The more you guys write about the denizens of Abaddon, the more something puzzles me.
I mean... they're out to kill, in no uncertain terms, every living, undead, and even DEAD entity in the entire available multiverse. They subject outsiders from all the other planes to horrific torments and experimentation. They raid the River of Souls. They destroy souls.
Heck, forget everything else in that last paragraph and concentrate on the last sentence. THEY. DESTROY. SOULS.
It is my considered, carefully reasoned opinion that the destruction of a single eternal soul is a more evil act than the simple murder of every living thing in a given universe, provided that they were all to get to the appropriate sections of the afterlife. And daemons do this, all the time, every chance they get.
And yet, the only folks who have mounted any degree of organized resistance to their depredations are the angels of Nirvana. Mention is made of "temporary" alliances between Heaven and Hell, but that word makes no sense to me in these circumstances.
The entirety of the Outer Sphere, the Elemental Planes, and large parts of the mortal realms should already be united in a single-minded crusade to destroy daemonkind utterly, free their surviving captives, and return Abaddon itself to the raw stuff of the Maelstrom. Only then should they return to their by comparison utterly insignificant squabbles over the ultimate destinations of the souls whose existence will finally be safe. Every moment that passes without said crusade being set in motion constitutes a betrayal of life itself by Good and Evil alike.
...I'm ranting again, aren't I? Sorry. n.n;
I should write up some kind of knightly order that's focused on wiping out daemons. And other soul-killers.
Seriously, as long as daemons exist, any religion that promises its followers peace and safety in the afterlife is lying. That's not the kind of thing that LG gods should be doing, now is it?
|
I kind of like to think like this:
Demons and Devils both draw their power from failings of mortal races.
Hell exists because, duh, mortal souls go there and the Abyss ... remember that before the tanar'ri (or, "regular" demons), there were the qiloppths, who were the stuff of pure evil chaos. The demons came about when mortal souls mingled with the "proto-evil-chaos". That's why demons have in general mortal-like appearance while the qiloppths are utterly alien.
So, both LE and CE draw their strength from opposing philosophies - evil as tyrrany versus evil as pain and destruction.
And then we have the NE fiends, who are not really born out of mortal weakness or sin. They exist because they embody death and obliteration. This gives them a major weakness, because they don't interact with mortals on the level that devils and demons do. A Devil and Demon will both try to seduce you, for different reason (getting you to lick his boot vs. getting you to kill, maim and burn), while a Daemon would just kill you quickly so that he can go on and kill more mortals. After all, the Daemons are the most humane of Evil outsiders. They just want to erase you from the existence, no hard feelings attached.
Therefore, the Good outsiders are far more concerned with the Hell (because it is efficient, rigid, perfectly organized and actually has a degree of success in taking over the mortal world, oh hi Cheliax !) and the Abyss (because it's infinite and in the unlikely event of some Demon Lord uniting a large chunk of demonkind under his banner, well, we're all in trouble).
I see what you're doing. I just have to know: What agency are you of? Who came up with the great idea of making daemons the big scapegoat so you could work in peace while *everyone* is going up against Abaddon.
I see what you're doing. I just have to know: What agency are you of? Who came up with the great idea of making daemons the big scapegoat so you could work in peace while *everyone* is going up against Abaddon.
Okay, you got me. But the Care Bear Invasion cannot be stopped! Even now they ride My Little Ponies over the rainbow to Absalom and victory! STARE, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, STARE! FOR THE CUDDLIFICATION OF THE WORLD!
Creative Director
|
Daemons ARE, in a lot of ways, the worst of the lot as far as the three races (devil, demon, daemon) go. But that doesn't make them the arch-enemies of everything.
They just want to eat souls. That means they don't really care about undead as a food source, since undead aren't alive. They also don't really have much of an interest in other outsiders, since by definition outsiders don't have souls; their bodies and souls are one whole (which is why raising them from the dead is tough.) Daemons are also not as interested in non-intelligent souls, like those of animals or vermin; those are like junk food.
So really, they're just after us.
Daemons ARE, in a lot of ways, the worst of the lot as far as the three races (devil, demon, daemon) go. But that doesn't make them the arch-enemies of everything.
