Moral Conundrum

[Tearman]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to keep this short but know it won't be.

I've been running a campaign for about 12 months now with us playing about 2 times a month. This was set out as a Story driven (Insert being called a Rail Road DM here) and the players knew that coming into it.
I have a party of 5 with 3 of the 5 being new to D&D having never played a table top.
The 2 veteran players I've played with since I started playing about 13 years ago.

To keep this short I run my campaigns in a season format and like to get my players emotionally invested. They had gotten to the season finale and were tasked with defeating a Vampire Lord that had been messing with them the whole season behind the scenes.

After the fight the Vampire returned to her resting place just under the church they were fighting in to the parties surprise when they opened her box she was an 8 year old child.
(I made it where when the Vampire Lord is defeated they return to the state they were turned into a Vampire at losing any memories of the time before they were defeated)

The Paladin of the party used sense good and evil and I told him he didn't sense good nor evil from the child making him hesitant about the idea of killing her.
The Barbarian was also hesitant being turned into a Warewolf at a young age himself (Now being cured with the parties help) he felt sorry for the child.

On the other side our Rogue and Monk wanted to kill the child outright in the moment and be done with it.

The Druid was indifferent about the situation being that they are RPing being socially awkward and unsure how they felt about the situation.

The table started to argue with me doing my best to calm everyone down and try to find a middle ground.

It ended with the Barbarian Teleporting away with a Fast travel stone Child in hand to return her to the Arch Mage (Think like Merlin) to see what they think should be done.

I feel like this was caused by the 2 veteran players and the old way we ran with old groups that we just go to location kill thing return for another job.

The Rogue being one and the Barb being the other.
They were on opposite sides of this coin. The Barb preferring story driven and the Rogue preferring Sandbox but agreeing to let the story play out.

I'm getting sidetracked

My question is what would you have done?
From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?

(Forgot how to tag sorry)

[Keltest]

Important question that i dont think got answered specifically, but is the girl still physically a vampire? Or is she back to being just a mortal 8 year old girl with no memory of anything?

[Tearman]

Important question that i dont think got answered specifically, but is the girl still physically a vampire? Or is she back to being just a mortal 8 year old girl with no memory of anything?

The party didn't check. But if they had yes she was.

[Alcore]

Party fights 8 year old evil vampire lord —- must kill

Party finds comotose 8 year old non evil vampire — must argue about it?

Child will wake up evil. Undeath tends to be a one way trip without resurrection methods. What moral problem is there?

Or are your vampires so different from usual canons that we might not get it?

[lall]

My vote would be to let her live. If the group decided otherwise, I’d keep a strand of her hair to possibly raise her.

As a DM, I’d let them sort it out as it’s their choice.

[Millstone85]

The Paladin of the party used sense good and evil and I told him he didn't sense good nor evil from the child making him hesitant about the idea of killing her.
Important question that i dont think got answered specifically, but is the girl still physically a vampire? Or is she back to being just a mortal 8 year old girl with no memory of anything?
The party didn't check. But if they had yes she was.By RAW, neither the paladin feature Divine Sense nor the spell Detect Evil and Good tell you anything about a creature's alignment. The only way she would have pinged on the radar is as an undead.

Did you homebrew these abilities?

[Keltest]

The party didn't check. But if they had yes she was.

She was still a vampire? In that case, off with her head. She hasnt been fixed or resurrected in any practical sense, and destroying the undead form is a necessary step in getting that to actually happen. Even if resurrecting her is not feasible, vampires are evil as a function of whatever magic turns them into vampires. They dont have free will about it the way most "traditionally evil" races do. If you leave her alone, she'll just get back to doing her evil vampire things, even if it takes her a while to really get going again.

[Tearman]

By RAW, neither the paladin feature Divine Sense nor the spell Detect Evil and Good tell you anything about a creature's alignment. The only way she would have pinged on the radar is as an undead.

Did you homebrew these abilities?

Sorry. It's been about a year of running this story and honestly I've forgotten that we changed it at this point. Yes it was changed to make it more fitting to the name of the spell (Alignment being important in this setting)
Paladin already get something to alow them to sense Undead Fey and the like.

[Tearman]

Party fights 8 year old evil vampire lord —- must kill

Party finds comotose 8 year old non evil vampire — must argue about it?

Child will wake up evil. Undeath tends to be a one way trip without resurrection methods. What moral problem is there?

Or are your vampires so different from usual canons that we might not get it?

The thing about that is the party had to deal with one of their own being a Warewolf and knowing that inherently evil things like Warewolfs could be good if pushed in the wright direction at a young age.

As for the child waking up evil she wouldn't have any memories of being evil. other then being a vampire she would be a 8 year old child.

[Tearman]

She was still a vampire? In that case, off with her head. She hasnt been fixed or resurrected in any practical sense, and destroying the undead form is a necessary step in getting that to actually happen. Even if resurrecting her is not feasible, vampires are evil as a function of whatever magic turns them into vampires. They dont have free will about it the way most "traditionally evil" races do. If you leave her alone, she'll just get back to doing her evil vampire things, even if it takes her a while to really get going again.

I can see that argument.
That was why the Barbarian took her to the Arch Mage I think.
He wanted to save a life and honestly the dice rolled in his favor to take her and get away from the party.

She was still knocked out when he left so it's just a matter of time and a bit of luck I guess now.

[Tearman]

They aren't too different the only difference being they turn to the original age/form they were when turned into a Vampire after they returned to their resting place.

[Millstone85]

vampires are evil as a function of whatever magic turns them into vampires.That's apparently not true in Tearman's setting, since the party found a neutral vampire. Or did the spell give that result because she was unconscious?

[Tearman]

That's apparently not true in Tearman's setting, since the party found a neutral vampire. Or did the spell give that result because she was unconscious?

It follows the idea that children don't have an alignment. Being that they aren't old enough to understand fully yet. Granted I could see where the idea that if it's a Vampire it is undead and evil it would show her as Evil but it would follow the same idea the Party member being a Warewolf would have.

Warewolfs are Chaotic Evil according to statblock. As Vampires are Lawful Evil.

The party ignored a member being Chaotic Evil in alignment because he tried to not be.

The Barbarian (Who was the Warewolf before being cured) argued that she could end up like him if cured and live a normal life and follow her own ambitions.
He argued why take her life when they did what they did for him.

[NecessaryWeevil]

So the details remain unclear but it seems that we have a currently incapacitated child who is still a vampire but can somehow be cured?

Not really a player question, but a PC question.

My LE Warlock with a soft spot for children: Don't you worry, dearie. Granny will make you all better...unless the Prince of Frost declares otherwise.
MY CG Druid who grew up as a street kid doing odd jobs for the Zhentarim? She's just a kid. She deserves a second chance. Cure her.
My LN Wizard: Interesting. I want to see what happens when she wakes up. Once we've observed that I'd like to see the process of curing a vampire.

[Alcore]

They aren't too different the only difference being they turn to the original age/form they were when turned into a Vampire after they returned to their resting place.

As vampires they don’t age...


And being powered by negative energy they are nothing like werewolves. The wolves are often depicted fighting their inner nature and non evil wolves are allowed in cannon... depending on edition they only have to keep passing a really hard will save before becoming a mad raving beast.


It seems like these vamps are homebrew so I can no longer answer your question as I cannot make an informed decision.

[Keltest]

As vampires they don’t age...


And being powered by negative energy they are nothing like werewolves. The wolves are often depicted fighting their inner nature and non evil wolves are allowed in cannon... depending on edition they only have to keep passing a really hard will save before becoming a mad raving beast.


It seems like these vamps are homebrew so I can no longer answer your question as I cannot make an informed decision.

