Somewhere, Set, Jane Goodall sits, hating you and planning her revenge...
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That reminds me, have Angazhan's 'people', and ape-men, been statted up anywhere?
If not, they should be easy to do. Just make them INT 8-10 Chaotic Evil dire apes.
I make the 'rank and file' Awakened Apes. Some are 'blessed by Angazhan' and are Fiendish. A leader may have have the Half-Fiendish template. Dire Apes breed slower, and are less likely to be spellcasters, but more likely to be Fiendish (or Half-Fiendish).
The average specimen is a Ranger or Barbarian, with the Rangers leading teams of raiders and slavers, bringing back workers (and meat) to the city. Leaders are often Abyssal Sorcerers, Adepts (the most common spellcasters), Druids or, extremely rarely, Clerics of Angazhan (never more than one in a community, as they kill rivals...). The Druids, Adepts and Clerics have access to a lower level 'Tainted Awakening' spell that functions similarly to Awaken (but doesn't give extra HD, doesn't make them quite as smart (average Int 8), makes them evil and requires a sentient sacrifice, with human being their sacrifice-of-choice), allowing the Awakened Apes to 'pass on their gift.'
To play up the Demogorgon flavor, the Adepts, Sorcerers, Druids and Rangers never take simian Familiars or Companions (despite the presence of non-evil Awakened Monkeys living in the canopy above their city-state, whom they regard as pests to be exterminated), and instead choose reptilian creatures, including Vipers, Constrictors and Monitor Lizards (stats as Crocodile, but 1/2 swim speed, no breath holding and a diseased bite).
They live in the crumbling ruins of the impressive city-state whose former human inhabitants once awakened them as labor. They enslave humans and baboons to work the paddies as their own slave labor (but often eat so many of the humans that they must raid further and further afield, eventually becoming so hungry for meat that they turn on each other and fall into collapse for a few generations, only to start it all over again...). They refuse to repeat...
I want to play a Barbarian in this setting, stealing a mcguffin or rescuing a slave girl and growling the words:
"Get your filthy paws off me you damn, dirty apes..."
Let me get this straight... WotC owns the representation of Demogorgon as a monster with two heads?If this is not a sign of the apocalypse, I don't know what is. Next you're going to tell me that they own Tiamat as a 5-headed drag... WHAT????
Is this true? Does Wizards own the "real" Tiamat?
Incidentally, my only complaint about Gods and Magics was its attempt to change Tiamat. Better to have followed the Demogorgon model and let players use her as they know her, which for me is as a goddess of greed and evil dragons (one of the great changes in 3.5 FR was bringing her back as a goddess and not a demon).
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Is this true? Does Wizards own the "real" Tiamat?
Wizards does, in fact, own the Tiamat portrayed as a dragon-goddess with five heads representing each of the basic chromatic types and serving as the evil mother goddess of dragon-kind. Technically, TSR owned her, then Wizards bought TSR.
They do not, on the other hand, own the real Tiamat portrayed as the primal sea, the chaos before creation, and mother of many kinds of monsters.
Is this true? Does Wizards own the "real" Tiamat?
Wizards does, in fact, own the Tiamat portrayed as a dragon-goddess with five heads representing each of the basic chromatic types and serving as the evil mother goddess of dragon-kind. Technically, TSR owned her, then Wizards bought TSR.
They do not, on the other hand, own the real Tiamat portrayed as the primal sea, the chaos before creation, and mother of many kinds of monsters.
That's unfortunate. I'd like to have seen her in the hands of people who know what they are doing.
Creative Director
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While Tiamat is from mythology, as Cappa said, her incarnation as a five-headded dragon is not; that's all Wizards of the Coast. We've mentioned Tiamat in passing in a few Pathfinder products, but since we can't actually build upon her in the way that gamers are used to seeing her, rebuilding her into something entirely new is a bad idea. Instead, we went with Dahak (a different and actually, I think, more logical choice, and a god who comes from the same traditions and era more or less as Tiamat) as our evil dragon god.
