Redemption for Fiends?

[Gaius Hermicus]

So we are all aware of fallen celestials in the 5e canon; Zariel for example.

But are there any examples of the reverse happening: fiends becoming redeemed or otherwise changing their alignments to good (and presumably becoming celestials or otherwise losing their fiendish nature)? If there's not, doesn't that seem odd in regards to the question of free will for outsiders - since good celestials can choose to reject their alignments but evil ones can't?

[Sigreid]

The only stories I'm aware of in the real world state very clearly that cast out celestials will never be forgiven.

That said, in my campaign they can theoretically be redeemed, but the road is hard and rarely travelled.

[JackPhoenix]

It's not odd... it is, after all, much easier to fall than to rise up again. Redemption takes active effort, and especially for fiends, long time, while angels can easily fall by "accident". Zarien didn't fall by choice.

[Naanomi]

There are examples but it is exceedingly rare, and of course generally a being would stop being a fiend somewhere along the process

Part of the nature of Evil as a cosmological force is that it is corruptive and coercive in ways that Good rarely is. Also, Good generally requires both virtuous deeds and benevolent intention to be Good, whereas the slide to Evil can happen when one does Good things for Evil reasons or when one does Evil things for Good reasons

The only stories I'm aware of in the real world state very clearly that cast out celestials will never be forgiven.

Though very few friends were ever celestials to begin with

[Gaius Hermicus]

It's not odd... it is, after all, much easier to fall than to rise up again. Redemption takes active effort, and especially for fiends, long time, while angels can easily fall by "accident". Zarien didn't fall by choice.

Hmm... I certainly see your point, but in the context of the game world, if it's relatively easy for celestials to fall but there's little exchange of fiends returning to (or choosing - some fiends were born/created that way, weren't they?) good, doesn't that necessitate that eventually the balance of good and evil will skew towards evil? Is the universe doomed?

[Naanomi]

Hmm... I certainly see your point, but in the context of the game world, if it's relatively easy for celestials to fall but there's little exchange of fiends returning to (or choosing - some fiends were born/created that way, weren't they?) good, doesn't that necessitate that eventually the balance of good and evil will skew towards evil? Is the universe doomed?

Modern fiends and celestials are churned out of mortal souls, the relative shift of outsiders changing alignment is a drop in the ocean comparatively

[Gaius Hermicus]

Modern friends and celestials are churned out of mortal souls, the relative shift of outsiders changing alignment is a drop in the ocean comparatively

Aha, gotcha.

[Unoriginal]

So we are all aware of fallen celestials in the 5e canon; Zariel for example.

But are there any examples of the reverse happening: fiends becoming redeemed or otherwise changing their alignments to good (and presumably becoming celestials or otherwise losing their fiendish nature)?

There are examples of Fiends becoming other-than-evil aligned, yes. Some even become good-aligned.

More prominently...

Spoiler: Descent into Avernus spoilers

Show

It's possible for Zariel to go back to being a Celestial, if the adventurers manage to combine several factors.

If there's not, doesn't that seem odd in regards to the question of free will for outsiders - since good celestials can choose to reject their alignments but evil ones can't?

Even if there was no canon example, it wouldn't mean the Fiends are unable to do it, just that there isn't an example of it happening.

Fallen angels (as in, those who voluntarily choose evil) are very rare too.

Worth noting, however, that even the most duty-bound Celestial has more freedom to choose than the most powerful Devil, and even the most free-spirited Celestial has more principles of conduct than the most disciplined Demon. Because Celestials and their bosses are benevolent, and such they both give freedom and have a culture that emphasize positive traits, while Fiends have neither. In other words, Fiends are capable to choose to do good things, they exist in a system, or lack of system, that heavily discourage doing so. And in consequence it's much harder for them to do so.

As an example:
a Horned Devil could be tempted to be selflessly generous with the victims of a tragedy, but they have limited ressources to spend (be it time, power, or anything else), a whole bunch of subordinates who hate them and want their position, a whole bunch of superiors who the Horned Devil has to report to and who observe them constantly, and a whole bunch of competitors as powerful as them or near who definitively won't be spending any ressource helping those in needs without expecting great return from that investment, and every single one of those subordinates, superiors and competitors is looking for any weakness in the Horned Devil to exploit in order to exploit their own agenda. So not only everyone is constantly doing as much bad things as they can afford to to the Horned Devil, doing a good thing may have dire consequences for them. Therefore, the Devil is encouraged to not do it.