Indeed. In the Monster Manual, vampires are called out as becoming evil upon transforming, invariably, while lycanthropes can either embrace the curse and change alignment, or reject the curse and retain their normal alignment when not involuntarily transformed.

[Waterdeep Merch]

This is one of those situations where I would've avoided using a child, just because violence is the pragmatic answer and that's going to ruffle feathers with anyone else. It's a great question for a single person but a bad argument for a group.

It's a good idea to adopt a democratic system for big party decisions to keep infighting and separation to a minimum. If you must explain it, DMing splinter factions for the party takes twice as much time and effort and will leave half the table bored. With rules and boundaries in place, let the players argue to their hearts' content. But do get ready for that player that will be especially offended if a pragmatic decision gets made over a moral one. I've seen it happen exactly like that plenty of times.

[Tearman]

So the details remain unclear but it seems that we have a currently incapacitated child who is still a vampire but can somehow be cured?

Not really a player question, but a PC question.

My LE Warlock with a soft spot for children: Don't you worry, dearie. Granny will make you all better...unless the Prince of Frost declares otherwise.
MY CG Druid who grew up as a street kid doing odd jobs for the Zhentarim? She's just a kid. She deserves a second chance. Cure her.
My LN Wizard: Interesting. I want to see what happens when she wakes up. Once we've observed that I'd like to see the process of curing a vampire.

I'll try to clear up some dets here.

1. Vampires don't work much different from lore only the reverting to the age and form they were when turned. Other then that they are Lawful Evil

2. Alignment is a big deal in my campaign. It is your moral compass.
However children don't have a strong sense of good and evil.

[Angelalex242]

You actually misplayed the Paladin's power. He isn't detecting alignment in 5e. He's detecting the presence or absence of Fiends, Undead, and Celestials. If she pinged as undead, he should've noticed.

[MoiMagnus]

It follows the idea that children don't have an alignment. Being that they aren't old enough to understand fully yet. Granted I could see where the idea that if it's a Vampire it is undead and evil it would show her as Evil but it would follow the same idea the Party member being a Warewolf would have.

It relies a lot on how much Vampires actually have free will in your setting, and how much they are "supernaturally EVIL" or just "culturally EVIL". Because murdering this vampire that happen to look like a child is the reasonable behaviour if it has "not enough" free will to ever act good.
[In most settings for D&D, undead are inhabited by literal spirit of pure EVIL, contrary to Goblinoids who just happen to be raised in a society that worship some evil gods. OOTS is not that far of from canon for Vampire with the "true self" being enslaved by an evil spirit that control the body]

As you elected to make them appear Neutral, I'd guess you consider they have enough free will to turn good given the appropriate environment. And it which case, it's not unreasonable to save her and try to educate her into not murdering regular folks (like maybe drinking animal blood instead of human blood?).
[But make sure you have in mind at least one NPC able to take the charge of raising a child, not every player wants to RP raising a child, even if they morally cannot abandon this child and will reluctantly choose to raise them if that's the only option]

(Oh, and as pointed by others, I believe that D&D vampires cannot age, so that might be a problem if you don't also homebrew that)

EDIT: oh, and the good solution is probably to kill the child and immediately resurrect or reincarnate it, so that you no longer have an undead child and instead have a regular mortal child.

[Alcore]

Age and form should be unchanged as vampire. That thing is not a child; it is an abomination wearing the corpse of a child.

[Alcore]

EDIT: oh, and the good solution is probably to kill the child and immediately resurrect or reincarnate it, so that you no longer have an undead child and instead have a regular mortal child.

If the child remembers what happened it would be a mercy to leave her dead.

[Millstone85]

I'll try to clear up some dets here.

1. Vampires don't work much different from lore only the reverting to the age and form they were when turned. Other then that they are Lawful Evil

2. Alignment is a big deal in my campaign. It is your moral compass.
However children don't have a strong sense of good and evil.Well then, if vampires are lawful evil and children are neutral, what happens when you combine the two in a "vampire child"?

Neutral until she develops the mind of an adult, shifting to lawful evil along the way? If so, would that take years or was the amnesia going to wear off at any time?

And most importantly, how much of that setting lore did the party know about?

[Brookshw]

Age and form should be unchanged as vampire. That thing is not a child; it is an abomination wearing the corpse of a child.

I'd land here, though I'm not entirely clear on some aspects of the house rules at play here. When it "reverts", what does that mean? Do vampires keep ageing, i.e., was the party fighting an adult this whole time? It loses it's memories when defeated? Seems really strange, what does "defeat" mean? Reduced to 0 hp?

Regardless, I'm with the off with it's head crowd.

[Unoriginal]

EDIT: oh, and the good solution is probably to kill the child and immediately resurrect or reincarnate it, so that you no longer have an undead child and instead have a regular mortal child.

Yeah, I'm honestly not understanding where the "moral conundrum" of the title is.

If the vampire lord is an evil vampire, why does it matter that her true form is an 8-years-old girl? She's still going to do her evil vampire things once she wakes up, probably starting by taking revenge on the PCs.

Kill the vampire and bring the child it was made of back to life with magic, if she wants to come back.

[Alcore]

I'd land here, though I'm not entirely clear on some aspects of the house rules at play here. When it "reverts", what does that mean? Do vampires keep ageing, i.e., was the party fighting an adult this whole time? It loses it's memories when defeated? Seems really strange, what does "defeat" mean? Reduced to 0 hp?

Regardless, I'm with the off with it's head crowd.
Yeah... which is why I said earlier that I cannot make an informed decision. They are so different (despite contradictory answers from the same source) that I can only answer as if they were vanilla vamps.

My answer might go through drastic changes if I could make an informed decision.

[False God]

Hard to say what my "choice" would be, as a character. Depends on the sort of character I'm running.

I think all your party members had valid stances here that were fitting to a cursory description of their characters.
Barb has similar troubled backstory, wants to help.
Paladin is good guy who kills evil, vampire kid is undead, but not evil (or good).
Druid is druid, doesn't care.

Only person I don't have a gauge on is the monk. Are the X-Evil alignment? Chaotic-something? Did they provide any rationale for their choice other than "lets get this over with"? Is "lets get this over with" in character? Was it revenge? Is revenge in character? Was it appropriately out of character as a response to the situations they've been through? Is whatever reasoning they used in character?

Or was it more of "If we don't kill it, we won't get XP."?

An argument was bound to happen in this situation if your characters had any sort of variation in alignments. Agreement, even with different alignments is possible, but IMO not likely.

Was the argument entirely in-character? Did any portion of the argument cross player/character boundaries?
----
I know it's a lot of questions, but there's a lot to analyze. As a DM I would have just kept an eye on ensuring the argument was between characters and not between players. The Barbarian's decision to turn the child over to the Wizard seems a rational one. The party cannot decide, so let someone else. I would still award full XP for "defeating" the vampire, or full quest rewards.

As a player, I've played the gamut of alignments, my favorites remain CG and LE....so....
CG wants to help the child, turning her over to the wizard seems a good idea. She may still be too powerful for the party to handle, or too weak to babysit, and I really don't care much for children, but as an unaligned intelligent being who (maybe unbeknownst to me lost her memories) is at least registering as "no alignment", I'd want to give her a fair chance.

LE sees the child as a useful tool. As a vampire she could become quite powerful, therefore she is useful in accomplishing whatever goals I have. Provided the child is properly guided. I'd advise we keep the child with us, I'd even volunteer to look after her. If her memories start coming back as she recovers, I only need to ensure that she understands we beat her, and can do it again, but would prefer to be allies rather than adversaries. If she proves too difficult to control, she will be killed.(if something along these lines was already clear beforehand, I'd just skip to step 3 and kill her outright, but from your description I'm not sure that was clear)

------
Overall, however brief your description, I don't see anything wrong with how you handled things or the character's choices.

