Something that always kind of bothered me about planescape is the petitioners,paticularly petitioners that form on the lower planes.Just curious as to why anyone would still commit themselves to a life of evil actions if they know that the end result is to become a tortured petitioner on the lower planes(manes and such).It seems hard to justify being a reasonably intelligent villian if you know that ultimately the end result despite whatever bounty and pleasures yielded in life, is that you become a doomed and tortured being on some lower plane.
I mean it's one thing to have some abstract idea of a place where people who act horribly or do terrible things are sent to for punishment for thier actions, as a cautionary that mothers can whisper to their children so as to make them think twice or pause before doing evil acts. An evil person can just scoff and laugh at the idea.But when that place is an actual destination that can be traveled to and one can see first hand the petitioners eeking out their miserable existence(Albeit Tanari or baatezu watching is a rather crazy and dangerous vacation) it is no longer just a threat to force good behavior.
So then the "reward" for being evil is to become a pathetic wretch made to suffer.Not much incentive realy as a pursuit. I mean if you are good you become a petioner and get to live the good life(generally speaking) so the reward is worthwhile.It just makes it hard to justify why one would then pursue the evil path unless they: 1. Don't believe that evil mortals become petioners on the lower planes(despite the physical evidence to the contrary) 2. Think they can game the system and somehow either cheat death or avoid being sent to the lower planes when they die.(Which means they either plan on being immortal or making some deal that avoids their fate). 3.Don't care where they wind up or what happens to them after death.(Which is fine for insane or less intelligent villians,but not so much the masterminds and such.)4. They don't know or realize that they are doing evil.(I mean sure the dark paladin thinks he's right, but most villians know and relish in their evil actions)
I'll wrap this up as I have already rambled on too long probably as it is, but it would take alot to motivate someone to the philosophy of evil when the outcome of that choice is known beforhand,that you will suffer and be punished after death. It seems like a strong deterent for acting evil..(though what defines evil can be rather vague and spark a whole other lengthy disscusion, so I am basing this mainly on alignment and their definitions). I mean it would be hard to relish the wanton acts of destruction and depravity when you know that there is a consequence for your actions.(Which takes away the whole freedom that should come with being able to kill take or do whatever you want when you want as a despicable villian.) At least some of the evil clerics will go to specific places(death gods and such) or possibly become proxies after death, but for most it seems an unfullfilling destination that everyone would want to avoid after death.
Why would humans be evil if they become lower plane petitioners?
A thread on Alternate Evil Afterlives might be quite fun. Villains are even easier to despise if you aren't absolutely certain they're going to be suffering in the afterlife.
Well, Planescape inherited the Wheel from prior additions and in some ways made evil far more plausible. This does need to be explored, but here are a few thoughts:
1. Ignorance regarding the planes. The majority of worlds, I'd assume, don't know anything about the truth of the Wheel.
2. Assurance that one is not evil. This likely happens a lot, as people work to serve their god, the greater good, their community, or exercise their "rights" over others. I suspect many people don't recognize their own evil until it is too late.
3. Undeath, Immortality and Afterlife. Likely a lot of people believe they will cheat death, or go to their gods.
4. Ascension. There are ways to climb the ranks, even if you start off as larvae. Guessing these tales are spread by fiends who want to pretend a corrupt system is fair through justification by outliers. But I think there is a willful denial going on here.
The villain's thoughts on the subject may also vary with their faction membership. An evil member of the Dustmen or the Believers of the Source may truly believe they won't become a petitioner, and instead will either be reborn or die the true death.
An evil Doomguard may be trying to bring about the end, which, if successful, would mean no life or afterlife for anyone. An evil Sensate may believe they will reach an enlightened state, and that only those who fail to experience life become petitioners at all. A Bleaker probably doesn't care, a Signer may not acknowledge it as a possibility, and a twisted Guvner villain may believe that it's their duty to the cosmic balance to become one.
Furthermore, petitioners do not remember their past lives. Even if it is your "soul" or "essence" that makes up the petitioner, it is not "you." The you that you are now cannot experience any ultimate reward or ultimate punishment, and that being the case, why should you bother to strive for good? If your hard work being an angelic exemplar of the celestial is rewarded by becoming a husk with no recollection of who or what makes you you, ... why bother? What kind of reward is that? Your villain, pardon their French, may say "fuck that reward."
Was thinking along similar lines but I was thinking people might not believe petitioners come from souls precisely because their memories are gone. But Anerta points out a bigger issue - that the husk that is left is questionably "you", some might consider it
You know, the Wages of Virtue and Sin might be a good feature for the zine (not necessarily issue 1, but I'd be down). We could include a review of Surface Detail, which has space faring alien races create virtual afterlives for their faiths. Thing is, a copy of you can be in Hell while the fleshly you walks about.
It's not a flaw at all. Once you become a petitioner on an outer plane, your soul becomes infused with that plane's essence, which ripens you so that you can either become an outsider, merge with your god, or be absorbed into the plane's essence.
So basically, once you become a petitioner on an outer plane, it'll be exceedingly difficult to NOT become more and more like that plane's alignment, if not entirely inevitable. Even if a petitioner has the willpower to resist the plane's luring essence, they're stuck in that position for decades to centuries-- eventually they will become mentally and spiritually weary, giving themselves up to the plane's essence.
Furthermore, petitioners do not remember their past lives. Even if it is your "soul" or "essence" that makes up the petitioner, it is not "you." The you that you are now cannot experience any ultimate reward or ultimate punishment, and that being the case, why should you bother to strive for good? If your hard work being an angelic exemplar of the celestial is rewarded by becoming a husk with no recollection of who or what makes you you, ... why bother? What kind of reward is that? Your villain, pardon their French, may say "fuck that reward."
Actually, that's not always the case, at least according to the 3.5 books, the memories of one's past life *at least on the lower planes* are gradually stripped from them as they 'ripen'. In extremely, extremely rare cases, the fiends will turn an exceptionally powerful and wicked subject straight into a fiend, with the memories of their past life and personality intact, but this probably doesn't happen to anyone below-- at bare minimum-- 10th or 12th class level, or so. Very few mortals are aware of this fact, but of course the few who do strive to amass power and knowledge so that they can be among those exceptional few.
