What suggestions do you have for someone who has to outwit a contract devil?
Ooooh. Tricky. Ummm... don't?
If that's not an option, perhaps find a way to get him to buy into performing a service that is actually trickier that it appears or is actually impossible. It should have to be specific. Think of the "I am no man" wordplay from the end of Return of the King. Playing with its assumptions and then revealing them to be false might be the way.
Here's a massive list of Deals with the Devils from various forms of media. Hopefully something here might help.
Outside of the game, you should talk to your GM about what you want to do and what your plan to do it is. If you try to dupe your enemy by duping your GM, he's going to use everything to work against you. But, if you bring him in on the scheme and have a strong idea to go along with it, you might get him on your side.
Good luck! (And may the gods have mercy...)
What water based infernal duke do you think fits in a desert based campaign? I'm trying to find one that offers water to those lost in the heat... for a price. Trying to figure out which one fits that bill the best.
Ooooh, I like that. Hummm...
Crocell, with his power over illusion and language could be an interesting choice. Aside from being mythologically associated with water you could do some neat things with him and mirages and messages/documents suggesting routes to oases that end in death.
Gaap could be another good choice for the same reasons. In both Golarion and real world myth he holds the title Rai of the Water Devils, which could tie him into the sarglagons (drowning devils) of Pathfinder #60. Some fun options there.
Scarmiglione is the malbranche that once presided over one of the two worlds that now make up the Diaspora. He might now offer water and other temptations to those who explore the ruins of those worlds. He's certainly more subtle and reasonable than his peer among those ruined worlds, Draghignazzo.
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What water based infernal duke do you think fits in a desert based campaign? I'm trying to find one that offers water to those lost in the heat... for a price. Trying to figure out which one fits that bill the best.Ooooh, I like that. Hummm...
Crocell, with his power over illusion and language could be an interesting choice. Aside from being mythologically associated with water you could do some neat things with him and mirages and messages/documents suggesting routes to oases that end in death.
Gaap could be another good choice for the same reasons. In both Golarion and real world myth he holds the title Rai of the Water Devils, which could tie him into the sarglagons (drowning devils) of Pathfinder #60. Some fun options there.
Scarmiglione is the malbranche that once presided over one of the two worlds that now make up the Diaspora. He might now offer water and other temptations to those who explore the ruins of those worlds. He's certainly more subtle and reasonable than his peer among those ruined worlds, Draghignazzo.
Yeah I was feeling Crocell might be the best choice as the illusions mixed with the water background felt very appropriate for a desert/badlands game. I was originally looking at playing with the vulture king but I realized I didn't have an elemental water god floating around nor a real LE threat and felt like a devil who could bargain with precious water in the desert was a concept too good to pass up.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Ooooh. Tricky. Ummm... don't?
If that's not an option, perhaps find a way to get him to buy into performing a service that is actually trickier that it appears or is actually impossible. It should have to be specific. Think of the "I am no man" wordplay from the end of Return of the King. Playing with its assumptions and then revealing them to be false might be the way.
Here's a massive list of Deals with the Devils from various forms of media. Hopefully something here might help.
I always had a soft spot for the Sherman Helmsley/Ron Glass Twilight Zone episode I of Newton.
"Sam, Sam, Sam... EVIL, remember?"
and
"Get Lost."
What do the damned remember of their mortal lives? Before it's completely ground out of them, anyways...
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What do the damned remember of their mortal lives? Before it's completely ground out of them, anyways...
Not very much I figure. Traveling the River of Souls, waiting to be judged by Pharasma, and getting to your final resting place, this occurs over a lengthy period. Typically, characters called back via restorative spells or speak with dead are likely still queuing for their final judgement.
Those that pass full on... well...
We'd want them to have their memories of life for a while, that's part of what makes the reward or punishment so sweet or terrible. You want souls to get to Heaven and be reunited with their families, or get to Hell and realize the full horror of their punishment.
But there's a point, and it happens in a blink in the planes, that you've existed for far longer as a soul then you ever did as a mortal. Gradually, it's got to be like remembering your first steps or your earliest memories: they're vague, or you know them from what people told you, but gradually even they fade. Eventually it's all gone.