[Millstone85]

EDIT: oh, and the good solution is probably to kill the child and immediately resurrect or reincarnate it, so that you no longer have an undead child and instead have a regular mortal child.That would require answering yet another question, this one a tough piece of game ruling and in-universe magobabble: If a humanoid dies and their corpse rises as an undead, which is then beaten back into an unmoving corpse, is the corpse still that of the original humanoid for the purpose of resurrective magic?

Crawford once ruled that if you cast revivify on a zombie, the creature returns as a zombie (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/709791324656902144). :smallbiggrin:

[Tearman]

It relies a lot on how much Vampires actually have free will in your setting, and how much they are "supernaturally EVIL" or just "culturally EVIL". Because murdering this vampire that happen to look like a child is the reasonable behaviour if it has "not enough" free will to ever act good.
[In most settings for D&D, undead are inhabited by literal spirit of pure EVIL, contrary to Goblinoids who just happen to be raised in a society that worship some evil gods. OOTS is not that far of from canon for Vampire with the "true self" being enslaved by an evil spirit that control the body]

As you elected to make them appear Neutral, I'd guess you consider they have enough free will to turn good given the appropriate environment. And it which case, it's not unreasonable to save her and try to educate her into not murdering regular folks (like maybe drinking animal blood instead of human blood?).
[But make sure you have in mind at least one NPC able to take the charge of raising a child, not every player wants to RP raising a child, even if they morally cannot abandon this child and will reluctantly choose to raise them if that's the only option]

(Oh, and as pointed by others, I believe that D&D vampires cannot age, so that might be a problem if you don't also homebrew that)

EDIT: oh, and the good solution is probably to kill the child and immediately resurrect or reincarnate it, so that you no longer have an undead child and instead have a regular mortal child.

I like the problem solving there lol.
The Barbarian opted to take the child to the Arch Mage to see what they have to say about it.
She could be cured easily by the Arch Mage (think like Merlin the Wizard) and lucky for the party that's who asked them to deal with this problem.
So we will see how Charismatic the Barb can be when he gets there.

As for Vampires I don't see anything that says they don't age only that they are immortal. In my mind that wouldn't mean that you couldn't reach your physical prime before you'd stop aging.
Though I can see the argument for that not being the case it just doesn't seem logical to me.

As for free will I don't see anything that says they don't have any just that they are now evil due to being turned into a Vampire by whatever turned them.
The only free will lacking thing I see are Vampire Spawn or creatures killed by the Vampire by its bite.

[Unoriginal]

That would require answering yet another question, this one a tough piece of game ruling and in-universe magobabble: If a humanoid dies and their corpse rises as an undead, which is then beaten back into an unmoving corpse, is the corpse still that of the original humanoid for the purpose of resurrective magic?

Crawford once ruled that if you cast revivify on a zombie, the creature returns as a zombie (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/709791324656902144). :smallbiggrin:

Because Revivify revivifies the creature, and the creature is at the time a zombie. True Resurrection for example can bring back the dead even if they were made an undead once.

[Tearman]

Hard to say what my "choice" would be, as a character. Depends on the sort of character I'm running.

I think all your party members had valid stances here that were fitting to a cursory description of their characters.
Barb has similar troubled backstory, wants to help.
Paladin is good guy who kills evil, vampire kid is undead, but not evil (or good).
Druid is druid, doesn't care.

Only person I don't have a gauge on is the monk. Are the X-Evil alignment? Chaotic-something? Did they provide any rationale for their choice other than "lets get this over with"? Is "lets get this over with" in character? Was it revenge? Is revenge in character? Was it appropriately out of character as a response to the situations they've been through? Is whatever reasoning they used in character?

Or was it more of "If we don't kill it, we won't get XP."?

An argument was bound to happen in this situation if your characters had any sort of variation in alignments. Agreement, even with different alignments is possible, but IMO not likely.

Was the argument entirely in-character? Did any portion of the argument cross player/character boundaries?
----
I know it's a lot of questions, but there's a lot to analyze. As a DM I would have just kept an eye on ensuring the argument was between characters and not between players. The Barbarian's decision to turn the child over to the Wizard seems a rational one. The party cannot decide, so let someone else. I would still award full XP for "defeating" the vampire, or full quest rewards.

As a player, I've played the gamut of alignments, my favorites remain CG and LE....so....
CG wants to help the child, turning her over to the wizard seems a good idea. She may still be too powerful for the party to handle, or too weak to babysit, and I really don't care much for children, but as an unaligned intelligent being who (maybe unbeknownst to me lost her memories) is at least registering as "no alignment", I'd want to give her a fair chance.

LE sees the child as a useful tool. As a vampire she could become quite powerful, therefore she is useful in accomplishing whatever goals I have. Provided the child is properly guided. I'd advise we keep the child with us, I'd even volunteer to look after her. If her memories start coming back as she recovers, I only need to ensure that she understands we beat her, and can do it again, but would prefer to be allies rather than adversaries. If she proves too difficult to control, she will be killed.(if something along these lines was already clear beforehand, I'd just skip to step 3 and kill her outright, but from your description I'm not sure that was clear)

------
Overall, however brief your description, I don't see anything wrong with how you handled things or the character's choices.

This. That's all I can say. This.

I will say the monk is Chaotic Good. So his decision was slightly weird to me but him and the Rogue (who is Chaotic Neutral) have gained a close bond so I can see why he would side with the Rogue.

The party was awarded full XP so that wasn't a factor. By the time they got to the crypt (Her resting place) under the church combat was officially over and I had stated the XP was awarded.

I do agree that both sides made valid points. The Rogue argued the greater good and that she could be too powerful for them to handle if let free to live though I will say that this is coming from the same Rogue that released a Blue Dragon from captivity earlier on in the season in exchange for a favor (That he didn't get) without the party knowing.

I feel the Barbarian handled it in character perfectly.

[Millstone85]

Because Revivify revivifies the creature, and the creature is at the time a zombie. True Resurrection for example can bring back the dead even if they were made an undead once.Oooh, I missed that errata.


True Resurrection (p. 284). There’s a new sentence at the end of the second paragraph: “If the creature was undead, it is restored to its non-undead form.”That clarifies things a lot.

[Unoriginal]

I do agree that both sides made valid points.

I mean if it's possible to bring back the child that vampire was made from, and it's in the capacity for the party to try, I'm not sure how valid any take aside from "let's try to do it" is.

[False God]

This. That's all I can say. This.

I will say the monk is Chaotic Good. So his decision was slightly weird to me but him and the Rogue (who is Chaotic Neutral) have gained a close bond so I can see why he would side with the Rogue.

The party was awarded full XP so that wasn't a factor. By the time they got to the crypt (Her resting place) under the church combat was officially over and I had stated the XP was awarded.

I do agree that both sides made valid points. The Rogue argued the greater good and that she could be too powerful for them to handle if let free to live though I will say that this is coming from the same Rogue that released a Blue Dragon from captivity earlier on in the season in exchange for a favor (That he didn't get) without the party knowing.

I feel the Barbarian handled it in character perfectly.

Ah, good old "chaotic neutral". Sorry, totally forgot there was a rogue mentioned there!

Seems like the Rogue learned from their mistake, though may have flipped to the opposite extreme. "There's something in it for me, I'll risk it!" to "There might be something in it for me, but I won't risk getting burned again!"

I can certainly see killing the child as a valid CG choice, the child became evil once and she's already a vampire, which arguably will make them more inclined towards evil without guidance, so why risk other's lives on that chance? CG isn't lawful, so if it's illegal to kill a vampire child (for whatever reason, it doesn't really matter) there's no worry there, and chaotic implies at least a more flexible personal moral code. Though it may be far more simple as you say and just "I side with my buddy."

