# Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss



## shaylon

Well I have a title thanks to Amazon!  Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss  has Erik Mona and James Jacob listed as authors.  I am guessing this was the super secret project mentioned by Erik and others in earlier posts.  I can't freaking wait!  Summer 2006 cannot get here fast enough.  I know with these two at the helm it promises to be a great book.

-Shay


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## qstor

Awesome...this looks great!

Mike


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## NexH

Fiendish Codex *I* ?? These are great news!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

Sounds like a response to Green Ronin's fiend books.


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## Voadam

So Draconomicon, Librum Mortiss, and Lords of Madness series for demons?


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## Evilhalfling

so obviously devils will be II 
dare we hope for 'loths  as III ?
sweetness abounds.
I and III would be must haves for me, a devils codex will depend on the reviews.


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## Erik Mona

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Sounds like a response to Green Ronin's fiend books.




I hear their Abyss one was pretty good.

--Erik


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## Shemeska

*Doing a stylish and happy, yet evil dance*



			
				Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> so obviously devils will be II
> dare we hope for 'loths  as III ?




Yugoloths need a book. Nay, demand a book. I need 2e 'loth goodness brought into 3.5.

I only worry that they'll go 1e and emphasize CE and LE at the expense of NE, and perhaps minimize the Yugoloth material from 2e/Planescape.

Still, this is going pre-order likely.


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## Shemeska

So.... Erik... is this book going to be mostly about the Tanar'ri, or will it also cover some of the non-Tanar'ri fiends in the Abyss? Ie. will we see some handling of the Varrangoin/Abyssal Bats and their former layer spanning empires destroyed by the Tanar'ri? 

Will we see material on the Bebeliths (and perhaps their hinted nature as manifestations of the collective guilt of the Abyss at its own nature?)

Perhaps something on the non-Abyss origin of the first Tanar'ri and their subsequent obliteration of whatever, if anything, was there previous to their arrival?


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## Alzrius

I'm very excited by this work, but I just know that demon lords themselves aren't going to be heavily focused on. Between the BoVD and "The Demonomicon of Iggwilv" articles, they seem like they'd get a lesser focus (and I'm somewhat dubious about the fact that Erik Mona seems to take an active dislike for the _Planescape_ demon lords, such as Pale Night).

Still, this promises to be an awesome book, and I'm already sold on it. Here's hoping we finally see a 3E molydeus!


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## shaylon

Shemeska said:
			
		

> So.... Erik... is this book going to be mostly about the Tanar'ri, or will it also cover some of the non-Tanar'ri fiends in the Abyss? Ie. will we see some handling of the Varrangoin/Abyssal Bats and their former layer spanning empires destroyed by the Tanar'ri?
> 
> Will we see material on the Bebeliths (and perhaps their hinted nature as manifestations of the collective guilt of the Abyss at its own nature?)
> 
> Perhaps something on the non-Abyss origin of the first Tanar'ri and their subsequent obliteration of whatever, if anything, was there previous to their arrival?




Erik has been pretty quiet on this one.  In fact if I wasn't so excited when I saw it I would not have posted it.  I think he is obligated to keep quiet about exactly what it will be about.  For now.  When he is ready, or able to, I am sure he will speak about it.  I hope this post generates some positive buzz though, and I know that I for one will preorder this as soon as I can.

-Shay


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## Knight Otu

Yep, as I remember, employees may not talk about books until they appear in the WotC catalog (including confirming their existence). So don't count on Erik spilling any beans. Yet.

Also, the obligatory YAY!


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## James Jacobs

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Yep, as I remember, employees may not talk about books until they appear in the WotC catalog (including confirming their existence). So don't count on Erik spilling any beans. Yet.




Well said, Knight Otu. At this point there are no beans to spill.


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## MerricB

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Well said, Knight Otu. At this point there are no beans to spill.




What James and Erik aren't saying is that *they* didn't write the book.

In fact, they acted as channels to a Demon Prince, who told them what to write, but left them with only vague and uncertain memories as to what was in the manuscript the submitted to Wizards. 

Cheers!


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## Angel Tarragon

Interesting that it is listed for Canada but not the US.


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## Pants

James Jacobs and Erik Mona as the authors... awesome. 

Plus, the possibility of one covering Devils, 'loths/daemons, and 'leths/demodands is truly enticing.


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## DaveMage

Good eyes, Shaylon!!!!!


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## MerricB

Frukathka said:
			
		

> Interesting that it is listed for Canada but not the US.




It's there:
US Amazon

Cheers!


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## DaveMage

Only 160 pages??? 

Bah!!!!

Should be at least 288.


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## Knight Otu

Frukathka said:
			
		

> Interesting that it is listed for Canada but not the US.



For some odd reasons, amazon.ca seems a bit faster in those things. But Amazon listings tend to be accurate (not always - the DMG II was originally said to be part of a "race builder" series, or something like that).

And to amend my previous statement, don't count on either Erik or James to spill any beans.  (to prevent that James feels left out)


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## Pants

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Only 160 pages???
> 
> Bah!!!!
> 
> Should be at least 288.



Why not 666? 
One for each layer of the abyss? 

160 pages is fine since it covers just the demons.


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## Erik Mona

Alzrius said:
			
		

> (and I'm somewhat dubious about the fact that Erik Mona seems to take an active dislike for the _Planescape_ demon lords, such as Pale Night).
> !




Well, you've got to admit that Pale Night is ludicrously lame. And a very typical example of the slap-dash approach Planescape often took with matters related to demons and devils. Graz'zt and Orcus brothers? Sure, that sounds like a good idea.

--Erik


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## catsclaw227

This is going on my preorder list FOR SURE.

Though I must say, the Green Ronin book is very good.


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## IronWolf

2006 is already shaping up to be an expensive year.  Lots of good titles coming out from WotC and then there is Ptolus from Monte Cook next year too!


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## Shemeska

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Well, you've got to admit that Pale Night is ludicrously lame. And a very typical example of the slap-dash approach Planescape often took with matters related to demons and devils. Graz'zt and Orcus brothers? Sure, that sounds like a good idea.
> 
> --Erik




Except it never said that Erik. Graz'zt was Pale Night's progeny, along with Lupercio and Vucarik. But Orcus never was, and Planescape didn't claim he was. Page 61 and 62 of Faces of Evil if you wanted to reread that section.

You're entitled to the opinion, but slap dash? It gave us the most comprehensive look at the fiends in DnD both before or since.


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## catsclaw227

IronWolf said:
			
		

> 2006 is already shaping up to be an expensive year.  Lots of good titles coming out from WotC and then there is Ptolus from Monte Cook next year too!




Yea..... (big sigh)  How the heck am I gonna justify my spending next year?


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## Erik Mona

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Except it never said that Erik. Graz'zt was Pale Night's progeny, along with Lupercio and Vucarik. But Orcus never was, and Planescape didn't claim he was.




Really? I concede that I may have misremembered that, and I can't find the specific reference in my notes, but I could have sworn it is suggested somewhere. In any event, it's just the ravings of an old demon, so who's to say one way or the other?



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> You're entitled to the opinion, but slap dash? It gave us the most comprehensive look at the fiends in DnD both before or since.




Crack open "Faces of Evil" and take a close look at the credits. I'm quite familiar with the subject matter, and have been for a while.

I appreciate that you think I am entitled to my opinion. Surely a blanket defense of all things Planescape is just as foolish as a blanket condemnation, no?

--Erik


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## Shemeska

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Really? I concede that I may have misremembered that, and I can't find the specific reference in my notes, but I could have sworn it is suggested somewhere.




Not in anything I'm aware of. *shrugs*



> Crack open "Faces of Evil" and take a close look at the credits. I'm quite familiar with the subject matter, and have been for a while.




I'm aware of the compilation of pre-Planescape material you wrote up for Colin McComb that got you a thanks in the book credits.


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## IronWolf

catsclaw227 said:
			
		

> Yea..... (big sigh)  How the heck am I gonna justify my spending next year?




You and me both!


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## Grover Cleaveland

Pale Night is fascinating for any number of reasons other than her progeny, in any case. Honestly, a semi-spectral matron figure, ancient beyond worlds and words, ruling from a tower of bones, consort to a hundred lords, mother to a thousand young... where is the poetry in your soul that this doesn't grab you?


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## MrFilthyIke

> _Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics, even if you win, you're still a retard_




Words of wisdom  :\


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## Mouseferatu

You know, I'm a big Planescape fan. It's one of maybe half-a-dozen published settings in which I have run, or would run, games. (I normally prefer homebrew.)

But honestly, I was never thrilled with what PS did with the fiends. I know it was due primarily to the atmosphere of the time, and TSR's desire to tone down the "demon" references. But I always felt they were more evil, and more menacing, before PS.

So frankly, given what I know of Erik's ideas and his style of writing, if forced to choose between his take on the fiends and that presented in PS, I'll take Erik's any time.


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## Erik Mona

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> No, we _don't_. Your Gamagin and Ipos, on the other hand, are very much on the cheesy side, so you don't particularly have a high ground to peer your nose down from. Or turn it up, as the case may be.




My Gamagin and Ipos were inspired from real world occult tradition, so surely some of the blame can be spread around to the likes of Wierus, Spence, Crowley, and MacGregor-Mathers. But whatever. It's not like someone's opinion on what demons are cool and what demons aren't is an objective measure, anyway. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Oh, god, you haven't resurrected Gygax's horrible abat-dolor idea, have you?  Yeah, an entire race of Graz'zts - _that's_ not lame at all!




Arguing over what is or isn't "lame" strikes me as a pursuit of limited utility. I have no problem with Gygax's approach to Graz'zt's origins (he invented Graz'zt, after all), but within the context of an official D&D product it's all a bit academic, since the abat-dolor material appeared in a New Infinities novel and is not within the copyright of Wizards of the Coast. 

Therefore, my opinion on the abat-dolor is moot vis a vis the topic at hand.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Pale Night is fascinating for any number of reasons other than her progeny, in any case.




I agree with this, actually. She's only ever had a few paragraphs of description, so she's far from hopeless.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Honestly, a semi-spectral matron figure, ancient beyond worlds and words, ruling from a tower of bones, consort to a hundred lords, mother to a thousand young... where is the poetry in your soul that this doesn't grab you?




It does grab me. I don't have a problem with Pale Night as a general concept. As described by you, she seems quite compelling. As a catch-all mother demon for a bunch of previously detailed demon lords, not so much. But hey, it's just my opinion.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Agreed, but your opinion would be more credible if it your memory weren't so hazy. Anyone whose mind invents a claim of fraternity between Orcus and Graz'zt (which isn't remotely suggested anywhere) hasn't done his research recently or well.




I would hazard to guess that I've done as much research on the topic as just about anyone, both recently and in years past. I am beginning to suspect that my memory of an Orcus/Graz'zt familial tie comes from a draft of "Faces of Evil," and that the link did not make it into the final product, perhaps at my suggestion. Since I do not have my references or working files from a decade-old product here at work, I cannot say for sure.

I'm fairly intrigued by the vitriol in your post. I didn't realize my comment was anywhere near as offensive as it must have been.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Here's hoping James Jacobs picked up your slack! Fortunately, his own articles are so well-researched that I have every reason to believe he has.




James is a true talent, to be sure. I'll let him comment, if he cares to, on whether I know what I'm talking about when it comes to demons in D&D. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> As Harlan Ellison once put it, you're _not_ entitled your opinion - you're only entitled to an _informed_ opinion. The designers who came before you deserve better.




Yeah, sorry I can't place the Graz'zt/Orcus reference off the top of my head. I shall endeavor to do better next time. I should think my work speaks for itself insofar as respect for "designers who came before" is concerned. A good place to start looking would be Dungeon #116.

--Erik


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## BOZ

i have to agree with ya there, mousey.  the Planescape abyssal lords were just fine IMO, but i wish that they meshed better with the pre-existing ones.

the problem with them is that they are really little more than concepts, whereas the 1E lords felt more like characters.  this can all be rectified though, with the Demonomicon articles.


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## Erik Mona

BOZ said:
			
		

> i have to agree with ya there, mousey.  the Planescape abyssal lords were just fine IMO, but i wish that they meshed better with the pre-existing ones.




That's really all I was trying to say. One Planescape lord I really like is Lynkhab, by the way. I find her very interesting and appreciate the "high-concept" element of her origin.

After Greyhawk, Planescape is my second favorite campaign setting. Please don't take my one comment about not appreciating certain elements of how they handled fiends as a condemnation of the whole setting or any of the people who worked on it.

--Erik


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

Play nice or you'll all be made to listen to Michael Bolton.


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## BOZ

so, is this "Hordes of the Abyss" as in a general ecology of the Abyss?  or is it demons mostly/only?


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## James Jacobs

One thing to keep in mind (Erik touched on this in one of his posts above) is that during 2nd edition (and by extension, Planescape), TSR abandoned the word "Demon" (and "devil," etc.). Now certainly, a lot of great material about the lords of the Abyss came out of Planescape, but a lot of the history and real-world weight of the concept of "demons" was lost when the designers had to abandon real-world occult tradition as a source of inspiration. Some great stuff came out of this era, but it was hampered by the anti-demon stance TSR management had at the time. 

One of the primary goals for this book is to provide the definitive sourcebook for D&D's demons (and by extension, the Abyss itself). We'll be able to treat the demons and concepts introduced in Planescape without having to skirt issues or make up new names for old concepts. You can expect coverage of pretty much everything that has been mentioned about demons and the Abyss since the grand good old days. Including demon princes.

In any event, neither Erik (who does indeed know a LOT about D&D's official demons... probably more so than anyone else in the industry, I'm willing to say) nor I are at liberty to really discuss what will or will not be in this book at this time. We'll both certainly be keeping an eye on these boards for anything remotely connected to demon-talk though (as we have been for the past several months, in fact).

As for respecting the designers who've come before us... well, let me just say that if anything in this book comes off as disrespectful of their work, I'll certainly consider the book itself a failure. Respecting the work of earlier designers is what this job should be about.


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## coyote6

I'm curious -- speaking in purely hypothetical terms, will FCI:HotA mesh with stuff in Armies of the Abyss? You probably won't be mentioning qlippoth, I imagine, but will the Hordes leave "room" for the qlippoth, and for Armies' demon lords?


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## Erik Mona

As James said above, we're not really at liberty to discuss details, but I will say that "Armies of the Abyss" was written to be 99.7% compatible with official D&D, and I'm not exactly going out of my way to lower that percentage with new material I've written. Likewise, I'm also not in a hurry to invalidate anything that's been printed within the context of official D&D (including info on Pale Night, my friends), so I urge you to draw your own conclusions.

--Erik


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

Given that the Abyss is an infinite number of (often) infinite spaces, I would be shocked if they made Armies of the Abyss obsolete. I think there's more of a danger of that with the probable books about Hell and Hades.


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## Shemeska

I'm drooling over the prospect of a Gehenna/Hades/Carceri book on Yugoloths.

*chuckles* Says the person with probably over 1000+ pages of material in stories and 2 storyhours involving the NE fiends.


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## Shemeska

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> One thing to keep in mind (Erik touched on this in one of his posts above) is that during 2nd edition (and by extension, Planescape), TSR abandoned the word "Demon" (and "devil," etc.). Now certainly, a lot of great material about the lords of the Abyss came out of Planescape, but a lot of the history and real-world weight of the concept of "demons" was lost when the designers had to abandon real-world occult tradition as a source of inspiration. Some great stuff came out of this era, but it was hampered by the anti-demon stance TSR management had at the time.




Perhaps, though the real world demonology didn't supply much more than names for many of the early 1e archfiends. Demogorgon with his two babboon heads and tentacles really has little to do with Demo Gorgos as held in Gnostic belief, or the corruption of the term later to become a demon. It didn't seen to truly filter down into the material, and the flavor material of the time wasn't as expansive as the later 2e material (though as you said the 2e material had to divorce itself from 'real world' demons and devils to some extent).

While the original, pre-PS idea to drop demon and devil as terms wasn't anything great at all, they really did some awesome work to expand and create new material beyond a reliance on the tenuous real world references. Honestly, we're probably better off for the 1e material from before combined with the subsequent material that divorced itself from what might have been too tempting a crutch to rely on rather than going wholly original. Pros and Cons of both, but we've got both the 1e stuff and the Planescape material and what it added to the 1e stuff directly.



> One of the primary goals for this book is to provide the definitive sourcebook for D&D's demons (and by extension, the Abyss itself). We'll be able to treat the demons and concepts introduced in Planescape without having to skirt issues or make up new names for old concepts. You can expect coverage of pretty much everything that has been mentioned about demons and the Abyss since the grand good old days. Including demon princes.
> 
> ...
> 
> As for respecting the designers who've come before us... well, let me just say that if anything in this book comes off as disrespectful of their work, I'll certainly consider the book itself a failure. Respecting the work of earlier designers is what this job should be about.




Makes me feel much better. Thank you. Plus the Fraz-Urblu article in Dragon, using material right from 'Faces of Evil' was nifty too.


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## Shemeska

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> That's really all I was trying to say. One Planescape lord I really like is Lynkhab, by the way. I find her very interesting and appreciate the "high-concept" element of her origin.




Same here 



> After Greyhawk, Planescape is my second favorite campaign setting. Please don't take my one comment about not appreciating certain elements of how they handled fiends as a condemnation of the whole setting or any of the people who worked on it.
> 
> --Erik




I won't, don't worry. Subsequent comments have eased whatever worries I had previously. I look forward to finding out more about the book's contents, and the questions I asked about it waaaaay back at the thread start. Would be great to see stuff on the Varrangoin and Bebeliths in there.


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## James Jacobs

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Perhaps, though the real world demonology didn't supply much more than names for many of the early 1e archfiends.




Fair enough. Often, though, simply using names from established mythology is enough to make a difference. There's a lot of power in a name. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Makes me feel much better. Thank you. Plus the Fraz-Urblu article in Dragon, using material right from 'Faces of Evil' was nifty too.




Cool, thanks!

I've been working very closely with Erik on those _Dragon_ articles, and I think the tone and feel they have should be a fairly good indicator of where we're going with this book.


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## MavrickWeirdo

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> We'll both certainly be keeping an eye on these boards for anything remotely connected to demon-talk though (as we have been for the past several months, in fact).




Felt it was worth quoting


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## Grover Cleaveland

I feel better too, after James Jacobs' and Erik Mona's clarifying posts.


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## Dinkeldog

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Play nice or you'll all be made to listen to Michael Bolton.




Quoted for truth.  In fact, I may have found something for my signature, if I may.


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## Alzrius

Gah, if I had known my mentioning Erik's opinion on Pale Night would lead to such a controversy...well, I probably would have done it anyway.   

One thing I want to mention is that people keep talking about how 2E didn't include the words "demon" or "devil" at the time...what they fail to mention is that _Planescape_ saw the return of those terms. A reading of _Tales from the Infinite Staircase_ or _Faces of Evil: the Fiends_ shows that the setting wasn't afraid to toss those terms around. Give credit where credit is due, people.

Erik, I don't know about other people, but for me, the issue wasn't that you had an opinion...it was the idea that because of your opinion, some aspects of what some of us want to see are being supressed. That is, if I were to send in a Demonomicon article on Pale Night, and someone else sent one in on Kostchtchie, that you'd take the latter over the former ten times out of ten, due to personal preference alone. That's the sort of sentiment I was grumbling over...which doesn't mean it's necessarily true.

That and I honestly do think Pale Night is a cool concept (from what we've seen of her).

Also, in regards to Lynkhab...I'd like to point out that we now have three female Demon Lords of sex (Shami-Amourae, from _Dungeon_ #5, "The Stolen Power"; Lynkhab, from _Faces of Evil: the Fiends_; and Malcanthet, mentioned in _Dungeon_ #112 "Maure Castle" and #124 "Chambers of Antiquities"). It's high time we got them together and had them throw down (preferably in jello).


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## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> We'll both certainly be keeping an eye on these boards for anything remotely connected to demon-talk though (as we have been for the past several months, in fact).



i'll be keeping that in mind... in fact, i've been kind of counting on that.  

tossing some links at you... some i've started, some i didn't.    (some are more on-topic than others)

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=148261
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=142163
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=87136
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=149940http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=148207
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=92275http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=144660

some Abyssal denizens i have known and loved (and converted):
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=736
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=750
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=506
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/outsider/thunderbeast.htm
(that's all i have ready at the moment.)


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## BOZ

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Honestly, we're probably better off for the 1e material from before combined with the subsequent material that divorced itself from what might have been too tempting a crutch to rely on rather than going wholly original. Pros and Cons of both, but we've got both the 1e stuff and the Planescape material and what it added to the 1e stuff directly.[/IMG]




and thus we are left with loads of possibilities now in 3E.


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## BOZ

also there is the abyss ant from Monstrous Compendium annual 1

the alu-fiend and the cambion would like to be mentioned more, i'm sure.  

plus: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=78968


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## Drowbane

Hmm, I must be tired... I misread the title originally... 

I thought this was perhaps a Sourcebook about Erinyes...


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## Steel_Wind

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> One thing to keep in mind (Erik touched on this in one of his posts above) is that during 2nd edition (and by extension, Planescape), TSR abandoned the word "Demon" (and "devil," etc.). Now certainly, a lot of great material about the lords of the Abyss came out of Planescape, but a lot of the history and real-world weight of the concept of "demons" was lost when the designers had to abandon real-world occult tradition as a source of inspiration.




And the result was this wierd sci-fi approach to the Hells and other Planes. By throwing out the occult and religious feel, it was divorced from Western history & culture and it no longer resonated within any part of me (colon excepted). 

I utterly despised the result. I wouldn't put it on my shelf if you gave it to me for free. 

What? Disliked _Plansecape_ you say? Yes. I truly loathed it. Words fail to convey the sincerity of my conviction about this point.

The classic "Nine Hells" by Ed Greenwood in Dragon 75, 76 and 91? That grabbed me. That resonated. That's what my D&D game wanted to be about.

Do the same for the Abyss with the same Nine Hells flavour and I'm there. If not? I'll pass.


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## Shemeska

Steel_Wind said:
			
		

> And the result was this wierd sci-fi approach to the Hells and other Planes. By throwing out the occult and religious feel, it was divorced from Western history & culture and it no longer resonated within any part of me (colon excepted).
> 
> I utterly despised the result. I wouldn't put it on my shelf if you gave it to me for free.




Sci-Fi approach? *boggle*

How much of it have you actually read out of curiousity?

What resonated with me about the PS material was the sense of scale, the absolute grandness, the true depths of evil the fiends represented and an actual exploration of those themes and concepts which hadn't honested been examined before. Be it the infinite and unending conflict between Baatezu and Tanar'ri, evil turning upon itself in genocidal fury over law and chaos, the near religious fanaticism of the yugoloths towards abstract evil, the interplay of gods and mortals, and the contrast between ferver towards abstract philosophy with the harsh, hellish reality of many of the planes and how idealism still managed to flourish even while others succumbed to despair or madness.

And PS didn't do away with any of the occult or religious feel. Demogorgon was there. Baphomet and Orcus were there. Asmodeus and the other Lords of the 9 were there, and even more fleshed out than they had been previously.

I honestly don't see in any way how it lost what you saw lacking in it. There are certainly some aspects of the material that I'd have approached differently, and some folks are certainly welcome to have stylistic differences with it. However I'd be tempted to say that a majority of the complaints I see from folks who profess a dislike of the Planescape material are simply the result of lack of exposure to the material, and a kneejerk reaction to things that happened in 2e but previous to Planescape such as the demons and devils issue. PS gets blamed for a lot of stuff it didn't do, and knocked for elements that don't honestly represent the vast bulk of its material.


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## demiurge1138

Let's see... just getting this all out of the way. I like Planescape. I like it so much, in fact, that I am running a Planescape campaign, despite the setting's entropic decline long before I could actually go out and buy the books. I also like the 1e flavor of the lower planes. And I even like the take on the Abyss shown in the Gord the Rogue books. I think that the lower planes have a lot of room for tinkering, from the philosophical (Planescape) to the more medieval (Book of Fiends) to the not-terribly-influenced-by-much-else (classic Gygaxian Abyss).

That said, I look forward to the series of Fiendish Codexes with great anticipation. The Demon Lord articles have made me salivate, and I've been cackling with glee from the first tiny rumors of this product's existence.

Now, if only they'll make the yugoloths more balanced and interesting in Fiendish Codex III than they were in the MMIII...

Demiurge out.


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## Henrix

Ahhh! I just finished reading Lords of Madness yesterday (while at home with a cold), and was thinking about what monsters would be next, and realized that demons and devils must be in the works.
And then I thought, hey, hope that is Monas secret project!

And here I see that it is so, and that it is Erik and James Jacobs who are doing it! Fantastic!


----------



## Sundragon2012

I am certainly interested in this book and though I think that Planescape had some good qualities I really saw it as the late TSR's attempt to pounce upon the the then popularity of the Shadowrun/Cyberpunk jaded attitude that was popular at its inception. 

I think that the vastness of the setting was groundbreaking, I thought that gods being real gods who couldn't be killed, I thought that a City of Doors was great.

I loathed that they took that "cant" and wrote even fiends into speaking in what should merely have been the Sigillian version  of Cockney english. Great for atmosphere in Sigil but when it spread to the planes I thought it very stupid indeed.

Please EriK and James avoid like the plague the "fiends in love" thing that some folks seem to think sensible. Make them the incarnations of absolute wickedness, depravity and evil and not just a planer race with hopes, dreams, loves and regrets.....bleech!!! Inscrutable, absolute, vicious, chaotic, souless horrors bent on evil and evil alone ok Erik and James.....pleeeeeaaasssee????

Fiends are evil...more evil by nature than the worst of humanity and they don't have loving relationships. Now that is utterly divorced from our Western mythology regarding such things. 

And please, please no demon princes named Alvarez, I am sorry but names matter and I have a hard time taking seriously a demon prince with a name so like a real Latino/Mexican name. Its like giving an arch devil a strongly ethnic name like Czerniakowski (Polish)....it just seems silly.


Chris


----------



## JoeGKushner

Pants said:
			
		

> Why not 666?
> One for each layer of the abyss?
> 
> 160 pages is fine since it covers just the demons.




Very disappointing if correct. Not only is the page/price ration, if similiar to other WoTC books weak in comparrisson to their other model of 224/$34.95, outer planar creatures need a lot of extra care and feeding in terms of environment, plot seeds, and other utilities to make them useful as opposed to just making them statistics.  One of the things I've enjoyed about the other parts of the series, Lords of Madness, etc... is that they give fairly good coverage. 

Love to be proven wrong, but 160 pages doesn't seem enough to cover "just the demons".


----------



## philreed

My interest in demons has only recently been reawakened so this is excellent timing for me.


----------



## qstor

Erik, James I hope you come back to this thread after the book appears in the WOTC catalog. I'd be interested in if any of the material in the Dragon articles appears in the books. I'd *LOVE* for an *official* 3.x book write up of some of the demons princes not found in the BOVD.

Mike


----------



## Mercule

Sold!

My homebrew uses a lot of fiends and corruption themes.  So, while the cosmology varies from core about as much as Eberron does, I'll be mining this book for ideas.  Ditto with any future installments.


----------



## BOZ

One bit of advice: don't underestimate the value of the 1E Manual of the Planes.  Though Planescape was based highly on this work, there are a lot of tidbits that the designers chose not to carry over.    of course, I'm sure you knew this already...

And the shoosuva from Dungeon 112 are ideal servants for Yeenoghu...

A few Dragon mag articles of note (there are more, of course):
233: Fiendish Fortresses, Monte Cook
260: Spawn of Tiamat, Children of Bahamut, Keith Francis Strohm
270: Armor of the Abyssal Lords, Paul Fraser


----------



## Zaukrie

Erik, James, I want to say thank you for the articles in Dragon and for this book. I love the fiends as the real enemies of all that is good. I look forward to this book greatly.


----------



## Kanegrundar

I'm looking forward to this one.  Erik has done some of the best work in D20 on demons, so I expect nothing but greatness from this book.

Kane


----------



## catsclaw227

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> I'm looking forward to this one.  Erik has done some of the best work in D20 on demons, so I expect nothing but greatness from this book.





Me too.


----------



## BOZ

some neat old ENWorld links, using the nifty search function:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=34694
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=31742
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=25030
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=16185
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=29580
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=23750
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=26952
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=30139


----------



## Pants

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Very disappointing if correct. Not only is the page/price ration, if similiar to other WoTC books weak in comparrisson to their other model of 224/$34.95, outer planar creatures need a lot of extra care and feeding in terms of environment, plot seeds, and other utilities to make them useful as opposed to just making them statistics.  One of the things I've enjoyed about the other parts of the series, Lords of Madness, etc... is that they give fairly good coverage.
> 
> Love to be proven wrong, but 160 pages doesn't seem enough to cover "just the demons".



I'm not sure I agree.

_Lords of Madness_ covered FIVE different aberration types rather well (sure there's room for a little more coverage, but whatever).  The Tsochar got 9 pages of info, the Grell 8, the Neogi 12, the Illithids 21, the Beholders 19, and the Aboleths 18. This is not including stats for any new creatures in the book.

_Faces of Evil_, probably THE definitive sourcebook on Fiendish Lore, covered the 'tanar'ri' in 23 pages. No stats, just flavor text mind you. FoE was also only 96 pages long mind you. (This will probably spawn a couple of '2e products r teh r0x0rz comments and 3e is teh sux0rz' comments, but whatever...)

Green Ronin's _Book of Fiends_ (of which Mr. Mona was a contributor), covers abyssal creatures in 80 pages. This includes, write-ups of some abyssal lords, a few new spells, a new class, some new domains as well. It does this rather well.

Now, if this was a book on ALL of the fiends, 160 pages I feel it would be quite 'limited' for coverage. But since its only about the Abyssal Denizens, I think that with Mona and Jacobs (the Demon Master after the Demonomicon articles) at the helm, 160 pages is quite enough.




			
				qstor said:
			
		

> Erik, James I hope you come back to this thread after the book appears in the WOTC catalog. I'd be interested in if any of the material in the Dragon articles appears in the books. I'd *LOVE* for an *official* 3.x book write up of some of the demons princes not found in the BOVD.
> 
> Mike



IMO, stats for Demon Lords and Princes would be better served by the Dragon installments.  However, I think deity write-ups (like Orcus received in Libris Mortis) for a lot of the Demonic Lords would be excellent.



			
				demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> I also like the 1e flavor of the lower planes. And I even like the take on the Abyss shown in the Gord the Rogue books.



I, actually, prefer the flavor of the 1e planes and I really, really wish that Gygax's planar ideas (somewhat fleshed out in his Gord the Rogue books) had been made canon instead of Planescape.  I like PS, but it's not the end-all-be-all definitive version of the fiends.  Things change and as we've seen with both 2e and 3e, the designers aren't afraid to tinker with (or change) preexisting information.

And if this book takes a little step back towards 1e, I'm all for it.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

It's been well over a decade since I read the Gord the Rogue books. Remind an old man of how Gygaxian planar cosmology differs from the post-Planescape cosmology, please.


----------



## Evilhalfling

Gygaxian planar cosmology had its hits and misses.  It covered inter- and intra- demonic warfare really well, with masses of troops and real risks to the demon lords that fought in them.  He threw in a lot of demonic artifacts that were used by demons against other demons, but confinded them to a lesser artifact status.  Demons had politics, alliances, and shifting fortunes as they fought each other and Nerull (Infestix), as well as Iuz and Iggiwai(sp?)

The race of Grazzats was lame - as most other Demon lords were unique individuals. 
The rest of his planes were pretty bad; the lake of reality, the demi plane were Thazaduin was confined, the race across reality and the uber-godlike personifications - all of that sucked. 

There was no concept of planar society, either you were powerful, worked for someone who was or you got squashed like a bug.  There was on concept of afterlife, the planes were just some where else.


----------



## Pants

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> It's been well over a decade since I read the Gord the Rogue books. Remind an old man of how Gygaxian planar cosmology differs from the post-Planescape cosmology, please.



http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/outer.html#meeting
That site has A LOT of info regarding the Cosmology of the Gord the Rogue novels.

Notable among the changes are the daemons/yugoloths and the Diseased Eight (which, in my knowledge, only sorta existed in Canon PS). 

The existence of the Abat Dolor, a race of powerfully ancient demons of which Graz'zt is a member, is at odds with Graz'zt of 2e/3e. He's the progeny of Pale Night, a mysterious demonic lord of which very little is written. Although 3e never mentions Pale Night, Rhyxali the Demonic Princess of Shadows, is mentioned as being Graz'zt's sister, so I assume that the 'Pale Night is Graz'zt's Mother' thing still holds true.

There's other stuff, but this springs to mind immediately.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> It's been well over a decade since I read the Gord the Rogue books. Remind an old man of how Gygaxian planar cosmology differs from the post-Planescape cosmology, please.




Lemme think:

1. All the daemons, hags, other NE and LE fiends, and devils wanted to serve Tharizdun and his servant Nerull (also called Infestix), seeing this route as the best way for them to maintain their power in Tharizdun's new cosmic order. The demons were fractious and mostly independent, though some allied with Nerull's camp.
2. There were a bunch of new creatures invented for the books (dreggals, maelvis, etc.), but they were poorly described if at all.
3. There were some new planes invented and inserted here and there as the plot required, including a staircase that stretched between many different planes. 
4. There was an additional planar axis. In addition to Astral/Ethereal, Good/Evil, and Law/Chaos, there was the dimension of Probability, which corresponded to Technology/Magic. This axis is one of the things that distinguishes the parallel material planes from one another.
5. There were an infinite number of parallel material planes in the same cosmology, as in 1e and pre-Spelljammer 2e.
6. Graz'zt is part of entire race of demons that look more or less like him. Called the abat-dolor, these fiends are more humanlike in temperment than most natives of the Abyss, though still evil. I don't actually hate this idea nearly as much as I intimated earlier (there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but I prefer Graz'zt as mostly unique except perhaps for a few siblings).
7. The short story "The Weird Occurance in Odd Alley" from Gygax's book _Night Arrant_ introduces an extradimensional city of portals that connects to thousands of parallel material planes as well as the outer and inner planes. I'll be damned if it isn't nigh-indistinguishable from Planescape's city of Sigil, though it's much less well-developed.
8. Lower planar creatures in general tend to be stupid, short-sighted bullies, rather than clever and far-sighted as they often are in Planescape. The big, almost unique exception is Vuron, Graz'zt's demonic vizir. Graz'zt admits that without Vuron he wouldn't be nearly as successful.
9. The hierarchs of daemonkind are generally disposable cannon-fodder in Gygax's multiverse, excepting Infestix himself. In Planescape, every ultroloth and arcanaloth is a criminal mastermind. Some of the greatest villains in the Gygaxaverse are human, putting the fiends to shame, while Planescape put great emphasis on the prowess of the immortal, unthinkably ancient fiends.
10. The lords of neutrality in the Gygaxaverse are of mixed race, including humans, the Cat Lord, and the King of the Plane of Shadow. Planescape instead has an outsider race called the rilmani, an inscrutable group equivalent to the fiends and celestials.
11. In the Gygaxaverse, Baphomet is an archdevil instead of an archdemon (according to "Evening Odds," the Gord story from White Wolf's _Pawn of Chaos_ anthology).


----------



## Pants

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> Gygaxian planar cosmology had its hits and misses.



Yeah, totally true.
I'd be in favor of taking the current cosmology and sifting out parts and mixing in bits of Gygax's original ideas. Unfortunately, that's probably not possible.

Still, the books had some good ideas, even if they were kinda poorly written and plotted at times.



> There was no concept of planar society, either you were powerful, worked for someone who was or you got squashed like a bug.



I think this is fine. Back in 1e, the planes were the stomping grounds of high-level parties. You had to be powerful to make it on the planes.  Especially when you consider that the gods dwelled on the planes and many were naturally dangerous to non-planar denizens.

Fleshing them out and including areas safe for low-level parties was an advent of 2e. Both ideas work, I suppose, though the PS method had a way of...prime-ifying the planes (if that makes any sense) and cheesing things up at times, while the 1e method didn't always make  sense and lacked some of the mystery and wonder of PS. 

IMO of course.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> the lake of reality,




It was kind of like Limbo, as I remember, but much more potent in its response to the imagination. It was fine, but probably would unbalance a D&D game.



> the demi plane were Thazaduin was confined




I really, really liked the Child Emperor version of Tharizdun.



> uber-godlike personifications




I'm fine with ubergods as long as they know their place - in the background, not interacting with lesser beings in any apparent way. In this respect, I think Gygax's use of them was almost perfect, far better than the wretched, annoying Ao character in the Forgotten Realms. It got a bit over the top at the end, though, when the personification of Entropy manifested on a single world. That sort of thing can be done well if you're Neil Gaiman, but unfortunately Gary Gygax is not.


----------



## Alzrius

Shemeska said:
			
		

> I'm drooling over the prospect of a Gehenna/Hades/Carceri book on Yugoloths.




Meh, I can just see the entry for the Tower of Incarnate Pain:

"Will Bubonix and Cholerix ever finish the Tower of Pain? Or will Apomps and the gehreleths bring on the pain, and send them packing? Find out, in the next fiend book to come out...in 4E!"


----------



## Shemeska

Alzrius said:
			
		

> Meh, I can just see the entry for the Tower of Incarnate Pain:




Hey, you can't not like a living tower miles high and miles across built out of millions of screaming, agonized petitioners. Between that unfinished tower in Carceri, Khin-Oin in the Waste, and the Tower Arcane in Gehenna, Yugoloth architects had style


----------



## Krypter

This book is good news for planar adventurers, surely. Perhaps it will buttress a more comprehensive effort to flesh out the planes in third edition. 

Much as I love Planescape, there are elements of it that really were not well done, and the demons and devils are one of those. It would be far better to treat fiends not as races of flesh and blood but as vile emanations from the minds of mortals, or as corrupt essences - a force of evil - springing from the material world. The whole Blood War concept doesn't sit well with me either. Planescape demons are far too comfortably human in their vices and physical behaviour. When they sit down with a party at a bar in Sigil it just makes it worse. DiTerlizzi's artwork in Planescape was great, but it failed utterly to convey the overpowering monstrosity of the standard demons. Demons are not faeries. (no, my avatar does not make this statement ironic; I like the pic for entirely different reasons.)

To truly inspire horror from the players demons and devils have to be portrayed more like the Nephandi from Mage the Ascension; elemental forces of wild madness, depravity, and unrelenting evil. Look to Warhammer as an example of scary fiends. Make them irrational and mysterious instead of just another monster with high stats. 

Then again, I also fondly remember the hierarchy of fiends from the 1E Monster Manual II.

Any possibility of a 30-page writeup on Arcanaloths in the upcoming Minions of Gehenna (book 3)?


----------



## Kobold Avenger

I know very little about the gord novels, but a lot about PS.

Yet, I had Pale Night down as the 'mother' of the entire Abbat-Dolor race...


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

I had her adopt them when they were driven from their home layer by the gnomish god Urdlen. And then birth Graz'zt with one of their chieftains.

But I decided I don't like the abat-dolor. Yesterday, in fact.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Krypter said:
			
		

> It would be far better to treat fiends not as races of flesh and blood but as vile emanations from the minds of mortals, or as corrupt essences - a force of evil - springing from the material world. The whole Blood War concept doesn't sit well with me either. Planescape demons are far too comfortably human in their vices and physical behaviour. When they sit down with a party at a bar in Sigil it just makes it worse. DiTerlizzi's artwork in Planescape was great, but it failed utterly to convey the overpowering monstrosity of the standard demons. Demons are not faeries. (no, my avatar does not make this statement ironic; I like the pic for entirely different reasons.)
> 
> To truly inspire horror from the players demons and devils have to be portrayed more like the Nephandi from Mage the Ascension; elemental forces of wild madness, depravity, and unrelenting evil. Look to Warhammer as an example of scary fiends. Make them irrational and mysterious instead of just another monster with high stats.




Wow. You've just summed up something that's bothered me for years, but I was never able to put into words. Thank you.

Planescape--which, I must point out again, is a setting I love for the most part--made the cardinal error of humanizing the fiends.

Fiends aren't human. They don't have human motivations. They aren't creatures who just had a bad upbringing, or are trying to survive in a hideous world. They do not, do not, do not "hang out" in bars with mortals, even in a place like Sigil.

Fiends are primal evil. They know nothing else, they are nothing else. They are terrifying, and all the more so because they _cannot_ be anything other than what they are. They cooperate with mortals only when they have something to gain from the deal. They have no friends. Even their love, when they can feel it at all, is ultimately perverse and self-serving.

Anything less than absolute, nigh-incomprehensible evil isn't worthy of the title "fiend."


----------



## Sundragon2012

Krypter said:
			
		

> This book is good news for planar adventurers, surely. Perhaps it will buttress a more comprehensive effort to flesh out the planes in third edition.
> 
> Much as I love Planescape, there are elements of it that really were not well done, and the demons and devils are one of those. It would be far better to treat fiends not as races of flesh and blood but as vile emanations from the minds of mortals, or as corrupt essences - a force of evil - springing from the material world. The whole Blood War concept doesn't sit well with me either. Planescape demons are far too comfortably human in their vices and physical behaviour. When they sit down with a party at a bar in Sigil it just makes it worse. DiTerlizzi's artwork in Planescape was great, but it failed utterly to convey the overpowering monstrosity of the standard demons. Demons are not faeries. (no, my avatar does not make this statement ironic; I like the pic for entirely different reasons.)
> 
> To truly inspire horror from the players demons and devils have to be portrayed more like the Nephandi from Mage the Ascension; elemental forces of wild madness, depravity, and unrelenting evil. Look to Warhammer as an example of scary fiends. Make them irrational and mysterious instead of just another monster with high stats.






			
				Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Wow. You've just summed up something that's bothered me for years, but I was never able to put into words. Thank you.
> 
> Planescape--which, I must point out again, is a setting I love for the most part--made the cardinal error of humanizing the fiends.
> 
> Fiends aren't human. They don't have human motivations. They aren't creatures who just had a bad upbringing, or are trying to survive in a hideous world. They do not, do not, do not "hang out" in bars with mortals, even in a place like Sigil.
> 
> Fiends are primal evil. They know nothing else, they are nothing else. They are terrifying, and all the more so because they _cannot_ be anything other than what they are. They cooperate with mortals only when they have something to gain from the deal. They have no friends. Even their love, when they can feel it at all, is ultimately perverse and self-serving.
> 
> Anything less than absolute, nigh-incomprehensible evil isn't worthy of the title "fiend."






You are both channeling me....   

I have felt this way for years but not only myself but my players. One of my players, my brother, noted that fiends and celestial beings and all the other critters that inhabit the planes are more like merely alien species than the incarnations of absolute good and evil. Taverns in Sigil where these guys would all have an ale reminded me conceptually of a bar scene in star wars as opposed to a gathering of immortals who saw things in fundamentally, essentially and completely different ways than did mortals. 

In my campaign when I had a tavern where treaties were signed and things were discussed between the heavy hitters I had them take mortal form and only in a rage would they take their true form. In Sigil itself one didn't see angels and demons walking around, folks saw people who had something different about them....an aura of love or cruelty for example, a look in their eye, a manner of moving that was....different....unnatural.

Ripping away the mystery of the archetypal beings of good and evil (which in part was necessary to run planescape as intended) was the very thing IMO that ruined it for me and my players. Wow we saw the man behind the curtain and what we saw wasn't ineffable good or evil but beings who seemed a bit like humans in funny costumes or sci-fi aliens for all their humanity.

Fiends in love.....Jesus, please. Yeah right....incarnate EVIL that can care for another as much or more than it cares for itself. Incarnate evil that trusts another and can be trusted by another to work in that other's best interest even at personal cost to itself. That is love.

If fiends are capable of selfless affection and placing the welfare of another on the same plane as their own or even higher then they aren't evil incarnate. Sorry but that isn't incarnate darkness......its mortal. Its a mortal in a funny costume.



Chris


----------



## Shemeska

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Even their love, when they can feel it at all, is ultimately perverse and self-serving.




Aint that the truth 



> Anything less than absolute, nigh-incomprehensible evil isn't worthy of the title "fiend."




Sometimes the fiends were too human, but it wasn't a uniform treatment in Planescape like that. Some of the imagery involving the fiends presented in the setting was just truly horrific and honestly jarring.

And really, the 'Fiends and Celestials getting drunk alongside mortals in bars all over the place in Sigil' is honestly an unfair stereotype that gets tossed around but wasn't ever there. The setting gets maligned for it anyway.


----------



## Soel

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> we saw the man behind the curtain and what we saw wasn't ineffable good or evil but beings who seemed a bit like humans in funny costumes or sci-fi aliens for all their humanity.




This also sums up my feelings on deities...

Very interesting points here, and very likely the reasons why I have never focused on fiends to a measurable extent in any Planescape games. I wanted them to be like the demons I imagined as a child, something so twisted and incomprehensibly evil that an encounter with any, for any measure of moments, would leave a mortal scarred and profoundly affected...


----------



## DaveMage

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Anything less than absolute, nigh-incomprehensible evil isn't worthy of the title "fiend."




...But such a thing that's close to it may be titled "ex-girlfriend."


----------



## Napftor

I've just started a planar campaign based in Sigil so news of this book comes with open arms.  New demons that I can dump into the adventuring sandbox that is the planes are great!


----------



## JoeGKushner

Pants said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I agree.




You make some good points of comparission.

However, the new books tend to use the new stat blocks which eat up more space.

The new books tend to have on average three pages of ads. Some of them (Mainly Eberron), reprint the cover and have a credits page.

The newbooks tend to be heavier on the fluff side when dealing with game mechanics like PrCs with numerous entries on lore, using them in the campaign, etc... all good stuff afaic but eat up lots of space.

The new books tend to have encounters and locals set up for the DM to easily use in his campaign. Once again, for me a good thing, but add in a map and a big old DMG II stat block, and well, the space is eaten up again.

The new books also tend to have new races which get a PHB treatment and a Monster Manual style treatment. Useful for GMs but perhaps it's time for the MM style treatment to go away and save the space.

This doesn't count things I'd like to see like various overland maps of different planes of the Abyss and monsters that may not necessarily be tanari but make those layers their home.


----------



## Sundragon2012

Soel said:
			
		

> This also sums up my feelings on deities...
> 
> Very interesting points here, and very likely the reasons why I have never focused on fiends to a measurable extent in any Planescape games. I wanted them to be like the demons I imagined as a child, something so twisted and incomprehensibly evil that an encounter with any, for any measure of moments, would leave a mortal scarred and profoundly affected...




Don't get me started on deities.

It used to be that only on FR, after the Time of Troubles, that deities had such an intimate connection to worshippers that they would weaken and die if their worship disappeared on the world. In Planescape it became a universal assumption that gods NEEDED worship to exist. This was never the case on Greyhawk or Krynn. On Krynn for example, certain gods actually helped create the world so they existed long before mortals came to the world.

Essentially instead of the relative youth of gods being a peculiarity of the FR setting, Planescape translated that to the entire multiverse and every setting therein effectively negating the creation stories of the peoples of the material world who believed that their gods were more than just suped up figments of their own imaginations who actually created the universe in which they lived. Nah, that was just silly clueless talk.

However, what PS did to deities was nothing compared to what 3e did to the gods of various settings by turning them into what amounts to big bad boss monsters that the PCs can fight instead of being anything approaching what many consider beings worthy of worship. This necessitated the conceptualization of other kinds of creatures like the Illithid elder beings who are even beyond the gods in power fundamentally becoming what the gods were so in effect the "real" gods of the game, the ones who have power beyond which some orc smashing little PCs can ever attain are these weird alien type creatures. For all intents and purposed the gods beyond which mortals can reach haven't disappeared they just changed form and name from Zeus and Isis, Nerull, Tharizdun, Odin, Chauntea, Shar, etc. to Xeoltorepmh and Ithilorgh the Cthulhu rip offs.

Great design decision.


Chris


----------



## Mouseferatu

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> However, what PS did to deities was nothing compared to what 3e did to the gods of various settings by turning them into what amounts to big bad boss monsters that the PCs can fight instead of being anything approaching what many consider beings worthy of worship. This necessitated the conceptualization of other kinds of creatures like the Illithid elder beings who are even beyond the gods in power fundamentally becoming what the gods were so in effect the "real" gods of the game, the ones who have power beyond which some orc smashing little PCs can ever attain are these weird alien type creatures. For all intents and purposed the gods beyond which mortals can reach haven't disappeared they just changed form and name from Zeus and Isis, Nerull, Tharizdun, Odin, Chauntea, Shar, etc. to Xeoltorepmh and Ithilorgh the Cthulhu rip offs.
> 
> Great design decision.
> 
> 
> Chris




This is hardly unique to the 3E era. As far back as 1E, _Deities and Demigods_ provided complete stats for deities, and was accused of turning the gods into just bigger monsters.


----------



## Sundragon2012

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> This is hardly unique to the 3E era. As far back as 1E, _Deities and Demigods_ provided complete stats for deities, and was accused of turning the gods into just bigger monsters.




True, true. I forgot 1e with its 400 hit point Zeus and Odin. I should have stated that 3e brought that travesty back from the abyss from which it had fallen and stuffed what could have been a book rich in useful information about gods, their churches and their manner of interacting with the worlds into a book stuffed with monsterous stat blocks so that uber-munchkins can sharpen their +15 swords of Excessive Grandiosity upon the greatest monsters in the universe.

Green Ronin's treatment of gods and their churches as found in the Book of the Righteous is an infinitely superior and mature representation of gods as gods as opposed to super beasties.


Chris


----------



## Desdichado

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> True, true. I forgot 1e with its 400 hit point Zeus and Odin. I should have stated that 3e brought that travesty back from the abyss from which it had fallen and stuffed what could have been a book rich in useful information about gods, their churches and their manner of interacting with the worlds into a book stuffed with monsterous stat blocks so that uber-munchkins can sharpen their +15 swords of Excessive Grandiosity upon the greatest monsters in the universe.



I didn't really expect anything different.  The books even had the exact same name; I'm not at all susprised that they had (more or less) the same format.

Not that I like it either; just about the only 3e book I like _less_ (well, of the ones I own, anyway) then _Deities & Demigods_ is the _Epic Level Handbook_, but I wasn't really surprised too much by either.  Sadly.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> Fiends in love.....Jesus, please. Yeah right....incarnate EVIL that can care for another as much or more than it cares for itself. Incarnate evil that trusts another and can be trusted by another to work in that other's best interest even at personal cost to itself. That is love.
> 
> If fiends are capable of selfless affection and placing the welfare of another on the same plane as their own or even higher then they aren't evil incarnate. Sorry but that isn't incarnate darkness......its mortal. Its a mortal in a funny costume.
> 
> Chris




Let me give you a big "amen!" on this.  It is also my point of view on the "vampires in love" theme ("Oh, the horror", "Oh, the beast within", yada yada yada.)

I think that this is a case that something becomes popular by virtue of being big, tough, and bad-&$$ and then has people trying rehabilitate by making them into something they can try and justify liking.

Good on Farscape, bad with demons and undead.

Harry


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> Let me give you a big "amen!" on this.  It is also my point of view on the "vampires in love" theme ("Oh, the horror", "Oh, the beast within", yada yada yada.)



Except that the modern vampire's very first depictions in the 19th century all included this as a trope, to varying degrees. Vampires are not evil incarnate, they are once-human things that retain some elements (maybe even if they're just memories and habits) of their humanity.

Demons, on the other hand, game on.


----------



## Shade

My luv of Fiendush Kodux nows know limit.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Except that the modern vampire's very first depictions in the 19th century all included this as a trope, to varying degrees. Vampires are not evil incarnate, they are once-human things that retain some elements (maybe even if they're just memories and habits) of their humanity.
> 
> Demons, on the other hand, game on.





Noting that you are saying the modern vampire as opposed to the mediaeval monster, I would like to ask you what you are considering your souces.  Respectfully, of course; there was one person on another thread that got really, really upset because I dared to ask for a source.

I must confess that I am primarily going on _Dracula_ as my source, and not Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's version.  

I could be missing something (though that portrayal of vampires would still bug me).


----------



## Upper_Krust

Just wanted to add that I am really looking forward to this book and I am sure James and Erik will do us proud. 

Shockingly I actually agree with Shemeska for once that the Daemons/Yugoloths are the ones who really need a book to do them justice. They often seem like the second class citizens of the lower planes, with demons and devils grabbing all the headlines...oh and when you do get round to the Daemon book would somebody please vorpalise that Mydianchlarus and bring back Anthraxus?

Hey there Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Lemme think:
> 
> 2. There were a bunch of new creatures invented for the books (dreggals, maelvis, etc.), but they were poorly described if at all.




I think numbers of those 'invented' creatures were simply existing creatures under new names. I think Dreggals was another name for Barghests for instance.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> 8. Lower planar creatures in general tend to be stupid, short-sighted bullies, rather than clever and far-sighted as they often are in Planescape. The big, almost unique exception is Vuron, Graz'zt's demonic vizir. Graz'zt admits that without Vuron he wouldn't be nearly as successful.




A lot of this hinges on the power fluctuations that happened between 1st and 2nd Edition. In 2nd Edition (certainly the early days) they kicked all the Demon Princes upstairs, removing them from the picture. Which made the likes of the Balors, Ultroloth and Pit Fiends the 'top dogs' you could encounter, so they became less henchman and more akin to the major villains calling the shots...the criminal masterminds you attest to below.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> 9. The hierarchs of daemonkind are generally disposable cannon-fodder in Gygax's multiverse, excepting Infestix himself.
> 
> In Planescape, every ultroloth and arcanaloth is a criminal mastermind. Some of the greatest villains in the Gygaxaverse are human, putting the fiends to shame, while Planescape put great emphasis on the prowess of the immortal, unthinkably ancient fiends.




I think you are failing to take into account that the fate of the multiverse was at stake, not some paltry feud between a Balor and a Pit Fiend. At such a measure of power even demon princes and daemon masters were but pawns in a larger game.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> Noting that you are saying the modern vampire as opposed to the mediaeval monster, I would like to ask you what you are considering your souces.  Respectfully, of course; there was one person on another thread that got really, really upset because I dared to ask for a source.
> 
> I must confess that I am primarily going on _Dracula_ as my source, and not Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's version.
> 
> I could be missing something (though that portrayal of vampires would still bug me).




Ugh. Don't even get me started on what Coppola did to Dracula.   What makes it even worse is that so many people take it at face value, assuming that the literary Dracula was the same sort of character.

There's no romantic angle to Dracula in the novel. None. The whole feeding and "seduction" thing isn't a love metaphor, it's a _rape_ metaphor, cloaked beneath the veil of Victorian sensibilities.

Not that I doubt Whizbang has his sources. There were a lot of 19th century vampire tales other than Stoker's.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Speaking of, would you care to truly weep for the future of literary study? A few years ago, I was in the DVD section of a Best Buy. A pair of young women passed me, and one of them was telling the other that:



> There are two movies adapted from Anne Rice's books. "Interview With the Vampire" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula."




I about cried right there in the store.


----------



## Voadam

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Fiends are primal evil. They know nothing else, they are nothing else. They are terrifying, and all the more so because they _cannot_ be anything other than what they are. They cooperate with mortals only when they have something to gain from the deal. They have no friends. Even their love, when they can feel it at all, is ultimately perverse and self-serving.
> 
> Anything less than absolute, nigh-incomprehensible evil isn't worthy of the title "fiend."




Fiends as absolute evil and celestials as pure good excludes the possibility of a celestial falling. So no Lucifer morningstar starting out a good angel leading a rebellion of a third of the heavenly host and becoming the devil.

I like and use the concept of certain outsiders as alignment elementals, but the free will fallen archetype for fiends is strong.


----------



## diaglo

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> I hear their Abyss one was pretty good.
> 
> --Erik



pretty abysmal if you ask me.


----------



## DungeonmasterCal

Ya know..this is a book I'd probably never use.  I don't really care for "extra-planar" adventuring or critters.

Ya'll enjoy!


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> It used to be that only on FR, after the Time of Troubles, that deities had such an intimate connection to worshippers that they would weaken and die if their worship disappeared on the world.




Actually, this started with Fritz Lieber's stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and became part of the Nehwon setting that TSR made some supplements for and included in both Deities & Demigods and Legends & Lore.

Forgotten Realms and Planescape got the idea from there.



> Essentially instead of the relative youth of gods being a peculiarity of the FR setting, Planescape translated that to the entire multiverse and every setting therein effectively negating the creation stories of the peoples of the material world




Not so! Remember that in Planescape, belief is _power_. If enough people believe something is true, it _becomes_ true.

If the peoples of Krynn believe the gods created their world, _that's exactly what happened._ There's no "real" story of what happened - if there ever was another history, it's buried now beneath consensual reality, assuming it ever existed to begin with. And that history was just as much a construct of belief as the current one.

Also, don't ever forget that mortals aren't the only ones who believe things. The gods of Krynn could as easily have been created by the dreams and nightmares of earlier, transcendent beings of pure thought, long before any mortals were born. They could have even believed _themselves_ into being, if there was no one else around to do it for them. Or they could have simply come from an earlier world - Krynn was created a mere 5000 or so years ago! 

In short, assuming that the gods are created by belief doesn't remotely negate the creation myths of the various worlds.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I think numbers of those 'invented' creatures were simply existing creatures under new names. I think Dreggals was another name for Barghests for instance.




Unlikely. Barghests (or barguests) are creatures from English folklore, and therefore didn't need to have their names changed. And dreggals - spiky-headed, metallic-voiced creatures - don't resemble them. They _do_ somewhat resemble the linquas, but they were a Planescape creation.

Gary Gygax himself is unwilling to say any more about what maelvis are. Dumalduns don't resemble any AD&D creature either.



> A lot of this hinges on the power fluctuations that happened between 1st and 2nd Edition.




Could be. 



> I think you are failing to take into account that the fate of the multiverse was at stake, not some paltry feud between a Balor and a Pit Fiend.




The fate of the multiverse is at stake (more or less) several times in the Planescape adventures - due to the Iron Shadow, the Last Word, and other problems.

Gygax's multiverse was more human-centered, while Planescape's seems more dominated by the planeborn, whose puissance due to their great age and experience is emphasized heavily. I'm just noting a stylistic difference, not criticizing.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> A few years ago, I was in the DVD section of a Best Buy. A pair of young women passed me, and one of them was telling the other that:
> 
> ...
> 
> I about cried right there in the store.




You know, if it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Barghests (or barguests) are creatures from English folklore




Funny ... I'd've guessed German or Irish!  *ba-dum-ching!*

EDIT:

To add something more useful, I've no issues with the fact that Planescape allowed demons, et al., to "fall in love."

Rather, I just wish it had gone a bit farther to differentiate what exactly that means to something immortal and evil, rather than kind of leaving it at the human emotion.  In other words, we have no problems with accepting that an evil human sorceror could fall in love with an innocent maiden - we just assume that the way in which this affects him, and the ways in which he shows it, will be somewhat different from the paladin's love.

Par example, take the Phantom of the Opera.  We've got a "Good" love (Raoul and Christine) and an "Evil" love (Phantom and Christine) both going at the same time.

Demonic love should be the Phantom's love - only more so.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> Noting that you are saying the modern vampire as opposed to the mediaeval monster, I would like to ask you what you are considering your souces.  Respectfully, of course; there was one person on another thread that got really, really upset because I dared to ask for a source.
> 
> I must confess that I am primarily going on _Dracula_ as my source, and not Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's version.
> 
> I could be missing something (though that portrayal of vampires would still bug me).



Stoker, Polidori and ... crap, whoever wrote that Gothic novel about the female vampire, Carmilla, I think her name was.

It's been a long time since I got my English degree and I'm at work and unable to look through vampire Web sites right now. 

In any case, D&D is almost entirely concerned about modern takes on fantasy, as opposed to games like Ars Magica. While there is an audience for things like Green Ronin's Mystic Vistas classical and antiquity settings, for the most part, D&D is thoroughly modern. (Look at the takes on zombies and werewolves, for instance, or dragons.)

Modern vampires, which started in the 19th century and were a popular literary sensation at the time, are creatures of passion, who feel regret, sorrow, fear and love. It doesn't stop Dracula from being a creature of evil, but I would submit that the reason vampires didn't capture the imagination until those traits were added was that the shallow beasts they were traditionally portrayed as are, frankly, kind of boring.

In any case, if the D&D vampire bothers you (and he bothers a lot of us -- level draining always seems clumsy to me when grafted onto the vampire), there are oodles of variants out there. It's one of the many reasons to pick up Denizens of Dread, for instance. You can get your bestial vampire and I get my blood-drinking vampire (along with bitchin' racial vampires).


----------



## Dr. Harry

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Stoker, Polidori and ... crap, whoever wrote that Gothic novel about the female vampire, Carmilla, I think her name was.




_ Festival of Blood_ or something like that?  I didn't get that out of Stoker, myself.



> Modern vampires, which started in the 19th century and were a popular literary sensation at the time, are creatures of passion, who feel regret, sorrow, fear and love. It doesn't stop Dracula from being a creature of evil, but I would submit that the reason vampires didn't capture the imagination until those traits were added was that the shallow beasts they were traditionally portrayed as are, frankly, kind of boring.
> 
> In any case, if the D&D vampire bothers you (and he bothers a lot of us -- level draining always seems clumsy to me when grafted onto the vampire), there are oodles of variants out there. It's one of the many reasons to pick up Denizens of Dread, for instance. You can get your bestial vampire and I get my blood-drinking vampire (along with bitchin' racial vampires).




If the fiends are the personification of evil, then I look on vampires as damned souls that simply aren't in the underworld yet, and so have no real good in them, although they might mimic some of the things from life (love, healthy appetites,  etc.)  The book _Vampires_, the first-edition Chill accessory, had a discussion of the nature of the vampire that I really liked.

To be fair, part of my annoance might be with Anne Rice and/or LARP'ers I have known.


----------



## blargney the second

You know what's kind of funny?  I love the series of books that have come out lately: Lords of, Races of, Complete.  I didn't even look at this one because its title doesn't fit with the others.  Apparently unfamiliarity breeds contempt. 

A fiend book would be really cool!
-blarg


----------



## Desdichado

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I about cried right there in the store.



Good god.  I would have stopped and said something to them.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> _ Festival of Blood_ or something like that?  I didn't get that out of Stoker, myself.



Stoker's Dracula isn't the wuss that Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula is, but he has more layers than the bestial vampires that existed prior to the 19th century. It's probably open to debate as to whether manners and the ability to switch gentility on and off constitutes a veneer or a real indication of virtues hidden within the depths of his dead heart.



> If the fiends are the personification of evil, then I look on vampires as damned souls that simply aren't in the underworld yet, and so have no real good in them, although they might mimic some of the things from life (love, healthy appetites,  etc.)  The book _Vampires_, the first-edition Chill accessory, had a discussion of the nature of the vampire that I really liked.



You and Joss Whedon, actually. Unless ... Joss? Is that you? 



> To be fair, part of my annoance might be with Anne Rice and/or LARP'ers I have known.



I think anyone who's ever had a colleague come into their office, cross their arms and announce "I am invisible" agrees with you. (And yeah, this happened to me. "Get your invisible ass out of here.")


----------



## Desdichado

blargney the second said:
			
		

> You know what's kind of funny?  I love the series of books that have come out lately: Lords of, Races of, Complete.  I didn't even look at this one because its title doesn't fit with the others.  Apparently unfamiliarity breeds contempt.



Well, those are several series, and there certainly isn't a "Lords of" series.  _Lords of Madness_ (and presumably this book) are part of the series that also includes _Draconomicon_ and _Libris Mortis_.


----------



## Shemeska

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> True, true. I forgot 1e with its 400 hit point Zeus and Odin. I should have stated that 3e brought that travesty back from the abyss from which it had fallen and stuffed what could have been a book rich in useful information about gods, their churches and their manner of interacting with the worlds into a book stuffed with monsterous stat blocks so that uber-munchkins can sharpen their +15 swords of Excessive Grandiosity upon the greatest monsters in the universe.




Well spoken. It should have remained buried back in the Carter administration rather than rising up into unlife in 3e.


----------



## the Jester

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> It used to be that only on FR, after the Time of Troubles, that deities had such an intimate connection to worshippers that they would weaken and die if their worship disappeared on the world. In Planescape it became a universal assumption that gods NEEDED worship to exist. This was never the case on Greyhawk or Krynn.




Actually Gygax wrote an article on this in Dragon in the 80's sometime, referring to how gods gained 'mana' both from worshipers and from creatures of their alignment.


----------



## Shemeska

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Good god.  I would have stopped and said something to them.




Myself, lacking tact, I'd have fallen over laughing at them.


----------



## Krypter

Shemeska said:
			
		

> And really, the 'Fiends and Celestials getting drunk alongside mortals in bars all over the place in Sigil' is honestly an unfair stereotype that gets tossed around but wasn't ever there. The setting gets maligned for it anyway.




Shemmie, dear, no offence but your namesake prances around town shopping for dresses and preens herself in a mirror. My avatar-sake sits in a shop in a mortal city and sells trinkets. Look at your avatar. It's cute 'n all, but it ain't demonic. It's too human, with human foibles tacked on too garishly. 

Planescape works well as a faery wonderland, poorly as a hellish pit of depravity. It requires a lot of bending and stretching to disassociate it from the interplanar races fantastic voyage model. It's a specific genre quite different from regular D&D, which is why regular D&D players often had such a strongly negative reaction to it. 


PS: Yeah! Bring back Anthraxus! Who is this Mydichlorian Star Wars refugee anyway?  
PPS: And the Molydeus. My players decided to jump into a portal to the Plane of Fire rather than fight one. Now that's scary.


----------



## Shemeska

Krypter said:
			
		

> Shemmie, dear, no offence but your namesake prances around town shopping for dresses and preens herself in a mirror.




Man, the temptation for a purely IC response... but no.

The best way to respond here is to relate to a quote from the Evil Fashion thread we had last week, about how really, if you were an evil warrior and you could get away with it and just kill anyone who said anything about it, you'd be wearing black full plate armor with spikes and skulls on it too.

The Marauder acts that way because frankly, she can get away with it. Plus, given her position in Sigil, it's nearly a job requirement to take upon some more mortal traits in order to better interact. It's better to act the part of the prissy socialite with fangs in an evening gown than a snarling fiend from the Gray Waste of indeterminate gender who leaves a trail of ashes behind themselves. One of those people can relate to, even if they understand that you're wholly evil. The act people can relate to, and business in corruption and souls goes much better because of it.

Same thing with A'kin, the 'good cop' to her 'bad cop' in Sigil. He's nice. Far too nice. But he gets information that way even if he probably goes back to Gehenna every night to torture petitioners to release the fury of having to bottle his true nature day in and day out.

The same fiends in their own environment wouldn't carry around that baggage and pretense. But perhaps that's just my take on it, a bit of rationalizing the situation. I've used at least one of them like that, and made them pretty damn fiendish in the stuff I've written.



> PS: Yeah! Bring back Anthraxus! Who is this Mydichlorian Star Wars refugee anyway?
> PPS: And the Molydeus. My players decided to jump into a portal to the Plane of Fire rather than fight one. Now that's scary.




Honestly I like the faceless Mydianchlarus at Khin-Oin, fits better with the race to an extent, given Anthraxus' origin. Course I killed off Anthraxus in my own campaign, and Mydianchlarus too.

And the Molydeus was awesome. My PCs sadly trusted one of them. 
"You can't attack us! You said you were bound to obey us if we let you out!" - sadly mistaken PC

The Klurichnir in 3e was a pretty thin attempt to replace the Molydeus, but it'd be fraggin awesome if we got the Molydei back.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Krypter said:
			
		

> Shemmie, dear, no offence but your namesake prances around town shopping for dresses and preens herself in a mirror. My avatar-sake sits in a shop in a mortal city and sells trinkets. Look at your avatar. It's cute 'n all, but it ain't demonic. It's too human, with human foibles tacked on too garishly.




Krypter, the logical error you and some others are making is that you're referring to Planescape as if it was a monolithic entity, where in fact it was a number of different contributors, each with their own interpretations of how things should be.

For example, this is how Colin McComb describes an ultroloth in _Hellbound_:

"_...at flrst the fiend appears to be a lifeless statue - motionless, its spare frame wrapped in a voluminous black cloak. After a moment, it turns to face the party, seeming to spin more than move, its ebony eyes boring into all PCs at once.

...
"After a moment, the ultroloth speaks. Its voice is like the buzzing of strange bees in a hive and the crash of acidic waves on a sulfurous shore._"

Pretty damn impressive, huh? Here's a fragment by Monte Cook from _Planes of Conflict_:

"_The gaze of an ultroloth is not one you want to meet twice... I heard his voice in my head. As always, I cringed.

"His words penetrated my brain. 'What have you made for me?' It felt like a razor cutting soft flesh._"

And here's a tiny part of Colin McComb's description of what it means to be tanar'ri in _Faces of Evil_:

"_Your heart of darkness keeps growing. It extends its veins like spitting serpents through your body, cancerous lesions of violence erupting across your skin... Everything you see becomes tainted by your rage and bleak hatred. You can't imagine a time when you felt any of the emotions that creatures of good are said to possess. Love and friendship are foreign concepts; you know their meaning but not their truth. Instead, you use the word cruelly to create hope in others - but only so you can crush it later.

You become a creature without conscience. Others exist only to serve as your tools, only to satiate your needs - even if those needs are merely for things that you can burn and sting and tear to mewling shreds._"

That sort of thing goes on for an _entire page_, a rhapsody of darkness and hate that concludes by reminding you that all that is the _merest glimmer_ of how tanar'ri feel.

Shemeshka and A'kin are, more or less, creations of Ray and Valerie Vallese. They're two of the most popular and iconic characters in the Planescape line, so it's not surprising if you think of them as emblematic of how fiends were treated in Planescape in general - but it _wasn't_.

Similarly, Tony DiTerlizzi's art was distinctive and beautiful, but concentrating on his depiction of fiends ignores the horrors conjured by Adam Rex and rk post. 

I can see how memorable examples might gestate in the fertile soil of someone's mind, blossoming as vague prejudices in RPG-related forums, but occasionally it's good to take some metaphorical gardening shears and cut them down.


----------



## Clueless

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I about cried right there in the store.



Pray she meant it in humor and in critism of recent Stoker adaptations...


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Unlikely. Barghests (or barguests) are creatures from English folklore, and therefore didn't need to have their names changed. And dreggals - spiky-headed, metallic-voiced creatures - don't resemble them. They _do_ somewhat resemble the linquas, but they were a Planescape creation.




I wasn't suggesting that all the monsters were under different names, merely some.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Gary Gygax himself is unwilling to say any more about what maelvis are.




He he! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Dumalduns don't resemble any AD&D creature either.




Were Dumalduns not Hordelings?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The fate of the multiverse is at stake (more or less) several times in the Planescape adventures - due to the Iron Shadow, the Last Word, and other problems.




...and who inevitably sorts these problems out?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Gygax's multiverse was more human-centered, while Planescape's seems more dominated by the planeborn, whose puissance due to their great age and experience is emphasized heavily. I'm just noting a stylistic difference, not criticizing.




You could argue the Planescape method has more style...but less substance. The age old argument of balancing crunch with fluff.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey there! 



			
				Krypter said:
			
		

> Shemmie, dear, no offence but your namesake prances around town shopping for dresses and preens herself in a mirror. My avatar-sake sits in a shop in a mortal city and sells trinkets. Look at your avatar. It's cute 'n all, but it ain't demonic. It's too human, with human foibles tacked on too garishly.
> 
> Planescape works well as a faery wonderland, poorly as a hellish pit of depravity. It requires a lot of bending and stretching to disassociate it from the interplanar races fantastic voyage model. It's a specific genre quite different from regular D&D, which is why regular D&D players often had such a strongly negative reaction to it.




...and the whole things far too cuddly! Pandouring to a bunch of low-level fops indeed. 



			
				Krypter said:
			
		

> PS: Yeah! Bring back Anthraxus! Who is this Mydichlorian Star Wars refugee anyway?




Wasn't he the tattooed, spike-headed Ultrodaemon with the brilliant energy double-sword?



			
				Krypter said:
			
		

> PPS: And the Molydeus. My players decided to jump into a portal to the Plane of Fire rather than fight one. Now that's scary.




Considering how much of a bump the 3.5 Balor got a conversion of the Molydeus would be a very scary proposition - lets hope James and Erik remember the Molydeus. I always liked the anachronism of what was essentially a chaotic evil fiend with a lawful role.


----------



## BOZ

same here, but it takes something special to find order in chaos - or chaos in order, for that matter.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Were Dumalduns not Hordelings?




No. Dumalduns were opossum-like creatures. (Dance of Demons, p. 66)

Some of Gygax's Abyssal creatures were certainly renamed AD&D fiends (for example, boorixtroi are obviously goristroi), but not the ones I was talking about.

My only intention was to list some differences between Gygax's series and the Planescape cosmology, because someone asked. One such difference is that Gygax has some new kinds of fiends in it, but they were poorly detailed. We know dumalduns are opossum-like, for example, but not much else. This isn't a value judgement - I'm simply saying the amount of information we're given is very sketchy.



> ...and who inevitably sorts these problems out?




I don't think you quite get what I'm trying to say. Naturally the adventures themselves revolve around the adventurers - I'm identifying what I think is a genuine difference in the set-up of the _cosmology_.