They just want to eat souls. That means they don't really care about undead as a food source, since undead aren't alive. They also don't really have much of an interest in other outsiders, since by definition outsiders don't have souls; their bodies and souls are one whole (which is why raising them from the dead is tough.) Daemons are also not as interested in non-intelligent souls, like those of animals or vermin; those are like junk food.
So really, they're just after us.
Mmmmmm ... sapient brraaiinnnnssss ...
They also don't really have much of an interest in other outsiders, since by definition outsiders don't have souls; their bodies and souls are one whole (which is why raising them from the dead is tough.)
Does that mean that some of the more powerful daemons will physically eat weaker outsiders for their souls, or do they ignore them completely? I could see it either way.
Still, I like the idea that Deamon lords might require more potent souls, and would thus consume lesser deamons and other outsiders when they cannot get access to a vast number of mortal souls.
|
Creative Director
|
They also don't really have much of an interest in other outsiders, since by definition outsiders don't have souls; their bodies and souls are one whole (which is why raising them from the dead is tough.)Does that mean that some of the more powerful daemons will physically eat weaker outsiders for their souls, or do they ignore them completely? I could see it either way.
Still, I like the idea that Deamon lords might require more potent souls, and would thus consume lesser deamons and other outsiders when they cannot get access to a vast number of mortal souls.
If a daemon eats an outsider, it's pretty much just to be mean. They don't really want or need their mojo, since their souls, being combined with their bodies, work differently.
Yep, it's not that daemons hate anything with a soul, it's that they -despise- mortals. They really don't care about the other outsider races on a large scale, though some daemonic nobility have (Trelmarixian for instance) taken a shine to researching mortal souls: how to take them apart, how to manipulate them, things to do with them in the process of snuffing them out like candles, just how they squirm and wriggle as they slide down one's gullet, etc and by extension they might also extend their fun to the essence of once-mortal souls who subsequently became various other outsiders (including other daemons).
Beyond the "we hate mortals" philosophy, which is not the same as "we hates everyone" and thus not quite fit for the "everyone dogpile them" argument, I was getting at something else, too:
While they surely are the worst of the worst, that doesn't mean everyone else isn't bad.
You just cannot expect that all goodly religions ignore all other fiends, undead, evil dragons, evil mortals, and generally all that is wrong and evil with the world to focus solely on Abaddon, because that would mean that all these other villains get to do their job of doing evil without any interference.
"Sorry, I cannot smite this demon who is burning down that orphanage and eating these children alive, from the feet first so they get the most out of it, because I'm on a crusade against the soul suckers. This just is a low priority."
Do you know what happens to a world that lets the abyss go unchecked? Or hell?
Do you want the war between demons and devils to boil over onto the planet's streets?
Sure, saving souls is important, but if you allow evil to rip that world to pieces, you've done far worse, since then, no more souls will be born, as there will be no more new vessels.
Plus, isn't it the angels who oppose Abaddon on this? They're quite capable.
|
Creative Director
|
Well the Daemons are just pure evil incarnate you could say the nadir of spiritual karma. I always had the feeling they were the most dangerous as well because they manipulate every side to their advantage. Since they devour mortal souls then they must be the most dangerous fiend to summon and only perhaps the most reckless and dsperate mortal spell casters would bring summon these ineffable beings
The concept of a daemon manipulating every side to their advantage is VERY MUCH the role they had in D&D as yugoloths. They were master manipulators of the blood war and other stuff.
That's not really their thin in Golarion though. Unless you want it to be.
One thing I want to ask were the daemons originally Lovecraft inspired? They have always had this very alien mentality to me.
Maybe subconsciously, but not so much. We have our own ideas and places for Lovecraft monsters (they typically take the form of, well, Lovecraft monsters). Our daemons really come from trying to define a place for them in our cosmology. The thinking is that is devils corrupt the mind, and demons defile the body, daemons attack the soul. This draws upon ideas of daemons being soul takers and bargainers from the game's history but gives them a reason to do so - they hate them and want to eat/destroy them. (The idea of daemonic soul concentration camps just came to mind. Probably too literal and inefficient, but hum.)
This also arises from the fact that daemons sever the Four Horsemen, classical destroyers of mortal life, which we knew we wanted from the get go. Overall, the daemons are going to get a treatment as thorough as demons and devils in Bestiary II, so look out for everything you need - from CR 20-ish boss daemons to CR 2-ish familiar daemons and everything in between - coming up early next year!