Again, provided the argument didn't cross the character/player divide everything seems alright.

To continue, CG me is going to keep an eye on that monk, he may be headed down a dangerous road. LE me is looking to become fast friends, as anyone who will eschew their alignment to support their friends, is a friend worth usi...I mean having.

[Sigreid]

Even if the vampire isn't currently evil there's no getting around it requires evil acts to sustain itself.

If my part came across this we would end the child's vampiric existence. More than likely, my character would do it as I tend to play the more morally flexible person in the party. But really, the two choices are to kill the girl, or let a powerful vampire lord recover. If you want, you can try to get a true resurrection later, but really it boils down to the simple fact that this is a vampire that will return to feeding on people if left alone. I suppose you could go with the imprison with a wooden stake and lock her away, but I don't see how that's kinder than killing her.

Come to think of it, if you kill her while she's reverted to her innocent child mentality, there's a chance she won't end up roasting in Hell, so best to do it now.

[Alcore]

As for Vampires I don't see anything that says they don't age only that they are immortal. In my mind that wouldn't mean that you couldn't reach your physical prime before you'd stop aging.
Though I can see the argument for that not being the case it just doesn't seem logical to me.

As for free will I don't see anything that says they don't have any just that they are now evil due to being turned into a Vampire by whatever turned them.
The only free will lacking thing I see are Vampire Spawn or creatures killed by the Vampire by its bite.

Yep and outside an established setting it is only 5e material. Wizards, however, when i last checked only brought one setting into 5e properly (plenty of ports though) and have been reluctant to rehash the lore. I have the feeling most of the veterans you will meet will probably answer as i have answered. We know how undead work and unless the Wizards publish something contrary in 5e is still cannon despite being 4e/3e ect... material.

Being regenerating undead they, of course, have immortality. They are undead. They are dead. Unless 5e actually went and redefined the state of undeath my 3.5e material still makes a valid argument in settings that were detailed in 3.5e settings. I think you might need to read about creature types or the nature of undeath. We might be wrong and you right. Monster manuals are rarely the only or even biggest source.

Free will was changed. You are right that they are "free" thinking but they are unrepentantly evil and literally cannot do good for goodness sake without magical effects allowing such. This is the lack of free will that was implied which is a slightly different thing.



Though if you are using your own setting none of that matters; its your world. Even in established settings too. But if you change the rules we know we can't really help.

[OldTrees1]

My question is what would you have done?
From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?

(Forgot how to tag sorry)

This is rather easy for me. Assuming I am playing a morality driven character like a Paladin: Are they a moral agent?

If the creature has the free will required to be a moral agent, then they have the agency to choose the right thing to do.
If the creature does not have the free will required to be a moral agent, then they actions can't be immoral.
So either Vampires are to be treated like Animals or People. The DM decides if Vampires are moral agents.

Assuming I am fully informed about the memory wipe, then the obvious right thing to do is allow the vampire to wake up. The vampire is no longer the person we were fighting. The vampire has free will. I would probably be a volunteer blood donor as I help them navigate their own moral conundrums provided they are willing to try to do the right thing.



As a DM when everyone is emotionally invested, I let them talk it out while I listen and mediate. I don't allow it to become an argument. Once people have heard each other, hopefully I understood the positions well enough to inform the players about which answers the setting has to the questions they deemed morally significant (see my question about are vampires moral agents). By answering those questions I will resolve most of the disagreement.


Even if the vampire isn't currently evil there's no getting around it requires evil acts to sustain itself
Which action? Assume there are volunteers that are granting informed consent.

For example IRL plenty of volunteers give informed consent to have blood drained out of them (some even consent to sit for 2 hours with their blood being drained and pumped back into them to harvest platelets). IRL there are people that volunteer to make even bigger sacrifices.

[Tanarii]

They definitely should have killed the vampire. Even with your house rules, there's no moral conundrum here.


If the creature does not have the free will required to be a moral agent, then they actions can't be immoral.Hows that work again?

Devils, Demons, and Celestials dont have moral free will. But their general behavior still has Alignment.

[MaxWilson]

My question is what would you have done?
From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?

(Forgot how to tag sorry)

It depends on the character, but based on my usual patterns and paranoia, I would probably have assumed that a vampire in the form of an eight-year-old child is nothing like an actual eight-year-old child, and that she was still a vampire and plenty dangerous. Whatever reasons I had before for wanting her dead are still there--the form changes nothing. After a very brief consultation with the other PCs on vampire lore (to make sure we don't think they permanently turn back into regular people after being reduced to mist), I would finish killing her.

If I'm wrong and I somehow accidentally killed a real person, well, I owe her an apology after I die too. But I don't think that will happen.

[OldTrees1]

Hows that work again?

Devils, Demons, and Celestials dont have moral free will. But their general behavior still has Alignment.

1) Whether something has moral free will is up to the DM.
2) I did not mention alignment. I mentioned moral agent.
3) For many editions D&D has its base assumption be that outsiders do have moral free will (examples can be quoted but that risks a derail). However see #1.
4) If a DM makes it so alignment cannot be related to morality, then it is not related to morality. So if a being that is not a moral agent somehow has the "Evil" alignment, then that alignment is not related to moral agent's capacity for immoral choices or non moral agent's inability to make immoral choices.

So if a being does not have the moral free will that is a necessary condition for being a moral agent, then their actions can't be immoral. I can find immoral Demons in my campaigns but I only find amoral Demons in your campaigns. That is how that works.

[Chronic]

In my opinion, the setting and lore doesn't matter much in this problem. The problem is about characters being able to reach a consensus. Note that I say characters not players. Characters arguing or even fighting over a moral dilemma is cool, it gives depth and definition, and can also show an evolution, so I like to introduce this kind of things into my games. But it works well because my players are mature enough to understand the dispute should stay at the characters level. They are also smart enough to know that these are defining moments and that the decisions they make might have important and durable impact on the dynamic of the group.
If a consensus cannot be reached and a player act despite that, that can go as far leading to his departure from the group, and the player creating another character, which can be a really cool roleplay moment.
But I would be disappointed if it created tensions between the players.

[Composer99]

The vampire is not an 8-year-old child; she is a vampire of presumably indeterminate age in a body that once was that of an 8-year-old.

With that in mind I don't think either faction of your player group was really making a wrong choice. Killing a vampire is almost always going to be a good call, but if there exist in your setting means to cure the vampirism without having to kill the vampire as such, that works too.

At an out-of-game level I hope that your players knew and agreed to having to make difficult moral decisions of this sort. If I was a player and the DM sprung "are YOU going to kill the vampire-what-looks-like-Claudia?" on us in a game where it wasn't already established that hard choices of that nature (not necessarily specifically that choice) would need to be made, I would be upset with the DM to say the least.

[Addaran]

Really more of a character dilemma and so many possible answers depending on alignment, cultural upbringing, beliefs, etc of the characters.

My last character was a folk hero and would have tried to save her. My follower of Malar wouldn't have been denied his kill after a fight against a sentient prey.

It's just important that the disagreement is in character, not between the players.


I mean if it's possible to bring back the child that vampire was made from, and it's in the capacity for the party to try, I'm not sure how valid any take aside from "let's try to do it" is.

I'm guessing cost of ressurection and/or time+effort. There's clear solutions to world hunger, homelessness, etc and yet, as a race we haven't done a thing to solve it.

[Tanarii]

1) Whether something has moral free will is up to the DM.True. But the OP doesn't appear to have changed Vampires that much.


2) I did not mention alignment. I mentioned moral agent.Then how is it relevant to a game of D&D?



3) For many editions D&D has its base assumption be that outsiders do have moral free will (examples can be quoted but that risks a derail). However see #1.We're talking about a game of 5e here. And in 5e, outsiders and most undead don't have free will.