In the Gord books, Infestix (the greater planar being whose avatar is the god Nerull) respects no one but Tharizdun, but certain powerful planar beings are his allies, such as Demogorgon and the archdevils. He fully intends to destroy them eventually, but for now he needs them. Infestix's greatest champion, however, is the human wizard Gravestone.

In Planescape terms, Gravestone would be a proxy. He might be very important in a given adventure, and very important to a god, but figures such as Demogorgon and the Lords of the Nine are infinitely more fearsome, powerful, and cunning than a mortal could ever be. They simply operate on a different level, and human champions and villains don't interact with them as equals. 

Meanwhile, the Diseased Eight - Anthraxus, Bubonis, and so on - are treated as nothing but cannon-fodder by Infestix.  Their job, in one scene (Come Endless Darkness, p. 242) is simply to guard the door. Infestix doesn't need them - he is the indisputed ruler of daemonkind, not them - so he doesn't hesitate to destroy them when it pleases him. In Planescape, on the other hand, figures like these are more or less equal in power and darksome majesty to the lords of Baator and the Abyss, though their power may come more from bluff, reputation, lies, and ancient knowledge than physical or magical strength.

That's the difference between the two approaches. So when someone says "I prefer the approach Gygax took in his _Gord the Rogue_ series," that's the sort of thing they apparently mean - a multiverse where mortals advance at far faster rates than immortals, and deal with them on an equal basis. A multiverse where the lords of Hell and the Abyss are much more impressive than yugoloth lords. In fact, a multiverse much more like the 3e/Epic Level Handbook approach.



> You could argue the Planescape method has more style...but less substance.




Than the Gord novels? Hardly. They were _all_ fluff - they were novels, after all, not game supplements.  In a game supplement, speaking vaguely of spined, opossum-headed armies isn't very satisfying. I think you mean to say the approach in, say, Ed Greenwood's Dragon articles on the Nine Hells or the 1e Monster Manual II had mostly lists of stats and treasures, and not so much on the psychology and society of the planes. 

That's something quite different from what we were talking about, but I suspect a lot of people in this thread are similarly confused. They think Gygax=stats, Planescape=Fluff, when actually only the most powerful, plane-defining creatures went statless in Planescape, and they forget that Gygax himself thought statting monsters was pretty boring and often delegated that responsibility (for example, Jeff Grubb statted the modrons based on Gygax's notes) or didn't bother at all (which is why the MMII has a long list of devils only elaborated on by Ed Greenwood and demons who never got any stats or description). Or they think vaguely of DiTerlizzi's art, the brilliant webs of quirkiness of Ray and Valerie Vallese, or an off-hand mention in the boxed set of Sigil as a neutral ground where fiends and celestials could meet and discuss terms (transmuting that into fiends and celestials as drinking buddies) and forget the darker, creepier, even revolting things Planescape introduced - like the demiplane of Maelost, with its sentient parasites, or the hungry Ingress in Pandemonium with her brood, or the slime-drenched city of chains and silent, nightmarish tormentors, Jangling Hiter, or the hideous winged slasrath, or the horrible, sadistic vlaath. They remember that the greatest planar lords and the gods weren't generally statted and forget that the majority of Planescape supplements were perfectly playable adventures, with each encounter meticulously statted just like in any other adventure, or that Planescape had three books and four monstrous supplements dedicated to providing statted monsters, or all the space dedicated to spells, kits, and magical items in the Planewalker's Handbook.

There's no shame in not collecting all the jillion Planescape things, but trying to make a blanket statement about the setting is liable to make you look a bit foolish, at least in the eyes of those few of us uber-nerds who really obsess over it, because we can easily come up with a dozen counterexamples. When someone like Erik Mona casually uses phrases like "typical of Planescape's slap-dash approach to fiends" he forgets how painfully thin the amount of total fiendish material was before Planescape and how detailed, complex, and painstakingly thought-out (and genuinely scary!) the fiendish ecologies in Planescape really were, especially as Colin McComb presented them. I consider that to be both style _and_ substance.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Wasn't he the tattooed, spike-headed Ultrodaemon with the brilliant energy double-sword?




I'll admit to giving an Ultroloth 10 levels of Master of the Unseen Hand from Complete Warrior and having him surrounded by a cloud of random sharp things just so I could pull a Vader with the PCs.

GD that was fun...



> Considering how much of a bump the 3.5 Balor got a conversion of the Molydeus would be a very scary proposition - lets hope James and Erik remember the Molydeus. I always liked the anachronism of what was essentially a chaotic evil fiend with a lawful role.




The Molydeus was awesome.


----------



## Staffan

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Well spoken. It should have remained buried back in the Carter administration rather than rising up into unlife in 3e.



WOTC has the rights to an excellent system for dealing with gods if you have to give them stats - The Primal Order (the first thing they actually released, back in like 1990). Or at least they had, they might have gone with Peter Adkison back when he left. Had I been calling the shots, I would have made Deities & Demigods use an updated version of that system, and adapted it to D&D - that is, if I had thought gods should have stats in the first place.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Staffan said:
			
		

> WOTC has the rights to an excellent system for dealing with gods if you have to give them stats - The Primal Order (the first thing they actually released, back in like 1990). Or at least they had, they might have gone with Peter Adkison back when he left. Had I been calling the shots, I would have made Deities & Demigods use an updated version of that system, and adapted it to D&D - that is, if I had thought gods should have stats in the first place.




Yeah, Peter Adkison bought it from them. Just to have it, I guess. 'Cause it's his baby.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> No. Dumalduns were opossum-like creatures. (Dance of Demons, p. 66)
> 
> Some of Gygax's Abyssal creatures were certainly renamed AD&D fiends (for example, boorixtroi are obviously goristroi), but not the ones I was talking about.
> 
> My only intention was to list some differences between Gygax's series and the Planescape cosmology, because someone asked. One such difference is that Gygax has some new kinds of fiends in it, but they were poorly detailed. We know dumalduns are opossum-like, for example, but not much else. This isn't a value judgement - I'm simply saying the amount of information we're given is very sketchy.




Yes but its not like these beings were central to the story, added to which he introduced so many monsters that fully describing them all would have taken a monster manual 3.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I don't think you quite get what I'm trying to say. Naturally the adventures themselves revolve around the adventurers - I'm identifying what I think is a genuine difference in the set-up of the _cosmology_.




You identified the Iron Shadow and the Last Word as multiversal threats - I was simply asking how those events were resolved in continuity?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In the Gord books, Infestix (the greater planar being whose avatar is the god Nerull) respects no one but Tharizdun, but certain powerful planar beings are his allies, such as Demogorgon and the archdevils. He fully intends to destroy them eventually, but for now he needs them. Infestix's greatest champion, however, is the human wizard Gravestone.




You have to remember that at the time of 1st Edition AD&D, Gravestone, by virtue of levels alone (at least 34th) was probably more powerful than the Monster Manuals rendition of Demogorgon.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In Planescape terms, Gravestone would be a proxy. He might be very important in a given adventure, and very important to a god, but figures such as Demogorgon and the Lords of the Nine are infinitely more fearsome, powerful, and cunning than a mortal could ever be.




My moneys on Elminster! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They simply operate on a different level, and human champions and villains don't interact with them as equals.




Personally I hate that arbitrary jive. All power is relative. You can dress it up with some sort of 'they are on a different level' spin all you want but it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. However, if thats the approach that floats your boat good luck to you.   



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Meanwhile, the Diseased Eight - Anthraxus, Bubonis, and so on - are treated as nothing but cannon-fodder by Infestix.




More henchmen, than cannon-fodder I thought.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Their job, in one scene (Come Endless Darkness, p. 242) is simply to guard the door. Infestix doesn't need them - he is the indisputed ruler of daemonkind, not them - so he doesn't hesitate to destroy them when it pleases him.
> 
> In Planescape, on the other hand, figures like these are more or less equal in power and darksome majesty to the lords of Baator and the Abyss, though their power may come more from bluff, reputation, lies, and ancient knowledge than physical or magical strength.




Personally I don't see any difference in terms of power, only scale.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> That's the difference between the two approaches. So when someone says "I prefer the approach Gygax took in his _Gord the Rogue_ series," that's the sort of thing they apparently mean - a multiverse where mortals advance at far faster rates than immortals, and deal with them on an equal basis.




Well, lets examine that. Basically what we are talking about is between 2-4 mortals in the entire world who eventually end up being more powerful than say a 1st Ed. Demon Prince (Gravestone and Gord certainly, possibly including Leda and Gellor). Added to which the three heroes (and likely Gravestone to some capacity) were kitted out by divine beings as well as each possessing one or more artifacts.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> A multiverse where the lords of Hell and the Abyss are much more impressive than yugoloth lords.




Wrong. The novels still showed parity. What you are forgetting is that the Demon Princes were stronger in the Abyss which is where most of the action takes place, hence the reason the daemon masters seem weaker when they do battle there.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In fact, a multiverse much more like the 3e/Epic Level Handbook approach.




I'll take it over the 2nd Edition High Level Handbook anyday.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Than the Gord novels? Hardly. They were _all_ fluff - they were novels, after all, not game supplements.  In a game supplement, speaking vaguely of spined, opossum-headed armies isn't very satisfying. I think you mean to say the approach in, say, Ed Greenwood's Dragon articles on the Nine Hells or the 1e Monster Manual II had mostly lists of stats and treasures, and not so much on the psychology and society of the planes.
> 
> That's something quite different from what we were talking about, but I suspect a lot of people in this thread are similarly confused. They think Gygax=stats, Planescape=Fluff, when actually only the most powerful, plane-defining creatures went statless in Planescape, and they forget that Gygax himself thought statting monsters was pretty boring and often delegated that responsibility (for example, Jeff Grubb statted the modrons based on Gygax's notes) or didn't bother at all (which is why the MMII has a long list of devils only elaborated on by Ed Greenwood and demons who never got any stats or description). Or they think vaguely of DiTerlizzi's art, the brilliant webs of quirkiness of Ray and Valerie Vallese, or an off-hand mention in the boxed set of Sigil as a neutral ground where fiends and celestials could meet and discuss terms (transmuting that into fiends and celestials as drinking buddies) and forget the darker, creepier, even revolting things Planescape introduced - like the demiplane of Maelost, with its sentient parasites, or the hungry Ingress in Pandemonium with her brood, or the slime-drenched city of chains and silent, nightmarish tormentors, Jangling Hiter, or the hideous winged slasrath, or the horrible, sadistic vlaath. They remember that the greatest planar lords and the gods weren't generally statted and forget that the majority of Planescape supplements were perfectly playable adventures, with each encounter meticulously statted just like in any other adventure, or that Planescape had three books and four monstrous supplements dedicated to providing statted monsters, or all the space dedicated to spells, kits, and magical items in the Planewalker's Handbook.
> 
> There's no shame in not collecting all the jillion Planescape things, but trying to make a blanket statement about the setting is liable to make you look a bit foolish, at least in the eyes of those few of us uber-nerds who really obsess over it, because we can easily come up with a dozen counterexamples. When someone like Erik Mona casually uses phrases like "typical of Planescape's slap-dash approach to fiends" he forgets how painfully thin the amount of total fiendish material was before Planescape and how detailed, complex, and painstakingly thought-out (and genuinely scary!) the fiendish ecologies in Planescape really were, especially as Colin McComb presented them. I consider that to be both style _and_ substance.




The comments towards substance were mentioned in a 'pound for pound' fashion. Planescape was clearly grounded in style *over* substance, obviously I am not arguing that it had no substance at all.

Nor would I argue the material was poor, on the contrary I thought it was good (I own four boxed sets of the stuff), but it just didn't offer what I was looking for...though I kept hoping things would change and thus kept buying.   

I understand some of the choices made by the designers, incorporating all the low level stuff for instance, but to me that just made the planes cuddly. Doubly so with the removal of  what passed for divine/quasi-divine level opposition.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Yes but its not like these beings were central to the story, added to which he introduced so many monsters that fully describing them all would have taken a monster manual 3.



A _third_ Monster Manual? Now you're just talking crazy.


----------



## Erik Mona

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> lets hope James and Erik remember the Molydeus.




Oh come on. 

Have a little faith, people. 

--Erik


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Yes but its not like these beings were central to the story, added to which he introduced so many monsters that fully describing them all would have taken a monster manual 3




Krust, you still don't seem to see what I'm trying to do here. I'm not criticizing the books, only _describing_ them. You don't have to defend or rationalize Gygax's choices, because I never questioned them.



> More henchmen, than cannon-fodder I thought.




Gravestone (and maybe Sigildark and Staphloccus) was a henchman. The Diseased Eight were cannon-fodder. That's what I'm getting at. 



> What you are forgetting is that the Demon Princes were stronger in the Abyss




I wasn't talking about power level; I was talking about the different way Infestix treated his allies compared to his daemon (night hag, dreggal, and so on) minions.


----------



## James Jacobs

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Oh come on.
> 
> Have a little faith, people.
> 
> --Erik




The molydeus was the demon that looked like a cube with bat wings and a face on the side, right?


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> The molydeus was the demon that looked like a cube with bat wings and a face on the side, right?




Exactly right. Hopefully you'll include _all_ the molydeus types (everything from the lowly monodeus and duodeus to the exalted secundeus and primdeus).


----------



## Shemeska

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Exactly right. Hopefully you'll include _all_ the molydeus types (everything from the lowly monodeus and duodeus to the exalted secundeus and primdeus).




I'm blaming you for any damage done to my keyboard when I shot soda out my nose while reading that.


----------



## Sundragon2012

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Exactly right. Hopefully you'll include _all_ the molydeus types (everything from the lowly monodeus and duodeus to the exalted secundeus and primdeus).




Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erik they lie, lie, lie. They seek to resurrect the primal evil that is the modrons.

Gods help us should that horror far worse than fiends rise again.   



Chris


----------



## zoroaster100

I hope this fiend book will treat fiends more like the recent Dragon articles (horrible inhuman evil entities) and not like humans in funny costumes, as someone stated above.  Even the lowliest demons should be utterly terrifying as far as their motivatios and behavior, in the way that ultimate evil should be utterly terrifying to mortals.  Human beings can sink to despicable evil, so surely beings who are evil incarnate should be able to surpass them.  I hope the book does not spend much time at all on the Bloodwar.  I thought the whole concept of the Bloodwar was ridiculous from the start.  I'm much more interested in how demons relate to mortals and how demons relate to celestials than a war of devils versus demons.  If they include stuff on the Bloodwar, I hope they present it as an optional campaign idea and not an integral part of the cosmology or "ecologies" of the demons presneted.  In fact, I'd rather that not too much time be spent on cosmology in the book, since each campaign has a different cosmology and the material might not be applicable.  I'd rather get interesting information on individual demons, including interesting new demon types.  In particular, I'd like to see more low and mid level demons, and more unique demons of lesser power that can be used with mid level adventures.  One shouldn't need to be 20th level to have an adventure featuring interesting unique fiends.


----------



## demiurge1138

Have you seen The Book of Fiends, zoroaster100? It's an alternate cosmology for the Lower Planes, where the Blood War is mostly treated as an aside when it's referenced at all, and most of the fiends are geared towards mortal/outsider interactions. And it's co-written by none other than Fiendish Codex's co-author Erik Mona. 

So, somehow, I think there will be plenty of room for the demons and their relationships with Good and with mortals, even though the Blood War's almost certainly going to remain as canon. I can't imagine that it wouldn't. 

Demiurge out.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Clueless said:
			
		

> Pray she meant it in humor and in critism of recent Stoker adaptations...




Nope. I'm not the world's best when it comes to reading people, but I can listen to tone of voice as well as anyone else. She was 100% serious.  :\  I'm so certain of that, I'd bet money on it.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Speaking of, would you care to truly weep for the future of literary study? A few years ago, I was in the DVD section of a Best Buy. A pair of young women passed me, and one of them was telling the other that:
> 
> 
> 
> I about cried right there in the store.




There is a very old set of Peanuts strips in which Lucy is spouting off ridiculous, made-up "fatcs" to Linus, and all Charlie Brown can say is "My stomach hurts."  I've been flashing to that strip a lot lately.  re: also thread on "medireview".


----------



## Pants

> When someone like Erik Mona casually uses phrases like "typical of Planescape's slap-dash approach to fiends" he forgets how painfully thin the amount of total fiendish material was before Planescape and how detailed, complex, and painstakingly thought-out (and genuinely scary!) the fiendish ecologies in Planescape really were, especially as Colin McComb presented them. I consider that to be both style _and_ substance.



Well, in all due respect, it was kind of slap-dash.
_Faces of Evil_ paints the fiends as pretty horrific creatures, unfortunately it also paints them as more... humanoid than I (and apparently others) would like. At least with me, it's not the fact that Shemeska and A'Kin are merchants, it's the fact that fiends are encountered _at all_ in Sigil. The opening scene of _Fires of Dis_ has a freakin' Glabrezu bartering with a merchant. The fiends have lungs, they breath, they have organs similar to those of other humanoids (at least, the baatezu do). It's all too humanoid for me.

It doesn't help when the _Planescape Monstrous Compendium I_ is full of many decidedly unfiendish illustrations (I never cared for Rex or Post's illustrations). For pete-sake, the Arcanaloth has _glasses_ on!

While, many perceptions of PS may not be true of every fiend in the setting, these perceptions ARE reinforced by certain characters, some of the flavor text, and a lot of the art.

I fully believe that PS would've been better received if it wasn't locked into the Core Cosmology and was instead an alternate Cosmology. I know that when I was reading through the old 1e Monster Books, I wasn't expecting the fiends to speak some slang cockney, wear funny hats, or look all cute, not to mention run stores.


----------



## blargney the second

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Well, those are several series, and there certainly isn't a "Lords of" series.




I was including Lords of Darkness in the "Lords of" series.  In a linear world, two constitutes a pattern!   (I wish English had an elegant way of pluralifying 'series').

-blarg


----------



## Shemeska

Pants said:
			
		

> It doesn't help when the _Planescape Monstrous Compendium I_ is full of many decidedly unfiendish illustrations (I never cared for Rex or Post's illustrations). For pete-sake, the Arcanaloth has _glasses_ on!




Not all of the art falls into what you'd consider unfiendish at all. Here's just a sampling I had sitting around:
1 2 

1st one by Rex I believe, 2nd by DiTerlizzi.

Some people do just simply not care for DiTerlizzi's style. I like it, but some people can't stand it.



> I fully believe that PS would've been better received if it wasn't locked into the Core Cosmology and was instead an alternate Cosmology. I know that when I was reading through the old 1e Monster Books, I wasn't expecting the fiends to speak some slang cockney, wear funny hats, or look all cute, not to mention run stores.




It's not like there was really any deep detail to genuinely speak of in the 1e monster books. As Rip said before, pre-PS it was pretty painfully thin. Like it or not the direction it went in, it's the direction the planes of DnD did go for two point five editions and two decades now.

I will grant you that the Sigilian cant should have been restricted to within Sigil, or in character commentary by people from Sigil. Those times it spread into places beyond Sigil was probably a bad move, but the amount and pervasiveness of the slang drastically varied from book to book. It wasn't omnipresent.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Not all of the art falls into what you'd consider unfiendish at all. Here's just a sampling I had sitting around:
> 1 2




I don't think anyone is claiming that Planescape had _no_ fiendish art, Shemeska, or that it _never_ portrayed the fiends as--well, fiendish.

My problem, and what I think other folks have problems with, is the fact that it _sometimes_ portrayed fiends as unfiendish.

That doesn't render the setting useless, or bad. It's a great setting. But it was, IMO, a mistake to _ever_ show the fiends as too human, or too organic, or--dare I say it--silly. That's all I, and I think others, are saying.


----------



## UniversalMonster

QUESTION: (Maybe this has already been covered, but I didn't catch it.)

Will it have the randomly generated demon tables of (or similar to) the ones in old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide? (and I think the Hordeling of later AD&D had an approximation, but the 1st Ed. one was more fun).

They used to have these nested tables for coming up with demons like 1st you'd roll a head type, then a body type, then a number of limbs... etc. It was actually a lot of fun.


----------



## drowdude

Definately looking forward to this.


----------



## Desdichado

blargney the second said:
			
		

> I was including Lords of Darkness in the "Lords of" series.  In a linear world, two constitutes a pattern!   (I wish English had an elegant way of pluralifying 'series').



I can't tell if you're entirely serious or not, but I _think_ you realize that other than the coincidence of similar titles, Lords of Darkness and Lords of Madness have nothing in common and certainly don't constitute any kind of series.?


----------



## Cthulhu's Librarian

Peter said:
			
		

> Will it have the randomly generated demon tables of (or similar to) the ones in old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide? (and I think the Hordeling of later AD&D had an approximation, but the 1st Ed. one was more fun).
> 
> They used to have these nested tables for coming up with demons like 1st you'd roll a head type, then a body type, then a number of limbs... etc. It was actually a lot of fun.




I LOVED those tables! I used to roll up demons just for fun, just to see how bizarre a combination I could come up with. Seeing an updated version would be great.


----------



## Desdichado

Tables for coming up with randomized names in Abyssal would be very welcome too.  By me, at least.  Sorta like the old Chaos Daemon name generators in old, old Warhammer stuff.


----------



## Nikosandros

I just want to say that i can't wait for this book... the work you people are doing in _Dragon_ with the "Demonomicon" is top notch and given your track record, I have very high expectations!


----------



## Pants

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> That doesn't render the setting useless, or bad. It's a great setting. But it was, IMO, a mistake to _ever_ show the fiends as too human, or too organic, or--dare I say it--silly. That's all I, and I think others, are saying.



People are taking this waaaay too seriously. 
God forbid anyone have a problem with Planescape! ;p

Oh and Shem, that's a picture of Lynkhab, not Pale Night.


----------



## Shemeska

Pants said:
			
		

> Oh and Shem, that's a picture of Lynkhab, not Pale Night.




I know, I just named the image wrong when I scanned it about a year ago, and didn't have reason to rename it.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Stoker's Dracula isn't the wuss that Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula is, but he has more layers than the bestial vampires that existed prior to the 19th century. It's probably open to debate as to whether manners and the ability to switch gentility on and off constitutes a veneer or a real indication of virtues hidden within the depths of his dead heart.




First off, I was combining two thoughts on the earlier vampire novels. "Carmilla" and "Varney the Vampire, or Feast of Blood", became "Carmilla, Feast of Blood" in my head, probably because "Varney" isn't  terribly intimidating or imposing vampire name.  (Hey Vern, .. bla BLAH!)

 Here's a good link with the actual stories.  I have not read these myself (Except for Dracula), so I don't know if they provide information that would contradict me or not  

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/vampire/

As for whether manners and gentility constitutes any level of virtue, I take Hamlet's GM-ing approach that "The devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape" (act ii, Scene 2)


I'd like to thank Mouseferatu



			
				Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> There's no romantic angle to Dracula in the novel. None. The whole feeding and "seduction" thing isn't a love metaphor, it's a rape metaphor, cloaked beneath the veil of Victorian sensibilities.




Let me use this to compare.  These are some of the several different ways to look at fiends, and each of these is perfectly viable for a campaign.
1. Fiends are races that were born on a given plane, and evil because that what the local culture is.  To me, this makes them look too close to s/f aliens.
2. The evil of fiends is the continued evil of those mortal souls that became fiends; to some level they still have some free will to choose to do something good, or can somehow maintain some level of good from their life experiences.
3. Extraplanar creatures are completely and totally evil because they are the personification of (demi/)human(/iod) evil.  
4.  At some point, the fiends had the ability to make real moral decisions and freely chose to be the way they are.  Their conversion is permanent because they had full knowledge of what good and evil truly are and truly mean, as opposed to the mortal races, and made a permanent decision.  This allows for a "Fall of Lucifer" scenario.  Mortals have more freedom because they don't understand the depths of what is going on, making the moral decision a more fundamental commitment to moral principles, and so making the active and continual decision to be good or evil more meaningful.  As the astute reader will have guessed since this section is so long, this is the one I go with.

Free-willed undead (like vampires) as I said, are damned souls still in the mortal world, and are so beyond hope of redemption or any true act of good.

One step down are the Thaumaturges (as described by Green Ronin, most recently in The Book of Fiends), mortals who still have the ability and potential for good or evil who still actively and continuously embrace damnation.  Now *that's* what I can a good BBEG.

Even evil mortals (although possibly not Thaumaturges) can still show some aspects of good, or love, or the positive virtues.  I believe there is a quote in the Elder Edda that can be translated, "No man is so good that good's all he's got / No man is evil that he is worth nought", so I share my DMing world view with that ancient Norse DM as well as Shakespeare (not generally thought of as a DM because when people use "the Bard" it was the 1e bard, and not many people liked that one.)



> You and Joss Whedon, actually. Unless ... Joss? Is that you?




naaaah ... but does this mean that there is something I should be seeking out and examining?


----------



## Mr.Black

I'd like to see a good number of new demons that cover the CR range of 5-20.  I think they deserve to be pretty tough for their CRs, as they often become boss creatures.  

The chasme, bar-lgura, nabassu, and molydeus all deserve a write up.  I particularly like the mature nabassu in Castle Maure.

Two feats would be nice:
1. A stackable feat that improves the demon's SR.
2.A stackable feat that improves the demon's spell-like ability caster level.


----------



## Desdichado

Mr.Black said:
			
		

> The chasme, bar-lgura, nabassu, and molydeus all deserve a write up.  I particularly like the mature nabassu in Castle Maure.



I think most of those were written up in _The Book of Vile Darkness_, actually.  

I certainly hope this book doesn't spend much time reprinting stuff in other books, like that.  I've already got most of the even vaguely fiendish stuff that's out there.


----------



## Shade

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I think most of those were written up in _The Book of Vile Darkness_, actually.
> 
> I certainly hope this book doesn't spend much time reprinting stuff in other books, like that.  I've already got most of the even vaguely fiendish stuff that's out there.




I, on the other hand, really hope all the demons from the BoVD are in there.  As most of the fiends got a bit of power boost when updated to 3.5, those few in books that haven't gottent the 3.5 update (like the Book of Vile Darkness) deserve the same.

And of course, the molydeus and bulezau will hopefully make their 3.x debut here.

I'd also love to see variant half-fiend templates to better recreate the cambion and alu-fiend.


----------



## Desdichado

Shade said:
			
		

> I, on the other hand, really hope all the demons from the BoVD are in there.  As most of the fiends got a bit of power boost when updated to 3.5, those few in books that haven't gottent the 3.5 update (like the Book of Vile Darkness) deserve the same.



That's true; I forgot that book was pre-revision.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Peter said:
			
		

> QUESTION: (Maybe this has already been covered, but I didn't catch it.)
> 
> Will it have the randomly generated demon tables of (or similar to) the ones in old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide? (and I think the Hordeling of later AD&D had an approximation, but the 1st Ed. one was more fun).
> 
> They used to have these nested tables for coming up with demons like 1st you'd roll a head type, then a body type, then a number of limbs... etc. It was actually a lot of fun.




[Warning: Hijack and Pimpage!]

_The Iconic Bestiary: Classics of Fantasy_ from *Lion's Den Press* has conceptually similar tables for use in creating our "replacement critter" for the slaad. There's no reason you couldn't use the tables for random demon creation as well. 

[End: Hijack and Pimpage]


----------



## UniversalMonster

Thanks Ari I will check it out!


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> naaaah ... but does this mean that there is something I should be seeking out and examining?



Just that Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" TV series both closely echo your views that vampires are damned souls on Earth. The only vampires who do not behave as creatures of evil have either had human souls restored to them (this happens twice, amazingly), are being forced to behave themselves (this happens once, and even then, he chafes against it as much as possible) or are faking it for one reason or another (the very final episode finally explains one vampire's behavior this way, and the vampire isn't hated for its betrayal, it's seen as it behaving as its species must).

(OTOH, Whedon is very loose with the term "demon," seemingly using it for any extra-dimensional being. Many of them are evil, but a distressing number of them are all over the map morally, including the karaoke-singing demon who eventually became a series regular, blah.)


----------



## BOZ

Shade said:
			
		

> I, on the other hand, really hope all the demons from the BoVD are in there.  As most of the fiends got a bit of power boost when updated to 3.5, those few in books that haven't gottent the 3.5 update (like the Book of Vile Darkness) deserve the same.
> 
> And of course, the molydeus and bulezau will hopefully make their 3.x debut here.
> 
> I'd also love to see variant half-fiend templates to better recreate the cambion and alu-fiend.




sure, why not... i'll agree with all of that.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Just that Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" TV series both closely echo your views that vampires are damned souls on Earth. The only vampires who do not behave as creatures of evil have either had human souls restored to them (this happens twice, amazingly), are being forced to behave themselves (this happens once, and even then, he chafes against it as much as possible) or are faking it for one reason or another (the very final episode finally explains one vampire's behavior this way, and the vampire isn't hated for its betrayal, it's seen as it behaving as its species must).




Ah, thanks.  I have actually seen very little of either series, hence my cluelessness.


----------



## Zaukrie

I'd love to see the Hordelings tables in there. I'm sure it is much too late to influence the content, but since Demons are beasts of Chaos and evil, that would be great.


----------



## demiurge1138

Shade said:
			
		

> I, on the other hand, really hope all the demons from the BoVD are in there.  As most of the fiends got a bit of power boost when updated to 3.5, those few in books that haven't gottent the 3.5 update (like the Book of Vile Darkness) deserve the same.
> 
> And of course, the molydeus and bulezau will hopefully make their 3.x debut here.
> 
> I'd also love to see variant half-fiend templates to better recreate the cambion and alu-fiend.




All but one fiend in 3.5 got a power boost. The babau got severely crippled from its BOVD (and 1e/2e) incarnation, losing a lot of hit dice and the weakness gaze. My one pet peeve with the 3.5 outsiders.

Demiurge out.


----------



## Shemeska

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> I'd love to see the Hordelings tables in there. I'm sure it is much too late to influence the content, but since Demons are beasts of Chaos and evil, that would be great.




Since when were Hordelings considered demons or beings of chaos? Were they from the Abyss in 1e or something? Because I'm only familiar with them as NE natives of the Waste.


----------



## Zaukrie

Really, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I thought that was the name of the demon that had the random table for rolling and figuring out what they looked like/were. I assumed (frankly, I haven't looked in years) they were demons.


----------



## demiurge1138

They're NE, but with chaotic tendencies (back from the days on the MMII, and I think they're listed as usually CE in the recent Dungeon conversion). Also according to the Dungeon conversion, they're found in Hades, Carceri, the Abyss and Pandemonium.

Demiurge out.


----------



## Shemeska

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> They're NE, but with chaotic tendencies (back from the days on the MMII, and I think they're listed as usually CE in the recent Dungeon conversion). Also according to the Dungeon conversion, they're found in Hades, Carceri, the Abyss and Pandemonium.
> 
> Demiurge out.




Aye, and that bugged me when I read the Dungeon conversion because it really deviated from the later material. Their ecology in FoE made their Waste origin via larvae pretty clear, and the conditions for it make it unlikely for them to be on the CE planes. Wierd.

Random and unique forms don't necessarily imply chaos. *shrug* No big deal, the random tables were interesting to see, even if the alignment and plane stuff was off.


----------



## Pants

Yeah, for whatever reason, Hordelings were NE back in the day. Never made much sense to me then, since Hordelings seemed much more inclined to chaos than even demons (what with their almost limitless forms).


----------



## demiurge1138

Pants said:
			
		

> Yeah, for whatever reason, Hordelings were NE back in the day. Never made much sense to me then, since Hordelings seemed much more inclined to chaos than even demons (what with their almost limitless forms).



I agree. I like the new chaotic hordlings, despite the deviation from Planescape. IMC, I've decided they're the effluvia of the planes, chaotic and evil souls formed into larva out of the way of harvesting teams, or those that manage to escape being used or consumed. They're the (intelligent, malicious) rats of the Lower Planes. Everywhere the dominant fiends of the plane aren't.

Demiurge out.


----------



## BOZ

weren't the hordelings derived from the "random demon" tables in the 1E DMG?


----------



## demiurge1138

BOZ said:
			
		

> weren't the hordelings derived from the "random demon" tables in the 1E DMG?



I'm pretty sure that's where the idea came from. And a lot of the entries were the same or similar.

Demiurge out.


----------



## Alzrius

IIRC, the recent take on Hordlings (from _Dungeon_ #124, "Chambers of Antiquities") at least justified their CE alignment, by saying that they were from Pandemonium (again, IIRC).


----------



## zoroaster100

No Demiurge, I have not seen the Book of Fiends.  Who is the publisher?  I do have Armies of the Abyss and the other book in that line about devils.  I thought both were interesting.  I had a vague recollection of hearing about the Book of Fiends and I thought it was a compilation of those to other books, but that could be completely mistaken, since I never bought nor read Book of Fiends.  Is it good?

As for hordelings: I was glad to see the hordelings presented as choatic, as their randomness is perfect for a plane of pure chaos and evil like Pandemonium or the Abyss.  I never liked their previously assigned neutral evil alignment.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

zoroaster100 said:
			
		

> No Demiurge, I have not seen the Book of Fiends.  Who is the publisher?  I do have Armies of the Abyss and the other book in that line about devils.  I thought both were interesting.  I had a vague recollection of hearing about the Book of Fiends and I thought it was a compilation of those to other books, but that could be completely mistaken, since I never bought nor read Book of Fiends.  Is it good?



It's a compilation with the Yugoloths added: http://greenronin.com/catalog/grr1025


----------



## Shemeska

zoroaster100 said:
			
		

> As for hordelings: I was glad to see the hordelings presented as choatic, as their randomness is perfect for a plane of pure chaos and evil like Pandemonium or the Abyss.  I never liked their previously assigned neutral evil alignment.




That's the thing though, they're weren't expressions of randomness at all. They were all different because each of them existed as a physical expression of their own personal, unique, all consuming agony. 

They were the twisted wreckage of those larvae upon the Waste who perverted the consuming malice of the plane and rather than succumbing to it, they came to embrace it, latching onto their pain and misery as they only thing they had left to call themselves. They became their own misery in order to retain some measure of self, spreading their pain and misery at all others not out of wanting to randomly destroy as an expression of chaos and evil, but in order to define themselves. NE worked fine for that, but making them CE and native to pandemonium just ignores that and remakes them entirely. What you've got in Dungeon isn't a Hordling, it's something else with the same name.

But it's late, I'm thinking too hard about this, listening to TOOL and reading Dostoyevsky while procrastinating writing this week's storyhour update. So forgive me for being fervent on this all.


----------



## coyote6

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> It's a compilation with the Yugoloths added: http://greenronin.com/catalog/grr1025




Well, not really yugoloths. NE fiends from Gehenna, but they're not really yugoloths, AFAICT.


----------



## demiurge1138

Very un-yugolothy. The yugoloths are planar mercs profiting off of the Blood War. The BoF's daemons are the personifications of Sin, committed to tempting mortals.

Demiurge out.


----------



## Soel

Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> Don't get me started on deities.
> 
> It used to be that only on FR, after the Time of Troubles, that deities had such an intimate connection to worshippers that they would weaken and die if their worship disappeared on the world. In Planescape it became a universal assumption that gods NEEDED worship to exist. This was never the case on Greyhawk or Krynn. On Krynn for example, certain gods actually helped create the world so they existed long before mortals came to the world.
> 
> Essentially instead of the relative youth of gods being a peculiarity of the FR setting, Planescape translated that to the entire multiverse and every setting therein effectively negating the creation stories of the peoples of the material world who believed that their gods were more than just suped up figments of their own imaginations who actually created the universe in which they lived. Nah, that was just silly clueless talk.
> 
> However, what PS did to deities was nothing compared to what 3e did to the gods of various settings by turning them into what amounts to big bad boss monsters that the PCs can fight instead of being anything approaching what many consider beings worthy of worship. This necessitated the conceptualization of other kinds of creatures like the Illithid elder beings who are even beyond the gods in power fundamentally becoming what the gods were so in effect the "real" gods of the game, the ones who have power beyond which some orc smashing little PCs can ever attain are these weird alien type creatures. For all intents and purposed the gods beyond which mortals can reach haven't disappeared they just changed form and name from Zeus and Isis, Nerull, Tharizdun, Odin, Chauntea, Shar, etc. to Xeoltorepmh and Ithilorgh the Cthulhu rip offs.
> 
> Great design decision.
> 
> 
> Chris





Well, I should have added that I actually went with the concept of deities as "just bigger, more powerful mortals" in my old PS campaign, using Dead Gods as the spearhead to ask the loaded question, "just what is divinity?" which in turn lead to the next questions about mortality, and everyone's real station in the multiverse.

Of course, sometimes you just wanna take some hit points off of something...


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> Very un-yugolothy. The yugoloths are planar mercs profiting off of the Blood War. The BoF's daemons are the personifications of Sin, committed to tempting mortals.
> 
> Demiurge out.




Yah. The Daemon Hordes of Gehenna from Green Ronin actually make excellent replacements for hordlings, but they're not much like yugoloths.

_The Horde, called also the hordlings and, more specifically, the Hordes of Hades, fall into seven major groups corresponding to the seven classical sins: pride, avarice, lust, wrath, envy, gluttony, and sloth. Like the demons and devils, the hordlings evolve from the larvae that spring from the souls of wicked mortals as well as from the lower planes themselves. The Horde are by far the most diverse of daemonkind, personifying as they do the million sins and fallibles of sentient life. Their seven rulers are said to be godlike in power, encouraging the spread of sin across the planes._


----------



## BOZ

Don't forget OP1 - Tales From the Outer Planes!  


A bit more playing around with the Dragon archives CD (which, i'm sure you've already done, but just in case):

From the Sorcerer's Scroll (#28): EGG gives some insight into how the demons, devils, and daemons relate to each other.

Ecology of the Yuan-Ti (#151): includes info on a former god of the yuan-ti, turned demon lord.

Down-to-earth Divinity (#54): Ed Greenwood mentions a beast cult demigod named Repra, King of Serpents, based in the Abyss. (a google search suggests this being was destroyed by Sseth)

But not least: The Humanoids (#63): Roger Moore's demihuman perspectives article series first presents the shoosuva.  

Campaign Classics: Three Greyhawk Grimoires (#225): Iggwilv's Nethertome, a work lesser known than her Demonomicon (which the article squeamishly refers to as the "Fiendomicon"), features some backstory as well as two new spells - Iggwilv's Lightning Cage and Iggwilv's Timeless Sleep.

Dragon's Bestiary: Nonhuman Creatures With Human Form (#141): Features the Black Troll, a troll variant created by breeding with demons.

For King and Country (#101): brief mention is made of demons and what races worship them; including the earliest reference I have seen that ixixtachitl worship Demogorgon!

Demons, Devils, and Spirits (#42): Hacamuli, a servant of Orcus appears.

Setting Saintly Standards (#79): St. Kargoth, King of the Death Knights, appears.

Fiend Knights and Dark Artifacts (#206): Featuring material cut from "Ivid the Undying".

Fiendish Fortresses (#233): By Monte Cook, as I mentioned above.  'nuff said.

From the Sorcerer's Scroll (#23): The first appearance of the random demon generation table, which would later appear in the 1E DMG, and would later become the basis for the hordlings.

The Goristro Revealed (#91): The first appearance of this demon, which later appeared in Planes of Chaos, and 3E's Manual of the Planes.

Creature Catalog III (#101): Featuring the Tener, which is sometimes found on the Abyss.

Bazaar of the Bizarre (#117): Features the Ring of Lolth, a minor artifact.

The Dragon's Bestiary (#118): Features the Phoenix Spider, an inhabitant of the Abyss.

A Touch of Evil (#126): Suggests that death knights are bound to Demogorgon, and that the ghast is powerful due to "continued exposure to the magical forces of the Abyss."

The Game Wizards (#165): Ah, the beginning of the end for the demons and devils.  They had already been removed from AD&D with the advent of 2E, now with this review of Monstrous Compendium 8: The Outer Planes, (Jan 1991 - Planescape, as stated previously, debuted in 1994) we see the seeds for the Blood War, "baatezu," and "tanar'ri" as well as them being described as "races" of fiends for the first time.  The archdemons and archdevils are removed from the picture entirely, and the demons and devils have been officially neutered until 3E is released.

Ecology of the Neogi (#214): One of the five gods introduced for the Neogi is Thrig'ki, a lesser power from the Abyss.

Dragon's Bestiary: Lords of Chaos (#221): A tale is related of how the slaad lord Ssendam repelled a demonic invasion of the Spawning Stone.


----------



## Garnfellow

BOZ said:
			
		

> For King and Country (#101): brief mention is made of demons and what races worship them; including the earliest reference I have seen that ixixtachitl worship Demogorgon!




I'm pretty sure the old Deities and Demigods book has this in the beginning of the Nonhuman Mythos section; I'm certain that the old Monster Card (1982 ?) mentions Demogorgon.


----------



## BOZ

well, it was the earliest reference i had seen.


----------



## Pants

BOZ said:
			
		

> A bit more playing around with the Dragon archives CD (which, i'm sure you've already done, but just in case):



Complete thread hijack:
Is the Dragon Archives CD-ROM still available for purchase somewhere? Paizo doesn't seem to have it (or I couldn't find it).

Back to your regularly scheduled thread.


----------



## BigFreekinGoblinoid

Pants said:
			
		

> Complete thread hijack:
> Is the Dragon Archives CD-ROM still available for purchase somewhere? Paizo doesn't seem to have it (or I couldn't find it).
> 
> Back to your regularly scheduled thread.




No - ebay has copies going for upwards of $200 occasionally. You may find one cheaper by posting a wanted thread in the trading/classified forums here.

Random thoughts:

The Blood War provided a decent plot device for explaining what demons and devils etc... DO with souls, and why they need them! 

Hordlings are Evil with Chaotic tendencies

Molydeus, Polydeus! 5 fiends bad! 

Just cause Tony D made fiends look cute, doesn't mean they weren't evil. The Yugoloths had the right of it - send their fluffiest and cutest ( but shrewdest ) members of the race to be their front men in the planar community. Right Shemeska? 

We really need a new prime race to be the front man worshippers of Demogorgon. Ixitchtachil (sp! ) just don't inspire fear due to their rarity.  What alignment are the Taer?

I'm hoping this book ( this is a thread about a book, right? ) has the depth of detail that the Demonomicon of Iggylwiv articles has - with a bit more inegration to tie things together in a cohesive way. It would be a shame to see a straight up monster book. The best part of BoVD IMO was the info on prime worshipper goals and rituals. 

All arch fiends and other tough powers ( including Gawds ) should use Epic rules if they MUST be stated out. It's just silly not to use those rules when they are availabel and OGC. I'm sick of seeing Balors and Mariliths with a few class levels more powerful than the stats for Grat'zz and Orcus!


----------



## Cthulhu's Librarian

BOZ said:
			
		

> A bit more playing around with the Dragon archives CD (which, i'm sure you've already done, but just in case):





Thanks for those references. I can see what I'll be reading this evening while my wife is in a class.


----------



## BOZ

glad to be of service. 

in the several posts i've made thoughout this thread, i've posted several links and places to look for information, not only just to give clues to Erik and James, but also for other folks to look and go "ooh yeah, i found something in this article/thread that you really need to put in the book!"


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> glad to be of service.
> 
> in the several posts i've made thoughout this thread, i've posted several links and places to look for information, not only just to give clues to Erik and James, but also for other folks to look and go "ooh yeah, i found something in this article/thread that you really need to put in the book!"




Now here's actually a question, by the time the books hit the amazon and other seller's lists, aren't they typically written and in editing by that point? That was my presumption, hence why I haven't tossed up information like you have BOZ.


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> At this point there are no beans to spill.






			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> In any event, neither Erik (who does indeed know a LOT about D&D's official demons... probably more so than anyone else in the industry, I'm willing to say) nor I are at liberty to really discuss what will or will not be in this book at this time. We'll both certainly be keeping an eye on these boards for anything remotely connected to demon-talk though (as we have been for the past several months, in fact).




now, of course, this is inference on my part.  maybe they have written part one and James' second comment here refers to future volumes.  but i have seen other comments elsewhere that suggest it is more like they are finishing up the research stage and moving into writing.  i don't know this, because they haven't said and may not.  

i don't even know if they are keeping up with this thread anymore since neither has responded since page 1 (too much arguing probably), so if they don't come back to check this thread, i will compile my info in a new thread.


----------



## James Jacobs

BOZ said:
			
		

> I don't even know if they are keeping up with this thread anymore since neither has responded since page 1 (too much arguing probably), so if they don't come back to check this thread, i will compile my info in a new thread.




We're still here, never fear! We're just in observer mode... it's not at a point where we can talk openly about what's going on with the book.


----------



## Erik Mona

We're also still writing, so suggestions are very helpful.

--Erik


----------



## Shemeska

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> We're also still writing, so suggestions are very helpful.
> 
> --Erik




*grin*

So long as the material from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' gets used I figure I'll have little to see wanting. Given their influence in 2e and 3e, it'd be hard not to 

It would also be interesting to see something picked up from the legends and rumors about Bebelith hives on the Astral, and Bebelith's being astral natives detailed in the 2e Planescape 'Guide to the Astral'. It was a disturbing idea that they might be the guilt of the Abyss made manifest as solid thought on the Astral. Perhaps the rage of the first Abyssal denizens who were displaced and destroyed by the arrival of the first Tanar'ri from the Waste (Tanar'ri and Baatezu as late arrivals on their respective planes, originally having migrated from the Waste or been shepherded from there as detailed in 'Hellbound', 'Faces of Evil', and other sources).

Going off of the slim hints in that book: Imagine a hive of silk stretched between the hunks of a dismembered godisle, the astral corpse of a dead god, the silk spun by Bebeliths from the still living Tanar'ri they abduct from the Abyss. Webs that vibrate from the touch of the Bebeliths dancing upon their lengths, the twitching and screaming of the Tanar'ri bound like so many flies in a spider's web. Imagine the webs themselves spun of manifest agony from those doomed Tanar'ri, that agony taken physical form to vibrate and resonate like the perverse lengths of thousands of bloody, bodiless vocal chords howling their agony out into the silent depths of the silvery void.

That was a damn cool idea, and it's easy to elaborate like that upon it. Would be cool to see more.

Would also be cool to see something picked up regarding the hinted at, but never elaborated upon, ideas in 'Planes of Chaos' about the Varrangoin / Abyssal Bats having once had a civilization of their own that was subsequently obliterated by the Tanar'ri. Perhaps the Varrangoin predated the arrival of the Tanar'ri?

More so, it would be interesting to see anything about the ideas of the layers of the Abyss themselves being semi-sentient. Baator has the Ancient Baatorians, the Waste has the Baernaloths, but there was never any indication of what was in the Abyss before the creation/migration of the Tanar'ri. Perhaps the Abyss itself and its infinite layers were the Abyss versions, who knows.

I'd give more suggestions, but I've gotten more use out of the Yugoloths than the Tanar'ri, and written more about the 'loths in both stories and storyhours. Though I'm using the Abyss much more in my current campaign.


----------



## coyote6

Shemeska said:
			
		

> there was never any indication of what was in the Abyss before the creation/migration of the Tanar'ri.




FWIW, Erik had some ideas on this in Armies of the Abyss (and thus the Book of Fiends).


----------



## Shemeska

coyote6 said:
			
		

> FWIW, Erik had some ideas on this in Armies of the Abyss (and thus the Book of Fiends).




*nod* The Qlippoth. 

Dunno if the name would make sense within DnD proper though, since they, as the inverse of the Sepheroths, are too heavily tied into a mythology that doesn't fit neatly into the planes and outsider races of DnD as it has come to be defined. 

They were interesting nonetheless though. Similar in some ways to the Baernaloths, and quite different from the Ancient Baatorians.


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> We're still here, never fear! We're just in observer mode... it's not at a point where we can talk openly about what's going on with the book.




yay!  



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> We're also still writing, so suggestions are very helpful.




i kinda figured.    i know you have a page limit, so of course you can't fit every single bit of info there is, but of course that is up to your discretion to decide what is most important.

have my hints been helpful?  shall i keep digging?  if you guys have already looked at all the things i've pointed at then there's no reason for me to continue, but i don't mind spending some time looking around for things if you're getting some use out of them.


----------



## Psion

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> Really, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I thought that was the name of the demon that had the random table for rolling and figuring out what they looked like/were. I assumed (frankly, I haven't looked in years) they were demons.




There was a random DEMON table in the 1e DMG.

Hordelings, though not chaotic, appeared in the MMII and were sort of a "lite" version of the random demons with fewer variables and less power. And yes, they were NE and native to the Grey Waste/Hades.


----------



## Pants

BigFreekinGoblinoid said:
			
		

> No - ebay has copies going for upwards of $200 occasionally. You may find one cheaper by posting a wanted thread in the trading/classified forums here.



Well, guess I won't be picking that up. 



> Hordlings are Evil with Chaotic tendencies



I see them as Chaotic Evil with Neutral Evil tendencies. 
I was rereading FoE, and it pretty much paints them as an unruly, unorganized mass of Gray Waste excrement overcome by their own twisted hatreds.



> We really need a new prime race to be the front man worshippers of Demogorgon. Ixitchtachil (sp! ) just don't inspire fear due to their rarity.  What alignment are the Taer?



OR, flesh out those evil-manta rays (I'm not even trying with spelling...) and make them menacing. 

I kinda like them actually, for whatever reasons.


----------



## zoroaster100

A really cool idea from Gygax's books about the Abyss was the layer that was made up of a vast demon of virtually infinite size, Ujakalazogadit. There the entire layer is a living thing, with the very ground being made up of a mutable fleshy substance that occasinally sprouts tentacles, huge mouths, sores, etc. and which randomly attacks or devours creatures moving on top of it on occasion.  It would be great to have rules for running an overland travel over such a layer-spanning semi-sentient demon.


----------



## Pants

Stuff I'd like to see in the book:

1) The Molydeus, Nabassu (from Dragon), Cataboligne Demon, Eyewing (2e Monstrous Manual), turagathshnee (Dragon, the Ebon Maw Article) all included.

2) Viper Trees - Native to Graz'zt's layer of the Abyss, found in _Planes of Chaos_. Trees with vipers for branches. They're not technically fiends, but... whatever 

3) Update some other 3e fiends to 3.5.


----------



## BOZ

aw, who am i kidding, i get a kick out of this stuff.  i'll keep looking it up unless you guys tell me not to bother!  


Orcus and Demogorgon also appeared in the basic D&D rules (I forget exactly where), so there is always the potential for a Mystara connection.  


Back to the archives CD...

Leomund's Tiny Hut (#76): Hey, since the death master is returning in the Dragon Compendium, you have a potential for a crossover here when mentioning their master Orcus...

Demonology Made Easy (#20): There's a cool picture of Orcus here.    Useful article, too.

Setting Saintly Standards (#79): St. Kargoth, King of the Death Knights, appears.  Also St. Bane the Scourger, who killed Orcus' servant the witch-ghoul Khuul and nearly Orcus himself.

A Touch of Evil (#126): Suggests that death knights are bound to Demogorgon, and that the ghast is powerful due to "continued exposure to the magical forces of the Abyss."  Likewise, Orcus and Demogorgon are blamed for skeletal warriors, and Orcus claims vampires as his servants.

Clerics Must be Deity-Bound (#85): The suggestion is made that Anubis probably hates Orcus, most likely due to portfolio conflicts.

The Ecology Of The Ixitxachitl (#85): Since the evil rays serve Demogorgon, Orcus sends marine undead (such as lacedons) to oppose them.

The Known World Grimoire (#196): The orcish Tribe of the Sea Plague have their patron as Oruguz (a.k.a. Orcus).

Patron Demons (#42): The topic should be obvious from the title!


Other named major demons (form ye olde Monster Manual II index):
Type VI: Alzoll, Balor, Errtu, Ndulu, Ter-Soth, Wendonai
Type V: Aishapra, Kevokulli, Marilith, Rehnaremme
Type IV: Bilwhr, Johud, Nalfeshnee


----------



## BOZ

Pants said:
			
		

> Eyewing (2e Monstrous Manual)




the main issue i have with the eyewing is that it originally came from Dragonlance.  now, as you may or may not know, "the Abyss" had a very different definition in Dragonlance than it did in the other campaign settings...


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Psion said:
			
		

> There was a random DEMON table in the 1e DMG.
> 
> Hordelings, though not chaotic, appeared in the MMII and were sort of a "lite" version of the random demons with fewer variables and less power. And yes, they were NE and native to the Grey Waste/Hades.




The idea in the MMII was that Hades had two major races, hordlings and diakka. Hordlings were slightly more chaotic, while diakka were slightly more lawful. In the MMII hordlings were listed on the encounter charts for most of the lower planes, however, including the Nine Hells.

In the encounter charts in the second Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix, hordlings are listed as encounters in only Carceri and the Gray Waste. In their actual description in the PSMCA volume 1, the Habitat/Society section says "There are an infinite number of hordlings on the infinite layers of the Abyss," but this is probably some sort of misprint.


----------



## BOZ

Lords of the Abyss (mixed in with some Tome of Horrors lore): http://pub123.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm31.showMessage?topicID=518.topic

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=65324
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=78968


----------



## Pants

BOZ said:
			
		

> the main issue i have with the eyewing is that it originally came from Dragonlance.  now, as you may or may not know, "the Abyss" had a very different definition in Dragonlance than it did in the other campaign settings...



Yeah, I knew about the different 'Abysses.' Didn't know about Eyewings being native to DL though...

They could still easily fit in the Core DnD cosmology though...


----------



## BOZ

Pants said:
			
		

> Yeah, I knew about the different 'Abysses.' Didn't know about Eyewings being native to DL though...
> 
> They could still easily fit in the Core DnD cosmology though...




i first saw them in Monstrous Compendium 4: Dragonlance.  but yes, they can and do fit in with core D&D.

BTW, did you see where i plugged your thread earlier in one of my posts?


----------



## BOZ

OK, time to go to bed.    want to add that i found this on my hard drive over the weekend: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=150872


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

BOZ said:
			
		

> Lords of the Abyss (mixed in with some Tome of Horrors lore): http://pub123.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm31.showMessage?topicID=518.topic
> 
> http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=65324
> http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=78968




More complete list of monsters by plane: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=387276

The Necromancer Games forum thing is interesting. For example, its interpretation of Gresil is inspired by my page, which is in turn heavily inspired by Grodog's page, sort of combined with stuff on the Mimir (I can't remember why I put Gresil in Falserapture, but I remember being in love with the idea). The version of Obox-Ob is mostly from mine, which is partly from Grodog and partly from a post by Leo Wilheim on the Planescape mailing list, and partly from my own imagination. The Soneillon thing is partly from the lilim demons in the Netbook of Witches and Warlocks, partly from Grodog, and the author on those boards added more to the description. J'sald Xerix is from the Netbook of the Abyss. Zzyczesiya is named in Faces of Evil and detailed by me, with inspiration from the Infernus netbook. The Knight Errant is from Faces of Evil. Lots of the lords are from _Armies of the Abyss_ or Mongoose's _Slayer's Guide to Demons_ (which is where the Nameless Ones come from). Ushablator was named by Gary Gygax and first detailed here. Eblis' description is partially based on that of Azazel in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series - the name Nakdar Nakoul comes from an Arabic phrase meaning "I can eat glass; it does not hurt me," so I think it's really funny that someone repeated that, apparently not knowing its goofy origins. It was back when I didn't know what the Muslim Hell was supposed to be called, so I used a random Arabic phrase. Djahannam is the proper name of the Muslim Hell. Brian Biddick, on the Planescape list (whose influence runs throughout), was the first one to assign Munkir and Nekir to Woeful Escarond. They shouldn't be the rulers of the layer, though - the *Marquesse of Loss*, described in _Hellbound_, is more important there. Mandrillagon comes from the Gord novels, as does a lot of the descriptions of Orcus, Demogorgon, Graz'zt, Verin, etc. Zalintar, mentioned in Yeenoghu's description, is from the old planescape.com site, now long since extinct but findable at archive.org. There's quite a lot from the Netbook of Demons, too.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> Clerics Must be Deity-Bound (#85): The suggestion is made that Anubis probably hates Orcus, most likely due to portfolio conflicts.




Though given that Anubis shed his divinity to become the Guardian of Dead Gods, his status probably precludes him holding any sort of grudge. He's a bit concerned about different things entirely now.  

Was Anubis as Guardian of Dead Gods something prior to 2e / Planescape at all? Or did that develop in Planescape without previous hints?


----------



## Imruphel

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> We're also still writing, so suggestions are very helpful.
> 
> --Erik




Well, one thing that has puzzled me since 2E is this: why are tanar'ri immune to electricity?

A related question: why are balors (which, finally!, in 3.5E became immune to fire) surrounded by flames rather than electricity when electricity would make more sense in that it would inflict full damage on their primary foes, the baatezu?

I realise the second questions lies in the balor being a moderately disguised balrog but it might be interesting to see the cover lifted on these design decisions.

Anyway, an explanation of this might make for an interesting piece of "ecology".


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Was Anubis as Guardian of Dead Gods something prior to 2e / Planescape at all? Or did that develop in Planescape without previous hints?




In Planescape, without previous hints. Yes. 

Before Planescape, there was nothing about what happened to gods after they died.


----------



## BOZ

yep, gone was gone.  Anubis' responsibility was to the souls of the dead.  thus, it would be understandable that Orcus, a major lord of the undead, would really irk him.


----------



## Cthulhu's Librarian

Pants said:
			
		

> Originally Posted by BigFreekinGoblinoid
> No - ebay has copies going for upwards of $200 occasionally. You may find one cheaper by posting a wanted thread in the trading/classified forums here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, guess I won't be picking that up.
Click to expand...



There is one on Ebay right now with a low price (I know, because I've got the high bid on it currently).


----------



## ruleslawyer

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Though given that Anubis shed his divinity to become the Guardian of Dead Gods, his status probably precludes him holding any sort of grudge. He's a bit concerned about different things entirely now.
> 
> Was Anubis as Guardian of Dead Gods something prior to 2e / Planescape at all? Or did that develop in Planescape without previous hints?



More specifically, it showed up in _A Guide to the Astral Plane_ (sans previous hints).


----------



## BigFreekinGoblinoid

Cthulhu's Librarian said:
			
		

> There is one on Ebay right now with a low price (I know, because I've got the high bid on it currently).




Doh! You just invited everyone reading this thread ( 4000 views! ) to bid against you!   
Good luck CL!


----------



## Cthulhu's Librarian

BigFreekinGoblinoid said:
			
		

> Doh! You just invited everyone reading this thread ( 4000 views! ) to bid against you!
> Good luck CL!




Oh, I don't expect to win the auction, and I already have a copy for myself. I was actually just bidding on the off chance that I win, it'll make a good gift come Christmas.


----------



## Pramas

In case you missed the long out-of-print Book of Fiends the first time around, the PDF has just gone live.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5549&SRC=EnWorld


----------



## BOZ

Dungeon magazine has actually featured more obscure unique demons than Dragon magazine has:

#5 (The Stolen Power): Shami-Amourae
#10 (The Shrine of Ilsidahur): Ilsidahur 
#13 (The Ruins of Nol-Daer): Arzial
#28 (Sleepless): Siragle
#60 (Nemesis): Shaktari
#64 (Bzallin's Blacksphere): J'zzalshrak


Also, there was the Demon Prince Nql, who was only once briefly mentioned in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement way back when, I think under Codex of the Infinite Planes.


----------



## Erik Mona

There are also several more in more recent issues of Dungeon, notably from "Root of Evil" and "Salvage Operation," by Mike Mearls.

In the interest of posterity.

--Erik


----------



## Shade

A few more demonic references...

Dungeon #25 featured an Ancient Vrock (aka The Beast, Jaazzpaa), hinting that vrocks are older than most of the other tanar'ri, IIRC.

Dungeon #84 features Lolth's daughter, Laveth.

H4: Throne of Bloodstone features the dire whiner demon.

X2: Castle Amber features death demons (ostegos).


----------



## Knight Otu

Shade said:
			
		

> Jaazzpaa



Gesundheit.



			
				Shade said:
			
		

> H4: Throne of Bloodstone features the dire whiner demon.



Does he post on message boards?


----------



## Kaji

*I may have wet my pants*



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> I hear their Abyss one was pretty good.
> 
> --Erik




Just purchased Book of Fiends 3.5 from rpgnow, which I've been waiting a long time for. If wizards is wise enough to release their new product as a pdf, then I'll get that one as well.
Whoohoo!


----------



## Pants

BOZ said:
			
		

> BTW, did you see where i plugged your thread earlier in one of my posts?



Yes I did and I'm mighty grateful for that.


----------



## BOZ

according to this website: http://www.ralf.org/~krlipka/ps/people/npc/individual/tsr16.html

two little-mentioned Abyssal Lords, Lindyrm and Volisupula, appeared in The Deva Spark (p14) and the Planes of Chaos set's Chaos Adventures booklet (p6), respectively.


----------



## James Jacobs

Shade said:
			
		

> H4: Throne of Bloodstone features the dire whiner demon.




Worst. Demon. Ever.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

BOZ said:
			
		

> according to this website: http://www.ralf.org/~krlipka/ps/people/npc/individual/tsr16.html
> 
> two little-mentioned Abyssal Lords, Lindyrm and Volisupula, appeared in The Deva Spark (p14) and the Planes of Chaos set's Chaos Adventures booklet (p6), respectively.




There's no real detail on either of them. Lindyrm is just a name. Volisupula rules a fortress somewhere in the Abyss and owns an amulet that weakens the defenses of githzerai settlements in Limbo (and, presumedly, any anarch-stabilized chaos). Volisupula can't be _too_ powerful, since he is permitted to enter Sigil.


----------



## Nightfall

*chants* 

Orcus, Orcus, Orcus! 

Sorry I'm an Orcus fan boy through and through.

Course if you ever get the chance for Orcus' and Anubis' followers to duke it out in a module some time down the road, Erik, I'd LOVE to see that.


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Worst. Demon. Ever.




the name alone...


----------



## Nightfall

Yeah well I can sort of think of ones that might be worse.


----------



## Zaukrie

I know my credibility in this thread is shot, since I thought hordelings were demons (hey, they were in my game! - and it at least gave you all something to post about), but my suggestion since you are still writing:

spend your time on demons, and almost no space on prestige classes and how to fight demons. We have plenty of books on characters - make this book about demons, abyssal planes....and not about characters - thanks for listening.


----------



## Shade

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Gesundheit.




Danke.    



			
				Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Does he post on message boards?




Let's hope not.



			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Worst. Demon. Ever.




No argument here.    

That's one demon that is probably best left forgotten in past editions.


----------



## BOZ

you brought them up!


----------



## Shade

BOZ said:
			
		

> you brought them up!




Yeah, but you _know _ I'm a fiend for thoroughness!


----------



## molonel

MerricB said:
			
		

> It's there:
> US Amazon
> 
> Cheers!




"This title will be released on June 13, 2006."

Argh?


----------



## Thanael

> Originally Posted by BigFreekinGoblinoid
> No - ebay has copies going for upwards of $200 occasionally. You may find one cheaper by posting a wanted thread in the trading/classified forums here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pants said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, guess I won't be picking that up.
Click to expand...



$ 200 is over the top. Some of them used to go that high for a time. But i think $ 50-70 is a more reasonable estimate. A finished item search yields one for a whopping $ 140 and another for a $ 11 Buy it now!

So just save your search and let ebay alert you when a new one is posted. Or stop by at the acaeum to discuss the prices..


----------



## Thanael

BOZ said:
			
		

> Dungeon magazine has actually featured more obscure unique demons than Dragon magazine has:
> #10 (The Shrine of Ilsidahur): Ilsidahur




Isn't that Ilsihadur?  It's also set in Greyhawk so I'm sure Erik knows it...


----------



## Thanael

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Gesundheit.


----------



## BOZ

After remembering this awesome thread: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=307692&page=1&pp=30

Here are the Abyssal monsters (aside from the expected demons) appearing in that thread:

Visage (Libris Mortis)
Viper tree (from Planes of Chaos)
Ship of Chaos ("In the Abyss" module)
Shadow Hound ("Giantcraft" accessory)
Tanar'ri Living Fortress (Dragon #233)
Dirtwraith (Dragon #270, "Minions of Iuz")


----------



## BOZ

dyx said:
			
		

> Isn't that Ilsihadur?  It's also set in Greyhawk so I'm sure Erik knows it...




http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ilsihadur
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Ilsidahur


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> Here are the Abyssal monsters (aside from the expected demons) appearing in that thread:
> 
> Visage (Libris Mortis)




They were so much cooler and more frightening in 'Dead Gods'. In Libris Mortis they looked like bad Insane Clown Posse standins, and the flavor text describing them honestly didn't capture the creepy from the originals.


----------



## Staffan

molonel said:
			
		

> "This title will be released on June 13, 2006."



I think the actual street date is a week earlier.

That is, 2006/6/6.


----------



## BOZ

that would be correct.


----------



## Razz

I only want to know ONE thing about this book:

3.5 updates to BoVD's monsters and demon princes/archdevils. Every 3.0 book got some form of 3.5 upgrade treatment EXCEPT for Book of Vile Darkness.

Will Fiendish Codex rectify this abomination? I mean, I am afraid to use Graz'zt in my campaigns because he isn't the "true" Graz'zt when it comes to D&D stats. If not in the book, can both James and Erik please recommend a BoVD update as a Web Enhancement to WotC? 

Thanks.


----------



## ruleslawyer

There's a good BoVD conversion on the WotC boards that has stat revisions for the archfiends.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=190192

Moreover, you can also look at the Dicefreaks archfiends. I find them a bit OTT for my liking (although they are substantially more flavorful than the BoVD archfiends), but one of the site gurus has posted alternate versions that are a bit less deific and more generally epic:

http://dicefreaks.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=311


----------



## Knight Otu

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> There's a good BoVD conversion on the WotC boards that has stat revisions for the archfiends.



I'm sure they're good, but Razz typically is only interested when the material comes directly from Wizards or Paizo.

I think I'd be a good bet to say that the "lesser" demons will be converted, but I wouldn't put any money on the Demon Lords. Of course, I'm in no place to answer that.


----------



## Razz

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> I'm sure they're good, but Razz typically is only interested when the material comes directly from Wizards or Paizo.
> 
> I think I'd be a good bet to say that the "lesser" demons will be converted, but I wouldn't put any money on the Demon Lords. Of course, I'm in no place to answer that.




Yeah you're right. I am picky about only using Paizo/WotC material, but if the unofficial conversions are worthy I won't be entirely too picky. 

I do hope, however, that they convert the BoVD monsters/demon princes/archdevils soon. In Dragon magazine style, too. They made Pazuzu, Frab, and I'm sure Zuggtmoy some TRUE demon princes/princesses. I like their stats for those, and the prestige class, new monster and historical and other fluff is awesome.

All of Demonicon is awesome. I only wish they had a Diabolicon (devils) and a Daemonicon (yugoloths) also.


----------



## Razz

I thought I started the Dragon Magazine on a new thread, my fault. I didn't realize I hit REPLY and not NEW


----------



## ruleslawyer

Razz said:
			
		

> Yeah you're right. I am picky about only using Paizo/WotC material, but if the unofficial conversions are worthy I won't be entirely too picky.



Well, since the archfiends are "unique" NPCs (though aren't they all?), the unofficial conversions may be worth reading through. At the very least, I would recommend scanning them for flavor text, which the Dicefreaks... er, freaks have produced in vast quantity. 


> _I do hope, however, that they convert the BoVD monsters/demon princes/archdevils soon. In Dragon magazine style, too. They made Pazuzu, Frab, and I'm sure Zuggtmoy some TRUE demon princes/princesses. I like their stats for those, and the prestige class, new monster and historical and other fluff is awesome._



Dragon mag actually seems to me like the place to do it. (Hint, Paizo people, Erik, and James?)


----------



## BOZ

i strongly suspect that, while they would like to redo Orcus, Demogorgon, Juiblex, and Yeenoghu, they are prohibited from doing so in Dragon mag.  how else would you explain a million people asking for it and no response?    (unless, of course, they are going to reappear in "proper" format in this book, and therefore the writers can't comment yet...)


----------



## Pants

BOZ said:
			
		

> i strongly suspect that, while they would like to redo Orcus, Demogorgon, Juiblex, and Yeenoghu, they are prohibited from doing so in Dragon mag.  how else would you explain a million people asking for it and no response?    (unless, of course, they are going to reappear in "proper" format in this book, and therefore the writers can't comment yet...)



Probably because they're giving some space to 'classic Fiends that got gipped.' Technically, Graz'zt, Orcus, Demo, HedgeSlime Juiblex, and Yeeno all got writeups.

Fraz, Pazuzu, and Zuggy, all classic D&D Archfiends, haven't really gotten much info since 1e and MAYBE 2e.

I'd personally rather not see any Archfiend stats in the books as no one can really agree as to how powerful they should be. Plus, they'd take up a lot of room. The Dragon Magazine articles are a great way to give some space for extensive info on the demonic princes.


----------



## Razz

Pants said:
			
		

> Probably because they're giving some space to 'classic Fiends that got gipped.' Technically, Graz'zt, Orcus, Demo, HedgeSlime Juiblex, and Yeeno all got writeups.
> 
> Fraz, Pazuzu, and Zuggy, all classic D&D Archfiends, haven't really gotten much info since 1e and MAYBE 2e.
> 
> I'd personally rather not see any Archfiend stats in the books as no one can really agree as to how powerful they should be. Plus, they'd take up a lot of room. The Dragon Magazine articles are a great way to give some space for extensive info on the demonic princes.




I believe Dragon has done a fine job presenting them in 3e stats. Powerful enough to prove a challenge to PCs, yet not entirely deific. BoVD demon princes were kinda weak and I would like to see a Dragon Magazine-version of the BoVD demon princes done.


----------



## BOZ

Pants said:
			
		

> Fraz, Pazuzu, and Zuggy, all classic D&D Archfiends, haven't really gotten much info since 1e and MAYBE 2e.




of those, Pazuzu/Pazrael definitely got the most treatment.  the other two were mentioned more than once, but Pazrael had actual stats and a full page of MC-style info.


----------



## Erik Mona

When we started the Demonomicon articles in Dragon, we very definitely avoided the demon princes/lords who had appeared in the Book of Vile Darkness, and instead chose to focus upon demons who had not been covered recently. The idea was that doing so would give us more time since the publication of the BoVD, and we could get around to the big guys eventually.

How this book will affect those plans has yet to be seen, but I feel safe in saying that we don't plan to cover Graz'zt, Yeenoghu, Juiblex, etc. in the magazine in the near future.

--Erik


----------



## bastrak

Erik's second paragraph looks to me like a big hint that Fiendish Codex I will have Graz'zt, Yeenoghu, Juiblex, etc in it updated from BoVD to 3.5.


----------



## BOZ

it may.  at the very least, you can feel confident in betting the farm on this book covering each of them in great detail; whether or not stats will be present instead of a "see the BoVD" blurb is debatable.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Stats for demon princes would be by far the least useful part of the book for me, and the first thing I'd like to see go if space is an issue. 

Many people seem to like seeing full combat stats for the lords of the planes, but just as many object to the non-epic, non-deific level at which they're currently held. The result is an online population divided into fiercely opposed camps - the ones who like demon princes their non-epic PCs might have a chance at, the ones who like to see them take full advantage of the epic rules and be the logical conclusion to an epic-level campaign, and those who prefer planar lords who are equal to the gods themselves (as they were, more or less, in 1st and 2nd edition), able to defend their strongholds from divine interference, make pacts with gods as equals, and punish deities who neglect to give them the proper respect. These various camps seem to be _so_ irreconcilable that the best solution seems to be to let fans stat them or not stat them as they please, and concentrating on giving interesting story hooks and flavor. 

That goes for Dragon, too.


----------



## bastrak

Personally I'd like to see all the popular Demon Lords and Princes fully statted out for 3.5 for epic level play in this book. As I recall just about all of them in BoVD were CR20+ and mostly around the mid 20's. I'd either like them made tougher or the CR kept about the same.

I'd agree with Razz that they should be powerful enough to prove a challenge to PCs, yet not entirely deific.


----------



## Shemeska

bastrak said:
			
		

> I'd agree with Razz that they should be powerful enough to prove a challenge to PCs, yet not entirely deific.




And just to agree with Grover / Rip, a lot of us, myself included, can't stand to see such beings stated up like video game 'boss monsters' below the level of gods. Some of them predate the deities. 

Honestly I prefer them unstatted. The stats too often don't accurately reflect their flavor and in game history.


----------



## Zaukrie

I don't want full stats on them as that will take up 2 pages per, and that space could be used on cool new planes and new demons that ar CR 5-15 (the level most play at, I believe) and on cool flavor about how demons interact with each other, with devils, with mortals. Partial stats with a web enhancement - that sounds good.


----------



## BOZ

well, despite the very-vocal minority, i like the Demonomicon articles (can't wait to get the new issue, with Zuggs), and hope to see (and contribute!) more of the same.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> well, despite the very-vocal minority, i like the Demonomicon articles (can't wait to get the new issue, with Zuggs), and hope to see (and contribute!) more of the same.




I like the Demonicon, I think it's one of the best parts of Dragon magazine in years. Hell it's been fraggin awesome so far. I hope to see more and I'd love to contribute. I just don't feel the stats have been handled properly, but it's not the fault of the writers at all since they simply have to toe the line that 3e has taken with them already in previous publications such as the BoVD. If I got a chance to write an article in the series that's the same standard I'd have to use, regardless of if I agree with it or not. Jacobs and company can't be faulted in the least for having to go with the 3e convention, I'm just saying I'd have preferred a lack of stats in the first place in this edition.

