Are demons capable of being good in your setting, or are they always evil?

One in a million, often for reasons.
If reiterate they die. They are MADE of evil.

Why not just spell it daimon?

Always evil, horrifyingly so. Making demons redeemable because you want a succubus girlfriend cheapens them.

I've always wanted to do a D&D campaign that ultimately centered around a pretty high level demon becoming honestly good and trying to stop some evil plot.

He'd be the BBEG from the party's perspective, to introduce him and have him interact well, but I always felt the tricky part would be avoiding making the bit of "He was always good all along!".

I think part of the solution was him partly being bad at being good, so to speak. Have him honestly and intentionally try and murder the party, because they're fucking up his plans, but as the campaign goes on he eventually comes the realize the party can help him. So then he'd try and trick them, leading them into situations where they can stop the actual evil plan without outright telling them. I figured the party would just figure this as being him using them to defeat his rivals, which would even be sort of true.

Of course, then, there's the issue of how to have the demon come out as good in a real way, something that the party would buy and that wouldn't feel stupid.

Maybe I should try and write that shit.

In my setting demons are good and angels are evil.

I wanted to create a morally neutral ground, so I made angels and demons akin to forces of nature.
Angels stand for natural order and preservation. There are 7 angels, each one of whom has his own domain based on celestial they're associated with, like Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, etc.
Demons stand for change and artificiality. They provoke conflict in order to change natural order. There are 9 demons, each one of whom has their own type of conflict, like lies, revenge, false miracles, plague, etc.
It's basically slightly modified stuff from hermetic magic, but I found it to be really fascinating.

In my setting the there is no Alignment specifically for Angles and Demons. They live in parallel worlds connected to ours, like some kind of Trinity. They're just like us, some good, some back and the rest are normal fucks right in the middle. Then there are those pretentious Atlantians in limbo, they're just assholes all the time.

>some good, some back and the rest are normal fucks right in the middle.
>some back

Wanting to say bad as hard as ya can but that itty bitty bit of black just snuck in there at the end, didn't it?

>angels are good
>demons are evil
Absolute shit.

>angels are lawful
>demons are chaotic
>whether or not they're good people is up to themselves and their own actions
Based.

Yes, that's just a part of what they are. being demons and all.
But the KIND of evil varies and that's important, as is the fact it's an evil existence, not that they're just a monster 24/7.

You have your usual kind of monstrous evil, the sort of demon that whispers into someone's mind and psychologically fucks with them until they break.
They can be the insidious kind of evil where they might do nice things for someone only to make stabbing that person in the back, literally or figuratively, all the sweeter - or make that person like them just to exploit them.
They can also just be the boss of somewhere who exploits their employees - or a CEO who does the same with everyone and everything around them.
All evil, just not monstrous.

One of my favourite demons was a fast-talking lawyer. They only ever took on cases of people who were guilty, and used every legal loophole and emotional manipulation tactic you can think of to get a not guilty verdict passed. It's evil, but it's evil in a very banal everyday kind of way, which I found a fun way to portray embodiment of evil.

Daemon is categorically superior.

>angels and demons
>people
Pick one

...

I wanted to avoid confusion with the players, they do serve a similar purpose since they're by and large dangerous. They're just less personifications of evil, and more byproducts of the setting's metaphysics.

That and I wanted to avoid people accusing me of picking a weird spelling to look different.

>are they capable of it
of course, any being is capable of any action within their power

do they? is the real question, and the answer is usually no

Depends, in my setting demons are bringers of calamity primordially born out of fear but that doesnt necessarily transcribes to them being evil

Most are "naturally" predisposed to be evil because its the most efficient way for them to play their cosmic role but its not the only way

If they weren't evil they wouldn't be demons

Its basically the same shit, not to mention it doesnt flies if your setting already has other kinds of representatives for law and chaos as D&D does

Demons are demons because they are evil in my setting. An angel becoming a demon means they have to have some pretty fucked up psychology and are clearly not right in the head. Kind of like how Melkor's forces got increasingly ugly until their inside matched their outside in LoTR.

