I need to check that out.


The Created
Warforged are basically a kind of golem or living statue.

Fiends= always evil. It's made of evil.

If a fiend somehow stopped being evil, I think it would fade away to nothingness or maybe reincarnate as a mortal baby.

Vistani
Sure, they aren't an evil race. But the corrupt gipsies who serve Strahd in the first module are NE. They were later tagged as Vistani, but one could easily run them as something else. Or maybe darklings.

But would I allow a full Vistani PC, with powers? Nope.
The Vistani are a DM tool, not a players' option, as I see it.

I do allow half-Vistani, but I prefer they be rare.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Mistmaster »

I have invented two domains filled with non evil monster races, Zeindost and Lazendrak.
All in all, my rule is: Free Will prevails, only outsiders are vinculated to theyr alignement.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Five »

Mistmaster wrote:I have invented two domains filled with non evil monster races, Zeindost and Lazendrak.
And where can we find these domains? Are they online? Here in a thread...?

-nudge- ;)
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Mistmaster »

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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by tomokaicho »

ewancummins wrote:If a fiend somehow stopped being evil, I think it would fade away to nothingness or maybe reincarnate as a mortal baby.
The fiends are spirits wearing a flesh suit, more or less. If an evil fiend was somehow to stop being evil then I guess that its flesh would change to reflect that. So there would be no Lawful Good Pit Fiends even if that was possible in the first place. A Pit Fiend that became Lawful Good would transform into something befitting its nature.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Wolfglide of the Fraternity »

I can think of two paths to a fiend turning good.

First, a common theme with supernatural evil beings is the idea that they have fallen from grace. Those fiends that used to be good may retain enough recollection of how they used to be that the proper sequence of events could force enough introspection to turn them back, effectively un-falling. I imagine, if the fiend truly committed to returning to the ways of good, it would eventually assume something more akin to its former shape. This is probably the most likely way for a fiend to become good.

A fiend born of evil cannot act out of the goodness of its heart, because there is none there. This brings me to the second path: infection. If someone were to curse a fiend with the ability to feel love, empathy, conscience, or some other such thing, it could potentially act in a viral fashion. The fiend would certainly respond to it as such, being terribly pained by foreign emotions which make it feel bad for committing the evil it formerly enjoyed. Many fiends would get trapped in a cycle of self-loathing and rage at their condition, getting worse every time they regret lashing out as a result of said rage. A few, however, might become so "corrupted" by the spreading seed of something good that their perspective shifts. They would find themselves elevated into the light from their previous, misguided ways. Its sort of like that thing Meister Eckhart said that was quoted in Jacob's Ladder:
The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and ... you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.
A fiend that views the encroaching goodness as a disease will feel like its life is being destroyed, but a fiend that comes to terms with it (or is severely infected, depending on your point of view) will feel like it is being freed from evil. This type of journey would make for a very interesting player character.

Anyway, that's my perspective.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

tomokaicho wrote:
ewancummins wrote:If a fiend somehow stopped being evil, I think it would fade away to nothingness or maybe reincarnate as a mortal baby.
The fiends are spirits wearing a flesh suit, more or less. If an evil fiend was somehow to stop being evil then I guess that its flesh would change to reflect that. So there would be no Lawful Good Pit Fiends even if that was possible in the first place. A Pit Fiend that became Lawful Good would transform into something befitting its nature.
Fiends do not change their appearance by changing their alignment. The shadow fey do, but not fiends. So it is actually possible for such anomalous creatures to exist. They would be unique, though. Other fiends who learned of their change of heart would undoubtedly seek to destroy them, the denizens of the Upper Planes won't automatically accept them (unless they're an especially compassionate and forgiving type), and even their appearance is going to be a problem unless it can be hidden under illusions or some sort of alter self or polymorph spell-like ability. So it's not that they can't become good, they just face some serious hurdles if they do.

