Now we are presented with the "proven fact", that Demonlords cannot be slain, that even if Demogorgon would be killed he would be back soon enough again.. and you would have to keep on killing him forever.
Yet, that was NOT the way the Adimarchus problem was presented, if you killed a Demonlord on their Homeplane they staid dead!
Both sources are supposed to be equally right, which leads me thinking either is wrong.. or theres some added detail needed -someone else taking over the mantle of the plane? Is that the final demand needed in vanquishing a Demonlord, that you are seeking to replace it? There it worked by having the burning eye template.
How do you exert your mastery over the Maw? As that would be a component in finalizing a kill, if the other options don't interest (like having him locked away)
Well, this is a little off to the side, but in the Forgotten Realms, no mortal can truly kill a god (except during the Time of Troubles, which was a unique event) without divine help. This may extend, to a degree, to arch fiends as well. Notice that Astaroth made a deal with Ahazu in case he was destroyed, since its possible that without the deal, Gargauth might have scattered his essense or absorbed anything that might have reformed.
Asmodeus is also noted as having permanently disposed of a few of the arch devils for various offenses as well, so it appears that he has the ability to permanently remove an arch fiend from the cosmic scene.
In first edition, a fiend could only permanently be destroyed on its home plane (though lesser demons and devils reformed as lower life forms, so their personalities weren't intact). It was also noted that even if a being such as this was destroyed on its home plane, if it had a "soul object" (kind of like a lich's phylactery), they would eventually return to life.
In fact, this is why the Wand of Orcus has always been a big deal, as that particular item was Orcus'soul object. If the Wand still exists, then Orcus will eventually be back, at least according to the 1st edition thoughts on the subject.
In fact, in the 1st edition Throne of Bloodstone the characters, in order to finally defeat Orcus, didn't just have to defeat the demon lord, but destroy his Wand as well. Interestingly enough, even in that text it mentioned that a being as powerful as Orcus wouldn't be permanently gone, but that Damara should be free of him for a few thousand years after his death and the destruction of the Wand. Thus the seeds of "you can't keep a good (?) fiend down" are planted.
Also, in 2nd edition, after Kiaraunsalee killed Orcus, she seemed pretty keen on making sure she had a secure grasp of the Wand as well, and she was even a demigod.
Now, with all of that said, its possible that a few things are relevant to Demogorgon's situation. It could be that he does indeed have a soul object, thus allowing him to reform if killed. I beleive James has mentioned that the final fight with Demogorgon doesn't occur in his capital city, but in another location on his home plane. Its possible that with this soul object, Demogorgon would be reformed relatively quickly, so imprisoning him in the Wells would keep this from happening.
If Demogorgon doesn't have something like a soul object, it might take thousands of years for him to reform, which means that Demogorgon isn't going to be much of a threat to the PCs, nor to their children and grandchildren, but eventually he will be back. In the cosmic scale of things, its a bit of a setback, but not permanent.
I'm not sure if the "soul object" is still anything viable in 3.5, but it does help to explain some demon lord's ability to bounce back more quickly than others. Even witout it, I'd say that killing a demon lord without an artifact or the help of a god or what have you isn't going to permanently do the job. Heck, look what you have to do to get rid of the Tarrasque.
The PCs convince some of the Devil Lords to rally their forces to attack Demogorgon. Then he, in turn, will gather his fiendish forces and launch a counterattack. This keeps him too busy to implement his plans for the Savage Tide. The resulting conflict spills over into Carceri, The Grey Wastes, Gehenna, and other planes...
Like some sort of Blood War... :P (Add in some epic level time-related spells and the players could have started the Blood War - perhaps with a little help/inspiration from the Yuggoloths).
AND: Keep in mind that very few people have read the final draft of "Prince of Demons," and NO one has read what will be in Dungeon #150. Killing Demogorgon, for example, might not be the best way to solve the Savage Tide AP...
