Book of Vile Darkness. Used it?

[ColonelHardisson]

I didn't particularly like that one either. That's why this picture is so vital to me (if I ever use Orcus in a campaign, that is, which is unlikely. )

That pic was from the Creature Catalog.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

You say that like it's a negative thing.

BoVD people use the whole chicken, IYKWIMAITYD.

 

[jeffsforehead]

It gave me some good ideas for demon-worshippers. IMC, evil-types worship demons (which can grant spells), and there are no evil gods. There's only one god for the humans, that would be a Judeo-Christian type god. Barbarians have their dieties (plus a bit of ancestor worship), there's an "Earthmother" type, then Elvish deities, Dwarven Deities (similar to the Barbarians, actually, and lots of Norse influence), Gnomes are completely different in my campaign (more fey-like and mysterious), and halflings don't really have a religion, more like they assimilate into wherever they live. I've found the demon-worshipper idea to be more realistic than say, a pantheon with every alignment faithfully represented. In any "good" society, (which mine is, I guess), or any "normal" society, such dangerous things as demon-worship are going to be driven very deep underground.

Does anyone else not like the whole Demon vs. Devil thing? They're synonyms in our world, so I just made them one thing. I've made the more powerful fiends unique (all pit fiends don't look the same, or have the same powers, or whatever, for example), while the lesser ones are not.

 

[Olive]

Does anyone else not like the whole Demon vs. Devil thing? They're synonyms in our world, so I just made them one thing. I've made the more powerful fiends unique (all pit fiends don't look the same, or have the same powers, or whatever, for example), while the lesser ones are not.

Well, in my campaign people think they're synomomous. Unless they know a lot about fienish matters hat is.

I can imagine that they're only synonomous in OUR world for the same reasons

 

[Psion]

I did not for what it's worth, like most of the illustrations of the demon lords and archdevils, though. That was pretty disappointing. Here's a real picture of Orcus I found online somewhere once...

]

Demogorgon was the true shame...

 

[Desdichado]

]Demogorgon was the true shame...

True, that picture was almost a deliberate slap in the face to old-timey gamers, in some ways. Why'd they change the mandrill heads to hyena heads anyway? Not kewl enough?

 

[Psion]

Does anyone else not like the whole Demon vs. Devil thing? They're synonyms in our world, so I just made them one thing.

Just because they are synonymns to a people who have no access to the planes and only a sketchy mythology of such beings does not mean that they are not different.

I actually rather prefer the Demon vs. Devil thing. I could really live without the faux-Moorcockian law vs. chaos thing, but even so, it always made sense to me that creatures as avaricious as demons and devils would naturally gravitate into warfare.

 

[Desdichado]

It works great for me in terms of standard D&D. For most homebrews, though, I just make fiends be more or less equal and equivalent, except in terms of mechanics.

 

[Pants]

True, that picture was almost a deliberate slap in the face to old-timey gamers, in some ways. Why'd they change the mandrill heads to hyena heads anyway? Not kewl enough?

Monte said it was a typo

 

[Desdichado]

Monte said it was a typo

That makes sense. I'm not the type to get up in arms because I've been "dissed" by WotC or anything like that, but that change just seemed pretty needless, IMO. If the "change" was actually an error that somehow crept through uncaught by the editors, then it makes a little more sense.