And how do you know for certain that it's only a "very-vocal minority" that feels that way about the stats? Because they don't agree with you? It's probably about equal between the three various camps who weigh in on the topic. I prefer unstatted demon lords, some people would prefer them statted up with full ELH rules and able to take down 3e type deities, while others want just big monsters in a CR 20ish range.


----------



## Pants

BOZ said:
			
		

> well, despite the very-vocal minority, i like the Demonomicon articles (can't wait to get the new issue, with Zuggs), and hope to see (and contribute!) more of the same.



I agree, they're the best articles that Dragon has had in a loooong time.

In fact, even if I don't always agree with the stats, they at least provide me with ideas should I ever want to stat them up myself.


----------



## Rystil Arden

Shemeska said:
			
		

> I like the Demonicon, I think it's one of the best parts of Dragon magazine in years. Hell it's been fraggin awesome so far. I hope to see more and I'd love to contribute. I just don't feel the stats have been handled properly, but it's not the fault of the writers at all since they simply have to toe the line that 3e has taken with them already in previous publications such as the BoVD. If I got a chance to write an article in the series that's the same standard I'd have to use, regardless of if I agree with it or not. Jacobs and company can't be faulted in the least for having to go with the 3e convention, I'm just saying I'd have preferred a lack of stats in the first place in this edition.
> 
> And how do you know for certain that it's only a "very-vocal minority" that feels that way about the stats? Because they don't agree with you? It's probably about equal between the three various camps who weigh in on the topic. I prefer unstatted demon lords, some people would prefer them statted up with full ELH rules and able to take down 3e type deities, while others want just big monsters in a CR 20ish range.



 I think he just meant that the majority of people are really enjoying the Demonomicon articles, whether or not they like the way the stats are being handled.

I know I can be counted in that majority--those are some great articles!


----------



## Dr. Harry

BOZ said:
			
		

> well, despite the very-vocal minority, i like the Demonomicon articles (can't wait to get the new issue, with Zuggs), and hope to see (and contribute!) more of the same.




 How do you know it is a minority?  I really like the Dragon articles, even with stats, but I don't want 1.5 - 2 pages per demon lord in the hardcover of numbers I'm never going to use.


----------



## Erik Mona

Honestly, the Demonomicon articles are so long that space isn't an issue one way or another.

--Erik


----------



## Zaukrie

C'mon Erik, you could squeeze more in if you really tried!

Seriously, those articles are great, and if you can find another series to do like that after about 5 years of doing demons, you'll have a long-term subscriber.


----------



## James Jacobs

Stats for demon princes are an interesting beast. For the Demonomicon articles, I'm mostly basing their stats on those done in the _Book of Vile Darkness_ for the exact reason Shemeska cites: that book established the formula.

As for the power level of those stat blocks... I gotta admit that I want to have my cake and eat it too. Statting up demon princes as CR 28 or so creatures really limits their usability for most campaigns that want to feature the "you fight the demon prince" as the final battle to the campaign unless you go into epic levels. It'd be nice if a standard 1st–20th level campaign could end with a big fight against a demon prince, is what I'm saying. At the same time, those demon princes have been around for eons; if they were fragile enough that a group of 20th level characters could take them down, they'da been put down long ago.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the 1st edition concept of demons, devils, and other archfiends having "avatars" that they send to the Material Plane—that it's these avatars that are actually statted up in those old Monster Manuals. Kill the Material Plane avatar and you can put a delay into a demon prince's plans on the Material Plane, but you don't stop them. That way, you can defeat Demogorgon as a capstone to your standard 20-level D&D campaign, yet he's still around out there ready to come back at a later time.

As for the versions of demon princes in the BoVD or the Demonomicon articles being too wimpy... well, maybe it's best to think of these stat blocks instead as "starter demons." The cool thing about monsters in D&D is that it's a relatively simple thing to add a pile of Hit Dice to a criter and make him tougher. No real need even to give them new special abilities (since combats already never last long enoguh for a demon prince to use ALL of his special abilities). Just give Fraz-Urb'luu another 30 hit dice, advance his skills, base attack, saving throws, feats, special attack save DCs, and ability score improvements as appropriate, and presto! Instant Bad Ass to menace your group of 43rd level PCs.


----------



## Nightfall

Frazzy though doesn't need to be that bad ass.

I prefer to mix and match my Orcus' though. BoVD here, ToH there, a few other sources hither and yond....viola.  

In any case James, keep up the good work on the Demonicon front. I'm looking forward to getting Dragon #337 soon.


----------



## BOZ

Shemeska said:
			
		

> And how do you know for certain that it's only a "very-vocal minority" that feels that way about the stats? Because they don't agree with you?




has anyone besides you and Rip been railing against the inclusion of stats?  most seem to either like having the stats or at least not care, and some like having stats but wish they were higher.  if any others feel the way you do, they haven't been "very vocal", thus i declared it a minority of vocal folks.

and to clarify my position, i don't care whether or not stats are included since i have not and probably never will run an epic campaign.  they are *interesting* to me in an academic sense, but if stats were absent, i wouldn't be in the least bit uspet.  so consider me in the 4th camp, please.  

since stats are included, that is fine by me.  they were definitely included in 1E, but only barely included in 2E.  it's been controversial in 3E mostly because no one can really agree how powerful gods and other powers should be.  to be honest, i almost agree with you that stats should be skipped, if but for that reason alone.


----------



## Kobold Avenger

I always wondered why only Ghosts ever got the "rejuvenation" ability, where they come back even after you kill them, unless you resolve their reason of undeath.

Anyways I think that near-deific creatures, should get an ability like Rejuvenation such that they automatically resurrect after a certain ammount of time, like let's say 666 days.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey all! 



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> has anyone besides you and Rip been railing against the inclusion of stats?




...are those haters *still* at it!   

The usual suspects I see too! 



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> most seem to either like having the stats or at least not care, and some like having stats but wish they were higher.  if any others feel the way you do, they haven't been "very vocal", thus i declared it a minority of vocal folks.




If 5% of people play epic games then 5% of Dragon/Dungeon should be epic content. Thats about 3 pages of material per Dragon issue and probably one epic adventure every 6 months or thereabouts.

The stats for the Demon Princes cover approx. 2 pages and we get one such article every 4 issues. Thats the equivalent of half a page per issue.

Added to which, as James himself states, the Demon Princes are designed in and around CR 25-30 so that they can still be used by non-epic campaigns in a sort of 'final boss' capacity. So in some respects they are no more 'epic' than a Great Wyrm Red Dragon for instance.

Yet seemingly we still have to put up with the whining of the haters trying to take away the last vestige of quasi-epic material from starving epic gamers. I SAY THEE NAY!



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> and to clarify my position, i don't care whether or not stats are included since i have not and probably never will run an epic campaign.  they are *interesting* to me in an academic sense, but if stats were absent, i wouldn't be in the least bit uspet.  so consider me in the 4th camp, please.




I care. I need something I can get my teeth (or should that be sword*) into!   

*+12 naturally.



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> since stats are included, that is fine by me.  they were definitely included in 1E, but only barely included in 2E.  it's been controversial in 3E mostly because no one can really agree how powerful gods and other powers should be.




Yes it probably would have been better if they had solidified those rules* from the start, obviously stats for gods being the only logical approach though, the alternative leaving naught but a gaping void.

*Rather than simply just the stats.



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> to be honest, i almost agree with you that stats should be skipped, if but for that reason alone.




The keyword being _almost_ I trust.


----------



## Shade

Add my vote to the "I want stats for archfiends" option.    



			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> As for the power level of those stat blocks... I gotta admit that I want to have my cake and eat it too. Statting up demon princes as CR 28 or so creatures really limits their usability for most campaigns that want to feature the "you fight the demon prince" as the final battle to the campaign unless you go into epic levels. It'd be nice if a standard 1st–20th level campaign could end with a big fight against a demon prince, is what I'm saying. At the same time, those demon princes have been around for eons; if they were fragile enough that a group of 20th level characters could take them down, they'da been put down long ago.




It seems from most of the postings that I've seen is that how people use them, as campaign-ending battles or the end of major epic plotlines.  I haven't seen many (actually, any that I can remember) posts about people who simply treat them as "just another demon" to stock dungeon rooms.  This seems to be the apparently false assumption by many members of the anti-stat camp.



			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Personally, I'm a big fan of the 1st edition concept of demons, devils, and other archfiends having "avatars" that they send to the Material Plane—that it's these avatars that are actually statted up in those old Monster Manuals. Kill the Material Plane avatar and you can put a delay into a demon prince's plans on the Material Plane, but you don't stop them. That way, you can defeat Demogorgon as a capstone to your standard 20-level D&D campaign, yet he's still around out there ready to come back at a later time.




That's how I play 'em.  I use the stat blocks provided as avatars.



			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> As for the versions of demon princes in the BoVD or the Demonomicon articles being too wimpy... well, maybe it's best to think of these stat blocks instead as "starter demons." The cool thing about monsters in D&D is that it's a relatively simple thing to add a pile of Hit Dice to a criter and make him tougher. No real need even to give them new special abilities (since combats already never last long enoguh for a demon prince to use ALL of his special abilities). Just give Fraz-Urb'luu another 30 hit dice, advance his skills, base attack, saving throws, feats, special attack save DCs, and ability score improvements as appropriate, and presto! Instant Bad Ass to menace your group of 43rd level PCs.




I have a simple solution in my epic campaign.  When archfiends are confronted on their home plane, I slap the paragon template on 'em.  That places them in the much more palatable (to me) range of CR 35-45.


----------



## BOZ

that's a pretty good way of handling it, Shade.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> C'mon Erik, you could squeeze more in if you really tried!
> 
> Seriously, those articles are great, and if you can find another series to do like that after about 5 years of doing demons, you'll have a long-term subscriber.




Seconded!

Admittedly, I've been subscribing since #78, but you'd make me happier.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Shade said:
			
		

> I haven't seen many (actually, any that I can remember) posts about people who simply treat them as "just another demon" to stock dungeon rooms.  This seems to be the apparently false assumption by many members of the anti-stat camp.




I don't think that is necessarily a fair statement.

I'm not a magaplaya hater, but I personally find the game more enjoyable at moderate levels of play, and I treat these demon prince types as more of Lovecraftian "forces" (defeat the demons by defeating their plans and cults) than opponents with spells and hit points.  I'll still buy the book with stat blocks (and I'm not buying very many books right now), but I'll think of it as a 140-page book instead of a 160-pager.

To have a prince show up, I would use the Dragon articles as a base and write up the power level to fit my own campaign.  It is my understanding that epic level action is hard to balance just out of the book and requires more care out of the GM anyway.



> I have a simple solution in my epic campaign.  When archfiends are confronted on their home plane, I slap the paragon template on 'em.  That places them in the much more palatable (to me) range of CR 35-45.




Good idea for that.  I don't have my stuff with me.  Where is the paragon template, please?


----------



## Aaron L

Paragon template is in the Epic Level Handbook.  And let me add that I think its a great idea too.


----------



## Shade

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> I don't think that is necessarily a fair statement.
> 
> I'm not a magaplaya hater, but I personally find the game more enjoyable at moderate levels of play, and I treat these demon prince types as more of Lovecraftian "forces" (defeat the demons by defeating their plans and cults) than opponents with spells and hit points.




But can't they still be treated that way at moderate levels, since they are far beyond the character's CR at those levels? 



			
				Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> I'll still buy the book with stat blocks (and I'm not buying very many books right now), but I'll think of it as a 140-page book instead of a 160-pager.




I feel your pain.  I felt that way about Planar Handbook and Sandstorm with all the wasted space (IMO) on touchstone sites.  Same goes for the endless wasted pages (again, IMO) on sample character for prestige classes, how to adapt the prestige classes to your campaign, and so on.



			
				Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> To have a prince show up, I would use the Dragon articles as a base and write up the power level to fit my own campaign.  It is my understanding that epic level action is hard to balance just out of the book and requires more care out of the GM anyway.




As someone who has been running an epic campaign for over a year now, I can say that I haven't run into any balance issues with monsters.  The CRs for most of the epic creatures have been quite on target so far.  Some of the non-epic monsters from the MMII that have CRs over 20 are vastly overrated (hellfire wyrm, mountain giant, linnorms, etc).


----------



## Pants

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> I don't think that is necessarily a fair statement.
> 
> I'm not a magaplaya hater, but I personally find the game more enjoyable at moderate levels of play, and I treat these demon prince types as more of Lovecraftian "forces" (defeat the demons by defeating their plans and cults) than opponents with spells and hit points.  I'll still buy the book with stat blocks (and I'm not buying very many books right now), but I'll think of it as a 140-page book instead of a 160-pager.



I'm probably making generalizations here, but usually the most vocal members of the anti-stat camp make generic assumptions that statting out these powerful beings turns them into 'just another monster' or 'it destroys the mystery surrounding them.' You know, it's fine if you don't want stats. Nothing wrong with that. However, it's irritating how big of a deal its made out to be when it really isn't one at all. It's even worse when the comments made can be generally insulting to other playstyles. 

'Just another monster' and 'it destroys the mystery surrounding them' probably aren't meant to be insulting, but it kind of demeans the play style wherein the goal of a campaign is to eventually confront these creatures and (hopefully) defeat them or delay their plans. In such a campaign, they are hardly 'just another monster' and they can still be 'mysterious,' yet stats could still be very handy.

That's irritating. You (general you, not you specifically  ) don't like stats, fine, great go have fun, just don't piss all over someone else's play style because you don't agree with it.


----------



## ruleslawyer

Word.

FYI, James and others, I don't think that "avatar" is quite the word you're looking for WRT the 1e stats for archfiends. Those were written to be THE stats for the archfiends (in the same way that EGG wrote up the stats for the gods of Greyhawk as actual deific stats and not avatar stats, and James Ward did for the real-world pantheons in DDG). The archfiends' stats on their home planes were not given a considerable boost until the release of the 1e _Manual of the Planes_, which gave them the full privileges of Lesser Powers (a huge packet of SLAs, double hp on their home plane, limited invulnerability, etc.).


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Pants said:
			
		

> I'm probably making generalizations here




Yes, you are. It's not a "just another monster" issue, it's a matter of internal logic. If the lords of the underworld are only CR 30 or so, how the heck do they avoid being conquered by deities? When Kurtulmak can finish Asmodeus off in a few rounds and teleport away, something is very wrong with the cosmology. Why hasn't Demogorgon been slaughtered by rival gods of the aquatic races? How did Pazuzu manage to curse the entire race of kenku, as described in the recent Dragon ecology? How did the Lords of the Nine banish the orcish and goblin pantheons from the Nine Hells? 

In 1st edition, fiendish rulers were all lesser gods, and most of them were of a similar or greater amount of power in 2nd edition. That made a certain amount of sense - even Bane would hesitate before taking on a plane ruled by nine lesser deities. In 3rd edition, all semblance of sense is lost - the rulers of nine infinite domains are vermin, less than that. Vhaeraun can march into the Gray Waste and give orders to the Oinoloth, as he did in a recent drow-themed novel. 

Evil deities are _not_ the types to make peace treaties if they don't have to, nor are they the normally the types to cower in fear of what the other deities might say  - it's inevitable in the cosmology implied by the current rules that someone stronger than the rest is going to take control, and the eons of self-rule the demons, devils, and other fiends has enjoyed is gone forever.

And that's fine, if that's what you want - a multiverse where Bane or Hextor rule the Nine Hells and Cyric and Talos or Erythnul and Raxivort are the mightiest of the lords of the Abyss. But, I mean, if Raxivort and Iuz are both mightier than Graz'zt, why is Graz'zt still alive and not serving them drinks in a French maid's uniform? 

The common retort I hear is something along the lines of "the other deities would all turn against anyone that threatened the status quo in the lower planes," but a campaign where evil deities don't threaten the status quo (especially on the chaotic planes) sounds like one where evil deities aren't doing their jobs. And who really loves Graz'zt so much that they'd object to his son or former servant taking his place?

I think it's completely fair to criticize a cosmology that's poorly thought out. James Jacobs' fix of making the stat blocks into avatars is fine - but it's still weird to see the default assumption be the least reasonable one.


----------



## Zaukrie

In my case you are wrong. I have no problem with statting out anything, monster, demon....whatever. But, in a 160 page book, if 10 demon princes are statted out, that's 20 pages of stats that I'd rather see on demons and how they shape a campaign and how to use them, and how planes interact and .... I'd rather get stats in a web enhancement, or, preferrably make the book 240 pages...


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> In my case you are wrong. I have no problem with statting out anything, monster, demon....whatever. But, in a 160 page book, if 10 demon princes are statted out, that's 20 pages of stats that I'd rather see on demons and how they shape a campaign and how to use them, and how planes interact and .... I'd rather get stats in a web enhancement, or, preferrably make the book 240 pages...




There's that, too.

And that's the most important point.


----------



## Shade

Trying to apply internal logic to D&D fails 99 out of 100 times.

Along the same lines as "why doesn't Kurtulmak just take out Asmodeus"...well, why doesn't he just take out all deities of a lower divine rank (or a smaller worshiper base, etc. if you don't like stats)?   Why doesn't he kill any gnome heroes that show any sign of promise?  Why don't balors just eliminate all future rivals?

Real-world cosmologies/mythologies weren't real well thought out either, for that matter.


----------



## BOZ

i will agree that the demon lords' stats need some fixin (perhaps the book under which the thread we are all posting in will go some way towards that), and that they are way more vulernable than gods with such a relatively weaker status.

i don't, however, beleive in throwing out the baby with the bathwater by eliminating their stats completely.  it can be fixed by James and/or Erik by adding some rules in FC1.  archfiends can be made into Lesser gods while in their realm, or the stat blocks can be officially ruled as manifestations of an archfiend's greater will.

would that help, if they were to do either?    i, for one, think it would, and would like to see *something* to give them an advantage against the gods as so dramatically pointed out by Rip.


----------



## BOZ

Shade said:
			
		

> Real-world cosmologies/mythologies weren't real well thought out either, for that matter.




silly ancient humans.  they needed to hire some professional designers!


----------



## Bryan898

> Yes, you are. It's not a "just another monster" issue, it's a matter of internal logic. If the lords of the underworld are only CR 30 or so, how the heck do they avoid being conquered by deities?




I don't know about anyone else, but in my campaigns deities don't have true bodies.  They're fully capable of creating avatars, but their avatars sit in the 30's range as well.  Their lives and powers are based completely on beliefs, and if no one believes in them they die.  

While Kurtulmak may very well have worlds full of kobold followers, they aren't going to do much good against the hordes of devils at the disposal of the Lords of the Nine.  Nor is Kurtulmak's avatar going to get very far when the Lords themselves have guard battalions that number in the thousands, as well as more powerful creatures.

As far as my campaigns go, the CR 30 area is the Top of the pyramid and it's ruled by the ancient creatures that date to the creation of the planes.  If PCs hit that level, they're legends to the planes that can stand against god's avatars, demon lords, etc.  They still lack the power base that those others have built over thousands of years, and hence they're weaker.  I don't care what level you are, a million baatezu coming your way is a problem.


As for the Fiendish Codex, I'd love to see the archfiends and demon lords statted out.  I used Mephistopheles (though I increased his power) as a climax to a long term campaign that ended at 28th level, and as I understand it that's generally how they're used.  Even BoVD style worked for me, as it provides a good base to work with.  It's easy to increase something's power, what takes time is coming up with the abilities the creature has, skills, etc.  Then the real kicker is giving it a CR, which they do for you.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Shade said:
			
		

> Trying to apply internal logic to D&D fails 99 out of 100 times.




That's true, to some extent. This is a problem that has only really appeared in the latest edition of the game, though, and it's one that's easily fixable by equalizing the power gap between gods and planar rulers. 

Just waving your hands and saying, "Bah, D&D and mythology don't make any sense anyway" isn't really a viable solution for me, not when things are in this case so easy to fix. God doesn't destroy Satan because Satan is part of his divine plan, because he's infinitely merciful, because (according to Gnostic reasoning) he's removed himself from the physical universe, or because (according to Manichaean logic) they're of equal strength. That doesn't explain why Hextor doesn't decide to renegotiate his deal with Asmodeus, or sponsor Baalzebul or Mephistopheles to take over instead if Asmodeus won't give him better terms. 



> Along the same lines as "why doesn't Kurtulmak just take out Asmodeus"...well, why doesn't he just take out all deities of a lower divine rank




Because the reward for taking out Asmodeus is so much greater, and because it's so much easier to kill something sub-divine than it is to mess with other pantheons.

But you're right again, to an extent. Kurtulmak could destroy Raxivort and add xvarts, rats, and bats to his followers, for example, if he was inclined to add that chaotic rabble to his list of responsibilities.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Bryan898 said:
			
		

> I don't know about anyone else, but in my campaigns deities don't have true bodies.  They're fully capable of creating avatars, but their avatars sit in the 30's range as well.  Their lives and powers are based completely on beliefs, and if no one believes in them they die.




I think that's awesome, and it's a great fix to the problem I mentioned on the previous page. If only WotC would do something similar!


----------



## ruleslawyer

Well, TSR did; this is essentially the 2e/Planescape conception of powers. 

At the risk of potentially taking this thread FURTHER off-topic (when it's already at 7 pages; whew!), I'd actually disagree with BOZ that skipping the stats is "throwing the baby out with the bath water." I simply think that it's not possible to generate a single set of archfiend (or deific) stats that'll satisfy everyone, or even a substantial majority, because everyone seems to have their own take on how the archfiends should be done. (F'rex, even though I have access to the Creature Catalog stats, the BoVD/Demonomicon stats, the Dicefreaks stats, and the alternate [powered-down] Dicefreaks stats, I use yet a FIFTH set of stats for the archfiends!) Since a set of stats for the archfiends already has seen official WotC printing in the BoVD (and semi-official printing in the Demonomicon), I'd suggest doing what I think DDG should have done in the first place with gods: Provide a 2-3 page discussion of various philosophies regarding archfiend power levels (should they be gods? Should they be "high-epic" threats? Should they be "low-epic" threats? and why) and a few example stats at various power levels (CR 20-30, CR 35-45, deific) for a sample archfiend or two (my votes are either for completely new ones, or for Asmodeus and Demogorgon, of course!). 

I'm one of those who tends to think that stat blocks often come at the expense of more immediately DM-useful information like new non-epic fiends, prestige classes, cults, magic items, spells, rituals, locations, etc. For instance, I find DDG and Faiths and Pantheons (I run an FR campaign) nearly useless; DDG got returned to Amazon in 5 days, whereas the spine on Faiths and Pantheons has barely been cracked (except for the excellent adventure location at the back!). It's not that I don't think that stats are useful; it's just that, for beings of such uniqueness and power, it's all too likely that DMs will want to customize their own stats anyway. In many ways, providing a sample god of each deific power category (greater, intermediate, lesser, demigod) with detailed design notes and suggestions for leveling them up or down would have made it EASIER for a DM like me to stat the FR pantheon than having all those premade stat blocks!


----------



## Staffan

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The stats for the Demon Princes cover approx. 2 pages and we get one such article every 4 issues. Thats the equivalent of half a page per issue.
> 
> Added to which, as James himself states, the Demon Princes are designed in and around CR 25-30 so that they can still be used by non-epic campaigns in a sort of 'final boss' capacity. So in some respects they are no more 'epic' than a Great Wyrm Red Dragon for instance.
> 
> Yet seemingly we still have to put up with the whining of the haters trying to take away the last vestige of quasi-epic material from starving epic gamers. I SAY THEE NAY!



I don't care if they put stats for heavy-hitters in Dragon/Dungeon or in a web enhancement. But I won't buy a sourcebook where a third of the page count is taken up by stat blocks for gods and the like, stat blocks that I will never use. I have been burned once (Faiths & Pantheons), and I'd prefer not to be burned again. I'd rather they spend those pages on something that's actually useful.

In other words, I like my god books (and other books that deal with powerful beings) to be more Faiths & Avatars, less Deities & Demigods.


----------



## Pants

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Yes, you are. It's not a "just another monster" issue, it's a matter of internal logic. If the lords of the underworld are only CR 30 or so, how the heck do they avoid being conquered by deities? When Kurtulmak can finish Asmodeus off in a few rounds and teleport away, something is very wrong with the cosmology. Why hasn't Demogorgon been slaughtered by rival gods of the aquatic races? How did Pazuzu manage to curse the entire race of kenku, as described in the recent Dragon ecology? How did the Lords of the Nine banish the orcish and goblin pantheons from the Nine Hells?



I think you missed the point.
I said:



> _Posted Originally by Me_
> In fact, even if I don't always agree with the stats, they at least provide me with ideas should I ever want to stat them up myself.



So *gasp* I kinda sorta agree with you! They don't make sense as statted in the BoVD, but that doesn't mean that statting them out is a completely worthless endeavor.

So, I'm not objecting to people making the stats *better* (or more... logical), I'm objecting to those who make jerks out of themselves by saying 'tehy don't need stats it makes them into just another monster' while simultaneously crapping on someone elses game style.

I, personally, wouldn't really care if it makes sense or not. If I want a confrontation with a Demon Prince to the culmination of an epic campaign, then I will have it. I'm playing a game after all, not some lesson in logic.



> This is a problem that has only really appeared in the latest edition of the game, though,



Not really. Things change between editions all the time or, as is the case with 1e, they evolved throughout that edition.

Back on topic: I also think that FCI:HotA shouldn't have any Demonic Prince stats in them. They take up a lot of room and, as is seen here, no one really agrees with how powerful they should be or even if they should be statted out at all. Might as well keep the stats and the big writeups as a part of Dragon.


----------



## BOZ

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Since a set of stats for the archfiends already has seen official WotC printing in the BoVD (and semi-official printing in the Demonomicon), I'd suggest doing what I think DDG should have done in the first place with gods: Provide a 2-3 page discussion of various philosophies regarding archfiend power levels (should they be gods? Should they be "high-epic" threats? Should they be "low-epic" threats? and why) and a few example stats at various power levels (CR 20-30, CR 35-45, deific) for a sample archfiend or two (my votes are either for completely new ones, or for Asmodeus and Demogorgon, of course!).




ooh, i like that!  

still watching James & Erik?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Yes, you are. It's not a "just another monster" issue, it's a matter of internal logic. If the lords of the underworld are only CR 30 or so, how the heck do they avoid being conquered by deities?




Exactly...especially given the rules of D&Dg where a god of higher rank has such an upper hand on those of lower rank.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> When Kurtulmak can finish Asmodeus off in a few rounds and teleport away, something is very wrong with the cosmology. Why hasn't Demogorgon been slaughtered by rival gods of the aquatic races? How did Pazuzu manage to curse the entire race of kenku, as described in the recent Dragon ecology? How did the Lords of the Nine banish the orcish and goblin pantheons from the Nine Hells?
> 
> In 1st edition, fiendish rulers were all lesser gods, and most of them were of a similar or greater amount of power in 2nd edition. That made a certain amount of sense - even Bane would hesitate before taking on a plane ruled by nine lesser deities. In 3rd edition, all semblance of sense is lost - the rulers of nine infinite domains are vermin, less than that.
> Vhaeraun can march into the Gray Waste and give orders to the Oinoloth, as he did in a recent drow-themed novel.




Anthraxus should have dropped that fool like a bag o' dirt...assuming they still don't have a darn Ultroloth on the throne in that novel...? 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Evil deities are _not_ the types to make peace treaties if they don't have to, nor are they the normally the types to cower in fear of what the other deities might say  - it's inevitable in the cosmology implied by the current rules that someone stronger than the rest is going to take control, and the eons of self-rule the demons, devils, and other fiends has enjoyed is gone forever.




Does the official cosmology even make the slightest sense nowadays though?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> And that's fine, if that's what you want - a multiverse where Bane or Hextor rule the Nine Hells and Cyric and Talos or Erythnul and Raxivort are the mightiest of the lords of the Abyss.




Hell no!



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> But, I mean, if Raxivort and Iuz are both mightier than Graz'zt, why is Graz'zt still alive and not serving them drinks in a French maid's uniform?




Maybe hes waiting for continuity to catch up with him.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The common retort I hear is something along the lines of "the other deities would all turn against anyone that threatened the status quo in the lower planes," but a campaign where evil deities don't threaten the status quo (especially on the chaotic planes) sounds like one where evil deities aren't doing their jobs. And who really loves Graz'zt so much that they'd object to his son or former servant taking his place?
> 
> I think it's completely fair to criticize a cosmology that's poorly thought out. James Jacobs' fix of making the stat blocks into avatars is fine - but it's still weird to see the default assumption be the least reasonable one.




I presented a solution a while back.

Here is the Abyssal version:

- Demonic Champion 15-19 HD, rules single holding (ie. Castle), Hero-deity
- Demon Lord 20-29 HD, rules part of an abyssal layer (1d6 holdings), Quasi-deity
- Demon Prince 30-39 HD, rules one or more (1d6) layers, Demi-deity
- Demon Monarch 40-59 HD, rules multiple (10d6) layers, Lesser Deity
- Demon Emperor 60-79 HD, rules the entire Abyss, Intermediate Deity (currently there is no - Abyssal Emperor, however I did venture that Lolth/Lilith could be a sort of Demonic Queen Mother who is content to sit in her web rather than vie with the Monarchs for control of the Abyss)
- Nether Emperor 80-119 HD, rules multiple planes, Greater Deity (ie. Nerull/Infestix rules Gehenna, Hades and Tarterus)

A few things to note, I came up with this prior to 3.5 when the Balor was still 13 Hit Dice, the 3.5 build of the Balor is akin to a weak Demon Lord anyway. 

I know my Hero-deity and Quasi-deity are reversed from what 1st Edition told us.

Also the dominions of each ruler encompass those of its subordinates. So Demogorgons 10d6 layers would include those realms of the (1d6) Princes, (10d6) Lords and (100d6) Champions under his banner.

To convert the demons from 1st Edition simply divide their original hit points by 4 and see where they are on the scale. If their position doesn't match their known status, multiply by either x1.5, x2, x3 or x4 to get them to the right Hit Dice bracket.

eg. Demogorgon (200 hp) 200 divided by 4 = 50 HD Demon Monarch/Lesser Power

eg. Orcus (120 hp) divided by 4 = 30 HD x1.5 (because we know Orcus is a Demon Monarch) = 45 HD/Lesser Power.

eg. Yeenoghu (110 hp) divided by 4 = 25 HD x1.5 (because we know Yeenoghu is a Demon Prince) = 37 HD/Demipower.

eg. Lolth (66 hp) divided by 4 = 16.5 HD x4 (because we know Lolth is an Intermediate Goddess) = 66 HD/Intermediate Power.

The Avatars of the various Demon Princes would all be Quasi-deities, so Demogorgons Avatar would be 25 HD, as would Yeenoghus, Orcus Avatar would be 22 HD, as would Lolths. To get the HD value of the Avatar simply divide the deities HD by either 1.5, 2, 3 or 4 until it is with the 20-29 HD parameter. 

Anyway, just a thought.


----------



## Erik Mona

Staffan said:
			
		

> I have been burned once (Faiths & Pantheons), and I'd prefer not to be burned again.




Just imagine if you'd been one of the poor bastards who had to write that beast...

--Erik


----------



## BOZ

yeah... ouch.


----------



## Nightfall

Erik,

Hey at least you have your name attached to quality work BESIDES that one. I mean Shackled City (okay didn't write it but helped!), Age of Worms, Legions of Hell, Armies of the Abyss, etc.

Faiths and Panethons...eh.

But I agree with my mate Krusty, Vhaerun should have been dropped like no one's business. Same with Orcus, now with more power, charging in and dropping Kiaranselee like she's nothing. Cause she is.


----------



## Dr. Harry

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Paragon template is in the Epic Level Handbook.




Thank you.  I didn't recognize it because I haven't opened that book in quite a while 




			
				Shade said:
			
		

> But can't they still be treated that way at moderate levels, since they are far beyond the character's CR at those levels?




Certainly.  But the stats are still space I won't use.



> I feel your pain.  I felt that way about Planar Handbook and Sandstorm with all the wasted space (IMO) on touchstone sites.  Same goes for the endless wasted pages (again, IMO) on sample character for prestige classes, how to adapt the prestige classes to your campaign, and so on.




    Gee, a little of those I use ... but the stuff I don't use looks and feels like filler (fairly or unfairly).



> As someone who has been running an epic campaign for over a year now, I can say that I haven't run into any balance issues with monsters.  The CRs for most of the epic creatures have been quite on target so far.  Some of the non-epic monsters from the MMII that have CRs over 20 are vastly overrated (hellfire wyrm, mountain giant, linnorms, etc).




Thank you; I have not run this myself and it is good to know.

and


			
				ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Provide a 2-3 page discussion of various philosophies regarding archfiend power levels (should they be gods? Should they be "high-epic" threats? Should they be "low-epic" threats? and why) and a few example stats at various power levels (CR 20-30, CR 35-45, deific) for a sample archfiend or two (my votes are either for completely new ones, or for Asmodeus and Demogorgon, of course!).




Amen, whereever these appear!

Oh yes, and Good one! Upper_Krust.  That one's worth saving.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Anthraxus should have dropped that fool like a bag o' dirt...




I so rarely agree with you, but I do this time.

It was FR, which had that whole little retroactive cosmology change. So it wasn't Anthraxus, but an Ultroloth named Inthracis. Either way, the Anthraxus analog in said book was used as cannon fodder, and he was killed by a drow wizard with a cone of cold and a fireball IIRC.


----------



## Aaron L

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Yes, you are. It's not a "just another monster" issue, it's a matter of internal logic. If the lords of the underworld are only CR 30 or so, how the heck do they avoid being conquered by deities? When Kurtulmak can finish Asmodeus off in a few rounds and teleport away, something is very wrong with the cosmology. Why hasn't Demogorgon been slaughtered by rival gods of the aquatic races? How did Pazuzu manage to curse the entire race of kenku, as described in the recent Dragon ecology? How did the Lords of the Nine banish the orcish and goblin pantheons from the Nine Hells?





This is why I wish they would make the archfeind stats at least somewhere reasonable in comparison to the stats provided for the gods.  I LOVE U_Ks systematic treatment of the subject.  I see gods and archfeinds and everything in a Lovecraftian way:  These are alien beings of immense power;  gods are godsnot because they have worshippers, gods have gods because we microbe like lesser beings are awed by thier power and want some scraps for ourself.  I've always despised the idea that gods are powered by thier worshippers.  Azathoth doesnt need any dust speck humans (or Mi-Go, or what have you) to be the primordial nuclear chaos that he is; he simply IS.  I like the treatment of the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods in CoC d20.  Geat Cthulhu himself is just a lowly demigod, an alien entity of such immense power that he is of divine rank by vitrtue of his ablities.  Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth, on the other hand, are personifications of universal principles, and are of a whole other level of power.  I see no reason why demon princes and dukes of Hell should be any different; if a being has such immense power, then he should have divine rank.  A whole slew of these beings even HAVE cults and worshippers just as Cthulhu does.  The only reason I can see that they DONT have a divine rank is so that it is conceivable that PCs could fight them withiout having to be upwards of 70th level, but then that throws the whole logic of the cosmology out of whack.  So what we need is some explanation or mechanic as to why the gods havent eliminated these beings, but a way that it is still possible for a group of mortals to still challenge thier power and be a reasoble threat with a chance of fighting them.       


I,of course, have no problem with characters needing to be in the high multiples of 10 levels to fight archfeinds (and love epic levels), but I know most of you out there dont.  So some knd of scaling mechanic might be in order.  Maybe some similiar to the proxie mechanic from D&Dg, or the Aspect monsters from the Miniatures Handbook;  if you want your party to fight Demogorgon, you have them fight a reflection of his Abyssal monstrousness that is projected onto your planet, or whatever, but the real essence of the beast is still in the Abyss, his seat of power infusing him with godlike status, not wanting to commit full power to a fight and make himself vulnerable to gods whacking him while he's outside of his area of power, or afraid of an absence leaving an opening for some other demon lord to step in while he isnt there and possibly usurp his ties to the plane.  Theres a possible idea: a mechanic whereby other fiends can establish ties to thier native plane to increase thier power, but doing so restricts thier ability to fully leave the place and they must always keep the bulk of themselves on thier home plane or some other being may step in to wrest thier power from them, but let the archfiends have Aspects the same way that gods have Avatars.  It even has precedent in WotC literature.  Maybe make planar bind points  (somewhat like like planar touchstones) where fiends of a certain power level can establish a tie to the plane and gain a divine rank while they are at that location, but limit the number of such bind points such that they are fought over and limit the number of demon princes, archdevils, and so on.  


Pardon my rambling.


----------



## Bryan898

You know what would really burn me is if they decide to stat out a bunch of cookie cutter followers ALA BoVD.  That was the real waste of space IMO.  Without the stupid sample followers you could have cut out half the pages used for the Archfiends/ Demon Lords.


----------



## Whisper72

Hmm... I haven't followed the thread entire, but as to the issue of why more powerful divine beings do not destroy lesser divine beings, I like the way this is treated in the Sea of Death (or however it is called) trilogy by EGG. There, a fight of such proportions sends echoes through the multiverse, and other powerful beings will swoop down to take out the weakened victor. In essence, the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction is what keeps the Gods somewhat civil towards eachother. Another issue in 1st Ed. was that a God on his/her homeground is a lot more powerful. Thus, a greater god who is on the turf of a lesser God might still be at a disadvantage. All that a diety has to do to escape destruction at the hands of a more powerful being, is to hightail it back to his own home...

May not work in everyone's cosmology, but I always kinda liked this. It keeps the possibility of gods destroying eachother in the air, but with such risks that it rarely happens...


----------



## Shemeska

Aaron L said:
			
		

> Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth, on the other hand, are personifications of universal principles, and are of a whole other level of power.




The Lovecraftian trio there are probably closer in concept to DnD Archfiends rather than DnD deities. Cyric and Nerull might have an evil alignment, but Mydianchlarus and Demogordon etc -are- evil. DnD gods are largely the embodiments of their worshipper's beliefs taken form, while the archfiends tend to be the raw embodiments of that alignment personified.

Deities can be forgotten or their worshippers can die off, leaving them a petrified lump of stone in the Astral. So long as their alignment exists, archfiends don't have that issue to worry about. They're made of baser stuff. Being a true deity has its perks, such as not being tied down in your power to a plane or layer of a plane, but also carries responsibilities and risks.

In giving stats to archfiends it's certainly an enigma that you're faced with:

1) some people want to fight them at the end of a campaign, somewhere in the 20ish level range.

2) Then you've got precident of archfiends killing deities: Asmodeus rumored to have killed Abriymoch, Yugoloths having made Khin-Oin from the spine of a deity they killed, Levistus winning a protracted war against Set and Sekolah both, and the fiends (likely the yugoloths) having put a definative end to deific involvement in the Blood War by killing one nameless deity of chaos and somehow affecting every other deity involved till they all withdrew and have stayed so since that point. In DnD in most all examples the fiends are treated with kid gloves by deities, outside of rare gambles when a deity manages to kill an archfiend and pacify its kindred to avoid being curb stomped by an infinite plane of them. Deities don't interfere with the internal politics of the fiends out of actual concern, not just because it's beneath them or something contrived like that.

3) Some folks want them with stats but on the order of deities (who they also want statted)

4) Some folks want them with no stats

So somehow you have to remain true to the history of the Archfiends in DnD while somehow making one or more of the trio of perhaps mutually exclusive camps happy. Won't be easy. You have to have archfiends that can, on their own power and influence, hold infinite planes or layers of infinite planes from true deities and are viewed as largely seperate but equal powers.

A deity is nigh all powerful within their discrete domain, but outside that domain, they recognize that the fiends native there and their rulers are in control. A deity is nigh all powerful in their own discrete domain but Mydianchlarus and the layer of Oinos might as well be the same being, same thing with Demogorgon and his layer of the Abyss, or Levistus with Stygia. On the other hand that deity will have its own general (ie not within its domain) deific power anywhere, while those archfiends might have considerably less outside of their plane.

How to put that into game stats? Especially given the unfortunate precident that we have to go along with for with deity and archfiend stats in 3e? It won't be easy to reconcile those with the archfiends' history in the game, plus some folks want to use them as targets.


----------



## BOZ

it _is_ a big mess no matter what direction you move in, isn't it?  put in the weak stats, the guys who want higher stats are left out.  put in higher stats, the guys who need the CR 20 archfiends are left out.  take out the stats altogether, then those who want stats are left out.

sheesh!


----------



## Soel

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Asmodeus rumored to have killed Abriymoch,




Where is this tidbit from?




			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Yugoloths having made Khin-Oin from the spine of a deity they killed




I don't think it necessarily said they were the ones who killed said deity, but I might be wrong...


----------



## Staffan

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Just imagine if you'd been one of the poor bastards who had to write that beast...



I feel for you, man.

(I remembered that I had seen one of the Eriks griping about it somewhere earlier, but I couldn't remember if it was you or Boyd, and I was too lazy to check which one of you was credited on the book)


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Staffan! 



			
				Staffan said:
			
		

> I don't care if they put stats for heavy-hitters in Dragon/Dungeon or in a web enhancement.




Glad to hear it.



			
				Staffan said:
			
		

> But I won't buy a sourcebook where a third of the page count is taken up by stat blocks for gods and the like, stat blocks that I will never use. I have been burned once (Faiths & Pantheons), and I'd prefer not to be burned again. I'd rather they spend those pages on something that's actually useful.
> 
> In other words, I like my god books (and other books that deal with powerful beings) to be more Faiths & Avatars, less Deities & Demigods.




So you are okay with the stats comprising about 20/190 pages (as per Faiths & Avatars), just not 80/224 pages (as per Deities & Demigods)...noted.

If you actually cut out all the duplicated material from Deities & Demigods stat blocks (and presumably Faiths & Pantheons - I don't own that book) you can actually reduce the space they take up by half, meaning they would only take up 40 pages rather than 80.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Erik! 



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Just imagine if you'd been one of the poor bastards who had to write that beast...




I've often wondered, what the heck was the thinking behind those books (Faiths & Pantheons and Deities & Demigods), by that I mean who was the target audience they were aiming for!? The universal derision from both camps (stats for gods/no stats for gods) is testament that they satisfied neither.

They are not for players – because there are no rules for becoming a deity. 
They are not for DM’s – because there are no mechanics for creating pantheons or deities. They are not for non-epic campaigns – because the deity (and even avatar) stats are too far beyond any physical interaction. 
They are not for epic campaigns – because it doesn’t draw upon the information within that book.

Did the designers try to create a book for everyone and in the end come up with a book that ultimately satisfied no one? That seem sto be the only logical conclusion.

The funniest thing was the omission of any epic material from the books because WotC wanted the products to be standalone titles - yet how can any of those stats be relevant to non-epic campaigns! You automatically require the Epic Level Handbook to make one iota of use from them!


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemeska matey! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I so rarely agree with you, but I do this time.




You're scaring me.   



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It was FR, which had that whole little retroactive cosmology change. So it wasn't Anthraxus, but an Ultroloth named Inthracis. Either way, the Anthraxus analog in said book was used as cannon fodder, and he was killed by a drow wizard with a cone of cold and a fireball IIRC.




You know how to twist the knife. The abuse of Anthraxus has got to stop...daemons have feelings too y'know.   

Anthraxus should be able to eat drow wizards and crap ultroloths...literally!


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Bryan! 



			
				Bryan898 said:
			
		

> You know what would really burn me is if they decide to stat out a bunch of cookie cutter followers ALA BoVD.  That was the real waste of space IMO.  Without the stupid sample followers you could have cut out half the pages used for the Archfiends/ Demon Lords.




I'd be happy if there were unique fiends included in their retinues (as in the Demonomicon), but I agree the cookie-cutter approach doesn't really work for individuals. It makes sense in a few instances, the Ghoul King under Yeenoghu and Quah-Namog under Orcus, since theres an established history there. 

Also I wonder does Demogorgon realise he has a dozen Marilith Blackguards (each CR 27) who are each individually more powerful than Graz'zt (CR 24)! 

That leads me on to another pet peeve of mine - Outsiders with Class Levels. Please refrain from using this mechanically lazy and philosophically debateable* approach to outsiders where possible.

*Outsiders/Spirits are not free willed beings.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy mate! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> The Lovecraftian trio there are probably closer in concept to DnD Archfiends rather than DnD deities. Cyric and Nerull might have an evil alignment, but Mydianchlarus and Demogordon etc -are- evil. DnD gods are largely the embodiments of their worshipper's beliefs taken form, while the archfiends tend to be the raw embodiments of that alignment personified.
> 
> Deities can be forgotten or their worshippers can die off, leaving them a petrified lump of stone in the Astral. So long as their alignment exists, archfiends don't have that issue to worry about. They're made of baser stuff. Being a true deity has its perks, such as not being tied down in your power to a plane or layer of a plane, but also carries responsibilities and risks.
> 
> In giving stats to archfiends it's certainly an enigma that you're faced with:
> 
> 1) some people want to fight them at the end of a campaign, somewhere in the 20ish level range.




Those beings would be Avatars who are roughly quasi-deity level power. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> 2) Then you've got precident of archfiends killing deities: Asmodeus rumored to have killed Abriymoch, Yugoloths having made Khin-Oin from the spine of a deity they killed, Levistus winning a protracted war against Set and Sekolah both, and the fiends (likely the yugoloths) having put a definative end to deific involvement in the Blood War by killing one nameless deity of chaos and somehow affecting every other deity involved till they all withdrew and have stayed so since that point. In DnD in most all examples the fiends are treated with kid gloves by deities, outside of rare gambles when a deity manages to kill an archfiend and pacify its kindred to avoid being curb stomped by an infinite plane of them. Deities don't interfere with the internal politics of the fiends out of actual concern, not just because it's beneath them or something contrived like that.




Those would be the 'real' Demon Princes/Arch-devils who are themselves godlike in power.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> 3) Some folks want them with stats but on the order of deities (who they also want statted)




Easily done. Stat the deities and have a paragraph on the Avatars/Aspects.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> 4) Some folks want them with no stats




Keep the stats to a bare minimum and don't duplicate the same bog-standard material over and over again (for example the entire 'Other Divine Powers' section of each D&Dg entry is irrelevant). You should be able to keep the stats/combat information for each deity (and its avatar) to a single page. Throw in an illustration and details about the beings history and any relevant artifacts on a second page. Goals/Cult on a third page. Thrall/Prestige Class on a fourth. Minions on a fifth. Realm on a sixth...and possibly Lair on a seventh perhaps? Maybe even include a sample cult headquarters/temple to make it eight pages altogether.

The articles in Dragon magazine use a larger font and fewer lines (80%) than Deities & Demigods layout. So I am guessing you could squeeze the Demonomicon articles into about 7-8 pages if you had too.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> So somehow you have to remain true to the history of the Archfiends in DnD while somehow making one or more of the trio of perhaps mutually exclusive camps happy. Won't be easy. You have to have archfiends that can, on their own power and influence, hold infinite planes or layers of infinite planes from true deities and are viewed as largely seperate but equal powers.
> 
> A deity is nigh all powerful within their discrete domain, but outside that domain, they recognize that the fiends native there and their rulers are in control. A deity is nigh all powerful in their own discrete domain but Mydianchlarus and the layer of Oinos might as well be the same being, same thing with Demogorgon and his layer of the Abyss, or Levistus with Stygia. On the other hand that deity will have its own general (ie not within its domain) deific power anywhere, while those archfiends might have considerably less outside of their plane.
> 
> How to put that into game stats? Especially given the unfortunate precident that we have to go along with for with deity and archfiend stats in 3e? It won't be easy to reconcile those with the archfiends' history in the game, plus some folks want to use them as targets.




Easy peasy...lemon squeezy.


----------



## Erik Mona

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Did the designers try to create a book for everyone and in the end come up with a book that ultimately satisfied no one? That seem sto be the only logical conclusion.




The designers designed the book that they were asked to design. Basically, we wrote to a detailed outline provided by Wizards of the Coast. We were able to make plenty of suggestions, and all of the actual design was ours. For instance, they may have said "design four temples for this section," but the decision of what temples to include and how to detail them was up to us.

Eric and I both pushed for disinclusion of the deity stats in favor of more information about myths, relationships, vestments, etc., but this idea was nixed. At the time we started F&P, Deities & Demigods was in the final stages of development and the prevailing opinion at WotC R&D was that gods should be something you could stat up and kill. It became very clear early on that this was not negotiable. If Deities & Demigods had killable gods, by gum so would Faiths & Pantheons.

So we shrugged and gave the publisher what it wanted. As it happens, the rules for statting up gods changed while Deities & Demigods was in editing, so the WotC editors had to rebuild all of our F&P stat blocks anyway. It was not a positive experience, although I am very proud of the writing I did on that book and I feel I was able to bring a fresh approach to some pretty picked-over material.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The funniest thing was the omission of any epic material from the books because WotC wanted the products to be standalone titles - yet how can any of those stats be relevant to non-epic campaigns! You automatically require the Epic Level Handbook to make one iota of use from them!




As I recall, the Epic Level handbook had not been written, or was being written, at the same time we put together F&P, so including a ton of material from that source was never an option.

--Erik


----------



## Shade

Stats or not, for me _Faiths & Pantheons _ has been one of the most enjoyable 3E gamebooks to actually _read_, so I'd say it's strong on flavor.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Soel said:
			
		

> Where is this tidbit from?




The Abriymoch incident is alluded to in the _Manual of the Planes_.

"Abriymoch's foundation is said to be the grave of a deity slain by Asmodeus." - page 119.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> That leads me on to another pet peeve of mine - Outsiders with Class Levels. Please refrain from using this mechanically lazy and philosophically debateable* approach to outsiders where possible.




Class levels are far more flavorful and interesting than "monster levels." I'd much rather read about a fiend with blackguard and warlock levels than a fiend who simply advances in hit dice.



> *Outsiders/Spirits are not free willed beings.




Of course they are. How else do angels fall, modrons go rogue, or demons ascend?


----------



## Aaron L

Corruption.


----------



## ruleslawyer

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Class levels are far more flavorful and interesting than "monster levels." I'd much rather read about a fiend with blackguard and warlock levels than a fiend who simply advances in hit dice.



Eeh. I don't agree, simply because it's too easy to take the "well, this guy has been around so long that he simply SHOULD have 40 levels" approach. Couple of reasons: 

1) My this line of logic, a world in which a human PC can hit 20th level in his lifespan is going to result in a dragon, archfiend, or other beast having too many levels to count;

2) It takes away the "human-like" quality of many of these feats and class abilities. A blackguard is supposed to be a mortal that executes a pact with an evil outsider or deity. Can an evil outsider execute such a pact? What about the Evil Brand, Disciple of Darkness, etc. feats?

3) Fiends already have a source of natural advancement via HD. 

As to your issue regarding interest, it seems to me that the key is to develop fiend-only prestige classes (which can reflect a particular fiend-unique type of advancement not available to mortals) or to develop more flavorful methods of advancing fiends via Hit Dice (as, say, the Dicefreaks folks have done). Templates do nicely here too.


> _Of course they are. How else do angels fall, modrons go rogue, or demons ascend?_



Urk. I'm absolutely not getting in the middle of this, but I will point out that the default rules for outsiders assume an inherent alignment (that is, an alignment subtype, not a mere alignment). Also, they assume an "always [x alignment]." That to me indicates a lack of free will. Maybe not a 100% inability to exercise free will, but a, shall we say, _constrained_ will, which is why even in the more relativistic-alignment days of Planescape, these beings were one-in-a-million exceptions. Also, there is no reference in any 3e WotC material to fallen angels, risen fiends, or rogue modrons.


----------



## Shade

I much prefer outsiders advanced by HD than class levels.   For flavor reasons, it makes them less like humanoids and giants, and adds to their mystique.   For game mechanic reasons, every time they take a class level they lose the equivalent of 2 HD that affects the DCs of all their special abilities.   I think the class level advancement is better used on their mortal lackeys.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Erik! 

Appreciate the reply.



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> The designers designed the book that they were asked to design. Basically, we wrote to a detailed outline provided by Wizards of the Coast. We were able to make plenty of suggestions, and all of the actual design was ours. For instance, they may have said "design four temples for this section," but the decision of what temples to include and how to detail them was up to us.




Well if thats the case then the problem seems to have been seeded with the creative direction undertaken by WotC bigwigs rather than those designers who wrote the material.



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Eric and I both pushed for disinclusion of the deity stats in favor of more information about myths, relationships, vestments, etc., but this idea was nixed.




Ironically if you had statted AO I would have bought it.  



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> At the time we started F&P, Deities & Demigods was in the final stages of development and the prevailing opinion at WotC R&D was that gods should be something you could stat up and kill. It became very clear early on that this was not negotiable. If Deities & Demigods had killable gods, by gum so would Faiths & Pantheons.




Well gods should be something you can stat up and kill, but thats not the issue. The issue is whether or not that book was the right place for that particular material. The answer is probably not, at least not with regards Faiths & Pantheons. 

Although I think it would be a lot trickier to sell a book based on real world mythologies without stats given that the material is likely to be much more derivative.



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> So we shrugged and gave the publisher what it wanted. As it happens, the rules for statting up gods changed while Deities & Demigods was in editing, so the WotC editors had to rebuild all of our F&P stat blocks anyway. It was not a positive experience, although I am very proud of the writing I did on that book and I feel I was able to bring a fresh approach to some pretty picked-over material.




I don't own Faiths & Pantheons but it would be interesting to see exactly how different it was from Faiths & Avatars. I mean I don't want to do you a disservice, but I would imagine its a lot of the same material? Although I remember thinking the inclusion of sample temples was a good touch.



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> As I recall, the Epic Level handbook had not been written, or was being written, at the same time we put together F&P, so including a ton of material from that source was never an option.




Yes but you can see the flaw in the thinking. Having stats for deities is irrelevant unless you either allow for mortal/immortal interaction (which without the epic rules you cannot do) or show how characters become deities in the first place (which Deities & Demigods didn't do).


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Class levels are far more flavorful and interesting than "monster levels." I'd much rather read about a fiend with blackguard and warlock levels than a fiend who simply advances in hit dice.




I'm not saying they couldn't incorporate such class features (dragons incorporate sorceror class features for instance) I'm just saying they shouldn't have the luxury of choice.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Of course they are. How else do angels fall, modrons go rogue, or demons ascend?




Well for the most part they don't, thats why all angels are *always* Good aligned, demons are *always* Chaotic Evil and modrons are *always* Lawful Neutral.

However, as you rightly attest there are some who inevitably break the mould, but these are the exception, not the norm.


----------



## demiurge1138

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Also, there is no reference in any 3e WotC material to fallen angels, risen fiends, or rogue modrons.



Actually, several of the Lords of Hell (Baalzebuul especially) are still referred to as fallen angels, although that's in more of a transformed-into-another-being-entirely sense. And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?

Demiurge out.


----------



## Shemeska

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> Actually, several of the Lords of Hell (Baalzebuul especially) are still referred to as fallen angels, although that's in more of a transformed-into-another-being-entirely sense. And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?
> 
> Demiurge out.




Manual of the Planes and its web enhancement.

One adventure by Mark Jindra released on the WotC site had Modrons

And they've shown up in 'Downer' which I've been liking more and more


----------



## BOZ

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?




a web enhancement.    by Scott Greene nonetheless!


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Well for the most part they don't, thats why all angels are *always* Good aligned, demons are *always* Chaotic Evil and modrons are *always* Lawful Neutral.
> 
> However, as you rightly attest there are some who inevitably break the mould, but these are the exception, not the norm.



Naturally it's an exception when beings who are made of pure good, evil, law, balance, and/or chaos change their alignments -  it's an event of similar magnitude to a water elemental becoming a pyromancer. This doesn't mean they have no free will (to the extent of not even being able to have class levels!), only that they behave according to their natures unless given a profound reason not to. Certainly, there's nothing inherit in the nature of evil that would prevent a arcanaloth from learning more about sorcery or a demon from becoming a cultist of Demogorgon - in fact, their natures demand it. I think the option of giving class levels to all sentient creatures is one of the best features of 3rd edition.

A being of utter chaos who succumbs to the temptations of law (for example) is going to be one in a million, but the fact that it's possible at all indicates that they have the freedom of choice, even if it is normally incomprehensible for them to exercise it in such a way. If not, they'd be incorruptible, and that's clearly not the case. Baalzebul was a fallen archon before he was transformed into a baatezu.

The rules clearly state that creatures with the "always" designator may change alignment, although this is unique or rare. There are also plenty of examples of fiends and celestials with class levels in the books, so your position is really indefensible except as a quirky personal variant.


----------



## JustaPlayer

Page 26 of DDG talks about the epic Level Handbook in a sidebar.  So yes, the books were being worked on at the same time.  I also seem to remember someone saying the reason the epic rules weren't included in DDG was that they didn't want people to "need" ELHB to play with the Gods.  To me, that was the bad decision.  As soon as Epic Level came out, DDG was worthless. There are things in ELHB that can destroy gods as stated in DDG with ease.  The real kicker with the apporach? Wizards has started to put Epic Level stuff in most books now.

I would like to see updated stats for demon lords, and would love to see some of the princes since they haven’t be stated in 3e, unless I count TOH by Necromancer.


----------



## BOZ

there's slim pickins once you get past Baphomet and Kostchtchie... but there are more demon lords than you can shake a stick at, all the same.  

why, Zuggtmoy's new article mentioned at least two that i had never heard of before...


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Grover! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Naturally it's an exception when beings who are made of pure good, evil, law, balance, and/or chaos change their alignments -  it's an event of similar magnitude to a water elemental becoming a pyromancer. This doesn't mean they have no free will (to the extent of not even being able to have class levels!), only that they behave according to their natures unless given a profound reason not to. Certainly, there's nothing inherit in the nature of evil that would prevent a arcanaloth from learning more about sorcery or a demon from becoming a cultist of Demogorgon - in fact, their natures demand it. I think the option of giving class levels to all sentient creatures is one of the best features of 3rd edition.




Well you are entitled to your opinion, but mechanically it is my opinion that unnatural creatures who advance by Hit Dice, should not gain the possibility to advance via class levels too. You could argue that Dragons would be an exception to this rule since their Hit Dice is intrinsically linked to their physical growth and they are also free willed beings (but even they advance via HD alone). An outsiders power is nothing to do with 'getting bigger'.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> A being of utter chaos who succumbs to the temptations of law (for example) is going to be one in a million, but the fact that it's possible at all indicates that they have the freedom of choice, even if it is normally incomprehensible for them to exercise it in such a way. If not, they'd be incorruptible, and that's clearly not the case. Baalzebul was a fallen archon before he was transformed into a baatezu.




I am happy to allow that one in a million outsider to have class levels.   

Although its likely they would be regarded as a freak amongst their own kind.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The rules clearly state that creatures with the "always" designator may change alignment, although this is unique or rare. There are also plenty of examples of fiends and celestials with class levels in the books, so your position is really indefensible except as a quirky personal variant.




Its hardly indefensible, given that I am defending it. Just because something is official doesn't mean its the best solution, is your position on deities not having stats indefensible except as a quirky personal variant!?


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Well you are entitled to your opinion, but mechanically it is my opinion that unnatural creatures who advance by Hit Dice




What is "unnatural?" By whose standard? Are you seriously suggesting that just because something is from another plane it isn't part of the natural order? The inevitables would disagree.



> An outsiders power is nothing to do with 'getting bigger'.




Then why do they grow bigger as they advance in hit dice? A balor, for example, becomes Huge when it advances to 30 hit dice; it has everything to do with size, *unless* they're advancing in class level. 

Perhaps you're thinking of advancement between castes (for example, an amnizu becoming a cornugon) - that's something of a different matter. I think in such a case advancement by class level would be much more likely than advancement by hit dice, or else the baatezu would risk dropping in hit dice when it was transformed into the "higher" form.



> I am happy to allow that one in a million outsider to have class levels.




I'm confused. You're implying that outsiders don't have free will, but a few do out of some mutation or the like? That seems improbable as well as unsatisfying.

Far more likely, if one shows evidence of free will, they all must. This doesn't mean that more than "one in a million" are going to choose to act contrary to their own natures, but it does mean that they're all going to choose whether to be rogues or sorcerers.

I'm not sure how you can justify making them automatons to fate philosophically. How does a rampaging glabrezu choose to turn right instead of left (or vice versa)? How does it decide whether to eat a halfling first and the dwarf second? Who plans out the complete life-paths of all outsiders of a given type, and how do they account for changes non-outsiders may make to this pre-planned destiny? I don't think you've thought out the implications of predestination, or you don't understand what "free will" actually means. If an armanite has the ability to decide on its own whether to gore or use a spell-like ability, it also has the ability to learn how to be a barbarian or a ranger instead of lounging around in the Abyss growing fat on the souls of the damned. If it doesn't have the ability to make decisions on its own, it's going to end up goring when a spell-like ability would make more sense and charging at mortals in an empty field of battle because the mortals in question decided to sleep in that day - unless you're postulating an omniscient puppetmaster who is capable of unerringly predicting the actions of everyone in the multiverse, in which case _no one_ has free will.

Like I said, it's not a defensible position. 



> Just because something is official doesn't mean its the best solution, is your position on deities not having stats indefensible except as a quirky personal variant!?




I never said deities don't have stats, only that said stats use up large portions of a book that could far more profitably be used in other ways. 

You're absolutely right that "official" isn't always best (certainly, the relative power levels of fiend lords and gods is ridiculously off), but since you were quoting the rules at me (putting "always" in bold face) it seemed that this was what you were basing your argument on, so I responded in kind.

In any case, we seem to have reached an agreement of sorts: as fiends are currently designed, they should be able to gain class levels if they want to, and to say otherwise requires quite a lot of reworking of our basic assumptions concerning both their natures and the nature of the cosmology in general.


----------



## James Jacobs

BOZ said:
			
		

> there's slim pickins once you get past Baphomet and Kostchtchie... but there are more demon lords than you can shake a stick at, all the same.
> 
> why, Zuggtmoy's new article mentioned at least two that i had never heard of before...




Yup; much in the same way that lumber companies take care to plant new trees as they cut others down, I'm trying to introduce 1 or 2 new demon lords in each of the Demonomicon articles. I figure in about 20 years they'll get their own entries in the Demonomicon.


----------



## BOZ

it's a *good* plan.  

when jason is able to clean out his inbox, he will see that i have some plans of my own...


----------



## BigFreekinGoblinoid

I liked the beefed up ( templated or addition of class levels ) unique followers in the BoVD. But some were so high in CR that they could just about take out their master on their own - that I didn't like. But I like seeing stats for Demon Lords - a conundrum to be sure. 

To reconcile this in my mind, I have decided that the "true" stats for these powerful unique beings have yet to be seen. They may include a "lord/prince" template ( akin to Divine Rank 0 or 1 or something ), and only apply to the true body of the being in it's own realm of power. Beings there are tougher to kill on their own plane, but then they are DEAD. 

Differing stats for "Avatars" are easiliy rationalized. The being sends an avatar to another plane with as much power as is deemed necessary. If killed in a CR20 body, he may not be able to manifest an avatar on that plane for another 100 years. If a CR30 avatar is killed, he may not be able to manifest another avatar for 500 years. Or something similar, you get the idea. 

These being's realms ( w/ maps! ) goals/plans , followers, worshipper rules, and rivalries are the most interesting content to me. Avatar stats are fun too, as long as that does not comprise the majority of the space devoted to the bieng. 

The interative process of creating D&D rules and sourcebooks create many problems when trying to reconcile the resultant differences. But i'll take new rules that are better even if it means invalidating something in a past sourcebook if the alternative is keeping the status quo with rules that have been proved ill conceived ( or received anyway  ) - The 3e books of gods probably would have been better received if they had used the EPIC rules in their creation - a book that came out just AFTER those two!!! Anyone planning on using gods as monsters to kill is going to be using EPIC rules for characters!


----------



## BOZ

aha, i missed a creature!  the Incubus, from Dragon #54 (Dragon's Bestiary).


----------



## Mouseferatu

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Yup; much in the same way that lumber companies take care to plant new trees as they cut others down, I'm trying to introduce 1 or 2 new demon lords in each of the Demonomicon articles. I figure in about 20 years they'll get their own entries in the Demonomicon.




If you wanted to drop in a reference or two to Turaglas ("The Ebon Maw," issue #312) while you were at it, I certainly wouldn't take it amiss.


----------



## Bryan898

> Also I wonder does Demogorgon realise he has a dozen Marilith Blackguards (each CR 27) who are each individually more powerful than Graz'zt (CR 24)!




Yeah, funny thing about that, with Graz'zt's AC of 43, DR of 15/+6 (I'd convert to 15/ epic and cold iron), and SR 38, the CR 27 Marilith's wouldn't stand a chance.  Graz'zt's sneer (his free action fear aura) would cause them to run away unless they roll a 20 on a save... Even if they did he could cut them to ribbons.

CR's off a bit? Nooooo =P

I actually liked some of the write-ups in the BoVD and could see them as formidable opponents.  What I didn't get is why these all powerful demon lords/ archfiends take feats like Vile Martial Strike, or have weapons like a +3 flaming burst greatsword.  If you own a layer on the planes I think you qualify for a weapon of epic strength, or at least +10.


----------



## Staffan

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> So you are okay with the stats comprising about 20/190 pages (as per Faiths & Avatars), just not 80/224 pages (as per Deities & Demigods)...noted.



Well, I'd say it's more a matter of "easier to ignore" than actually being OK with it, but yeah.

At least I'm reasonably sure that when "Faiths of Eberron" comes out (which it eventually will, it's a pretty obvious book to make), it won't have stats for gods given their distant nature in that setting.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> What is "unnatural?" By whose standard?




Any creature that doesn't age is unnatural. Any creature that is not 'born' is unnatural.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Are you seriously suggesting that just because something is from another plane it isn't part of the natural order? The inevitables would disagree.




I think something that seems to have been forgotten over the years is the idea that many Outsiders are actually spirits.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Then why do they grow bigger as they advance in hit dice? A balor, for example, becomes Huge when it advances to 30 hit dice; it has everything to do with size, *unless* they're advancing in class level.




Outsider Hit Dice has nothing to do with size. Graz'zt is smaller than a Glabrezu, but has far more Hit Dice.

For Outsiders, Fey, (Intelligent) Undead and to a certain extent Constructs, Hit Dice is a measure of inherant power, not mere physicality.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Perhaps you're thinking of advancement between castes (for example, an amnizu becoming a cornugon) - that's something of a different matter. I think in such a case advancement by class level would be much more likely than advancement by hit dice, or else the baatezu would risk dropping in hit dice when it was transformed into the "higher" form.




I think thats one of the great ideas that have been forgotten over the years, although its not something I would implement wholesale, although its probably more predominant in the Lawful Planes than the Chaotic Planes. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I'm confused. You're implying that outsiders don't have free will, but a few do out of some mutation or the like? That seems improbable as well as unsatisfying.




External forces acting upon them rather than internal compulsions.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Far more likely, if one shows evidence of free will, they all must. This doesn't mean that more than "one in a million" are going to choose to act contrary to their own natures, but it does mean that they're all going to choose whether to be rogues or sorcerers.








			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I'm not sure how you can justify making them automatons to fate philosophically. How does a rampaging glabrezu choose to turn right instead of left (or vice versa)? How does it decide whether to eat a halfling first and the dwarf second? Who plans out the complete life-paths of all outsiders of a given type, and how do they account for changes non-outsiders may make to this pre-planned destiny? I don't think you've thought out the implications of predestination, or you don't understand what "free will" actually means. If an armanite has the ability to decide on its own whether to gore or use a spell-like ability, it also has the ability to learn how to be a barbarian or a ranger instead of lounging around in the Abyss growing fat on the souls of the damned. If it doesn't have the ability to make decisions on its own, it's going to end up goring when a spell-like ability would make more sense and charging at mortals in an empty field of battle because the mortals in question decided to sleep in that day - unless you're postulating an omniscient puppetmaster who is capable of unerringly predicting the actions of everyone in the multiverse, in which case _no one_ has free will.




Thats exactly what I am postulating for Spirits/Outsiders. Only natives of the material plane have 'free will' to decide their ethics. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Like I said, it's not a defensible position.




Either they advance by Hit Dice or they advance by Class Levels. I don't see how you can justify both.

Have you ever addressed the question of how exactly Outsiders gain Hit Dice?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I never said deities don't have stats, only that said stats use up large portions of a book that could far more profitably be used in other ways.
> 
> You're absolutely right that "official" isn't always best (certainly, the relative power levels of fiend lords and gods is ridiculously off), but since you were quoting the rules at me (putting "always" in bold face) it seemed that this was what you were basing your argument on, so I responded in kind.
> 
> In any case, we seem to have reached an agreement of sorts: as fiends are currently designed, they should be able to gain class levels if they want to, and to say otherwise requires quite a lot of reworking of our basic assumptions concerning both their natures and the nature of the cosmology in general.




Well I'll agree with you that there is probably too much water under the bridge with regards Outsiders and Class Levels to change things at this stage of this edition of D&D. I'll take it, but I don't have to like it. However, don't expect to see me jump into every thread on fiends and belabour the point.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey James! 



			
				James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Yup; much in the same way that lumber companies take care to plant new trees as they cut others down, I'm trying to introduce 1 or 2 new demon lords in each of the Demonomicon articles. I figure in about 20 years they'll get their own entries in the Demonomicon.




What about Dragon Magazine having a *"Design a Demon Lord" competition?*

With the best entry seeing print in the magazine, and perhaps the rest being grouped together for a pdf. with some* of its proceeds going to charity?

*It would be unfair not to pay the artists.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Bryan! 



			
				Bryan898 said:
			
		

> Yeah, funny thing about that, with Graz'zt's AC of 43, DR of 15/+6 (I'd convert to 15/ epic and cold iron), and SR 38, the CR 27 Marilith's wouldn't stand a chance.  Graz'zt's sneer (his free action fear aura) would cause them to run away unless they roll a 20 on a save... Even if they did he could cut them to ribbons.
> 
> CR's off a bit? Nooooo =P




Trust me when I say version 6 of my Challenge Rating document is flawless in determining ECL and CR. 



			
				Bryan898 said:
			
		

> I actually liked some of the write-ups in the BoVD and could see them as formidable opponents.  What I didn't get is why these all powerful demon lords/ archfiends take feats like Vile Martial Strike, or have weapons like a +3 flaming burst greatsword.  If you own a layer on the planes I think you qualify for a weapon of epic strength, or at least +10.




Two things of note regarding weapons. Deities (and I am including Archfiends therein) should have equipment based upon their ECL, not their CR. Secondly they should have PC wealth.

If deities only have NPC wealth then 'pound for pound' those weapons are only going to be about 1/3rd the power of the PCs weapons.

For example, if the PCs were equal power to Thor (who supposedly wields the most powerful weapon of the gods - in Norse Myth at any rate), and lets say for the sake of argument Mjolnir is +16 (like in D&Dg) then the PCs would themselves be carrying something of the magnitude of +50 weapons! They wouldn't even keep Mjolnir for their cohorts!

So for something like Graz'zt's sword Doomscreamer, what you want to do is determine the ECL (or simply multiply the CR by 1.5), then multiply by x1.33 to represent the wealth increase, and give him PC wealth based on that level. Each artifact taking up 25% of his wealth you can then determine its value. 

eg. CR 24 = ECL 36 without equipment = ECL 48 with full PC wealth = 28 million gp. Each artifact valued at roughly 7 million gp.

Doomscreamer could be a +18 weapon (+9 Acidic Blast, Anarchic, Keen Bastard Sword), so could Graz'zt's Guisarme (+9 Keen, Unholy Power). Graz'zt's Shield could be +26 (+13 Exceptional deflection and Heavy Fortification). This leaves him with one free artifact slot, which, until filled reduces his new CR 32 by 2, to CR 30.


----------



## BOZ

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I think something that seems to have been forgotten over the years is the idea that many Outsiders are actually spirits.




yep, spirits in physical form.  which is why they can't be resurrected when they die.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> yep, spirits in physical form.  which is why they can't be resurrected when they die.




Sort of. It's less that they're spirits in physical form / physical manifestations of abstract concepts that makes them hard to resurrect than the fact that when they die they have that little habit of merging with the substance of their plane.

Admittedly, some of the older edition rules about what happened to certain fiends based on where they were killed are fun to work with. Kill them off their home plane in my games and eventually you may run into them again and they won't be happy (assuming you live long enough for them to reform).


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Any creature that doesn't age is unnatural. Any creature that is not 'born' is unnatural.




Yes it's a nitpick, but two of the three main fiend races can be 'born'. Tanar'ri can breed, and they breed -alot-. Among the 'loths, Mezzoloths, Nycaloths, and Arcanaloths can be born as well, though for the last two there it's not a preferred method of making more of their kind since they very much prefer higher castes to be promoted up from mezzoloth status rather than born into station. Baatezu don't breed amongst their kind (though nobles may be exempt from that rule).


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Yes it's a nitpick, but two of the three main fiend races can be 'born'. Tanar'ri can breed, and they breed -alot-.




Where did that idea come from...let me guess Planescape perchance?