As for incentives, there are likely to be a few philosophies out there (such as the Wardens of Creation-- the anti-doomguard sect) who view becoming a dretch or nupperibo as a favorable outcome because even the lowliest of outsiders are still a higher form of existence than the highest form of mortals *like say-- mortal dragons*. Other members of the same sect view merging with the essence of one of the planes as the desired goal (thus they would not want to become a nupperibo or dretch, they'd want to become a petitioner whose essence is eventually scattered across the Abyss or Baator)
Why do people eat at McDonalds if they know it's going to make them fat?
Sometimes the temptation of immediate pleasure/gratification in the now is more important than the consequences and pain of the later.
That's also one of the sources of the Prolonger sect, too; people who will do anything to cheat death. And then there's the Dustmen, who believe they're already suffering a horrible afterlife, and the goal is to move beyond it and embrace nothingness. In their view, the horrors of the Lower Planes are just another illusion keeping them from True Death, just another distraction on the way to nirvana.
And then there's those who, like the Godsmen, Dustmen, and worshipers of the Vedic/Indian pantheon, believe in reincarnation. Even the worst afterlife is only a transitory period, in their view, a purgatory before they come back to the world of the living, refreshed and ready to begin anew.
I think even the neutral evil petitioners, though, have hope they might become greater, conquering swathes of the Gray Waste or Carceri or Gehenna, making the yugoloths their slaves. And who knows? In the infinite planes, maybe sometimes they might succeed.
Also: for some people, the Lower Planes are a paradise where they can cheat, murder, torture, and abuse others for all eternity. The Upper Planes are a hell where they're forced to behave.
And of course, in our own games we're free to emphasize or deemphasize whatever we want. It's perfectly possible to ignore the whole "unending, miserable, hopeless torment" aspect of the Lower Planes and emphasize the "paradise for evil people" angle.
The bigger thing, though, is it's not always easy to be good, and it's easy to procrastinate. There's lots of people who're all too willing to fall into bad habits and find it impossible to get out of them, even if they know they're bad ideas even when they only have one lifetime to worry about. You don't have to know how your afterlife will turn out (and does anyone really know, even in Planescape? Another rationale for the Prolongers is that some people don't even agree that petitioners are the souls of the dead - after all, if you ask them, they don't remember dying or ever living anywhere else. Maybe they're just natives of the planes. There's no real proof that larvae are made from dead people.). There's always people who assume they'll recant on their deathbed and everything will be okay. Even if it doesn't work that way. There's always people who say "I know I shouldn't keep robbing shopkeepers at knifepoint, but I have to eat." There's always people who say "I know I should stop murdering nuns, but it feels so good..."
"Once you become a petitioner on an outer plane, your soul becomes infused with that plane's essence, which ripens you so that you can either become an outsider, merge with your god, or be absorbed into the plane's essence.
So basically, once you become a petitioner on an outer plane, it'll be exceedingly difficult to NOT become more and more like that plane's alignment, if not entirely inevitable. Even if a petitioner has the willpower to resist the plane's luring essence, they're stuck in that position for decades to centuries-- eventually they will become mentally and spiritually weary, giving themselves up to the plane's essence."Yeah as a petitioner its not a matter of choice, the plane you form on will dictate your alignment and once there you are, or eventualy will be a part of that plane.That's not the question though.The question is why would a mortal want to choose to go to the lower planes(be evil) if they know what the outcome will be.
But even that is skewed as the "good" petitioners will have a freedom of choice in most cases.Do I want to be a farmer? Mabey a trader or guide? Or the choice to join a paticular faction that appeals to them.And they can screw up or willingly make decisions that could remove them from their home plane, like a fallen Archon or the Watchers."Evil" on the other hand gets no choice and no freedom. They form as lemures if they are dastardly evil or larva if they are just evil but dont make the cut to be lemures and get to suffer and toil in the cesspools of pain.(Yay!) With the exception of the few mortals evil and powerfull enough to become fiends straight off as you mentioned but those are suposed to be rare cases.
As for incentives, that is my primary point to this.Most evil actions stem from the motivation of personal gain.I mean a villian typicaly steals,or takes something because they want it for some selfish reason.They want power or wealth or status or pleasure.So cutting corners,making dark pacts,killing whoevers in your way,taking what you want,all these actions are done for the selfish benifit of the villian.They see a reward at the end of their actions.Nice guys finish last remember.But if the end result of doing things that way is to become a twisted,tortured thing made to suffer at the whims of others, then the incentive to do things the evil way seems to be far less appealing.
Most mortals(prime material humans mainly) are not involved with factions or the philosophies they represent,one of many reasons they get the clueless stamp on their foreheads.So I agree Anetra that a villian associated with a faction would have a broader sense of the long term picture and what the intend to accomplish. Most villians though are in in the whole "evil" game for more self serving purposes.
As to not remembering their past lives, Thats just another blow to the old ego for most villians isn't it. Not only that, but the fact that i may not remember who I was doesn't mean that I want to become a wretch getting the skin flayed off of me and tortured constantly at the whim of others with no say in the matter. At least the good husk as you say it still has the freedoms and choices to make an existence of sorts. It just seems that if you walk the evil path you are doomed to suffer,when while you lived you had the ability to make OTHERS suffer.At least those who follow certain powers/deities, are rewarded for their devotion to an evil ideology by forming as petitioners doing the very things they loved to while living(like the citadel of slaughter that Zimrazim mentioned elsewhere).So they get a satisfaction of sorts while the majority of evil doers instead just seem to get punished or made to suffer for their actions.
Sometimes the temptation of immediate pleasure/gratification in the now is more important than the consequences and pain of the later.
True enough but if eating that happy meal leads to an agonizing torment in the abyss then thats a hell of a deterent to most people don't you think.The consequences often dictate the course of action one takes. It's only wrong if you get caught(to quote Maynard) in most cases but if evil behavior leads to unavoidable torment and suffering would you willingly commit to that?
Also: for some people, the Lower Planes are a paradise where they can cheat, murder, torture, and abuse others for all eternity. The Upper Planes are a hell where they're forced to behave.
And of course, in our own games we're free to emphasize or deemphasize whatever we want. It's perfectly possible to ignore the whole "unending, miserable, hopeless torment" aspect of the Lower Planes and emphasize the "paradise for evil people" angle.
