Out of sheer boaredom and a little prodding from a friend, I've decided to categorize all of the known alignment-based outsider groups in one spot.
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Chaotic Evil
Demodand – Hideous creations and servitors of the titans
Demon – Endless hoard native to the Abyss that exist only to destroy
Qlippoth – Former rulers of the Abyss, exiled to the fringes, nearly extinct
Chaotic Good
Azata – Adventurous natives of Elysium
Chaotic Neutral
Protean – Beings of pure chaos indignant at the creation of the Planes; native to Limbo
Lawful Evil
Asura – Immortal beings, divine accidents born of divine accident
Devil – Masters of corruption and despoilers of purity; native to Hell
Kyton – Feeders of fear and pain, native to the Plane of Shadow
Rakshasa – Reincarnations of manipulators, traitors, and tyrants obsessed with earthly pleasures
Lawful Good
Archon – Creatures of fundamental law and good, natural enemies of devils, daemons, and demons
Lawful Neutral
Inevitable – Destroyers of agents of chaos
Neutral
Aeon - Keepers of cosmic balance
Kami – Ancient spirits created eons ago by the gods to protect nature itself
Psychopomp – Denizens of Purgatory and the dispassionate stewards, chroniclers, and guides of all that die
Neutral Evil
Daemon – Harbingers of ruin, all-consuming hunger of evil; natural enemies of mortals
Div – Horrible monsters that strive to ruin and despoil all things created by mortals
Neutral Good
Agathion – Beast-aspect outsiders of Nirvana
Angel – Celestial beings of the goodly outer planes
EIGHTEEN GROUPS! Many of which are SO similar as to essentially be the same.
Do you think there are too many groups? Do you think that many are simply unnecessary? Why or why not?
I like it. There's a lot of slices to how a multiverse can operate. Each of them have specific roleplay roles in how the multiverse functions. Given all the planes and politics of how they work I think it makes sense.
No, I don't think there are too many, but I really like planes-based settings and like interacting with a variety of creatures from the different aligned planes. The aligned planes represent an infinite variety of concepts of philosophies and ways of living and aspects of how we interact with nature, so having lots of creatures to flesh that all out is great.
I DO think there are ENOUGH evil outsiders at this point and really hope we don't see any more.
I wish there are more Lawful Neutral and Good creatures, and I wish there were more Chaotic Neutral creatures (beings of pure passion or madness for example).
Note with your list -- Angels are technically "any good." IIRC the ones listed in the Bestiary are both NG and LG, and any given one could potentially be CG. And actually, I'd love to see more "any x" creatures like angels (i.e., any evil, any chaotic, any neutral, any lawful).
Proteans are Chaotic Neutral not Chaotic Good.
Proteans are Chaotic Neutral not Chaotic Good.
He's noted that, he just forgot to boldface Chaotic Neutral.
Doh, so he did...I missed that. Thanks :)
I'm of the opinion that the monsters in the various bestiaries are intended to be a menu of options, not a buffet. GMs are intended to pick which monsters they want to exist in their game world, rather than 'if we printed it, it exists somewhere'.
As such, multiple somewhat-but-not-completely redundant options work because you can say 'I want to use this NG outsider and this one, but not those two'.
Nice. I quite like to see this, might make future campaigns simpler to categorize.
I think the real insinuation of the books and Golarion material implies that each inhabited world is as diverse (more or less) as Golarion and that each plane is as diverse as the material.
What we see in the bestiaries is just a sampling of the most prominent members. This goes back to the commonly attributed Gygax comment of DMs not needing rules. GMs are free to do what they want and make the universe appear as diverse as they want.
Needs moar diversity.
Non-aligned as in no lawful, neutral, chaotic, evil, or good?
More outsiders!
Angels can be any good. Plus the alignments given are simply for the Average one. A Unique Succubus might be Chaotic Good while a Unique Protean might be Lawful Evil.
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Non-aligned as in "they aren't all Lawful Evil" or "all of them are Chaotic Good" etc. Non-aligned as in it is acknowledged they come in a wide variety of alignments.
At least, I think that's what RD was getting at.
In that case it's already there. No where about alignment does it say that alignment is prescriptive of all members of the race.
Alignment, Size, and Type: While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.
