Celestials and Suicide

[Maryring]

In a gameworld where outsiders, Celestials and Demons and Devils and all that reform when they're killed on the prime material plane. How would Celestials deal with suicide?

On one hand, suicide is wrong. Mortals really shouldn't throw their lives away so easily, and Celestials are supposed to lead by example and be an actual measurement stick for mortals to look to and be inspired.

On the other hand, the ability to kill yourself and just wake up later on at your home in Celestia means that you've essentially been given a "get out of jail for free" card. It'd mean that keeping a Celestial locked up can be very difficult, as he can just bash his own head in, in order to get out of his entrapment and return to general do-goodery in the world at large.

[AuraTwilight]

Uh...is this a rule specific to a homebrew setting? Because by RAW, a dead Outsider is effectively gone forever barring certain spells. The "reforming on their home plane" thing only happens if you summon a creature, and this protection would apply to summoned non-Outsiders too.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, I think the answer strongly depends on why you'd say "Suicide is wrong."

If you argue that it's wrong because it's an individual placing themselves above their societal obligations, I'd definitely call that a Lawful viewpoint and possibly make it a point of contention between the Archons and the Eladrin (or whatever the equivalents are in your setting).

In this case, I don't think there's really a problem because, well, if you're going to respawn somewhere else when you commit suicide, it's not actually dodging your obligations. It might actually be helping to fulfill them depending on the situation.

Or, you could argue that suicide represents giving into despair, and it's important to always hold out hope for the future.

In which case... I still don't think it's a problem, because a celestial committing suicide as a fast way back to their home plane is a calculated decision, not the result of depression or hopelessness.


Really, what matters here is the ideology your celestials stand to represent (and "Lawful Good" is nowhere close to a sufficient description) and how the specific act of performing suicide as an act of convenience relates to this ideology.

[PersonMan]

Uh...is this a rule specific to a homebrew setting? Because by RAW, a dead Outsider is effectively gone forever barring certain spells. The "reforming on their home plane" thing only happens if you summon a creature, and this protection would apply to summoned non-Outsiders too.

Actually, in the Fiendish Codices it's noted that Demons and Devils reform on their home plane after 99 years if killed. I don't remember reading similar about Celestials, but it's not a stretch to assume the same applied to them.

EDIT: The whole 'wait 99 years, then reform' thing probably puts a wrench in the whole 'suicide -> go home' plan, though.

[hamishspence]

True Resurrection spells do work on celestials- and Complete Divine explains that it's because, while the "soul matter" dissolves rapidly into the home plane, it can still be reconstituted.

Summoned celestials and other Outsiders (as opposed to ones that are there "in person") automatically reappear at home.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Actually, in the Fiendish Codices it's noted that Demons and Devils reform on their home plane after 99 years if killed. I don't remember reading similar about Celestials, but it's not a stretch to assume the same applied to them.

Only devils, actually.

[PersonMan]

Only devils, actually.

Ah. It's been a while since I've cracked open my Hordes of the Abyss, so I guess I just misremembered what was in there.

[JBento]

Only devils, actually.

That's because the current theory is that demons aren't actually individual beings.

It seems that at the start, everything was Limbo. Then some gods came along and started turning Limbo matter into stable stuff (like rocks and water and trees), and a part of Limbo hated that so much it actually BECAME SELF-AWARE (and [Evil]). And thus was the Abyss born.

Ever since then, the valiant Abyss has detached parts of itself, imbuing them with life separate from itself to defeat the host of criminals lead by Pelor, the Burning Hate, and return the multiverse to its primal, natural state.

When a demon dies, its consciousness is reabsorbed by the Abyss, who may or may not return it to life after a period of time (or immediately) to fight the good [Evil] fight.

Demons: the REAL freedom fighters.

[Maryring]

What RAW states is pretty much irrelevant though. This ain't even DnD 3.5. Just that outsider is the best descriptive term I can use for supernatural otherwordly entities. They die and wake up in their home a short while later, regardless of what they are.

Suicide is wrong for several reasons. Wastefully discarding the life you've been given, giving in to despair and fear, selfishly leaving behind those who care and worry about you. But none of these are directly applicable for an outsider who can have perfectly tactical reasons for killing himself. Their problem lies in presentation. To kill themselves sends a statement to those around them. Assume that the angel has been trapped and is being tortured with several other mortals. Given the opportunity he could try to kill himself and then return in order to try and save them. But while he is there he also acts as a beacon of hope, support and comfort for the others. Killing himself could inspire the others to do so, but for the mortals that would be giving into the despair, fear and sorrow.

That's the difficulty I suppose. To act as a beacon and alleviate suffering, or remove yourself from the situation to return later and try (with no guarantee of success) to end it completely.

