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View Full Version : [3ed]What happens to the soul of someone who had a different alignment after amnesia?



newbDM
2009-04-23, 09:30 AM
The debate in another thread got me wondering what would happen in this scenario. Say a person was initially evil/good, but midway through it's life got amnesia and ended up living the rest of it's life of the opposing alignment. What would happen to said person's eternal soul?

Would said person suffer or enjoy the fate of it's first alignment, would it be sentenced to a fate based on it's second alignment? Or more out there, would said person/soul be divide into two at the time of judgment by whatever greater power(s) judge what plane/deity your soul belongs to in the afterlife?

So many interesting questions, and possibly campaign plots can come out of this I imagine.

Dogmantra
2009-04-23, 09:42 AM
Simplest solution: stick them in the True Neutral afterlife.

My solution: I'd probably split it somehow. Though I'd argue that if you got amnesia and forgot everything, you're not really the same person. My ruling would be that when they died, the soul would split in two, indicating that they were more like two people. Each part could be resurrected seperately, and would spend time in the appropriate afterlife.

Harperfan7
2009-04-23, 09:48 AM
I know it's kinda boring, but whatever alignment he was when he died (especially within the last few minutes) determines where the soul goes.

Starbuck_II
2009-04-23, 10:10 AM
I know it's kinda boring, but whatever alignment he was when he died (especially within the last few minutes) determines where the soul goes.

Yep, same as a helm of opposite alignmment: you are the new soul. If you are good when you die that is what happens.

Granted, it is up to the god deciding it ultimately.

Baalthazaq
2009-04-23, 10:22 AM
Yup. This is maybe a tiny big grey/gray when it comes to DnD but the fiendish codex clearly states that it's the alignment you were when you die that determines your afterlife.

Lawful Evil from birth till the last second of your life, where you repent, equals no hell for you.

In fact, there are even some cases where after death you still gain a certain level of respite in the form of being a hellborn.

TheCountAlucard
2009-04-23, 10:25 AM
There's always the Vestige option... :smallbiggrin:

Paramour Pink
2009-04-23, 10:49 AM
I assume it all falls down to the gods. They're very real, so if I was Heironeous and one of my paladins or other devote followers had their mind badly tampered with, I would give an even-handed chance or quest of some kind to give this person their "true" way of thinking back. Likewise, if I was Olidammara, I might just be much more amused by the change, and let things pan out the way they already are.

magellan
2009-04-23, 10:56 AM
I know it's kinda boring, but whatever alignment he was when he died (especially within the last few minutes) determines where the soul goes.

Bad idea: Life your whole life as CE, and on your deathbed, put on helm of opposite alignment because you don't want to go to the abyss...

Aren't the neutral deities judging the souls of petitioners in D&D? I thought they were, and i'd say they evaluate your whole life, so it depends on how evil/good you were before in relation to after.

Fishy
2009-04-23, 11:47 AM
"What can change the nature of a man?"

Dogmantra
2009-04-23, 12:21 PM
"What can change the nature of a man?"

Ummm... amnesia?

Fishy
2009-04-23, 12:33 PM
Sorry. Catchprase to Planescape: Torment, which deals with exactly this question.

Dogmantra
2009-04-23, 12:57 PM
I know, I was being facetious...

(twist ending: Or was I?)

Tsotha-lanti
2009-04-23, 12:57 PM
Lawful Evil from birth till the last second of your life, where you repent, equals no hell for you.

Of course, there's a pretty strong case to be made about how even the most sincere deathbed repentance may not be enough to actually change your alignment and get you out of the Lower Planes.

Also, it seems like a no-brainer that curses like a helm of opposite alignment wouldn't really factor into it (unless the character had lived with the new alignment for years, I guess).

And many settings do, indeed, have slightly more complex or detailed systems for determining where you end up. For instance, in the 3.X Forgotten Realms, your dedication to a deity (your alignment must correspond to those allowed by the deity, I believe) determines where you end up; the Faithless, dedicated to no deity, end up in the walls of the Castle of Bones or whatever, where the fiends try to steal them... (And when you enter the "foyer" of afterlife for judgement, the fiends are there trying to buy up your soul with promises.)

Alaris
2009-04-23, 01:48 PM
Well, my DM runs it in an interesting way, as far as Anmesia.

The person who gets anmesia still maintains their Alignment... which is connected to their soul, and thus cannot easily be tampered with. Granted, in my DMs game, items like Helm of Opposite Alignment are the most rare items in the world, and the DM would give the PLAYER an option to change back, and a way out that would make sense for the character (Since he doesn't want to ruin our fun).

