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Remember, you can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Are you sure that he's actually evil?
I... pretty sure, yes. When I say he and my gnome had evil laugh sessions, I mean they LITERALLY had evil laugh sessions, with the cleric saying "Yeeees, the regular flock might not understand this, but alone we may LAAAAUGH! MWAHAHAHAHA!" And the DM and I did evil laughs for about 30 seconds. I mean, it was played up for laughs, but there's that.
He also was literally peddling contracts to Hell wherein your soul goes there when you die. That's what Asmodean clergy do.
He also tried rather enthusiastically to get my gnome to sacrifice his pet rat. Because that's how you show true devotion, see: murdering something precious to you. And he was overjoyed at the idea of sacrificing a favorite teddy bear because that was clearly a sacrifice of "innocence."
Between that and some other stuff, I got some pretty serious evil pinging on my radar. And again: the gnome never intended to get him killed, only to bring down an institution of evil through mockery and perhaps mean-spirited pranks.
(Other villains have been played in much less MWAHAHAHAHA ways - but this guy was hammed up pretty good.)
I... pretty sure, yes. When I say he and my gnome had evil laugh sessions, I mean they LITERALLY had evil laugh sessions, with the cleric saying "Yeeees, the regular flock might not understand this, but alone we may LAAAAUGH! MWAHAHAHAHA!" And the DM and I did evil laughs for about 30 seconds. I mean, it was played up for laughs, but there's that.
This is.... hilarious. And amazing.
I... pretty sure, yes. When I say he and my gnome had evil laugh sessions, I mean they LITERALLY had evil laugh sessions, with the cleric saying "Yeeees, the regular flock might not understand this, but alone we may LAAAAUGH! MWAHAHAHAHA!" And the DM and I did evil laughs for about 30 seconds. I mean, it was played up for laughs, but there's that.This is.... hilarious. And amazing.
It was one of the silliest roleplaying moments I've experienced and I enjoyed it immensely.
It sort of pales to what happened later (y'know, throwing a dung-stuffed teddy bear with an unholy text inside into the bonfire), and it definitely felt opposite of the suddenly VERY serious mood when the cleric's brainbox took a turn down Crazy Train Lane. But I enjoyed it a lot.
EDIT: It was also an oddly important scene. My bard asked the cleric if he could have more texts to study in preparation for the big Asmodean pow wow, and while the cleric was fetching unholy things for him to read the gnome used Mage Hand to steal his contract from behind the cleric's desk and slip it into my robes. Y'know, so he could feed it to his dire rat later to undo the bad juju.
I just want to chime in with kudos for your and your GM carrying this through in Emerald Spire, which is pretty devoid of roleplaying opportunity encounters within Ft. Inevitable (as written). I am not sure the hanging was in order given what had happened, but that would just have been my call.
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The plan as your character planned it was unarguably chaotic good. If everything had gone as planned, no one would have been hurt, and the church would have been knocked down a few pegs. Intent's important to keep in mind.
Then the dude made a sharp left turn and did something so stupid that he got himself killed. Not planned, but still a positive event for good, since that freed many people who were being coerced into literally going to Hell. Many chaotic good characters would have just killed him outright, and still achieved a net gain, despite being more questionable in methods, but your character used nonviolence to bring down an evil church.
That's a magnificent play of chaotic good, right there.
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This is so far off the mark from anything I was saying that I'm not even going to bother trying to explain myself any further. I'll just bow out of this thread now.Inlaa, and dont be discouraged by some of the answers you get here. Some confuse real life morality with game alignment.
Some would even argue that you cant attack unless attack first and since looking for trouble is instigating, you basically cant play D&D.
Those are their opinions, but consider what the game is designed for.
Did i use your name or quote you?
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Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
A good aligned person is much less likely to turn on his own congregation and try to kill them.
That is what got him hanged.
The cleric of Asmodeus should have sough legal recourse for a range of illegal actions undertaken by the bard, including theft, destruction of property, heresy, etc.