4) If a DM makes it so alignment cannot be related to morality, then it is not related to morality. So if a being that is not a moral agent somehow has the "Evil" alignment, then that alignment is not related to moral agent's capacity for immoral choices or non moral agent's inability to make immoral choices.It is related to morality, per the Alignments. That doesn't mean it's related to moral theory, which involves moral agents or and whatever your personal definitions and in depth understanding of it. It just means it's related to common use terms and ways of thinking about it.

Have a deep understanding of theory of something real world, especially something as complex and undefinable as moral theory, is actually a hinderance when it comes to interpreting how 5e is supposed to work. Also c.f. folks with a solid understanding of real world Physics/Chemistry. Or Logic for that matter. :smallamused:

[King of Nowhere]

Age and form should be unchanged as vampire. That thing is not a child; it is an abomination wearing the corpse of a child.


it seems that we have a currently incapacitated child who is still a vampire but can somehow be cured?




It relies a lot on how much Vampires actually have free will in your setting

those three sum up the question better. The right answer depends on whether it's realistically feasible to cure the vampire. And we don't know it.
And I bet your players don't know it either.
So, for this reason, I believe the right course is to keep the child vampire prisoner, and go to the archmage to investigate if a cure is possible. If it is, hurrah, happy ending for everyone. If it is not, you're still in time to off the vampire.

[MoiMagnus]

True. But the OP doesn't appear to have changed Vampires that much.

I don't think that's right. The following message from OP directly compares the situation of this Vampire to the situation of one of the PC that also comes from an "inherently evil" race but turned good.
Additionally, it quite heavily implies that this Vampire is a 8 yo child (and not just an evil spirit in a child's body), with the child's innocence (as "proved" by her neutral alignment), and the possibility to be raised to become good as she grows up.


The thing about that is the party had to deal with one of their own being a Warewolf and knowing that inherently evil things like Warewolfs could be good if pushed in the wright direction at a young age.

As for the child waking up evil she wouldn't have any memories of being evil. other then being a vampire she would be a 8 year old child.

It looks to me that OP is taking an approach of Vampirism more alike what can be found in modern media where turning into a Vampire give you some additional "needs" and "tendencies" that you need to fight against to remain good, but does not remove your free will.

[Tanarii]

I don't think that's right. The following message from OP directly compares the situation of this Vampire to the situation of one of the PC that also comes from an "inherently evil" race but turned good.
Additionally, it quite heavily implies that this Vampire is a 8 yo child (and not just an evil spirit in a child's body), with the child's innocence (as "proved" by her neutral alignment), and the possibility to be raised to become good as she grows up.



It looks to me that OP is taking an approach of Vampirism more alike what can be found in modern media where turning into a Vampire give you some additional "needs" and "tendencies" that you need to fight against to remain good, but does not remove your free will.Werwolves don't become evil until they embrace the curse, so we're missing if that's what happened for the character was cured. OTOH the statement made makes the OP's worlds werewolves seem non-standard already wrt alignment and the curse.

So yep, I missed that they're apparently treating things that normally don't have free will as having some. That potentially changes things for this particular DM's world.

Which means the question becomes: were the players aware of these changes? Strongly sounds like yes, from the statement about werewolves.

Then the follow up question becomes the normal one for D&D with free willed creatures: Are they a threat?

[da newt]

"From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?"

As a player I would have done what my PC would have thought was the right/best thing to do and that would depend entirely on who my PC is and what they knew about this version of vampires. (from the previous posts I can't decipher if the 8 yr old is still a vampire or is just a mortal girl now, or how you unvampire someone in this reality).

As a DM I would have attempted to be sure the Players has a good idea about the current state of the vamp/girl and possible outcomes, and then stepped back to let them decide what to do. As DM I believe it's my job to present situations, and then allow the Players the agency to decide what actions they will take. I will only step in if I think the Players are about to ruin relationships with emotional disagreements that are no longer RP.

Just to clarify - in your world the VAMPIRE LORD was an 8 yr old girl, but when they were turned into a vampire they became an adult male vampire (a lord - not a lady) but when they were defeated (does this mean destroyed permanently or just dropped to 0 hp?) they reverted into a 8 yr old girl who might still be a vampire? I'm so confused.

[Addaran]

This is rather easy for me. Assuming I am playing a morality driven character like a Paladin: Are they a moral agent?

If the creature has the free will required to be a moral agent, then they have the agency to choose the right thing to do.
If the creature does not have the free will required to be a moral agent, then they actions can't be immoral.
So either Vampires are to be treated like Animals or People. The DM decides if Vampires are moral agents.

Assuming I am fully informed about the memory wipe, then the obvious right thing to do is allow the vampire to wake up. The vampire is no longer the person we were fighting. The vampire has free will. I would probably be a volunteer blood donor as I help them navigate their own moral conundrums provided they are willing to try to do the right thing.




I'm still unclear what you'd do in some situation.
If the girl has free will, but decide to start doing evil again?
And what happens if the girl have no free will? She's not a moral agent, her actions aren't immoral. Doesn't say what you do with her though.

[Keravath]

In this case, the entire situation is the responsibility of the DM given the information they supplied to the players. The players did a great job of role playing the results based on their characters and the limited information.

1) The party kills a vampire lord. Find their resting place to finally put an end to them for good and finds an 8 year old child.
2) The DM then confuses the situation. They tell the characters that the creature is not evil. The party isn't even sure if the creature is a vampire anymore since if it WAS a vampire it would be evil. This was an intentional decision by the DM.
3) We can't assume that the characters have any knowledge of vampire lore nor that they would in any way understand what sort of homebrew the DM might be using. Was the child really a vampire? Was it a curse that made them appear as a vampire rather than an undead? The party doesn't know - only the DM does.
4) Faced with this very limited information the party splits on what to do. The barbarian who had previously suffered an evil curse perhaps thinks this is something similar and wants to save the child if possible. Similarly, the paladin has sufficient doubt that the child really is either evil or a vampire (due to the limited information provided by the DM) and so decides that they should see if the child can be cured. On the other side, the monk and rogue don't fall for the DM being disingenuous. The vampire lord returned to their coffin, the coffin contains the body of a child - it may not detect as evil but it is still the source of the vampire. They appear to know that staking the creature in the coffin will kill it and are willing to go ahead and not take a risk. Perfectly reasonable.
5) This entire situation develops because the DM gives out some possibly misleading information - the child isn't evil - vampires are evil (and can be detected based on the home brew in play) - so the child may not be the vampire lord or something odd is going on.

I think the players did a great job with the information provided and roleplaying their characters. I'd also add that this isn't really a moral question. The DM didn't give enough information to make it a moral question - neither solution is inherently good or evil. The decision with what to do with the vampire lord depends only on the risk vs reward - releasing a powerful evil creature that could kill the party and many others vs a possibility hinted at by the DM that a child could be saved ... and hinted only most indirectly by the statement that she doesn't appear evil.

In the end, it is just a question of whether the players can obtain more information anywhere within a time frame (24 hours?) that the vampire lord won't become a threat again.

[Brookshw]

The vampire is no longer the person we were fighting.

Debatable. D&D's adoption of duality expresses the concept of "self" as something that transcends physicality and memory. When something dies the soul/spirit travels through the astral plane to the appropriate outer plane, during the transit process through the astral it's memories are wiped and it's "essence" ends up as a petitioner wherever appropriate to who the individual is/was*. Subsequently who a person "is" cannot be contingent upon it's experiences and memories, it's the same person without them; otherwise petitioners would be ending up in the "wrong" place.

*I vaguely recall the Raven Queen is somehow involved in the process under 5e's lore but don't recall the specifics.