Fiends can only mate with mortal races, not each other, they are not wholly 'living' beings. Thats why you have Alu-demons, Cambions and Durzugons and not 5 armed Half-Glabrezu/Half-Marilith.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Among the 'loths, Mezzoloths, Nycaloths, and Arcanaloths can be born as well, though for the last two there it's not a preferred method of making more of their kind since they very much prefer higher castes to be promoted up from mezzoloth status rather than born into station. Baatezu don't breed amongst their kind (though nobles may be exempt from that rule).




The whole thing sounds like more Planescape jive-o-rama.

If they can be 'born' then they are at best Half-fiends.


----------



## demiurge1138

Yes, all the references to fiends breeding Shemmie mentions are from Planescape, but then again, Planescape also codified the idea of fiends being "promoted" from one form to the next and how larvae are transformed into fiends. The Planescape rule of thumb seemed to be that fiends are usually formed from larvae via promotion, but they can also have sex and breed if they really wanted to (most just don't).

Frankly, I don't mind either way. 

Demiurge out.


----------



## BOZ

actually, i think MC8 introduced the fiend-promotion idea, PS just expanded on it.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Any creature that doesn't age is unnatural. Any creature that is not 'born' is unnatural.
> I think something that seems to have been forgotten over the years is the idea that many Outsiders are actually spirits.




I think of it a different way - that spirits and souls are part of a natural cycle, as natural as anything else in the D&D multiverse, and the migration of spirits from the Inner Planes to the Material Plane to the Outer Planes is a completely natural one.

 Most religions would agree with this, though not using those terms - people die and go to the afterlife because it's natural for them to do so.



> Outsider Hit Dice has nothing to do with size. Graz'zt is smaller than a Glabrezu, but has far more Hit Dice.




I think, rather, outsider hit dice isn't strictly tied to size, but it's not true that there's no correspondence at all, or outsiders wouldn't grow bigger as they advanced in hit dice.



> External forces acting upon them rather than internal compulsions. Thats exactly what I am postulating for Spirits/Outsiders. Only natives of the material plane have 'free will' to decide their ethics.




So you would remove all moral culpability from outsiders? Demons can't be blamed for their actions, because they can't help themselves? It wasn't Triel's or Trias' or Lucifer's fault when they fell from grace, but solely the fault of some external force? Even though many outsiders were once mortals with the ability to choose their paths, after death they suddenly become slaves to greater forces with no will of their own? I can't count how many ways that idea strips the setting and its characters of emotional weight, as well as robbing the DM of many plot ideas - because I ran out of fingers, and calculators burst into sulfurous flames in my presence, and I have sworn on the grave of my mother never to remove my shoes until her death is avenged - but it's a lot.  

It seems to me that this is a completely seperate consideration from whether or not they can choose to take class levels, in any case, since that has nothing to do with what alignment they are (except for a few obvious exceptions, like paladins). 



> Either they advance by Hit Dice or they advance by Class Levels. I don't see how you can justify both.




I'm at a loss to figure out why that would be a problem for anyone. Why not both? In _Arcana Evolved_, characters can advance by either their racial class or their character class - this is no different. If the character advances purely in demonic power over the course of centuries as it accumulates souls and reputation, you add demon hit dice. If the character decides to study arcane sciences, or devote itself to a deity-like patron, or practice hunting a species enemy, it advances in its character class. 



> Have you ever addressed the question of how exactly Outsiders gain Hit Dice?




Baatezu (and modrons and archons) really ought to have to rely on their superiors to grant additional hit dice (or to be promoted to higher castes), but they can gain class levels on their own if they accomplish significant deeds. Though they're unaging, most won't have substantial class levels because they're tied to their duties, and one of the tenets of D&D is that you don't reward characters for doing boring things. Some, however - especially erinyes and others permitted the freedom to go off-plane on missions of their own volition - will definitely have class levels.

Tanar'ri gain hit dice by wrecking terror and misery in those around them - they're able to gain in real power simply by convincing their fellows that they have it and having the will or wit to enforce this belief. They also must capture souls. To go to the next level of power beyond a mere demon, they need to begin cults dedicated to them. To transform into a different kind of demon, with no more hit dice, is simpler, just a matter of moving to a different environment and focusing their will and hatred until they adapt to it. This is a slow process, but should be completed in a year or so in most cases. They can change genders in a few days. Demons will often have class levels, though not a lot because adventurers are rare among any group.

Yugoloths need permission from their superiors, and their superiors' superiors, to advance in caste, but they ought to be able to advance in hit dice or class levels on their own in a manner similar to tanar'ri. And yes, they grow larger as they do so.



> However, don't expect to see me jump into every thread on fiends and belabour the point.




I certainly hope not!


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hey Shemmy!
> Where did that idea come from...let me guess Planescape perchance?




Where else? It's not like the three main fiend races had any sort of truly detailed ecologies before that point. It was fertile ground, and they did a hell of a job detailing it. 'Faces of Evil' was truly awesome.



> Fiends can only mate with mortal races, not each other, they are not wholly 'living' beings. Thats why you have Alu-demons, Cambions and Durzugons and not 5 armed Half-Glabrezu/Half-Marilith.




They can mate with mortals if they choose, and as I mentioned before it's rather well established that they can mate with one another within certain guidelines. The rule seems to be that common ranks can breed among themselves, but not between ranks. Breaking this are that any lesser yugoloths can breed with one another, but they always produce mezzoloths by these unions.

There's never been half breeds between ranks in anything I've seen. So no '5 armed Half-Glabrezu/Half-Marilith' examples of brilliant hyperbole will result.



> The whole thing sounds like more Planescape jive-o-rama.
> 
> If they can be 'born' then they are at best Half-fiends.




Feel free to ignore it in your own game then. It won't break into your home to oppress you.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Shemeska said:
			
		

> There's never been half breeds between ranks in anything I've seen. So no '5 armed Half-Glabrezu/Half-Marilith' examples of brilliant hyperbole will result.




There _ought_ to be, though. Tanar'ri are, in a sense, all unique beings, each capable of evolving into any shape imaginable. In practice, they take on the shapes that have proven most successful in surviving the Abyss and impressing their enemies and potential allies, but there's no real reason the occasional deviant can't take on a unique shape, even if they're of less than arch-demon status. 

It's important to note, however, that "true" tanar'ri - those of hezrou status or greater - don't reproduce their own kind. Their offspring are lesser breeds; though they may initially resemble their parents, they will normally conform to whatever shapes are prevalent in the layer they find themselves in. So the offspring of a glabrezu and a marilith might, as it matures, become a succubus, an armanite, or a chasme depending on its environment and personal proclivities. If it manages to evolve into "true" tanar'ri status - and only a few manage such a feat - it might well decide to become some kind of five-armed abomination, though as this is a relatively untested form it might find it inflicts less terror and more incredulous laughter than it might have hoped for. I think there should be at least one, though, since it's kind of a neat idea. 

While tanar'ri are all about breeding with anything or everything - chaos spawning chaos, evil turning on and begetting itself - yugoloths generally prefer not to reproduce in that way, and I can easily see nycoloths and arcanaloths (the only two castes that might conceivably create a hybrid form) simply being genetically incompatible. Lesser 'loths always birth mezzoloths, while ultroloths birth arcanaloths.

Baatezu females are sterile, so baby baatezu are out of the question.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think of it a different way - that spirits and souls are part of a natural cycle, as natural as anything else in the D&D multiverse, and the migration of spirits from the Inner Planes to the Material Plane to the Outer Planes is a completely natural one.
> 
> Most religions would agree with this, though not using those terms - people die and go to the afterlife because it's natural for them to do so.




You can't use the excuse that just because they exist they are natural. Undead exist but they are not natural. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think, rather, outsider hit dice isn't strictly tied to size, but it's not true that there's no correspondence at all, or outsiders wouldn't grow bigger as they advanced in hit dice.




Its obvious there is no correspondence amongst demons. However, WotC seem to use the same 'pretend growth' mechanic for constructs, fey, outsiders and incorporeal undead, even though such beings don't actually 'grow' in the traditional sense.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> So you would remove all moral culpability from outsiders? Demons can't be blamed for their actions, because they can't help themselves? It wasn't Triel's or Trias' or Lucifer's fault when they fell from grace, but solely the fault of some external force?




Correct.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Even though many outsiders were once mortals with the ability to choose their paths, after death they suddenly become slaves to greater forces with no will of their own?




Yes. Both figuratively (in the sense that some omnipotent being is pulling the strings behind the scenes) and literally (all spirits serve those of the immediate greater station, good spirits do so out of duty and evil ones out of fear).



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I can't count how many ways that idea strips the setting and its characters of emotional weight, as well as robbing the DM of many plot ideas - because I ran out of fingers, and calculators burst into sulfurous flames in my presence, and I have sworn on the grave of my mother never to remove my shoes until her death is avenged - but it's a lot.




Nonsense. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> It seems to me that this is a completely seperate consideration from whether or not they can choose to take class levels, in any case, since that has nothing to do with what alignment they are (except for a few obvious exceptions, like paladins).




I think you are looking at this backwards. Instead of choosing to become rogues or sorcerors, demons will, given the accruement of enough power, metamorphose into shapes that fulfill that role. You won't have 5th-level Dretch Rogues you'll have Babau. You don't get 3rd-level Bearded Devil Rangers you get Erinyes. You don't get 9th-level Skeroloth Sorcerors you get Arcanaloths!



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I'm at a loss to figure out why that would be a problem for anyone. Why not both? In _Arcana Evolved_, characters can advance by either their racial class or their character class - this is no different. If the character advances purely in demonic power over the course of centuries as it accumulates souls and reputation, you add demon hit dice. If the character decides to study arcane sciences, or devote itself to a deity-like patron, or practice hunting a species enemy, it advances in its character class.




Well I don't want to get into a discussion as to whether or not that idea is inherantly racist (although you can imagine the outcry if someone used that approach with realworld races) as that is another can of worms. I understand the mechanical reasons for it (simplicity for one), but I think its an unnecessary stereotype and something that is much better handled by Prestige Classes like Dwarven Defender and Arcane Archer.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Baatezu (and modrons and archons) really ought to have to rely on their superiors to grant additional hit dice (or to be promoted to higher castes), but they can gain class levels on their own if they accomplish significant deeds. Though they're unaging, most won't have substantial class levels because they're tied to their duties, and one of the tenets of D&D is that you don't reward characters for doing boring things. Some, however - especially erinyes and others permitted the freedom to go off-plane on missions of their own volition - will definitely have class levels.
> 
> Tanar'ri gain hit dice by wrecking terror and misery in those around them - they're able to gain in real power simply by convincing their fellows that they have it and having the will or wit to enforce this belief. They also must capture souls. To go to the next level of power beyond a mere demon, they need to begin cults dedicated to them. To transform into a different kind of demon, with no more hit dice, is simpler, just a matter of moving to a different environment and focusing their will and hatred until they adapt to it. This is a slow process, but should be completed in a year or so in most cases. They can change genders in a few days. Demons will often have class levels, though not a lot because adventurers are rare among any group.
> 
> Yugoloths need permission from their superiors, and their superiors' superiors, to advance in caste, but they ought to be able to advance in hit dice or class levels on their own in a manner similar to tanar'ri. And yes, they grow larger as they do so.




So basically what you are saying is there is no mechanic for such a thing - its all just arbitrary.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I certainly hope not!




A pity you and your cohorts don't share the same philosophy when it comes to jumping into threads about stats for gods.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Where else?




I had to ask didn't I!   



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's not like the three main fiend races had any sort of truly detailed ecologies before that point. It was fertile ground, and they did a hell of a job detailing it. 'Faces of Evil' was truly awesome.




If this was what they come up with I am glad I passed that one by.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> They can mate with mortals if they choose, and as I mentioned before it's rather well established that they can mate with one another within certain guidelines.




The very idea is preposterous on multiple levels. 

These are spirit beings, if they are born then whose spirit are they from?

If two Balors could produce a third then every Demon Lord would have a Decillion Balor servants.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> The rule seems to be that common ranks can breed among themselves, but not between ranks.




So where are all the male Marilith?

Where are all the baby Balors?



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Breaking this are that any lesser yugoloths can breed with one another, but they always produce mezzoloths by these unions.




So where do the lesser yugoloths come from?



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> There's never been half breeds between ranks in anything I've seen. So no '5 armed Half-Glabrezu/Half-Marilith' examples of brilliant hyperbole will result.




What a pity, I was looking forward to the Book of Infinite Demons where each type crossbreeds and then the crossbreeds crossbreed and so on.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Feel free to ignore it in your own game then. It won't break into your home to oppress you.




I'm simply pointing out the illogic of such an approach. These Planscape writers don't seem to have thought the whole thing through very well.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> If this was what they come up with I am glad I passed that one by.




Your loss. It's an inspired book.




> These are spirit beings, if they are born then whose spirit are they from?




Manifestations of an abstract concept don't absolutely have to have a 1 fiend : 1 dead mortal ratio going on. Not sure where you're coming up with that idea.




> If two Balors could produce a third then every Demon Lord would have a Decillion Balor servants.




This is a theoretical answer since True Tanar'ri aren't born, they have to work their way up to that station from the lower ranks. Thus, no Balors breeding.

Balors aren't going to take the time to knock each other up and give birth all that often presumably. It's inconveniant to say the very least, plus who wants to give birth to a potential future rival when you're that powerful already. Higher ranks of fiend are probably less and less likely to breed with one another for that reason alone even, it only makes sense.

But as I said, it's not an issue since 'True Tanar'ri' can't be born into rank. So no bred Vrocks, Hezrou, Glabrezu, Alkaliths, Maraliths, Nalfeshne or Balors. They're promoted from the lesser ranks into those forms.


> So where are all the male Marilith?




Obviously breeding is out of the question for all female or all male subtypes of fiends.



> So where do the lesser yugoloths come from?




They're formed from the promotion of the rank below them, all of whom start off as mezzoloths originally.

Mezzoloths can be born, but the vast majority are formed fully grown from the raw substance of one of their native planes. They emerge spontaneously from the plane itself, plus one seems to form immediately when any yugoloth anywhere dies permenantly. They don't have a direct link to mortal petitioners, but to the more base substance of the plane itself (so there's an indirect link if you please).



> I'm simply pointing out the illogic of such an approach. These Planscape writers don't seem to have thought the whole thing through very well.




Your feelings on the line are obvious, spare us further? The PS bashing is getting old.


----------



## Aaron L

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Your feelings on the line are obvious, spare us further? The PS bashing is getting old.





So is the stats for gods bashing.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> These are spirit beings, if they are born then whose spirit are they from? If two Balors could produce a third then every Demon Lord would have a Decillion Balor servants. So where are all the male Marilith? Where are all the baby Balors?




They're effectively spawn of the Abyss itself, pieces of raw evil and chaos taken form. Their plane is made of the same spiritual matter they are, and somewhat sentient besides, so this is hardly a stretch. 

Remember what I said earlier about true tanar'ri? The offspring of balors are lesser or greater tanar'ri, not more balors - beings of the equivalent power of succubi, nabassu, or the like. Balor status must be earned. 

All tanar'ri have the ability to metamorphose their sex within the span of a few days, so any "female" marilith is perfectly capable of becoming a male one. This wouldn't necessarily change their physical appearance, mind - as you point out, they're not biological beings.

Really, it's inescapable. If demons can produce offspring with mortals, and neither gender is sterile, they _will_ produce offspring with one another. The only illogical thing is denying that. In Muslim myth, jinn reproduce sexually - don't you allow that either?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Your loss. It's an inspired book.




Inspired...possibly. Flawed...definately.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Manifestations of an abstract concept don't absolutely have to have a 1 fiend : 1 dead mortal ratio going on. Not sure where you're coming up with that idea.




What are you on about 'Abstract Concepts'. Outsiders are the souls/spirits of the dead given material form. They are created from individual souls!



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> This is a theoretical answer since True Tanar'ri aren't born, they have to work their way up to that station from the lower ranks. Thus, no Balors breeding.




Now you are starting to see sense. Thank you.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Balors aren't going to take the time to knock each other up and give birth all that often presumably.
> 
> Frankly I think thats one presumption too far for you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shemeska said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's inconveniant to say the very least, plus who wants to give birth to a potential future rival when you're that powerful already. Higher ranks of fiend are probably less and less likely to breed with one another for that reason alone even, it only makes sense.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Frankly I don't see how they would have a choice in the matter! The Demon Lords and Princes would command them to breed and swell their armies.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shemeska said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But as I said, it's not an issue since 'True Tanar'ri' can't be born into rank. So no bred Vrocks, Hezrou, Glabrezu, Alkaliths, Maraliths, Nalfeshne or Balors. They're promoted from the lesser ranks into those forms.
> 
> The same illogic applies to any type of demon. The entire planes would become one big breeding ground. After a mere century each fiend lord would have a decillion number of each type of subordinate fiend. Which of course would mean the upper planar natives would have to 'get jiggy' with a vengeance just to keep up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shemeska said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your feelings on the line are obvious, spare us further?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> LOL! Now thats what I call hypocrisy! All we need to do now is work in a crystal pepsi metaphor and we're on the way to Carnegie Hall.
> 
> For the record I'm addressing an inconsistency in Planescapes logic. Its a wholly objective point.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shemeska said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The PS bashing is getting old.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> I'd like to think of it as constructive criticism so that future generations won't make the same mistakes.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> You can't use the excuse that just because they exist they are natural. Undead exist but they are not natural.




So to you angels, devils, and indeed all souls are as foreign to the proper order of things as walking skeletons? Creatures should "naturally" walk around souless and collapse into oblivion after death? I'm baffled by that sort of attitude. 



> Its obvious there is no correspondence amongst demons. However, WotC seem to use the same 'pretend growth' mechanic for constructs, fey, outsiders and incorporeal undead, even though such beings don't actually 'grow' in the traditional sense.




But there's obviously a correspondence between size and hit dice in all of these creatures, whether they grow or not. A bigger construct has more hit dice, as does a bigger fey and a bigger outsider. 

There's no reason an outsider shouldn't be able to grow. As you point out, certain unique outsiders can have many hit dice and a relatively small size, but this is the exception, not the rule. You can't point out a few exceptions and claim a greater pattern, not when the rule that creatures with more hit dice have a greater size is in the stat block of every non-unique outsider. That's just willful denial.



> (all spirits serve those of the immediate greater station, good spirits do so out of duty and evil ones out of fear).




Then they must have free will, or no coersion (neither from ethics nor terror) would be necessary or indeed possible. Outsiders with no free will would do what they were designed to do, whether they were terrified or not. No "good spirit" would have any use for a sense of duty, which is only relevant in cases where they have the option of _not_ being dutiful. 

For the record, I'm addressing an inconsistency in your logic. 



> You don't get 9th-level Skeroloth Sorcerors you get Arcanaloths!




So for you a standard arcanaloth would be a different caste and shape than an arcanaloth who was a 9th level sorcerer? A babau who was a 3rd level rogue would have a different shape than a 0-level one?  If they look the same, how is this different from simply gaining levels? If the only difference is what you call it, we really have no disagreement. Feel free to call an arcanaloth gaining a level a "metamorphosis."



> So basically what you are saying is there is no mechanic for such a thing - its all just arbitrary.




I'm saying demonic evolution is story-based, as it should be. Not everything should or can rely on dice and pre-determined formulae, or a computer program would be a good substitute for a live GM.



> A pity you and your cohorts don't share the same philosophy when it comes to jumping into threads about stats for gods.




You should probably step out of that glass house before you start chucking rocks at people, Krust. You leapt into this one like clockwork of the dramatically leaping kind (perhaps a clockwork grassshopper of some sort).


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What are you on about 'Abstract Concepts'. Outsiders are the souls/spirits of the dead given material form. They are created from individual souls!




It might help if you were at all familiar with the material you keep bashing.

Outsiders aren't all created from individual souls, divest yourself of this idea because it doesn't hold true in every case. Not at all. Many of them are, many of them aren't.

Among the true outsiders, we'll use as an example the trio of main fiend races, they're the physical manifestations of the abstract alignments of CE, NE, and LE. They might spawn from the raw substance of their native plane, they might breed with one another, or they might create the least of their kind from mortal petitioners. Baatezu and Tanar'ri use petitioners for this purpose, though the yugoloths don't.

It's less that the fiends are exclusively created from the souls of dead mortals, they're not, than that some mortal souls happen to closely mirror CE or LE, or NE larvae who can be forcibly molded either way, becoming more like the fiends who recruit the most refined of those souls into their own ranks. The vast majority of them are killed or eaten or never used though, only the mortals whose depravity makes them fit to be turned into the least forms of Tanar'ri or Baatezu. For the Baatezu, lemures will on rare interval spawn from the essence of Baator. For the Tanar'ri, they'll spawn from the Abyss or screw each other or use petitioners to swell their ranks, they're not picky. Yugoloths don't form the least of their kind from petitioners, they have no direct link to petitioners, just to the raw substance of the Gray Waste and Gehenna. No mortal soul becomes a 'loth, though you could look at it that once the plane devours the essence of those mortal souls the worst of all of those mortals gets distilled into newly spawned mezzoloths.



> The same illogic applies to any type of demon. The entire planes would become one big breeding ground. After a mere century each fiend lord would have a decillion number of each type of subordinate fiend.




Which is one of the reasons that the Abyss tends to massively outnumber opposing armies of Baatezu in the Blood War. The Abyss in many ways is a giant breeding ground and slaughterhouse all in one, pumping out millions to die senselessly in the Blood War each and every hour of every day.




> Which of course would mean the upper planar natives would have to 'get jiggy' with a vengeance just to keep up.




As soon as the Upper Planes are actually at war with the lower planes in some sort of Blood War #2 they'll think of that, but the fiends are quite happily slaughtering one another at the moment thank you, so it isn't an issue. The celestials are quite happy to wait and let them butcher each other without them needing to get involved on any sort of organized scale.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What are you on about 'Abstract Concepts'. Outsiders are the souls/spirits of the dead given material form. They are created from individual souls!




Outsiders are defined in the MM as beings who were born from or contain the essence of an outer, inner, or transitive plane. In the case of outer planar beings, they're various ratios of good, evil, law, chaos, or balance given solid form - not actually "material" in the sense of the Material Plane, but of a solid spiritual matter that superficially resembles flesh. Some of them are evil (or some other force) refined from mortal souls, the "impure" alignments melted away in the process of advancement. Others were never mortal; some have been around since the planes first began to form, possibly long before the Material Plane was populated. Others are newly spawned as part of the plane's natural process of self-renewal. In all cases, they are living concepts first and souls of the dead at best a distant second. 



> Now you are starting to see sense.




He's just quoting _Faces of Evil_, actually. It's much less illogical than you think.



> The entire planes would become one big breeding ground. After a mere century each fiend lord would have a decillion number of each type of subordinate fiend.




The Abyss is infinite, as is every outer plane. There's plenty of room. Tanar'ri are more numerous than most other planar races, but this doesn't mean they're any more powerful, any more than the fact that the Abyss has more layers means it's any more powerful than the other planes. Remember, they're Chaotic Evil incarnate, sentient, mobile pieces of the Abyss - they're exactly as powerful as Chaos and Evil is, their collective strength tied to the power of their alignment.

As was mentioned, yugoloths generally don't breed unless they're on a plane far from one of the towers in which they normally artificially create new mezzoloths directly from the raw energy of their planes. Baatezu, modrons, and archons never breed. Presumedly eladrins and guardinals can breed, and slaadi do even more often than tanar'ri - it's one of the primary combat maneuvers of the lower slaad ranks, as you're no doubt aware.


----------



## catsclaw227

What the heck is all this disagreement and discussion about?  If one DM wants the rules one way, fine.  If another wants it another way, fine too!

I believe that no one idea is right or wrong, its simply the mythos that the individual DM wants to use.  Some like Planescape mythos, some don't.  And in a world of multi dimensions and multi planes, who says there isn't a "Planescape" alternate mythos where demons and devils all look like Kiera Knightly and Micky Rourke?


----------



## the Jester

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What are you on about 'Abstract Concepts'. Outsiders are the souls/spirits of the dead given material form. They are created from individual souls!





Where do you get this?  Is there any rules support for this, or is this a house rule in your campaign?

'Cause your posts make it sound like this is spelled out in the RAW somewhere, but I can't recall seeing that anywhere.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

catsclaw227 said:
			
		

> And in a world of multi dimensions and multi planes, who says there isn't a "Planescape" alternate mythos where demons and devils all look like Kiera Knightly and Micky Rourke?




I think this is actually true in all dimensions. In fact, if _Hordes of the Abyss_ does not canonize this obvious fact, I will boycott it.

I will also boycott the letter "F," which I believe is one of today's sponsors.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> So to you angels, devils, and indeed all souls are as foreign to the proper order of things as walking skeletons?




Intelligent Undead certainly. Not automatons.

Foreign...Outsiders...see the similarity.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Creatures should "naturally" walk around souless and collapse into oblivion after death? I'm baffled by that sort of attitude.




Depends on the circumstances obviously. Some people die and become undead if their souls are prohibited from making the journey to the outer planes.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> But there's obviously a correspondence between size and hit dice in all of these creatures, whether they grow or not. A bigger construct has more hit dice, as does a bigger fey and a bigger outsider.
> 
> There's no reason an outsider shouldn't be able to grow. As you point out, certain unique outsiders can have many hit dice and a relatively small size, but this is the exception, not the rule.
> 
> You can't point out a few exceptions and claim a greater pattern, not when the rule that creatures with more hit dice have a greater size is in the stat block of every non-unique outsider. That's just willful denial.




Its not the exception at all.

Glabrezu bigger than Balor
Dretch bigger than Quasit
Nycaloth bigger than Ultroloth
Yagnoloth bigger than Arcanaloth
Pit Fiend bigger than Dispater
Hellcat bigger than Erinyes

These are not isolated cases.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Then they must have free will, or no coersion (neither from ethics nor terror) would be necessary or indeed possible. Outsiders with no free will would do what they were designed to do, whether they were terrified or not. No "good spirit" would have any use for a sense of duty, which is only relevant in cases where they have the option of _not_ being dutiful.




These beings are the personification of their respective alignments. That in itself is an inherant predictability. I think you are nitpicking on the minutiae rather than appreciating the big picture.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> For the record, I'm addressing an inconsistency in your logic.




You must have the wrong address.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> So for you a standard arcanaloth would be a different caste and shape than an arcanaloth who was a 9th level sorcerer? A babau who was a 3rd level rogue would have a different shape than a 0-level one?  If they look the same, how is this different from simply gaining levels? If the only difference is what you call it, we really have no disagreement. Feel free to call an arcanaloth gaining a level a "metamorphosis."




Nicely twisted there.

I contrasted Dretch Rogue with Babau and Skeroloth Sorceror with an Arcanaloth. 

If all demons could just take class levels then having castes that basically fulfill those criteria would be obsolete.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I'm saying demonic evolution is story-based, as it should be. Not everything should or can rely on dice and pre-determined formulae, or a computer program would be a good substitute for a live GM.




Characters sgain class levels via EXP. Outsiders gain Hit Dice. Is it too much to ask for a mechanic for the latter?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> You should probably step out of that glass house before you start chucking rocks at people, Krust. You leapt into this one like clockwork of the dramatically leaping kind (perhaps a clockwork grassshopper of some sort).




It was well set up though you must admit, I mean I couldn't bypass a gem like that.


----------



## demiurge1138

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think this is actually true in all dimensions. In fact, if _Hordes of the Abyss_ does not canonize this obvious fact, I will boycott it.
> 
> I will also boycott the letter "F," which I believe is one of today's sponsors.



Now we've done it. This thread has driven Mr. Cleaveland (a fine president, I might add) over the deep end.


Demiurge out.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey there Jester! 



			
				the Jester said:
			
		

> Where do you get this?  Is there any rules support for this, or is this a house rule in your campaign?
> 
> 'Cause your posts make it sound like this is spelled out in the RAW somewhere, but I can't recall seeing that anywhere.




From 1st Edition...unless I am remembering it all wrong.   

...the time before the 'dark ages' of Planescape.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Glabrezu bigger than Balor
> Dretch bigger than Quasit
> Nycaloth bigger than Ultroloth
> Yagnoloth bigger than Arcanaloth
> Pit Fiend bigger than Dispater
> Hellcat bigger than Erinyes




Advancing in caste is different from advancing in hit dice. It's the rule in the current edition that outsiders grow bigger as they grow in their "outsider class." Advancing in caste represents a complete transformation of body and spirit - the creature essentially "starts over" at that point. Although, I'll speak further on the relationship between demons and castes below. 



> These beings are the personification of their respective alignments. That in itself is an inherant predictability. I think you are nitpicking on the minutiae rather than appreciating the big picture.




"Predictability" is hardly the same as predestination! Your grasp on logic (or the basic meanings of words) is exceptionally poor.



> Nicely twisted there.




Thank you, I guess, but my point was quite valid. Why can't an arcanaloth gain levels in sorcerer? Why can't a babau gain levels in rogue? You can't really justify a completely new yugoloth caste just to make an arcanaloth a slightly better spellcaster, and thus your rigid dogma falls apart.



> If all demons could just take class levels then having castes that basically fulfill those criteria would be obsolete.




The thing you're missing is that demons are a chaotic race - not just chaotic, but a form of Chaos incarnate. They don't have a caste system like baatezu and yugoloths do - there's no overriding authority in the Abyss with the power or desire to limit their freedom in such a way. If a dretch wants to gain levels in rogue, there's nothing preventing it from making such a choice. 

What you (and, occasionally, I) inappropriately refer to as "castes" are just adaptations to the infinitely varying planes of the Abyss. Somewhere there is a layer that's entirely populated by babaus, and they fill all roles in their hideous parody of a society. Babaus can advance to archdemonic status just by continuing to grow in hit dice, or they can shed their skins like a snake and become hezrou and glabrezu instead - but they certainly aren't forced to be rogues. They also make excellent assassins and shadow dancers, and could easily be mages.

Baatezu and yugoloths will generally conform to the expectations of their caste unless they become exiled from their respective societies, in which case they'll have no ability to change castes. Even here, there's going to be some variety - a barbazu can as easily become a fighter or a ranger as a barbarian, or join the Mortal Hunter prestige class from the Book of Vile Darkness. A yagnaloth might become a blackguard or take the Fiend of Blasphemy prestige class from the Fiend Folio. Each caste has quite a bit of wiggle room, given how many different classes and prestige classes are available in 3e.



> Characters sgain class levels via EXP. Outsiders gain Hit Dice. Is it too much to ask for a mechanic for the latter?




It's unnecessary. One of the reasons the DM exists is to make decisions like this. Suffice it to say it takes centuries for a demon to grow this way if it ever does, and PC demons shouldn't have to wait that long. Let them use class levels! 



> From 1st Edition...unless I am remembering it all wrong.




You're remembering it all wrong. Nowhere in 1st edition did it say that _all_ demons and devils emerged from the souls of the damned (in fact, Glasya was implied to be the daughter of Asmodeus and Bensozia), and there was nothing that ever indicated that daemons had the ability to rise from mortal souls at all - they had no equivalent of manes or lemures. What's more, slaadi at least were clearly noted as reproducing sexually.


----------



## BOZ

Grover, Shemmy, and Krusty need their own thread.  better yet, they need their own forum.


----------



## BOZ

OK, this will be the last time i dig into the archives CD.  i had perviously searched on "Abyss" and "Orcus", and this time i searched on the rest of the demon lords by name.  i could look up the word "demon" to see what i can see... but i simply don't have the time in my life for that.  

Meeting Demogorgon (#36): 

The Uldra (#119): The uldra god Aslak once united with Moradin and Garl Glittergold to fight against Demogorgon and several major demon princes he had united with.

Creatures From Elsewhere (#47): Features the Sugo, originally created by Juiblex, but they turned against him and all things chaotic.

Orcs Throw Spells, Too! (#141): Gnoll shamans of Yeenoghu are discussed.

The Sociology of the Flind (#173): Yeenoghu is mentioned a number of time in the footnotes section.

Fiendish Fortresses (#233): By Monte Cook, features the tanar'ri Living Fortresses, and the Fist of Graz'zt, an artifact that amplifies damage done by spells, used in the Blood War.

Greyhawk's World (#64): The god Raxivort was once a mortal xvart became ruler of all xvarts and was granted much power by a demon (rumored to be Graz'zt).

The Ecology of the Leucrotta (#91): Observers that have seen Kostchtchie say that he is often accompanied by leucrotta.

#117: An answer to a trivia question: "Yeenoghu and Baphomet are currently at war (MMII, page 36)"


----------



## Nightfall

Some cool finds Boz. I'll have to get around to finding #141 and #233. Not sure about #36 but hey.

*thinks Boz is right about the post fight but still sides with Shemmy and Krusty.* I'm Chaotic that way.  Plus they are my mates. (Well Krusty more than Shemmy but I never bet against a Loth. Good way to lose your soul many times over.)


----------



## Sundragon2012

I have to chime in here because something always bothered me about the archfiends from 1e til now.

According to their write ups, these creatures have control over entire planes of existance, entire infinite realms of existance much like someone having complete control of our universe, not just our galaxy, but countless billions of galaxies within the measureless expanse of our reality. And just like our universe has no "crystal sphere" neither do those in DnD any longer. So we are talking about infinite spaces here.

Now, think about this. Grazz't controls 3 layers of the abyss, that is three infinite realities, each of which, being infinite can contain as many inhabitants as every other plane of existance combined. Grazz't rules everyone and everything therein as sovereign. Same goes for Orcus, Demogorgon, Baphomet, etc. though the numbers of infinite realities each controls is different.

How the hell do creatures with CRs of 23-32 control entire realities of infinite space? It seems utterly ridiculous to me to think that these creatures, who epic level PCs can slaughter, are the immortal "gods" of their own realities and are in fact so completely, for the responsibilities assigned to them, pathetically weak and cosmically inconsequential.

Now I could imagine a few logical workarounds that make sense (and please no_...."this is a game so internal consistancy needn't apply"_...in that case the new book should include Papa Smurf and Batman as archfiends because you can have that if no one looks at internal consistancy).

Onto the workarounds:

*1.) * Archfiends are empowered by the plane they dominate. They are nearly omnipotent and omniscient within the planes they rule providing them with the temporal and spiritual power to utterly dominate the entire plane(s) they rule. Outside of those realms, they are statted and slayable. This of course makes them invincible within their realms which is a no-no in the modern D&D era which requires that every sentient being be killable by a group of superhe....um...epic PCs with cool epic weapons. 

*2.) * They are actually gods as they were in Planescape/2e and their avatars are what appears in the BoVD and similar write ups. They rule the planes as gods should, absolutely.

*3.)* They really don't rule their planes absolutely, but instead have the most control within a chaotic and mad realm of any creature therein. For all intents and purposes they are the mightiest demons/devils/yugoloths/etc. with the best press within their perspective realities their power lying not in divine power but in control and resources others in their planes cannot approach.

*4.) * They really don't rule entire planes and it is nothing more than a bit of poetic license that ever allowed such cosmically weak and fallible creatures to do so. In the ancient world, a regional event was sometimes described as a world destroying cataclysm because the people affected saw their land as the center of the world.

These are the possibilities that allow for internal consistancy and good sense in regards to who and what these creatures are.

I am partial to options 3 and 4 myself. Others like the god thing (which I do not save in a setting by setting basis) and some may like the over the top stat blocks put together by the folks at Dicefreaks. YMMV.


Chris


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Sundragon! 

Interesting points you raise.

GC - I'll reply to you a little later.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> I have to chime in here because something always bothered me about the archfiends from 1e til now.
> 
> According to their write ups, these creatures have control over entire planes of existance, entire infinite realms of existance much like someone having complete control of our universe, not just our galaxy, but countless billions of galaxies within the measureless expanse of our reality. And just like our universe has no "crystal sphere" neither do those in DnD any longer. So we are talking about infinite spaces here.




Yes and no. Each layer is spatially infinite, but the populated area under control of the demon prince/arch-devil is roughly the same size as a planets landmass or less...note that Fraz-Urb'luu's Realm detailed by JJ in the Demonomicon was continent sized.

Think of it like this. The outer planes are kosmically localised. Just like the Prime Material Plane they may be infinite in size but only the areas visited are known. The people of Oerth have never met the people of other inhabited planets in their galaxy. Similarly the Demons from Yeenoghus Realm have never encountered demons from other realms that may exist on the same abyssal layer, simply that they are so far apart that they have never met. It could be that Khorne, the Warhammer Blood God has a realm on that layer, or that Mabelode; the Sword God has a realm on that layer. Also note that each planet will have their own corresponding demon cosmology.

So if we could take a map of the Prime Material universe and overlap it with a map of each layer of the outer planes, the planets and the corresponding realms of the outer planes known to the residents of those planets would match.

Of course its entirely possible that when people of one planet are introduced to those of another, the various kosmic forces will also meet for the first time with potentially violent circumstances. 



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> Now, think about this. Grazz't controls 3 layers of the abyss, that is three infinite realities, each of which, being infinite can contain as many inhabitants as every other plane of existance combined. Grazz't rules everyone and everything therein as sovereign. Same goes for Orcus, Demogorgon, Baphomet, etc. though the numbers of infinite realities each controls is different.




I disagree, each realm probably comprises several billion demons, mainly those of lower castes.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> How the hell do creatures with CRs of 23-32 control entire realities of infinite space? It seems utterly ridiculous to me to think that these creatures, who epic level PCs can slaughter, are the immortal "gods" of their own realities and are in fact so completely, for the responsibilities assigned to them, pathetically weak and cosmically inconsequential.




See above.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> Now I could imagine a few logical workarounds that make sense (and please no_...."this is a game so internal consistancy needn't apply"_...in that case the new book should include Papa Smurf and Batman as archfiends because you can have that if no one looks at internal consistancy).
> 
> Onto the workarounds:
> 
> *1.) * Archfiends are empowered by the plane they dominate. They are nearly omnipotent and omniscient within the planes they rule providing them with the temporal and spiritual power to utterly dominate the entire plane(s) they rule. Outside of those realms, they are statted and slayable. This of course makes them invincible within their realms which is a no-no in the modern D&D era which requires that every sentient being be killable by a group of superhe....um...epic PCs with cool epic weapons.




Unnecessary.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> *2.) * They are actually gods as they were in Planescape/2e and their avatars are what appears in the BoVD and similar write ups. They rule the planes as gods should, absolutely.




I agree with this (although I prefer gods in the £rd Ed. sense not the 2nd Ed./Planescape sense). Most demon princes (and their peers) are worshipped in some capacity, so this is logical.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> *3.)* They really don't rule their planes absolutely, but instead have the most control within a chaotic and mad realm of any creature therein. For all intents and purposes they are the mightiest demons/devils/yugoloths/etc. with the best press within their perspective realities their power lying not in divine power but in control and resources others in their planes cannot approach.




I would say they control their realms as gods do (because they are gods) but not that they and their realms are one and the same.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> *4.) * They really don't rule entire planes and it is nothing more than a bit of poetic license that ever allowed such cosmically weak and fallible creatures to do so. In the ancient world, a regional event was sometimes described as a world destroying cataclysm because the people affected saw their land as the center of the world.




They don't rule entire planes, only the kosmically localised portion of such planes.



			
				Sundragon2012 said:
			
		

> These are the possibilities that allow for internal consistancy and good sense in regards to who and what these creatures are.
> 
> I am partial to options 3 and 4 myself. Others like the god thing (which I do not save in a setting by setting basis) and some may like the over the top stat blocks put together by the folks at Dicefreaks. YMMV.




No point worrying about the stats unless you are playing an epic game.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hiya mate! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It might help if you were at all familiar with the material you keep bashing.




Thats why I have you to keep me right Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Outsiders aren't all created from individual souls, divest yourself of this idea because it doesn't hold true in every case. Not at all. Many of them are, many of them aren't.




See below.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Among the true outsiders, we'll use as an example the trio of main fiend races, they're the physical manifestations of the abstract alignments of CE, NE, and LE. They might spawn from the raw substance of their native plane, they might breed with one another, or they might create the least of their kind from mortal petitioners. Baatezu and Tanar'ri use petitioners for this purpose, though the yugoloths don't.




I'm happy to accept the "spawned from the raw substance of the planes idea" since you could envision that some portion of the spirits destroyed on their native planes are absorbed by the plane itself. For demons this could mean that the death of Orcus on his home plane meant the power of Orcus was subsumed in part by the plane and in part by his destroyer (Highlander style). Using some sort of powerful ritual Quah-Nomog was able to retrieve Orcus spirit from oblivion and Orcus brought back the secret of unmaking.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's less that the fiends are exclusively created from the souls of dead mortals, they're not, than that some mortal souls happen to closely mirror CE or LE, or NE larvae who can be forcibly molded either way, becoming more like the fiends who recruit the most refined of those souls into their own ranks. The vast majority of them are killed or eaten or never used though, only the mortals whose depravity makes them fit to be turned into the least forms of Tanar'ri or Baatezu. For the Baatezu, lemures will on rare interval spawn from the essence of Baator. For the Tanar'ri, they'll spawn from the Abyss or screw each other or use petitioners to swell their ranks, they're not picky. Yugoloths don't form the least of their kind from petitioners, they have no direct link to petitioners, just to the raw substance of the Gray Waste and Gehenna. No mortal soul becomes a 'loth, though you could look at it that once the plane devours the essence of those mortal souls the worst of all of those mortals gets distilled into newly spawned mezzoloths.




Interesting point you noted about the eating of larvae. I'm of the personal opinion that the eating/destruction of other spirits is how Outsiders 'grow' in power. As such it seems prudent to accept that process 'reverse engineered' in that demons (for instance) could spawn other demons by splintering some of their quintessence (spirit power).

But I don't see this as a case of two Babau creating a third as much as I see a sundered Babau being magically divorced into two entities, each weaker than the original creature.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Which is one of the reasons that the Abyss tends to massively outnumber opposing armies of Baatezu in the Blood War. The Abyss in many ways is a giant breeding ground and slaughterhouse all in one, pumping out millions to die senselessly in the Blood War each and every hour of every day.




Nonsense. Lets put this into perspective, the Abyss probably outnumbers the Hells about 74:1. Not 10,000,000:1. Any ideas to the contrary are ludicrous.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> As soon as the Upper Planes are actually at war with the lower planes in some sort of Blood War #2 they'll think of that, but the fiends are quite happily slaughtering one another at the moment thank you, so it isn't an issue. The celestials are quite happy to wait and let them butcher each other without them needing to get involved on any sort of organized scale.




If the demons could breed with each other they would *easily* overwhelm every other plane (that didn't instigate a breeding program) within 50 years through sheer weight of numbers. Thats why the idea of outsiders able to breed with one another is silly.


----------



## Aaron L

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hey Sundragon!
> 
> 
> 
> Think of it like this. The outer planes are kosmically localised. Just like the Prime Material Plane they may be infinite in size but only the areas visited are known. The people of Oerth have never met the people of other inhabited planets in their galaxy. Similarly the Demons from Yeenoghus Realm have never encountered demons from other realms that may exist on the same abyssal layer, simply that they are so far apart that they have never met. It could be that Khorne, the Warhammer Blood God has a realm on that layer, or that Mabelode; the Sword God has a realm on that layer. Also note that each planet will have their own corresponding demon cosmology.
> 
> So if we could take a map of the Prime Material universe and overlap it with a map of each layer of the outer planes, the planets and the corresponding realms of the outer planes known to the residents of those planets would match.
> 
> Of course its entirely possible that when people of one planet are introduced to those of another, the various kosmic forces will also meet for the first time with potentially violent circumstances.





That is fascinating, and very close to an idea I use.  Very VERY close.


----------



## BOZ

Nightfall said:
			
		

> Some cool finds Boz. I'll have to get around to finding #141 and #233. Not sure about #36 but hey.
> 
> *thinks Boz is right about the post fight but still sides with Shemmy and Krusty.* I'm Chaotic that way.




that's ok - i'll just pick up my toys and go home.  

err, that is, i'll collect up my posts (and bits from others') and probably start a "Demonic Lore" thread.  it will undoutedly be more useful that way, than spaced around throughout a 10 page thread.


----------



## Erik Mona

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> If you wanted to drop in a reference or two to Turaglas ("The Ebon Maw," issue #312) while you were at it, I certainly wouldn't take it amiss.




I've been trying to find a way to work him in, but my quick read through your article suggested to me that he is no longer on the Abyss, and in any event his layer was not named or numbered. If I missed it and you can point it out for me, I'll see what I can do.

--Erik


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> . Similarly the Demons from Yeenoghus Realm have never encountered demons from other realms that may exist on the same abyssal layer, simply that they are so far apart that they have never met.




Yeenoghu rules his whole layer, and, if he desires and pulls power away from other activities, can be at least dimly aware of everything that goes on in that infinity at once. In a sense, Yeenoghu and his layer are one thing - the process of becoming an Abyssal Lord means entering into a symbiotic partnership with the layer, wrestling it into submission with your will and joining with it so that you and the Abyss are one flesh and one mind. This is dangerous - the Abyss may devour those not strong enough, and this will only make them stronger. 

Things are similar for other planar lords, though most other planes are less wild. Mastering a layer of the Abyss is like mastering a wild bronco, while in Baator, for example, it's more like orchestrating a merger with a corrupt corporation in an even more corrupt nation where you don't own more than half the shares (and perhaps much less).

The relatively small size of Fraz-Urb'luu's realm is because he is currently weaker in power than he once was - if he were to get his staff back, he would master his layer entirely.



> If the demons could breed with each other they would easily overwhelm every other plane (that didn't instigate a breeding program) within 50 years through sheer weight of numbers.




50 years, huh? Funny how you could arrive at such a precise figure considering _all of this is utterly made up_. This isn't science, dude, you're handwaving and coming up with random figures. I could just as easily say that the fact that demons mainly fight one another easily counterbalances their greater population, but that would be me randomly making up figures, too. We can't get precise here, because we're basing our ideas on things that have no correspondence in reality. That means your ideas are just ideas, and you can't present them as if competing ideas are somehow wrong. 

In fact, demons as a race can never be more powerful than chaotic evil as a force - their power is tied to the prevalence of chaos and evil throughout the planes. Sexual reproduction, emerging directly from the plane, promotion of souls - they're all just metaphors, in a sense, just as fiends and celestials themselves are. They represent the way each alignment looks at the world, but they're not necessarily "true" - nothing in the Outer Planes is. Travellers there are interacting with symbols - symbols that can devour or transform them, but still symbols. Because it's symbolically resonant, demons appear to mortal perception as unending hordes of chimerical monstrosities with no pattern to their armies, fighting themselves as much as their enemies, while devils appear as smaller tight phalanxes of scaled and horned centurions. They may appear different to different races and cultures. 

That's how I see it, anyway.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Yeenoghu rules his whole layer, and, if he desires and pulls power away from other activities, can be at least dimly aware of everything that goes on in that infinity at once.




I disagree. 

1. Thats certainly not conducive with a being of Yeenoghu's power. 
2. Its not mentioned for any of the Demon Nobles in the Book of Vile Darkness.
3. Even in Deities & Demigods the area wherein the environment is directly controlled by deities is, relatively speaking, a very small area (At best a 2000 mile radius for Divine Rank 20 Greater deities). 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In a sense, Yeenoghu and his layer are one thing - the process of becoming an Abyssal Lord means entering into a symbiotic partnership with the layer, wrestling it into submission with your will and joining with it so that you and the Abyss are one flesh and one mind. This is dangerous - the Abyss may devour those not strong enough, and this will only make them stronger.




For the most part I agree with this. Its simply a measure of scale that we differ upon.

Sundragons point are still valid. Its illogical that given the known innate power, resources and time the demon nobles have existed that we can attribute to them infinite power within these realms, nor can we attribute infinite resources (which is what you are suggesting if Yeenoghu does indeed rule an infinitely sized area), neither can he have mapped anything more than a small portion of an infinite layer. It would take a decade for a teleport capable explorer to cross a billion miles of territory assuming they teleported to the visible horizon every round and never stopped.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Things are similar for other planar lords, though most other planes are less wild. Mastering a layer of the Abyss is like mastering a wild bronco, while in Baator, for example, it's more like orchestrating a merger with a corrupt corporation in an even more corrupt nation where you don't own more than half the shares (and perhaps much less).




Absolutely.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The relatively small size of Fraz-Urb'luu's realm is because he is currently weaker in power than he once was - if he were to get his staff back, he would master his layer entirely.




Well we don't know how large an area it was to start. 

But theres something else to contemplate. Lets say Fraz-Urb'luus Realm shown in the Demonomicon is roughly about the average realm size of a Demon Noble who rules only part of their layer (as opposed to one who rules an entire layer). How the heck does a demon lord who becomes a demon prince suddenly go from having a 3000 mile diameter realm to having an infinitely sized realm. It just doesn't make sense. 

Or do the demon lords only control one third of this infinite space for instance! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> 50 years, huh? Funny how you could arrive at such a precise figure considering _all of this is utterly made up_. This isn't science, dude, you're handwaving and coming up with random figures.




You establish a breeding program and your numbers will increase by 50% every cycle - I admit I took a liberty on the gestation period (a conservative 1 year, though it could be 1 day for demons who knows?). However, starting with two demons, after 50 years of breeding you will have more than 1 billion, after 100 years you will have 1 quintillion.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I could just as easily say that the fact that demons mainly fight one another easily counterbalances their greater population, but that would be me randomly making up figures, too.




I think that would certainly play a factor in the weaker Demon Lords retinues but certainly not in a Demon Princes retinue. The realms of the major demon princes come under threat from attack probably once every few centuries. While the demon princes are continually at war with one another the battles don't take place on their doorsteps. The battlegrounds are the peripheral layers and areas only loosely controlled. As such it would be relatively simple for Demon Princes to instigate these breeding programs safe on home soil...if it was at all possible that is.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> We can't get precise here, because we're basing our ideas on things that have no correspondence in reality. That means your ideas are just ideas, and you can't present them as if competing ideas are somehow wrong.




I think we are talking about orders of magnitude rather than looking for ultimate precision.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In fact, demons as a race can never be more powerful than chaotic evil as a force - their power is tied to the prevalence of chaos and evil throughout the planes. Sexual reproduction, emerging directly from the plane, promotion of souls - they're all just metaphors, in a sense, just as fiends and celestials themselves are. They represent the way each alignment looks at the world, but they're not necessarily "true" - nothing in the Outer Planes is. Travellers there are interacting with symbols - symbols that can devour or transform them, but still symbols. Because it's symbolically resonant, demons appear to mortal perception as unending hordes of chimerical monstrosities with no pattern to their armies, fighting themselves as much as their enemies, while devils appear as smaller tight phalanxes of scaled and horned centurions. They may appear different to different races and cultures.
> 
> That's how I see it, anyway.




I think your points are just as valid with or without demons ability to breed amongst themselves.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> 2. Its not mentioned for any of the Demon Nobles in the Book of Vile Darkness.




It's mentioned in _Faces of Evil_, which is essential reading for the fiend-literate. Also, and more importantly, it's damned cool.



> 3. Even in Deities & Demigods the area wherein the environment is directly controlled by deities is, relatively speaking, a very small area (At best a 2000 mile radius for Divine Rank 20 Greater deities).




Well, exactly. That was the original poster's point - fiend lords ought to, by rights, be far more powerful than mere gods in some respects. 

Although I think the radii given for divine realms is pathetically small, and that ought to be fixed as well.



> But theres something else to contemplate. Lets say Fraz-Urb'luus Realm shown in the Demonomicon is roughly about the average realm size of a Demon Noble who rules only part of their layer (as opposed to one who rules an entire layer). How the heck does a demon lord who becomes a demon prince suddenly go from having a 3000 mile diameter realm to having an infinitely sized realm. It just doesn't make sense.




First, you have to understand that distances don't really exist in the Outer Planes as such. Space and time as they're known on the Material Plane don't reach beyond (or into) the Astral. The Outer Planes are realms of archetypes and ideas, of souls and spirit. Terrain shifts and warps as the ideas that make it up change, all travel times are variable, and things look different depending on who is looking at them.

Infinity, then, is just another idea, and an infinite realm is not necessarily more potent or more full of resources than a finite one.

I suppose it's like your "outsider hit dice don't correspond with size" maxim - the power inherent in a realm, and the difficulty of controlling it, has nothing to do with perceived size or travel time.

Even given that, the power of an entire planar layer dwarfs that of any mere god's domain. Abyssal layers, being only a small percentage of the entire Abyss, are generally not as important as the layers of other planes, however.

Secondly, even if you don't buy the preceding (though I believe it is not only the only interpretation that fits what evidence we have in both Planescape and the 1st edition Manual of the Planes, but also far more interesting than treating the Outer Planes as if they were mere Material landscapes) it should be obvious that a fiendish lord doesn't increase the size of her holdings linearly. She doesn't, for example, add 100 miles to the diameter of her dominion until the end of time. Conquering a layer of the Abyss means that the will of the would-be conquerer is pitted directly against the will of the layer itself, and the layer, if it is conquered at all, is conquered all at once.

Fraz'Urb-luu, then, doesn't control "his" layer yet. He controls a realm within it, as if he were a mere godling. When he regains his previous status, the entire layer will be his to mold.



> You establish a breeding program and your numbers will increase by 50% every cycle - I admit I took a liberty on the gestation period (a conservative 1 year, though it could be 1 day for demons who knows?). However, starting with two demons, after 50 years of breeding you will have more than 1 billion, after 100 years you will have 1 quintillion.




This is obviously not true, or there would be no endangered species in the real world. Predation, the hostile nature of the Abyss itself (which despises all life, even its own), and constant warfare keep the numbers down to whatever level you need them to be at. Although, as I said earlier, numbers alone aren't really important - it's the power of the alignment they represent.

You could also assume that demonic populations are limited by the power supplied by the Abyss itself, and can never exceed the amount of (let's call it primal flux - you understand the reference, I think?) provided by chaotic and evil actions on the Material Plane and elsewhere


----------



## BOZ

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=152741  collected all my info together, making it easier to find...


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> It's mentioned in _Faces of Evil_, which is essential reading for the fiend-literate. Also, and more importantly, it's damned cool.




Two points of note. 

Firstly its illogical. Secondly it adheres to the 2nd Edition (for all intents and puposes statless) approach of virtually infinite power deities, and is a wholly useless approach for epic games, which, lets face it, are the only games that matter for the puposes of statting such beings.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Well, exactly. That was the original poster's point - fiend lords ought to, by rights, be far more powerful than mere gods in some respects.
> 
> Although I think the radii given for divine realms is pathetically small, and that ought to be fixed as well.




I agree with you on that. 

Although personally I would limit the size of such realms to the number of (kosmically linked) planets that such beings are known to.

So, for instance, Lolth is known on a about eight worlds according to Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits, to which we can add Oerth and Toril. So Lolths layers would perhaps cover as much area as ten planets.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> First, you have to understand that distances don't really exist in the Outer Planes as such. Space and time as they're known on the Material Plane don't reach beyond (or into) the Astral. The Outer Planes are realms of archetypes and ideas, of souls and spirit. Terrain shifts and warps as the ideas that make it up change, all travel times are variable, and things look different depending on who is looking at them.




I would certainly agree with you that such fundamental forces are flexible in the outer planes but I think the main crux of our differences, scale, still applies...



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Infinity, then, is just another idea, and an infinite realm is not necessarily more potent or more full of resources than a finite one.




...glad to hear you say it.

For all intents and purposes then theres no benefit to having an infinite acre chunk of real estate in the planes beyond simply having a realm a few thousand miles in diameter. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I suppose it's like your "outsider hit dice don't correspond with size" maxim - the power inherent in a realm, and the difficulty of controlling it, has nothing to do with perceived size or travel time.




Exactly! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Even given that, the power of an entire planar layer dwarfs that of any mere god's domain. Abyssal layers, being only a small percentage of the entire Abyss, are generally not as important as the layers of other planes, however.




Yes but haven't you just determined above that infinite real estate is irrelevant in the planes.

Frankly this seems to solidify the kosmically localised approach as being the best solution.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Secondly, even if you don't buy the preceding (though I believe it is not only the only interpretation that fits what evidence we have in both Planescape and the 1st edition Manual of the Planes, but also far more interesting than treating the Outer Planes as if they were mere Material landscapes) it should be obvious that a fiendish lord doesn't increase the size of her holdings linearly. She doesn't, for example, add 100 miles to the diameter of her dominion until the end of time.




I totally agree, such an endeavour would be pointless.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Conquering a layer of the Abyss means that the will of the would-be conquerer is pitted directly against the will of the layer itself, and the layer, if it is conquered at all, is conquered all at once.




Absolutely.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Fraz'Urb-luu, then, doesn't control "his" layer yet. He controls a realm within it, as if he were a mere godling. When he regains his previous status, the entire layer will be his to mold.








			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> This is obviously not true, or there would be no endangered species in the real world.




Species in the real world grow old and die. Outsiders don't. Species in the real world need to grow to adulthood before they can mate. Outsiders don't.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Predation, the hostile nature of the Abyss itself (which despises all life, even its own), and constant warfare keep the numbers down to whatever level you need them to be at.




The Demon Princes realms are stable enough for them to begin breeding programs. All a demon prince needs to do is remove 2 demons from its retinue and have them quarantined for 50 years and hey presto you have ourself a billion strong army in 50 years.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Although, as I said earlier, numbers alone aren't really important - it's the power of the alignment they represent.




Numbers are important. Superior equipment, tactics and training only get you so far against weight of numbers (The Russian Front in the 2nd World War would be a good example of that in practice).



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> You could also assume that demonic populations are limited by the power supplied by the Abyss itself, and can never exceed the amount of (let's call it primal flux - you understand the reference, I think?) provided by chaotic and evil actions on the Material Plane and elsewhere




I would go along with this idea, yes. In fact its something I already touch on in the Immortals Handbook Bestiary and how numerology is very important to the planes.

The key factor is that their resources are not infinite, but in fact limited.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Yes but haven't you just determined above that infinite real estate is irrelevant in the planes.
> 
> Frankly this seems to solidify the kosmically localised approach as being the best solution.



If size is irrelevant, there's no good reason to shrink an Abyssal prince's dominion down. 

Abyssal princes rule entire layers of the Abyss by definition (2nd edition called them Abyssal lords, but the same applies). If they rule only part of a layer they're not princes, but mere lords. Why arbitrarily change that for no reason? Don't limit yourself! Think _big!_ The planes should be vast and unlimited and beautiful, not small and bounded and sad (even the sad, ugly planes should be vast and beautiful in their way).

I would still argue that ruling an entire layer is better than ruling a single realm in one - not because it covers more area, but because the ruler would gain the full benefit of the entire layer's energy.



> Species in the real world grow old and die. Outsiders don't. Species in the real world need to grow to adulthood before they can mate. Outsiders don't.



The Abyss is filled with a violent hatred for all life (including demonic life). Earth isn't. 



> All a demon prince needs to do is remove 2 demons from its retinue and have them quarantined for 50 years and hey presto you have ourself a billion strong army in 50 years.



First of all, where do you quarantine a billion demons? You're going to have to stow them somewhere in the Abyss, which has a tendency to turn toxic and malevolent even toward its natives. Further, putting any significant number of demons in a relatively small (or even a large) area is a surefire recipe for internecine war. Come back a year later and they'll either all have eaten one another or there'll be just one big hungry one, who will proceed to conquer the layer for itself.



> Numbers are important.



No, they're not, not when the war is between alignments rather than individuals. If demons win a battle against other outsiders, it's because their vision of chaotic evil is more prevalent and successful than the alternative take on alignments.

Russians might not have been as disciplined or as well-supplied as the Germans, but they weren't devouring one another or destroying their lessers with storms of fiendish energy purely for the pleasure of watching them sizzle either. They weren't _tanar'ri_, which is why any analogy involving humans is going to fall short. We're not talking about humans! Chaos and evil turn on themselves and can't be controlled.  _They do this because it works for them_. Not always, but if an army of Chaos doesn't use chaotic tactics they're going to lose, because Law certainly isn't their strength. At the same time, Chaos has inherent weaknesses, and it's the relative weaknesses and strengths of Chaos, and how well the tanar'ri tacticians and troops are attuned with it, that will determine victory.

I hope I'm not getting too mystical or abstract for anyone. Demons are "real" as much as anything in D&D is, but they exist on a different level of being. They're abstract concepts made incarnate, which is why they should be treated differently than a horde of orcs or ferrets or what have you. Things like troop numbers or breeding programs or the size of the various Abyssal layers isn't going to guarantee victory for them - only spreading Chaos and Evil more effectively than others can spread Law or Good.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> If size is irrelevant, there's no good reason to shrink an Abyssal prince's dominion down.




Theres a very obvious reason. Security. If Demon Prince #A has perhaps a billion demons hes not going to want to spread them out over a solar system sized chunk of real estate when the army of Demon Prince #B could enter and take the forces piecemeal.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Abyssal princes rule entire layers of the Abyss by definition (2nd edition called them Abyssal lords, but the same applies). If they rule only part of a layer they're not princes, but mere lords.




I'm familiar with the terminology.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Why arbitrarily change that for no reason?




I'm not changing it as much as I am defining it.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Don't limit yourself! Think _big!_




Infinity isn't just a big number its a pointless one.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The planes should be vast and unlimited and beautiful, not small and bounded and sad (even the sad, ugly planes should be vast and beautiful in their way).




I have no qualms with the planes being infinite (as irrelevant as the definition is). My point is that the territories ruled over by the demon princes are not infinite. They do not possess infinite resources nor troops.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I would still argue that ruling an entire layer is better than ruling a single realm in one - not because it covers more area, but because the ruler would gain the full benefit of the entire layer's energy.




You could just as easily infer that ruling the kosmically localised area attributes this power. In effect the demon rules all others (that are known) and becomes the spiritual pole (shamballa) of that realm.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The Abyss is filled with a violent hatred for all life (including demonic life). Earth isn't.




That hardly contradicts the points I raised though does it.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> First of all, where do you quarantine a billion demons?




Are you telling me these infinite realms can't spare a thousand square miles? Not to mention that for the first 20 years you would need less than a square mile to house your forces.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> You're going to have to stow them somewhere in the Abyss, which has a tendency to turn toxic and malevolent even toward its natives.




Yet all the major demon princes have been living there for supposedly millenia and they are perfectly fine.

Not to mention the fact that we don't really have to stow them in the Abyss since many demon princes seemingly control prime material worlds (Lolth Q1) and/or kingdoms.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Further, putting any significant number of demons in a relatively small (or even a large) area is a surefire recipe for internecine war. Come back a year later and they'll either all have eaten one another or there'll be just one big hungry one, who will proceed to conquer the layer for itself.




Not if they are lorded over by a significantly powerful force - thats how the demon princes hold power in the first place. The Monarchs command Princes who command Lords who command Champions etc. Its a hierarchy built on strength and fear.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> No, they're not, not when the war is between alignments rather than individuals. If demons win a battle against other outsiders, it's because their vision of chaotic evil is more prevalent and successful than the alternative take on alignments.




So a Barbazu has a chance against a dozen Balors if his vision of lawful evil is more powerful? Explain this to me please?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Russians might not have been as disciplined or as well-supplied as the Germans, but they weren't devouring one another or destroying their lessers with storms of fiendish energy purely for the pleasure of watching them sizzle either.




Neither would demons when confronted by a common enemy or a superior of significant power commanding them.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They weren't _tanar'ri_, which is why any analogy involving humans is going to fall short. We're not talking about humans! Chaos and evil turn on themselves and can't be controlled.




Yes they can be controlled. The strong bully the weak into doing their bidding. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> _They do this because it works for them_. Not always, but if an army of Chaos doesn't use chaotic tactics they're going to lose, because Law certainly isn't their strength. At the same time, Chaos has inherent weaknesses, and it's the relative weaknesses and strengths of Chaos, and how well the tanar'ri tacticians and troops are attuned with it, that will determine victory.




Thats all very Moorcockian. But the individual demon princes certainly appear to have their own agendas.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I hope I'm not getting too mystical or abstract for anyone. Demons are "real" as much as anything in D&D is, but they exist on a different level of being. They're abstract concepts made incarnate, which is why they should be treated differently than a horde of orcs or ferrets or what have you. Things like troop numbers or breeding programs or the size of the various Abyssal layers isn't going to guarantee victory for them - only spreading Chaos and Evil more effectively than others can spread Law or Good.




Sufficient weight of numbers will guarantee victory unless the difference in power is astronomical. Demogorgon vs. a Million Barbazu for instance.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Theres a very obvious reason. Security. If Demon Prince #A has perhaps a billion demons hes not going to want to spread them out over a solar system sized chunk of real estate when the army of Demon Prince #B could enter and take the forces piecemeal.




Actually, that's the opposite of what any lord who cares about security should do. If the demon deliberately leaves an infinity of territory in his layer unbound to his will, he has no way of controlling what goes on there. A rival lord could easily set up his own fiefdom right next door! Far safer to control the entire layer, so that he only has to worry about threats coming from other tiers of the Abyss. Only the stupidest or weakest of lords would use your solution, which is no solution at all, as having a relatively tiny realm hardly prevents demons from moving outside of it.

One thing Orcus can do to keep large numbers of troops in one place is to have large urban centers for them to visit - and this he has done, in the form of Lachrymosa and Naratyr. In these cities he provides them with constant sources of amusement and occupation. If he doesn't, there's little he can do to prevent them from moving into the wilds - other than slaughtering them, of course, but that's an option regardless.



> I'm not changing it as much as I am defining it.




How so? When the 1e MMII specifically defines "prince" as one who rules at least one layer, and you say instead that the prince can only rule, at most, part of a layer, that looks like a change to me.



> That hardly contradicts the points I raised though does it.




Of course it does. If the Abyss is hostile enough, immortality is irrelevant. There are many factors we have to invent here - 

- How quickly do demons reproduce? (unknown)
- How quickly do they die due to violence? (unknown)
- How quickly do they die due to the hostile nature of their environment? (unknown)
- How quickly do they die of old age? (known)

You seem to assume that because _one_ of these factors is known to be zero, this somehow proves that tanar'ri are capable of reproducing at a geometric rate. Pump up the numbers in the middle two factors and keep the number in the first low enough, and this isn't remotely true.



> Are you telling me these infinite realms can't spare a thousand square miles?




No, that's not what I said. Not _remotely._ 



> Yet all the major demon princes have been living there for supposedly millenia and they are perfectly fine.




They're rather stronger than your average demon, aren't they? And there are innumerable princes who have been destroyed, either due to internecine warfare, invaders from other planes, or the terrible power of their own layers.



> Not to mention the fact that we don't really have to stow them in the Abyss since many demon princes seemingly control prime material worlds (Lolth Q1) and/or kingdoms.




Q1 never said that Lolth _controls_ those worlds - in fact, she clearly does not. Those are only the worlds in which she is known and worshipped, and therefore her realm contains portals leading to them.

It's not at all clear that demons are capable of reproducing their own kind outside the Abyss - the Abyss is the source of their power, after all, and without it they're nothing. 



> Not if they are lorded over by a significantly powerful force




They're beings of Chaos. There's only so much "lording" that can be done without cutting them off from that which empowers and defines them. You squeeze thousands of demons into a relatively small area and Golding's _The Lord of the Flies_ will look like the Teletubbies.

Demon lords _want_ to encourage Chaos, both among their own troops and across the planes. That's what they _are_. They can't and won't create order any more than a fire elemental will attempt to raise the sea levels, or any more than they would want to create Good - and if they do, it will weaken both their armies and themselves.



> So a Barbazu has a chance against a dozen Balors if his vision of lawful evil is more powerful?




A barbazu's vision of its alignment is limited by its low rank - it grows stronger as the devil is refined in the flames of the Lake of Fire. Balors are comparatively far more ancient, and far closer to the true nature of their plane. That's why balors are stronger than barbazus are - because their understanding of their plane is stronger. If the barbazu comprehended its plane more than a dozen balors, it wouldn't be a barbazu anymore - it would be a baatezu noble.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Q1 never said that Lolth _controls_ those worlds - in fact, she clearly does not. Those are only the worlds in which she is known and worshipped, and therefore her realm contains portals leading to them.




Oh, my mistake. I checked the module, and indeed Lolth does control parts or all of many of these worlds, though not all - she's only allied with Vlad Tolenkov. 

Anyway, I maintain that I don't think demons can properly breed outside of the Abyss, far from their source of power, or they wouldn't live primarily in their hostile homelands. Or perhaps the Material Plane just isn't as much fun.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 

Not being ignorant, just pretty busy. I'll reply when I get the chance...likely tomorrow though.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Gey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Actually, that's the opposite of what any lord who cares about security should do. If the demon deliberately leaves an infinity of territory in his layer unbound to his will, he has no way of controlling what goes on there.




Which makes another mockery of the idea that they control infinite territory - an impossibility unless you control an infinite number of troops - which we know for a fact that the demon princes don't.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> A rival lord could easily set up his own fiefdom right next door! Far safer to control the entire layer, so that he only has to worry about threats coming from other tiers of the Abyss. Only the stupidest or weakest of lords would use your solution, which is no solution at all, as having a relatively tiny realm hardly prevents demons from moving outside of it.




Wrong. 

Lets say Demon Prince #A control a planet sized area of a layer and a rival demon prince #B tries to set up a realm beyond the borders of the area directly outside #A's  control. As soon as #B opens a gate or has troops planeshift in, #A can move troops to intercept. The problem for #B is that as soon as #A mobilses his forces, #B is going to be outnumbered.

Thats why demon wars don't happen on the Princes main layer(s) they happen in adjacent layers.

Lets try a second world war analogy.

Pazuzu = USA
Orcus = Great Britain
Graz'zt = Russia
Demogorgon = Germany
Fraz-Urb'luu = Japan
Zuggtmoy = Italy

Before Demogorgon can directly invade Orcus' territory he has to annex all the realms in between. Some demon princes will ally with Demogorgon, such as Zuggtmoy (Italy) and Mandrillagon (Austria), others will have to be taken the hard way, such as Baphomet (France). Small but powerful strike teams of mortal and demonic champions can perform bombing raids or acts of sabotage on Orcus home layer. But until his forces control the adjacent layers he cannot deploy his troops en masse for an invasion. So with the exception of strike teams, neither Demogorgon's nor Orcus' home territories will see any major battles. Instead most of the main battles will take place in the likes of Socothbenoth's realm (North Africa).

After initial successes, Demogorgon also allies with Fraz-Urb'luu and decides to attack Graz'zt as well. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> One thing Orcus can do to keep large numbers of troops in one place is to have large urban centers for them to visit - and this he has done, in the form of Lachrymosa and Naratyr. In these cities he provides them with constant sources of amusement and occupation. If he doesn't, there's little he can do to prevent them from moving into the wilds - other than slaughtering them, of course, but that's an option regardless.




You don't need an infinite sized realm to possess multiple cities. Fraz-Urb'luu's realm encompasses more than half a dozen settlements (four cities, three towns) and is far from the largest of demon realms as we know.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> How so? When the 1e MMII specifically defines "prince" as one who rules at least one layer, and you say instead that the prince can only rule, at most, part of a layer, that looks like a change to me.




Not depending on how you define the kosmically localised area, for all intents and purposes it is the whole layer. The idea represents the 'known world' if you will. There may be other demon realms but they have not been discovered by the demons we are familiar with because they are kosmically linked to a planet or planets that are unfamiliar to them. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Of course it does. If the Abyss is hostile enough, immortality is irrelevant. There are many factors we have to invent here -
> 
> - How quickly do demons reproduce? (unknown)




Well it takes 999 days for an ice devil to metamorphose into a pit fiend. You would imagine it would be less for weaker fiends and possibly tied into the numerology.

eg. Least Devils 9 days, Lesser Devils 99 days, Greater Devils 999 days.

Of course thats merely an educated guess, its possible demons could be 6/66/666 days by comparison. You would suspect that if 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> - How quickly do they die due to violence? (unknown)




The point I was making was that the realms of the major demon princes are fairly stable.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> - How quickly do they die due to the hostile nature of their environment? (unknown)




Obviously demons congregate, for the most part, in settlements, its obvious that these settlements are not overtly hostile to natives. Thats not to say there won't be in-fighting, of course there will, but its not likely to get out of hand otherwise the demons in question will face the wrath of their immediate superiors.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> - How quickly do they die of old age? (known)
> 
> You seem to assume that because _one_ of these factors is known to be zero, this somehow proves that tanar'ri are capable of reproducing at a geometric rate. Pump up the numbers in the middle two factors and keep the number in the first low enough, and this isn't remotely true.




We know enough to know the Abyss isn't simply a meat grinder for the natives. The monarchs realms are stable enough, the settled areas are stable enough and they don't die of old age. 

If they could breed, unless the gestation period was measured in decades it would be a very simple matter for any demon prince to have overwhelming forces within a relatively short period of time as demons measure it. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They're rather stronger than your average demon, aren't they? And there are innumerable princes who have been destroyed, either due to internecine warfare, invaders from other planes, or the terrible power of their own layers.




Obviously the more powerful the demon the less chance of it dying, no ones challenging that point.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Q1 never said that Lolth _controls_ those worlds - in fact, she clearly does not. Those are only the worlds in which she is known and worshipped, and therefore her realm contains portals leading to them.
> 
> It's not at all clear that demons are capable of reproducing their own kind outside the Abyss - the Abyss is the source of their power, after all, and without it they're nothing...
> 
> ...Oh, my mistake. I checked the module, and indeed Lolth does control parts or all of many of these worlds, though not all - she's only allied with Vlad Tolenkov.
> 
> Anyway, I maintain that I don't think demons can properly breed outside of the Abyss, far from their source of power, or they wouldn't live primarily in their hostile homelands. Or perhaps the Material Plane just isn't as much fun.