[ReaderAt2046]

If celestials, gods, or demons can rematerialize when "killed" they cannot commit suicide or be murdered or killed in any way remotely analogous to what happens to us. I do not think that a Celestial destroying his body (in order to return home) would be wrong, simply because it does not do any permanent harm.

[TheCountAlucard]

On one hand, suicide is wrong.

Why?

[Frozen_Feet]

You've got the premise of the whole question wrong. A summoned Outsider does not die when they are wounded, it's only halfway there in the first place. There's no moral dilemma for summoned Outsiders unsummoning themselves through physical trauma, because it is not suicide! It's more like slapping yourself to stay awake.

Now, called Outsiders or those on their home plane would probably be very reluctant to commit suicide, but that's because they truly and irrecovably die if they do that, no need to involve moral at all.

[Arcanist]

Why?

Because death is wrong/sick/bad and all gods with the death domain are evil...(there is like one that disproved this)

I believe there is a trope for this and if there isn't I shall name it "Death is everyones bully".

[Lapak]

If in your campaign suicide is wrong, the not-quite-suicide question depends on the sub-type of Celestial. Lawful Good outsiders might bear up and be an example of endurance and martyrdom; Chaotic Good types would probably use it as a way to achieve freedom and likely come back in force.

But I'm throwing my hat in with the posters challenging the idea that it has to be seen as wrong in the first place (again, not saying it can't be in your campaign, just saying that it's not written in stone.) There is real-world precedent for societies where it's seen as morally neutral or even morally positive in certain situations, and a campaign world could fall into one of those categories pretty easily.

Many of the major objections to it fall apart in D&D-land:
- in campaigns without a monotheistic Creator-type god, mortals aren't really 'given' their lives by anyone, so their fate is their own
- with a provable afterlife, death is known to be non-final and even some of the consequences for surviving family members are or can be mitigated (via Speak with Dead and etc.)
- depending on the campaign, that provable afterlife may even add an argument for it - if you're going from durance vile in the hands of the fire jötnar straight to Valhalla where you'll be an additional warrior against the Ragnarök, you're actively being HELPFUL by dying.
- with resurrection magics, it isn't even necessarily permanent for non-Celestials.

[Slipperychicken]

How would Celestials deal with suicide?

They don't, because they live on the Plane of Infinite Happiness and Sunshine, and would never suicide because they're always happy.


EDIT: Also, suicide just means you become a loser ghost petitioner more quickly. Suicide didn't make it onto my Evil Acts list.

[Zorg]

Suicide is wrong for several reasons. Wastefully discarding the life you've been given, giving in to despair and fear, selfishly leaving behind those who care and worry about you.

You should read this and re-assess your statement.

[nyarlathotep]

Why?

Presumably for similar reasons to murder being wrong. You are damaging and harming everyone who ever cared for the individual who died except in this case you are harming those closest to you and in effect betraying their trust in you. Now this is of course different if you are going to reform unharmed, or if you have literally no loved ones left, or possibly (not going to get into the argument over this now as it is really something better to be done on a case by case basis) if you are in so much pain that your loved ones would prefer you to be dead and spare whatever it is that is causing you terminal suffering.

[PersonMan]

You should read this and re-assess your statement.

Unfortunately, your link seems to be broken, so he (and I everyone else) can't.

[Zorg]

Odd, what error are you getting? Tumblr has had some issues of late with the storm in the US.

Try this link.

[TheCountAlucard]

You are damaging and harming everyone who ever cared for the individual who died except in this case you are harming those closest to you and in effect betraying their trust in you.

How? In a world where an "eternal reward" afterlife most assuredly exists, how is it hurting or damaging anyone but, perhaps, your most hated enemies, to ensure that you are, in fact, going on to said eternal reward?

As far as I can tell, the biggest downside to being dead is no longer being on the material plane; you are metaphysically changing your address, relocating yourself from a bad neighborhood.

[2xMachina]

What RAW states is pretty much irrelevant though. This ain't even DnD 3.5. Just that outsider is the best descriptive term I can use for supernatural otherwordly entities. They die and wake up in their home a short while later, regardless of what they are.

Suicide is wrong for several reasons. Wastefully discarding the life you've been given, giving in to despair and fear, selfishly leaving behind those who care and worry about you. But none of these are directly applicable for an outsider who can have perfectly tactical reasons for killing himself. Their problem lies in presentation. To kill themselves sends a statement to those around them. Assume that the angel has been trapped and is being tortured with several other mortals. Given the opportunity he could try to kill himself and then return in order to try and save them. But while he is there he also acts as a beacon of hope, support and comfort for the others. Killing himself could inspire the others to do so, but for the mortals that would be giving into the despair, fear and sorrow.