How long that takes, I suspect, varies from spirit to spirit, plane to plane, and whether or not a souls wants to forget. Some might hold onto glimpses of life for ages, while others might forget after years.
This is something that I think you want to be flexible with, as there are cool stories to be told either way, with souls have long memories or totally forgetting their lives.
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Alright, so Wrath of the Righteous has a great deal about redemption, even including a redeemed demon. While this Good demon and the mindset that led to its redemption will be revealed in Demon's Heresy, I was wondering about the potential for redemption among devils.
What are the events or thought processes that would convince a devil to abandon Hell's ruthless order and adopt a more archon-like mentality? What would lead a devil to commit the ultimate crime in Hell of defying Asmodeus' ironclad law? I imagine such entities would probably have to spend their entire existences in hiding, as Hell's more efficient at tracking down traitors than demons likely are.
Thanks, Wes! :)
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(And IMO this is where the description of Cheliax's laws went wrong, describing them as so complex that anyone can find in them both X and not-X)
I disagree - As you point out, laws of the land don't necessarily align with the law/code/honor of a Lawful person or system.
Even in a LE society, the laws of the land can be contradictory enough to be arbitrary, because that's really enabling the REAL Law. The Strong rules the Weak. The Privileged stand upon the backs of the Common. The contradictions allow judges to pardon nobles for crimes that would be death for a peasant. They allow clever lawyers to trap their opponents in contradictions or citing the wrong precedent (and how much of Hellish philosophy is based on outwitting an opponent who has access to the same rules as you do? It's the whole basis of the infernal contract.)
The laws-on-paper may be contradictory, but the system as a whole is predictable and orderly.
Exactly how old is Asmodeus?
The Book of the Damned portrays him and a twin brother to have been the first things to materialize out of the maelstrom.
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Exactly how old is Asmodeus?
The Book of the Damned portrays him and a twin brother to have been the first things to materialize out of the maelstrom.
Or so his official biography says so...
We have no reasons to believe otherwise. He is a deity after all. With pride in his portfolio. And trickery/deception one of his domains.
Asmodeus is prideful, but Book of the Damned also says that the twin is a secret shame, meaning that version of the story doesn't get told much.
Asmodeus is prideful, but Book of the Damned also says that the twin is a secret shame, meaning that version of the story doesn't get told much.
I was referring more to the historical fact of Asmodeus being one of the first entities in the universe...
That is quite the implication considering that Glorian exists in the same universe as our Earth.
As far as the possibility of the Ihys-Asmodeus creation myth being a lie... why not ask Sarenrae? She's a pivotal figure throughout it, you'd think she'd know what really went down.
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As far as the possibility of the Ihys-Asmodeus creation myth being a lie... why not ask Sarenrae? She's a pivotal figure throughout it, you'd think she'd know what really went down.
Sarenrae's a classy dame. She doesn't gossip out of school about other gods, and probably wouldn't be terribly impressed with any of her higher ranking clergy who think that's an appropriate use of the high-level divination spells that she's granted them.
When you are the only guy in 1000 miles that she has favored with the ability to cast a heal spell and totally change someone's life, and you blow that spell slot to commune with her about divine gossip regarding a god whose gospel you really shouldn't be spending much time thinking about, maybe it's time to spend a week as an 'ex-cleric' until you get your priorities straight.
If you are going to ring up the Redeemer for chit-chat, ask something relevant to her wishes, like how to root out a heresy and bring some errant souls back onto the path, or a means to help treat pesh addiction, or how to game the system to see to it that slaves in Qadira are better treated and have more rights, with the eventual goal to see slavery overturned completely.
While the official answers for divinations and communes are 'yes' and 'no,' I'm sure that the gods have an option for 'none of your darn business, now get back to cleric-ing!'
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Assuming for a moment that the Books of the Damned version is the absolute truth (a rather momentous leap), that in no way indicated that Ihys and Asmodeus were the first things ever to come out of the Seal. They were just the first things to come out of the Seal in that localized bit of the multiverse. In another bit of the multiverse, something else could have come out of the Seal aeons before Ihys and Asmodeus. And in yet another place, entities could have existed for uncounted aeons before the Seal ever came to exist.