All that said, not many redeemed fiends would want to retain their old appearance or spell-like abilities that use Evil spells (desecrate, unhallow, etc.) so they would no doubt seek places and objects in the multiverse that would change them. It would also be evidence to others they have truly changed, making their eventual acceptance easier.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Five »

ewancummins wrote:If a fiend somehow stopped being evil, I think it would... maybe reincarnate as a mortal baby.
So, essentially, the root of Innocence is pure Evil, or, pure evil seeds Innocence; Innocence is the Grey between White and Black, and ultimately the warchild of and battlefield between "Heaven" and "Hell" (a once victory for the army of Light, an attempt at reclamation by the army of Darkness)...fascinating. Almost as fascinating as the fact that I used the word "fascinating" (I never did associate any aspect of myself with that of Spock. Guess my road to self-discovery still has some pretty strange and eye-opening hidey-holes yet to be explored!). Haha

Seriously, that's some pretty wild stuff. Talk about Original Sin (in a fantasy game of course)!

My DM mind didn't blow, but it -did- spasm. Haha

Thanks for that. Got some world re-sculpturing to do now. You just pretty much chalk-lined the Dark Powers (from my perspective anyway)! :)

Good creates Man from the ashes of their vanquished foes in an effort to contain it/prevent it from regenerating (in their infinite wisdom knowing that with due diligence they can keep Man good, or at least non-Legion). Evil, not possesessing the powers of Creation, has no choice but to corrupt Man back into its Legion/ranks (free will is the key to their Return). It reminds Man of the way things are "supposed it be", etc. The state of Undeath is Evil's big muck you to Good much in the same way that the (stereotypical) paladin is to Evil. Not so much a creation as it is a barrier. The Dark Powers (collective consciousness of Evil?) have created (blacksited) a demiplane much as a team of scientists creates a laboratory. There they experiment to purify Evil (curses are a security measure and nothing more) in an attempt at creating "super soldiers", "stormtroopers", etc for their eternal war against Good.

Neutral is standing by (sitting in ass-deformed chairs more like it) smoking cigars and drinking pints, watching the game and making comments like those two old bastards from the Muppet Show...haha

Anyway, that's a bit of a sidetrack. I'll cut it short there. Besides, I need more time to develop, pick apart, and polish..
Last edited by Five on Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:09 am, edited 3 times in total.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."

- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

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Five wrote:So, essentially, the root of Innocence is pure Evil, or, pure evil seeds Innocence; Innocence is the Grey between White and Black, and ultimately the warchild of and battlefield between "Heaven" and "Hell" (a once victory for the army of Light, an attempt at reclamation by the army of Darkness)...fascinating.
Who is to say it doesn't work the other way? Wether it's 'good' going down or 'evil' going up, you have the halfway house in the middle called humanity. ;)

To paraphrase Death musing on humanity from the end of Hogfather - "To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape demon."
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Five »

DustBunny wrote: Who is to say it doesn't work the other way? Wether it's 'good' going down or 'evil' going up, you have the halfway house in the middle called humanity. ;) [/i]

Gothic/quasi-gothic themes says so. :p

(Touche! One can easily put a positive spin on things. I'm just a half-empty kinda guy I spose. Haha)
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by ewancummins »

Five wrote:
ewancummins wrote:If a fiend somehow stopped being evil, I think it would... maybe reincarnate as a mortal baby.
So, essentially, the root of Innocence is pure Evil, or, pure evil seeds Innocence; Innocence is the Grey between White and Black, and ultimately the warchild of and battlefield between "Heaven" and "Hell" (a once victory for the army of Light, an attempt at reclamation by the army of Darkness)...fascinating. Almost as fascinating as the fact that I used the word "fascinating" (I never did associate any aspect of myself with that of Spock. Guess my road to self-discovery still has some pretty strange and eye-opening hidey-holes yet to be explored!). Haha

Seriously, that's some pretty wild stuff. Talk about Original Sin (in a fantasy game of course)!

My DM mind didn't blow, but it -did- spasm. Haha

Thanks for that. Got some world re-sculpturing to do now. You just pretty much chalk-lined the Dark Powers (from my perspective anyway)! :)

Good creates Man from the ashes of their vanquished foes in an effort to contain it/prevent it from regenerating (in their infinite wisdom knowing that with due diligence they can keep Man good, or at least non-Legion). Evil, not possesessing the powers of Creation, has no choice but to corrupt Man back into its Legion/ranks (free will is the key to their Return). It reminds Man of the way things are "supposed it be", etc. The state of Undeath is Evil's big muck you to Good much in the same way that the (stereotypical) paladin is to Evil. Not so much a creation as it is a barrier. The Dark Powers (collective consciousness of Evil?) have created (blacksited) a demiplane much as a team of scientists creates a laboratory. There they experiment to purify Evil (curses are a security measure and nothing more) in an attempt at creating "super soldiers", "stormtroopers", etc for their eternal war against Good.

