So, any chance we're going to see a revamp for these in the bestiary?
One thing I've always hated about D&D is the way Demons and Devils are handled, aesthetically. We've got two species of creatures that are supposed to be completely different, and at war with one another. But, ultimately, if you haven't played long enough to know the whole MM (and many of my players haven't), there's nothing to differentiate the two.
I get that, in a place of random, horrific chaos and evil like the abyss, you get beings that are a essentially a corrupt, creepy mix of various parts, like the Glabrezu and the Marilith. But even they have things that are not remotely demon-like, like the bebelith and retriever. After 10 levels of fighting monsters, a giant bug/spider is a giant bug/spider, no matter where it comes from.
Devils, by far, are worse. In a plane of brutal totalitarianism, I would expect so see some theme, some commonality between the various inhabitants. Instead, we get an even worse mishmash of creatures than the demons have. We have a spiked troll, a scaly gargoyle, and the ice devil...seriously, an anthropomorphic blue bug with a lizard tail? Why? Why is this a Devil? Demon...maybe if the writer was out of steam, but devil? I don't get it.
Perhaps worst of all is the BBEG CR 20 monster of each side. On one side, we have a red scaly balrog wannabe, and on the other, we have a brown furry balrog wannabe. I'm aware their functions and powers are different, but, aesthetically, they're too similar.
I know that in medieval demonology, which had more in common with devils than demons, was filled with random mishmash creatures, but medieval demonology didn't have two distinct species.
In my own games, I'm going through the process of reflavoring the two. Demons, I'm pretty much leaving alone (except for things like the nafalshee, that I think need a switch). Devils, on the other hand, are all being made more humanoid/corrupt angel, like Erinyes, Hellraiser Cenobites, or some Silent Hill monsters.
One of the things I've really liked about the Pathfinder setting and adventures is that they all feel very grown up to me. You adventure against evil creatures because they, ya know, do bad things. They aren't the Disney Villains we've seen over the past ten years or so, as D&D was streamlined to be family friendly. (I actually consider it a grown-up game, so I appreciate this approach). Their versions of goblins and ogres saved me a lot of time trying to rewrite fluff/concept (especially ogres...oh god do my players not want to be captured by ogres).
Anyway, long story short, I'd personally like to see a reflavoring of Demons and Devils Akin to what we saw in classic monsters revisited and rise of the runlords. What do the rest of you think? Are Demons and Devils sacred cows that can't be 'revisited', or are they sacred cows?
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For the nature of devils, please see this interpretation of paintings by Hieronymous Bosch. Fair Warning: Rated R at best.
Hopefully that will improve your opinion of their seemingly disparate appearance.
(PS- Paizo, if you invent any new devils and demons, can we have a few from the works of Bosch?)
Amazing, I know I don't post too often, but I know I have a tendency to disagree with absolutely everything you say.
However, you've said something I actually agree 100% on.
They're all beasties, hard to tell the difference. Even seasoned players with years of experience (haha) under their belts can't tell the difference by the DM's description.
I would *love* to see a major rework on these types of outsiders. What would I do differently? Hrm... I dunno. I think I would like to see Devils have a bit more of a humanoid slant, and demons have a bit more of the beast/creature aspect.
The succubus might be the sinking point on the above idea, a devil that is traditionally humanoid and gorgeous. I suppose I would just say throw it out the window, make them ugly and horrible, then give them some kind of alternate form/ high power illusion ability to make them seem pretty all the time.
Amazing, I know I don't post too often, but I know I have a tendency to disagree with absolutely everything you say.
However, you've said something I actually agree 100% on.
They're all beasties, hard to tell the difference. Even seasoned players with years of experience (haha) under their belts can't tell the difference by the DM's description.
I would *love* to see a major rework on these types of outsiders. What would I do differently? Hrm... I dunno. I think I would like to see Devils have a bit more of a humanoid slant, and demons have a bit more of the beast/creature aspect.
The succubus might be the sinking point on the above idea, a devil that is traditionally humanoid and gorgeous. I suppose I would just say throw it out the window, make them ugly and horrible, then give them some kind of alternate form/ high power illusion ability to make them seem pretty all the time.
Leave the succubus be, we like her as is. Just say that the devils lost out on a bet and kept their end of the bargain with the demons.