Meanwhile, a Deva could be tempted to just kill someone who is making a nice profit out of a tragedy, in a burst of anger, but they know it'd be wrong to abuse their power to harm a person for such a thing, and they know there will be consequences if they abuse their power in spite of that, therefore the Deva is encouraged to not do it, but at the same time the Deva doesn't risk their competitors, superiors or subordinates to pounce at that opportunity if they lose their cool and tell the tragedy profiteer to stop or else.

Zarien didn't fall by choice.

Zariel didn't choose to fall, but her choices lead to the fall.

More specifically, her choice to take Asmodeus's hand when she was in a world of pain both emotional and physical, when he was offering her to be on the "inflicting pain" side as a band aid for her torments.

Is the universe doomed?

The Blood War will be going on fiercely until the final end of the universe.

Because while good opposes evil, chaotic evil opposes lawful evil much more directly (as a remnant of the ancient War of Law & Chaos).

So good will never have an ultimate victory, sure, but evil will never win either.

[noob]

Hmm... I certainly see your point, but in the context of the game world, if it's relatively easy for celestials to fall but there's little exchange of fiends returning to (or choosing - some fiends were born/created that way, weren't they?) good, doesn't that necessitate that eventually the balance of good and evil will skew towards evil? Is the universe doomed?

There is no balance between good and evil, there is multiple varieties of fiends and they fight each other in the blood war, for them the celestials as a group are quite inconsequential force until the moment one of them personally face one on the material plane(individual celestials tend to be very buff).
If there was a direct war between celestials and fiends, the fiends would win quickly, there is just no direct large scale war between those two kinds because fiends are not a big united group.

[Naanomi]

Notably, fiends and celestials have only faced off on a large scale once in planar history; and it wasn't at a time where good show of force of either side was really possible... It is unclear how another confrontation would go

Also, the blood war has stopped a few times (3-4 depending on what lore you count as legit), albeit briefly

[JackPhoenix]

Hmm... I certainly see your point, but in the context of the game world, if it's relatively easy for celestials to fall but there's little exchange of fiends returning to (or choosing - some fiends were born/created that way, weren't they?) good, doesn't that necessitate that eventually the balance of good and evil will skew towards evil? Is the universe doomed?

That's why the Blood War is so important, cosmologically speaking. It is generally aknowledged that should one side win over the other, or worse, should they find common ground for long enough, they'll be powerful enough to overrun the rest of the multiverse. That's why celestial forces meddle to keep it going.

[Oramac]

I'm going to just stir the pot a bit. Why not a good fiend who has not been "redeemed"? Which is to say, a fiend who chooses to do good for reasons other than celestial heritage or guidance.

Spoiler: My Homebrew World

Show

This is the TL;DR version, but in my world, the true leader of one of the largest intelligence organizations in the world is a Pit Fiend. For reasons I won't get in to here, he has chosen to fight against his fiendish kin and support the mortal races. He has no desire to "ascend" or become a celestial or anything like that. He's simply decided that he disagrees with the fiends' goals and wants to help protect the mortals against them.

[Sigreid]

Though very few friends were ever celestials to begin with

I was referring to some real world stories that I can't be more specific about without possibly running afoul of forum rules.

[No brains]

I have an idea for a theme you can play with if you want to explore this personally in a game you run of just a headcanon.

Celestials and Fiends typically embody ideas/ideals. As cultural perception of those ideals shift, what is perceived as good or evil can change. The 'fall of Zariel' could be seen as a cultural condemnation of Zariel's ideals: being quick to judge and harsh to act, even intention for order and a grater good. Dogmatic inflexibility is something that was once seen as a virtue that has, in a sense, fallen.

There's also... that other guy... who is an OC do not steal that we can't post about on the forum even if Marlowe could. He represented aggressive ambition, something that can be really useful when establishing a new order, but could be harmful to that order once established. This caused his 'fall'.

So now that we have two examples of falls, how can we invert it? What are some ideas that we can personify that have 'risen' as time marched on?

Maybe there's an Arcanaloth that was endlessly skeptical and curious. In earlier times, they were seen as faithless betrayer. Then as people came to benefit from rejection of previously held ideals that did not stand up, this fiend became 'redeemed', gaining a celestial realm of scientific glory. Kind of like in that xkcd comic where biologists say their field slew pestilence itself.

