The "Fallen Angel" is well and truly explored as a concept, but what about the opposite? What about creatures from the hellish abyss who reject their baser nature and serve a more noble calling. Aside from WoW's Lothraxion (pic related) and PS:T's Fall-From-Grace, precious few examples come to mind.
Any fa/tg/uys or ca/tg/irls have experience with "risen" demons in their campaigns? Thoughts on how to DM them? Artwork? Especially artwork.
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I like the idea.
Rising demons and devils left and right with the magical power of the pala-cock is stupid and should be forbidden, but if angels and paladins can fall why can't devils or demons rise? It could be argued that it's easier to fall from grace than to rise to it, but I like the idea of overcoming evil through great effort, and continue to do "good" (or at least, not bad) even though the fiend would be tempted to do so.
I don't really know the fluff behind it, though. Do devils or demons have souls so they can be their own thing? Why can't Asmodeus, for example, just take a giant shit on an Erinyes who wants to be good? As far as I know they are bound to him.
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In Chinese mythology the concept of ademon turning agaisnt the King of the Underworld and makignt heir way up the path of righteousness and becoming human is a core tenet of their mythology. It happens a few times in Journey to the West, and is the main tenet in Journey to the North. The idea of demons forsakign their demonic power and becoming humans as a reward, gaining a mortal soul, is critical in their philosophy, as Taoism accepts the concept that if good people can become demons, then the inverse must be true as well.
The thing is with WoW is that the biggest cabal of demons is actually loads of alien races that either traded their mortality for power or were conquered and didn't have a choice by a fallen Titan, someone who used to be on a council of worldshapers but now goes around destroying world's that are going to be corrupted by the cosmic horrors of WoW.
Basically when you join the Legion you're empowered with a raw energy called Fel that claims your soul. When people normally die their soul moves to somewhere called the Shadowlands, but now-demons-once-aliens souls return to the Twisting Nether where they're reformed by their Fel magic, and the only way to truly kill them is to kill them inside the Twisting Nether which sends their souls to the void plane where they basically cease to exist.
When Lothraxion was "risen" we was basically imbued with something called "Light" which is the energy governed by an alien race of windchimes called the Naaru, and Lothraxion basically fits the Vengeful Righteous Paladin trope, where everything evil must burn and be destroyed when it's looking like balance is the best way to save the world from these cosmic horrors.
So when he "rose to grace" he was simply purified of this Fel energy and infused with the Light.
The concept isn't really all that rare.
Pancakes are a powerful force.
I'm clearly not looking in the right places, then. Got any more examples?
Wait, so there's nothing inherently evil about Fel? That's what Illidan uses, right?
Sparda and Trish from DMC, Rodin in Bayonetta (he was the whole lot, angel turned fallen turned demon turned ascended), Death in Darksiders, most fantasy open-world RPGs have one example (NWN and Dark Messiah spring to mind), most mythology (not just China as mentioned above, but any outside of the Abrahamic; the idea of bad becoming good (as opposed to good vs evil no exceptions) is more common around the world), Etrigan the Demon, Raven, Orion of the New Gods, Nightcrawler, Little Nicky (the Adam Sandler film, yes), every single edgy Japanese good-demon archetype throughout video games, manga, and anime that inspire all the deviantArt OCs, and if you include creatures who aren't strictly demons but are still inherently evil (vampires, werewolves etc.) but resist the evil to do good then there's a near-endless list.
>That's what Illidan uses, right?
That and his endless capability for terrible, terrible decisions.
>Wait, so there's nothing inherently evil about Fel?
Fel is a mixture of Void and Light magic. Or more specifically it's the destructive power from when the two collide. I would say less that it is evil but that it is fundamentally chaotic and destructive. Ironically there has been no real betrayal by Warlocks during the Legion xpac to the best of my knowledge.
Supposedly the Titans are powered by the Arcane which is the "orderly" magic, the void gods by well, void. The Naaru alternate between Light and Void, so I'm not sure if the implication is that there are beings strictly made of the light or that everything void can be purified and vice versa.
I came up with the concept of "true gargoyles" for ascended demons, also know as "grotesques" to avoid confusion, why "true" you ask?
