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Keftiu made a spectacularly good point on the 'Which Deity Will Die' Thread -- reminding us that "Asmodeus has an OGL-shaped target on his back" making me think that, business-wise, this could be the obvious choice.
But Asmodeus, ....Yeah, I could see them wanting to go ahead and cut him out.
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So that brings me to this Thread.
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If Asmodeus is the one we lose, how will it be "Best"?
1) Should Mephistopheles just overthrow him and we get back to a similar status quo with the promotion of a new Arch Devil?
(Or if not Mephistopheles, one of the other Arch Dukes or perhaps even a Malebranche?!?)
2) Should Mephistopheles and Baalzebul overthrow Asmodeus and then throw The Nine Hells into a perpetual civil war to last The Ages?
3) Should Asmodeus just be dead and gone by some cause (Cthulhu?), or rather, be overthrown & killed, but then... Come back as a Ghost with a radically different background and completely new design (to get past any IP issues)?
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There is SOOOOO much potential for spectacularly good (brand new) game design here.
Part of me likes Mephistopheles overthrowing Asmodeus and ruling The Nine Hells as just, you know, keeping a status quo -- promote a new Arch Devil with some new redesign stuff. (I also like Asmodeus as a Ghost with a completely new design background.)
But I also can see that, if they just cut out Asmodeus and promote (for example) Mephistopheles, that could be a missed opportunity. Isn't it possible that a perpetual civil war in Hell, Mephisto vs Baalzebul, makes for a much more conducive Adventure Location?!?! Now, when rescuing A Paladin in Hell the PCs could play one side of the war against the other. And plenty of new campaign and adventure ideas really lend themselves to being played out in The Nine Hells like never before.
As an added bonus, this Paizo-Only Intellectual Property would be (as far as I know) the Only one out there. All the other games have The Nine Hells pretty much exactly as Gygax designed them all those decades ago. Nothing has really changed -- except that every Edition gets a new Arch Duke for the First Circle of Hell (Tiamat, Bel, Barbatos, the WotC one, etc.)
What do y'all think?
I'm all for Mephistopheles taking over but then again, Mephistopheles also is an archdevil in the Forgotten Realms, so I'm not sure if he by the same logic as Asmodeus would not also be in danger of being chopped from our setting.
I'm pretty sure that the event in question will not be about the internal politics of Hell, which should be a pretty uninviting context for more or less anybody. What's more interesting to me is what killed whichever deity, why, and what that deity's allies are going to do in response.
Creative Director
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The only D&D classic archdevil that's not one we can really use even in OGL terms is Tiamat, hence Barbatos.
Not saying Asmodeus is safe from the THREAT, but the OGL doesn't impact his role or any of the other archdevils, thanks to real-world mythology and Dante and Milton and other stuffs.
Also, we started work on this storyline well before the OGL situation took place.
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I would rather all of the archdevils just get together and have to run Hell in an awkward congress.
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I would rather all of the archdevils just get together and have to run Hell in an awkward congress.
I could see Hell being run like a corporate board, with constant backstabbing and intrigue over who gets to be chairman.
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I would rather all of the archdevils just get together and have to run Hell in an awkward congress.I could see Hell being run like a corporate board, with constant backstabbing and intrigue over who gets to be chairman.
Mammon insists on being Head of Accounts. Dispater is the Legal department. Belial is marketing. Moloch is Security.
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Devils not backstabbing? Oh .they do that. They just want to do it by the rules
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Just as a potential player, I'm just not that interested in stories about "the internal politics of Hell". This is better fodder for something like a tie-in novel than a campaign.
Even as a GM it's very hard to run a story where everybody who is nominally on "your side" is very difficult to like.
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Just as a potential player, I'm just not that interested in stories about "the internal politics of Hell". This is better fodder for something like a tie-in novel than a campaign.
Even as a GM it's very hard to run a story where everybody who is nominally on "your side" is very difficult to like.
Not an AP, but the consequences of a Hell-style civil war (likely very civil while also very war) could shake the setting and especially Cheliax and, maybe even more, the Hellknights in interesting ways.
