| Ask a Succubus |
<puts out the welcome mat for a Much Needed And Uniquely Important thread>
(more stuff to follow at some point)
| Charles Evans 25 |
Okay, (in no particular order) here come some of the posts I've found already discussing Lords of Chaos on the Ask James Jacobs thread:
Monkeygod wrote:1) what was your inspiration and creative thought process regarding the four new demons?? the Seraptis and the Vavakia are both really interesting and badass.
2) for the healing aspect of the Vavakia's breath weapon, does the amount healed include damage from the Wisdom drain, or just the base damage?
3) Is it ok if I call you my home boy, and claim that you and I go way back, even if that's not true? cuz since i've read this entire thread and follow it daily, I feel like we do go way back, LOL.
1) Basically, I needed to fill holes in missing "sins." I also wanted to fill in missing CRs as well. And at the same time, make sure that some of the more unusual demon lords had demons that fit into their themes. Once I started thinking about how to solve those three problems with only four demons, the answers more or less fell right into place. As for the seraptis and the vavakia... they're both variants on demons from my homebrew campaign, altered a little here and there to fit the roles I just outlined.
2) Just the base damage.
3) Woah... well, I suppose so. Although I might have to give you a test at some unspecified point in the future to find out just how well you HAVE read this thread...
Diego Rossi wrote:Nope. I think the first time we mentioned the breathable moon atmosphere was probably in Pathifnder #14. It's certainly implied in "Lords of Chaos," in the section about the Moonscar near the end of the book.James Jacobs wrote:and there's a breathable atmosphere on the moon),Ahh ha!
Something new in the Inner sea world guide?
Le only information I had was that it is apparently barren even if some people claim that the side opposite to the planed is inhabitated.
Monkeygod wrote:Yup; Camazotz's other two realms are elsewhere. We talked about Camazotz a little bit in Pathfinder #18. He's also a real-world deity from Mayan myth—you can find more info about him here, on Wikipedia.in the realms write-up for Lords of Chaos, it lists Argahoz as one third of the tripartite real of the bat god Camazotz, but doesn't list the other two. is that because they aren't in the abyss? if not where are they, and does/will a different book cover the entire realm at all?
Also, where might I find more info on Camazotz, he sounds interesting.
Monkeygod wrote:I just got Lords of Chaos yesterday. Since you were the author, if I don't like it, can I sacrifice you to Nocticula??Is that a promise? :)
Monkeygod wrote:Also, who created the glyphs on the inside front cover?? some of them are really badass, and would be great tattoos.They were created by Jeff Carlisle—we originally had him create a large number of runes like this for Second Darkness, where we used the runes as the basis for the drow alphabet. But Jeff gave us far more runes than we needed for an alphabet, so some of them got turned into sigils for the noble houses, and a large swath of them got set aside to serve as the symbols for demon lords.
The particular symbols we associated with the demon lords were NOT created for those demon lords. That said, it was weirdly easy for me to match the symbols to each demon lord—in most cases, the symbols really look appropriate for the demon lord in question... and sometimes, the flavor text I wrote for the demon even builds off of the shape of their symbol in some ways.
Had I the time, I could probably write a paragraph about what each symbol symbolizes for each demon lord, in fact. And it's kind of hard to resist that temptation...
| Charles Evans 25 |
And some more:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:Hah! Just seen today's preview blog of the Inner Sea Guide...
P. 198
“Inner Sea World Guide, The Worldwound, History” wrote:…where the cult of the demon lord Deskari, Lord of the Locust Host and usher of the Apocalypse, had long tormented the people of Sarkoris…Are there multiple concepts of ‘the Apocalypse’ extant in Golarion thinking? The main one of which I was aware is the daemonic one which comes complete with horsemen, but I have difficulty imagining the daemons (especially in the context of their past history with demonkind recently outlined in Lords of Chaos) wanting a demon lord crashing 'their' party, even in the capacity of ostensibly only an usher. It starts with 'just one' demon but then suddenly they're all over the place, and it takes you millennia to clean house. :D
Yes. In Golarion, "apocalypse" is just a synonym for "end of the world."