Well you see in D&D bestiaries and a lot of other ones gargoyles tend to be artificial creations akin to golems or elemental beings, concentrating on the object and putting little attention to the creatures they are based upon
You see gargoyles are a type of grotesque which is not so much a specific creature but a group of consistently disgusting and sinister chimeric beings depicted in art, their purpose is apparently merely decorative but among theories they have been said to either represent evil or ward it off, most people are content with either concentrating on this aspect and making them guardian automatons or shrugging them off as just demons or chimeras but I figured out the concept migh as well be used another way
*Grotesques take a form similar to the one they had as demons but generally "off" or "wrong" in a way that actually makes it confusing to differentiate them from more mountruous angels
*Despite being former demons a lot of them end up being some of the most unwavering champions of good since they worked so hard to get where they are
*Grotesques are stangely comical in nature even when punishing evil and have a reputation to come off as cartoonish, this makes them popular with children but might seem jarring to most people who witness them, like something jumped out of a bedtime story
*There are some instances of bizarre grotesques that attained their angelhood unwittingly, remaining evil-intentioned beings who cannot help but end up doing good, these are tragic beings
This
Ashbringer.
But Chronicles replaces light by fire.
>I would say less that it is evil
It's literally entropy incarnate that turns it's user's into green-obsessed crack-whores as a part o f a slow dependency progression from Arcane, is fueled and fed by souls, which are also obliterated by the stuff and found in the blood of demons and literally took an entire well of eternity to get rid off, in addition to changing the fundamental makeup of a being to tie them to the twisting nether in D&D Esque Outsider regeneration fashion
There's The herald of Wee Jas who is a Succubus Cleric of changed alignment (Though not subtype), the Succubus from the Silver Skeleton Questline, and Falls-from Grace, and the existence of Ritualism so it's possible to 'neuter' a Succubs for lack of a better term
4e Had a 'good' Balor for some reason despite the requirements for a demon to get to that stage being pure unfettered evil, butwhatever, it's 4e.
You see, it's like Force and midichlorians. There's no real difference whether you use your bloodborne symbiotes to create a lightning bolt or pull an object off a shelf, it's all just using energy without any inherent morality.
Lothraxion is not a good example. Demons in Warcraft are not supernatural creatures, but simply alien races infused with fel energy. Being evil is not a part of their base nature. Everybody can become a demon, and every demon can theoretically be cleansed from fel corruption.
There was long ago a stupid videogame called Warlords where you could make retarded characters like demon demonhunters. This was merely a sign of laziness and oversight on the developers' part (the game was not very good, in terms of lore or otherwise), but, as a young naive kid, I thought the idea was awesome and very original.
How can an energy be evil? It's just energy, it has no mind. God I loathe D&D.
>guns don't kill people, people kill people
You have the choice between using a clean solar power plant to power on your computer, or a smog-spewing furnace that literally burns babies. Since electricity is just energy, there's no real difference between these two choices!
This utterly irrelevant to the point being discussed. A correct example involving electricity would be using it to light up a bulb versus using it to taze people.
Fel energy corrupts people. It's not just a meaningless platitude, either, it changes them physically and mentally and it is shown in multiple examples in the game.
It's not at all like tazing people. It's like having regular electricity (i.e. any other source of magic, really) and evil electricity that mutates and damages anyone who uses it, and doesn't have any obvious safeties.
It changes people physically. It's still possible to be pumped full of fel and still be a good person. Demon hunters and OG Blood elves.
Planescape had picture related.
>pumped full of fel and still be a good person
Eh... There's an Illidan novel that details the process of turning into a demon hunter and it's not pretty. You could argue that they're doing it for the right reasons, but I don't think they still are "good" people after the whole process. Same thing for warlocks, they're fucked up people that might be using this power for good.
>which is the energy governed by an alien race of windchimes called the Naaru
Not exactly. People overestimate the role Naaru play in all that, though they certainly act as if they're the representatives of the Light.
>OG Blood elves
Were not pumped full of fel energy. That was just popular headcanon, and contradicted on the actual site at the time. There was a reason normal wretched had blue eyes and blue crystals sticking out from them. Feeding directly on Fel to sate their addiction would just make it much worse.