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Not an AP, but the consequences of a Hell-style civil war (likely very civil while also very war) could shake the setting and especially Cheliax and, maybe even more, the Hellknights in interesting ways.Just as a potential player, I'm just not that interested in stories about "the internal politics of Hell". This is better fodder for something like a tie-in novel than a campaign.
Even as a GM it's very hard to run a story where everybody who is nominally on "your side" is very difficult to like.
"Hell, the ultimate bastion of Law has fallen. Chaos threatens the entire universe. Fine. If you want something doing, you've got to do it yourself. Prepare the men, we march at dawn to restore Hell back to proper order!"
I mean, the Windsong Testaments strongly suggest that Chaos has already won in this universe, and the next, and the next, and so on until we stop getting more universes.
So "a bastion of cosmic order has fallen" is not going to matter to mortal life (i.e. the PCs) since they're all going to expire from natural causes before the universe finally gives up the goat.
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Well, they'd still have to keep it distinctly different from The Abyss. But having a much more red-hot Cold War, with factions of each of the remaining Arch Dukes, just seems so intriguing for actual gameplay. The published Nine Hells have always seemed a little, pardon the pun but, "frozen" in tableaux. With active, moving parts -- correctly designed so as not to be confused as Chaotic -- The Nine Hells could be more exciting an adventure location than anytime in publication history since The Reckoning (which, to the chagrin of DMs, all happens off-stage as background, rather than with PCs mucking about).
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The Nine Hells as a flawless machine run by Big A? Eh.
The Nine Hells as a place of untouchable patrons endlessly mucking with each other through their legions of desperate, disposable, ambitious pawns - a sort of corporate 'meritocracy' on steroids where nobody can ever quit? That interests me/
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Well, they'd still have to keep it distinctly different from The Abyss. But having a much more red-hot Cold War, with factions of each of the remaining Arch Dukes, just seems so intriguing for actual gameplay. The published Nine Hells have always seemed a little, pardon the pun but, "frozen" in tableaux. With active, moving parts -- correctly designed so as not to be confused as Chaotic -- The Nine Hells could be more exciting an adventure location than anytime in publication history since The Reckoning (which, to the chagrin of DMs, all happens off-stage as background, rather than with PCs mucking about).
I was thinking also that the contenders for the Infernal throne might each sponsor different orders of Hellknights. Thereby transposing the very civil Hellish war directly in the Inner Sea.
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The Asmodeus of Paizo is practically the same as the original D&D-via-Gygax. So are the Baalzebul, Belial & Dispator. Whereas the Mephistopheles is quite a few steps different, and Moloch is slightly different. I could see the Paizo Baalzebul overthrowing Asmodeus and changing his name to "Baalzebub" and getting some radical new design as part of the transformation / transition. Then, the already-very-different Mephistopheles can try to take advantage of the 'weakened-after-the-overthrow' Baalzebub before he consolidates his Absolute Rule over The Nine Hells, leading to fractured Nine Hells that still maintains strict Order, Discipline and Hierarchy. In 'The Upheaval' Dispator's Defenses can be radically abandoned as he turns them instead to attack, dramatically changing his design from one of 'Defense, Defense, Defense' to one of 'Logical Attack, Disciplined Attack, Calculated Attack.' The others can each go through a slight change to make them really Paizo-IP-specific. And Asmodeus can come back as a Ghost and be more like a wandering, haunting thorn in Baalzebub's new Court.
(Meanwhile, Mammon is Mammon is Mammon, in other words, Greed is Greed is Greed: The Paizo Mammon can be forever to the WotC and and it's the same as the one from christian mythology.)
And in Cheliax (and Taldor & Absalom & Varisia, etc) the New Order of Hell -- a design unlike any other in D&D publication history -- can have all sorts of trickle-down effects that really drive adventure MacGuffins. And of course, adventures in The Nine Hells are not so straight-jacketed and railroady.
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I dunno, just a thought.
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I mean the D&D Asmodeus is also a subset of "The Devil, as he is portrayed in popular culture" as is the Paizo one.