You old dog you... ;-)
Now we are presented with the "proven fact", that Demonlords cannot be slain, that even if Demogorgon would be killed he would be back soon enough again.. and you would have to keep on killing him forever.
Yet, that was NOT the way the Adimarchus problem was presented, if you killed a Demonlord on their Homeplane they staid dead!
Both sources are supposed to be equally right, which leads me thinking either is wrong.. or theres some added detail needed -someone else taking over the mantle of the plane? Is that the final demand needed in vanquishing a Demonlord, that you are seeking to replace it? There it worked by having the burning eye template.
How do you exert your mastery over the Maw? As that would be a component in finalizing a kill, if the other options don't interest (like having him locked away)
As I've always understood it, a Demon Lord can only be truly "killed" if slain on their home plane. Being as its their homeplane, this gives them the sort of "home field" advantage. Plus they would normally begin to reform there. In "Shackled City" we see Adimarchus defeated first in Carceri (certainly not his home of Occipitus). The players must then travel to Occipitus and throw down with Adimarchus again. In doing so, I believe it's possible for them to claim Occipitus and in turn give Adimarchus no home plane on which to reform.
Killing a potent Demonlord like Demogorgon would be a heck of a lot tougher, since Gaping Maw is, if my memory of the Fiendish Codex is correct, three layers. So just a speculation, but you'd need forces and power to hold three demonic layers at the same time. Not an easy task by any means.
With James' comment and what we've seen previously, I cannot help but think there might even be more up his sleeve on this one than just beating Demogorgon though...
~ Bryon ~
You're thinking of the Triple Realm of Azzagrat, Grazz't's domain.
Gaping Maw is just a single layer.
<snippage>
Now, with all of that said, its possible that a few things are relevant to Demogorgon's situation. It could be that he...
Also - somewhere in 2nd ed the idea of Avatars was introduced. This concept of certain very powerful beings being able to project certain parcels of their essence into vessels that maintain that beings shape and certain powers (depending on how much essence is devoted to building the Avatar)
With this concept came the idea that killing an Avatar does not kill the entity; while it certainly may hurt them, perhaps significantly if the entity has invested a lot of power into it.
As to Demogorgon:
<snippage>
Now, with all of that said, its possible that a few things are relevant to Demogorgon's situation. It could be that he...Also - somewhere in 2nd ed the idea of Avatars was introduced. This concept of certain very powerful beings being able to project certain parcels of their essence into vessels that maintain that beings shape and certain powers (depending on how much essence is devoted to building the Avatar)
With this concept came the idea that killing an Avatar does not kill the entity; while it certainly may hurt them, perhaps significantly if the entity has invested a lot of power into it.
As to Demogorgon:
** spoiler omitted **
Well, this also gets into the difference between Aspects and Avatars. It seems that 3.5 has gone with the idea that singlar planar entities can have aspects, but not avatars, per se, since avatars are what gods have.
Avatars are are a vessel that channels a portion of the god's power. Its essentially an appendage of the deity, although there is a bottleneck as to how much power they can channel through the avatar.
Aspects are "lesser" version of a planar creature, but once spawned, they are a separate entity from the being that spawned it. In the example you mentioned, they those beings have been given the authority of the beings they represent, but they aren't them exactly. An avatar more or less is the being in question, but speaking through a sort of divine "puppet."
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More on aspects. Apparently, demon lords can and have died in the past. Obox Ob was slain by The Queen of Chaos so that Miska the Wolf Spider would inherit the title of "prince of demons". However, Obox Ob still exists, as one of his aspects survived and eventually grew into what is today known as Obox Ob, though with only a fraction of the power held by the original. It remains to be said that Obox Ob was an Obyrith and not a Tanarri as most of the demons nowadays seems to be (Demogorgon for instance), that could have had some impact on the circumstances of Obox Ob's death... Regardless, even if the PC's do manage to permanently slay Demogorgon, one of his aspects could always rise to prominence and take his place like what happened with Obox Ob. To prevent that from happening the players would have to hunt down every single of Demogorgon's aspects (which would probably be in the hundreds, if not thousands...) across all planes and all material plane worlds.