Either way, the point in no way affects the main crux of our debate. The main demon realms are stable enough. The main settlements are likewise relatively stable. The demons do not die of old age. As long as the breeding cycle is not measured in decades then the demon princes will be able to overwhelm the rest of the outer planes within a century...easily. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They're beings of Chaos.




Actually they are beings of Chaos AND Evil, not just chaos.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> There's only so much "lording" that can be done without cutting them off from that which empowers and defines them. You squeeze thousands of demons into a relatively small area and Golding's _The Lord of the Flies_ will look like the Teletubbies.
> 
> Demon lords _want_ to encourage Chaos, both among their own troops and across the planes. That's what they _are_. They can't and won't create order any more than a fire elemental will attempt to raise the sea levels, or any more than they would want to create Good - and if they do, it will weaken both their armies and themselves.




I think you are glossing over the evil aspect inherant within them. The demon princes seek power, and what they can't control they destroy.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> A barbazu's vision of its alignment is limited by its low rank - it grows stronger as the devil is refined in the flames of the Lake of Fire. Balors are comparatively far more ancient, and far closer to the true nature of their plane. That's why balors are stronger than barbazus are - because their understanding of their plane is stronger. If the barbazu comprehended its plane more than a dozen balors, it wouldn't be a barbazu anymore - it would be a baatezu noble.




So technically the war IS between individuals then - thank you.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Which makes another mockery of the idea that they control infinite territory - an impossibility unless you control an infinite number of troops - which we know for a fact that the demon princes don't.




They control their territory because, in a sense, they _are_ their territory - the prince and his layer are one. They are also two, and the wills of layer and regent may clash, but as long as the prince remains strong he can control the layer as a god would control a divine realm.

Do they control the actions of every creature in the layer? Of course not; nor would they want to. They're beings of Chaos.



> Lets say Demon Prince #A control a planet sized area of a layer and a rival demon prince #B tries to set up a realm beyond the borders of the area directly outside #A's  control. As soon as #B opens a gate or has troops planeshift in, #A can move troops to intercept.




Let's say #B sets up his realm a little (or a lot) further away - there's an infinity to work in, remember - and takes its time building up troops and resources. Now #A and #B both have an equal claim to the layer. #B then begins to march over. #A wishes it didn't live in the Krust-verse, and instead lived in a sensible multiverse where rulers of Abyssal layers actually got to rule Abyssal layers. 



> Before Demogorgon can directly invade Orcus' territory he has to annex all the realms in between.




Or Demogorgon can just open a portal directly between Gaping Maw and Thanatos, ignoring any other layers of the Abyss. Who says the two layers don't border one another, anyway, or (more likely) come in and out of conjunction over time? 

For future reference, comparing Abyssal layers to arbitrary nations in the real world adds nothing to the clarity of your argument, but instead serves only to obfuscate your case. 



> all intents and purposes it is the whole layer. The idea represents the 'known world' if you will. There may be other demon realms but they have not been discovered by the demons we are familiar with because they are kosmically linked to a planet or planets that are unfamiliar to them.




...which represents another security hazard. Why not just let them rule their whole layers? The layer _as a whole_, not one relatively tiny realm minus any purely hypothetical other realms in the same layer somehow seperated by metaphysical gibberish from doing what comes naturally to the Abyss - rapacity and conquest.



> Well it takes 999 days for an ice devil to metamorphose into a pit fiend.




1001 days, actually, and then only after 777 years of flawless service as a gelugon. And none of that has anything to do with demonic fertility rates.



> but its not likely to get out of hand otherwise the demons in question will face the wrath of their immediate superiors.




I think, rather, their immediate superiors will be placing bets on who walks out alive.



> The main demon realms are stable enough.




Where did you get this idea? And what is "stable?" If it's a place where demons aren't frequently destroyed by the landscape and one another, such a place doesn't exist in the Abyss. It's the Plane of Chaotic Evil, not the Plane of Stabilized Evil.



> I think you are glossing over the evil aspect inherant within them. The demon princes seek power, and what they can't control they destroy.



I think you're glossing over the chaos, which is half of their nature. 

Evil itself isn't about control, only about harming others in the name of self-interest. Chaos is antithetical to too much control. Do they seek power? Sure - that falls under self-interest. It's what they _do_ with the power that seperates them from beings of Law - they don't seek to make their thralls any less violent or destructive. They don't seek to turn their minions into _devils_, which is what your plan is leaning toward. Or worse yet - you'd have them become mere _cattle_, livestock for their owners to breed - breed in _stables_, apparently. Any demons treated thus would be sickly and weak, distant indeed from that which makes them strong. Any lord who tried such a scheme would quickly be overcome by its rivals, who understand what sorts of acts the reality of the Abyss empowers. 

In each plane, the "laws" of nature are different, each encouraging that plane's ethos. In the Abyss, Chaos is rewarded and all order crumbles and suffers. 

For a demon horde to become strong, its members must be encouraged to cultivate their individual urges and will - _this_ is the strength of Chaos. If they are to breed, they must do it in passion, according to their whims, not some centralized command. And, of course, _violently_ - one mate or the other probably often dies, further reducing the population.  This is what empowers the layer as a whole, and only empowering the layer as a whole can the layer spawn armies stronger as a whole than those they fight against. 

You could argue, in fact, that sexual reproduction makes demons _less_ populous than otherwise, but this only makes them stronger as individuals.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Or Demogorgon can just open a portal directly between Gaping Maw and Thanatos, ignoring any other layers of the Abyss.




Reviewing the limitations of the _Gate_ spell, it seems Orcus can prevent such magicks from operating within his "personal demesnes" - it's arguable whether this refers to only his palace in Naratyr, to his capital cities of Naratyr and Lachymosa, or his entire layer. If it's the last, there's no way Demogorgon can use _Gate_ to invade Thanatos directly - and it would be reasonable to limit even higher-level spells in a like manner. Epic magic or _portals_ could of course avoid the limited duration.

It is, of course, possible that natural portals exist connecting Gaping Maw and Thanatos, but that's up the discretion of the individual DM.

In a campaign where there are great (even infinite) expanses of Thanatos uncontrolled by Orcus, there's nothing hindering Demogorgon's advance at all - he simply opens his portal in secret, outside the radius in which Orcus can sense such things, and he gets his entire army through before the Goat is any the wiser. Or, more subtly, he helps encourage the rise to power of some other demon or undead thing native to Thanatos to distract his foe.

If Demogorgon doesn't wish to use a _portal_, and Thanatos and Gaping Maw are not connected directly, how many layers are there between them? 

Just one - the Plain of Infinite Portals, which has massive natural (I'd argue nonmagical) portals connecting both layers - and this is borne out in all editions of the game. The Plain of Portals is, the majority of the time, going to be the single layer in between _any_ two layers of the Abyss. And this Plain isn't ruled by any single prince, eliminating the need for alliances. 

The confusion comes probably from the assumption that the numbers assigned to the various Abyssal layers has any intrinsic meaning. In fact, objectively, most layers are the "second" layer of the Abyss, as they are directly connected to the first - and possibly others as well. This is true for all the best-known ones, anyway, except Sess'inek's, whose portals have all been sealed shut (although a major force like Demogorgon could in theory break those seals). There are other layers that have been sealed off as well, either by their inhabitants or would-be jailers, but the greatest regents are all connected to the Plain of Infinite Portals - this allows them to better increase their power.

Other likely nexus layers include the Grand Abyss (catalogued as the fifth) and Durao (numbered #274).


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They control their territory because, in a sense, they _are_ their territory - the prince and his layer are one. They are also two, and the wills of layer and regent may clash, but as long as the prince remains strong he can control the layer as a god would control a divine realm.




I agree with this, what I disagree with is that their realms are literally infinite. Even if they were linked to the entire layer it would take infinite intelligence to be able to process the infinite occurances taking place within an infinite space.

We know that divine realms are not infinite by any means (though we both agree they should be larger than they are in D&Dg).



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Do they control the actions of every creature in the layer? Of course not; nor would they want to. They're beings of Chaos.




Our discussion indirectly applies to all planar rulers, not just demons.

Your point makes little sense anyway. Mephistopheles doesn't control the actions of everyone in his layer either, but he commands them.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Let's say #B sets up his realm a little (or a lot) further away - there's an infinity to work in, remember




Not quite. There is nothing beyond the known parameters of the kosmically localised area. Imagine being on the shore and looking out to the sea, you can still see the horizon but you cannot reach it.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> - and takes its time building up troops and resources. Now #A and #B both have an equal claim to the layer. #B then begins to march over.




As soon as #B sets foot on the layer, #A knows about it. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> #A wishes it didn't live in the Krust-verse, and instead lived in a sensible multiverse where rulers of Abyssal layers actually got to rule Abyssal layers.




I don't see how infinity is a sensible number.

...Krust-verse...I like the sound of that though. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Or Demogorgon can just open a portal directly between Gaping Maw and Thanatos, ignoring any other layers of the Abyss. Who says the two layers don't border one another, anyway, or (more likely) come in and out of conjunction over time?




Obviously the more powerful rulers hold sway over multiple layers with their main seat of power at the centre.

Trying to keep a portal open while you ferry in your entire army is ludicrous. For starters the enemy will be able to intercept in far larger numbers. It will take ages for you to get substantial forces through the gate. The enemy will have plenty of time to disrupt/dispel the gate.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> For future reference, comparing Abyssal layers to arbitrary nations in the real world adds nothing to the clarity of your argument, but instead serves only to obfuscate your case.




I thought it illustrated the point quite well. To reiterate, the primary layer(s) of the greatest demon monarchs/princes will almost certainly never be threatened by enemy armies EXACTLY LIKE the second world war.  



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> ...which represents another security hazard. Why not just let them rule their whole layers? The layer _as a whole_, not one relatively tiny realm minus any purely hypothetical other realms in the same layer somehow seperated by metaphysical gibberish from doing what comes naturally to the Abyss - rapacity and conquest.




Ruling an infinite layer means they have infinite resources and infinite power.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> 1001 days, actually, and then only after 777 years of flawless service as a gelugon. And none of that has anything to do with demonic fertility rates.




Its the closest approximation we know.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think, rather, their immediate superiors will be placing bets on who walks out alive.




Unless the superiors, superiors are also there. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Where did you get this idea? And what is "stable?" If it's a place where demons aren't frequently destroyed by the landscape and one another, such a place doesn't exist in the Abyss. It's the Plane of Chaotic Evil, not the Plane of Stabilized Evil.




Thats exactly the point though - its a matter of frequency. Some planes are so violent that demons are few and far between if any exist there at all, but demons are not going to settle in such areas. They may be chaotic evil, but they are not, as a rule, stupid. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think you're glossing over the chaos, which is half of their nature.
> 
> Evil itself isn't about control, only about harming others in the name of self-interest. Chaos is antithetical to too much control. Do they seek power? Sure - that falls under self-interest. It's what they _do_ with the power that seperates them from beings of Law - they don't seek to make their thralls any less violent or destructive. They don't seek to turn their minions into _devils_, which is what your plan is leaning toward. Or worse yet - you'd have them become mere _cattle_, livestock for their owners to breed - breed in _stables_, apparently. Any demons treated thus would be sickly and weak, distant indeed from that which makes them strong. Any lord who tried such a scheme would quickly be overcome by its rivals, who understand what sorts of acts the reality of the Abyss empowers.




Or, to use some of your own vernacular perhaps these great breeding pools are cess pits of debauchery and lust, fueling the demons primitive, carnal urges. 

However the whole law/chaos thing is irrelevant here with regards what we are discussing. The demon princes do not have infinte power, they do not have infinite resources, therefore even if their layers are infinite they can neither understand everything within them (because they do not have infinite intelligence), nor do their forces occupy anything more than a finite area.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> In each plane, the "laws" of nature are different, each encouraging that plane's ethos. In the Abyss, Chaos is rewarded and all order crumbles and suffers.




Absolutely.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> For a demon horde to become strong, its members must be encouraged to cultivate their individual urges and will - _this_ is the strength of Chaos. If they are to breed, they must do it in passion, according to their whims, not some centralized command. And, of course, _violently_ - one mate or the other probably often dies, further reducing the population.  This is what empowers the layer as a whole, and only empowering the layer as a whole can the layer spawn armies stronger as a whole than those they fight against.




If one dies then thats okay, as long as there is no net gain. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> You could argue, in fact, that sexual reproduction makes demons _less_ populous than otherwise, but this only makes them stronger as individuals.




I'm happy enough with that. I keep telling you my problem is not with the breeding per se, its in representing infinity.


----------



## green slime

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> I'm pretty sure the old Deities and Demigods book has this in the beginning of the Nonhuman Mythos section; I'm certain that the old Monster Card (1982 ?) mentions Demogorgon.




Indeed the old Deities and Demigods from 1980 mentions their worshipping Demogorgon.


----------



## green slime

Bryan898 said:
			
		

> Yeah, funny thing about that, with Graz'zt's AC of 43, DR of 15/+6 (I'd convert to 15/ epic and cold iron), and SR 38, the CR 27 Marilith's wouldn't stand a chance.  Graz'zt's sneer (his free action fear aura) would cause them to run away unless they roll a 20 on a save... Even if they did he could cut them to ribbons.
> 
> CR's off a bit? Nooooo =P
> 
> I actually liked some of the write-ups in the BoVD and could see them as formidable opponents.  What I didn't get is why these all powerful demon lords/ archfiends take feats like Vile Martial Strike, or have weapons like a +3 flaming burst greatsword.  If you own a layer on the planes I think you qualify for a weapon of epic strength, or at least +10.




Its all the Blackguards and their "Improved Sunder" antics. Can't keep a decent sword!


----------



## green slime

*Succubus*

I thought the original idea behind succubus was that demons couldn't breed by themselves. They seduced mortals to obtain their sperm? This was then used to breed (either themselves or placing the warped sperm into mortal women via incubus) fiendish offspring?


----------



## green slime

Things I would really like to see in this book of fiends:

more instances of *chaotic* evil manifesting itself in the representations of demons. (Hordelings, for instance, would be fantastic!). Demons that change shape uncontrollably each round. More varied demonic creatures: demonic plants, demonic constructs, demonic undead, demonic beasts. I don't want all demons to have the same basic attributes of Fire Resistance 20,.... etc. 

I grow weary of the old evil-vs-good take on everything. I want more law-vs-chaos approach. I want the chaos part of their alignment played up. The heaving *chaotic* masses of ultimate vile Evil.

As a player, I never bought into the Planescape thing, TSR were producing so much stuff, and my dollars were limited in those days. And I was put of by all the berking. So I don't really care for backwards consistency. Though  I understand it may be important for others, apparently. 

I want cool ideas I can use. Places, names, feats, spells, powers, mythologies, histories. Brief descriptions of various abyssal planes, and their denizens. (not detailed stats, just the bare minimum to get fresh ideas).


----------



## Shemeska

green slime said:
			
		

> more instances of *chaotic* evil manifesting itself in the representations of demons. (Hordelings, for instance, would be fantastic!).




Hordelings are NE natives of the Waste. I think you're confusing them with the generic 'random demon'  table from way back when.



> I want more law-vs-chaos approach. I want the chaos part of their alignment played up. The heaving *chaotic* masses of ultimate vile Evil.
> 
> As a player, I never bought into the Planescape thing




You missed out on the emphasis of law vs chaos then, and of the Abyss as being that heaving chaotic mass.


----------



## Shemeska

Hey Erik,

Just had some ideas on things that might be interesting to see crop up in the book:

1) Picking up on the Tanar'ri effort on the 12th layer of the Abyss, Twelvetrees, to create Ships of Chaos with the aid of the Doomguard, and if any of the splinter sects of that faction continue to help them after the main faction disintigrated. Semi-sentient, living warships with the brains of Vrocks. Fun fun. They were interesting in 'In The Abyss'.

2) Giving some mention of the failed attempt to pacify the Abyss by the Harmonium of Ortho, shortly after they expanded out from their world on the prime material. It was only mentioned in brief among the faction's background in 'Factols Manifesto' but it would be amusing to see something about perhaps which layers they attempted to invade and how utterly bloody their defeat was.

3) Perhaps some mention of Sigil's Temple of the Abyss, and which Abyssal Lords are involved with it and its high priest Noshtoreth of the Umber Scales, the origin of the Bells of Baphomet, and perhaps Graz'zt's connection with Rule of Three the cambion.


----------



## BOZ

there we go, let's turn this thread around and make it productive.


----------



## Alzrius

Erik, any chance that the book will have anything like the "Immortal Spirits" sidebar in _Dragon_ #337? That was a really great take on Outsiders (though parts of it could have been clearer), and it'd be great to see that as an option for D&D Outsiders as a whole.


----------



## Razz

BOZ said:
			
		

> it _is_ a big mess no matter what direction you move in, isn't it?  put in the weak stats, the guys who want higher stats are left out.  put in higher stats, the guys who need the CR 20 archfiends are left out.  take out the stats altogether, then those who want stats are left out.
> 
> sheesh!




Yeah but it's always easier to downgrade an archfiend than it is to upgrade one. A downgraded one a DM could rule zero some of its abilities, lower ability scores, and HD and adjust accordingly. Vice versa isn't all that easy nor great, nor is it like anyone elses in comparison that does the same thing.


----------



## Razz

*raises hand* On the subject of who uses Deities&Demigods deity stats for their games, I sure as heck do!

See, there comes a time when my players reach epic level. They anger this deity or want to take down that deity, and I really was happy to have a full write up of a deity to base an avatar off of for my players to battle or win a battle of wit and diplomacy with.

Have my players ever fought and killed one? No. (I run an FR campaign). Will they ever? Maybe and maybe not. If so, the option is there and I have the information and tools to work with.

See, me and my players are part of the new generation of gamers (but we did start on 2E a decade ago, back in junior high) where we watch tons of japanese anime and see epic battles and power along with wonderful characters and storyline in anime such as BLEACH, Naruto, Berserk, Full Metal Alchemist, Record of Lodoss War, and a myriad of others. 

So yeah, a battle with a deity appeals to US. We're probably the only group or part of a small group, but DD and F&P weren't useless to me.


----------



## demiurge1138

BOZ said:
			
		

> bump



Wait, you _want_ the arguement to start again?

Demiurge out.


----------



## BOZ

it keeps things interesting.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I agree with this, what I disagree with is that their realms are literally infinite. Even if they were linked to the entire layer it would take infinite intelligence to be able to process the infinite occurances taking place within an infinite space.




The Abyssal layers themselves have infinite intelligence - infinitely vast, rather than infinitely smart. Most have animal-level intelligence, though a few are sentient.

Abyssal lords, who are tied to their layers spiritually, have the ability to tap into the infinite minds of their layers if they're not busy doing anything else. They're probably not able to process an infinite amount of occurances at once, but their layers are, and their layers inform them of important events (like spellcasters trying to open gates). I don't think Orcus is necessarily instantly aware of Sir Gareth Dragonsbane entering Thanatos from the Plane of Infinite Portals  - or of Kiaransalee doing the same - but he has the ability to know such things available to him. 

Planar rulers rule over infinities, while deities rule over finite regions, which was why the poster who started this particular debate suggested that planar rulers were the more powerful of the two groups. As "rules an infinity" has been the canonical assumption since 1st edition, it's a valid point.



> Your point makes little sense anyway. Mephistopheles doesn't control the actions of everyone in his layer either, but he commands them.




The difference is that if Mephistopheles _could_ control everyone in Cania as if they were marrionettes and he was holding the strings, he would do so in a heartbeat. Orcus is a creature of unpredictability, and would soon grow bored and frustrated in such a universe. He likes his animated dead, but skeletons and zombies alone grow tiresome. 



> Not quite. There is nothing beyond the known parameters of the kosmically localised area. Imagine being on the shore and looking out to the sea, you can still see the horizon but you cannot reach it.




Weird.



> Trying to keep a portal open while you ferry in your entire army is ludicrous. For starters the enemy will be able to intercept in far larger numbers. It will take ages for you to get substantial forces through the gate. The enemy will have plenty of time to disrupt/dispel the gate.




The scenario I was suggesting specifically assumed that the _gate_ opened in the infinite space outside the local lord's control. In this case, the enemy wouldn't have any way of knowing about the gate or the invasion - the invader could create its own realm every bit as powerful as the enemy's. That's my problem with assuming infinite wild terrain exists outside an Abyssal ruler's command, which seemed to be your assertion.

If you assume the layers are finite in size, not just the realms, things are different, but this doesn't seem to be exactly what you're suggesting.



> I thought it illustrated the point quite well. To reiterate, the primary layer(s) of the greatest demon monarchs/princes will almost certainly never be threatened by enemy armies EXACTLY LIKE the second world war.




I think I explained why the analogy doesn't work - every layer, or most layers, is equally accessible from the Plain of Infinite Portals - which are filled with enormous, undispellable gates that thousands of demons could pour through at a time. There aren't any intermediate layers for the greatest demon monarchs to guard. Orcus can attack (the first layer of) Azzagrat as easily as Graz'zt can attack Thanatos, using the first layer of the Abyss as a staging ground. Naturally they'll have fortresses around most of the major portals, but not an infinite number of them - and even where there are fortresses, they aren't unassailable to a determined foe (just as castles don't necessarily deter invasion in the real world).



> Ruling an infinite layer means they have infinite resources and infinite power.




In the same sense that Russia has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia - they exist, but they're not being exploited to the same degree. The layers are infinite, but they're not infinitely developed. Also, much of the layers might well be empty void, like the regions beyond the land in the layers of Gehenna, or otherwise useless for most purposes. The lords still control them, for all and all of infinity.



> Its the closest approximation we know.




I don't see how the amount of time it takes to purge a gelugon of its lower nature relates to how quickly tanar'ri reproduce at all. It might be a guideline for how long it takes a nalfeshnee to become a balor, but that's it. 

Tanar'ri have lower standards for promotion than the perfectionistic, bureaucratic baatezu, so  manes will become balors more quickly than lemures become pit fiends, but it's still going to take centuries, or millennia, for it to happen.



> Unless the superiors, superiors are also there.




They're placing bets, too. They're a race of chaos - they get too orderly, they die out. Demons don't have a rigid hierarchy in that way, anyway. There are the base demons - the manes, dretches, and rutterkin - commanded by babau, hezrou, chasme, or the like. Their superiors are, in no particular order, the balors, nalfeshnee, and mariliths, who work - sometimes - for the lords and princes of the Abyss. But there's no direct supervision - they're told roughly what to do and they decide how to do it their own way. They're not going to be more rigid than that any more than they're going to start helping sick puppies and children or donating to charity.



> Thats exactly the point though - its a matter of frequency. Some planes are so violent that demons are few and far between if any exist there at all, but demons are not going to settle in such areas. They may be chaotic evil, but they are not, as a rule, stupid.




Some layers of the Abyss are more deadly than others, but even the safest ones are deadly by the standards of the Material Plane. Unless you know a way of calculating exactlly how deadly the safest place in the Abyss is, you can't claim that demons will be able to reproduce there at a geometric rate.

There a lot of demons. A _lot_ of demons - an uncountable, seemingly endless number. But not so many that it's impossible for the baatezu to defeat them. Part of that's because the war has more to do with belief than numbers - you kill enough, they become demoralized and the whole race weakens. You weaken the forces of Chaos _or_ Evil, the whole race weakens. Take this far enough, and you end up with an entire species too weak to overcome the damage resistance of rival outsider races. They're defeated - they're done. The tanar'ri are thought to have exterminated races in the Abyss before. They destroyed the varrangoin civilization. It can be done.


----------



## Shemeska

Wee! More debate! More chances to see completely made up words like 'kosmically' used!

... something like that.  *goes back to writing the next Baernaloth cycle story*


----------



## BOZ

well, they are enjoying it at least, and it is vaguely amusing to watch.  

and every once in awhile, they drop a bit of unique insight.


----------



## BOZ

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Tanar'ri have lower standards for promotion than the perfectionistic, bureaucratic baatezu, so manes will become balors more quickly than lemures become pit fiends, but it's still going to take centuries, or millennia, for it to happen.




true, but i suspect that far fewer manes make it that far compared to lemures making it all the way (percentage-wise), since i have to assume demons are more susceptible to violent death and other unpredictable factors.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

BOZ said:
			
		

> true, but i suspect that far fewer manes make it that far compared to lemures making it all the way (percentage-wise), since i have to assume demons are more susceptible to violent death and other unpredictable factors.




Outside the Blood War, I'm sure you're right.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 

Quick response, what was it 3 weeks. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The Abyssal layers themselves have infinite intelligence - infinitely vast, rather than infinitely smart. Most have animal-level intelligence, though a few are sentient.




I've never heard such a load of nonsense, added to which there is no precedent that every layer is sentient or even semi-sentient.

Note that the semi-sentient layer in the Gord the Rogue stories Ojukalazogadit did not have a ruler, and no demons lived upon it.

The planar rulers (and deities) may extend their senses across the realm they control, but its not the layer itself reporting back to them.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Abyssal lords, who are tied to their layers spiritually, have the ability to tap into the infinite minds of their layers if they're not busy doing anything else. They're probably not able to process an infinite amount of occurances at once, but their layers are, and their layers inform them of important events (like spellcasters trying to open gates). I don't think Orcus is necessarily instantly aware of Sir Gareth Dragonsbane entering Thanatos from the Plane of Infinite Portals  - or of Kiaransalee doing the same - but he has the ability to know such things available to him.




'Tap the infinite minds of their layers' - balderdash. You are making that jive up.   



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Planar rulers rule over infinities, while deities rule over finite regions, which was why the poster who started this particular debate suggested that planar rulers were the more powerful of the two groups. As "rules an infinity" has been the canonical assumption since 1st edition, it's a valid point.




...and given that we know such beings are not more powerful than deities (as a rule) and never have been, we can easily poo-poo the idea.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The difference is that if Mephistopheles _could_ control everyone in Cania as if they were marrionettes and he was holding the strings, he would do so in a heartbeat. Orcus is a creature of unpredictability, and would soon grow bored and frustrated in such a universe. He likes his animated dead, but skeletons and zombies alone grow tiresome.




So you are saying that Orcus can control everyone in his realm but the equally powerful Mephisto cannot!? Rubbish. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Weird.




Thanks. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The scenario I was suggesting specifically assumed that the _gate_ opened in the infinite space outside the local lord's control. In this case, the enemy wouldn't have any way of knowing about the gate or the invasion - the invader could create its own realm every bit as powerful as the enemy's. That's my problem with assuming infinite wild terrain exists outside an Abyssal ruler's command, which seemed to be your assertion.




The invader could not perceive any space outside the local princes control.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you assume the layers are finite in size, not just the realms, things are different, but this doesn't seem to be exactly what you're suggesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The realms are finite, the layers are infinite.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think I explained why the analogy doesn't work - every layer, or most layers, is equally accessible from the Plain of Infinite Portals - which are filled with enormous, undispellable gates that thousands of demons could pour through at a time.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> ...and the entry points onto a respective Princes layers are the first thing they guard!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There aren't any intermediate layers for the greatest demon monarchs to guard. Orcus can attack (the first layer of) Azzagrat as easily as Graz'zt can attack Thanatos, using the first layer of the Abyss as a staging ground. Naturally they'll have fortresses around most of the major portals, but not an infinite number of them - and even where there are fortresses, they aren't unassailable to a determined foe (just as castles don't necessarily deter invasion in the real world).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Orcus cannot attack Azzagrat as easily as the layer in part controlled by a lord. He has no foothold on Azzagrat with which to mobilise his forces, whereas he can use the part of the layer outside the lords realm as a staging ground, then march _enmasse_ against the lords stronghold.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the same sense that Russia has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia - they exist, but they're not being exploited to the same degree. The layers are infinite, but they're not infinitely developed. Also, much of the layers might well be empty void, like the regions beyond the land in the layers of Gehenna, or otherwise useless for most purposes. The lords still control them, for all and all of infinity.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> The idea of the infinite realm is irrelevant and illogical.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see how the amount of time it takes to purge a gelugon of its lower nature relates to how quickly tanar'ri reproduce at all. It might be a guideline for how long it takes a nalfeshnee to become a balor, but that's it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Its the closest approximation. Its unlikely that a pregnant dretch (perish the thought) carries around its offspring for that length of time.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They're placing bets, too. They're a race of chaos - they get too orderly, they die out. Demons don't have a rigid hierarchy in that way, anyway. There are the base demons - the manes, dretches, and rutterkin - commanded by babau, hezrou, chasme, or the like. Their superiors are, in no particular order, the balors, nalfeshnee, and mariliths, who work - sometimes - for the lords and princes of the Abyss. But there's no direct supervision - they're told roughly what to do and they decide how to do it their own way. They're not going to be more rigid than that any more than they're going to start helping sick puppies and children or donating to charity.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> The hierarchy is based on power, the strong bully the weak into doing their bidding. If Graz'zt tells Demon Prince 'X' to do something and he in turn commands Demon Lord 'Y' who passes orders down to Balor 'Z' who in turn...etc, etc. If Balor 'Z' disobeys that order and goes off to bet on pregnant dretch mud wrestling, Demon Lord 'Y' is going to skin him alive before he in turn gets repremanded by Demon Prince 'X' who himself is afraid of the wrath of Graz'zt.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some layers of the Abyss are more deadly than others, but even the safest ones are deadly by the standards of the Material Plane.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> ...and unsurprisingly demons are a lot hardier and tougher than mortals.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you know a way of calculating exactlly how deadly the safest place in the Abyss is, you can't claim that demons will be able to reproduce there at a geometric rate.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> We know that demons don't gather in overtly hazardous (to them that is, not visitors) areas.
> 
> Which means that the only open hostility will come from other demons.
> 
> We know that the various realms of the demon lords, princes and so forth are populated by their servants, who don't butcher each other for the sake of it, and theres no precedent for such action in any published material.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grover Cleaveland said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There a lot of demons. A _lot_ of demons - an uncountable, seemingly endless number. But not so many that it's impossible for the baatezu to defeat them. Part of that's because the war has more to do with belief than numbers - you kill enough, they become demoralized and the whole race weakens. You weaken the forces of Chaos _or_ Evil, the whole race weakens. Take this far enough, and you end up with an entire species too weak to overcome the damage resistance of rival outsider races. They're defeated - they're done. The tanar'ri are thought to have exterminated races in the Abyss before. They destroyed the varrangoin civilization. It can be done.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Of course it can be done, and it doesn't require this ethos grinding you tout, to do it. You are simply having to come up with roundabout ways of dealing with the problems inherant in your 'infinite' demons approach.
Click to expand...


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Wee! More debate! More chances to see completely made up words like 'kosmically' used!




Actually 'kosmic', is a real word. 

You probably got all confused because its not mentioned in Planescape, but if you actually take the time to read some books on the occult* (which is where most of the initial inspiration for D&Ds outer plane cosmology comes from) you might learn something.

*Such as the Encyclopedia of the Occult (by Fred Gettings)...pages 126 and 133 for instance.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> ... something like that.  *goes back to writing the next Baernaloth cycle story*




Drop by anytime. I always enjoy your input.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I've never heard such a load of nonsense, added to which there is no precedent that every layer is sentient or even semi-sentient.




Then read 'Faces of Evil' because it's flat out stated in there. Would you like the page number? IIRC there's a few other direct references to the idea as well outside of that source.



> The planar rulers (and deities) may extend their senses across the realm they control, but its not the layer itself reporting back to them.




According to the Tanar'ri it is. See aforementioned source.



> 'Tap the infinite minds of their layers' - balderdash. You are making that jive up.




No, not really. I haven't seen Grover/Rip make anything up really this whole 'debate', just instances where you're not as familiar with the sources he's pulling ideas from, or instances where you just don't agree with his take on a topic.




> ...and given that we know such beings are not more powerful than deities (as a rule) and never have been, we can easily poo-poo the idea.




Except that they have been before depending on the circumstances and where any such deific vs abyssal lord conflict would have taken place. 3.x, with its (albeit lamentable) stance on giving true deities stats, has just taken the opposite stance apparently in order to make archfiends viable targets for PCs. The stance on this has varied between editions and even within editions, but I'll end there because we're already discussed this elsewhere, and I'd rather not revisit that exercise in futility.




> So you are saying that Orcus can control everyone in his realm but the equally powerful Mephisto cannot!? Rubbish.




He never said that, read his original comment more closely. He was simply saying that even if Orcus could, he would have no desire to do so given his chaotic nature.




> The idea of the infinite realm is irrelevant and illogical.




It's the outer planes, not everything makes sense, nor should it. Not everything is or even should be, nailed down and precisely defined in easy to understand terms. Even if you don't like it, that's the way it is, and that's the way they have been defined as for quite a long time. The realms of the Abyssal Lords are in fact infinite if they manage to exert their control over the entirety of their chosen layer, Graz'zt has three of them under his sway for instance.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hey Shemmy!
> 
> Actually 'kosmic', is a real word.
> 
> You probably got all confused because its not mentioned in Planescape, but if you actually take the time to read some books on the occult* (which is where most of the initial inspiration for D&Ds outer plane cosmology comes from) you might learn something.
> 
> *Such as the Encyclopedia of the Occult (by Fred Gettings)...pages 126 and 133 for instance.




Kosmic may be a word, but kosmically doesn't appear to be. There's only 184 google hits for the word, which is over an order of magnitude less than I get by googling my own screen name. Now google isn't a proper research tool, but one would think that if it was an actual word it would show up a wee bit more across the net.

And I'm running the planes of DnD rather than the Wonderful World of Helena Blavatsky, no offense to said kooky immigrant keen on theosophy.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Quick response, what was it 3 weeks.




I wanted to give Erik and James time to read the new topics that Shemmy, BOZ, and others introduced. It seemed common courtesy not to monopolize the thread. When the thread fell into disuse and BOZ was bumping it, it seemed like I could finally give in to temptation.

I'll also tell you in advance - _eventually_ I'm going to abruptly stop arguing with you and it'll be forever, since otherwise we're going to be arguing forever. Hopefully, this will be when we at least understand one another's views, even if we don't agree with them. I _thought_ I understood what you were saying before, but then you unleashed the whole "rival lords can't perceive the terrain outside a rival's realm" bombshell, which changes everything. 



> ...and given that we know such beings are not more powerful than deities (as a rule) and never have been, we can easily poo-poo the idea.




They rule vastly bigger expanses of terrain than deities do, and this has always been the case. Controlling a layer of the Abyss is a bigger deal than controlling a realm in the Abyss. By rigidly giving Orcus no more power than a lesser deity - even in his role as ruler of Thanatos - you've severely nerfed him from his status even in 1st edition.

Planescape did give planar lords a substantial boost in power - particularly in Colin McComb's article "The Lords of the Nine" in Dragon #223 - revealing that they can hold their own against even greater deities. This is how it should be. If Demogorgon - the prince of demonkind - can get his tail kicked by Clangaddin or Erythnul, something is severely wrong. The whole cosmology comes into doubt - how has Demogorgon survived more than a few centuries? Why hasn't an intermediate or greater god taken control of his layer? This was objectively broken in 1st edition, fixed in Planescape, and then broken again in 3rd edition.



> The invader could not perceive any space outside the local princes control.




That seems far too convenient, but okay. I don't like your "virtual terrain" premise - an infinite expanse which exists but cannot be entered or perceived - but it makes your argument at least self-consistent. 

It does mean that you can't object to me making things up out of whole cloth - which I haven't done, but which I now have every right to do.



> Its the closest approximation. Its unlikely that a pregnant dretch (perish the thought) carries around its offspring for that length of time.




There's no reasonable parallel between refining a gelugon and dretch pregnancies. They're just not remotely similar. Terrible, terrible logic.

Figuring out how often tanar'ri reproduce involves a lot more than gestation rates, in any case. We have to figure out how often they're fertile, how long it takes for them to mature, how big their litters are, and what the mortality rate is during the mating and birthing process. You should know this.

For what it's worth, I think the answers are:
Gestation: About the same as slaadi.
Fertility: all the time
Maturity: from birth
Litters: Variable
Mortality: Extremely high. Which is to say, a male and female mate - the male dies. The female gives birth - her young eat their way out of her chest, and she dies. Most of the young are promptly eaten, either by demons, terrain features, or - if she's not dead - the mother. They still reproduce at a frightening rate and it doesn't matter because belief is power, not numbers.

I could just as easily plug in other numbers, though, so it might easily take millennia for a demonic population to double through sexual reproduction alone, or there might not be any increase at all.

I think mortality rates will be lower with more powerful demons, who have other than bestial intelligence, but I don't think it's reasonable to have demon lords breeding their underlings like cattle. That's not what demons are about. If demons are truly creatures of chaos as much as they're creatures of evil, the sexual reproduction idea works. And that's what it's designed for - the idea that they can reproduce with mortals but not one another is the kind of restriction that makes sense in a lawful culture, which has the ability to control its members forms and the desire to keep them "pure," but not in a chaotic one where tanar'ri mutate and evolve on their own.



> The hierarchy is based on power, the strong bully the weak into doing their bidding. If Graz'zt tells Demon Prince 'X' to do something and he in turn commands Demon Lord 'Y' who passes orders down to Balor 'Z' who in turn...etc, etc. If Balor 'Z' disobeys that order and goes off to bet on pregnant dretch mud wrestling, Demon Lord 'Y' is going to skin him alive before he in turn gets repremanded by Demon Prince 'X' who himself is afraid of the wrath of Graz'zt.




That's true, but demons are creatures of rebellion, and demons have no laws, only whims. They're an unruly bunch, and the majority of them are going to do as they please regardless of their threats. It's like hiring a guy to herd cats, and then punishing him because the cats don't herd properly. If Prince X is going to be that unreasonable, Balor Z might get skinned alive regardless of what he does and might well leave X-Land and become a free agent somewhere else.  

In most cases, princes will deal with their balors directly rather than going through a succession of feudal intermediaries. It's part of what I'm saying about a more chaotic approach.

That's not to say that Graz'zt has no control over his minions at all - that's not what I'm trying to say at all. He can herd them in a general direction and expect them to more or less go there. He can expect them to cause a lot of chaos and destruction once they get where they're going, too - that's what they are. He can't expect them to run a nursery without eating the babies - it's like getting foxes to run a henhouse. That's not what demons are good for.

Demon hordes are most efficient when their leaders give their minions free reign to interpret their orders as they desire. That's Chaos' strength. Trying to control them too rigidly is like trying to open a can of peas with a hammer - it's the wrong tool for the job.

Good lord, that's a lot of similes. 



> We know that demons don't gather in overtly hazardous (to them that is, not visitors) areas.




All of the Abyss is overtly hazardous to them. It's more hazardous to mortals, but it's hazardous for everyone.



> We know that the various realms of the demon lords, princes and so forth are populated by their servants, who don't butcher each other for the sake of it, and theres no precedent for such action in any published material.




Of course they do, and there is. That's not to say it's constant internecine warfare everywhere, but you can't assume that any place is "safe."

Even if there wasn't precedent for the idea of demons butchering one another - and there is - you can't say anything as long as you stand by your "layers that are there but not there" argument, or for that matter your whole "Abyssal princes only rule finite realms" argument, both of which are without precedent in published material.



> Actually 'kosmic', is a real word.
> 
> You probably got all confused because its not mentioned in Planescape, but if you actually take the time to read some books on the occult* (which is where most of the initial inspiration for D&Ds outer plane cosmology comes from) you might learn something.
> 
> *Such as the Encyclopedia of the Occult (by Fred Gettings)...pages 126 and 133 for instance.




I have a fairly large occult library and access to several larger ones. One thing I've noticed is that occultists like to give things krazy spellings for no particular reason, like Aleister Crowley insisting on spelling "magic" with a K. Spelling "cosmos" with K makes it look more Greek, but does it really change its meaning?


----------



## Hammerhead

Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I have a fairly large occult library and access to several larger ones. One thing I've noticed is that occultists like to give things krazy spellings for no particular reason, like Aleister Crowley insisting on spelling "magic" with a K. Spelling "cosmos" with K makes it look more Greek, but does it really change its meaning?




That's how a lot of fantasy authors spelled it too; Fritz Leiber was one. I would equate the "word" Kosmos with Mortal Kombat. The designers didn't make up a new word, they just changed the spelling in a pathetic attempt to look kool.

Okay, I'll shut up now.


----------



## Erik Mona

Shemeska said:
			
		

> And I'm running the planes of DnD rather than the Wonderful World of Helena Blavatsky, no offense to said kooky immigrant keen on theosophy.




It's probably worth noting that things like the Astral Plane and Devas are heavily inspired by Theosophic ideas, so in a sense we are playing around in the Wonderful World of Blavatsky. "Movanic" and "Monadic," for example, are Theosophical concepts.

Just sayin'.

--Erik


----------



## GVDammerung

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> It's probably worth noting that things like the Astral Plane and Devas are heavily inspired by Theosophic ideas, so in a sense we are playing around in the Wonderful World of Blavatsky. "Movanic" and "Monadic," for example, are Theosophical concepts.
> 
> Just sayin'.
> 
> --Erik




Could you please refer me to a source that has “movanic” as a Theosophical concept.  To my knowledge this term is a complete invention unique to D&D.

The larger point, I think, is that the lower planes of D&D are not analogous to any single or even predominating occult tradition.  They are, rather, a conglomeration - a mish-mash - a stitchery of threads from a variety of occult inspirations, co-mingled with unique inventions.  I would contend this is part of their appeal and that too close an adherence to any “real” occult tradition, unleavened with any original inventions, would tend to loose some of that appeal. 

Take Green Ronins’, Armies of the Abyss and the use of the Qlippoth, with which I believe you are familiar.  The Qlippoth were introduced into the Abyss substantially unleavened in Armies of the Abyss.  For those readers unfamiliar with the mythology of the Qlippoth, this is no problem.  For those familiar or for those who do a little research, the addition of the Qlippoth raises a host of questions.  e.g. - At one extreme: The D&D multiverse adheres to the forms of the kabbalah? At the other: There are “tunnels” that underlay the Abyss?  I like the addition of the Qlippoth to D&D’s planar mythology but the manner of that introduction, almost wholesale, unleavened adoption was lazy.  Grab an idea and throw it in without substantial adaptation to D&D’s mythology.  And this is the point.

D&D’s mythology is not occult mythology.  D&D draws on occult mythology but then modifies and adapts that occult mythology into something uniquely D&D. 

Planescape, like its approach or otherwise, invented more than it borrowed.  Armies of the Abyss, to draw the contrast, borrowed at least as much as it invented.  Planescape (Faces of Evil, lets say) is then the superior D&D product.  This is not to say that Armies of the Abyss was bad; it was not bad.  It simply was not the best D&D because it was less inventive than it might and should have been.  It borrowed too much without adapting that borrowing more closely to D&D.  In fairness, it must be noted that “open” and “closed” content prevented a true integration but it is also fair to note how the D&D demon princes yet appeared in “disguise.”  Further work along this line, except more on a conceptual level, would have improved Armies of the Abyss.  To again use an example with which you are familiar, think Gord and those novels use of D&D tropes “in disguise” when published by New Infinities.  Such has and can be done.

Of course, with the Fiendish Codex: Hordes of the Abyss there is no need to dissemble.  Everything is “open.”  It would then be a great waste of an opportunity if Hordes of the Abyss  too closely modeled occult mythology without making it fit with and accommodate D&D mythology.   Occult mythology is not D&D mythology and should not be substantially imported into D&D mythology unleavened.


----------



## Alzrius

GVDammerung said:
			
		

> This is not to say that Armies of the Abyss was bad; it was not bad.  It simply was not the best D&D because it was less inventive than it might and should have been.  It borrowed too much without adapting that borrowing more closely to D&D.




That's the best summation of the product that I've ever heard. It pretty much perfectly sums up why I liked _Armies of the Abyss_ less than _Legions of Hell_.


----------



## Shemeska

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> It's probably worth noting that things like the Astral Plane and Devas are heavily inspired by Theosophic ideas, so in a sense we are playing around in the Wonderful World of Blavatsky. "Movanic" and "Monadic," for example, are Theosophical concepts.
> 
> Just sayin'.
> 
> --Erik




*nodding*

Perhaps, though theosophy derived them heavily from earlier terms and systems of belief. The Astral plane in DnD doesn't have a one to one correspondance to Theosophy, or the earlier 'Astral plane' analogs present in Sufism, some branches of Kabbalah, Hinduism, etc. Theosophy tended to jumble them together, though Blavatsky certainly put her own rather unique spin upon the idea with the Kamic plane, but I'd hesitate to suggest that DnD's Astral Plane borrows much more than a name and the vague idea of it all. I'd rather say that Theosophy was an influence, but not the sole influence by any means.

DnD has had a rather grand history of name snagging on a very superficial level from older sources, but never really using anything beyond a name while trying to yet at the same time assume the mantle of, and deeper meaning inherent in, those names. A lot of the original demon lords for instance have the names of 'real world' fiends and entities, but don't have all too terrible much in common with the real life creature. Baphomet and Demogorgon to name two, respectively have little resemblance to the silver head the Templars worshipped as claimed by the French Crown, or to the mistranslation of the gnostic Demo Gorgos. This is not however to say that we can't develop these same DnD critters subsequently using any original roots even if they may have been planted rather shallow in the first place.

The Devas are obviously right out of Hindu and Zoarastrian myth, the name at least, and I can't particularly see a link between those in DnD with Theosophy. It seems the DnD versions were just looking for a name for celestials outside of calling them angels etc. Daevas in the earliest sources were largely evil. Again, that history of name snagging. Though the 2e elaboration of them pretty much dissolved any problems with that at all and made them uniquely DnD critters with the addition of that extensive content.

And as far as the terms monadic and movanic, theosophy seems to have lifted monadic right out from Pythagoras and some earlier uses of the term, though they may have gone their own way with it, but I can't see any correlation at all between that and Monadic Devas as seen in DnD. Also, I'll admit that I don't recall any use of the term 'movanic' with regards to theosophy, and to tell the truth I don't know where the term came from if it didn't exist prior to its use in DnD. I've never actually seen the term used outside of a DnD reference. I'm curious if you'll humor me.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

I interpret "movanic" as "movant" in the legal sense - they're the devas assigned to observe the inhabitants of the Material Plane, and apply for judgement from the powers they serve. Technically that should be "movantic," I guess, but it's the closest I've been able to come.


----------



## Erik Mona

I'll have to check my library, but I'm fairly certain I spotted "movanic" and "monadic" somewhere in Lewis Spence's "Encyclopedia of Occultism," which is a good reference that Gygax appears to have used when cobbling together his AD&D planar mythology.

Shemeska is correct in saying that D&D (especially in first edition) tended to borrow superficially from occult sources, which is exactly the case. From reading through the "Encyclopedia of Occultism," it seems likely that Gary just wrote down a bunch of names he liked and imported them wholesale into Monster Manual II. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which ones were made devils and which ones were turned into demons, for example. In the case of Dagon and Astaroth, you can basically take your pick.

But just because a demon has a name that can be found in real world occult lore does not mean that said demon matches the decription of that being in game terms. Tiamat is probably the most notable example of this, but there are lots of others (for instance, Marduk from the later Gord books).

My earlier post was not to suggest that the Astral Plane or Devas of D&D _are_ the Astral Plane and Devas of theosophy. Frankly, I don't know enough about theosophy to know how close the analogues are, but I suspect they are thin indeed.

The qlippoth name was appropriated in exactly this context. I felt that the Abyss could use a "proto-demon" race (if only to bring it in line with the Gord books), and while casting about for a good name I came upon the qlippoth and the rest is small publishing history.

As stated, "Armies of the Abyss" is not an official D&D product, even if I did my best to make it compatible. This new book is a different enterprise entirely.

--Erik


----------



## BOZ

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> It's probably worth noting that things like the Astral Plane and Devas are heavily inspired by Theosophic ideas, so in a sense we are playing around in the Wonderful World of Blavatsky. "Movanic" and "Monadic," for example, are Theosophical concepts.
> 
> Just sayin'.
> 
> --Erik




i have heard this before.  i have also seen gary saying that he specifically avoided the use of angels to avoid judeo-christian inferences, thus he went the way he did.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Then read 'Faces of Evil' because it's flat out stated in there. Would you like the page number? IIRC there's a few other direct references to the idea as well outside of that source.




Its a terrible idea. What happens if multiple lords all control a piece of the layer, does the infinite intelligence share itself between them? Does it have a favourite? 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> According to the Tanar'ri it is. See aforementioned source.




[sarcasm]I'm straight on to ebay after this to pick me up a copy![/sarcasm]



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> No, not really. I haven't seen Grover/Rip make anything up really this whole 'debate', just instances where you're not as familiar with the sources he's pulling ideas from, or instances where you just don't agree with his take on a topic.




Actually I was being facetious, OBVIOUSLY that sort of baboonery could only come from Planescape...hence my smilie. No offence meant GC dude.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Except that they have been before depending on the circumstances and where any such deific vs abyssal lord conflict would have taken place. 3.x, with its (albeit lamentable) stance on giving true deities stats, has just taken the opposite stance apparently in order to make archfiends viable targets for PCs. The stance on this has varied between editions and even within editions, but I'll end there because we're already discussed this elsewhere, and I'd rather not revisit that exercise in futility.




Okay, so let me just see if I can bring this to the nub of the matter.

The whole infinite realm idea doesn't work when you have stats for gods because then you have to explain the unexplainable. So it worked in 2nd Ed. and doesn't work in 3rd Ed. Fair enough...?



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> He never said that, read his original comment more closely. He was simply saying that even if Orcus could, he would have no desire to do so given his chaotic nature.




Then he raised a totally irrelevant point.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's the outer planes, not everything makes sense, nor should it. Not everything is or even should be, nailed down and precisely defined in easy to understand terms. Even if you don't like it, that's the way it is, and that's the way they have been defined as for quite a long time. The realms of the Abyssal Lords are in fact infinite if they manage to exert their control over the entirety of their chosen layer, Graz'zt has three of them under his sway for instance.




The problem inherant in your thinking is that if he rules an infinite area then he must have infinite demons. But a demon lord rules a finite area with a finite number of demons. Its a totally crazy and illogical viewpoint. Its okay to wax lyrical or philosophise about something such as that, but you can't design for it.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hello again Shemmy mate! 

Wasn't getting your fingers burnt on this point once, enough?   



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Kosmic may be a word, but kosmically doesn't appear to be.




 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> There's only 184 google hits for the word, which is over an order of magnitude less than I get by googling my own screen name. Now google isn't a proper research tool, but one would think that if it was an actual word it would show up a wee bit more across the net.




So an obscure occult word (and the word occult by its very definition means 'hidden things') has to actually be well known by your reckoning! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And I'm running the planes of DnD rather than the Wonderful World of Helena Blavatsky, no offense to said kooky immigrant keen on theosophy.




No ones asking you to knife a goat.

Not to mention you have already (wrongly) accused me of making up the word kosmically anyway! So its hypocritical of you to berate me for my supposed invention and in the same breath, be so irate at the thought of occult references slipping into your game (which D&D is already littered with at any rate).


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What happens if multiple lords all control a piece of the layer, does the infinite intelligence share itself between them?




The layer doesn't bond with anyone until there is a single unquestioned leader. If you want to put it in game terms, each candidate rolls a Charisma check against the layer's Wisdom. The first candidate who succeeds bonds with the layer. Anyone who fails rolls a Will save or the layer devours it and adds another +1 bonus to its Wisdom score. Anyone who wishes to take the layer away from its prince has to prove its superiority, and then make the Charisma check.



> The whole infinite realm idea doesn't work when you have stats for gods because then you have to explain the unexplainable.




I think I explained it quite well.



> Then he raised a totally irrelevant point.




What I said was that neither Orcus nor Mephistopheles has absolute control over the inhabitants of their layers, but Mephistopheles would, as a LE being, be more likely to _desire_ such control. The point was to illustrate the differences between the CE and LE approaches to rulership. CE beings permit their underlings a certain amount of freedom because it empowers them. 



> The problem inherant in your thinking is that if he rules an infinite area then he must have infinite demons.




That doesn't follow. Again, your grasp on logic is haphazard at best. If the amount of demons begins with a finite number, it will always be a finite number no matter how quickly they reproduce, and in any case an Abyssal lord will only be able to muster a finite number of troops in an army at any one time.


----------



## Grover Cleaveland

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> The qlippoth name was appropriated in exactly this context. I felt that the Abyss could use a "proto-demon" race (if only to bring it in line with the Gord books), and while casting about for a good name I came upon the qlippoth and the rest is small publishing history.




I thought it was a pretty good name, actually, evoking the idea of a primal cosmic evil and also the concept of hollow shells (which always made me think "Qlippoth" would have been a good name for Carceri). You have to ignore a lot of its qabbalistic connotations, but it's pretty decent. I liked _Armies of the Abyss_ - my only problem with it was that a few of the demon lords were a little too close to their occult counterparts, where interpreting them slightly more loosely might have made them more interesting. But then, their entries were pretty short, and they can always be expanded. The book's a good start, anyway.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hello again Shemmy mate!
> 
> Wasn't getting your fingers burnt on this point once, enough?




*shrug* The last time I somehow got into a discussion with you it ended up as a sprawling, 13 page abomination over on WotC in which I largely got nothing out of it except learning that I was 'Infringing upon your rights'. And as amusing as that whole affair was, I don't care to repeat the experience.

I'm back on topic for the rest of this thread as it might apply so I can be productive as opposed to getting sucked into pointless arguments.


----------



## BOZ

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Its a terrible idea. What happens if multiple lords all control a piece of the layer, does the infinite intelligence share itself between them? Does it have a favourite?




good question.  the recent Zuggtmoy article says that Juibby and Zuggy basically each take one half of their layer.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> good question.  the recent Zuggtmoy article says that Juibby and Zuggy basically each take one half of their layer.




Given the relationship between an Abyssal Lord and their layer of the Abyss, it's probably a safe assumption that the layer, in that capacity, isn't beholden to either of them, and they can each only draw a certain level of power from it, rather than the full capacity of a Lord ruling over and in symbiosis with an entire layer.

It's not something that I would honestly apply game mechanics to, simply because it deals with infinite concepts that you can't nail down and define in that way. It doesn't entirely make sense, and it's not supposed to, yet it's still there in the roiling, malignant chaos of the Abyss.


----------



## Hammerhead

Does having an infinite layer of the Abyss really make any less sense than an infinite universe?


----------



## Nightfall

*wonders why his two favorite mates, Shemmy and Krusty, just can't accept that Scarred Lands Cosmology rocks.*  

Okay maybe not...


----------



## Ripzerai

BOZ said:
			
		

> good question.  the recent Zuggtmoy article says that Juibby and Zuggy basically each take one half of their layer.




Then neither truly rules it. Shedaklah does not answer to them, and they have no control over its planar traits. If neither controls any layers other than Shedaklah, they're not true Abyssal rulers (though they're still very powerful). 

It does seem like they have more control over their portions of the layer than can be easily explained by merely importing ooze and fungi into the layer. Perhaps Shedaklah does respond to its two tenants' whims, at least somewhat.                                                                        

James Jacobs' interpretation of their relationship was a little different from what I had assumed in previous editions - before, I thought it was a matter of Juiblex ruling the layer and allowing Zuggtmoy to dwell there while she rebuilt her power after her imprisonment (since she had her own seperate layer in 1st edition). From the Dragon article, it seems Juiblex might even be an invader from another layer, though it could also be that they've long shared the layer and Juiblex only took advantage of Zuggtmoy's recent troubles to take more than his former share.


----------



## BOZ

name change, Grover?  



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's not something that I would honestly apply game mechanics to, simply because it deals with infinite concepts that you can't nail down and define in that way. It doesn't entirely make sense, and it's not supposed to, yet it's still there in the roiling, malignant chaos of the Abyss.




thank you.  applying mathematics to infinites makes my head hurt really badly.


----------



## BOZ

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It does seem like they have more control over their portions of the layer than can be easily explained by merely importing ooze and fungi into the layer. Perhaps Shedaklah does respond to its two tenants' whims, at least somewhat.




i have to assume, at least somewhat.  it can't be an all-or-nothing prospect.  if you have to share, then you get less for yourself, but lacking total control should not mean being SOL.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I wanted to give Erik and James time to read the new topics that Shemmy, BOZ, and others introduced. It seemed common courtesy not to monopolize the thread.




Fair enough.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> When the thread fell into disuse and BOZ was bumping it, it seemed like I could finally give in to temptation.




Given that you are now answering Shemeskas posts I assume this isn't your last temptation. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I'll also tell you in advance - _eventually_ I'm going to abruptly stop arguing with you and it'll be forever, since otherwise we're going to be arguing forever.




Well you could always see sense and start agreeing with me. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Hopefully, this will be when we at least understand one another's views, even if we don't agree with them.




I understand your views, I just don't see the practicality of them. Just as 2nd Edition/Planescape had no practical benefit for epic or immortal games.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I _thought_ I understood what you were saying before, but then you unleashed the whole "rival lords can't perceive the terrain outside a rival's realm" bombshell, which changes everything.




Its a fairly simple idea. Each prime material world has its own corresponding (kosmically localised) planar area. The demon lords of one world are not the same demon lords of another. So sages of Greyhawk will know about Demogorgon, Orcus and so forth, but they may not be known on Athas. The localised area of each layer is about the same size as the corresponding planets surface, laid flat. Beyond this area simply does not exist for the inhabitants of the layer. It could be a gaping void, impenetrable blackness, a forcefield, a dense mist, a horizon that can never be reached, etc. preventing them from going further.

However, if the inhabitants of one prime material world are introduced to another, then their cosmologies also expand and become aware of the other. The more worlds that are introduced keep expanding the kosmically localised areas.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> They rule vastly bigger expanses of terrain than deities do, and this has always been the case. Controlling a layer of the Abyss is a bigger deal than controlling a realm in the Abyss. By rigidly giving Orcus no more power than a lesser deity - even in his role as ruler of Thanatos - you've severely nerfed him from his status even in 1st edition.




Wrong. By making him a Lesser Deity I hold true to the original spirit of the character.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Planescape did give planar lords a substantial boost in power - particularly in Colin McComb's article "The Lords of the Nine" in Dragon #223 - revealing that they can hold their own against even greater deities.




Irrelevant information given there were no deity stats in 2nd Edition. Which of course was then contradicted when Planescape published stats for Graz'zt which made him incredibly feeble by comparison to the practically infinite power of 2nd Edition deities.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> This is how it should be.




I disagree. 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> If Demogorgon - the prince of demonkind - can get his tail kicked by Clangaddin or Erythnul, something is severely wrong.




Those deities would have, at best, an even chance of defeating Demogorgon in his home realm.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The whole cosmology comes into doubt - how has Demogorgon survived more than a few centuries? Why hasn't an intermediate or greater god taken control of his layer?




This sort of logical argument works with WotC's interpretations of quasi-deity powered demon lords, but it doesn't wash with mine.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> This was objectively broken in 1st edition, fixed in Planescape, and then broken again in 3rd edition.




Utter rubbish. 1st Edition was not broken at all. 2nd Edition/Planescape made deities irrelevant. 3rd Edition did the right thing in bringing back the stats but was flawed in that it created the parameters for deities but then reduced the demon lords so that they could arbitrarily be manhandled by powerful (but non-epic) mortals.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> That seems far too convenient, but okay. I don't like your "virtual terrain" premise - an infinite expanse which exists but cannot be entered or perceived - but it makes your argument at least self-consistent.
> 
> It does mean that you can't object to me making things up out of whole cloth - which I haven't done, but which I now have every right to do.




I'm all for hearing ideas if they make sense and add something to the game (the infinite realm approach throws up more anomalies than its worth and adds nothing but confusion).



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> There's no reasonable parallel between refining a gelugon and dretch pregnancies. They're just not remotely similar. Terrible, terrible logic.




I fail to see how you can honestly say they are not remotely similar. Is a caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis *not remotely* like a re-birth?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Figuring out how often tanar'ri reproduce involves a lot more than gestation rates, in any case. We have to figure out how often they're fertile, how long it takes for them to mature, how big their litters are, and what the mortality rate is during the mating and birthing process. You should know this.
> 
> For what it's worth, I think the answers are:
> Gestation: About the same as slaadi.
> Fertility: all the time
> Maturity: from birth
> Litters: Variable
> Mortality: Extremely high. Which is to say, a male and female mate - the male dies. The female gives birth - her young eat their way out of her chest, and she dies. Most of the young are promptly eaten, either by demons, terrain features, or - if she's not dead - the mother. They still reproduce at a frightening rate and it doesn't matter because belief is power, not numbers.
> 
> I could just as easily plug in other numbers, though, so it might easily take millennia for a demonic population to double through sexual reproduction alone, or there might not be any increase at all.




Or its possible they can't breed at all.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I think mortality rates will be lower with more powerful demons, who have other than bestial intelligence, but I don't think it's reasonable to have demon lords breeding their underlings like cattle. That's not what demons are about. If demons are truly creatures of chaos as much as they're creatures of evil, the sexual reproduction idea works. And that's what it's designed for - the idea that they can reproduce with mortals but not one another is the kind of restriction that makes sense in a lawful culture, which has the ability to control its members forms and the desire to keep them "pure," but not in a chaotic one where tanar'ri mutate and evolve on their own.




So basically, what you are saying is that Asmodeus could have breeding grounds, but the Abyssal Lords cannot? If so, then the devils, with their strict breeding programs would easily win the Blood War within a relatively short space of time.

The whole idea of them breeding is preposterous in itself. But if they can breed, then all the other outsiders can breed, and the one who breeds the most is going to dominate the rest.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> That's not to say that Graz'zt has no control over his minions at all - that's not what I'm trying to say at all. He can herd them in a general direction and expect them to more or less go there. He can expect them to cause a lot of chaos and destruction once they get where they're going, too - that's what they are. He can't expect them to run a nursery without eating the babies - it's like getting foxes to run a henhouse. That's not what demons are good for.




I think his control is a bit better than 'herding them in the right direction'. If it wasn't, then nothing would ever get done in the Abyss.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> All of the Abyss is overtly hazardous to them. It's more hazardous to mortals, but it's hazardous for everyone.




I disagree. How is Orcus city, for example, *overtly* hazardous?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Of course they do, and there is. That's not to say it's constant internecine warfare everywhere, but you can't assume that any place is "safe."




Well I wouldn't necessarily say Iraq is safe in the current climate, but I suspect the births far exceed the violent deaths.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> Even if there wasn't precedent for the idea of demons butchering one another - and there is - you can't say anything as long as you stand by your "layers that are there but not there" argument, or for that matter your whole "Abyssal princes only rule finite realms" argument, both of which are without precedent in published material.




Well thats the point though. There is a lack of precedents on both sides. Its up to the people who want practical rules at these power levels to adopt something that works for them, not bewilder them with sophistry.



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> I have a fairly large occult library and access to several larger ones. One thing I've noticed is that occultists like to give things krazy spellings for no particular reason, like Aleister Crowley insisting on spelling "magic" with a K. Spelling "cosmos" with K makes it look more Greek, but does it really change its meaning?




Kosmos refers to the combined material and spiritual universes, as opposed to cosmos which only refers to the material universe.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey GC! 



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> The layer doesn't bond with anyone until there is a single unquestioned leader. If you want to put it in game terms, each candidate rolls a Charisma check against the layer's Wisdom. The first candidate who succeeds bonds with the layer. Anyone who fails rolls a Will save or the layer devours it and adds another +1 bonus to its Wisdom score. Anyone who wishes to take the layer away from its prince has to prove its superiority, and then make the Charisma check.




Well then how come deities control their realms (even though they don't necessarily encompass whole layers)?



			
				Grover Cleaveland said:
			
		

> That doesn't follow. Again, your grasp on logic is haphazard at best. If the amount of demons begins with a finite number, it will always be a finite number no matter how quickly they reproduce, and in any case an Abyssal lord will only be able to muster a finite number of troops in an army at any one time.




So then what you are saying is that each demon prince realm (the occupied portion of it) is finite anyway! There is no practical benefit to controlling the region outside this area. How is that any different to what I suggest with the kosmically localised areas?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> *shrug* The last time I somehow got into a discussion with you it ended up as a sprawling, 13 page abomination over on WotC




I seem to recall you ducked out after a few pages and left things to Rip and myself. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> in which I largely got nothing out of it except learning that I was 'Infringing upon your rights'.




Well, basically what you were saying was there should be no stats for gods simply because you don't want them. Which is tantamount to telling people they can't have Psionics or Eberron, unless you want them.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And as amusing as that whole affair was, I don't care to repeat the experience.




Well then don't make silly comments like "there should be no stats for gods" or "I want to hear more made up words like kosmically".



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I'm back on topic for the rest of this thread as it might apply so I can be productive as opposed to getting sucked into pointless arguments.




Glad to hear it.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Hammerhead! 



			
				Hammerhead said:
			
		

> Does having an infinite layer of the Abyss really make any less sense than an infinite universe?




The difference lies in resources and control of the area.

If you control an infinite number of demons then just hide behind them and no one can ever defeat you, nor could anyone ever take your layer away from you, a single battle could last eternity.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Its [Kosmic Localization] a fairly simple idea.




It seems unnecessarily complex to me, but I guess tastes vary.



> By making him a Lesser Deity I hold true to the original spirit of the character.




The original spirit of the character had him as a non-deity who ruled an entire layer of the Abyss. By making him a lesser deity you hold true the the later, post-Deities & Demigods spirit of the character. Both incarnations were broken, in that a lesser deity isn't reasonably going to be one of the three greatest rulers of the Abyss in a multiverse where greater deities and beings of still greater power exist.



> Irrelevant information given there were no deity stats in 2nd Edition. Which of course was then contradicted when Planescape published stats for Graz'zt which made him incredibly feeble by comparison to the practically infinite power of 2nd Edition deities.




That was broken too, but Planescape later fixed that by implying that planar lords had powers that allowed them to shrink and move the realms of even the gods - albeit slowly - by will alone. It would have been _more_ fixed if this was stated explicitly, but as this is what Levistus is doing, it's fairly clear. And honestly, not statting the deities was something of a fix at well.

And there's plenty of ways to express power level without formal stats, so it's hardly irrelevant. Use your imagination, for God's sake. 



> This sort of logical argument works with WotC's interpretations of quasi-deity powered demon lords, but it doesn't wash with mine.




I'm sure Demogorgon lasts a lot longer as a lesser deity, but he's still very weak compared to your intermediates, greaters, Old Ones, and so on, and he was weak compared to greater gods in 1st edition, too. Maybe they wouldn't win every competition, depending on how the dice went, but they'd kill Demogorgon more times than not.

That's just bad game design. 



> the infinite realm approach throws up more anomalies than its worth and adds nothing but confusion).




I feel the same way about "kosmic localization." I think it's the sort of idea that only its creator can truly get into - it doesn't do anything but arbitrarily limit the multiverse to solve "problems" that don't exist.



> I fail to see how you can honestly say they are not remotely similar. Is a caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis *not remotely* like a re-birth?




Rather, the process of baatezu advancement isn't remotely like butterfly metamorphosis, and baatezu never experience birth at all. It's most like the process of refining and engraving steel weapons - no biological analogy is appropriate. Higher-caste baatezu physically subject their subject to flames capable of melting basic spiritual essence, and kocrachons physically carve additional sigils in the baatezu's soul. It's a very _industrial_ process, and it bears no similarity to birth except in the sense that the baatezu begins a new existence after it's finally done.



> Or its possible they can't breed at all.




We know that tanar'ri can breed from the _Monster Manual_. If they can breed with others, why can't they breed with one another? _Faces of Evil_ explained that baatezu females were sterile, but that tanar'ri and yugoloths had no problems successfully breeding. That nicely illustrates the different approaches of Law and Chaos - baatezu design the inability to breed into their species in order to eliminate nepotism and force every member of their species to go through the same trials from lemure status on, thus creating a uniformity that their nature appreciates. Tanar'ri leave it up to the individual and the whims of the nalfeshnee where the stock of their next generation will come from, and trust in the hostility of their plane to weed out weaklings. Yugoloths prefer to teach each of their kind the same lessons from mezzoloth on, but leave sex as an option because they appreciate chaotic tactics as much as lawful ones. It's a powerful, elegant design.

Abstract ideals are the real trump card. Outer planar outsiders live or die based on the alignments they personify. Agricultural breeding doesn't strengthen outsiders of chaos - it weakens them. Adding order to the species weakens them in hit dice, morale, intelligence, and even numbers. The more they try to farm themselves, the fewer and weaker they become. The wilder they are, the stronger and more numerous they become. It's all tied to their behavior and the behavior they induce in others, and their precise reproductive mechanics are not relevant. Tanar'ri are far more numerous, but they fight among themselves and are poorly organized. Baatezu are less numerous, but they're more focused and coordinated. The two balance one another out precisely: tanar'ri have exactly as many numbers as it takes to overcome their organizational handicap. The individual layers of the Abyss have exactly the strength and numbers proportional to the influence of that layer's ideals. All outsiders precisely represent the strengths and weaknesses of their respective alignments, and if some detail about the system as it's presently structured were to change, their counterparts would change as well until it was balanced again. For example, if the baatezu started breeding themselves in endless kennels, the tanar'ri would begin emerging spontaneously from their plane in greater numbers to balance it. 

The only way for one Abyssal ruler to gain a numerical advantage over another or for one planar race to gain a real advantage over another is by shifting the dominance of the ideals they represent. If devilkind inspires more corruptive Law over the worlds, they'll gain more souls and more power and the forces of Chaos and Good won't be able to compete. If the eladrins, chaotic devas, and asuras inspire more happy freedom, they'll increase in power and the forces of despotism will wither. That's why outsiders care about the Material Plane.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Howdy Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It seems unnecessarily complex to me, but I guess tastes vary.




Thats exactly right, tastes do vary.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The original spirit of the character had him as a non-deity who ruled an entire layer of the Abyss. By making him a lesser deity you hold true the the later, post-Deities & Demigods spirit of the character.




The (1st Ed.) Monster Manual never said he *wasn't* a deity. Obviously there was no point referencing the matter unless you are going to explain it further, for which the Monster Manual was inappropriate.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Both incarnations were broken, in that a lesser deity isn't reasonably going to be one of the three greatest rulers of the Abyss




Actually, according to (1st Ed.) Manual of the Planes there were no Greater Powers (or Intermediate Powers) dwelling in the Abyss because they would constantly have to contend with the demons.

As we can see from reading the Gord the Rogue books, in the face of an outside threat, the demons will grudgingly band together to combat and expel the interloper (a facet of their inherantly racist nature). So while a greater deity of evil might be able to defeat one demon prince (even with its home plane advantage), it would not be able to defeat the combined power of the Abyss which would rise against them.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> in a multiverse where greater deities and beings of still greater power exist.




No greater deity is going to defeat the combined forces of the Abyss in their home plane (unless we assign quasi-deity power to the most powerful demon princes).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That was broken too, but Planescape later fixed that by implying that planar lords had powers that allowed them to shrink and move the realms of even the gods - albeit slowly - by will alone.




What good is that going to do them when they are dead at the hands of their near-omnipotent divine adversary. Any intelligent deity (which is funny because they are all virtually omniscient in 2nd Ed.) is going to either destroy or otherwise expel the current ruler and then make their realm on his layer.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It would have been _more_ fixed if this was stated explicitly, but as this is what Levistus is doing, it's fairly clear.




What the heck was the point of them talking about 2nd Edition deities in that sort of physical capacity anyway - it was all a bunch of arbitrary nonsense.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And honestly, not statting the deities was something of a fix at well.




On the contrary the omission of stats was akin to spitting in the faces of epic/immortal gamers.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And there's plenty of ways to express power level without formal stats, so it's hardly irrelevant. Use your imagination, for God's sake.




There are plenty of ways to roleplay without formal stats, but thats not the point.

The point is that there are many campaigns out there who want to use deities in a physical capacity, and its bordering on a disgrace that you and your cohorts *continually* whine, hiss and moan about the matter. No one is forcing you to buy the likes of Deities & Demigods.

Your usual lame response is "well WotC should be spending their resources in other areas." But who the hell died and made you the Fuhrer of roleplaying that you can dictate how other people should and shouldn't game.

The idea of begrudging someone else their joy (whether that be in the form of a book about Deities, Eberron, Psionics or whatever else) is just the very definition of a spiteful 'hater'.

I'm not against some book that delves into religions without including the stats (I own the Book of the Righteous for one), it may not be my preference I don't throw a hissy fit at the first suggestion of such a book.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I'm sure Demogorgon lasts a lot longer as a lesser deity, but he's still very weak compared to your intermediates,




On his home plane he could personally hold his own against intermediate opposition, factor in all his major servants and its unlikely he would be defeated by such a threat.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> greaters, Old Ones, and so on,




But so what that he is weaker than an Overgod. He doesn't have to continually contest with them! Thats like saying someones 1st-level PC is a lot weaker than Orcus - well whoop de doo! What a revelation! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> and he was weak compared to greater gods in 1st edition, too. Maybe they wouldn't win every competition, depending on how the dice went, but they'd kill Demogorgon more times than not.




So, just to clarify, why do these pantheon heads have a beef with Demogorgon again?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's just bad game design.




Not at all.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I feel the same way about "kosmic localization." I think it's the sort of idea that only its creator can truly get into - it doesn't do anything but arbitrarily limit the multiverse to solve "problems" that don't exist.