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I think I'm gonna steal that
>Fel
>Ever good.
WoW lore is a bit misleading, because up until Nu-Blizzard, Fel was downright evil. It twists you into a power hungry sociopath. Which it is to say, that those kind of people aren't useful. Warlocks make useful allies, and powerful weapons. But over the years this plot point was brought up less and less, and then suddenly reversed in legion. Suddenly everything is a shade of grey. Fel being anything but destructive is a retcon, which some (idiot) fans lap up because they coupled it with a new magic system. Which is about as deep as a puddle and just as wet of an idea when compared to the years of lore built up beforehand.
There is nothing Evil about Fel
Except that it unbalances the user really badly, which has effects similar to life long drug abuse once you go there. So to create something like Demon Hunter, a living conduit of Fel energy, used for hunting Fel Demons, there is a lot of damage done, and a lot of care to ensure that Demon Hunters do not suffer the wrong kind of corruption.
Warlocks have the same issue.
>Fel being anything but destructive is a retcon
There is no retcon. Fel is still inherently destructive. It gets its power from destruction. It primarily destroys things. But hey, maybe you just want something destroyed.
Is that a holy mindflayer.
Fel isn't evil, it's chaotic. There's a difference. Original demons, born of fel, seek to sow conflict and discord. I don't see where it's ever implied in "new" lore that it doesn't make you a power hungry sociopath, you can just control it through willpower and a pure heart, as it has always been. Go wank to Classic.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The only reason Illidan and his Illidari control their Fel power is due to being dedicated to destroying the Legion, not because they want to protect Azeroth, that's a side effect.
It's similar to how they show the Death Knights not being as free from the Lich King as we thought, we'll definitely see some of that with Demon Hunters in BfA I think.
personally after the class quests for DKs I think the reason Arthas was so aggressive and the reason the events of WotLK happened was because the spirit of the Lich King needed the current avatar to died so he can be replaced and work on uniting the Scourge in the shadows underneath the Alliance and Hordes noses
I think the idea is really cool. I find it similar to how Undead Priests/Paladins need to succumb to extreme pain for them to remain faithful/continue their worship., which I think is arguably the most devout cleric/paladin.
There are two instances of 'Good' Illithid in 3.5- though one can note one instance is utter bullshit because said Illithid has a published sex- so It's complete horses arse- especially given how Illithid are born, following a 21 year period of dependance on the Elder-brain, nutrition in the form of crudely made pastes, then brain consumption coming of age- the psychic soothing of the Elder Brain and Psionic Gems in the Conclave, Plus the conditioning, programming, and the fact that the 'birth' of an Illithid literally has just about the same level of irreversible trauma involved in a Child Circumcision, leaving the recipient in such agony that it feels nothing but negative emotions all the time which are only later put under control by actually learning psionics to discipline this absolute mental turmoil.
Yeah, Post cerebromorphis, it's basically confirmed that Illithid are in a perpetual state of eternal pain from the rest of the parasited tetramorphed host's body being subject to rampant brain damage- on par with cases relational to legitimate brain-eating parasites, and the only thing that sets this down is technically pure discipline- which is further emphasised with the entire species fear of potential subject who survives the process with ego intact, aiming it's hatred at the entire Illithid species, and because an Illithid can actually have it's brain explode from Psionic Feedback if they lose control of their powers.
They're literally clusterfucks of "How to fuck up a childs development with physical abuse and mental trauma" all rolled into one, so there's basically no hope for them to turn a new leaf- which is the main reason why everything they do is effectively, the most super- over the top evil conceivable- they simply do not experience postive emotion-
Onto this redeemed flayer- It got the roles reversed with it's Dueregar slaves and literally got Stockholm syndrome, becoming a pacifist martial artist- so that's pretty fucked up.
Sure. Considering how much these ideas are influenced and informed by christianity, the natural next step would be for evil people to be somehow redeemed and become part of a force for good.
Correct, there's nothing inherently good about light either.
Scarlet Crusade did nothing wrong.
The fact that they changed magic from several distinct schools and disciplines of magic, with pros and cons of each, to a choice of which flavor of crack you want to become addicted to, is a sad joke.
Magic is the domain of gods and mortals shouldn't meddle with it. Mortals should be mortal, it's a gift in itself.