That's a good point. Aspects are kind of like walking versions of soul objects from first edition. It makes sense that they could serve as focal points for absorbing the ambient energy from a destroyed demon lord. It might take a while, but eventually it might actually become something akin to what it was a part of.
Now, if you look at the Wells of Darkness, its possible that if a being's essense is trapped in there, the scattered energy is trapped in the Wells, so none of that energy is going to flow back to one of the aspects.
Thinking of demons, I was just picturing a "Highlander" style game between surviving aspects, with the one that survives managing to become "the One." Since another, ahem, aspect, of aspects is that they are suppose to embody only one "portfolio" or interest of the spawning creature, it would almost make sense that this might make some sense.
On the other hand, its been pointed out that most aspects are just random planar energy that takes the form of the "parent" and only lasts a few days before it disperses. I get the feeling that either the "parent" has to feed the aspect some energy to keep it alive and kicking, or else it has to find some means of making itself more permanent to stay around.
Then again, I like the idea that aspects would be a bit more difficult to maintain than an avatar, because some sources, the the FC II (while a good sourcebook) kind of blurred the line between the two and made them seem a little more like one another.
Oh, and I get the feeling that avatars, given that they are "online" to the diety, would disappear or die if the god themself died, whereas aspects are separate entities, and would keep going even if their "parent" was destroyed.
I know I'm not happy at the thought of loosing Demogorgon in my world. I've used him a few times in games, and the image that I've always conveyed was "Run away!" The stats that I've used are ten times what they are in Dragon, because I wanted the thought of fighting him to be kinda like fighting Boccob or Mystra in spell battle.
WHen I get the last adventure, I'll have to see how it looks. If it pushes the PC's into a stand up fight with him, I'll have to make some changes. Honestly I think that disrupting the ritual should be the high point. Getting away with your life is the reward.
If you don't want the PCs to fight the "real" Demogorgon, why not end the campaign at Tides of Dread? At this point, they've already beaten their first "Aspect" of Demogorgon (actually a construct, but they don't know that) and killed the recurring villain that's been making trouble the entire campaign. They've just got their first epic-style powers and can raise the dead, teleport across the world, or slay hundreds of enemies in five minutes.
If you go on, they go from being epic in power to being basically superheroes, and I would think that killing an "Aspect" of Demogorgon would get thin after the eighth time you do it with the same characters. Killing demon lords has always been a part of D&D; remember that Lolth only had 66hp in 1E and could be one-shotted by any fifteenth-level magic-user. Demon lords and gods could chew up low-level characters however they pleased, but if you made it to the top they had to take notice.
It does not bother me that at the very end of the game, PCs might be able to face the real Demogorgon. If they can't interact with him, why does he even exist in the game? What was the point of leveling up at all and holding back Demogorgon's minions at every turn if you're still a weak loser at the very end, and all you can do is run away?
Nothing wrong with retiring characters at the end of a plot cycle. Some people just don't like high-level play, and if you're one of them, why even try? Just start over at the level you do like.
I know I'm not happy at the thought of loosing Demogorgon in my world. I've used him a few times in games, and the image that I've always conveyed was "Run away!" The stats that I've used are ten times what they are in Dragon, because I wanted the thought of fighting him to be kinda like fighting Boccob or Mystra in spell battle.
WHen I get the last adventure, I'll have to see how it looks. If it pushes the PC's into a stand up fight with him, I'll have to make some changes. Honestly I think that disrupting the ritual should be the high point. Getting away with your life is the reward.
I can understand your problem. I don't like gods to have specific stats in my games, and only demigods and unique planar creatures do have stats, and even then, I am loath to actually "settle" on what they should be, because while I think they should have stats, the stats should be something that someone doesn't really face until a pivotal point in their careers.
