Can you be forced to sell your soul?

[Xeildan]

Can some deity or patron force you into selling your soul? Like hold your friend captive threatening to kill them? Or like if They seal you away to break your will?

[BoutsofInsanity]

Depends on how dark of a game you want to be.

I would say that they can't charm you into giving up your soul with some sort of mental compulsion right?

But if you lack the resolve to hold onto your soul because someone's mortal body is suffering, well that's on you right?

It sounds like that's something a demon or evil fey would do. Is engage in psychological warfare against you to get your soul from you.


The counter balance is, most often than not, if Fiends or Evil outsiders are engaging in such acts, the good guys get to act more too. So if you have a vile demon rolling around stealing souls, all the more likely that a Holy Avenger sword is going to find it's way into a Paladin's hands and a good Wizard is going to find access to the Wish Spell to get the soul back.

[Unoriginal]

Can some deity or patron force you into selling your soul? Like hold your friend captive threatening to kill them? Or like if They seal you away to break your will?

Absolutely. There's nothing stopping anyone from doing that.

Although if we're talking about Devils specifically, the forcing part needs to be legal. For example, there is at least two instances in the published modules of parents being allowed to sell their children's souls without the children's knowledge or consent, as they have legal authority over their kids.


For a more general case, being sacrificed to a god against your will can be enough for them to get your soul, entirely skipping the "selling" part, so yeah there is nothing against making someone sell their souls under duress.

[cutlery]

Can some deity or patron force you into selling your soul? Like hold your friend captive threatening to kill them? Or like if They seal you away to break your will?

Well, even if you don't willingly "sell" it, a powerful entity can put a lien on it: do this thing or I find you and kill you (and perhaps all your friends).

[Composer99]

Well, even if you don't willingly "sell" it, a powerful entity can put a lien on it: do this thing or I find you and kill you (and perhaps all your friends).

"Welcome to hell! Before we can torment you, we have to run a check on your soul information number to make sure there aren't any outstanding claims. Do you have your ownership paperwork?"

[cutlery]

"Welcome to hell! Before we can torment you, we have to run a check on your soul information number to make sure there aren't any outstanding claims. Do you have your ownership paperwork?"

Perfect.

Finding out there is a lien on your soul you didn’t know about sounds a fair bit more shocking then realizing the Faustian bargain you made was, well, Faustian.

Bonus points if the abyssal/infernal bureaucrats use words like “body eviction” and “repossession”.

[Elbeyon]

Sure! There are lots of ways to treat souls.

Hags love stealing high quality souls. Soul jars and bags. People can be dammed to hell if they die or are eaten by a devil. Plane shift a person to hell. Souls are a thing that the story and people can interact with. Souls are not even very well protected. The magics dealing with them are just rare or taboo. A player signing away their soul is probably one of the nicest ways to lose a soul.

[Sigreid]

A mirror of soul trapping may let you sell someone else's soul.

[zinycor]

I would say no, you can't be forced into selling your soul. However on the situations you describe, the person may very well do it and say he was forced into it. But it would still be their choice to sell their soul.

And yeah, sacrifices and such may give souls unwillingly, but I wouldn't call that "selling"

[OldTrees1]

It is possible that "selling your soul" requires a voluntary act of free will. BUT IRL we know of forms of coercion (hostages in some cases) that can influence beings that appear to have free will.

It is possible that "selling your soul" requires an ongoing commitment. This seems at odds with some of the literature but even in this context there are ways repeated coerced but voluntary actions can warp the actor's way of thinking.

So, you can be coerced to sell your soul, but if free will exists "coerced" is as close to "forced" as anything ever gets.

[da newt]

No - there is no way for you to be forced into deciding to sell your soul.

HOWEVER - you certainly can be very strongly encouraged to make a decision to sell your soul.

You can only sell your soul if you have your free will and decide to agree to sell it, but there may be very compelling reasons to sell your soul (the lesser of two evils sort of thing).

On the other hand, there are many ways to steal a soul without consent too ...

[zinycor]

One way that would be imposible is to sell your soul because of a spell such as suggestion, charm person or similars.