Quote Originally Posted by Conradine View Post

Let's say the cosmology is the one of Fiendish Codex.

Let's say we take an Evil person who's about to die and who didn't know what hell exactly is before.
That person is showed through magic what it is and explained what it means: torture, loss of identity, then becoming a nearly mindless lemure.

Redemption is no more an option. Too late, and the evil person feels only fear, not remorse anyway.

The only loophole is that the evil person can have his soul destroyed ( by fueling a magical item creation or similar stuff ) instead.

So, given the choice, on 100 people, how many would choose to go to Hell and how many would choose to have their soul annihilated instead?
Well, let me finish the quote from the same source:

Quote Originally Posted by FC2
In a few rare cases, an exceptionally evil person might receive an automatic promotion to a higher devil form. Thus, a band of ad-venturers might conceivably slay a tyrant, only to see him return as a mighty devil. Such a transformation is rare, but it can happen.
The point being, as long as there is any reason to believe there really is a chance of “I get sexy new devil powers, as myself,” then someone with a truly diabolic mindset is likely to be arrogant enough to believe “....and I am that exception.”