Regardless, in your situation, I wouldn't go by the books, and I'd say that the Deity looks over the character's entire life and judges from there... not just their last few moments.

bibliophile
2009-04-23, 02:26 PM
If they truly tried to be their new alignment, then I'd put them in that afterlife. But that's just me.

Fishy
2009-04-23, 09:56 PM
So, the thing about D&D is that there are actual evil gods.

If you die after a long life of magnificent evil, then yes, you'll go to the Lower Planes, and yes, chances are good that you'll be on fire, but there will be a host of demons around who will want your autograph.

If you die after a long life of magnificent evil and a presto-changeo deathbed conversion, then yes, you end up in Elysium- sharing space with every puppy and every paladin you've ever killed.

Better to rule in hell than to be a prison &@$* in heaven.

Baalthazaq
2009-04-24, 06:44 AM
Well, I was just going on DnD texts, which are pretty clear cut on the matter in general, however if we're doing personal opinion on what it should be:

So a person who is actually good now without any kind of dispute goes to hell because he wasn't in the past? Why? You're not talking about a character who acts, pretends, or is rumored to be good, you're talking about one who is that alignment, on paper, flat out, undisputed, just like his 13 Str or his race.

If he puts on a helm of opposite alignment, the character enters his own hell of guilt and regret ala Angel. That person or a person with amnesia (in the OP's case) is no longer the person he was before. We're not talking about someone who doesn't remember he's evil we're talking about someone who is now good, who if left to lead his life will under normal circumstances will go on to do good things.

hewhosaysfish
2009-04-24, 08:34 AM
Well, I was just going on DnD texts, which are pretty clear cut on the matter in general, however if we're doing personal opinion on what it should be:

So a person who is actually good now without any kind of dispute goes to hell because he wasn't in the past? Why? You're not talking about a character who acts, pretends, or is rumored to be good, you're talking about one who is that alignment, on paper, flat out, undisputed, just like his 13 Str or his race.

If he puts on a helm of opposite alignment, the character enters his own hell of guilt and regret ala Angel. That person or a person with amnesia (in the OP's case) is no longer the person he was before. We're not talking about someone who doesn't remember he's evil we're talking about someone who is now good, who if left to lead his life will under normal circumstances will go on to do good things.

I would largely agree with this.

A few things (the Atonement spell is a biggie) make me doubt how RAW it is (I suspect RAW maybe confused... Fancy that: unclear and contradictory guidelines on alignment. How unprecedented!) but my opinion is that alignment is a measure of who a character is, not a potted summary of what they've done.
A person who helps others, does not harm the innocent, values life and dignity and all that - they're Good.
Were they were like that all their life? Were they a vicious, puppy-eating b*stard (VPEB) who repented? Were they a VPEB who got clonked on the head and forgot all the vicious things they'd done and all the puppies they'd eaten? For the purposes of the question "are they Good" it's all irrelevant.
They help others, do not harm the innocent, value life and dignity and all that - they're Good.

The questions which remain relevant are:
1) Is being a Good person enough to get you into the Good afterlife?
I guess this would depend on the particular cosmology involved (any written material, the DM's opinion and the group's consenus) and might not be a clear yes or no answer - it might depend on the particular afterlife, the Gods involved, the person's sins and/or their beliefs.

2) Even if a VPEB gets clonked on the head and forgets all the vicious things they've done and all the puppies they've eaten, how likely is it that they will start helping people, stop harming innocents and start valuing life, dignity and all that?
Like I've said, if they do then they are Good. This question is about how likely this question is to stop being hypothetical.
As I see it, the answer depends on how things fall on the nature vs nurture argument because our amnesiac is like a new-born, in a way, (re)entering the world with no experiences:
If nature wins over nurture, then the same tendencies, impulses and lack of restraint which led the VPEB to be a VPEB are still present and will cause them to become a VPEB again just as they did first time round. So they will in fact stay Evil
If nurture wins over nature, then it was the VPEB formative experiences which caused them to be a VPEB and, now that the memory of those epxeriences have been wiped clean*, the experiences that that undergo shortly after they lose thier memory which will shape their new personality. So with the right stimuli they could actually become Good (or not).


*Assmuing that their memoryand conditioned respones are completely blanked by their amnesia, with no leftovers hanging around in any subconscious sort of way and giving rise to odd "feelings" and reactions with no discernble cause. I don't know how accurate this would be WRT to real amnesia but it is a plausible assumption for Hollywoodland/Fictionland amnesia.