Where do you read about the demon princes?

[Stegger]

Hi,
I relation to the article in the latest Dragon Magazine about the classic demon princes, where have you read about these creatures before and their planes before? Other Dragon/Dungeon Magazines, TSR books?
I am really interested in reading more about both the princes and the planes of hell, but I do not know where to look. Any guidance would be highly appreciated!
Cheers,
Stegger

[Koldoon]

Stegger wrote:

Hi,

I relation to the article in the latest Dragon Magazine about the classic demon princes, where have you read about these creatures before and their planes before? Other Dragon/Dungeon Magazines, TSR books?
I am really interested in reading more about both the princes and the planes of hell, but I do not know where to look. Any guidance would be highly appreciated!
Cheers,
Stegger

Most of the demon and devil princes were detailed in Monster Manual II (1st edition) though a small number were in the original 1st edition Monster Manual (notably Demogorgon and Orcus).

- Ashavan

[DeadDMWalking]

The first edition Fiend Folio introduced Lloth as a demon, but yeah, MMII from 1st edition.

I'm wondering if Planescape ever provided much information on demons?

[James Jacobs]

For 3rd edition, the Book of Vile Darkness is the place to go for info on the demon lords and demon princes. The 2nd edition Planescape products did have a lot of info on some of the demon princes and lords as well.

[Stegger]

Thanks!
I will go and see if I can dig out any of these books. Maybe ebay will be useful...
Cheers,
Stegger

[Justin Fritts]

For what its worth ($29.95 USD), The Book Of Vile Darkness has information on numerous Demon Lords and is, to the best of my knowledge, still in print. Any information on them that was included in Planescape, that somehow wasn't included in the BoVD is probably to be found in the current Planar Handbook.

Trust me. Go with the up-to-date stuff first, you'll pay less and get more.

[Stegger]

I will do that instead, Justin. I know they have it in my local shop. i will try there tomorrow...
Planar handbook? Manual of the Planes?
Stegger

[Yamo]

I use the old AD&D Monster Manual and Monster Manual 2. The Fiend Folio has a few, too, notably Lloth.

The main advantage of going this route is that you can get all three of these excellent books used for roughly half the cost of the current Book of Vile Darkness (which has no real worthy content other than its demon and devil lord description).

Then again, I'm probably the only person on the board who doesn't own any post-AD&D 1st Edition D&D rulebooks at all, unless you count the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. :)

[Taricus]

There's also a book, conveniently named, Legions of Hell--Book of Fiends. Volume One. By Chris Pramas. It'z written in 3.0, I believe.

That one concentrates on the devils in the hells. Haven't really looked at it much, but it does talk about Asmodeus and the other rulers of the 9 circles--and it describes the 9 circles of the pit, themselves. Good stuff, if you ever plan on bringing a campaign there.

Also has different devils and the politics between them all--along with some prestige classes for devils, and a template for fallen celestials.

[Justin Fritts]

To clear things up: The Planar Handbook is the Manual Of The Planes for 3.5- Don't get Manual, get the Planar Handbook.

And only get the OOP stuff if you can find it at a good price- Some people charge absurd sums for OOP merchandise, not always with good reason... (Yamo or others would doubtless know more about this than I, as I do not tend to pursue OOP books...)

[Oliver von Spreckelsen]

The Green Ronin stuff was reissued with the other two books (about devils and daemons - the latter was not printed for 3.0) updated to 3.5 as "The Book Of Fiends". This book is really really good. (same goes for "The Complete Book of Eldritch Might").

"Tome of Horrors" also has some information about demon princes, but "BoVD" superseeds many of those entries due to being official stuff from WotC, while the stuff from the "Necromancers" is often more true to the classic entries of the 1ed books.

[johnnype]

Just my two cents:

If you are looking to use it with D&D 3.0 or above then I recommend you get the BoVD and the Book of Fiends. They actually don't overlap much at all and complement each other perfectly. All the Demon, Devil and Daemon information you could ever want.

As far as the actual planes then yes, you should consider the Planar Handbook first and the Manual of the Planes second. Both are good but they will provide you with a LOT of information not having anything to do with the lower planes.

For older material it's hard to beat the planescape supplements but some of that has been reprinted in later books. Dragon Magazine had the original articles way back in the 80's great stuff but not as well developed as the current material. Also the original Manual of the Planes for 1st (or was it 2nd edition?) was fairly informative.

Like I said, forget all the old material. Stick with the new stuff. Look for review of the Book of Fiends on ENWorld. I think you will be impressed.

[primemover003]

The Planar Handbook IS NOT the Manual of the Planes for 3.5... It's a Players book that holds PrC's, Planar substitution levels, crunch for players. The MotP is updated for the most part in the Planes section of the 3.5 DMG.

Demon Lords and Archfiends in general got a lot of material in 2.0 but they lacked any serious crunch (for a good reason). Dragon had an article on the Lords of the Nine in the late 90's that was awesome!!!

-I am a Vrock, I'm a Tanar'ri!!!

[Angus]

Dragon had a great two part article on the lesser known Princes of Hell in issues 75 and 76. I highly recommend them if you can fnd them.