Graz'zt: See here, Azzy, you lost, so now all the succubi are coming to the Abyss with me!
Asmodeus: *grumble* Fine! Now, though, it's war!
I kind of think I dissagree with the OP... sort of. At least on some of the particulars. I'm really fond of the Ice Devil, for example. A giant hominid mantis-saur with ice powers? Count me in.
But it does kind of make me question some of the particulars of the "sacred cow," to be fair. For example, didn't the whole 'Demons & Devils Hate-On' come about during Planescape for the Blood War thing? Is that even old enough to be a sacred cow? (grant you, I'm someone who loved Planescape, but let's set that aside for the moment.) Grant you, I could be wrong, but PS is the first time I can remember it.
One thing I've often mused upon doing is creating an over-arching Underworld realm for my games that mashes devils, demons, and daemons together into one plane as an over-race of fiends with subraces for different situations... thereby eliminating the whole 'so much the same' and 'shouldn't this be a demon, not a devil?' thing. But that's not a really keep it classic D&D idea, since they've all been nominally partitioned by plane and alignment for a long time. I haven't really attempted it either because 'as is' works just fine and most everyone recognizes the structure.
To be honest, my big concern is daemons. Not only do they have a name which is, as far as I know, either pronounced the same as demon or really close, spelled almost alike, and is yet another synonym transformed into a 'really not the same creature-ism,' but I'm not sure the coolest ones, the daemons formerly known as Arcanoloth and Ultraloth, or the one like a pillbug bulldog with a spikey chameleon tongue (I love that guy!) are open content. And I'm not 100 percent convinced the new Pathfinder flavour for daemons as a race actually... really sets them apart. Devils want to rule everything. Demons want to destroy everything. I can dig it.* And Daemons want to... kill everyone? That's kind of like demons, but more focused. They want you dead. This time it's personal.
*(Though I'm not wholey sure I believe it. Lammashtu seems as interested in creating as destroying.)
I'm really fond of the Ice Devil, for example. A giant hominid mantis-saur with ice powers? Count me in.
Do you like it more as a monster or more specifically as a Devil? I can see its potential coolness as a monster, but I don't see how it fits in with some of the others.
Amazing, I know I don't post too often, but I know I have a tendency to disagree with absolutely everything you say.
However, you've said something I actually agree 100% on.
Uhh...thank you, I think....
In all seriousness, though, I want to be scared of demons and devils. Right now, I think I'm more scared of ogres than creatures who are the embodiment of evil. And that's a problem, methinks.
Yes. Velderan, as Edwin mentioned, what you describe is exactly what 4e did, which means it's exactly what Paizo won't do -- they're like the Hindu Gurus of Gaming -- slaughtering sacred cows is taboo.
Do you like it more as a monster or more specifically as a Devil? I can see its potential coolness as a monster, but I don't see how it fits in with some of the others.
Well, I definetly love it as a monster, that's for certain. But I also like it as a devil because otherwise, without notable exceptions like them... devils are kind of treading a line of being 'a bunch of human-like guys with horns, wings, and tails, most of which are grarrish, but a few of which are sexy.' There's a risk of being bland there.
And I see nothing wrong with as plotting and calculating an organization as the devils of Hell spending serious time and effort breeding distinctly un-humanlike variations because they're useful. When you view everything as a resource to plunder and every creature as a thing to manipulate and rule, there's no reason not to. Heck, suppose the Ice Devil is based partly on trying to take the artic-dwelling qualities of a Rhemoraz and map it onto a vaguely reptilian humanoid devil, downplay the fire-belly portion as too energy in-efficient, and we have a devil to police the chilly areas of Hell.
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We've already done a lot to set up what devils and demons (and daemons and other fiends) do in Golarion, and those'll be how these guys appear in the Pathfinder Bestiary. Which is to say, they'll be handled more or less the same as they are in the MM.
Sort of.
The basic way it breaks down is like this.
Proto-demons (AKA qlippoths) came first; they're a physical, living manifestation of the Abyss, and are incarnations of entropy and destructive chaos. They predate the concepts of good and evil (concepts that first rose when the gods gave mortal life free will) but took to evil with a tenacity that is legendary. Qlippoths predate mortal life, and they view mortals as something to destroy and ruin and corrupt physically, be that by maiming or by luring mortals into destruction on their own behalf. The qlippoths are inhuman and utterly monstrous in a Lovecraftian sort of way.