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The cleric of Asmodeus should have sought legal recourse for a range of illegal actions undertaken by the bard, including theft, destruction of property, heresy, etc.
Alignment violation by the cleric of Asmodeus! He falls!
Early on my gnome was short on cash and so fake-signed a contract to Asmodeus to get a discount on some services, blah blah blah, generally hatching a plot to make a mockery of the Asmodean church at some point.
See, that line right there is why I would say that this WAS an evil act and that you should begin taking alignment hits towards Chaotic Neutral (you aren't there yet, but this was a step in that direction).
Why? Because YOU intentionally and premeditatedly chose to steal from and attack a church that is going about its business without bothering you or anyone else.
The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.
This cleric of Asmodeus did not seek out to recruit you - YOU went to HIM because you wanted to take his money under false pretenses. Then, rather than being grateful that you got free money for your lies, you turned around and got him killed for the trouble of being nice to you.
Your character was selfish, stole, and cruelly harmed someone who did nothing to him. That's textbook evil.
CG Trickster characters do this sort of things to the villains who have done them harm.
CN trickster characters do this to random bystanders.
And on the whole "it's D&D, you kill evil things" - yes, when they are hurting others you do. This guy was not - he was offering handouts to the poor (in exchange for their souls, yes, but then there are plenty of "good" religions that do the exact same thing).
Edit: For disclosure, I will say that I absolutely hate this sort of character. Tricksters characters have almost always been pure poison to party dynamics and trust in games I have run/played in, and I loathe "kender" types because of it. So I am not unbiased on this point.
I would rather have a Lawful Evil character in a party than a trickster of any alignment.
The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff covered by that "etc" that is inconsistent with the word 'good'.
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The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.I feel like there's a lot of stuff covered by that "etc" that is inconsistent with the word 'good'.
Like the part where the Asmodean Divine Obedience involves cutting into the flesh of an unwilling sentient being and then draining the blood into a bowl made from the skull of another sentient being...
Yeah. Not sure how one can make the case that the Church of Asmodeus is "one of the good guys" in the Pathfinder setting. At best one could try the old "I'm 'lawful efficient', see it says L.E. right there" dodge, but it's a long way from torture and maiming to 'good guy'.
The Church of Asmodeus is not *remotely* one of the 'good guys'. They're an evil faith that wrote the book on being evil without disrupting civilized society, and some followers are just in it for the sense of order, yes. But their creed is theocratic fascism, they prop up the most tyrannical regime in the Inner Sea, they practice human sacrifice, advocate for slavery, conduct book burnings, and convince their congregants to sell their souls into *eternal torment in Hell.* That is a long, long, *long* way from 'not bothering anyone' or being a 'random bystander', and basically the antithesis of being 'the good guys'
Pretty much.Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. There are different degrees of "evil". You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil". Does that person deserve to die? Is it okay for someone to murder them because they're evilly-aligned? IMO - absolutely not.
TL;DR You can't just boil down complex moral issues by saying its okay to do bad things to bad people.
With that said, the OP's example is not evil. It's scandalous, chaotic and troublesome... but he didn't commit an act of evil. (Also it could be argued that a cleric of an evil god is akin to an intrinsically evil being, and thus is fair game!)
I don't see an alignment problem in the situation. But if you (the OP) start to act that way as a general trend, I can see a shift toward Chaotic Neutral. If the motivation had been to bring down a corrupt or evil priest, I'd say that it's perfectly fair game for a CG character to manufacture scandals. It's only the fact that it was done for relatively selfish reasons, for the personal monetary value, that I'd even consider the trend to be away from good and toward neutrality.
That said, as I implied, one act won't do it. But make it a trend and then maybe it should shift because your alignment should reflect your general behavior.
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There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times.
Wait, people/creatures are only deserving of punishment WHILE they are doing evil things?
So when the group of good adventurers encounters the BBEG torturing a prisoner, and he stops torturing them to address the PC's, can they no longer attack/punish him because he's not currently being evil, he's only talking.