Sure, you're right. But instead we get elves sucking off teapots for their magic juice.
FUCK that post-modern, up is down, right is wrong, sociology-class-with-a-lovingly-rendered-portrait-of-Karl-Marx-on-the-front-door bullshit. The Light could be abused, but it's almost always connected to people who have right hearts and inclinations toward positive emotions. And it never turned it's adherents into beast-people or satanic meth junkies either. It's largely what knights in shining armor use to smack demons back to the Nether and what humble priests use to make the boo-boos all better.
If there are shades of grey that aren't hideously forced to make fedora-tipping teenagers happy, it's a pretty fucking light shade as far as the Light is concerned.
God built the Pit before he built the angels that went into it. If they could be redeemed he wouldn't have made them fall in the first place.
>god made angels fall
Lol wut
Here's the thing. In practise, people just want to redeem the succubus. These of course is singularly idiotic because succubi are the demons best equipped for corrupting people who want to redeem demons.
I remember a whole thread a while back about this very thing. We came to the conclusion that it was fine as long as it wasn't sexual. For example, the succubus making themselves horribly mutilated as to be ugly and reject there demonic sexiness and find true beauty on the inside.
To be fair, its kind of absurd to say God is guiltless in Lucifer -and the rest of the fallen angels'- fall if he's omnipotent and omniscient. He must have seen it coming and consciously made the decision not to prevent it.
>Anonymous
calvanist pls go
Calvinism is the only form of Christianity that makes sense, imo. We are all guilty of sin, that is the outcome of being human.
In my setting men are the real demons and demons are angels.
>every settting is christianity
>christianity invented demons
>christianity invented angels
Wayne Barlowe, the artist behind a lot of the paintings of he'll you see on Veeky Forums, wrote a novel called God's Demon about a demon who grows dissatisfied with hell and revolts. I'd give it a 7/10, there's some really interesting stuff in it even if the main character was pinch sueish. Hannibal Barca's damned soul ends up a general in the revolting army.
Are you at fault for your own inaction?
How many homeless have you left in the street?
How much money have you wasted?
How many kind words did you leave unspoken?
Hypocrite that you are, you judge God to a standard you don't hold yourself, on a topic you know nothing about.
Judging someone who's better than you to higher standards isn't hypocrisy. God, any god, is demonstrably more capable than man of solving nearly any problem, and is therefore exponentially more responsible for moral apathy.
You claim that the powerful are beholden to an ideal of responsibility, when in fact it is quite the opposite. Those with power are beholden to no one.
Again, you hypocrite, you show your true colors. You look to shirk your own responsibility by making God a martyr to your own shortcomings.
>making God a martyr to your own shortcomings
He did that himself roughly 2000 years ago. You can't be mad at some user for simply going along with that.
Demon: The Fallen?
It's similar to Sith in Starwars. Technically there is nothing evil about the dark side, you just unleash your emotions and use those instead.
The problem is emotions are / can be extremely unbalanced and chaotic, and as a result the wielder becomes that way. So while Fel isn't "bad" it does throw a massive spanner in rational / calm decision making by hiking up their more base emotions, resulting in instability and generally more destructive action. If they have strong will or a overriding emotion that controls the rest (like Demon Hunters with their personal revenge, or in the case of Blood Elves their sheer loyalty).
Actually they did bring up that a "light themed" expansion was on the table at some point (still might be) that went into more about the side effects of the Light. Stuff like it's effect makes the user believe they are RIGHT. ALWAYS, and that everything MUST be orderly / law'ed ext. After a while and sends them into holy crusader mode / the shit Xe'ra pulled that got her made into a glorified forge to anything that does not agree with their exact view.
But they didn't go any farther then that in the interview.
Last I heard, being a detestable person wasn't a sin, but it's still detestable.
Its more of a theoretical thing, there could be someone using The Light while being evil and there could be someone who isnt corrupted by the Fel but in practice it doesnt happens
wasn't there a death knight using the light? One of the original 4 horseman?
Scarlet crusade used the light while torturing people to death.
Warlocks use the fel and are playable thus not so bad.
Holy shit are triggered. Calm your menstruation please.