Devils came second. They show up after the gods appear, but before mortal life, I suspect. Devils are the heretics; they're the ones who turned away from serving the gods and decided to go their own way. They see mortal life as a tool; they don't want the end of the world as much as Hell on earth. They are the subtle fiends, tricksters who want not to destroy things or murder as much as they want to influence mortals into being more like them. If demons are out to destroy the flesh, devils are out to destroy faith and the mind. They see mortals as little more than monkeys that, with the right amount of training, can be remade to be devilish themselves.
Daemons came third, after mortal life populated the Material Plane. They are what happens when a mortal soul goes into the lower planes and "evolves" into a fiend. The daemons are thus what happens after an evil mortal dies. When death happens in a mass scale, such as by war or famine or pestilence or disaster, that's when the most POWERFUL daemons are made, and why the daemons are led by creatures called the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now that the daemons are here, their goal isn't to destroy the physical world and ruin the flesh (that's for demons) nor are they particularly interested in corrupting mortals and creating heretics (that's for devils); they simply want mortal souls to eat and trade in. They drink life. They're the harbingers of death itself.
The more humanoid looking demons came about last, but still very long ago. The daemons themselves, being born of mortal souls, used freshly captured souls to alter captured qlippoths and adjust their growth. The result was astonishing, and the humanoid demons that resulted have all but totally displaced the more bestial qlippoths of the Abyss as a result, yet even these demons retain the goal of destroying flesh and the mortal world. They are happiest when mortals are alive but in agony and despair and hopeless, and don't balk at killing some or a lot in order to make the survivors more despondent. Demons like to eat and crush and otherwise assault mortals in a physical way. Succubi (and incubi) accomplish this by rape, and require beautiful or handsome forms in order to more easily get what they want in the way they want it.
That this works out to 100% support the way demons and daemons and devils look and are built in previous editions of the game is the whole point.
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But it does kind of make me question some of the particulars of the "sacred cow," to be fair. For example, didn't the whole 'Demons & Devils Hate-On' come about during Planescape for the Blood War thing? Is that even old enough to be a sacred cow? (grant you, I'm someone who loved Planescape, but let's set that aside for the moment.) Grant you, I could be wrong, but PS is the first time I can remember it.
The Blood War and the demon/devil antipathy predates Planescape. It first appears in the very early 2e Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planes Appendix. Planescape followed several years later.
To be honest, my big concern is daemons. Not only do they have a name which is, as far as I know, either pronounced the same as demon or really close, spelled almost alike, and is yet another synonym transformed into a 'really not the same creature-ism,' but I'm not sure the coolest ones, the daemons formerly known as Arcanoloth and Ultraloth, or the one like a pillbug bulldog with a spikey chameleon tongue (I love that guy!) are open content.
Only the hydrodaemon, derghodaemon, piscodaemon, and charonadaemons (marraenoloth) are open content. The ones I like the most aren't open, and I really doubt they'd say yes to Paizo using them, even if they asked (also because they've actually told me no when I asked for another project).
Trust me when I say that the daemons of the paizo'verse will have their reasons for existing, their own niche among the evil of the lower planes, and their own twisted little mythology lurking behind their actions.
They're the cursed, misbegotten side effects of mortality's existance within the cosmos. They're the final iteration of a progressively purified ethos of malice evolving on the planes - a more perfect evil. They're the self-delusional damned unwilling to accept their own origins, hearing the whispers of unseen masters and unseen creators who they worship with fanatical fervor, trying to justify their own torment with a deeper, hidden truth. They're the damned seeking an even deeper damnation, willing to snuff the stars and strangle the last newborn if only to better deny their origins among the mortals, and to remove the anchorstone of mortal life that binds them to this flawed reality - the way out is through. One, all, or none of these might be true, and regardless of any objective truth, it might be a subjective one for some of Abbadon's fiends.
In my own games, I'm going through the process of reflavoring the two. Demons, I'm pretty much leaving alone (except for things like the nafalshee, that I think need a switch). Devils, on the other hand, are all being made more humanoid/corrupt angel, like Erinyes, Hellraiser Cenobites, or some Silent Hill...