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I always assumed that the Ihys story was, for the most part, true but with one major exception: Ihys wasn't Asmodeus's brother, but his sister. Now, obviously, if they were amongst the first beings then gender is sort of a tough nut to crack given the lack of precedent to guide definitions of your being (hence why Big A calls Ihys his "brother"; he identifies as a masculine being and assumes that all beings like him must do so as well).
That would also give some sort of apocryphal precedent for Lawful deities tending to be male (6/7) and Chaotic ones tending to be female (admittedly just 3/6, but I wouldn't count Rovagug or Gorum as "male" per se), and conveniently explain Asmodeus's disdain for female-appearing deities: not only do they act, identify, and look differently than he, that most perfect of beings, does, but they also disrespect the memory of his dead brother, Ihys, by taking a similar form.
/tangent
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Alright, so Wrath of the Righteous has a great deal about redemption, even including a redeemed demon. While this Good demon and the mindset that led to its redemption will be revealed in Demon's Heresy, I was wondering about the potential for redemption among devils.
What are the events or thought processes that would convince a devil to abandon Hell's ruthless order and adopt a more archon-like mentality? What would lead a devil to commit the ultimate crime in Hell of defying Asmodeus' ironclad law? I imagine such entities would probably have to spend their entire existences in hiding, as Hell's more efficient at tracking down traitors than demons likely are.
Thanks, Wes! :)
Zousha
I wrote of one such scenarion here.
Assuming for a moment that the Books of the Damned version is the absolute truth (a rather momentous leap), that in no way indicated that Ihys and Asmodeus were the first things ever to come out of the Seal. They were just the first things to come out of the Seal in that localized bit of the multiverse. In another bit of the multiverse, something else could have come out of the Seal aeons before Ihys and Asmodeus. And in yet another place, entities could have existed for uncounted aeons before the Seal ever came to exist.
Apsu's version of the creation myth came to mind from that.
I always assumed that the Ihys story was, for the most part, true but with one major exception: Ihys wasn't Asmodeus's brother, but his sister. Now, obviously, if they were amongst the first beings then gender is sort of a tough nut to crack given the lack of precedent to guide definitions of your being (hence why Big A calls Ihys his "brother"; he identifies as a masculine being and assumes that all beings like him must do so as well).
That would also give some sort of apocryphal precedent for Lawful deities tending to be male (6/7) and Chaotic ones tending to be female (admittedly just 3/6, but I wouldn't count Rovagug or Gorum as "male" per se), and conveniently explain Asmodeus's disdain for female-appearing deities: not only do they act, identify, and look differently than he, that most perfect of beings, does, but they also disrespect the memory of his dead brother, Ihys, by taking a similar form.
/tangent
You call it a tangent. I call it genius. Hope you don't mind me running with this version of the tale.
As far as the possibility of the Ihys-Asmodeus creation myth being a lie... why not ask Sarenrae? She's a pivotal figure throughout it, you'd think she'd know what really went down.
She was, but also in their version she's still an ascended angel who came later. She should prove it false by contradicting her part in it, but she can't really testify to what came before her. She can't prove it to be true.
Assuming for a moment that the Books of the Damned version is the absolute truth (a rather momentous leap), that in no way indicated that Ihys and Asmodeus were the first things ever to come out of the Seal. They were just the first things to come out of the Seal in that localized bit of the multiverse. In another bit of the multiverse, something else could have come out of the Seal aeons before Ihys and Asmodeus. And in yet another place, entities could have existed for uncounted aeons before the Seal ever came to exist.
I guess that part of my question is 'What is the Seal?'
The 'nothing' around the Seal is probably the Maelstrom, so proteans may have already existed. Though, without something Orderly to contrast against, the existence of the proteans before the rest of creation is meaningless.