A demon that truly atones and is able to change their ways from evil to good would simply revert to the type of angel they were before they fell, signified by their horns (which are not really horns, but the jagged, broken remnants of their halo) healing back into a halo. For example if a succubus managed to be redeemed by the power of love they would revert to an angel of chastity (Chastity as in the virtue, not what most think, see en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity, the difference being they're drawing power from love in those close to them rather than a sick parody of it).

This doesn't mean angels are all fluffy and cuddly. They are capable of being just as terrifying and monstrous-looking as demons. The difference is demons look diseased and sick whereas angels are scary like a healthy great white shark or tiger is scary. E.g., demon wings don't look bat-like but more like birds with mange.

A demon who acts nice is probably playing you. A demon who is morally grey (to use the succubus example, since that's what everyone is drawn to, say a succubus that truly loves someone but has trouble expressing it in a non-evil way) look less sick than an unrepentant demon. It takes a lot to cross that line and fall in the first place, and it's entirely possible to be a jerk and not fall (e.g. a succubus/incubus/angel of chastity, they're the same thing since demons have no fixed gender, who likes you but is an ass to others wouldn't be pinged for it.

I think I have a good addition to your setting.

The Academy of Species Sciences in GoodPeopleLand has currently classified as People: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Orcs and The Redeemed. A few other Species are being entertained for the status pending further research.

** Orcs
Orcs are a noble, graceful, strong and proud people. That they are ugly, sick, deformed and evil is a disgusting slander spread by Uggos.

In looks they are much like green elves with tusks but of stronger constitution and might, greater elegance and unsurpassed morality. It is well known that Orcish Peoples are as intelligent or more so than Elves having been the first to industrialize but wisely seeing the error of their ways chose to abandon their technology to live a simpler life more in harmony with nature. All can learn from the grace and strength of the Orcish Peoples.

** The Redeemed
Not all Uggos are not People. Scientific measurements of Height, Good Constitution, Attractiveness and Morality can determine that some Uggos can in fact be Redeemed.

Provisional on the sponsorship of a Person the Academy of Sciences in GoodPeopleLand can issue a certificate of Personhood to the sponsor of an Uggo.

That's not a demon.
That's the devil.

Yes, but they are called Angels instead of Demons, same shit, different flavour

No

My setting: Demon's aren't sentient, or at least aren't in any way that humans know of. They're more like forces of nature.

Depends; there ARE good demons who just want to be kind and not hurt others, but it's almost impossible since it's an inherent part of their existence to bring misery and misfortune to everyone. A good demon might attempt a good deed but they will likely fail, or the results will turn sour. The best they can do is bring misfortune to those who deserve it for the sake of others and even that can go wrong.

Demons' actions at any given point in time might appear to be good or evil, but they are so alien in mindset that anything they aim to do would ping on the LN-TN-CN scale.

Always evil.
I really want some absolutes in my setting and that includes demons being unspeakable monstrocities from beyond the veil of reality and not humans with horns that have a black and red theme in their attire and magics.

>Implying it's possible to act outside our own self interest
>Implying people who do things for charity aren't just trying to make themselves feel like good people

Whoa hey now that's demon talk there, buddy.

The only axis that matters is law and chaos, demons are beings of chaos and angels/devils are beings of law. You can tell because lawful outsiders have souls with geometric shapes while beings of chaos have souls that look like fire

That depends.

Are demons an (cursed) race like elves or dwarfs ? then they might have cuntish tendencies or social pressuse through culture or creator but can become good.

Are they evil elementals/ beigns out of time and space with no hope to understand them ?
Evil MoFos, all of them.

No and yes. They became demons as punishment for fucked up shit, and then just sOmEhOw escaped their celestial prison and renamed it "Hells 1-9".

They can be good if they try, but they still absolutely must consume the souls of intelligent beings. Without mortal souls, they fade out of existence, and there literally isn't any magic to replace that need. They also prefer souls closer to their own nature, so good demons would need to eat the souls of good people.
This is in contrast to angels that use the memories of intelligent creatures (not consuming them in the process) to keep their forms. Demons also really love to eat angels, so they aren't getting along that easily there.

Whoa there, just because it's impossible for me to act outside of my own self interest , and just because I'm a little lacking on the empathy side, doesn't mean I'm a 'fiend'. That's just rude.

>good demons would need to eat the souls of good people.
You can't be good natured and indulge in the destruction of good people for your own benefit.