I agree with you, the current mish mash of fiends throws a wrench in the intelligent design theory of my own campaign world. Generally, i leave demon/tanari and daemon/yugoloth fiends alone and gave the devil/baatezu a cosmetic upgrade to appear more or less humanoid. Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells adds the Pact Primeval to the D&D/Pathfinder mythos and explains the Blood War between the demons and devils. Clearly, the daemons need to have a role defined for them, I use demons to represent evil manifested from the lower planes themselves, daemons to represent corrupted mortal souls and devils represent the rebellious factions of the upperplanes. Perhaps the answer is found in the upper planes. Solars, planetars, and devas are not bound to any ethos or plane (aside from being completely good). Perhaps there can be a pit fiend/balor class of fiends that could be chaotic, neutral of lawful evil and have a few representitve types to fill out the lower planes, like the archon/lawful, gaurdinal/neutral and eldarin/chaotic creatures fill the niches of the upper planes.
Yes. Velderan, as Edwin mentioned, what you describe is exactly what 4e did, which means it's exactly what Paizo won't do -- they're like the Hindu Gurus of Gaming -- slaughtering sacred cows is taboo.
I agree but i always thought that the succubi should have been daemons/yugoloths. being one of the most productive soul harvesting productions of the lower planes i always believed that they would be true to the natures and provide the services to anyone for their own profit and gain, a very greedy yougoloth trait. yes i know that the devils had erinyes but i always used them as "evil valkyries" that dragged souls to hell instead of seducing them. Fiendish Codex II had to add pleasure and harvester devils to fill the succubus niche.
You do know that this is the direction 4E went in, right?
In my own games, I'm going through the process of reflavoring the two. Demons, I'm pretty much leaving alone (except for things like the nafalshee, that I think need a switch). Devils, on the other hand, are all being made more humanoid/corrupt angel, like Erinyes, Hellraiser Cenobites, or some Silent Hill...
Not...really...which is to say, not at all. I actually was referring to aesthetics (and to a limited extent behavior), not background. If you read my post, I'm actually saying that perhaps the appearance of demons (namely, art and description) should resemble things I mentioned. The actual appearance of devils didn't change in the 4e MM , except for those stupid new battle daemons that they added. I was referring, more specifically, in appearance, to the Erinyes, Pinhead, and Pyramidhead, since I did reference those. Did you just skim straight to the word corrupted angel and take off from there?
Also, I think the good folks at paizo are more interested in an interesting setting/adventure than being the anti-4e.
We've already done a lot to set up what devils and demons (and daemons and other fiends) do in Golarion, and those'll be how these guys appear in the Pathfinder Bestiary. Which is to say, they'll be handled more or less the same as they are in the MM.
Sort of.
The basic way it breaks down is like this.
Ok, I feel like I should have read all of this before, but I'm not finding it. Is there some big "Evil outsiders of Golarion" description someplace? I have most of the pathfinder stuff, but I'm not finding it.
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I have a major problem with the name "daemon" as well... it doesn't translate well into my native language :) Devils OK, Demons OK, Fiends (as a generic term for E outsiders) OK, but daemon... a tough cookie. And no, i don't like the name Yugoloth either, sounds way to similar to Yugoslavia.
What's wrong with keeping the word "daemon" untranslated then? The same way, I suspect, one would translate made-up words like bulette or otyugh into other languages?
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Ok, I feel like I should have read all of this before, but I'm not finding it. Is there some big "Evil outsiders of Golarion" description someplace? I have most of the pathfinder stuff, but I'm not finding it.We've already done a lot to set up what devils and demons (and daemons and other fiends) do in Golarion, and those'll be how these guys appear in the Pathfinder Bestiary. Which is to say, they'll be handled more or less the same as they are in the MM.
Sort of.
The basic way it breaks down is like this.
Yeah; I've posted a similar description on these boards before, and have included it in a Pathfinder's foreword I believe.
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I have a major problem with the name "daemon" as well... it doesn't translate well into my native language :) Devils OK, Demons OK, Fiends (as a generic term for E outsiders) OK, but daemon... a tough cookie. And no, i don't like the name Yugoloth either, sounds way to similar to Yugoslavia.What's wrong with keeping the word "daemon" untranslated then? The same way, I suspect, one would translate made-up words like bulette or otyugh into other languages?