It feels like even the most litigious copyright trolls wouldn't try to claim that their particular spin on the archetype of "The Devil" is unique and no one else is allowed to use it.
Like sure, the Paizo name for their "The Devil" character is the same as the D&D name is for their "The Devil" character but that name is in the Malleus Maleficarum so easily in the public domain. Like there are lots of different movies and TV shows with a "Lucifer" in them and nobody has a problem with this.
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Asmodeus is also a subset of "The Devil, as he is portrayed in popular culture" ... It feels like even the most litigious copyright trolls wouldn't try to claim that....
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And Jacobs has said as much, even in this Thread. But we know we are losing one of the Deities, so who knows?
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But I don't interpret the Paizo Asmodeus as being very different at all. It's an interesting comparison to make, and who knows what the, um, insert-horrible-but-accurate-pejorative-here at WotC will do?
The Ruby Rod is a very specific D&D bit of Lore. It has Nothing to do with Common-Knowledge-Lore of the Asmodeus of Myth.
On the other hand, Asmodeus having a brother named Ihys is all Paizo.
Asmodeus as a Lawful Evil Lord-of-the-Ninth is 100% original D&D Lore. Zero percent Paizo. (The design of the whole Nine Hells that Paizo uses is 100% old D&D.) Whereas, of course, charismatic & lying & manipulating & Devilish stuff is all 100% Common Knowledge open for anyone and everyone.
Asmodeus as a Deity is Paizo. Gygax always had him as just an Arch Devil. So there's give and take.
And *IF* Paizo wants to make sure, they can change up Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Dispator -- all very similar -- and even a little bit Belial & maybe Moloch.
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I'm pretty sure that the event in question will not be about the internal politics of Hell, which should be a pretty uninviting context for more or less anybody. What's more interesting to me is what killed whichever deity, why, and what that deity's allies are going to do in response.
If it's specifically Asmodeus, I think the question becomes "What happened to the Key to Rovagug's prison?"
Maybe this whole thing is a plot by the maddest of people hoping to usher in the death of the universe by getting the key to their god's prison.
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Asmodeus as a Lawful Evil Lord-of-the-Ninth is 100% original D&D Lore. Zero percent Paizo. (The design of the whole Nine Hells that Paizo uses is 100% old D&D.)
Hold up one second there, perhaps the term "the Nine Hells" may be D&D original, but most certainly a nine-layered hell is considerably older. Dante Alighieri may have arrived too late to write a book for the Bible, but his depictions of hell are famously often mistaken for biblical canon. Asmodeus being lord of the ninth (rather than a prisoner) may be more original to D&D, but come the remaster, he will no longer be a "Lawful Evil" deity... though being the paragon of tyrannical evil and lawful cruelty may amount to the same.
Even the whole city of Dis comes straight from the Inferno. There may be some aspects that can be claimed as taken from D&D, but I think we at least needn't worry about those aspects originally themselves stolen from 800 year old poets.
The "Nine Hells" thing comes from Dante, not Gygax.
Like if the issue is that the different levels of Hells in one game are too much like the levels of Hells in a different games, you can just shuffle them.
Like per Dante the levels are:
1- Not so bad
2- Windy
3- Icy and wet
4- Wasteland
5- River
6- Hot and Ashy
7- Burning Sand
8- Trenches
9- Frozen
Dante was more interested in who was there than what is it was like there, so that's what was changed for RPG games.
I don't personally believe it's likely that Asmodeus is the deity that dies to *start* the event, since he's one of the two Big Bads in the entire setting. So him dying should be a big win for the heroes, rather than "the thing you do to start things off." He won't necessarily survive the event (they said "at least one" core deity will die, which allows for all 20 to kick it) but his death shouldn't be the thing that starts it off.
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Isn't that Abaddon? The Horsemen are always scheming against each other, and their underlings are always trying to climb the heap and take their spot, knowing the only way to do so is to play the Horsemen's games well enough to kick them off and fill their shoes. I apologize for the mangled metaphors.The Nine Hells as a flawless machine run by Big A? Eh.
