Author Topic: Becoming evil / corrupted  (Read 942 times)

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Offline Ruffie

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Becoming evil / corrupted
« on: December 29, 2021, 02:52:59 AM »
Once again I seek your wisdom.

A player has gained access to the Evil Arcane list: "Dark entities". He gained this list from an incredibly powerful enitity which gave the characters a random spell list.

Now the list gives the ability to summon entities (demons, elementals etc) and to control and master that control.

There are a few issues with this which we are pondering about:
- Does the use of an evil spell list in itself corrupt you? (Give corruption points?)
- Does the control over entities give you corruption points. The idea being that an elemental (which he intends to summon) is a sentient creature which is 'forced' by the caster to do his bidding. Effectively enslaving a creature which does not want to be enslaved.

I reckon that summoning an unwilling creature to do your bidding which places the creature in harms way even will have a corrupting effect on a character.

In the past we've used corruption points to determine how "corrupted" by power and evil a character has become. We started out playing Merp where it is more clearly defined.

What say you?

Online MisterK

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Re: Becoming evil / corrupted
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2021, 04:05:09 AM »
Once again I seek your wisdom.

A player has gained access to the Evil Arcane list: "Dark entities". He gained this list from an incredibly powerful enitity which gave the characters a random spell list.
A random list ? Nice poisoned cake :)
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Now the list gives the ability to summon entities (demons, elementals etc) and to control and master that control.

There are a few issues with this which we are pondering about:
- Does the use of an evil spell list in itself corrupt you? (Give corruption points?)
- Does the control over entities give you corruption points. The idea being that an elemental (which he intends to summon) is a sentient creature which is 'forced' by the caster to do his bidding. Effectively enslaving a creature which does not want to be enslaved.
I would say that it depends on your setting and on how magic works. If 'evil' spell lists are inspired by corrupting entities, then yes, absolutely. If 'evil' spell lists are tagged 'evil' because they tend to pull a caster towards less savory morals, then it depends on both actions (spells they are casting, effect on the world) and intent (to do harm, to prevent harm, to save someone, to serve selfish desires...).

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I reckon that summoning an unwilling creature to do your bidding which places the creature in harms way even will have a corrupting effect on a character.
I would say no. The type of entity summoned would have an impact (summoning a demon would likely corrupt, while summoning an elemental would not). Additionally, controlling entities is part of the bargain and there are non-evil lists that do the same (especially for elementals, spirits, and the like).

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In the past we've used corruption points to determine how "corrupted" by power and evil a character has become. We started out playing Merp where it is more clearly defined.
In a Middle Earth setting, I'd go much further and say most magic is corruptive because, as opposed to natural talents and innate abilities, learned magic is a gift from the Enemy. This goes back to the definition of the game setting and the way magic works - in Middle Earth, "magic" is either a natural ability, a gift from the Valar (which becomes a talent of sorts), or a lure of the Enemy to tempt creatures with power and make them stray from how they are meant to be in Creation (the notion of Fate is especially strong in Middle Earth).

But in other settings, it's different. I could even imagine some settings where summoning demons is not corruptive in itself - but dealing with demons might be. If you are powerful enough to force them to do your bidding without bargaining anything, then you're in the clear. If, however, you must bargain, then you necessarily lose some part of yourself. And the more able the demon, the more likely you will have to bargain.

See what I did ? Corruption is setting-specific, and magical corruption even more so. You have to start from the beginning and define how magic works - what are the origins of magic, how it is powered, what the laws of magic are (in the old days of gaming, there were very interesting articles about that in game mags), what corruption is (is it homogeneous, or are there several types of corruption that mean different things ?), and so on.

Once this is done, you will likely have answered your questions above :)

Offline Hurin

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Re: Becoming evil / corrupted
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2021, 10:10:17 AM »
I agree with MisterK. Simply summoning a creature to do your bidding is not inherently evil (if it were, those summons spells on the Channeling lists would be a very big issue for good Clerics and Druids).

However, using an evil spell list is generally intended to be corrupting, as the Evil spell lists are considered to have a higher power level than non-evil lists. The idea is that you get more power but also face the issue of corruption whenever using Evil lists.
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Offline jdale

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Re: Becoming evil / corrupted
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2021, 10:16:18 AM »
Summoning itself isn't inherently evil. There are plenty of non-evil lists for summoning and manipulating elementals and other creatures. So whatever is evil about this list must be something about how it works, rather than simply what it achieves. What's interesting about the list's function is that it appears to work on any type of extraplanar entity, not just (for example) elementals or demons. Maybe it calls upon the authority of a powerful dark entity, maybe it seizes and manipulates power that belongs to other deities (i.e. which normally would be permissible only to their followers), maybe it binds things with the power of unknowable entities like Agothu, etc -- specifics are going to be setting-specific.

I think it's in the spirit of the evil lists that accumulating corruption is appropriate, although how quickly you want that to happen is another matter. Personally I would not be inclined to give additional corruption for the act of, say, controlling elementals, but I might for summoning void demons or chaos demons. The closer you reach towards the source, the worse it ought to be. (But also the more attractive an option it should seem....)
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