Now, the title of the thread is somewhat misleading; the vast, vast majority of evil people are not rewarded in the afterlife. The warrior who was a brigand, the commoner who was a thief, the expert who was a fraud, the aristocrat who was a murderer; these people for the most part spend eternity as petitioners, being scourged by flaming whips, crushed underfoot, forever snuffed out, or used as twisted coinage between beings of pure evil.
But a rare few evil souls survive their trials and transcend their wretched circumstances, becoming fiends with supernatural powers. A rare few retain their memories of their mortal life, and these are particularly prone to even further advancement.
In a just universe, fiends would be the product of spontaneous generation; sentient shards of their home planes intent on punishing or torturing wrongdoers.
Instead, some of these evil mortals ascend until they number among the most powerful beings in the multiverse.
Now, in a polytheistic fantasy setting, issues of theodicy are not relevant, because the gods are not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent and thus evil may exist without posing a philosophical paradox. But in many campaign worlds, the lives and afterlives of mortals are determined by a sort of consensus among the gods. Why would the good and neutral gods allow such an injustice? The good gods would oppose the reward of evil on sheer principle, while the lawful neutral gods would oppose it as a reward for wrongdoing (at the very least, they would oppose the elevation of demons, if not devils). Neutral gods of nature would oppose the needless creation of unnatural beings such as fiends. And chaotic neutral gods would oppose the creation of the infernal bureaucracy and its capacity to elevate souls to positions of diabolical power from which to exert further control over the multiverse.
Meanwhile, chaotic evil gods would (at least internally) oppose everything the other gods proposed, due to their inherent selfishness, and are thus a strike against diabolism. Meanwhile, the lawful evil gods would oppose demonic influence due to its disruptive influence and propensity for wantonly destroying the world they labor so arduously to bring under their yoke, and thus they are a strike against demonic influence.
So, what would or could bring about the compromise we see in most campaign worlds, wherein petitioners of every stripe have a chance at elevation to power, even when such elevation is a reward for unjust acts?
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Because all of the 'Gods' are just puppets worn over the tentacles of the true Force, which cares nothing for anything except food. It eats only powerful souls, and so wants them to become as powerful as they can, good, neutral or evil.
Evil gods such as Asmodeus would withhold all aid and compromise if they were denied that chance to have skilled/powerful servants and the good/neutral gods could have all they wanted. Consider Asmodeus withholding the knowledge to forge the key to Rovangag's prison unless he was guerenteed to be allowed to have his own.
Because the actions of these individuals strengthens their respective ethos.
It helps if you think of each alignment as a sort of energy field that empowers those able to take advantage of it. Demon Lords are strengthened by more Chaotic Evil energy in the world, Archdevils gain strength from more Lawful Evil, the Good gods derive strength from more goodness, etc. By having more beings of power that support your own ethos, you are yourself strengthened. Having more allies makes you stronger. Demons oppose the rise of new arch-fiends by killing them early, not by tearing down the system that makes them stronger too. Devils eliminate CE petitioners by keeping them down under harsh laws and draconian tactics, not by removing their own path to glory.
There are a lot of answers to these questions.
One could be; the universe isn't just because your characters haven't fixed it yet. Perhaps your campaign will reach epic heights where all injustices will be corrected once your party achieves ultimate power.
Another is that you need these evil beings to fall and then rise again as demons so that they can again be defeated by a party of intrepid adventurers. You need villains - the system provides them.
There's also the "detente" point of view. The current system is the best one that can exist given the different philosophies of the gods. No faction of gods is powerful enough to destroy all opponents and force their point-of-view on the universe. Even if they could, a universe run entirely by good deities would start to look much like a despotism. At the very least it wouldn't be an interesting world to adventure in.
Yet another answer is that the gods have no choice. They are actually properties of the universe. The energies of the outer planes has created the positions of the gods to better reflect their nature. Thus all the gods do their own thing because it is just their nature.
Great topic!
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I have a problem with your basic assumption Power=Reward, or at least a desired life. Lets take a look at one of the most recently featured demon lords Kostchtchie. He came to power after a humiliating defeat by Baba Yaga and to this day hates what he has become. He is full of hate and loathing and even taking into consideration his power I wouldn't want his life.
The life that most of the powerful evil creatures have is not one that most people would seek after. They suffer as much or more then the people that happen to cross their path. The very nature of evil makes life not worth living, despite what it may look like from the outside.