There are different degrees of "evil". You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil". Does that person deserve to die? Is it okay for someone to murder them because they're evilly-aligned? IMO - absolutely not.
I think this person would not deserve to die, but that has nothing to do with his good/evil alignment, but because what you discribe is a lack of obedience to laws, not evil acts. This would be a Chaotic Character, nothing here describes anything even partially evil.
TL;DR You can't just boil down complex moral issues by saying its okay to do bad things to bad people.
With that said, the OP's example is not evil. It's scandalous, chaotic and troublesome... but he didn't commit an act of evil. (Also it could be argued that a cleric of an evil god is akin to an intrinsically evil being, and thus is fair game!)
In this system to be "Evil" you have to generally have done more evil than good. Thus to kill an evil character would be to remove a creature that generally tends to do evil things.
While anytime you kill a creature you take away their future. An evil Creature could very well spend the rest of its life doing good to make amends for it's past. Thus they could eventually reach a good alignment. This of course would not be possible had it been killed for being evil. But as that action could be morally acceptable because it was killing/punishing a creature for what it had already done, not for what it may do in the future. There really is no mechanic in place to say that, generally a good creature killing an evil one did anything wrong.
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil"...
Not in D&D. Evil Monsters are there to be killed. That's the game.
There are other games with shades of grey. This isnt one of them.
and that "hardened street rat" wouldnt detect as evil, and in most medieval societies the penalty for repeated theft is death. Or worse.
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There can be as many shades of grey of you want to put in it.
And if evil creatures are only put there for killing them, why do we have a goddess of redemption?
Early on my gnome was short on cash and so fake-signed a contract to Asmodeus to get a discount on some services, blah blah blah, generally hatching a plot to make a mockery of the Asmodean church at some point.See, that line right there is why I would say that this WAS an evil act and that you should begin taking alignment hits towards Chaotic Neutral (you aren't there yet, but this was a step in that direction).
Why? Because YOU intentionally and premeditatedly chose to steal from and attack a church that is going about its business without bothering you or anyone else.
The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.
This cleric of Asmodeus did not seek out to recruit you - YOU went to HIM because you wanted to take his money under false pretenses. Then, rather than being grateful that you got free money for your lies, you turned around and got him killed for the trouble of being nice to you.
Your character was selfish, stole, and cruelly harmed someone who did nothing to him. That's textbook evil.
CG Trickster characters do this sort of things to the villains who have done them harm.
CN trickster characters do this to random bystanders.
And on the whole "it's D&D, you kill evil things" - yes, when they are hurting others you do. This guy was not - he was offering handouts to the poor (in exchange for their souls, yes, but then there are plenty of "good" religions that do the exact same thing).
Edit: For disclosure, I will say that I absolutely hate this sort of character. Tricksters characters have almost always been pure poison to party dynamics and trust in games I have run/played in, and I loathe "kender" types because of it. So I am not unbiased on this point.
I would rather have a Lawful Evil character in a party than a trickster of any alignment.
None of what you've said here makes sense.
Asmodeus is a Lawful Evil deity (which I will iterate is the opposite alignment of the OP's PC), saying that he's one of the Good guys is just demonstrably false, for starters. Secondly, a Lawful Evil deity very easily skirts the rules for his own twisted purposes, so suggesting that Asmodeus is about law and order is just a facade that lures fools in.
Simplifying a goal into an introductory sentence (and then following it up with a more concise explanation) isn't exactly Evil, nor does it make what he did Evil. Using the subjects that an enemy accentuates to result in their downfall isn't an Evil act. By that logic, anyone who fights Fire with Fire, in all senses of the phrase, is Evil, and that's just a silly comparison.
Stealing from Evil to better prepare himself against an obvious enemy and reduce any risk of innocent casualties isn't Evil, and is actually something I'd suspect a Paladin would (at least indirectly) do. You don't have to play stupid or reactive to a situation to play Good (or Lawful), and requiring people to play that way is just bad GMing and a bad interpretation of the Good and Lawful alignments.