>the same level of irreversible trauma involved in a Child Circumcision
None at all?
Lets see where it goes
Actually, there are studies that show neurological and brain changes in babies who underwent circumcision that are not present in babies that didn't undergo circumcision.
Found the americlap
No you aren't
However you are theoretically responsible for the actions of anything you create. It's kinda the same as if a modern day roboticist invents an AI a learning robot that goes crazy.
Because it's super lame and doesn't speak to the human struggle.
It's super sad when someone who is super awesome becomes a shitbag.
It's not super awesome when a complete shitbag becomes a good person.
We aren't talking about people who are troubled, we are talking about complete shitbags. Burning worlds and innocent people. Personally I'd rather see their redemption arc end in their suicide rather than them continuing to live.
neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd
Except that’s all Christianity. The thing that sets acalvinism apart is that it negates human free will in the salvation process: God chose you to be saved
It in fact is, if we’re defining being detestable as not treating others with love (meaning seeking the creation and advancement of good for the sake of love object, not some paltry passing affection or blind acceptance of the status quo), justice, kindness and respect.
You seem to be under the impression that the Judeo-Christian God is a Nietzchian ubermensch, or Allah, above morality. You couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Be perfect, because your Father in Heaven is perfect,” said a 1st-century self-described Jew’s Jew. God is the perfect glorious standard that man chooses to falls short of and abandon every single day. God does say “my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts,” but that’s not about how “I’m stronger than you so shut up,” but “I operate on a level you do not understand”.
There’s a reason “with great power must also come great responsibility” was created by Jewish writers and not Muslim ones.
Well on that level that’s just the reality of parenting. You know the kid is going to fuck up and do something heinous at some point, and people are going to look at you for an explanation
>moral redemption doesn’t speak to the human experience
What the fuck are you talking about
There's some races that originate from the twisting nether and naturally commanded fel, they are the original demons, and they predate Sargeras (the fallen worldshaper). Sargeras' original purpose was to exterminate these demons, but as they were hard to kill because they just reformed in the twisting nether, he just made a prison plane and banished them all there. AFTER Sargeras' corruption, he used the banished demons as an army, and one of the original races (before they started corrupting others) were the Nathrezim, Lothraxion's race, so, his "rise to grace" was more of a naaru destroying his original esscence (Because he was MADE by fel, no imbued by it) and reconstructing him with light.
And yet we have 10 year old kids dying of cancer or hunger, so much of your god's goodness and morality.
Fucking this. New blizzard lore with it's moral relativism isn't deep or complex. It's just trash.
Zeliak. He also hated killing and kept trying to get the raid to leave before he had to fight.
God didn't create the angels TO fall, he created them with the CAPACITY to fall. Did He know what they would choose? Yes. Is he responsible for that choice? No. Lucifer could have chosen to remain loyal. That's on him. The same for our sin. God knows each and every sin we commit. But we chose each of them.
Because perfect morality would be to strip humanity of free will so nothing bad ever happened. Wonder where I've heard that before?
God has deemed it a greater good to allow us the option to sin so that we might also choose to good, and in that process grow as a species. Does this mean he allows suffering? Yes. Suffering we create, though.
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I've always liked the story of Meridiana (under "Mythology and Religion").
>God has deemed it a greater good to allow us the option to sin
Not that guy, but didn't God specifically try to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Knowledge so they wouldn't be able to do this? Hell, he even lied to them about it, saying if they ate from it they'd die.
You also didn't address the other guy's point. If God were good, why would he create a universe where children could get terminal cancer or die of starvation? And your answer is God allows people the option to sin and choose to do good. But how does that relate to a child with a terminal illness?
I'm pretty much completely tired of modern media always having a good to bad fall or a bad to good redemption shoehorned in at every opportunity. I don't mind a little internal conflict on a hero, but it loses its luster when it appears so often, especially when it's cheaply done (The sheer amount it happens in Blizzard games, for example, is a huge turn-off after a while with characters basically flip flopping multiple times throughout the story.).
I'd much rather see characters that have a set of personal values that go with the side that's most beneficial to them rather than see a wholesale change from totally good to totally bad, like a king flipping sides because at his heart, the only concern he has is keeping his kingdom together rather than nebulous concepts of right and wrong.