The bigger thing, though, is it's not always easy to be good, and it's easy to procrastinate. There's lots of people who're all too willing to fall into bad habits and find it impossible to get out of them, even if they know they're bad ideas even when they only have one lifetime to worry about. You don't have to know how your afterlife will turn out (and does anyone really know, even in Planescape? Another rationale for the Prolongers is that some people don't even agree that petitioners are the souls of the dead - after all, if you ask them, they don't remember dying or ever living anywhere else. Maybe they're just natives of the planes. There's no real proof that larvae are made from dead people.). There's always people who assume they'll recant on their deathbed and everything will be okay. Even if it doesn't work that way. There's always people who say "I know I shouldn't keep robbing shopkeepers at knifepoint, but I have to eat." There's always people who say "I know I should stop murdering nuns, but it feels so good..."
The fact that they are labeled as the petitioners of said planes kinda by definition means that they are the dead essence of former beings having that alignment. That is what planescape defines as a petitioner. So I am sure factions and others can twist it and play their angle however they want to try and rationalize things or convince others and themselves but when you can physically see the result of a dead mortal forming as a larva on Baator its hard to dispute the end result. I mean you could argue that tanari are angels bringing freedom and passion to mortals and that devas are demons holding mortals down but thats not what they are defined as in the material, heh.
Regardless I completly agree that some evil mortals are going to do evil regardless of the consequences(as I stated in 1. through 4.) The reason most people are good and kind is because of an inner morality that has evolved through society, not because if they are good they get rewarded.However there are a lot that do feel that being good is a path that will be rewarded and so that is why the behave that way.There are others that simply want to avoid the consequnces of doing bad or evil things for fear of punishment.So they behave good to avoid being punished or suffering rather then actualy feeling "good" or "kind" hearted.(ex. I want to murder my high up man but I dont want be imprisoned or executed so Im not gona do it.)
So isn't it the same for an evil ideology?Is every evil person that becomes a lower plane petitioner the type that just couldn't help themselves from doing evil things?I dont think the cesspools would be quite so full if that is the case.
Bottom line I agree that the evil paradise so to speak makes more sense to me.You would think that the dark powers and evil fiends would want more foder and resources, and that they would want to reward mortals who have created havoc and left a particular stain of evil in their wake.
Well, everything we know about the Lower Planes, if not everything we *see*, is based on the bias of being part of a human culture that ascribes to some kind of just desserts in the afterlife (or salvation through faith, but that is whole 'nother can o' worms).
There is also the problem that alignment is not agency. I can hate everyone around me but might be too weak or simply too cowardly to pillage the houses of my neighbors. Does this mean I get to be considered good or even neutral? Do acts of charity earn me a place in heaven if my motives were making my sludge dumping corporation look good?
Most people, even most evil people, think themselves good or at worst neutral. They love their family/race/nation/religion/gender, and otherwise do what they need to get by. But what if buying sweatshop clothing is enough to mark one with sin? Does benefiting from past slaughter in the present stain my soul unless I work to redress the disparities of the present?
What exactly results in damnation? Being a cut throat who grew up poor, while the kind people who knew riches their whole life get to enter Paradise?
The game of the Wheel is a game of chance, a soul roulette, and buddy it is *rigged*. We, the 'loths, know this, and we ask you to turn from the Light to the Truth - a thing with myriad petals, a gem of infinite facets. Help us understand this miracle called Evil...
But even that is skewed as the "good" petitioners will have a freedom of choice in most cases.Do I want to be a farmer? Mabey a trader or guide? Or the choice to join a paticular faction that appeals to them.And they can screw up or willingly make decisions that could remove them from their home plane, like a fallen Archon or the Watchers."Evil" on the other hand gets no choice and no freedom. They form as lemures if they are dastardly evil or larva if they are just evil but dont make the cut to be lemures and get to suffer and toil in the cesspools of pain.(Yay!) With the exception of the few mortals evil and powerfull enough to become fiends straight off as you mentioned but those are suposed to be rare cases.
I was considering mentioning this in my previous post, but I imagine that one of the "missions" that celestials get sent on is to 'rescue' the rare petitioner on the lower planes that has mended his or her ways.
Going with the essence thing I mentioned, these individuals are likely to (if possible) seek out areas on the layer/etc. where the plane's evil essence is weakest. Eladrin in particular seem likely to seek such individuals out. It seems like a much better rationale for a celestial expedition into Baator or the Abyss than going to war against a particularly nosy abyssal lord, and it seems likely to be more common an encounter with adventurers than those on intelligence gathering missions (not to mention that it might seem like crappy storytelling if agents of espionage are easily spotted by mid- to high-level mortal adventurers on a plane full of pit fiends, ultroloths, balors, or worse yet-- the prying eyes of the plane's consciousness itself-- after all, the very planes themselves seek to purge themselves of alignment and elemental opposites. Oh, yeah, this also seems like it would be far more commonplace than missions to rescue a petitioner or powerful mortal. You'd think the 15th level Paladin would get some sort of warnings from his deity NOT to go on an Abyss-purifying mission beforehand.)
As I mentioned in another topic (though initially it might seem out of character as purely presented in canon), the bacchae with the aid of sensates might send expeditions to the Gray Waste to rescue petitioners who have begun to mend their ways there.
One very noticeable difference between the real world and D&D is that in D&D, evil people generally do not lie to themselves.
The number of people on Earth who would worship Erythnul and admit to themselves that they're worshipping the Lord of Slaughter is, I feel, very small. However, taking even a cursory look at Earth history, one can easily find large numbers of humans who are happy to kill huge numbers of people, including helpless civilians, in the context of warfare ("they deserve it because X..."), loot and pillage a conquered city, steal from enemies using any excuse they can find, torture people, and generally taking actions that Erythnul would like a lot. The whole time they're doing that, they'd probably be telling themselves how good they are and how evil the enemy is.
There is also the problem that alignment is not agency. I can hate everyone around me but might be too weak or simply too cowardly to pillage the houses of my neighbors. Does this mean I get to be considered good or even neutral? Do acts of charity earn me a place in heaven if my motives were making my sludge dumping corporation look good?
Most people, even most evil people, think themselves good or at worst neutral. They love their family/race/nation/religion/gender, and otherwise do what they need to get by. But what if buying sweatshop clothing is enough to mark one with sin? Does benefiting from past slaughter in the present stain my soul unless I work to redress the disparities of the present?
