Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Am I overlooking something important? How does Golarion--indeed, the Material Plane as a whole--continue to exist? It looks to me like evil has an incredible advantage in this struggle. Admittedly, the Bestiaries do mostly focus on monsters that adventurers will kill, which leaves out a lot of good aligned creatures, and Paizo hasn't created a celestial equivalent to the Books of the Damned. But still...
Emphasis mine.
We are working on this, though! The upcoming Blood of Angels is just the beginning. There will be much more on the good guys in the future. It naturally isn't a primary focus in a game where the players are generally the good guys (and don't fight against them), but they are still awesome and yes there should (and will) be more of them.
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The upcoming Blood of Angels is just the beginning. There will be much more on the good guys in the future. It naturally isn't a primary focus in a game where the players are generally the good guys (and don't fight against them), but they are still awesome and yes there should (and will) be more of them.
Sweet!!
Good is outnumbered about 10:1 by sheer numbers alone I believe. But the forces of evil are locked in an everlasting Bloodwar, Devils against Demons, and among each other, since everyone wants to be the one to rule.
If they'd ever unite they'd most likely wipe out the good planes in a matter of days.
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We are working on this, though! The upcoming Blood of Angels is just the beginning. There will be much more on the good guys in the future. It naturally isn't a primary focus in a game where the players are generally the good guys (and don't fight against them), but they are still awesome and yes there should (and will) be more of them.
Awesome. :)
Really hoping new celestials expand the thematic range for Team Good too, so we can finally get ugly celestials, scary celestials, darkness-based celestials, alien-looking celestials, primal barbarian-type celestials, more monstrous looking celestials, celestials that good people from the less typically "pretty" races could not just look up to but also relate to, risen fiends, aasimar as wide in range with strange features as tieflings. All of which could be wildly varied yet all definitely rooted in Good.
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Well, as you mention, the problem you're having is mostly a metagame element: The Bestiaries are primarily there so players have things to fight. Most parties are Good, therefore, most of the adversaries listed are Evil. Or at the very least not Good.
The Bestiaries are in no way a comprehensive list of Outsiders, either Good or Evil, and a lot fewer of the Good ones have been shown thus far. Ditto the lists of Gods, in many ways, especially considering how many of those come from the Book of the Damned series. Especially since, in the Gods and Magic book, I count 19 Good and 23 Evil deities (not counting Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, and such).
As for Demons and Devils 'outbreeding' the Good Celestials, the vicious and cutthroat nature of particularly the lower levels of Demon and Devil curtails that a lot. Sure, all damned souls in the Abyss eventually become Demons, but most become Dretches and get eaten by something bigger. By the time you get to the higher ranks, I'd suspect the Celestials who have earned their way up, and the Demons (or whatever) who've fought their way up, are about equally common.
And I must disagree on the temperament issue: Re-read the entries. Looking over those in the first Bestiary, every Good Celestial except the Lillend (and debatably the Solar, who're busy) is referred to as actively seeking out evil to fight as more or less what they do.
Also, I advise putting a celestial up against an equivalent CR fiend. I'd bet on the Celestial almost every time. Those things are vicious against Evil aligned things. And I speak from experience, having played in an Evil game where we fought quite a few.
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Good is outnumbered about 10:1 by sheer numbers alone I believe. But the forces of evil are locked in an everlasting Bloodwar, Devils against Demons, and among each other, since everyone wants to be the one to rule.
If they'd ever unite they'd most likely wipe out the good planes in a matter of days.
Wrong cosmology. :)
It was true in Planescape, but isn't in Golarion.
It's not exclusively G against E. You've got the Law/Chaos axis in the mix as well, which can make some iiiinteresting bedfellows and temporary allies at times.
You've also got the proteans arguably on the side of good more often than not (unintentional allies to the upper planes in some ways) since they're got a truly brutal conflict going on versus the Abyss, as well as LG/LN/LE, and less so everything else.