Some other things, it might be harder to change from 'evil' to 'good' other things that were seen as evil might just BE now. I guess those fiends could be 'redeemed' into fey... or modrons... or somethin'.

Anyway, think about that if you want to write about redeemed fiends.

[Chronos]

It's worth noting that the Good outsiders/outer planes also have a Law/Chaos divide, and Lawful Good outsiders disagree with Chaotic Good outsiders, and don't get along very well with them... but because they're all Good, they can bring themselves to get along well enough, and restrict their disagreements to stern talkings-to, and join forces when needed to fight against Evil. That sort of cooperation simply isn't in the nature of Evil: Evil beings will cooperate for as long as they perceive a direct personal advantage to doing so, but once the opportunity comes up to profit by betraying their "allies", they'll do so. And it's this advantage of peaceful cooperation that allows the cosmic forces of Good to hold their own against Evil.

[Brookshw]

There are examples but it is exceedingly rare

True. Offhand and ignoring examples already mentioned, (1) there's a celestial and fiend that have fallen in love hanging out on the upper plane and use an illusionary dragon to keep interlopers away (though more having fallen to neutral I guess), (2) a fiend running around the upper plane doing good deeds, (3) a squad of blood war deserters hanging out on the upper planes trying to be good, a few redeemed succubus (because good sexy fiend sells I guess), and a few stragglers hiding in the lower planes.

[Sigreid]

I've actually got a character right now that is trying to redeem a succubus through the power of love. lol

[Akkristor]

https://web.archive.org/web/20190809...d/fc/20050824a

Eludecia, the Succubus Paladin

[Unoriginal]

I'm going to just stir the pot a bit. Why not a good fiend who has not been "redeemed"? Which is to say, a fiend who chooses to do good for reasons other than celestial heritage or guidance.

No one said anything about celestial heritage or guidance.

It's just that Fiends are physical personifications of a metaphysical alignment, meaning that their alignment changing generally results in their physical changes too.

Same way that a Demon who went lawful would most likely become a Devil or at least a Nine-Hells-linked Fiend.

Also worth noting that Fiends can do good things without changing alignment. It's just not their typical day-to-day behavior.

[Angelalex242]

Much like Gravity, movement only ever goes one way.

[Millstone85]

True. Offhand and ignoring examples already mentioned

Let's see if I recognize them.

(1) there's a celestial and fiend that have fallen in love hanging out on the upper plane and use an illusionary dragon to keep interlopers away (though more having fallen to neutral I guess)

Sounds familiar but I don't remember the names.

(2) a fiend running around the upper plane doing good deeds

That might be Felthis ap Jerran, an ultroloth who more or less became a cervidal. He was once known as the Philosopher King of Ecstasy, i.e. the ruler of the gate-town to Elysium, before moving to Elysium proper.

(3) a squad of blood war deserters hanging out on the upper planes trying to be good

Led by the hamatula K'rand Vahlix, who now calls Bytopia home.

a few redeemed succubus (because good sexy fiend sells I guess)

Eludecia was already mentioned in the thread. Then there is the ironically named Fall-from-Grace, of Planescape:Torment fame.

and a few stragglers hiding in the lower planes.

Nobody comes to mind.

[Segev]

I've actually got a character right now that is trying to redeem a succubus through the power of love. lol

It is an attractive proposition for a number of reasons, including romantic and *ahem* "romantic" ones, in all senses of the term. It is also a worthy approach, if fiends are actually people and not merely person-shaped sin incarnate to the point that focusing such efforts are futile and can only tempt the would-be redeemer and never actually work.

I prefer, myself, to have fiends potentially be people.

However:

No one said anything about celestial heritage or guidance.

It's just that Fiends are physical personifications of a metaphysical alignment, meaning that their alignment changing generally results in their physical changes too.

Same way that a Demon who went lawful would most likely become a Devil or at least a Nine-Hells-linked Fiend.

Also worth noting that Fiends can do good things without changing alignment. It's just not their typical day-to-day behavior.

I also tend to subscribe to this notion. Fiends that stop being evil change their biology and metaphysical state such that they are no longer fiends. Like Zariel, they may not become a pre-defined corresponding angel or modron or the like, but Zariel is not still a proper angel of her original type despite not being a typical devil.