What exactly results in damnation? Being a cut throat who grew up poor, while the kind people who knew riches their whole life get to enter Paradise?
I don't know if I buy into the whole,evil people think they are good,spiel.Sure thats true for some of them but you can't really tell me that guy relishing in the terror of his victims as he hunts them, or the torturer drinking in the screams,or bored tyrant slaughtering hundreds of people simply for amusement,or the raping pillager taking what he wants...that they actually think they are "good" people.These things give them a satisfaction or make them happy.
The debate of what makes one "evil" or not isn't really the issue.(that is a whole other topic involving various points of view.Like Dante pointing out the stupidity of all the great people in hell because they were born before Christianity.Ha! what a gip!) Alignment seems to be the determining factor of what plane you will become a petitioner on, there doesn't seem to be much of a grey area there. Now where on that plane is more wide open and could be dependent on various other details like deity worship or faction belief,etc.
So using your examples, the alignment of the individual is what matters not their disposition(coward) or status(appearing outwardly good) or opportunity(profiting from the misery and work of others).
The lower planes shouldn't be confused with "human biased perception as a place of just desserts in the afterlife." They are just the lower planes. A place where many creatures live and have lived regardless of the petitioners. My point was as a conscious choice as a mortal why you would do evil acts if you know that the end result will lead to a rather unpleasant existence on the lower planes. It seems like a strong deterrent or at least kills some of the desire or passion to be a truly despicable villain when you know you will be stripped of freedom and suffer because of that choice.
You might be surprised. Historically speaking, a lot of torture in Europe went on under the pretext of trying to "convince" someone to change from one religious belief to another. So the torturer would justify the torture to himself with 'I'm trying to save his soul.' Or it might be justified as a punishment: 'This woman is an adulteress, so it's OK to torture her as punishment.' So even if the torturer is taking sadistic pleasure in what he's doing, in his own mind it's OK because 'This guy's a heretic' or 'she's a fallen woman.'
There's also the Nuremberg defense: If someone is ordered by another person in a position of authority or leadership to do something, it can't be evil, right? (Lawful Evil alignment, I'm looking at you!)
That is a good premise for a celestial raid into the lower planes. Get the help of some adventurers to get in,extract the targets then get out again gaining some petitioners and weakining the planes power.With enough success it could possibly even weaken a section of the plane enough to cause it to slide to another plane entirely.Boy would that piss off an abysal lord or two eh?
Imagine if the 'rescued' petitioners were actually important or even vital components of some kind of massive project or construction. Part of a Ship of Chaos, for example. Or an important component of the Tower of Incarnate Pain.
Exactly. I sort of feel like the alignments are designed to work in a context of role-playing heroics and villainy, but most of the souls out there have nothing to do with any of that. I feel as if Gehenna should be filled with normal folks who aren't RPG evil, but are simply .... everyday evil. Regular, non-murderous people who just happen to be excessively selfish, petty, emotionally abusive, etc.
And for that matter, to what degree are characters intended to be cognizant of the whole alignment matrix and how it plays out in the planes? Presumably if you're in Elysium and ask a guardinal what this place is all about, he's not going to answer "Oh, we're the neutral good plane." Is he going to talk about neutrality and goodness at all? Or is Elysium simply what it is and it's a good place to be?
You might be surprised. Historically speaking, a lot of torture in Europe went on under the pretext of trying to "convince" someone to change from one religious belief to another. So the torturer would justify the torture to himself with 'I'm trying to save his soul.' Or it might be justified as a punishment: 'This woman is an adulteress, so it's OK to torture her as punishment.' So even if the torturer is taking sadistic pleasure in what he's doing, in his own mind it's OK because 'This guy's a heretic' or 'she's a fallen woman.'
There's also the Nuremberg defense: If someone is ordered by another person in a position of authority or leadership to do something, it can't be evil, right? (Lawful Evil alignment, I'm looking at you!)
That is different then the example I was using. I meant a person willfully causing the pain of another for the sheer pleasure derived from the act.He doesn't need to justify or convince himself that what he is doing is "good".
You do remember how well the Nuremburg defense worked right?All the way to the hangman. The bottom line is that unless insane,a person knows what they are doing is right or wrong.When your superior orders you to decapitate that childs father in front of him,you know that doing so will be an evil act.They know that they are doing an evil act despite whatever they might want to lye to themselves about in order to justify what they have done.
If it is wrong then a person knows that it is wrong even if the act is in itself an attempt to do good.The old kill one to save a thousand dilema.(If I cut out this babies heart then the Disease God won't kill thousands with a plague.) The ends doesn't justify the means if you know what you are doing is wrong.
Only in that specific case. Quite a few major genocides took place during the 20th century. (I can list several, if you really want me to.) That's not even counting the large-scale slaughters of centuries before that.
I have to disagree to at least some extent. If you've been raised in a culture/belief system that teaches you from the day of your birth that it's OK to war against "them," kill "them," take "their" stuff because of X reason, people in that culture will believe that they're good.
Humans will basically just go to ridiculous extremes in order to justify their own evil actions to themselves.
I have to disagree to at least some extent. If you've been raised in a culture/belief system that teaches you from the day of your birth that it's OK to war against "them," kill "them," take "their" stuff because of X reason, people in that culture will believe that they're good.
Killing isn't evil.Good and neutral kill things all the time.The motivation behind it is what would be important.If you are raised from birth to war against a particular group then to you it is a matter of survival and therefore not evil.However if the act of killing your enemy becomes more important to an individual then the survival and protection of his people then it is no longer about survival or belief.It becomes about self satisfaction at the expense of others, an evil act that he knows is wrong.
I agree that not all killing is objectively evil, but, at least on Earth, it's routine for a society to teach its members that killing others for evil reasons ("We want to steal their land") is actually good because of X ("they're different from us.")
Then that would be evil wouldn't it? I mean if I teach a baby that killing people with blue eyes is necessary for mankinds continued existence(just because) then thats an evil act.The child who grows up with this mantra beaten into them from birth then will have to make a decision when confronted with a blue eyed person.Do i destroy them to save mankind? That is the right thing to do isn't it?The child is just doing what is necessary for survival,not motivated by selfish or evil purpose.
