RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Could the Seal have been lost over the ages, and now be the Starstone?
Highly doubtful. It appears to be one part left over Death Star, one part Aboleth magically drawn junk, and at least one part dead deity stuff*
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Could the Seal have been lost over the ages, and now be the Starstone?Highly doubtful. It appears to be one part left over Death Star, one part Aboleth magically drawn junk, and at least one part dead deity stuff*
*** spoiler omitted **
Hmm, but could part of the Seal be part of the Starstone?
Yeah, I just cracked my Mythic Realms PDF and it de-mystifies the Starstone pretty well.
De-mystifies maybe, but it's still pretty damn epic. (And even if part of it was the Eoxian Death Star, what did they use to make it?)
I have trouble thinking of Asmodeus as a primordial deity. Having played D&D since 1st he's always been the head Arch Devil to me and not necessarily even the first one.
My interpretation of what it means to be a being that powerful, and the nature of receiving souls, and of timescales on the order of eons, means that the Asmodeus who rules Hell is not quite the same being as the Asmodeus who saw the birth of order in the universe. (Under this theory, Asmodeus and Apsu originate from the same being, while Tiamat and Ihys are the same being.)
I'm not sure I can articulate what I mean properly. It's kind of the Ship of Theseus paradox.
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Maybe I'm just remembering things wrong, but for a long time now in D&D hasn't it been strongly hinted that Asmodues is much more than he seems, and wasn't just the ruler of hell or the greatest devil.
One thing that, IMO, spun a bit out of proportion back in the old days, was the notion that the various outer planes where effectively infinite, which resulted in Asmodeus having nine different *infinities* under his thumb, and, for some utterly inane reason, giving a rat's butt about some tiny little speck of dirt on the material plane.
IIRC, there are 'bolgias' on one of the planes of Hell that are as big as entire worlds, meaning that one of Asmodeus' flunkies has dominion over who knows how many Golarions worth of souls and territory, making even a passing interest in Golarion seem like Warren Buffet risking his financial empire to mug a homeless dude on the street for his cup of pencils.
Why, if one has a theoretically infinite dimension of their own, that reacts to their will, in some cases, and can be anything you want it to be, would one get in a wresting match with 19 other equally powerful gods (many with their own infinite playgrounds full of endless wonder and free candy) over some place that lies outside of their domains anyway?
Like Dr. Manhattan realizing that if he really is fascinated with the concept of humanity (and equally frustrated by the actual humans he knows), that perhaps he'll go somewhere and *make some,* there's nothing stopping Asmodeus from making his own Golarion, *in Hell.* Populate it with some kidnapped humans, and get them to making more. In a few thousand years, he can have an entire populated Golarion, hovering over one of the 'great bolgias.' Heck, he can have a dozen of them, separated by vast gulfs so that they don't 'pollute' or 'contaminate' each other, and spend his time tweaking them all to produce the tastiest souls.
Some arch-wizard finally pulls himself up in whatever grim dystopian 'Golarion' he was born to, masters interplanetary teleport, and leaps into the void, to one of those twinkling lights in the sky, only to discover that it's an entirely different Golarion, only bleak and hellish and grim in a completely different way, as Asmodeus treats them like flowers in a garden, pruning and shaping them differently, to see how they develop...
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The reason Asmodeus cares about all those little specks of dirt in the universe that we [mortal life] are on them.
And he hates us.
He hates us so much that he rules over nine interconnected dimensions that together are a monument to his hatred of us.
And to paraphrase a pretty good story, carving "HATE" into every single atom of Hell would still not adequately express his fury over the fact that we exist and we can think for ourselves.
The bolgias are on the sixth layer, IIRC. And yes, I'm sure many of them are twisted reflections of different worlds, all providing his massive sources of soul material (and quite possibly also serving as source of frustration, as occasionally someone will die without their soul actually belonging to Hell, and escape).
Asmodeus hates us, and resents that many of us do not belong to him, to torture and mold for eternity. And he will fix that, one insignificant speck of dust at a time.
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That's one of the biggest differences between mortals and gods, or even between demigods and the really, really old and vast gods.
They can think about all of this. They can process all of it. They can act on all of it.