As a Planescape player I gotta say, Yuguloths are REALLY nasty, too bad they cannot be destroyed in that setting.
Well, actually they can, but once u destroy one (which is a big task) Greywaste just pops another one out.
Blood War mercenaries... Larvae eaters(soul devourers)... Good thing they cannot reproduce...
Well Daemons and Yugoloths are the same thing, it's only the fact that "-daemon" is used since WotC has such a stranglehold on the "-loth". And I don't know why. They never bothered to give them, or let anyone else, give them proper treatment like TSR managed to do before they went down and then they rape them completely in 4E by just making them "less-chaotic demons". Heck, they got rid of the "-loth" part now I think, and sadly.
Ugh. Anyway, kudos to giving them proper treatment in Pathfinder at least.
they hate them and want to eat/destroy them. (The idea of daemonic soul concentration camps just came to mind. Probably too literal and inefficient, but hum.)
Hey, I tried to stick the slave city of "Awaiting-Consumption" on the map of Abbadon. ;)
|
|
Hey, I tried to stick the slave city of "Awaiting-Consumption" on the map of Abbadon. ;)they hate them and want to eat/destroy them. (The idea of daemonic soul concentration camps just came to mind. Probably too literal and inefficient, but hum.)
And that just gave me the most bizarre thought - what if said city was divided into districts based on the alignment flavor of the soul?
Daemon One: Hey, I'm hungry. Let's swing by the Lawful Good district for some souls. I know this great take out place.
Daemon Two: No thanks, lawful good always gives me gas.
Daemon One: But you're a pestilence based leukodaemon...
Daemon Two: Oh, yeah...lawful good it is!
Sometimes I creep myself out...
|
|
I thought other fiends eat souls too, just not so much, cause they are more involved with investments (souls being the currency).
?
I believe this was true in the past, but may not be under Paizo's material. They hinted that Devils want to own your soul, Demons want to corrupt it, and Daemons want to destroy it.
I suspect we'll find out next month in the Bestiary or Princes of Darkness, both arriving next month. Oh my aching wallet...
|
Creative Director
|
Devils and demons don't want to eat souls.
Souls that go to Hell get turned into lemures or become the tormented masses. Since you can't torment a soul that's been eaten, and you can't form a lemure out of a soul that's been eaten, actually eating a soul diminishes the raw amount of incoming "recruits" to hell. It's bad business for devils to destroy a soul by having something eat it.
Souls that go to the Abyss either get absorbed BY the Abyss, or are transformed into a demon if the soul is filled with sin. By eating souls, demons would both be reducing the amount of new demons being created and would be reducing the ever-growing size of their home.
Only daemons really GAIN anything by eating a soul (nourishment and the ability to make more daemons).
Only daemons really GAIN anything by eating a soul (nourishment and the ability to make more daemons).
So daemons are soulshit?
Are Daemons taking the place of the Loths, who never got to much attention anyway. If they are a new thing, how do they work.
|
Creative Director
|
Are Daemons taking the place of the Loths, who never got to much attention anyway. If they are a new thing, how do they work.
Daemons = Yugholoths.
In the same way devils=baatezu and demons=tanar'ri. The word "yugoloth" was invented during 2nd edition so that the game wouldn't use a word like "daemon" in an attempt to appease those who were demonizing the game. The monsters that, in 1st edition, were daemons were known as yugoloths in 2nd edition and then as both daemon and yugoloth in 3rd edition.
Of course, another reason they may have changed the name from daemon to yugoloth is that you can't trademark the word "daemon" or claim it as intellectual property. You can with yugoloth... which is why we don't call our NE fiends yugoloths (or our LE ones baatezu or our CE ones tanar'ri).
I for one am very pleased with the fact that the Pathfinder RPG is using real-world words to name the evil races. Words like "Baatezu" or "Tanar'ri" or "Yugoloth" seem awkward and silly to me, since they lack the tradition and real-world resonance of words like devil or daemon or demon.
The fiend euphemisms feel a lot like "hear no evil" to me.
I'm just glad the demonising is a thing of the past (though of course, it's computer games nowadays.)