Well, if we have both demons and daemons running around...
...thing can happen:
"OK what's that thing ?"
(rolls Knowledge: Planes) "A daemon."
"Tanar'ri or else ?"
"A daemon, not demon !"
"A what ?"
"D-A-E-M-O-N... ah screw it, the NE outsider..."
(sound of 4th wall breaking)
I'd prefer more distinct nomenclature, but I'm sure I'll find a suitable name soon :)
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Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells adds the Pact Primeval to the D&D/Pathfinder mythos and explains the Blood War between the demons and devils.
Do Not Want!
The Pact Primeval myth ignored tons of planar history, and is a really poor fit unless you strip out any use of Good and Upper Planes and Gods, and replace it with Law, Lawful Planes, and Primordial Exemplars of Law. As a warped, modern retelling of an older myth it works, but not as openly written in FC:II, because many of the beings in it (Saint Cuthbert? Come on...) simply didn't exist at the period of planar history it purports to describe. At that period the planes of law were obsessed with the planes of Chaos, and the planes of Good and Evil were off doing their own things (which FC:II doesn't touch upon at all).
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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I'm with Shemy...er Todd on this. The Pact Primeval is modern revisionist history at best. The origins of the Fall, The Blood war, the Reckoning, etc. is far more interesting as it developed from MC 8 and Planescape than the stabs made at defining Devils and Baator in The Book of Hell or FCII.
Ancient Baatorians, the war between the Wind Dukes and the Queen of Chaos, the Illithid Empire of Penumbra stopping the Blood War for split second... that's the D&D I grew up with being a child of the 80's and that's the flavor I would like retained to some degree.
Devils don't have to be all humanoid (and they'd be boring otherwise) demons don't have to be all beastial (because chaos is more varied that that). Not every mystery of the Planes has a solid answer. Somethings just are Berk!
--School of Vrock!
Note: This discussion really should be in the General section, not Playtest area as there's been no playtesting involved here.
The Pact Primeval myth ignored tons of planar history, and is a really poor fit unless you strip out any use of Good and Upper Planes and Gods, and replace it with Law, Lawful Planes, and Primordial Exemplars of Law. As a warped, modern retelling of an older myth it works, but not as openly written in FC:II, because many of the beings in it (Saint Cuthbert? Come on...) simply didn't exist at the period of planar history it purports to describe. At that period the planes of law were obsessed with the planes of Chaos, and the planes of Good and Evil were off doing their own things (which FC:II doesn't touch upon at all).
I know, i was just searching for something canical and official for the basis. I played through the an adventure in my youth and help defeat Miska the Wolfspider and scatter the Rod of 7 Parts. It really is a throw back to the good ole box D&D sets where alignments came in 3 flavors, law, neutral and chaos. We all owe Michael Moorcock a thanks for establishing the whole ethics debate which only got deeper with the edition of moralities of good and evil. The one good thing that came out of the Fiendish Codex series was the addition of the obrilyths imho. James Jacobs has established how the fiendish dilemma will be handled in Pathfinder. As individual Gms of different campaign worlds, i suppose will have to do the same. Im relatively new to pathfinder and am still wondering how much of the D&D history will be incorperated into the Glorian setting. To each his own
Note: This discussion really should be in the General section, not Playtest area as there's been no playtesting involved here.
Yeah, to be perfectly honest, that's where I meant to post. I think I just hit a wrong button or something. My bad.
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I have a major problem with the name "daemon" as well... it doesn't translate well into my native language :) Devils OK, Demons OK, Fiends (as a generic term for E outsiders) OK, but daemon... a tough cookie. And no, i don't like the name Yugoloth either, sounds way to similar to Yugoslavia.What's wrong with keeping the word "daemon" untranslated then? The same way, I suspect, one would translate made-up words like bulette or otyugh into other languages?
Well, in most languages, the 'ae' diphtong would be pronounced as 'e'. That goes for all serbo-croatian languages - and english as well.
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For the nature of devils, please see this interpretation of paintings by Hieronymous Bosch. Fair Warning: Rated R at best.
Hopefully that will improve your opinion of their seemingly disparate appearance.