It's the same reason we won't be doing much at all with Demogorgon. The implication is that he dwells in the Abyss of the Great Beyond, but that you'll need to go to WotC products for information on him and do the work of placing him in Golarion yourself if you want Demogorgon (or Tiamat) in your game.
And honestly... I'm pretty okay with that. Wizards has been INCREDIBLY generous with letting the rest of the world play with the vast majority of their monsters and rules. And the places that aren't open, I think, are actually nothing more than fantastic opportunities to explore new content and to try to make them even better.
While Tiamat is from mythology, as Cappa said, her incarnation as a five-headded dragon is not; that's all Wizards of the Coast. We've mentioned Tiamat in passing in a few Pathfinder products, but since we can't actually build upon her in the way that gamers are used to seeing her, rebuilding her into something entirely new is a bad idea. Instead, we went with Dahak (a different and actually, I think, more logical choice, and a god who comes from the same traditions and era more or less as Tiamat) as our evil dragon god.
It's the same reason we won't be doing much at all with Demogorgon. The implication is that he dwells in the Abyss of the Great Beyond, but that you'll need to go to WotC products for information on him and do the work of placing him in Golarion yourself if you want Demogorgon (or Tiamat) in your game.
And honestly... I'm pretty okay with that. Wizards has been INCREDIBLY generous with letting the rest of the world play with the vast majority of their monsters and rules. And the places that aren't open, I think, are actually nothing more than fantastic opportunities to explore new content and to try to make them even better.
Well, I disagree with you there. You can't do any better than Tiamat as a goddess of evil dragons. She's simply perfect. :)
But considering I own every WotC product that mentions her prior to 4.0, I think I can get by by just ignoring every mention of Dahak.
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Creative Director
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Well, I disagree with you there. You can't do any better than Tiamat as a goddess of evil dragons. She's simply perfect. :)
But considering I own every WotC product that mentions her prior to 4.0, I think I can get by by just ignoring every mention of Dahak.
You have that luxury. We do not.
You have that luxury. We do not.Well, I disagree with you there. You can't do any better than Tiamat as a goddess of evil dragons. She's simply perfect. :)
But considering I own every WotC product that mentions her prior to 4.0, I think I can get by by just ignoring every mention of Dahak.
I wasn't taking issue with your decision to not use Tiamat, which I agree with if you can't use the version most people are familiar with.
I was disagreeing with your statement that Dahak is a better and more logical choice to be God of evil dragons than Tiamat.
Actually, Demogorgon does appear on pg. 56 of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary in a list of demon lords.
"Demogorgon, the Maws of Madness"
For whatever that's worth...
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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(finger snaps) Doo-be-oo, do-do-doo, do-be-doo, do-do-do, do-be-doooo...
When in this world's forgotten core,
The Rough Beast wakens with a roar,
Consuming all but wanting more,
The prayers are cast with blood and gore
to Rovagug (Rovagug) Rovagug (Rovagug)!
Boiling lava, roar of earthquakes,
Calls the god who swiftly unmakes:
Rov- rov--rov-rov- Rovagug.
If you'll pardon me from asking, but why NOT change Demogorgon then? I mean, yeah, he proved himself incontrovertibly awesome in Savage Tide, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who agrees with me that he could be so much more. He could be this secret, whispered thing among demons, some big secret that not a lot of demons know about but just refuse to acknowledge. Kind of like F.A.T.A.L. He could be Lovecraftian(er), or, dare I say it, even a little Gnostic. I mean, if we're working with a clean slate, maybe it's time to make something new. Just food for thought...Because he's one of the iconic D&D demons. In my home Golarion campaigns, I want to be able to use Demogorgon in the way players know and recognize him; he's been around since the very start of D&D, after all (his first appearance being in Eldritch Wizardry, I believe). He's set in stone, as far as I'm concerned; even though we can't use him as D&D set him up, I don't want to change him. Much better to just mention his name now and then and let those folk who want to use them as they remember him. We can always make up new demon lords to fit the roles of secret whispered things or Lovecraftian or Gnostic menaces.