I had in my life the chance to converse on this very subject with a man who had been one of the biggest drug dealers in SLC years after he had turned his life around and had become a family man and a devout Christian. He told me that at the height of his power he wished that he had never gone down that path. He couldn't trust anyone and even basic things that we all take for granted where denied him. He once was stabbed in the heart and was unable to seek healthcare because it had happened during a drug deal. Even years later he was dealing with issues that occurred because of his life choices.
I hope this helps
There's also a "punishment fit the crime" issue here.
If someone is an evil person for 100-ish years of life, how long should they suffer in some planar torture pit before it is payed off? Forever seems to be as unjust as no punishment at all.
Justice is a fleeting concept that is usually far too entwined with vengeance.
But in many campaign worlds, the lives and afterlives of mortals are determined by a sort of consensus among the gods. Why would the good and neutral gods allow such an injustice? The good gods would oppose the reward of evil on sheer principle, while the lawful neutral gods would oppose it as a reward for wrongdoing (at the very least, they would oppose the elevation of demons, if not devils). Neutral gods of nature would oppose the needless creation of unnatural beings such as fiends. And chaotic neutral gods would oppose the creation of the infernal bureaucracy and its capacity to elevate souls to positions of diabolical power from which to exert further control over the multiverse.
Well, I'm not sure that the good and neutral gods have the authority and/or power to determine what Asmodeus does with the souls under his control. I don't get the sense that Asmodeus is any less powerful than most of the other gods of Golarion, and in fact, I feel that he's quite possibly the most powerful individual god in existence. In that sense, the "consensus" of the good and neutral gods is probably a sort of resignation that keeps Asmodeus playing the game instead of just tipping over the board and breaking the universe over his knee like a dry stick. A sort of Mutually Assured Damnation, if you will pardon the pun.
Even if Asmodeus didn't succeed in destroying the world, the damage done by all-out, no-holds-barred deific war would be horrendous. Is it worth risking this level of cosmic destruction just to assure that Tywyx'kk'chri the Mad is not transformed into a pit fiend?
The parallel to Edward Snowden is obvious. The United States could transform Moscow's airport, and every major Russian city, into a lake of radioactive glass unless Snowden is returned to US jurisdiction within the next six hours. I doubt this will happen, because as far as I can tell, no one in the entire US government thinks that a single person is worth that level of escalation, especially in light of the damage a Russian counterstrike would do.
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I'll start with demons since that's the easier one to answer.
Demonkind sprang out of the Abyss almost serendipotously, as a result of a daemonic experiment on a qlippoth. As an unintentional consequence, the plane of existence "learned" how to twist mortal souls into demonkind. No one made any deals in this regard. No one bade it be the way. It was just the unforseen consequence of an experiment gone horribly wrong (or right, depending on whose perspective). Thus, the spontaneous creation of demons isn't really a matter for debate. It's the Abyss itself learning how to put larvae to their best possible use.
That aside, there are evil gods. Outright evil gods. In the same way a good god might reward a worshipper for leal service by making them a celestial being in the afterlife, Asmodeus and Lamashtu would reward their worshippers by transforming them (after delightfully ripping their humanity to shreds) into monsters. In other words, evil is rewarded because there are evil divine beings capable of handing out such rewards. And to ask why the other alignments don't object? Well, they do. Axis objects, Heaven objects, the Maelstrom violently objects. Thing is, because of the whole "balance of power" type deal, there's really not much they can do about it. In much the same way that Hell and the Abyss can't do squat (thank the gods) about good souls becoming archons, or angels, or agathions, etc.
And as for demons, the third reason is that you can actually manually become one using an evil ritual. People can and should stop someone making the attempt, but, obviously, there are oversights.
In conclusion, evil is rewarded because being evil is a possible divine calling (i.e. there is no lawful good omnigod saying "that's not right", there are evil gods capable of handing out prizes too), and because the lower planes themselves appear to have enough sentience to conspire to create more fiends by using whatever resources are at hand...i.e. damned souls of tremendous power.
Also, conversely, keep in mind that particularly good people may in the afterlife become angels and the like. Heck, there's a paladin archetype that makes you an angel in the before-afterlife.
Because the Pathfinder multi-verse isn't based on a dominant good monotheistic force. The lower planes are not servants of the upper planes. There is a competition as to what philosophy is right/correct. Evil beings/mortal souls are tortured in the lower planes not because they are/were evil, it is not punishment, it is because the beings of the lower planes are pure evil and like to torture people. There is no right or wrong about it. Some are ground under foot as you say and some are promoted as being useful in the fight against good.
