Is the desire to survive Evil if taken to the extreme?

[Tvtyrant]

Most things certainty.

But I think it is a hard sell to say 'Decency can be Evil if taken to extreme'.

The term Decency is highly unspecific. It is kind of like saying "good is evil when taken to extremes."

[Calthropstu]

Most things certainty.

But I think it is a hard sell to say 'Decency can be Evil if taken to extreme'.

When you start forcing "decency" onto others when your particular brand of it does not coincide with another's concept of it.

[Eldonauran]

When you start forcing "decency" onto others when your particular brand of it does not coincide with another's concept of it.

Indeed. In addition, if 'decency' would prevent you from taking a stand against something that you know is wrong, just to keep things 'nice and quiet and undisturbed', you help propagate evil. Evil is quite insidious like that. It will use the limitations and restrictions that Good often imposes upon itself to paralyze the other side and trap them in predictable actions. Good is often lead by charitable emotions and a willingness to sacrifice for others. Evil takes advantage of that and uses it as a weapon.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Most things certainty.

But I think it is a hard sell to say 'Decency can be Evil if taken to extreme'.

If you start imposing it on others through force, maybe. Though it's debatable whether that's still decency being evil or just imposing behavior on others being evil.

[Conradine]

Isn't this exactly the argument a lich uses? "I value my life more than all others. As such, it is proper for me to make sacrifices to prolong my own life."

I would say it's different to fear a violent death and the will to prolong unnaturally the life through black magic.

I would go as far as to say in some way it's the opposite. Becoming undead means dying, giving up life for something else.

[zinycor]

The thing is... If your character is willing to do ANYTHING to stay alive... Then that could lead it into doing evil things.

In fact if your character is willing to do ANYTHING in order to achieve something, that could end up with such character turning evil at any point.

[Seto]

Yeah, like others have said, taking survival to the extreme leads to doing Evil things. For example, that's how you become a Lich. Being ready to do *anything* so that you won't ever stop existing.

[Conradine]

Really, I don't think lichdom is about fear of death or will to live, I think it's all about intellectual hubris.
Being a lich is not being alive. No food, no beverage, no sex, no pleasurable things like a good perfume or the feeling of silk clothes... it's a mockery of life.

[Tvtyrant]

The thing is... If your character is willing to do ANYTHING to stay alive... Then that could lead it into doing evil things.

In fact if your character is willing to do ANYTHING in order to achieve something, that could end up with such character turning evil at any point.

Netheril had this as part of their story. Ioulam's Extension or Longevity, I forget the exact spell name, basically sucked years out of other people to add it to your own. Since the Netherse didn't believe Gods were real (they thought they were just very accomplished wizards) they rejected the notion that this was evil. Eventually when spells starting failing they switched over to Lichdom, which is much the same but now you are an unchanging monster instead of an unchanging person who acts like a monster.

[Seto]

Really, I don't think lichdom is about fear of death or will to live, I think it's all about intellectual hubris.
Being a lich is not being alive. No food, no beverage, no sex, no pleasurable things like a good perfume or the feeling of silk clothes... it's a mockery of life.

I agree that it can be about intellectual hubris, or hubris in general: believing that your activity, research, quest etc., is so important that it shouldn't end with your life. It should never end, in fact. But I'm pretty sure fear of death is the other possible big reason.
As Xykon said, "anything to avoid the Big Fire below". If you're the kind of person who's considering becoming a Lich, you're knowledgeable about the afterlife in general and you know what horrors likely await you in your afterlife, specifically. My CE Tiefling Magus character is thinking about it because he's fought very hard to kill, defy and escape the demons who created him ; he's pissed off powerful Abyssal entities, and more than anything else he's terrified of his soul going to the Abyss upon death to be tortured in their hands. Same thing with Voldemort in Harry Potter, who's an alternative kind of Lich, really (see especially his incorporeal form before Volume 4). He's ready to mutilate his own soul and live a half-life, a cursed life, in order to avoid true death. So what if undeath is a mockery of life? As long as you exist...

I wouldn't make that choice, mind you. I love sensual pleasures too much, and I recognize that the transience of life gives it worth. But I'm saying that people who are ready to do *anything* to avoid death are ready to condemn themselves to eternal unlife. I'd add that in my headcanon, that's the purpose of the mysterious "too Evil to contemplate" ritual: to shed your own humanity, break yourself, reach such depths of depravity that you deserve the cursed existence you sought.

[Crake]

Really, I don't think lichdom is about fear of death or will to live, I think it's all about intellectual hubris.
Being a lich is not being alive. No food, no beverage, no sex, no pleasurable things like a good perfume or the feeling of silk clothes... it's a mockery of life.