That's the difficulty I suppose. To act as a beacon and alleviate suffering, or remove yourself from the situation to return later and try (with no guarantee of success) to end it completely.

They're basically casting Planeshift, with the spell effect of leaving a body behind.

How? In a world where an "eternal reward" afterlife most assuredly exists, how is it hurting or damaging anyone but, perhaps, your most hated enemies, to ensure that you are, in fact, going on to said eternal reward?

As far as I can tell, the biggest downside to being dead is no longer being on the material plane; you are metaphysically changing your address, relocating yourself from a bad neighborhood.

With planeshift, that's not a problem either.

Whoops dead. Nevermind, I'll just planeshift back with some superpowers.

[Craft (Cheese)]

How? In a world where an "eternal reward" afterlife most assuredly exists, how is it hurting or damaging anyone but, perhaps, your most hated enemies, to ensure that you are, in fact, going on to said eternal reward?

This is not necessarily true in the OP's setting, and, really, not even necessarily true in all official D&D settings. This isn't how it works at all in Eberron, for instance (in Eberron everyone is ferried off to Dolurrh which is a bleak nightmare world, regardless of their deeds in life), and in the FR while the Good afterlives *sound* like nice places to be, in death you arrive as a petitioner which is not at all fun.


And, really, I don't think their argument is valid even in the real world: Is everything that greatly disappoints your friends and family wrong? Like, say, becoming a professional musician when your father really wanted you to become a lawyer, or getting married to someone you really like but your friends and family aren't so fond of (like if they're in a lower economic class or they aren't the right skin color, which sadly is still a thing at least around here)?

[ReaderAt2046]

Why?

Suicide is a sin of incredible rudeness. It is going forth and saying to every bird, every flower, every sunrise "You are worthless, you are not worth living for." It is declaring that there is no woman worth kissing, no meal worth eating, no painting or statue or scenic vista worth looking upon. In addition, suicide is an extreme form of cowardice. It is declaring that you are not willing to do what you were placed in the world to do, it is desrting your post in the great battle line.

We must, however, be careful not to confuse suicide with martyrdom. Where suicide is saying "there is nothing in the world worth living for", martyrdom is saying "This one thing is so incredibly important that it is worth dying and forfeiting everything else if I may only have this" and it can be one of the great virtues (note that I say "can be", it depends on what you assign such preeminence to.

[Kelb_Panthera]

How? In a world where an "eternal reward" afterlife most assuredly exists, how is it hurting or damaging anyone but, perhaps, your most hated enemies, to ensure that you are, in fact, going on to said eternal reward?

As far as I can tell, the biggest downside to being dead is no longer being on the material plane; you are metaphysically changing your address, relocating yourself from a bad neighborhood.

This again. Really?

In D&D the vast majority of people have no more proof of an afterlife than we have in reality.

Some spellcasters of middle-ish level have the ability to make contact with or, travel to, the outer spheres. Everybody else just has to take their word for it. Your average dirt-farmer has probably heard about the afterlife from the head of his local church.

Consider for a moment that the head of that church may or may not be a cleric and that even if he is, he may not be of a high enough level to actually contact any outsiders. In that case, the head of the church has only ever heard about the afterlife from -his- superiors, or maybe from a cleric with the necessary power to have actually made such contact. Then you consider that we're talking about a polytheistic world, in which many churches will be selling afterlifes that don't necessarily match.

A deacon of the church of heironeous is going to be painting a very different picture of heavan than a preacher of Ehlonna, nevermind the dark gods' clergies and agents of the Athar trying to discredit them both, or hucksters trying to make a buck spinning yarns of complete nonsense.

To review; Average Joe Dirt-farmer is getting his picture of the afterlife from who knows how many conflicting 3rd or 4th hand accounts, at best, or just as many accounts even further removed from an eye-witness alongside completely made up stories at worst.

You can prove that magic is real and you can prove that angels and devils are real, but you can't prove to someone there's an afterlife unless you actually take them across the veil. Even then they won't be absolutely certain unless they run into a dead relative, who may or may not remember them depending on how quickly petitioners forget their mortal lives and how long this particular relative's been dead.

[warty goblin]

Suicide is a sin of incredible rudeness. It is going forth and saying to every bird, every flower, every sunrise "You are worthless, you are not worth living for." It is declaring that there is no woman worth kissing, no meal worth eating, no painting or statue or scenic vista worth looking upon. In addition, suicide is an extreme form of cowardice. It is declaring that you are not willing to do what you were placed in the world to do, it is desrting your post in the great battle line.