The Nine Hells as a place of untouchable patrons endlessly mucking with each other through their legions of desperate, disposable, ambitious pawns - a sort of corporate 'meritocracy' on steroids where nobody can ever quit? That interests me/
Abaddon is sadly underdeveloped compared to Hell or even The Outer Rifts (formerly known as The Abyss).
It feels as if the writers did not really know what to make of it and feel more at ease distinguishing between the Orderly Evil of Hell and the Messy Evil of the Outer Rifts.
Which I find somewhat ironic given Alignment will disappear in Remastered and the greater focus is definitely on Holy vs Unholy.
Law vs Chaos axis was definitely useful in structuring the outer planes. But most especially the Evil ones.
If the axis had not originally been there, we would not have the easy divide between Hell and the Outer Rifts.
Granted, maybe not having this opposition of the styles of Evil might have helped Abaddon get a stronger identity.
Hopefully this will come in the future.
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Isn't that Abaddon? The Horsemen are always scheming against each other, and their underlings are always trying to climb the heap and take their spot, knowing the only way to do so is to play the Horsemen's games well enough to kick them off and fill their shoes. I apologize for the mangled metaphors.The Nine Hells as a flawless machine run by Big A? Eh.
The Nine Hells as a place of untouchable patrons endlessly mucking with each other through their legions of desperate, disposable, ambitious pawns - a sort of corporate 'meritocracy' on steroids where nobody can ever quit? That interests me/
Daemons seek to extinction of life and the end of reality - things that would put the devils out of a job and to death, respectively. Nobody in Abaddon is scaffolding a multi-faceted mortal society like Cheliax the way we see the Nine Hells do.
They serve very different roles as antagonists.
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I do kinda think though that Archfiends themselves should be united as a villain group though. Dukes and malebranches? Sure they could do whole in fighting thing
Why? Because EVERY SINGLE OTHER villain group in pathfinder is bunch of evil aligned backstabbers x'D
Like sure makes sense that in infernal hierarchy there is in department competition, but I don't think archfiends themselves should be all just another case of "evil is inherently incapable of working for common cause"(it makes sense enough but yeah) because otherwise they would be just the "polite backstabbbing" variant to demonic "hit you in face with club" variant.
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Which I find somewhat ironic given Alignment will disappear in Remastered and the greater focus is definitely on Holy vs Unholy.
Law vs Chaos axis was definitely useful in structuring the outer planes. But most especially the Evil ones.
If the axis had not originally been there, we would not have the easy divide between Hell and the Outer Rifts.
I more or less agree with your fundamental point, but I'm not sure we can entirely thank alignment for defining the difference between Hell and the Outer Rifts. We can certainly thank alignment for having three variations on 'beatific holy afterlife', but when we look at the evil planes that existed before Pathfinder, the main difference between Baator and the Abyss is 9 vs. theoretically infinite layers.
The idea to have the realm of chaos surround the rest of the cosmos as the edge of existence was presented as an alternative to the Great Wheel (and of course in various mythologies), but while it was a brilliant idea to convert the CE plane from just another multi-layered bad place into the horrors from beyond our reality, I don't think we necessarily needed alignment to have both a Hell-like plane to punish evil souls, where fallen angels rule, and a plane of outer chaos where nothing but cruelty and destruction rule.
On the other hand, we can probably thank alignment for there being a third option between these two broad realms of misery, which has historically struggled for identity somewhat, but I can't be upset with Abaddon because the idea of ur daemon chained to his throne, a single moon glaring down on the desolate plains as though it was his eye gives me an incredibly evocative mental image, I only wish it felt more like a part of the cosmos. The Outer Rifts are everywhere, and Hell makes a name for itself by being such a vast and deep pit in the very bedrock of the Outer Sphere, but Abaddon sometimes feels like just another place somewhere out there.