Except, you know, liches are casters, and can cast polymorph to go ahead and enjoy all those things. If your goal is simply to live forever, there's nothing stopping someone from becoming a lich, and then using an item or other means to permanently be reshaped into a living form. Then, if you get stabbed, your soul is still neatly tucked away in your phylactery, and you'll just reform again, change yourself into a living form, and rinse and repeat.

The term Decency is highly unspecific. It is kind of like saying "good is evil when taken to extremes."

Actually, decency is quite specific.... for any given culture/society. As Calthropstu said, if your society finds it acceptable to impose their beliefs on others, or hell, if your society/culture is just straight up evil, it may be considered rather "decent" to flay your slaves alive for disobeying your commands.

[Conradine]

Except, you know, liches are casters, and can cast polymorph to go ahead and enjoy all those things. If your goal is simply to live forever, there's nothing stopping someone from becoming a lich, and then using an item or other means to permanently be reshaped into a living form. Then, if you get stabbed, your soul is still neatly tucked away in your phylactery, and you'll just reform again, change yourself into a living form, and rinse and repeat.

If it was that easy...
why we don't see even a single lich doing that?

[GrayDeath]

Because Adventures seem to require the Intelligent but Dumb Undead Menace that is easily found and recocnized, but tough to defeat? ^^


Or,even easier, because most Adventure writers only ahve a very vageue Rules Knowledge.

[Eldonauran]

If it was that easy...
why we don't see even a single lich doing that?

Perhaps liches are simply that smart and don't reveal their secrets that easily, or they lose those desires after dying and coming back.

[Talakeal]

I personally see this is the difference between vampires and liches, vampires refuse to change and desperately cling to the past and to mortal pleasures, while liches think they have risen above their mortality and grow increasingly detached and more concerned with pushing themselves into a higher state of existence.

[zinycor]

If it was that easy...
why we don't see even a single lich doing that?

Mostly because they don't care about losing things like their humanity. And Hey, maybe some of them do.

[Calthropstu]

If it was that easy...
why we don't see even a single lich doing that?

There are a couple in anime that do. The lich in kono subarushii does precisely this. Ains in overlord also does similar using illusion magic on multiple occasions. As far as D&D cannon I think I remember a lich using shapechange on a couple occasions, I forget where though.

It is, however, very very possible. Plus, lichdom isn't the only path to immortality that is completely and utterly evil. True mind switch for example. You could theoretically live forever doing this, and is a very easy way to explain it away. Hell, you could even persuade a child to LET you do it and say "hey, he was willing. He wanted to be an adult so we swapped bodies. No take backs."

[PoeticallyPsyco]

If it was that easy...
why we don't see even a single lich doing that?

How would you know? You stab an ordinary villain, they die, and years later (if ever) you meet a completely different looking villain with oddly familiar vices and even speech patterns, who seems vaguely irritated upon seeing you for some reason. It only takes a few precautions to make this essentially a perfect crime.

[NontheistCleric]

Really, I don't think lichdom is about fear of death or will to live, I think it's all about intellectual hubris.
Being a lich is not being alive. No food, no beverage, no sex, no pleasurable things like a good perfume or the feeling of silk clothes... it's a mockery of life.

In a world where undead and constructs actually exist, though, the question of what 'life' ultimately means is a little more complex.

Setting aside the fact that some people really don't live for food, drink and sex, in a D&D world, there really are creatures whose existence doesn't include many of what could be called fleshly sensations. Although it's not 'life' per se, these creatures can be just as conscious as living creatures, with goals of their own and thoughts and feelings, both physical and emotional, that might seem alien to us, but are no less real for that. The exception might be mindless varieties, but hey, mindless life exists too. In some cases, they can even reproduce independently or spontaneously arise, and conversely, living creatures in D&D worlds can also be created whole-cloth from inanimate source material.

Clearly, there are some who consider the traits of undeath to be superior to life. No food, drink or sex, perhaps, but there's no sickness, no death, less pain and certainly none of those disgusting fluids that always come out at the most inconvenient times. Is it really hubris to simply have a preference?

In short, just because being a lich or any other kind of undead is different, that doesn't necessarily make it a less valid mode of existence, or a mockery of 'life'. It can be something entirely of its own.

[Conradine]

No food, no drink, no sex...
no sleep, the pleasure of losing yourself in a warm bed when tired...
no more feeling the warmth of sunrays on your skin...
no more the pungent breeze of an autumn evening...
no more soft fur of your cat to caress...
no more acrid smell of smoke in the fireplace...
no more soaped water in an hot bath...


nah, it's not life for me.

[Eldonauran]

No food, no drink, no sex...
no sleep, the pleasure of losing yourself in a warm bed when tired...
no more feeling the warmth of sunrays on your skin...
no more the pungent breeze of an autumn evening...
no more soft fur of your cat to caress...
no more acrid smell of smoke in the fireplace...
no more soaped water in an hot bath...


nah, it's not life for me.