Like a paladin tricked into doing bad,it doesn't change their alignment to evil because they weren't motivated by evil purpose.(they might lose paladin status but they can atone for mistakes and wrongs and feel bad about what happend when they find out they were in the wrong.)
Again it ultimately comes down to the motivation behind an action that makes it evil or not.
Imagine if the 'rescued' petitioners were actually important or even vital components of some kind of massive project or construction. Part of a Ship of Chaos, for example. Or an important component of the Tower of Incarnate Pain.
Heh,yeah that would be a great backdrop for an adventure. Stealing away vital personel from the fiends,nice.
"Damn! where are we gona find another evil engineer to finish this...on this plane.....at this hour.... "
You argue that teaching a child to kill blue-eyed people is evil, but the young person doing the killing isn't evil, because they were tricked or falsely indoctrinated from birth. But what do you think that young person is going to do when they grow up and have kids? They will then become the teacher, passing down what they learned from their parents - thus becoming evil in your own words. It's that perpetuating cycle that keeps humans killing humans, all the while salving their own conscience with justifications of moral superiority.
I think you're grossly underestimating how easy it is for people to justify "evil" actions as doing the right thing (for their god, country, family, self). I think it's very rare for someone to wake up in the morning and say, "You know what? I'm going to be really, really EVIL today." /twirls moustache
In the case of the Abyss, but perhaps also for other Lower Planes in special circumstances, a fanatically CE person could actually desire to undergo ego-death and become one with the Plane itself.
Basically if you exalt in chaos and evil and place this before your own sense of self-importance and personal will, then becoming subsumed by the Abyss would be a glorious destination in and of itself. The Abyss is far greater than its individual Demon Lords. If you don't have a strong sense of identity and the will to keep clinging to it then your time as a Petitioner will be relatively short before you become one with the Planar fabric.
The Abyss appears to have some kind of gestalt sentience, and it actively corrupts and infects other Planes, worlds and souls. Giving yourself to the Abyss, as a drop of water into the ocean, would in a small way fuel the flow of raw chaotic evil power itself across Creation. This would present a reward (or indeed just an acceptable final rest) for a certain kind of person.
I think you're grossly underestimating how easy it is for people to justify "evil" actions as doing the right thing (for their god, country, family, self). I think it's very rare for someone to wake up in the morning and say, "You know what? I'm going to be really, really EVIL today." /twirls moustache
Actualy i said teaching a child to kill just because(say for my own amusement) and lying to them about the reason was evil.I would be willingly decieving someone into causing harm to another for my own selfish reasons.that is why it is an act of evil.
If i actually was completely convinced that destroying a group of people was necessary for survival then it would be different.I would then be acting out of survival or protection,no different then say a lion killing heyena's so they don't kill the young or devour the food supply.The motivation,reasons behind the action is what is important concerning alignment.
Of course it's easy to justify doing horrible things to others.The commander wiping out a village of women and children might sleep soundly at night thinking he is doing the world a favor by removing weakness from the land by following his orders.Does he know he is doing right or wrong though?Of course he does despite the justification he creates to continue on.(all while twirling his mustache)
But i think we are getting off topic here and digressing into discussion about what is "evil"
Whose definition?
What is this "Planescape" you speak of? Nobody in the Planescape multiverse has access to any Planescape sourcebooks. I do, though, and I didn't invent the idea that people in the Planescape multiverse don't know for sure that petitioners are the souls of dead people. See the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II, page 72: "Sure, everyone says that a cutter wakes up in some new plane or another as a petitioner, but how does any single person know - really know - that's what's going to happen to him? What if it's all a grand peel?"
How would they know? The petitioners don't even know for sure where they came from. Some of them have memories given back to them by their gods, but what if their gods are lying, giving them memories that were never their own in order to better control them, to shape them into what the gods want them to be? What if the lives they remember were never real?
You can physically see larvae. You might even be able to see larvae forming. How do you know they were dead mortals?
You don't. You can't. They may have formed from something, but mortals?
Don't take anything for granted. The characters in the multiverse of Planescape know one thing: mysterious, dead-eyed people populate the Outer Planes. Some say they were once mortals. Some say they weren't. Planescape is about differing points of view, about beliefs. Facts? They don't have any place in the planes, berk. An imagination is what's needed.
No. We've been through this. We listed lots of other possibilities. Pay attention. They don't know. They refuse to know. They know more than you think. Nobody knows anything.
To a certain mindset, the Lower Planes are paradise.
Look at them. Look at the glory of Gehenna's furnaces, the black forests of Hades, the crystalline sands of Carceri, the infinite wonders of the Abyss, the palaces of Baator, Acheron's monuments of stilled time. Listen to the music of Pandemonium.
Really look. Really listen. Not with your eyes or your ears, but their eyes, their ears. Use your imagination. Forget your prejudices. Forget everything you think you've read. I have such sights to show you.
Planes of Conflict, Liber Malevolentiae, Page 48 (in the section on Petitioners): "If the Lower Planes were a place for punishment (which, it should be noted, they aren't)..."
The Lower Planes are paradise of a sort for the right kind of person.
Uh...there were people found "not guilty" at Nuremburg, Orr-Orr: Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht were both acquitted. As was Robert Ley posthumously, though he had already committed suicide. Additionally there were plenty of people found guilty on lesser charges and sentenced to anywhere from 10 years to life. It wasn't just a show trial used as an excuse to kill them all. In the end only 12 out of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremburg_trials#The_main_trial
I mean, they even judged that the SA wasn't a criminal organization.
Yeah Ripvanwormer,home rules can fix everything. If you don't like something just change it.That's kinda the beauty of D&D that you can taylor the game to whatever you want.I mean you can say only a natural 20 hits anything if you realy want to but thats not what the source books say.Which is what I am basing my information on.The planescape source book.Yes somethings are left vague so as to remain mysterious(like the lady of pain and how to kill her) other things are defined more clearly(like Tanari are from the abyss).If I dont beleive that Deva's come from Mount celestia because thats my point of view does that make it so? If I say Sigil has no portals at all whatsoever do we all just throw out the handbooks and say well I guess these are useless now.Not sure what your trying to say there.I myself don't agree with the description of what happens to all lower plane petitioners and so have different rules in our campaign.