Fall-From-Grace is probably not actually a succubus in the sense of being a fiend; her unique characteristics from being Lawful Neutral make her a unique, non-fiendish outsider. A succubus redeemed to Good might become a deva or the like, or might be a "redeemed succubus" in the same sense Zariel is a "Fallen Angel." Maybe she has feathered wings instead of bat ones, and tends to dress beautifully rather than scandalously, so as to inspire rather than tempt.

Maybe a redeemed marilith becomes a lillend? Or maybe something wholly unique.

[Sigreid]

It is an attractive proposition for a number of reasons, including romantic and *ahem* "romantic" ones, in all senses of the term. It is also a worthy approach, if fiends are actually people and not merely person-shaped sin incarnate to the point that focusing such efforts are futile and can only tempt the would-be redeemer and never actually work.

I prefer, myself, to have fiends potentially be people.

However:



I also tend to subscribe to this notion. Fiends that stop being evil change their biology and metaphysical state such that they are no longer fiends. Like Zariel, they may not become a pre-defined corresponding angel or modron or the like, but Zariel is not still a proper angel of her original type despite not being a typical devil.

Fall-From-Grace is probably not actually a succubus in the sense of being a fiend; her unique characteristics from being Lawful Neutral make her a unique, non-fiendish outsider. A succubus redeemed to Good might become a deva or the like, or might be a "redeemed succubus" in the same sense Zariel is a "Fallen Angel." Maybe she has feathered wings instead of bat ones, and tends to dress beautifully rather than scandalously, so as to inspire rather than tempt.

Maybe a redeemed marilith becomes a lillend? Or maybe something wholly unique.

Yep, fully aware that it may be 100% impossible. But I like to have characters have goals and aspirations. The character in question survived the kiss of the succubus in question and feeling that great emptiness inside the succubus, and her heart broke for her. Just for the character development.

[Particle_Man]

Perhaps a fiend infected by the appropriate slaad could be redeemed up to chaotic neutral?

[Naanomi]

It's worth noting that the Good outsiders/outer planes also have a Law/Chaos divide, and Lawful Good outsiders disagree with Chaotic Good outsiders, and don't get along very well with them... but because they're all Good, they can bring themselves to get along well enough, and restrict their disagreements to stern talkings-to, and join forces when needed to fight against Evil. That sort of cooperation simply isn't in the nature of Evil: Evil beings will cooperate for as long as they perceive a direct personal advantage to doing so, but once the opportunity comes up to profit by betraying their "allies", they'll do so. And it's this advantage of peaceful cooperation that allows the cosmic forces of Good to hold their own against Evil.

Though they have made war before, the War of Law and Chaos had both sides with their respective celestials (and guardinals/angels between trying to minimize casualties)

[Parra]

Planescape: Torement had a redeemed succubus running a brothal in it. Character was LN(G).

There was another in the Planescape campaign setting, a Devil, who killed his boss and fled to Bytopia and now spends his time recruiting other fallen devils into celestial armies.

3.5e had a Succubus paladin in one of its small adventures too, though I dont recall its name off-hand

Im sure there are others, they are just the ones I know of.

[hamishspence]

Though they have made war before, the War of Law and Chaos had both sides with their respective celestials (and guardinals/angels between trying to minimize casualties)

Fiendish Codex 1 talked about the war of law and chaos - but it didn't say anything about the eladrins fighting side-by-side with the demons. Instead, the moment Miska the Wolf Spider, general of the demonic armies, is destroyed, the eladrins lauch a massive campaign into the Abyss, devastating the demons (specifically, the obyriths, who were the ancient demons that had never been mortal souls and had always been outsiders). Then the tanar'ri, demons who were mortal souls in life, slaves of the obyriths, launched a revolution during that invasion and toppled the obyriths from power.

BoED emphasises that when war in the Upper Planes takes place (celestials battling celestials) it is always the fault of corrupted celestials, who will eventually leave the Upper Planes and become fiends.

It's worth noting that the Good outsiders/outer planes also have a Law/Chaos divide, and Lawful Good outsiders disagree with Chaotic Good outsiders, and don't get along very well with them... but because they're all Good, they can bring themselves to get along well enough, and restrict their disagreements to stern talkings-to, and join forces when needed to fight against Evil.

Yup - Archons (LG) are vastly more tolerant of CG eladrins, than they are of LE devils.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are examples but it is exceedingly rare, and of course generally a being would stop being a fiend somewhere along the process.