Words like "Baatezu" or "Tanar'ri" or "Yugoloth" seem awkward and silly to me, since they lack the tradition and real-world resonance of words like devil or daemon or demon.
Speak for yourself mortal! :P
Words like "Baatezu" or "Tanar'ri" or "Yugoloth" seem awkward and silly to me, since they lack the tradition and real-world resonance of words like devil or daemon or demon.Speak for yourself mortal! :P
He's right Foxface. ;P
Daemons ARE, in a lot of ways, the worst of the lot as far as the three races (devil, demon, daemon) go. But that doesn't make them the arch-enemies of everything.
They just want to eat souls. That means they don't really care about undead as a food source, since undead aren't alive. They also don't really have much of an interest in other outsiders, since by definition outsiders don't have souls; their bodies and souls are one whole (which is why raising them from the dead is tough.) Daemons are also not as interested in non-intelligent souls, like those of animals or vermin; those are like junk food.
So really, they're just after us.
Wait, this explanation makes me think the good guy outsiders and every other outerplaner are a lot more self-serving and/or logic impaired.
Daemons eat mortals, probably the weakest and most ill-prepared to defend against their predations. A mortal falls into a devil's or demon's clutches... very bad, yes, but at least then there is still a chance of rescue or redemption. A mortal soul ends up in a neutral or good afterlife... they can still be tempted, corrupted, or fall. Daemons destroy the soul completely, no save. Whether the outsider is good, neutral, or evil, that should still put daemons at the very top off the list; utter annilation takes the soul out of play for everyone.
They don't eat undead? Big whoop... if all the mortal souls get eaten, who do the undead have to convert to undeath or use as currency in the outer planes? Hey, protoss (protii?)... as annilation, they are directly opposed to your efforts as creation and re-creation.
|
Creative Director
|
Wait, this explanation makes me think the good guy outsiders and every other outerplaner are a lot more self-serving and/or logic impaired.
Who says that the good guy outsiders AREN'T strongly opposed to the daemons? The thing is, though, if they focus all their attention on fighting the daemons, they ignore demons and devils, who both have a lot more interest in fighting the good outsiders than daemons do. So if the good guys team up to fight daemons, they open themselves up to attacks on either side by devils and demons. Further complicating the issue is that the three categories of good outsider don't necessarily get along anyway.
Daemons have been preying upon mortal souls for untold ages... for as long as mortal souls have existed. For as long as DEATH has existed, really. And the mortals are still going strong, so the good outsiders don't really need to step in to help.
Furthermore... daemons exist BECAUSE of death. If the laws of reality were changed to abolish death, then mortals would be immortal. This would starve out the daemons, but would also fundamentally change the nature of faith and the divine for the worse.
The multiverse is, basically, a countless number of spinning plates. You gotta keep them all going or they all come crashing down.
I tend to think in 80s Marvel Comics terms about this. :) Death doesn't seem to me to be what the daemons as you've set them up are about at all! Death is Pharasma, and a transition to a new state of being.
Daemons? Are about oblivion. Which is far more horrifying than mere death could ever be, and an unnatural anomaly that does not belong in any universe.
Seriously. If you know for a proven fact that there is an afterlife, that the good are rewarded and the wicked... well, either punished or promoted, oh well... And you've lived a good life, married a wonderful spouse, raised 2.4 children, been kind to your neighbors...
And then you and the spouse die... and when you fetch up at Pharasma's domain and get judged and sent to Heaven...
"No, I'm very sorry, but your wife's soul was destroyed by a raiding party of astradaemons. She doesn't exist anymore."
That is RAGE AGAINST THE HEAVENS material right there.
Also, why aren't the demons and devils fighting the daemons just as hard? (Or are they?) This is the kind of thing that hurts everyone else equally. Sure, the other D's do their own kind of evil, but as has been recently said, they all use souls as resources. Daemons are the rough equivalent of a tribe of bloodthirsty barbarian raiders who come out of the plains, burn a small kingdom to the ground, kill everyone, salt the fields so that nothing will ever grow there again, and then leave, because they didn't want to conquer, they wanted nobody to have it. That's the kind of behavior that motivates multinational allied crusades...
Basic political realism theory really. Major powers are always concerned not only about the balance of power but also the balance of power. When they agree to an undertaking, there's always the concern that one power will profit significantly more than the other leading to a shift in relative power position.