Theres nothing arbitrary about it. It links the outer planes directly to each prime material world, because its the dead spirits of that particular world who become demons, devils etc. in the first place.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Rather, the process of baatezu advancement isn't remotely like butterfly metamorphosis,




So what if the actual process isn't exactly the same, the outcome is inherantly familiar!



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> and baatezu never experience birth at all.




Unlike demons then...supposedly! Do I reference Durzugons now or later?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It's most like the process of refining and engraving steel weapons - no biological analogy is appropriate. Higher-caste baatezu physically subject their subject to flames capable of melting basic spiritual essence, and kocrachons physically carve additional sigils in the baatezu's soul. It's a very _industrial_ process, and it bears no similarity to birth except in the sense that the baatezu begins a new existence after it's finally done.




So you wouldn't describe it as a 'metamorphosis' at all then?   



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> We know that tanar'ri can breed from the _Monster Manual_. If they can breed with others, why can't they breed with one another?




Did somebody hear the word Durzugon just mentioned?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> _Faces of Evil_ explained that baatezu females were sterile, but that tanar'ri and yugoloths had no problems successfully breeding. That nicely illustrates the different approaches of Law and Chaos - baatezu design the inability to breed into their species in order to eliminate nepotism and force every member of their species to go through the same trials from lemure status on, thus creating a uniformity that their nature appreciates. Tanar'ri leave it up to the individual and the whims of the nalfeshnee where the stock of their next generation will come from, and trust in the hostility of their plane to weed out weaklings. Yugoloths prefer to teach each of their kind the same lessons from mezzoloth on, but leave sex as an option because they appreciate chaotic tactics as much as lawful ones. It's a powerful, elegant design.




Even though the breeding idea galls me personally, it has negligable significance to our discussion unless it can be exploited by the planar rulers, which you have stated it cannot.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Abstract ideals are the real trump card. Outer planar outsiders live or die based on the alignments they personify. Agricultural breeding doesn't strengthen outsiders of chaos - it weakens them.




It could be the products of a continual mass orgy.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Adding order to the species weakens them in hit dice, morale, intelligence, and even numbers. The more they try to farm themselves, the fewer and weaker they become. The wilder they are, the stronger and more numerous they become. It's all tied to their behavior and the behavior they induce in others, and their precise reproductive mechanics are not relevant. Tanar'ri are far more numerous, but they fight among themselves and are poorly organized. Baatezu are less numerous, but they're more focused and coordinated. The two balance one another out precisely: tanar'ri have exactly as many numbers as it takes to overcome their organizational handicap. The individual layers of the Abyss have exactly the strength and numbers proportional to the influence of that layer's ideals. All outsiders precisely represent the strengths and weaknesses of their respective alignments, and if some detail about the system as it's presently structured were to change, their counterparts would change as well until it was balanced again. For example, if the baatezu started breeding themselves in endless kennels, the tanar'ri would begin emerging spontaneously from their plane in greater numbers to balance it.




So are you saying now that universal balance cannot be upset?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The only way for one Abyssal ruler to gain a numerical advantage over another or for one planar race to gain a real advantage over another is by shifting the dominance of the ideals they represent. If devilkind inspires more corruptive Law over the worlds, they'll gain more souls and more power and the forces of Chaos and Good won't be able to compete. If the eladrins, chaotic devas, and asuras inspire more happy freedom, they'll increase in power and the forces of despotism will wither. That's why outsiders care about the Material Plane.




Fanciful hokum, but hokum nonetheless. You make it sound as if actual physical combat between demon princes or their armies is irrelevant.


----------



## Shemeska

*Backsliding*



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Actually, according to (1st Ed.) Manual of the Planes there were no Greater Powers (or Intermediate Powers) dwelling in the Abyss because they would constantly have to contend with the demons.




And this was subsequently rewritten and has been for two editions. I know you love 1E material, but the game has since expanded on the material first established then.



> As we can see from reading the Gord the Rogue books, in the face of an outside threat, the demons will grudgingly band together to combat and expel the interloper (a facet of their inherantly racist nature). So while a greater deity of evil might be able to defeat one demon prince (even with its home plane advantage), it would not be able to defeat the combined power of the Abyss which would rise against them.




I fail to see how the Gord books are relevant here. They were published after Gygax left TSR and while they might provide insight into Gary's ideas on the planes and their denizens, it varies in some very significant ways from the planes and fiends of 2e and 3e. Interesting yes, but not relevant to this discussion.




> What the heck was the point of them talking about 2nd Edition deities in that sort of physical capacity anyway - it was all a bunch of arbitrary nonsense.




We know you hate 2E with a fury I fail to understand as someone who didn't play till 3e. Any discussion on such things ultimately boils down to you stating that 1E roXXors, 2e was an abomination, and what 3e largely embraced from 2e also sucks and which you hate, ignore, and largely aren't wholly familiar with. It's an edition war with you anytime we talk about planar material, and I really don't care to keep falling back into this.

Yet I do. *lament*



> On the contrary the omission of stats was akin to spitting in the faces of epic/immortal gamers.




As you've made clear time after time. It 'oppresses' you.




> The point is that there are many campaigns out there who want to use deities in a physical capacity, and its bordering on a disgrace that you and your cohorts *continually* whine, hiss and moan about the matter.




There's no reason to whine about this here in this thread, it's off topic and irrelevant.




> Your usual lame response is "well WotC should be spending their resources in other areas." But who the hell died and made you the Fuhrer of roleplaying that you can dictate how other people should and shouldn't game.
> 
> The idea of begrudging someone else their joy (whether that be in the form of a book about Deities, Eberron, Psionics or whatever else) is just the very definition of a spiteful 'hater'.




*amused eyebrow* O...K...



> I'm not against some book that delves into religions without including the stats (I own the Book of the Righteous for one), it may not be my preference I don't throw a hissy fit at the first suggestion of such a book.




As opposed to the current fit?




> Theres nothing arbitrary about it. It links the outer planes directly to each prime material world, because its the dead spirits of that particular world who become demons, devils etc. in the first place.




I'm not familiar with your own personal houserules on this topic here, but they aren't all derived from the spirits of the dead in DnD. That's well established.



> Unlike demons then...supposedly! Do I reference Durzugons now or later?




Don't get all worked UK, they're half-fiends, not full blooded Baatezu. Baatezu females are sterile, thus Baatezu cannot normally breed more of their own kind. Baatezu males are fertile, and can and do breed with mortals to create half-fiends. No one ever said they didn't.

If you want to talk game mechanics, since that's your focus, Durzagons don't have Baatezu traits.



> Did somebody hear the word Durzugon just mentioned?




See above.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy mate! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And this was subsequently rewritten and has been for two editions. I know you love 1E material, but the game has since expanded on the material first established then.




I was replying specifically to Rips incorrect critique of 1st Edition, thats why I brought it up.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I fail to see how the Gord books are relevant here. They were published after Gygax left TSR and while they might provide insight into Gary's ideas on the planes and their denizens, it varies in some very significant ways from the planes and fiends of 2e and 3e. Interesting yes, but not relevant to this discussion.




What on Earth are you talking about! They are far more insightful and logical than that Planescape pap you keep touting, which, I could just as easily state is not relevant being 1.5 editions past its prime.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> We know you hate 2E with a fury I fail to understand as someone who didn't play till 3e.




My distaste of 2nd Edition stems primarily from its removal of deity stats, its fundamentalist placating ways and mucking about with what was an already logical cosmology.

Planescape I didn't like for two reasons, one, that it made the planes 'cuddly' by allowing low-level characters to traipse about. However, in saying that, if I had been in charge of Planescape I would have done exactly the same thing, so I uderstand the design decision, but that doesn't mean I have to personally like it. The second is its continuance of the 2nd Edition deity agenda which helped no one.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Any discussion on such things ultimately boils down to you stating that 1E roXXors,




Its the only edition with the logical cosmology as far as I can see.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> 2e was an abomination,




2nd Edition was pretty much first edition with all the deities and demon lords physically removed. Given that our group were playing in an epic, and later an immortal campaign, its no wonder I see 2nd Edition as D&D's Dark Ages.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> and what 3e largely embraced from 2e also sucks




3rd Edition hasn't borrowed anything I hated from 2nd Edition as far as I can tell. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> and which you hate, ignore, and largely aren't wholly familiar with.




I'm familiar with 2nd Edition/Planescape, I just don't live by it, like you. I don't have every Planescape supplement, but I have enough to know I don't like it that much.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's an edition war with you anytime we talk about planar material, and I really don't care to keep falling back into this.




I don't see it as anything to do with editions as much as it has to do with logic and practicality.

2nd editions treatment of deities (and to an extent its cosmology) is simply not practical for anyone who wants to use deities in a physical capacity.

3rd Edition had the right ideas (the stats approach) but its execution was lacking (no rules for how to become an immortal for instance, among numerous other faults). 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Yet I do. *lament*




I don't see why you have cause for lamenting...you're not still upset about that whole 'kosmically' business are you?  



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> As you've made clear time after time. It 'oppresses' you.




Funnily enough the only time I ever have to make such a thing 'clear' is when I have been replying to 'hater' comments about stats for gods from you or your insidious confederates.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> There's no reason to whine about this here in this thread, it's off topic and irrelevant.




I wasn't going to bring it up until Rip started with his "we don't need stats, use your imagination and make them up yourself *for God's sake*!" diatribe.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> *amused eyebrow* O...K...




Is that your Roger Moore impression? (The actor not the editor I mean)



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> As opposed to the current fit?




I'm merely defending immortal gaming from your embittered allies remarks.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I'm not familiar with your own personal houserules on this topic here, but they aren't all derived from the spirits of the dead in DnD. That's well established.




Well established in Planescape I would envision perhaps, but I don't use that work as my gospel.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Don't get all worked UK, they're half-fiends, not full blooded Baatezu. Baatezu females are sterile, thus Baatezu cannot normally breed more of their own kind. Baatezu males are fertile, and can and do breed with mortals to create half-fiends. No one ever said they didn't.
> 
> If you want to talk game mechanics, since that's your focus, Durzagons don't have Baatezu traits.




I've stated many times that fiends ability to produce offspring (while unnecessary in my opinion) is of no consequence beyond whether or not it can be used to gain an advantage in resources by the planar rulers. Which even Rip seems to agree it cannot. But he keeps bringing the matter up, so I didn't want to seem impolite by not replying to that particular point after he'd taken the time to post on it.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What on Earth are you talking about! They are far more insightful and logical than that Planescape pap you keep touting,




Except in the context of this entire thread the Planescape material is one of the primary sources whereas the Gord novels aren't even on the table for more than one reason. What on earth am I talking about? I don't even think that WotC could use them as sources for legal reasons, completely outside of their being in a different continuity of the planes than 2e or 3e.



> Planescape I didn't like for two reasons, one, that it made the planes 'cuddly' by allowing low-level characters to traipse about.




You're not that familiar with it then. It didn't have them traipsing about anywhere that was violently hostile till they could actually handle it, or avoid overt dangers. It wasn't anywhere remotely as 'cuddly' as you might like to characterize it as.



> 3rd Edition hasn't borrowed anything I hated from 2nd Edition as far as I can tell.




You've expressed distate for PS beyond the reasons you cite as hating 2e for, it borders of kneejerk.

And most of the 3e Manual of the Planes, the Planar Handbook, the planar information and sample locations therein in the 3.5 DMG, and a whole host of monsters are direct imports from Planescape.



> I'm familiar with 2nd Edition/Planescape, I just don't live by it, like you. I don't have every Planescape supplement, but I have enough to know I don't like it that much.




*shrug* You've said before that you haven't read certain books, including some that have been repeatedly referenced in this thread. And yes, I do in fact differ in some ways from a direct Planescape interpretation of the planes, perhaps that surprises you. But that doesn't entirely matter in this thread since we're not talking about house rules, be they mine or yours, but about the Tanar'ri and other Abyssal fiends as they exist and have been developed through the close to 30 years of DnD.




> I don't see it as anything to do with editions as much as it has to do with logic and practicality.




You make it an edition war as soon as you can most of the time, because what you personally profess to like and what the game must have, you only find within one edition, and you then condemn the others as irrational and lacking in logic. You're like the Diaglo of the 1e deity stat paradigm. No offense to Diaglo who is rather cool.



> I don't see why you have cause for lamenting...you're not still upset about that whole 'kosmically' business are you?




I'm lamenting because I'm wasting time arguing with you. Upset? You've never seen me upset. This is a message board, I don't get upset over it.




> Funnily enough the only time I ever have to make such a thing 'clear' is when I have been replying to 'hater' comments about stats for gods from you or your insidious confederates.




I have 'insidious confederates'? Cool! That's awesome!




> I'm merely defending immortal gaming from your embittered allies remarks.




I thought I had 'insidious confederates'. Or are they 'embittered allies'? You're taking this way too seriously UK. We're not out to get you, we're not out to oppress you, lighten up. Though admittedly I wish I had the masses of internet cronies I'm made out to have, they'd be useful.   




> Well established in Planescape I would envision perhaps, but I don't use that work as my gospel.




Very obviously not. But for the purposes of this thread that you don't use it doesn't exactly matter in the slightest.


----------



## Nightfall

*waits for Shemmy and Krusty to notice him*


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> If you control an infinite number of demons then just hide behind them and no one can ever defeat you, nor could anyone ever take your layer away from you, a single battle could last eternity.




You can't hide behind an infinity, only the number of troops you can muster within a given length of time - troops you have to keep amused and occupied or they'll simply leave. 



> Well, basically what you were saying was there should be no stats for gods simply because you don't want them. Which is tantamount to telling people they can't have Psionics or Eberron, unless you want them.




He (and I) were expressing a preference, just like the pro-stat crowd is free to express their preferences. Nobody was telling anyone they couldn't have anything - we have neither the authority nor the desire. 



> How is Orcus city, for example, overtly hazardous?




In Naratyr, the air is dangerously thin (outsiders need to breathe), the climate is terribly cold (even tanar'ri are vulnerable if it becomes cold enough), the streets are filled with demons and undead, and even demons fear the undercity. They may be unexpectedly drained of their life levels, and the biggest hazard may be Orcus himself.

Also note that, strictly according to the rules, any demons in Thanatos (or any plane with the minor negative-dominant trait) take 1d6 points of damage a round until they turn into ash, since outsiders are vulnerable to negative energy and energy attacks bypass damage reduction. Technically, every demon in Thanatos should be dead due to the hostility of the planar layer. We have to ignore that, of course, but it's still a great example of how even the most "civilized" parts of the Abyss can be dangerous to the Abyss' natives.

But Naratyr was easy. With Zelatar and Samora (in Azzagrat) I'd have to be more creative and subtle. But my point is that if any place in the Abyss is safe for anyone but the rulers of the layers (and not even always then) the DM is slacking. It's a place of chaos and unexpected dangers, more than the rulebooks can possibly list. Demons survive and thrive in the Abyss in spite of its hazards, not because they can ignore them. 

The Abyss ain't Iraq. It's much, much worse.



> There is a lack of precedents on both sides. Its up to the people who want practical rules at these power levels to adopt something that works for them, not bewilder them with sophistry.




Only on your side, actually, which is ironic as you're the only one complaining about precedent. If I occasionally use sophistic techniques, it's only in situations where formal logic doesn't apply. Your own mastery of logic leaves much to be desired with your numerous nonsequiturs and unjustified assumptions, and your weird paranoid flights of fancy like the idea that lone gamers can (or even would) tell people they can't have statistics for their gods. 

The point is, things like infinite planes and breeding fiends _work_, and they work at any power level. If you need to know that Mephistopheles has precisely 666,666 troops available and Demogorgon has precisely one hundred times that, then that's what they have and the Planescape cosmology explains this as well or better than yours does. 



> Kosmos refers to the combined material and spiritual universes, as opposed to cosmos which only refers to the material universe.




That works, and I understand some writers' desire to seperate metaphysics from astronomy, but "cosmos" can actually refer to the spiritual universe as well and does so in most texts. Particularly when discussing "D&D," which refers to a planar "cosmology" (not a "kosmology"), I think simply saying "cosmically" is more appropriate, though in the particular context you use it I would probably say "metaphysically" instead. 



> Well then how come deities control their realms (even though they don't necessarily encompass whole layers)?




Divine realms override the nature of the layer they're on, burning away the layer's own sentience and replacing it with the god's own. Realms are an extension of the deity and there is no conflict of personality. 

Planar rulers instead join with their layers in symbiosis. The layer influences the personality of its ruler and vice versa, each changing the nature of the other. In the Abyss, there may occasionally be battles of will, while in the lawful planes the layers obey their assigned masters.



> So then what you are saying is that each demon prince realm (the occupied portion of it) is finite anyway! There is no practical benefit to controlling the region outside this area. How is that any different to what I suggest with the kosmically localised areas?




For one, it's a lot simpler to just say the demon controls the layer than to mess about with hypothetical parallel cosmologies coexisting in the same planar layer. 

And there is a great benefit to controlling the entire layer: the ruler gains control over - and a limited omniscience within - the shape and content of an infinite expanse of space. This makes little difference in game terms, but it's nice for the demon, and you're taking that away in order to "solve" something that isn't even a problem. 

The main problem that your "localized" cosmology resolves is the dilemna of an infinite number of material planar worlds - how does Orcus deal with all of them at once? 

There are actually a number of simpler solutions, however.

1. Orcus only has influence over a few worlds. Other demon lords deal with the others. Orcus, then, would only be one of the three most powerful lords of the Abyss from the perspective of the known worlds. The problem with this theory is that while there are a potentially infinite number of Abyssal lords, there are only nine lords of Hell. We can postulate further eladrin queens, other Primuses, and an endless number of yugoloth paragons, but there is definitely only one archdevil per layer - the devil and his layer are one. We would have to postulate "kosmically localized" groups of nine Hells, so this is pretty much your solution.

2. The other simple solution is to say that yes, Orcus and his ilk _do_ have infinite resources and infinite armies, which he is able to deploy in an infinite number of arenas at once. Any single army will be finite, however, because his infinite troops will be infinitely busy. There are an infinite number of portals leading to Thanatos, and Orcus needs someone guarding each one. If he deploys too many troops to defend any one portal, another Abyssal lord can invade one of the more weakly-defended positions. In this cosmos planar lords _need_ infinite resources, where deities do not. This is like Michael Moorcock's system where Arioch, Donblas and the other Lords of Law and Chaos appear in different incarnations and aspects on every world in the infinite multiverse.

3. You can just say there aren't an infinite number of worlds - the Material Plane is infinite, but the number of worlds on it are finite. This is the assumption I make in my arguments, just for simplicity's sake. I don't actually have any problem with option #2 except it gives me a little bit of a headache to think about such vastness. 

_There's_ something you didn't understand about my arguments! They were based on one arbitrary assumption among, as I count them, three. I'll happily argue #2 with you instead - it's basically the same as #3 (with number not being the most important quality and any one engagement being between finite groups), but on a larger scale. 

I will agree that it would be pretty much impossible to _play_ Orcus using cosmology #2 - in such a game you could play gods, overgods, Eternals or whatever you like, but you can't play the lords of the infinite planes. You can fight off their hordes, you can weaken them (by weakening their alignment), you can ally with one against another, and you can even destroy them in personal combat - being infinitely busy doesn't mean they're immune to all harm, although given that a literally infinite number of assassins is going after them at once some pretty extraordinary means will be required - but they can't be PCs. Fights between lords of the same plane - Demogorgon versus Orcus, for example - are a different matter. Demogorgon doesn't have to exterminate every one of Orcus' minions, only show Orcus' weakness by defeating 

So _now_ I think we finally understand one another. You're working under Assumption #1, which requires either "kosmic" ghettoes within each layer (your method), entirely seperate cosmologies for worlds or groups of worlds (the standard 3rd edition method), or "kosmically localized" groups of layers (another possible method - so there would be, for example, 666 layers of the Abyss and 9 layers of Hell accessible from Alloryia and perhaps a different 666 Abysses and 9 Hells accessible from Karanblade in the same Great Ring. Ghettoizing cosmologies like this has its own host of logical paradoxes and conundrums if you allow them to interact at all.

I work under assumptions #2 or #3 (effectively #3, as most people do - few people bother to worry about infinite worlds bombarding the same planar layers at once because there's really no reason to give yourself that kind of headache and it saves on complicated cosmological hacks) but I think, keeping in mind that #2 is much less tested than #3, they're both perfectly self-consistent.


----------



## BOZ

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Except in the context of this entire thread the Planescape material is one of the primary sources whereas the Gord novels aren't even on the table for more than one reason. What on earth am I talking about? I don't even think that WotC could use them as sources for legal reasons, completely outside of their being in a different continuity of the planes than 2e or 3e.




a-yup.  gary would have to give them permission, and i don't see him doing that any time soon.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The (1st Ed.) Monster Manual never said he *wasn't* a deity.




Heh. It didn't say kobolds weren't deities either - obviously that's not a very good line of reasoning. Being a deity seems worth mentioning.



> Actually, according to (1st Ed.) Manual of the Planes there were no Greater Powers (or Intermediate Powers) dwelling in the Abyss because they would constantly have to contend with the demons.




Firstly, since greater deities are capable of planar travel at will, this is irrelevant. Secondly, Set was a greater deity who lived in the Nine Hells - why didn't he take them over? Thirdly, you're incorrect - the Manual of the Planes actually says "*Few* Greater Powers make the Abyss their home," which is very different from none.

You might want to brush up a little on 1st edition cosmology.



> As we can see from reading the Gord the Rogue books, in the face of an outside threat, the demons will grudgingly band together to combat and expel the interloper (a facet of their inherantly racist nature).




Except we know they won't always, since there are a number of deities dwelling in the Abyss - Vaprak, Tou Mu, Lu Yueh, Laogzed, Urdlen, and Kali, to just name the 1st edition ones.

Demons aren't inherently racist - they mostly hate all things equally. Baatezu are racist; tanar'ri miscegenate freely and even with relish. They don't treat their half-breed offspring well, but they don't treat _anything_ well - what's important is that they don't kick things out just because they're not tanar'ri.



> What good is that going to do them when they are dead at the hands of their near-omnipotent divine adversary. Any intelligent deity (which is funny because they are all virtually omniscient in 2nd Ed.) is going to either destroy or otherwise expel the current ruler and then make their realm on his layer.




Only greater deities (and planar lords) were anything close to omniscient in 2nd edition - their nearest rivals, the intermediate gods, could only sense in a 100 mile radius or near their worshippers.

But you're right - the power to expel pantheons wasn't their only power; obviously, they had some sort of ability to protect themselves from divine attacks as well. It was vague, but vague is better than horribly broken, as 1st and 3rd edition are.



> What the heck was the point of them talking about 2nd Edition deities in that sort of physical capacity anyway




Because there was a concern about making a cosmos that made some sort of self-consistent sense as far as the relationship between deities and planar lords went - something that Gygax tried spiritedly to do, but never really managed.



> The point is that there are many campaigns out there who want to use deities in a physical capacity, and its bordering on a disgrace that you and your cohorts *continually* whine, hiss and moan about the matter.




Who are these "you and your cohorts?" Remember that _The Primal Order_ thread I contributed to, hawkeye? I've _never_ complained about divine-level campaigns!



> I don't throw a hissy fit




I do believe that's what you're doing right now, and I can't even tell what brought this on. We're trying to take your books away or something? 



> On his home plane he could personally hold his own against intermediate opposition, factor in all his major servants and its unlikely he would be defeated by such a threat.




Deities don't have servants? 



> So, just to clarify, why do these pantheon heads have a beef with Demogorgon again?




He's the titular prince of all demonkind, a handsome trophy by any standards. And he's a major force of evil - his defeat would be a great triumph for the forces of Good. Demons, who respect only strength (and are not particularly racist), might well serve the one who defeated their master. And gods don't always need reasons - mysterious ways, you know. 

Asmodeus, as the uncontested ruler of an entire plane, is an even more tempting target. Hextor would have offed him long ago in your cosmology.



> Theres nothing arbitrary about it. It links the outer planes directly to each prime material world, because its the dead spirits of that particular world who become demons, devils etc. in the first place.




The outer planes are linked to the various worlds by astral conduits. So where do the invisible walls come from? It's the invisible walls that are the arbitrary part.



> Do I reference Durzugons now or later?




Better wait till later, when I mention the fact that only female baatezu are sterile - durzugons have baatezu fathers. Better yet, when you read that part, you can go back and edit this last line so you don't look quite so foolish. 



> It could be the products of a continual mass orgy.




Sure, but remember that anything a mass of demons do is going to be more destructive as it is creative - it can be a continually mass orgy of slaughter mixed with the occasional procreation.



> So are you saying now that universal balance cannot be upset?




No, I didn't say that. In fact, that's what the fiends are counting on. They _believe_ they can win against every other race - but to do that, they have to upset the Balance.



> You make it sound as if actual physical combat between demon princes or their armies is irrelevant.




No, physical combat is the agent by which the job is completed. Demogorgon and his armies might grow stronger than the legions of Azzagrat, but this won't do him much good until he tries them out.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Except in the context of this entire thread the Planescape material is one of the primary sources whereas the Gord novels aren't even on the table for more than one reason.




Its already been well established in 3rd Edition that deities (and by extension demon princes, archdevils) are nothing like their Planescape incarnations.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> What on earth am I talking about? I don't even think that WotC could use them as sources for legal reasons, completely outside of their being in a different continuity of the planes than 2e or 3e.




You don't have to copy anything verbatim to adopt the inherant logic behind their approach.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> You're not that familiar with it then. It didn't have them traipsing about anywhere that was violently hostile till they could actually handle it, or avoid overt dangers. It wasn't anywhere remotely as 'cuddly' as you might like to characterize it as.




But compared to 1st Edition the planes were cuddly. The planes were practically no more dangerous than the prime material worlds - which sort of makes a mockery of Rips idea that it would be such a hostile place even the demons are dropping like flies, let alone the mortal visitors.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> You've expressed distate for PS beyond the reasons you cite as hating 2e for, it borders of kneejerk.




Its hardly kneejerk - I've played 2nd Edition, by your own admission, you haven't.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And most of the 3e Manual of the Planes, the Planar Handbook, the planar information and sample locations therein in the 3.5 DMG, and a whole host of monsters are direct imports from Planescape.




I have already stated that I have no problems with anything imported (so far) from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition. Its got limitless epic levelling, stats for gods and is not shy about calling a demon just that.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> *shrug* You've said before that you haven't read certain books, including some that have been repeatedly referenced in this thread.




Well as far as I know the only book mentioned so far, that I haven't read, has been Faces of Evil and based on what you have told me about it I am somewhat glad of that.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And yes, I do in fact differ in some ways from a direct Planescape interpretation of the planes, perhaps that surprises you.




How?



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> But that doesn't entirely matter in this thread since we're not talking about house rules, be they mine or yours, but about the Tanar'ri and other Abyssal fiends as they exist and have been developed through the close to 30 years of DnD.




Well I think House Rules are important in this instance, because remember, there are very few people happy with how 3rd Edition fits the demon princes and archdevils into its cosmology. Which is what most of the discussion is revolving around.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> You make it an edition war as soon as you can most of the time,




You keep making this point, and I keep trying to explain to you its about the practicality of the idea thats important, not whichever edition it ascribes to.

2nd Edition/Planescape is not practical for supporting epic/immortal level play, nor was it an entirely practical cosmology. Now not everyone plays epic/immortal games, which is fair enough, but no one gains anything from the statless deity approach, theres no net gain from it at all! Saying that their absence 'preserves the mystery' is just utter hogwash! To me, Eberron is a mystery, because I don't own that book. But if I want to learn about Eberron and how to apply it practically to my campaign, I simply need to buy that book.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> because what you personally profess to like and what the game must have, you only find within one edition, and you then condemn the others as irrational and lacking in logic. You're like the Diaglo of the 1e deity stat paradigm. No offense to Diaglo who is rather cool.




I'll take that as a compliment. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I'm lamenting because I'm wasting time arguing with you.




If anyones wasting time its me, given that you both reply to my posts to the other (as well as yourselves), so I find myself having to reply to the same point in stereo.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Upset? You've never seen me upset. This is a message board, I don't get upset over it.




Glad to hear it.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I have 'insidious confederates'? Cool! That's awesome!




You learn something new everyday...and you thought you were wasting your time arguing with me, eh! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I thought I had 'insidious confederates'. Or are they 'embittered allies'? You're taking this way too seriously UK.




Not at all, I am having a ball.   



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> We're not out to get you, we're not out to oppress you, lighten up. Though admittedly I wish I had the masses of internet cronies I'm made out to have, they'd be useful.




I suspect you are only looking out for your own interests, however, your interests don't work in tandem with mine, even though mine do work in tandem with yours.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Very obviously not. But for the purposes of this thread that you don't use it doesn't exactly matter in the slightest.




It gives a counterpoise to your comments, so clearly it has its purpose.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Nightfall said:
			
		

> *waits for Shemmy and Krusty to notice him*




Oi! Hiya Nightfall matey! 

I saw your post, though it seemed more of a statement rather than a question, and with me still having to deal with the terrible twins here, I decided against a reply.

Hope you are keeping well, or at least as well as can be in this post-Scarred Lands wasteland of a world?


----------



## IcyCool

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I saw your post, though it seemed more of a statement rather than a question, and with me still having to deal with the terrible twins here, I decided against a reply.




I'm just curious UK, is there a reason you feel you need to resort to name calling to try to win your arguement?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You can't hide behind an infinity, only the number of troops you can muster within a given length of time - troops you have to keep amused and occupied or they'll simply leave.




The idea assumed you had a rival demon princes army attacking. With an infinite number of troops (each) the two armies keep crashing against each other for an eternity.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In Naratyr, the air is dangerously thin (outsiders need to breathe), the climate is terribly cold (even tanar'ri are vulnerable if it becomes cold enough), the streets are filled with demons and undead, and even demons fear the undercity. They may be unexpectedly drained of their life levels, and the biggest hazard may be Orcus himself.
> 
> Also note that, strictly according to the rules, any demons in Thanatos (or any plane with the minor negative-dominant trait) take 1d6 points of damage a round until they turn into ash, since outsiders are vulnerable to negative energy and energy attacks bypass damage reduction. Technically, every demon in Thanatos should be dead due to the hostility of the planar layer. We have to ignore that, of course, but it's still a great example of how even the most "civilized" parts of the Abyss can be dangerous to the Abyss' natives.
> 
> But Naratyr was easy.




Agreed, reading over 1st Edition Manual of the Planes it appears that the great majority of the inhabitants of Orcus plane are indeed undead.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> With Zelatar and Samora (in Azzagrat) I'd have to be more creative and subtle.




Absolutely.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> But my point is that if any place in the Abyss is safe for anyone but the rulers of the layers (and not even always then) the DM is slacking. It's a place of chaos and unexpected dangers, more than the rulebooks can possibly list.




I'm sure they only touch on the idea rather than define it.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Demons survive and thrive in the Abyss in spite of its hazards, not because they can ignore them.




Exactly, and as a rule they generally adapt to their environment.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The Abyss ain't Iraq. It's much, much worse.




The point was, that if people don't thrive in an area they won't gather in it.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Only on your side, actually, which is ironic as you're the only one complaining about precedent. If I occasionally use sophistic techniques, it's only in situations where formal logic doesn't apply. Your own mastery of logic leaves much to be desired with your numerous nonsequiturs and unjustified assumptions, and your weird paranoid flights of fancy like the idea that lone gamers can (or even would) tell people they can't have statistics for their gods.




A few posts ago you told me to 'make them up and use my imagination for God's sake', or was that just a flight of fancy?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The point is, things like infinite planes and breeding fiends _work_, and they work at any power level. If you need to know that Mephistopheles has precisely 666,666 troops available and Demogorgon has precisely one hundred times that, then that's what they have and the Planescape cosmology explains this as well or better than yours does.




Breeding fiends work in so far as the idea can't be used to a planar rulers advantage - in that I agree with you.

Infinite planes and layers work, my beef is more with the idea of infinite realms. Even assuming the demon princes do control their layers infinitude, the idea is totally impractical because they don't have infinite resources to populate it. Which means that, at best they populate an infinitely small fraction of their layer. So propagating the idea is redundant. Even if we entertain the notion, it doesn't benefit us in anyway. No one can ever map out an entire infinite layer.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That works, and I understand some writers' desire to seperate metaphysics from astronomy, but "cosmos" can actually refer to the spiritual universe as well and does so in most texts. Particularly when discussing "D&D," which refers to a planar "cosmology" (not a "kosmology"), I think simply saying "cosmically" is more appropriate, though in the particular context you use it I would probably say "metaphysically" instead.




I am sure there are any number of words that could be used. I fail to see how one, in this case, is worse than another. I think kosmic (and its derivatives) is an interesting word.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Divine realms override the nature of the layer they're on, burning away the layer's own sentience and replacing it with the god's own. Realms are an extension of the deity and there is no conflict of personality.
> 
> Planar rulers instead join with their layers in symbiosis. The layer influences the personality of its ruler and vice versa, each changing the nature of the other. In the Abyss, there may occasionally be battles of will, while in the lawful planes the layers obey their assigned masters.




But is there any reason why, say for instance, a demon prince could not choose to create a realm in the same fashion as a deity.

I quite liked the idea that they 'burn it away' - nice. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> For one, it's a lot simpler to just say the demon controls the layer than to mess about with hypothetical parallel cosmologies coexisting in the same planar layer.




But thats the main crux of it, to allow an infinite number of cosmologies to co-exist.

For instance, you could travel to the Warhammer World or any number of Moorcockian Planets and become aware of their particular Gods of Chaos. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And there is a great benefit to controlling the entire layer: the ruler gains control over - and a limited omniscience within - the shape and content of an infinite expanse of space. This makes little difference in game terms, but it's nice for the demon, and you're taking that away in order to "solve" something that isn't even a problem.




I don't see it solving anything practical though. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The main problem that your "localized" cosmology resolves is the dilemna of an infinite number of material planar worlds - how does Orcus deal with all of them at once?




Why would he be aware of them all? Or more to the point why would they be aware of him necessarily!? I think, as with Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits, the more powerful princes are known on a number of worlds (it was about 8 or so mentioned for Lolth for instance), one or two of which they may actually have conquered, in others they may be allied with one nation, in yet others they may only have token investment.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> There are actually a number of simpler solutions, however.
> 
> 1. Orcus only has influence over a few worlds. Other demon lords deal with the others. Orcus, then, would only be one of the three most powerful lords of the Abyss from the perspective of the known worlds.




We know that demons do not necessarily, as a rule, have a monopoly on any given planet, so I wouldn't go along with this approach.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The problem with this theory is that while there are a potentially infinite number of Abyssal lords, there are only nine lords of Hell.




I would challenge that infinite number of Abyssal Lords theory. I think the 66 princes (incorporating the 6 monarchs) and 666 Lords is enough.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> We can postulate further eladrin queens, other Primuses, and an endless number of yugoloth paragons, but there is definitely only one archdevil per layer - the devil and his layer are one. We would have to postulate "kosmically localized" groups of nine Hells, so this is pretty much your solution.




We could, but I don't think it is necessary. I would incorporate numerology into this sort of exercise, but of course there is nothing to say that all kosmically localised areas have the same number of layers. There may be four hells (north, south, east, west - as per Goetia) in some for instance.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> 2. The other simple solution is to say that yes, Orcus and his ilk _do_ have infinite resources and infinite armies, which he is able to deploy in an infinite number of arenas at once. Any single army will be finite, however, because his infinite troops will be infinitely busy. There are an infinite number of portals leading to Thanatos, and Orcus needs someone guarding each one. If he deploys too many troops to defend any one portal, another Abyssal lord can invade one of the more weakly-defended positions. In this cosmos planar lords _need_ infinite resources, where deities do not.




If we use this scenario it doesn't really lend itself to any practical applications (as you yourself agree below).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> This is like Michael Moorcock's system where Arioch, Donblas and the other Lords of Law and Chaos appear in different incarnations and aspects on every world in the infinite multiverse.




Surely the kosmically localised system is more akin to this idea?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> 3. You can just say there aren't an infinite number of worlds - the Material Plane is infinite, but the number of worlds on it are finite. This is the assumption I make in my arguments, just for simplicity's sake.




This is sort of the assumption I would also make, although I wouldn't necessarily say the universe is technically infinite, but I would say that its so big that debating the point is moot.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I don't actually have any problem with option #2 except it gives me a little bit of a headache to think about such vastness.




Now you are seeing my point.  



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> _There's_ something you didn't understand about my arguments! They were based on one arbitrary assumption among, as I count them, three.




For me, this post has been the most interesting of our recent _tete-a-tetes_.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I'll happily argue #2 with you instead - it's basically the same as #3 (with number not being the most important quality and any one engagement being between finite groups), but on a larger scale.
> 
> I will agree that it would be pretty much impossible to _play_ Orcus using cosmology #2 - in such a game you could play gods, overgods, Eternals or whatever you like, but you can't play the lords of the infinite planes. You can fight off their hordes, you can weaken them (by weakening their alignment), you can ally with one against another, and you can even destroy them in personal combat - being infinitely busy doesn't mean they're immune to all harm, although given that a literally infinite number of assassins is going after them at once some pretty extraordinary means will be required - but they can't be PCs. Fights between lords of the same plane - Demogorgon versus Orcus, for example - are a different matter. Demogorgon doesn't have to exterminate every one of Orcus' minions, only show Orcus' weakness by defeating




Ideally you want all such beings to be able to interact (epic PCs, deities, planar lords etc.) if you are going to bother with such levels of power in the first place.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> So _now_ I think we finally understand one another.




Pretty much, yes.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You're working under Assumption #1, which requires either "kosmic" ghettoes within each layer (your method), entirely seperate cosmologies for worlds or groups of worlds (the standard 3rd edition method), or "kosmically localized" groups of layers (another possible method - so there would be, for example, 666 layers of the Abyss and 9 layers of Hell accessible from Alloryia and perhaps a different 666 Abysses and 9 Hells accessible from Karanblade in the same Great Ring.




Thinking about it, you could still have the realm infinite (although the populated area of the realm would still be finite) using the kosmically localised approach, however once a second kosmology became known, the realms would conjoin (two infinities are still infinite after all).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Ghettoizing cosmologies like this has its own host of logical paradoxes and conundrums if you allow them to interact at all.




Possibly, but at least everything will be of a finite size, so at least we can deal with it practically.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I work under assumptions #2 or #3 (effectively #3, as most people do - few people bother to worry about infinite worlds bombarding the same planar layers at once because there's really no reason to give yourself that kind of headache and it saves on complicated cosmological hacks) but I think, keeping in mind that #2 is much less tested than #3, they're both perfectly self-consistent.




Agreed. The complications only arise when you actually need to start explaining it for immortal characters (encompassing demon lords, deities, elemental masters and so forth), which obviously you don't really need to do unless they are going to be used in a physical capacity. So its something you can easily ignore up to that point.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey IcyCool! 



			
				IcyCool said:
			
		

> I'm just curious UK, is there a reason you feel you need to resort to name calling to try to win your arguement?




A bit of light-hearted banter here and there is only intended to lighten the atmosphere not offend anyone. Shemmy, Rip and I know each other pretty well (longtime online sparring partners) and I would certainly like to think none of us take offence at anything the others typed. I certainly apologise if any of my comments have offended either.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> is there any reason why, say for instance, a demon prince could not choose to create a realm in the same fashion as a deity.
> I quite liked the idea that they 'burn it away' - nice.




A good portion of the prince's power comes from the layer. If the prince  "burns away" the layer's sentience - effectively killing it - and replaces it with its own power, it would mean a dramatic weakening. The demon would have to live like a god, gaining power only from souls, worship, sacrifice, portfolio, and reputation. The being would no longer be a personification of  the Abyss, only a god like any other. Any power drawn from the layer would only be a feedback loop, divine power empowering the same divine power, rather than forces drawn from chaotic and evil acts throughout the multiverse.

It's possible for an entity to be both a demon and a god - as Orcus was - gaining power from both worship and the Abyss. There's not really any reason for such a being to choose to give up demonic power and become only divine. The Abyss is eternal, but worship is fleeting.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Its already been well established in 3rd Edition that deities (and by extension demon princes, archdevils) are nothing like their Planescape incarnations.




They're virtually identical now to their 2e incarnations save for the fact that they've been given stats. The flavor, the important stuff, hasn't changed in any real appreciable way. They're still the unquestioned rulers of their respective planes, and the deities who inhabit these planes don't argue the fact so long as their own domains are left alone. It's just that now since they have stat blocks that tend to be longer than their descriptions, they no longer cleanly fit into their notches on the planes as they did previously. But this verges on another argument for another time, and there's multiple ways to handle it, so let's avoid that tangent.




> But compared to 1st Edition the planes were cuddly. The planes were practically no more dangerous than the prime material worlds - which sort of makes a mockery of Rips idea that it would be such a hostile place even the demons are dropping like flies, let alone the mortal visitors.




They weren't necessarily hostile back then, they were just ill described and largely not elaborated upon greatly, and treated in a very different manner than since then. For the most part they were treated as extraplanar dungeons, and while you can conceivably still treat them as such, their elaboration in 2e and the continuation of that in 3e has made them less that than the alignments made manifest, places of horror and beauty, places of the greatest and worst of the multiverse taken flesh in sometimes familiar and sometimes alien fashion, the battlegrounds of the alignments where above all, belief is power. 

It's grown beyond its roots, but those roots are still there if you want to have that sort of focus in your game. The way the planes have gone and developed since then doesn't prevent you from using them in the way you want for epic gaming. It didn't go away since then, but the idea that only high level PCs could go to the planes was abandoned, though it's blatantly obvious that the planes are hideously dangerous and not to be taken lightly in the least way. In fact it was rather openly stated that if you approached the planes with a hack and slash kill everything that moves approach, you were going to end up very dead, very fast, simply because the denizens of the planes, especially the lower ones, were just that hostile and that deadly.

The danger was there, it was there perhaps more than it had been before, but you were advised to avoid it for the sake of keeping PCs alive for the sake of a long term campaign. The opening portions of the PS campaign box have some interesting advice on the subject and how to handle relatively lower level parties when you have the option of going to such hostile places. Regardless of level though, you aren't going to get away very long with approaching things with an 'I am mighty, I can kill it because I am the hero' point of view.




> Its hardly kneejerk - I've played 2nd Edition, by your own admission, you haven't.




I've never played using the actual 2e game mechanics, I didn't play DnD till 2000. I've played most of the 2e settings though, right from the 2e books, using 3e mechanics. That has to be one of the best things about said settings, be it Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, etc that most of the books were light enough on the rules that they're perfectly valid to plug right into a 3e game. Twenty years from now they'll still be useful in whatever system DnD is using, as opposed to some other books that you might find to be largely invalidated once their stat blocks no longer mesh with a new system.




> Well as far as I know the only book mentioned so far, that I haven't read, has been Faces of Evil and based on what you have told me about it I am somewhat glad of that.




I'm tempted to buy you a copy just to have you read it, and possibly change your mind on the topics it so beautifully covers. It really is a spectacularly written book, in my opinion the single best book on its topic so far written, and one of the best supplements in any edition of DnD.





> How?




I don't use any of the specific rules regarding alterations to cleric caster levels on different planes inrelation to the home plane of their deity, nor the rules that modified weapon +'s depending on the plane of their forging when you went to other planes. I've only rarely used the material on spell keys and power keys (only fully using them in a one shot evil game). And for better or for worse, I run the planes as post Faction War, which isn't always a popular thing among PS purists.

W/ regards to the setup of the planes themselves, I use Shadow as a full plane rather than a demiplane (which it was previous to 3e). That's the one cosmology alteration in 3e that I like, and I -really- like it. Beyond that I use an ordial plane, or have as valid the assumption of one, though it was a fan creation on mimir.net rather than from PS proper. I also utilize at least one partial sublayer of the Astral known as the House of Memory, which was created by Orri aka Orriloth aka one of the drunk guys at Hellhound's Suite that night at GenCon this year  Beyond that are a subtle but significant number of alterations to the prehistory of the lower planes, in specific I've gone out of my way to elaborate upon the role of, and personalities of, the various extant Baernaloths, and some of the lesser elaborated Abyssal Lords.

And FWIW, don't expect much out of me over the weekend, I'll be otherwise occupied.


----------



## IcyCool

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> A bit of light-hearted banter here and there is only intended to lighten the atmosphere not offend anyone. Shemmy, Rip and I know each other pretty well (longtime online sparring partners) and I would certainly like to think none of us take offence at anything the others typed. I certainly apologise if any of my comments have offended either.




Ah, I hadn't realized this sort of thing was common and accepted amongst you three.  I just hate to see someone resort to name calling in an otherwise interesting debate, as that usually kills the debate.

*shrug* Carry on then, soldier.


----------



## Nightfall

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Oi! Hiya Nightfall matey!
> 
> I saw your post, though it seemed more of a statement rather than a question, and with me still having to deal with the terrible twins here, I decided against a reply.
> 
> Hope you are keeping well, or at least as well as can be in this post-Scarred Lands wasteland of a world?




Sokay Krusty mate. I understand. I'm alright and planning on fixing the wrong done to SL by this wasteland approach.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Howdy Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Heh. It didn't say kobolds weren't deities either - obviously that's not a very good line of reasoning. Being a deity seems worth mentioning.




So is Tiamat not a deity then?

This all seems a bit needlessly nit-picky. It didn't mention it in the Monster Manuals (where it wasn't really necessary) but it mentions it in both Deities & Demigods and Manual of the Planes (where it was necessary).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Firstly, since greater deities are capable of planar travel at will, this is irrelevant.




Its not a matter of whether the deity can get there, its a matter of whether they can best the adversary in their home plane and, more to the point, whether they are willing to take the risk to do so.

You'll notice in the original stats that it remarks on Demogorgons enmity with Orcus. It doesn't talk of their enmity with a lone Vrock. Rivals require rivalry. Demogorgon is not the rival of anonymous greater deity 'y'. So theres no impetus for either to war with the other, its not a fire Demogorgon is likely to fuel.

Your idea that deities are always gunning for weaker deities as trophies doesn't add up, and neither is it something thats solved by making the likes of Demogorgon a greater deity, because he would still be prey to Overgods and so on and so forth.  

Theres also the notion that overarching deities of evil won't take kindly to upstart greater deities of elsewhere invading their 'turf'. Those sort of actions are going to lead to reprisals or all out war in some cases, unless there is an established enmity amongst the protagonists to begin with.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Secondly, Set was a greater deity who lived in the Nine Hells - why didn't he take them over?




One greater deity versus multiple lesser powers, I don't fancy his chances that much. In fact it actually states this in 1st edition Manual of the Planes!

"While a united devilkind is too powerful to defeat, they are not powerful enough or unified enough to launch a war and drive Set from 'their' Hells."



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Thirdly, you're incorrect - the Manual of the Planes actually says "*Few* Greater Powers make the Abyss their home," which is very different from none.




Well cropped. It actually says "Few Greater Powers make the Abyss their home, as they *would* have to continually deal with the upstart demon life that fills the plane."

Its perfectly clear that the sentence implies there are none, otherwise the word 'would', would be redundant.

It then goes on to list those deities who do have realms in the Abyss and confirms there are *no* greater deities amongst them!



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You might want to brush up a little on 1st edition cosmology.




I'll struggle on. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Except we know they won't always, since there are a number of deities dwelling in the Abyss - Vaprak, Tou Mu, Lu Yueh, Laogzed, Urdlen, and Kali, to just name the 1st edition ones.




None of which are even a remote threat to the demons stranglehold on power in the Abyss...and most of which probably are souped up demons anyway. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Demons aren't inherently racist - they mostly hate all things equally. Baatezu are racist; tanar'ri miscegenate freely and even with relish. They don't treat their half-breed offspring well, but they don't treat _anything_ well - what's important is that they don't kick things out just because they're not tanar'ri.




Unless they view them as a threat to their dominance.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Only greater deities (and planar lords) were anything close to omniscient in 2nd edition - their nearest rivals, the intermediate gods, could only sense in a 100 mile radius or near their worshippers.
> 
> But you're right - the power to expel pantheons wasn't their only power; obviously, they had some sort of ability to protect themselves from divine attacks as well. It was vague, but vague is better than horribly broken, as 1st and 3rd edition are.




1st Edition wasn't broken at all (see above). I agree with you about 3rd Edition though.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Because there was a concern about making a cosmos that made some sort of self-consistent sense as far as the relationship between deities and planar lords went - something that Gygax tried spiritedly to do, but never really managed.




On the contrary, he succeeded with aplomb.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Who are these "you and your cohorts?" Remember that _The Primal Order_ thread I contributed to, hawkeye? I've _never_ complained about divine-level campaigns!
> 
> I do believe that's what you're doing right now, and I can't even tell what brought this on. We're trying to take your books away or something?




I was only biting on the "make them yourself, use your imagination for God's sake" line.

So to take the mature stance...you started it!  



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Deities don't have servants?




Yes, but, as with their masters, they are going to be relatively weaker than the natives.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He's the titular prince of all demonkind, a handsome trophy by any standards. And he's a major force of evil - his defeat would be a great triumph for the forces of Good. Demons, who respect only strength (and are not particularly racist), might well serve the one who defeated their master.




The trophy idea isn't really that practical (see above).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And gods don't always need reasons - mysterious ways, you know.




Deities are not stupid, they are not likely to risk their very immortality on a whim.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Asmodeus, as the uncontested ruler of an entire plane, is an even more tempting target. Hextor would have offed him long ago in your cosmology.




Very unlikely. Even assuming Hextor's native layer was also the 9th (otherwise he'd have no chance at all), he would have to get past Asmodeus interior defenses and defenders before he got to Asmodeus anyway. With equal forces you would still be at a massive disadvantage because the defenders will have had centuries to prepare the defenses.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The outer planes are linked to the various worlds by astral conduits. So where do the invisible walls come from? It's the invisible walls that are the arbitrary part.




Agreed, but I don't think we need them now (see my previous post to you on this).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Better wait till later, when I mention the fact that only female baatezu are sterile - durzugons have baatezu fathers. Better yet, when you read that part, you can go back and edit this last line so you don't look quite so foolish.




I half suspected Planescape would concoct some arbitrary excuse for it. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> No, I didn't say that. In fact, that's what the fiends are counting on. They _believe_ they can win against every other race - but to do that, they have to upset the Balance.
> 
> No, physical combat is the agent by which the job is completed. Demogorgon and his armies might grow stronger than the legions of Azzagrat, but this won't do him much good until he tries them out.




So to win they have to upset the balance, but to upset the balance they have to win - it all seems a bit circular.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> So is Tiamat not a deity then?




She wasn't presented as one in the 1st edition Monster Manual, or the Greyhawk supplement before that. Both she and Bahamut were presented as non-divine creatures in the 2e Draconomicon, too. In 1st edition Deities & Demigods and the 1e Manual of the Planes she was given the powers of a lesser deity, as were all planar lords by default (and this, I would argue, was a retcon rather than their original interpretation), but it wasn't actually clear that she was a _goddess_ proper in the same sense as Zeus and Thor until _Monster Mythology_ came out in 2nd edition and defined these things, unless you associated them completely with Paladine and Takhisis.

In first edition the idea was, more or less, if you rule a layer of a plane you automatically get the powers of a lesser god. I'm not sure this made them _actual_ gods necessarily - TSR went back and forth on that. The 1e Manual of the Planes always said _treated as_ a deity rather than _is_ a deity. 1e Deities & Demigods didn't make that distinction. In second edition a variety of approaches were tried - like I said, the Draconomicon made Bahamut and Tiamat non-divine "Racial Paragons." Monster Mythology made a number of the 1st editon Abyssal lords actual lesser deities, with worshippers and everything, while Planes of Chaos made others "quasi-deities," almost but not quite divine. The Lords of the Nine Dragon Magazine article defined the archdevils as being equivalent or greater in power than the gods, but different in nature.

And WotC continues to go back and forth on this issue to this day. Tiamat is definitely a goddess, but Bahamut's divine status in the Forgotten Realms is unclear. Orcus appeared as a god in the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting and in Ghostwalk but has appeared as a sub-god in the Book of Vile Darkness and subsequently.

I expect - some glorious day - things will stabilize and we'll have planar lords that can adequately defend their realms against attack.



> Demogorgon is not the rival of anonymous greater deity 'y'. So theres no impetus for either to war with the other, its not a fire Demogorgon is likely to fuel.




That's silly and short-sighted. He's chaotic evil and ambitious. He's one of the most prominent rulers of the Abyss. His plans are _going_ to contradict someone else's eventually. It's stupid to design a cosmology that will fall apart when that day comes - as, logically, it has before and will again.

The Monster Manual said he was a rival of Orcus, but that's not going to be his only rival. The Monster Manual II introduced Graz'zt, and said that he was Demogorgon's rival too. In the Gord books Demogorgon allies with Nerull and opposes a third of the other rulers of the Abyss. Politics are messy and shifting, in the Abyss as much as anywhere else. 



> Your idea that deities are always gunning for weaker deities as trophies doesn't add up




Sure, it does, when the trophy is as impressive as Demogorgon is. You can't just say something doesn't add up without justifying your claim.



> and neither is it something thats solved by making the likes of Demogorgon a greater deity, because he would still be prey to Overgods and so on and so forth.




"Overgods" ought to be powerless outside the crystal spheres they guard, as they were in Planescape. Gods who ascend beyond greater status end up on a new plane of reality as far distant from the Outer Planes as the Outer Planes are from the Material. It's only when you have an infinite hierarchy in the same Great Ring that you run into trouble.



> Theres also the notion that overarching deities of evil won't take kindly to upstart greater deities of elsewhere invading their 'turf'.




There shouldn't _be_ any overarching deities of evil other than the fiendish lords - they're the ones who personify the alignments, not ordinary deities. Demogorgon, Apomps, Mydianchlarus, the General of Gehenna, and Asmodeus are the ones who punish upstart greater deities, or upstart deities who claim to be "overarching deities of evil" - because the turf is always truly theirs.



> "While a united devilkind is too powerful to defeat, they are not powerful enough or unified enough to launch a war and drive Set from 'their' Hells."




Well, exactly. Set's victory is assured by the fact that devilkind isn't united. Think of it this way - both Baalzebul and Mephistopheles want the throne of Hell more than anything. Set allies with one of them and together they oust Asmodeus. In gratitude, Set is given Stygia for his own. Why hasn't this happened? 



> Well cropped. It actually says "Few Greater Powers make the Abyss their home, as they *would* have to continually deal with the upstart demon life that fills the plane."
> 
> Its perfectly clear that the sentence implies there are none, otherwise the word 'would', would be redundant.




Um, no. "Few" means there are few of them, not that there are none of them. There is no sense in which the word "few" means "none at all" - that's just not one of the definitions of the word. Few is relative, sure - it might mean only two, or "only" a few hundred (depending on how many gods of other ranks there are in the Abyss).  But it's not so relative that it can mean anything you want it to mean.

The word "would," in this context, means that the greater gods who choose not to dwell in the Abyss would have to contend with the tanar'ri, if they indeed chose to dwell there. "They" refers to those greater gods who have decided not to dwell in the Demonium, not those who have - obviously they _do_ continually deal with upstart demon life, as the demons themselves do.



> It then goes on to list those deities who do have realms in the Abyss and confirms there are *no* greater deities amongst them




The gods who appeared in _Deities & Demigods_ were hardly the only gods in the multiverse even at the time that book was published. Note that no Greyhawk-specific gods were mentioned in that book, few or no Forgotten Realms gods were mentioned, few Dragonlance gods were mentioned, and there were many deities who appeared in _Gods, Demigods, and Heroes_ (D&Dg's predecessor) that weren't mentioned later, many deities from Dragon Magazine, and deities from everyone's personal campaigns. 



> None of which are even a remote threat to the demons stranglehold on power in the Abyss...and most of which probably are souped up demons anyway.




Of the group, only Laogzed has tanar'ri blood, and many of them had better stats than Orcus or Demogorgon.



> Unless they view them as a threat to their dominance.




They don't have to (and can't possibly) defeat every Abyssal ruler - they only have to defeat the famous ones who have presumedly been around for more than a brief time, despite so many powerful, agressive entities sharing the cosmos with them.



> I was only biting on the "make them yourself, use your imagination for God's sake" line.




_Fine_, don't use your imagination. Rely entirely on rigid mechanics for every conceivable situation - I don't think they're necessary, myself. That line was a response your assertion that we needed to know precisely how many souls (or whatever) tanar'ri had to devour to gain a hit die. I think winging it works fine, personally. I'm not sure what that has to do with my desperate cohorts and I trying to force you to play the game a certain way with our powerful message board-based mind control techniques.



> Yes, but, as with their masters, they are going to be relatively weaker than the natives.




Well, that's how it should be, certainly, but I'm not sure how, in a scenario where Demogorgon is a lesser god and his servants are mostly sub-divine (or even demigods - but I don't think a chaotic evil lesser god could risk having many demigods in his realm, for fear they'd gang up on him), he's going to be stronger than his divine adversaries. 



> Deities are not stupid, they are not likely to risk their very immortality on a whim.




If they can only be killed on their home plane, they're risking nothing, and the prize is very great. Even if they didn't try to hold Gaping Maw afterwards, notoriety can translate into power for gods. If they're opposed to chaotic evil, any defeat of a major lord is a great victory for the entire multiverse.



> Even assuming Hextor's native layer was also the 9th (otherwise he'd have no chance at all), he would have to get past Asmodeus interior defenses and defenders before he got to Asmodeus anyway.




That's not a problem if Hextor is the more powerful deity. An intermediate god can reasonably break anti-teleportation wards prepared by a lesser deity and then completely avoid any other defenses or defenders that might be in his way.



> So to win they have to upset the balance, but to upset the balance they have to win - it all seems a bit circular.




Everything in the Great Wheel is circular (that's the Unity-of-Rings premise), but the logic is sound. By upsetting the balance (by interfering with the Material Plane, mostly), they assure victory in their outer planar battles - which upsets the balance even more, which aids them in further victories.


----------



## Shemeska

IcyCool said:
			
		

> Ah, I hadn't realized this sort of thing was common and accepted amongst you three.  I just hate to see someone resort to name calling in an otherwise interesting debate, as that usually kills the debate.




I don't personally care for it myself actually.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy mate! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> They're virtually identical now to their 2e incarnations save for the fact that they've been given stats.




Even the feel is somewhat different when the relationships between mortals and immortals (including Demon Princes) is not so black and white (as it was in 2nd Edition).



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> The flavor, the important stuff, hasn't changed in any real appreciable way.




Well I think this goes to the heart of the matter as to what is important between us. I prefer a balance between flavour and crunch.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> They're still the unquestioned rulers of their respective planes, and the deities who inhabit these planes don't argue the fact so long as their own domains are left alone.




Same as 1st Edition then. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It's just that now since they have stat blocks that tend to be longer than their descriptions, they no longer cleanly fit into their notches on the planes as they did previously.




Thats only valid in Deities & Demigods though. James Jacobs articles have shown that you can have the crunch and the fluff at the same time.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> But this verges on another argument for another time, and there's multiple ways to handle it, so let's avoid that tangent.




Okay.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> They weren't necessarily hostile back then, they were just ill described and largely not elaborated upon greatly, and treated in a very different manner than since then. For the most part they were treated as extraplanar dungeons, and while you can conceivably still treat them as such, their elaboration in 2e and the continuation of that in 3e has made them less that than the alignments made manifest, places of horror and beauty, places of the greatest and worst of the multiverse taken flesh in sometimes familiar and sometimes alien fashion, the battlegrounds of the alignments where above all, belief is power.
> 
> It's grown beyond its roots, but those roots are still there if you want to have that sort of focus in your game.




Obviosuly any elaboration is going to expand on the previous material. By the time we reach 6th Edition there is going to be more official material on Orcus than there is now for instance.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> The way the planes have gone and developed since then doesn't prevent you from using them in the way you want for epic gaming.




Only if we use the 2nd Edition 'stats' for such beings.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> It didn't go away since then, but the idea that only high level PCs could go to the planes was abandoned, though it's blatantly obvious that the planes are hideously dangerous and not to be taken lightly in the least way. In fact it was rather openly stated that if you approached the planes with a hack and slash kill everything that moves approach, you were going to end up very dead, very fast, simply because the denizens of the planes, especially the lower ones, were just that hostile and that deadly.




You could say the same about a Bandit Keep for 1st-level adventurers - in that if you rush in and hack and slash you'll end up dead.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I've never played using the actual 2e game mechanics, I didn't play DnD till 2000. I've played most of the 2e settings though, right from the 2e books, using 3e mechanics. That has to be one of the best things about said settings, be it Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, etc that most of the books were light enough on the rules that they're perfectly valid to plug right into a 3e game. Twenty years from now they'll still be useful in whatever system DnD is using, as opposed to some other books that you might find to be largely invalidated once their stat blocks no longer mesh with a new system.




Indeed, so to an extent there is no point updating the material. Even less so than the likes of Greyhawk and Forgotten Relams because the ravages of time are less likely to change things.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> I'm tempted to buy you a copy just to have you read it, and possibly change your mind on the topics it so beautifully covers. It really is a spectacularly written book, in my opinion the single best book on its topic so far written, and one of the best supplements in any edition of DnD.




Well my birthday is April 30th. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And FWIW, don't expect much out of me over the weekend, I'll be otherwise occupied.




No problems, been a bit busy myself.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> She wasn't presented as one in the 1st edition Monster Manual, or the Greyhawk supplement before that.




So are you saying she can't be one then?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Both she and Bahamut were presented as non-divine creatures in the 2e Draconomicon, too. In 1st edition Deities & Demigods and the 1e Manual of the Planes she was given the powers of a lesser deity, as were all planar lords by default (and this, I would argue, was a retcon rather than their original interpretation), but it wasn't actually clear that she was a _goddess_ proper in the same sense as Zeus and Thor until _Monster Mythology_ came out in 2nd edition and defined these things, unless you associated them completely with Paladine and Takhisis.




But the point of the matter is, people with Deities & Demigods or Manual of the Planes *knew* she was a deity - it made no difference whether anyone without those books knew or not.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In first edition the idea was, more or less, if you rule a layer of a plane you automatically get the powers of a lesser god. I'm not sure this made them _actual_ gods necessarily - TSR went back and forth on that. The 1e Manual of the Planes always said _treated as_ a deity rather than _is_ a deity. 1e Deities & Demigods didn't make that distinction.




Agreed. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In second edition a variety of approaches were tried - like I said, the Draconomicon made Bahamut and Tiamat non-divine "Racial Paragons." Monster Mythology made a number of the 1st editon Abyssal lords actual lesser deities, with worshippers and everything, while Planes of Chaos made others "quasi-deities," almost but not quite divine. The Lords of the Nine Dragon Magazine article defined the archdevils as being equivalent or greater in power than the gods, but different in nature.




But as you have illustrated the difference between 1st Editions various treatments was minimal. 

1. Lesser Deity
2. (Treated as) Lesser Deity 

Whereas 2nd Edition had them defined as:

1. Racial Paragons
2. Lesser Deities
3. Quasi-deities
4. Something Else (possibly akin to greater deities)

These are the same beings! Yet you still advocate 2nd Edition has the best treatment of the cosmology!   



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And WotC continues to go back and forth on this issue to this day. Tiamat is definitely a goddess, but Bahamut's divine status in the Forgotten Realms is unclear. Orcus appeared as a god in the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting and in Ghostwalk but has appeared as a sub-god in the Book of Vile Darkness and subsequently.




Yes, but even you recognise that the differences you have stated are setting based. Whereas the differences in 2nd Edition were from generic products.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I expect - some glorious day - things will stabilize and we'll have planar lords that can adequately defend their realms against attack.




A return to 1st Edition then you mean. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's silly and short-sighted. He's chaotic evil and ambitious. He's one of the most prominent rulers of the Abyss. His plans are _going_ to contradict someone else's eventually. It's stupid to design a cosmology that will fall apart when that day comes - as, logically, it has before and will again.




Demogorgon isn't going to spit in Odin's soup if he can help it.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The Monster Manual said he was a rival of Orcus, but that's not going to be his only rival. The Monster Manual II introduced Graz'zt, and said that he was Demogorgon's rival too.




Exactly, and all are more or less equally powerful.

Theres no enmity between vastly different powered beings - thats what I am trying to say. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In the Gord books Demogorgon allies with Nerull and opposes a third of the other rulers of the Abyss. Politics are messy and shifting, in the Abyss as much as anywhere else.




Actually the Abyss was split into three factions. The power of the Theorpart was so great that if you didn't have one, you weren't a 'player' in the game.

Its also illustrative of the Demon Princes Lesser Power being comparable to Greater power when they have the home plane advantage, because Nerull (even with a Theorpart himself) didn't risk just waltzing in to take on Graz'zt (who also had one even though the Theorparts would have cancelled each other out) and take his portion of the artifact by force.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Sure, it does, when the trophy is as impressive as Demogorgon is. You can't just say something doesn't add up without justifying your claim.




Demogorgon isn't going to be an impressive trophy for a Greater Deity. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> "Overgods" ought to be powerless outside the crystal spheres they guard, as they were in Planescape.




Why not then the guardian of that particular crystal sphere then?

The term Overgod probably has too much baggage for you - how about Elder One, Old One, First One, Time Lord, Proto-deity, Lady of Pain, Galactus etc.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Gods who ascend beyond greater status end up on a new plane of reality as far distant from the Outer Planes as the Outer Planes are from the Material. It's only when you have an infinite hierarchy in the same Great Ring that you run into trouble.




That doesn't mean to say such beings are never encountered therein.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> There shouldn't _be_ any overarching deities of evil other than the fiendish lords -




I'd like to think Nerull-Infestix was certainly one.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> they're the ones who personify the alignments, not ordinary deities.
> 
> But they are not the ultimate personifications of their alignments because they do not rule alone (unlike Nerull-Infestix).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Demogorgon, Apomps, Mydianchlarus, the General of Gehenna, and Asmodeus are the ones who punish upstart greater deities, or upstart deities who claim to be "overarching deities of evil" - because the turf is always truly theirs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Demogorgon doesn't rule nor personify the entire Abyss. Technically Apomps, Mydianchlarus (I hate that idea so much - bring back Anthraxus!) and the General of Gehenna, at best, rule under Nerull-Infestix. Asmodeus only really controls three layers (those of his faction).
> 
> The way I generally like to see it is charted on my website.
> 
> Control a single layer = Demipower
> Control multiple layers = Lesser Power
> Control a single plane = Intermediate Power
> Control multiple planes = Greater Power
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, exactly. Set's victory is assured by the fact that devilkind isn't united.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Seths victory is not assured. The status quo is assured. If Seth acts against the devils they will team up to defend themselves, because if he takes them on alone they know they will fall one by one. But neither are the devils unified enough to launch an attack. None of the Archdevils want to be first in the door to face Set.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Think of it this way - both Baalzebul and Mephistopheles want the throne of Hell more than anything. Set allies with one of them and together they oust Asmodeus. In gratitude, Set is given Stygia for his own. Why hasn't this happened?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Simple. You can sum it up in the phrase "better the devil you know".
> 
> Also Baalzebul (or Mephisto) would rather be begrudgingly subservient to Asmodeus (whom at some stage they might have a chance against), rather than the more powerful Set, not to mention theres no way they can trust Set to not eventually destroy them anyway. Whereas Asmodeus can't destroy them because they'd have home layer advantage over him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Um, no. "Few" means there are few of them, not that there are none of them.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Its pretty clear from the text *and* the list that there are none.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no sense in which the word "few" means "none at all" - that's just not one of the definitions of the word. Few is relative, sure - it might mean only two, or "only" a few hundred (depending on how many gods of other ranks there are in the Abyss).  But it's not so relative that it can mean anything you want it to mean.
> 
> The word "would," in this context, means that the greater gods who choose not to dwell in the Abyss would have to contend with the tanar'ri, if they indeed chose to dwell there. "They" refers to those greater gods who have decided not to dwell in the Demonium, not those who have - obviously they _do_ continually deal with upstart demon life, as the demons themselves do.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> If I say "Few people make active volcanoes their home because they would have to continually deal with the noxious gases, heat and lava flows", it doesn't mean that a few do.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The gods who appeared in _Deities & Demigods_ were hardly the only gods in the multiverse even at the time that book was published. Note that no Greyhawk-specific gods were mentioned in that book,
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> There are no listed Greyhawk gods with home planes in the Abyss and no Greater (Greyhawk) deities in the Nine Hells.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> few or no Forgotten Realms gods were mentioned, few Dragonlance gods were mentioned,
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Given the Takhisis/Tiamat dichotomy its obvious that specific settings were not necessarily meant to be integrated. The exception would probably be Greyhawk. However Manual of the Planes (1st Ed.) was written after Gygax departure from TSR, whether that had an impact on the books contents is unknown.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and there were many deities who appeared in _Gods, Demigods, and Heroes_ (D&Dg's predecessor) that weren't mentioned later, many deities from Dragon Magazine, and deities from everyone's personal campaigns.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Did any (non-setting based) published material specify any deities as having their home planes in either the Abyss or the Nine Hells?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of the group, only Laogzed has tanar'ri blood, and many of them had better stats than Orcus or Demogorgon.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> The might have had more hit points than *some* demon princes, but overall I don't think their stats were noticeably better.
> 
> Vaprak hp 198, AC 0, Magic Resistance 50%, +1 or better weapon to hit.
> Orcus hp 120, AC -7, Magic Resistance 90%, +3 or better weapon to hit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They don't have to (and can't possibly) defeat every Abyssal ruler - they only have to defeat the famous ones who have presumedly been around for more than a brief time, despite so many powerful, agressive entities sharing the cosmos with them.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Yes but once you make a habit of killing demon princes, they are going to make a habit of attacking and terrorising everything you hold dear. Eventually you'll lose, and few if any allies are likely to come to your aid, because lets face it, you started this war.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Fine_, don't use your imagination. Rely entirely on rigid mechanics for every conceivable situation - I don't think they're necessary, myself. That line was a response your assertion that we needed to know precisely how many souls (or whatever) tanar'ri had to devour to gain a hit die.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> How is that different from saying we need to know how many experience points are needed to gain a level?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think winging it works fine, personally. I'm not sure what that has to do with my desperate cohorts and I trying to force you to play the game a certain way with our powerful message board-based mind control techniques.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> ...so you admit it then!?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, that's how it should be, certainly, but I'm not sure how, in a scenario where Demogorgon is a lesser god and his servants are mostly sub-divine (or even demigods - but I don't think a chaotic evil lesser god could risk having many demigods in his realm, for fear they'd gang up on him), he's going to be stronger than his divine adversaries.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Probably because you are not well versed in the home plane advantage mechanism. Its probably a bigger advantage than a step up in power.
> 
> A typical Lesser Deity with Home Plane advantage would be more powerful than a typical Intermediate deity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If they can only be killed on their home plane, they're risking nothing, and the prize is very great.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> But if you are defeated outside your home plane, any being that can see into the astral plane (deities among others) can instantly follow your silver cord back to your home plane (blind teleport roll to succeed...about a 50% chance back then IIRC) and finish you off.
> 
> So if Heironeous fights Demogorgon and loses, Demogorgon might follow his spirit home and finish him off while hes rejuvenating and technically incapacitated. The risk for Demogorgon is that if the teleport result is awry hes going to kill himself, which will mean hes snapped back to his home plane to rejuvenate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Even if they didn't try to hold Gaping Maw afterwards, notoriety can translate into power for gods. If they're opposed to chaotic evil, any defeat of a major lord is a great victory for the entire multiverse.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> A greater deity with trophies of lesser deities (or weaker) is hardly a worthy hunter. I mean its unlikely you would even gain any experience points from the encounter.
> 
> If Odin is chatting to Zeus and says "I destroyed Demogorgon the other day", Zeus is not going to hi-five him and whoop "You da man!"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ripzerai said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's not a problem if Hextor is the more powerful deity. An intermediate god can reasonably break anti-teleportation wards prepared by a lesser deity and then completely avoid any other defenses or defenders that might be in his way.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Well firstly that assumes we convert 1st Edition Hextor to intermediate power (wherein he was only a lesser power). Secondly, (even if Hextor is an Intermediate Power), within a deities realm you cannot neccessarily simply trump their wards even if you are normally more powerful, so you'll still have to go in the front door. Added to which the defender will have both mundane and magical defenses anyway.
Click to expand...


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I'd like to think Nerull-Infestix was certainly one.
> 
> ...
> 
> But they are not the ultimate personifications of their alignments because they do not rule alone (unlike Nerull-Infestix).
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> Technically Apomps, Mydianchlarus (I hate that idea so much - bring back Anthraxus!) and the General of Gehenna, at best, rule under Nerull-Infestix. Asmodeus only really controls three layers (those of his faction).




So. Completely. Wrong.

The whole Nerull-Infestix thing is only from Gygax's Gord novels as far as I know, which makes it irrelevant here. If that was ever mentioned in any 1st ed source that was a part of DnD proper, and I don't believe it was, it has since been utterly rewritten in 2e and 3e. Apomps is completely divorced from the yugoloth heirarchy, he hates them and would love to destroy them out of spite at his fellow Baernaloths. Mydianchlarus and the General of Gehenna aren't beholden to any deity; yugoloths in general despise deities as the bastard spawn of mortal beliefs and devotions, though the 'loths themselves have a nearly religious fanaticism for the abstract concept of evil which they themselves are manifestations of.