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It's not exclusively G against E. You've got the Law/Chaos axis in the mix as well, which can make some iiiinteresting bedfellows and temporary allies at times.
Against the forces of the Abyss (and / or Qlippoth, and perhaps, occasionally, Proteans), LG Archons, LN Axiomites/Inevitables/Formians and LE Devils would be strongly motivated to team up, from time to time, even if the Archons and Devils are best kept in different theatres of the conflict to prevent friendly fire 'accidents.'
I see it as very much as 'me against my brother, me and my brother against our father, our family against the outsider' sort of situation, where the forces of Heaven and Hell would strike as a single force against an incursion by Dark Tapestry forces or Qlippoth or the Abyss.
You've also got the proteans arguably on the side of good more often than not (unintentional allies to the upper planes in some ways) since they're got a truly brutal conflict going on versus the Abyss, as well as LG/LN/LE, and less so everything else.
That too. The Qlippoth and Demons don't always play well with each other, and the various Demon Lords very much don't play well together. The Hells, thanks to the iron fist of Asmodeus, tend to have less open conflict between their factions, but they still devote a percentage of their resources to maintaining their own primacy over would-be usurpers, and the machinations of their own peers (and devote a percentage to their *own* machinations...).
It's not just the evil outsiders, 'though. I strongly suspect that different Formian hives and hive-queens regard each other as far bigger threats than any other planar faction. It would not be at all out of place (and pleasingly Giger-esque) for hive-queens to rule from chambers fashioned from the dismembered remains of the soldiers of rival queens.
...But the forces of evil are locked in an everlasting Bloodwar, Devils against Demons, and among each other, since everyone wants to be the one to rule.
This is not the case with the Golarion Setting itself. (But if you want it to be the case in your homebrew of Golarion, then...)
(Besides which, the Bloodwar is Wizards intellectual property, IIRC...)
-- C.
(edit: ninja'd above!) :p
Oh, my mistake on the Bloodwar comments then. I thought I read soemwhere that it was still the same in Golarion setting. Maybe that was here on the forum where someone else was equally confused :)
Oh, my mistake on the Bloodwar comments then. I thought I read soemwhere that it was still the same in Golarion setting. Maybe that was here on the forum where someone else was equally confused :)
No worries. :)
All it means is that you KNOW of the Bloodwar, & thus have heard of Planescape or at least know of elements about it (if you haven't actually read/ played it). And that's awesome!
(^_^)-b
-- C.
Evil creatures are supposed to outnumber the good ones. It doesn't look good when a bunch of angels team up on a single demon LAPD vs Rodney King style.
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One important thing is that Team Good cooperates and sets aside philosophical differences much easier than Team Evil. Getting the Azata as a whole to take one stance would be much easier, despite their Chaotic nature, than uniting Demons under one banner. Same goes for rallying inhabitants of all three Good planes together as opposed to doing the same with demons, devils and daemons.
The war of law vs chaos is currently in a stalemate, since nobody can agree on what law and chaos actually mean. This may mean chaos is winning by subtlety. Or maybe not, depending on your definition of chaos.
Evil creatures are supposed to outnumber the good ones. It doesn't look good when a bunch of angels team up on a single demon LAPD vs Rodney King style.
lol, good one :D
The biggest advantage celestials have is that they can usually get along. Meanwhile, the devils and demons are constantly fighting each other.
I've kinda been hoping for a new celestial type to sit opposite the div (though you could argue that the azata, who get their name from the 'yazatas' or the peri, are just that) pretty much since the div first showed up.
I merged the threads on this topic
Besides if you think that Golarion's Cosmology is crapsack, I invite you to spend some time in the universe of Warhammer, either Fantasy or 40k.
I hear that. Warhammer certainly wins it in the "dark and gritty" category.
Like others above, I don't mind there being more evil represented in the Bestiaries then good. All of the games I'm currently involved in consist of (mostly) good PCs, so an abundance of evil keeps things fresh. As long as there are stalwart heroes willing to stand up and fight them, I don't see the forces of Evil winning out any time soon. At least not in my games...