Basically if I'm an Archon, what's to stop that Devil I'm cooperating with to profit at my expense? And vice versa. Given the inherent nature of warfare, what's to stop someone pulling out and leaving my troops to face the enemy alone?
It's the same with the roving barbarian hordes. If I send out a legion of knights to crush them, what's to stop some opportunistic neighbor to sack my capital while they're away? Due to the nature of imperfect information, not only does the participant lose troops fighting the barbarian, but he weakens his relative position opening himself up for future exploitation.
At this point, until you have a monolithic power bloc, impossible given the nature of the afterlife and its alignment system, cooperation is unlikely at the best of times.
Containment appears to be the only real option once you consider it.
Containment sounds like a good plan to me. Heck, there's clearly some way to do it, because the Horsemen themselves bound the Oinodaemon!
So the daemons have to keep existing? Is there anything that says they have to be allowed to be active while they exist? ^.^
...I really should get this out of my system. Sorry for the ranting, but this is a big hot-button for me... it's essentially the only religious belief I even have, the hope that eternal souls exist and there's some kind of afterlife where something that humans could recognize as justice gets done. (I can't manage to have faith in anything. Hope's all I've got.) The idea of a world in which souls are known to exist, that the afterlife is real, and then that it's possible to be denied that...? GAH. It's horrifying. It's not right! Even in a fictional world written by people who aren't me and over which I have no control, and I know how egotistical and intrusive that makes me seem, sorry. :)
Maybe actually writing up that knightly order I mentioned some ways back would work. A bunch of fanatics who demand justice beyond what the gods are willing and able to provide... ^.^ I'd call them the Harrowers, only that term is kinda taken. :)
There is no Blood war in Golarion, but I'm pretty sure that everyone is kind of at war intermittently with others, even the good sides compete, but axiomites fight demons and proteans, devils fight eladrins, demons, etc.
So there are people fighting the daemons, and it is one of the only things that can make these factions work together is to gaurd the vast schools of souls, but they can't all get together and crusade, that'd fall apart before the first daemon was fought.
Daemons are also banned from Boneyard, the only race that is.
So they are fairly hated by all, but nobody could gather a force capable of destroying a plane and its major race without a ridiculous shift in the balance of power.
|
|
There is no Blood war in Golarion, but I'm pretty sure that everyone is kind of at war intermittently with others, even the good sides compete, but axiomites fight demons and proteans, devils fight eladrins, demons, etc.
So there are people fighting the daemons, and it is one of the only things that can make these factions work together is to gaurd the vast schools of souls, but they can't all get together and crusade, that'd fall apart before the first daemon was fought.
Daemons are also banned from Boneyard, the only race that is.
So they are fairly hated by all, but nobody could gather a force capable of destroying a plane and its major race without a ridiculous shift in the balance of power.
I guess what it comes down to is what does it mean for a game?
Daemons are banned from the Boneyard.
That right there is such a beautiful plot-hook that an adventure path practically begs to be written about it. It's like a fat bully being banned from the candy store. Anyone up for a campaign in the Afterlife?
Sean K. Reynolds should totally handle it, he wrote Ghostwalk after all.
...Sorry for the ranting, but this is a big hot-button for me...
OK, I guess I'm the odd duck, 'cause it didn't ping on real-world religious issues for me. It bugged me from a resources issue...
Say three countries are locked in a land war for a certain prize valley or natural port or mineral resources. Even for the two eventual losers, there is always the possibility that they can eventually work out a beneficial trade agreement for those resources, or they can send in agents to undermine the victor's control.
But what if country four comes along and starts converting the land/resources/whatever directly into energy. Not only does country four fulfil their energy needs, they also permanently deny the other three access. To me, it would make sense for the other three to either a) band together and wipe out country four, or b) develop their own means to convert land/resources to power.
While the good and neutral outerplaners wouldn't take option b), you can certainly bet that the devils, demons, and any other evil faction would definitely pursue it, while also working towards a) as well. Maybe the devils and demons won't directly take on the daemons, but they probably would be thrilled to feed intel to the good & neutral to help defeat the daemons. And if wiping out or containing the daemons weakens a good or neutral faction, well that just makes them a ripe target for the devils and demons to conquer.