Likewise the Qlippoth probably existed already, because the Abyss was already in existence when it emerged into the Maelstrom at an unknown point in time. Like the proteans, though, the primordial Abyss was a realm of chaos where time itself might not have meaning until it connected with an 'other'.
So what could the Seal be? It could be the City of Axis, in an Amber-shadow kind of dual cosmology. Which means the Axiomite God-mind might have existed before Asmodeus.
The Seal could be the Positive Energy Plane, the literal font of all things, making Asmodeus the oldest creature in the universe (including Proteans, but not necessarily Qlippoth). However, I'm unsure what the role of the Negative Energy Plane would be in this case. Maybe the Seal is the point where the Postitive and Negative planes touch: The space that life, change, and everything interesting actually comes from. In this version, the Seal just expands as more and more things are created until it is the entire universe that exists between creation (positive) and destruction (negative).
It's also possible the 'Seal' is another, more primal, creation deity. Even after Asmodeus and Ihys were created, it kept creating. Asmodeus and Ihys consumed, corraled, and played with these creations until they could create on their own. But if Pharasma is the shepherd of birth and death, perhaps she and the Boneyard are the Seal. Or a Over-God who mortals don't interact with directly (possibly because he doesn't offer spells to his cosmic petri dish, being as far above the 'Gods' as they are above men.)
That would also give some sort of apocryphal precedent for Lawful deities tending to be male (6/7) and Chaotic ones tending to be female (admittedly just 3/6, but I wouldn't count Rovagug or Gorum as "male" per se), and conveniently explain Asmodeus's disdain for female-appearing deities: not only do they act, identify, and look differently than he, that most perfect of beings, does, but they also disrespect the memory of his dead brother, Ihys, by taking a similar form.
This also meshes with Ihys being the inventor of Free-will, a fundamentally Chaotic aspect of mortal life.
(And with the Apsu-lawful/Tiamat-chaotic duality)
Depends on why you call it the 'center'.
I really doubt it's a geometric center - There would be no way to measure such a thing. (This may have been true in the Great Wheel, but certainly not in Pathfinder). If anyone can claim to be the geometric center, it's the City of Axis (see my comments on Amber/Shadow above, also, it's called Axis, as in the center on which everything turns.)
It could be the center of importance, since the mortal soul trade has become so important to the outer planes.
Or it could be that mortals just like to think of themselves as important.
Well, the Material Plane with the elemental planes wrapped around it, the Plane of Fire on the outside, has in fact been described as the "sun" at the center of the Astral Plane within the Sphere.
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...Also, the Outer Sphere has been consistently described as a sphere, not technically infinite in size but merely unfathomably vast (because of idiots who don't understand how infinity works constantly bombarding the forums with complaints that any infinite plane absolutely must contain an infinite amount of absolutely everything, and therefore if Heaven had infinite volume it would contain an infinite amount of devils, and here's where I start banging my head against an infinite wall because nothing will make these people realize the flaws in their logic), so it should in fact have a locatable center.
Just read through the Ihys/Asmodeus story in Book of the Damned Volume 1: Princes of Darkness and have to say, "Wow." This Asmodeus is something entirely different than I'm used to. A very powerful story, Wes. Good job! Well worth the cover price.
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Scarmiglione is the malbranche that once presided over one of the two worlds that now make up the Diaspora. He might now offer water and other temptations to those who explore the ruins of those worlds. He's certainly more subtle and reasonable than his peer among those ruined worlds, Draghignazzo.
What is this Diaspora you speaspeak of?
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Scarmiglione is the malbranche that once presided over one of the two worlds that now make up the Diaspora. He might now offer water and other temptations to those who explore the ruins of those worlds. He's certainly more subtle and reasonable than his peer among those ruined worlds, Draghignazzo.What is this Diaspora you speaspeak of?
It's the asteroid field spanning the distance between the planets Verces and Eox. It's composed of the remains of two planets that were destroyed in a great calamity, almost certainly murdered by Eox(which in turn was rendered a lifeless rock by the backlash of the superweapon that probably did the deed).
These asteroids do support life here and there, and the most numerous race populating them are the space-faring winged Sarcesians, possible remnants of one of those world's native populations.