+1
To interpret James Jacobs: "Here's what we're going to do: We can't make Demogorgon how he has been, so we're going to leave him open to be used how he was by not officially making him different. We can't say he's a two-headed baboon tentacle beast, but we're not going to say specifically that he isn't either."
we went with Dahak (a different and actually, I think, more logical choice, and a god who comes from the same traditions and era more or less as Tiamat) as our evil dragon god.
Problem for me James is that everytime someone mentions Dahak I half expect Xena and Gabrielle to come flying around the corner!!!
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Creative Director
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Problem for me James is that everytime someone mentions Dahak I half expect Xena and Gabrielle to come flying around the corner!!!we went with Dahak (a different and actually, I think, more logical choice, and a god who comes from the same traditions and era more or less as Tiamat) as our evil dragon god.
Nevermind the fact that we got Dahak from the same place that they did? As in, Dahak's a real-world deity who's actually been in D&D ever since the 1st edition Deities & Demigods (where he was statted up as a dragon)?
Not trying to be a jerk... and the fact that Xena drew in Dahak and a of other real world myths for the show was REALLY cool.
Monstrous Shanana impersonation.
Tune, please.
Dahak's a real-world deity who's actually been in D&D ever since the 1st edition Deities & Demigods (where he was statted up as a dragon)?
I don't have the adventure in front of me but wasn't Dahak one of the enities listed as being imprisoned in the Wells of Darkness from the adventure with the same name?
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Creative Director
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Dahak's a real-world deity who's actually been in D&D ever since the 1st edition Deities & Demigods (where he was statted up as a dragon)?
I don't have the adventure in front of me but wasn't Dahak one of the enities listed as being imprisoned in the Wells of Darkness from the adventure with the same name?
Yup. Same guy.
If we were to do Demogorgon in Golarion, we'd have to make him look different and have totally different powers and role. That's not something I wanted to do.
Not for nothing but I would love to see what you guys would have done with it
just sayin is all
Shrug...won't miss Demogorgon (or Tiamat for that matter), as they've only rarely popped up as in any campaign I've played or run. Orcus cultists seemed to be easier to integrate into a campaign as the cultist du jour. And he had that wand to lend out to main bbeg of any particular campaign...
Though using Golarion as a setting, I've found myself using the Cthulian Mythos as a source of cultists and cabals as well as to fill in the gaps in the Golarian pantheon (Erastil does not fit the bill in my mind in the iconic baby making god... just does not fill the classic template... a variation Shub-Niggurath does however;-).
"He was cheap and did not throw a very good party, and he talked to himself. Made you feel like you where a third wheel all the time. Can't say I'll miss him "
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I'm interested to see who the Demonlords are in Pathfinder, as I'd like to use one as final boss in my own campaign. The only one unique to Pathfinder I've seen or heard of is Abraxus.
The Wiki has the various demon lords listed on the Religion page.
Of the two not specifically mentioned on the webpage, Jezelda is the patron of werewolves and the moon, and Xevgavizeb is the patron of troglodytes and caverns.
Quite a few of them can be subbed in for 'classic' demon lords, such as using Mazmezz (bindings and vermin) in place of Lolth or Kabriri (ghouls and graves) for Doresain.
As mentioned upthread, I use Angazhan in place of Demogorgon, but Dagon also encompasses some 'Demogorgon-y' aspects.
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Creative Director
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Quite a few of them can be subbed in for 'classic' demon lords, such as using Mazmezz (bindings and vermin) in place of Lolth or Kabriri (ghouls and graves) for Doresain.
Althoguh Mazmezz is indeed a stand-in for Lolth, Kabriri is more of a creature inspired by the same source material that inspired Doresain and for Yeenoghu.
The upcoming "Lords of Chaos" this August will have a LOT more info on Golarion's demon lords (including 3 new ones!), but won't have any stats for them. We don't know what our epic rules are going to do yet, after all, so it's silly to stat things up that powerful for now.