You'd be surprised at what the primitive instinct we call "self-preservation" would attempt for just one moment of pained existence. I suspect that what you are calling 'life' is comfort and luxury.

[Particle_Man]

Well, there are people that would rather die than X, or would rather die than live like Y. So I assume there are people that would rather die than be evil.

[NontheistCleric]

No food, no drink, no sex...
no sleep, the pleasure of losing yourself in a warm bed when tired...
no more feeling the warmth of sunrays on your skin...
no more the pungent breeze of an autumn evening...
no more soft fur of your cat to caress...
no more acrid smell of smoke in the fireplace...
no more soaped water in an hot bath...


nah, it's not life for me.

Not for you, maybe, but the point is, it might be for others.

It might even be preferable to what you consider life for them, and so, why couldn't their seeking of an undead state simply be about fear of death?

[Malphegor]

I'd say it's probably against the natural flow of the universe since there's an Inevitable dedicated to taking down those who live too long or deny death (but no Inevitable dedicated to ensuring people live their full life, or resurrecting those who've been destroyed before their time...)

but you know what, screw Inevitables, they have one (a scorpion tank thing) whose whole existence is to ensure deserts are horrible places for life despite magic making it really easy to reverse desertification. The entire 'Lawful Hitman Robot To Fix Some Aspect of the Universe' thing ought to be scrapped by any sane super-wizard with a bag full of crazy tricks to play on Mechanus' minions.


Wait- that would imply that life and continued survival is Chaotic more than evil.

[Conradine]

I suspect that what you are calling 'life' is comfort and luxury.

You would call enjoying the sun, the breeze, a fireplace, a bed, a pet... "luxury"?
I've not said golden jewelry and champagne.

[NontheistCleric]

You would call enjoying the sun, the breeze, a fireplace, a bed, a pet... "luxury"?

Is it physically possible to live without those things? Then yes, they are luxuries.

By your definition, there are people in prison who are not alive and that clearly isn't true.

Moreover, undead can enjoy all those things you listed up there, and the living can hate them.

[Eldonauran]

You would call enjoying the sun, the breeze, a fireplace, a bed, a pet... "luxury"?
I've not said golden jewelry and champagne.

Yes. As NontheistCleric stated, they are not necessary for living. If you don't think they are luxuries, I would highly suggest some self-reflection and a re-calibration of how you view luxuries. That is just my personal opinion, after all. First world problems, and such.

[Covenant12]

I have been following this thread and read all of it. D&D has often been very inconsistent on undead = evil. In 3.5 alone there are multiple examples of non-evil and even outright good undead.

But to the OP's question, technically no. The desire to survive/desire to not die are not evil, and are a basic mammal/living trait.

The actions you choose based on that desire make you evil, or not. A lich goes fully evil to avoid death. This includes an evil act left as an exercise to the reader, but presumably worse than the assassin's "kill for no good reason" prerequisite.
I can't imagine anyone who doesn't have momentary lapses of anger or jealousy on occasion. What you choose to do based on them defines alignment.

[magic9mushroom]

Now it's not entirely clear how drow society manages to actually function - it seems to be dependent upon a combination of someone strong enough to intimidate all comers into never daring to take them on combined with extremely long lifespans, which is phenomenally unstable - but seeing as it at least theoretically exists that is the context in which actions have to be structured.

Drow of the Underdark says this:

By this point, some of you might be wondering how drow society has survived at all. How can a culture this sadistic, this prone to betrayal and infighting, this bereft of any legal or moral code, possibly last for more than a few generations without obliterating itself?

The truth is, it can’t. Drow society is absolutely and utterly nonviable. By all rights, it should have murdered itself into oblivion eons ago.

It is only the will of the goddess Lolth that prevents this circumstance from coming about.

Basically, Lolth allegedly micromanages everything via divine revelation (e.g. the "who to murder to pass your Test of Lolth for the year" thing) and occasionally intervention (e.g. "suddenly, you are eaten by spiders").

DotU is awful, though, so whether you choose to believe it is entirely up to you.

Really, I don't think lichdom is about fear of death or will to live, I think it's all about intellectual hubris.
Being a lich is not being alive. No food, no beverage, no sex, no pleasurable things like a good perfume or the feeling of silk clothes... it's a mockery of life.

Remember, OotS is inaccurate in its depiction of D&D liches. They have flesh, although it's withered. According to Libris Mortis' rules, their senses of taste and smell should be fine. Touch is ruined, though.

[hamishspence]

How much flesh a lich has depends entirely on the author.

Some liches in D&D splatbooks are called out as down to just a skeleton, no flesh at all.

So it's not inaccurate to have a fleshless, skeletal lich - it's just unusual.