Distant Worlds is a really awesome book by the way.
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The 'nothing' around the Seal is probably the Maelstrom, so proteans may have already existed. Though, without something Orderly to contrast against, the existence of the proteans before the rest of creation is meaningless.
If you go with that route, perhaps the proteans were born as a reaction by the Maelstrom to the presence of the first creations?
Kinda like Potential's antibodies against Definition.
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The 'nothing' around the Seal is probably the Maelstrom, so proteans may have already existed. Though, without something Orderly to contrast against, the existence of the proteans before the rest of creation is meaningless.
If you go with that route, perhaps the proteans were born as a reaction by the Maelstrom to the presence of the first creations?
Kinda like Potential's antibodies against Definition.
Or that could be the Aeons...
My assumption is that the proteans and qlippoth have always been around just like mentioned above. The only reason people don't think about them much as these ageless infinite things is that,
1.) the proteans probably don't keep records or really care about taking credit for any of that. I mean considering that the act of memory storage through writing and other mediums is relatively recent they probably would have forgotten most of it before that novel concept was even conceived.
2.) The act of writing and storing information kind of flies in the face of most of what the Proteans are about, with saving and storing anything in a permanent state, unchanging and immutable, being the exact opposite of their creation/destruction/recreation mentality.
As for the qlippoth, we really don't know much about them and to be honest even if they do keep records they could be so alien that we might never even discover a way to even find the damn things. Like imagine if their version of codified information is stored in the random swirling rhythms of of their local lava pool or amongst the protomatter of one of their created races dna. Yamasoth might literally have all those creatures around his lair as unwitting scribes, their experiences in his demense recording all that takes place upon their genetic code. Add to that the idea of breeding acting as a natural and pretty fail proof way of copying and decceminating this knowledge throughout his realm so that it can never be taken from him and you have the makings of a near perfect library that most of creation may never be able to figure out exists.
Alright, so Wrath of the Righteous has a great deal about redemption, even including a redeemed demon. While this Good demon and the mindset that led to its redemption will be revealed in Demon's Heresy, I was wondering about the potential for redemption among devils.
What are the events or thought processes that would convince a devil to abandon Hell's ruthless order and adopt a more archon-like mentality? What would lead a devil to commit the ultimate crime in Hell of defying Asmodeus' ironclad law? I imagine such entities would probably have to spend their entire existences in hiding, as Hell's more efficient at tracking down traitors than demons likely are.
Thanks, Wes! :)
I am not sure if Wes had already answered this, but I think Ragathiel started out Lawful Evil.
However, unlike his dad, he went from Lawful Evil to Lawful Good and even became an Empyreal Lord.
Alright, so Wrath of the Righteous has a great deal about redemption, even including a redeemed demon. While this Good demon and the mindset that led to its redemption will be revealed in Demon's Heresy, I was wondering about the potential for redemption among devils.
What are the events or thought processes that would convince a devil to abandon Hell's ruthless order and adopt a more archon-like mentality? What would lead a devil to commit the ultimate crime in Hell of defying Asmodeus' ironclad law? I imagine such entities would probably have to spend their entire existences in hiding, as Hell's more efficient at tracking down traitors than demons likely are.
Thanks, Wes! :)
I am not sure if Wes had already answered this, but I think Ragathiel started out Lawful Evil.
However, unlike his dad, he went from Lawful Evil to Lawful Good and even became an Empyreal Lord.
I don't think Ragathiel was ever evil. If I remember right, before siring him, Dispater still had a spark of goodness in him, a remnant of his angelic existence that passed to his son. Although that could also mean that Ragathiel did start as LE but could be more easily redeemed, and now Dispater is completely and absolutely Evil.
That was cited as a rumour in Chronicles of the Righteous.
Whether it's canon or not would be hard to say now, I'd believe.
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If I remember right, before siring him, Dispater still had a spark of goodness in him, a remnant of his angelic existence that passed to his son. Although that could also mean that Ragathiel did start as LE but could be more easily redeemed, and now Dispater is completely and absolutely Evil.