(PS- Paizo, if you invent any new devils and demons, can we have a few from the works of Bosch?)
Makes me wonder when the human mind would just shut down to its more primitive autonomic impulses. I wonder how the devils would play with the breaking point - never quite moving beyond it, but always on the verge.
Demons, I think, wouldn't care about the suffering.
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Im relatively new to pathfinder and am still wondering how much of the D&D history will be incorperated into the Glorian setting. To each his own
While we can't use a lot of the intellectual property of the D&D history... we at Paizo are quite fond of the implied history of the D&D world that's built up over the past 30 years, and you can expect to see similar constructions in Golarion (ancient aboleth empires, fallen kingdoms of much more powerful humans, demons being the first evil outsiders and evolving into more human-like forms with the introduction of mortal life into the world, etc.).
Perhaps worst of all is the BBEG CR 20 monster of each side. On one side, we have a red scaly balrog wannabe, and on the other, we have a brown furry balrog wannabe. I'm aware their functions and powers are different, but, aesthetically, they're too similar.
In 3.0, the Pit Fiend capped out at CR 13. That was worse, because it was hard to fight devils at high level. In 3.5, Balors became less unique, but devils became more useful.
While we can't use a lot of the intellectual property of the D&D history... we at Paizo are quite fond of the implied history of the D&D world that's built up over the past 30 years
Thanks for the response, one door seemingly closes (D&D), guess I ll boldly go through the door that opens...i m looking forward to learning about the Golarion world and as memory serves me from Paizo's tenure with Dragon, it ll be a door i m glad i went through.
In 3.0, the Pit Fiend capped out at CR 13. That was worse, because it was hard to fight devils at high level. In 3.5, Balors became less unique, but devils became more useful.
I knew that sounded off... I looked it up, Balor- 13 hit dice, CR 18. Pit Fiend- 13 hit dice, CR 16. And with their overload of SLA'a, mediocre stats, and low hit die, had a real glass jaw for those CR's.
No love for the demodands? Nobody even mentioning the demodands?
Mmm-hmmm. Time to destroy you all.
Demodands, while cool, are Closed Content, owned by WotC.
EDIT: Nevermind, they are in the Tome of Horrors, though they follow the old-school names (Tarry, Slimy, Shaggy) instead of the weird 3.0 names.
No love for the demodands? Nobody even mentioning the demodands?
Mmm-hmmm. Time to destroy you all.
Nobody mentioned them, but oh... I've written a nice bit. Don't worry.
And the farastu/kelubar/shator names for demodands (aka gehreleths) actually started in early 2e and continued on to the present (and yes, given the option, I would have elected to keep the gehreleth group name from 2e, and retain the 2e/3.x names for the individual types. Apomps the Triple Aspected was awesome. Love me the fiends of Carceri. And getting to reconceive them has been fun (assuming James et al agree with me on them).
Why were Demodands renamed in 2e? I'm familiar with why Devil, Demon, and Daemon got the boot in favor or Baatezu, Tan'ari, and Yugoloth, but I'd never heard the word Demodand before I played D&D.
Why were Demodands renamed in 2e? I'm familiar with why Devil, Demon, and Daemon got the boot in favor or Baatezu, Tan'ari, and Yugoloth, but I'd never heard the word Demodand before I played D&D.
The name comes from the Deodands from the works of Jack Vance. As for why the 2e designers renamed them, I can't say.
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Why were Demodands renamed in 2e? I'm familiar with why Devil, Demon, and Daemon got the boot in favor or Baatezu, Tan'ari, and Yugoloth, but I'd never heard the word Demodand before I played D&D.The name comes from the Deodands from the works of Jack Vance. As for why the 2e designers renamed them, I can't say.
I suspect they were renamned in 2nd edition for the same reasons demons, devils, and daemons were renamed; anything that had a remote connection to words like demon and devil were scary to TSR at the time, and in an attempt to "clean up the image of the game" they basically made up new names for everything. I suspect that another factor was that you can't really claim something like daemon, demon, or devil (or really even demodand, since it's so close to Vance) as your own intellectual property, but you can for made-up words like tanar'ri.
