[RPG] Is casting the spell Blood Transcription an evil act

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A player of mine in a recent game of Pathfinder was playing a Lawful Neutral Magus and was about to drink blood from a fallen spellcaster to get his prepared spells for the day by using the spell Blood Transcription. This spell has the [Evil] descriptor, but my player mentioned he was Lawful Neutral and it's only an act of pragmatism to get more spells… Thus it's not "Evil" from an alignment perspective.

We argued for a while but his point was that it's act of pure pragmatism to get more spells. As a Lawful Neutral character, it's within the limits of his alignment. I thought it was simply evil and wrong and would earn an alignment change.

Is casting this spell evil either as a result of the [Evil] descriptor, the fact you drink someone's blood during it, or both? Is it reserved to evil spellcasters or can it trigger an alignment change for non-evil spellcasters?

Note: This question is about this spell, and shouldn't be taken as an invitation to debate alignment in general.

Best Answer

Is drinking blood Evil?

Even in the world of "objective morality" created by D&D alignment, drinking blood isn't necessarily Evil. Why? Animals drink blood. To them, it's just basic sustenance, no different from eating meat.

Once you attach a metaphysical component to the act, though — I am drinking your blood in order to steal your courage, for example, or feed on your very soul — then it rapidly becomes Evil.

These are the two basic poles. Everything in between, such as whether non-magical cannibalism between sentient beings is Evil, is pretty much up to the group. Generally, I'd go with this: if you think desecrating a dead body (not the spirit) is Evil, then most forms of blood-drinking should be as well; if you think desecrating a dead body is no different from breaking a lamp, then most forms of blood-drinking should be as well. Either way, it's not something to keep secret; get group buy-in about what the one right answer is, and proceed from there.

Is Blood Transcription Evil?

In the case of Blood Transcription, the answer is provided for you: the spell has the [Evil] tag, which is described as:

Evil: Spells that draw upon evil powers or conjure creatures from evil-aligned planes or with the evil subtype should have the evil descriptor.

So, the game is telling you that Blood Transcription is innately Evil. There's two ways to interpret this:

  1. Blood Transcription involves performing an action that's inherently spiritually violating, so it draws on Evil power to accomplish its effects.
  2. Blood Transcription is a spell based on Evil power, so it accomplishes its effect using some sort of Evil method (likely spiritual violation) .

Either way, using Blood Transcription spell is an act of Evil. The biggest difference is really whether you could create an analogous non-Evil spell using some alternate arcane force.

Note that merely committing an Evil act does not cause an alignment shift. Part of being Neutral is, as you said, the willingness to occasionally do Evil. In the world of D&D alignment, character committing "justified" Evil acts are still doing Evil. That's what supernatural objective morality is all about.

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