The bad guy got himself killed for not adhering to and going against the very laws that he maintains and emphasizes, something which you apparently think Asmodeus does (which, in truth, only does as long as the contract obviously and specifically says so). If anything, that's a blunder on the GM's part more than anything, since a true Asmodeus Cleric would use the guards to throw the PC into jail. But, because the Cleric broke rules of his own, he screwed himself, and the only thing the PC did was make it quite clear to the guards that the Cleric screwed up.
Tricksters don't technically need to have a reason to do anything (which is what makes them Chaotic), but what makes them Good or Evil are the results of what they've done (sparing hundreds of innocent lives from going to Hell in their afterlife? Sounds like a Good act to me).
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil"...
Not in D&D. Evil Monsters are there to be killed. That's the game.
There are other games with shades of grey. This isnt one of them.
and that "hardened street rat" wouldnt detect as evil, and in most medieval societies the penalty for repeated theft is death. Or worse.
and let's remember that most sentient evil "by choice" humanoids and monsters (kobolds goblins, orcs, evil giants and dragons etc) are usually backed by/worshipers of deities whose evil is, since they are deities, absolute, so, in ways, they are beyond redemption with very rare exceptions, so slaughtering a whole tribe, including the famales and imps should be no grounds for a paladin to fall.
There can be as many shades of grey of you want to put in it.
And if evil creatures are only put there for killing them, why do we have a goddess of redemption?
For the damn few exceptions to the rule I just enounced... or mainoly for members of the fair races that happen to fall into evil by mistake and circumstances, but are not evil cultists.
For worshipers of the likes of Zon Kuthon, Urgathoa, lamashtu or Rovagug, redemption is only to be found in swift, hard, trenchant steel and flame.
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil"...
Not in D&D. Evil Monsters are there to be killed. That's the game.
There are other games with shades of grey. This isnt one of them.
and that "hardened street rat" wouldnt detect as evil, and in most medieval societies the penalty for repeated theft is death. Or worse.
Yes we are playing a game, and yes many games turn to "murder-hobo theatre" from time to time, but for me - killing everything because it got in my way or because they're of a "bad" race is the way we RPd when we were 12. I disagree with your assessment. You are not the arbiter of "what D&D is." Like me, you're entitled to your opinion on in-game morality, but it is silly dismiss others' desire to address morality in their/our games as "NOT in D&D".
Wait, people/creatures are only deserving of punishment WHILE they are doing evil things?
That's not really what I said or implied but I can see how you gathered that from my ill-worded thought.
I think this person would not deserve to die, but that has nothing to do with his good/evil alignment, but because what you discribe is a lack of obedience to laws, not evil acts. This would be a Chaotic Character, nothing here describes anything even partially evil.
Stealing is evil. Taking the fruits of someone else's labor is evil. That shouldn't be up for debate, but alas...
In this system to be "Evil" you have to generally have done more evil than good. Thus to kill an evil character would be to remove a creature that generally tends to do evil things.
While anytime you kill a creature you take away their future. An evil Creature could very well spend the rest of its life doing good to make amends for it's past. Thus they could eventually reach a good alignment. This of course would not be possible had it been killed for being evil. But as that action could be morally acceptable because it was killing/punishing a creature for what it had already done, not for what it may do in the future. There really is no mechanic in place to say that, generally a good creature killing an evil one did anything wrong.
Your first paragraph illustrates well the silliness of how we are forced to gauge good/evil in our games. It also demonstrates how silly the very idea of a rigid "alignment" is, but it is a time-honored game mechanic and thus here we are talking about it.
Your second paragraph is spot on. It is a much better way to explaining what I poorly explained when I said "Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times."
The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.
LOL!
You were making good points until I read this line. One of the good guys?? Hitler, Stalin, and Mao also heavily emphasized law and maintaining order while collectively being responsible for nearly 100 million dead.
Asmodeus is by definition one of the bad guys. His church spreads order in the most evil ways possible, and stands in direct contravention to the good guys.