That's exactly the issue of why demons can't really be good, and why most won't try.

They're invisible forces that can be summoned via a ritual to do things in exchange for payment.

Eventually people learn how to miniaturize rituals and use electricity and heat as payments and use them as fantasy electronics.

>angels are lawful
>demons are chaotic
Exactly what I do.

A demon is the manifestation of chaos, and the angels are the manifestation of order.

Neither are good news for human kind, generally, because they treat humans as animals less than pets. They might stop to pet one, but at the end of the day, they are either a pest that needs to be exterminated, or a nice little thing they can keep around, provided it obeys them and doesn't work against them.

Considering the scale my PCs are usually on, they mostly fall into the first category. But like many have tried to exterminate the rat population, they seem unerringly difficult to kill.

I always want the option of a demon or Angel to be on their side. They had this one demon who was quite fond of creating mass hysteria, but didn't actually want people dead (dead people dont scream much), so when the Angels wanted to decimate a village of what was effectively hippies, it helped the PCs against the common enemy, and continued to send them gifts every now and then.

Yeah, what happens if you can have neutral demons but not good demons?

What about that, OP? Ever think about that?

I tried to do something sorta similar once, though not with a demon but a dragon. Involved some prophecies and shit saying that horrible shit would go down unless a certain region was empty, the people there obviously wouldn't listen, so in the interest of not fucking over the rest of the world he started to try to drive everyone off - which would have later turned to outright purging if need be.
Didn't get to the point where the PCs found out about that though.

Could have him be #2 to a worse big bad and the demon just wants to live comfy and not destroy the world. So he is motivated to stay close to the bigger bad and use the party to advance his plans against his master. Whatchu think?

They're not people. They're not anymore capable of being good than water is of being dry.

Fucking finally, someone who gets it. Angels and devils aren't people. They're incarnations of concepts.

No. Demons are beings spawned from evil, they're literal personifications of evil. Now, their mortal spawn can have a chance of being non evil, but their soul needs to be stronger than the fledgling demon spirit.

Well, that depends on your point of view, isn't it? Is it Evil to be supremely Selfish? After all, that can manifest in a number of ways. Some use people as playthings, others save lives and stop wars for the praise that comes with it, and some even hatch plots to paint their own face over the whole world.

Their opposite numbers would thus be supremely Selfless - which can mean "changing and saving the world for the sake of others" or "hollow doormat that lets everyone do whatever they want to it," but neither of those would ever use the words "I," "myself," or "me," or even know what those mean.

Only if they get a permit from their landlord.

source on image?

That's stupid, you're stupid.

That doesn't mean you can't reform them with the righteous power of your penis

Yeah because "demons' and "angels' in my setting are primordial beings from a dimension in a constant state of flux, and their mercurial nature reflects that. They're in a constant war of ethics with each other, and anyone can change sides or become neutral. Their physical form gradually changes with their choice of sides, with those on the side of angels being more celestial and the demons becoming more infernal.

Always evil, no exceptions except MAYBE something that happened millions of years ago that can't be replicated just so I don't trigger "bawwww always evil races sucks even when it's literally demons" fags.
Succubi are especially always evil and I make that a point to be known because they seem to be the most common choice for "oh I know demons are always evil but this one is different!" and are willing to use that aforementioned belief to their advantage and string gullible adolescents along.

pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=51645395

what If I use PAO+perm or some sort of blood magic ritual to blend my and my demon succ's bloodlines to make us both teiflings/cambion? would need a bit of homebrew to make permenant race change right? A wish could do too. BUT if she is now considered half human, does she gain free will to choose to do good without it dissolving her abyssal body?

Nope.

Capable, yes, I suppose. There's no mystic force driving them towards evil.
But they're complete utter unrelenting irredeemable assholes.

>miniaturize rituals
Shiin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor has a genius programmer figure out how to automatize the ritual process so that teens with hacked Nintendo DSes can easily summon demons and access a demon auction where demons sell their services to the highest bidder. You can buy lewd demons too.

10/10 RPG, would recommend.

>lewd demons

Just Mara, is it?

Not sure what Mara is, but
>Huh? You want to fuse me with another demon? *Sigh* I'd rather fuse with you...