Well that's certainly the most creative way to 'purge yourself' of unwanted alignment tendencies I've ever heard of...
I also think that the position of the Material Plane at the center of the multiverse gives lie to the Outer Planes propaganda that they were there first.
If the Maelstrom is infinite, technically any point drifting within it could be the center. So I wouldn't use that as evidence that one or more of the Outer Planes weren't there first as they claim.
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The 'nothing' around the Seal is probably the Maelstrom, so proteans may have already existed. Though, without something Orderly to contrast against, the existence of the proteans before the rest of creation is meaningless.
If you go with that route, perhaps the proteans were born as a reaction by the Maelstrom to the presence of the first creations?
Kinda like Potential's antibodies against Definition.
The proteans certainly have elements of 'Maelstrom's immune system' going on in terms of the initial idea behind them. As to their being pre-existant (as they claim) or forming only in response to a flaw of order, it's an open question. Their own mythology suggests the former since they found and cracked open ways into the Abyss before the other planes appeared. While their attention was consumed with their subsequent struggle against the qlippoth, the other planes formed and solidified.
That's their perception of things anyway. Protean perception of course is fundamentally odd, and they frankly might not perceive reality in the same way as other creatures. Everything is potential, why should they have to choose one distinct history/waveform/timeline/etc.
And in any event the Maelstrom itself is arguably alive, so something certainly preceeded the proteans even if some or all of the big-3 castes might have formed in reaction to the other planes forming, like a metaphysical secondary immune response.
This is why historical ambiguity, legends, and biased narrators are wonderful, because you can't pin down one as -the- truth. They could all be true. :)
I always assumed that the Ihys story was, for the most part, true but with one major exception: Ihys wasn't Asmodeus's brother, but his sister. Now, obviously, if they were amongst the first beings then gender is sort of a tough nut to crack given the lack of precedent to guide definitions of your being (hence why Big A calls Ihys his "brother"; he identifies as a masculine being and assumes that all beings like him must do so as well).
That would also give some sort of apocryphal precedent for Lawful deities tending to be male (6/7) and Chaotic ones tending to be female (admittedly just 3/6, but I wouldn't count Rovagug or Gorum as "male" per se), and conveniently explain Asmodeus's disdain for female-appearing deities: not only do they act, identify, and look differently than he, that most perfect of beings, does, but they also disrespect the memory of his dead brother, Ihys, by taking a similar form.
That's an interesting take on it.
I wonder if Asmodeus' alleged sexism might be due to fact that he still holds a grudge against Sarenrae for "corrupting" his brother and ruining the order of the multiverse.
There's also this quote from James on the subject of the Abyss, which may be relevant to the discussion.
...the Abyss is a much more feminine place than masculine, and thus it makes sense for a society that worships demon lords to be matriarchal... just as the opposite holds true for arch devils and Hell. There may be an equal number of male and female demon lords... but the Abyss itself is feminine. The demon lords are led by a VERY feminine demon (Lamashtu), and the most powerful non-full-deity demon lord is ALSO female (Nocticula).
As an enemy of chaos, Asmodeus probably despises the Abyss (and Lamashtu) just about more than anything else (except maybe Sarenrae?). These things might lend to his supposed misogyny.
Whether the Maelstrom is just a smaller subset of infinity of the infinity of the Abyss, if they are competing infinities, if it's the other way around, something totally different...well, certainly lots of food for thought.
They're certainly different kinds of infinity: the Maelstrom goes on forever in every direction, a void. The Abyss is more like a hole with no bottom: it has layers, and each layer further 'down' you go, the further you are away from 'normal'. Near the top are the Demons, further away are the qlippoth, and who know what is beyond them.
An odd thought, if the Abyss has an opening into this universe, but no bottom, what was at the 'top' before it opened? If it was an infinite tube in both directions before it opened into the Maelstrom, what happened to the other 'half'?
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[random thoughts]
Some creation stories start with a sea of primordial chaos and darkness, where nothing has (permanent) form and everything (by design) lacks definition. Then comes light (and a great wailing arises from the things that didn't want there to be light) which brings things into sharp relief, and eliminates infinite possibilities and endless wonder, freezing them into a single observed reality and certainty and sort of opens the box and answers the question of whether the cat is alive or dead.