@ Zedth: Stealing being Good or Evil depends on what the purpose of the stealing is for. Robin Hood is a prime example of stealing done for Good reasons (stealing from the rich to give to the unfortunate poor in an attempt to make their existence more livable), whereas most typical bandits who steal (and in most every case, do more than just steal) for their own selfish gains, and is a prime example of stealing that is Evil.
In the OP's case, it's more like Robin Hood, since his "theft's" and follow-up endeavors resulted in liberating coerced innocents from going to Hell, and caused a front of obvious soul-signing contracts to collapse upon itself, something which most people would say is a Good thing to have happened.
Yes we are playing a game, and yes many games turn to "murder-hobo theatre" from time to time, but for me - killing everything because it got in my way or because they're of a "bad" race is the way we RPd when we were 12. I disagree with your assessment. You are not the arbiter of "what D&D is." Like me, you're entitled to your opinion on in-game morality, but it is silly dismiss others' desire to address morality in their/our games as "NOT in D&D".
No one is espousing Murder hoboing or killing something because it got in their way. Some few do play murderhobos, killing random peasants, beggars, shopkeepers and other NPCs. That's not part of the game.
But the game sets up certain foes as just that- foes. You are expected to defeat them ,other wise you dont continue or die.
Collecting $2000 for rent on Boardwalk and driving your little sister into bankruptcy is not moral- except of course during a game of Monopoly.
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Too many people are confusing law with good. What the character did was unlawful without doubt, but not evil.
Part of the problem is most people want consider themselves good. Many people who are neutral on the good vs evil axis probably think of themselves as good. If you consider yourself good then logically things you oppose are evil. To the lawful neutral person the chaotic neutral person is evil. After all they are engaging in the “evil” act of breaking the law.
The lawful neutral person will actually agree with and support lawful evil over good. Zelgadas Greyward post is probably the most striking example of this. Anyone who considers Asmodeous as one of the good guys does not understand what good really is.
A chaotic good character does not give a rat’s ass about breaking the law. They will not steal food from a starving person, or from someone who needs the money. They will steal from someone who they think has too much, or is hurting other people. A wealthy cleric of a lawful evil deity is a fair target for a chaotic good character. The character actually went out of his way to verify the priest was actually evil, not just a lawful neutral worshiper of a lawful evil deity
And actually, everything got so messed up because the cleric reacted as only an evil character would have.
Did the gnome actually coerce or force the cleric to act like he did? No, he did everything on his own will. Would a neutral or good person react like the cleric did? Not probably. Even if the gnome pushed him, it was the cleric who decided to do what he did.
The gnome here is trying to destabilize an evil organization and things just go too far. He probably didn't evwn expect that outcome nor it wanted to come out that way.
I don't see how the gnome's actions could be evil. Chaotic? Of course. Wise? Difficult to judge. Evil? Definitely not.
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I think part of the problem is the cleric did not act as a Lawful character would have. In such a town the Hellknights would have almost invariably sided with the cleric without overwhelming evidence otherwise. The cleric should not have freaked out and went nutso on the gnome, as there are much more fitting punishments than just attacking him. And even if he did, he would have been seen in the right in the views of a Hellknight.
Furthermore, he only needed a good lawyer such as myself. Praise be the Prince of Law.
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I feel the fact that someone is arguing that Robin Hood, the guy who Steals From The Rich and Gives To The Poor, the almost textbook Chaotic Good, is actually Lawful Neutral says a lot about the futility of alignment discussions in general.
I'm not even saying you're wrong. I disagree, but I can see where you are coming from. Just... the extreme difference in interpretation here...