It doesn't say it can't happen. Just because most of the members of that race are something it doesn't mean all are.
Angel Introduction, Bestiary 1, Page 9, Paragraph 2, Sentence 1:
"Angels can be of any good alignment."
Full Paragraph:
"Angels can be of any good alignment. Lawful angels hail from Heaven, neutral angels from Nirvana, and chaotic angels from Elysium, though the majority serve one good deity or another and call their patron’s realm their home. Most mortals assume that angels never lie, cheat, or steal,
are impeccably honorable in all their dealings, and are the most trustworthy and diplomatic of all the celestials; while this is generally true, there are exceptions, especially as some angels serve good-aligned trickster gods and other chaotic entities."
And I am not talking the occasional Special Snowflake. I am talking Subgroups or Factions of that Outsiders Race. Think something like the Calorain(?) Cathedral in the Weeping Empires Setting. It is dedicated to that Settings equivalent of Calistria and its main population are Good & Neutral Aligned Succubi and the occasional Incubus.
Specifically: 2403 Succubi, 36 Incubi, and 1019 Material Plane Humanoids are the constant denizens of the ~200 Square Acre Complex.
Non-aligned as in "they aren't all Lawful Evil" or "all of them are Chaotic Good" etc. Non-aligned as in it is acknowledged they come in a wide variety of alignments.
At least, I think that's what RD was getting at.
In that case it's already there. No where about alignment does it say that alignment is prescriptive of all members of the race.
Alignment, Size, and Type: While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.It doesn't say it can't happen. Just because most of the members of that race are something it doesn't mean all are.
This.
Furthermore, I'm not aware of anything that says one's alignment (due to behavior) and one's alignment subtype have to match.
Correct, Zhayne.
For example:
Chaotic Subtype: This subtype is usually applied to outsiders native to the chaotically aligned outer planes. Most creatures that have this subtype also have chaotic alignments; however, if their alignments change they still retain the subtype.
Well you have to remember that 1 Alignment can cover over 1000 personalities, Codes of Conduct/Ethics, etc.
Lawful Good and Lawful Evil both can cover: the Cop that arrests the Man who stole a Best Choice Can of Soup to feed his family, the Cop that lets him go with a warning or says he couldn't catch him, and the Cop that pays for the soup and lets him go.
I obviously did not read angels closely enough when I categorized them.
Wait we have 18 groups of Outsiders!?
Really when you look at it they all fulfill different Roles and have different Societies. I mean saying this kinda seems like saying Elves, Humans, & Orcs can interbreed and are Similar enough should they be one and the same?
Technically there are more than that, since there are several monotypic races (or at least races where multiple types haven't been statted up.
Peri, Garuda, Dorvae, Night Hags, Manitou, Axiomites, etc.
Ären't quite a few of them of the Native Subtype?
Technically there are more than that, since there are several monotypic races (or at least races where multiple types haven't been statted up.
Peri, Garuda, Dorvae, Night Hags, Manitou, Axiomites, etc.
I was trying to keep to the alignment-based outsiders that have been statted in the official hardbacks.
Those guys are all in one of the hardcover bestiaries 1-4
Notice how almost all of those groups are Evil? Evil outsiders (and cultists who worship them) make for convenient villains because you don't have to put any work into giving them coherent motivations. Sick of demons and devils? Throw in some Qlippoths, Divs, Kytons, or Oni instead.
And a lot of Good Outsiders would most likely have mixed already.
I mean the Hound Archon could be the result of Archon, Angel, & Agathion intermixing or heck even another Celestial subrace joining with the Archons.
Say Primal Celestials who had close ties with the fey but eventually evolved or combined with the Agathions primarily but did have some connections with Archons and Azatas.
LN axiomites? The original natives of Axis who made the inevitables.
I didn't see any Axiomites in the books.
Anyhow, I think the point still stands that there's room for more outsiders that don't wear an alignment straitjacket. And yeah, you can rule zero anything you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the outsiders so far are pretty strongly tied to a particular alignment. Not all of them, but a vast majority.
Elementals are outsiders. Neutral outsiders. Neutral outsiders conveniently missing from this conversation.
Methinks perhaps because they are an inconvenience to the supposed point?
