by Neal Banks

Created on: April 18, 2008

If you look up Satanic, you'll find the following three definitions:

1.) Related to or showing typical signs of Satanism
2.) suggestive of Satan or the devil
3.) evil, fiendish, devilish or diabolical

Let's work back from the last one first, in order.

First and foremost, Dungeons and Dragons among other things promotes some rather violent and evil behavior. Being at its core a role-playing game, one of the principal mechanics that drive game play is the use of something called alignment. Alignment, as defined in the context of the game, is a definition of a character's moral and ethical beliefs. Within that context, a character can be good or evil, lawful or chaotic or even neutral. All these terms are defined within the game rather clearly, with players given the choice of playing a character that is either heroic or villainous. Many, many options are given for both alternatives, and they are various and sundry.

The villainous options are quite prolific: not the least of which are character classes such as the Assassin, the Black Guard, the Acolyte of the Skin and the Diabolist. The Assassin is a murderer for hire as the name suggests, and has an alignment prerequisite (which is to say that the player must choose said alignment for the character upon character creation) of evil. The Black Guard is an unholy knight which in many ways is the antithesis of a holy knight or paladin, and also has a prerequisite of evil alignment. The Acolyte of the Skin is a character class in which the character must physically bond with a fiend (demon, devil, etc.) and take on physical characteristics of the creature bonded with. The Diabolist class is one in which the character worships a powerful patron fiend in exchange for dark eldritch power and magic, and involves pledging the character's soul to the patron fiend (a soul contract).

I think from that you could qualify definition number three: evil, fiendish, devilish or diabolical.

Among two of these classes you might make note of strong demonic and devilish influences. You would be correct: as a matter of fact, there are many, many devils and demons to choose from in Dungeons and Dragons. Devils, demons and the like are all lumped into one category within the game, called fiends. Fiends also include other supernatural evil creatures from the lower planes, such as Hell, Hades, The Abyss and Gehenna. Within such books as the Monster Manual (which is a book dedicated to providing the Dungeon Master antagonists for the players to overcome)

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