And what the heck is this about Asmodeus only really controlling 3 layers of Baator? I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong on that. He controls the 9th, controls the rank and file Baatezu by way of the Dark 8, and while the other Lords of the 9 each control their own layers of the plane, Asmodeus can and does order them around when push comes to shove, though each of them would of course ultimately prefer to usurp his throne.



> Seths victory is not assured. The status quo is assured. If Seth acts against the devils they will team up to defend themselves, because if he takes them on alone they know they will fall one by one. But neither are the devils unified enough to launch an attack. None of the Archdevils want to be first in the door to face Set.




Well, Levistus is winning a war versus Set (and Sekolah) to the point that Set's layer in Stygia has actually shrunk in size by a very slight amount. Inside Set's domain perhaps Levistus wouldn't want to be first in line, but on Stygia at large we can see who is winning at the moment.




> Its pretty clear from the text *and* the list that there are none.




No, no it's not. I don't see how you can infer that 'few' means 'none'. If they had wanted to mean none, they would have said none. You're ultimately changing the meaning of the word otherwise. They didn't list all the powers in the Abyss in the list you're talking about, just ones they felt were important. It wasn't all inclusive, so whichever greater deities are in the Abyss, they simply weren't noted in that small list, but they very clearly are in fact there from what was mentioned in the text. Few =! none.





> If I say "Few people make active volcanoes their home because they would have to continually deal with the noxious gases, heat and lava flows", it doesn't mean that a few do.




Yes it would actually. We know intellectually that people can't survive inside active volcanos so people would look at you funny for using that sentence as an example, but you would in fact be implying that some small number of people do in fact live in them. That's what the word 'few' means.




> Did any (non-setting based) published material specify any deities as having their home planes in either the Abyss or the Nine Hells?




Quite a few did as I recall. I'll have to look them up later, but they're there. 'On Hallowed Ground' will have them listed out.


----------



## demiurge1138

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Quite a few did as I recall. I'll have to look them up later, but they're there. 'On Hallowed Ground' will have them listed out.



Both the 1e and 3e Manual of the Planes mention various deities in Hell and the Abyss, from Tiamat and Set (Hell) to the Great Mother and Diiriinka (Abyss).

Demiurge out.


----------



## BOZ

many other sources, from when D&D first introduced the ideas that gods were on planes, up until the most recent books, had some gods on both Nine Hells and Abyss.  don't make me go look them up, because i have far more important things to do.


----------



## BOZ

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2701470&postcount=13



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> 1E Manual of the Planes (p101-103):
> 
> ...
> 
> mention is made of some gods on the Abyss, such as Vaprak, Laogzed, and Urdlen. Feng-Tu, the realm of Tou Mu and Lu Yueh is described, as well as the layer of Kali.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> So are you saying she can't be one then?




I'm saying it was a retcon, not Tiamat's original state. In her first appearance (in Supplement I: Greyhawk) she lived at the bottom of a dungeon on the Material Plane.

I certainly like her as a deity, myself.



> Yet you still advocate 2nd Edition has the best treatment of the cosmology!




I didn't say that. 2nd edition was tremendously inconsistent. What I said was that 2nd edition - Planescape specifically - fixed a gaping cosmology problem, even if it didn't always stick with its fix. 

I'm not here to be part of an edition war or anything like that - the editions aren't monolithic. Different things were tried within each edition. I'm just saying that there was an approach at one time that worked better than all the other various approaches that have been tried over the decades.

Gary Gygax knew that it was a problem for gods of any rank to share the same plane with demons and devils, so he seperated them in his campaign, but other designers ignored that. For example, the archdevils aren't a match for the orc pantheon, who lived in the Hells in 1st and early 2nd edition. That's what I meant when I said he tried mightily to fix things but didn't succeed. 

I believe that wasn't even enough. A plane isn't any barrier to beings who can planeshift at will. 



> Demogorgon isn't going to spit in Odin's soup if he can help it.




_My_ Demogorgon isn't going to tiptoe around the sensibilities of mere gods. Mine will ally himself with the jotuns gleefully, and much panic will ensue before things calm down. Gods and fiends ought to be able to interact as equals - if they can't, you're severely limiting the possibilities of adventuring in the divine sphere.



> Actually the Abyss was split into three factions.




Right. That's why I said he was fighting a third of the other lords of the Abyss as opposed to all of them. I don't think he was actually fighting both the other factions at once - that is, two thirds. 

But the Theopart business is probably a bad example, as it was a very artificial means of upsetting the balance on the lower planes. We should probably not bring it up in the future. 



> Its also illustrative of the Demon Princes Lesser Power being comparable to Greater power.
> 
> Demogorgon isn't going to be an impressive trophy for a Greater Deity.
> 
> A greater deity with trophies of lesser deities (or weaker) is hardly a worthy hunter. I




Which is it? Is Demogorgon a formidable challenge for a Greater Power or is he going to be an unimpressive trophy? If Vishnu and Demogorgon battle is it an epic confrontation where Vishnu risks ultimate extermination or is he shooting ducks in a barrel? 



> Yes, but even you recognise that the differences you have stated are setting based. Whereas the differences in 2nd Edition were from generic products.




No, that's not correct. All of the FR products after the Book of Vile Darkness came out retconned Orcus to sub-divine status. In 2nd edition, Tiamat appears both as a god and as a "racial paragon" in two different Forgotten Realms products (Draconomicon and Cult of the Dragon). So the differences are there within the same setting in both editions.



> The term Overgod probably has too much baggage for you - how about Elder One, Old One, First One, Time Lord, Proto-deity, Lady of Pain, Galactus etc.




The Lady of Pain doesn't leave Sigil (she resembles an overgod in that respect, though she may not come close to matching one in power). As for the others, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at - are supra-deities a threat to deities or not? You sound like you're saying they never, never fight - is this actually physically impossible? If it isn't, the cosmos loses a lot of freedom and dynamicism, which is why I dislike the overgod concept so much as it's been used in the Forgotten Realms, with the gods constantly having to look over their shoulders in case some greater boss-god decides to rearrange everything.

Rather, the planes should be ruled by those who dwell there. The meta-gods should be unknown and unknowable by anyone in the Great Ring, like it was in the D&D Immortal's Set - the Old Ones wait enigmatically beyond the Vortex Dimension for their grand experiment to be complete. I think allowing them to interfere in the Game of Time before it's finished is extremely bad design - there is far too much potential for deus ex machinas. The gods and planar lords need their independence.



> That doesn't mean to say such beings are never encountered therein.




That's exactly what I mean to say. They have a grand meta-multiverse to explore, and they're not going to shrink themselves to fit in the known cosmos any more than a microbiologist is going to fit inside his own microscope.



> I'd like to think Nerull-Infestix was certainly one.




That's a complex topic. It's certainly reasonable to say that he wasn't - he needed Demogorgon to do his work in the Abyss, and the Lords of the Nine were his allies, not his minions. He was called a "daemon" a number of times, which implies he was actually a yugoloth, as I would term it. That is, he filled the same place in the cosmology as the General of Gehenna does in 2nd/3rd edition. "Nerull" was only his avatar on Oerth, and he was truly a greater being than any mere single-sphere god, a planar lord equivalent to Demogorgon and Asmodeus but not greater than them. The lesser yugoloths were already under his sway, while the Lords of the Nine allied with him only because he had a Theopart. 



> But they are not the ultimate personifications of their alignments because they do not rule alone (unlike Nerull-Infestix).




True enough, but they are collectively. That is, the Lords of the Nine each represent approximately 1/9 of the totallity of Lawful Evil - very approximately, as some are certainly more powerful than others. Asmodeus is the unquestioned ruler of his plane.

Infestix is mightier than any of the Diseased Eight alone, but Asmodeus is mightier than any of his eight vassals alone. It's reasonable to think that Infestix could be overthrown if Bubonis, Anthraxus, and the others ganged up on him.

The Lords of the Abyss arguably each represent only a miniscule fraction of the Abyss' total power, but the Six Monarchs of Demonium together contain within themselves an extremely disproportionate fraction. Demogorgon doesn't rule his plane like Asmodeus rules his - the Abyss is, I'd argue, unrulable - but they are approximately equal in direct might. 

You might fairly disagree as to what Gygax's intentions were - he may indeed have intended Infestix to be actually more powerful than his lawful or chaotic counterparts - but if in a balanced, circular multiverse, the greatest ruler of the neutral evil planes should be no more powerful than the greatest of the chaotic evil or lawful evil planes.



> Control a single layer = Demipower
> Control multiple layers = Lesser Power
> Control a single plane = Intermediate Power
> Control multiple planes = Greater Power




I disagree with this quite emphatically, mainly because most Greater Powers don't rule multiple planes, or even a single layer of anything. An outer plane is more important to the cosmology than any single god unless your cosmology is very tiny and includes no more than 17 greater gods (not counting the elemental ones). This should be - must be - reflected in their respective power levels, or the cosmology becomes unbalanced. 

Even if your only greater gods are Nerull, Pelor, Beory, Rao, Boccob, and Incabulos, I think it's best if Asmodeus and Demogorgon deal with Nerull as equals, or NE becomes more important than CE or LE. The more gods there are, the more proportionately powerful the cosmology's constants - the planar lords - should be.  

Also, the chart is a bit too neat and tidy for my liking. It seems reasonable that one ruler of a single layer might be a few ranks higher or lower than another.



> Seths victory is not assured. The status quo is assured. If Seth acts against the devils they will team up to defend themselves, because if he takes them on alone they know they will fall one by one. But neither are the devils unified enough to launch an attack. None of the Archdevils want to be first in the door to face Set.




I think Set should be formidable enough within his own realm, but he should be at a disadvantage going after even a single archdevil alone. 



> If I say "Few people make active volcanoes their home because they would have to continually deal with the noxious gases, heat and lava flows", it doesn't mean that a few do.




That's an extreme example, and illogical. The Abyss obviously isn't an "active volcano" for deities, as numerous lesser and intermediate gods dwell there - you wouldn't say "few experienced mountaineers dwell in active volcanoes, but numerous couch potatoes do." I think a better parallel would be to say something like "few of the upper class dwell in the shady side of town, because they would have to continually deal with the vagrants, hoodlums, and upstart minorities."  It doesn't mean that they never live there, not when you could just as easily use the word "none." 



> There are no listed Greyhawk gods with home planes in the Abyss and no Greater (Greyhawk) deities in the Nine Hells.




That's not the point. The point is that the Manual of the Planes constrained itself to listing gods from Deities & Demigods - it didn't attempt to list every deity in the multiverse, and would have been foolish to limit future products in such a way. The lists of gods in that book are meant to be examples only, not comprehensive.

All the settings shared a common set of planes - we might argue with Dragonlance, since that was never perfectly defined at that point, but the others, certainly. Off the top of my head, Set, Druaga, Inanna, Gruumsh, Maglubiyet, Kurtulmak, Baghtru, Ilneval, and many others were jostling for control of the Hells, while Beshaba, Umberlee, Chemosh, Hiddukel, Laogzed, Kali, and a number of others live in the Abyss. 



> Yes but once you make a habit of killing demon princes, they are going to make a habit of attacking and terrorising everything you hold dear.




Arguably, they could only go travel to the Abyss, Tartarus, and Pandemonium unless they were summoned elsewhere. I say "arguably" because it's likely that the rules for deities - who could planeshift at will - trumps this, but not perfectly clear. There are a number of sources that imply that figures like Juiblex, Pazuzu, and Graz'zt had to wait until they were summoned before they could enter the Prime Material Plane.

In addition, an arch-devil is at a disadvantage compared to deities - they required 2-8 weeks to recover enough after death to plane travel or send a servitor elsewhere, while gods only  needed 1-4 weeks to recover from death. It's certainly arguable that it would be difficult if not impossible for a demon prince to hunt down the precise location of a deity's essence within that 1-4 week period. 



> How is that different from saying we need to know how many experience points are needed to gain a level?




Because it takes hundreds of years for demons to advance, while class levels can be advanced within a single game session.



> ...so you admit it then!?




Yes.



> the home plane advantage mechanism.




Ah, yes - I _had_ forgotten about that. That only appeared in the Manual of the Planes, though, didn't it? I can't find it as a rule in Deities & Demigods - I see a mention that they're more powerful there on page 11, but no details; it implies that the territorial advantage is the same as any creature would have in familiar territory (since it says _all_ creatures have it, not just gods). If this was a Manual of the Planes retcon, it's undoubtedly a good change- gods and demons _should_ be more powerful in their own realms. I just don't think it goes far enough, since Vishnu is going to be far more powerful in his realm than Demogorgon is in his.

And again, this seems to contradict what you've said before and what you say subsequently - is Demogorgon (or Asmodeus) a worthy trophy or isn't he? If he's a threat to anyone who tries to take him on, he's the worthy goal of an epic, divine-level quest. If he a weakling of little consequence, then he should be dead by now. _Either way_ he should be dead by now.

But yeah, I agree that the (post-Manual of the Planes) 1st edition status quo is infinitely better than the (post-Vile Darkness) 3rd edition one. I just think certain takes hinted at in Planescape were better than either. 1st edition could have been better too, with a little buffing up so that the major rulers of the planes were equal to the greater deities in status. The buffing up that the Manual of the Planes gave them was a great idea, but it wasn't quite there. 



> But if you are defeated outside your home plane, any being that can see into the astral plane (deities among others) can instantly follow your silver cord back to your home plane (blind teleport roll to succeed...about a 50% chance back then IIRC) and finish you off.




Not so. Heironeous fights Demogorgon and loses. Heironeous finds himself instantly back to the Fields of Glory in Venya. Once there, he's emphatically _not_ helpless, only unable to grant spells above 3rd level or travel to another plane. He's now twice as powerful as he was when he fought Demogorgon the first time. If he decides he wants to wait until he's back to his full strength (so he can skip across the planes again) he can simply hide somewhere in his vast realm - once he's back on his home plane, he has no silver cord to follow. Meanwhile, the Throne Archon of Venya instantly senses Demogorgon's incursion and martials all the hosts of the Heavens against the hated demon prince, who is already wounded from his battle. Vast legions of solars, planetars, devas, and sword archons teleport into Demogorgon's vicinity and engage Demogorgon's hosts while the greater gods of Mount Celestia hear the news and teleport directly into the Prince of Demon's presence, probably slaughtering him before he can get away, and certainly before he can enact retribution on Heironeous. Then they follow _his_ silver cord back to Abysm and engulf his palace in an inferno of holy fire, possibly (assuming this fire is nonmagical) destroying his soul object and killing him permanently. Because lawful good deities get along much better than chaotic evil ones, I think it's safe to say that Demogorgon fears angering the forces of Mount Celestia far more than they fear angering the Monarchs of Demonium. Graz'zt and Orcus will teleport into Abysm to finish Demogorgon off if Vishnu, Rao, and Tyr don't manage it.

And Greater Powers, according to the 1e Manual of the Planes, are utterly immune to violent death. Demogorgon can be killed (assuming his soul amulet is also destroyed) but they can't. At all. If they're killed elsewhere they reform on their home plane, and they can't be killed on their home plane by anyone or anything.

Reasonably, the forces of Good can send wave after wave of deities after Demogorgon, each willing to take incredible risks in battle that Demogorgon is not, confident that nothing will happen to them if they're defeated. The only good reason that they don't is that they're not willing to start Armageddon between the forces of good and evil yet. When that happens, we can expect the planar lords to be the first to go, sending the demons and devils into disarray while the gods concentrate on one another. I don't like that kind of cosmology; I don't like having the beings who personify the planes as mere servants or second-runners to the deities. In mythology, great demons like Hiranyaksha, Ravana, Apep, or Belial are beings worthy adversaries of the greatest gods, whether they're on their home ground or not. In the polytheistic multiverse of D&D, they should be among the major antagonists in any level of play.



> within a deities realm you cannot neccessarily simply trump their wards even if you are normally more powerful




After looking at the rules carefully - yeah, in 1st edition that's true (though not in 3rd edition, where a rival only has to be powerful enough to beat the DC of the ward effect). I thought Asmodeus or Demogorgon didn't have any way of blocking teleportation in 1e, since it wasn't one of their spell-like abilities either as themselves or as lesser gods, they don't have class levels, and they can't use _wish_ to benefit themselves in any way - but yeah, there's a note in the back of the MotP of lesser deities being able to alter up to 80 spell levels so they malfunction within his realm. Asmodeus could make it so any attempt to teleport into Malsheem causes the caster to end up in a sealed, windowless, doorless room full of acid and other unpleasant things thousands of feet beneath the palace - and the hapless deity would be unable to teleport out again without ending up in the same room. That's really _nasty_, and it was clever of Jeff Grubb to add that. Prior to 1987, Hextor could have teleported in, killed Asmodeus and left possibly without even raising an alarm, but after that date Hextor will have to make his way through the palace physically. Hextor can't affect Asmodeus or the palace itself magically, so he'll have to _sneak_ in - which is possible, as Asmodeus isn't granted any extraordinary senses in his domain other than the ability to look, if he consciously thinks of doing so, into the Astral Plane (which doesn't border Nessus anyway). Hextor can still use many of his other abilities to aid him. It might be the equivalent of beating the _Tomb of Horrors_, but he could manage it. I think he could take Asmodeus in a fight, though it'd be difficult - Asmo has almost exactly twice as many hit points in his home realm, but Hextor, with his six arms and superior weapons, dishes out more than twice as much damage. Asmodeus is immune to Hextor's magic, but Hextor has 90% spell resistance himself. We'll assume that Asmodeus has blocked Hextor's summoning abilities, so his only allies will be whatever minions he's snuck in with him. Asmodeus will be able to summon one pit fiend to his service (and it will be Alastor, who has 104 hit points), who has a 70% chance of summoning another, who has a 70% chance of summoning another, and so on - but that's not necessarily insurmountable, as each time there's a 30% chance that the chain will end and nobody will have the ability to summon anything, and many of them will be made helpless by Hextor's _Symbol of Hate and Discord_, assuming they fail their saving throws. And Hextor's an able tactician, so he'll drive Asmodeus into a small room the pit fiends can't fit into and try to finish him off quickly. Asmodeus than yawns and says, "Hextor, my poor misguided adopted son, _what_ do you think you're doing?"

And Hextor says, "Taking over Hell! Raargh! It's all very Oedipal!"

Asmodeus points out that he can _teleport without error_ to a safe location at any time, while an army of pit fiends who now knows Hextor's exact location can finish him off... and Hextor, post-_Manual of the Planes_, probably can't use any of his spell-like abilities to escape, assuming the DM is thinking things out properly. And the gulf of power between a lesser deity and a pit fiend, while great, isn't quite so great in 1st edition as your narrator thinks it ought to be. 

Hextor says, "Let's forget this ever happened, shall we?" 

Asmodeus gives him a kiss on the cheek and says, "Of course, my darling love, my bouncing baby boy. I gave you those arms because I have a _use_ for you."

Hextor says, "I really miss the Queen of the Demonweb Pits era."

"We all do," says Asmodeus. "It was amusing to think of Lolth having only 66 hit points. Alas, this is the brave new post-Gygaxian era, and Jeff Grubb has provided us with a somewhat more sensible cosmology. I still think I ought to be a greater deity, of course."

"You win for now," says Hextor. "But I'll be back in second edition, when pit fiends will have no chance against my true, non-avatar form."

"You won't find me," says Asmodeus. "I'll lie low. You can search my entire palace and find nothing more intimidating than the Dark Eight until _Planes of Law_ reintroduces me as the Dark Lord of Nessus, and then I'll be able to easily fend off attacks by such as you."

Hextor grits his teeth. "A day will come," he vows, "When the _Book of Vile Darkness_ will render you absolutely defenseless! I'll use _alter reality_, destroy you in a single round, and teleport away laughing! You won't even have a soul object!"

"That's low-class," says Asmodeus. "You might as well brag about being able to defeat me in Candyland. Now, Upper Krust's rules..."

Hextor sneers. "I may not know a lot about Upper Krust's rules, but I know 3rd edition. Every effect has a Difficulty Class, and I'll be an intermediate deity to your lesser. I'll beat your teleportation ward, surround you with an _Anti-Magic Field_ to prevent you from teleporting yourself, and finish you off. I won't even have to find my way through your palace! Not only will my attacks do more damage, but my hit points will be far greater than anything you can imagine!"

"We shall see," says Asmodeus. "We shall see."


----------



## Ripzerai

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> "We all do," says Asmodeus. "It was amusing to think of Lolth having only 66 hit points. Alas, this is the brave new post-Gygaxian era."




Not that Gygax hadn't been slowly increasing the powers of deities as well, or that Q1 was written by Gygax. I'm not saying Asmodeus wouldn't have had those cool powers if Gary Gygax had been the one who wrote the _Manual of the Planes_ - I have no idea. I _do_ know that the evolution from 1st to 2nd edition was a gradual incline rather than a sudden radical phase shift; although there were of course some radical changes as well, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two (most notably in the _Greyhawk Adventures_ hardcover and the _Hall of Heroes_ accessory for FR, both of which managed to use 1st and 2nd edition rules simultaneously). 

So Asmodeus probably should have just said "brave new era," but there's no arguing with the Dark Lord of Nessus once he gets a way of organizing things in his head. He likes to break things up into parts, ideally groups of nine.


----------



## Shemeska

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> Both the 1e and 3e Manual of the Planes mention various deities in Hell and the Abyss, from Tiamat and Set (Hell) to the Great Mother and Diiriinka (Abyss).
> 
> Demiurge out.




For whatever reason when I first mentioned that yes there were, I thought that UK only was speaking about Greater Deities in those planes, implying that there weren't any and putting folks on the spot to name some, hence why I didn't name any off the top of my head since I didn't necessarily recall divine rank of those deities in said planes. But he didn't have that qualifier... heck I can think of tons of deities in those planes, they're all over the place layer to layer.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I'm saying it was a retcon, not Tiamat's original state. In her first appearance (in Supplement I: Greyhawk) she lived at the bottom of a dungeon on the Material Plane.




I don't really see it as a retcon, as it didn't really change anything.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I certainly like her as a deity, myself.




There you go then.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I didn't say that. 2nd edition was tremendously inconsistent. What I said was that 2nd edition - Planescape specifically - fixed a gaping cosmology problem, even if it didn't always stick with its fix.




There was no cosmology problem as I see it, and 2nd Edition was clearly badly designed from that point of view.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I'm not here to be part of an edition war or anything like that - the editions aren't monolithic. Different things were tried within each edition. I'm just saying that there was an approach at one time that worked better than all the other various approaches that have been tried over the decades.




I fail to see how Planescape 'worked better'?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Gary Gygax knew that it was a problem for gods of any rank to share the same plane with demons and devils, so he seperated them in his campaign, but other designers ignored that. For example, the archdevils aren't a match for the orc pantheon, who lived in the Hells in 1st and early 2nd edition. That's what I meant when I said he tried mightily to fix things but didn't succeed.




Orc Pantheon: 1 Greater Deity, 5 Lesser Deities and presumably a few Demi and Quasi-deities

Archdevils: 9 Lesser Deities, 99 Quasi-deities, Pit Fiend Legions and so forth. 

I don't see that as very one-sided. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I believe that wasn't even enough. A plane isn't any barrier to beings who can planeshift at will.




The realm is the only barrier needed.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> _My_ Demogorgon isn't going to tiptoe around the sensibilities of mere gods. Mine will ally himself with the jotuns gleefully, and much panic will ensue before things calm down. Gods and fiends ought to be able to interact as equals - if they can't, you're severely limiting the possibilities of adventuring in the divine sphere.




I'm not limiting him as much as I am playing him intelligently. Hes not going to pick a fight he can't win. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Right. That's why I said he was fighting a third of the other lords of the Abyss as opposed to all of them. I don't think he was actually fighting both the other factions at once - that is, two thirds.




Graz'zt was fighting both the other factions at once, thats why he was hemmed in. But Graz'zt had the Theorpart and the Eye of Deception (most powerful artifact ever created in the Abyss).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> But the Theopart business is probably a bad example, as it was a very artificial means of upsetting the balance on the lower planes. We should probably not bring it up in the future.




Well, even if we remove the Theorpart from all factions the power groups are still consistent. But we can forget the matter if you wish.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Which is it? Is Demogorgon a formidable challenge for a Greater Power or is he going to be an unimpressive trophy? If Vishnu and Demogorgon battle is it an epic confrontation where Vishnu risks ultimate extermination or is he shooting ducks in a barrel?




Well, I was trying to second guess you were using 3rd Edition. Remember Greater Power is different in 2nd/3rd Ed.

I think Demogorgon on his home plane would probably defeat most (1st Ed.) Greater Gods (likely not the real heavy hitters of course like Thor or some of the Pantheon Heads)



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In 2nd edition, Tiamat appears both as a god and as a "racial paragon" in two different Forgotten Realms products (Draconomicon and Cult of the Dragon). So the differences are there within the same setting in both editions.




2nd Edition, bleh. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The Lady of Pain doesn't leave Sigil (she resembles an overgod in that respect, though she may not come close to matching one in power).




Okay so you have now established there are multiple powers beyond Greater Power.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> As for the others, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at - are supra-deities a threat to deities or not? You sound like you're saying they never, never fight - is this actually physically impossible? If it isn't, the cosmos loses a lot of freedom and dynamicism, which is why I dislike the overgod concept so much as it's been used in the Forgotten Realms, with the gods constantly having to look over their shoulders in case some greater boss-god decides to rearrange everything.




I think the introduction of beings more powerful than greater powers should be used sparingly. I generally tend to think of them as the old ones, they might be dormant, or trapped, or bound. But occasionally they'll slip their dimensional shackles and pantheons of gods will have to ally to defeat them, even if its only a temporary defeat - returning them to their prison. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Rather, the planes should be ruled by those who dwell there.




Absolutely.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The meta-gods should be unknown and unknowable by anyone in the Great Ring, like it was in the D&D Immortal's Set - the Old Ones wait enigmatically beyond the Vortex Dimension for their grand experiment to be complete. I think allowing them to interfere in the Game of Time before it's finished is extremely bad design - there is far too much potential for deus ex machinas. The gods and planar lords need their independence.




I don't really like that constraint. Like I said, its something to be used sparingly, but it does occasionally happen.

I have always found the Pantheons of the Megaverse supplement to be very evocative on this subject.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's exactly what I mean to say. They have a grand meta-multiverse to explore, and they're not going to shrink themselves to fit in the known cosmos any more than a microbiologist is going to fit inside his own microscope.




Well again this brings us back to the whole black and white solution. 

If we can allow mortals to interact with immortals then we can also allow immortals to interact with siderals (cosmic gods). 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's a complex topic. It's certainly reasonable to say that he wasn't - he needed Demogorgon to do his work in the Abyss,




because Demogorgon (and his forces) wasn't as hampered by being a non-native.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> and the Lords of the Nine were his allies, not his minions.




I think he might have had trouble forcing them to do his bidding (with home plane advantage), but he was clearly more powerful.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He was called a "daemon" a number of times, which implies he was actually a yugoloth, as I would term it.




Absolutely.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That is, he filled the same place in the cosmology as the General of Gehenna does in 2nd/3rd edition.




Well, the General only rules Gehenna, Infestix ruled Gehenna, Hades and Tarterus.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> "Nerull" was only his avatar on Oerth, and he was truly a greater being than any mere single-sphere god, a planar lord equivalent to Demogorgon and Asmodeus but not greater than them.




I disagree. He was clearly greater than them.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The lesser yugoloths were already under his sway, while the Lords of the Nine allied with him only because he had a Theopart.




I think they allied with him because they too wanted Tharizdun released. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> True enough, but they are collectively. That is, the Lords of the Nine each represent approximately 1/9 of the totallity of Lawful Evil - very approximately, as some are certainly more powerful than others. Asmodeus is the unquestioned ruler of his plane.




He rules, but hes more the head of government than a dictator with absolute power.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Infestix is mightier than any of the Diseased Eight alone, but Asmodeus is mightier than any of his eight vassals alone. It's reasonable to think that Infestix could be overthrown if Bubonis, Anthraxus, and the others ganged up on him.




I disagree. First of all, a cursory glance at Nerulls 1st Edition stats tells us he is way more powerful than Anthraxus. Nerull was not only a Greater God, but with 400 hp effectively on a par with Pantheon Heads. Whereas Anthraxus (most powerful Daemon Master) was at best a Lesser Power. Secondly, Nerull was able to demote/promote Daemon Masters at will, as shown in the book. He is also refered to as the Nether Emperor in the books as well, whereas other evil beings are refered to as kings, at best).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The Lords of the Abyss arguably each represent only a miniscule fraction of the Abyss' total power, but the Six Monarchs of Demonium together contain within themselves an extremely disproportionate fraction. Demogorgon doesn't rule his plane like Asmodeus rules his - the Abyss is, I'd argue, unrulable - but they are approximately equal in direct might.




I think with a strong enough ruler, control of the Abyss is possible. But you would really need to be far more powerful than your rivals.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You might fairly disagree as to what Gygax's intentions were - he may indeed have intended Infestix to be actually more powerful than his lawful or chaotic counterparts - but if in a balanced, circular multiverse, the greatest ruler of the neutral evil planes should be no more powerful than the greatest of the chaotic evil or lawful evil planes.




Gygax introduced the Arch-Deva as well (who may or may not have been Pelor?), which, reading between the lines was Nerulls good counterpart.

So if we have Archons, Guardinals and Eladrins for good. Demons, Daemons and Devils for evil, the Angels would seemingly be something else.

Nerull could be daemonic in the same sense as the Baernoloths, who could be angelic counterparts rather than Archon/Guardinal/Eladrin counterparts.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I disagree with this quite emphatically, mainly because most Greater Powers don't rule multiple planes, or even a single layer of anything.




That chart only applies to the Spiritual Hierarchies, not deities (of other origin) though.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> An outer plane is more important to the cosmology than any single god unless your cosmology is very tiny and includes no more than 17 greater gods (not counting the elemental ones). This should be - must be - reflected in their respective power levels, or the cosmology becomes unbalanced.




Absolutely.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Even if your only greater gods are Nerull, Pelor, Beory, Rao, Boccob, and Incabulos, I think it's best if Asmodeus and Demogorgon deal with Nerull as equals, or NE becomes more important than CE or LE. The more gods there are, the more proportionately powerful the cosmology's constants - the planar lords - should be.




I think on a Pantheon to Planar Hierarchy basis the devils and demons could hold their own in their home plane.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Also, the chart is a bit too neat and tidy for my liking. It seems reasonable that one ruler of a single layer might be a few ranks higher or lower than another.




I agree, but that power difference would be gained via worshippers rather than planar control.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I think Set should be formidable enough within his own realm, but he should be at a disadvantage going after even a single archdevil alone.




Why? 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's an extreme example, and illogical. The Abyss obviously isn't an "active volcano" for deities, as numerous lesser and intermediate gods dwell there - you wouldn't say "few experienced mountaineers dwell in active volcanoes, but numerous couch potatoes do." I think a better parallel would be to say something like "few of the upper class dwell in the shady side of town, because they would have to continually deal with the vagrants, hoodlums, and upstart minorities."  It doesn't mean that they never live there, not when you could just as easily use the word "none."




Its a very clear point of grammar as far as I can see.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's not the point. The point is that the Manual of the Planes constrained itself to listing gods from Deities & Demigods - it didn't attempt to list every deity in the multiverse, and would have been foolish to limit future products in such a way. The lists of gods in that book are meant to be examples only, not comprehensive.




I agree, but its also pretty clear how beings of a certain power *would* fit into a given plane.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> All the settings shared a common set of planes - we might argue with Dragonlance, since that was never perfectly defined at that point, but the others, certainly. Off the top of my head, Set, Druaga, Inanna, Gruumsh, Maglubiyet, Kurtulmak, Baghtru, Ilneval, and many others were jostling for control of the Hells, while Beshaba, Umberlee, Chemosh, Hiddukel, Laogzed, Kali, and a number of others live in the Abyss.




I don't remember ever reading Gruumsh was jostling for control of the Hells?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Arguably, they could only go travel to the Abyss, Tartarus, and Pandemonium unless they were summoned elsewhere. I say "arguably" because it's likely that the rules for deities - who could planeshift at will - trumps this, but not perfectly clear. There are a number of sources that imply that figures like Juiblex, Pazuzu, and Graz'zt had to wait until they were summoned before they could enter the Prime Material Plane.




Any deity can block Plane Shift to their realm (as per page 126 Manual of the Planes).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In addition, an arch-devil is at a disadvantage compared to deities - they required 2-8 weeks to recover enough after death to plane travel or send a servitor elsewhere, while gods only  needed 1-4 weeks to recover from death. It's certainly arguable that it would be difficult if not impossible for a demon prince to hunt down the precise location of a deity's essence within that 1-4 week period.




Once you get killed you are banished from the plane/world for a century.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Because it takes hundreds of years for demons to advance, while class levels can be advanced within a single game session.








			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Ah, yes - I _had_ forgotten about that. That only appeared in the Manual of the Planes, though, didn't it? I can't find it as a rule in Deities & Demigods - I see a mention that they're more powerful there on page 11, but no details; it implies that the territorial advantage is the same as any creature would have in familiar territory (since it says _all_ creatures have it, not just gods). If this was a Manual of the Planes retcon, it's undoubtedly a good change - gods and demons _should_ be more powerful in their own realms.




I agree.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I just don't think it goes far enough,




You'll like my interpretation. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> since Vishnu is going to be far more powerful in his realm than Demogorgon is in his.




Relatively speaking its the same increase though.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And again, this seems to contradict what you've said before and what you say subsequently - is Demogorgon (or Asmodeus) a worthy trophy or isn't he? If he's a threat to anyone who tries to take him on, he's the worthy goal of an epic, divine-level quest. If he a weakling of little consequence, then he should be dead by now. _Either way_ he should be dead by now.




Its a matter of editions and what exactly constitutes a greater deity.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> But yeah, I agree that the (post-Manual of the Planes) 1st edition status quo is infinitely better than the (post-Vile Darkness) 3rd edition one. I just think certain takes hinted at in Planescape were better than either. 1st edition could have been better too... The buffing up that the Manual of the Planes gave them was a great idea, but it wasn't quite there.




I think it would have helped to have all the details listed in one place.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> with a little buffing up so that the major rulers of the planes were equal to the greater deities in status.




On their home plane they were.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Not so. Heironeous fights Demogorgon and loses. Heironeous finds himself instantly back to the Fields of Glory in Venya. Once there, he's emphatically _not_ helpless, only unable to grant spells above 3rd level or travel to another plane. He's now twice as powerful as he was when he fought Demogorgon the first time. If he decides he wants to wait until he's back to his full strength (so he can skip across the planes again) he can simply hide somewhere in his vast realm - once he's back on his home plane, he has no silver cord to follow.




The book mentions that such a being is weakened. I don't see how being twice as powerful is weakened. The being should have to rejuvenate its destroyed manifestation.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Meanwhile, the Throne Archon of Venya instantly senses Demogorgon's incursion and martials all the hosts of the Heavens against the hated demon prince, who is already wounded from his battle. Vast legions of solars, planetars, devas, and sword archons teleport into Demogorgon's vicinity and engage Demogorgon's hosts while the greater gods of Mount Celestia hear the news and teleport directly into the Prince of Demon's presence, probably slaughtering him before he can get away, and certainly before he can enact retribution on Heironeous.




Wouldn't save Heironeous. By following the silver cord Demogorgon would be transported directly to Heironeous place of rejuvenation. Heironeous might have some of his own servants on high alert just in case of his defeat (given where he was going initially), but would his servants be able to defeat Demogorgon? Perhaps if Demogorgon was heavily wounded (although if thats the case he might not take the risk in the first place.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Then they follow _his_ silver cord back to Abysm and engulf his palace in an inferno of holy fire, possibly (assuming this fire is nonmagical) destroying his soul object and killing him permanently. Because lawful good deities get along much better than chaotic evil ones, I think it's safe to say that Demogorgon fears angering the forces of Mount Celestia far more than they fear angering the Monarchs of Demonium. Graz'zt and Orcus will teleport into Abysm to finish Demogorgon off if Vishnu, Rao, and Tyr don't manage it.




Firstly they would have to find out, secondly, they would either have to locate Demogorgons rejuvenation manifestation hideout (which is likely to be very well hidden) and thirdly they would have to take it by force (likely very well defended). By that time Demogorgon should be back on his feet.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And Greater Powers, according to the 1e Manual of the Planes, are utterly immune to violent death. Demogorgon can be killed (assuming his soul amulet is also destroyed) but they can't. At all. If they're killed elsewhere they reform on their home plane, and they can't be killed on their home plane by anyone or anything.




That rule always seemed to contradict Deities & Demigods (page 11) - we certainly never used it.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Reasonably, the forces of Good can send wave after wave of deities after Demogorgon, each willing to take incredible risks in battle that Demogorgon is not, confident that nothing will happen to them if they're defeated. The only good reason that they don't is that they're not willing to start Armageddon between the forces of good and evil yet.




The reason is, if Heironeous attacks Demogorgon without provocation, hes in effect the bad guy in the western 'drawing first'. The forces of good are not going to 'pull out all the stops to avenge Heironeous' if he 'started it'.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> When that happens, we can expect the planar lords to be the first to go, sending the demons and devils into disarray while the gods concentrate on one another. I don't like that kind of cosmology; I don't like having the beings who personify the planes as mere servants or second-runners to the deities.




I never said they were. They are powers unto themselves, but they are not invincible.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> In mythology, great demons like Hiranyaksha, Ravana, Apep, or Belial are beings worthy adversaries of the greatest gods, whether they're on their home ground or not. In the polytheistic multiverse of D&D, they should be among the major antagonists in any level of play.




I'd have Ravana as an Intermediate Power of Acheron.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> After looking at the rules carefully - yeah, in 1st edition that's true (though not in 3rd edition, where a rival only has to be powerful enough to beat the DC of the ward effect).




But we are in agreement that the 3rd Edition rules are not perfect.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I thought Asmodeus or Demogorgon didn't have any way of blocking teleportation in 1e, since it wasn't one of their spell-like abilities either as themselves or as lesser gods, they don't have class levels, and they can't use _wish_ to benefit themselves in any way - but yeah, there's a note in the back of the MotP of lesser deities being able to alter up to 80 spell levels so they malfunction within his realm. Asmodeus could make it so any attempt to teleport into Malsheem causes the caster to end up in a sealed, windowless, doorless room full of acid and other unpleasant things thousands of feet beneath the palace - and the hapless deity would be unable to teleport out again without ending up in the same room. That's really _nasty_, and it was clever of Jeff Grubb to add that.




Yes, its a great addition. Something similar happened to my deity character. My Lawful Good deity character was gated (I went willingly - don't ask) in by Mephisto to a sealed steel smooth well, which was immediately engulfed in Anti-Magic (which worked on deities back then). Above the well was a multi-ton block of solid steel on a chain (like a big plug). Basically my character was held to ransom by the Mephisto faction for quite a lot of money/magic and so forth.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Prior to 1987, Hextor could have teleported in, killed Asmodeus and left possibly without even raising an alarm, but after that date Hextor will have to make his way through the palace physically. Hextor can't affect Asmodeus or the palace itself magically, so he'll have to _sneak_ in - which is possible, as Asmodeus isn't granted any extraordinary senses in his domain other than the ability to look, if he consciously thinks of doing so, into the Astral Plane (which doesn't border Nessus anyway). Hextor can still use many of his other abilities to aid him. It might be the equivalent of beating the _Tomb of Horrors_, but he could manage it.




Remember also that Asmodeus could have areas of anti-magic. Areas with access via teleports or gates only (which could have other enchantments like energy draining without the proper key etc.). Hell also have rooms full of guards who can detect invisible (most devils), or smell you (hell hounds), or some with true seeing. Mechanical traps. Lead lined locked doors (which you can't ethereally travel through). Trapped dead ends. Basically it should make the Tomb of Horrors look like a picnic.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I think he could take Asmodeus in a fight, though it'd be difficult - Asmo has almost exactly twice as many hit points in his home realm, but Hextor, with his six arms and superior weapons, dishes out more than twice as much damage. Asmodeus is immune to Hextor's magic, but Hextor has 90% spell resistance himself.




To be fair some of the Monster Manual Archdevil (or Demon Prince) stats didn't seem to fully make sense.

I mean Asmodeus lists 1 attack and 4-14 damage. But logically that should be weapon damage + strength + cause serious wounds. Also he should have 2 attacks (consistent with MM2 arch-devils). Assuming he doesn't use the breath weapon power of his Rod.

Baalzebul's stats are even more ridiculous.

Hextor should also have an extra attack for being a 16th-level Fighter. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> We'll assume that Asmodeus has blocked Hextor's summoning abilities, so his only allies will be whatever minions he's snuck in with him.




I can't see him sneaking any in without being detected. Which will give Asmodeus ample time to prepare a welcoming committee.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Asmodeus will be able to summon one pit fiend to his service (and it will be Alastor, who has 104 hit points),




Remember Lesser Powers (and Demi-powers) can Summon (1d6 creatures up to 30 HD, 20 HD for demipowers) and Gate as their major abilities.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> who has a 70% chance of summoning another, who has a 70% chance of summoning another, and so on - but that's not necessarily insurmountable, as each time there's a 30% chance that the chain will end and nobody will have the ability to summon anything, and many of them will be made helpless by Hextor's _Symbol of Hate and Discord_, assuming they fail their saving throws. And Hextor's an able tactician, so he'll drive Asmodeus into a small room the pit fiends can't fit into and try to finish him off quickly. Asmodeus than yawns and says, "Hextor, my poor misguided adopted son, _what_ do you think you're doing?"




Whats more likely is that Asmodeus will learn of Hextors attack and then have him run a gauntlet of traps and challenges that lead to a specially prepared kill room where Asmodeus waits with his 99 toughest Pit Fiend bodyguards and as many of his Dukes of Hell that can be gathered in time. The Pit Fiends can screen Asmodeus while he uses his magic (or rod)



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And Hextor says, "Taking over Hell! Raargh! It's all very Oedipal!"
> 
> Asmodeus points out that he can _teleport without error_ to a safe location at any time, while an army of pit fiends who now knows Hextor's exact location can finish him off... and Hextor, post-_Manual of the Planes_, probably can't use any of his spell-like abilities to escape, assuming the DM is thinking things out properly. And the gulf of power between a lesser deity and a pit fiend, while great, isn't quite so great in 1st edition as your narrator thinks it ought to be.
> 
> Hextor says, "Let's forget this ever happened, shall we?"
> 
> Asmodeus gives him a kiss on the cheek and says, "Of course, my darling love, my bouncing baby boy. I gave you those arms because I have a _use_ for you."
> 
> Hextor says, "I really miss the Queen of the Demonweb Pits era."
> 
> "We all do," says Asmodeus. "It was amusing to think of Lolth having only 66 hit points. Alas, this is the brave new post-Gygaxian era, and Jeff Grubb has provided us with a somewhat more sensible cosmology. I still think I ought to be a greater deity, of course."
> 
> "You win for now," says Hextor. "But I'll be back in second edition, when pit fiends will have no chance against my true, non-avatar form."
> 
> "You won't find me," says Asmodeus. "I'll lie low. You can search my entire palace and find nothing more intimidating than the Dark Eight until _Planes of Law_ reintroduces me as the Dark Lord of Nessus, and then I'll be able to easily fend off attacks by such as you."
> 
> Hextor grits his teeth. "A day will come," he vows, "When the _Book of Vile Darkness_ will render you absolutely defenseless! I'll use _alter reality_, destroy you in a single round, and teleport away laughing! You won't even have a soul object!"
> 
> "That's low-class," says Asmodeus. "You might as well brag about being able to defeat me in Candyland. Now, Upper Krust's rules..."
> 
> Hextor sneers. "I may not know a lot about Upper Krust's rules, but I know 3rd edition. Every effect has a Difficulty Class, and I'll be an intermediate deity to your lesser. I'll beat your teleportation ward, surround you with an _Anti-Magic Field_ to prevent you from teleporting yourself, and finish you off. I won't even have to find my way through your palace! Not only will my attacks do more damage, but my hit points will be far greater than anything you can imagine!"
> 
> "We shall see," says Asmodeus. "We shall see."




Very nice! 

Of course my rules take the good ideas from the rest. 

Hextor would convert to 56th-level (32nd Fighter, 5th Rogue, 19th Assassin). Asmodeus would convert to 49 Hit Dice Outsider with 24th-level integrated Cleric Spellcasting as well as his spell-like abilities.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Orc Pantheon: 1 Greater Deity, 5 Lesser Deities and presumably a few Demi and Quasi-deities
> 
> Archdevils: 9 Lesser Deities, 99 Quasi-deities, Pit Fiend Legions and so forth.




No, you have to play fair here. Because 1st edition was "perfect" as it was, you can't add rules, and I can't find anything that says diabolic nobles get the powers of quasi-deities (not that quasi-deites _had_ any specific powers other than immortality and the ability to ignore class restrictions). 

So a greater god and five lesser gods against nine lesser gods - and the orcs are much more unified, used to fighting as a team and lacking the extreme rivalries of the devils. The diabolic legions have pit fiends, but the orcs have countless orcish souls, hardened veterans of a nigh-endless war with the goblins, who automatically regenerate every day. The orcish troops literally can't die until their masters do, and Gruumsh can't die at all. The most that can happen is that he is banished to his realm (his troops with him).



> I'm not limiting him as much as I am playing him intelligently. Hes not going to pick a fight he can't win.




You're neutering him. Demogorgon can't upset a greater deity? He can't pick on the Norse for fear of Odin, he can't pick on the people of Oerth for fear of Pelor and Rao, he can't pick on the Finnish for fear of Ukko - exactly where does he acquire his reputation as a force of evil? He must do something other than quarreling with other Abyssal lords, or demons aren't as frightening as they say.



> I have always found the Pantheons of the Megaverse supplement to be very evocative on this subject.




I was browsing through that the other day. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it looks like they were trying really hard to upset Hindus with their Mecha-Shiva and so on. They really should have thrown in a Jesus with laser eye beams just to stay consistent. It's a very creative book, though it used Lovecraft as a bit of a crutch.



> Well, the General only rules Gehenna, Infestix ruled Gehenna, Hades and Tarterus.




The General of Gehenna is the ultimate master of the yugoloth race (if you don't count his baernaloth "advisors"). They're a neutral race, so their hierarchy isn't perfectly orderly - Mydianchlarus and Bubonix have quite a bit of autonomy - but neither are they unruled as a race as the tanar'ri are. They _do_ have a single greatest member who is the ultimate mastermind (baernaloths again excluded) behind all their plots, and that is the General of Gehenna. He is, in that sense, equivalent to Gygax's Infestix (Tharizdun - who is much the equivalent of the baernaloths - excluded).



> I think they allied with him because they too wanted Tharizdun released.




There's something to that, but I think it's more that they saw Tharizdun's release as inevitable and wanted to make sure they had a place in the new order.



> He rules, but hes more the head of government than a dictator with absolute power.




He's very much a dictator - in many ways he's _the_ dictator, the one all others model themselves on. His expert manipulation of the other factions is what keeps him that way. His power may not be absolute, but as long as the other two factions are kept concentrating on one another he is absolutely the one in charge. It's not like anyone else gets a vote in his decisions - there's no parliament in Nessus (although there may be in Dis, seeing as Dispater has a Prime Minister). 



> First of all, a cursory glance at Nerulls 1st Edition stats tells us he is way more powerful than Anthraxus.




The level of autocracy in planar races ought to be consonant with their alignment - that is, very high in the lawful races (a single unquestioned ruler), mid-range in the neutral races (a ruler who permits a great deal of freedom), while the chaotic races are able to muster no autocrats at all, instead having several feuding powers (as with the tanar'ri and slaadi) or a purely symbolic head (as with the eladrins).



> So if we have Archons, Guardinals and Eladrins for good. Demons, Daemons and Devils for evil, the Angels would seemingly be something else.




Angels (or aasimon) are servitors of the deities, rather than planeborne. They're equivalent to the servitors of the evil deities - Minions of Set, Helkyries of Hel, Visages of Orcus, and so on.  They don't personify alignments; instead, they seek only to enact their masters' will.

Baatezu, tanar'ri, yugoloths, guardinals, archons, eladrins, slaadi, modrons, and rilmani personify the nine alignments. They have little to do with the gods, as the gods have little to do with their planes. The exception is Mount Celestia, where archons and aasimon share the same hierarchy, archons seemlessly promoted into agathions and devas.



> Nerull could be daemonic in the same sense as the Baernoloths, who could be angelic counterparts rather than Archon/Guardinal/Eladrin counterparts.




Baernaloths are the primal manifestations of and progenitors of evil. If you want to compare them to something Gygaxian, they're most similar to Tharizdun himself. They have counterparts among the other manifestations - progenitors of law, chaos, and good, and probably balance as well. The other progenitors have not been detailed, unless the kamarel are the elder beings of Balance. 



> That chart only applies to the Spiritual Hierarchies, not deities (of other origin) though.




My problem is that the Spiritual Hierarchies are so weak compared to deities of other origin. 

It ought to be something like:

Monarch of Demonium (one of the six-or-so greatest rulers): Greater Power
Prince (rules one layer or more): Demigod-Intermediate Power (highly variable, as befits the Abyss, and not necessarily correlative to number of layers ruled)
Lord (rules less than one layer): Quasi-deity (at best)
Archdemon (unique, powerful tanar'ri, like the nalfeshnee Lords of Woe or Red Shroud): Powerful, but not a god.

On the diabolic side, only Asmodeus is a greater power (perhaps Levistus too if he were freed), his closest rivals (Mephistopheles and Baalzebul) would be Intermediate, Mammon, Belial, the Hag Countess, and Dispater lesser powers, and Bel and Fierana both demigods. Their advantage is their relative unity and organization. 

Among the yugoloths, the General of Gehenna should be treated as a greater god, and perhaps the Oinoloth to a lesser extent.

But I'm just musing aloud here. I don't like to define them that closely. 



> Why?




For the reasons I already enumerated, which you responded to with "absolutely." There are fewer planar lords than there are greater gods, yet the planeborne are more fundamental to the (standard) cosmology. The respective power levels should reflect that - if Set is picking a fight with Levistus, he's picking a fight with the _layer of Stygia itself_. His own realm isn't really part of Stygia in a real sense - he destroyed the layer's sentience within his domain, making it an extension of his own mind. But outside, he shouldn't have the advantages that greater gods normally have over lesser gods, even considering the (sensible) advantages Levistus has in his home realm - particularly considering Levistus is something of a sitting duck.



> Its a very clear point of grammar as far as I can see.




"Few" means "_Being more than one but indefinitely small in number._" Nothing else modifies that. The first part of the sentence establishes that there is more than one greater god in the Abyss, while the second explains why there are not many greater gods in the Abyss.



> I don't remember ever reading Gruumsh was jostling for control of the Hells?




That's why the Lords of the Nine ultimately drove them into Acheron.



> Any deity can block Plane Shift to their realm (as per page 126 Manual of the Planes).




Lesser deities only have 80 spell levels to assign to magic modifications, so they have to be somewhat choosy. Remember how Fea defeated the goddess Yamara?



> Once you get killed you are banished from the plane/world for a century.




Immortals have nothing but time. 



> The book mentions that such a being is weakened. I don't see how being twice as powerful is weakened. The being should have to rejuvenate its destroyed manifestation.




It explains exactly how they're weakened - they lose the ability to move anything outside their plane or grant spells. It doesn't say they're weakened in any other way. It says that planar travel is, for deities, like astral projection, so it's logical to assume they have a true form in their realm waiting for their spirit to rejoin it, as in the astral projection spell. This form, as described in the MotP, has twice the hit points of and many more spell-like abilities than the "avatar" they use outside their realm. Your assertion that a recently slain deity is helpless on his home plane contradicts _Deities & Demigods'_ premise that it should be next to impossible for mortals to slay them there. From the context, the book is saying that if mortals manage to destroy a manifestation of a deity and follow them back to their home realms, they "should be dealt with severely, the god bringing to bear all the powers that the being has."



> By following the silver cord Demogorgon would be transported directly to Heironeous place of rejuvenation.




That's _extremely_ debatable. Heironeous will arrive in his realm before Demogorgon does, and the moment he steps back on his home plane his silver cord disappears. 



> Firstly they would have to find out, secondly, they would either have to locate Demogorgons rejuvenation manifestation hideout (which is likely to be very well hidden)




Wait, what? I thought you said that Demogorgon instantly arrived at Heironeous' hideout - why don't Rao, Vishnu, and Tyr do the same? You have to play fair. Either both groups instantly find their helpless enemies or neither of them do.



> That rule always seemed to contradict Deities & Demigods (page 11) - we certainly never used it.




1st edition was "perfect," though, so for the sake of defending that point we have to play by the rules. 

And yeah, it changed and evolved over time - it's not a monolith. Tiamat as she was introduced in oD&D isn't the same as Tiamat post-D&Dg isn't the same as Tiamat in the MotP. The rules _do_ contradict each other. But if you want to take advantage of, for rhetorical purposes, all the cool realm-altering abilities the MotP gifted us with, then - as far as this entirely hypothetical debate goes - it's only fair to include the other parts as well.



> The forces of good are not going to 'pull out all the stops to avenge Heironeous' if he 'started it'.




Perhaps not to avenge him, but remember that Demogorgon is, in your example, invading their territory. This can't be allowed. If you think that the hosts of Demonkind will be avenging an intervention into their territory, won't the hosts of Heaven do the same? Besides, they don't _like_ Demogorgon.



> I'd have Ravana as an Intermediate Power of Acheron.




Ravana's son Indrajit defeated Indra, who is an intermediate deity, by himself. 



> To be fair some of the Monster Manual Archdevil (or Demon Prince) stats didn't seem to fully make sense.




Well, that's what I've been saying. 



> I can't see him sneaking any in without being detected. Which will give Asmodeus ample time to prepare a welcoming committee.




Hextor, the Herald of Hell, knows the area, and many of his divine powers will work adequately to confuse and befuddle the Dark Lord's lesser minions. Plus, it's just a basic trope of the game that dungeons are solvable. I mean, if we're talking "powers far beyond mortal comprehension" I agree that nobody's getting into Malsheem without the Overlord's consent, but if we're talking "let's let gods be PCs" then a party of well-equipped, experienced divine adventurers ought to have a chance at winning.



> remember Lesser Powers (and Demi-powers) can Summon (1d6 creatures up to 30 HD, 20 HD for demipowers) and Gate as their major abilities.




I was assuming that Asmodeus' monster stats described how his particular summoning abilities worked, but fair enough - we'll give him that, too. He rolls randomly, attempting for his mightiest minions, and gets one or two extra pit fiends (likely two, but it depends on his roll) or one diabolic noble (maybe Phongor). With whatever's left over maybe he can get an erinyes or two if he rolls high enough. I'm not exactly certain how to convert hit points into hit dice - do I assume they had average rolls (in which case, Phongor is too powerful for Asmodeus to summon) or that they rolled high? Do 1st edition monsters get constitution bonuses?


----------



## BOZ

get a room, you lovebirds.    *throws popcorn at rip and UK, hoping the show will go on anyway*


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> No, you have to play fair here. Because 1st edition was "perfect" as it was, you can't add rules, and I can't find anything that says diabolic nobles get the powers of quasi-deities (not that quasi-deites _had_ any specific powers other than immortality and the ability to ignore class restrictions).




If a mere demon lord, like Juiblex is a Lesser Power then the Dukes of Hell should also be considered Lesser Powers.

Personally though, I see them as quasi-deities, but thats just me. Regardless, the dukes of Hell are going to be a factor in the battle.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> So a greater god and five lesser gods against nine lesser gods - and the orcs are much more unified, used to fighting as a team and lacking the extreme rivalries of the devils.




I don't know if they are used to fighting as a team. Likely Gruumsh, Baghtru and Ilneval. Remember also that a few of them don't have the Hells as their home plane.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The diabolic legions have pit fiends, but the orcs have countless orcish souls, hardened veterans of a nigh-endless war with the goblins, who automatically regenerate every day. The orcish troops literally can't die until their masters do, and Gruumsh can't die at all. The most that can happen is that he is banished to his realm (his troops with him).




Well we have to negate that 'can't be killed jive' for Gruumsh.

Anything where theres no risk is pointless.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You're neutering him. Demogorgon can't upset a greater deity? He can't pick on the Norse for fear of Odin, he can't pick on the people of Oerth for fear of Pelor and Rao, he can't pick on the Finnish for fear of Ukko - exactly where does he acquire his reputation as a force of evil? He must do something other than quarreling with other Abyssal lords, or demons aren't as frightening as they say.




I'm talking about picking a fight with him directly. Of course Demogorgon, or more likely his followers/servants, can be at odds with mortals who worship any of the norse gods.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I was browsing through that the other day. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it looks like they were trying really hard to upset Hindus with their Mecha-Shiva and so on. They really should have thrown in a Jesus with laser eye beams just to stay consistent. It's a very creative book, though it used Lovecraft as a bit of a crutch.




I loved it...as you might imagine. It has that 'anything goes' approach. Prior to reading it I had never read Lovecraft or played Call of Cthulhu (even though I knew the inspiration behind the Old Ones), so many of the references seemed fresh to me.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The General of Gehenna is the ultimate master of the yugoloth race (if you don't count his baernaloth "advisors"). They're a neutral race, so their hierarchy isn't perfectly orderly - Mydianchlarus and Bubonix have quite a bit of autonomy - but neither are they unruled as a race as the tanar'ri are. They _do_ have a single greatest member who is the ultimate mastermind (baernaloths again excluded) behind all their plots, and that is the General of Gehenna. He is, in that sense, equivalent to Gygax's Infestix (Tharizdun - who is much the equivalent of the baernaloths - excluded).




Thats one way of looking at it. Although I don't see the General as Infestix equal (though the point is moot I suppose).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He's very much a dictator - in many ways he's _the_ dictator, the one all others model themselves on. His expert manipulation of the other factions is what keeps him that way. His power may not be absolute, but as long as the other two factions are kept concentrating on one another he is absolutely the one in charge. It's not like anyone else gets a vote in his decisions - there's no parliament in Nessus (although there may be in Dis, seeing as Dispater has a Prime Minister).




In the book I described the politics of Hell akin to a Feudal society with a King, but powerful noble lords who control ttheir own lands and pay him fealty. I don't think Asmodeus could overthrow one of the other factions and remain in power, but I think he could certainly defend against another faction.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The level of autocracy in planar races ought to be consonant with their alignment - that is, very high in the lawful races (a single unquestioned ruler), mid-range in the neutral races (a ruler who permits a great deal of freedom), while the chaotic races are able to muster no autocrats at all, instead having several feuding powers (as with the tanar'ri and slaadi) or a purely symbolic head (as with the eladrins).




Agreed. However, D&D cosmology isn't necessarily like this. Although you could argue Lucifer is the true master of Hell (did you ever read the old Dragon magazine article on him?).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Baernaloths are the primal manifestations of and progenitors of evil. If you want to compare them to something Gygaxian, they're most similar to Tharizdun himself. They have counterparts among the other manifestations - progenitors of law, chaos, and good, and probably balance as well. The other progenitors have not been detailed, unless the kamarel are the elder beings of Balance.




Wasn't there Baernoloth stats printed in Planescape (I vaguely recall them) but they were just total pants?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> My problem is that the Spiritual Hierarchies are so weak compared to deities of other origin.
> 
> It ought to be something like:
> 
> Monarch of Demonium (one of the six-or-so greatest rulers): Greater Power
> Prince (rules one layer or more): Demigod-Intermediate Power (highly variable, as befits the Abyss, and not necessarily correlative to number of layers ruled)
> Lord (rules less than one layer): Quasi-deity (at best)
> Archdemon (unique, powerful tanar'ri, like the nalfeshnee Lords of Woe or Red Shroud): Powerful, but not a god.
> 
> On the diabolic side, only Asmodeus is a greater power (perhaps Levistus too if he were freed), his closest rivals (Mephistopheles and Baalzebul) would be Intermediate, Mammon, Belial, the Hag Countess, and Dispater lesser powers, and Bel and Fierana both demigods. Their advantage is their relative unity and organization.
> 
> Among the yugoloths, the General of Gehenna should be treated as a greater god, and perhaps the Oinoloth to a lesser extent.
> 
> But I'm just musing aloud here. I don't like to define them that closely.




If the General off Gehenna rules an entire plane and Demogorgon, or Asmodeus for that matter, do not. Why should they all be of equal power?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> For the reasons I already enumerated, which you responded to with "absolutely." There are fewer planar lords than there are greater gods, yet the planeborne are more fundamental to the (standard) cosmology.




Thats totally dependant upon an individual campaigns cosmology though. Its also dependant on what exactly makes a greater power (I wouldn't have Set as a greater power for instance).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The respective power levels should reflect that - if Set is picking a fight with Levistus, he's picking a fight with the _layer of Stygia itself_. His own realm isn't really part of Stygia in a real sense - he destroyed the layer's sentience within his domain, making it an extension of his own mind. But outside, he shouldn't have the advantages that greater gods normally have over lesser gods, even considering the (sensible) advantages Levistus has in his home realm - particularly considering Levistus is something of a sitting duck.




I suspect Sytgia will still be here long after Levistus is not.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> "Few" means "_Being more than one but indefinitely small in number._" Nothing else modifies that. The first part of the sentence establishes that there is more than one greater god in the Abyss, while the second explains why there are not many greater gods in the Abyss.




I still don't see how you can interpret that sentence like that. If it didn't have the word 'would' in it I would agree with you...but it does.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Lesser deities only have 80 spell levels to assign to magic modifications, so they have to be somewhat choosy. Remember how Fea defeated the goddess Yamara?








			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Immortals have nothing but time.




So, try again in another 100 years. Demogorgon will be ready and better prepared.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It explains exactly how they're weakened - they lose the ability to move anything outside their plane or grant spells. It doesn't say they're weakened in any other way. It says that planar travel is, for deities, like astral projection, so it's logical to assume they have a true form in their realm waiting for their spirit to rejoin it, as in the astral projection spell.




That just seems innappropriate as far as I can see. They should be severely weakened, what you suggest is like a gentle slap on the wrist. The deity has to risk something.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> This form, as described in the MotP, has twice the hit points of and many more spell-like abilities than the "avatar" they use outside their realm. Your assertion that a recently slain deity is helpless on his home plane contradicts _Deities & Demigods'_ premise that it should be next to impossible for mortals to slay them there. From the context, the book is saying that if mortals manage to destroy a manifestation of a deity and follow them back to their home realms, they "should be dealt with severely, the god bringing to bear all the powers that the being has."




The book doesn't imply that at all, and it takes a whole new paragraph to divide being slain on a non-native plane and being slain on their native plane. 

It certainly never says they should be powered up on their home plane directly after being killed on a non-native plane.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's _extremely_ debatable. Heironeous will arrive in his realm before Demogorgon does, and the moment he steps back on his home plane his silver cord disappears.




Exactly, thats why theres the miss chance, you only get a split second to act on it.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Wait, what? I thought you said that Demogorgon instantly arrived at Heironeous' hideout - why don't Rao, Vishnu, and Tyr do the same? You have to play fair. Either both groups instantly find their helpless enemies or neither of them do.




He arrives directly in Heironeous rejuvenation chamber (pending the successful mishap roll).

Heironeous would be rejuvenating, so he couldn't follow a defeated Demogorgons silver cord. So he won't know where his hideout is.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> 1st edition was "perfect," though, so for the sake of defending that point we have to play by the rules.




The cosmology was perfect, yes. But I can see a few improvements in the immortal mechanics. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And yeah, it changed and evolved over time - it's not a monolith. Tiamat as she was introduced in oD&D isn't the same as Tiamat post-D&Dg isn't the same as Tiamat in the MotP. The rules _do_ contradict each other. But if you want to take advantage of, for rhetorical purposes, all the cool realm-altering abilities the MotP gifted us with, then - as far as this entirely hypothetical debate goes - it's only fair to include the other parts as well.




Even if we adhere rigidly to MotP for the purposes of the argument, once they incapacitate Gruumsh they could always launch a jihad on orcs everywhere so that when Gruumsh is back on his feet he is really weakened.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Perhaps not to avenge him, but remember that Demogorgon is, in your example, invading their territory. This can't be allowed. If you think that the hosts of Demonkind will be avenging an intervention into their territory, won't the hosts of Heaven do the same? Besides, they don't _like_ Demogorgon.




Yes, but Heironeous attack was unprovoked. Demogorgons was merely retaliatory.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Ravana's son Indrajit defeated Indra, who is an intermediate deity, by himself.




I'd have Indrajit and Kumbakarna as Lesser Deities of Gehenna. As long as he wasn't fighting on Indra's home plane he would have a good chance. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Well, that's what I've been saying.




Yes but the problems seem more like errata in waiting than fundamental reversals of policy.  



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Hextor, the Herald of Hell, knows the area, and many of his divine powers will work adequately to confuse and befuddle the Dark Lord's lesser minions. Plus, it's just a basic trope of the game that dungeons are solvable. I mean, if we're talking "powers far beyond mortal comprehension" I agree that nobody's getting into Malsheem without the Overlord's consent, but if we're talking "let's let gods be PCs" then a party of well-equipped, experienced divine adventurers ought to have a chance at winning.




True, but its not going to be easy. Acererak was just a lich after all. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> I was assuming that Asmodeus' monster stats described how his particular summoning abilities worked, but fair enough - we'll give him that, too. He rolls randomly, attempting for his mightiest minions, and gets one or two extra pit fiends (likely two, but it depends on his roll) or one diabolic noble (maybe Phongor). With whatever's left over maybe he can get an erinyes or two if he rolls high enough. I'm not exactly certain how to convert hit points into hit dice - do I assume they had average rolls (in which case, Phongor is too powerful for Asmodeus to summon) or that they rolled high? Do 1st edition monsters get constitution bonuses?




In 1st Edition you divide by 4.5 to get Hit Dice.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Agreed. However, D&D cosmology isn't necessarily like this.




And how isn't it? The level of organization among the major exemplar races is very much based on what alignments they represent on the Law/Chaos axis. 

The Tanar'ri are terribly fractured among competing powerful Abyssal Lords, the Baatezu are united under the banner of Asmodeus and their armies in the Blood War fight as a unified front, and the Yugoloths are somewhere in the middle. The Slaadi are chaos incarnate, with hardly any heirarchy beyond raw, immediate power, and the Modrons are a collective united under a single being in Primus. The Archons are effectively a perfect vision of a top-down military heirarchy united under the various banners of specific members of the Hebdomad, like 7 seperate divisions of Celestia's military, a shining inverse of Baator. The Guardinals are likewise a mirror of the Yugoloths, without the perverse corruptions of their ideological opposites. The Eladrin have a heirarchy, but its only power is symbolic, like the king or queen figurehead of a modern republic. Morwel's advice might be highly valued, but she can't dictate her whims upon the various Tulani nobles, nor would she. And then the Rilmani, ruled by the Aurumach council, but with each rank of the race having significant autonomy, perfectly balanced between all of the extremes.



> Although you could argue Lucifer is the true master of Hell (did you ever read the old Dragon magazine article on him?)




For what it's worth, that article in dragon was explicitely not to be considered canon within the DnD cosmology, it even said as much within the article. As such, it's a moot point here.



> Wasn't there Baernoloth stats printed in Planescape (I vaguely recall them) but they were just total pants?




Yes, in the Planes of Conflict box set. And there were stats for Daru Ib Shamiq (the one named Baern) in the Hellbound box set. And it was odd, because the level of influence and the frightening level of control they had over the Yugoloths, and arguably the entire lower planes, didn't match with their printed stats. Some of the things they actually did were not possible if you assume them to only have the stats they were listed as having their. And their level of knowledge and prescience regarding the entirety of the lower planes seemed to never be wrong when it came to specific details, specific secrets, specific dark and hidden things. 

There were suggestions of them being able to control Baatezu and Tanar'ri and the 'loths all but worship them and willingly fall all over themselves to obey their dictates. That's not within their stats. The Baernaloths granted the Baatezu, Tanar'ri, and Yugoloth races collectively their abilities to teleport. Apomps, an exiled Baern, created an entire outsider race (Demodands/Gehreleths). Daru Ib Shamiq created a yugoloth 'ghost' without any link to the ethereal or negative energy planes.

They did a hell of a lot of things that weren't given as powers or spell-like abilities within the one stat block given for their type. But there's several ways to look at it:

1) This represents the still extant Baernaloths who have, in the eons since the creation of the Gray Waste, simply given up to apathy and the harrowing effect of their own native plane. Whatever they might once have been capable of, they have since forgotten or had leached from them.

2) The stats don't represent the frighteningly powerful Baernaloths, 'The Demented', who serve as 'advisors' to the most powerful unique Yugoloths (the General of Gehenna, the Oinoloth, Bubonix, Cerlic/Charon, etc) or to the most powerful Ultroloths. These remaining Baernaloths are entities of god-like power that view the entirety of the lower planes with a mad, dispassionate interest, playing it like a massive shell game of perhaps minor consequence in their own eons long proxy war versus the other abstract alignments.

3) The stats as presented are only for the less powerful Baernaloths who remain behind. It's important to keep in mind that once the Baernaloths transferred their overt power over the yugoloth race to the Ultroloths, that most of the entire Baernaloth race simply vanished. They may have merged with the plane, they might have returned to the semi-mythical source, neutral evil in the abstract, that sent them to the Waste as its heralds, they might have withered away in mad seclusion, etc. The original, god-like Baern who created the yugoloth race, and did the stuff of legends, might no longer remain behind in this multiverse, having literally abandoned their favored children to their own devices in an act of wanton cruelty that only fits so well. The 'loths remain convinced that the Blood War is their playground, that they are special in the eyes of Evil, that one day they will control the other fiend races, etc but in truth the Baern have no intentions of doing such, despite fostering this mythos in the eyes of their creations who may have been abandoned by their makers to make their own way.

A mix of these latter two is the take that I've gone with for my own elaboration of the members of 'The Demented' that particular group of 13 Baernaloths (though the number there is my own creation). Beyond the series of stories that detail each of those members, I actually wrote up stats for one of them, though it was only by virtue of that particular Baernaloth being encountered about as far away from its native plane, and source of power, as possible.


----------



## GVDammerung

Shemeska said:
			
		

> For what it's worth, that article in dragon was explicitely not to be considered canon within the DnD cosmology, it even said as much within the article. As such, it's a moot point here.




To say, "It's moot," takes the easy way out and avoids the point by attempting to evade the inconvenient.

When that article was written there was no D&D cosmology comparable to the detail that exists now.  If it excluded itself, it excluded itself from what was then written and nothing more.  So much for "mootness."  Any mootness is moot   as the D&D cosmology has moved on.

The entire "fallen angel" idea has now been adopted into the D&D cosmology.  I'm not sure without looking whether Lucifer is mentioned in other D&D sources, but assuming he is not, he is entirely relevant to the "fallen angle" idea, nonetheless.

Certainly, in the wider world of D&D licensed/approved material Lucifer is mentioned.  Tome of Horrors leaps immediately to mind for the present 3X edition.

As an aside, IMO, when you argue D&D cosmology and exclude _any_ D&D material, licensed, "approved" etc. you are arguing in an artificially small pond.  Except for IP purposes of interest primarily to lawyers, D&D was never just TSR and it is certainly not just Wotc.  To imagine otherwise, unless your game follows international copyright treaties in addition to the PH, DMG and MMs, is another avoidance of the inconvenient.  My two cents.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> If a mere demon lord, like Juiblex is a Lesser Power then the Dukes of Hell should also be considered Lesser Powers.




If the Dukes of Hell are lesser powers, the Lords of the Nine should be greater powers. I'm okay with that, but we're venturing far beyond our earlier parameters. 



> I don't know if they are used to fighting as a team. Likely Gruumsh, Baghtru and Ilneval. Remember also that a few of them don't have the Hells as their home plane.




Don't forget Luthic - every party needs a healer. Shargaas and Yutrus can boat in using the Styx, if worse comes to worst; Charon doesn't care who he gets his coins from. Or they could simply planeshift instantaneously into Nishrek if they're not interested in the scenic view. 



> Well we have to negate that 'can't be killed jive' for Gruumsh.




Then I get to negate the "lesser powers are immune to magic in their home realms" jive too, and everything else in the MotP. If we're making stuff up as we go along, debate is impossible. 

C'mon, man, let's be hardcore! We have to use all the 1st edition rules, or we can't fairly judge whether the 1st edition cosmology is perfect or not.



> I'm talking about picking a fight with him directly. Of course Demogorgon, or more likely his followers/servants, can be at odds with mortals who worship any of the norse gods.




Then it's reasonable for the Norse gods to be angry at Demogorgon. 



> Agreed. However, D&D cosmology isn't necessarily like this. Although you could argue Lucifer is the true master of Hell (did you ever read the old Dragon magazine article on him?).




It is, though.

and my old take on Lucifer is here. I think I'd demote him today, make him just a fallen solar living in Avernus.



> If the General off Gehenna rules an entire plane and Demogorgon, or Asmodeus for that matter, do not. Why should they all be of equal power?




Asmodeus, as a being of despotism incarnate, rules his plane far more thoroughly than the General rules Gehenna. Demogorgon, as a being of primal chaos, gains more power from _not_ ruling than he would from ruling; the war and chaos and strife created by his style gift him with far more power than attempting to imitate the Overlord of Hell would. I think he may be the only demon prince who truly understands that.