The cat, who in some versions is named Tiamat, or Apophis/Apep, was quite happy having that question unanswered, as it allowed the cat a certain leeway to get away with stuff that only a being in flux and unable to be pinned and labeled by matters of type or biology or form could get away with.
I like to think of the Maelstrom (and, to a lesser extent, the Abyss), as being that cat. Part of it is raging mindlessly against the light, wanting to be the serpent that devours the dawn and returns the universe to the darkness, when *anything* was possible. Those would be the qlippoth. Part of it is half-fascinated / half-horrified by these new changes, and as eager to explore them as to keep them pushed back, and keep a certain part of creation pure and un-frozen by this form and definition everyone is all on about these days. To them, the proteans, the qlippoth have done the unforgivable. They've allowed themselves to be bound up in a single feeling, of outrage, and become tainted, themselves losing some of their primal chaos and becoming incapable of holding mutually contradictory notions (such as both loving and hating order and permanence, at the same time), becoming more like these new ordered beings that they claim to loathe.
By becoming mired in their anger and hatred and (at least a little bit) fear of this new reality, and united in a desire to see it all torn down and returned to primal chaos, the qlippoth have become less mutable and free and contrary than the proteans, who, as ever, are not of one mind on the subject, as is their nature.
[/random thoughts]
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I like to think of the Maelstrom and the Abyss as both infinite, and essentially being two realities that ran aground (think two colliding branes in a brane cosmology model), and as a result of that (either directly or indirectly) it spawned the other outer planes.
It's also hard to compare infinite spaces with our own limited notion of three dimensional space. Something with more spacial dimensions doesn't have to remain limited to simple breaches and Abyssal cracks and notions of boundaries, borders, or the Abyss being "outside" the Maelstrom. Two infinite spaces are going to boggle mortal perception and hold seemingly contradictory notions of spacial relation. It's not going to make sense, but it's there nonetheless, and it's beautiful. :)
And also in total agreement with what Set said, the proteans are absolutely of no one mind about how to handle the rest of reality. Some of them want to tear it down, others want to swim about and gleefully explore it while it lasts, and still others will happily take out their metaphorical paintbrushes and "improve" it (ala Ecce Homo style). And they'll change their minds about it whenever inspiration strikes and sometimes when it doesn't just to be that way.
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So I re-read the story of Ihys, Asmodeus, and the Seal this weekend, and I have a few more insights I wanted to share.
The store specifically calls out the Elemental Lords (if not the actual elemental planes) as not originating from the Seal. It also mentions the 'lords of chaos' and the 'primordial fiends', which due to the Oxford comma with 'masters of the elements' must be two different groups. Those would have to be the Qlippoth and Proteans.
The Seal is described as being lost as the creations around it grew, so it probably isn't Axis or the Positive Energy Plane.
Asmodeus and Ihys had the first war between Law and Chaos. Afterward, it describes Sarenrae as having invented the concept of good and evil. She's not a risen celestial, she's the creator of celestials the same way Asmodeus is the maker of devils. Also makes me wonder if Azata were Ihys's creations during the war: their often-female forms go together with the idea that Asmodeus resents women because of Ihys.
I also realized exactly what Asmodeus is: a fossilized bigot. The universe changed around him, he didn't like it, so he took his ball and went home, building a private enclave for like-minded souls where they can all sit around and talk about how much better the universe was before free will, when souls went back to their creator and Asmodeus was First. Despite the fact that this idealized past never actually happened: other things existed outside the seal, with as much power and claim to divinity as Asmodeus, and he's never been the sole inheritor of the power of anything. Hell is Celebration Florida. (And as a Central Floridian, vice verse.) Or possibly Rapture.
In response to the people pointing out that Ihys may have, in fact, been Asmodeus's sister, I'll point out that in primoridal myths, if only due to the limited cast, incest is rather common. What if Ihys was Asmodeus's wife?
Could the Seal have been lost over the ages, and now be the Starstone?