(If it helps, I also didn't understand why any evil deities would ever willingly work with Faerun's Shar. She is the equivalent of a Greater Power black hole or Sphere of Annihilation.).
P.S. I certainly don't expect the current power balance and battlelines to change in Golarion's universe. It's all too believable that even different good factions wouldn't work together well, that they just don't have the manpower, that celestial bureaucracy gets in the way, or that they would still fixate on their individual interests over the whole.
|
So, knowing that Daemons eat souls, my first Book of Vile Darkness-inspired thought is to find a way to *poison* someone's soul, so that if a Daemon ever eats it, he chokes on it.
Being creatures of pure evil, unfettered by law and unmoved by chaos, positive energy might be the 'poison' of choice, the trapped soul slithering down the gullet of the fiend, to explode in a burst of positive energy that shatters and burns the brute from within. The soul is consumed in pure white fire, as destroyed as it would have been in any case, but it takes a daemon with it...
So, knowing that Daemons eat souls, my first Book of Vile Darkness-inspired thought is to find a way to *poison* someone's soul, so that if a Daemon ever eats it, he chokes on it.
Sounds a bit like Stargate Atlantis and what Michael was working on for the Wraith.
Sure, nobody likes them.
So the Archons don't like them. So should the Archons oppose them? Sure! But should they ignore the devils, demons and azatas while they're doing it? Not to mention the proteans!
The demons hate them, too, and should attack them. But what about the devils? The archons? The inevitables and axiomites?
And then there are the... you get the idea.
They have other fish to fry. And while the daemons might be reviled by everyone else, they're not reviled by everyone equally. Sure, the celestials revile them with all their heart. And the demons and devils dislike them, too. But they don't hate them nearly as much. While they do destroy souls, they destroy everybody's souls equally. So if they oppose them, they help everyone else as much as they help themselves, but weaken themselves in the process. So everybody else profits more. Big no-no.
But hey! They could all work together! They SHOULD all work together!
Or should they? Could they, even? So everybody agrees to do it.
Do you know what happens then? The demons break whatever treaty they made out of spite, try to get the archons really screwed up in the process (and the devils as well) and generally profit from it.
The azatas would think that more good could be done not keeping their word - after all, everyone else fights the daemons, which ensures their destruction, and if they use this opportunity to strike a blow against devils and inevitables, they'd not only save the everlasting nature of the soul, they'd also free the universe from a lot of oppression!
And the proteans: They'd double-cross everyone because.
So what now? They don't weaken themselves to ensure the destruction of daemons. No one does - they do their share, but they won't give it top+ prionity. So what will you do? Stop worshipping them? Well, you have to stop worshipping them all. So now you are out of divine power, and everyone else with divine power will have a huge advantage.
So either the game repeats down here as it was first done up there, like always, or some people refuse to play, but not for long, because they die out.
Much "KaeYoss chaos" snipped
Look, I've got thousands of unemployed gnomes & dwarves in R&D and manufacturing, and tens of thousands of unemployed mercs. Outerplaner Worlds War is good for the economy. I can't even afford a platinum Apparatus of Kwalish for my youngest spawn (non-Corinthian leather will chaff her delicate skin)! This isn't a time for being rational; this is a time for all-out war!
Hey, I've got a nice opening for a head salesman/lobbyest in marketing. Why don't you come work for me, KaeYoss?
***
I'm not suggesting any anti-daemon accord would hold long enough for the ink to dry. But I think they'd try it at least once (if they haven't already in ages past). And I could see the demons & devils still happily selling intel to the others and planting anti-daemon info/weapons/spells for the goods & neutrals to "discover."
I guess I want more spying and intrique and power struggles in my outerplaner action.
Look, I've got thousands of unemployed gnomes & dwarves in R&D and manufacturing
Awwww, all those starving gnomes. But I have a solution!
Turn the dwarves to mince meat and feed the gnomes with it!
I can't even afford a platinum Apparatus of Kwalish for my youngest spawn
Apparatus of the Crab. I know nothing of this Kwalish :P
(non-Corinthian leather will chaff her delicate skin)! This isn't a time for being rational; this is a time for all-out war!
Hey, the more war, the more chaos, but wishful thinking won't help anyone.
Hey, I've got a nice opening for a head salesman/lobbyest in marketing. Why don't you come work for me, KaeYoss?