(Though to be fair, same problem with Elysium and Nirvana. I love all these planes for each their own reasons, but they make the outer sphere feel a bit like a random patchwork map trying to find a place where each 'fits'. Especially since all three lawful planes have very clear and iconic locations as befitting their orderly nature, while 2/3 chaotic planes are likewise suitably ubiquitous in their positioning. Idk if maybe it was established that the bleak fields of Abaddon actually surrounded the pit of Hell... but that seems like it might also just run contrary to what seems like some of the goals of Outer Sphere design, making each place wholly its own realm with geography too vast and shifting to map comprehensively (or comprehensibly) within themselves much less relative to one another)
But back to your other point: I hope to see how these realms are further developed in the future!
(and I hope this gods-war doesn't severely damage any part of the outer sphere I've been invested in, while even further developing a high-level conceptual logic for what and why the outer sphere is like)
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On the other hand, we can probably thank alignment for there being a third option between these two broad realms of misery, which has historically struggled for identity somewhat, but I can't be upset with Abaddon because the idea of ur daemon chained to his throne, a single moon glaring down on the desolate plains as though it was his eye gives me an incredibly evocative mental image, I only wish it felt more like a part of the cosmos. The Outer Rifts are everywhere, and Hell makes a name for itself by being such a vast and deep pit in the very bedrock of the Outer Sphere, but Abaddon sometimes feels like just another place somewhere out there..
This is another reason I'm on team Pharasma Delenda Est. With Paizo's increasing desire/need to set itself apart, let's give the Daemonic hordes and the plane of Abaddon some screen time, fully flesh out what sets them apart from Hell and The Outer Rifts. A Horseman taking out Pharasma would be an EXTREMELY dramatic way to do it, and as much as Heaven and Hell may not like each other, as much as Hell and the Outer Rifts may hate each other, the one thing practically every plane can agree on is that Daemons are so much worse. Even demons will protect the cycle of death, because they directly benefit from it. Daemons want to burn it all down, themselves included.
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I kinda love the implications of Pathfinder having Golarion but no Pharasma, while Starfinder has Pharasma but no Golarion.
It would really sell to people that the two timelines are distinct, too… but there’s an awful lot of Pharasmin lore it would leave orphaned.
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I'd be sad to lose the neutral goddess of death that was one of the first that drew me into Pathfinder deity lore (me normally having found ttrpg deity lore boring and not worth examining in depth until then) but then I'd be sad to lose pretty much any deity who actually seems like a plausible candidate. I know I just said I don't think Abadar's death would be all that big a deal in one of these threads, but can it be Abadar maybe and I get to keep hugging all my favourites?
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I'd be sad to lose the neutral goddess of death that was one of the first that drew me into Pathfinder deity lore (me normally having found ttrpg deity lore boring and not worth examining in depth until then) but then I'd be sad to lose pretty much any deity who actually seems like a plausible candidate. I know I just said I don't think Abadar's death would be all that big a deal in one of these threads, but can it be Abadar maybe and I get to keep hugging all my favourites?
Abadar is surely someone else's favorite. One way or another, some people will be quite upset. I hope the story is worth it. Knowing Paizo, I think it will be.
We shall see.
I'd be sad to lose the neutral goddess of death that was one of the first that drew me into Pathfinder deity lore (me normally having found ttrpg deity lore boring and not worth examining in depth until then) but then I'd be sad to lose pretty much any deity who actually seems like a plausible candidate. I know I just said I don't think Abadar's death would be all that big a deal in one of these threads, but can it be Abadar maybe and I get to keep hugging all my favourites?
Just because she's dead doesn't mean she has to be gone. Aroden's a tremendously complex character and he's been dead since the setting launched. Pharasma still has plenty of opportunity to impact lore and storylines in death. And just because she dies doesn't mean the has to STAY dead - other gods have come back, like Shizuru bringing back Tsukiyo, Isis bringing back Osiris, and even beings that died can still be or become gods, like Urgathoa or Arazni. Frankly, I think Aroden just isn't trying hard enough. The irony of Pharasma of all gods being killed and nobody being left to Judge so she ends up a revenant to avenge her own death would be narratively delicious. Or the adventure might end with the opportunity to use a Wish spell to resurrect whoever dies - Pharasma coming back with a bit more perspective might leave her forever altered, less afraid of her own death (if the Windsong Testaments are accurate) and less content to be totally impartial. Or it might unnerve her, someo9ne who used to be goddess of prophecy but didn't see her own death coming, and make her more paranoid.