I was just curious as to why the source books limited Evil petitioners to such a miserable lot,and that if you know as a human that when you die you suffer such a fate wouldn't that be a signifigant deterent to most people?Seems like a holdover as a place of punishment for bad people(despite saying otherwise),which to me feels out of place in planescape.
Uh...there were people found "not guilty" at Nuremburg, Orr-Orr: Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht were both acquitted. As was Robert Ley posthumously, though he had already committed suicide. Additionally there were plenty of people found guilty on lesser charges and sentenced to anywhere from 10 years to life. It wasn't just a show trial used as an excuse to kill them all. In the end only 12 out of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremburg_trials#The_main_trial
I mean, they even judged that the SA wasn't a criminal organization.
No,your right I was just generalizing on Zimrazim's coment,but did they use the "I was just following orders" defense or were they aquited for other reasons, such as plausable deniability?
Are they miserable though? What's the joke? "You go to Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company".
Break it down by plane -
Acheron: Petitioners are orcs, goblins and hobgoblins who battle one another endlessly. There are such deep-seated hatreds between these races that the idea of permanently erasing one of their enemies from existence must fill them with fervent ecstasy.
Baator: Lemures and larvae are the petitioners. Despite being spat upon by their superiors, both can be promoted up the ranks and the idea of becoming a general in the armies of the Baatezu drives them forward.
Gehenna: Petitioners scheme for personal wealth and glory, and undoubtedly some have carved out a grand life for themselves across this plane.
The Grey Waste: The place sucks out the hopes and dreams of all who dwell there, true, but it could be that deadening one's feelings towards others might be seen by some as a blessing. Doing what you wish, dispassionate and devoid of emotion? It may not be the sort of fate most people would want for themselves, but for some, it would be.
Carceri: This is probably the only plane that acts unabashedly as punishment for those unfortunate to wind up here. Yet even on this plane, given an opportunity, the petitioners will continue to gleefully mislead, backstab and betray those who might seek their help and take some measure of pleasure in doing so.
The Abyss: Paradise for those who think they're strong enough to survive anything the universe throws at them. This place actually tests them, and those who survive those tests know they're strong enough.
Pandemonium: This one...I'm not sure on. The section in the Planes of Chaos doesn't really talk about what motivates the petitioners of Pandemonium.
Hubris drives the petitioners of the Lower Planes.
Uh...there were people found "not guilty" at Nuremburg, Orr-Orr: Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht were both acquitted. As was Robert Ley posthumously, though he had already committed suicide. Additionally there were plenty of people found guilty on lesser charges and sentenced to anywhere from 10 years to life. It wasn't just a show trial used as an excuse to kill them all. In the end only 12 out of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremburg_trials#The_main_trial
I mean, they even judged that the SA wasn't a criminal organization.
No,your right I was just generalizing on Zimrazim's coment,but did they use the "I was just following orders" defense or were they aquited for other reasons, such as plausable deniability?
Well, that was the logic behind the very fact that the entire German army wasn't put on trial, as well as the pronouncement that the SA and German High Command didn't qualify as criminal organizations. As for specific defendants, the closest I can find is Walther Funk, whose defense was largely that he had very little power to do anything in the regime and that his titles were largely for appearances only. Göring himself said he was an insignificant subordinate, but he was still sentenced to life in prison.
Actually, one possible reading of Carceri is that even though the environment works against those within, eventually the petitioners adapt to the environment and are no longer harmed by it. It's not punishment, just a bad situation that they eventually turn to their advantage. It's a near-anarchistic prison society, basically.
That's an even better explanation, and a more apt description.
That's an even better explanation, and a more apt description.
Thanks! I draw it from how it's explicitly what happens on Cathrys; it seems then reasonable to me that it would happen on the other layers as well.
That's an even better explanation, and a more apt description.
Thanks! I draw it from how it's explicitly what happens on Cathrys; it seems then reasonable to me that it would happen on the other layers as well.
That is a very good and interesting point Idran."It's not punishment, just a bad situation that they eventually turn to their advantage." I have been looking at the petitioners status on the lower planes as a sort of hold out punishment place for bad people,which seemed out of place for planscape.But I think I was looking at that from a good person(hopefully) perspective instead of a more evil outlook in which they look to take advantage of every situation regardless of how crappy their lot in life. Most "normal" individuals probably look at the role of a lower planes petetioner with horror,pity,or disgust, where as someone with a more evil disposition probably views it in a different light rather then the unrewarded,torturous existence it seems like it was to me.
Honestly I was just talking Carceri there, but actually now that you point it out...yeah, I can actually see that philosophy working as a description for petitioners across the Lower Planes in general too.
Acheron: Petitioners are orcs, goblins and hobgoblins who battle one another endlessly. There are such deep-seated hatreds between these races that the idea of permanently erasing one of their enemies from existence must fill them with fervent ecstasy.
I was primarily speaking of humans and wondering why a villian would want to become a lower plane petitioner when it seems unrewarding as an end. Demihumans and humanoids,monsters etc. have unique ideology and culture seperate from most human viewpoints(which can relate to).
Again,all great points Wicke.
The fact that they are labeled as the petitioners of said planes kinda by definition means that they are the dead essence of former beings having that alignment. That is what planescape defines as a petitioner. So I am sure factions and others can twist it and play their angle however they want to try and rationalize things or convince others and themselves but when you can physically see the result of a dead mortal forming as a larva on Baator its hard to dispute the end result.
I think the dispute is whether or not Yugoloths and the like are 'evil' by their definitions. Certainly such a social construct isn't something believed by the lower planar natives themselves. Instead, what mortals define as 'evil' they define as 'self-preservation', 'intelligence', 'realism', "the Baatezu way", etc. Whereas their words and concepts for "goodness" would be corruptions of the original Dark Speech words for "stupidity", "ignorance", "weak", "gullible", "idealistic", "vomit-inducing", etc. I simply can't picture any creatures, even the quasipowers/rulers, using words like "evil" to define themselves.
I don't know if I buy into the whole,evil people think they are good, spiel.