Think about Pharasma. She isn't the Judge of the Dead for the worshipers of one pantheon on one world. She is the Judge of the Dead for the entire starry universe, with all its infinite galaxies. Nearly every soul that dies flows to her Boneyard, and she judges them all. Every second of every minute of every day, she's weighing billions of the dead in her scales, and she can do this while scrutinizing each one as an individual, and determining exactly where it deserves to go. And Asmodeus is one of her peers, as probably are such as Sarenrae and Desna.
"And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein."
tl;dr the great gods are scary, yo.
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Think about Pharasma. She isn't the Judge of the Dead for the worshipers of one pantheon on one world. She is the Judge of the Dead for the entire starry universe, with all its infinite galaxies. Nearly every soul that dies flows to her Boneyard, and she judges them all. Every second of every minute of every day, she's weighing billions of the dead in her scales, and she can do this while scrutinizing each one as an individual, and determining exactly where it deserves to go. And Asmodeus is one of her peers, as probably are such as Sarenrae and Desna.
Compare her to Iomedae...who despite being one of the big 20 in the Inner Sea Region, is pretty damn insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I mean, hell, they don't even worship her on the other side of the same planet. She may be a full god, but her actual sphere of influence is well, well smaller than that of quite a few demi-god level entities. The four horsemen, all the archdevils, some of the more influential demon lords, etc.
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I'm of the opinion that 'God' is as much a state of being as an actual power level. Iomedae (and most of the other 'ascended' Golarion gods) are powerful, but local, but are still Gods.
On the other hand, there are lots of demigod level creatures (archdevils, demon lords, empyreal lords, Baba Yaga, whatever) with designs over huge swaths of the material plane that are definitively not full gods. Even if they are big enough to send 'holy visions' and recruit clerics.
I think part of the state of being for a God is a paradox of immense power and an inability to use it. Think about the myths we know: when Gods act in person, they tend to die or leave behind unintended consequences. If Iomedae were merely a demigod, you know she'd have kicked in Dreskari's door and sealed the Worldwound by now. Instead, she has to give power to intermediates (mostly paladins) and hope they can do it for her.
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Compare her to Iomedae...who despite being one of the big 20 in the Inner Sea Region, is pretty damn insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I mean, hell, they don't even worship her on the other side of the same planet. She may be a full god, but her actual sphere of influence is well, well smaller than that of quite a few demi-god level entities. The four horsemen, all the archdevils, some of the more influential demon lords, etc.
I would be inclined to put that down to Iomedae's Starstone Scion roots (being a relatively recent goddess who got her divinity from a big rock), but Irori is, by the standards of old gods like Pharasma, also a relative newbie, and has followers in Tien Xa and Vudra and possibly Casmaron (since he's one of the prominent gods in Qadira, it makes sense he would also be known in 'Greater Kel').
It will be interesting to see if any of the 'big 20' have a presence in Arcadia, or Sarusan (and not just through introduction by visiting Ulfen or whatever).
It's also entirely possible that Pharasma's PR flacks are as fast and loose with the omnipotence / omnipresence of their patron as those working for Asmodeus, and that people in Arcadia or Sarusan or wherever have never heard of her.
It's not like Pharasma being the death-goddingest of all death-gods stopped Urgathoa from just throwing her hands up and walking out of line, throwing the whole system into disarray.
And it's been recently re-clarified that a simple animate dead can overrule her assigning souls to their final destinations, dislodging fragments of them and yanking them back to Golarion. Any god whose *entire point of existence* can be overruled by a 3rd level spell, probably isn't a tenth as awesome as she claims to be.
It occurs to me the Gods in Golarion might be a lot like gravity.
It will be interesting to see if any of the 'big 20' have a presence in Arcadia, or Sarusan (and not just through introduction by visiting Ulfen or whatever).
It's also entirely possible that Pharasma's PR flacks are as fast and loose with the omnipotence / omnipresence of their patron as those working for Asmodeus, and that people in Arcadia or Sarusan or wherever have never heard of her.
My take on this is that you don't have to have heard of her. Remember, gods in this cosmology don't need worshipers. It doesn't matter if you don't have the concept of a judge of the dead, or if you think the judge is someone named Anubis or Yan Wang or Enma or St. Peter. Pharasma still has all the cards.