Anyhow, I think the point still stands that there's room for more outsiders that don't wear an alignment straitjacket. And yeah, you can rule zero anything you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the outsiders so far are pretty strongly tied to a particular alignment. Not all of them, but a vast majority.
Elementals are outsiders. Neutral outsiders. Neutral outsiders conveniently missing from this conversation.
Methinks perhaps because they are an inconvenience to the supposed point?
To be fair, elementals don't have much in the way of a personality. If I remember correctly.
Axiomite, Bestiary 2, Page 36
Night hags I assume are Bestiary 1 or 2
Peri and Garuda are Bestiary 3
Axiomites are Bestiary 2
Dorvae and Manitou are Bestiary 4
At any rate, I actually don't think there are ENOUGH outsider types. There really should be outsiders for every planar theme. Evil is pretty well covered, but Neutrality should be more numerous than good or evil. Yet neutral is probably the most neglected alignment.
Honestly I think there should be a race/type of outsider for every major theme manifested by a god. Currently we lack neutral outsiders themed around magic, knowledge, war, etc. Pharasma has her own outsider race, so what about Gorum, Nethys, etc?
To be fair, elementals don't have much in the way of a personality. If I remember correctly.Anyhow, I think the point still stands that there's room for more outsiders that don't wear an alignment straitjacket. And yeah, you can rule zero anything you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the outsiders so far are pretty strongly tied to a particular alignment. Not all of them, but a vast majority.
Elementals are outsiders. Neutral outsiders. Neutral outsiders conveniently missing from this conversation.
Methinks perhaps because they are an inconvenience to the supposed point?
Nor do they have an alignment subtype like most of the others.
EDIT: Rhakshasa probably shouldn't be on the list.
To be fair, elementals don't have much in the way of a personality. If I remember correctly.Anyhow, I think the point still stands that there's room for more outsiders that don't wear an alignment straitjacket. And yeah, you can rule zero anything you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the outsiders so far are pretty strongly tied to a particular alignment. Not all of them, but a vast majority.
Elementals are outsiders. Neutral outsiders. Neutral outsiders conveniently missing from this conversation.
Methinks perhaps because they are an inconvenience to the supposed point?
How about genies then? They are elemental outsiders. While they do tend to have alignments, they are not alignment subtypes. So when an Efreeti goes around being Lawful Evil, that isn't because they have an inherent bent towards it, it is just because of cultural norms. Sure, their outsider status does have an effect on their personalities, but it is more about being hotblooded than anything with morality, since they are creatures of fire (ok, terrible-barely-a-pun, but still, it is hard to word it any other way).
I wonder what Norgorber's followers are. Some kind of NE assassin...things?
I wonder what Norgorber's followers are. Some kind of NE assassin...things?
Well, officially he has the daemon subdomain... But his worshipers can be any evil or even true neutral. He even has good relations with a couple demon lords (according to "Price of Infamy" at least). And I doubt that a deity devoted to deception, espionage, and assassination would be picky about allies (read: tools), and would actively seek out a variety of them.
Alignment is a dominant feature in the Outer Planes because they are alignment based planes. Philosophic constructs. The creature types (Demons etc.) tend to reflect the alignment scheme of their (outer) plane. The elemental planes aren't alignment specific and can and should) vary. You might have types of outsiders that exist on multiple planes (i.e. Angels) but they are going to, typically, adhere to the alignment of the plane in question they reside on. Elemental creatures don't have that alignment bias but I have mine with alignments based on the varying views of the element (i.e. fire as destructive, fire as a good, etc.) which dominates their plane. If you want full blown diversity in alignment a la the campaign world I'd say other prime material planes would be the ticket. All of this would depend on the planar set up in your game of course. And your GM. I still use the Great Wheel as the basis of mine and have since 1E. My prime material homebrew game only interacts with a limited set of outer planes though (unless you transit through other planes first)...
*edit* None of which prevents the odd semi-unique creature who goes against type.
While I dont deny that it could be nice to have a greater diversity of creature, my understanding is that each outsider (and plane) represents an alignement & concept. For example, a LE creature will take the form of either a devil, kyton, or rakshasa depending on which aspect of LE they represent. If they become LN (though some life changing event) their form would change to reflect that change in nature (becoming an inevitable).