The Horsemen don't really mind much that Deskari is known as the usher of the Apocalypse, any more than they mind that some of the ranchers in northern Nidal or the barbarians in the Nolands are often called horsemen.
CNichols wrote:Are there any secret bits of lore you can share about the lesser known demon lords from BotD2: Lords of Chaos, FC1, the Demonomicon articles, the Book of Fiends and other sources, such as Kalvakus, Aolar, Xar-Azmak, Laraie, Eblis, Vroth-Kun, Zuregurex, Xinivrae, Ubothar, Kobal, etc, etc (basically, the ones that aren't in the spotlight much, if at all)?
It could be stuff that never made it out of the development stages, a simple physical description, or just something you make up on the spot - doesn't matter.
What is the demon depicted in the illustration on pg. 30 of BotD2: Lords of Chaos?
Do all demons form from a specific kind of evil (pride, wrath, gluttony, etc. as well as more specific sins like arson, torture, etc.) or do some just arise for generalized chaotic evil from a variety of sources and types?
There's absolutely a lot of lore I could share about other demon lords. I'm never going to publicly delve into ones that are the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast, though, and that extends to demon lords that have fakey names that imply these same demon lords. And also pretty much everything I wrote for the Demonomicon articles (everything that appeared in Dragon and Dungeon magazine is owned 100% by Wizards of the Coast).
I've been writing about demons for the game for decades, in any event. I wrote an entire Adventure Path back in the 80s for my homebrew game, the plot of which was "Obox-ob has siezed control of the Abyss and is using the combined power of the demons to destroy the Multiverse—you have to rebuild the ancient sword Demonfall to stop him," but that's only one example of many.
In other words... too much to share in the format of a messageboard. It will continue to "leak out" in the form of books like "Lords of Chaos" or the numerous other books we publish, though.
The demon depicted on page 30 is Vyriavaxus, the dead demon lord of Shadows.
All demons form from a sin of some sort. A few of them form from a combination of sins, but for the most part, they form from a specific form of sinful evil.
Charles Evans 25 wrote:Who do goblin clerics who want access to the Air domain turn to for divine spells? According to the table at the back of Lords of Chaos, whilst three of the four 'barghest hero gods' cover Earth, Fire, and Water, the fourth one's too busy with Law, Evil, War, and Strength to cover Air as well.
For the most part, they don't. Goblins aren't really interested in fairness of representaiton of the four elements. If a goblin wants to be a cleric who has access to the Air domain, he has to worship a non-goblin deity. And I doubt any goblin wants access to the Air domain that badly, especially when the other three domains are so much more useful to goblins.
Charles Evans 25 wrote:The only other abyssal entities I see listed who grant access to the Air domain are Areshkagal and Pazuzu. I assume (since goblins are sort of tied in with Lamashtu) that any goblin who worships Pazuzu is asking for an up close and personal encounter with some fire and some very sharp knives; so that leaves Areshkagal?Goblins are very very unlikely to worship demon lords beyond Lamashtu. Note that the barghest hero gods are NOT demon lords; they're just super-powerful barghests who happen to live on the Abyss. Remember, goblins are generally neutral evil, and that doesn't mesh well with chaotic evil demons. Nor does it mean that goblins worship the Horsemen; most goblins don't even know what Horsemen are and if you asked one for his opinion on horsemen he'd assume you were talking about humans who ride horses and he'd probably attack you for riling up his anger.
In short, 99.99934% of goblins don't care about the Air domain. And those that do would probably be particularly weird, even for goblins.
Charles Evans 25 wrote:Hmm. Areshkagal as patron of what passes for sophisticated arts and the 'intellectual elite' of goblinkind? And do goblins who worship her get called 'airheads' by their fellow goblins? :DIntellectually elite goblin clerics (of which there's probably less than a dozen on the entire planet) who don't worship the goblin hero gods (which would further cut that number down even more significantly) won't really naturally cleave to demon lords at all. They'd probably end up worshiping one of the core 20 deities, based on their alignment and personality.
