# What Happens When Demons Die?



## Kyrail (Nov 16, 2004)

Forgotten Realms campaign here.

So, when a demon is on the Prime Material plane, and it is killed, what happens?  I understand that if it's a summoned creature it returns to its home plane and is restored.  Is there anything keeping demons from just plane shifting to the prime material plane and causing havoc, or is there something that impedes them?  You'd think if they were able a lot more demons would pour through the planes and cause a lot of havoc.

I've always tought of it like this... and maybe just run it this way.  Demons have to granted enterance to the Prime Material, and are not able to travel there on their own power.  For that they desperately want to get to the Prime and cause as much havoc as possible.  Portals, being summoned by mortals, pacts with higher powers are ways they could do this.

When a demon is killed in the Prime Material, he is not destroyed, but instead banished back to it's home plane, and banished from the planes for 100 years, unless they can find a way to circumvent it. 

Is there any canon rules for demon death, or do they normally just die and that's that?


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## TheEvil (Nov 16, 2004)

His subordinants hide the body, then tell everyone he's napping.    

Seriously though, if I recall correctly, they are indeed simply banished from the prime plane for some period of time.  However, I may well be channeling earlier editions.


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## fredramsey (Nov 16, 2004)

Just my 2 coppers...

I'm not sure if there is any current "official" rules, but I remember in the old days, demons (and devils), could only be truly destroyed on their home plane. If slain on the Prime Material, they could not come back for a year and a day. If killed on their home plane, they are forever destroyed.


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## Mercule (Nov 16, 2004)

Under those same guidelines, I believe fiends doubled their HD/HP on their home plane, too.


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## Kyrail (Nov 16, 2004)

So what do ya'll think.  Demons restricted to their home planes unless summoned or some other loop hole?

Otherwise I would think that the demon princes would just over run the prime in about a fort night.  Fits the encredibly powerful, but needs mortals to acomplish their plans shtick you normally associate with demons.


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## Rackhir (Nov 16, 2004)

Sepulchrave II's Story Hour(s) actually deal with this sort of topic quite a lot (Lady Despina's Virtue, The Heritic of Wyre, The Messialiance). They are compiled in this thread here  Tales of Wyre: The Compiled Sepulchrave Story Hour (updated 7/11)


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## Sammael (Nov 16, 2004)

My stance is that outsiders can only be permanently killed on their native planes. However, if they are destroyed on the Prime Material, it takes them quite a while to reform in full strength back on their home plane, which is why they are loath to visit the Prime in person (any encounters with an archfiend on the Prime are usually a result of him utilizing _astral projection_).

Outsiders killed on the outer planes other than their home plane reform quicker than if killed on the Prime.


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## shilsen (Nov 16, 2004)

Kyrail said:
			
		

> Is there any canon rules for demon death, or do they normally just die and that's that?




In 3e/3.5e, a demon slain on the Prime Material Plane is dead, unless it was _summoned_ (not called) there. And if it is _summoned_, then it is usually under the control of its summoner. So demons overrunning the Prime Material is not a problem any more. The whole bit with them only really being slayable on their home plane(s) is from former editions.


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## Shemeska (Nov 16, 2004)

If a fiend is permenantly killed its essence returns to and merges with the essence of its home plane.

As far as I know DnD has never actually stated the banished from the prime for a period of time thing, though I can think of a few novels that have used that convention. Most of the planar material pre-3e I can think of simply had the fiend killed on the prime material return to its home plane and slowly reform. Planescape had a wealth of material on the specifics of which fiends could be permenantly killed on which lower plane.


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## Kyrail (Nov 16, 2004)

Well, I'm pretty much gonna go with what I had written earlier.  It fits well into my planed story line, and its not going directly against any rules so I feel pretty comfortable about it.

100 years seems pretty good for a demon, and gives good plot hooks.  Great-Grandfather killed a demon... and now it's back for revenge, dun dun dun.


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## Zappo (Nov 16, 2004)

Shem has it; Planescape detailed lots of stuff that could happen, depending on the specific place of death and specific type of fiend, but in standard 3.X outsiders that are summoned always return to their plane and outsiders that are called always truly die. The location seems to be irrelevant.


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## Len (Nov 17, 2004)

Kyrail said:
			
		

> What Happens When Demons Die?



I get XP.

None of that other stuff matters.


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## Anton (Nov 17, 2004)

In PlaneScape i know that if a Demon or Devil was killed then it was demoted to a lesser form. Also in PlaneScape one reason there is not full-on war on every plane is that all the powers have somewhat of an agrement.


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## Alzrius (Nov 17, 2004)

If you don't mind using an older edition, check out the _Planescape_ product _Faces of Evil: The Fiends_. The book is worth its weight in gold in terms of examining fiendish life cycles, as well as societies, attitudes, etc. 99.9% of the book if fluff, not crunch, and it covered all off the tanar'ri, baatezu, and yugoloths...