Part of the nature of Evil as a cosmological force is that it is corruptive and coercive in ways that Good rarely is. Also, Good generally requires both virtuous deeds and benevolent intention to be Good, whereas the slide to Evil can happen when one does Good things for Evil reasons or when one does Evil things for Good reasons

Though very few friends were ever celestials to begin with

This is well summarized.
For the OP, honestly, it's not worth the extra overhead to torture the nature of fiends like that. They don't have to be good to be interesting; they can be made interesting and still be evil. (There's an example further down in this thread that I have quoted in this post).

That's why the Blood War is so important, cosmologically speaking. It is generally acknowledged that should one side win over the other, or worse, should they find common ground for long enough, they'll be powerful enough to overrun the rest of the multiverse. That's why celestial forces meddle to keep it going.

IIRC, that's how Zariel got into the situation where she fell.

I'm going to just stir the pot a bit. Why not a good fiend who has not been "redeemed"? Which is to say, a fiend who chooses to do good for reasons other than celestial heritage or guidance.

Spoiler: My Homebrew World

Show

This is the TL;DR version, but in my world, the true leader of one of the largest intelligence organizations in the world is a Pit Fiend. For reasons I won't get in to here, he has chosen to fight against his fiendish kin and support the mortal races. He has no desire to "ascend" or become a celestial or anything like that. He's simply decided that he disagrees with the fiends' goals and wants to help protect the mortals against them.

That's not necessarily doing good, that's picking a side to support for one's own reason. And that is perfectly within the general idea of fiends doing stuff for "a reason" that can make for good adventures and good NPCs. (In Phoenix's campaign, our party recently made a deal with a fiend whose cult we had been dismantling in order to deal with a far more dangerous threat to our continent and our world-but that fiend is still a fiend).

It's worth noting that the Good outsiders/outer planes also have a Law/Chaos divide, and Lawful Good outsiders disagree with Chaotic Good outsiders, and don't get along very well with them... but because they're all Good, they can bring themselves to get along well enough, and restrict their disagreements to stern talkings-to, and join forces when needed to fight against Evil. That sort of cooperation simply isn't in the nature of Evil: Evil beings will cooperate for as long as they perceive a direct personal advantage to doing so, but once the opportunity comes up to profit by betraying their "allies", they'll do so. And it's this advantage of peaceful cooperation that allows the cosmic forces of Good to hold their own against Evil.

*golf clap* Being Good is harder than being evil.

I've actually got a character right now that is trying to redeem a succubus through the power of love. lol

Huey Lewis would approve.

It's just that Fiends are physical personifications of a metaphysical alignment, meaning that their alignment changing generally results in their physical changes too.

Same way that a Demon who went lawful would most likely become a Devil or at least a Nine-Hells-linked Fiend.

Also worth noting that Fiends can do good things without changing alignment. It's just not their typical day-to-day behavior.

You said this more concisely than I was going to, thanks for saving me the work.

Much like Gravity, movement only ever goes one way.

Unless someone casts a certain high level spell...

[Pex]

I once played a Fiend Warlock whose Patron was a Redeemed Devil. He was seeking Redemption in the Heavens, but he had a lot to Atone for. Since he was still a Devil he did it by Devil means - making Contracts. However, his Contracts to Mortals are to pursue benevolent means. An ancestor of my character made such a Pact - the Family would become a wealthy Noble house but had to care for and protect the home city and its people. Once a generation a descendent would be tasked to take a more overt effort in helping people, i.e. become an adventurer as a Warlock.

[Naanomi]

Fiendish Codex 1 talked about the war of law and chaos - but it didn't say anything about the eladrins fighting side-by-side with the demons. Instead, the moment Miska the Wolf Spider, general of the demonic armies, is destroyed, the eladrins launch a massive campaign into the Abyss, devastating the demons (specifically, the obyriths, who were the ancient demons that had never been mortal souls and had always been outsiders). Then the tanar'ri, demons who were mortal souls in life, slaves of the obyriths, launched a revolution during that invasion and toppled the obyriths from power.

Yeah you have to go back to 2e content to find examples of celestial on celestial warfare... Archons 'falling sideways' into chaos and retributive action taken as a result...

There are also some hints that whatever unnamed beings predated the Eladrin may have been less cooperative with the early Archons and Aphanacts