Incidentally, a black pudding shrunk down and put in a dessert cup isn't suddenly a tasty treat. The girl died when it became the vampire, that the vampires form suddenly reflects a child doesn't seem to change anything.

[OldTrees1]

I'm still unclear what you'd do in some situation.
If the girl has free will, but decide to start doing evil again?
And what happens if the girl have no free will? She's not a moral agent, her actions aren't immoral. Doesn't say what you do with her though.

If the moral agent (post memory wipe) starts to decide to choose immoral choices, then deal with them as a moral agent that decided to choose immoral choices. If they decide to start murdering and enslaving people then I would respond to that. I would prevent the actions and evaluate the fix (which might be death at that point)

If the girl has no free will. Then their actions are not immoral. It would be like a dog that started to bite humans. The proper response might vary depending on if you think the dog deserves moral consideration despite not being a moral agent (probably true in the girl's case). So you would probably restrain the girl so they can't harm others but you would make their life comfortable (or put them down). Looking for a cure would probably be a bigger priority here (restore free will) in contrast to the other case (manage the medical condition).



Debatable.

Yes very debatable. It is my judgement that the person is their mind, so after the mind wipe it is not exactly the same person (it is their younger self).

However this is very debatable and I expect some players (or characters) would conclude differently.



True. But the OP doesn't appear to have changed Vampires that much.
The OP believes vampires have free will and has also changed vampires in morally relevant manner (you noticed the memory wipe?).

As for free will I don't see anything that says they don't have any


Then how is it relevant to a game of D&D?
The OP was asking about what I would do when faced with the moral conundrum.
You asked me to explain my answer to you. I tried to bypass the communication barrier you and I have about alignment.
You now are asking about relevance?


We're talking about a game of 5e here. And in 5e, outsiders and most undead don't have free will.
I are talking about Tearman's game of 5E here and they asked me what I would do in that situation. I see no relevance to this objection. Vampires have free will in this context and the Player is using the concept of moral agent to navigate the moral conundrum.

Your "but this is 5E and my reading of RAW is ..." is irrelevant. I explicitly included asking the GM as part of my response. Your insistence to try to overrule the GM is aggravating. If that was not your intention, then please reflect on why your post reads like that.


It is related to morality, per the Alignments. That doesn't mean it's related to moral theory, which involves moral agents or and whatever your personal definitions and in depth understanding of it. It just means it's related to common use terms and ways of thinking about it.

Have a deep understanding of theory of something real world, especially something as complex and undefinable as moral theory, is actually a hinderance when it comes to interpreting how 5e is supposed to work. Also c.f. folks with a solid understanding of real world Physics/Chemistry. Or Logic for that matter. :smallamused:

Tanarii, you asked for an explanation. You have been given one. I request that you review the explanation rather than escalate your interruption into a derailment. I am a bit overly sensitive to derailments this week.

[Brookshw]

Yes very debatable. It is my judgement that the person is their mind, so after the mind wipe it is not exactly the same person (it is their younger self).

However this is very debatable and I expect some players (or characters) would conclude differently.

Understood, and IRL I acknowledge there's something to the school of thought. However, I do not see it as consistent with D&D's cosmology. Can you suggest why it is consistent?

[Vahnavoi]

My question is what would you have done?
From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?


Embraced my radical freedom and killed my character. (https://existentialcomics.com/comic/23) :smallwink:

More seriously: I've played through some variant of this scenario (sometimes from the perspective of the child) enough that times that I honestly can't tell what I'd do without you giving me a specific character to roleplay.

As a DM, I wear sunglasses just so I'm a harder read when I cross my hands and lean on the elbows, asking: "okay, so some of you think this and some of you think that, what you going to do about it?"

My players have done various things in this situation, on average they tend to lean towards adopting the cute baby monster (and then teaching it to murder things for them). The second most common has been a quick consensus to kill the baby monster. I don't recall a group splitting because of a dilemma such as this, but I'd be fine with that too.

[DwarfFighter]

I call BS on the Paladin not detecting the Vampire as Evil. For one, it's a Vampire. Second, I never met a child that wouldn't qualify as some variant of Evil by the standards set down by the Alignment rules :p

[OldTrees1]

Understood, and IRL I acknowledge there's something to the school of thought. However, I do not see it as consistent with D&D's cosmology. Can you suggest why it is consistent?

This might help explain why the debate is consistent IRL and in D&D.

Do you accept the premise that the soul is the person? What if we did not accept that premise? At some point we acknowledge that a being is made up of multiple parts. For some reason we want to identify them as a single individual rather than an emergent result of their parts. Often to square that desire we associate personhood with an arbitrary element and we trace the person by that element. This is the point the debate starts, however it is also lets us recognize the debate has a large semantic component and a large subjective value component.

If three people get in a room focusing on a different part, they can still agree on the nature of each part. However they can disagree on which part is important enough to be named "the person".

D&D having soulless beings that I would call people helped me recognize I was not talking about souls.

Which explains why my response was to agree with you that it was debatable, that variation in position was expected, and that your different position was also reasonable.

[Corran]

From a player standpoint would you have killed the child even if she could be saved?
Depends on the character I would be playing. So long as my character would feel strongly about one or the other it's all good, means I've got an interesting roleplaying situation in front of me so I am in for a good session.



And from a DM standpoint what do you do when everyone is emotionally invested in a moment like that?
I sit back, watch and enjoy. Setting up situations and dilemmas of that sort (even accidentally), where I dont know how the players will collectively react and how it will all play out, is exciting exactly because of that.

[Brookshw]

D&D having soulless beings that I would call people helped me recognize I was not talking about souls.


Any in particular that your thinking off aside from outsiders or constructs?

Regardless of how we define personhood and consider it's divisible parts, I do believe any premise we accept must be consistent with what we know of the setting, leaving us to resolve the issue with petitioners.

[Addaran]

If the moral agent (post memory wipe) starts to decide to choose immoral choices, then deal with them as a moral agent that decided to choose immoral choices. If they decide to start murdering and enslaving people then I would respond to that. I would prevent the actions and evaluate the fix (which might be death at that point)

If the girl has no free will. Then their actions are not immoral. It would be like a dog that started to bite humans. The proper response might vary depending on if you think the dog deserves moral consideration despite not being a moral agent (probably true in the girl's case). So you would probably restrain the girl so they can't harm others but you would make their life comfortable (or put them down). Looking for a cure would probably be a bigger priority here (restore free will) in contrast to the other case (manage the medical condition).




Thanks for the clarifications. =)

[OldTrees1]

Any in particular that your thinking off aside from outsiders or constructs?

Regardless of how we define personhood and consider it's divisible parts, I do believe any premise we accept must be consistent with what we know of the setting, leaving us to resolve the issue with petitioners.

Initially it was just constructs (insert lessons from sci fi robots) and specific sapient undead. However there are soulless humans born in Ravenloft.

I don't understand the issue with petitioners. The reference to "wrong place" sounds like judging what the cosmology does rather than describing what the cosmology does. If a person dies and their soul creates a new body on an outer plane after going through a partial mind wipe, then that is what happened. The different philosophies might disagree on whether that is a different person, but they don't disagree on what happened. As a result those different philosophies are still consistent with what we know of the setting.


Thanks for the clarifications. =)

You're welcome.

[greenstone]

…to the parties surprise when they opened her box she was an 8 year old child.
Nice. Full marks for an interesting moral conundrum.
Did the players sit back in their chairs and go "What?"

[Sigreid]

A lot of the thought process in this thread reminds me of the comic book trope of if the hero kills the villain then he's as bad as the villain or you need to give the villain a chance to reform/face justice in the courts etc. That works for comics because 1. the heroes aren't usually a legal enforcement entity and 2. you want to reuse villains. From a pragmatic standpoint, all it really does is leave the heroes responsible when for the 3+ time the super powered psychopath gets loose and murders more people and otherwise destroys more lives.