It's not like Pharasma being the death-goddingest of all death-gods stopped Urgathoa from just throwing her hands up and walking out of line, throwing the whole system into disarray.
And it's been recently re-clarified that a simple animate dead can overrule her assigning souls to their final destinations, dislodging fragments of them and yanking them back to Golarion. Any god whose *entire point of existence* can be overruled by a 3rd level spell, probably isn't a tenth as awesome as she claims to be.
Pharasma does her best in a cosmology that is not simply fundamentally neutral, but may actually be massively weighted toward evil and injustice.
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Man, we really need a planes hardcover. Just sayin'. :)
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Man, we really need a planes hardcover. Just sayin'. :)
Heck, we need plane hardcovers. One each. :)
If pharasma did her job of sorting souls perfectly, and couldn't be messed with, she'd be Lawful.
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Man, we really need a planes hardcover. Just sayin'. :)
I want this so, so badly. Just saying. :D
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.
Where does it say this? I have both Princes of Darkness and Distant Worlds and they allude to Eox destroying The Twins.
In regards to the Hells and the Abyss, it seems the demons are more "egalitarian" for female fiends. In 1E D&D, the only female nobles in the Hells were all consorts. Tiamat ruled the first layer and she was not even a devil.
The second edition of the Hells and the resultant "Reckoning", the ranks of the consorts were pretty much decimated with Bensozia, Cozbi and Naome being casualties. Zariel got imprisoned & the Hag Countess getting "killed off" in 3E.
Glasya got promoted and Fierna got introduced, at the expense of Naome. An issue of Dungeon hinted that Baalphegor "disappeared". Baftis re-appeared and Glwa, originally probably a typo of Glasya in Dragon is also introduced.
Green Ronin's Legions of Hell hints some female fiends may have other positions other than consorts, but as Duchess Hadriel's description hinted, most she-devils can only aspire to as consorts to an arch-devil or a duke.
Who's to say the Malebranche didn't help them along, hmmm?
That seems contrary to their interests. Two intact worlds with biospheres can generate and support a far far larger number of sapient beings (i.e. souls), than a rocky expanse of airless asteroids floating in a void. The more souls available, the greater the potential harvest for hell.
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Who's to say the Malebranche didn't help them along, hmmm?That seems contrary to their interests. Two intact worlds with biospheres can generate and support a far far larger number of sapient beings (i.e. souls), than a rocky expanse of airless asteroids floating in a void. The more souls available, the greater the potential harvest for hell.
Maybe they tried that and it went south. I mean the people of Eox were no slouches I'm pretty sure that said Malebranche's could have had that as there original plan but with the Eoxian's power grab and blind ambition things went all haywire.
I feel guilty for derailing the discussion about the planes and the nature of reality (It gave me a lot to mull over), but I have to draw the attention back to something over in the first page:
I'm sorry, but... Asmodeus' misogyny thing seem a bit too convoluted for me. I mean, he is misogynistic... Except not really, because he and his peers come from a time where there wasn't this gender thing. Except yes really, because he hates female-identifying people. Except not really, because it's only a slight dislike and he deals with them just fine. Except yes, really, because he doesn't like them in positions of power... Except mortals. Little meat bags are all the same, no matter their chromosomes, so meh...
I mean, I'm sorry if I come off as dismissive of offensive, I love PF's take on the planes and gods, but... To me this seems just the clash of the idea that an obvious villain has to be sexist with the idea that a genderless primordial being couldn't care less about one's intimate bits.
So, what I'm saying is basically... Can someone point me what I'm missing from the big picture?
Patrick, I think of it as Asmodeus has contempt for EVERYONE. He just has slightly more for females. He 'deals with them just fine' because he's using them.
He associates 'femaleness' with weakness (and to someone who is Evil with a capital E, weak is the worst thing you can be), because of the idea that females are nurturing and compassionate (two things he is definitely not.) Probably also because of the idea that females are the violated party in sex: Asmodeus is a a violator, not a violated. (If you look at the above conversation about Ihys being his sister/wife, gives the Ihyspear a different connotation.)
For ancient/powerful beings that essentially chose their own gender, he has contempt for what he considers a poor lifestyle choice on their part.