In the end, my understanding of the planes is that your physical form was DIRECTLY representative of your mental/spiritual form, and would change to reflect that.
Then again, that goes more for the various "souls" that go into the planes and become part of the planes. Cant say for weird stuff like elementals that seem to originate from a different source.
I like these groups more than stand-alone outsider races. And the alignments are in the nature of the outsider type: they are composed at least in part of the essence of their home plane. This doesn't prevent you from making unique members or factions of these which differ from the norm, but as they (some subtypes) form from the souls of people with that alignment and the aligned plane itself, they should at least start out as aligned.
To me: their "race" subtype wouldn't change with an alignment change, and they would still have their alignment subtypes even with another alignment. Like Heista, the Neutral demon queen: outsider([Chaotic], [Evil], [Demon], [Water]) - a unique creature that started as a regular demon.
In the end, my understanding of the planes is that your physical form was DIRECTLY representative of your mental/spiritual form, and would change to reflect that.
While there's certainly nothing wrong with that idea, it's not universal. I personally quite like the idea of an alignment change slowly altering their appearance but having to overcome millenia of inertia. An angel that falls might start out looking angelic, but shift over time to become more demonic. However it might take just as many millenia for the change to complete.
While I dont deny that it could be nice to have a greater diversity of creature, my understanding is that each outsider (and plane) represents an alignement & concept. For example, a LE creature will take the form of either a devil, kyton, or rakshasa depending on which aspect of LE they represent. If they become LN (though some life changing event) their form would change to reflect that change in nature (becoming an inevitable).
In the end, my understanding of the planes is that your physical form was DIRECTLY representative of your mental/spiritual form, and would change to reflect that.
Nope.
This subtype is usually applied to Outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil Outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields are evil-aligned.
I only quoted the evil subtype, but all four should have similar language. Essentially, demons and the like are formed both from the soul(s) of aligned mortals as well as the material of their plane (which is also aligned). So, if they go through the incredibly difficult chance of changing alignment (which is hard since, again, they are thoroughly infused with that alignment), then they still retain the plane material that went into them. This is much like how a tiefling or aasimar cannot change their physical nature.
Of course, that is not to say that the shift into a different planar creature is impossible. I mean, several high ranking devil were once celestial creatures, and I am sure that the Abyss would be more than happy to 'help'. But this is usually due to an outside force (Asmodeus giving a 'job offer', the Abyss tainting someone because they are there or some dark ritual,....hard to imagine any forceful switches to good though) acting upon the aligned subtype creature, rather than a natural transformation within itself.
But that is not to say that there wouldn't be natural transformations. But this is more of a twisting of their original nature than a complete shift to a different one.
For the uneducated person all outsiders from evil aligned planes are Demons, Oni, Devils or whatever the local slang for "powerful evil creature coming from far away place"
As education increases a person might recognize the different alignments, but could not tell a Devil from a Kyton.
Finally there are the specialists who studied outsiders for years. They have a name for each group and subgroup.
Kinda similar to ornithology.
For the average person: Has 2 wings and 2 legs ==> Bird
For someone with more education: Plumage of certain color, general body shape ==> Sparrow
For the specialist: Shape of the beak, certain color of talons ==> Rock Sparrow
Having these options is fine, but it's altogether too much to have ALL of them in one campaign.
I personally feel campaigns should have a somewhat limited palette, so that you have a definite feel.
For example, in Irrisen, I'd limit myself to witches, fey, elementals, giants, and animals. Maybe the occasional undead.
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By the way, we have the same problem with humanoids; always have. Comes back to Gary's inability to envision 2HD goblins.
Certainly, we could use a bigger buffet of NEUTRAL outsiders, even TRUE NEUTRAL outsiders. Currently, my neutral conjurer has the option of summoning sugar 'n spice 'n everything nice angels, or fart-stink devil beasts that make the party Paladin look at you a little funny.
I guess I can do elementals.
Certainly, we could use a bigger buffet of NEUTRAL outsiders, even TRUE NEUTRAL outsiders. Currently, my neutral conjurer has the option of summoning sugar 'n spice 'n everything nice angels, or fart-stink devil beasts that make the party Paladin look at you a little funny.
I guess I can do elementals.
If it's anything like Champions of Purity, Champions of Balance will offer some help with that.