Work for a frog? Nah! Your time as the keepers of chaos has long passed (actually, it has never been), and you weren't chaotic enough in the first place.
But I know a Chorus or two who might take you guys in.
I'm not suggesting any anti-daemon accord would hold long enough for the ink to dry. But I think they'd try it at least once (if they haven't already in ages past).
Good point: Ages past. Maybe they have done it, long ago, despite their better judgement.
...I really should get this out of my system. Sorry for the ranting, but this is a big hot-button for me... it's essentially the only religious belief I even have, the hope that eternal souls exist and there's some kind of afterlife where something that humans could recognize as justice gets done. (I can't manage to have faith in anything. Hope's all I've got.) The idea of a world in which souls are known to exist, that the afterlife is real, and then that it's possible to be denied that...? GAH. It's horrifying. It's not right! Even in a fictional world written by people who aren't me and over which I have no control, and I know how egotistical and intrusive that makes me seem, sorry. :)
A little late in the reply, but...
Where did the multiverse came from? Where did all the Gods and other powers were born from? If there is a higher -I mean an utterly higher- intellect and power who was interested in creating the whole gear of the multiverse, this same intellect might never want a single soul to be truly erased. Maybe the soul-state in the multiverse is for some other "outer-otherworld" the very same as what the bodily life in the Material World is for the outer planes. Thus, a Daemon who destroys a soul would be no different (and no less deluded) than an ignorant murderer who thinks his victims are removed from exsistance.To make a long story short, there could be a third and hidden level of existance. More hidden than the second one is for us in the real world. A level upon which the Daemons have no power, and possibly no knowledge of.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just my take on why the whole Multiverse doesn't turn around and go Wafflestomp the Daemons could be that niggling 'balance' between the Inner and Outer Planes.
You get Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil together, somehow get them to stop fighting and direct them towards Neutral Evil, the Multiverse has a reflexive 'spasm' to compensate for the 'sudden' alignment of all those different energy signatures and the 'Heroes' (Yes, we are looking at you, Demons and Devils, suck it up and stop complaining!) either suffer a tremendous backlash or the Daemons get an incredible boost.
Alternatively ....
Evil is selfish. Evil is arrogant to the point of watching the whole world burn rather than admit you are wrong. Evil is enjoying the suffering of others.
Demons and Devils clash because of differences in modus opperandi. That's it folks, the whole Blood War boiled down to simple layman terms is that the 'do it for the cause' and 'do it for yourself' Evil Outsiders don't want to hammer out a treaty because each believes the other is badwrongdumb. The only reason the Material Plane is not a living Hell (well, Abyss/Nine Hells conglomerate, but you get the idea!) is because we're lucky enough both the Demons and Devils are so self-centered and egotistical that not one single member of any of their many and varied species has both the power and the foresight to see that together, the two 'Races' could quite literally go bugger the entire Multiverse and get away with it.
The Daemons exist because of this bickering in the Lower Planes, and the egotism of both Devils and Demons means that unless both sides get royally screwed in a way that threatens each and every Demon and Devil with personal annhiliation, neither side is going to do jack s~&* about the Daemon menace unless it serves their own agendas.
The other Planes, by contrast, would love to pick up their armies and go grind the Daemons into dust and throw them outside of the Wheel of World to go get snorted by an Elder God, but the instant any of the Three Goodly Planes (Or Higher Planes) makes a move, odds are that either or both the Abyss and the Nine Hells will make a move and cripple the attempt, trying to claw a portion of the Higher Planes down to empower the Lower Planes for their own selfish reasons. Hey, they're Evil, it's what they do.
Put into an analogy, it's like having three ambulances desperately trying to get a load of trauma victims into the nearby hospital, only to be unable to pass a pair of cars and a brawling mob made up of the most arrogant and selfish people on the planet who are too busy throwing punches over some stupid petty squabble, who then turn around and set fire to the ambulances because the vehicles are getting in the way.
|
Consider it from several viewpoints:
Heaven and Hell consider the Malestrom to as threatening and much harder to control than Abaddon. After all the hostile beings there would like to unmake the structure of all that is. While smart Daemons know that if they kill everyone... no more souls.