True, the OP's sense of justice is skewed, but that's not at the core of his question.
Eh, there are some Judeo-Christian concepts in most game afterlives, so I'm viewing the issue partway through that lens. It's not a perspective I to which I perfectly cleave.
IMO:
It isn't just vs unjust or good vs bad.
When you die the issue is: How well did you live up to whichever axis you were aligned to?
You are lawful evil. BUt were you LAWFUL EVIL? OR LAWFUL evil or LAWFUL -font size100- evil
Or EVIL lawful or LAWFUL who rarely did some evil but was mostly just a cowardly worm?
Its not "were you good, if yes reward if no punish". Its "Your actions label you as X so you go HERE" and once there you get either rewarded or punished depending on how well you fit the mold. Which is why some folks go to the outer planes as peons and others get instantly elevated.
At least- that is my take on it.
-S
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*(Warning: Mature topic going into looking openly at religions. While I am trying not to be offensive, there may be some who may not like this retoric, so if you are one of these, please block me).
I would have to imagine that, from a strict perspective, most of these "EVIL" beings may actually consider themselves righteously following their cause. Then, in a sense, given that in this world there are gods made to cater to these powers, they would certainly want to reward those who follow them.
Gruumash is a Chaotic Evil god of Orcs, who teaches his followers that they must kill everything in their path in a bloody, ferocious rage; caring nothing about lives or morals or ethics. This god would reward orcs who burned down orpahans, given the power to do so; he would want these creatures' souls risen as his hellbent demonspawn later on.
Compare this to the Norse religion, who similarly taught that the way to get to the afterlife was through killing in battle and rape. Dying of old age got you sent to hell. Doesn't seem so different, does it? If it was a given that the Norse gods exist (as it is that the Pathfinder gods exist), don't you think Thor and crew would bring back his followers in Vahalla into a ready army of superpowered beings?
And really you can flip "alignments" and just call it arbitrary. Iomedea teaches his followers to slay "IN GLORY" as many evil beings as possible, and more than likely rewards the best slayers with status as Archons in the afterlife. From an orc/goblin/demon perspective, who looks like the "Evil" ones, in terms of afterlife rewards? Sure, they attempt to build society; but so do Lawful Evil beings (who are just as respecting if not moreso than their good kins; the difference is expected level of ambition :)). You can think of her followers as the equivalent to this-world's Crusaders. They believed they had a holy purpose and were certainly going to heaven... which still didn't make the hundreds of thousands of people laid to death by their blade like them any more :). From Turkey's perspective, they were one of the most evil forces that existed in this world; akin to us and our views of Hitler.
Also, the evil afterlife kinda sucks in Pathfinder. You get to start off as a Lemure, no questions asked; a slimy, non-thinking, writhing worm-like mask. Only eventually, after staying in this form for countless years writhing in hell, does the god thinks your soul is evil enough to garner attention; then he deem you worthy to "Reshape" into one of these demons.
Unsure if this was already mentioned but no soul remains intact to become a demons. Souls get ripped to shreds and separated into different things. On top of this they remember NOTHING of their previous life so there is absolutely zero gain. There are no plots or agendas they get to continue advancing. There are no former connections they can reconnect with. Even more exacerbating this process is that it usually takes 100 years or more. So, if you're not a long lived race almost no one you knew is going to be around anyway on the off chance you do become something that can come to the material plane.
Unsure if this was already mentioned but no soul remains intact to become a demons. Souls get ripped to shreds and separated into different things. On top of this they remember NOTHING of their previous life so there is absolutely zero gain.
This isn't always true, though it's typical. Powerful outsiders can transform a specific soul if they so choose. There's even a process described (in Ultimate Magic, IIRC) where a mortal can transform directly into a demon type of his choice). The OP was asking why even this rare case was permitted.
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And again, I'd say the answer is this is a world where gods are evil. One of the philisophical answers to Plato's Gambit is the "evil god" answer, a god who rewards sin and punishes those who spend their days in reverence. Since there is just as high of likelyhood of this god to exist as the "good god", it would imply that there is no reason to lead a good life.
In this world, said evil god exists... admittingly alongside good gods who also make souls directly into angels. These evil god takes their absolutely most corrupt but fanatical worshipers and transform them into devils / demons; because they can. They are balanced by limited power (the "gods" of Pathfinder can and have died; and do not have the omnipotent-omniscent all powerful templates that today's Earth gods tend to have... they are more akin to the Roman / Greek pantheon of flawed gods that often come from human origin).