...with the exceptions of the yagdoo and the gacholoth. Poor little guys got overlooked entirely!


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## Cthulhudrew (Nov 17, 2004)

I remember that Errtu the demon (pit demon, I think... or is he a Balor?) anyway, he was slain on the Prime by Drizzt in the Crystal Shard, and they made mention of the fact that he was not dead-dead, but merely banished from returning to the Prime for a century (he is able to get around that loophole later with a little bit of help from Lolth). 

As someone else pointed out, though, that was AD&D (not even 2nd Edition), so who knows if that still holds true or not in FR.


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## Sejs (Nov 17, 2004)

Important to note that if the creature in question is _summoned_ (rather than _called_), then it's a generic, average, non-unique individual member of that type, unless your game uses the Summoning Individual Monsters optional rule.

So with a _summoned_ demon, when it dies it just goes poof, discorporates and reforms, ready for use some time later.  If the demon in question has been _called_, then when it dies that's all she wrote - it's plain ol' regular style dead.


As for the Plane Shift and come right back part - check out the spell description.  Plane Shift isn't very accurate as for where you end up on the target plane: "Precise accuracy as to a particular arrival location on the intended plane is nigh impossible. From the Material Plane, you can reach any other plane, though you appear 5 to 500 miles (5d%) from your intended destination."  So at that point any outsider looking to pop right back into the thick of things would not only have to PS back to the Prime, but then probably Scry on the person they want to get at, then Teleport there before any havoc wreaking can begin.

And frankly, any outsider - demon or otherwise - that can bust out with those kind of resources at the drop of a hat _deserves_ to be able to be very hard to be rid of.  But this would be more for dealing with just banishing said outsider and assuming they're dealt with, rather than killing them. 


If you wanted some badass demons that you can't kill normally, and otherwise killing them just sends them home for a while to stew, maybe look into cooking up some demonic equivalent of a lich's phylacrity.  Takes care of some things rather handily, like not every rank and file demon being that invulnerable (unkillable lemures? bleh), killing them just sending home (body reforms at phylacrity, which is in hell somewhere), and having to kill them on their home plane in order to keep them down for good (gotta destroy their phylacrity, which coincidentally is back home).


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## Trickstergod (Nov 17, 2004)

I also seem to recall that in earlier editions, back when demons still had types, it was only the higher numbered sorts that actually reformed, whereas the weaker ones were simply killed and that was that. 

A method I'm more inclined to use, personally. It might be all well and good for a pit fiend to reform, but a bunch of lemures, manes, nupperibo and the like should just be gone when given the axe. The entire reforming thing is something I probably wouldn't extend even to pit fiends; I'd just leave it to those demons who have ascended from being any fiend type and essentially become a unique being (like most archfiends).


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## Olibarro (Nov 17, 2004)

I'd have to read my books again, but I thought part of it had to do with the _method_ used to travel the planes. Plane hopping methods that involve traveling the Astral Plane involve leaving behind your real body and reconstituting a new body from the substances of any visited plane. Thus if your new body dies, you generally just wake up in you original body.

If you travel physically from place to place, you are then killable no matter where you are, but you have the advantage of not leaving behind the vulnerable empty shell or the telltale silver cord.

I understand that demons and other Outsiders might work under different rules, but I always assumed it was similar to this dichotomy. It's the difference between going there and simply projecting there.


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## Whisper72 (Nov 17, 2004)

Rules as per MMI (1st Edition):

Demons are able to move from their own plane into those of Tarterus, Hades or Pandemonium or roam the astral. However, they cannot enter the material plane without aid (conjuration, gate or by name speaking or similar means)

Than on death it sais:

Demons of type V and above are not actually slain when their material form is killed in combat; their material form being removed from their use, the demon in question is thereby forced back to the plane whence it originally cam, there to remain until a century has passed or until another aids it to go forth again.


Hope that helps somewhat...


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## David Howery (Nov 18, 2004)

I was going to say that they are banished to our world and become lawyers, but I suppose the earlier answers are likely to be the right ones....


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## Shemeska (Nov 18, 2004)

Olibarro said:
			
		

> I'd have to read my books again, but I thought part of it had to do with the _method_ used to travel the planes. Plane hopping methods that involve traveling the Astral Plane involve leaving behind your real body and reconstituting a new body from the substances of any visited plane. Thus if your new body dies, you generally just wake up in you original body.




I've pulled this trick on my PCs before. I had a minor archfiend astrally projecting from Carceri. While on the astral she hopped into a color pool back to the Gray Waste to manifest a surrogate corporeal body there and promptly planeshifted that new form to where she faced the PCs. With some losses they defeated her, only to have her wake up in Carceri and repeat the trick minutes later as she planeshifted back in, slowly clapping to congratulate them.

*grins at the rat bastardry*


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