It's a penis. megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Mara

Demons are neutral.
Angels are lawful assholes.

Gas all lewd waifufags.

Who the fuck plays SMT and doesn't know who Mara is?

I don't see why not.
>demon wants a certain thing
>does thing
>it has the consequence of also doing something good in the world

for example, if a succubus wants the soul of the evil dictator that rules over a country and slaughters and rapes his citizens. Sure she sucked out his soul and killed him, but the end result is that she killed an evil mother fucker.

The guy who played only Devil Survivor, which is where Mara is Sir Not Appearing In This Game.

on a related note I hate the
>angel is actually a bad guy!
>demon is actually a great and kind person!
its stupid and cliched as fuck.
It works way better when they're have bad consequences but a good meaning to it. An angel might care for human life, so a few deaths here and there sucks but aren't a big deal. So an angel might let entire villages die for the greater good.

Good deeds are something other than being inherently good. Was it the succubus intention to free the nation of the dictator, of did she just want him for her own pleasure with no regard for the citizens whatsoever?

Demon is just an arbitrary classification for evil spirits. Some of them might not be evil, but if they managed to demonstrate this convincingly people would just start calling them a spirit instead of a demon. "Non evil demon" doesn't make any sense.

Her actions may of been evil of wanting his soul.
But the deed was good.
If she only likes the souls of evil people, she would basically being doing nothing but good, even if it is for an "evil" purpose.

Which can you even call eating souls to be evil since its what's required of her as a succubus?

Playing D&D, so demons are made out of the planar element of Evil given physical form. They're always Evil. Although if you fail your Kn: Religion check, they'll do a pretty good job convincing you that they're not out to drink your bone marrow.

>Which can you even call eating souls to be evil since its what's required of her as a succubus?
Fair point, it is like accusing a tiger for hunting, it is just what they do to sustain themselves, not inherently evil, just evil from a human perspective, since most succubi enjoy torturing their victims, which we consider to be evil.

I still do not agree with you on the definition of good. The succubus basically did all her good deeds as an accident, as she does not care for the citizens. If someone does something evil as an accident, I don't consider the person to be evil. This also works the other way around.

Yes, but they are rare, and must go through a period of repentance that will take centuries, serving the divine, and in a monstrous form. Think like gargoyles protecting churches, or some versions of Krampus where he serves Saint Nicholas, scaring children into being good.

I was looking at the question more as a
>can demons do good things
rather than
>can demons be inherently good and do solely good things

But tormented souls taste better than sleepy souls. Can't blame the girl for wanting a tasty meal rather than bland shit.
Humans cook lobsters alive, are cooks evil?

I you look at the issue that way, of course they can. Their actions can certainly cause good things to happen.

And yes, even though I love lobster, cooking something alive is a rather evil deed from our moral perspective. morality is a vague concept though, the Mayans had completely different values then us, maybe from their perspective the succubus was inherently good. however, from our societal perspective, I can't consider the succubus to be good.

I only really consider it evil if the intended purpose is to cause something bad to happen.
i.e.
>its fun to make this thing suffer even though I don't gain anything out of it
is evil
>i make this thing suffer because it tastes like shit if I don't
isn't evil, its just self centered.

depends on which of my settings

Generally though, I do like the idea that demons can be good.

If an angel can fall, a demon can rise/redeem themselves. It's just really really really hard because part of being a demon is a loss of perspective and suffering from a lot of stagnation and creative sterility (thus, you'll find a lot of demons with the same name as noteworthy mortals or angels).

Hell sucks because they were self-centered assholes who ruined the paradise God gave them as a consolation prize and refused to accept responsibility for ruining their own home, and end up dragging Hell with them when they escape to earth.

But, if they can look past their own selfishness and deep-seated despair that locks them in stasis, they can rise back to something beautiful, a broken glory restored.

Demons are pure evil and can't actually comprehend the logic behind good actions.

devils are pure evil but can comprehend the actions behind good actions and can imitate them to achieve a goal in a manner which inspires trust when disguised or confuses its enemies, every once and a while a devil gets so used to doing this that it decides that its much easier to pretend to be good and avoid kicking puppies to keep the paladins of your ass and further their own selfish desires in a mostly harmless fashion, essentially becoming lawful neutral. a devil actually becoming a good creature would require a very weird situation and an equally weird devil.

of course devils are still capable of very rarely making friends and feeling positive emotion but their friends tend to be other devils or (even more rarely) even evil humanoids and the positive emotions tend to come as a result of perpetrating evil.