The Abyss is to caught up in its own power games to look elsewhere, unless some Demon Lord wants to make a name for himself and leads an army off, but he's more likely to go for the higher profile targets like Axis, Heaven, or Hell. Freeing a few thousand souls of mixed alignment doesn't really impress as much as bringing back one captive Solar.
Elysium is more than eager to crusade against Abaddon. This week. Next week the Hell might seem a better target or maybe Heaven will give offense and the armies of Elysium go off in a sulk. The third week in Elysium is reserved for drinking so no crusading then. Also I could see some CG outsiders claiming that the oblivion of a daemon is better than the eternal slavery of a devil.
The beings of Axis might point all that all creatures in the mulitverse serve a vital function. Even daemons.
Nirvana with its focus on the greatest good is of course most offended by the antics of daemonic forces. Sadly it seems that the Nirvana also has the fewest armies to field or at least the weakest martial traditions of the good aligned planes.
Though I seem to recall that most realms independently send patrols into the astral plane to guard the river of souls from the privations of daemons. No real coordination but sufficient to keep the losses to the daemons at minimal levels there.
The thing to remember here is that compared to the Great Wheel cosmology, Golarion's Great Beyond is much more multipolar in terms of active conflicts between power groups/alignments. In the absence of a wholly polarizing conflict like the Blood War (which dominates all concerns of inter-alignment struggle) there are multiple active concerns by the various outsider races, some of which might wax and wane depending on the relative risk and other concerns.
For instance the Abyss wants to destroy anything it touches, including itself. Anytime an Abyssal crack opens up and things spill out, that locally tends to trump anything else out of self-preservation. But the Abyss is otherwise happily at war with itself too.
The Maelstrom's proteans would deeply love to destroy the contagion of stability and the tyranny of order as they see the other planes. And they're trying, always in a million different ways. They're (on the surface) the larger plane, always in contact with the others, and they're probably the larger constant threat out there. They do tend to place priority on the lawful planes in terms of active warfare, but they're not a unified front. It's a hundred thousand different keketar cabals each with their own quasi-religious vision for how to do this.
Heaven and Hell despise each other but half of the time they're allies of conveniance when it comes to the proteans, the Abyss, etc. But otherwise they massive differ in certain areas. For instance while Heaven may view the azatas for instance as foolish and misguided they're often willing to give them a pass while Hell wants to enslave them all without a second thought to the matter. But certainly there have likely been periods of open warfare between Heaven and Elysium, usually where they had competing proxies and got drawn into conflict and it spiralled out of control.
Axis is much more single-minded when it comes to things: turn the Maelstrom into a parking lot and seal the Abyssal cracks. They've got a perpetually active crusade into the Maelstrom going on, but they also have their eyes turned to the azatas as well from time to time, plus the idea of branching out to the mortal realm for the enforcement of certain 'universal laws'.
Given the opportunity pretty much everyone has been or is in conflict (active or by proxy) with everyone else. There's no perpetual detente among the celestial races. It's a much richer, deeper political game between the major outsider races, and it's even more conplex when you get into the roles and interests of deities (some of whom like Lamashtu and Asmodeus are both paragons of an outsider race and deities at the same time).
As for the daemons in particular and why they haven't been genocided by popular vote by everyone else: everyone else has bigger problems to deal with in the Abyss and the Maelstrom. The daemons have smaller numbers than either of those two as well. It's a background attrition that may have been grudgingly accepted by the other powers who can't routinely turn their focus to Abbadon unless a soul of singular importance has been stolen and requires someone (be it a proxy, or a solar, or the PCs, etc) to kick down the door and seize it back (or bargain for it back under the table).
Yet Abbadon isn't really always safe. It got steamrolled by its own creations (accidental or not) when the first demons swarmed out of the Abyss, and during that period several archdaemons actually died. The Horsemen have also intentionally lured Urgathoa and Zyphus to take up residence in their plane, and likely have bargains with them to provide a buffer of unknown priority against direct deific involvement on a large scale should they do something to provoke it. And there's also the unknown in 'just how powerful is the oinodaemon' (despite his status in the current era which nobody else is truly certain of). For anyone wanting to invade Abbadon, think about the known and unknown risks and can you devote the power needed while ignoring other active threats and objectives along with the fact that cold wars might suddenly go very hot if you seem to be in a moment of weakness due to any losses you take crusading into that plane.