Zelgadas Greyward stated a preference for having a Lawful Evil PC in the party instead of a trickster. I find this interesting since one of the PCs I play is moving ever closer to Lawful Evil while also becoming more of a trickster. This is due to the fact that he's been wearing a literal Pit Fiend skull as a horned helmet and it has begun to influence him (obviously RP stuff and advice from the DM here - no rules I know of exist for what happens if you wear a devil skull as a helmet)
Anyhow, in a recent session we slew an Evil dragon and hid a powerful Chaotic relic in its lair, hiding the fact that the dragon is gone with help from an NPC mage. The relic might destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands, so I guess you could call all that Good. We also made an imitation of the relic and delivered it to a bunch of Lawful aligned Moon Giants to guard though. My PC bluffed them into believing it was the real item, warned them about the potential dire and Chaotic consequences which could befall if it weren't carefully guarded, and kind of bribed their possibly LE leader by promising to bring him a powerful Lawful Evil grimoire which could potentially be used to summon Asmodeus (not sure yet if we'll keep the bargain or not)
That's pretty deceitful, but the potentially Evil part is that my PC knew that a nearby cult led by a Mythic red dragon will almost certainly find out that the giants allegedly have the relic and start an all out war with them to take it. This should help distract the dragon cult, which is one of the groups seeking the relic, from the item's real hiding place. My PC is a Viking who rather likes the idea of tricking giants (much as the giants often trick the Norse gods). The party also has a Ranger with giants as her favored enemy. The idea of causing the giants to have a needless war which weakens both them and the red dragon cult greatly amuses us. The ranger involved is currently Chaotic Good though. I wonder if I might end up dragging her down the dark path to Neutral and possibly beyond...(right now my character sheet says Neutral)
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Sounds like a very chaotic good act. I'd say the cleric would be in more doo-doo with his god than you for not making sure you used your proper name and everything. Remember Cayden Calien goes out of his way to f$~% with "mody" all the time.
Also maybe your bard should start referring to Asmodeus as "Mody", because it is still tweaking the Devil's nose.
Overall it doesnt seem to be either, mostly a chaotic way to deal with a problem really, you fooled everyone you could, broke every rule you could and proceeded to get unpunished for it all in the end, so i can see why your DM didnt change your alig over this.
I certanly wouldnt name it good at all, well unless that cleric was murdering people in his free hours.
Now if your GM could have had the cleric instead seek far more... interesting ways to get back at you, which involves plans and actual treachery, depends on how he was creating that NPC. I agree with others that directly atcking you appears to be a waste of an opportunity for which could have become a going foward and backward trade of more indirect blows. Pity that NPC wasnt a bit more cool headed.
The way I see it, your gnome tricked and humiliated a Evil cleric (who worshiped a Evil god) who was trying to make you do a Evil thing. And in the process of it, you took an LE church down a peg and even get off scot free. In a way, it's kinda fairytale-esque, when you think about it: An Evil cleric tries to get one over on a (seaming) naïve young hero, only to be tricked in turn. There's even a moral about pride and underestimating opponents in there.
Also, I don't really have an issue with the LE cleric's actions. You burned his holy book, made a mockery of his religion, and worst of all, made him look like a fool in front of his congregation. That's a straight-up called shot to the pride right there. And considering his "I'VE GOT YOU NOW MY PRETTY! HAHAHAHA!!!" tendencies, suddenly turning into a cold, calculating Count of Monte Cristo would have been weird. At least, weird if he did it right at that moment.
"After being plagued by some powerful, unknown foe who seemed to have unlimited financial and political power, clues lead you to an old grave of an old foe. Digging through the packed earth, you think of how he promised revenge on you and all of the village who laughed with you. About how he didn't seem to die... 'right'. You think of how you returned to the village on a hunch you got from a dream, only to find the fate of its citizens the stuff of nightmares. You open the coffin, finding not a corpse of a long dead cleric, but a stuffed bear. The bear is missing a button that was his eye, and has stains and tears from use. And in its paws is a note. The note is written in Infernal, and the ink is red. Still wet. The note is for you; you're the only one it could be for. All it says is 'You signed a contract. And I will collect what is owed.' And then you feel a cold hand on your shoulder, its boney fingers digging into your flesh. A voice, gravely with age and full of hate, crawls inside your ears and festers inside your brain.
'The owner of that bear was about your size. The tortures of Hell are nothing in comparison to what I did to him. To you, I will do far worse.'"
Or you know, whatever.