On the other hand, planar creatures are indeed unique because they are somehow tied to their planes. Its not too hard to picuture that various rituals or magic items or external factors might limit the amount of power that a given being can actually exert in a given fight. Normally, Demogorgon might have had the power level you decided on in previous campaigns, but for whatever reason, his powers might be limited (this is difficult to speculate on right now, as I'm assuming this might literally be what happens in the adventure, so without it here, its hard to gues about).
If you ever read Marvel comics, there was a being known as the Beyonder that could essentially do anything. No one could really defeat him, but at one point he wanted to become truly mortal, so he created a physical body for himself that would age and die and function like a normal human's, while slowly reabsorbing his power, which he had to cut himself off from or else he couldn't make himself mortal. While he was mortal and slowly absobing the power into himself, he was killed, since he was vulnerable.
Demogorgon's ritual might be something like this, where in order to make use of the rituals he wants to enact, he has to cut back on his power, or redirect it for a while. In this way, the PCs can actually fight THE Demogorgon, but he won't be able to bring to bear his full range of powers.
Of course, if you want to keep Demogorgon alive and kicking in your campaign, we'll have to see the adventure to see if there will be some "loopholes" to exploit that might let the PCs fight and defeat Demogorgon without fully eliminating him as a power in the Abyss.
If you don't want the PCs to fight the "real" Demogorgon, why not end the campaign at Tides of Dread? At this point, they've already beaten their first "Aspect" of Demogorgon (actually a construct, but they don't know that) and killed the recurring villain that's been making trouble the entire campaign. They've just got their first epic-style powers and can raise the dead, teleport across the world, or slay hundreds of enemies in five minutes.
If you go on, they go from being epic in power to being basically superheroes, and I would think that killing an "Aspect" of Demogorgon would get thin after the eighth time you do it with the same characters. Killing demon lords has always been a part of D&D; remember that Lolth only had 66hp in 1E and could be one-shotted by any fifteenth-level magic-user. Demon lords and gods could chew up low-level characters however they pleased, but if you made it to the top they had to take notice.
It does not bother me that at the very end of the game, PCs might be able to face the real Demogorgon. If they can't interact with him, why does he even exist in the game? What was the point of leveling up at all and holding back Demogorgon's minions at every turn if you're still a weak loser at the very end, and all you can do is run away?
Nothing wrong with retiring characters at the end of a plot cycle. Some people just don't like high-level play, and if you're one of them, why even try? Just start over at the level you do like.
My concern isn't that they fight Demogorgon, My problem is that my players have interacted with him as a high level entity on a an epic level campaign about a year before STAP came out. At epic level, the group got pounded, and only got away with the help of a high level artifact that banished him. This is pretty fresh in their minds still, and they keep bringing it up. The players are truely affraid to fight him. If this group walks in and has a cake walk, they're going to be pissed about the other fight. That's my concern, and why I will have to see how it is written. I want the last game to be a challenge, not a TPK.
I see. That does make some sense.
Is your Savage Tide campaign set in the same campaign setting? If not, then just explain, "Different NPC, same name. Different games." Pretty much the same as having two different wizard BBEGs in two different campaigns that happened to have the same name but had different levels and builds.
If it is set in the same campaign setting, perhaps the events of the epic game were responsible for Demogorgon's current vulnerability. When the old PCs used the MacGuffin to banish Demogorgon, he lost a lot of power, and his current plot is an attempt to get that power back even as he hides from the old PCs. Fortunately for the world, the new PCs are there to stop him.
AND: Keep in mind that very few people have read the final draft of "Prince of Demons," and NO one has read what will be in Dungeon #150. Killing Demogorgon, for example, might not be the best way to solve the Savage Tide AP...