> I suspect Sytgia will still be here long after Levistus is not.




Certainly. If Set had attempted to go against Geryon during his administration the scenario would have been the same (except Geryon can move around more easily). 



> So, try again in another 100 years. Demogorgon will be ready and better prepared.




So will Heironeous.



> That just seems innappropriate as far as I can see. They should be severely weakened, what you suggest is like a gentle slap on the wrist. The deity has to risk something.




Don't look at me. You're the one who thought it was a perfect cosmology.



> The book doesn't imply that at all, It certainly never says they should be powered up on their home plane directly after being killed on a non-native plane.




It says the ability works like _Astral Spell_, and that's how _Astral Spell_ works. The only ways in which the two effects are said to differ is that a deity's silver cord can't be severed by githyanki or Astral storms. That means Heironeous must have a true body sleeping in his realm while he goes planar adventuring. When his astral projection - his avatar - dies, his true body awakens. That's what the rules say, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one who's interpreted them that way. 

How else would you interpret it? How many hit dice should recently-killed Heironeous have? If he has no body, how can he be damaged? Can he still use his spell-like abilities? There are no rules to cover this, which means there's either a major gap in the rules in which we could make up pretty much anything we want or we simply use the rules for _Astral Spell_, which is what _Deities & Demigods_ refers us to. The latter seems the only reasonable solution to me.

Deities & Demigods said over and over how hard it should be to kill a god, even for other gods. That's the reason. It wouldn't be that hard for one god to kill another if they could just teleport back to their enemy's God-re-Grower and kill them with a coup de grace attack.



> Heironeous rejuvenation chamber




You're making things up again - nothing in the rules says anything that implies Heironeous can't teleport around his realm freely. As a lesser deity, Heironeous can make a soul object, but that only comes into play if he's killed in his home realm. 



> Heironeous would be rejuvenating, so he couldn't follow a defeated Demogorgons silver cord.




Not Heironeous, the other gods who appear to kill Demogorgon because it's part of their portfolio to kill demons - Rao, Vishnu, Mitra, Tyr. That is, assuming Heironeous doesn't just deal with him himself. Demogorgon entering the Heavens takes the same risks as Heironeous in the Abyss; if Demogorgon can easily find Heironeous, then Rao can easily find Demogorgon. In fact, it's much more dangerous for Demogorgon, since lawful good gods are much more inclined to help one another.

And, of course, it's still not entirely clear that Demogorgon can leave the planes of chaotic evil without being summoned.



> Even if we adhere rigidly to MotP for the purposes of the argument, once they incapacitate Gruumsh they could always launch a jihad on orcs everywhere so that when Gruumsh is back on his feet he is really weakened.




_If_ they incapacitate Gruumsh. It's debatable whether they could actually do this, given orcish fecundity and the risk they put their plane in while they busy their legions with such inessential tasks. What if Hextor takes advantage of this game of orcish whack-a-mole to attack, or Demogorgon? I can see them annihilating Finland or Norway, but all the orcs? In such a way that they're not back to their old numbers in a hundred years?



> I'd have Indrajit and Kumbakarna as Lesser Deities of Gehenna. As long as he wasn't fighting on Indra's home plane he would have a good chance.




He actually was - Indrajit seized control of Svarga, Indra's palace, and forced Indra to be his servant there.



> True, but its not going to be easy. Acererak was just a lich after all.




And the adventurers are _gods_.



> In 1st Edition you divide by 4.5 to get Hit Dice.




Phongor's got 28 hit dice, then. Asmodeus can just barely bring him in, but he doesn't even have enough hit dice left to get an imp (2+2 HD). He rolled a four, so we'll be generous and give him a 1st level tiefling even though they technically don't exist in this edition. Phongor has a 60% chance of getting still another pit fiend or two. I'm rolling the dice now in a chatroom, and he gets one pit fiend and the chain ends. Alastor rolls to summon a pit fiend and ends up with three companions in all. So it's Hextor and whoever he has with him versus Asmodeus, Phongor, four pit fiends, Alastor the Grim, and a bewildered and completely out of his depth 1st level tiefling fighter, who doesn't get a saving throw against Hextor's _Discord_ effect anyway but perhaps Asmodeus finds him amusing. Hextor pulls 600 skeletons and zombies that he summoned back home out of his Bag of Extra-Holding and the battle commences! Then Asmodeus threatens to teleport away laughing and things go as before.


----------



## BOZ

Lucifer (Dragon #28-ish) was never used again after that article, to the best of my knowledge.  unless you want to count the conversion in Tome of Horrors.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> Lucifer (Dragon #28-ish) was never used again after that article, to the best of my knowledge.  unless you want to count the conversion in Tome of Horrors.




There was a joking reference made in passing to Satan/Lucifer as a rumor in Asmodeus' writeup in the BoVD, which IIRC Monte mentioned as being a name drop in reference to that very old Dragon article, but not meant seriously. I don't recall the exact thing Monte said though.

Otherwise Lucifer has been completely ignored in DnD's treatment of Baator throughout the decades.


----------



## BOZ

basically, yeah.  he was used in plenty of homebrewed campaigns i'm sure, but i think Gygax generally wanted to avoid using Judeochristian names for things.


----------



## demiurge1138

BOZ said:
			
		

> basically, yeah.  he was used in plenty of homebrewed campaigns i'm sure, but i think Gygax generally wanted to avoid using Judeochristian names for things.



Well, at least overt ones. Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Baazebuul (or Beelzebub as he's more commonly known), Moloch, Bael, Mammon and Belial are all either devils or the Devil in lore, mysticism and literature.

Demiurge out.


----------



## BOZ

true, but i think most of those names originated in the greek, babylonian, and other mythos.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> basically, yeah.  he was used in plenty of homebrewed campaigns i'm sure, but i think Gygax generally wanted to avoid using Judeochristian names for things.




*nod* DnD has used the names, and the associated atmosphere of them, but it has never used -the- Devil. It wouldn't work to use old Morningstar himself because DnD doesn't have anywhere near the same level of Good/Evil duality as you find in the Judeo/Christianity. Law and Chaos are just as important as Good and Evil in the Great Wheel / DnD cosmology, so it would be a forced fit.

The closest that DnD has ever come to it was in the 2e 'Guide to Hell' that attempted to completely redefine Asmodeus as Ahriman of Zoarastrian myth, though this material has since been reduced from fact to rumor and otherwise been minimized and ignored, blatantly in fact. And even then, that source didn't have Asmodeus/Ahriman as a fallen being of good, but as a fallen being of Law who was corrupted by evil. It took some of the themes and trappings of the Lucifer mythology, but it never claimed that the DnD being was literally the Devil. Such a being doesn't conceptually fit into the 4 axis alignment system of DnD.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Shemmy! 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> And how isn't it?




The number of deities in someones cosmology can vary from campaign to campaign, thats how.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Yes, in the Planes of Conflict box set. And there were stats for Daru Ib Shamiq (the one named Baern) in the Hellbound box set. And it was odd, because the level of influence and the frightening level of control they had over the Yugoloths, and arguably the entire lower planes, didn't match with their printed stats.




A bit like Mydianchlarus then. 



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> 1) This represents the still extant Baernaloths who have, in the eons since the creation of the Gray Waste, simply given up to apathy and the harrowing effect of their own native plane. Whatever they might once have been capable of, they have since forgotten or had leached from them.
> 
> 2) The stats don't represent the frighteningly powerful Baernaloths, 'The Demented', who serve as 'advisors' to the most powerful unique Yugoloths (the General of Gehenna, the Oinoloth, Bubonix, Cerlic/Charon, etc) or to the most powerful Ultroloths. These remaining Baernaloths are entities of god-like power that view the entirety of the lower planes with a mad, dispassionate interest, playing it like a massive shell game of perhaps minor consequence in their own eons long proxy war versus the other abstract alignments.
> 
> 3) The stats as presented are only for the less powerful Baernaloths who remain behind. It's important to keep in mind that once the Baernaloths transferred their overt power over the yugoloth race to the Ultroloths, that most of the entire Baernaloth race simply vanished. They may have merged with the plane, they might have returned to the semi-mythical source, neutral evil in the abstract, that sent them to the Waste as its heralds, they might have withered away in mad seclusion, etc. The original, god-like Baern who created the yugoloth race, and did the stuff of legends, might no longer remain behind in this multiverse, having literally abandoned their favored children to their own devices in an act of wanton cruelty that only fits so well. The 'loths remain convinced that the Blood War is their playground, that they are special in the eyes of Evil, that one day they will control the other fiend races, etc but in truth the Baern have no intentions of doing such, despite fostering this mythos in the eyes of their creations who may have been abandoned by their makers to make their own way.
> 
> A mix of these latter two is the take that I've gone with for my own elaboration of the members of 'The Demented' that particular group of 13 Baernaloths (though the number there is my own creation). Beyond the series of stories that detail each of those members, I actually wrote up stats for one of them, though it was only by virtue of that particular Baernaloth being encountered about as far away from its native plane, and source of power, as possible.




I'd vote for #2.


----------



## Clueless

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The number of deities in someones cosmology can vary from campaign to campaign, thats how.



Isn't that changing the campaign to fit your needs though? Making it non-canon material - making it custom - making it a house rule.

And doesn't that - considering the debate going on right now - sort of negate the point? 

Last I checked this wasn't a debate on any *particular person's* house ruled version of the game.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> If the Dukes of Hell are lesser powers, the Lords of the Nine should be greater powers. I'm okay with that, but we're venturing far beyond our earlier parameters.




I'm simply remarking that Juiblex, a Demon Lord was attributed the same power as Demogorgon a Demon Prince/Monarch. Its difficult to know if they had much of a distinction in 1st Edition.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Don't forget Luthic - every party needs a healer. Shargaas and Yutrus can boat in using the Styx, if worse comes to worst; Charon doesn't care who he gets his coins from. Or they could simply planeshift instantaneously into Nishrek if they're not interested in the scenic view.




Yes, but those deities will not have the Home plane advantages of the others. That was my point.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Then I get to negate the "lesser powers are immune to magic in their home realms" jive too, and everything else in the MotP. If we're making stuff up as we go along, debate is impossible.
> 
> C'mon, man, let's be hardcore! We have to use all the 1st edition rules, or we can't fairly judge whether the 1st edition cosmology is perfect or not.




Cosmology and mechanics are two different things though.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Then it's reasonable for the Norse gods to be angry at Demogorgon.




My point is that Demogorgon would never personally manifest against a church of Odin or some other crime that would cause Odin to attack him. 

Demogorgon might allow his avatar to be gated in by his worshippers to attack the church in question. But Demogorgon himself won't attack the holdings of a greater power personally. Neither would Demogorgon attack any of Odins holdings in Asgard.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Asmodeus, as a being of despotism incarnate, rules his plane far more thoroughly than the General rules Gehenna. Demogorgon, as a being of primal chaos, gains more power from _not_ ruling than he would from ruling; the war and chaos and strife created by his style gift him with far more power than attempting to imitate the Overlord of Hell would. I think he may be the only demon prince who truly understands that.




That all seems a bit arbitrary.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> So will Heironeous.




Maybe he'll be luckier next time round.   



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Don't look at me. You're the one who thought it was a perfect cosmology.




I think you are confusing cosmology with mechanics.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It says the ability works like _Astral Spell_, and that's how _Astral Spell_ works. The only ways in which the two effects are said to differ is that a deity's silver cord can't be severed by githyanki or Astral storms. That means Heironeous must have a true body sleeping in his realm while he goes planar adventuring. When his astral projection - his avatar - dies, his true body awakens. That's what the rules say, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one who's interpreted them that way.




I don't think it would be his avatar in the avatar sense.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> How else would you interpret it? How many hit dice should recently-killed Heironeous have?




1d8 Hit Dice/Levels, regaining 1d8 more each day. Gods of different power would rejuvenate at different speeds (a greater deity would be restored 2d8/day for instance)



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> If he has no body, how can he be damaged?




Treat as incorporeal.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Can he still use his spell-like abilities?




Only in so much as his current Hit Dice/Levels allow (and you would need 2 Hit Dice for every spell-level of a spell-like ability you wanted to cast).



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> There are no rules to cover this, which means there's either a major gap in the rules in which we could make up pretty much anything we want or we simply use the rules for _Astral Spell_, which is what _Deities & Demigods_ refers us to. The latter seems the only reasonable solution to me.




What do you think of the above idea?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Deities & Demigods said over and over how hard it should be to kill a god, even for other gods. That's the reason. It wouldn't be that hard for one god to kill another if they could just teleport back to their enemy's God-re-Grower and kill them with a coup de grace attack.




Gods are near invincible in their home plane, just not after being destroyed elsewhere.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> You're making things up again - nothing in the rules says anything that implies Heironeous can't teleport around his realm freely. As a lesser deity, Heironeous can make a soul object, but that only comes into play if he's killed in his home realm.




Yep.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Not Heironeous, the other gods who appear to kill Demogorgon because it's part of their portfolio to kill demons - Rao, Vishnu, Mitra, Tyr. That is, assuming Heironeous doesn't just deal with him himself. Demogorgon entering the Heavens takes the same risks as Heironeous in the Abyss; if Demogorgon can easily find Heironeous, then Rao can easily find Demogorgon. In fact, it's much more dangerous for Demogorgon, since lawful good gods are much more inclined to help one another.
> 
> And, of course, it's still not entirely clear that Demogorgon can leave the planes of chaotic evil without being summoned.




1st Ed. Manual of the Planes pg. 124 Standard Divine Abilities:

Astral Travel at will (all deities)



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> _If_ they incapacitate Gruumsh. It's debatable whether they could actually do this, given orcish fecundity and the risk they put their plane in while they busy their legions with such inessential tasks. What if Hextor takes advantage of this game of orcish whack-a-mole to attack, or Demogorgon? I can see them annihilating Finland or Norway, but all the orcs? In such a way that they're not back to their old numbers in a hundred years?




Well remember we are talking about kosmically localised numbers. The devils will clearly outnumber the orcs unless your prime material plane (or one of them) is 'Orcworld'.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He actually was - Indrajit seized control of Svarga, Indra's palace, and forced Indra to be his servant there.




He must have had some artifact(s) that gave him an advantage...or perhaps Indra was still weakened from being defeated recently outside his home realm.  



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> And the adventurers are _gods_.




Exactly, which means the defenders will be 'loading for bear'.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Phongor's got 28 hit dice, then. Asmodeus can just barely bring him in, but he doesn't even have enough hit dice left to get an imp (2+2 HD). He rolled a four, so we'll be generous and give him a 1st level tiefling even though they technically don't exist in this edition. Phongor has a 60% chance of getting still another pit fiend or two. I'm rolling the dice now in a chatroom, and he gets one pit fiend and the chain ends. Alastor rolls to summon a pit fiend and ends up with three companions in all. So it's Hextor and whoever he has with him versus Asmodeus, Phongor, four pit fiends, Alastor the Grim, and a bewildered and completely out of his depth 1st level tiefling fighter, who doesn't get a saving throw against Hextor's _Discord_ effect anyway but perhaps Asmodeus finds him amusing. Hextor pulls 600 skeletons and zombies that he summoned back home out of his Bag of Extra-Holding and the battle commences! Then Asmodeus threatens to teleport away laughing and things go as before.




If the battle is taking place in Asmodeus palace in Nessus, then he is always going to have guards in attendance and more within earshot. Once Hextor or any of his cohorts are discovered, someone trips the alarm and then they execute the intruder alert protocols while Asmodeus secures the kill zone around his amphitheatrical throne room. Therein he'll probably have his 99 elite heavily armed Pit Fiend bodyguard, half a dozen Dukes of Hell, a handful of epic mortal servants, a great wyrm dragon or two a few beholders and whichever golems are at hand (Hellfire Golems?). Thats not counting the waves of forces attacking Hextor and his cohorts at every step of the way, whittling them down more and more as they progress.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey there! 



			
				Clueless said:
			
		

> Isn't that changing the campaign to fit your needs though? Making it non-canon material - making it custom - making it a house rule.




Does someone running a Greyhawk campaign automatically acknowledge the existence of the Greek Pantheon?

Regardless, I just don't agree that making Asmodeus and Demogorgon among others, Greater Powers just because there are other greater powers out there. Even if we assume that the control of certain groups of immortals is generally attributed to beings of greater power stature, neither Asmodeus nor Demogorgon rule their peers absolutely. In 3rd Edition, you might have a case that they could perhaps be borderline Intermediate Powers within the framework of Planescape; but certainly not Greater Powers.


----------



## GVDammerung

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Even if we assume that the control of certain groups of immortals is generally attributed to beings of greater power stature, neither Asmodeus nor Demogorgon rule their peers absolutely. In 3rd Edition, you might have a case that they could perhaps be borderline Intermediate Powers within the framework of Planescape; but certainly not Greater Powers.




One might look at what Asmodeus and Demogorgon are capable of doing.  

Asmodeus, ala Men in Black, has captured an entire prime material world in a gem.  Grazzt talks about doing this to Toril.  Asmodeus has done it.

Demogorgon has forged an entire layer of the Abyss into a magical vessel.  Grazzt dreams of adding layers to his realm.  Demogorgon fashions the odd layer to his will while maintaining his own layer.

Arguably, no single diety, devil or demon could duplicate either feat.

Asmodeus and Demogorgon seem to be demonstrably more than merely the greatest of their respective kinds.

Not that Asmodeus and Demogorgon should be "gods."  I think that they loose something if they are said to be divinities.  But they can still be "other."  Not gods but neither just the biggest or baddest of their kind.  "Demongods?" "Devilgods?" "Elderdemons?"  "Elderdevils?"  Whatever.  They need a new category.  

I'd add Orcus to that category, whatever it may be, as well.  He's obviously more than just a "demon prince."


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The number of deities in someones cosmology can vary from campaign to campaign, thats how.




We weren't even talking about deities, we were talking about the organization of the outsider races that matched each alignment. Where'd that comment come from?

If we're using the Great Wheel, then there are going to be a massive amount of deities out there on the planes, but only a small fraction of them will have a divine presence upon any given prime material world, and thus they won't have any impact unless you're out on the planes. So ignoring that the deity comment in that quote above seems to have come out of thin air and has nothing to do with what we were talking about, I don't see it as an issue really.




> A bit like Mydianchlarus then.




Mydianchlarus has never had stats. He/She/It was a supremely powerful 'Ultroloth Prince', but at this point the process of becoming Oinoloth seems just as likely to have made him a unique entity just as much as Anthraxus was made more than the mundane yugoloth he was before his own transformation into his unique form.





> I'd vote for #2.




I can see that, and it's partially the way that I went with it. I've got a stat block for Methikus Sar Telmuril around here somewhere, though it only applies off of the lower planes.


----------



## Shemeska

GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Not that Asmodeus and Demogorgon should be "gods."  I think that they loose something if they are said to be divinities.  But they can still be "other."  Not gods but neither just the biggest or baddest of their kind.  "Demongods?" "Devilgods?" "Elderdemons?"  "Elderdevils?"  Whatever.  They need a new category.
> 
> I'd add Orcus to that category, whatever it may be, as well.  He's obviously more than just a "demon prince."




*nod* Even for the Archfiends that hadn't gone for true divinity, they were clearly on the same playing field as actual deities. Very different but equivalent or greater in power w/ regards to their native plane seemed to be the general take that Planescape took, though there was no expansive ruleset that nailed this down; there was really no need to do so.

But of the Archfiends, as you said, some were just on another level from their own kind:

Tanar'ri - Demogorgon and Pale Night seem to be the top, though the latter is a hell of a lot more subtle. You might include Orcus and Grazzt here, though I wouldn't personally, at least because of Orcus' recent setbacks, and the unknown level of influence Pale Night peddles through her child Grazzt.

Baatezu - Asmodeus, no contest here just by definition, ignoring the Ancient Baatorians for the moment.

Yugoloths - the General of Gehenna, the Oinoloth, and the Baernaloth 'advisors' of them all

Demodands/Gehreleths - Apomps the Triple Aspected, exiled Baernaloth and something more and something less than a true deity.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Cosmology and mechanics are two different things though.




No, they're not. The mechanical powers of deities and planar lords are an integral part of any cosmology, and altering them would logically alter the cosmology tremendously.

"Cosmology" has a much broader meaning than the particular arrangement and nature of the planes of existence. The destiny of souls, the nature of the gods, and the relationship between gods and planar rulers are all parts of it. That is to say, theology is an essential component in cosmology, and part of that broader field. If you change the mechanics so that gods are easier to kill, then that changes the cosmology.



> My point is that Demogorgon would never personally manifest against a church of Odin or some other crime that would cause Odin to attack him.




He wouldn't need to. No matter what his minions do, the buck stops at Demogorgon's desk.



> That all seems a bit arbitrary.




No. "Arbitrary" would be if the yugoloth leaders were far more powerful than the masters of the Hells and the Abyss for no particular reason. Correlating the strength of central authority with the nature of the alignment the various races personify is whatever the opposite of "arbitrary" is. Canonical, certainly, and eminently logical.



> 1d8 Hit Dice/Levels, regaining 1d8 more each day. Gods of different power would rejuvenate at different speeds (a greater deity would be restored 2d8/day for instance) Treat as incorporeal. Only in so much as his current Hit Dice/Levels allow (and you would need 2 Hit Dice for every spell-level of a spell-like ability you wanted to cast).




That's a pretty complex set of mechanics you had to invent out of whole cloth to avoid reading _Deities & Demigods_ literally. 



> Gods are near invincible in their home plane, just not after being destroyed elsewhere.




Then they're not "near invincible." Heironeous would only have to ambush Demogorgon the moment he stepped outside Gaping Maw.



> Astral Travel at will (all deities)




Yeah, I know - but does the earlier restriction against demons leaving the three planes of chaotic evil without being summoned override this? Some references suggest that this is the case. I can see it being argued both ways.



> The devils will clearly outnumber the orcs unless your prime material plane (or one of them) is 'Orcworld'.




The orcs will be on many different worlds even in your cosmology, since the only limitation is that the worlds know about each other. If an "orcworld" (for example, Borka in Greyspace) is aware of Oerth (as the Borkans are), then both will connect to the same kosmic localized thingy. Or, to give another example, Oerth and Toril are aware of one another.

Regardless, the baatezu may not be willing to sacrifice a large number of the troops who would normally be defending their plane. And, of course, by 1st and early 2nd edition rules, they would have to be summoned to enter the Material Plane, which means you need a high-level spellcaster for each devil summoned, more or less (some could summon more than others, and they could continue churning armies into their world for an extended period of time, but you'd think that such a process would be interrupted by other forces eventually). 

I think fiends could erase deities from existence by targeting their followers on the Material Plane under the following conditions:

1. A truce in the Blood War. 
2. The devils are targeting single-world deities, not gods who are worshipped on a variety of worlds in the same cosmology, as the orc gods are. Too much of a hassle otherwise.
3. You assume fiends can enter the Material Plane without being summoned.

Something like this did happen in the _Hellbound_ timeline, where the fiends united to punish certain gods from interfering with the Blood War, but the three conditions were in effect.



> If the battle is taking place in Asmodeus palace in Nessus, then he is always going to have guards in attendance and more within earshot.




Hextor lures him out of his throne room first, of course. He's not _that_ stupid. But we've already established that Asmodeus can simply teleport back to whatever ground he chooses, so it's all irrelevant.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey there! 



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> One might look at what Asmodeus and Demogorgon are capable of doing.
> 
> Asmodeus, ala Men in Black, has captured an entire prime material world in a gem.  Grazzt talks about doing this to Toril.  Asmodeus has done it.




I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work. The one thats vastly more powerful than the other Archdevils and reputedly some form of Overgod.

As for Graz'zt, talk is cheap.



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Demogorgon has forged an entire layer of the Abyss into a magical vessel.  Grazzt dreams of adding layers to his realm.  Demogorgon fashions the odd layer to his will while maintaining his own layer.




Seems straightforward enough.



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Arguably, no single diety, devil or demon could duplicate either feat.




You need to get out more. 



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Asmodeus and Demogorgon seem to be demonstrably more than merely the greatest of their respective kinds.




Asmodeus in his 2nd Edition serpenty buried true form, which in many peoples eyes is something else altogether.



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Not that Asmodeus and Demogorgon should be "gods."  I think that they loose something if they are said to be divinities.  But they can still be "other."  Not gods but neither just the biggest or baddest of their kind.  "Demongods?" "Devilgods?" "Elderdemons?"  "Elderdevils?"  Whatever.  They need a new category.




All power is relative, I don't see why they *need* some new descriptor. 



			
				GVDammerung said:
			
		

> I'd add Orcus to that category, whatever it may be, as well.  He's obviously more than just a "demon prince."




Why do you say obviously?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey Rip! 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> No, they're not. The mechanical powers of deities and planar lords are an integral part of any cosmology, and altering them would logically alter the cosmology tremendously.




The general power attributed to them is integral to the cosmology, not whether Demogorgon has 575 hit points or 576.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> "Cosmology" has a much broader meaning than the particular arrangement and nature of the planes of existence. The destiny of souls, the nature of the gods, and the relationship between gods and planar rulers are all parts of it. That is to say, theology is an essential component in cosmology, and part of that broader field. If you change the mechanics so that gods are easier to kill, then that changes the cosmology.




I'd like to think I am following the spirit of the rules.  



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He wouldn't need to. No matter what his minions do, the buck stops at Demogorgon's desk.




 

So does that mean you agree with me?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> No. "Arbitrary" would be if the yugoloth leaders were far more powerful than the masters of the Hells and the Abyss for no particular reason.




Like ruling an entire plane as opposed to a few layers.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Correlating the strength of central authority with the nature of the alignment the various races personify is whatever the opposite of "arbitrary" is. Canonical, certainly, and eminently logical.




If Demogorgon gets more powerful the less layers he rules why doesn't he give away his realm in a lottery?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> That's a pretty complex set of mechanics you had to invent out of whole cloth to avoid reading _Deities & Demigods_ literally.




But did you like them or not? 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Then they're not "near invincible." Heironeous would only have to ambush Demogorgon the moment he stepped outside Gaping Maw.




Who only has to teleport away. You need to be extra special to drop a deity in one round. Thor could probably manage it, and some of the other heavy hitters, but not likely Heironeous. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Yeah, I know - but does the earlier restriction against demons leaving the three planes of chaotic evil without being summoned override this? Some references suggest that this is the case. I can see it being argued both ways.




Hey - well if we have to take Manual of the Planes at face value. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> The orcs will be on many different worlds even in your cosmology, since the only limitation is that the worlds know about each other.




Such orcs may well worship different gods, a whole different Orc Pantheon even. 



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> If an "orcworld" (for example, Borka in Greyspace) is aware of Oerth (as the Borkans are), then both will connect to the same kosmic localized thingy. Or, to give another example, Oerth and Toril are aware of one another.




Does everyone use Oerth, Toril and Borka though?



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Regardless, the baatezu may not be willing to sacrifice a large number of the troops who would normally be defending their plane. And, of course, by 1st and early 2nd edition rules, they would have to be summoned to enter the Material Plane, which means you need a high-level spellcaster for each devil summoned, more or less (some could summon more than others, and they could continue churning armies into their world for an extended period of time, but you'd think that such a process would be interrupted by other forces eventually).
> 
> I think fiends could erase deities from existence by targeting their followers on the Material Plane under the following conditions:
> 
> 1. A truce in the Blood War.
> 2. The devils are targeting single-world deities, not gods who are worshipped on a variety of worlds in the same cosmology, as the orc gods are. Too much of a hassle otherwise.
> 3. You assume fiends can enter the Material Plane without being summoned.
> 
> Something like this did happen in the _Hellbound_ timeline, where the fiends united to punish certain gods from interfering with the Blood War, but the three conditions were in effect.




I suppose the above could work, perhaps even individually.

Remember the goal is only to weaken Gruumsh to Lesser Power where he could be permanently killed.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Hextor lures him out of his throne room first, of course.




How...set his fortress on fire? 

Regardless, Asmodeus teleports back to his throne room at the first sign of trouble, assuming he would be gullible enough to be outwitted by Hextor and not far more likely to send a messenger instead of attending personally.



			
				Ripzerai said:
			
		

> He's not _that_ stupid. But we've already established that Asmodeus can simply teleport back to whatever ground he chooses, so it's all irrelevant.




Exactly, you need to fight your way in, and on top of that defeat the defending deity where he is absolutely at the pinnacle of his power, resources and the attacker is at a massive tactical disadvantage.

One interesting method was adopted by an NPC called Doomstar (multi-million year old super-spellcasting alien mutant) in our campaign who simply visited the court of the greater deity Anu, requested an audience with the deity and then promptly dropped him like a bag of dirt with a single (tweaked) magic missile spell...but then again he was almost on a par with an overgod. On second thoughts probably not a good yardstick.


----------



## Shemeska

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work. The one thats vastly more powerful than the other Archdevils and reputedly some form of Overgod.




That wasn't Planescape actually. Planescape left him about as mysterious and undefined as possible, it was the post Planescape 2E 'Guide to Hell' that went off in its own direction with Asmodeus, and which defined him as equivalent in power to a greater deity. It never called him an Overgod, nor has any other source.

'Guide to Hell', or rather a portion of the book, is often loathed by PS adherents for its out of nowhere blatant linking of Asmodeus to Ahriman of Zoarastrian myth, its largely ignoring of the Ancient Baatorians, and its rather pithy dismissal of a number of other things. Not all of the book is bad certainly, but its material on Asmodeus really -really- rubs me the wrong way with its imposition of a pseudo-monotheistic duality onto the 4 way axis of DnD alignment. Some people like it, other people don't, and it's a big point of dispute w/ regards to Asmodeus.

Thankfully in my view though, that material in GtH has since been written into only a rumor in 3e at most. Frankly it works well in my mind as subtle and unofficial Baatorian state propaganda and a sort of Baatezu cult of personality revolving around the Lord of the 9th that can be put out there and then promptly denied by the Ministry of Information to put a shine to it all. It might not have any basis in truth at all, but that never stops tyrants from exploiting such things.



> Asmodeus in his 2nd Edition serpenty buried true form, which in many peoples eyes is something else altogether.




That actually never appeared till the non Planescape 'Guide to Hell', and didn't have any precident before that point in 1e or 2e. And again, the 3e material has either turned it into only rumor, not fact (MotP) or has ignored it and arguably revoked it (BoVD).




> All power is relative, I don't see why they *need* some new descriptor.




But not all power can necessarily be quantified in relation to other levels of power. And who says that all given entities will even be on the same playing field w/ respect to common definitions of power.


----------



## BOZ

yeah, Guide to Hell did some wacky stuff (making Jazirian the coutal god an Overpower???) that i really really don't agree with.

and it was totally not a Planescape product.  at all.


----------



## Ripzerai

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work. The one thats vastly more powerful than the other Archdevils and reputedly some form of Overgod.




No, this is _A Paladin in Hell_, after Planescape folded and about a year before _Guide to Hell_. 

Asmodeus isn't an Overgod in any edition or manifestation. The closest thing was _Guide to Hell_, which called him a Greater God. _A Paladin in Hell_ preceded that. In Planescape, his power level was undefined, but he was not necessarily more powerful than the other Lords of the Nine (except insofar as he ruled them).



> the general power attributed to them is integral to the cosmology, not whether Demogorgon has 575 hit points or 576.




I don't believe that was under debate.



> I'd like to think I am following the spirit of the rules.




But you really know you aren't, right? Since the rules don't remotely suggest any power drop of the level you're suggesting, I mean. 



> So does that mean you agree with me?




It means I _disagree_ with you. If Demogorgon and his minions do evil things, Demogorgon gets the blame.



> Like ruling an entire plane as opposed to a few layers.




Asmodeus rules an entire plane and the baatezu race. The General of Gehenna indirectly rules the yugoloth race. The General is Osama bin Laden to the Oinoloth's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. How much the General of Gehenna (as opposed to the Keeper of the Tower Arcane) controls the plane of Gehenna itself is disputable.



> If Demogorgon gets more powerful the less layers he rules




That's not a good assumption. He gets more powerful the more chaotic and fractious the Abyss is, but only so long as he is the most powerful of its rulers. If he gave away his layers - or fell behind Orcus or Graz'zt in power - he'd just be another demon, not the Prince of Demons.



> But did you like them or not?




I prefer the _Astral Spell_ method. 



> Who only needs to teleport away.




So he sets up wards around Demogorgon to prevent anyone from teleporting, or gets a bunch of his clerics to do so.



> Such orcs may well worship different gods, a whole different Orc Pantheon even.




They don't, though, in any of the three examples I listed. 



> Does everyone use Oerth, Toril and Borka though?




What difference does that make? _Everyone_ doesn't use _anything._ They're three canonical examples, though.


----------



## GVDammerung

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hey there!  . . . I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work.  . . . Why do you say obviously?






			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> That wasn't Planescape actually. Planescape left him about as mysterious and undefined as possible, it was the post Planescape 2E 'Guide to Hell' that went off in its own direction with Asmodeus, and which defined him as equivalent in power to a greater deity.




Actually, the examples are from the adventure "A Paladin in Hell" by Monte Cook.  Asmodeus has his "world on a string" and Demogorgon's "Demonwing" is used to help retrieve it. 

I know of no other concrete examples of any deity or fiend capturing an entire world in a jar, nor of any entity building a boat or the like out of an entire planar layer.  Maybe I do need to get out more but you'd think word of something like that would get around.   

I put Orcus in the same category as Asmodeus and Demogorgon for two reasons - (1) The whole "Dead Gods" episode and (2) he is the most "widespread" in the various D&D canons of any D&D demon prince, bar none.


----------



## GVDammerung

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Asmodeus rules an entire plane and the baatezu race.




This is not strictly true.  

Asmodeus has no control over the form of the Hells (or any layer thereof ) in the manner of demon princes who can shape or control their layers.  The form of the Hells is beyond Asmodeus.  He did not create it.  He inherited it.  

Asmodeus does not control the baatezu in any ultimate sense.  He did not create them.  His power over any individual is not omnipotent.  He cannot even predict or control his arch-devils.  There is no instance where Asmodeus has by will or his personal power alone commanded the Hells.  He is always seen politically manuvering.  He needs his lessers and he needs to pit them against each other to maintain his position.

In terms of pure, absolute rulership, a demon prince rules his layer or layers in a way Asmodeus cannot begin to approach.

This is not to say Asmodeues is not the most powerful individual devil, all things considered
(although if memory serves various sources point out that Asmodeus is not physically the most powerful devil).  He does get to wear the crown, even if he is not an absolute monarch, and that counts for something.  Just not everything.

Neither is this to say that Asmodeus could not stand toe-to-toe with a demon prince.

Asmodeus is not in a class by himself but it is still a small class in which I would only allow Demogorgon and Orcus.

Grazzt I do not see as in that category.  Three layers, yes.  That is, however, more of the same.  In my view, Asmodeus, Demogorgon and Orcus have transcended the usual shtick associated with their kind.  They are more of something very different and of a greater order of magnitude - world chaining, planeshaping and profigate proliferation.


----------



## Ripzerai

GVDammerung said:
			
		

> This is not strictly true.
> 
> Asmodeus has no control over the form of the Hells (or any layer thereof ) in the manner of demon princes who can shape or control their layers.  The form of the Hells is beyond Asmodeus.  He did not create it.  He inherited it.
> 
> Asmodeus does not control the baatezu in any ultimate sense.  He did not create them.  His power over any individual is not omnipotent.  He cannot even predict or control his arch-devils.  There is no instance where Asmodeus has by will or his personal power alone commanded the Hells.  He is always seen politically manuvering.  He needs his lessers and he needs to pit them against each other to maintain his position.




Fair enough, but that's not exactly what I meant by "rules." Certainly, the whole of Baator isn't his realm in the sense that Nessus is his realm, but he's the guy in charge of the plane. He can summon all the other Nine to appear before him once a year, for example - that's an example of him commanding through his personal power alone. He devoured Beherit whole, banished Armaros, Gargauth, Nergal, Moloch, and Geryon, and transformed Baalzebul. 

He _does_ control Nessus in exactly the same sense that Demogorgon controls Gaping Maw and Orcus controls Thanatos, although he does it in a more orderly fashion. The way I see it, Nessus obeys his commands because it is lawfully required to, while Gaping Maw obeys Demogorgon's commands because he forces it to, continually testing his will against it.

_Many_ politicians have to pit their lessers against one another to maintain their position, so that's no criterion. The method he uses to rule doesn't change the fact that he does, indeed, rule.

He's not omnipotent or omniscient, but few rulers are.

Whether or not Asmodeus created the baatezu is debatable. He may have, depending on whether or not you think the Dragon #28 article and the _Tome of Horrors_ is a better source than _Guide to Hell_ or the Green Ronin stuff. He _probably_ didn't create the Hells, but if you believe _Guide to Hell_ or simply interpret him as an Ancient Baatorian, he may have done that as well. 

I don't see how anyone can take the Dragon #28 article seriously, given that it claims that only the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th layers of Hell have single rulers and explicitly ends in 20th century Earth with Belial exiled and Astaroth/Gargauth as Ambassador to the United States of America. It's just not consonant with the D&D continuity at all. You can pull out parts of it and use them (as I have), but it can't really be cited as evidence of anything. _Tome of Horrors_ can be countered with another d20 product, _The Book of the Righteous_ by Green Ronin, where Asmodeus helped in the creation of the Hells (with the other gods) and orchestrated the creation of the _divs_ who he later transformed into the devils.


----------



## Shemeska

GVDammerung said:
			
		

> Actually, the examples are from the adventure "A Paladin in Hell" by Monte Cook.  Asmodeus has his "world on a string" and Demogorgon's "Demonwing" is used to help retrieve it.




*nod* I wouldn't particularly put the Paladin in Hell material as altogether beyond the scope of Asmo as presented previously. In fact I thought it was rather cool, and fitting for the Lord of the 9th there in that adventure. I was just maintaining that GtH went off from anything previous, including APiH, with its Asmo is teh RoXXor approach with the Zoarastrianism angle it pulled.



> I know of no other concrete examples of any deity or fiend capturing an entire world in a jar, nor of any entity building a boat or the like out of an entire planar layer.  Maybe I do need to get out more but you'd think word of something like that would get around.




Yeah, those two examples are at the top of firm examples. The only other things in the same scope that I can think of are (potentially) the Loadstones of Misery on the Gray Waste that are presumed to be the creations of one or more of the Baernaloths, and funnel away and collect the emotion, purpose, and everything else devoured and leeched away by the Gray Waste itself. Draining away and collecting the entirety of what is devoured by three infinite layers of a plane is probably fit to be included with Asmo's world in a bauble and Demogorgon's planar layer as a ship.



> I put Orcus in the same category as Asmodeus and Demogorgon for two reasons - (1) The whole "Dead Gods" episode and (2) he is the most "widespread" in the various D&D canons of any D&D demon prince, bar none.




Understandable, but I'd shy away from it on another level because Orcus is petitioner derived as opposed to being a true child of the Abyss. Of course we don't know if Demogorgon came from a petitioner or spawned directly from the Abyss itself (we know Grazzt is not petitioner derived since he was born from the Abyssal Lord Pale Night).

Of course, giving an inherent power advantage to native born versus petitioner derived Tanar'ri might just be an arbitrary designation on my part, and I'm sure some will disagree with that notion. (For which I'd be curious to listen to actually)


----------



## Ripzerai

Orcus probably isn't as ancient as Demogorgon, but I don't think evolving from a mortal soul necessarily puts him at a disadvantage in itself. If anything mortal remained in him after millennia of becoming closer and closer to the true nature of chaotic evil and bonding with at least one (and probably up to five) layers of the Abyss, it died when he did - I don't think Tenebrous was anything but a spirit of malign chaos (at least, until his trip to Mechanus). 

Incidently, the layers I have listed, canonical and non-canonical, as being once controlled directly or indirectly by Orcus are:

LAYER 112: STALKINGBONES (FONT OF SKELETONS) 
LAYER 113: THANATOS (THE BELLY OF DEATH)
LAYER 114: OPEN GRAVE 
LAYER 334: UNNAMED (Eldanoth's realm; formally Orcus'?) 
LAYER 421: SALTED WOUND (Realm of the King of the Ghouls; taken by Yeenoghu)

Admitting, of course, that indirectly controlling an Abyssal layer isn't the same as directly controlling it.


----------



## Shemeska

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Whether or not Asmodeus created the baatezu is debatable. He may have, depending on whether or not you think the Dragon #28 article and the _Tome of Horrors_ is a better source than _Guide to Hell_ or the Green Ronin stuff. He _probably_ didn't create the Hells, but if you believe _Guide to Hell_ or simply interpret him as an Ancient Baatorian, he may have done that as well.




Or the material from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' which gives more likelyhood that Asmodeus, whatever his own origin, did not create the Baatezu. The material in GtH is totally at ends with those other two sources, as well as a few others, so I personally am less likely to accept it at face value (since it really just goes off in its own direction compared to all the previous material on Asmo). However, the material in Hellbound and FoE leaves open the possibility of Asmodeus being an Ancient Baatorian who preceeded the arrival of the Baatezu, the first and most powerful of the larvae that became the original Baatezu following their forced migration, or a physical manifestation of the plane of Baator itself which adapted to rule over its new natives after they conquered and displaced the original Ancient Baatorians. 

I personally like it left an open question, though I've partially given my own shine to it all in another story I'm slowly working on, but even in there it's somewhat of an open question that suggests either the 1st or 3rd of the possibilities above.


----------



## Ripzerai

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Or the material from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' which gives more likelyhood that Asmodeus, whatever his own origin, did not create the Baatezu.




Yeah, the suggestions there as to Asmodeus' identity are, if I remember correctly:

- Ancient Baatorian
- Law-tainted yugoloth, refugee of the General of Gehenna's purge
- Baernaloth
- Baatezu
- Manifestation of Nessus itself (at least partly true in any event)

And I'd add _Guide to Hell's_ suggestion that he's a primal being of Law tainted by evil as a counterpart to the yugoloth hypothesis, without necessarily accepting any of GtH's other assertions.


----------



## Shemeska

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> Yeah, the suggestions there as to Asmodeus' identity are, if I remember correctly:
> 
> - Ancient Baatorian
> - Law-tainted yugoloth, refugee of the General of Gehenna's purge
> - Baernaloth
> - Baatezu
> - Manifestation of Nessus itself (at least partly true in any event)
> 
> And I'd add _Guide to Hell's_ suggestion that he's a primal being of Law tainted by evil as a counterpart to the yugoloth hypothesis, without necessarily accepting any of GtH's other assertions.




*nodding* Correct on all counts. I like to leave it an open question, though I personally, and it might be strange to hear this from me perhaps, don't like the idea of him as a Baernaloth (your own damn interesting writing on that tangent notwithstanding). 

Tainted indirectly by the Baern, perhaps, given that all of the Baatezu, and the lower planes in general, are blotted by their influence at a basic level. The idea of him being descended from one of the pre-Heart of Darkness yugoloths is interesting, but I went a completely different way with that in my own stuff (sufice to say Chorazin the Thrice Damned has a long shadow).

I prefer him as an Ancient Baatorian, one of those first Baatezu, or the manifestation of Nessus itself; a bit more native than not, though sullied by the influence of the NE progenitors. It's possible to include the GtH material, at least some of it, with Asmo as a being of Law who was corrupted by Evil, but beyond that the GtH stuff starts to get pretty wonky with and dismissive of prior lore. But of course, 3e has reverted the most offensive of that to only rumor rather than fact, and we're back to mystery.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey guys! 

Just to let you know so you don't think I am being ignorant* I am really busy at the moment (with the immortals handbook illustrations previews of which can be seen here and here) and replying to this thread is not at the top of my priorities right now. I'll probably juke in if I get the chance, but otherwise I doubt I'll be posting anytime within the next week or so...but I'll be back. 

*or at least more ignorant than usual.


----------



## BOZ

cutting in on the argument a bit...



			
				thalmin said:
			
		

> *Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss The comprehensive sourcebook of demons in the D&D world.*
> _Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss_ is a comprehensive sourcebook covering the most dangerous (and popular) fiends in the *Dungeons & Dragons* cosmology: demons. It provides detailed information about the powers, tactics, and organization of the forces of the Abyss - both those covered in the _Monster Manual_ and entirely new foes. In  addition, this book provides new rules, feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for characters who battle fiends. Extensive story and campaign elements add dimension to playing or fighting creatures of this type. Included is extensive information on the layers of the Abyss and the ruling demon lords, demonic possession, and how to use demons in a campaign.
> by James Jacobs, Erik Mona, Ed Stark; 160 pages, $29.95




i especially like that last sentence.


----------



## Zaukrie

This part bums me out: 

"In addition, this book provides new rules, feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for characters who battle fiends. "

Why can't the book just tell us about the fiends? We already have hundreds of feats, abilities...to fight with. I hope this section is short. Other than that, can't wait.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> *nodding* Correct on all counts. I like to leave it an open question, though I personally, and it might be strange to hear this from me perhaps, don't like the idea of him as a Baernaloth (your own damn interesting writing on that tangent notwithstanding).




This is the planes.....

A Clueless stumbled into the Cage one eve,
His eyes were wide as suns,
Me and three fiends were standing by,
We were the only ones,
We were the only ones.

He asked could someone help him please,
To Answer his great Ask.
We did our best to address his needs,
and respond to his great Task.

His question scared the Pit Fiend,
And the Balor turned to run,
Leaving me and the Ultraloth there.
We were the only ones,
We were the only ones.

He asked about the Afterlife,
He asked which one was True.
The 'loth handed him a vorpal knife,
And gave the Clueless a Clue

The Ultraloth said that nothing was true,
And that was half the fun.
The Clueless killed himself right there.
We were the only ones,
We were the only ones.

The ghost of the berk haunted my dreams,
With questions about it's death
The Ultraloth said it was part of it's schemes,
And with a grin, he left.

The Ghost of the Clueless asked me, then,
Which End was the most fun.
I confessed and said "All of them"
And I was the only one.
I was the only one.


----------



## James Jacobs

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> This part bums me out:
> 
> "In addition, this book provides new rules, feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for characters who battle fiends. "
> 
> Why can't the book just tell us about the fiends? We already have hundreds of feats, abilities...to fight with. I hope this section is short. Other than that, can't wait.




All I can say to this is to wait and check out the book. There's no way a book like this can be perfect for everyone, although we're trying to get as close to that goal as we can without going insane in the process. I do know that in the sections Erik and I have done, only 10% or so would fit into the category of "new player options." I know that I certainly agree that we've got more than enough new feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for PCs—anything new at this point needs to be justified and supported by flavor and story.

I can say this, though: a lot of those new options for PCs aren't necessarilly good for "fighting" demons, but ARE pretty good for PCs who want to gain new powers and abilities by consorting with them or summoning them to use them as minions or to steal powers from them.


----------



## NexH

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> I can say this, though: a lot of those new options for PCs aren't necessarilly good for "fighting" demons, but ARE pretty good for PCs who want to gain new powers and abilities by consorting with them or summoning them to use them as minions or to steal powers from them.




From a DM's perspective, that seems very interesting (for my use, not for the players)


----------



## Zaukrie

Not complaining James. Just posting my small hope. It is likely to be one of the first purely RPG purchases I make in some time (mostly minis lately).

Also, I agree that the consorting with and stealing powers...that is the kind of stuff I want in there.


----------



## Mr.Black

This thread has really grown.  

I just wanted to suggest that when the unique demons are done, the authors should first take a look at Call of Cthulhu by Monte Cook, particularly the Great Old Ones.  I was reading their entries and thought that many of them could pass for demon lords.  They're exactly what demons should be: archaic, creepy, and completely evil in their motivations.  Many of them are actually chaotic evil in alignment.  I believe giving the demon lords the standard abilties of abominations (epic level handbook) or the great old ones would be a good base to build upon.


----------



## arntof

Mr.Black said:
			
		

> I believe giving the demon lords the standard abilties of abominations (epic level handbook) or the great old ones would be a good base to build upon.




Sounds like a great idea


----------



## BOZ

or, at least use those abilities as a basis for comparison, rather than copying them straight.


----------



## arntof

It would be nice if they could stick to some general scheme. Should the abominations of ELH be stronger than the demon lords?


----------



## Nightfall

In my mind? No. But that's a call Erik will have to make. Me, I just think it's a little late to start asking them to make changes since the product is slated for 2006..and generally it takes about 5-6 months for the product to finish layout after the initial write ups. I'm just saying...


----------



## BOZ

i agree, the demon lords should be tougher than abominations.  are they?  i'm not sure.


----------



## Nightfall

*smirks* They will be if I ever get a hold of them!


----------



## JoeGKushner

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> All I can say to this is to wait and check out the book. There's no way a book like this can be perfect for everyone, although we're trying to get as close to that goal as we can without going insane in the process. I do know that in the sections Erik and I have done, only 10% or so would fit into the category of "new player options." I know that I certainly agree that we've got more than enough new feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for PCs—anything new at this point needs to be justified and supported by flavor and story.
> 
> I can say this, though: a lot of those new options for PCs aren't necessarilly good for "fighting" demons, but ARE pretty good for PCs who want to gain new powers and abilities by consorting with them or summoning them to use them as minions or to steal powers from them.





Back in the day, when Bard Games was around, they had this little class called the Necromancer. They bargained with and summoned demons. Neat little class. Maybe between this and the Death Master from the Dragon Compendium, I can recreate a little of that terror.


----------



## BOZ

the DC1 take on the death master was definitely an interesting one: death + demons = fun!


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey all! 

Regarding Abominations versus Demon Lords/Princes. Both are Quasi-deities in the official rules. So it basically boils down to the inherant power of the creature.

However, abomination Hit Dice is representative of size to some degree and similar size abominations would seem to have more Hit Dice than the average Demon Lord/Prince.

I think if we were to create a level playing field that they would all be on the same steading though. By that I mean the ELH monsters were designed specifically for epic play, whereas the Demon Lords were designed more for non-epic (or borderline epic) play.

Although its interesting to note that the power increase of the 3.5 Balor has it fairly close to the power of an Infernal. Presumably that means if anything, the Demon Lords/Princes will get a slight boost when updated to 3.5...?


----------



## BOZ

one never knows.


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey BOZ mate! 



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> one never knows.




Well, in retrospect, they will probably keep the same power level as the Book of Vile Darkness, since thats the power level the Demonomicon articles have been using.


----------



## BOZ

more than likely, it would seem.  there is no guarantee (in fact, id' say it's not particularly likely) that there will be archfiend stat blocks in FC1 since they are elsewhere already, though there could be an update (in the form of, extra skill point here, fixed DC here), or there could be stats for lords not already detailed elsewhere.

however, Erik dropped a nicely vague hint in the direction that there will be clarification on the power levels themselves of the archdemons.


----------



## arntof

Nice to see you again, UK.

Been a while, now.

Your IH:Bestiary was very very nice, after a closer scrutiny. I am still a bit perplexed over the sudden flux of new epic magical items, though.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> however, Erik dropped a nicely vague hint in the direction that there will be clarification on the power levels themselves of the archdemons.




Which will be good, given the unfortunate precidence of archfiends of CR 20ish range the BoVD gave us, pandering to the 'kill em and take their stuff' crowd, combined with the really awful dichotomy between archfiends and true deities that D&DG gave us.

We really got hamstrung in 3e with that early precident given to us by giving us not just stats to projections or avatars, but to the archfiends themselves, and really anemic stats at that. I'm holding out hope that Erik and company will do something to rectify the situation a bit.

Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.


----------



## BOZ

i think we can expect something.  exactly what... well, can you wait 6 more months?


----------



## Upper_Krust

Hey guys! 



			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> more than likely, it would seem.  there is no guarantee (in fact, id' say it's not particularly likely) that there will be archfiend stat blocks in FC1 since they are elsewhere already, though there could be an update (in the form of, extra skill point here, fixed DC here), or there could be stats for lords not already detailed elsewhere.
> 
> however, Erik dropped a nicely vague hint in the direction that there will be clarification on the power levels themselves of the archdemons.




Glad to hear it. As Shemmy pointed out, 3rd Edition is somewhat confusing in that regard.



			
				arntof said:
			
		

> Nice to see you again, UK.
> 
> Been a while, now.




I've always been around. 



			
				arntof said:
			
		

> Your IH:Bestiary was very very nice, after a closer scrutiny. I am still a bit perplexed over the sudden flux of new epic magical items, though.




Glad you liked it! 

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I reasoned that NPC deities (and I include demon lords in that) must have PC equivalent wealth, otherwise you would have PCs running around with weapons far more powerful than those of the gods, even if the PCs were much lower powered. I didn't like the idea of 30th-level PC demigods running around with weapons eclipsing the likes of Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Also the Bestiary goes up to CR 9721 (as you know), and I prefer to have immortals with a few very powerful artifacts/epic items/weapon abilities etc. rather than a laundry list of relatively weaker objects. So that necessitated the creation of many new artifacts and weapon abilities that were much more powerful than those in the ELH for example, which tops out at roughly CR 66.



			
				Shemeska said:
			
		

> Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.




Help! I'm being repressed! 

Only messing with you Shemmy mate!


----------



## James Jacobs

Shemeska said:
			
		

> Which will be good, given the unfortunate precidence of archfiends of CR 20ish range the BoVD gave us, pandering to the 'kill em and take their stuff' crowd, combined with the really awful dichotomy between archfiends and true deities that D&DG gave us.
> 
> We really got hamstrung in 3e with that early precident given to us by giving us not just stats to projections or avatars, but to the archfiends themselves, and really anemic stats at that. I'm holding out hope that Erik and company will do something to rectify the situation a bit.
> 
> Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.




Statblocks for demon lords is hardly a 3E innovation, but I see your point. The problem with handling the demon lords and other archfiends is the fact that everyone's game is different. Some folk want to run a campaign where the final encounter is a throw-down fight with Demogorgon, but since they don't use the Epic rules, a CR 50 Demogorgon is useless to them. Others don't want/need stats for the demon lords since they aren't combat targets in their campaigns.

My philosophy is this: it's best to design stat blocks for demon lords in the mid 20s, since the majority of D&D games don't progress past level 20. That way, the stats are there for DMs to use as the main villains for the end of a standard D&D campaign. If you need more powerful demon lords, it's simple enough to go to page 294 of the _Monster Manual_ and advance the demon lord's Hit Dice to whatever level you need it to be at; the increases in base attack, saves, skills, feats, and other things should cover you. Of course, some aspects (damage from special attacks, spell resistance, DR, etc.) aren't accounted for in these rules, but they're easy enoguh to adjust as well. And if your campaign doesn't use demon lords as combat encounters, no amount of stats are going to matter.

Personally, I don't agree with all of the design choices that were made as regards the archfiends in 3rd Edition, but I'm happy with most of them, and Erik and I are doing the best we can to do right by the book while not causing too many ripples by messing with established continuity. Will it make everyone happy? Of course not. In fact, I'm really nervous about how the book'll be recieved, since with the possible exception of _Lords of Madness_, it's the book I'm the most proud of to have been a part of. At the same point, it's probably been the _hardest_ WotC book I've worked on, since there's so much history to preserve and honor. Of course, I can't say what will and won't make the final edit, but a good way to get a preview of the book's tone is to check out the Demonomicon articles in _Dragon_ or Erik's awesome _Armies of the Abyss_ book published by Green Ronin. In any case, it's gonna be a gutwrenching wait till the book's out!


----------



## BOZ

like i said... 6 months.


----------



## Ripzerai

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> . In fact, I'm really nervous about how the book'll be recieved,




Splendid! If grumpy internet people have put the fear of God into you, then we know we've done our job properly.


----------



## BOZ

well, the thread i created last month is gone, so i'm necromancing this one.


----------



## demiurge1138

It never dies! AAAAIIIIEEEE!

Demiurge out.


----------



## Nightfall

Wasn't this around last week?


----------



## Razz

Of course there's always the Web Enhancement. You can chuck epic-level CR 40+ stats for the demon princes on such a thing since it's for a minority of people that want it. At least I believe there is. I haven't seen a new epic feat or epic monster like that awesome Gravwyrm on the WotC Website Monster Mayhem (or was it epic insights?) since.....wait, what is epic material again?   

Personally think it's easier to downgrade a powerful fiend than to upgrade. If CR 50 isn't what you need, lower Hit Dice, damage and SR, not the other way around.


----------



## Nightfall

Razz,

Web enhancements will not do justice the power that is *ORCUS!!*


----------



## Knightfall

*Here's the cover shot again.*

Just because.


----------



## Nightfall

Thanks Rob. It always help to help...I think.


----------



## arntof

Koostchie in Dragon 344....what lords are left for the Fiendish Codex now?
And which ones will be further detailed in the Demonomicon later, if any?


----------



## James Jacobs

arntof said:
			
		

> Koostchie in Dragon 344....what lords are left for the Fiendish Codex now?
> And which ones will be further detailed in the Demonomicon later, if any?




There are 14 demon lords with full stat blocks in _Fiendish Codex_, and another 64 or so without that are at the very least mentioned by name. The demon lords that have appeared in the Demonomicon to date are iconic demon lords, so you can expect them to get lots of coverage in the _Fiendish Codex_; I did my best to keep reprint and duplicate information to a minimum, so if you have the book and the article you should end up with a lot more information than if you had only one.


----------



## catsclaw227

Is there an index of which demons where featured in the Demonomicon articles in Dragon and which issue they were presented in?


----------



## James Jacobs

catsclaw227 said:
			
		

> Is there an index of which demons where featured in the Demonomicon articles in Dragon and which issue they were presented in?




Pazuzu: #329
Fraz-Urb'luu: #333
Zuggtmoy: #337
Baphomet: #341
Kostchtchie: #345


----------



## catsclaw227

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Pazuzu: #329
> Fraz-Urb'luu: #333
> Zuggtmoy: #337
> Baphomet: #341
> Kostchtchie: #345




Thanks James!  Now, I need to go check my Dragon stock and then buy the missing back issues.


----------



## Razz

Ah yes, I remember one specific minor (well not to me) thing I wanted to know of FCI.

Will we see the return of the Molydeus tanar'ri? I miss that sucker. Nearly scared the levels off my players, heh.


----------



## Baron Opal

James-

Would you consider making a pdf for sale that only had the Demonomicon articles, say every six or so? Or would that be opening more trouble than it's worth?


----------



## James Jacobs

Baron Opal said:
			
		

> James-
> 
> Would you consider making a pdf for sale that only had the Demonomicon articles, say every six or so? Or would that be opening more trouble than it's worth?




Per our contract with WotC, we can't offer any of the magazine contents as PDFs until the magazine issue in question sells out. So for now, we can't put any of the Demonomicon articles up online.

As for the molydeus... you'll have to wait another month to find out on that one. I think you'll find it worth the wait though...


----------



## BOZ

Nightfall said:
			
		

> Wasn't this around last week?




not this thread, no.  i created a new one, because this one was quite... full.  

actually, Shade recently reposted the first post of my new thread...


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> As for the molydeus... you'll have to wait another month to find out on that one. I think you'll find it worth the wait though...




that's a not-so-subtle hint.  

the preview on the WotC site suggested that the 5 lords from BoVD (well, at least Orcus and Demogorgon) are likely to have been re-statted for FC1, which is just as well since the change from 3.0 to 3.5 happened not long after BoVD was printed.

that leaves us with an additional 9 lords with stats... wonder who they are?    from James's posts above, it should not be hard to infer that the lords from the Demonomicon articles will not have their stats reprinted in the book, so the remaining 9 will be other demon lords...

and i suspect that the chapter on demon lords will be something to the effect of "14 statted lords" "several paragraphs regarding a number of other well-known lords" and finally "a section of quick notes about the rest of the known lords"?


----------



## James Jacobs

BOZ said:
			
		

> that's a not-so-subtle hint.
> 
> the preview on the WotC site suggested that the 5 lords from BoVD (well, at least Orcus and Demogorgon) are likely to have been re-statted for FC1, which is just as well since the change from 3.0 to 3.5 happened not long after BoVD was printed.
> 
> that leaves us with an additional 9 lords with stats... wonder who they are?    from James's posts above, it should not be hard to infer that the lords from the Demonomicon articles will not have their stats reprinted in the book, so the remaining 9 will be other demon lords...
> 
> and i suspect that the chapter on demon lords will be something to the effect of "14 statted lords" "several paragraphs regarding a number of other well-known lords" and finally "a section of quick notes about the rest of the known lords"?




What makes you think that the 5 Demonomicon demon lords won't be represented in the stat block chapter? It'd be weird to ignore those five completely, don't you think? Since they're so iconic to the Abys and have been around since 1st edition?


----------



## Evilhalfling

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Pazuzu: #329
> Fraz-Urb'luu: #333
> Zuggtmoy: #337
> Baphomet: #341
> Kostchtchie: #345




Well I cherry-picked 3 of the 4 issues, which is pretty good since I use a non-standard planer set up - only 9 demon lords, and all double as gods, more or less.

Of course my 17th lvl players have priests of winter as enemies - perhaps I can throw Kostchchie at them, calling him some sort of avatar?  

James, I think you misread BOZ he said he thought there would be the BoVD Lords in the new book.  
Hopefully Demegorgon will be back to baboon heads in the artwork/txt.  My poor Pseudonatural-dire ape cult will be much relieved if he is.


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> What makes you think that the 5 Demonomicon demon lords won't be represented in the stat block chapter? It'd be weird to ignore those five completely, don't you think? Since they're so iconic to the Abys and have been around since 1st edition?




to avoid overlap?  

hey, if i'm wrong, i'm wrong, no skin off my nose.  i just figured some more space would be dedicated to those who had not yet had stat blocks in 3.5e - but then, i'm not the author.  

actually, if the stats are provided again, that's fine by me.  it would make sense to have all the big iconic bad guys in one spot.  i'm sure i'll be happy with however it turns out.  hey, it could be 14 new lords that i've never even heard of before, or it could be 14 that we're quite familiar with and i'm sure i'll be equally happy.    i'll shut up about that topic now. *cheering noise from the crowd*


----------



## Zarnam

Ahhh....14 demon lords...so many yet so few   

As for me, I only hope, that the authors (Howdy James, howdy Eric   ) insert at least one of my favorite Lords (*Vucarik in Chains, Lupercio, Eldanoth*) in the "empty spaces" between Demonomicon reposts, Demogorgon/Grazzt/Orcus, Pale Night and Dagon...


----------



## Shemeska

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> As for the molydeus... you'll have to wait another month to find out on that one. I think you'll find it worth the wait though...




*grin*

Given the fact that there's a Molydeus proxy of Pale Night named 'The Crimson Simoniac' who has taken an unhealthy interest in the PCs in my current campaign... yeah I'm looking forward to this on a number of levels. *evil grin*


----------



## Razz

Odd, it's being releases 6/13/06. I thought it really was coming out 6/6/06? That is the Tuesday of the 2nd week of June is it not? 

Oh man, now it's 5 weeks we gotta wait and not 4!


----------



## BOZ

Shemeska said:
			
		

> *grin*
> 
> Given the fact that there's a Molydeus proxy of Pale Night named 'The Crimson Simoniac' who has taken an unhealthy interest in the PCs in my current campaign... yeah I'm looking forward to this on a number of levels. *evil grin*




yes, time to move away from concentrating on the lords, and more onto the lessers...  

we've had hints that the long-lost molydeus will be returning.  as the only remaining unconverted tanar'ri, it will be welcome!  

also the preview tells us that the chasme will be back as well.

i'm wondering with anticipation as to what demons and other Abyssal monsters will be returning/debuting in this here book.


----------



## Nightfall

Boz,

I'm hoping for a few new sevitors of Orcus myself. But we'll see. 

I am anxious to see how many we get.


----------



## Shemeska

BOZ said:
			
		

> also the preview tells us that the chasme will be back as well.




Psst, the Chasme was in the BoVD


----------



## Nightfall

Don't tell him that Shem! I like the fact he was in the dark. Plus BoVD wasn't that good.


----------



## Knightfall

Nightfall said:
			
		

> Don't tell him that Shem! I like the fact he was in the dark. Plus BoVD wasn't that good.




*Sacrilige!*  

I love that book!  

I admit it could have been better organized, and it needed to be bigger and meaner. A Lot Bigger And A Lot Meaner. This is my hope for the Fiendish Codex books.

Still, BoVD is just full of Vile goodness. It's way better than BoEDs, which I like but don't love.

KF72


----------



## James Jacobs

Whatever one thinks about the BoVD, one thing is obvious: It's a 3.0 book, and demons (to a certain extent) got fairly significant upgrades in the 3.5 revision. Those in the BoVD (and in the Manual of the Planes) needed to be updated to the 3.5 rules, so you can certainly expect to see several of these guys (like the chasme) in the new demons chapter of Fiendish Codex. Of course, that's not to say that there won't be any new demons either... there's a good balance of classic, updated demons and brand new demons in the book. I still haven't seen the final product yet, so I don't know if any of the demons I designed or updated got cut or not, but in my turnover the split was roughly 60% updated demons (including demons updated from editions previous to 3rd) and 40% brand new demons.


----------



## Odhanan

Knightfall1972 said:
			
		

> *Sacrilige!*I admit it could have been better organized, and it needed to be bigger and meaner. A Lot Bigger And A Lot Meaner. This is my hope for the Fiendish Codex books.
> 
> Still, BoVD is just full of Vile goodness. It's way better than BoEDs, which I like but don't love.



Well that's summarizes my opinion pretty well, even though I'm discovering the BoED and what I've read so far makes me like it a lot. I use some material from BoVD in my campaign and like the general feel of it, even if indeed it could have been a lot bigger and meaner for its own good.


----------



## BOZ

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> Whatever one thinks about the BoVD, one thing is obvious: It's a 3.0 book, and demons (to a certain extent) got fairly significant upgrades in the 3.5 revision. Those in the BoVD (and in the Manual of the Planes) needed to be updated to the 3.5 rules, so you can certainly expect to see several of these guys (like the chasme) in the new demons chapter of Fiendish Codex. Of course, that's not to say that there won't be any new demons either... there's a good balance of classic, updated demons and brand new demons in the book. I still haven't seen the final product yet, so I don't know if any of the demons I designed or updated got cut or not, but in my turnover the split was roughly 60% updated demons (including demons updated from editions previous to 3rd) and 40% brand new demons.




so, basically... the idea that i'm getting is that FC1 is going to be the book (at least, in regards to demons), that a lot of people think the BoVD should have been?  

so really, it could have any number of critters from, say, this thread to be updated to 3.5: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=78968


----------



## Shade

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> I still haven't seen the final product yet, so I don't know if any of the demons I designed or updated got cut or not, but in my turnover the split was roughly 60% updated demons (including demons updated from editions previous to 3rd) and 40% brand new demons.




If only the MMIII, MMIV, and future monster books would follow this ratio of updated/new.  <sigh>


----------



## Razz

Shade said:
			
		

> If only the MMIII, MMIV, and future monster books would follow this ratio of updated/new.  <sigh>




Agreed. I second the motion.


----------



## BOZ

heh, if the FF, MM2, MM3, and MM4 had all been at least 50% conversions, there would be very few unconverted monsters left.    you can ask Echohawk how many hundreds of them remain currently...


----------



## glass

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> That leads me on to another pet peeve of mine - Outsiders with Class Levels. Please refrain from using this mechanically lazy and philosophically debateable* approach to outsiders where possible.



Adding class level is no easier than any other methods of advancements; how is it 'lazy'?


> _*Outsiders/Spirits are not free willed beings._



I don't agree wit that, but even if I did, what does this have to do with class levels?


glass.


----------



## Shade

BOZ said:
			
		

> heh, if the FF, MM2, MM3, and MM4 had all been at least 50% conversions, there would be very few unconverted monsters left.    you can ask Echohawk how many hundreds of them remain currently...




Nah, there'd still be plenty.  His latest count was at 301, and that only accounts for some of the 2E campaign settings, and assumes WotC wouldn't want to update anything that has been done by athas.org, Planewalker, etc.   Dragon and Dungeon have several hundred unconverted creatures, there's still a plethora of FR critters, and we still have to account for Greyhawk and OD&D monsters.  I'll bet the count exceeds 1,000.

I only count about 200 creatures in the MMIII.  If 100 were conversions, then we might be caught up by MM XIII.


----------



## BOZ

LOL  - probably true on all of that.    however, i have to disagree that WotC would not want to redo something already done by the official sites of Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Mystara, etc as they have already demonstated their willingness to reuse campaign-specific creatures in generic-setting books.    which is fine, of course - the campaign setting still retains the flavor for the monster's origins, but the creature becomes available to a wider audience.


----------



## Shade

Yeah, no disagreement here.  Heck, several Ravenloft critters were in Dragon not too long ago, and I'll bet they appeared in the Kargatane and Sword and Sorcery books previously.  I just meant that Echohawk hadn't counted them, that's all.


----------



## BOZ

ah, true that.  i misread you.


----------



## BOZ

any idea when the interview will be posted on WotC's site?


----------



## sckeener

BOZ said:
			
		

> any idea when the interview will be posted on WotC's site?




I'll probably be the week before release which still feels so far away....


----------



## Razz

Any hope of releasing the book a week early?

1st Day of June?

Now!?


----------



## BOZ

sckeener said:
			
		

> I'll probably be the week before release which still feels so far away....




right, that make sense...


----------



## Erik Mona

I've not yet been contacted for an interview, so I don't expect it to appear soon (unless they're going to just interview Ed Stark, the in-house author, which is a distinct possibility).

--Erik


----------



## sckeener

sckeener said:
			
		

> I'll probably be the week before release which still feels so far away....





			
				BOZ said:
			
		

> right, that make sense...




in a way, we are doing their free advertising for the product.  I doubt they feel any need currently to push hard.


----------



## Clueless

Hey Erik, James - could Planewalker do an interview then if WotC hasn't yet and wouldn't object?


----------



## BOZ

sckeener said:
			
		

> in a way, we are doing their free advertising for the product.  I doubt they feel any need currently to push hard.




that's fine by me - in this case i don't mind.


----------



## Erik Mona

Clueless said:
			
		

> Hey Erik, James - could Planewalker do an interview then if WotC hasn't yet and wouldn't object?




I certainly wouldn't object, but (despite the fact that we've let some things slip) we're still under NDA, so our answers would have to be pretty evasive. Once the book is out (and I mean the minute the book is out) I'd be happy to do an in-depth interview in which I get into some of the nitty gritty.

--Erik


----------



## Clueless

Sounds like a plan.


----------



## sckeener

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> I certainly wouldn't object, but (despite the fact that we've let some things slip) we're still under NDA, so our answers would have to be pretty evasive. Once the book is out (and I mean the minute the book is out) I'd be happy to do an in-depth interview in which I get into some of the nitty gritty.
> 
> --Erik




The minute the book is out huh?....Is the book coming out early in any other country?  This is the internet. How early can _Clueless _get this interview?


----------



## sckeener

What is the release date?

BN.com June 28th
Amazon.com June 13th
buy.com June 13th


some places are saying June 30th, but most are saying just June.....

Anyone have the release date?


----------



## Nightchilde-2

sckeener said:
			
		

> What is the release date?
> 
> BN.com June 28th
> Amazon.com June 13th
> buy.com June 13th
> 
> 
> some places are saying June 30th, but most are saying just June.....
> 
> Anyone have the release date?




My distributor has it listed as 6/12.  This translates into an *effective* street date of 6/13 (at least for my store).  They haven't lead me wrong yet.


----------



## Razz

sckeener said:
			
		

> The minute the book is out huh?....Is the book coming out early in any other country?  This is the internet. How early can _Clueless _get this interview?




A member on these boards named Bogus Magus lives in Japan and they get them 2 weeks earlier, approximately. If he is getting the book, I'm sure he'll post its contents like he has with PHB2 and Complete Psionic previously.


----------



## Nightfall

I hope Bogus does. I want the page count on Orcus.   

That and maybe some of the crunch. Maybe we'll finally get a decent Thrall of Orcus for a change.


----------



## BOZ

sckeener said:
			
		

> What is the release date?
> 
> BN.com June 28th
> Amazon.com June 13th
> buy.com June 13th
> 
> 
> some places are saying June 30th, but most are saying just June.....
> 
> Anyone have the release date?




wasn't it supposed to be... 06/06/06?  

what kind of an _Omen_ is that?


----------



## Nightfall

I keep hoping for 6/6/6. If not eh at least there will be a decent movie out by then.


----------



## BogusMagus

I apologize for answering your summoning so late, my masters!

Well, I just got the book today.
Should I add to Mr.Kushner’s thread?

BogusMagus


----------



## Shade

BogusMagus said:
			
		

> I apologize for answering your summoning so late, my masters!
> 
> Well, I just got the book today.
> Should I add to Mr.Kushner’s thread?
> 
> BogusMagus




<double-checks chalk on pentagram>

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.


----------



## Psion

Nightfall said:
			
		

> I hope Bogus does. I want the page count on Orcus.




Well, there was one horrifying incident when the senate of a now bygone empire had censured the emporor for collusion with demons in a desperate attempt to retain his office. The emporer, in return for eternal servitude as undead in Orcus' armies, called down an aspect of Orcus to take his vengeance. Fully 213 pages were killed in the incident, along with numerous senators and scribes...



What?


----------



## BOZ

BogusMagus said:
			
		

> Well, I just got the book today.
> Should I add to Mr.Kushner’s thread?




the Q&A thread you mean?  if you would be so kind.    this thread has run its course.


----------