Er, no. It's saying that those things are not worth going through your current situation, if they would even be possible for you at some point in the future. Essentially that the benefit of living no longer outweighs the cost of living, which does not deny that living has benefits.

We must, however, be careful not to confuse suicide with martyrdom. Where suicide is saying "there is nothing in the world worth living for", martyrdom is saying "This one thing is so incredibly important that it is worth dying and forfeiting everything else if I may only have this" and it can be one of the great virtues (note that I say "can be", it depends on what you assign such preeminence to.

Alternatively, suicide is saying that you are willing to die to escape your current situation, which sort of by construction elevates your current situation to something it's so important to be free of that you'd die for it.

[ReaderAt2046]

I'm directly drawing on G.K. Chesterton here, so I'm not going to back down on this.

[tensai_oni]

The problem with suicide isn't some nebulous "you're a coward, taking the easy way out of your problems" or "you tell the world it's not world living for" but rather - that you hurt a lot of people, friends and especially relatives, who have to cope with your death.

This is NOT an issue with creatures, celestials or not, who are stated to respawn after death. In fact you'd barely call it a suicide if they just pop back up in their homes alive and well.

[kamikasei]

Not touching the morality-of-suicide argument, though I hope the self-righteousness on display above doesn't get turned on any actually suicidal person in the future.

On the actual question:

Assume that the angel has been trapped and is being tortured with several other mortals. Given the opportunity he could try to kill himself and then return in order to try and save them. But while he is there he also acts as a beacon of hope, support and comfort for the others. Killing himself could inspire the others to do so, but for the mortals that would be giving into the despair, fear and sorrow.

That's the difficulty I suppose. To act as a beacon and alleviate suffering, or remove yourself from the situation to return later and try (with no guarantee of success) to end it completely.

Look at how absurdly contrived you've had to make this. For the angel simply to escape also removes the "beacon of hope, support and comfort". Yes, a short-sighted fellow captive might look at an angel using a die-respawn cheat and think "he didn't endure this, why should I have to?" rather than "right, that's a sensible response to the situation given how he and I differ". Any action might be taken up badly by anyone. You're not making an argument about the inherent morality of the action itself. At best, you're arguing that circumstances might conceivably exist where you have to forgo what would be an optimal course of action because others are dependent on you.

[ReaderAt2046]

Agreed on your second count. Celestials, devils, and gods cannot commit suicide because they cannot die.

[Jane_Smith]

Suicide as a taboo is purely based on a cultural basis. Ancient Chinese and Roman culture, for example, found it honorable for a warrior to throw there lives away in battle in suicidal rushs to glory for there lords and go all out, or to commit suicide ritually when they had failed there masters or brought dishonor upon them or there family name to wash away that dishonor/clean said name.

Just like how many believe murder and sacrifice to be evil, but aztecs for example believed it to be a great honor to be sacrificed to be sent to there god/etc. Foreigners not so much, but meh.

A good example would be you discover you are a lycanthrope. If you find yourself in a fight or someone else tries to kill you, you black out and find them dead. But you can still chose to kill yourself, and it would be in everyone's best interest if you did so.

Or maybe your infected with some kinda larva - removing it would kill you, but it will kill you if it hatchs and it would grow into something that would kill many others. Removing it and destroying it with your final breath would be an honorable deed, but still suicide.

Or maybe your the "chosen one" for the dark side. Your destiny is written in stone by the gods and maybe you will give birth to some bringer of darkness or you can feel yourself becoming more corrupt and cruel as the years go on, no matter how hard to fight it. Maybe just by existing you allow portals to the far realm to open up or something, who knows? But rather then being the bringer of damnation, you can choose to end your life and stop the apocalypse/etc.

Spoiler

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(Example - Martin Septim, TES: 4, Oblivion, best suicide ever)

Or maybe the expedition you were on is out of food, help is days away, and your starving in the cold with a few other people. You know your the weakest and have the fewest survival skills, and everything is frozen over and there is no food to find in the mountains without digging threw several feet of iron-like ice. You could opt to kill yourself to feed the others - sure, cannibalism and suicide both are evil to most societies, but if you can save other peoples lives with both, while gross, you would be a hero.

"Good and evil does not exists, but thinking makes it so." Why do you think the abyss and the heavens in fantasy settings are not raw elemental realms like the plane of fire/water/shadow/etc planes? Only sentient beings can decide to be evil or good, and many peoples opinions will tell you different things for whats sinful or not. Say in forgotten realms, if Ao decided to make evil "good" and good "evil", suddenly people would be seeking demons and devils for blessings and fertile crops, while angels would be feared and despised - so then it would be completely subject to the overlord god in charge.

Also for outsiders dying permanently or not; they will always reform in there plane of existence if they die outside of it, not just if they are summoned.