More on aspects. Apparently, demon lords can and have died in the past. Obox Ob was slain by The Queen of Chaos so that Miska the Wolf Spider would inherit the title of "prince of demons". However, Obox Ob still exists, as one of his aspects survived and eventually grew into what is today known as Obox Ob, though with only a fraction of the power held by the original. It remains to be said that Obox Ob was an Obyrith and not a Tanarri as most of the demons nowadays seems to be (Demogorgon for instance), that could have had some impact on the circumstances of Obox Ob's death... Regardless, even if the PC's do manage to permanently slay Demogorgon, one of his aspects could always rise to prominence and take his place like what happened with Obox Ob. To prevent that from happening the players would have to hunt down every single of Demogorgon's aspects (which would probably be in the hundreds, if not thousands...) across all planes and all material plane worlds.
It depends on if there were any aspects in existence when a demon lord is killed, and if the aspect survive once the demon lord is slain. Anyway, I wouldn't count on any demon lords (or deities for that matter) to have thousands, much less hundreds of aspects. For a demon lord, losing an aspect, while is not fatal to the lord, it is something not to be taken lightly. In a sense, I think if an aspect dies, the demon lord it sprang from will suffer some form of backlash, kind of like a wizard and his or her familiar.
And demon lords cannot have too much aspects hopping about the multiverse, as they are compose of portions of their lifeforce, and thus a demon lord with a dozen aspects will be weaken significantly and its rivals will take advantage of the situation and attack.
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It depends on if there were any aspects in existence when a demon lord is killed, and if the aspect survive once the demon lord is slain. Anyway, I wouldn't count on any demon lords (or deities for that matter) to have thousands, much less hundreds of aspects. For a demon lord, losing an aspect, while is not fatal to the lord, it is something not to be taken lightly. In a sense, I think if an aspect dies, the demon lord it sprang from will suffer some form of backlash, kind of like a wizard and his or her familiar.And demon lords cannot have too much aspects hopping about the multiverse, as they are compose of portions of their lifeforce, and thus a demon lord with a dozen aspects will be weaken significantly and its rivals will take advantage of the situation and attack.
Well, I think you might be mixing aspects (shadows or echoes of a power's essence) with avatars (mighty extensions of the power, which is controlled by the original).
Archdevils, deities, and demon princes sometimes send aspects to be revered by or help their cults in the mortal realm, and when considering the sheer size of the planes (which are infinite) and the number of material plane worlds (which are also probably infinite), hundreds or even thousands of these aspects would not be a stretch.
And while a power will not likely send aspects on a whim, it should not really be afraid of doing so because of being harmed by its death. For this I reference the Miniatures Handbook (where aspects first appeared), p. 47:
"Unlike avatars (introduced in Deities & Demigods), aspects are not extensions of the original. The original can't see through the aspect's eyes and doesn't know what the aspect learns. Destroying an aspect sometimes weakens the original by dissipating the aspect's life force and preventing it from being reabsorbed into the original, but beyond that, hurting the aspect does not harm the original."
Considering the miniscule power held by an aspect compared to the original, that "sometimes" would probably feel more like being stung by a bee rather than the loss of a limb. Comparing them to familiars would not really work as familiars are a part of the sorcerer/wizard, aspects are not part of their originals.
The book also goes on to say that "Rarely, aspects arise spontaneously on the planes where their originals reside, rather like naturally occuring echoes of the original's powerful presence."
It would not be a stretch to assume that one of these spontaneous aspects would be beyond the control of the original, and could come to take the place of its parent, should the parent die, even if the PC's do manage to kill each and every single one of the other aspects. Heck, even the death of the original might actually be enough for its (literal) shadow to come to life as an aspect...
Foolish mortals!
Old demonlords don't die - they just reappear in the next campaign. My players were taking on (and on rare occasions "beating") the big bad boys from the Abyss and Hell way back in AD&D v.1. No one bats an eye when these wonderful hellions make guest appearances. Certainly, no one has ever declared "Wait, Orcus is dead, we already killed him!"