Many lawful evil individuals believe they are good. Neutral and chaotic evil individuals (in D&D and IRL) tend to simply not care. They find ways to justify what they do, but to them ethics and morality are for the weak. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a very good rule of thumb to go by. Narcissists (at least from the ones I've had contact with) genuinely believe that EVERYONE is as manipulative and heartless as them deep down, but that most people take on a false 'facade' of compassion or empathy as a cover excuse because they're "not any good/unskilled" at being manipulators, opportunists, and alpha males/whatever. During rare moments when they do believe that genuinely altruistic people exist, the narcissist views them as infinitely disgusting fools who are just begging to be cheated, manipulated, oppressed, etc. by said narcissist. BTW, narcissists tend to misinterpret disgust and hostility with their carictature-like arrogance as hostility resulting from jealousy over how "great" said narcissist is.
Sure thats true for some of them but you can't really tell me that guy relishing in the terror of his victims as he hunts them, or the torturer drinking in the screams,or bored tyrant slaughtering hundreds of people simply for amusement,or the raping pillager taking what he wants...that they actually think they are "good" people.
Historically, there have been hordes of raping pillagers, sadists, etc. who view themselves as good. The excuses humans come up with are endless, and if you ever delve far into the propaganda spewed by Al Qaeda and the Qassam Brigades, you'd be well aware of this.
The most common way this was done in inquisitions and war time was through the tried-and-true method of dehumanization.
I remember seeing a wood-block cutting of an executional burning of about 20 Jews in a pit for the crime of child sacrifice and Satanism.
The disturbing thing is, in the woodblock cutting, the fires rise about 5-10 feet above each Jew, but they are portrayed as being slightly inconvenienced at worst. None of them were depicted as being in any physical pain (or maybe 2-3 were).
Even more disturbing is that in wood-block inquisitional pictures, the administrators of torture are always portrayed as having the most gentle and kind faces you've ever seen in a man while they're branding or slowly pulling the intestines out of a victim accused of witchcraft.
There are some sexual-sadist serial killers who only targetted prostitutes on a so-called "righteous crusade". Charles Manson (by his own admission, though not directly) seems to have had this motive as well, as he is quoted as stating that he only targetted people "that wouldn't be missed, people on the side of the road" and such. In China several years ago, they caught a serial killer who murdered 29 homeless people by smashing their heads with bricks.
Some evil people believe that they can 'offset' the amount of evil they knowingly commit with good deeds. For instance, sacking a village and then building 3 schools. On a much smaller scale of the same mentality, you have Al Gore who pollutes like nobody's business in order to live an extravagent lifestyle (private jets on a weekly basis, huge mansions-- the bigger the house, the larger its energy bill), he justifies this by claiming that his carbon footprint is offset by the "good" he does via donations to carbon offset companies, "An Inconvenient Truth", and other environmental activism (actual climatologists tend not to like this, BTW and think he sets a very bad example) What disgusts me and so many others (including the vast majority of climatologists across the globe) goes beyond the hypocrisy of it all and the bad message it sends (though that certainly sums up most of the outrage), but also that he's using something intangible and subjective (amount of good I do through activism) to offset something tangible, physical, and with an approximate numerical value (my carbon footprint and amount of physical resources I consume)
Exactly. I sort of feel like the alignments are designed to work in a context of role-playing heroics and villainy, but most of the souls out there have nothing to do with any of that. I feel as if Gehenna should be filled with normal folks who aren't RPG evil, but are simply .... everyday evil. Regular, non-murderous people who just happen to be excessively selfish, petty, emotionally abusive, etc.
Depending on what degree, it's more likely those people would just end up on Pandaemonium, Acheron, or on a more neutral spot on one of the other lower planes. Gehennian petitioners will either be extremely greedy or passive-aggressive murderers and the like.
Humans will basically just go to ridiculous extremes in order to justify their own evil actions to themselves.
Correct. Dehumanization and fatalism tend to be the most common ones (I/you didn't kill that person, only God can decide if someone lives or dies, thus if your suicide bombing kills innocent people, it was simply pre-ordained by God as their time to go; your suicide bombing was merely the tool God used to bring them home to Him-- that sickening spheil is the exact argument I have seen used by the Qassam brigades, BTW. )
If you are raised from birth to war against a particular group then to you it is a matter of survival and therefore not evil.
Actually, in some circumstances it is evil. In D&D terms, killing innocents is an evil act. However, the individual may have been born in a society which teaches that even the babies of the race they are at war against are evil (e.g. orcs or drow). This does not make the slaughter of innocents any less evil (in 1E I think this was more of a grey area left up to the DM) Killing in cold blood is not an act of survival, and that is why the slaying of innocents is an evil act.
That is the right thing to do isn't it?The child is just doing what is necessary for survival,not motivated by selfish or evil purpose.
That's not how good and evil are defined in D&D rules. A sane adult (or even child to some extent) who kills someone for an evil reason (such as racism) is evil regardless if they've been taught that such slayings are necessary for survival. This is partly because racism is considered evil under the D&D alignment system. As an example, the Eldreth Veluuthra, a covert organization of elves dedicated to the genocide of humanity. The vast majority of the group believe that the total destruction of the human race is nessecary not only for elven survival, but also for the survival of all of nature on Toril. However, the books emphasize that this is an evil organization. (the organization also believes in genocide of the orcs, but are more concerned with ending humanity's existence) They Eldreth Veluuthra view themselves as judge, jury, and executioners of humanity for "crimes against nature", and that it is their job to perform the job that the vast majority of their bretheren are too "weak" or "squeamish" to do. Their dogma goes beyond hatred for humans and orcs-- the Eldreth Veluuthra are also elven supremacists.
If i actually was completely convinced that destroying a group of people was necessary for survival then it would be different.
Again, the Eldreth Veluuthra believe precisely that, and ALL members are either Neutral or Chaotic Evil; in addition, Lords of Darkness and Champions of Ruin both categorize it as an evil organization.
The Lower Planes are paradise of a sort for the right kind of person.
I've actually encountered people both IRL and online who view the Judeo-Christian heaven as hell because they despise altruism and view concepts like unconditional forgiveness as 'emasculating'. One even stated that he'd prefer endless, unspeakable torment to the "hell of heaven".
Pandemonium: This one...I'm not sure on. The section in the Planes of Chaos doesn't really talk about what motivates the petitioners of Pandemonium.
Pandaemonium is for the crazies that lead towards evil alignment.