Neutral is standing by (sitting in ass-deformed chairs more like it) smoking cigars and drinking pints, watching the game and making comments like those two old bastards from the Muppet Show...haha

Anyway, that's a bit of a sidetrack. I'll cut it short there. Besides, I need more time to develop, pick apart, and polish..
Glad you liked it.

And, yes, Original Sin is relevant to this notion of fiends.

I'm also looking at the established AD&D lore about where larvae (the maggot monsters) come from and to what uses they can be put by both demons and devils.
In essence:

Dude is born.

Dude grows up and makes many selfish and cruel choices, becoming evil-aligned

evil dude dies

possibly becomes a larva

Night hag may snatch the larva from Hades and trade it to demons or devils

Demons or devils may use it to make manes or lemurs (basic sorts of demons and devils)


Note that ghosts and spectres etc also have lower planar origins in the Monster Manual (1E). Ghasts are linked with demons.


Planescape adds a lot of material to, but doesn't tend to contrdict, the above lore.



My idea is that fiends reverse the development/journey from fiend to mortal innocent (innocent isn't the same as good or lacking the seeds of corruption) if they somehow stop being evil, because the only thing left of their original mortality is a sliver of mortal essence, some lingering free will.

That, or else they dissipate because there's nothing left of them that isn't the stuff of Evil incarnate.

Of course, some fiends may come from mortal origins and others might never have been mortal.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by ewancummins »

I like the notion that Daemons/Yugoloth were never mortal. It adds to their alien creepiness.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Five »

ewancummins wrote:I'm also looking at the established AD&D lore about where larvae (the maggot monsters) come from and to what uses they can be put by both demons and devils.
In essence:

Dude is born.

Dude grows up and makes many selfish and cruel choices, becoming evil-aligned

evil dude dies

possibly becomes a larva

Night hag may snatch the larva from Hades and trade it to demons or devils

Demons or devils may use it to make manes or lemurs (basic sorts of demons and devils)


Note that ghosts and spectres etc also have lower planar origins in the Monster Manual (1E). Ghasts are linked with demons.


Planescape adds a lot of material to, but doesn't tend to contrdict, the above lore.
Is there any reason why you changed it from quasit and imp (1E MM)? Just curious is all.

And yes, it's all there in print (for those that care about stuff like that). Larva are written to be the (once mortal) building blocks of demons and devils (and energy bars for liches). Demons and devils turn these things into a variety of creatures ("higher creatures"), depending on the form/power of the shaper in question (Planescape MC).

And now I'm left with this question in my head: would it be too far of a stretch to say that if one were to slay/banish (using holy powers) a demon or devil, it would be an act of devolution? A non-holy banishment/"kill" would just send them back to the Lower Planes to brood/pinpoint their anger, but could a divine killing topple the building blocks, level by level, until they are back to being larva? And then we have Man (or nothing)? And if this is true then what? The soul returns to mortal form for a shot at true/personal redemption? Or does its essence fragment into a sort of collective and reform into another mortal (for a shot at racial redemption)? Am I thinking too much? haha Or, is there something...else?

Which brings us back to the conversation/commentary between tomokaicho and High Priest Mikhal.

And the infection (divine plague?) mentioned by Wolfglide...that's asymmetric warfare, one that is more easily fought by the Champions of (Good) Humanity due to prime material/alchemical factors...?

I've never spent any table time (or much thought for that matter) outside of the "Prime Material", so this is new ground for me. Sorta. Kinda.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devil (or, Anomalous Monsters in RL)

Post by Wolfglide of the Fraternity »

Five wrote:And the infection (divine plague?) mentioned by Wolfglide...that's asymmetric warfare, one that is more easily fought by the Champions of (Good) Humanity due to prime material/alchemical factors...?
I consider the idea of infecting a fiend with good to be symmetric with the already corruptive nature of evil, an identical process with an opposite end goal.
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