Pretty much this. My setting doesn't have angels and demons per say but when a human dies a god can if they desire claim their soul instead of letting them reincarnate, reforming their soul into a demon. Their core personality still exists but their flaws or virtues are magnified. So if the god of war makes you into one of his demons you are stuck as a savage warrior who kills everyone who gets in his way without regard for justice or honour. On the other hand when you were alive you probably had very little regard for human life to begin with, which is why he claimed your soul instead of letting you reincarnate.

>god of war
>no honor
shit god of war desu senpai

that just makes me think of bloodthirsters

The real question is, can demons love humans?

they can be good, yeah.

One of the main problems with morality is you can totally do good things for the wrong reasons and they're still good. After all, nearly all "good" actions are simply actions that benefit the group, of which you are generally part.

> Suggesting honour has anything to do with war
Shitty warlord m8

user, the question of what you are and are not allowed to do in war has been a thing for like, all of war.

The demons in my setting are basically magic biomechanical Tyranids who steal corpses to make more demons and caused one of the most powerful organisations in the world to be formed just to fight them. I'm pretty sure that counts as always evil, though the ones not designed for combat aren't always hostile.

I only actually call them demons because I couldn't think of a better name desu.

Neither angels nor demons are entirely good or evil. Some angels are good and some demons/devils are evil, but many fall into a grey or neutral area.

Daemons are always chaotic selfish, which makes them huge assholes.

Well, what most mortals in my setting call demons are, by definition, angels that embody aspects of an evil god, so not really.

Were one to act altruistically, it would be a very odd aberration. Might reveal to us something about the god it serves, though.

Demons usually wind up as demons by ether being vile enough to be banished to hell or petty and foolish enough to be tricked into slavery by a demon.

Years of life in hell make most demon bitter and evil. There are some who would repent and do good but they are bound by mystic pacts to do their master's bidding.

If the pact could be broken, and through a heroic feat it could be broken, they would become a free spirit. Though they would still not have access to the heavens they could find piece in the natural realm. With work, time and meditation they could reincarnate to try again or even ascend.

>Alternatively
The demon is a spirit of obscurity, it sinks into the underworld because it is too strange to exist in this mortal one. They are not necessarily evil but they mercurial, volatile and often times frustrating to deal with. They are always outdated or unformed, they're both pretentious and primordial. Demons keep vast treasure of discarded, shameful secrets.

Angels alternatively represent perfect platonic forms. They are timeless, clear and consistent. They vary greatly in shape and motivation but they never waver from their nature. Once an angle's nature is understood it will always be honest. Angles keep the highest refinement of all forms they grant only what is already posses.

I've done this, too. (Not that it's an uncommon trope.)

In my current setting, the Sun God who leads the pantheon of major gods is not a good god; he was a product of a primal creator god, and killed his creator out of jealous. He thinks he's a hero and a leader, but really he's just a dangerous psycho.

Meanwhile, the Queen of the Underworld, his sister, made it her life's work to keep the living heart of creation alive so that the mortal world could continue to exist in the absence of the original creator. Her reputation is pretty negative because of Sun God propaganda.

The Sun God employs terrifying angel servants, styled like the biblical burning rings covered in eyes kind of angels. The Queen of the Underworld uses Demons, who are lawful good creatures just keeping shit running. There's lots of stories that paint them as evil, but it's all because they tend to come reckoning for evil fuckers who are abusing magic.

It's a fun setting so far.

Extraplanar creatures are all basically the same thing, ageless beings made of soulstuff. Demons and Devils are two of the evil factions of these beings, and since these beings are their own souls made manifest, their (true) appearance* matches their nature, and changing their nature changes their appearance.

Ergo, demons are evil, because if they weren't they wouldn't be demons.

*extremely powerful beings who have collected power from the material plain can broadcast an illusionary vision of themselves to disguise their nature, this illusion is what they want you to see and doesn't have to correspond to their true form.