There's...much better moral reasons to have issue with the Judeo-Christian view of Heaven than that, I hope that's not the totality of the objections you've seen to it.
Just off the top of my head, the big ones are the "worst person in Heaven vs. best person in Hell" comparison, and the issue of how someone in Heaven with an immediate family member in Hell could truly have eternal peace; one serious theological answer to this is "it is so peaceful that you don't care that they're suffering", which is quite simply horrifying to me. (Not to mention the logical contradictions that the existence of Heaven brings about when compared to free will, but I'm speaking only on the moral issues here.)
the big ones are the "worst person in Heaven vs. best person in Hell" comparison
I cannot speak for Judaism and Islam, but that argument doesn't hold in Christianity since the belief (I can't remember off-hand if it is explicitly stated in the Bible or not) all across the spectrum is that The Saved are reborn into a non-fallen state in heaven *I'm pretty sure that Islam and Judaism state the same, though*. Thus there's no "worst person in heaven" since anyone who enters heaven will be purged of all wickedness. As for the free will part, that is indeed a problem, and both what I was raised on and what I've heard from other major sects (such as Catholicism) is that free will in Heaven is either greatly diminished or absent. The Protestant version is definitely more fun than the Catholic version though, since the Catholic version *at least the hardcore one* states that all people in Heaven ever do is pray, and that nobody has sex in heaven-- Protestantism in general doesn't really elaborate beyond that it's such a happy place, that all psychological trauma instantly melts away, which kinda ties in with the lack of sorrow over loved ones that ended up in Hell. The "melts away" thing is particularly comforting to parents of murdered children, obviously. (oh, yeah, Protestants claim that we sing hymns of praise to The Lord instead of praying, and most don't believe this is the ONLY thing we ever do up there, though opinions vary since the Bible itself never elaborates on what manner of activities await the saved in Heaven beyond the hymnal singing)
In addition, I would propose that most evil beings who know the truth are arrogant enough to believe that they are one of the exceptional few who will go straight to being a fiend. Those who aren't so deluded are more likely to rank among those who attempt to alter their bodies in an effort to achieve immortality, such as turning themselves into full-blown living constructs, lichdom, vampirism, or taking a PRC that slowly transforms them into an outsider or elemental.
I'm sorry if my thoughts have already been brought up in some way or another. I just want to throw out a quick comment that might help shed light on motivationsa and behavior.
Plugin <em></em> Not Found is an excellent example of how a person can be persuaded to do something awful, even though they know it's wrong. IRRC, at the end of the experiment they interviewed the subjects; they assured them that it wasn't real, that no one was hurt, and asked them questions about their experience. Most were visibly shaken. Most seemed to indicate that they were appalled by the behavior of their "superiors." But most also went through with the experiment; only two or three actually walked away from it.
Also considere Plugin <em></em> Not Found. The subjects were all students from the same university. Many of them probably knew each other, or knew each other's friends. Yet within a very short time, those assigned as guards became far too abusive, while those assigned as prisons had to suffer at their "friends'" hands.
I think these examples of human behavior suggest something profound about our ability to understand good and evil. In short, we can't; or if we can, we too easily bow to social pressures. Anything that we desire (such as friendship or love) can make us do terrible things, if the desire is greater than the threat of punishment.
Maybe, if I have time later, I'll stop back and post more details. In the meantime, I hope this serves as an example of this point: most people don't believe their actions are evil (because they lie to themselves), or they don't believe that they'll be punished (because they don't believe in an afterlife).
The Stanford Prison Experiment is far more flawed than you imply here. (Also I think your link's broken.) Zimbardo had the role of a superintendent in the prison, and thus not only was there no control, there was experimenter bias in place. He actually directed the guards to act in an oppressive manner explicitly, even. And the conditions the prisoners were put through were also far more harsh than real prisoners are treated on purpose, even more enhancing the breakdown of relationships. Zimbardo said it was just to better encourage a prison-like atmosphere more quickly for the sake of the experiment, but when you put one group through humiliating and dehumanizing processes and not the other, that's obviously going to lead to an imbalance. I mean, things weren't put in play and let to run, they were explicitly set up in order to achieve the breakdown that occured. Even the very fact that the groups were explicitly called "prisoners" and "guards" probably helped encourage them to act according to preconceived notions. There was even a selection bias factor in the call for volunteers: Western Kentucky University even did a study in which they used an advertisement like the one used to call for volunteers in Stanford, only with and without the phrase "prison life", and found a higher tendency towards aggressive behavior in those that responded to the latter.
And even taking all that into account, the treatment of the guards still wasn't as harsh as was usually presented. Besides "John Wayne" (one specific guard that was especially bad to them), the guards were bad, but they still acted in favor of the prisoners from time to time.
Stanford has so many experimental flaws that you can't really conclude anything about human nature from it. Milgram holds up better, though I would say it says less about a person's basic nature and more about a person's tendency to follow the directives of a trusted authority figure, and believe them when they say that something is okay. (There's even some minor direct evidence for this latter part; while most people simply believed the experimenter when they said it was all right to continue, having no personal experience with the effects of electricity on a person, one of the people that walked away was an electrical engineer. He explicitly said he did so because he knew from personal experience how much damage a shock could do to a person.)
Very interesting. Thank you for the information; I only recall what I learned about the Stanford experiment from psychology courses, and I think my professor spoke about the errors in the trial, but still cited it as an example of human behavior. For example, all mistakes aside, wasn't the experiment cancelled because it escalated faster than expected? Didn't the experimentors intend for things to break down, but were surprised when it happened in a matter of days? I'll have to go back and do the research...
(And sorry about the link. Can't seem to figure out why is isn't working, either.)
Overall, I was trying to say that people IRL don't think of themselves as evil. I think that most people see themselves as good, when in fact they fall squarely into neutral. I'd go further and say that most people tend to obey laws, customs and mores, and are lawful. I think that anyone who believes they are evil, who sees their actions and thoughts as evil, are probably insane, or don't believe in any kind of afterlife. If we apply this view of human nature to Planescape, it means that there are very few individuals who see themselves as receiving a bad deal by being evil.
I agree that this is an intrinsic flaw of the default Planescape cosmology. Particularly for those of Neutral Evil alignment. At least LEs and CEs have a small hope of working their way up the ranks and eventually becoming a powerful baatezu or tanar'ri.
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