I think Ian really hit the nail on the head. Is evil winning? It is if you want it to in your campaign. In truth, there is no one Golarion. Every campaign world immediately becomes your own as soon as you start your own game.
If you want a dark and grim version of Golarion where the forces of darkness are almost triumphant, so be it. Or perhaps the forces of good are so subtle and enigmatic it just seems like evil is winning.
Whatever the truth, it is yours to discover. Myself, I prefer a cosmology where in the outer planes there is balance. It makes the doings of mortals so critical, for it is within their hands to once and for all tip the scales and determine the fate of creation.
In short, I prefer a universe where mortals matter. Or at least PCs.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
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Creative Director
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Saying devils will not work with demons isn't quite correct. That may be the case for D&D/Planescape and the Blood War...
...but there is no blood war in Pathfinder. I wouldn't be surprised to some day see demons and devils working together. Given the right flavor to justify it, of course!
I'm running things assuming a Bloodwar detente......
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Devils with demonic thugs and demons with devilish advisors seem pretty doable in the Golarion-verse, in many different flavors. Like say a high ranking devil general and his/her/its marilith trophy wife, whose suggestions give him an unpredictable edge over his rivals.
Besides, it seems like devils and demons both would violently hate daemons more than each other in general.
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Evil. Because good is dumb.
Someone call Yogurt; these two's midischwartzian counts are through the roof. {sips slurpee from officially-licensed merchandising cup}
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Besides, it seems like devils and demons both would violently hate daemons more than each other in general.
If immortal souls are the currency in your banks, the source of your power and the 'eggs' from which new members of your kind are hatched, a race that devours them utterly, like daemons, would probably be enemy number one to angels, archons, azata, agathions, devils, demons, etc., etc.
There are *some* outsider races that aren't mired in the soul-economy (genies, formians, inevitables), but, for the most part, daemons aren't gonna have many friends...
Saying devils will not work with demons isn't quite correct. That may be the case for D&D/Planescape and the Blood War...
...but there is no blood war in Pathfinder. I wouldn't be surprised to some day see demons and devils working together. Given the right flavor to justify it, of course!
Reading the Books of the Damned, I definitely get the vibe that daemons hate their fiendish cousins and that demons in general loathe the daemons.
Like say a high ranking devil general and his/her/its marilith trophy wife, whose suggestions give him an unpredictable edge over his rivals.
This... is a really cool idea. I rather like the imagery and the character of this concept. I really need to use it somehow.
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My theory: (Lawful) Evil's grand plan to win just got thrown to the winds of Chaos with the assasination?/sacrifice? of Aroden. True, he was LN, but given enough time, he'd have turned Golarion over to Asmodeus.
Such things happen when one side or the other is coming too close to 'winning'.
Evidence:
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Good is outnumbered about 10:1 by sheer numbers alone I believe. But the forces of evil are locked in an everlasting Bloodwar, Devils against Demons, and among each other, since everyone wants to be the one to rule.
If they'd ever unite they'd most likely wipe out the good planes in a matter of days.
For some reason I'm thinking there should a high level module or AP of a certain theme.......
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Like say a high ranking devil general and his/her/its marilith trophy wife, whose suggestions give him an unpredictable edge over his rivals.This... is a really cool idea. I rather like the imagery and the character of this concept. I really need to use it somehow.
Both Hell and the Abyss have access to high level clerical, sorcerous and wizardly spellcasters. It might be something of a running gag for them to summon and planar bind each other for various humiliating tasks to further their own agendas (or just for the evil lulz). Any old Archdevil could have a Pit Fiend bodyguard, but the one who shows up with a bound Balor as his body-servant / court jester is sure to make a splash on Hell's social pages.
Just like IRL, evil sells news(papers). Ever seen what usually grabs headlines? It isn't charitable acts most days...