[OldTrees1]

A lot of the thought process in this thread reminds me of the comic book trope of if the hero kills the villain then he's as bad as the villain or you need to give the villain a chance to reform/face justice in the courts etc. That works for comics because 1. the heroes aren't usually a legal enforcement entity and 2. you want to reuse villains. From a pragmatic standpoint, all it really does is leave the heroes responsible when for the 3+ time the super powered psychopath gets loose and murders more people and otherwise destroys more lives.

I think this context from the opening post influenced that trend.



After the fight the Vampire returned to her resting place just under the church they were fighting in to the parties surprise when they opened her box she was an 8 year old child.
(I made it where when the Vampire Lord is defeated they return to the state they were turned into a Vampire at losing any memories of the time before they were defeated)


Imagine if Arkham Asylum actually cured the villains. Joker and Two Face kills some people. Batman stops them. As a result of going to Arkham Asylum, Jack Napier and Harvey Dent return.

Now imagine something in the middle. This girl has been cured of the time before they were defeated, but not cured of vampirism.

[Unoriginal]

I'm still not understanding where the moral conundrum is.

Like, what in this situation would be the moral question?

A Vampire is still solely a malevolent entity in OP's setting, yes?

So why would "alright, we're stopping this 8yo from being a vampire" be a moral question?

[Sigreid]

I think this context from the opening post influenced that trend.



Imagine if Arkham Asylum actually cured the villains. Joker and Two Face kills some people. Batman stops them. As a result of going to Arkham Asylum, Jack Napier and Harvey Dent return.

Yes, but unless the DM has changed it (and I haven't seen an indication that they have) the context of the vampire in D&D 5e as written is every desire and pleasure they have becomes twisted and selfish and cruel. So unless you know of a cure and know that this is a reluctant vampire and not someone like Strahd who willingly bargained for it, the best end is an end if you get what I mean.

[KorvinStarmast]

My question is what would you have done?
1. As a player? Stake in the heart, it's a freakin' vampire.
2. As a DM?

This is one of those situations where I would've avoided using a child
or

As a DM, I’d let them sort it out as it’s their choice.
And that's as good of an answer in most cases as one can come up with. Once they make their choice, let the world react to that organically.

PS: for the Druid player, you might want to have them take a look at the PHB as regards undead.

"Druids accept that which is cruel in Nature, and they hate that which is unnatural including Aberrations (such as beholders and mind flayers) and Undead (such as zombies and vampires" That's right there in the class description under the heading "Preserve the Balance" - with new players, stuff like that helps them get an idea of, or a feel for, what their class is all about.
(Do they have to play a druid like that? No, the D&D police won't give them a ticket if they don't)

[Sigreid]

Might be worth noting that you can never kill a vampire...they're already dead. Most you can do is unchain them from the world.

[MoiMagnus]

I'm still not understanding where the moral conundrum is.

Like, what in this situation would be the moral question?

A Vampire is still solely a malevolent entity in OP's setting, yes?

So why would "alright, we're stopping this 8yo from being a vampire" be a moral question?

It's detected as neutral by an homebrew "detect evil and good" that actually detect alignment. So no, this Vampire in particular is NOT a malevolent entity.

(And other posts from OP comparing the Vampire to the PC Werewolf make me think that this Vampire is still a 8yo girl capable of acting good if raised correctly despite her being her using the "Vampire" stat block when fighting)

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm still not understanding where the moral conundrum is.

Like, what in this situation would be the moral question?

A Vampire is still solely a malevolent entity in OP's setting, yes?

So why would "alright, we're stopping this 8yo from being a vampire" be a moral question? The answer is, as I see it: this isn't a moral question, it's a DM playing 'gotcha' by masking an evil monster as a child.

[Sigreid]

It's detected as neutral by an homebrew "detect evil and good" that actually detect alignment. So no, this Vampire in particular is NOT a malevolent entity.

(And other posts from OP comparing the Vampire to the PC Werewolf make me think that this Vampire is still a 8yo girl capable of acting good if raised correctly despite her being her using the "Vampire" stat block when fighting)

I believe the werewolf context was the Barbarian resisted the curse instead of giving into it and the party helped him find a cure. I didn't take that as he could use the werewolf stat block for good, but rather that because of that the Barbarian believes in and hopes for the possibility of redemption.

[OldTrees1]

Yes, but unless the DM has changed it (and I haven't seen an indication that they have) the context of the vampire in D&D 5e as written is every desire and pleasure they have becomes twisted and selfish and cruel. So unless you know of a cure and know that this is a reluctant vampire and not someone like Strahd who willingly bargained for it, the best end is an end if you get what I mean.

I get what you mean.

It might be worth checking their intentions / mental state before you end / release them. They party defeated them at their strongest, so it is probably safe to talk before deciding. The OP did mention they think vampires have free will (so reluctant vampires can exist). However Strahd with free will is still ...

However I get what you mean and it was good to mention the tendency you saw.

[Tanarii]

I believe the werewolf context was the Barbarian resisted the curse instead of giving into it and the party helped him find a cure. I didn't take that as he could use the werewolf stat block for good, but rather that because of that the Barbarian believes in and hopes for the possibility of redemption.
That was my first thought too, but it appears irrelevant based on the statements made. That werewolves in general can be raised to be good.

Unfortunately this is one of those situations where the OP has extensive world-building differences between their setting and the defaults, and that info isn't explained until further down, causing large amounts of confusion.


Second, I never met a child that wouldn't qualify as some variant of Evil by the standards set down by the Alignment rules :pthe accuracy of this joke always cracks me up. :smallamused:

[Sigreid]

I get what you mean.

It might be worth checking their intentions / mental state before you end / release them. They party defeated them at their strongest, so it is probably safe to talk before deciding. The OP did mention they think vampires have free will (so reluctant vampires can exist). However Strahd with free will is still ...

However I get what you mean and it was good to mention the tendency you saw.

I'd say their current mental/spiritual state would be more reason to kill the vampire. I'd expect a child to be ill-equipped to resist the urges that come with the transformation and if you destroy it now, she would possibly escape damnation as she's not currently qualified for it.

[Unoriginal]

It's detected as neutral by an homebrew "detect evil and good" that actually detect alignment. So no, this Vampire in particular is NOT a malevolent entity.

(And other posts from OP comparing the Vampire to the PC Werewolf make me think that this Vampire is still a 8yo girl capable of acting good if raised correctly despite her being her using the "Vampire" stat block when fighting)

So the question is "do you want to let this 8yo be a vampire or do you want to return her to life?, then?

It's still not a moral question, in that case. Aside maybe from the "do you ask the girl if she wants to be a vampire or do you decide for her because she's a 8yo who's going to be scared enough to be centuries in the future from her last memory" angle.

[MoiMagnus]

So the question is "do you want to let this 8yo be a vampire or do you want to return her to life?, then?

I believe no one at the table had the idea to return her to life.
(Though as said in my first comment, this is IMO the best choice if it is available.)

So the two options were "Do you want to give this neutral-alignment vampire-girl a chance to redeem herself or do you want to eliminate her while she's weak"?

[Brookshw]

Initially it was just constructs (insert lessons from sci fi robots) and specific sapient undead. However there are soulless humans born in Ravenloft.

Unless 5e changed something, constructs are animated by bound elementals so their death still releases a thing, seems negligible. As to undead, depends on the undead I suppose, some specifically carry forward their personhood, others don't and are just a shell. Interesting point about soulless.


I don't understand the issue with petitioners. The reference to "wrong place" sounds like judging what the cosmology does rather than describing what the cosmology does. If a person dies and their soul creates a new body on an outer plane after going through a partial mind wipe, then that is what happened. The different philosophies might disagree on whether that is a different person, but they don't disagree on what happened. As a result those different philosophies are still consistent with what we know of the setting.