For mortals with a fixed gender, he just considers women weaker. If a woman is strong, that's even funnier to him, because to him that means she's acting like a man and therefore betraying her own identity. (Yes, the Prince of Darkness is a jerk.)
TL,DR:Asmodeus has contempt for anything not like himself. He considers himself male, therefore the less 'male' you are, the more contempt he has.
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According to the Book of the Damned, Sarenrae was the one that advised Ihys towards the path of good (and chaos), and therefor broke the order of the cosmos. He probably blames her for the fact that he was "forced" to slay his own brother (the only other entity worthy of being his equal, and thus deserving of respect/love/whatever it is that Asmodeus is capable of feeling). Had Ihys followed his advice, rather than Sarenrae's, free will would never have gotten out of hand, and all would be well in the cosmos (according to him). So, some of Asmodeus' implied misogyny might have something to do with the fact that Sarenrae identifies as female, in addition to those things Ross Byers has said.
Reading this thread got me thinking. What if "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is meant to be taken literally. Perhaps the saying is a religious saying reminding his followers to remain in control of their hatred and not be feminine/chaotic and go into a "furious" rage.
Of course, it works just as well as a saying to remind her followers that Hell has nothing in comparison to the righteous "fury" of Sarenrae when she is opposed (like when Asmodeus killed Ihys).
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I think Sarenrae acts like a woman scorned whenever she hears people call her "saran wrap" instead of "saran wray" or whatever.
I dunno why she gets so upset, what's the difference and who can tell?
Similarly, the Reaper of Reputation doesn't like when people call him Nor-goober or get it even more mixed up and call him Nor-booger.
The less said about stag-boys 'Erastil Dysfunction' the better. He's not an unmarried and childless god of marriage and families for nothing!
Torag remains perplexed that he has a following among British convicts.
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Much, much awesomeness
So... Maybe...
In the beginning, there was The Seal and the Maelstrom at Equilibrium. Asmodeus and Ihys, were part and in and of The Seal, knowing only Ultimate Law with no concept of Good or Evil. And so it was until... maybe Those-Who-Would-Be-First were tempted by the freedom/an idea glimpsed in the Maelstrom, maybe it was a slight imperfection (a "contradictory systemic anomaly") that was always part of The Seal since the Codification Immemorial? Perhaps the Chaotic seed of Creation ("the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation") had bloomed in Ihys and germinated in Asmodeus? Whichever it was, They were now other and could stay in/as part of The Seal no longer. The First forged the Key to unlock their escape, but in opening the way, They made The Seal incomplete, cracking then shattering it. The First fled the crumbling Seal, with other quasi-Powers escaping/thrown clear/birthed. The Seal -- Axis the Godmind 1.0 -- was no more. Its passing sent shockwaves through the Multiverse, cleaving the quasi-proteans and quasi-quippoths from the Maelstrom into discrete distinctivenesses.
Creation grew strong in Ihys as He embraced His rebirth and new abilities. Asmodeus, was increasingly less happy, both for His loss of Perfection and His first glimpses of the Truth. Ihys' creations reached a new plateau as they flourished, even creating on their own. If the First's incalculable loss was not enough, the fearful weight and horrible knowledge of what They had done was not enough, if the still-growing heart of Chaos growing within Him was not enough, it was this final act of betrayal -- Ihys turning ever away toward the created and away from His brother -- that moved Asmodeus to lash out against Ihys in war... and slay Him.
Asmodeus kept busy, forging Hell and those Who Would Serve, luring more to His side... important in His goals, yes, but mere distractions to reforging and tempering Himself. He vanquished all challengers and grew stronger and planned larger. He used the Key again to lock away the Rough Beast and with it the final evidence of His crime. He reigns supreme on His throne at the heart of Nessus... yet in His heart, crushed incalculably harder than the blackhole core of a galaxy, He cannot quench the undying spark of Chaos Conceived/Creation, the flaw that ruined Perfection and turned Ihys against Him, still gnaws within. He knows hate, for everything that was and is and will be, including Himself. And He knows fear, for He knows that even He cannot be ultimately all-knowing and infallible, that even He can be broken and unmade. For Rovagug would be neither the last nor hardly the mightiest. He, the Last of the First, has broken the Multiverse and inexorably set in motion His own doom.