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THAT SAID: Yes, demodands are in Golarion. We've got a LOT of different categories of fiends, in fact. Several are already mentioned; demons, devils, demodands, daemons, rakshasas... there are others too, mostly based on other cultures, like oni and divs and asuras and more.
I know they wouldn't be classified as fiends, but since you have qlippoths will you have sephiroths too?
Sam
I know they wouldn't be classified as fiends, but since you have qlippoths will you have sephiroths too?
*grin* Not as much perhaps as I might have originally come up with, but I certainly tried. An early draft of Golarion's plane of Heaven featured archon lords named after and linked to some of the sephiroths. One named Binah, one named Malkuth, etc. Conceptions changed during the editing process, and ultimately I ended up going with another source for a bunch of the archon lords' names, assuming the version I have sitting on my desktop is retained for The Great Beyond next year.
We shall see. (Relatively) obscure religious mythology is fun to tap.
And the farastu/kelubar/shator names for demodands (aka gehreleths) actually started in early 2e
While the name gehreleth did come from the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix (1991), the farastu/kelubar/shator names go all the way back to the first introduction of the beasts in the 1st Edition Monster Manual II in 1983. The three demodand entries in that book are "Farastu (Tarry) Demodand", "Kelubar (Slime) Demodand", and "Shator (Shaggy) Demodand".
It's too bad the Tome of Horrors didn't (for whatever reason) include those 1st Edition names.
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Creative Director
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And the farastu/kelubar/shator names for demodands (aka gehreleths) actually started in early 2eWhile the name gehreleth did come from the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix (1991), the farastu/kelubar/shator names go all the way back to the first introduction of the beasts in the 1st Edition Monster Manual II in 1983. The three demodand entries in that book are "Farastu (Tarry) Demodand", "Kelubar (Slime) Demodand", and "Shator (Shaggy) Demodand".
It's too bad the Tome of Horrors didn't (for whatever reason) include those 1st Edition names.
Agreed. Also: Too bad that they misspelled the word "nabasu" in there as well. It's weird to have to spell it with one S.
*grin* Not as much perhaps as I might have originally come up with, but I certainly tried. An early draft of Golarion's plane of Heaven featured archon lords named after and linked to some of the sephiroths. One named Binah, one named Malkuth, etc. Conceptions changed during the editing process, and ultimately I ended up going with another source for a bunch of the archon lords' names, assuming the version I have sitting on my desktop is retained for The Great Beyond next year.
We shall see. (Relatively) obscure religious mythology is fun to tap.
I wouldn't complain about seeing names like Matariel, Tabris, or Sahaquiel in there... from some old school angeology (and some semi-new school animeology...)
I wouldn't complain about seeing names like Matariel, Tabris, or Sahaquiel in there... from some old school angeology (and some semi-new school animeology...)
Don't worry. I looked into some angelic lore when I was pondering names. :)
I wouldn't complain about seeing names like Matariel, Tabris, or Sahaquiel in there... from some old school angeology (and some semi-new school animeology...)
Yes, Neon Genesis Evangelion RULEZ !!!
I have a major problem with the name "daemon" as well... it doesn't translate well into my native language :) Devils OK, Demons OK, Fiends (as a generic term for E outsiders) OK, but daemon... a tough cookie. And no, i don't like the name Yugoloth either, sounds way to similar to Yugoslavia.
Hmm.
Why don't you dub Daemons as "Fiends" instead of using the term as a generic term for Evil Outsiders.
Or perhaps "Shedim," a term for demonic entities from Jewish mysticism?
To add some spice to the discussion i throw in:
With Pathfinder RPG Alpha/Beta and D&D 4th a god named Asmoseus has become ruler of Hell.
So there is a "ruler" over all devilhood.
Who is or much more valid are the leading divinities for demons?
One ruler might not fit into the Chaos of the Abyss.
So there is a "ruler" over all devilhood.
Who is or much more valid are the leading divinities for demons?
Asmodeus is a Deity who became an (at the time The) Archdevil.
Lamashtu is a Demon Princess who became a Deity.
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Creative Director
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Asmodeus is in fact the ruler of Hell and all devils.
Lamashtu is the most powerful demon lord, and she commands and controls the largest realm on the Abyss, and her demonic host is the largest of all demon lords, but she doesn't control the Abyss and doesn't control other demon lords.