The issue with petitioners is they go to (a) their god's realm, or (b) to the outer plane that aligns with their alignment/who they were. In the process they lose their memories. If loss of memory equates to loss of that particular personhood, as I understand your point, then the petitioner cannot land in any place as they would follow no god nor be aligned towards any particular outer plane, the person who would arrive wouldn't be the same person who the sorting hat sends their. Since we know both (a) and (b) occur and are true, then the D&D cosmology has to consider the "person" to have continuity before and after the memory loss.

[quindraco]

Not sure I followed all the house rules in play here, but as I understand it, the vampire is somehow an undead that ages, even though normally the definition of undead includes that your metabolism doesn't work but you're "living" anyway, preventing aging, so the child was still a vampire. Furthermore, the paladin checked her alignment using a homebrew ability to do so, but did not check to see if she was undead.

So first and foremost, if the child isn't undead, killing her is not morally ok. If I'm playing a Good-aligned character, no question I fight that.

If she is undead, and the paladin didn't check, also not ok. We don't wander around killing people because they might be threats.

If the paladin checked, then the question becomes, why bother killing her? Same as, what does undead mean, in this setting? What does it mean that she's apparently a neutral vampire? If vampirism is just a catchable disease, killing her is as potentially morally problematic as murdering everyone with AIDs. On the other hand, if vampires are sufficiently powerful, we may have the Superman Problem on our hands - while we don't murder people just because they might be threats, you can bet your bottom dollar we lock up nukes where people can't get them. If she literally can't be contained, she may have to be put down, for the same reason you don't deliberately set an earthquake, which is also neutral, loose in a populated city.

So I stand with the Barbarian. The existence of such a child implies very significant questions the party doesn't seem to have the answers to, and said answers could mean they are morally bound to murder the child, morally barred from doing so, or it could just be their judgment call. Regardless, there's no morally acceptable solution while operating in ignorance, so the only acceptable action is to contain the threat as well as possible nonlethally - e.g. by chaining her up - and then seeking answers to those questions. That sounds like exactly what the Barbarian did. Good on them.

[OldTrees1]

Unless 5e changed something, constructs are animated by bound elementals so their death still releases a thing, seems negligible. As to undead, depends on the undead I suppose, some specifically carry forward their personhood, others don't and are just a shell. Interesting point about soulless.

Unless 5E changed something, only some constructs (mostly golems) were animated by bound elementals. The rest were unspecified or explicitly not bound elementals.

The intelligent undead that don't possess the soul of the dead person seem to be people to me. They might not be the same person as the dead person, but the lack of the soul did not stop me from seeing them as people. Basically they are an undead version of the soulless I later encountered in Ravenloft.


The issue with petitioners is they go to (a) their god's realm, or (b) to the outer plane that aligns with their alignment/who they were. In the process they lose their memories. If loss of memory equates to loss of that particular personhood, as I understand your point, then the petitioner cannot land in any place as they would follow no god nor be aligned towards any particular outer plane, the person who would arrive wouldn't be the same person who the sorting hat sends their. Since we know both (a) and (b) occur and are true, then the D&D cosmology has to consider the "person" to have continuity before and after the memory loss.

I still do not see the issue. Petitioner mailing address is based on the D&D cosmology's rules about the soul economy. Gods reward/punish their followers by turning their souls into petitioners. This is true regardless of what part of a person I / my character consider to be the person.

Why are you assuming that the petitioner will follow no god nor be aligned towards any particular outer plane? Petitioners have minds, I just think the petitioner and the person that died are different people. Think of it as "copy, paste, edit, add this, delete that, add salt to taste, etc".

Maybe I should reword my explanation: Imagine what you think happens to the various parts (soul, body, mind, etc). That is what I think happens. That is why it is consistent with D&D cosmology.

[Brookshw]

Why are you assuming that the petitioner will follow no god nor be aligned towards any particular outer plane? Petitioners have minds,


How could they, they're a blank slate with no carry over. If you're accepting things do carry over then it's not a new person but a changed person, and that's not a reason to disconnect them from their past.

But, if we disagree then we disagree.

[Millstone85]

I still do not see the issue. Petitioner mailing address is based on the D&D cosmology's rules about the soul economy. Gods reward/punish their followers by turning their souls into petitioners. This is true regardless of what part of a person I / my character consider to be the person.I see an issue right here in your statement. How is it a reward/punishment if the soul is no longer the person?

At most, it is like having your corpse put in a fancy tomb instead of a pauper's grave.

[OldTrees1]

I see an issue right here in your statement. How is it a reward/punishment if the soul is no longer the person?

At most, it is like having your corpse put in a fancy tomb instead of a pauper's grave.

There is no issue there. You have highlighted a difference of opinion between characters that ascribe to different philosophies about what is the core part of the being. I explained that several posts ago. Those that value the mind follow the mind. Those that value the soul follow the soul.

Please refer to the previous posts. Both Brookshw and I have concluded this tangent.

[Tanarii]

So the two options were "Do you want to give this neutral-alignment vampire-girl a chance to redeem herself or do you want to eliminate her while she's weak"?
I still think it boils down to "are they a threat"? :smallamused:

[Brookshw]

There is no issue there.

Quibble, you don't believe there is an issue here, I disagree, but otherwise agree we've concluded this tangent. /Quibble

[Tearman]

In this case, the entire situation is the responsibility of the DM given the information they supplied to the players. The players did a great job of role playing the results based on their characters and the limited information.

1) The party kills a vampire lord. Find their resting place to finally put an end to them for good and finds an 8 year old child.
2) The DM then confuses the situation. They tell the characters that the creature is not evil. The party isn't even sure if the creature is a vampire anymore since if it WAS a vampire it would be evil. This was an intentional decision by the DM.
3) We can't assume that the characters have any knowledge of vampire lore nor that they would in any way understand what sort of homebrew the DM might be using. Was the child really a vampire? Was it a curse that made them appear as a vampire rather than an undead? The party doesn't know - only the DM does.
4) Faced with this very limited information the party splits on what to do. The barbarian who had previously suffered an evil curse perhaps thinks this is something similar and wants to save the child if possible. Similarly, the paladin has sufficient doubt that the child really is either evil or a vampire (due to the limited information provided by the DM) and so decides that they should see if the child can be cured. On the other side, the monk and rogue don't fall for the DM being disingenuous. The vampire lord returned to their coffin, the coffin contains the body of a child - it may not detect as evil but it is still the source of the vampire. They appear to know that staking the creature in the coffin will kill it and are willing to go ahead and not take a risk. Perfectly reasonable.
5) This entire situation develops because the DM gives out some possibly misleading information - the child isn't evil - vampires are evil (and can be detected based on the home brew in play) - so the child may not be the vampire lord or something odd is going on.

I think the players did a great job with the information provided and roleplaying their characters. I'd also add that this isn't really a moral question. The DM didn't give enough information to make it a moral question - neither solution is inherently good or evil. The decision with what to do with the vampire lord depends only on the risk vs reward - releasing a powerful evil creature that could kill the party and many others vs a possibility hinted at by the DM that a child could be saved ... and hinted only most indirectly by the statement that she doesn't appear evil.

In the end, it is just a question of whether the players can obtain more information anywhere within a time frame (24 hours?) that the vampire lord won't become a threat again.

I really like you breakdown.
This is the kind of answers I'm looking for. No need to meta the setting and what not.

I did intentionally give little information to make the party question what was going on.

[Tearman]

Nice. Full marks for an interesting moral conundrum.
Did the players sit back in their chairs and go "What?"

Everyone but the Rogue.