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Much, much awesomeness
So... Maybe...
In the beginning, there was The Seal and the Maelstrom at Equilibrium. Asmodeus and Ihys, were part and in and of The Seal, knowing only Ultimate Law with no concept of Good or Evil. And so it was until... maybe Those-Who-Would-Be-First were tempted by the freedom/an idea glimpsed in the Maelstrom, maybe it was a slight imperfection (a "contradictory systemic anomaly") that was always part of The Seal since the Codification Immemorial? Perhaps the Chaotic seed of Creation ("the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation") had bloomed in Ihys and germinated in Asmodeus? Whichever it was, They were now other and could stay in/as part of The Seal no longer. The First forged the Key to unlock their escape, but in opening the way, They made The Seal incomplete, cracking then shattering it. The First fled the crumbling Seal, with other quasi-Powers escaping/thrown clear/birthed. The Seal -- Axis the Godmind 1.0 -- was no more. Its passing sent shockwaves through the Multiverse, cleaving the quasi-proteans and quasi-quippoths from the Maelstrom into discrete distinctivenesses.
Creation grew strong in Ihys as He embraced His rebirth and new abilities. Asmodeus, was increasingly less happy, both for His loss of Perfection and His first glimpses of the Truth. Ihys' creations reached a new plateau as they flourished, even creating on their own. If the First's incalculable loss was not enough, the fearful weight and horrible knowledge of what They had done was not enough, if the still-growing heart of Chaos growing within Him was not enough, it was this final act of betrayal -- Ihys turning ever away toward the created and away from His brother -- that moved Asmodeus to lash out against Ihys in war... and slay Him....
Wow. This is...wow.
So...that raises the possibility of this happening again with Godmind 2.0...
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I'd make a terrible evil god.
Delayed reaction, but it just clicked for me, that this is a highly ironic statement given your user name.
Wow. Just read the Books of the Damned. I knew fiends were awesome, but wow. Just wow. I'm truly blown away by that.
So... beyond the list given, are there any more Dukes of Hell (or Malebranches) that you can at least name drop? I know Orobas, is everyone in the Ars Goetia pretty much included? Is Amon present? Beyond that, who else?
Well, some of the Goetia are actually demons.
Well, some of the Goetia are actually demons.
I think the word "demons" in the context of the Goetia would be equated as "fiends" in the context of D&D or Pathfinder.
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There's been a question lurking in the back of my mind since I read Princes of Darkness: What is the nature of the Seal? One possibility I've considered since Beyond the Doomsday Door, that would be ironically fitting (if slightly disturbing), is that the Seal is actually a qlippoth runestone, perhaps even the greatest qlippoth runestone.
This would make the tale of Asmodeus and Ilhys even more poignant: Everything of order they built, and even their very selves, came from a wellspring of chaos. Perhaps from the beginning they were the greatest rebels that ever existed, daring to bring form to formlessness and write their names on the blank pages of the universe. Maybe what separated them was that Asmodeus was unwilling to follow rebellion to the logical conclusion and grant his creations the ability to make their own decisions; maybe his distain for weakness is caused by his own faint-heartedness in following where his twin dared to tread.
Hell would then be a reactionary disestablishment that Asmodeus built to "prove" (to the universe at large, if not to himself) that his weakness was actually a strength. It's all a sham to hide Asmodeus' failure, which caused him to kill the only being he ever loved: He couldn't bear to see his twin go beyond what he would dare himself.
Well, some of the Goetia are actually demons.I think the word "demons" in the context of the Goetia would be equated as "fiends" in the context of D&D or Pathfinder.
No, what I mean is, some of the Goetia already exist in Pathfinder as demons instead of devils.
No, what I mean is, some of the Goetia already exist in Pathfinder as demons instead of devils.Well, some of the Goetia are actually demons.I think the word "demons" in the context of the Goetia would be equated as "fiends" in the context of D&D or Pathfinder.
Shax is the only one I can think of. Any others?
Abraxas and Flauros are also demon lords.
I forgot Flauros was in there. I didn't think Abraxas was.
...huh, you're right. I was just looking at the list, and I could have sworn Abraxas was in there, but no...