Areshkagal, in addition, doesn't match the goblin themes at all. Very few demon lords do, to be honest.
| Charles Evans 25 |
And this is the last of what I could find for now:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:Yup. Areshkagal's sort of a sad-sack demon lord when it comes to getting kicked out of her realms.Has Areshkagal lost at least two different Abyssal realms in the Pathfinder Setting?
1) Kurnugia to Lamashtu (Lords of Chaos, page 7, although the text indicates that there are denials as to the veracity of this story)?
2) The Sea of Whispering Sands to Aldinach (Lords of Chaos, pages 10 and 12)?
Charles Evans 25 wrote:I'm trying to work out some genealogy/relationships here, and have further questions pertaining to Aldinach and Areshkagal:
The Aldinach entry in Lords of Chaos on page 10 refers to Areshkagal as being Aldinach's 'sister'. The Areshkagal entry in Lords of Chaos on page 12 refers to Aldinach as being Areshkagal's 'half-sister'. Am I correct in thinking that the 'sister' in the Aldinach entry was in fact shorthand for 'half-sister' and that that (half-sisters) is the actual 'blood' relationship between the two?
The Aldinach entry on page 10 also says 'Aldinach is one of Lamashtu's daughters, although since Lamashtu's ascension to divinity, the two have not associated overmuch.' Is that correct?
If so, and Aldinach and Areshkagal are half-siblings is it their mother (Lamashtu) or some as yet unspecified father which they have in common?
And (on a humorous note) is Areshkagal paranoid that some day a daughter of Aldinach is going to come along and push her out of her current realm the Blood Clefts?
Yeah; sister is short for half-sister. I don't really make TOO huge of a distinction between the two; half-sister is more detailed, of course, because it implies more about the relationship, but that certainly doesn't mean just plain "sister" is wrong.
Aldinach is indeed Lamashtu's daughter. Whether or not Aldinach and Areshkagal share Lamashtu in common or an unnamed father in common is not yet revealed... although it's more likely that Lamashtu's their mom.
| theneofish |
Hope that's some help for reference purposes... :)
I found all that very helpful - not having read the original postings but being a big fan of the book in question.
| Charles Evans 25 |
The part of another exchange which is pertinent to the Abyss (I've trimmed some stuff which was discussing a devil) from the Ask James Jacobs thread:
Marshall Fundaburk wrote:Some layers of The Abyss have lots of demonic versions of creatures you could find on Earth, or a Material Plane rather, like manta rays apes, dinosaurs (at one point), sharks, etc. Along with other more monstrous demonic creatures from the material plane like minotaurs, hydras, plant monsters, dragons, etc. Does this mean that The Abyss has its own earth-like natural ecosystems unique to each layer that could support one only everything is fiendish? Or does The Abyss spawn these creatures independently just as it spawns demons? …The denizens of the Abyss come about in all sorts of ways. Some are created by it. Some are created by demons. Some are created by chance. Some are created by crazed spellcasters. Some evolve. Whatever's best for the story at hand, really, is what works…
| Charles Evans 25 |
Typo error in a stat block confirmed + corrected on an abyssal footsoldiers thread:
Drejk wrote:Yup... typo. Hoof attack should be +5.Elthbert wrote:I wasn't sure if they were Wizards property or not, but even though Pathfinder cannot use them, the OP still could. I will have to check out the Brimorak.Brimorak for a quick glance. More on them in Lords Of Chaos together with some others.
EDIT: Huh? I just noticed that its hoof attack has +0 attack bonus. Shouldn't it be +5 (BAB +6, +3 Strength, +1 size, -5 secondary attack)?
Also, is this d20pfsrd error or Lords Of Chaos error repeated on the page? (I regretfully don't have that fine book to check myself)