Whatever the reason, I think killing Pharasma is the biggest guaranteed way to start a war that doesn't end with Heaven and Hell starting Armageddon early - they both depend on her and the Psychopomps, and it's in neither's interest for her throne to be suddenly empty. So there might be A war, but not THE war. And, again, it gives Paizo a chance to really let the daemons flex their muscles and show why they're not just a rehash of demons as they make their setting more distinct. Even if they're not behind it, they would surely be thrilled at the opportunity and every other plane has a vested interest in stopping them from exploiting the sudden power vacuum along the River of Souls. I can't stop thinking about a really fun high-level detective noire story where a devil and an angel reluctantly team up with a psychopomp to solve a murder, and uncover a much vaster interplanar conspiracy.
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I kinda love the implications of Pathfinder having Golarion but no Pharasma, while Starfinder has Pharasma but no Golarion.
It would really sell to people that the two timelines are distinct, too… but there’s an awful lot of Pharasmin lore it would leave orphaned.
Pharasma keeps a lot of things close to her vest, and knows a lot more about everything than she lets on. It's conceivable that she has a contingency plan to ensure her continued existence in the case of her death. It's also possible that said contingency plan is somehow related to the Gap.
Like Pharasma being able to survive dying to make it into Starfinder is a lot easier to justify than Abadar doing the same.
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For me, one idea I got recently thanks to all of this is that Hell should be organized into the Infernal Bureaucracy. While yes we are ditching alignments, I still feel that an evil Bureaucracy is much more fitting for Hell then the other evil planes. after all when I think of Red tape that fits hell.
Plus with the abolishment of alignment, though still keeping Holy v Unholy, there could be "good" things that the bureaucracy does. After all even in Golarian, the Church of Asmodeus does run orphanages in Isger. Thats were many devil nuns come from. Its one of my favorite little details too and its why IMO the church is actually popular in Isger, perhaps even more so than in Cheliax itself. Since the church protected the people and following the devestation of the Goblin Wars, it helped take care of the people.
So to go back to the Infernal Bureaucracy, I imagine there is normally a lot of red tape, a lot of waiting time, and being redirected to other ministries and departments for most people. Which is where the clerics and other divinly inspired characters come in, since due to being a divine character they have the ear of those higher up and can probably expidate things, for the right offering and price.
This also opens up plenty of plot hooks for asmodean characters, both divine and not for dealing with petitioners who might beg of them to do actions to beesch the bureacrats in the infernal hirearchy, who agree but only if they do X quest.
I joked in another thread about making Barbatos the new Chelaxian patron of the healthcare system, but that's how Hell would do it - create apparently benevolent institutions, and use them to corrupt mortals. The Chelaxian healthcare system being a tool to corrupt mortals' faith in healers and need for divine healing, while simultaneously indebting them to the state for control, would be right up Hell's alley. Create a social welfare system to enroll everyone in Cheliax's bureaucratic records, accessible by the Hellknight Orders, and use access to it to intimidate the lower classes into compliance. They're already doing exactly that with compulsory military service for emancipated slaves, tying them down with debt despite their apparent freedom.
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Check out the movie Brazil and a particular scene in Jupiter Rising for examples of bueracracy from hell
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I joked in another thread about making Barbatos the new Chelaxian patron of the healthcare system, but that's how Hell would do it - create apparently benevolent institutions, and use them to corrupt mortals. The Chelaxian healthcare system being a tool to corrupt mortals' faith in healers and need for divine healing, while simultaneously indebting them to the state for control, would be right up Hell's alley. Create a social welfare system to enroll everyone in Cheliax's bureaucratic records, accessible by the Hellknight Orders, and use access to it to intimidate the lower classes into compliance. They're already doing exactly that with compulsory military service for emancipated slaves, tying them down with debt despite their apparent freedom.
Were I Cheliax, I would keep the Hellknights far from any critical data. I might leak a few to my pet orders, but no way I would give a weapon to orders that are not utterly in my control.