As to the question "then why be good"; well, if you are in a society that is going to kill you / cut off hands if you start doing evil, that's a good thing. Like this world, it makes you "feel good" to be helpful. Those who are more attracted to power WILL probably find ways to worship these evil gods; and they do not have to wait for death to gain these "rewards" (indeed, since demons and devils are often overwhelmed by adventurers, an argument can be made for high-powered magic-based humans to be more powerful than these "rewards"). So in this world, evil and good both being rewards simply tells people to flock to "a" religion.
Why would you call the process of gaining power and status as a result of abusing others and actively pursuing the goal of "evil" a "reward"? Kind of says something about you, doesn't it? Personally, I wouldn't view it as any kind of reward. I'd say souls being turned into devils, daemons, and demons as a degradation and abasement rather than a kind of elevation.
Unless you're of Evil alignment, and think of becoming a Demon as a reward. Then you are, in fact, being rewarded.
I still don't consider it a reward. Most of the transformations I've read about include multicentury tortures and processes that no being would enjoy.
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Because evil gods reward their followers for following their dogma the same way good gods do.
I still don't consider it a reward. Most of the transformations I've read about include multicentury tortures and processes that no being would enjoy.
Compared to the alternative of multicentury tortures followed by .... an eternity of torture?
Evil lies. And cheats. If it can get followers with false promises of rewards later, instead of actually having to spend energy now arranging those rewards, it wins.
As it sees things, anyway.
I think the primary problem you're having in reconciling the existence of evil souls being rewarded is that you assume that good and neutral factions/planes are universally aligned evil factions/planes.
As an example, you stated, "Neutral gods of nature would oppose the needless creation of unnatural beings such as fiends. And chaotic neutral gods would oppose the creation of the infernal bureaucracy and its capacity to elevate souls to positions of diabolical power from which to exert further control over the multiverse." This is possibly true, but if the nature gods are opposed to the creation of unnatural creatures, would they not also be opposed to the creation of angels? If chaotic neutral gods oppose the existence of the infernal bureaucracy because of the restrictions it creates, would they not also oppose the celestial bureaucracy? The same goes for the chaotic good gods in relation to any lawful gods, even lawful good. They may not align due purely to their view that their good is the only right good.
So, if you're dividing lines by alignment then it's not really one large faction (good + neutral) versus another large but smaller faction (evil). It's more like a nine way free-for-all with all the sides keeping each other in balance. Additionally, there is likely infighting (to varying degrees) within each alignment group due to differences in philosophies of the various groups and individuals within the alignment group. This infighting is probably not going to occur as frequently when lawful gods/planes/organizations are concerned, but they will likely still exist in at least a few cases. So now there are more than nine factions all keeping each other in check.
And then the PCs come in and upset the balance. Bastards.
If your mortal soul is being torn to shreds in the process, how much of 'you' is left to enjoy said power and authority? You're no longer conscious and self-aware as you once were; it's like the forces of evil hijack your personality and memories while gouging out the more fundamental parts that make you 'you'. So, in reality, advancing in the fiendish ranks isn't a reward for you; you did all the hard work of suppressing your morality and such, but 'you' aren't gaining any reward for it. In fact, given that "mundane" sinners have their "self" left intact to be punished in the afterlife, advancing in those ranks is a greater punishment... the cessation of self in any meaningful context.
Maybe that person considers their soul being shredded to be the reward.
Except nothing of them is left to "enjoy" the reward. There are only very few exceptions to this. SOME souls do go straight into greater forms of demons and such. The vast majority, however, don't.
Except nothing of them is left to "enjoy" the reward. There are only very few exceptions to this. SOME souls do go straight into greater forms of demons and such. The vast majority, however, don't.
There's also nothing left of them to be tortured for infinity. If I were an Evil thing, and I knew that I eventually was gonna go through some garbage in Hell or the Abyss, I'd want to be destroyed before that happened.
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Souls that go to the evil planes aren't being sent there as a punishment. They're being sent there because they're evil. You go to whichever plane matches your personal ethos the best, because you'll fit in there I suppose.
Once you get there, nobody really cares about punishing or rewarding you for whatever you did in your last state of existence. It kind of looks like it from our perspective, because the evil planes are nightmarish and horrible, but that's not because they're set up as a punishment-- it's because EVERYONE THERE, including the deities that control the plane, IS EVIL.