In his defense, the west has preconceived notions of mythology, and when something goes against it, it creates a disconnect. Just look at the difference in the japan-west divide on how they look at gods, spirits, and demons.
>why "true" you ask?
No. Nobody asked. Stop writing like such a faggot and putting a line inbetween every sentence.
>triggered
People use that word way too much for the wrong reasons.
He uses strong words to show disdain for post-modern thinking, which is trying to kill romanticism.
If you wouldn't like romanticism to some extend you probably wouldn't be here, unless you're only here for edgy faggotry.
Did the overuse of the word triggered come into being because leftists started using it on everything after the right started making fun of them?
It's like tumblrinas calling people snowflakes because they don't want her free-bleeding next to their children on the parkbench, really weird.
I had a 'Risen Demon' NPC once. Had to keep constantly swathed in specially enchanted robes to hide his infernal aura and has a compelling effect with his voice that endlessly frustrated him. His entire goal was to save the world from Purification (because one god wanted mommy to come back home and thought this was how to do it) which would have turned everything back into a blank slate. He disagreed with this on multiple levels most of all on the 'what the hell is wrong with you, wiping out billions of souls because mummy died isn't right'. He needed the party to do most of the heavy lifting for him because his powers were weak in the material realm since he wasn't officially summoned or sent there.
He ends up becoming a new god after killing the other one. He's officially the god of justice and mercy now and still retains some of his old infernal characteristics.
I’ve always seen the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil kind of like a fire alarm: you’re told in general not to pull it because pulling it needs to be really specific. There would come a time for it, but it wasn’t then.
And they did die, did they not?
The terminally ill kid and the hungry kid represent two different types of problems. Both are representative of what theologians call “natural evil” not in the sense that it’s ok, but that it has to do with nature. A drought prevents food from being grown for humans to eat, or a specific genetic encoding removes a human’s ability to eat and digest properly. Both exist because even in Genesis the idea is that the humanity’s fall dragged creation down with it (since it had been placed in their care), and any evil in them spread to nature.
The other kind of problem is specifically due to free will and at consequences. A parent neglects their child’s needs, or a leader neglects his people’s needs, or someone with an illness that can be passed to offspring either isn’t aware or doesn’t take the proper precautions. These are ultimately the result of choices people make dictating the circumstances of other people’s choices. All choices impact all other choices. The perennial illustration is clothing: if you have a red, a blue and a yellow shirt, and I burn the red one, your choice of shirt has been limited. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pull a black shirt I didn’t know about out of the closet and wear that one.
What it comes down to is this: if God were to rule with an iron fist and punish us immediately for our sins as soon as we make the choice to commit them, we’d consider him a despot. If he stripped us of any choice at all, we’d be robots, and thus would be incapable of evil, but also of good. We must be allowed to choose for ourselves: this is why Jesus was not a military leader converting by conquest, he made an offer and persuaded people.
I thought drealords were aliens too? They have a planet that Illidan destroyed and everything? They were one of the earliest races to become demons though.
Oni no Okura was summoned as a demon in sharing the soul a member of the Lion Clan then achieved enlightenment through bushido before dying and was then assigned to guard the gates of Tengoku because as a demon she was not allowed into heaven
Nathreza, their original planet is in the twisting nether.
That sounds like a shit system. People who had no choice in the matter have to suffer when it never had to be that way. Hearing christfags try to justify how their god is “good” is always hilarious
The sources of power being amoral in most ways had been hinted at since WC3 and the games prior to that barely had lore beyond the basic generic shit that most RTS games had to make it seem like the devs had a clue what the world was like.
"But vanilla"
TFT came 3 years prior and literally the only "retcon" up to Wrath was the dranei being uncorrupted eredar.
Pretty sure even dnd didn't have any evil energy.
I get that in practice its mostly magical realm stuff.
Butnat the same time i reckon a succubus would be the type pf demon that most frequently seeks redemption, they're the one demon whos interactions with mortals are primarily social rather than violent. Giving more opportunity to have them discover empathy or sympathy.
In some ways you could look at it God has no free will.
If he knows the future then the future must be fixed, so he cannot take any action that would change it.