Likewise, the good planes aren't set up to be good as a reward, but when EVERYONE on that plane of existence is good, you end up with a world where everybody gets along and helps each other out. There was no real conscious decision to reward the souls that go there-- they built their own reward.
So why do petitioners ascend through the ranks and become devils, or angels, or whatnot? I suspect it's for many of the same reason that people become rich, famous, and successful in our world. They worked hard, they made the best of their talents, they caught all the lucky breaks?
I would agree with what some have said above. In a polytheistic world your afterlife would be based on which god you follow and how well you followed their tenants. Gorum would elevate great warriors, while other gods might favor a pacifist whom the Lord in Iron would despise.
My own opinion is that in such a world the concept of punishment in the afterlife doesn't really fit. Whatever your world view there's basically some god who probably favors that way of thinking and so you'd join them in the afterlife. I suppose the only people who would be punished would be those who were devout followers of a god that they continually failed to follow in practice (and were therefore rejected upon death).
As far as the alignment system goes the terms "good" and "evil" are really misnomers as they don't really describe the meaning of the axis (the way lawful and chaotic do) but rather apply a judgment to it based on a morality system that doesn't necessarily exist in the game world. In theory an evil act is one that breaks your moral code but if your moral code is based on your gods theology then the term doesn't work universally (heck even defining a good and evil act in the real world can be problematic).
Anyway going back to the original question I would say evil deeds aren't rewarded but faithful following of one of many extremely different religious teachings are.
I guess people belive that because you do evil things for evil gods that they well be rewarded, but in that case why doesent everyone be evil. Fact
is its not true its even worse. Plus they can never be trusted there allways in for whats good for them.
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But a rare few evil souls survive their trials and transcend their wretched circumstances, becoming fiends with supernatural powers. A rare few retain their memories of their mortal life, and these are particularly prone to even further advancement.
They are not being rewarded.
They have the will to take and hold power.
but in that case why doesent everyone be evil.
Because leading a good life has its own rewards.
There's also a "punishment fit the crime" issue here.
If someone is an evil person for 100-ish years of life, how long should they suffer in some planar torture pit before it is payed off? Forever seems to be as unjust as no punishment at all.
Justice is a fleeting concept that is usually far too entwined with vengeance.
I see this as an interesting position. In many ways, I find that the mortal born fiends are in fact similar to the Asura, as in they are born from the mistakes of the gods. The power of demons, daemons, and devils comes from the fact that the system of the Great Beyond finds it acceptable to literally throw away the soles of the "unworthy" the unworthy as garbage. The inequality created by the expectation of perfect behavior, despite the relative lack of models to work off of in many places, is the greatest mistake possible.
So over all, their power is not a reward for their wickedness, but a punishment on the Gods for allowing them to fall into such depravity. this can be best seen, as The Drunken Dragon Pointed out, through the endless number of larvae that collect in the Abyss. Letting that much suffering collect in a chaotic realm in a reality where emotion has an observable physical effect on the universe is like storing toxic waste in leaky barrels next to a kindergarten. Something was bound to happen.
Even if you account for the various evil outsiders out there as a source of the messed up cosmology, most of those come from some horrible mistake by more neutral or good gods.
Along the lines that have been mentioned: though they have power they are never happy, they are never content, and they are never satisfied. Pain in some form is their constant companion and its never a pain they can become inured to.
Not necessarily related to above also consider that the hierarchy of Hell always makes the power gained never as they would have it. The lemures are beholden to a higher devil who is beholden to a still higher devil who are all bound to an Archduke who in turn are obliged to Asmodeus who himself has to contend with other dark powers,the combined forces of good, and free will. At the end of an eon he has to comfort himself with the idea that things might swing his way in time.
Also, surprised this hasn't turned into a flame war yet, but that's all i'm saying on that.
I think, if anything, the afterlife for evil creatures can be too awful. Some of the stuff in some of the books is so beyond pointless as to actually be counter-productive for the evil entities that control those planes/dominions/whatever. High Stupid Evil pollution in the content at times.
Isn't that the nature of sin and Samsara? That every great evil act and monstrous beast carries with it the very seeds of its destruction? The fact that demons feel the NEED to destroy everything that nice, and filled with puppies, and covered with rainbows says more about where they are psychologically than anything.
And think about Daemons. They are nihilists who believe that after everything they have ever experienced, the only answer is the complete and utter end of everything. The desire to kill the world is just a very round about way of saying that you want to kill yourself, but you are too scared to do it directly.